Tell us about your new novel, The Woman in the Water.
It is a psychological suspense novel set in 1936 in society London and a decaying country estate on the Cornwall coast. Two women go from being childhood friends to murderer and witness, their bond warped by grief, envy and power. The novel is inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938), which contains one of literature’s most curious unsolved puzzles: who is the woman deliberately misidentified by Max de Winter as his wife Rebecca and buried under her name in the family crypt? Readers don’t need to be familiar with Rebecca, though those who are will notice the Easter eggs.
Are you a big fan of Daphne du Maurier?
Yes. As with many people, I first came across Rebecca as a teenager. I also love The House on the Strand, which du Maurier wrote almost 30 years after Rebecca, in 1969. In it, a man is offered an escape from his troubles in the form of a new drug only to find himself transported to 14th-century Cornwall.
You have previous when it comes to satellite fiction. A Talented Man is about a forged sequel to Dracula. Tell us more.
A Talented Man originated with my fascination with frauds and forgeries, as well as curiosity about Bram’s wife, Florence. Her work in fighting those who pirated Dracula after Bram’s death established important principles of copyright. The two interests came together when I read something Bram wrote in 1910: “Impostors in one shape or another are likely to flourish as long as human nature remains what it is, and society shows itself ready to be gulled”.
Are you a big fan of murder mysteries? Violet Hill is the story of two unusual female detectives who work the same case 100 years apart.
I do like a good murder.
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What is the attraction for you of historical fiction? Your debut What Becomes Of Us is set at the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising.
It’s the challenge of creating a world so different from my own; I can’t rely on my surroundings, situation or responses. In the years leading up to the centenary I was curious as to how the story of the Rising had been told 50 years earlier, as living memory rather than “history”. A story retold is always a different story; hindsight throws different shadows, creates a play of light and shade that didn’t exist the first time.
You won the UCD Maeve Binchy Travel Award for your project exploring the 31 sea areas of the shipping forecast, which featured on BBC Radio 4. Tell us more.
This generous bursary has been awarded in Maeve’s honour to a UCD student since 2014. I explored the forecast through the areas’ folklore, culture and history (lots of shipwrecks). Highlights included an overnight at Fastnet Rock lighthouse, thanks to the Commissioners of Irish Lights. I hadn’t been there long before I understood why Fastnet’s attendant, Neilly O’Reilly, had told me earlier that day, “They had to make lighthouses functional, but they didn’t have to make them so beautiful.”
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
A few years ago I went to the Laugharne Weekend in Wales. Tracey Thorn, Damo Suzuki, Nick Revell, John Cooper Clarke, Jackie Kay, Hollie McNish ... What a festival! Small and perfectly formed. Perched on a cliff overlooking the Tâf Estuary is the house where Dylan Thomas his family lived in 1949-1953, now restored as a museum. I visited the house because my favourite play, Under Milk Wood, was written there.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Elizabeth McCracken’s, whose fiction I’ve loved for years, has just published A Long Game: How to Write Fiction. It’s full of zingers, such as: “A writing life, I’ve come to believe, is a years-long process of casting away everything you once believed for sure.”
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
Book: As above, Elizabeth McCracken’s self-deprecating new how-to. Funny, friendly, on the money. Film: Open to anyone and hosted by movie encyclopedia Megan McGurk, Sass Mouth Dames film club is dedicated to the years 1929-1959, when women ruled Hollywood. Podcast: The Walkers: The Real Salt Path, reported by Chloe Hadjimatheou about the scandal behind Raynor Winn’s supposed memoir.
What is your favourite quotation?
In The Sopranos, during an argument with Tony, Carmela says something Charmaine Bucco told her: “You eat and you play and pretend there’s not a giant piano hanging by a rope just over the top of your head, every minute of every day.”
Who is your favourite fictional character?
It’s a bit of a cheat because the heart of the book is that she is many people, but Benna Carpenter in Lorrie Moore’s Anagrams. Also: Cam in any episode of Modern Family.
A book to make me laugh?
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis. A young academic working for a UN deradicalisation programme travels to Iraq to help a British Asian who joined Isis at 15. You might think that doesn’t sound like much fun, but it’s entertaining as well as smart.
A book that might move me to tears?
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. Gets me every time. So does the 1988 film version starring James Wilby and Kristin Scott Thomas. I rarely love a film and book equally, this is one of the few exceptions.
The Woman in the Water is published by Hachette Books Ireland
