Author interview: Alison Moore on Death and the Seaside

If you’ve been reading the Retreat West blog for a while, or been on a retreat with me, you’ll know that I am a big fan of Alison Moore’s work and especially loved her debut novel, The Lighthouse. Recently, I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of her latest novel, Death and the Seaside, which comes out with Salt Publishing on 1st August 2016, and then got to ask her some questions about it…

 

Alison, I found the whole novel to have a very surreal and dreamlike quality – is this dreamy heading into nightmarish atmosphere you’ve created a direct reflection of Bonnie’s state of mind?
Throughout the novel, there’s a question of what can be trusted, what is real: there’s a story within Bonnie’s story, which in a sense is a story within the ‘real’ story, but they’re both stories; there’s the question of what is real within these storyworlds; there are references to dreams, whose worlds can feel completely real while we’re in them, and in a sense dreams are real experiences. So there’s this rather blurred boundary between what is ‘real’ and what is not, and I think that’s where that surreal/dreamlike/nightmarish atmosphere comes from.

 

The stories that Bonnie starts but never finishes all seem to be about her about her but she doesn’t seem to notice this, or accept it when Sylvia points it out. Do you think subconsciously she was trying to write a life story that she would really want to have, which is why she didn’t know how to end them as she didn’t know what she wanted?
I think Bonnie’s stories, like her dreams, are a strange translation and exploration of experiences and possibilities, and the inclusion of autobiography in fiction can be a subconscious process – I know I’ve had moments where a piece of writing has been completed and even published before I’ve realised the connection between what I’ve written and something in my own life. Bonnie is so defensive about the parallels between herself and her protagonist that in fact I think this shows us how dangerously close she is to being this ‘fictional’ character.

 

For me, the strong themes of suggestibility, mind control and alienation also worked as a metaphor for what modern life in Britain is like. Is that something you intended?
I have drawn on aspects of the contemporary world with respect to influence, which is a key theme in the book and includes the influence of advertising etc, which is related to suggestibility and so on, and Bonnie is deliberately written to be particularly responsive to the various messages with which she is bombarded.

 

Just like Futh and Lewis before her, Bonnie is a character that has no real friends to speak of. What draws you to write about people like this?
What interests me is the dynamic between this quiet personality type – someone who is pootling through life – and what I call a disrupter, e.g. Sydney in He Wants, and Sylvia in Death and the Seaside. The story lies in the crossing of their paths.

***

Many thanks for coming along, Alison, and to you and Salt for the advance copy of Death and the Seaside. It is a great read.

You can get a copy of Death and the Seaside here and keep up to date with Alison’s writing news on her website.

Guest author: Helen MacKinven – The Naming Game

Delighted to have Helen Mackinven back on the blog today for the launch of her new novel, Buy Buy Baby. It’s a great read and raised many ethical questions in my mind. Thanks for coming, Helen, over to you…

 

My latest novel is called Buy Buy Baby, and the naming of my new ‘baby’ is something that took a long time to get right.

The title of a novel is important. Often I’ve heard of writers having very little control over the title of their novel although I’m lucky never to have experienced this scenario, not yet. When I wrote my debut novel, Talk of the Toun, the title remained the same from the submitted manuscript until the final publication. Except for one very important letter, which was ‘o’, as my original title was, Talk of the Toon. This caused a debate with my publisher and we even posed the question on social media, ‘Should it be ‘toon’ or ‘toun’? I was adamant that the spelling should be with an ‘o’ as that’s the right context for the urban Scots dialect of the book but my publisher felt ‘toon’ is associated with Newcastle football team. In the end, the publisher always has the final say and that’s that.

With Buy Buy Baby, the title is very different from my original choice which was The Angel’s Bench. The novel is a dual narrative and throughout the story both characters, Julia and Carol, use a specific bench in a woodland area to rest and reflect. It’s a key meeting point and some of the most significant scenes are played out the bench. The reference to ‘Angel’ in the title becomes clear when Carol uses her time at the bench to remember her dead son whom she believes is now an angel in heaven.

