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Neither male nor female, bond nor free
It’s a long time since I read my last (and until now, only) novel about hermaphroditism: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. 
Perfect title, huh? But I loved that, so when I saw that another one on the subject had come out this year, it went straight onto my wish list. It’s Annabel by Kathleen Winter. A brave subject for any author to tackle, never mind as a debut novel. And it became my second read on a Kindle.
Annabel is set principally in the wild wastes of Labrador, populated by self-sufficient trappers and the women they leave behind. Kathleen Winter’s descriptions are amazingly evocative of a 1960s Canadian landscape and a way of life far removed from 21st century life in the central belt of Scotland.
The rather old fashioned, sedate prose seems to fit with the lives of these families. Restrained and economical. Caught in a time warp. Veiled references to ambiguity and its consequences, tucked into all sorts of corners and margins of the text – in descriptions of places and people, in experiences urban and rural, in relation to the psychological as well as the physical dimensions of its characters – reflect the ambiguity attached to the subject matter.
Treadway Blake is a silent, introverted but well-read trapper, more at ease in the wilderness than at the hearth. When he eventually finds out his firstborn child is ‘neither a son nor a daughter but both’ his decision is clear: ‘He’s going to be a boy. I’m going to call him Wayne, after his grandfather. We’ll get the doctor in and we’ll see.’
Jacinta, his wife, is a city girl at heart, who is doing her best to adjust to the deprivations and restrictions of life as a trapper’s left-behind girl. Her maternal love accepts her child as he/she is; she is content to leave well alone, to let Wayne grow up ‘without interference from a judgemental world’; the two complementary halves giving him/her extra power, unusual sensitivity.
I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of the story so I won’t give any more of the plot-line away but suffice it to say that it’s a tender and sympathetic tale, rather slow-paced but insightful. Much of it captures the normal mundane everydayness of life in a backwater in the 60s, but it also contains quite horrifying developments and experiences in Wayne’s life which shocked me into thinking in a different way about this complex topic.
Overall I felt I had a better sense of the confusion and consequences of gender ambiguity after reading it. And yet, there was no sense of the issue dominating the narrative. And you know how this is an abiding concern of mine.
So if you’re looking for something different, something that will be discomforting at times, heartening at others, but will make you think, then this is one for your Kindle or bookshelves.
The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed this week’s post is going out early. Next week it’ll be late. Explanations to follow in due course. Plus the latest developments in my attempts to convert my backlist to ebooks.
What makes a book good?
I’ve been chortling quietly to myself this week as the Man Booker process has reached its grand finale with the announcement of the winner. First there was the criticism levelled at the panel of judges. How dare they dumb down the competition by choosing readable books? How dare they? I mean!
Then, the winner, Julian Barnes, is famous for having scorned the whole MB enterprise as ‘posh bingo‘. Bet he’s not repeating that this week!
And now one of the judges, Gaby Wood, has gone to print saying that ‘Almost nothing happens in the book.‘ That’s the winning The Sense of an Ending she’s talking about. OK, she does go on to qualify her remark: ‘yet it becomes a psychological thriller of extraordinary technical virtuosity.‘ But even so, I think I’d be miffed if someone said nothing happened in my books.
Which brings me nicely to a post written by Simon on Stuck-in-a-book on 7 October. Yes, I know, two weeks ago. But I needed time to mull this one over. And I’ve been much exercised by this matter during those two weeks.
Simon asked the question: How would you rank the three main components of a ‘good’ novel: plot, character and writing style? Of course, the evaluation of ‘good’ is a very subjective business, as he acknowledges. But that makes your own answer to the question the more intriguing.
OK, have you thought how you’d answer? Before contaminating your opinion with his answer. Or mine, come to that.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading of late – not least because it’s that time of year to think about filling the Christmas shoe boxes for Operation Christmas child/Samaritans’ Purse, so I’ve been rattling off woolly hats like a veritable conveyor belt. I concentrate for much, much longer if my hands are busy too. But the more books and bonnets I finished, the more difficult I found it to separate out those jolly old component parts. The best books are a clever amalgam of all three. Can they be assessed as ‘good’ without that balance?
