As good as Jodi Picoult or your money back?
Time to return to the topic of that sticker I mentioned a few weeks ago, as seen on The Midwife’s Confession: ‘As good as Jodi Picoult or your money back.’ Similar to the one on my own latest novel: ‘If you like Jodi Picoult you’ll love Hazel McHaffie.’ Seeming even more relevant now because at my book launch last week I was introduced as ‘Scotland’s Jodi Picoult’!
Question is: Is the comparison a good or not so good idea?
I confess I’ve only just discovered Diane Chamberlain, the author in question. My daughter gave me one of her books for Christmas, and I bought a second one on the strength of the blurb on the cover. I read them both in four days during the Christmas holiday break.
The resemblance is obvious from the outset – before you even open the book. The pretty feminine covers. The personal challenge: ‘A lie will save one family, the truth will destroy another. Which would you choose?‘ Both very Jodi Picoult.
So what about inside? Was this author as good? Would I be due a refund? Should I be glad or sad that my own latest book has a similar slogan?
Tara, Emerson and Noelle are close friends, so the two younger girls are devastated when Noelle is found dead after taking an overdose of pills. But as they sort her possessions and talk to other people, facts come to light which show them that the Noelle they knew was a fiction.
When they unearth a letter revealing a hideous secret, they are torn by indecision. If they tell the truth it would destroy a family; but by maintaining the lie they would be perpetuating the grief of another. Add to this a twelve year old with recurring leukaemia loaded with steroids and fighting for her life; a dead baby; surrogate pregnancies; and you have a flavour of the intense emotional and psychological undertones of this story.
The multiple first person voices style is very Picoultesque, but there the similarities end. No court scenes or legal ding-dongs. No stereotyping. No homespun philosophising. Indeed, Chamberlain’s psychology is altogether much more convincing and less contrived than Picoult’s. Not surprisingly perhaps since she’s a trained psychotherapist.
So what of the second of her books that I read? 
Breaking the Silence is written very differently. All in the third person too. Instantly I feel a lift of spirits. Here’s an author who rings the changes. Who’s not formulaic or predictable. No rut in sight. My kind of gal.
The story weaves between the present for astronomer, Laura Brandon, and her daughter, Emma, and the past life of former nurse, Sarah Tolley, now an old lady with Alzheimer’s.
Moments before his death, Laura’s father makes her promise to visit Sarah, who’s in a retirement complex, but whom she’s never even heard of before. As a consequence of her doing so, however, Laura’s husband commits suicide. Her five year old daughter, Emma, witnesses the shooting and now refuses to talk and is clearly terrified of men. On the advice of a child therapist, Laura contacts Emma’s biological father, Dylan Geer, a hot air balloonist, who was unaware of her existence but becomes mesmerised by this mute child.
But as this father-daughter relationship blossoms, Laura becomes increasingly obsessed by the stories emerging from Sarah’s fading memory. She starts to unravel a tale of love, despair and a terrible evil that links them all.
Chamberlain’s training and experience in psychology have given her a genuine understanding of how people tick, how relationships work, helping to authenticate the actions and reactions of her characters. They ring true. Having had to observe professional confidences herself (like me), I think she understands the capacity of some people in positions of trust to bear a hefty burden of secrets, and the inability of others to do so. Lies and deceptions play a large part in both books.
Chamberlain says of her novels that they are ‘part suspense, part mystery, part romance and one hundred percent family drama.’ A fair assessment. The suspense and mystery elements keep the pages turning effortlessly. I was particularly gripped by the stories of the CIA government approved mind-control experiments that took place in the 50s and 60s in psychiatric hospitals in the US, about which I’d heard but never understood in this intensely moving way before. No wonder this was the inspiration for Breaking the Silence. Very clever.
But I must confess the coincidences in both books stretched my credulity somewhat, especially in The Midwife’s Confession. OK, they tidied up the story lines but they lacked plausibility for me.
So, will I be reading more Chamberlain? Probably. (And keeping my fingers crossed that she doesn’t pall like Picoult.) Will I be claiming a refund? Happily, no.
What then of that controversial sticker: did it help or hinder? Well, it meant the book caught in my antennae initially, which was good. Although for anyone who really doesn’t care for Picoult, it could have had an unwarrantedly negative impact. So swings and roundabouts there maybe. It also made me compare the two authors throughout, which had pluses and minuses for Chamberlain. But for me overall Chamberlain came out of it well.
And for Saving Sebastian? At the moment the jury’s still out. Time will tell. And your input … please!
Moral mazes
Well, I’m counting myself lucky this week that the people who came to the launch of Saving Sebastian on Tuesday were kindly folk, asking reasonable questions, and not trying to trip me up or tear holes in my arguments.
