Paul McVeigh's 'The Good Son' launches in London

Author, signing books!

Hmm. The moral of the story seems to be don't have a rather nice carafe of Sancerre rose before attending a book launch, so you end up arriving late, as an Eminent Poet support act is about to begin reading. But that's what happened, so Nancy and I stumbled in quietly as possible, to find the cafe at Waterstone's Piccadilly packed, and we had to stumble through the audience, and to the back to find seats! Ah well. We got there, to celebrate the launch of a smashing book, one that has already garnered great reviews, so don't go by what I say - just read it before everyone asks if you have.

It's funny, it's poignant, clever, grabs you from page one and won't let you go until the end, when believe me, you won't forget the story, or the central character, young Mickey Donnelley. What more can you ask of a book? Mr McVeigh kindly agreed to answer a few odd questions for the blog  in celebration of the launch - so here you go.

VG: If you could choose a scene from The Good Son and have it painted, which scene would you pick, who would you choose as the artist, and why on both counts.

Paul: Most of the novel takes place in a couple of streets in a housing estate in Belfast during the Troubles, so one of the scenes that stands out for me visually is the first time the main character Mickey leaves Ardoyne. He stands on Napoleon's Nose (a high point on Cave Hill, Belfast) and from this view he sees Belfast Lough and a ship leaving, heading out of Northern Ireland and away from the Troubles. Quite pivotal for him. I would chose Turner to paint it because he is one of my favourite artists and his paintings of the sea are incredible. 

VG: When The Good Son is made into a film, who would you like to play in particular Ma, Da and  Paddy? 

Paul: Ha! I wish. It's hard to be obvious. And not just chose your favourite actors and make them fit. I loved Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake and I think she would play Ma to perfection.

That stoic quality she captured so well, the no nonsense working class mother and the understated compassion. She would be brilliant.

For Da, Daniel Day Lewis is one of my favourite actors. So intense. I think he would bring out the hopelessness and despair of the man, behind the simplicity of how Mickey sees him. He could also play the darker, violent side.

He'd make a deep impression of a character who isn't in the novel for a long time but has a huge effect on the family.

Paddy. I don't know many young actors. Do you have any suggestions?

VG: Erm, nope, come to think of it. Sorry! Next question, she said, sidestepping neatly. Is Mickey Donnelly a heroic character in the classical sense? (Wikipedia - "a hero is a character who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, displays courage or self-sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good. Historically, the first heros displayed courage or excellence as warriors. The word's meaning was later extended to include moral excellence.") 

(I think he is... but over to the creator...)

Paul McVeigh

Paul: Yes, I think he is. That's been on my mind recently. As writers we can show someone's true character by putting them under extreme pressure. How they react reveals who they are, or are to become. When you have a character like Mickey, who refuses to give in to the despair of poverty and war, fights to maintain his dignity when all around them are losing theirs, in a society where everything he stands for is mocked or brutally destroyed and yet stands in front of them all and says 'I don't care what you think. I know who I am,' then I think you have a hero. He is only a small boy, fighting on all fronts and living in fear, but he is fearless when it comes to protecting the ones he loves. He will take on his older brother, his father, the boys in the street and even the IRA if he has to. He protects, without them even knowing, never wanting to embarrass or trouble them (with Ma), or for them to the evil exists (with his little sister Maggie). Mickey sacrifices his own moral integrity to allow the ones he loves to keep theirs. But he's not a Saint either. He has flaws and a wicked sense of humour, and that keeps him from being too perfect or overly sentimental.


VG: I wish the book so much success, Paul - but suspect it doesn't need my good wishes. Here is just one review, from the eminent Booktrust:

Whatever your age, gender or nationality, so compelling is this narrative that while you read it you're eleven or twelve, on the cusp of puberty: a boy discovering your identity one summer holiday in Catholic Belfast at the height of The Troubles.
To grown-ups, Mickey Donnelly's the archetypal good boy. Polite and amenable, he'll do anything to help his mammy. It's just as well. Mickey's da is oppressed and floundering. He's an alcoholic, free with his fists, and prone to slipping his hand into Mickey's ma's purse to buy his next drink. That's why she keeps checking it's in her pocket. Mickey was heading for grammar school till lack of money ruined his chances. His brother tells him he's so soft he'll never survive the rough local school. If Mickey can't escape via grammar school, he'll escape to America through acting.
Paul McVeigh's Belfast is emotionally raw and brutal. The streets are barricaded, Brit soldiers drag children from their beds in the middle of the night, and their play parks are bomb sites. This is Troubles-era Belfast, though it could equally represent children's experience of warzones anywhere.  The Good Son is a triumph of empathy and the understanding of human dynamics, yet to say that is to vastly understate the range of McVeigh's writing. Mickey is the funniest, most endearing human being for whom we feel huge compassion as he faces each adversity. This novel envelops the reader with its humanity and its down-to-earth humour leaves you laughing.

