What’s in a cover?

Putting Kindle arguments aside, there is something egalitarian about electronic reading. A book loses its genre straightjacket when you are taken immediately into its pages: bypassing any cover and arriving directly at the first page of chapter one.

When I was a child, my parents had shelves of penguin originals. I used to pull books off the shelf to read without actually knowing what type of novel they were – they were simply orange-and-cream, or green-and-cream stripes. I still have some of these books, they now have an antique charm. But in terms of the cover, there’s nothing much to choose between authors as different as Daphne du Maurier, and Aldous Huxley.

Contrast this with today where genre is king. We do judge a book instantly by its cover, and women’s commercial fiction gets the short straw. I read my first Victoria Hislop book recently – on a kindle, so without the benefit of cover art. I found the writing good, the story serious, and the outcome for some of the major characters brutal and bleak. Later browsing online I was surprised to discover Hislop referred to as chicklit. Really? Perhaps because they hadn’t looked further than the covers of her six novels – all swirly-girly lettering and island seascapes (probably not her doing).

Hannah Beckerman, author of ‘The Dead Wife’s Handbook’, recently started a pitch to help women writers get reviewed, particularly commercial fiction, under a new hashtag, ReviewWomen. She says that the only genre not currently being reviewed in the heavyweight press, is women’s commercial fiction. With light, bright covers and easy prose, it is overlooked.

Many serious minded reviewers will not consider women’s commercial fiction at all. But women certainly read it. Perhaps this accounts for the rise of the book blogger, who isn’t so prejudiced. We are told that the fiction book industry is kept alive these days by women readers aged between 16 and 65. Why then are so many authors men? It seems that men want to write books but aren’t so keen to read them. Perhaps if they did, we'd have genre officially termed bloke-lit. Wonder what those covers would look like?

Are books the doughnut authors give away?

As books go plummeting down in price and author events go up, I’m beginning to wonder – are books becoming the doughnuts we give away with an author profile these days? Recently I bought 'The Luminaries' by Booker prize-winning author Eleanor Catton. It cost £1.19. I committed the sin of purchasing on kindle, but was shocked nevertheless. All that effort for less than a chocolate bar?

Much like a free doughnut with your coffee, authors now give away online short stories at launch time, to encourage interest in their new book. They also write blogs, tweet, appear at festivals, review other books and generally give away words for free. It’s required.

Author events on the other hand are becoming ever more expensive. I went to one not that long ago for Sarah Waters. Thirty two pounds bought me an advance copy of The Paying guests, and my ticket to the swanky London Rosewood Hotel, where waiters were circling with wine before we were ushered into a moodily lit seating area, and Ms Waters appeared. I enjoyed it, and so did the other hundred plus fans. As they say, 'you do the math'.

Perhaps authors are like rock-stars now. The wisdom goes that bands now make more money on their merchandise than their music. After all Rock band U2 gave away their last album to everyone with an i-tunes account, to get bums on seats for their global tour: something which was unthinkable at the band’s height. What next? T-shirts at author events, or perhaps a branded purse or make-up bag. Lingerie in fifty shades of grey?

In this brave new world of digital freedom (and everything free on digital) it’s all about building a profile, getting clicks, retweets, getting the name out there. Marketing lore tells us that a reader has to hear the name of a book three times before they decide to purchase. But authors themselves are now being marketed as celebrities. Gone are the days when a favourite author would finally stray onto the TV screen and we’d think ‘OMG is that what she looks like? Thought she was blonde.’

But to be a celebrity you need to be famous for something. And so we are back to the writing. All that crafting of words, editing, shaping, finessing, has to keep going regardless of whether it’s free or not. I know most authors don’t expect to make money from books alone these days, but at least they’d like to be able to earn enough to buy an ice cream at the end of the month. Or a doughnut…

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

A cleverly crafted suspense thriller, all the more interesting because the characterization is painstakingly convincing. Have you ever sat on a train at a standstill, and stared into the houses by the track? It feels both legitimate, and like prying. Paula Hawkins has taken this feeling and woven it into the basis of her novel, ‘The Girl of the Train’.