Blackwell’s bookshop hosted the event this time: the right kind of bookish atmosphere; comfortable for lone people who didn’t know anyone else; lovely supportive friendly staff. And it meant we got a big slot in one of their windows – without a photograph of me too which pleased my mightily. That very day there was a two page spread in the Edinburgh Evening News with THREE pictures of me on one page! Horrors.
Here’s Luath‘s Director, Gavin MacDougall, displaying it – with some glee too by the look of it!
But back to the audience and their kindliness … I couldn’t help comparing it with the ferocious questioning of witnesses on the Moral Maze the other day where the participants and witnesses were discussing organ donation. On the panel: Melanie Phillips, Michael Portillo, Claire Fox, Anne McElvoy. All brilliant. All incisive. All very challenging. Which is why they’re chosen, of course.
It was a fascinating debate and I recommend listening to it. But it was also rather unnerving. It made me realise the power of eloquence, and the dangers of clever sophistry. And why I’m not good at these kind of confrontational events myself.
My instinct would have been to be especially gentle with the first witness, Henry, a young man who’d had two kidney transplants already. The panel had no such qualms. He was clearly an ardent campaigner for donation but even his motives were called into question: ‘Are you not avoiding the obvious way to increase the number of organs, which is by the act of persuasion? By morally motivating your fellow citizens?‘ Persuading is exactly what he does do, I’d say! And I’m quite sure he’d be a terrific advocate for the cause in real life. The genuine voice of experience can be much more powerful than theoretical argument.
And even the fluent and erudite Professor of Practical Philosophy at Oxford University, Janet Radcliffe-Richards, who was not in the least intimidated by the combined power of the inquisition, was dealt a low blow after she’d gone off air, when one of the panellists accused her of being ready to kill people off who weren’t actually dead. (Although the chairman, Michael Buerk did give that wholly unfair side swipe a gentle reproach.)
It was great listening though and the questions have been haunting me ever since:
Should elective ventilation be permissible to accrue a store of organs for transplantation?
Could you justify taking the organs from someone in a persistent vegetative state?
Are the rights of potential donors who are dead or dying and the rights of potential recipients of organs morally equivalent?
The Welsh Assembly is moving towards a Bill changing the law to an opt out one – it should be in effect in 2013. Is this a good step or not?
Would you give an organ to a complete stranger just because it feels like the right thing to do?
My current book is about organ donation so these issues are close to my heart and mind right now. But other sleep-depriving matters recently in the news have been bugging me too. Things with no easy glib answers.
Should someone who eats herself to a state of gross clinical obesity (40 stone) be entitled to an expensive package of care to enable her to carry on living her self-indulgent life?
Is it ever acceptable to lie to patients to cover medical mistakes?
Should a woman who has paid to have breast implants inserted for cosmetic reasons be entitled to corrective surgery on the NHS if the implants prove faulty and endanger her life?
Should there be limits set to the age at which women have babies, given the discovery that women possess a potentially limitless supply of ovarian stem cells which can be converted into mature eggs in the laboratory?
I’m not going to be running out of subject matter any time soon! But if you come across anyone in the process of inventing a 48-hour day, do let me know.
What price success?
With the launch of my latest novel in Edinburgh imminent (next Tuesday), my thinking has been tuned to all things literary. And I’ve just been interviewed by a lovely lady from The Evening News whose questions have made me remember all over again why I do what I do.
When your mind is in this groove it’s amazing how often stories about books crop up. Especially success stories.
In the news this week, for example, self-published crime-writer Kerry Wilkinson actually got a mention in The Telegraph. He’s just become the most popular e-book author on the Kindle Store, selling over 150,000 copies of his debut novel (NB. not the 250,000 the newspaper reported). No agent, no publicist either. That’s going some! He’s a sports journalist by background and he wrote Locked In as a challenge to himself apparently. He sold it for 98p and used online media to promote it. OK, I’m listening!
By contrast Sarah Winman had a massive publicity drive to kick-start her debut novel: When God was a Rabbit. 
Thousands upon thousands of free copies were reportedly given away pre-publication (I can’t find the exact number now I want it) and that novel has gone on to win awards and accolades aplenty. Not my personal favourite read though, I must confess, but acclaimed by authors/reviewers whose opinion I respect.
Then there was Eva Rice, Sir Tim Rice‘s daughter, who’s currently writing her fourth novel. A report this week said she regretted publishing her first one at the age of 23, because it isn’t up to the standard of her later books. Nothing earth-shattering there. But I sympathise; I’ve disowned my first one too. And Ian Rankin once said that it’s because no book is ever perfect, that authors feel compelled to keep writing, striving for that goal.
And you’ve probably heard that 24 year-old Amanda Knox, imprisoned and tried for, and then acquitted of the brutal murder of her flatmate, Meredith Kercher, in 2007 in Perugia, has just signed a book deal with HarperCollins, allegedly worth £2.5 million. And she won’t even write it! (I daren’t even tell you the size of my advance, but you can be sure it’s nothing like that.)
