Steve Attwell is a South African author now living in the UK, a writer whose work invites readers into questions of memory, identity, place, masculinity, and the emotional landscapes people carry with them across borders. For BEAUX HOMMES, his voice feels especially relevant: thoughtful, literary, observant, and alive to the complicated beauty of human experience.
In this exclusive conversation, we ask Attwell about writing, South Africa, the UK, the inner lives of men, the role of art, and what it means to build a creative life across cultures.
1. Let’s begin with the book itself. What was the first image, memory, or idea that made you realize this story needed to be written? It came out of my own experience of dating. I noticed I kept being drawn to people who criticized me easily and discarded me just as easily. At some point I stopped asking ‘why do they treat me this way’ and started asking ‘why do I keep choosing this’ — and the answer led somewhere further back than dating. One such experience actually did begin with a man pulling up outside my East-London flat on a Harley-Davidson. I had this image of a confident, entitled and privileged person breezing into my life and causing a storm that lasted over a decade.
2. Your work seems deeply interested in place. How have South Africa and the UK shaped your imagination as a writer? Growing up in South Africa, I was surrounded by mystery and belief systems that don’t get much airtime elsewhere. The woman who looked after me when I was very young — Betty in the book — shared some of these tales with me, and I wanted to bring some of that into the story. The UK has legends like the Loch Ness Monster, and I wanted to use these given my story deals with human monsters and their origins. So there is definitely some overlap between the two. The theme of monsters runs throughout much of the story: the African inspiration focused on the ultimate need to confront monsters, while the UK inspiration focused on their origins. The town I grew up in, Port Shepstone, I often describe as Twin Peaks — things that would seem totally out of place in the rest of the world are somehow normal there. My great-great-grandmother, Lady Lillian Shelmerdine, kept a pet cheetah, for example.
3. Do you think a writer ever truly leaves the place they come from, or does that place keep returning in the work in different forms? Africa will always shape how I tell a story. I was influenced by the nature of the African stories I heard as a child — there’s something truly powerful in them. They always frame a challenge the protagonist must face, along with a lesson learned, and the spirit of Ubuntu — a philosophy that emphasizes the connectedness between people and nature. I think I draw on this more as I get older, even when the story isn’t set in Africa at all.
4. BEAUX HOMMES readers are drawn to art, beauty, bodies, cities, romance, and emotional honesty. Where do you think beauty appears most strongly in your book? That would have to be in Carl’s emotional honesty and integrity. When Bash insults Carl and attacks his masculinity, that is a direct draw on my own lived experience. I think there’s something beautiful and important in owning your true self. I wanted to show that masculinity and bravery are not necessarily connected – that bravery comes in all shapes and sizes. In the story, Carl performs a rescue. That was lifted from a rescue I carried out in 1997, when a man was swept out to sea during flooding in our town. I stood on the shore with maybe fifty other men watching. I was the one who dove in and saved him. And, well — Bash is quite sexy too.
5. Masculinity is changing in literature and culture. How do you approach male characters without making them simple heroes, villains, or symbols? This was a challenge as I didn’t want to vilify anyone based off superficial traits. Masculinity itself isn’t inherently good or bad and I hope readers will conclude that the choice to be good or bad is not driven by sexual orientation, culture or immutable differences. The two main characters share many similarities in their respective pasts but one strives to be mostly good while the other does not. I wanted the characters to both demonstrate good and bad qualities as that is more consistent with real life. No one is universally anything. Angry men sometimes cry. People going through emotionally difficult times might be called upon to act bravely. I think a few flaws make characters come to life.
6. What role does desire play in your writing — not just sexual desire, but the desire for freedom, recognition, love, escape, or reinvention? Carl’s desire is to be loved and valued. He’s a Gen X man, and that was an overlooked cohort. He battled at school due to ADHD and grew up believing he was stupid. That was actually my story — the description of being slapped in front of the entire class actually happened to me. That experience shapes what I understand desire to really be: not just to be seen and loved for who you are, but maybe to be special to one person. I think that’s a common desire, as is the desire to change the trajectory of one’s life. Some of these things you can control. Some you can’t. I think London’s dating scene can make the desire for love seem hopeless some days, but not impossible.
7. Many readers are interested in the hidden life of characters: what they cannot say, what they remember, what they regret. Are secrets important in your work? Some secrets are important, although I eventually do reveal them. I feel that in writing, secrets or things left unsaid — momentarily — can help build toward a revelation. Carl expresses regret over a prayer he says as a child, and it’s revisited later, where we find out what the prayer was. I think secrets and timing work well to form a character that — even if flawed — you can root for.