What’s more, the boundaries can be less than distinct. A character can’t be well drawn without skilled writing … can it? And a storyline can reel you in subtly if it’s well written – it doesn’t have to be an overt edge-of-the-seat-whodunnit kind of plot if the writing is seductive. But if either characters or plot are badly written they aren’t going to appeal.
Simon chooses writing style as definitely most important, and from what I’ve just said, I guess I’m initially concluding much the same. He puts character second, but relegates plot to way less important. In his words he ‘can happily, contentedly adore a novel where nothing happens – so long as the writing is good and the characters well-drawn.‘
And that’s were we part company. I would say at the end of such a volume: ‘So what?‘ There needs to be some tension, some kind of change or resolution, to leave a satisfied taste for me. Something more memorable and substantial to hang onto other than beautiful phrases and clever metaphors. I like the characters and what happens to them to linger after I’ve returned the book to my shelves.
I also think the balance can change according to the genre. A mystery or thriller can’t work without plot. A romance doesn’t gel without character. And if the storyline is really gripping in any genre, the writing doesn’t have to be spectacularly good to keep those pages turning. Sheer story-telling ability has a power that transcends minor anomalies – though they might irritate at some lower level.
Still with the genre issue: I know that in my own books, the balance of the three components was different in the reflective diary of Adam as he contemplated his own death in Right to Die, compared with the search for Viv’s rapist in Vacant Possession. Writing in Doris’ voice as she sank into dementia in Remember Remember, required a different approach from that of Dr Justin Blaydon-Green when things started going pear-shaped in his infertility clinic in Saving Sebastian. But characters have been important in all of the books, whatever the genre. If you don’t care what happens (which is not the same thing as liking them) why should you bother to read on?
So, at the risk of sounding totally feeble, I personally can’t rank the three components. They all matter to me. It depends. What about you? You can reply to Simon instead if you’d rather. The idea came from him. But if you’re angling to judge the MB books next year … think … very … carefully … before you commit your thoughts to the ether. Simon’s still in the running I should think.
Creating ebooks
When I first mooted the idea of writing a regular blog, a couple of my potential readers told me they’d like to hear about the experiences of a writer. How I get out of blocks; why I make the choices I do; how I know when the book is finished. That kind of thing.
So it’s in this spirit that I thought I’d tell you about my main preoccupation this week. Converting my back-list into ebooks.
I’m indebted to the Society of Authors, and to Lin Anderson, for giving me the courage to tackle this task myself. You can pay other people to do it for you, but I’d be back to the old tension of accommodating other people’s timetables and standards then. The very things I’m trying to get away from. OK, so there’s a downside: I’ll only have myself to blame if it goes pear-shaped. But until experience proves me wrong, I think that’s the lesser evil.
First step then: check my contracts. Carefully. Do I have the right to go ahead on my own? I can see no problem with four of the books; a possible question mark over three. And the Society of Authors confirms my assessment. So I start with three that are definitely in my control: the ones published in 2005 by Radcliffe Press.
I have the files for these, so the raw material is in my hands. But, since they were written, I’ve come a long way in learning the art of writing. Thanks to my editor, Jennie Renton, I can see instantly how to tighten up the text, and improve the books. I’m appalled at the number of times I used the words ‘just‘, and ‘well.’ And how did I not notice the litter of ellipses? So my first task is to edit – enough to make them better without changing them out of all recognition. Seven years on it’s much easier to see their faults, and much less painful to chop them.
Next I have to remove all the formatting. Once the text is clean I can then apply instructions to convert them into ebook formatting. I want the books to be compatible with different e-readers so I bear that in mind with the choice of fonts and layouts. But it’s not like using Word; you can’t just click on the toolbars. Things like chapter numbers, special layouts, and first lines all need their own set of instructions. Reminds me of the olden days with mainframe computers. Chug, chug, chug. But I’m soon creating customised styles with gay abandon. And surprise, surprise, really enjoying myself. Much, much less stressful than relying on others to do it instead. When they can find time. If.