Given that I’m seriously considering the best way forward for me now I’ve fulfilled my contracts with Luath Press, these stories all contribute to the decision making process. I think I’ve almost formulated a plan but I’m still open to persuasion.
A mental spring clean
This week I’ve ticked several things off the list that have been lingering far too long. Feels good. A kind of mental spring clean.
Most importantly for this blog, all my books in Kindle format have now been reduced to 88p – a target I’ve had in mind for some time. Question is: will they now tick boxes for a different kind of reader? Time will tell.
On the domestic front, the railings and gates at the front of our house have at last been installed. Just over a year after the accident (first reported in this post).
It’s rarely that we call in workmen chez nous, but this last couple of weeks we’ve had two sets of men working on our behalf; repairing the stonework of our 19th century establishment, as well as replacing the iron work. You hear endlessly of sloppy timing and poor workmanship, but I’ve been so impressed by these two teams. What skill. What precision. What a transformation. What’s more they were all so friendly and quiet and courteous and focused. Meticulous perfectionists. Highly recommended. Thanks to their abilities and application we launch into 2012 with a new image.
And indoors there’s my own year-long project. Contrary to what my blog might suggest, reading and writing don’t absorb all of my time. But I am a self-confessed workaholic. I find it hard to give myself permission to ease off. I do know it’s an unhealthy way to go on, though, so last January I resolved to take time out to relax before bedtime as often as I could. By way of motivation I started a complicated piece of counted thread work (already a hobby of mine) and set myself a target of early December by which to get it finished.
My timetabling was thrown by a rush of visitors and various unexpected illnesses and crises however; 
things that just had to take precedence over several months, and consequently it was actually January 2012 before I sewed on the last bead. Here’s the completed article ready to go for framing – to be converted into a Christmas firescreen, I hope. In reality it’s alive with sparkling gold thread and colourful beads which you can’t see to best effect in the photo.
All the credit for the finished product though should go to the minds that created the design, and worked out the careful combination of colours, and strategic placement of beads and gold thread. I simply followed their instructions.
Oh, and before I forget … I promised to let you know how that acer (maple tree to you and me) damaged in the crash, fared – the one that valiantly sprouted new growth against all odds (see post). 
Having been buried in rubble for a year, sprayed with various building materials and tramped on by heavy boots, the poor thing has finally given up the ghost entirely. Time to move on. Ticked off the list but not forgotten.
Birdsong
I’m having to eat a large slice of humble pie this week. It all started when I watched the BBC 1 drama, Birdsong, shown the weekend before last, and jumped to far too many conclusions.
It’s almost unheard of for me to read a novel for a second time, but that’s what I’ve felt compelled to do with Birdsong
by Sebastian Faulks. Strange really to think that it’s taken eighteen years to dramatise this book which received such critical acclaim in 1994. But at least it was shown in a prime time slot at the weekend when it did finally get an airing.
Although it’s come in for its fair share of criticism, I personally enjoyed the film, but nevertheless had a sense of disquiet (as I usually do in these circumstances) about the extent to which the drama differed from the book. How would the author feel seeing his careful creation thus distorted? It’s ages since I read the book, so I couldn’t be sure, but my sense was that the main male protagonist seemed too weak, both as a potential lover and as a military officer; the romance seemed implausibly fast-paced; the response to the child Françoise too chaotic.
However, I still had my paperback – too good to give away – so I decided to check it out for myself while the film was still fresh in my mind. There is inevitably a degree of licence taken, but to my amazement, the BBC version followed the book much more closely than I remembered, and indeed more so than adaptations usually do.
The story has two main elements: the First World War and a romance. In the book the two are compartmentalised; in the film they’re interwoven to excellent effect.
Stephen Wraysford is 20 when he goes to France to learn more about the textile trade. Portrayed by Eddie Redmayne, he seemed a bit of a wimp, a pretty boy who did a lot of staring in a gormless kind of way. And not exactly gifted in the communication stakes either. Surely not the kind of fella who the beautiful and mature Isabelle Azaire (Clémence Poésy) would fall for. But, there it is in black and white. He’s
‘a tall figure with hands thrust into his pockets, his eyes patient and intent, the angle of his body that of a youthful indifference cultivated by willpower and necessity. It was a face which in turn most people treated cautiously, unsure whether its ambivalent expressions would resolve themselves into passion or acquiescence.’
He does indeed do a lot of ‘staring‘, his ‘face expressionless’. I apologise for doubting the scriptwriter (Abi Morgan), director (Philip Martin) and the actor.
So, what of the precipitate pursuit of the lovely but very dignified Isabelle? In the film they’ve hardly got past the coy looks and one touch of ankles before he’s romping in the red room with her, all caution, all decorum, thrown to the winds. Given the discrepancy in their ages and backgrounds, their relative positions, and the protocol of the times, surely not, I thought. But lo and behold, it’s all there, early in the book – ‘the uncontrollable fury of his desire, fully reciprocated by Isabelle‘. Indeed Isabelle is even more abandoned in the written account of their dealings.