The Good Son is published by Salt, and is available from all good bookshops. Support the indies!

The Last Kings of Sark - Rosa Rankin-Gee's prizewinning debut novel

I am a lucky person - a facebook message a while back asked would I like to read a prizewinning novella turned into a novel,  about to be published by Virago.  Well, yes please, obviously. I had heard of Rosa Rankin-Gee's wonderful win at the Shakespeare and Co Novella Prize in 2011, with a twinge of jealousy - here she is, only just out of the egg. (Well, to me, most people are just out of the egg.) The jealousy is based on the number of years she has left to write - mumble mumble grump. 

      Reader, The Last Kings of Sark is great. The first portion, which follows the fortunes of three young people on the island of Sark, captures perfectly, and in a fantastic setting, the intense friendships we make when we are almost adult, but not quite... when every day holds possibilities, and we take a deep breath and rush in, as into the sea. It is fascinating, too, to know that it began as this prizewinning novella, then Rankin-Gee took the brave step of extending it, into something greater. I love novellas, wouldn't have minded had it remained thus, but the second half is something of a mirror image -and as mirrors do, we meet ourselves, only not quite. And we meet the characters again...  It is thought provoking, and I found this part hugely poignant, opening up as it did, all sorts of memories about plans in my yoof that never quite...oh you know. I read the whole with with joy, and sent the publishers a few words about the book. Here's the link if you'd like to see what I said, among many others. http://rosarankingee.com/the-last-kings-of-sark/

The Last Kings of Sark is published this week. Just for the blog, the author has been nattering about this terrific debut novel, and about her writing life. 

     

VG: Welcome Rosa. Have a cuppa and a choccie biccie. Right - first , looking at “A novel in parts”-  Congratulations on winning the Shakespeare and Co Novella prize.  I am now trying to imagine the process of adding the second part some time later, if that’s how it went? What issues did you have to face extending it? Was it your idea, or your  agent’s/ publisher’s?

RR-G: It was a collaborative idea. At first I was fixed on the idea that it would stay a novella, but it’s almost impossible to publish a novella unless you’re Doris Lessing or Ian McEwan. I am very glad I set about turning it into a novel though – it’s the book it should be. I wasn’t finished with the characters yet and to a certain degree, the book grows up, as I did while I was writing it. Victoria Pepe, my wonderful editor who’s actually just left Virago, was very influential and helped me make the book a lot more compact and complete. There’s a sense of nostalgia in the first half of the book, which is only really earned by what happens in part two.

V: Talk to me about ‘Lord of the Flies.’ It’s mentioned a couple of times, maybe more, in the first part of the novel. There are some shallow parallels - both are set on islands, both have young people behaving differently when they are freed from constraints in one way or another.  What other echoes would you like to be picked up between Lord of the Flies and The Last Kings of Sark? 

R: It’s not the major framework for the novel, but you’re right – the characters themselves mention it, and there are little links, as well as fundamental differences, seeing as Sark is an idyll, more than anything.I think a lot of the first part of the novel is about young people intentionally evading and looking away from adulthood. The intention is perhaps the key – Jude, Sofi and Pip’s actions can never really mirror Lord of the Flies, precisely because they are aware of Lord of the Flies. As you’ve very kindly said, The Last Kings of Sark is about “the intense butterfly moments when we are on the cusp of adulthood, but not quite there.” Jude, Sofi and Pip are in between. They are aware of their options, their precedents, their future. Of the Lord of the Flies’ child-world where all may eventually be excused, and the adult one, where everything is harder, more fixed. I suppose it’s the last summer when they are able to inhabit the impermanent space between the two.

V: Sark itself. Did you set it on Sark and then go there to research, or did you go there at some point anyway and the story/characters appeared out of that experience? Also, was it important that this story should be set on an island, that the setting should echo the content, somehow?

R:  I came up with the bones of the plot and a lot of the detail when I was on Sark, with a lovely friend called Tor, working for a summer. She helped me a great deal. Each evening, I’d try and take down notes of everything I’d seen during the day, and her memory was often better than mine. But yes, choosing to situate the book on an island definitely informed the story of the first part. A novella is a condensed mode, and islands are natural microcosms – both are small and self-contained, and I liked that.

4. If you could have one scene from Last Kings of Sark painted, which scene would it be, and who would you want for the artist?

R: I love this question! I think I’d choose one of the Fauvists. Derain or Vlaminck. For their burning colour, and their joyfulness (I see it as joyfulness). If not, Signac – I  saw his retrospective at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier this summer, and he captures light hitting water sublimely. I’d want the painter to read the book and chose the scene themselves. The private beach by way of Cider Press cottage would be a good bet though. 