The original title made sense to me but when I secured a literary agent, she felt that it didn’t sell the book to readers and could lead them to think it had a spiritual theme. The key theme in the book is motherhood and how far two women will go achieve their goal of becoming pregnant. This results in a moral dilemma of whether or not the women are willing to pay the price on every level – financially, emotionally and psychologically. After many suggestions which bounced back and forth between my agent and me, we finally agreed on Buy Buy Baby as the right title. There’s also a reference to the Bay City Rollers song, Bye Bye Baby in the book so it worked on several levels. I’m also a sucker for alliteration.

Long story short, I no longer have a literary agent but I still have the title and it’s one that my publisher felt ticked all the right boxes without changing a single letter!

***

I have to say that I agree with the former agent that Buy Buy Baby is the better title!

You can get a copy of Buy Buy Baby here and keep up to date with Helen’s writing news on her website and by connecting with her on Twitter.

Year of Indie Debuts: 183 Times A Year by Eva Jordan

Today’s Indie Debut star is Eva Jordan, whose novel 183 Times A Year is about mothers and daughters, a relationship that always has a lot of material to mine! 

Firstly, I’d like to thank the lovely Amanda, fellow Urbane author, for having me on her blog today. Amanda suggested I write a post about the themes discussed in my debut novel.

Write what you know, I was advised. So I did. Inspired by the women in my life including my mother, daughters and close friends, 183 Times A Year is a humorous observation of contemporary family life. Love, loss and friendship weave their way throughout this amusing and sometimes tragic story, however, in the main, 183 Times A Year is a poignant, heartfelt look at the complex and diverse relationship between a mother and her teenage daughter.

Our history books are littered with notable mother­-daughter relationships including Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, Marie Curie and Iréne Joliot­ Curie, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane and Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst to name just a few.

The actress Jamie Lee Curtis said of her mother and fellow actress, Janet Leigh, “My mother was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. There are moments when I remember her beauty, unadorned, unposed, not in some artificial place like a set or a photo call but rather captured outdoors in nature, where she took my breath away. When those moments surface, I miss her the most.”

And to her daughter, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland said, “Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.”

Seen from two points of view, 183 Times A Year is narrated through two very different voices, namely Lizzie and Cassie. Lizzie is the exasperated mother of Cassie, Connor and stepdaughter, Maisy, and the frustrated voice of reason to her daughter’s teenage angst. She gets by with good friends, cheap wine and talking to herself—out loud.

Whereas 16-­year­ old Cassie is the Facebook­ing, Tweeting, selfie­ taking, music and mobile phone obsessed teen that hates everything about her life. She longs for the perfect world of Chelsea Divine and her ‘undivorced’ parents—and Joe, the gorgeous boy every girl fancies.

Although I am both a mother and step mother and was therefore able to draw on many of my own experiences, as well as those of friends and family (when Cassie refers to Virginia Woolf as Canary Wharf and the current British Prime Minister as Cameron Diaz, I was actually drawing on fact, not fiction), I also carried out a great deal of research. I discovered (and suddenly remembered) that being a teenager isn’t easy. Nonetheless, being the mother of such isn’t always a bed of roses either.

Whilst most five­-year ­old girls love their mother with an unshakeable conviction, it is often a different story by the time they reach their teens. The once adored mother who barely put a foot wrong is suddenly doing or saying embarrassing things and dumbfounded mothers discover their testing teens often feel criticised or judged by their well-­meaning actions or advice. Throw in step-parents and step-siblings to the mixing pot of today’s divided and extended families and you’re probably in for a bumpy ride.

According to a survey reported by The Telegraph in May 2013 studying the relationship between teenage daughters and their mothers, a teenage girl will, during a year:

  • cry over boys 123 times
  • slam 164 doors
  • have 257 fights with brothers and sisters
  • fall out with their friends 127 times despite spending 274 hours on the phone to them.

Guess what they do 183 times a year!