The story of the child Françoise coming to terms with a father who is hugely damaged by the war is admittedly very different in the book, but the film version neatly gets over the omission of a chunk of the narrative that centres on Wraysford’s granddaughter. And the essential truth of the account is neither lost nor distorted by the adaptation. So hats off again to the script writer.
Then there’s the war story. Tall order to capture that, but has it been true to Faulk’s narrative? Wraysford on screen seems initially to be far too timid and fearful to command the respect of his men in the trenches or on no-man’s-land. Surely he’d have had to appear more assertive. But no. A sergeant major says of him: ‘he seemed forgetful and distant … as though he was not all there’ He has a ‘blank, remote expression’, a great ‘void in his soul’. Redmayne took this on board faithfully.
And behind that glazed look beats a failing heart. A scared and haunted man, ill-suited to the task of taking his troops into battle. On the night before a major offensive he explains in a letter:
I am frightened of dying. I have seen what shells can do. I am scared of lying wounded all day in a shellhole. Isabelle, I am terribly frightened I shall die alone with no one to touch me. But I have to show an example. I have to go over [the top] first in the morning. Be with me, Isabelle, be with me in spirit. Help me to lead them into what awaits us.’
The depiction of the war itself in the book is even more horrific than the film version and that was graphic enough. Faulks captures the mood and the mounting tension brilliantly. The feelings of the men facing almost certain death in the Somme attack are evident in a series of poignant letters home, full of false reassurances. Then a moving tense and sleepless night of waiting, dreading.
‘Eight hours before the revised time of attack the guns went quiet, preserving shells for the morning.
It was night-time, but no man slept…
Towards four, the lowest time of the night, there was a mortal quiet along the line. No one spoke. There was for once no sound of birds …
Gray, urgent, sour-breathed at the head of the communication trench. ‘The attack will be at seven thirty.’
The platoon commanders were stricken, disbelieving. “In daylight? In daylight?” The men’s faces cowed and haunted when they were told.’
The account of what Stephen Wraysford sees and feels in no-man’s-land when they do eventually go over the top, when they reach the wire, makes heart-stopping reading. The ‘unlivable reality’ as that ‘ragged suicidal line … trudged towards the pattering death of mounted guns’ while all around them ‘packets of lives with their memories and loves go spinning and vomiting into the ground‘. I won’t spoil the effect of the chapter by reproducing parts of it here. You have to build up to it to appreciate the description fully. How anyone returned sane after what they had seen is a mystery.
‘They had seen things no human eyes had looked on before, and they had not turned their gaze away … they had seen the worst and they had survived … they had locked up in their hearts the horror of what they had seen.’ In ‘their sad faces was the burden of their unwanted knowledge. They ‘did not feel hardened or strengthened’ but ‘impoverished and demeaned.’
Stephen himself carries out an act utterly unimaginable except in the First World War trenches – included in sanitised form in the film. And goes on to develop a murderous rage against the people who killed the men he loved; much more poignantly comprehensible in the book. Indeed the rationale for much of what was done needs the slower exploration of the written prose to unravel and explain it.
The bomb blasts and terrible wounds we saw on our screens, too, are multiplied several times in the written word, with its body parts in extraordinary places. Incredibly powerful writing.
‘”Of course,” the lieutenant said with a sigh, “the war has provided all of us with daily lessons in anatomy. I could write a paper on the major organs of the British private soldier. Liver in section. Bowel, extent of when eviscerated. The powdery bone of the average English subaltern.”‘
‘… his head was cut away in section, so that the smooth skin and handsome face remained on one side, but on the other were the ragged edges of skull from which the remains of his brain were dropping onto his scorched uniform.’
‘… there was a roar in the tunnel and a huge ball of earth and rock blew past them. It took four men with it, their heads and limbs blown away and mixed with the rushing soil. … Jack saw part of Turner’s face and hair still attached to a piece of skull rolling to a halt where the tunnel narrowed where he had been digging. There was an arm with a corporal’s stripe on it near his feet, but most of the men’s bodies had been blown into the moist earth.’
After witnessing this carnage in the tunnel, following over six hours of digging forty-five feet underground in pitch darkness with ‘several hundred thousand tons of France above his face‘, Jack Firebrace (brilliantly acted by Joseph Mawie) drags himself over to the dugout, burdened by the knowledge of his own mistake which had led to these deaths. There he is given a letter from his wife but with masterly understatement Faulks writes
‘He folded it away inside his pocket. He could not bring his mind to bear on the distant world her handwriting suggested. He was afraid he would not understand her letter, that she would be telling him something important his mind was too tired to register.’