The Red Buoy, by Signac

V: My mother was a librarian, and a real literary snob. I know, had she been alive when I decided to write, I would have given up quite fast, thanks to apprehension about her comments. Now, however, I wish she’d been around to see what I’ve done... she’d probably have been very proud. I admire your own mother’s work hugely - as you are aware, both it and she have been a very positive influence for me as a writer. ( I admire your father’s work greatly too, not to leave him out!)  Is it easy, now, being the daughter of not one, but two writers? Are the obvious expectations  from others a weight, or a spur?

R: There was no pressure in any sense from them. (about becoming a writer. Naturally, all parents exert pressures in other ways: Do GCSE German! Brush your teeth! And other highly unreasonable things like that). I’m quite entrepreneurial, and I think they would have both equally encouraged me to do something with that, or become an archaeologist or a songwriter.  The thing is, people often end up doing what their parents do.  Daughters of doctors become doctors; there are family dynasties of teachers or lawyers. When you are growing up, you see your parents’ professions as what it means to be an adult, perhaps. 
So, the pressure. From them, no – really not at all. I mean, I want to please them and make them proud, which is a natural impulse for offspring, but I honestly don’t think we compare ourselves. That --  if it comes -- will come from other people. 
Thankfully, though, we’re all very different writers. I say that not because they aren’t good, because they’re very good, but because they got there first, the bastards!, which would make me the derivative one. I don’t think I am derivative though… I hope not. I suppose you just have to read and see.

V: No - you are most definitely your own writer, and one who is going to go far. Thanks for visiting the blog, and for the book. Many congratulations on The Last Kings of Sark, may it fly! It deserves to. Enjoy the journey, and I shall look forward to the next book in due course. 

The Last Kings of Sark is released on November 7th, so you only have another couple of days to wait. It's available from the usual suspects, and can be bought or ordered from all indie book shops. Enjoy!  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Kings-Sark-Rosa-Rankin-Gee/dp/1844089312

Tom Vowler's terrific debut novel, 'What Lies Within'.

Is it a whodunnit, is it a psychological drama, is it a fabulously written insightful novel into family dynamics in the face of deeply hidden secrets? Well, I'm just glad I don't have to find any single box for this novel, because 'What Lies Within' is a bit of all of these, and more. I started to read my pre-publication copy before I went on holiday in early May, and got so into it, if that plane had been a train, I'd have missed my stop. 
      It is no surprise to find that 'What Lies Within' is stuffed full of great writing. Tom Vowler is no raw newbie - his collection of short fiction, 'The Method', won the Salt Publishing Scott Prize in 2010 and the Edge Hill Readers' Award the following year. He can tell a mean story, and this novel is based on one from that collection. 

      The novel is written from a female perspective. Now - that may not be unusual, but the perspective here is so authentic that I never lost contact with the character. The bloke wielding the pen never stood between me and his creation waving a red flag. And that is unusual. Usually, there are points at which the mask slips... but here, despite some fairly tough sexual scenes which might trap a lesser writer into flawed characterisation, my belief never wavered. 
I can wholeheartedly recommend this novel. If you enjoy the twists and turns of a clever and never predictable plot, terrific characters playing out their very real dramas against the most evocative setting - Dartmoor in all its looming glory - then this is for you. 

I asked Tom to write something about working with female characters in such depth - and he contributed the following. It's rather interesting, especially if you are of the school that says you have to write literally what you know! 

Over to Tom.

Tom Vowler

I'M A LADY (SOMETIMES): WRITING FROM A FEMALE PERSPECTIVE

At a recent event an audience member asked me about writing from a female perspective (What Lies Within being narrated largely this way). At the time of planning the book, I’d thought it no different to trying to capture any other voice – a child’s, an old man’s, someone from a different culture or era. But, looking back, I think it presented some interesting and unique challenges. 

The first impression someone gets of a book, before any true sense of plot or setting, is the character's or narrator's voice, so it needs to be both compelling and convincing if it’s to accompany the reader for 300 pages. It must set them at ease, be both resonant and consistent, so that, within a chapter or two, a connection has been made, a trust established.

I'd heard of writers who ‘do the opposite sex well’, as if it was some arcane, innate talent, or perhaps even a module on a creative writing course, and I wondered whether I was one of them. The genesis of my fiction tends to come from an event, or at least a concept that fascinates, appals or terrifies me. This could be something seen on the news, or an experience closer to home, which immediately becomes the fulcrum the story turns on. 

There are certain scenes and themes in the novel that, owing to my gender, I literally could not experience, and so much time was spent in conversation with female friends, as well as conducting interviews with a brave woman in the US, trying to tease out the detail I sought – much like researching anything else I suppose. But it soon became clear it was the smaller things, the intricacies and nuances of my female character, that would give me her voice: her use of language, both internal and external; how she regards herself and others; her mannerisms; how she reacts to all the terrible and wonderful things that happen to her. It was an enormous challenge to put myself in her shoes, to inhabit her world, to try to understand the torment she feels. As was describing the sexual scenes from a female point of view. 