So far so good. On to the rather more tedious but necessary end-pages stuff. Because I still want to acknowledge the lovely people who made it all possible in the first place. And I do want folk to use the material on my website to augment the books. And to know what else I’ve written.
Ahhahh! An unexpected bonus. I now have a chance to change those unattractive covers. I decide for the purposes of continuity, though, to stick with the picture part in the first editions, and simply clean up the text. Lots of the titles on my Kindle don’t have covers at all, but they do feel rather like books that’ve been mangled by some literary philistine.
And here I had a special moment because I saw all six books lined up side by side for the very first time. Sad I know, but it gave me quite a thrill.
So, are we ready to roll? With DJ’s help I go to Smashwords and … hmm, much of this next bit of the process remains a mystery to me but thanks to his know-how and patience we have together created my very first ebook! Vacant Possession. The other two should follow in the next couple of days. And all be available to anyone next week.
I’m feeling quite shell shocked. It actually worked. I am a new age author!
Super Thursday
Have you heard of Super Thursday? Nor me. A least I hadn’t until this week.
This year Super Thursday fell on September 29th. And on that day a raft of books were launched onto a unsuspecting public, books that the publishers (and authors) hope will become Christmas bestsellers. 
Titles by folk like Robert Harris, Joanna Lumley, 
Alan Sugar, Lee Child. Hmm. Three months early. But apparently these contenders need to build up a head of steam, and be seen in bookshops, on coffee tables, on trains and planes, etc. ‘Seep into the public consciousness.’ Seep, not zoom, because if they fly off the shelves too quickly the book’s in danger of dying prematurely. Riiight.
Anyway on Super Thursday this year, more than 225 books were published. And more big names are on the way in the next few weeks, to stagger the impact. Again a fair smattering of famous faces from the small screen rather than literary giants. 
Jeremy Paxman, Rob Brydon alongside
Claire Tomalin. You can find the whole list at the link above. What does that say about people and Christmas, eh? Hey ho.
No prizes for guessing that my new novel is not among them. But then McHaffie is not a household name – in case it had slipped your busy notice. I do not appear in quiz games or political rallies. I do not grace the front pages of the glossies or make a double page splurge in Saga magazine. Yet.
However, 
Saving Sebastian is scheduled for January, when I hope lots of people have Christmas-gift vouchers and money to splurge out on lesser known authors. Hey, come on! A girl can dream, can’t she?
But I’m not just dreaming. I’m actually being diligently proactive at the moment. What am I up to? I’m converting my back-list into ebooks. Yep, really, truly, I am. And having a lot of pleasure in the process. It feels good. At last I’m taking back some kind of control over my novels. But I’m anxious to get them right – I hate muddled formatting and missing capitals and all the other errors that creep in when conversion isn’t done efficiently. So there’s a lot of browsing through how-to texts and consulting experts and editing and generally pfaffing about going on. It’s almost as compulsive as writing the books in the first place.
I’ll keep you posted.
The Surrogate
Whenever I hear of a book that falls into the same category as mine (medical-ethical novels) I tend to pounce. Is this book serious competition? Has this author stolen my thunder? Can I learn anything from the way he or she has tackled the subject? What should I avoid? 
So when I found three all called The Surrogate I just had to buy them, didn’t I? They came out in 2004 (Mackel’s book); 2006 (Wall’s) and 2009 (Carver’s).
I find it curious that the publishers didn’t choose alternative titles, but hey ho, maybe Sphere and Simon & Schuster have confident marketing departments. Or the authors were insistent. Or maybe nobody bothered to check.
My own novel on the same subject was published in 2005, so writing it pre-dated these. Now I’m doubly glad I gave it a different title: Double Trouble.
Researching and writing Double Trouble revealed how complex the social and emotional issues around surrogacy are. The procedure can be fraught with peril, practical as well as emotional, for both the surrogate mother who carries the child, and the adoptive couple (whether or not one is the biological parent) who raise him or her. So I was intrigued to know how these other authors addressed the various ramifications.
I’ll give you a quick summary.
Kathryn Mackel’s The Surrogate
Bethany Testamarta is an acclaimed pianist with everything she wants – except one thing. A baby.