Thirty something Rachel Watson travels every day on a commuter train, from which she idly takes an interest in the occupants of houses that back on to the line, weaving stories about them to pass the time. Or so we think. But as the narrative draws you in, the reader begins to realise that Rachel is not a reliable narrator. She has a connection with these people, and she’s not being honest with anyone – least of all herself. And she has other problems.

We follow divorced and lonely Rachel as she stumbles through the ruins of her life in an alcoholic haze. We should despise her but we don’t, which is testament to the sensitive way that Paula Hawkins has handled this character. Rachel vows to herself many times that she won’t be taking another drink, but the next chapter sees her dropping by the off-licence once again, to our frustration. Rachel is trying to cope with many of the usual traumas of life – divorce and loss, the lack of friends that a break-up can cause, childlessness, career disappointment. But her troubles are all magnified by her illness, and her frightening alcoholic blackouts. Which leaves the reader uncertain what the truth of the matter is.

Hawkins has captured perfectly the guilt and torment, but also the defiance, of someone struggling with alcoholism, and crucially the way that others are drawn into their dependency.  Which makes her careful plot, weaving of characters, and the ending when it comes, richly plausible. Worth a read.

Does your mind mistake talking for doing?

I’ve just finished writing a book – it’s quite a whopper clocking in at 130,000 words. Who knew? Well, clearly me, and just my partner. I can tell I’ve offended some people. ‘Oh they say, you kept that quiet,’ and quickly change the subject. My children said, ‘What you, you’ve written a book, a real one?’

They feel left out, but this was not my intention. My purpose in keeping shtum was to make sure I finished. For me, the only way to achieve something difficult, long-term, and which eats up creative energy, is to tell no one. This isn’t out of fear of failure, it isn’t even about people messing inside my head and muddying my ideas. It’s about channelling energy.

If I talk about an idea, then I dissipate that energy, in discussing or explaining or simply receiving support. It’s great to have cheerleaders, but if I talk about something enough then I almost feel that I have done the work, the actual writing becomes expected, almost a chore.

If on the other hand I tell no-one, I’m forced to respond to friends asking me what I’ve been up to, with ‘Oh, nothing much.’ Which makes me seem like a wet weekend. But that’s the point. The pressure builds up precisely because I can’t tell anyone, like an old pressure cooker rattling away, the steam is desperate to escape: and all that drive, energy, ideas and enthusiasm gets fed straight back into the work until you can see it bursting from the page.

I thought I was alone in this peculiarity. Now I find there has been a century’s worth of research on the subject. In 1926 American social psychologist Kurt Lewin, called this ‘substitution’. You tell people about your goal, they affirm your intentions and then the mind feels it to be real. You’ve already had the gratification, ‘Wow, sounds great…’ so now you feel less driven to do the hard work. Your mind mistakes the talking for doing.

In 2010 motivational speaker Derek Sivers gave a talk on keeping your goals to yourself. His advice? If you need to talk, state it in a way that gives you no satisfaction, such as “I really want to run this marathon, so I need to train five times a week and kick my ass if I don’t, okay?”

Likewise, the exception to my rule was my Faber Academy writing group. A meeting of like-minded would-be writers all struggling with the same problems. Competitive, critical but constructive, it was at least a space to let off steam. The danger, of course, is to become a writing course junkie, where praise within the group is enough, and finishing your book becomes secondary.

Keep working, keep silent and keep the pressure building. Before you know it you are gunning along toward the finish. And then, finally, you get the satisfaction of saying ‘Guess what? I’ve written a book…’

The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters

A love story of sorts set between the wars, the overwhelming feeling of this novel is one of constraint. 

     As the story opens, there is the burden of financial constraint, as Frances Wray and her mother, robbed of husband and sons by the war enter into the spinsterish twilight of genteel poverty together. In an attempt to make ends meet in their now-too-grand house, they take in lodgers, Mr and Mrs Barber, whom they squeamishly refer to as ‘paying guests’. The Wrays and their paying guests comprise a taut, repressed household of things left unsaid: mother and daughter, husband and wife, never tell it like it is.