Looking back, although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, it feels like a huge gamble (but then writing a novel usually is), the potential for getting it wrong considerable. Yet by the time I was at the point of no return, she was fully formed, living and breathing in my mind, her voice as real as any other I'd written. She accompanied me (or I her?) on vast walks across the uplands of Dartmoor, exploring the beautiful and brooding landscape, where I realised what an important remedy the moor would be for her. 

It’s early days but initial reviews of the novel have expressed incredulity that it was written by a man, which I suppose shows I've done my job. 

Tom Vowler’s debut short story collection, The Method, won the international Scott Prize in 2010 and the Edge Hill Readers’ Award in 2011. Now an associate lecturer at Plymouth University, his debut novel What Lies Within was published in April 2013. Tom is also Assistant Editor for the literary journal Short FICTION. In 2008 he graduated with an MA in Creative Writing and is now studying for a PhD, looking at landscape and trauma in fiction. More at www.tomvowler.co.uk

Happy dance for Sarah Hilary! A lesson in not giving up, and a little about itchy wrists...

Happy Dance!

Sarah Hilary

I'm delighted to welcome Sarah Hilary to the blog today, and I can't help doing a happy-dance at the same time...
      If you have ever had your writing rejected, and thought it's no good, I'll just give up now - please read on. Sarah is an object lesson in how things CAN come right if you DON'T GIVE UP! 

Let's start with an announcement on a book-trade information website... Headline Acquires Two Novels from Sarah...  and it's lovely, wonderful, woo hooishly great. But behind the woo hoos is another story, and it's that one  Sarah and I would like to share with you. These books are not her first, and second, second and third, or even third and fourth..

Anyhoo - it was 2008 and I was off to Bantry to the West Cork Literary Festival which always includes the Fish Prize awards event.  I knew Sarah, but only on the internet - and I knew she needed to go too, as she'd won one of the Fish competitions that year - The Criminally Short Histories prize. So I offered her a lift from Cork Airport. We nattered like old mates... and now, five years later, I think we probably are old mates. (Well, I'm the 'old' one, she is the younger, tenacious one...) And here we are, five years later, still nattering...

Hi Sarah! I shall stop the happy dance for a few mins now. 

          I remember listening to the plot of the novel you were working on some years back, in the car on our way to Bantry. I remember wanting to stop the car to be able to concentrate properly, to find out who, then why, then what happens, and how...it was just a brilliant story. I sat with you at some event in Bantry Library, right next to the Crime section, and said, ‘You’ll  soon have a whole shelf...’ and you laughed. 

       Well, five years later, you can laugh for a different reason, with delight, hopefully. But. It has not been an easy ride from 2008 to here, has it. It’s been a rocky road - and I’ve followed your fortunes with bated breath! Can you describe your journey to this point, with regard to the crime novels? Chart the ups and downs, if you like...

Sarah: I remember that road trip vividly. Your interest in the story, and your conviction that I could make it into print, spurred me to Try Harder. My motto for the years between then and now has been (and still is!) Must Try Harder. It’s been a heck of a journey - more twists and turns than the road to Bantry - and I’m a little breathless to have got this far. I think the story I described to you was the second or possibly the third manuscript I’d submitted to Jane Gregory, who’s now my agent. She didn’t sign me until the fourth manuscript - and it’s my fifth and sixth books that she’s just sold to Headline - so it’s just as well I decided early on that I was in this for the long haul. 

The ‘downs’ were each time I heard, “Not this book, maybe the next,” but I was lucky enough to be told, each time, what I could do to improve my writing, plotting and so on. Of course it’s incredibly hard to see any silver lining when you’re right under the cloud of rejection, but the only thing to do is to keep moving forward, and keep believing that what you write next will be better, because it will be. That’s the great thing about writing - you really do get better at it. 

(VG: I liked those quotes - so they're in red. And here is the cloud of rejection covering the light of good things...)

The ‘highs’ were each small milestone – winning a short story contest, getting into a print anthology – and seeing fellow writers break through, or sharing the struggle with writing buddies. I must mention the fabulous Ms Anna Britten, whose sympathy, sage advice and support has kept me going over the last two years. It was during one of my lowest spells that Anna and I settled on the need for defiance as a strategy for fighting on. Not arrogance, but a determination to defy the odds, and the urge to give up. I created one of the characters in SOMEONE ELSE’S SKIN in a moment of defiance, and he’s a character my editor loves.

VG: *Waves to Anna Britten* - isn't sharing this thing we do so important, on so many levels? I am so glad to hear that. We all need  supporters...

And here is a pic of one of your top supporters, your daughter Milly, stealing your thunder when you won the Cheshire Prize for Literature! 