In desperation her husband, Kyle Dolan, enlists the help of a girl calling herself Laurel Bergin. Her credentials seem perfect. She becomes surrogate mother to the Dolans’ last remaining embryo. But Laurel isn’t who she claims to be and gradually a nightmare scenario unravels that takes the Dolans into an underworld of such darkness and evil that Bethany fears for her sanity as well as her family’s safety.
Some of the potential pitfalls of a surrogate pregnancy are dealt with in this book, but I confess neither the writing style nor the storyline appealed greatly for a variety of reasons. Issues need to be handled with more subtlety in my judgement. Mackel has a strong religious message that dominates to the detriment of the whole. Nor was the plot very convincing, I found, although I did persist to the end.
Judith Henry Wall’s The Surrogate
This one takes the reverse position: trustworthy surrogate, ruthless would-be parents.
Again, surrogate pregnancy is at the centre of the story and the issues of emotional attachment and contracting and blurred boundaries and long-term consequences are all there.
Amanda Hartmann is the head of a famous evangelical family. She wants a family. Jamie Long is a penniless twenty-year-old. She needs money. Surrogate motherhood seems to combine an altruistic act with a financial opportunity. But once pregnant and under contract Jamie unearths dark secrets in Amanda’s family and a ruthlessness that scares her. She flees for her life, and searches for a way of freeing herself and her baby from the stranglehold of the Hartmanns.
Of the three I enjoyed this one most. The writing style is confident and fluid, and the plotting careful and well-paced. Even if hard to believe in places. One hidden relative? – maybe. Two? – surely not. Wall, like Mackel, is American, and again there’s a strong religious component, but in this case it has a context and doesn’t distort the narrative.
Tania Carver’s The Surrogate
Carver’s debut novel uses the title The Surrogate cleverly; it isn’t about intentionally carrying a baby for someone else. I won’t say more lest I spoil the story for you.
Its central theme is of a serial murderer who targets pregnant women, drugging them and ripping out their babies. Shocking, horrifying, macabre – just a few of the words used by reviewers. The unusual psychology behind the killings, and the relationship between DI Phil Brennan and criminal profiler Marina Esposito, keep the pages turning. I did actually guess the twist at the end far too early but that didn’t detract much from the overall experience.
The verdict?
After reading all three books, where am I? Envious but still hopeful.
Envious, because the others all have much better covers than mine. Sigh. But it’s an old battle; long forgiven. My present publisher is good at covers and my last three books have had superb designs.
And I’m still hopeful because whilst Double Trouble does revolve around a surrogacy arrangement, and does involve deceit and a crime, it isn’t anything like these potential competitors. Phew again! So I don’t think I need to throw in the towel and say, I give in, you can do it much better than I can, just yet. There is still a tiny little niche with my name on it.
Better get on with the next book though in case someone right now is about to produce its perfect rival!
Kindle conversion
I feel like a kid at Christmas-time!
OK, I know. I admit it. I’ve been living in the dark ages as far as electronic books are concerned.
Positively antediluvian, in fact.
Shocking to think that it’s 30 years since Michael Hart dreamed up Project Gutenberg, at the time a seemingly eccentric and idealistic scheme to copy the texts of tens of thousands of books into electronic form and distribute them freely. A scheme which spearheaded the ebook revolution. And I’m only now catching on to it. OK, I’m hanging my head in shame.
But since Hart died this month perhaps this blog can serve as a tribute as well as a confession. My very resistance to ‘his’ technology means I owe him space and respect today at the very least.
It all started in 1971 – before Microsoft, before PCs. Indeed, when Hart had a vision of a world ‘where you can walk into a public library and get 90 percent of the information you need copied on a disk that you don’t have to return’, computers were vast machines with huge tapes attended by men in white lab coats. I remember them well! My first university post required me to use those cumbersome appliances.
