I’m delighted to welcome
award-winning author, Jane Davis, to the blog. Jane is the author of seven
novels. Her debut, Half-truths and White
Lies, won the Daily Mail First Novel Award and was described by Joanne
Harris as ‘A story of secrets, lies, grief and, ultimately, redemption,
charmingly handled by this very promising new writer.’ The Bookseller featured
her in their ‘One to Watch’ section. Six further novels have earned her a loyal
fan base and wide-spread praise. Her 2016 novel, An Unknown Woman won Writing Magazine’s Self-Published Book of the
Year Award. Compulsion Reads describe her as ‘a phenomenal writer whose ability
to create well-rounded characters that are easy to relate to feels effortless.’
Her favourite description of fiction is 'made-up truth'.
Jane lives in Carshalton, Surrey,
with her Formula 1 obsessed, beer-brewing partner, surrounded by growing piles
of paperbacks, CDs and general chaos. When she is not writing, you may spot
Jane disappearing up the side of a mountain with a camera in hand.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you
from?
I grew up close
to Wimbledon, best known for its association with lawn tennis. These days,
Wimbledon is in one of London’s most expensive post codes, but back in those
pre-DIY days, it wasn’t nearly so affluent. Apart from the fact that I can
longer afford to live in Wimbledon, I haven’t moved far and the changes I’ve
seen, both demographically and architecturally, interest me. My novels are set
in my personal geography, and so it already has many strata. I’ll let Ron
explain. (Taken from an Unknown Woman)
‘There was
something transportative about living in the same city all of your life; walking
around familiar geography, knee-deep in the history of the place. And
superimposed over a street map carried both inside and outside his head (the
then and the now), were the milestones of his own life.’
When you write
characters into what is already your personal backdrop, you create yet another
layer. Recently I found myself in St Mary’s Church in Beddington lighting a
candle for my mother-in-law’s anniversary, but I also felt the presence of Jim
and Aimee, two on my characters from A
Funeral for an Owl.
What kind of subjects do you write about and why do they interest you?
Big subjects: I’ve tackled the influence that missing people have on our lives, how parents react when their teenage daughter claims to be seeing religious visions, what life is like for the daughter of a prostitute, what it’s like to lose your home and everything in it. I give my characters almost impossible moral dilemmas. To be honest I throw them to the lions.
As for why, I’m hugely interested
in cause and effect. One of my favourite authors is John Irving and the first
novel of his that I read was A Prayer for
Owen Meany. Irving overlays the story of Owen Meany, (a boy brought up to
believe that he was the product of a virgin birth), with the somewhat dull
present-day life of his best friend, John. Talk about cause and effect! One of
the reasons authors write is because they want to create a world with logic,
with order, with consequences, sometimes doling out justice, sometimes giving
people second chances. All authors are playing God to some extent.
Most of the events I write about
are based in truth, albeit slightly unexpected ones. What inspired me to write These Fragile Things was the discovery
that a woman in Surbiton – close to where I live – claims she has seen visions
of the Virgin Mary every day for the past thirty years. When challenged
recently that that there were too many coincidences in I Stopped Time, I
referred the reviewer to the biography of
model-turned-photographer-turned-journalist Lee Miller. I see myself as a
magpie. I collect obscure facts and think, how can I recycle them?
Do you have a special place where you like to write?
My writing desk is the dining
room table. At least, I think the table is under there somewhere. It is
littered with notebooks, notes written on the backs of envelopes, Sellotape, my
diary, a calculator. I can work in chaos - so long as I have silence.
It’s definitely not an ideal
environment - I don’t live alone and the dining room is the highway to our
kitchen and the bathroom! However, Stephen King describes in his book, On Writing about how he used to write at
a small desk under the eaves, and it wasn’t until he had his first office that
he first suffered from writers’ block. So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
What was the first thing you wrote? Was it any good?
My first novel was called After Hilary. It didn’t get as far as
being a book, but did earn me the services of a literary agent and the words,
‘Jane, you’re a writer’, which sounded far more glamorous than ‘Jane, you’re an
insurance broker’. I’d call that four years well-spent. There was a draft
contract from a small publisher, but the small publisher was eaten up by a big
publisher before the ink was dry. In retrospect, I’m rather glad it was
consigned to the bottom drawer reserved for all first novels, because like most
first serious attempts, it contains semi-autobiographic elements that would
have come back to bite me. I have published seven novels since then. None of
them are remotely autobiographical, but this doesn’t stop members of my family
from claiming that they recognise themselves.
Tell us a bit about your latest release.
My Counterfeit Self tells the story of a radical poet and political
activist called Lucy Forrester, who’s a cross between Edith Sitwell and
Vivienne Westwood. It starts on the day of the funeral of her literary critic
and on/off lover of 50 years, Dominic Marchmont. Having been anti-establishment
all of her life, Lucy is horrified to find that she’s been featured on the New
Year’s Honours list. (This is list prepared by the Queen for people who have
made a considerable contribution to British life in some substantial way – arts,
culture, business, charitable works and so on).
What conflicts shape the story?
Lucy knows exactly who she is.
Rebel, activist, word-wielder, thorn in the side of the establishment, not a
national treasure. Initially she sees the fact that she’s been nominated for an
Honour as an insult. Perhaps it’s an act of revenge, or a cruel joke. But
husband Ralph suggests that perhaps Dominic – the man they both loved – has
left her an opportunity? Lucy’s job is to work out how best to use it.