 You are just an incarnation of the advice I was given, myself, and which, when I’m asked to give a newbie writer advice,  is the first thing that comes to mind. ‘Don’t give up’. You are the best possible example of the wonderful things that can happen if you don’t give up.  But it ain't easy, is it? What did it feel like to keep going? What was it that made you sure that you would succeed in the end? Or were there times you lost faith and had to pick yourself up again?

Sarah: Crikey, how did it feel to keep going..? This is where therapists will read and weep – that they didn’t make money from my teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling. There were days when I lay on the floor and wept. Days when I was furious with myself for falling short (again), and when I told myself that surely if I had any real talent, it shouldn’t be this hard to get published. I don’t think I was ever sure that I would succeed in the end. At the outset, of course, I had a writer’s ego; I submitted my first film script when I was 15, to a company listed in the Writers and Artists Yearbook (the possessing of which was enough to convince me I woz a Writer). Towards the end, I had virtually no ego (a good thing, on the whole) and was armed only with defiance, being a rarefied version of the bloodymindedness I was born with. My paternal grandmother was fond of telling people, ‘You’ll never get Sarah to do anything she doesn’t want to do,’ which is another way of saying I can’t be talked out of something I’ve set my mind to. 

Most helpfully of all, by this stage, writing is like a tic or a reflex; I can’t not do it. So here I am. Oh and I keep getting ideas for better books! I’m always excited by The Next Book, chiefly because I know it will be my best yet; it’s a fresh chance to do a better job at the thing I love doing. Who wouldn’t want that?

Just one of the many anthologies your work can be found in...

 VG: Yee ha! So - say you have to pick yourself up from a big disappointment. How do/did you do that? What advice can you give to a newer writer who is facing the wall?

Sarah: I suspect I’ve given the answer to this already in my ramblings above. It’s about knowing that what you write next will be better - and therefore the odds of it being published will be improved. I know that what you’re writing Right Now might feel like the best thing you’ve ever written, and so it should. I know you’ll feel proud and protective of your story and especially your characters, and that’s okay. It’s allowed. What’s not allowed is letting that pride and protectiveness stop you in your tracks. 

Always have a Next Book bubbling under, even if it’s just a handful of notes in a pad somewhere. I like to keep a notebook that I flip over so the back pages are like a separate pad (I put different stickers or doodles on the covers of each side to make it look like two pads) and those back pages are my Next Book. This means a) not all my eggs are in one basket, and b) with luck I’ll be hooked on writing the Next Book by the time my current one is being read by agents or editors. It really does soften the blow if the first one doesn’t make it. Just the fact that you’ve stopped thinking about it and given headspace to a new story and new characters - makes the rejection easier to bear.

and another anthology - is the shelf full yet?!

VG: Brilliant. Your sage words are emblazoned in RED! And so - on to the books... Tell me about the novel that broke through for you... how long had you been working on this one? Did you have any professional advice to help you shape it?

Sarah: It took me about a year to write SOMEONE ELSE’S SKIN, although the idea had been playing in my head for longer. It’s a story about secrets, and survival. The secrets that put us in danger and the ones that keep us safe. It’s about who we pretend to be in order to survive or simply to get by, and who we really are, under the skin. The blurb reads like this:

No two victims are alike.  

DI Marnie Rome knows this better than most. Five years ago, her family home was a shocking and bloody crimescene. Now, she’s tackling a case of domestic violence, and a different brand of victim. Hope Proctor stabbed her husband in desperate self-defence. A crowd of witnesses saw it happen. But as the violence spirals, engulfing the residents of the women’s shelter, Marnie finds herself drawn into familiar territory. A place where the past casts long shadows and she must tread carefully to survive.

I hope it’s a novel that upsets the traditional ideas about domestic violence – and makes us look afresh at why people commit crimes of this kind, and how society chooses to punish these crimes. I’m also fascinated by the psychology of seeing, the emotional lens that colours everything we witness, and by the role of the witness. This role is vital to solving and prosecuting crimes, but what does it mean to be the witness to a brutal crime – how does it change that person? Is there a sense in which they become responsible for the “truth” of what they saw? 

       Marnie, my heroine, is someone who trusts her intellect first and her emotions second. She’s always questioning the truth of what she sees, and she’s someone who wants to make sense of the world as it is. Of course she’d like to change it, but she understands that mess is part of the human condition. She has a huge capacity for compassion, which I think’s essential for the hero/heroine of any crime novel. I wanted to write a detective who was much more than ‘a woman in a man’s world’. Marnie has a woman’s empathy and intuition, and the intelligence and honesty to know these gifts sometimes lead her astray. 

