NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2004

NEWSLETTER 13

Work in Progress

I am about to sign a new contract with Orion for two more novels, the first of which, MADE IN HEAVEN, will be published in 2006. From the title you will know that the action centres on a wedding and I’m having good fun doing the research: reading bridal magazines and canvassing family and friends for their idea of what an ideal wedding is. LIZZIE’S WISH, my contribution to the Historical House series has now been published (see events) and so has MY FIRST BALLET STORIES.

Things will be a little quieter till January when I start on the new book, but I do have a short story to write for a collection about mothers and daughters to be edited by Bel Mooney.

HESTER’S STORY will be published at the end of January 2005 and is going to be a Tesco Book of the Week…a big thrill for me. I will take a camera into my local shop and ask check-out staff to take some photos!

There will be an extract from HESTER’S STORY on the Orion website from the beginning of December. www.orionbooks.co.uk

Do visit the site and have a look.

Events

The Cheltenham Festival was wonderful. David and Jenny Blanch, editors of Carousel magazine, kindly gave me a lift down from Birmingham, which got me there on a Sunday in time to interview Louis Sachar, the author of Holes. We met in the Kandinsky Hotel, in a kind of Belle Epoque conservatory next to the bar, and the contrast between the setting and Louis, (good-looking, thin, wearing a baseball cap, t-shirt and jeans and trainers and in every way like an adult version of one of his own heroes) couldn’t have been more marked. I’ve never interviewed anyone before, so what we had was a good chat and it’s now up to me to turn the scribbles and my memories into a reasonable piece for David and Jenny who commissioned it. After the interview, I rushed to the Town Hall to meet Rachel Billington, before our event. It was a real pleasure to meet her after enjoying her work. She looked absolutely marvellous in a most beautiful Missoni jacket. The audience for our talk wasn’t enormous, but everyone there was very friendly and enthusiastic and I enjoyed the event greatly.

We signed copies of our books in the tent afterwards and had a cup of tea in the Writers’ room. This Cheltenham institution is a real treat. You always meet friends there whom you haven’t seen for years. This time, I met William Nicholson and Helen Dunmore and my fellow SAS member Anne Cassidy who was just about to give a talk about crime involving children. Her novel, the Whitbread- shortlisted Looking for JJ, is about a child murderer.

After Anne’s event…oh, it’s non-stop at Cheltenham!...Christopher Cook, the very delightful, knowledgeable and urbane director of the Festival, interviewed me in a part of the programme which was called ‘J’accuse!’ We were asked to talk about a writer or a book we could easily do without and I chose JRRTolkein and the Lord of the Rings books. I caused some consternation when I confessed that I was practically allergic to these books and had never actually got beyond about page 20 of any one of them, but it was a very jolly twenty minutes and I was not booed by hordes of Rings fans, and there were no Orcs (is that right?) lying in wait for me afterwards.

Dinner at the Kandinsky Hotel, courtesy of Usborne, was wonderful. Justin Somper and Sarah Barr were great hosts and Anne Cassidy, Paul Stickland, Jane Churchill (the Festival organiser who looked after all of us so well), and others sat about eating very good food and talking and talking till bedtime. This hotel, for anyone who doesn’t know it, is marvellous. It’s not a bit like the corporate model, but has the most beautiful furniture everywhere and a collection of puppets hanging on the wall in reception. You do feel as though you’re stepping back in time when you register…lovely!

Next morning, I had breakfast with Anne Cassidy and she gave me a very good idea to try out on my creative writing class. This was a class for adults, the first of a series of five every day that week, each led by a different writer. Everyone worked brilliantly, and was very friendly too. One of the group, Natasha Roderick-Jones, runs the Chipping Campden Bookshop and we are now in email contact and I’m going down to her part of the world in January (see forthcoming events) to do a literary lunch. It was a real pleasure to meet her, and I’m looking forward to seeing the shop, which she says is not much bigger than a bedroom, but which is very influential. Natasha sold an enormous number of hardback copies of Girl with a Pearl Earing long before it became the bestseller it is now.

The Historical House event, with Linda Newbery and Ann Turnbull, was a great success. It was good to be on the platform with such good speakers and we had a theatre packed with children who had come to hear us. They asked excellent questions and bought a great many copies of our books afterwards.

Ann and I travelled as far as Birmingham together and that made the journey fly by.