Teenage daughters often feel torn between wanting to remain close to their mothers and wanting to separate. Fortunately, this wild swing from remoteness to closeness doesn’t last though. Further research suggests that the mother­-daughter relationship is so powerful it affects everything from a woman’s health to her self­ esteem. Dr Christiane Northrup, author of the book Mother­-Daughter Wisdom (Hay House), says: “The mother-daughter relationship is the most powerful bond in the world, for better or for worse. It sets the stage for all other relationships.”

So, although at times the mother-daughter relationship is a road fraught with diverse and complex emotions, it can also be – like many strong, female friendships – very enriching and rewarding. If mum and daughter can hang in there, the relationship comes full circle and usually moves to a different level altogether. Often blossoming into a loving, respectful relationship.

However, if all else fails, remember…it’s not a life, it’s an adventure!

***

Thanks for coming, Eva.

If you’d like to read 183 Times A Year, the ebook version is currently reduced to £1.99 and is available here.

Or, if you’d like a signed paperback version, or would just like to chat, you can connect with Eva on her website, her Facebook page or follow her on Twitter: @evajordanwriter

Year of Indie Debuts: Paris Mon Amour by Isabel Costello

I’m very happy indeed today to be featuring Isabel Costello in the Indie Debuts spotlight. Isabel and I have been friends for several years now and have been supporting each other on our journey to publication so I was thrilled for her when her novel, Paris Mon Amour, was picked up by exciting new publishers, Canelo. Published today, it is beautifully written, thought provoking and very sad, while also being filled with hope, and I highly recommend it.  So it was great to get the chance to ask Isabel all about it for the blog.

Isabel, your debut novel tells the tale of a love affair between a woman of 40 and a man of 23 – can you tell us about the inspiration for this story?

There is quite a history to it! Paris Mon Amour started life as a short story four years ago, a kind of personal response to the depiction of female sexuality in Fifty Shades of Grey, which wasn’t one I recognised. It was a natural choice to make the protagonist closer to my own age, not least because it’s relatively rare to find a woman over 40 centre-stage in a novel.

Although it’s unusual for me to start from an agenda, the premise soon came to me very vividly. Even in its original short form, it was a game-changer which sparked some extremely positive developments. The judges who shortlisted it in the Asham Award called the story ‘novelistic’, which was a challenge and an inspiration. I wrote the novel with a fire burning, and with the invaluable support and guidance of my agent. In Canelo, I’m lucky to have a publisher who love it for what it is and don’t care whether it follows trends.

The older woman/younger man scenario is not one that is explored that often or accepted, frowned upon in a way the reverse situation isn’t, how do you feel about this inequality?

My feelings about this are an extension of my general frustration with sexual inequality and double standards, particularly when it comes to relationships, ageing, looks, etc. For those attitudes to be challenged it takes women of all ages to say we are not silent, we are not invisible. Of course there have been huge, hard-won advances in women’s equality but the continued extent of discrimination and sexism in the 21 st century is astounding – in some respects it seems worse than ever.

In fiction, ‘older man/younger woman’ is a tired trope but I was conscious that the reverse isn’t exactly original either (‘Mrs Robinson’ gets mentioned a lot). That never worried me as my aim was to get so deeply into the characters that the story could only be about Alexandra and Jean-Luc – and her husband Philippe. And considering that her lover is the son of Philippe’s best friend, the age gap was never going to be the only issue. Far from it!

Your narrator, Alexandra, is so caught up in her lust and discovery of new sexual feelings, that she dismisses some very obvious signs that all is not quite right with her young lover, Jean-Luc. Her feelings of guilt are obvious from the very first line of the novel. Do you believe she is right to feel guilty? 

Guilt is something most women can relate to, and it manifests in so many ways in Paris Mon Amour, in different threads of the story, that I couldn’t give you a straight answer if I tried (certainly not without spoiling it)! I like to leave space for the reader to formulate their own response to Alexandra, but I’m not averse to making it a bit uncomfortable. I take a situation to which many people would have an instinctive reaction – infidelity is wrong/I would never do something like that – and blur the lines.