Firebrace is one of the miners who digs underground tunnels under enemy lines. I hadn’t appreciated their role in the war before. In the book his inner thoughts and conflicts provide vivid insights beyond the scope of any BBC drama, as he worries about his son John back at home suffering, possibly dying, from diphtheria; about his own court martial and probable death; his personal responsibility for interpreting the sounds of enemy action; his need not to form too close a friendship with men who will be blown to smithereens in front of him.
I think I felt the accumulating horror more deeply knowing that my own uncle was one of those whose ‘shattered flesh’ was left to lie in ‘stinking shellholes in the beet-crop soil,’ in that very place in France where Stephen Wraysford fought for king and country. 
Uncle Harold’s name is chiselled into that memorial in Thiepval to the unfound, ‘the lost’ – newly cleaned up to preserve it for posterity. I can only hope my grandmother never heard a true account of ‘the hellish perversion’ he must have experienced. Her heart could not have withstood Faulk’s description of the carnage. It moved me to tears on his behalf, and he died before even my mother was born.
So, all in all, contemplating the atrocities of war, the sacrifices these men – boys really – and their families made, and facing up to my own misconceptions, I’ve had a humbling week.
A Lifetime Burning
January was a cracker of a month as far as books were concerned for me this year. And in their different ways they’ve contributed greatly to my own writing (a novel about organ donation) which has taken off again now that other deadlines have been met. The one I want to tell you about this week has given me the courage to take risks. It breaks all sorts of ‘rules’ about writing but nonetheless – or is it as a result? – garners praise.
It’s thanks to bloggers Stuck-in-a-Book and Cornflower that I heard about A Lifetime Burning by Linda Gillard in the first place. Then the blurb about it took me hotfoot to Amazon to buy it.
‘Flora Dunbar is dead. But it isn’t over.
The spectre at Flora’s funeral is Flora herself, unobserved by her grieving family and the four men who loved her. Looking back over a turbulent lifetime, Flora recalls an eccentric childhood lived in the shadow of her musical twin, Rory; early marriage to Hugh, a handsome clergyman twice her age; motherhood, which brought her Theo, the son she couldn’t love; middle age, when she finally found brief happiness in a scandalous affair with her nephew, Colin…’
The Kindle version was only 88p! Positively scandalous for a novel as good as this one.
The prologue is narrated by Flora, a tortured soul, reflecting on her life after her death. There’s no carefully paced introduction of each new character to avoid confusion; the entire cast are there in one fell swoop – at Flora’s funeral. And the author even gives away key elements of the coming plot right at the outset. You are left in no doubt: this is going to be an uncomfortable read.
‘Theodora Dunbar, matriarch, known always as Dora, is ninety-three. Only my mother could manage to look commanding in a wheelchair … Dora’s wheelchair is manoeuvred by one of her grandsons, Colin. My ex-lover. My nephew. My brother Rory’s son – like Rory, but much darker …
Theo. My son. At thirty-four, a few months older than Colin, taller, fairer, finer-featured and always said to favour me. Everyone agreed Theo’s Apollonian good looks owed little to Hugh. Theo is a Dunbar through and through …
My niece Charlotte is not present. She is on the other side of the globe, the distance she thought necessary to put between herself and my son …
Grace hated me. I can’t say I blamed her. She had good reason. Several, in fact. But if you asked my gracious sister-in-law why she hated me, she’d say it was because I seduced her precious firstborn, relieved him of the burden of his virginity, chewed him up and spat him out on the admittedly sizeable scrap-heap marked ‘Flora’s ex-lovers’. That’s what Grace would say. But she’d be lying. That isn’t why Grace hated me. Ask my brother Rory.’
But far from stealing the coming thunder prematurely, this tantalising glimpse into a complex family structure where nothing is as it seems, and where powerful emotions and talents lead to complicated and unlawful liaisons, serves as an irresistible promise of the haunting and disturbing story to come. And the book certainly lives up to that promise.
It’s well written as well as cleverly constructed. Flora’s posthumous revelations interwoven with third person narrative keep the story spinning along. The setting spans six decades – from the 1940s to 2000, and the story dots backwards and forwards in time. Initially I found this disconcerting. You’re just getting involved with the twins as children when the fifty-eight year old Flora interrupts. You’re sympathising with Dora’s struggles with her toddler twins when the scene flashes forwards a generation to her daughter’s confused feelings for her son. But once you get to know the characters, you start to appreciate how effectively and subtly the author is steering you towards an understanding of the ‘why’, as well as the ‘how’, of the Dunbar family shenanigans. This has to be a fiendishly difficult kind of writing to pull off successfully; in the case of A Lifetime Burning it’s a brilliant accomplishment.
