Interview with Julian Shaw

Julian Shaw is the author of The Rains Came Down, a novel that is partly social commentary, (spiritual) journey and an invitation to explore what it means to be alive.

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First of all, welcome to my little patch of the Meadow. The only thing in here that originates from any kind of Distillery are the bottles of whisky I keep in my bar. Which brings us to my questions:


How did you came up with the Distillery as a group? The first we see of them are the warehouse and the kilns, so union would have immediately sprang to my mind. Why the Distillery?

I wish I could give you an easy answer to this, but alas we are talking here about an authority in the Meadow whose structures, history, and realisation took many years to unfold in my mind. I suppose the simplest way I can approach your question is to offer some of the ideas and inspirations, and allow you to join up the dots.

Very early in the creation of The Rains Came Down I had the sense that the Meadow must be a place that is simultaneously familiar and unusual. There must be elements that we are comforted by and elements that are cruel and unsettling. I’m sure you can see that having a governing authority like the Distillery fits this bill.

My story opens with our protagonist, Gareth Edwards. A young man in the twilight of his teenage years who has lived his known life in the shadow of his looming later father – a man who took his own life in prison when Gareth was very young. Gareth’s father is literally ‘absent’ but so continually ‘present’ in Gareth’s everyday life. Entering the Meadow, the Distillery becomes this ‘absent father’ for our journey through the realm – a constant looming presence.

But why the ‘Distillery’? It’s an unusual name for a governing authority, I give you that! Well, there are two things I’d like you to dwell upon here. First, is the motif of ‘water’ in my story. Rain, tears, mist, sweat, rivers, snow, oceans. I have spent a decade swimming around cultural imaginations, religious mysticisms, and intellectual explorations of this substance. Second is the definition of a ‘distillery’. Well, more accurately, the notion of ‘distilling’ water: purifying it by heat so that it vapourises, then cooling it and collecting the condensation. Wow, just a perfect description to me of how the Distillery view their place and power in the Meadow. And rather close to the process they adopt in the creation of marbles, isn’t it?!

Ok, and just to finish my incoherent ramblings to this question, here are two quotes from the story which I think help to elucidate the feelings I had in the construction of the Distillery:

“I’m rather cautious of fearing something I cannot see when it is being peddled by an authority I have not chosen.”
Gareth says this to one of Dante Colleges’ recent graduates.

“I’ve met plenty of brutes in my time. They will try to bludgeon you with your shame and belittle your fears. But the truth is, they fear you. They fear that if you don’t cower, your soul is fundamentally different from theirs, which scares them. It threatens their control, not just of you but of themselves…”
Albert Newman says this when we first meet him in the workhouse.

And sometimes, by distilling water the water of life is created, which brings us round to my bar. Interesting thoughts, and we’ll come back later to the motif of water. But first – I’ve already asked you about that while reading, but if we stay with the kilns in the warehouse (and for the sake of completeness in this interview), there’s an inscription on those kilns: Sweat is debt. Freedom is earned. Like I told you, that reminds me of Auschwitz, therefore my question: how much concentration camp went into the design of the warehouse?

That is a really interesting question. There isn’t any intentional modelling of concentration camps in the workhouse of my novel. But maybe it has come from my subconscious sense of the brutality in both. I’m intrigued that it has drawn these parallels in your imagination. Like I said previously, I hope the effect is appropriately impactful.

Your upcoming question actually lands rather closer to the genesis of the workhouse; Dante’s Divine Comedy. Now I am no classicist, or trained intellectual in these fields, and I am very hesitant to step on the toes of such experts. But as a lay reader, with my own childhood troubled by religious imaginations and indoctrinations, I was fascinated by Dante’s depictions of the realms beyond life on Earth. So brutal. So visceral. They all felt like the pictures on the stained glass windows in church that I used to stare at as a child. It is that same looming sense of invisible power that strangles Gareth Edwards – that absent male figure instilling fear and self-doubt. There are mindless, harsh ‘workhouses’, of sorts, in the Divine Comedy. It felt to me that the Distillery – pious and devout to many doctrines from Earth – would end up creating such places in the Meadow.