This was in the days prior to scanning machines too. Hart spent twenty years in obscurity laboriously typing away by hand. He copied 313 books (vast tomes like the works of Shakespeare, the Bible, the American Constitution included). He met with both ridicule and scepticism. But as all things electronic changed, his scheme gathered momentum and credibility, others latched onto his coat-tails, and this year Project Gutenberg boasts more than 36,000 items in its collection, written in 60 different languages, with an average of 50 new ebooks being added each week. Mind blowing, eh?
So who was I to be so sceptical? Oh but I do so love ‘real’ books – the ones you hold in your hand, and recognise from their covers, and collect on your shelves. Their smell, their heft, their feel. The way they change with use and loving. Everything about them really.
And my prejudice has been stoked by the twin threats of diminishing royalties and piracy which hover over writers and publishers who venture down the electronic route. Not to mention the ongoing challenge of ever-changing technology.
But I do try not to be a troglodyte. Honestly, I do. And gradually, almost imperceptibly, I’ve come to grudgingly recognise the inducements of ebook publishing. Indeed I’m seriously considering it for myself. Hang it, I even went to an all-day conference on the subject run by the Society of Authors in Scotland on Saturday! And I’ve just discovered Lin Anderson’s blog devoted to it. Wahey! Positively steaming into the 21st century!
And of course, I do see the potential advantages of dozens of books accompanying me on my travels without risking a huge airport baggage charge or a complete spinal breakdown.
Anyway, back to my story … one day at a family gathering recently, I rashly admitted that I was thinking of investing in a Kindle … maybe … some day … soonish perhaps. Ears pricked. Eyes brightened. Number One Son (who’s a big fan) grabbed the iron while it was about 90 degrees and said he’d buy me one for my birthday and Christmas gift.
Wowwa. Steady on. I need to be sure … It’d be a waste of good money if …
Quick as a flash he boomerangs back: Borrow mine to see how you get on.
My aging brain couldn’t think of a single reason why not … unless … surely, he’d be bereft without it?
Next thing I know I’m sitting here with a Kindle in my hands. And I’m shamefacedly clawing back all my reservations and provisos and caveats. Absolutely loving the experience.
Fair does, my son did give the experiment a sporting chance – he downloaded two books high on my wish-list into the machine:
Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult which is about surrogate pregnancy, and Annabel by Kathleen Winter which centres around a kiddie with ambiguous gender issues. Very much my bag. But even so. I expected a less than enjoyable experience. Instead I’ve been forced to eat a giant slice of humble pie and furthermore, I’ve become an actively zealous new convert.
I love that the text is so clear. I love the way that the page is always totally flat, no twisting to see the inside margins or fearing breaking the spine. And the compactness that slips in a bag or pocket so easily. And the automatic switch off if you’re inactive for any length of time. No worries about weight or damage or … well, anything.
Just so that I don’t forget my first impressions, however, I should note a couple of minor quibbles. 
It’s not so easy to check where the next break in text comes, just to see if I’ve got time to finish this section before my bus is due; you can’t just stick a finger in and flick real pages. There’s no back cover to give you a hook into the story, either. Or lovely appealing covers like these hard copy versions. 
And I’m not sure how you’d go about referencing a quote when the page numbers aren’t shown. But, like I say, small fry stuff in the big scheme of things.
So I’m a reformed character. Secretly I’m chanting, Roll on my birthday next month! And my next holiday in the sun. Let me see, just how many books will I take?
Yes, I salute you, Michael Hart.
More literary gems
As you know, I periodically take time out to catch up on the literary journals. Keeps me on my toes. So I thought I’d share a few more discovered gems with you this week. Save you the hassle of ploughing through all those how-to articles and lists of writerly-survival-tactics for days on end – as if! They all come from very successful writers, so no disdainful sniffing there on the back row.
First a couple of perceptive one-liners from those who know:
‘Only bad writers think that their work is really good.’ (Anne Enright, Man-Booker prizewinning author)
‘Books are not written, they’re rewritten.’ (Michael Crichton, bestselling author)
Next a couple of comments with wise advice for writers:
‘As a writer you have to be assaulted by self-doubt whilst being bolstered by an insane faith that people will want to read what you want to write.’ But ‘one of the terrifying things about fiction is that you never know what you’ve got. There may be times you feel you’re writing something moving and gripping, only to find that nobody agrees. You might feel you’re writing against the grain, every word a struggle, yet somehow it works for others.’ (Nicci Gerrard/Nicci French, writer and journalist)
My comment: That’s fiction for you. An absence of visible goalposts. I felt much more confident in the days when I wrote non-fiction.
