I’ve written an article, ‘This Is Not A Wedding Ring’, for a new platform, Goldsmiths’ Stories. You can read it here.
It’s about the history of wedding and commitment rings, and the way in which such rings are being re-interpreted by skilled goldsmiths. I hope you enjoy it!
Author Kate Mayfield kindly interviewed me in advance of the paperback and audiobook publication of A Map of the Damage. Kate is the author of several books, including her acclaimed American Gothic memoir, The Undertaker’s Daughter, and her incredible work of speculative historical fiction The Parentations, which was longlisted for the HWA Prize and is out now. This article was originally published on Kate’s website.
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I am delighted to introduce and interview best-selling author Sophia Tobin about her smashing fourth novel A Map of the Damage.
Sophia’s first novel, The Silversmith’s Wife, was a Sunday Times bestseller, and shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize.
Her second novel, The Widow’s Confession, was published in 2015, and her third, The Vanishing, in 2017, both of which have won accolades from a host of media outlets, including the Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, Country Life, and the BBC History Magazine.
Thanks very much to Sophia for her time and fascinating insights into the writing of the fascinating and highly enjoyable A Map of the Damage.
For a real treat, you can read a synopsis and first chapter of A Map of the Damage.
INTERVIEW
Kate: A Map of the Damage has a dual time line, a departure from your other books. Why did you take this new approach?
Sophia: When I originally thought about writing the book, it only had the 1940s strand. That’s where everything began: with Livy, walking away from a bombed-out house. But at the time, my first book (The Silversmith’s Wife) had just come out, and I was seen as a writer who concentrated on the 18th and 19th centuries, so I just put the idea away and wrote a novel based at the Victorian seaside (The Widow’s Confession). But the hook stayed with me, and simmered away in the back of my mind. And the idea of having this central place, the Mirrormakers’ Club, with its central mystery, and two timelines which mirror each other, made the book come to life in my mind. In essence it’s a dialogue between two women who are both wrestling with their times.
Also a plot device, I’ve always been intrigued by dual timelines. I remember reading Anya Seton’s Green Darkness when I was very young (it moves between the 16th century and the 1960s) and I was absolutely fascinated by it. But it’s very hard to do, I discovered!
Kate: What were the inspirations behind the book and why did you choose the periods you did?
Sophia: The voices of Livy and Charlotte were very clear to me from the beginning, so I was lucky with that, so although they weren’t based on real people, they came to life very quickly. In terms of themes, the book really is a depiction of passion – and there are so many books which do that beautifully and which I’ve been inspired by, such as The End of The Affair by Graham Greene.
Place is really important in the book, and the Mirrormakers’ Club is inspired by some archival research I did at London’s Goldsmiths’ Hall, on the architect Philip Hardwick and his building of the Hall. For Charlotte’s home, I visited Waddesdon Manor – Redlands doesn’t look like that, but the atmosphere – sequences of perfumed rooms, and the Bachelors’ Wing – is inspired by it.
My wish is always to create a kind of complete world, which the reader feels they can walk into, and I love the juxtaposition between the two worlds here. There is the 1940s: rationing, bombing, shock, contrasting with Charlotte’s 1840s life, which is full of luxury and decadence – she has too much of everything, which is its own problem too: she has to create her own sense of urgency.
Kate: Who was your favourite character and why?
Sophia: It’s so difficult because I feel affection for all of my characters. At a push my favourite is Henry Dale-Collingwood, the architect of the Mirrormakers’ Club. I love him because of his sarcasm, and because he’s a bluff workaholic who finds himself absolutely blindsided by his feelings for Charlotte. There’s something about that helplessness in the face of emotion which is very endearing. Also, I had to make Charlotte fall in love with him, so I suppose it’s good I like him too!
Kate: Do you think historical fiction has any relevance for today, i.e. is there any correspondence for example between the hardships endured during the Blitz and our current 'lockdown' situation?
