Readers Place

Judith Allnatt interview/review

What made you want to be a writer?

When I was a child I used to write poems and stories and lots of first chapters of novels that never got any further. I was a real bookworm and writing just seemed a natural extension of reading: if I enjoyed a new rhythm or discovered a new genre I wanted to try it out for myself. The excitement of playing around with words and the challenge of communicating thoughts and feelings to other people are still the things that make me write today.

Who or what was the inspiration for A Mile of River?

Several things happened that came together as the inspiration for the book. The first was a strange dream in which I saw a girl walking barefoot through a cinder car park. Her feet were bleeding and in the dream I knew that she had been driven to these lengths because her father had taken her shoes and hidden them. This scene kept coming back to my mind and I knew that I wanted to find out more about it. As well as teaching creative writing to university students I had taught students at ‘A’ level and I had known many young students who had huge drive and aspirations but were dealing with difficult home lives. I wondered whether the girl in the dream was a kind of imagined archetype.

During that summer there was a very hot spell when the countryside around me in rural Northamptonshire turned crisp and brown. My mind flew back to the summer of 1976 when no rain fell in the Midlands for a hundred days. What would it have been like trying to keep a farm going then, I wondered, with your livelihood drying up around you? And what effect would it have on a farming family, where even the kids were expected to pull their weight: especially a family with only one parent around?

My heroine, Jess, a determined seventeen year old, her young brother Tom and her controlling father, Henry, were born.

I could see why Henry behaved as he did, but this didn’t stop me hating him. What reaction do you want him to inspire in your reader? Or are you happy for readers to react to him as they see fit?

I tried to present Henry in such a way that the reader would see his selfishness and unkindness but would still be able to understand him. Henry has had some tough breaks but he has let them shape his behaviour rather than rising above them. Ultimately, he is a coward and less of an adult than his own daughter.

When you write a novel, which comes first – story, setting, characters, theme? Or do they all arrive at once?

This may sound strange but I think of the process as finding the novel, in the same way that sculptors sometimes say they find the sculpture within a piece of stone. For me, it starts with an image that intrigues me. As I ask myself questions about who, where, when, how and why; character, story, setting and theme start to emerge. It’s as if the questions are chipping away at the stone of all the raw material that is tucked away somewhere at the back of your mind and the process of writing is revealing something that was there all along. One writer, whose name eludes me, said ‘I write what I want to find out,’ and I too feel that making discoveries as I write is what excites me. If I had everything planned from the beginning then I wouldn’t feel the same motivation to write the book.

Did Jess arrive in a flash of inspiration, or was her development as a character a gradual process?

Jess developed gradually as a character. As her story is written in the first person, catching a convincing voice was important and I didn’t start writing until I could hear her voice clearly in my head. After that I was still discovering things about her well into the book; I might have a particular intention for a scene but then realize that Jess would act in quite a different way. It really did seem as though the character was ‘coming alive’ and demanding to stay true to her essential nature. I find this quite magical and it’s the point at which the story really catches fire.

Who are your own favourite and/or inspirational novelists?

I’m a great admirer of Rose Tremain and Anita Shreve, both writers who take up new challenges with every book by choosing widely different settings or eras and by using different approaches in telling their story. I also enjoy reading translations as there’s often something fresh and interesting about the use of language. My current favourite is ‘Embers’ by Sándor Márai, translated by Carol Brown Janeway.

Some novelists tell me they hardly ever read other people’s novels, preferring non-fiction or poetry (or whatever) instead. But other novelists say it is essential for a novelist to read the fiction that is being published now. Where do you stand on this?

It’s a matter of personal preference, of course, and I know that some writers find that reading someone else’s work can interfere with their writing voice when they’re in the middle of writing a novel. Nonetheless, I’m with the second camp on this, as you can always read between creative phases. I think that the more widely you read in the genre that you’re working in, the more you learn about what is possible within that genre. This is not to say that one should slavishly identify and follow a set of conventions, but that by looking at what other writers have done you can discover new approaches and decide whether you like an approach or would like to try it out on your own material. Apart from this, I can’t imagine being without the teetering pile of novels on my bedside table!

What are you writing now?

I’m writing a second novel for Transworld called ‘The Poet’s Wife’. It’s set in the nineteenth century and is the story of Patty Clare, wife of John Clare, the ‘peasant poet’, genius and madman. I’ve loved doing the research for this novel and I’m really fascinated by the themes of love, madness and lost identity. Once more I find myself writing what I want to find out, which is: when someone changes beyond recognition, how far will love stretch? Maybe by the end of the book my characters will find an answer.

Do you have a website or publish a newsletter?

I have a website with details of my writing and teaching. If readers would like to join my mailing list for a newsletter I’d love them to get in touch at judith@judithallnatt.co.uk.