The Dunbar characters are fully rounded, fallible, and utterly believable. They’re often objectionable and their behaviour leaves you torn between all sorts of emotions – incredulity, acceptance, revulsion, pity, sympathy, dismay, admiration, disgust. At once gripping and disturbing. And the title is perfect (shame it’s been used by several other authors though).
Gillard weaves apparently effortlessly between a wide range of subjects too – music, literature, Shakespeare, gardening, acting, horticulture, wildlife. A master of each.
To date the book’s got 28 comments on Amazon all with a 5 star rating! I too am lost in admiration of this writer’s skill. I’ve downloaded two more of her novels but am loathe to start reading them just yet in case they don’t reach this incredibly high standard. Could they?
And there’s a wee postscript … I reviewed this book on Goodreads this week and to my delight the author herself saw it and contacted me, so we’ve now established several links and I was able to tell her that this post was coming. An unexpected bonus. I should post more reviews obviously.
The Iron Lady
Commiserations to all of you who’ve pre-ordered Saving Sebastian from Amazon but still not received it. 
I’ve done my best to find out what the delay is but action hasn’t followed promises, I’m afraid. It’s available from The Book Depository and Luath Press but somehow has only this morning been processed at Amazon. Believe me, I’ve been grinding my teeth on your behalf.
Frustrating to say the least, so I’ve been immersing myself in other things – writing, reviewing, interviewing, reading, partying, preparing workshops …
And in between vaguely debating within myself : Shall/should I go to see the film about Margaret Thatcher or shall/should I not?
Pros: My long-standing interest in and involvement with dementia. I spend time most weeks with people whose lives are affected by it. My own mother developed it. I’ve written a book about it, Remember Remember. I’ve read piles of other books about it – fiction and factual. I care very much about the way people with dementia are treated.
Cons: an instinctive concern about the ethics of the film being made while Baroness Thatcher is still alive. Is it morally right? Would she agree if she were able to give properly informed consent? Plenty of people have been quick to criticise.
But this week I overcame my reservations and went to see it. My thinking and rationale: I should make up my own mind about the wisdom and rightness of it all, based on the reality, not judge it without a hearing.
I came away surprised by my own conclusion.
Meryl Streep is superb as The Iron Lady herself. Brilliant acting, brilliant makeup, brilliant screenwriting. How someone can inhabit a character to that extent, and be as much Mrs T in her eighties as in her forties, is a mystery to me. She richly deserves all the plaudits and honours coming her way.
Some of the supporting cast are less credibly the big political and family names of the time, but that was a minor distraction. One can readjust without losing too much most of the time.
The depiction of dementia is gentle and sensitive. The reality can be a hundred times worse. The ageing MT/The Boss Lady/Mrs T may be muddled about what’s real, and talk to Dennis (whom she can still see), and struggle to keep up with conversations, but she remains dignified and decently clothed and largely independent. It’s probably sanitised; I don’t know how badly affected the real Lady Thatcher is, but it is altogether appropriate and respectful. And yet a believable portrayal of dementia. The repetition, the confusion, the delusion, the focus on the past, the haunting fear.
Curious and unexpected, though, was the effect on my feelings about the woman herself. Yes, as the Prime Minister she was shown at her most strident and dictatorial, convinced of her rightness both at home and on the world stage. But because we were seeing her power years through the soft focus lens of her dementia, they were somehow muted. Perceiving her as vulnerable, doubting, fearful, unsure of her role in the past as well as the present – well, I felt a huge warmth and concern for her. How good to extend that sympathy now while she is still alive.
I wanted to reassure her when she quaveringly wonders if Dennis had been happy, when she faces the fact that her adored son is not coming to see her, when she packs the last pair of her husband’s shoes in a black bag and says yet another last farewell. You did what you thought was right at the time. You had the courage to stand up for your principles. You made your mark when the opportunity presented. Now let it rest, concentrate on today. Savour each lucid moment, every happy thought. While you still can.
Another realisation came to me as I watched. Somehow the hallucinations and fluctuating memories make a perfect vehicle for conveying an extraordinary life in 105 minutes. I couldn’t have borne an hour and a half of political posturing and unflinching dogmatism. I had no difficulty staying with the meanderings of an old lady clinging to the past; the riots, the war scenes, the speeches, the lectures, brief glimpses through the fog of a clouded mind.
Would I feel the same if I were Carol Thatcher? I don’t know. But that’s more to do with what the film says about family relationships within the Thatcher household than about portraying her mother’s dementia.
So, contrary to all expectations, I personally think the film has the potential to do positive things for those affected by this illness, as well as for the lady herself. Not my favourite film of all time but I’m glad I went to see it.
To die or not to die – that is the question
Yes, it’s reared its head again as another new year gets underway. The perennial dilemma. Assisted dying: should we? shouldn’t we? [Cue king-sized sigh.]
