FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Stuff

The John Healy Story: From Homeless Wino, to Author, to Chess Genius

He fought other homeless winos in the street, then won book awards, then played tournament chess.

John Healy spent 15 years living rough on London's streets and wrote a book about it called The Grass Arena. Publishers Faber & Faber published the book in 1992 and it was an immediate success, winning awards, drawing praise from all the kind of authors you want to be praised by and quite literally pulling Healy out of the gutter and thrusting him into the lifestyle enjoyed by the social elite (lots of champagne and cars – the social elite never change).

Annoncering

Unfortunately, Healy's mouth didn't make the full transition to polite society and a comment involving an axe and the head of Faber & Faber was reportedly overheard by a member of staff there. When it was passed on, the publishing company took his books out of print and privately blacklisted him. In the middle of all that, and despite the years of drinking and living rough, Healy became a highly-rated chess player, would compete in tournaments and was capable of conducting several games simultaneously.

Besides the fact he's had a pretty fascinating life, Healy still maintains that it was his working class background that got him dismissed from Faber & Faber, so I decided to have a chat with him, because who doesn't love an unsolved mystery?

VICE: Hi John. Can you explain what the name of The Grass Arena is about?
John Healy: In Rome, 2000 years ago, the sand they used for the arena was specially imported from Egypt because it soaked up blood quickly. I was thinking about that, and I thought we were in an arena ourselves when I was living on the street, only it was covered in grass. I was trying to convey a subculture where there is no law; it’s life or death. All over Britain there were grass arenas. I was trying to bring the reader into my world, to experience it with me – a vicarious experience, at least.

What was your experience of Britain?
My father was very violent and there was the racism that my family experienced through being Irish. In the 50s it was written on the walls: “No Irish, no blacks, no dogs.” I used to have to fight kids on the street over it; they’d say my father was an Irish coward because he never fought in the war. Then he was violent with me when I got inside – I suppose he was in fear of being inferior – so I was getting it from both sides.

Annoncering

Then what happened?
The stress became so bad that I ended up drinking very young. Vagrancy was rife; heroes that had fought in the war were living in doss houses. England didn’t reward its heroes – the working class ones, anyway. So I ended up drinking more and more, which took me from the saloon bar to the public bar and, ultimately, to the streets. So that’s how I ended up as a wino in the wino jungle, ‘cause that’s the only way I’d be tolerated.

Why did you decide to write?
In my mind, those experiences were so vivid and intense that it was all I could talk about. Soldiers shoot at people from miles away, but where I was you could see the whites of the other wino's eyes when we were fighting with broken bottles. We were combatants in a wino jungle.

How did you feel when your work was pulped after all the trouble with Faber & Faber?
Pulped is the wrong word; that’s what happens to books that aren’t selling. The book was selling. A letter went round, a memo to the staff of Faber & Faber from the director Lord Evans, that said: “Destroy the rest of his work and deem the book out of print.”

Couldn’t you shop it to other publishers?
They wouldn’t give the license back. Without the license, even if I wanted to go somewhere and they wanted me, they wouldn't be able to take me. The Society of Authors had to get involved. They fought to get it back for me.

Are you still writing?
Yeah, I’m working on a script now with Shane Connaughton, who adapted My Left Foot, for a Grass Arena movie adaptation. I’ve written a chess book called Coffee House Chess Tactics. They wouldn’t publish it here, but they would over in Europe. It got short-listed for the Guardian chess book of the year, but I’m not going calling about abroad with any of my other stuff.

Annoncering

Why not?
Why would I? I want to be published in my own country.

Fair enough. You've spanned a pretty eclectic bunch of scenes during your life, which one did you feel most comfortable in?
Well, there’s a different kind of comfort that you feel in each. When I was in the wino jungles, I felt comfortable in the sense that, while I had my strength, I could get what I wanted; drink, cigarettes and something to eat. All you had to do was fight with your fists for that. Or steal. I felt less comfortable in the chess world because it was a competitive environment. Chess isn’t like mathematics; even when you’re winning, you’re still in agitation – it’s not completely guaranteed satisfaction. There was the certain comfort that you’re not out on the street, but it was still very high-tension.

And what about your time during the height of The Grass Arena's popularity?
Yeah, I suppose going to middle-class households and having dinner was the most comfortable environment in one way. But you'd realise that you weren’t born into it. Whatever friendship they'd profess, somewhere in the back of their mind – even if you were the greatest writer in the world – you came from an uneducated background and they’d always think themselves better than you.

Do you wish your life had been different?
I would like to have lived a less troubled life, with a family, rather than living like a psychopath and fighting psychopaths in the jungle.

Annoncering

If people remember you for The Grass Arena, will you be satisfied?
Why should they remember me for just that? I have so much more to give.

Follow Dan on Twitter: @keendang Photos courtesy of John Healy.

More about fiction on VICE:

Max Brooks

Bryan Garner

David Thewlis and his Hopeless, Hilarious Fiction