Nicci French also reckons that when you’re writing a book you can’t worry about causing offence or pleasing other people. An over-eagerness to ingratiate yourself ‘kills the magic of fiction’. She gave the typescript of her first book jointly written with her husband, Sean, to her father to read. He spent days going through it with a red pen, scoring out every swear word.
I identified with that experience. I dreaded my mother seeing my first printed curse, hearing her swift disapproving intake of breath. But actually she was unexpectedly tolerant; she admitted she didn’t like those bits but she understood why they were necessary.
Now a cautionary tale for publishers:
When a certain Swedish book was first circulated, retailers were apparently reluctant to stock it. A foreign novel by a dead author? No thanks. You can kind of understand that. Anyway, the publisher, Quercus, nothing daunted, went ahead and planted copies of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – in the back of taxis, on tube trains and with London’s Evening Standard. They gave away about 50,000 copies! Imagine what that cost! What a gamble. And what faith in their product. Justified faith as it turned out – worldwide sales of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy now top 50 million.
I sent this little story to my publisher this week – so watch out when you climb into a taxi in January! Sigh. One can but dream.
Down to earth now with a breath of sanity:
After 25 years of experience in the book industry, Liz Thomson, reckons that not everything can be a top ten bestseller. Sometimes books should be allowed to flower at their own level.
Indeedy.
OK, enough for one day. I’ll leave you with a smile:
Apparently an 81-year-old woman in Norfolk who witnessed the slow death of her husband, has strong views on the subject of prolonging life. She’s so desperate not to be kept alive if she becomes seriously ill herself that she’s had ‘Do not resuscitate’ tattooed on her chest and ‘PTO’ written on her back. (From that well-known literary publication, The Metro 8 Sept)
Keep smiling. You haven’t got to read all those journals now!
Childhood haunts
Wow! It’s not every day your home is on TV described as having the capacity to become ‘an international treasure’. But mine was last Thursday.
I grew up in Cornwall on the Pentillie Estate with a grandstand view of the Tamar valley from the back of our house. At the time, a largish chunk of the county as well as Pentillie Castle was owned by the Coryton family – first ‘The Captain’, then young ‘Major Jeffrey’, as we knew them. It was a storybook setting. With its fair share of intriguing characters: the beloved heir to the estate killed in action in 1942; a baby who was neither fully male nor female; a lad with a glass eye (which he occasionally took out for our entertainment/terror); a chauffeur living secretly with a woman not his wife … they all captured my imagination. But back then we children led a sheltered life, surrounded by loveliness and grandeur.
Some years later the castle underwent a major facelift. Sons joined the workforce alongside their fathers. Modern gadgets crept in slowly. And then in 1980 … the Major died. He was only 57. High drama ensued. His childless widow, Kit, closed the gates to the 400-year-old castle and forbade everyone, even closest relatives, from visiting. She became a complete recluse. Rumours and stories abounded; a veil of mystery hung over the family and the estate. The embargo against visitors remained in force for almost thirty years, and the estate slowly crumbled around ‘Mrs Jeffrey’. Like something out of Dickens, eh? Only this was all too real.
When Pentillie’s Miss Havisham eventually died, Jeffrey’s cousin, Ted Spencer, inherited it. A requirement of his inheriting was that he change his name to Coryton. He did, but as a consequence his father disowned him. (Shades of Georgette Heyer.)
Coming into possession of an historic castle and 2000 acres of prime Cornish land might sound like a fairytale, but in this case it came with an outstanding tax bill of £6 million, on top of the burden of the crippling funds needed to get it repaired and restored. The family locked themselves in the castle and seriously contemplated selling it. But somehow the spell of Pentillie was stronger than the emotional pain and financial burden.
