Backlisted - All The Devils Are Here by David Seabrook part 2

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Writer Jason Hazeley joins Andy, Una and Nicky for a celebratory investigation - or investigative celebration - of All the Devils Are Here, the ungovernable literary brainchild of the late David Seabrook and a book we first discussed on Backlisted in April 2016. (You can still find episode 11, which featured critic Rachel Cooke, in the usual places.) This extraordinary work of non-fiction was republished in the wake of our show, since which time it has gone on to find a whole new audience of readers, captivated and baffled in equal measure by its creeping, seething brilliance. In other words, Backlisted literally gave new life to an old book, and as a result it continues to haunt the streets of Rochester, Margate et al, taking notes and muttering to itself, before catching a bus back to Canterbury. What more have we learned about David Seabrook since All the Devils Are Here last featured on the podcast? What exactly do we mean when we describe the book as sui generis and a law unto itself? And just what is Kent's problem? Good luck, everyone! On Mon 27th Oct 2025, Backlisted is recording a show at 92NY in New York, on William Maxwell at the New Yorker. Tickets are available now from https://www.92ny.org On Wed 29th Oct 2025, we will be at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, NYC, recording a special episode on books by Bob Dylan, including Tarantula and Chronicles Vol. 1. Tickets are available now from www.bitterend.com* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes and exclusive writing, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast which gives new life to old books. The book featured on today's show is All the Devils Are Here by David Siegel. First published in the UK and the US in 2000. by Granta Books. I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously, and Inventory, an unreliable guide to my record collection. I'm Dr. Una McCormack, award-winning author of speculative fictions, an Associate Fellow of Homerton College, Cambridge.

Hello, I'm Nikki Birch, the producer and editor, are backlisted and sometimes Interloper on the show. But before we go any further, it's my job here as Interloper to remind you that we're going to be celebrating 10 years of giving new life to old books by taking the show to New York City. Yes, for the first time ever, backlisted will we be recording two episodes in the States. Yeah, on Monday the 27th of October, we're going to be at the 92nd Street Y or 9-2MY in Manhattan. And the subject to the show is going to be editor and writer William Maxwell. With the help of two expert guests, Deborah Treesman, fiction editor of the New Yorker,

and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Jennifer Egan. So it's going to be very exciting. If you are in New York or you're nearby or you want to have a great holiday to New York, please do you come Monday the 27th of October. Tickets are on sale at 92my.org, and you can find that link in the show notes. Meanwhile, two days later on Wednesday, the 29th of October, backlisted will be at Small Bongo Drumroll. bitter end in Greenwich Village, where we will be recording another special episode, this one on

the books written by Bob Dylan. We will be discussing tarantula, writings and drawings, Chronicles Volume 1, and possibly if publishing rumors are to be believed, Chronicles Volume 2, and our guest, who you haven't been introduced to yet, when he heard the word tarantula, he raised what can only be described as a quizzical eyebrow, quite rightly too. Yeah, well, take it's available for that show from bitterend.com. And if I started a rumor by saying that Bob Dylan was going to come down, that would be factually incorrect. It would be factually incorrect, but there is precedent he did it 50 years ago this year, but anyway. Just saying, if you want to come, check the show notes for link. We'd love to see you there. We'll also be, you know,

going out for drinks with people afterwards. It would be a great time to meet up with our American listeners. So we're really looking forward to seeing a lot of you there. Well, joining us on today's show to discuss all the devils are here and the life and career of its author, David Seabrook. We are delighted to welcome back Jason Haisley. Jason, hello. Jason Haisley is a writer and musician who's spent much of this year on tour with Beth Gibbons, while also working on a Netflix production, which the press release says, is called Untitled Charlie Brooker Project,

but that's not even its working title, let alone its title. In a previous life, he was the co-author of the best-selling Lady Bird Books for Grown-Up series, proof that you should never let a midlife crisis go to waste. That should be backlisted's motto too, carry on. Jason is another recipient of the Backlisted Long Service Award, having appeared on the show on two previous occasions. Yes, Jason joined us on show 13 back in 2016. Thirteen.

It's before many of our listeners were even born. Hello, young children. To talk about Bert Fegg's nasty book for boys and girls. And for many years, this episode was our least popular episode, but is now considered by aficionados to be a cult classic. So thanks for that, Jason. People still, the heads are still discovering your work from 10 years ago, yeah. And Jason also joined us on show 155 in 2022,

dedicated to the late Stephen Sondheim, which experts have identified as my favourite episode of that. But I have a point of order, Andy, when it's obvious. At the end of that episode, you went round and spoke to me and David Benedict and said, what is your favourite Sondheim show and what's your favourite Sondheim song? And none of us thought to ask you those questions. So very quickly, I think I know the answer to what your favorite show is and your favorite song.

Bless you. An ancient wrong can be written. Thank you. I, my favorite, you know what my favorite Sondheim musical is. It's Sunday in the park with George. Yep. And within that, my favorite song is finishing the hat. I don't know.

Did anybody choose that on the Sondheim show? No, they didn't, no. Well, if there anybody has never heard finishing. the hat. Even out of context, I'm not sure there's a better song or maybe anything really about the process of creativity and why artists make art. And that's quite a big claim. But, you know, I'm putting it out there. Jason, please agree with me, so I do agree with you. I do. And it's a brilliant exploration of creativity, but done within the format of a song, which is very hard to do times two. Well, this podcast with your help, Jason, and that of Una and Nikki, is in a sense finishing the hat, but 250 times over a 10-year period.

And still not finished everybody and still not finished now. Well, you can argue by the fact that we're repeating this, a book that we are indeed coming back to finishing the hat on the the David season. Well, art is an evolving project, Nikki. Discuss. No. Jason. So maybe this one is, look, I made a hat. Oh, my goodness. That was finishing the hat, and this is look, I made a hat. I think critics have backlisted who say this is rather inward looking would be justified in saying so. Jason, from your biog there and your CV to many of our listeners, it will appear that you lead a life that is not only charmed, but charming. You are a best-selling author. You're a jet setter. You're a scribe. You're a minstrel.