My first draft got quite a tough reader’s report via my agent, and I realised I’d have to change something to make it work on the level I intended (well, more than work – it had to shine). After that, I spent a couple of months despairing quietly and bending my brain around What To Do. Then a further three months rewriting. The two months where I didn’t write because I was thinking - they really helped. I think if I’d sat down and tried to rewrite straightaway, I’d have made the same mistakes all over again. As it was, I produced a second draft that my agent loved – and so did more than one publisher. It went to auction, which was very exciting, and it’s sold in five other countries already. I’m thrilled to think the story will have so many readers.

 VG: Fantastic stuff - this is the dream, isn't it?  And thank you for your honesty here - I am so fed up with writers who tell others that it was easy, they woke up one day and... because even if that did happen for one writer, for the other 99% it ain't like that! It's a hard old slog. 

      Next question: When do you think it is OK to accept advice, and when to ignore it?

Sarah: That’s a tough one. Tempting to say you should never ignore advice, but since I was once advised to give up writing (by a boss who likened it to his DIY: “We’re neither of us very good at it, but it keeps us out of trouble”) I think I’ll say instead that you need to develop an ear for advice, like an ear for music. I say this as someone who is virtually tone-deaf but who can generally tell when a piece of music is off, even if I can’t tell you why or by how much. 

You might think it’s a good rule of thumb that if advice comes from an expert you must act on it, but this doesn’t quite meet the case, I think. After all, the expert might not be in tune with your genre or your writing. So much is subjective in publishing. SOMEONE ELSE’S SKIN went to auction, as I say, but for every two publishers who loved it there were four who didn’t, or not enough to offer for it. ‘All it takes is one’, as the adage goes, and you should certainly never give up – or make radical changes – based on what appears to be a loose consensus. Unless or until your gut (or your ear) tells you that what you’re hearing is the truth. 

I honestly think this is something that only comes with time and experience. I spent years railing against rejections from editors who’d missed-the-point of my writing (show me a writer who hasn’t done this at some point in their lives and I’ll show you a saint, or a fibber). Then I spent a good number of years performing literary gymnastics as I tried to meet the demands of every editor all at once, believing they must know best, or better. 

Now, if an editor is saying something invaluable – something I ignore at my peril – I can hear it. It chimes. 

When my editor at Headline told me I needed to do a bit of work on the penultimate chapter in SOMEONE ELSE’S SKIN, I knew she was right. My wrists itched; it’s a physical response – and I think it only comes with long experience. I wish there was a shortcut, I really do. Maybe one of your readers, V, will know a trick for this?!


VG: I love that!  Are there any short cuts worth thinking about when it comes to making a manuscript better? Nah, I don't think so...but as ever, am happy to be proved wrong. So have at it!

Thanks Sarah - I know how busy you are with all the hoo ha - enjoy every step. It is so richly deserved. One more happy dance...la la la...ooops that was my bad leg...

vx

Claire King’s ‘The Night Rainbow’ - an unforgettable read.

I am delighted to welcome the lovely Claire King to the blog today, together with her fabulous, enchanting debut novel, The Night Rainbow, out from Bloomsbury very soon, but shipping already - so if you’ve got it, or are reading it, and want to leave Claire a message - leave it here. 
Claire has just arrived in the UK from France with the family for the launch celebrations, and I am wishing her every joy as her  baby goes off into the world. It's a funny old feeling. I can't get to the party myself, as I'm off on a writing retreat :( - so I'm relying on others to post lots of photos, and make me feel thoroughly jealous.

Now - so often, these bloggy things end up asking the same old same old - so I asked Claire to start the discussion - what would she most want to natter about? 

Claire King: A number of book reviewers who have read The Night Rainbow have told me that they although they loved the book, they are perplexed at how to write a review about it...

VG:( I understand that one, believe you me!)

CK: I also found it hard, when replying to 'What's your book about?' to find ways of answering the question without spoiling the role the reader plays in engaging with the story.

        So, as someone who has read The Night Rainbow: What would you say are the main themes of this book?

VG: Right - my first reaction to that one is this - first and foremost The Night Rainbow is a bloody good story, with wonderful characters, and reading the novel was a unique experience. I had not read anything quite like it before. To talk in terms of ‘what are the main themes of the book’ reduces it to a lesson, a message - and when I was reading, I was so transported I lost any sense of what the writer’s intentions might have been. 

       So with hindsight - and with the caveat that ‘theme-discussion’ should not be taken as an indication that this is anything but a great read - and also in the knowledge that we will all find something different, it is such a rich book, deceptively so - the themes are strong.  Firstly, it explored our sometimes unexpected resilience in the face of difficulties, even at a very young age.  How children can hold great natural wisdom - they may not know how to articulate that wisdom necessarily, but that is no reason not to believe that children are much wiser than they are given credit for. How we all can do much more than we think - I love that! And I’m sure there are other things too - the whole explores the way the parent-child relationship can be turned on its head - even though the children are very young. And the overarching theme, coming to terms with loss, is a classic. Jeez, there is so much there...

