1) To start off could you tell us a bit more
about your latest book Liberty's Fire?
Think Les
Mis; then fast-forward nearly forty years to 1871. The French capital’s been transformed by
developers, there’s been a disastrous war with Prussia, and the divisions
between rich and poor are wider than ever. Enough is enough for the people of
Paris. Liberty’s Fire is about a
group of young people caught up in a revolution that quickly turns to civil
war. Zéphyrine once made artificial
flowers for fancy dressmakers. Now she’s
sewing sandbags with her friend Rose and working in a soupkitchen. They’re both
hoping that the Commune, newly elected to offer Paris a radical alternative,
will change everyone’s lives for the better.
But Zéphyrine is torn. Anatole, a gorgeous young violinist at the
Théâtre Lyrique, has opened her eyes to a luxurious new world. When he in turn
is swept up by both Zéphyrine and her passionate politics, where does
that leave Jules, a rich American photographer who is secretly in love with
Anatole? Meanwhile their friend Marie, an ambitious opera singer, is desperate
for word of her brother, a soldier in the French army now massing outside Paris. She’s horrified by the actions of the Commune.
The
barricades are rising once more. The
call to arms rings through the city. Can
the Commune – and more to the point our characters – possibly survive?
2) The history you cover in this book is covering
an area in history I knew nothing about despite having a degree in Modern
European History. Can you tell me why you decided to write this particular time
in history and specifically about the Paris Commune.
You’re not alone! This was a big hole in my knowledge too! But
everything seemed to lead me towards the Commune. At the launch of A World Between Us, my YA novel set during the Spanish Civil War,
we sang a song called the Internationale, which I’d sung at my grandparents’
funerals: ‘Arise, ye starvelings from
your slumbers! Arise, ye prisoners of
want!’ It was composed at the fall of
the Paris Commune, and united the International Brigaders in Spain because in
the 1930s it was familiar to workers all over the world. Sometimes they sang it in many different
languages at once. Then I discovered
that in the 1890s my great-great grandmother had taught at a school in London
run by a revolutionary heroine of the Commune, Louise Michel. Michel was an extraordinary character – she
appears in Liberty’s Fire – and she had
two International Brigade battalions
named after her. Finally, I went to the
film of Les Mis with my
daughter. As we came out, I overheard
people talking about ‘the French Revolution’ – as if there had only been one –
at which point I decided that I really had to write a Paris Commune novel. Passion, idealism and barricades are such a
great combination. As soon as I began
research proper, I was hooked. The title came to me straight away, and it’s the
only book I’ve ever written which has kept its title from beginning to end.
3) How did you go about researching for this
book?
One thing always leads to another, and the
detective work is all part of the fun. From general histories and academic
journals, I was led to memoirs, both pro and anti. It quickly became clear how
many people hadn’t survived to tell their side of the story, or hadn’t had the education
to make this possible. Working-class voices are hard to hear in history! I
often wished my French was better. I read
lots of novels by French and English writers set in Paris around that period or
directly about the Siege of Paris and the Commune – a time known as France’s
‘terrible year’. Maps and photographs
played a big part in my research too, but most important of all were a couple
of pavement-pounding trips to Paris.
Some days I spent in far-flung museums and archives, looking at
everything from ratbones to banners, others I wandered and wondered.
One of the last battles of the ‘Bloody Week’ that
brought the Commune to an end - the French army entered Paris and slaughtered
thousands - was fought at the cemetery of Père Lachaise. Oscar Wilde’s grave is not far from the
memorial wall where many Communards were executed, and this helped me see the
character of Jules more clearly, and the importance of idea of ‘the love that
dare not speak its name’. Homosexuality
wasn’t technically illegal in France, as it was in England, where it only
stopped being a capital offence in 1860, but police used other laws to
persecute gay men. I thought a lot about
the figure of the flâneur, aimlessly
strolling through the modern city, watching the world go by, and also about
spectacle (lots of nineteenth-century accounts treat the Commune as a kind of
theatrical experience), and I read widely about the sexual politics of the
time. Women were heavily involved in the
Commune. And I listened to music and found out about photography.
I’d hate anyone to be put off by the amount of
research I did – which, I should gratefully say, was largely funded by an Arts
Council Grant – because the whole point of doing it was to create the right
atmosphere and feel and narrative for a work of fiction. I just want the reader
to be swept up in the story.
4) Historical fiction needs a good balance of
accurate historical fact and interesting story to make me want to pick it up
and sometimes I find in some historical fiction one is sacrificed for the other
whereas you seem to get the balance right. How do you make sure your stories are
exciting and engaging whilst still staying true to the period of history being
covered?
Thank you very much! I certainly make every effort to keep the
‘story’ in history in every way, and I really hate the idea of history as mere
‘backdrop’. The revision process is
particularly important. That’s when you
tend to spot any dangerous drifting out of novel-writing and into a lecture. As
you’ll have gathered, I do a ridiculous amount of research, but ironically I
think the more an author does, the less it tends to stick out. So my characters and narrative always spring
from real historical events and are woven round a completely accurate
chronology, rather than fighting against it. To be honest, I find the times I’ve
written about so exciting and engaging in themselves, it’s not hard to stay
true to them. And if I’ve sown a few
seeds, and anyone wants to find out more about the history, there’s a full
guide to my research sources on my website.
5) Are you already working on another book? Or do
you have ideas about what you'd like to work on next?
I’m at the very early stages of a new novel for
Hot Key books called Blackbird Island. I
don’t want to say too much right now, but it’s set in the Pacific, also in the
late nineteenth century, and this time I’ve plundered my partner’s family
history for inspiration. Writers can be
terrible thieves.
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