You're a jester. You're a flanner. For all I know, you're a cat burglar. You missed out boulevardier. I'm also a boulevardier. You are a boulevardier. You're a dilettante, but in the great intellectual tradition. Yeah. So I wonder, would you be able to reassure listeners someone who aren't familiar with you, that you are still very down to earth? Well, I am still very down to earth. For instance, I'm on a lot of painkillers at the moment. That's how down to earth I am. You see, now I feel bad for gently teasing Jason Haisley.

What's wrong with you? I have a spinal problem, which is going to require surgery. But until I can have surgery, all I can do is throw painkillers at it. But, and we will come on to this, one of the three medicines that I'm on, makes me very drowsy. And while I was reading all the devils are here, re-reading all the devils are here this week, and I fell asleep into the book.

When I came back and picked it up the next day, full of coffee and literally full of beans, it was exactly the same experience reading it. It's that kind of book, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. It exists in the conscious world, the semi-conscious world and other dimensions simultaneously, right? Yeah, yeah.

Well, like our guest, The Devils Are Here defies easy categorisation. The book is a travelogue and a memoir, an alternative history and a dramatic monologue. It's frequently very funny until suddenly it really isn't. It is obsessive, compulsive and disordered. In the words of our former guest, Rachel Cook, it is one man's nervous breakdown unraveling on the page. And when it was first published, the book was described by Granta as an exploration of the dark, side of Kent. There is no dark side of Kent, really.

Matter of fact, it's all dark. I'm going to go Zampandi for once and read you the jacket copy of the rare first edition of All the Devils are here in order to outline what the book's about and also to demonstrate what the publisher was up against in 2002. Here we go. Yes, indeed. In his first book, David C. Brooke takes us on a deranged exploration of the Kentish coastal towns of Thannett and Medway.

He fuses his observation of these depression landscapes, city centres full of unemployed young men and asylum seekers and dodgy characters, with literary and historical associations that seem through his eyes more like bad dreams than heritage advertisements for the local tourist board. He sees the desperate jollity of Margate, where T.S. Eliot stayed after the Great War, as a key element in the making of the wasteland. His Rochester and Chatham crawl with the ghosts of Dickens and the parasite Richard Dadd. In Broadstairs, sight of John Buchan's than 39 steps, he uncovers a weird network involving Lord Curzon, Buckin, William Joyce, And Audrey Hepburn's father. I mean. Yeah. Whatever you were expecting, it's something else.

Right, there's another paragraph that describes the third section of the book, and then the blurb concludes like this. Written with high energy and seriousness, disturbingly personal and surprising, this is a unique book. There are devils here, and the reader will remember them. travel slash nonfiction 10 pounds. Now, there is a reason I wanted us to make this show.

This is going to be the last of our retrospective episodes that we've done this year, where we revisit a book or an author who we feel has been important to backlisted. For instance, the corner that held them by Sylvia Townsend-Barner, Angel by Elizabeth Taylor. And in the case of all the devils are here, and David and Seabrook, when we made our original episode back in 2016, this book was relatively obscure and certainly out of print. And it was partly as a result of the enthusiastic response to that podcast and to our guest

Rachel Cook's writing about the book in The Observer that Grant had decided they would republish all the devils are here. And that book has gone on to be one of their best-selling backlist titles. It's still available. It's still in the bookshops. And more people who knew Seabrook have come out of the woodwork. And more things have come to light than we were able to access then. So I thought it would be fun.

One final time to take another look at this book, because A, we have here a completely different squad of people than that which worked on the original show in 2016. B, we know a lot more now than we did then about how the book came about, and this is a chance to update the record for all the people who are fascinated by it. and see, I really wanted to see for myself how all the devils are here reads now in 2025. We're nearly 25, 23 years after publication, and the intellectual milieu out of which it came has moved on. So does it stand up today? And if it does stand up today, what can it tell us? But also, I'm going to be completely honest, this old book has enjoyed a whole new lease of light because they're backlisted, at least a bit.

We literally gave life to an old book, as we have claimed to do for a decade. We actually did it on this occasion. And it's one of the things which I'm most proud of in 10 years of this podcast. Quite right, Sue. And if you like, you can time travel back to episode 11. and hear what Andy, John, Matthew and Rachel made of the book back then, which means that Andy's challenge for this episode is not to repeat himself. Challenge declined.

Exert yourself, Andy, exert yourself. So why does all the devils are here continue to dazzle, delight and disturb readers? Where does David Seabrook stand in relation to other writers of Turn of the Millennium Psychoography, such as Ian Sinclair, W.G. Seabor. and Philip Hall. And what exactly is Kent's problem? During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design

that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, Lisa 2026 X-E-90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to Explorevolvo.com.

Welcome back and let me begin by asking you, Jason. When and were, did you first encounter all the devils are here by David Sabro? I first encountered it in 2005. It was recommended to me by Friend of the Pod Andrew Mail, who has recommended two of the most unforgettable work. I've ever read to me, this and the strange last voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomlin and Ron Hall. Andrew, as you know, has a very, very good and discerning eye and ear for things and so when he said, you must read this book, I thought, well, then I must read this book.

And he wasn't wrong. How about you, Nicky? When did you first read this? This morning? Keep it fresh, Nick. Yeah, I'm fresh off. Yeah, yeah. I finished it about 20 minutes ago. Oh, wow. We've put this show out before I joined the podcast, but we've repeated this show once. So, you know, I've heard the name mentioned.

I have to say, I thought it was something completely different. I didn't really have no idea what I was breeding, picked it up and went, what the hell is this? And I still feel that way when I finished it. Yeah, it slightly blew my mind. Can I ask a question? Have you tried to describe this book to people who haven't read it? And if so, have you managed?

