Tag: Events

Event Review: Diane Setterfield  at Henley Literary Festival 2018

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This is a longer version of a review that first appeared in the Henley Standard on Friday 12th October 2018.  It is based on notes I took during the event and my own recollections. Any errors in recording views expressed during the discussion are my own.

Henley-on-ThamesCould there be a more fitting location to hear author Diane Setterfield talk about her forthcoming book Once Upon a River than sailing aboard The Hibernia along the River Thames, the setting of the book?  Set in the 1870s, the book involves the unexpected arrival of a four- year-old girl at an inn on the Thames where locals gather to tell stories on winter evenings.

Responding to writer and journalist Hannah Beckerman’s perceptive questions, Diane revealed the inspiration for the novel was a newspaper article she read as a child about a boy pulled from the water seemingly lifeless who later miraculously recovered, and a riverside walk with her parents many years later where the crumbling bank and angry looking river made her feel unexpectedly afraid.  Diane observed that one idea is never enough for a book; it needs a series of idea to create a spark sufficient to fuel an entire novel.

Hannah asked about the central role the river plays in the book. Diane said she’d been struck by the unpredictability of a river; that it can be helpful but also dangerous, even on a glorious summer day.  She likened it to a ‘capricious deity to be appeased’, noting that through history rivers have been associated with religion, mythology and supernatural beliefs as evidenced by the sacrificial objects often found when rivers are dredged.  Diane felt people are drawn to rivers at moments of high emotion.  There’s a sense of something powerful in the movement of a river and the fact that it’s ever-changing.

Hannah asked why Diane had chosen the particular section of the River Thames that features in the book.  Diane explained originally she was hoping for the story to stretch from the source of the river to the estuary but she’d realised that in the period the book is set most ordinary people lived and died within ten miles of where they were born so she needed to confine it to a smaller area.  The stretch she’d selected was one she found interesting; a section that was navigable and used for trade but close to the point beyond which it was not navigable… borderline territory, as it were.

At this point, Diane read from a pivotal scene that occurs early in the book.

Hannah noted that storytelling seems to be an important theme of the book.  Diane said she’d always had an interest (not just professional) in storytelling.  She observed that we all organise information, gossip, and so on into stories about ourselves and that humans are intrinsically ‘storytelling animals’.  The inn in the book is known for its storytelling, in the same way as another pub might be known for music, for peace and quiet… or for brawling!  The girl who arrives at the inn becomes the subject of different stories about who she might be.  In some of these she becomes a conduit for people’s grief or loss.  Diane said she was intrigued by the idea of the central character in a book being an empty space, a void who triggers others to act but to whom the reader never has access. She said she loved books where the central character remains a mystery such as The Photograph by Penelope Lively.  The fact the character in Once Upon a River is a child she felt enhances this.  She is, she said, ‘a wonderful little parcel of mystery’.

Hannah mentioned another of the book’s theme: parenthood and what it entails, both the joy and the heartbreak.  Diane said the theme found her, as it were, and reflected her own ambivalence on the subject which she gave to the character of Rita in the book.  Rita is a midwife and Diane said she’d been surprised to learn from a midwife friend there is a higher rate of childlessness amongst midwives.  Hannah asked if there was a historical basis for someone like Rita, who seems to do very much her own thing.  Diane admitted Rita is something of a hybrid.  Her background and experience is historically plausible but her attitude, confidence, preparedness to challenge and adoption of a ‘scientific’ approach is probably less so.  Although she writes historical novels, Diane said she didn’t see herself as a historical novelist of the Hilary Mantel sort.   Diane wants her characters to appear plausible to a modern reader and she’s not trying to reproduce historical accuracy to the nth degree.

The book is set in the 1870s, a time when science was overturning many previously held beliefs.  Hannah observed it was brilliant terrain for storytelling.  Diane agreed, saying it was a period when new ways of understanding humanity were being developed but old wives’ tales and old beliefs still held sway.

Asked how she approaches developing the characters in her books, Diane replied ‘by giving them time’.  In her experience, characters emerge by themselves during the process of writing, often surprising her as they do so.  She just has to do ‘what the story wants’.  Although she never bases her characters on real people, sometimes she does include a tiny aspect of someone she knows in a character.

