Kevin
Patrick Mahoney interviews Clare Littleford, author of Beholden and Death Duty.
KPM: How is work on the third
novel coming along, interruptions like this notwithstanding?
Clare Littleford: Very well, thanks. I'm
about half way through writing it and the plot and characters are starting to
come together now, feeding into each other, which is always the exciting stage.
Writing the third book is a different experience to writing the previous two,
as Beholden was written with no idea whether I'd find a publisher, and I
finished Death Duty just before Beholden was published, so book three is the
first to be written since I started getting feedback from readers. I love
getting feedback, but it does mean that I'm much more aware of my readers while
writing. I hope that will turn out to be a good thing!
KPM: I know that you are
very widely read. Would you care to relate to the readers of Authortrek
just how you set about choosing what next to read when you were growing up?
Clare Littleford: When I was a kid, I went to
my local library just about every Saturday. When I was about eleven and I'd read
my way through the children's section, I started on the adult section. I
started at A and worked my way round - it was a small library, and I didn't
read every book by any stretch of the imagination, but I did read a lot of
different things. Everything from Len Deighton and Jeffrey Archer to more
'classic' authors like Dickens, Graham Greene, James Joyce. I had to stop when
I reached 'R' as I had to sit my GCSEs! That makes me sound like a very
precocious child, but really, it was a very small library.
As a child, I read books to
be transported to a different place - one of my most profound reading memories
is reading 'Lord of the Flies' on a camping holiday, sitting alone in some
woods with the book, immersed in the world of the island while the sunlight
came through the trees in dappled patterns - certainly added to the atmosphere!
KPM: I have been living in
your home town of Bedford for just about a year now, and I have been inspired
to write by the town. It seems to be a place that conjures up far out
spiritual visions, from John Bunyan to the Panaceans. Both of your novels
are set in your adopted town of Nottingham. Have you never been inspired to
write about your home town?
Clare Littleford: One of the reasons I like
to write about Nottingham (apart from the urban grit that a city setting
provides) is that although I've lived in Nottingham for 9 years and know the
place very well, I still have an outsider's view of the place, which helps when
using a particular setting for mood and atmosphere - often, it's knowing what
details to use and what to leave out that makes a description do the job you
want it to do. My knowledge of Bedford is so tied up with my memories of
growing up there that I'm not sure I'd have the necessary distance to use the location
to the best effect. I could end up writing autobiographically, which isn't
something I really want to do - for one thing, my life hasn't been that
interesting! That's not to say I won't decide to use Bedford as a setting in
the future - there is something sinister to be said about small towns with the
violence seething away under the surface. Not exactly Pilgrim's Progress, I
suppose!
KPM: I am always on the
lookout for new writers. Can you recommend to Authortrek any other rising
young stars from Nottinghamshire? How are the fellow students on the
Nottingham Trent University MA now faring?
Clare Littleford: There are two other writers
in Nottingham who would fit that description! By sheer chance, Beholden was published
at around the same time that two other first-time novelists living in
Nottingham were being published; we've done a number of readings and talks
together, and we've become good friends as a result. One, Stephan Collishaw, I
already knew from the MA in Writing; his first novel 'The Last Girl' is set in
Lithuania during the Second World War and in the present day, telling a story
about guilt and regret that I found really moving. The other, Jon McGregor,
made the long-list for the Booker Prize with 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable
Things', which tells of one day in an unnamed street in an unnamed city, and
details of the lives of the people on the street. It's wonderfully written,
celebrating the everyday but with a strong story that underpins the power of
the writing.
It's
been great having two other writers at a similar stage in their careers to talk
to - we can meet up for a drink and talk 'shop', which is a real bonus as
writing can be a very isolated existence. They're also both extremely good writers,
which is very exciting. Stephan is the only MA student I knew on the course who
has had a novel published - but I met a lot of wonderful writers on the course
who are working away on novels, poetry, filmscripts, all sorts of things, and
hoping to get the break they deserve soon.
KPM: Both your novels
feature characters who dream of escape from their dreary lives and jobs.
You now look to be living your dream life, working as a professional
author. Do you wake up pinching yourself every morning, or are there
also daily frustrations in your new career?
Clare Littleford: It's funny, I always
thought that writers knew what their main 'concern' or 'theme' was before they
started writing, but that theme of running away, of dreaming of escape caught me
by surprise. It just reared up when I was thinking about book three, and I
realised that everything I write has the idea of escape somewhere near its
centre. When I first started writing Beholden, I knew why that theme was there
- I was doing a day job I didn't like verry much, and the germ of the idea that
eventually became Beholden was that experience of sitting on a bus going to
work, and not wanting to get off the bus at my stop, wanting to do anything but
go to work. That's a feeling that most people experience, I'm sure.