I haven't. How would I describe it? I describe it as a sort of a series of kind of manic anecdotes, part travel log, part history. Manicotes. Maybe that's what it is, manicotes. It's sort of loosely based around the Kent's coast. Yeah. I tried this week when someone said, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm just rereading this book for a podcast. What's the book? And I said, it's all the devils are here by David Seabrook, and my friend said, what's it about? And I thought then, I don't really think there's an answer to that question. So, and I was trying to work out a way of describing it. And one way I thought of describing it was to say, well, it starts with a nervous breakdown and ends with a blowjob, but that doesn't seem to sell it very well. If only one could reverse that, Jason, it would be so much more commercial. But, no, the only way I could describe it was,

I said, I think it's haunted. It's a haunted book. That's how it's always felt to me. And rereading it again, that's, that assertion came straight back. This is a haunted book. Okay. Well, you, you've come up with the word haunted. Nicky's come up with anecdotes. I felt if there was one word to describe this book, it was troubled. And Una, had you read it before? Had you heard of it? I had not heard of it before. And, uh, uh, you said, oh, I think we, I think we should do this. And I'm not going to tell you anything about it. Uh, So just, just come into it cold. What a good colleague I am.

I know. Thank you very much. So, and you said read it right straight away and then try and read it again before we do the show. And I'm very obedient and I'm not, I'm not able to not do my homework. So I did exactly that. I read it very quickly. And then I had it book for my Kindle. So I read on my Kindle to fall asleep at night.

So I was kind of sink into the murders and wake up with the Nazis. It was, you know, but the way I've described it, I have quite a limited circle of friends. And what I say is, it mentions Doctor Who on page, whatever it is. I don't think this is going to work for them, Moona. Doctor Who is the thing that's going to bring them in. They're going to be very disappointed. You're saying it's fan fiction because, I mean, I'm supposed.

I'm not saying it's fan fiction. I'm saying it's fan scholarship. Oh, very good. Well, I would say, I'm going to quote Ian Sinclair in his review, who said this book, reading this book is a bit like being buttonholed in the pub by a madman and who won't let you get away. And I said that to you, what did you say on your experience of reading twice in quick succession? Not only is it being buttonholed by the man in the pub,

the man in the pub follows you out onto the street. It's like, no, no, I'm going now. I've got a bus to catch to Canterbury. Oh, that's all right. I'm on that bus. Yeah, okay. That's interesting, isn't it? Because David Seabrook had a habit of doorstepping people.

He turned up on Ian Sinclair's doorstep with an essay he'd written, didn't he, and said, read this. So that's sort of his purpose. personality, isn't it? Yeah, it's replicated it. I can give some information because you remember that Jason, Jason was not discouraged by his reading of All the Devils Are Here and indeed visited Wittstable some years later where he and I and our friend Andrew took part in an all-day public reading of the book,

All the Devils Are Here, which was a strange experience on many levels. In the presence of Ian Sinclair, Ian Sinclair was there. And Ian Sinclair told us, Jason, do you remember that Sinclair ran a bookstall in Islington in the 1980s? And he first met Seabrook because Seabrook was a customer who would turn up at the bookstall and say, what do you know about, you know, Lord Hawa? And Sinclair would say, well, this and that, as much as anyone does. no more. And Seabrook would then monologue at him about what was interesting about Lord Hawaugh and subsequently then gave him, as you say, an essay. And the book came about

because Sinclair recommended Seabrook as a thinker and a writer. So he's then editor, Sinclair's editor at Granta Books, Neil Belton. And it was Neil Belton who worked with David Seabrook. on three, as it were, of his essays, or three composites of parts of his essays to create all the devils are here. Tantilizingly, there's a carrier bag out there somewhere full of more of these essays. Oh, what? Because David Seabrook is no longer with us.

But Sinclair remembers there being significantly more. so all the devils are here is like a reader's digest version of a much bigger body of work but as to where that is that's a summerfield plastic bag isn't it and not like a waitrose one I think yeah yeah don't worry

how would you explain it without being in the most simple form Andy you know how would you explain the book because it's quite we're sort of talking in kind of yeah it's anecdotes and it's this and this how would you actually explain it to somebody if you were trying to sell it as a, in a bookshop?

Oh, that's different. If I was trying to sell it in a bookshop in 2003, I'd say Psychogeography, Ian Sinclair, fascinating links, ghost walks. That was the pitch at that time for books like that. Grant's republication is interesting. What they've done is hitch it to the regeneration of Margate. So I think they had a conversation where they said, well Margate is the most outlying suburb of Hackney

if we can join those two things in one book then there's an audience and that proved to be gloriously correct because every bookshop in Thanit now carries copies of all the devils are here and how would you sell it to an American who doesn't know I would say obsession knows no geographical borders And this book is a book held together by obsession, more than by good form or narrative or prose, though the prose is exceptionally good. It is held together by the conviction that the writer has that what they are telling you is worth hearing even if you may not want to listen. and to me that is powerfully, I'm going to use a phrase I hate, but seems relevant, powerfully

sui generis. It is its own genre. I don't know what genre is, but it totally fits what we've said on this podcast for 10 years. Most books are like other books, but some aren't, and this is one of those. I was interested, Una, when you read it, one of the first things I said to you after you finished it for the first time was, have you ever read a book like that before? Yeah, and there were bits where I could go, okay, well, there are sections of it that are like Mark Fisher,

or there are sections of it that are like Jonathan Rabin. I'm thinking now, maybe I'd say there are sections like Caroline Fraser, who's written a book about Loringles Wilder, a book called Murderland about... Murderland, certainly, yeah. Serial killers in the connection to pollution. But it's like there's a Venn diagram of lots and lots of different authors and genres,

and this sort of sits in the centre, little fragments of bits of pieces of other writers and styles of writing entirely. Same question, bounced back to you. You've just read it. Have you read a book like that? And if so, what book? No, I haven't read a book like this. I haven't read a book that jumps between the first person and the third person. And I found that quite confusing, you know. Is it David Seabrook or is it a character that he's referring to or talking about or is it historical or is it a kind of slightly made up historical fiction? You know, I did not know where I was at any time. Yes, to all parts of both. Yeah. It's all those things. Yeah.