I don’t like moralising books and there was never any danger of me writing one! Humans are complicated and I am far more interested in understanding my characters – a big part of making them believable – than in judging them. When Alexandra meets Jean-Luc and discovers ‘layers to sex she never knew existed’, it disrupts her entire life, blinding her to other things she doesn’t want to see. Sometimes she actively deludes herself in an attempt to justify what’s going on, but the guilt is never far from the surface.

For me the story raises many questions around culpability and how responsible we can ever be for the feelings and actions of others. What are your thoughts on that?

I can see why you’d ask those questions, as they reverberate throughout the book, whilst being impossible to answer categorically. On the whole, I would tend to say that ultimately we are responsible for our own actions, although it’s tempting, and perhaps just part of human nature, to try to blame our mistakes on others.

I think a degree of care and concern (not quite the same as ‘responsibility’) for others’ feelings is fundamental to human interaction given that most people naturally have empathy and compassion, although it is confusing to look at the state of the world and see so much evidence to the contrary.

Personally I believe we have a responsibility to try to be decent, act in good faith and not inflict unnecessary pain on others, but life is a painful business and sometimes it can’t be avoided, for example, when relationships end. My characters are good at heart; they don’t set out to hurt each other but nobody can be on their best behaviour all the time. As Alexandra finds, harming those you love can be as devastating as being on the receiving end.

Paris is a major character in the book too – do you think that the story could ever have been set elsewhere?

That is lovely to hear, thank you! It never crossed my mind to set it anywhere else, and I don’t think it would have worked. I wanted to tap into the romance and sexiness Paris is famous for, whilst also reflecting it as the real place I know, which is why I set part of it in the lesser-known 19 th arrondissement. My relationship with Paris is an intense one; it always induces a heightened emotional state, somehow, and although its associations are mostly positive, I’ve done some stupid things there myself.

This story absolutely needed the cultural conflict between Alexandra, an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ outsider/insider who has lived in Paris for ten years, and the more liberal outlook on infidelity held by some Parisians – certainly not all! I am lucky to have friends in Paris and other parts of France and it was enlightening hearing their take on all this.

Thanks for having me and for asking such interesting questions, Amanda.

***

Thanks for coming, Isabel and happy publication day!

You can get a copy of Paris Mon Amour here, find out more about Isabel and her novel on her blog and connect with her on Twitter.

What do you think about the questions the novel raises around infidelity, culpability and guilt?

Guest author: Helen Victoria Anderson – A Way Back

Welcome to Helen Victoria Anderson today. Her guest blog is about writing as therapy and how it has helped her to come to terms with her young daughter’s death. Thanks for coming, Helen, and for sharing this lovely piece of writing with us.

A Way Back

I have been a firm believer in the therapeutic potential of writing since I started scribbling my way through a long, major depression when my children were younger. It started out as pouring my guts onto the page, which could get quite messy. Then, I was encouraged by mental health staff to attend Adult Education classes, and subsequently I went back to university to study for a Masters in Creative Writing. It is the best thing I have ever done: more than once, writing has saved me from the darkness which creeps up on me.

In his memoir, On Writing, Stephen King states “Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life” and I totally agree (I’m sure Stephen King will be relieved to hear that.) Aside from that initial spilling of emotions – resulting in puddles of stuff which may or may not be suitable for sharing – there is the satisfaction of shaping initial ideas into crafted pieces which will connect with fellow human beings. For me, until recently, these pieces had largely taken the form of poetry and literary fiction with autobiographical seeds. (No matter how much we might dress things up, deliberately or subconsciously, I think all writing ultimately comes from our own experiences of the world).

In the beginning, I wrote about depression and struggles with not feeling good enough as a mother. I wrote some frivolous, jokey pieces from time to time but I really felt at my most fulfilled when I was sinking my teeth into subject-matter like mid-life crises and looming empty nests. Usually, I cowered behind fictional characters or narrative personae, because even that felt scary and exposing enough. But in a good way.

At university, it was encouraged – in a safe, holding environment – to delve into painful experiences which came up. As well as being intensely cathartic on a personal level, this gave me plenty of compelling material to transform into powerful poetry and stories. I gained confidence. Writing made me feel more ‘myself’.