Returning to the theme of storytelling, Hannah observed that as readers we seem to love stories about stories.  Diane agreed there’s a kind of immortality to stories; they can live on after the individuals who told them have died.  For example, she said there was a great tradition of joke telling in her family.

Hannah asked how present the reader is in Diane’s mind when she’s writing a book.  Diane said she was constantly oscillating between writing and putting herself inside the head of the reader, asking herself questions such as: how effective is this to my reader? have I achieved what I set out to?  Diane likened the process to crafting a necklace.  The scenes in a book are like beads lined up in a row but until she knows the heart of the story they’re just a lot of beads that would fall apart if picked up.  They have to be threaded together before it works.  (This sort of observation, I would contend, is what sets writers apart from the rest of us!)  In Once Upon a River, she confessed this process took some time and she felt despondent that she couldn’t see the central theme.  When it came, it was a happy day and felt like magic.  The central thread was that all the characters have suffered loss and have one thing they want restored to how it was before.  There comes a realisation it doesn’t have to be that way;  something taken away will be restored but maybe in a different way to how they imagined.

At this point, Hannah invited questions from the audience.  Diane was asked which was her favourite of the three novels she’s written.  To much laughter, she replied ‘the fourth one’. (Great news for fans of her books that there is another one on the way.)  Asked who her own favourite author was, she replied Jim Crace.  Diane mentioned she was about to start reading Andrew Miller’s latest book, Now We Shall Be Entirely Free.   Her biggest literary influence?  Diane cited Wilkie Collins’ book The Woman in White.  As Diane has previously commented, she is ‘a reader first, a writer second.’

Diane’s first book was the New York Times bestseller The Thirteenth Tale. Asked what was her feeling about this early success, Diane joked ‘Relief!’ Having left a successful academic career to concentrate on writing, she said her mum had been concerned Diane had consigned herself to penury once again.  She talked about her experience of being suddenly thrust into the limelight, undertaking arduous book tours and speaking at reader events – the ‘author in the world’ part of the job, as she termed it.

20181003_105807-1Once back at Hobbs Boat Yard, I and other members of the audience stepped ashore clutching  our precious (signed) proof copies of Once Upon a River.  I found Diane a fascinating speaker and I’m really looking forward to reading Once Upon a River and sharing my review as part of the blog tour for the book in December.  Finally, I’d like to give a shout-out to Hannah Beckerman for her perceptive questions, clearly derived from a thoughtful and thorough reading of the book.

Once Upon A RiverAbout the Book

A dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames. The regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a little child.  Hours later the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life.

Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can it be explained by science?

Replete with folklore, suspense and romance, as well as with the urgent scientific curiosity of the Darwinian age, Once Upon a River is as richly atmospheric as Setterfield’s bestseller The Thirteenth Tale.

Format: Hardcover, ebook (432pp.)    Publisher: Doubleday/Transworld Digital
Published in UK: 4th Dec 2018 (ebook), 24th Jan 2019 (hardcover) Genre: Historical Fiction

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Diane SetterfieldAbout the Author

Diane Setterfield’s bestselling novel, The Thirteenth Tale (2006) was published in 38 countries worldwide and has sold more than three million copies. It was number one in The New York Times hardback fiction list for three weeks and is enjoyed as much for being ‘a love letter to reading’ as for its mystery and style. Her second novel, Bellman & Black (2013) was a genre-defying tale of rooks and Victorian retail. January 2019 sees the publication of her new title, Once Upon a River, which has been called ‘bewitching’ and ‘enchanting’.

Born in Englefield, Berkshire in 1964, Diane spent most of her childhood in the nearby village of Theale.  Diane studied French Literature at the University of Bristol.  She taught English at the Institut Universitaire de Technologie and the Ecole nationale supérieure de Chimie, both in Mulhouse, France, and later lectured in French at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. She left academia in the late 1990s to pursue writing.  Diane now lives in Oxford. When not writing she reads widely, and when not actually reading she is usually talking or thinking about reading. (Photo: Goodreads author page)

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Event Review: A J Pearce & Anne Youngson | Henley Literary Festival 2018 | 1st October 2018

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This is a longer version of a review that first appeared on the Henley Standard website.