Yeah, sensibly it's like a travel book, right? That intended he is in a location, moving around, telling stories about that. And I, you know, so if you, you know, I haven't read a few of those. But then it becomes more and more narrative, right, and more storytelling in it. And actually, the sort of stories take over and how they weave back into each other as well. There's a bit of kind of callbacks and things like that. So it becomes kind of, it changes throughout the book, doesn't it? It doesn't stay one thing.

It morphs and changes. So yeah, it's nuts. Yes, it's nuts, I agree. The reader did not ask to be stuck inside the head of an extremely obsessed man, but that is where they find themselves. And therefore, as a picture of what it's like to perhaps have unreasonable thoughts about reasonable things, it is literally unparalleled. I cannot think of another book that does this.

Jason, what about you? Finally, to you, can you remember when? when you read it what you thought and what you think now? When I read it, I was deeply impressed by it and confused. And I quite liked the idea that, weirdly, for a book which is psychogeography, you really don't feel that your feet are on the ground at any particular point in this. And I liked that. I liked that being swept along by.

I thought it was very operatic when I first read it as well. Reading it back now, what strikes me about it is I'd forgotten quite how much murder and tawdry, pleasure-free sexual encounters there were in it because there really are a lot of them. Yes. Where was that on the blur, eh? Yeah, quite. There is a strange thing, by the way, on the edition I've got,

which looks a little like yours, mine's a 10th edition, yours is a first, but there is a pull quote on the front from Magnus Mills that says, I strongly recommend this book. I looked at that and went, that's a bit weak, isn't it? You could have found something better than that, couldn't you? On the back, they've given the full quote, which is, as a Charles Hortry lookalike, I strongly recommend this book.

Anyone who's read this book will know why we're cackling with laughter, and anyone who hasn't, hang on in there for the third and final section. Jason, I wonder, would you, I feel we've talked around this enough. It's like, it's like we need to take the drape off the parrot cage and let the parrots. speak. Do you want to read us something from all the devils of here just to give us a flavor of the bitter taste of this book? I will. So the book is in, it's a, it's a prolog in three parts. And this is the beginning of the third and final part of the book. What I want the listener who hasn't read this book to try and focus in on here is just how difficult it is to keep your hands on the handrails. Just a touch.

albeit unexpected, it'll pass. All things must. And yet it scares me so to think that the bloodless could buttonhole me here in a seaside cottage on a winter afternoon, my teacup cooling in my hand. I put the cup down. I wait. It's taking human shape. The shape of some glass-eyed smuggler returning one last time to his lair? No, nothing so logical, nothing so wholesome. A kind of sick-looking thing. By the light of a wall lamp, I glimps its nakedness, its curly locks and sad cow eyes drifting closer. It makes a single concession to drawing-room decency. It wears a tie, and the tie says, non-surweam. Non-surweam, I shall not serve. The words are glow in the air before me, and now I can make out the rest of the crest, the coronet, the staff entwined with serpents,

and I know. I know who this was. He was a peacock. He was a peacock. eater, a dragon chaser, an exquisite. His pet familiar was a toad named Fatiba. His travel companion was a life-sized doll. This man was the great no-hoper of the 1890s, couldn't even make it to the Fandesiette, but now somehow he's made it as far as this room. Count Stenbock, degenerate, extraordinary, seeking whom he made a flower. Me? He wants to speak to me. He's brought himself down to my level, and his face hangs close to my ear. I've seen it. I've seen it. Me, I'm not listening.

I'm looking straight ahead at the far wall with its charming prince of the town. Penny Plain, tuppence-coloured, the beach, the castles, the pier. I've seen it. I've seen an angel's cock. Magnificent. Do you know what it reminded me of

as I was reading it then? It reminds me of Sir Henry at Rawlins'enend. You know what? That's by Vivian Stanchol. That's how true. That gave me a real thrill. Jason. Most books don't thrill me, even thrillers. They provoke me or they amuse me or they delight me. But that's almost rock and roll that book. It's really excited me while you

were reading it and excites me to be talking about it again on here. But this one is, that's right, sui generis. Yes. Andy, I have a question about it. I, You know, I mentioned before that it goes from first person to third person. How does he put himself in this book? Because I come away from this feeling like, what is this man like? What is the author like? He's as a darkness around him. But what is he doing?

Is it very untechnical or is it very technical? I don't really know. Okay. As a novice reader. No, as a novice reader, I mean, you know, we readers of any level of expertise, would be thinking how what how what how is this working what that shouldn't work that that that doesn't work why am i still reading i'm cross i don't want to hear about this two pages later oh my god this is fascinating i mean it's like it's like it's like held together by the charisma of

his obsessions i think i i think um you know i've got a funny a funny story um you know you as a as a teacher will appreciate this so I did a few terms of teaching creative writing of nonfiction. And in like with my first years, in week two or three, after we'd done politics in the English language by George Orwell and the rules of grammar, I gave them all the devils are here to read on the grounds that they were bored silly and so was I by the rules. So why not cut straight to a book which doesn't follow any of the rules? Because I wanted them, serious point, to understand that rules are not what makes great books.

Energy and style are what makes great books often. So week one, they came back and they were, why have you made us read this? Week two, they came back and most of them said, I haven't been able to stop thinking about this. And that's true. The point is, no other book I did with them captured their imagination. And perhaps that's one of the things about this, Una, you talked about being followed down the road by the author. Jason, it reverberates. He's captured your imagination on a subject you may not even think you're interested in. So to answer your question, Nikki, how does he do it? I don't know. If I knew it wouldn't have had the effect on me that it did.