     There is the social constraint of living in close proximity to people who are strangers, and over whom you have no control. As expressed by the consternation caused by Mrs Barber choosing to have a bath at mid morning, requiring heroic bangings and knockings from the ancient geyser, a gas-gobbling water heater that the two resident ladies dare not use for the expense. They are of course too polite to mention it.

     As Frances and Lilian’s (Mrs Barber) love affair begins to take shape, there is the constraint of hiding in plain sight: whispering on the stairs, snatched meetings in the scullery and outings to the park. This building pressure can have no good outcome, and it is not sexual but emotional frustration that finally seizes the day.

     For fans of Sarah waters, there is constraint in the plot also. There is a twist at the end; but not perhaps the knockout sort we’ve come to expect from this master of the genre. Much of the engagement of the reader is in actively looking for a twist that never comes. Ah…we think, I’ve got it… but Waters turns our expectations back upon ourselves. Perhaps this is her true skill. In our wish to inhabit a world that eludes us, to walk alongside the author and see drama where there is none. In Fingersmith, Tipping the velvet et al, Waters has written masterly novels to entertain a demanding audience. This one she seems to have written for herself: it is we who are the paying guests…

The King's Curse, Philippa Gregory

  

‘Margaret Pole was going to be a victim, but instead as I learnt more it became the story of a vendetta.’ So says Philippa Gregory of her latest novel, ‘The King’s Curse’, about the last Plantagenet princess, Margaret Pole, who lived a long life at the Tudor court but whose luck finally ran out ending in a brutal death. The more Gregory researched, the more she became intrigued by the dynamic between Margaret and the Tudors. ‘It became a darker book. Really, it is about a king whose power increased immeasurably until he became a tyrant. Finally she was a victim of his paranoia.’ The King of course, is Henry VIII. She laughs, ‘I’ve spent the past twelve years with Henry, which is more than most of his wives.’

Why ‘The King’s Curse’?

'It was going to be called ‘The Last Rose'There is a legend that the Tudors are cursed. After all, they bring the ‘sweat’ to England and they cannot get an heir. In the White Queen series I fictionalised a scene with Elizabeth Woodville cursing the murderer of her sons, the princes in the tower. Now a real 'curse' has come to light.'

What is this curse?

‘New medical research shows that Henry VIII is likely to have had Kells disease, which is hereditary. It is carried down the female line. It can cause miscarriages, stillbirths and infant deaths.’

Who was Margaret Pole?

'Margaret was entrusted with the care of prince Arthur at Ludlow. She was also one of Catherine of Aragon’s ladies, and governess to princess Elizabeth. But so little survives of her because I believe she was plotting against Henry and therefore she probably destroyed everything she wrote.'

Have you ever been tempted to write non-fiction?

‘There’s something about writing fiction which is infinitely superior to writing history. You can write a truth, which is not a fact. I look at the events and what people did and speculate. I can tell you the colour of Margaret Pole’s dress when she came to court, because we have the wardrobe records, but no one can tell you her thoughts.’

How much research is enough?

'The more I write, the more I understand what you have to leave out. Just because I have spent months learning something doesn’t mean you are damn well going to know it too. A novel cannot be a thinly disguised history lesson; it has to have drama of its own, a great story.'

How do you create such strong female characters?

‘I write about people very like us in a society very unlike ours. You have to remind readers, at that time all your property belonged to your husband, he was entitled to beat you as long as he used a stick no thicker than his thumb. Women wouldn’t have behaved as we do now.’

What is your writing routine?

'I write anywhere and at any time. I have a laptop with me on my book tour. But I never write more than four hours a day; otherwise I begin to dream in character. That way madness lies.’

Did you study history?

‘No. I got an E in A-level history. So, I became a local journalist, then went to university having worked a few years, where I picked up history again as an extra course.’

If you could go back in time, when would it be?

‘I wouldn’t be anything other than a modern woman. If you are a woman before 1834 all your property will belong to your husband. If you are a woman before 1918 you will have no vote, and if you are a woman before 1960 no contraception. Of course, you can be a rich man at any time in history.’

PHILIPPA GREGORY WAS SPEAKING AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES, KEW. THE KING'S CURSE IS OUT 14TH AUGUST 2014.