A J Pearce, author of Dear Mrs. Bird, and Anne Youngson, author of Meet Me at the Museum, are both debut novelists whose books have the reading and writing of letters at their heart.  Journalist and author, Hannah Beckerman, opened the event in the Festival Hub by asking A J and Anne what their first few months of being published authors had been like.

Anne said a wonderful part for her had been meeting readers at events like this, getting their feedback and being asked questions about her book she hadn’t considered before.  Her experience was readers often have different interpretations of the book or point out influences of which she wasn’t aware.  A J said the experience had been wonderful but a bit mad!  She joked that she’d had to make herself practice saying ‘I am an author’.  People had been lovely and she enjoyed chatting about her book and particularly loved discovering mothers and daughters or best friends who had enjoyed the book together.  The authors then read short passages from their books.

Hannah observed that both novels use letter writing as a central idea.  She asked Anne why she had decided to write Meet Me at the Museum as an epistolary novel.  Anne explained the starting point was the book, The Bog People by P. V. Glob, and its dedication in the form of a letter that turned into a whole book.   The same thing happened to her essentially.  She’d originally thought it would be a short story that started with a letter.  However a letter demands a reply, that reply demands another, and so on.  Anne wondered if she might reach a point in the story where what she wanted to say couldn’t be expressed in letter format but she never did.  She felt a more ‘conventional’ format would have created distance between her characters and the reader.  In fact, as a writer, she’d found the letter format easy as it had a momentum of its own.

A J Pearce’s novel Dear Mrs. Bird involves letters written to an agony aunt on a range of subjects.  A J explained they were inspired by actual letters from a wartime edition of Woman’s Own. Reading them had opened up a whole new world, allowing her to see a different era but through a familiar medium. Some of the letters were about subjects similar to contemporary problems; everything from queries about fat ankles to worries about being in love with the wrong person.  Others were very particular to the war, involving separation and heartbreaking decisions.  Dear Mrs. Bird is A J’s version of those stories.   Hannah asked if anonymity perhaps created a safe space for the letter writers?  A J felt, on the positive side, the correspondents clearly trusted the person they were asking for advice.  On the other hand, they were serious questions and she felt it a little sad they needed to confide in a complete stranger, especially since Mrs. Bird would no doubt either ignore them or tell them to ‘buck up and carry on’.

Anne felt the act of letter writing involves careful consideration of the words used and there are still occasions when thoughts and feelings can more be easily expressed in a letter than face-to-face.  Hannah observed that in Anne’s book reading and writing letters becomes a form of self-discovery.  Anne agreed but felt this was manifested in different ways for each character.  Initially, Anders, the museum curator, is more formal and pedantic whereas Tina really ‘puts herself out on the page’.  Later, Anders begins to let go of his emotional tension.

Hannah wondered if, in both books, the exchange of letters acts as form of joint therapy.   A J felt the main character in her book, Emmy, learns about herself from reading the letters written to Mrs. Bird.  She begins to see that through her answers she can contribute to morale and help with real heartache.  The letters also merge into her own life experiences.

Both authors believe that writing letters may be becoming a lost art and we risk losing a rich archive for the future as a result.   Anne said she felt that, in writing the book, to a certain extent she was trying to make sense of these changes for herself and contributing to the debate.  A J felt that modern communication can still offer encouragement but there is a greater sense of immediacy and expectation of a speedy response.

Hannah observed both books deal with history in different ways.  Anne explained how Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘The Tollund Man’ had led her to read Professor Glob’s book, The Bog People, providing the inspiration for the novel.  (How stories start is the focus of her current study for her PhD.) From the point of view of research, the Iron Age is a time before written records so evidence of how people lived can only be gained from artefacts.

When it came to researching wartime London for Dear Mrs. Bird, A J said she wished she’d had the foresight to ask her grandparents more about their own experiences.  She’d used old photographs to ‘cast’ the characters in the book, giving her a sense of responsibility to ‘do a good job for the characters’.  A J confided that she’d never intended to write a historical novel being slightly nervous about the need to get historical facts right.