Owner, as from your academic expertise or academic position, what do you think he's doing? So I read this twice, and the first time I think my reading was, I was kind of clinging on to what I recognized as familiar form. Yeah. And then the second reading, I kind of consciously said, okay, I'm going to read this and try and see how and were the narrator is in this book. And I think there's, there are two things that I think are quite interesting. Firstly, that it's actually formally quite familiar at the start. It's an essay connecting Richard Dad to the mystery of Edwin Drood. Okay. So, and that's quite familiar. But as the book progresses, it's sort of the form starts to collapse in as you're kind of drawn in. And the other thing that I found really interesting was, you know, we talk a lot of, when we teach writing, we sort of talk a lot of, we talk a lot of, goff about, oh, how close is the narrator to the author and the point of view character to the narrator and all these kinds of things? And I don't sense any kind of distance between those. There's just a collapse into him. And he's simultaneously absent from these pages and absolutely presence throughout. There's no kind of artifice of layers of the author and

the narrator and point of view and all of this. It's just infused with David Siebrecht's consciousness. I think that's really, really interesting. And that's just a propulsive thing through it. And I, you know, I'm sure he knew what he was doing. I don't know if he cared. I think he wanted to get these things down. It'd be really interesting to hear about how those essays were knocked into a kind of coherent hole. Because I think it is kind of coherent. I mean, that just might be me trying to put coherence on it. Well, let me, Jason, we just chase that idea a little bit. What is the story of all the devils are here?

Built over three sections, because I agree with you know, there is a kind of progression or regression or or dissolves, collapse, yeah. But what is the narrative? tone. How does it change from the first to the second to the third section of the book? Well, I'm not sure I can answer that very well because it's such a strange book to be swept along in. One of the things I did notice, though, was in the second section. It's a fairly traditional essay form in which he is connecting one thing to another thing to another thing. It reminded me slightly of what would happen if Adam Curtis got a blow to the head.

and try to make a series. It's that sort of thing, you know, where he would find the connections, but there wouldn't be an overarching thing. But the third section is interesting because it's a different shape because it all radiates out from one guy that he's talking to,

this delicious old queen called Gordon Meadows, and everything, all the stories come outwards from this one character. So they are very different shapes. I think, I mean, I would say it starts, and this is part of the artistry of it, Una, from an avuncular narrator. It starts with what seems like an avuncular narrator.

And then we get flashes of his personal life, bereavements, etc. That is really devastating. That single moment. Can I read that? I've got that a bit. Yeah. Yeah. But what I'm trying to say is that moment,

is the tell that the effort to be a vuncular is that, is an effort. So when the book starts and he says, you know, he talks about Elliott and the wasteland, we're supposed to think, on Margate's sands, I can connect nothing with nothing, and these fragments I have shored against my ruin. His ruin is what underpins the whole book, right? So he starts it, he wants the reader to feel everything is okay. Here's some interesting facts. And then the effort to maintain a facade of friendliness is too much for him.

It's interesting though, because at the beginning I found I'm not familiar with all the references and all the people and all the artists and all the writers he's talking about. And actually, I found that quite hard to get into. But once he starts to unravel and the people start, you know, it becomes actually, it becomes a better, more interesting book, I found, because it's like, oh my gosh, this is really quite dark. And I don't know where this is going. And so I suppose to people who are who may be put off by the beginning, some people will really enjoy the beginning, but for me, I found it, it just gets better and better and better.

I promise not that you will be doing this anytime soon, but were you to read it again. Yes, I can imagine. You have a different reaction. And I'm not saying your reaction is wrong, but that's why I asked Duna to do it twice. No, no. And I definitely felt like it needs a reread. And because when I listened to the first episode that you did on it, everyone says, oh, you pick it up and start it again. And I was thinking as I started reading it, I'm not fucking picking this book up again. But by the end of it, by the end of it, I was like, oh yeah, I get this now. I want to have a go and start again because I've obviously missed stuff and I'll be skimming over a bit at the beginning. But now I want to go back and properly

read it. Can I read this section that you just, I think this is what you referred to. Yeah. This is the beginning of essay two in town tonight. Viking Bay, water again. This takes me back. It's six years since I last came out here. Six years this summer, not long after my fiance's funeral, I wasn't invited. I wasn't invited, but I knew we'd meet again. Why wouldn't we? Canterbury was full of women like her. They looked like her from behind. They smelled like her up close. and they squealed like her when you covered up their eyes, teasing, teasy-tic, metastasized pancreatic carcinoma. Yet here too there were problems, since people were already beginning to say that what she'd

actually died of was none other than old-fashioned Catholic guilt. And in order to explain that to me, they had to explain about her husband. That poor man, they said, kept to his side of the bargain and his side of the house all those years. And now he was free, free to roam about the place, free to pester mediums to start telling the truth. I came out here to get away from it all. I found that very moving. Thank you. The flow of emotion within that writing is incredibly powerful because it isn't one emotion. It's, what is it? It's anger, grief, resentment, love,

gallows humour, and they're all bumping against one another. So as a kind of technical feat of pinning down the emotional thought process, that's an incredible piece of writing, in my opinion. And also, I think hearing you read that just then, Nikki, that second chapter, that second essay goes into the kind of connections in Kent of kind of the various fascists who've lived and moved around Kent. So to open that chapter with an image of cancer,

I think, is really, it's the image you're meant to be carrying through, I think, for the rest of that chapter. Well, listen, when we come back from this ad break, we are going to hear something that we weren't able to have in the previous episode nine years ago, and that is the voice of David Seabrook. With Amex Platinum,

access to exclusive AMX pretext, Pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Presale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca slash Y Annex. Fly Air Transat

Seven time winners. Champions out again. Fly the seven-time world's best leisure airline champions, Air Transat. He ended up getting embroiled with one of the twins and some very weird throat scars, apparently, that he came off with. But I suppose his real achievement was as dialogue coach and technical advisor on the film called Performance, author of those classic lines like What a Freak Show, Shut Your Bloody Owl. Was your old man a barber? Your old man was a barber, wasn't he?

No, no, I don't think he was. Ladies and gentlemen, there was the late David Seabrook, filmed outside some kind of caravan somewhere on a main road. From a film by Chris Petit and Ian Sinclair that was broadcast on Channel 4 in 1992 called The Cardinal and the Corps, in the Cardinal and the Corps, there are appearances on YouTube now,

which it wasn't 10 years ago, there are appearances by four authors about whom we have made episodes of Batlisted. Would any of you care to tell me which those authors are? Well, Alexander Barron? Correct. We made an episode on Alexander Barron and the Low Life. Was Robin Cook one of them? That's correct. We made an episode on Robin Cook slash Derek Raymond. We did that quite some time ago. So he's in it.