Domestic drudge department this way…

According to a new campaign, Let Books Be Books, we’re taking the gender out of books by preventing them being stuck on shelves labelled ‘for boys’ and ‘for girls’. Is it really that simple? What about the content? Are we also going to remove all those saccharine fairies, magical ponies, unicorns, mermaids and so forth…

A study by Florida University in 2011, tells us that 57% of children’s books have male central characters while only 31% are female. Likewise for young children, 23% are male animal characters, while only 7.5% are female animals.

‘The imagination has no gender’, said author Bel Mooney recently. I’m not so sure. As a parent observing boys and girls at play I would have said that they inhabit quite different imaginative worlds. Girls tend to be exclusive - I can’t play with you because I’m playing with her and this is a game for only two people. Whereas boys tend to be inclusive – the more aliens, cowboys, agents, monsters or footballers the better. I’ve never yet heard a boy say - ‘you can’t play with me cos I’m playing with him and we only need two aliens to take over the world…’

We’re told this is an offshoot of the ‘Let Toys Be Toys’ campaign. Toys are no longer to be served up in boys/girls categories, but all mixed up and gender free. A worthy aim perhaps, but again I don’t think the problem is packaging so much as genuine choice.

When my children were younger, I nicknamed the girl’s aisles in our local Toy MegaStore the domestic drudge department: an endless landscape of household chores, mini ironing boards, washing machines, buggies, cookers, and nappy bins, all served up as play. Surely the problem is not whether you package these toys in pink boxes, or stick them on certain shelves, but the sheer tedium of what they represent. Bad enough when you have to do it all for real…

I remember my disbelief when my daughter bought a Barbie dog, to discover that the plastic pooch popped out tiny poo-pellets which had to be swept up into a mini poop-bin. Perhaps if Mattel had managed to make it fart as well, we would have had a genuine gender-equality toy.

But of course, this gender argument is nothing new. The biggest row my brother and I ever had, way back when, was whether his action man was a doll or not. I didn’t hold it against him, but I was determined to win the academic argument (tis not!…tis too!..tis not…) Standing firmly on his seven-year-old dignity, big bro maintained action man couldn’t possibly be a doll because he moved too much, hence the action in action man.

In a way this encapsulates the whole argument – GirlyDoll is defined as a doll not just because she has a gazillion outfits to put on and off, but because she is rendered passive by her limited mobility. Action man can appear to leap, run, climb… most booby-dolls can only raise their arms or legs at shoulder or hips in a stiffly passive way (a sort of heil bimbo) just enough to squeeze that frock on. I used to wonder, why doesn’t someone market a Lara-croft style action girl doll? One that can run and climb, and kick-box and generally kick ass.

Despite all this: isn’t it what children choose to do with their toys that count. I don’t ever remember my son spending hours debating whether action man should wear the blue shirt or the commando-Tee, and which would be better for his upcoming party… but I do remember him being hilariously entertained by a book character called Captain Underpants, who’s daft behaviour, bottom jokes and farting antics, left my daughter completely unmoved. And trust me, putting the Captain in a pink sparkly cover wouldn’t have changed anything…

Which brings us back to books. Now my children are older, unicorns and dragons have fallen by the wayside. But what takes their place? For example, is it the packaging of the Twilight series that makes it gender specific or the content?

Not sure many guys are going to work their way through the Twilight novels, with their formula love triangle. As my late-teens son said one day ‘How can anyone compete with… Edwaaard… he’s made of diamonds for chrissakes.’ Doesn’t matter how you package it, the character of Bella is desperately passive, drops all her friends to build her life entirely around her boyfriend, and as a consequence falls spectacularly apart when he dumps her. Having spent years trying to work out ways to help my daughter value herself, I was horrified by this female role model.

Clearly there are gender differences, whether in children’s or YA literature, but is the answer to homogenise everything? We could, I suppose, serve fiction up in neutral grey covers to avoid gender-tagging, but until writers create more fantastic characters that speak to both genders, what will change? Can’t we just accept that at certain ages girls and boys have different interests, and celebrate our differences.

What next? Should we abandon commercial women’s fiction despite the fact that a lot of women get enjoyment from it because, well geez, it’s for women and that’s wrong isn’t it?