Matthew Smith, director of Urbane Publications, pins down actor Steven Berkoff, to discuss his first novel, Sod The Bitches!, ahead of his appearance at Blackwell’s bookshop

Renowned playwright and actor Steven Berkoff has just released a controversial debut novel. On the surface, it appears to celebrate misogyny. But is that really the case?

Berkoff is best known to many for roles in blockbuster films such as Beverly Hills Cop, Octopussy and, more recently, David Fincher’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

But he is also an esteemed playwright, director and theatre actor, with a reputation for being as forthright in real life as some of his screen and stage creations.

Certainly his new book – which carries the catchy title Sod the Bitches! – similarly appears to pull no punches, so why the novel? And why write a debut at the age of 77?

“I thought ‘I want to write a rude, candid, confessional, brutal book’ and then the story gradually evolved. I find it very satisfying to write, because you can purge many things and vent what you feel under the mask of fiction.

“It was a way for me to express some of those funny little annoyances, those little kind of anxieties, those frustrations, those bitternesses. And I wanted to write something about the male-female conflict. I’ve been noticing over the years a kind of conflict and more militancy.

“Over the past few decades, there has perhaps been a bit more politicising between the two sexes and a man like the central character, John, a man who is in middle age and losing his focus in the world, that can be a very difficult issue to deal with rationally.

“With the feminist movement — a good movement which I support — there’s been more overt criticism of the male, an attitude that men are failing to understand the finer nature of women, failing to appreciate their needs, failing to support them, failing to be compassionate.

“So when you say what made me write this, I started to read things about men being clumsy, careless, [that] they lack awareness, they’re restricted, they can’t talk about their feelings like women can, they’re bound up, they’re neurotic.

“I think many men read and notice women saying things about men in a jokey, cynical way, and yet suspect that the reverse would be regarded as offensive; that’s the confusion that someone like John can’t deal with and so he overreacts.

“John is a misogynist. He has become a misogynist over time because he loves and needs women so much. He’s so desperate; they are his life, his very being is to be with a woman. And he finds he is being wounded by them, maligned, manipulated, exploited, and his misogyny springs from this inability to cope.

“He finds himself destroying the people he loves, and his own values and purpose.

“Men are often perceived to focus on a need to be sexually fulfilled, to express the fantasy and the dynamic of sex.

“It suggests they are cunning, manipulative, that to fulfil their desires they lie and cheat and erode what is the spirit of being a good man. We know there are men like this and the novel reflects that.

“Obviously, critics will try and make connections with my own life, but I don’t worry about that. Let them all read it. I’m not afraid to write a controversial book, because we should be debating controversial issues.

“So I thought, ‘Why not write something, have no fear? Just be free. It doesn’t matter if people loathe you or hate you or find you disgusting; it doesn’t matter’.”

Steven Berkoff
* Sod the Bitches! is published in hardback, at £12.99, Urbane Publications 
The debut novelist will appear at Blackwell’s bookshop, Oxford, to take about his new book
* Monday, May 4, 6.30pm
* Call 01865 333620