Before I became an author, or let's say before I started making money as an author, I had several jobs. One of them was doing interviews with authors for a radio program.
Every Tuesday, my boss would give me a book and say, "This might be something for you." He did the important authors, and I was sent the B-list authors who also deserved some time on the air. But that was fine with me.
It was a nice way of making some money, and at the same time, it helped me overcome my social inhibitions. The interviews were not taped in the studio. I went to the authors' houses. Given the fact that most B-list authors are lonesome people, they were more than happy to have me. Some of them wouldn’t let me go.
(When my novel Silent Extras came out in the US in 2000, my publicist sent me to a media trainer. This trainer told me the following about radio interviewers, “Don’t expect them to know your name, don’t expect them to know the title of your book, don’t even expect them to be sure about your gender. Some of them will act as if they don’t know whether you are male or female, because that’s their job.” I found this piece of information extremely helpful.)
One day in the winter of 1993, I was sent to a certain Mr. Klinkhamer in the northern part of the Netherlands. It took me more than three hours to get there.
Mr. Klinkhamer had served in the foreign legion and he had written an interesting book about it. But his latest book was a rather mediocre thriller, filled with anti-Semitic and fascist ravings.
Mr. Klinkhamer had also written an unpublished book called Wednesday, Minced Meat Day, which I had read. It was about a man who kills his wife and chops her into little pieces.
The interesting thing was that the police suspected him of having killed his wife, but they could not prove it.
It was very clear that Mr. Klinkhamer didn’t like Jews, but for me, he was willing to make an exception. He even said that I could stay over for the night. I politely refused.
At the end of the interview, he took me to the garden and showed me sculptures he had made of what he said were slaughtered lambs.
Years later, Mr. Klinkhamer sold his farmhouse, and the new owners found body parts in the garden.
Mr. Klinkhamer was arrested, he confessed, and he was sent to prison. A young woman fell in love with him. Certain women love prisoners.
I never thought of Mr. Klinkhamer again, until my visit to Afghanistan. There I felt he was close, very close.