The Underground Man: Writing the book

Mick started researching the Fifth Duke of Portland in the autumn of 1992, in Norwich, having just completed the Creative Writing MA course at the University of East Anglia. That year he'd written a couple of stories which had tunnels as a central theme and a friend, Kevin Hendley, who'd grown up near Welbeck Abbey and used to sneak down the derelict tunnels when he was a boy, suggested Jackson consider looking into the duke.

Mick's original plan was to write a novella - perhaps 60-90 pages - just to see if he knew that many words. The longest piece he'd written before The Underground Man was a short story of about twelve pages.

He hoped to have a first draft completed by the following Easter (1993). Unfortunately, he missed that deadline by a couple of years. The research alone probably took about 18 months. The first draft probably took at least a year. Thankfully, Jackson was constantly imagining that he'd have it finished within another 4-6 months - a state of self-delusion he now considers pretty much necessary in such a protracted project. Difficulties arise when, deep down, you know it's going to take ages and can't fool yourself into thinking otherwise.

The book was influenced in no small part by the author hearing a recording of Gogol's Diary of a Madman, read by Kenneth Williams on the radio around 1990-91. Jonathon Miller's wonderful tv series 'The Body in Question' also had quite a bearing on the original idea.

One of the things the author wanted to do was write a book about the human body and how most people, even now, still consider what goes on inside of them in what is essentially a Victorian way. He also had some vague idea of comparing the mania for alternative therapies in the late 1800s to those a hundred years later, when the book was being written.

Perhaps unconsciously, Jackson had picked a subject (the duke... Victorian England... anatomy) that could be researched. He now feels that this was a way of giving himself a firm foundation on which to create. Interestingly (if only to the author himself) his current project requires next to no research, but this fact doesn't seem to be making the writing of it any easier.

The author visited numerous museums, libraries, archives, etc. He spoke to people who lived near the estate. He even got permission to have a look around Welbeck Abbey and its tunnels. He read a handful of well-known Victorian gothic novels (Mary Shelley... Rider Haggard... Wilkie Collins... etc.) The most encouraging aspect of reading these novels was discovering how adventurous they were - in switching the narrative voice from one character to another, but also how wonderfully weird and wild they were.

It would take too long and be too upsetting for the author to be reminded of just how long it took to actually write that first novel and how many times he had to pick himself up off the floor. But when he'd finally finished a version he was relatively happy with, Jackson sent it to an agent who'd expressed some interest in his work several years earlier, then various other agents, none of whom seemed particularly excited by the book. The first person to show any real interest was an editor at Hamish Hamilton. Through her, Jackson was put in touch with an agent (not the conventional way of going about things) who represents him to this day and in December 1995 Jon Riley at Picador formally made an offer on the book.