Yeah, go on. There's another one. Recent one, Nikki. A recent episode. Big bearded wizard. Yeah, of course. I'd forgotten. Who's that?

Alan Moore. Of course. Alan Moore is there as well. So Derek Raymond, Alan Moore, Alexander Baron and David Seabrook, all in the Cardinal and the Corps. Jason, what do you make of that film now? it's most unusual in that it's it's also to use your favorite term it's also rather sui generis what's meant to be generous it's so many generous it is sui generous yeah in the days when

channel four had a sui generis department yes um yes run by sue generous yes the middle middle aim begins with the need isn't it i think that's right um so it is a film sort of nominally about trying to find David Lipvinov's memoirs by talking to different book dealers and things. But it's also slightly about the Cray twins and it's slightly about East End gangsters. It's a baffling construction. And everybody in it is sort of both being themselves

and acting at the same time. Yeah, and the only one who I don't think is performing a character is, and this relates to what I was saying about the narrator, the author earlier, is David Seabrook. I think we've got, I think there is no gap between the person of David Seabrook and the character of David Seabrook. That's all collapsed into itself, okay? That's literally it. That's right, yeah. It's an extremely odd documentary that I would certainly have sat up late while I was doing my A-levels to kind of watch on Channel 4.

And you don't find things like that anymore sort of being put out, I think. I won't say this is great. And the Cardinal and the courts is not great art. All the Devils are here, I think is great art for what it's worth. But one of the things that great works of art have in common, right, starting from the, you know,

the Mona Lisa and kind of blue and Hamlet and whatever your belief is one of your favorite work of art is, is they seem to us the reader the view of the listener to have a set of

aesthetic principles the problem is we don't have access to what they are so they communicate a sense of total certainty in what they're doing without the end user being told what that is and I think the cardinal and the corpse

is an imperfectly enjoyable but unsuccessful example of that and all the devils are here is a successful example of it you know you don't finish all the devils are here do you Nikki thinking to yourself

this guy doesn't know what he's talking about quite the reverse he knows too much I want to know about him he is a dark soul Nicky you ask a very valid question there for those of you who haven't read

all the devils are here The third part of the book is the most difficult to get your head round the first time you read it, I think, to the extent you can't be quite sure what's even happening. There's a kind of seedy hallucinogenic quality to the last 20 pages, which are very challenging to the reader, I think. It's almost like what we talked about, Una, the widening gyre of the book, the centre of the book being unable to, hold the centre being good form good form dissolves in the face of madness and you know whether David Seabrook created that narrative with Neil Belton or whether he brought it up himself nonetheless that is the drift of the of that book I think as Rachel says it's a nervous breakdown, seemingly happening to before your very eyes, this is one of the dark, magical

things about it, that he manages, as I think, to turn that mental deterioration into narrative, seemingly as you're reading, to the extent that you almost feel as the reader guilty, you almost feel complicit in pushing this guy to keep going. He shouldn't be talking to me. He needs to go and have a long lie down. By me continuing to read this, he is in hock to me. How much must I entertain you until I cannot entertain you anymore? How much must I hold your attention until I lose the power to do so?

I mean, I think one of the reasons the book works is that sense that you or I or Nikki or Una could leave our houses and, unbeknownst to us, walk past the home of somebody truly awful or beneath our feet. something terrible has happened and perhaps it's still happening. The haunting nature of towns and cities was one of the themes of psychogeography. And you notice I use was there because I feel that genre is, that genre moved to the countryside and became nature writing, as we've said on here before. Has this book dated in a way that I would argue some of the other core text, Saybelt hasn't, but perhaps Ian Sinclair has, not for me to say, but do you think all the Devils are here has dated? Is it a product of its era? Oh, crumbs. I mean,

so the chapter which I probably responded most to was the chapter about the sort of fascist web around Brawester. I don't think that's dated at all. If anything, I think that's more timely. I had other issues with the book about how I felt there's a sequence where he's sort of investigating a series of murders of prostitutes. And I felt queasily uneasy that he increasingly identified more with the murderer than with the victims. And I found that section quite a tough read. whether that's that's dated again i'm i'm not sure but um yeah i'd parts of it extremely timely parts of it parts of it repelled me it's as simple as that um yeah uh jason what do you think when you read it again did you think um i wish he hadn't said that that's a different question

No, I didn't because I quite like the fact that it's so raw when he starts to reveal himself. I mean, there's that strange confluence of events that starts with him just dropping into the text that his fiancé is dead and he wasn't invited to her funeral, something he never goes back to. so we don't know what that means. So at that point we go, okay, he's straight.

And then we hear about a series of largely homosexual kind of rent-type encounters. And then he subjects himself to one at the end of the book, or nearly does. And it's that kind of gradual peeling away of anything that he had left in terms of protection, just revealing himself. I mean, by the end of the book, he is about to pull his trousers down, is what is about to happen. and it's an extremely strange way to end the book. But I was struck by the fact that when I was reading about the Cardinal and the corpse, Ian Sinclair said, and you can see this when you watch it,

because you watch David Seabrook talking, he's freezing fucking cold. And the reason is because he had to pawn his coat in order to buy the train fare to London to make the film. So clearly he was a man who had fuck all money. His friends write about his flat being freezing cold. and that strange sense of a guy with no coat that's sort of what he feels like in the book

he feels like a guy with no coat he's not protected and that shapes the content as well there are bits where he cuts off interviews because he has to go and get his bus yeah yeah and you don't find that in a Jonathan Rabin do you I have to get off my yachts now

but I think that's I think that's one of the genuinely still exciting features of this kind of writing, the idea that you could walk down a high street and be real about how you do it, but buses don't really exist in literature in that way before the 1960s. And we still don't spend enough time on them, metaphorically speaking. Most people get around on buses, but we prefer not to join them. You know, Margaret Thatcher said, didn't she, that when I see a man on a bus, that's failure to me. They failed in life. So there's that, that's that kind of element to that. A man without a coat, Jason,

quite so. People in Canterbury remember. booksellers in Canterbury remember David Seabrook as quite a shady character. I can imagine. Someone who when he came into the shop, you might, you had to keep an eye on because he might go out without having paid for something. That was, how did he supplement his income? Well, he didn't totally stay on the right side of the law. Also, he wrote another book called Jack of Jumps, which as we said on the previous episode, I would resist the temptation to see

what that book's like is not very good and I'm sorry to say and actually what Oona identifies her what she made her uncomfortable I think is on full display in it very much is right yeah yeah but he also