The Chester Festival panel discussion was also very enjoyable. My fellow writers (Kathy Long, Margaret Murphy, and Jane McNulty) and I met for a delicious lunch with Freda and Jan Bengree, the organisers, and afterwards went to meet our audience. There were many searching questions from our audience and it was fascinating to hear what my fellow-writers had to say. Jan was an excellent chair, and Freda produced a variety of fantastic cakes at tea-time that she’d baked herself…enough for the whole audience of about 40 people. They were delicious and a real treat for everyone.

I went down to London at the end of October and met my agent Laura Cecil for lunch at the sushi bar at Harvey Nichols. I’ve never had sushi before, nor lunched at Harvey Nicks so it was a new experience in every way. Sushi turns out to be delicious and I loved the conveyor-belt of little dishes that kept going round and round for us to choose from.

After lunch I went to Harrods and met Jane Robertson, who runs the children’s books department on the Fourth Floor. I haven’t been through Harrods doors since the Sixties and it has both changed and stayed the same. The luxury and the gorgeous smells everywhere were just as I remembered, but now I felt as though I was walking through the set for a Hollywood version of Aida. Opera was playing as we went up the Egyptian escalator, and when we reached the toy department, it was jam-packed with thousands of children and parents just starting on the whole business of Christmas. MY FIRST BALLET STORIES was piled high, and I’m glad to report that lots of people bought it, and some of them even bought multiple copies. My friend, the writer Patricia Elliott, (author of Murkmere) came in to meet me and after my hour at Harrod’s was over, we went to have a quick cup of tea before I had to go and catch my train home. It. was good to see her, however briefly. If you do find yourself in Harrods, it’s well worth going up to the children’s bookshop. Jane R. knows her stuff and is very welcoming and hospitable.

Next, to Newcastle, to the Gosforth East Middle School to speak to the children there as part of the Children’s Bookshow. Sian Williams, the organizer, was there and we had a chat at the school before she had to catch her train. I was admirably looked after by Ann Key who for many years has been a leading light of the Northern Children’s Book Fair, and the children at the school were terrific. A good day all round.

I don’t do many school visits, but I did go and open a new library at Well Green Primary in Hale. The Head, Kate Markham, came to get me in her car on one of the wettest days of the autumn, but inside the school it was all sunshine. The library is beautiful and both staff and children were very enthusiastic. I enjoyed my visit very much and it was great to wield a pair of scissors on a satin ribbon and do the thing in style! I was pleased to see the home page of this website up and showing on both of the new library’s computers.

On Friday 19th November, I was a guest at a wonderful party. My friend Patty Cammack has been a member of the Women and Literature reading group for 30…yes, that’s right THIRTY years. Since 1974 they have met once a month at one another’s houses and they haven’t missed a month in all those years. They’ve read many different things, and on Friday they were discussing my novel FACING THE LIGHT which was a real honour for me. A reporter from the Manchester Evening News came to take pictures of the group, and after the discussion Patty served soup and delicious salads and a dessert to remember. She’s famous for her wonderful cooking and this was a real feast. Altogether a fantastic evening and many thanks to Patty, Diana, Alison and Alison, Jackie, Pip, Sue, Michele, Kath, Annie, Janet and Angela. Here’s to the next thirty years!

On Thursday November 25th, I met up with Linda Newbery and Ann Turnbull for the official launch of the Historical House books. This was at the Royal Overseas League in Piccadilly, a building of great dignity and character. We were asked characteristically searching and intelligent questions by Nicholas Tucker, and then also from the floor. Then we had a really splendid dinner as the guests of our publisher, Peter Usborne himself, who was a very kind and friendly host. The food was terrific and as well as the three of us, and our respective agents, Megan Larkin our editor and Justin Somper our doughty publicist were there as well. Linda, Ann and I stayed overnight at the League and had breakfast together on Friday morning before setting off in a cab for Francis Holland School in Chelsea. Sally Bassington, the librarian, who had been at our event the previous evening, was there to greet us with coffee and then we spoke to some wonderfully enthusiastic and charming girls. Thanks to Sally’s sterling efforts, they knew our books and most had bought all three of them. We spent a satisfyingly long time signing these, before Linda was whisked off to another school, and Ann and I were driven to Euston in a lovely silver Mercedes….this is something I could grow used to!