I think the inscription above the kilns, while I hear your reading of Auschwitz, actually drew on the impression that Dante’s Gates of Hell left on me. The inscription on this gate, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” is so dark and powerful. I felt an inscription in the workhouse that offered ‘hope’ at the expense of brutal obedience was apt to the cruel sense of authority that the Distillery had created, and creates a similarly powerful effect.

Yes, I was reminded of The Divine Comedy by a few references, like Dante and Virgil College – especially if I couple the Penitence with Purgatory. Did you read that classic, and if so, how much has it influenced your world design?

Yes, you guessed it! Dante’s Divine Comedy had a substantial influence. One that permeates many elements of The Rains Came Down. However, I wouldn’t say it featured much in the early stages of my world building. It was only as the Distillery – the brutal authority in this new world – took shape, did I find such imaginations and reflections on the after life start to influence it. Indeed, I don’t see the Meadow in itself to have much natural allegiance to Dante’s purgatory. Nonetheless, I allowed the people and the authorities in the Meadow to try and overlay such depictions to make sense of the world they found themselves in.

In our world, water is the source of life. In the meadow, things aren’t that easy, and water plays a double role (we won’t go into spoilers here). How come you choose water as the probable source of death in your version of the afterlife?

I’ve already touched on this, I know. Water is everything to this story. It takes on a role of life giving and life ending. It is mind opening and mind closing. It is both the familiar and the unfamiliar in the Meadow.

Why water? Oh, so, so many reasons. From its religious and cultural significance, to its banal everyday-ness. But most importantly, it is the way it inhabits the world. I’ve always been tickled by the idea that the water on the Earth is the same water that has always been here. The same water that the dinosaurs drank. The same water in the Nile when the pyramids were built. The same water in which the Titanic sunk. The same water drunk by Socrates, Tolstoy, and Hannah Arendt. But a body of water that is constantly in a cycle, moving through the clouds, the glaciers, the rivers, the land, the oceans, and back again. It is constantly traveling back and forth between its different states. And it is this sense of a journey, through which all people have been, and will be, connected, that made it so prominent in The Rains Came Down.

And it’s also why – minor spoiler here – water plays a role with regards to traveling between realms. While the world of the meadow is a wild mix of times – from modern to victorian, so to say – there seems to be a rather backwards mindset regarding the roles of – and the relationships between – genders. I can’t help but think of this as a social commentary to our world, including toxic masculinity. What was your intention behind this?

Now we’re really getting to the life force driving this story. I wouldn’t be so bold, or even feel qualified, to offer something so grand as a ‘social commentary’. What I have been driven to do is to try and construct an expression of my own feelings. My frustrations, and sense of inadequacy, if you will, in the face of traditional ‘masculinity’. I have worked and lived in some very masculine environments in my life (I was even a firefighter for four years). I never felt comfortable in these environments, yet I always felt chastened, and chastened myself, as though my discomfort was somehow a reflection of my inadequacy. Only after falling into some terrifying periods of poor mental health, and being helped to get out by the kindness and love of friends, have I begun to value myself for myself. I am not a ‘manly’ man. I am me. Gareth – my protagonist in The Rains Came Down – has been a generous host for me to reflect on these experiences in writing, and the Meadow – my parallel universe – has been our battle ground.

Last but but least, what is your favorite drink or cocktail?

I might be the only person in the world now who drinks this, but I love a Malibu and Coke. I am sure that says many things about me, but I’ll leave those things to be said by someone else.

Finally, Stefan, if I may, I’d thank you so much for taking the time to read The Rains Came Down and for asking me such interesting questions. It means the world to me to know someone is being so generous to hear my voice. I really hope you have found value in the experience. I certainly have.

The pleasure has all been mine! And I have to admit that your answers really opened up the story for me – I hope a lot of people read your book, and hopefully this interview helps people to discover it. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this!

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Drinking Malibu Coke, by the way, doesn’t say anything bad about Julian. It just means he has a knack for rum based cocktails and doesn’t want to fiddle around with too many ingredients. But maybe we can lure him into trying something new, based on his love of Malibu?

Bahama Mama

• 1 ml grenadine syrup
• 2 ml dark rum
• 2 ml coconut rum (Malibu)
• 1 mo lime juice
• 10 ml ounces pineapple juice
• Lots of ice

Smash everything into a shaker, give it a good push, there you go!