Way back when I was writing Right to Die, (2005-2007 ish), Lord Joffe was working tirelessly and meticulously to get his Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill through parliament. I followed its progress closely, I met with the man himself, and I confidently expected him to succeed. But no, the House of Lords blocked it. Too hot to handle.
Then two years ago MSP Margo Macdonald waged her passionate campaign to get assisted dying accepted in Scotland. I watched her in action, I listened to her in the flesh, and I honestly thought her End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill would get somewhere, given the publicity she generated and her own personal struggle with Parkinson’s Disease. But no. I was wrong again. It was thrown out.
Now this month Lord Falconer has published his report on behalf of the Independent Commission on Assisted Dying (set up and partly funded by Sir Terry Pratchett). The story is similar. They recognised the distressing situations people find themselves in under the present system, the anxiety it causes healthcare providers, and the challenging burden it represents for the police and prosecutors, and found the present law both ‘inadequate‘ and ‘incoherent‘. 
They looked for a solution for people with the mental capacity to request assistance and a clear sustained wish to die.
Once again practices in other countries that permit varying levels of assisted death came under scrutiny. The Commission ‘did not like much of what they saw.‘ In Switzerland, the Dignitas clinic is an alien environment where patients are far away from loved ones. In Oregon, patients must take 90 pills, often without a doctor present. In the Netherlands, even teenagers and people with mental illness are helped to die. The Commission deemed all these practices undesirable for Britons.
But in any case, irrespective of the efficacy of practices elsewhere, in reality the opportunity to go abroad for death is really only available to the wealthy. Furthermore, because of the threat of legal action against relatives who assist them, many are forced to take their own lives early while they are still physically able to do so. So, nothing new; but the painful truths revisited and reiterated.
Like their predecessors, the Commission came to the conclusion that a change is overdue. GPs should be able to prescribe lethal doses of medication for dying people to take themselves, they said.
Lord Falconer’s recommendations though, are much narrower that Margo Macdonald’s. They would only apply to people with less than a year to live, who are capable of drinking the medication unaided. They do not include those who are suffering unbearably but for whom death is not imminent. Neither Margo herself, nor the redoubtable right-to-die campaigner Debbie Purdy who has MS, would qualify. After all they’ve done to open up the debate and clarify the law! A retrograde step surely, not to cater for the people in greatest need of help. Because in reality, terminally ill patients close to death are often helped subtly and carefully and lovingly to have a good death. It’s the ones with lingering declines because of conditions that rob them of power and control and dignity inch by degrading inch that we need to worry about most.
In fairness, this latest august committee conceded that there are dangers in what they recommend and extreme caution is needed. Pressure might be exerted on vulnerable people to end their lives – either from within themselves or from family members. Hence, in their scheme of things, disabled people, or those with depression or dementia, would be ineligible for assistance.
Or maybe they felt that a staged approach is advisable. Start small. Test the water. It’s conceivable. But could backfire.
The next step would be to discuss their report in parliament. But it will inevitably face stiff opposition. Politicians have proved themselves reluctant to back this particular hot potato. Vocal religious leaders are against the taking of life – full stop, and few politicians will risk alienating them. And many in the medical profession are reluctant to publicly support something which appears to fly in the face of their avowed duty and intent to save life and do no harm, although, if you read the evidence to the Commission you’ll see that a considerable number of eminent doctors do privately support a change in the law.
Nevertheless the report places much of the burden for implementing change on doctors. They are the ones who must screen eligible patients, tell them about possible alternative treatments, deliver the lethal prescription, be present during the final moments, cooperate with the police, and report to a monitoring service. Burdensome indeed. Especially if you have personal reservations. And many doctors fear that allying themselves with such a death service would compromise their relationship with their other patients.
But identifying any category of person to take this role presents me with my personal biggest dilemma. It’s easy enough for those who aren’t medically trained to insist, ‘Oh yes, somebody should help these people to die.’ But would they be prepared to administer that fatal dose? To live with the knowledge that their action had killed a fellow human being? Me, I feel sick if I accidentally step on a snail! I couldn’t even finish off an almost-dead rabbit left behind by a hit-and-run driver. Squeamishness personified, me. Who am I to say, ‘Yes, we need this change, but you do it, not me’ ? That’s where all my carefully worked through logical reasoning breaks down.
This time I haven’t spoken to Lord Falconer in person, but if I had to declare my opinion as to the future of this latest attempt to offer assistance with dying in the circumstances outlined, I would rate it unlikely to succeed. Especially given the accusations flying around of bias and prejudice in this particular committee. And the problem of knowing who has less than a year to live. And the expertise required to assess people with a terminal illness for anxiety and depression – could GPs do it? And the time necessary to establish a sustained and genuine wish for death.
However, talking about these controversial and emotive issues that involve unbearable suffering and mental anguish, has to be better than sweeping them under the carpet. So if it keeps the issues alive it will have served a function. And in the meantime, let’s just hope and pray that those who need it get excellent palliative care from staff who support the concept of a pain-free dignified death.