Three years ago, a terrible tragedy struck our family and I once again turned to the page, in order to survive. When my fourteen year old daughter, Georgina, was diagnosed with Stage Four liver cancer in June 2013, I poured my awful fears and unspeakable feelings into my journal. I scrawled in notebooks, in between meetings with doctors and watching rubbish telly with Georgina at her hospital bedside. I wrote often, as the catastrophe of Georgina’s terminal diagnosis unfolded. And when she died less than four months after they found her tumours, I wrote about my grief and all the things I wanted to remember about her.

As I felt my way through the first months after her death, I charted my journey by flinging down verbal crumbs and crusts (whole loaves, even) like some kind of crazed, writerly Hansel and Gretel. Sometimes, my words were raw and agonised: sometimes, more reflective. Always, the discipline of writing helped me slow down and breathe and re-order things. (I was going to write ‘make sense of things’ but I am not sure there can ever be any sense to a beautiful, talented young girl being snatched away).

I am frequently asked how I am managing to cope with this unthinkable loss. In response, I have published those diaries. They are largely unchanged from the original entries, except for a few minor tweaks to respect other’s privacy. ‘Piece by Piece: Remembering Georgina: A Mother’s Memoir’ is an unflinching account of a shattering loss.

This book is very much my story as Georgina’s mother. Telling it felt essential. Not only have I found it empowering to recount my experiences, but many readers have contacted me to say that the book has given them insight into coping with adversity and supporting bereaved loved-ones. I take some comfort from knowing that others have related to my writing, and that, even in some small way, I may have made people in distress feel less  alone.

It is not all doom and gloom for the reader: my book is shot through with the dark humour which serves me reasonably well as a coping strategy. ‘Piece by Piece: Remembering Georgina: A Mother’s Memoir’ is my testament to my young daughter’s courage. It is also a reflection on the power of community and the amazing strength of the human spirit in difficult times.

But I have aimed to be honest about the bad bits and the even worse bits of this worst kind of bereavement. I have left in details that perhaps don’t show me in the most favourable of light, and where I have possibly come across as ever-so- slightly unhinged. I have made myself vulnerable, but this has been strangely liberating.

I started off writing these journal entries just for myself, but there is something sustaining about making profound connections via the printed word. I have sought to be brutally honest, in the hope that readers will see their own truths reflected in mine. It was particularly important to me to give my own version of events because, as Georgina was a talented singer-songwriter, my daughter’s illness and death were widely reported in the media. I am saying, loud and clear – in black and white – “This is what happened to me. This is my story, and writing it is helping me find my way through.”

***

Helen Victoria Anderson is a writer based in the North East of England. She has an MA in Creative Writing (Distinction) from Teesside University. Helen won First Prize in the Ink Tears Flash Fiction Contest 2015 and the Bridgwater Homestart Short Story Competition 2013. Her poetry and short stories have been published in a number of literary magazines and she is working on a novel. Helen is married, with a grown-up son and a loopy labrador.

Piece by Piece: Remembering Georgina: A Mother’s Memoir (Slipway Press, 2015) is available from Amazon as an e-book and paperback. You can buy a copy here.

You can follow Helen’s writing on her blog, and connect with on Facebook and on Twitter.

 

Publisher interview: Anna Hughes at The Pigeonhole

Recently, I spoke with Rajeev Balasubramanyan about his new novel, Starstruck, and in doing so found out about the exciting digital publisher, The Pigeonhole. I love the idea of returning to the serialisation of novels for the digital age and providing an experience around them, so spoke to the founder and editor, Anna Hughes, to find out more about it.

Anna, can you tell us what inspired the idea of serialising novels and providing other content around them?

The Pigeon’s foundations were formed from a desire to bridge the yawning gap between authors and their readers. The plan was to use the dynamism of a digital launch to offer authors a fresh new platform from which to shout about their works and, really, themselves. The serialisation bit actually came from my business partner Jacob. His original pitch to me, over many drinks and a sketch on a napkin, was Dickens done digitally. I was sold. The idea of using delayed gratification to create an online water cooler moment around books, one championed by the great man of English Literature, such an idea.