Seabrook died under mysterious circumstances he was working on a book about the Beatles lawyer David Jacobs he made David Seabrook you know, the rumours mill had that he had got too close to the truth about David Jacobs's contact. But as far as we know, he just unfortunately had a heart attack and died. And we now don't know where, not just the writings that went into all the devils a hero, we don't know

where the book he was working on is. He becomes more unknowable the more you try to get to know him. Isn't he the most interesting bit of this book? There's full with anecdotes and stories and some of them are kind of sexual and some of them are historical, lots of fascists, lots of carry-on star in there

and all sorts of interesting thing. But he is the most interesting thing in there and the bits where he is allowed to sort of, well, he allows himself to come to the surface, I find are the most interesting. And I would have liked there to be more David Seabrook because he's clearly a complex, difficult, maybe sometimes objectionable person,

but that we don't really hear about these sorts of people very much. And that's what I wanted. I want more David Seabrook in this. I think it's all there. I think it's all there. I agree. I think we get 200 pages of David Seabrook. It's the, although his, you know, he doesn't,

It's like the opposite of that nature writing is it's my feelings with trees. But this is sort of, you know, I am passing through Ramsgates. And by God, you will know everything about what I think about Ramsgate at the other end of this. My view is that all writers are David Seabrook, but only David Seabrook was the honest one. You know, writers aren't nice people. They don't do what they do by being nice. They do what they do by being good at it. And the thought processes that writers go through seem to me to be similar to some of the things

that Seabrook writes about and talks about in this book. In other words, what you literally experience is tied up with your imagination and your emotional state. And you process all these things simultaneously as you. you pass through the world? I felt, Una, one of us is going to say it, doesn't this book read as somewhat ahead of its time, unfortunately? Yeah, I think Kent does not appear as the Garden of England in this, nor indeed the kind of, going back to another backlistage you've done, perhaps the sort of pastoral home of Michael Powell. I think it's a very different Kent's that emerges. from these pages.

One of the reviews of all the devils here described it as a digging up of the weeds in the garden of Kent. And the idea, Jason, would this book work or how would this book be different if it was set in a county other than Kent? Hmm.

I mean, I guess there are alternate versions of this book that Seabrook could have written that was set elsewhere, but I don't suppose they would have had the sort of sinews that connected him to the place. Right. Because it's clear that this is his Kent, or at least the Kent that he has built in his head around him from his base in Canterbury. Yeah. How can I write a book based on a series of places I can get to on the same day?

On the bus. Yes. On the bus or the train. can I get day returns to? And can I then build a book around that? Because I had to go to London to film something recently and I had to pawn my coat to get there. So a bus to Margate is much more affordable. Is it that Kent is uniquely malevolent? Well, it's a reformed stronghold. So that's up for others to say. But certainly Seabrook's relationship with where he grew up set the tone then for what he wants to talk about.

Yes. He doesn't want to talk about the National Fruit Collection of Brogdale, does he? He's really not interested in that Kent whatsoever. He doesn't want to talk about the wistible oysters, does he? No, it's very much not that. In fact, there was a review in the New Statesman. It's on the back of this book here that says, David Seabrocks, Kent is a county of homoeroticism.

and mental illness of literary intrigue and economic depression, a place not of holiday makers, but of murderers, Nazi sympathisers, alcoholics and the ghosts of T.S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, Audrey Hepburn and the carry-on actor Charles Hortree. And it's true, it is all those things, but it also contains the National Fruit Collection

at Brogdale. And as I say, is a stronghold of reform. So again, it's not for me to make those links. Not for me to make those links. If I, Nikki, if you were to write a book, about Hackney, where you grew up, right? Where I live? Not where I grew up.

Where did you grow up? Camden. If you were to write about a book about Camden, it would not be the book Ian Sinclair wrote about Camden because you were interested in different things than Ian Sinclair is interested in. Correct. You know, correct, thank you.

No, but I wouldn't necessarily be interested in there. This is about the sort of historical underbelly of an area, which actually is very rich in terms of. Kent here and and I think there's a certain level of like horror and you know he he's as you said you know slightly relishing in the murders and relishing in some of this stuff as the as the seedy not particularly pleasant aspects of Kent he's got out and he's gone okay where can I find these jumping from fascist to murders to rent boys so that that those are the things that he's interested in and that's that's his slice of Kent right it's not as you're

you said, I would write a different book about Kent or Camden in this case, because I would, mine might be all about music and the nostalgia of the things that I was interested in. Yeah. You know, I don't think, I think it's safe to say people of Kent may have a different experience of their, of their hometown, home areas, right? Local interest, everyone, local. Exactly. So if you pick up this book, you know, in a book shop, you know, you might be thinking, oh, I just want to, you know, hear about Dover and the pleasant This isn't that book. Okay, I'm going to ask each of you in turn then, before we wrap up.

The book is back in print. It's been in print now for back in print for eight years or so. It continues to sell from all the way from Margate to Hackney, but hopefully beyond there as well. And it clearly has something that other books of this era don't. And I did an event, gosh, probably three years ago now, in Margate to talk about all the devils are here with a local writer and some of the arts crowd there. And that event was packed out with younger people. Wow.