8. How does your creative process begin? Do you start with character, setting, voice, conflict, or something more instinctive? Aww, I love this question. It’s really weird for me. I usually need a sentence that sets the narrative up for the rest of the story. In my opening sentence I say “The first time…” That set up the desire to examine events over time, and led to the flashbacks and what they reveal about Carl. The rest was lived experience — most of the critical things said to Carl were said to me over my time in London, just not all from the same person. From there, I picture the scene and let it play out like a movie in my head. I watch it over and over until the details emerge.
9. Was there a character in the book who surprised you as you were writing? Carl starts to find his inner warrior, and I hadn’t found my own inner warrior when I started writing this book. I had an experience that triggered the story, and much of it remained unresolved when I began to write. Carl’s journey to authenticity became my own, and I hope people who read this book and live with self-doubt will challenge their inner Narc Watch and become their own guiding voice — their own hero. There was also the voice of the advice column, which grew more and more sinister as the story unfolded. I realised the column itself had become a character of its own. It felt good to finally silence it.
10. What kind of reader do you imagine when you write? Do you write toward a specific audience, or do you write first to satisfy the demands of the story? I started off writing for a friend who had gone through similar experiences to mine. Lana — called Leila in the book — was my first reader. I wanted to write for anyone familiar with trauma, narcissistic partners, or the process of surviving them. I imagine readers as people who have been the underdog at some point — essentially good people living with self-doubt.
11. BEAUX HOMMES is based in the worlds of Paris, New York, art, fashion, music, sex, literature, and creative people. If your book were placed in conversation with a painting, film, song, or city, what would you choose? For a painting, it would have to be Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, by Gustav Klimt. I reference it in the book. I love this painting, but for me it shows an idealized version of the artist’s affection. Surrounded in gold, she is an image of desire, although the woman in the painting looks fragile and serene. I think the narcissistic tendency to put the object of their affection on a pedestal — however briefly — only to discard them, made me think of this beautiful painting.
For a song, Downtown by Majical Cloudz. It captures the early stages of love perfectly — the joy you experience waking up each morning knowing that someone is thinking about you. It’s the best feeling in the world when it starts, and the worst feeling when it ends.
12. What do you hope readers feel when they finish the final page? That you are enough. That life can be unfair and difficult, but that you must always have your own back. That you are worthy of kindness and respect, and that we can all benefit from accepting each other as we are.
13. What has living in the UK given you creatively that you may not have had elsewhere? Mostly an appreciation of culture. I think only ever living in your own country — especially a small seaside town — doesn’t allow for a deep understanding of cultural difference. Living in the UK, and specifically London, made me less apologetic for who I am. I remember going to Soho for the first time in 2004, and a man in a wedding dress roller-skated down Compton Street, having the time of his life. I wanted to run up and hug him — he was just so carefree and happy. Where I grew up in South Africa was quite conservative; such a thing would have been very unlikely to happen.
14. What does South Africa continue to give you as a writer, emotionally or imaginatively? Mostly, it still acts as a kind of litmus test — a reminder of what happens when you don’t dare enough. Even a photograph I submitted to your magazine for the review of my book — me naked in a chair — was met with surprise from some of my South African friends. I didn’t want to write a book that played it safe, and South Africa’s impact on me meant I wrote in a more conservative style when I was younger. So in a strange way, the country still pushes me toward boldness — if only by showing me what caution looks like. The country itself has changed a lot in the time I’ve been away. But life in the UK, and London especially, was like putting me on steroids.
15. Do you believe literature still has the power to change how people see themselves? Absolutely — though I accept that literature impacts people differently. I loved Dean Koontz’s From the Corner of His Eye. It made me want to be a better person. I feel I was preoccupied with arguing my point, or setting things right, before reading this book. Now I believe kindness is so important — though that doesn’t mean there’s no place for standing up to tyranny sometimes. But I try to practice being kinder, and I regret being less understanding when I was younger.
16. For readers who are also trying to write, what is the most important lesson you have learned about finishing a book? Write with an authentic voice. This was the hardest thing for me to achieve, and it really did come on the back of a complete breakdown. In the book, Carl’s breakdown was mine. But I lived in a very controlled and stifled time in South Africa, where individualism was actively discouraged. Finding an authentic voice is so hard for some people, and it risks being disliked. But if you don’t have an authentic voice, you won’t like what you put down on the page.
17. What are you working on next, and what creative questions are pulling you forward now? I am working on Betty’s story. She is witness to three generations in South Africa and confronts a terrible evil. It is based on actual events, and we see Carl again as a boy she looks after. The events in this next story take place just before ME Caveman you narcissist ends, where Carl takes a trip back to South Africa. It explores how revenge can keep us trapped in a pendulum of victim and aggressor, and the power of forgiveness to free us from it.
For BEAUX HOMMES, Steve Attwell represents the kind of writer we love to follow thoughtful, worldly, emotionally alert, and interested in the complicated beauty of being human.
BEAUX HOMMES magazine would like to thank Steve Attwell for sitting down with us and sharing his thoughts and goals with our readers. May the book sales continue and we would love to do it again.