CK: Can you say anything about how your own viewpoints and experiences influenced the way you read it?

VG: The chemistry between Pea and Margot is wonderful - for me it started a real reappraisal of how I was when I was a child, my family, my friendships, my relationships with the adults who then surrounded me. It was like meeting myself again, years later through both the girls, if that does not sound daft. I desperately wanted a sister as I was growing up, and never had one. A brother came along when I was three, but that isn’t the same thing, is it? 

          I was a very ‘thinking’ child - so much so that I would be told to stop thinking. I was also a lonely child. At times in The Night Rainbow, I found it almost unbearably poignant therefore, as the girls seek to find their place in a changed world. 

        And as for loss, I watched my mother crying by the Aga when I was two and a half, hiding under the kitchen table - her father had just died. She didn’t know I was there. So I heard all the adult talk - my father trying to comfort her - although he had just lost his father too, so it was a doubly ghastly time for them both. The small girl under the table understood then that everyone must die, that losing someone you love is ghastly, that my mother and father would die, and so would I. I have never forgotten that moment. So, as the book unfolded, the child in me, the child under the table, responded to the book. Does that make sense? I was seeing it all through a child’s eyes.

CK: Do you think the book cover and the trailer give the right message to potential readers about what they can expect?

VG: I think the trailer is a stronger indicator of what the reader will encounter.  It is lovely to hear the book's voice read so wonderfully. Who is reading? That is not to say the book cover is not beautiful, and very intriguing...and yes, once you’ve read the book, you understand the cover more. I’m going to stop there!  

CK: The voice over is the daughter of someone who works at Bloomsbury in London. Her parents are French-Canadian, hence the lovely way she says 'Margot'!

VG: And here is that lovely trailer...enjoy. 

        Now, a question or two from me again... Did the idea come first, or did it unfold as you were writing?

CK: The idea didn't come first, well, not all of it. The novel started off a little like The Mosquito Coast, but more French, with a family who had moved into unfamiliar - and in some ways hostile - territory. But as the story grew the principal character emerged as the oldest girl, and I knew that the story was going to be hers. Then one day, while I was out with my husband, and my two girls - one toddling and one in a pram - in a nearby meadow, the youngest one almost had a terrible accident. Almost. And all I could think was, what if I hadn't been there? After that everything fell into place and I knew the story I wanted to tell. 

VG:  And that leads nicely onto something I’ve been dying to ask...Are the girls based at all on your own two gorgeous daughters?

 CK: Are the girls based on my daughters? Ah it would be tempting to say yes, but it's much more complicated than that. I purposefully made a mood board for The Night Rainbow, with photos of landscapes and houses that are similar but not the same as those where we live. I also chose images of children who didn't look like my own, and I worked with those as guides. Otherwise the temptation to leave fiction and fall into anecdote may have been too great. But the voice of my children is all over the book. My eldest was four years old when I wrote the novel and my youngest two. They would say the most magical and wise things and I wrote them all down. Where I could, I wove them into Margot and Pea. 

Because of their influence, and because I hardly describe the girls at all in the book, I was anxious to see how Margot and Pea would be portrayed on the book cover. When I saw Holly MacDonald's artwork I was quite taken aback. The silhouettes could easily be my girls. A strange and magical bonus. 

VG:  What a magical coincidence. Spooky stuff! But another question - on a serious note: How much did you want the novel to explore notions of non-belonging?

CK: I'd say I was interested in the idea of belonging (rather than non-belonging), in a broad sense of place, people or culture. The cause and effect of it. I noticed when my daughters were very young that they had an innate sense belonging everywhere, a casual intimacy with nature and with people. How we are transformed when that belief is taken from us...

VG: Claire, thank you. It has been a joy nattering for a minute or two about The Night Rainbow. It is going to do so very well - enjoy every minute! 

Shauna Gilligan and 'Happiness Comes from Nowhere'.

Shauna Gilligan

Some years ago, I was accepted for a good writing course that I hoped would help me tame the unruly beast of a novel I had been struggling with for a couple of years. I lasted about five minutes, sadly, as I was told to stop writing it, and do something different - and that wasn’t an option. My decision entirely. 

However - every cloud, etc etc. During the five minutes I was there, some very good things happened. 

Firstly, I had some wonderful feedback about the voice as it then was, which was more than helpful as I battled on with what would eventually become ‘The Coward’s Tale’. 

And secondly, I was introduced in the one workshop session I attended, to to a writer whose work I found very exciting. Her name was Shauna Gilligan, and she came from Ireland. I remember being struck by the style, the lucidity, and thinking, ‘this writer will be published, no question.’ I wasn’t wrong. We kept in touch, on and off, mostly via good old facebook.