They called in Ruth Watson of Country House Rescue fame to appraise and advise. She was typically scathing about many things, but to the camera she admitted: ‘Everything about this estate is magical.’ And watching the programme I realised perhaps more than I’d ever done, that indeed it was. Magical and beautiful and unique. And it was where I grew up; in the shadow of that great castle. Because my father was the head gardener on the estate in its heyday. But as children we took all that beauty and splendour rather for granted. The magnificent Lime Walk, 
the fragrant American Gardens, the sweeping views of the Tamar valley – they were our norm.
The gardens my father nurtured with such care and skill, (as you can see in these photos) in which we children worked in our school holidays, are in a sad state of neglect now, and it was painful enough to see them on film never mind in reality. But Ruth Watson could see their potential and she was bowled over. Yes, the castle could become ‘a national treasure’, she declared, but the gardens had the potential to be ‘an international treasure’, eclipsing even the Lost Gardens of Heligan further down in Cornwall. Wow again!
Watching her in action throughout the series, I wanted to dive in and rescue the Corytons, never mind the castle! OK, to the viewers she lauded the family as exuding warmth and enthusiasm and energy. But Ted’s wife, Sarah, was reduced to tears by her harsh criticism: she was too emotional, too parochial, too limited in outlook. Why shouldn’t the poor woman feel emotional responses to what was going on? Pentillie represented much personal anguish to her. Why shouldn’t she call on local expertise in refurbishing the bedrooms? Good things do come out of Cornwall!
In this week’s programme Ruth revisited Pentillie to see if they had taken her advice. I was on the edge of my seat. But she was impressed. Yes, actually impressed. The refurbished castle looked fabulous. Visiting figures were phenomenal. In just two days they had 5000 people visiting the gardens! My dad would have been incredulous. And horrified. In this state?
Actually I knew already how enterprising the Corytons have been. My Westcountry brothers have been involved in person. And I’m on the mailing list for the regular newsletter. They’ve even organised literary events there. But it was still heartening to see Ruth Watson admitting their decisions hadn’t been wrong even though they’d defied her advice. All power to them, say I.
Nevertheless it still feels weird to have my old home paraded for the nation. We rarely saw anyone on the mile-long drive from the main road. The sign said PRIVATE; private it most certainly was. 
Sir James Tillie in his monument on Mount Ararat was our preserve. We weeded and trimmed and swept and harvested to please our father and The Captain; not hordes of strangers. But as Ted Coryton said, it would be selfish to keep all this magnificence just for the family; it should be enjoyed by everyone. And the generosity of spirit behind his tireless efforts to redress a great wrong are reaping their rewards.
One day I hope to return. Who knows, there might even be a story there somewhere for me.
Room
Jack is five years old. He lives in a tiny single room measuring 11 feet square with a locked door, Bath, Toilet, Wardrobe, Bed, Table, Freezer, Cabinet, Rocker and TV. And Ma.
Their only contact with the outside world is a skylight and the night-time visits of ‘Old Nick.’ For Jack, ‘real’ is their room and each other. Everything else is ‘TV’ or ‘Outside Space’ – fantasy.
But Ma has her reasons for giving Jack these distorted perceptions. She may be young and traumatised by the horror of being abducted at the age of nineteen and incarcerated in a shed for years, but she proves to be an inspirational teacher, using the rudiments of life to educate him – egg-shells, scraps of cardboard and fabric, the degrees of light coming through the skylight, the spit they leave after cleaning their teeth.
Then a chance advert on TV raises questions in Jack’s mind. How come Ma’s painkiller pills are on TV? The pills are real. TV is unreal. Suddenly his cosy assurance is shattered.
‘How can TV be pictures of real things?
I think about them all floating around in Outside Space outside the walls, the couch and the necklaces and the bread and the fillers and the airplanes and all the shes and hes, the boxers and the man with one leg and the puffy-haired woman, they’re floating past Skylight. I wave to them, but there’s skyscrapers as well and cows and ships and trucks, it’s crammed out there, I count all the stuff that might crash into Room. I can’t breathe right …’
Ma’s explanation is memorable: ‘Stories are a different kind of true.’
