Stuart Murdoch (of Belle and Sebastian)

Kalliope said:
Thanks for sharing.

I never saw the movie Trainspotting (I know, I know... :bag:) so don't quite understand what S. Murdoch means when he says he hopes his book will be like Trainspotting for ME. Like bringing something out to a wider audience?
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Could it just be that it was a huge film at the time?
 
I met Stuart briefly at the Millions Missing in Glasgow in 2019, where the band also played a few songs. He is a kind and gentle person. He became an Open Medicine Foundation ME Ambassador in 2018 (don't know if he still is, he had to cancel Tour dates in 2022 because of a downturn.)

There are other interviews with him about the book with the Guardian and Action for ME on this thread:
https://www.s4me.info/threads/works-of-fiction-where-characters-have-me-cfs.30232/page-3

We have information about Stuart on a number of other threads. A programme he did with Ken Bruce on BBC Radio2 led to my longest conversation with my hairdresser about ME.
 
A GoodReads review of Nobody's Empire from a reader called Morgan:
I did want to like this, due to the subject matter, and I respect that Murdoch is writing from his experience of ME and wants to shed light on the illness. But this just isn’t a successful novel. In an interview I read he mentions not having read fiction in many years, to which I can’t help but wonder… what makes you qualified to write it? This is incredibly shaggy and poorly edited, meandering and rambling; if he weren’t famous for something else it wouldn’t have been published. The seemingly arbitrary shifts between present and past tense were especially annoying. The book is also way too long, which emphasizes the overwriting and lack of editing.

Mostly I was bewildered by the depiction of ME. I realize that the illness is a spectrum and that the Stephen character is less debilitated than I am. I know people in a similar position. So that’s fine. But Murdoch is not specific about the disease’s actual symptoms or how it manifests physically. Although Stephen can’t work, he lives a very active life in these pages; he has to rest frequently but that’s all (and this isn’t explored in detail). It’s very strange given Murdoch’s own experience of the illness. I expected more description of PEM in particular, even if the characters don’t have this terminology available to them. There is also a lot of language about just willing yourself to feel better, which I think the book understands is pernicious, but the character has such a vague conception of illness and disability (in fact, he says he isn’t disabled, despite the fact that he clearly is) that all this talk becomes muddled and can be a bit troubling.

Again, I understand that this comes from a good place, but I don’t think everyone needs to write a book to express themselves. Murdoch has written an excellent song about the experience of ME and has campaigned for ME patients in a much more direct and persuasive way than he can in this book. Obviously he has other motivations here too but the book isn’t… good… when you’re already a gifted songwriter and musician why not continue expressing yourself in that medium?

A very frustrating reading experience.
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6928958957
 
Stuart Murdoch on Craig Charles' show on 6 Music this afternoon. If you find the show on BBC Sounds, the interview starts about an hour in.

Early on in the interview they talk about him running a marathon at 18 and running 10K road races, until he 'got chronic fatigue [sic]... maybe I burnt myself out! ... [afterwards] I was obviously never the same again.'

He says ME used to be 'like Fight Club', you'd only talk about it with others in the community because no one outside understood it or believed you. 'It's a mystery, and the medical community hates a mystery'. Brings in Long Covid and fibromyalgia. Says he feels hopeful new treatments are coming and there'll be a 'breakthrough' soon.
 
Stuart Murdoch

Clip • 16 Mins • 13 MAY • Arena

Belle and Sebastian frontman, Stuart Murdoch, talks to us about his debut novel Nobody’s Empire. https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22512443/

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Comment: 16-minute interview on Irish national radio. ME is mentioned a large amount of times, though I'm not sure it's great as an awareness piece as it doesn't really get into the symptoms and impairments that much.

This is an arts programme and that's the main perspective of the interview.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1928561236288872921
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