Now
I've escaped all of that, and I am extremely lucky to be in this situation. Of
course there are frustrations - nothing is ever perfect - but the frustrations
are different. I have control over my days, I love what I do. Balancing
freelance work to pay a few bills with writing the book or doing readings can
be overwhelming at times, and sitting alone writing can feel very isolated -
but I still think I've got the best job in the world, and I wouldn't swap it
for anything.
KPM: I was very interested to
see that you have a link on your pages to Patricia Highsmith. I loved
"The Tremor of Forgery" in particular when I read it, and I couldn't
help thinking that the mysterious death (or not) of the Arab in that novel resonates
with the central mystery in "Death Duty"? What do you most admire
about Highsmith?
Clare Littleford: You've named one of the few
Highsmith novels I haven't actually read!
I
love the way Highsmith starts from that combination of character and situation
that puts her protagonists on a collision path with events. She starts from the
premise that anybody can be a murderer, and by extension, that anybody can be
mistaken for a murderer - so in 'Strangers on a Train' it's a chance meeting
between two particular characters that sets off the chain of events, or in 'The
Blunderer' the central character comes under suspicion and everything he does
from that moment on just makes him seem even more guilty. The psychology of the
characters is so well handled that even when they act out of character or do
something that seems unlikely, it absolutely fits with the way their mind is
working at that moment.
That's
the sort of thing I find interesting with my own writing - taking an 'ordinary'
person and putting them under so much pressure that they crack - it's not so
much about a mystery that needs solving, more a situation that needs to be
unravelled and explained to understand how someone can be a victim or a
perpetrator, or most interestingly, both at once.
KPM: I've just been reading a
website that relates how American bookshops are never quite sure whether to
place Highsmith in the 'Mystery' section or Fiction, and your books seem to
present the same dilemma, despite the jacket design. Have you ever
thought about writing in any other genre? Do you, like Peter Williams in
Beholden, have a liking for science fiction also?
Clare Littleford: Yes, there are some
Highsmith novels that end up in the crime section even though there isn't a
crime in the book - 'Carol', for example, is about a relationship and doesn't
involve a crime at all, but is shoe-horned into the crime section as a
'suspense novel'. A lot of the time, genre is only really useful for bookshops
trying to decide where to stack the stock.
I
didn't actually set out to be a crime writer. When I sent my first book out to
agents, the agent who agreed to represent me thought that Beholden would work
very well as a psychological thriller. I hadn't though about it in those terms,
but once I'd thought through my agent's suggestions and seen what he meant, I
realised he was right. Now, I feel very 'at home' writing crime books, although
they don't really fit easily into the genre - I don't have detectives, the
books aren't really 'mysteries' in the pure sense of the genre. But the crime
genre is a very fluid thing, and sometimes writing 'at the edges' of a genre
can open up some very interesting territory.
I
have to admit, I've never really read much sci-fi; I did read some as a child,
but I've always been more interested in the 'real' world, the one we all live
in. I admire writers who can use alternative realities to explore the reality
we live in, but it's not something I'd like to do myself - the interior
landscape of psychology is what interests me, and I think there's enough room
in the 'real' world for me to explore that.
KPM: I was interested by
Peter's comments about sci-fi dystopias in Beholden, and I was wondering
where you came across this theory? I suspect that it came from your MA,
but I may be wrong... How did they did the explain pre-Soviet sci-fi,
such as H G Wells?
Clare Littleford: Yes, that was an aside from
a conversation with a couple of writers I met on the MA course. I have no idea
how they would explain pre-Soviet sci-fi, but the theory seems to fit for
Soviet sci-fi! It just seemed like the sort of theory Peter would subscribe to
- and fitted the scene I was writing at tthe time.
KPM: You've quoted the
Kinks' "Sunny Afternoon" in both novels, but I'm not sure how
flattered the great Ray Davies would be, as both characters who express a
preference for this song cannot be described as being totally
well-balanced. I used to have a well-loved tape called "100 Minutes
of the Kinks" with all their hits from the 60s. What does their
music, and this song in particular, mean to you?
Clare Littleford: I'd actually forgotten that
I'd mentioned Sunny Afternoon in Beholden when I mentioned it in Death Duty.
It's surprisingly difficult to keep the details of more than one book in your
head at the same time, even if you've written the books in question! You're
right, I'm sure it isn't particularly flattering to Ray Davies! It's one of my
favourite songs, but I think what I really like about it (and why I mentioned
it in both novels) is that on first hearing it makes me think of sunny
afternoons (natch) sitting out in a park with friends and a few beers, just
'chilling', a pleasant and relaxing time, but underneath this there's something
more sinister going on in the song. I like music, books, art in general that
has a disturbing edge to it - the idea that there's something lurking just
beneath the surface pleasantness. That's certainly the sense I'd like to get
across in my books. Life is dark, and unpleasantness lurks just out of sight. A
cheerful thought to end on!
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