"I don't think it comes across as an attractive or particularly interesting lifestyle..."

As with any creative media concerning Nazism or neo fascism, there's always the danger of the artist appearing sympathetic to their subject matter or characters (Downfall springs to mind - it took quite a bit of heat). Did this pose any problems with characterisation?

Well, it was clearly something I was aware of. I suppose I had two approaches to this. On the one hand I kind of hoped that the reader would be critical enough themselves, particularly for a relatively literary novel - it's not going to sell to a million people. So, hopefully, the readers will take their own view. The danger of seducing readers of Granta novels with fascism seemed negligible. Secondly, the novel obviously tries to deal with fascism as a theme, which is partly why you have the two plot strands. I would admit that the skinheads can seem to be sympathetic, but I think the one thing I tried very hard not to do was glamourise fascism. I don't think it comes across as an attractive or particularly interesting lifestyle.

In a way you've humanised as opposed to sympathised with the fascist characters.

[Laughs] Thank you. That pretty much sums up what I was trying to do.

Has there been much reaction from any right or left wing groups concerning the novel? You don't appear to depict either side in a particularly positive light; in particular the communists rise to prominence in the 90s.

Really? I didn't think I had portrayed the communists negatively.

It was the chapter set in waterloo, where the communists seem to take the mantle of violence away from the fascists by using it against them.

I guess - yes, I suppose on the one hand that might not seem terribly attractive but on the other hand it was one of the things I wanted to deal with. It was the street level opposition to fascism that actually beat it back, so I don't want to sound like I'm entirely opposed to that, whether it's Cable Street in the 30s or Brick Lane in the 70s. It's not going to be the police who quietly prevent these people from marching - if you want to oppose street demonstrations by fascists you have to demonstrate against them.

As for the reaction to the novel there's been no response, as far as I'm aware, from the right. On the left, it's been reviewed in both 'Socialist Review' and 'The Morning Star'. The Star despised it and the Review really liked it.

The novel is quite brilliantly researched. How long did you spend digging through the British Library's archives before you put pen to paper?

Way too long. I think I almost did a year of research before I started writing. I mean, that wasn't full time, but it was still a lot of research and it was far too detailed. I was writing well out of my comfort zone in terms of stuff I knew about, so I felt I really needed to get quite a lot of research down before I could write about fascism in a way that would sound remotely convincing.

Also, because [the novel] is structured around real history I needed to get enough of that to work out where I wanted to take it. So it was quite a lot.

I think one of the big challenges with drafting the book was taking out the research. The first one had quite a ridiculous amount, including a ten thousand-word essay on the history of Skrewdriver [80s Nazi skinhead punk band], which was ridiculous - so a lot of that had to go.

I was a little surprised when you told me you do most of your writing in the British Library, as most of the writers I know prefer working in their own personal space. Is there any reason you don't work from home, or is the convenience of being this close to the BL archives too tempting to walk away from?

Partly it is simply that I can't take the books from here home and because the writing I was doing was so research heavy if I was working from home I'd constantly be making notes reminding me to check something. But it's also because I'm really very easily distracted. The best time I had writing here was before they had wireless Internet. Generally speaking, if I'm at home the hardest thing about everyday writing is getting started. That's the bit that seems to take forever. [Coming here] is kind of like a job: you come into your office and you have a place where you're sort of expected to work. Whereas if you're at home you can always put on some washing or decide to deal with various letters or bills or whatever, so when you take that away [writing] feels more like a job and you're more likely to do it.

Your secondary protagonist, James, gets increasingly immersed in his research to the extent that his personal life starts to suffer. How close to home was that?

I certainly didn't get immersed in the research the way that James did. There's part of it that is completely true to life, which is the degree to which you become a bit of a Nazi geek and start boring people about Nazis and start finding tiny little details of Nazi life interesting that nobody in their right mind would. But my main reaction to the research, which troubles me more than what happens to the character James, was how quickly I became totally immune to it. The stuff I was reading in here was really tremendously unpleasant - really, really horrible, a lot of it - and it stopped being shocking fairly quickly and it just became 'Oh, there's more of this'. That was, in and of itself, quite disturbing.

You touch briefly on the Nazi Occult.

The British Library has remarkably good holdings on that front, partly because whoever the guiding force is behind 'The Order of Nine Angles' (which is mentioned briefly in the book), evidently sent all of his publications to the BL to make sure they had copies. So they've got everything. They've got detailed Nazi Satanic rites and detailed screeds about their belief systems.

It's fascinating how most of it seems to trace back to the works of Aleister Crowley.

The occult is such a tiny little world that there's always going to be some overlap. The degree to which everything was one or two degrees separated from everything else - I mean you can get from the Nazi occult to large chunks of independent music in the 80s and 90s with a step of about two people, which is odd. Any kind of sub culture or counter culture seems to be . . well not far away from any other one.

When we spoke earlier you mentioned you were working on a new novel. Without giving too much away, what can we expect from your next piece of work?

It would be difficult to give too much away because I'm in the relatively early stages of, once again, quite a lot of research. I don't want to give too much away, because it might change. You can expect, on the one hand, more recent history and probably um, well - no Nazis. But otherwise, you can probably expect more of the same relationship between politics, sex, class and cultural groups. That sort of thing. From a personal perspective I think I want to deal with what I thought were the weaknesses of my first book in terms of craftsmanship, so it might be quite different in a lot of ways.

"Children Of The Sun" by Max Schaefer is out now, published by Granta Books.