But after spinning her own kind of ‘true’ for five years, she has her work cut out disabusing Jack of all the myths and misunderstandings she’s implanted in his head to prepare him for a reality more harsh, more scary than anything she’s told him so far. Life outside.
Through Jack’s eyes we see the taken-for-granted world in a whole new light. Scary stuff. But sufficiently convincing for it to come as a surprise to hear a dispassionate perspective: ‘The despot’s victims have an eerie pallor and appear to be in a borderline catatonic state.’ Jack is a ‘malnourished boy, unable to walk.’ (As you can see, I’m trying not to give anything of the storyline away.)
My only complaint was that in places Jack’s speech patterns are unconvincing. The words seem to be jumbled for no good reason other than to convey his youth and confusion. They sit uncomfortably alongside his precocious facility with words elsewhere.
Otherwise I really enjoyed this book, Room, by Emma Donoghue. It’s unique, powerful and moving, and, despite its dark setting, it offers heartwarming homage to the triumph of the love between a quite remarkable mother and son. It fully deserved to be shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Man Booker this year. And you know how rarely I sing the praises of these contenders!
Festival gems
I’ve done far less than usual in the Festival this year because I’ve been committed to raising money for Africa and had visitors to look after. But I thought I’d share a few gems from the Book Festival – just so you know I DID go when I could!
Audrey Niffenegger (Author and graphic artist who found fame with The Time Traveler’s Wife.)
She was asked how she knew when a book was finished. She replied that she interrogates her characters. Who are they? What did they do? Why did they do it? How did they feel? When she has no more questions for them, she’s ready to close the story.
A cool answer, I thought. I might borrow it some time.
Stuart Kelly (Literary Editor of Scotland on Sunday)
He was chairing in the main theatre marquee, and raised the subject of libraries struggling for survival. A bit later in the evening there was a blast from some fireworks clearly audible in the tent. ‘Ah, they’re bombing the local branch library,’ he quipped. Later an aeroplane roared over the tent. ‘That one’s for the National library!’ he laughed. The audience loved it. In other circumstances such comments would have been enough to get him arrested; in this context it just felt perfectly pitched. How I envied him that kind of speed of thought and presence of mind. A good chair can really lift an event.
Anthony Grayling (Philosopher)
He began by talking about the source of moral authority in a most eloquent introduction to his new publication: The Good Book: A Secular Bible, which he’s been compiling for decades. He described it as ‘a resource for people who are making up their minds about how to live.’ Chairman, Richard Holloway, ex-Bishop of Edinburgh, said he’d particularly liked the section called Lamentations, and wondered if it sprang from Grayling’s own experience of sorrow and suffering. The response was measured and gentle. We all need to be well informed, passionate about what we believe in, and sensitive to others. Letting someone know you understand their suffering is the greatest gift you can give, Grayling responded. How true. And ’to be a good guest at the feast of life is to be a good listener as well as a good speaker.’ Exactly!
Listening to him speaking without a single note, or hesitation, or infelicitous choice of words, it’s quite hard to think of him as a victim. But Richard Holloway questioned him about the ‘horrible monstering’ he’d received from his friends recently, because of his promotion of a private university. Grayling of course defended himself robustly. His new university will embrace three key desirables, he said: the liberal arts tradition of America; one-to-one indepth tutorials; a collegiate atmosphere where individuals are really known. It’s designed to produce really good thinkers who ask profound questions. Hmm. A bit like clones of Grayling then?
I took three pages of notes during his hour and came away buzzing. Imagine having this mighty thinker beside you at a dinner party. I’d be thrilled and terrified in equal measure.
AL Kennedy (author and stand-up comedian)
I’ve heard Alison Kennedy speak several times before, but this year I was seriously underwhelmed. She says she’s been ill. Sadly it showed in her performance. In a convoluted way I took heart from this. After listening to brilliance I can feel very inferior. Seeing an accomplished speaker having a bad day gives me renewed hope.
Only one event with AS Byatt and one literary party left to go. But thoughts from this week’s sessions are still buzzing in my head. What a gift. And I always learn something about presentation – even if it’s what not to do.
