Dialogue: Louise Wener
Justin Tilbury interviews Sleeper lyricist and novelist Louise Wener

GOODNIGHT, STEVE MCQUEEN

So, you set out with the proposition "How far should you follow a dream?" but we're not talking the "All-American dream" here, the stuff Capra films are made of and political careers made or broken by - but what a question of choices. Everyone makes them everyday, and admittedly, there may not be a novel in which brand of peanut butter you buy, but how far would you go, how much confidence do you have in that oft-considered plan to ditch the office job and trek around the world?

Or, in this case, do you admit that things are as good as they are going to get, or, to paraphrase Noel Gallagher, do you put your faith in the hands of a rock 'n' roll band?

It's a question that Steve McQueen (his friends call him Danny) has to face in Louise Wener's first novel. Twenty-nine years old, with a steady job, a steady relationship and good friends to drink with Danny would seem to have everything.

But Danny's real job is the band, his steady job is poorly paid part time work at a video rental store ("You know I'm only doing it until we get signed"), his girlfriend earns more in a hour than he does in a week and would like him to start a career, and those friends, well, they're all in the band too.

One other thing, there's an ultimatum. Danny has six months to sort out his life or his girlfriend leaves him. That's six months for the band to make it or for him to give up the dreams of fame and fortune, and find himself a proper job.

Luckily for the band, an old acquaintance of Danny's, Ike Kavanagh fronts a band that's made it in the States, and he's trying to break into the British market. It may just be that his band, Scarface, will require a backing band. Dakota may not be the backing band Scarface require, but if Danny has anything to do with it, it's the band they're going to get…

Of course, things don't go according to plan. Why should they? This is, after all, a story about choices, right and wrong. But running alongside the band's escapades, their banter and their lead singer's obsession with Dexy's Midnight Runners, there runs a love story. Danny and Alison are at the heart of the story, and it is their relationship that is brought into question during the course of the allocated six months.

Alison works hard, and is extremely successful. She will be away in Bruges on business until the end of the deadline, and you might assume that she is the confident, self-assured half of the relationship. Especially since Danny would appear to be the dreamer of the two. But the novel questions the assumptions we make of the characters, and consequently of the people we are involved with day to day. Is it braver to shoulder responsibility, perhaps at the expense of your aspirations? Or to risk everything on a spin of the die, because you believe you could be great?

But I don't want to give you the impression "Goodnight Steve McQueen" takes itself too seriously. For example, there's the band's dynamic: on the one hand there's the aforementioned lead singer of Dakota, Vince. Not a man to argue with when it comes to pop trivia, the best (or at least most interesting) ways to kill Jamie Oliver or how to dress to be a rock star (bell bottoms and surgeon's overalls, in case you were wondering - "We're rock stars. We're meant to look ridiculous.")

On the other, there's the drummer, Matty, the youngest and most optimistic, or gullible - depending on who you talk to, of the group. Certainly young and optimistic enough to believe everything his friends tell him. That it's important he cheats on his rather unpleasant girlfriend and that Lemmy from Motorhead was born a girl, for example. They are agreed though, that there are some things he has to learn himself. Like how to eat a curry filled giant Yorkshire pudding, for one. (Eat the walls last, unsurprisingly.)

And Danny himself - a bundle of neuroses, desperate for the band to make it this time, but unable to hide from Alison the fact that he's been trying to pay "One Dollar for Seven Days of Lesbians" on her pc whilst she's been away. And been unsuccessfully seduced by Matty's rather unpleasant girlfriend.

But this is a story grounded in suburbia. There's precious little encouragement to be taken from family or history; and once again there's a reminder that it takes a fair chunk of courage to shrug off the negative opinions of those nearest to you and take that risk. Courage and luck. Lots of luck. In fact, mainly luck.

It's a confident debut, and for all the lightness of her touch, Louise Wener has crafted a funny, intelligent and surprisingly moving story. She has chosen, in Danny, a voice you cannot help but identify with, despite his failings. You'll find that you come back to that question, "how far should you follow a dream?" And if you are that single minded - are you sure that if you achieve that dream it will be what you had really always wanted?

Of course, it'll probably be fun finding out.

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Justin: With modern life making people want to put off responsibility for as long as possible, do you think that 21st Century relationships are entering something of a crisis?

Louise Wener: Not at all. I think the freedoms and choices that people have now are making relationships easier than they ever were. Things were very different for people of my parents' generation. The pressure to conform was crushing. I think that relationships now might be deemed to be in a state of flux, but essentially all the changes we have seen over the last 30 years have been liberating ones.