Hannah remarked that Emmy in Dear Mrs. Bird has a distinct voice and asked if she came fully formed as a character?  A J said she found writing the dialogue between Emmy and best friend Bunty came easily.  Emmy’s back story, that she was the daughter of the suffragette generation, made her consider how this would influence someone’s thinking.   Hannah observed the characters in Meet Me at the Museum are unsure of themselves to begin with but blossom as the book progresses.  Anne said Tina’s voice was clear in her head but both characters revealed themselves to her as she was writing.  As she got near the end, there were aspects of their lives she felt they might share as their relationship developed.   Hannah asked Anne about the creative challenge of having only two characters.  Anne said it had been an intimate process spending a year and a half with them existing only in her head, as she never spoke about them to other people.  A sort of double life!

A J confessed writing is a slow process for her.  Although the book starts cheerfully, it gets darker.  Knowing that there must be conflict, she’d had to stop writing occasionally, even finding herself crying, because she’d known that rotten things were going to happen to some of her characters.  It had felt, she said, like ‘carrying a knife you can’t see’.

Other themes the two books share are friendship, the need to be courageous and to be open to new opportunities throughout life.  Anne observed that, in her book, Tina represents a generation of women who weren’t able to reach their full potential, partly because they never realised what their potential was.  Similarly, Emmy in A J’s book, finds herself on a path she never expected but which turns out to be better in the long run.  She learns never to give up on people and to keep going.

As someone who loved Dear Mrs. Bird and Meet Me at the Museum, I was delighted to learn that both authors are working on second novels.  It would be lovely to see them make return visits to Henley Literary Festival to talk about their next books.  After the event, I was thrilled to meet both Anne and A J in person and have Anne sign my copy of her book.

Dear Mrs BirdAbout the Book – Dear Mrs. Bird

London, 1940. Emmeline Lake is Doing Her Bit for the war effort, volunteering as a telephone operator with the Auxiliary Fire Services. When Emmy sees an advertisement for a job at the London Evening Chronicle, her dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent suddenly seem achievable. But the job turns out to be working as a typist for the fierce and renowned advice columnist, Henrietta Bird. Emmy is disappointed, but gamely bucks up and buckles down.

Mrs. Bird is very clear: letters containing any Unpleasantness must go straight in the bin. But when Emmy reads poignant notes from women who may have Gone Too Far with the wrong men, or who can’t bear to let their children be evacuated, she is unable to resist responding. As the German planes make their nightly raids, and London picks up the smouldering pieces each morning, Emmy secretly begins to write back to the readers who have poured out their troubles.

Format: ebook, hardcover (320 pp.) Publisher: Picador
Published: 5th April 2018   Genre: Historical Fiction

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A J PearceAbout A J Pearce

AJ Pearce grew up in Hampshire and studied at the University of Sussex. A chance discovery of a 1939 women’s magazine became the inspiration for her ever-growing collection and her first novel Dear Mrs Bird. She now lives and writes in the south of England.

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Meet Me at the MuseumAbout the Book – Meet Me at the Museum

In Denmark, Professor Anders Larsen, an urbane man of facts, has lost his wife and his hopes for the future. On an isolated English farm, Tina Hopgood is trapped in a life she doesn’t remember choosing. Both believe their love stories are over.

Brought together by a shared fascination with the Tollund Man, subject of Seamus Heaney’s famous poem, they begin writing letters to one another. And from their vastly different worlds, they find they have more in common than they could have imagined. As they open up to one another about their lives, an unexpected friendship blooms. But then Tina’s letters stop coming, and Anders is thrown into despair. How far are they willing to go to write a new story for themselves?

Format: Hardcover, ebook (224 pp.)    Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 17th May 2018  Genre: Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Meet Me at the the Museum on Goodreads

About Anne Youngson

Anne Youngson worked for many years in senior management in the car industry before embarking on a creative career as a writer. She has supported many charities in governance roles, including Chair of the Writers in Prison Network, which provided residencies in prisons for writers. She lives in Oxfordshire and is married with two children and three grandchildren to date. Meet Me at the Museum is her debut novel, which is due to be published around the world.

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