The school was the one mentioned in both Linda and Ann’s books, and Ann, as she put it, felt very proprietorial ‘having actually bombed it’ in her story. It’s very near the house we have all enjoyed writing about. The whole collaboration has been such a delightful experience that I hope very much we’re asked to do it again.

This time of year is quieter as far as events go, but I am speaking at British Council conference in on December 2nd. I am one of a panel, this time with my editor, David Fickling and Elaine McQuade, of Puffin Books.

On December 7th, I’m doing a day of creative writing classes in Lancashire.

On January 20th, 2005 I’m speaking at literary lunch at the Cotswold House Hotel, courtesy of the Chipping Campden bookshop and Natasha…see above! I’ll write about both these events in the next newsletter.

Books

On my way to London, I started Out by Natsuo Kirino ( Vintage pbk) and if ever there was something sensational to read on the train, this is it. It’s a very gruesome and violent murder story….but oddly domestic and very bleak too. It’s about four women who work the night shift in a box-lunch factory. One of them kills her husband; the others help her cut up and dispose of the body and then all sorts of things start happening. I haven’t finished yet, but it’s involving and well-written. It’s not, however, for anyone squeamish.

Seven Types of Ambiguity is by Elliott Perlman (Faber pbk) who’s Australian and it follows a Wilkie Collins-type narration: seven characters in the story give us their version of events one after another. I wondered why the author should give his novel the same title as a very famous work of literary criticism, but it’s a perfect name for a very unusual and quite amazingly good book Every one of the characters is flawed and yet we sympathise with every one of them while we’re reading their accounts. I was led to this book by my daughters, and am surprised that I’ve read no reviews anywhere. What’s it about? Lives, people, relationships, and of course, ambiguity. Brilliant stuff and not to be missed.

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday hbk) is also absolutely tremendous. It’s very well written and quite unputdownable. I’ve never read a novel of hers before, though I love her short stories. This book is a corker and it’s up for the novel category of the Whitbread Award. I expect it’s too enjoyable to win but do read it. It’s a mystery story but not like any other mystery story you’ve ever read and the plot fits together like clockwork: something I always admire greatly. I like to be able to see the structure of a novel and in this one it’s quite dazzling. I’m now going to read her whole backlist.

Goodbye, Jimmy Choo by Anne Sanders (Orion pbk) is enormous fun. It’s much better written and funnier than the usual run of light novels, and the two main characters are engaging and entertaining. Their lives (career ambitions, love affairs, children etc) are examined in a very sprightly manner by two journalists, Annie Ashworth and Meg Sanders, who got together to write this more than usually intelligent contribution to the much-maligned genre of women’s fiction.

Women’s fiction is also what Anita Brookner writes. There are those who say she keeps bringing out the same book over and over again, but I’m quite happy to read one a year for as long as she cares to write them. Rules of Engagement (Penguin pbk) has the characteristic doom and gloom dogging the footsteps of a spinster who lives in a mansion flat in London. Brookner London is as tangible and well-imagined as the one we think of as Dickensian, and sentence by sentence, there’s no one who writes more elegantly. Super stuff for those who, like me, are devotees of this sort of thing.

The Wish House by Celia Rees (Macmillan hbk) is supposed to be a young adult book, but like the best of the work written for this age group, it’s for anyone who likes a story about first love, illusion and reality and the distance between these, and above all it’s for anyone who likes books about the effects on a family of a charismatic parent. In this case, the parent is also an artist and a highlight of the book was the wonderful descriptions given of individual paintings. It’s set in a terrific house and is full of an atmosphere that’s both menacing and romantic. As soon as film directors have grown bored with fantasy, they might do worse than turn to stories like this. In fact, if any directors would like to get in touch, I’ve got, as the song from the Mikado says, ‘a little list.’

A reminder: In a previous newsletter, I highlighted Ann Turnbull’s No Shame, No Fear. Now it’s in contention for the children’s category in the Whitbread Awards. Anne Cassidy’s Looking for JJ, Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now and Geraldine McCaughrean’s Not the End of the World are the others competing for the prize. I’m very glad I don’t have to decide that one! My advice: read all four. The newspapers outdid themselves in not reporting details of this category, and the Guardian didn’t even bother to mention in their coverage that Meg Rosoff had won their very own Children’s Fiction Prize, nor that Ann Turnbull was a runner-up in that competition. Never mind, eh?

 Season’s greetings to everyone. I’ll be back at the end of January.

Adèle Geras