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The bouncer who wrote a pulp masterpiece

Danny Hogan (no, not that Danny Hogan) has that beaten and scarred look which you’d like to think came courtesy of a glassing in some Parisian shebeen.

Danny Hogan (no, not that Danny Hogan) has that beaten and scarred look which you’d like to think came courtesy of a glassing in some Parisian shebeen. Or at least I did when I met Danny while teaching him on a college journalism course in Brighton in 2005. He struck me straight away as someone with a back story.

To make it as a writer you have to have plenty of reading behind you and plenty of writing in front of you: poetry, prose, 'zines, the lot. Too many college students are simply too young and without the necessary yen for the craft to want to experiment. Hogan is different. As a mature student he had the age advantage, but more than that, a love of prose etched into that beat-up psyche of his. He is an ex-bouncer who’s given pulp fiction a 21st century makeover with his debut novel Killer Tease.

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Set in Brighton’s underworld, the thriller tells the tale of Eloise Murphy, a burlesque dancer with a murderously bad temper. Conniving to give Eloise hell are a devious blackmailer, a vile hit man, and a treacherous old friend.  Sounds good, huh? It is. I thought I'd look Danny up and find out what how he came to resurrect the pulp genre.

Vice: So Danny, what were your days like working the doors?
Danny Hogan: I didn’t work the doors as much as I was a manager and had blokes to work the doors for me, but being the type of bloke I am I always felt I had to get involved, which accounts for some of my beautifications. My experiences running bars in the underbelly of Paris for a number of years has really provided great experience and influence for my writing. Paris is more violent than a lot of people realise and I saw some truly horrific stuff in the six years I was there.

What else did you get up to before you heard your true calling?
I spent most of my life after school playing bass in an Oi! punk band called Gundog and running a stall in Camden’s Stables Market. I also did a bit of modelling for Alexander McQueen before he was well-known, and when I was still young and pretty. After Paris I spent about a year in Sweden, but that was serious down-time in comparison.

What was it out of all these experiences that inspired Killer Tease?
After I was given the go-ahead by Indepenpress Publishing to run an imprint for them I felt I had to come up with a product before they changed their mind. So I thrashed it out in two weeks. All I knew when I sat down to write it was that it would feature burlesque and be set in Brighton.

Why pulp fiction?
I think the timing of reviving the pulp genre has turned out to be perfect for these cash-strapped times because people are going out less and getting immersed in a classic page-turner is cheap home entertainment at its best.

Who would you say are your influences?
Hunter S. Thompson, George Macdonald Fraser and the graphic novelist Garth Ennis.

Are you still running your Brighton 'zine, Newblood?
That folded after Katie Allen got a job at the Bookseller and I got the job with Indepenpress. We still keep in contact, though. I plan to move the whole operation to San Diego. In the mean time, keep on writing and keep on publishing.

Well, your book is great, my student is all grown up. I'm so proud.