Sophia: I think history always has parallels. What I always try to remember when writing is that the people living in that time didn’t know what the ending was. During the Blitz, lots of people had their bags packed in case of invasion. The victory narrative that we’re all so familiar with was way in the future for them. So that sense of adversity, and uncertainty, chimes with what we’re feeling now – and the fact that many people endured it and carried on their lives is a comfort. I do think that uncertainty is something we’re not really used to now, and we have the illusion of control. Whereas in the past, that was built into life, in a way: the expectation, perhaps, of illness or ill fortune, and the countering of that in the culture, whether through religion, or through rituals such as mourning. We think of the Victorians always wearing black, and sometimes they’re mocked for that, but in fact that mourning was a signifier of loss. It gave someone space to grieve and was an outward sign of the process they were going through. I’m not sure we give each other that space, these days. We don’t allow for uncertainty and loss, and it shocks us hugely when disaster comes.
One more thing: it’s a huge comfort to compare medicine today with the medicine of 150 years ago – once you’ve studied history you can only be crawling-on-your-knees-with-gratitude at the advances which have been made.
Kate: What was the most difficult part of writing the book?
Sophia: I found it hard to balance the writing with my day job. I have written all of my books whilst working full time, but this book felt particularly gruelling, perhaps because I wrote a lot of it during the winter, and the last thing you want to do at 8pm on a winter’s evening is turn on the computer! There is always a difficult point for me, in each book, when the first draft is done (I love writing the first draft) and you have to start wrestling, really wrestling with the material and editing it in quite a brutal way. There was a long editing process with this book, and although I felt every moment of it, it was worth it. It always is.
Bibliotherapy provides healing through books. Feeling a bit cynical? A bit jaded? A lover has let you down? Have faith. There are books which will make you feel better: I promise. I have loads of books to deal with this particular problem, but here are three.
Persuasion by Jane Austen / Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer / Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella.
Persuasion by Jane Austen. First published, 1817.
If you were forced to read Mansfield Park at school and didn’t like it, hear me out. If you’re an Austen fan and think Emma or Pride and Prejudice is top dog, then you and I need to have some serious words.
Persuasion is Jane Austen’s last complete novel, and it was published after her death. Everyone focuses on Pride and Prejudice, and I understand that. It’s wonderful, it’s funny, it’s great; plus, we’ve all got Bridget Jones and Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen inextricably linked to it in our minds (nothing wrong with that). But. I think Persuasion is Austen’s best book. I’m not recommending that you read it because of that. I’m recommending it because it’s about someone having a broken heart, who has learned to accept its brokenness, and then has it mended again. And there is nothing more moving than that.
The heroine is Anne Elliot, a kind and endlessly patient person who is woefully unappreciated by her snobbish family. Years before she was persuaded by a friend to reject Captain Wentworth, a man she was in love with. The years have passed, Anne is still unmarried and is put-upon by her family. And Wentworth returns, having made his fortune. He shows very little sign of having any interest in Anne, but as the book progresses the reader begins to realise that the Captain is not as immune to his former love as we might think.
It’s not a mawkish book. Austen turns her sharp, observant gaze on marriages, good and bad; on snobbery; and on the fecklessness of youth. But it is also a deeply compassionate book about being given a second chance in life. And it’s about – ahem – real love, not idealised first love. There’s a scene early on in the book when everyone is going on a walk. Anne is tired, and falling behind. Suddenly, she is offered a place in a carriage, arranged by Captain Wentworth. At this point in the book, he has hardly looked at or spoken to her. But his concern for her, and its simple expression, moves me every time I read it. And as for the ending? I’m not going to spoil it for you.
I’m wiping away my tears now. Just give it a read.
Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer. First published, 1944
If you haven’t read any of Georgette Heyer’s romances, I recommend that you buy a good handful of them immediately, because they are wonderful. I was introduced to them by my mother when I was a child, and I rediscovered them when I was going through a difficult time in my twenties. I remember reading one on the tube one day, and I suddenly realised I was smiling. Quite simply, when I read one of her books, I feel as though the sun has come out.