Where did the inspiration for the story come from?
To be honest, the idea of writing
about the life of a poet came directly from reader reviews. Several comments
that my prose was like poetry. I had no idea if I could actually write poetry
but this gave me confidence that I might be able to convince readers that I
could see the world as a poet does.
How did you research your story?
Authenticity’s very important to
me. I started by reading a number of biographies: The Life of Kenneth Tynan,
by Kathleen Tynan; Edith Sitwell: Avant
Garde Poet, English Genius, by Richard Greene; Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted, by Andrew Wilson, Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford, edited by Charlotte
Mosley and Vivienne Westwood by
Vivienne Westwood and Ian Kelly.
Because Lucy was struck down by
polio at the age of nine, I needed to understand how childhood illness creates
ambition, and was surprised by just how many famous people had suffered from
polio: Martin Sheen, Donald Sutherland, Joni Mitchell, the ballerina Gwen Verdon
– in fact Gwen was encouraged by her mother to dance as therapy.
With the internet, we have a
wealth of information at our fingertips, but when you find conflicting
information, it’s difficult to pin down which version is correct. Sometimes you
have to go with the majority. The main issue I find is that it is easy to find
the ‘facts’ (and I’m going to use inverted commas), it’s more of a challenge to
know what my characters would have known at the time. That’s why I refer to
newspaper headlines. I can be certain that this level of detail was in the
public domain.
My final research required
bare-faced cheek. I needed to know what a person would have to do to get
arrested outside Buckingham Palace, how long it would take for someone to
react, and what warnings would be given, and the information wasn’t available
on-line. This wasn’t something I could afford to get wrong so I went to the
Palace and asked the duty policemen and guards.
Does the story echo your own experience in any very concrete way?
Not in a concrete way, but
indirectly. It’s unavoidable for a writer to draw on their own experience. In
writing about the life of poet, I’ve drawn on my experiences as a writer. How
it feels when you show your work to someone for the first time. How you fear
that people may like you less when they understand what’s going on inside your
head. I suppose you could say that I’ve drawn on my experience of winning the
Daily Mail First Novel Award. After my competition win I received several reviews
that said I didn’t deserve to win, that the result was a fix, or that I must
have been related to the judges. I wanted to say to those people, ‘I didn’t
enter with any expectation of winning.’ You see, I entered out of sheer
frustration. I had an agent but my manuscript had been sitting in her in-tray
for six months and she hadn’t found time to read it. With winning, there’s
always a sense of giving with one hand and taking away with the other, ignoring
the fact that at the centre of the controversy is someone vulnerable and real.
Do you think the book’s message is a hopeful one?
My philosophy is ‘arrive late,
get out early’. I’m writing about a real issue that has yet to be resolved, so
I can’t finish the story, but yes, I’d say there is a triumphant note.
Saul Bellow once said ‘You
never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.’
Do you agree?
Occasionally, to write the first
draft of a tired and emotional scene, it helps to be tired and emotional, so
that you can use an emotion that’s already there, rather than having to
recreate one. I might set the alarm for the middle of the night so that I’m at
least halfway there. But I always have to edit.
Do you have hobbies aside from reading?
I have three main passions:
walking, photography and the British countryside. I am very lucky in that I am
surrounded by parks so walking I do daily, but I can combine all three. I
discovered mountain-climbing when I was eighteen and find it hugely rewarding
to push myself physically. The top of a mountain is also a great place for
thinking and putting things in perspective.
What’s the first book you remember reading?
I can remember that I was a huge
fan of The Magic Pudding by Norman
Lindsay. I also loved Anne of Green
Gables and anything written by Alan Garner, whose writing is dark,
peculiarly British and blends fact with folk law, myths and spirituality.
Do you
have an all-time favourite book?
My list of favourite books may
change but it’s always topped by The
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. It has everything. Family secrets, flawed
characters, opportunities for redemption. I return to it time and time again
and always find something new. Odd though it may seem, I have never read
another book by Pat Conroy. The Prince of
Tides is so perfect, I’d be afraid that I would feel disappointed.
What are
you working on now?
I’m very superstitious about
talking about what I’m working on. I don’t know if I have a book on my hands
until I hit the 50,000-word mark and I’m not there yet. But I was very moved by
the Hillsborough documentary about how the families of those who were killed
finally achieved their goals after dedicating their entire lives to the fight
for justice. While it ended on a celebratory note, my thoughts were, what on earth
do you do now? So that’s what I hope to explore.
My
Counterfeit Self is available to pre-order on Kindle until the launch date of 1st
October at the special price of 99p/99c. After this, the price will be
£2.99/$3.99. To order or buy follow the link https://books2read.com/u/3kZveg
For details of her other books, visit: http://jane-davis.co.uk/jane-davis-books/
Newsletter www.jane-davis.co.uk/newsletter (Sign up
to receive a free copy of her novel, I
Stopped Time. Jane promises not to bombard subscribers with junk. She only
issues a newsletter when she has something genuinely newsworthy to report.)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JaneDavisAuthorPage/?fref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/janedavisauthor
Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/+JaneDavisAuthor/posts
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/janeeleanordavi/boards/