In today’s world, we are doing so much more. Dickens changed the way that people read books, by giving literature to the everyman. He made printed stories accessible and relevant. Now we are using the same method to help people fit their reading back into their lives, no matter how busy you might be.

Serialisation to an app means that your book is ready for you whenever and wherever you have the time to read, because really, when are you ever without your phone?

The extra content was merely another device to introduce a writer to their audience. What’s evolved from that is multi-media to give a fully rounded look at the book, as well as offering little talking points and rewards for finishing a stave.

How do you recognise when a book will work well as a serial?

I’m not convinced that all books can or should be serialised. The key to what we do is curation. Non-fiction has long been popular on our site. I suspect this is largely because people are used to reading non-fiction on their phones. We love doing it; it lends itself so well to extra content and discussion. We’ve published a wide range from classics such as Art of War, to commissioned travelogues and 3-minute summaries of top non-fiction books in partnership with Blinkist.

When it comes to fiction, we are open to everything, just so long as there is a strong narrative drive and brilliant storytelling. Short stories are obviously a dream for us to publish, and a pet-passion of mine. As is genre fiction. We recently launched a disappearing book with Head of Zeus. Every day for two weeks we released a new stave of Stefan Ahnhem’s extraordinary thriller – Victim Without a Face – and at 5am the next day, we’d steal it away. The readers went crazy with their comments. By the end of the serialisation we had readers yabbering away at each other, and the author as well, it was a joy to see.

You’ve created a global community of readers and writers – can you tell us a bit about how it works for both the authors you work with and the readers that have joined the community?

We began life working directly with authors as a digital publishing platform, though in the two years since our Beta book, we have grown into a support arm for authors and their publishers. The Pigeon’s aim it to make as much noise as we can for all the books on our site, to create a mobile readership and to craft a space for writers to meet their readers and discuss ideas through the pages of a book. We also want to help publishers to understand their market by providing granular data on the demographics behind any launch through our site.

From a reader’s perspective it is all about providing beautifully written books, delivered in a way that can fit into any lifestyle, anywhere; it’s about building a community of people who are brought together through their love of literature; it’s about offering an innovative way to discover hidden meaning in what they are reading, and finally to meet their heroes.

What kind of stories are you looking for if writers are thinking of submitting to you?

At the moment we are collecting submissions for a hugely ambitious project that we’re launching alongside the Southbank Centre’s Festival of Love. From September 1 st our readers will have a little bit of love delivered to them every day in the form of a letter. Our Letters on Love series is going to explore the true nature of this most important of emotions. But we are looking at all themes, all shapes, all colours and sizes that it comes in. The hetero-normative backbone of our society is so passé.

What’s coming up from Pigeonhole over the next few months?

The more publishers and agents we work with, the more diverse and exciting our list becomes. Next month we’ve got our first ever YA novel from Hungarian sensation A.O. Esther and Lost Souls, a story of lovelorn angels. Following that is The Sacred Combe by Thomas Maloney, an exceptional literary debut around a troubled family history within a mysterious country house. In July we’re working with Vagabond Voices to serialise Redlegs, Chris Dolan’s brilliant modern classic set in 19th century colonial Barbados. Then in October we’re launching Home with Valeria Huerta and Niki Barbery-Bleyleben. Our concept of home, our sense of place and belonging within a family, within a community, provides us with our orientation unto the world that we inhabit; this series of essays explores the theory behind place and its purpose in our lives.

We also have a made-for- digital project coming up. We’re currently pulling together a little game of Pass the Pigeon. The idea is that we publish a chapter and every week a new author is chosen to write the next one. Though the direction will be crowd-sourced by the readers. Can’t wait to get that one started. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

***

Thanks so much for coming, Anna. It’s great to have discovered the Pigeon and I’m really looking forward to seeing these stories and projects.

You can connect with the Pigeon on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date with what’s coming next. Find out more about submitting to them on the website.