These are not steamy romances; they are chaste, and witty, and although sex is mentioned if you read between the lines, these are not Jilly Cooper style romps, although they are very ‘rompy’ in their bright cheerfulness.
Let’s stop for a minute to appreciate the word ‘romp’, which according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is defined as ‘high-spirited, carefree, and boisterous play’ or something suggestive of that. It describes Heyer’s work precisely.
Friday’s Child is the story of Kitten and Sherry. Viscount Sheringham (Sherry) has just been rejected by the beautiful heiress Isabella. After a family argument over money Sherry leaves for London, vowing to marry the first woman he meets. And the first woman he meets is Hero Wantage (Kitten), who he has known since childhood, and who has secretly loved him since then too. The novel charts their unlikely marriage and their transition from bickering childhood friends to a love match, with many twists and turns on the way. Heyer is always fantastic at period detail, and these really are a delight if you love history. She is also very funny.
If you don’t like the sound of this Heyer novel, do choose another one and have a go (my other favourites include The Grand Sophy and The Convenient Marriage). Most people I know who love Heyer, love Arabella, and Backlisted did a wonderful podcast on that novel, in which men and women read it. Spoiler: they all loved it.
Can You Keep A Secret? by Sophie Kinsella. First published, 2004
My third choice is the story of Emma Corrigan, whose life appears to be going really well until she confides her innermost secrets to the passenger sitting next to her on a turbulent flight. That passenger turns out to be her new CEO, Jack Harper….
I completely love this book. It makes me laugh out loud, and it’s beautifully romantic. True-to-life escapism, the perfect kind. I once lent it to a loved one who was going through a really difficult time in hospital, and when I saw her the next morning she said it had transported her. I could see the relief on her face that this book had taken her out of the moment into somewhere funny and relatable. It does it in a way which seems effortless, the sure sign that you’re in the presence of a master of their art. Writers like Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes are often downplayed (just like writers in other ‘genres’ – Lee Child, anyone?), and it drives me up the wall. The surest way to take power away from a book is to stick a label on it, and I cannot bear it when people sneer about such books – because you can bet they probably haven’t even read one.
This is something I’ll return to, because the whole genre/literary debate is a topic in its own right. In an interview last week in The Guardian, Marian Keyes spoke about the damage the label of ‘chick-lit’ creates: ‘When you shame people for what they read, you take away their confidence in other areas as well.’ Millions of people love these books, and they love them for a reason: because they’re good.
So, here are three books to make you believe in true love. But there are hundreds of others out there. I’ve chosen these books because when I think of them they give me a warm glow and they make me happy. I hope they bring you happiness too.
And…please do let me know what your favourite ‘true love’ books are on Twitter.
My fourth book, A Map of the Damage, is out on 5 September 2019 in hardback and e-book. Here’s a taster…
London, 1941. Livy makes her way through Blitz-torn London to the Mirrormakers’ Club, the only place that makes her feels safe, where she finds herself drawn into the mystery of a missing diamond, and torn between two men with competing claims on her.
London, 1841. Charlotte is helped from the scene of an accident by a man who shows her a building he is working on, and whose kindness unlocks a hope she has long kept buried. But that man is not her husband.
Two women, a century apart, united by one place: the Mirrormakers’ Club. A building which holds echoes of past loves and hates, and hides the darkest of secrets in its foundations.
I originally intended to use third person narration in The Vanishing. It was the natural choice in my earlier books, especially because you’re dealing with plots that twist and turn – it allows you to hide a lot from your reader! But when I started writing, I felt a strong identification with Annaleigh and it was natural to write in first person.
The famous ‘pillar portrait’ of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Its name derives from the overpainted space between Charlotte and Emily, which originally held the likeness of the painter, their 17-year old brother Branwell. So, who is this missing sibling, the only one of this intense, wondrous family who is not acknowledged as a literary legend, and who had a central place in their group portrait, only to erase himself?
