This new article from The Guardian features a very witty and charming Niall talking about his first novel, Crusher, and the unbelievable journey that he and his wife have been on, watching her stories go from fanfiction to bestselling novels.
“If on entering your local bookshop you can find your way past the teetering stacks of EL James’ Fifty Shades trilogy, you might come across a slim new crime novel, Crusher. That one’s mine. Perceptive reviewers have noted that the hero’s father, Maguire, is an embittered Irish hack consumed with envy of his peers. That must be you, they insist. What modern novelist doesn’t envy EL James, the 40-something TV executive and mother of two who has outsold Dan Brown and Stieg Larsson, turbo-boosted the turnover of UK bookshops, and left men the world over begging for less sex and more sleep? But my book is a gritty urban murder mystery; Fifty Shades is an erotic romantic fantasy, and I couldn’t have written it in a million years. I’m the least romantic fecker that ever lived – ask my wife Erika, aka EL James. Our first Christmas together I bought her a tin opener, and my earliest experience of kinky sex was her trying to shove it up my arse.”
“Erika wrote Fifty Shades to entertain herself and a few online friends. She never dreamed it would become a bestseller, still less a landmark in publishing or a figure of speech.”
“Our families and friends were, and are, as thrilled and proud and as amazed as we are, and we soon realised everyone in our street, and eventually the entire neighbourhood, knew exactly who EL James was. All the locals have been lovely, and said very little about it, apart from the occasional polite request for Erika to sign a book. Journalists ask if fans turn up on our doorstep asking silly questions. No, but journalists do. Do we have a dungeon? Or a Red Room of Pain? Maybe, and maybe there’s a helicopter pad on the roof in case Christian Grey drops in for a spanking. Fifty Shades Of Grey is a fantasy – have they forgotten what that means? Do they chase JK Rowling down the street daring her to use her Avra Kedavra spell? Do they ask Hilary Mantel how many courtiers she’s beheaded?”
We cannot begin to do justice to the rest of his words, so we encourage you to read the entire article here — Meet Mr Fifty Shades: EL James’s husband speaks out
To preorder his book, go here — Crusher
Synopsis: The day Finn Maguire discovers his father bludgeoned to death in a pool of blood, his dreary life is turned upside down. Prime suspect in the murder, Finn must race against time to clear his name and find out who hated his dad enough to kill him.
50 Shades Movie Fansite 