Justin: Looking back at your lyrics during your time in Sleeper, you have often written of things and people suburban. You grew up in Ilford, a town that is not only on the outskirts of London, but "it's on the edge of everything. There's something about growing up in the dregs, the badlands, away from it all...you're not even a suburb, it's no-man's land, it has its very own set of images." What is it in particular that touches you about the situation your characters inhabit?

Wener: My characters grow up in a place that is dull, dispiriting and very accepting of the status quo, and I shared with them that determination to escape. In my home town you were considered odd for wanting to leave, and most of my friends quickly settled down to have children and get married. Friends that I still see are happy that they did, but like my characters, Danny and Vince, I just knew that it wasn't for me.

Justin: You once said Feeling Peaky, the first cut on The It Girl, says it all. 'It's about always chasing something, and never getting anywhere. There's a lot of ambition and thwarted ambition in there, because that's really what surrounded me when I was growing up. It's deeply ingrained. The chance of escape, of getting out, was really important, a very strong motivating force.' With a successful musical career and a novel under your belt, do you now feel that you've "escaped"?

Wener: I just feel enormously lucky. I grew up dreaming of being in a band but I'm not sure that I ever thought I'd make it. I had a fear of ending up on the 9-5 commuter conveyer belt simply because my father always seemed to be so ground down by it. He had grown up with ambitions to be a lawyer but didn't have the background, money or education to be able to do it. He went in to the air force during the second world war (at the age of 18) and when he came out, he walked into a poorly rewarded civil service job and married soon afterwards. Before long he had children to support and a mortgage to pay and all the responsibilities and expectations that go with that. He encouraged all his children to follow their ambitions as far as they could. I feel immensely fortunate to have had that encouragement.

Justin: You chose to write from a male perspective for the novel and you sympathies would seem to lie more with Danny than Alison - what was it about his situation that inspired you?

Wener: I wanted to try and write a novel that was sympathetic to a male point of view because sometimes there's a tendency for women writers to seem overly critical of men. I felt like I understood Danny's reluctance to settle down and the sense of inadequacy he feels because he earns less than his partner. He is torn by his need to live up to the traditional male role as a provider and his desire to see his band succeed.

Justin: I thought that the way you wrote about a long-distance relationship was very well realised - is it something you've had to deal with in the past?

Wener: Not on a personal level, no, but I have friends that have kept long distance relationships going for many years. It is, I think, enormously difficult, and the thing that particularly struck me was how long it can take to feel comfortable with one another again after a period of enforced separation. Communicating by phone also seems to provoke a lot of misunderstanding. You need the facial expressions to truly read a person.

Justin: You mentioned once that women are 'not really allowed to be funny, and clever, and write good tunes' - have you encountered this attitude at all from the world of publishing?

Wener: No, publishing is very different to the music industry. It was a great pleasure to find that the publishing world was full of bright, sentient human beings, after years of being in an industry that is run by hapless, ineffectual drug addicts. The music business is peculiarly male dominated and there are still very few women in positions of power within it. Publishing is full of creative, articulate women. It simply reflects the real world in ways that the music industry does not.

Justin: After the success of films such as 'About A Boy', dealing with men grappling with responsibility, any plans to get Goodnight, Steve McQueen onto the big screen?

Wener: None as yet, but obviously I would love it. As long as they managed to do the band scenes well. The problem with films about bands is that they often seem to get it slightly, but significantly wrong.

Justin: In the novel you manage to make them seem simultaneously seedy and adrenaline-fuelled, do you miss the days of gigging round the country?

Wener: For a long time I enjoyed the seedy glamour of being in a band. There is something about coming off stage after a sold out gig and getting into a van that's loaded down with free alcohol and driving off towards a new foreign city overnight, that is incredibly thrilling. However, after doing it for the best part of a decade it can become repetitive and gruelling. The idea of sharing a confined space with fifteen other people for months on end has definitely lost its appeal. Perhaps it's getting older. Perhaps it's the smell of roadie farts and stale socks. Perhaps it's the fact that bands are weird dysfunctional units that are liable to send you bonkers.

Justin: What are you reading at the moment?

Wener: Bodies by Jed Merccurio. If you fear for the National Health Service and have a deep distrust of doctors then this book fulfils all your worst nightmares. Completely brilliant.

Justin: What are you up to next?

Wener: I'm half way through my second book so for the rest of this year I'll be putting the finishing touches to that.