I'm incredibly happy to say. So, Jason, when we discovered this book and when we did that event in Whitstable, we were kind of like, you know, the aging hipsters at best. But it became clear to me that the book is finding a new audience and the questions that were coming from that audience were brilliant, were fully engaged with this sui generous work. So can I ask each of you in turn, and you better volunteer who wants to go first rather than I insist on which one of you goes first, what is it that has carried this book from some nice reviews in the broadsheets to going out of print to being rediscovered to being newly popular? What's it got? What's it got that all those tens of thousands of other books published in 2002 don't have.

I would say it's something to do with how much of it remains unknowable and that is a limitless source of discussion and kind of read a debate and read a reflection, perhaps something like that. Okay, yeah, great. Nicky, if there was to be an audio book of all the devils are here, which there is not, unfortunately, who should read it? Well, firstly, I do think this would make a fantastic audio book. Me too.

Because I think the, as Jason said, the soporific qualities of it, actually it would be benefit from an audio book coming in and out. I think it would be fantastic, just little bits of stories and anecdotes. So who should read it? Good question. I'm available. Okay, Andy's available. I think somebody a bit younger, I have to say, Andy. What about somebody who's mentioned in the book? What about Joe Pascuali?

Yes, of course. Not Joe Pascuali. A little bit of lighter tone. Well, going back to your question before, or linking it to that, I think it needs someone with edge. I think the reason why this book still stands and is still fascinating is there's bits that we don't fully understand. And what we do understand is it's edgy. Like it's really, there's darkness to it. And that is what's intoxicating and fascinating about it. So I think it is someone who's going to have that level of edge to their voice.

Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy, perhaps not. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Jason, why are we here talking about this still? I would just add to what Una and Nick have said, because I think they're both right about the reasons this book endures, the one I would volunteer is that it has a very strong flavour, a very strong flavour,

not just of place, but of prose. The character of the prose is an extremely strong flavour. The character of the author is a very strong flavour. And I think that that stuff doesn't leave you. Once you've read it, you're then, you're kind of, you know, it's a bit like, it's a bit like a pan that you've used quite a few times. You know, it's never going to be back to its clean condition again. and it's always going to bear the casseroles that have been within it, you know, and this thing bears its casseroles. I think you've just achieved some kind of peak impact-listed moment there. I think it's hallucinogenic in the terms of that it's flash.

There are flashbacks within it in the unpleasant sense, that you can be walking down Rochester High Street and something Eldridge suddenly manifests before you're, eyes that nobody else can see and you think god i really shouldn't take in that acid 20 years ago it will never it will never leave me you know that's part of the the darkness is right nicky this is a dark dark book unfortunately jack of jumps is dark in a less appealing way so again this is part of the miracle of this particular book you know can i read you something from ian sinclair This morning I was thinking about this

and I asked another friend of the pod, Kieran Pim, I said, did you alight upon Seabrook at all while you were researching Jumping Jack Flash, his biography of David Litvinov? And he said, well, we talked about the Cardin and the corpse, the film, but he sent me a couple of pages of the book. And this is something that Sikler said

about Litvinov and David Radinsky. I'm going to slightly paraphrase it. But I think this applies to David Seabrook. He said of them, The great thing is they are unknowable. That's a point that we've already made. They are these shapeshifting characters who live in a landscape,

which is itself unknowable and shapeshifting. There is a very strong sense of plural time of being able to reach it and lose it. I was fascinated by that idea of plural time, because I think there's a sense of that in this book, isn't there? Yeah, I agree. And it's part of that sort of collapse that's going on all the time, that, you know, we're there in the present with him.

One thing I didn't do is I was reading. I didn't kind of keep an eye on how the tenses were shifting. And I think that would be a really interesting thing to do. When's he slipping from past into present and how's that modulated? Yeah, I think that's really interesting. well thank you so much all three of you for indulging me but treating the listeners to an excellent discussion of all the devils are here i'd just like to let people know that next week we'll be doing all the devils are here by david seabro with a different panel

we just make episodes about this now um no we don't and that's where we must leave it for this week in the words of the traditional english folks song Hopping Down in Kent. Hoppings all over. All the money spent. I wish to God I'd never done no hopping down in Kent. Many thanks to Jason, Nicky and Una for joining me in the heart of Sheerness, the horror. Also to our producer, Nikki, for taking our fragments and shoring them against our ruin.

or, alternatively, for taking our disconnected thoughts and editing them into a satisfying, sui-generous whole. If you would like show notes with clips, links and suggestions for further reading for this show and the previous 248 episodes, please visit our website at backlisted.fm. And to buy the books discussed on this or any of our other shows, please visit our bookshop at bookshop.org and choose Backlisted as your bookshop. Of course, this show is free as all podcasts are. We make a living from our adverts, but also from our fantastic patron subscribers.

So if you would like to support the show, we'd be very grateful. Do go to patreon.com forward slash backlisted. You can subscribe at a number of levels, one of which is the lock listener level, where you get two extra podcasts every month, plus an instalment of Andy's new project every week called Inventory and the chance to join our fantastic community of dedicated listeners and readers, like everyone here, it's great. But before we go, Jason, is there anything you'd like to add about David Seabrook

or all the devils are here that we didn't get a chance to get to? Only that when I was trying to work out a way of describing it, as we talked about at the top of the show. And I was reminded of Troy Kennedy Martin when he was writing Edge of Darkness. When he was asked what he was working on, he said, I'm writing a story about a detective who turns into a tree,

which tells you about as much about edge of darkness as anything you can say about this book tells you about this book. That's one of my favourite stories. Didn't the person he said it to say, back to him, oh, it's for Channel 4, is it? Okay, well, listen, thanks so much, everybody. And thanks very much, Nikki, Una and Jason for engaging so fully with all the devils are here.

I get to say this thing that I didn't get to say nine years ago, which is, if you want to read this book, all you've got to do is go and buy it or borrow it from the library, because now it's available again. and it's electronically and if Nikki has her way before you know it I don't know a young person

A child will be reading it to you In a sinister In a sinister voice But listen So we'll see you next time Thanks very much everybody This has been brilliant fun Like all the best episodes

We're outlisted See you soon Bye bye bye bye Bye bye Hi I don't know. ...and... ...a...

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