Shauna’s debut novel, ‘Happiness Comes from Nowhere’ (Ward Wood Publishing,  July 2012) is a novel of intertwined stories, following the fortunes of the fabulously named Dirk Horn. But don't start thinking this  character is as his name suggests... for absolutely nothing in Shauna’s novel is predictable. She has a unique vision. When we first meet Dirk he is on the point of committing suicide, a fitting start, I thought, as I ventured further and further into these strong, strongly-voiced pieces that build a kaleidoscope vision of a family, friends, acquaintances set against a backdrop of the ever-changing city of Dublin. 

Writing colleague and friend, the Irish short story writer, novelist and poet Nuala Ni Chonchuir endorsed the book thus:

'In Shauna Gilligan’s unsettling novel-in-stories, Dirk has troubles that his mother Mary may not be able to right, much as she tries. Gilligan writes intimately of one mother’s possessiveness, devotion and ambition for her son. Rich with insight, this is a book that informs as much as it haunts. As a début it is a very fine piece of work.’

 and another Irish novelist and short story writer, Eillis ni Dhubihne,  says it is:

'A refreshingly thoughtful novel, poised and unpredictable. Delicious in its sensuous details and mischievous sense of humour. Happiness Comes from Nowhere is a truly impressive debut from a writer of exceptional talent.'

The thread that tugs through all the interlinked but very different stories, is Dirk Horn and his struggles. But please don't think this is a book without humour - many of the pieces here zip and zing throughout with sharp dialogue between utterly believable characters. Like life, they and indeed the whole novel, show up multi-faceted, multi-shaded. 
       It is academic, poet and novelist Sheenagh Pugh who best summarises the underlying themes of this novel, on her review, when she says the fundamental question it poses is surprisingly, an unusual one:

“...what is it that causes happiness? Why is Dirk sometimes experiencing moments of pure happiness and at other times plunged in despair, when there does not seem to be that much difference in the conditions of his life? And if one could find what causes it, would there be a way of inducing it?

These are questions which don't perhaps crop up in novels as often as one might expect.”

It’s true, isn’t it? Think about it - what other novels have you read that explore this one?

Shauna’s novel is sharply observant, very well-written, with characters who pull you in and won't quite let you go. I’d say it is a highly recommended read. 

       So now, before you whizz off and get your copy, from all the usuals, but do consider getting it from Ward Wood, or an indie bookshop...Shauna kindly answered a few questions, including which scene she’d like painted. 

Vanessa: Welcome to the blog. Firstly, can you tell me about the structure of the novel - as ours both have stories as the basis of their structure - was it planned, or did the novel appear as you wrote the different pieces?

Shauna: The structure wasn’t planned from the start but grew during my editing. I wanted to see the main characters from different angles, through different lenses. 

VG: At what point were you aware that the city was going to become a character? Did that change the way you approached the subsequent pieces?

SG: For me, place is vital to both character creation and narrative story to the extent that it is automatically part and parcel. I became consciously aware of the strong presence of Dublin when I finished my first draft. It didn’t change the way I approached the editing, though. 

VG:  If you could have a painting of one scene from the novel, which would you choose, and who would you want to paint it? Or would it be best as a photo? In which case, colour or black and white?

Climbing Croagh Patrick

SG: What a wonderful question! I think I’d like a painting of Dirk and Angela on the top of Croagh Patrick, their hair blown by the wind, tourists in the background, the sky wild with clouds. The painting would have to reflect the beauty of the landscape, Dirk’s pain and Angela’s joy. I’d like Tracey Emin to paint it. Or if it were possible, Chagall. 

Statue of St Patrick, Croagh Patrick in the background. 

VG:  If you could write a postcard to Dirk, with three quick messages on it, what would they be? (write it...).

SG: The question is, which Dirk? Dirk as a child or Dirk at the end of the book? Let’s take Dirk at the end of the book. The postcard would be a to-do list for him:

     Take German lessons.
     Go running early every morning – down by the river in Bamberg.
     Sit naked in a sauna.

VG: Lovely! Tell me -  I am very taken by the different voices in the book - which was the easiest voice to get right, and which the hardest, and why do you think that is?

SG: I wouldn’t say any of the voices were easy to get right (if indeed, they are right) but Sheila was one I particularly enjoyed writing. Mary’s voice grew as the novel grew and I found her character became more complex in this regard. I suppose one of the tricky things about the different voices in this novel is that they span over time and exist in different places. So each voice had to reflect and be authentic to, not only character, but also be faithful to the time and society in which it exists.

VG:  Not easy - but however you did it - it works. So - what next?

SG: I don’t quite know, Vanessa. I’m working on a number of novels and short stories. It may be any one or none of these and something completely new!

Well, whatever it be, I wish you every success with ‘Happiness Comes from Nowhere’ - it’s already getting quite a buzz round it - and rightly so! Thanks for answering my questions.