Curious really, Right to Die came out in 2008 but is just as topical in 2012. The reverse of what I expected when I wrote it.
Publication day is here!
It’s a bit like buses. After waiting ages for a book to come out, two come out in one week! Yes, Saving Sebastian is actually in my hand. Looking beautiful too. A rousing cheer for Tom Bee the cover designer.
Dr Justin Blaydon-Green has his hands full. Three teenage daughters at home, one of whom is mixing in some dubious circles. A brilliant colleague at work antagonising the staff in his lab and dabbling in dangerous experiments. A cheery technician in the lab constantly quoting Oscar Wilde. A Nigerian couple, treated for infertility nine months ago, who’ve just given birth to twins, one of whom can’t possibly be their biological child. And now a beautiful young woman appealing for help to save her four year old son dying from a rare blood disorder. Just how far is Justin prepared to go before his world disintegrates?
Read all about it!
My publisher decided to give this book a sticker saying If you like Jodi Picoult you’ll love Hazel McHaffie. (Hmmm.) And a challenging strapline: How far would you go to save the life of your child? I’ve just finished reading two other books from the States which adopt a similar tactic (more of that in a later blog), so my mind has been toying with the implications. But I’d love feedback from you as to whether it helps or hinders in my case. You know about my personal ambivalence when it comes to Picoult.
The second book is an extremely limited print run: Professor Devine’s Emporium.
No Amazon links for this one! Thanks to DJ burning many candles into the night, the children’s story was ready for our self-imposed deadline, the first family birthday of 2012 – today! Happy Birthday, Lauren!
It runs to 119 pages and includes 151 pictures, so it’s a totally different production from the 355 pages with no pictures of Saving Sebastian. But I’m just as delighted to see it completed. And I know this one will be well received by every single person who gets a copy!
A dramatic start to 2012
A friend sent me this – beautiful photography, excellent sentiments – and I thought I’d share it with you in this first post of 2012. It says what I’d like to say so much better than I could say it (spelling mistakes excepted). A wish for world peace, wisdom, courage, happiness; what more could we ask for? And the idea of that spotless tract of snow that will show every mark we make, fairly strengthens the resolve to do better, doesn’t it?
As for me, well, it’s back to work with a vengeance this week. One of my tasks has been preparing a resumé of the dramatic appeal of my books ready for an approach to filmmakers. And because my mind has been running along that track I’ve been acutely conscious of the number of films from books shown on TV over the festive period.
Dickens’ Great Expectations made the biggest splash, of course, with its millions of viewers at prime time.
Now, I confess I studied Great Expectations at school for O-level English, but I’m hanged if I remembered much about it decades later. What I do know, though, is that seeing this adaptation was a hundred times more enjoyable – and I’m a self-confessed book addict. From the moment when Magwitch emerges from the eerie slime, to the point where Miss Havisham dons her bridal veil and sets fire to her lover’s letters and herself, I was gripped. The only jarring bits for me were the good-looking stars. Surely Miss Havisham was more crumbly and wrinkled than Gillian Anderson made her; and Pip was certainly not as prettily perfect a screen idol as Douglas Booth – eclipsing Estelle, in fact. But I could easily overlook those anomalies, and concede that they together probably brought in far more viewers than ordinary everyday faces would have done.
Also on offer were repeats of the oldies – Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Dorian Gray, Little Women, Heidi, Mansfield Park, Emma, The Chronicles of Narnia … to name but a few on the main channels.
Now, usually I’m averse to watching a film of a book I’ve read. I like to retain the characters of my imagination unsullied by the interpretations of others. But I’m increasingly coming round to thinking that drama can bring these remote tales of bygone times to life for far more people. Some of whom will then go to the book with a headstart in understanding the rather dreary 19th century prose. Why, just today I saw a shelf full of paperback versions of Great Expectations - curiously labelled ‘Vintage Dickens’ – with scratchy black and white covers too, not even a photograph of the TV stars in the Christmas version! So there must be a market for the book now amongst the folk of 2012 who buy ready-made cakes and polyester clothes and giant plasma screen TVs. Besides which, you can download the classics on your Kindle absolutely free of charge.
So, all power to the elbow of those who labour to resurrect the classics for the 21st century, say I. Andrew Davies screenplay of Little Dorrit was for me a masterclass in bringing fusty prose to life. 
Davies, you’ll remember, was the genius who created a Mr Darcy who cooled his ardour in the pond and emerged with his wet shirt and breeches clinging to his manly form in front of his lady love in Pride and Prejudice. A brilliant screenwriter.
One day I’m hoping to persuade some playwright and film director somewhere to do something similar for me! That’s what’s galvanising me this week. I used to worry about my stories being distorted, but Dickens has been dragged into accessibility and modern times by clever adaptation, so why not me?
