Photo by Rebecca Reid
Christie Watson is the author of the new novel Moral Injuries. Her other books include the novel Tiny Sunbirds Far Away. She is a professor of medical humanities at the University of East Anglia, and also is a nurse. She lives in London.
Q: What inspired you to write Moral Injuries, and how did you create your characters Olivia, Laura, and Anjali?
A: I wanted to explore the sticky grey area of medical ethics, and examine women's friendship - at work. I tried to present flawed, human, messy, women who also happen to be at the top of their career game, are funny, intelligent and ambitious.
Creating these women was easy - because they are a bit like all the women I know, who contain a universe of complexities, and can be brilliant and difficult in equal measures.
Q: The writer Kate Bowler called the book a “psychological thriller that dives into the dark beauty and madness of medicine.” What do you think of that description?
A: Kate Bowler always gets to the heart of things! I think the description is perfect.
I started with many questions: What does medicine give - and what does it take? Who gets to make life and death decisions - and what influences that? When you are trained to save the lives of strangers, how far would you go to protect your own family?
The world of medicine is a fascinating place to write about, perhaps because the stakes are so high, and I definitely felt Medicine itself became a character. Often a dark one!
Q: How did your own medical background affect the writing of the novel?
A: I was a nurse for over 20 years and spent many clinical years on the hospital resuscitation team. When I started out my nurse training at 17, I’d always imagined that managing cardiac arrests, cracking chests open, being part of the team dealing with major trauma, saving lives, is what medicine (and being a nurse) was all about.
But I discovered that the real life-and-death drama in hospitals is quieter. It’s in the sometimes terrible decisions that doctors must make, the quiet conversations in the corridors, the discussions on the Ethics Committees, the knowing when to stop.
Q: How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: Moral Injuries is the psychological distress that results from actions, or the lack of them, that violates a person’s moral or ethical code. The term was first used by Jonathan Shay, a US psychiatrist, who worked with Vietnam veterans.
But increasingly we are seeing moral injuries in healthcare settings. During - and after - the pandemic - doctors and nurses are suffering the traumas associated with war. I wanted a title that conveyed the real cost of medicine. The job that physicians do is incredible, and it really does take a special person to give a piece of their soul to care for strangers.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have a new nonfiction book coming out in January 2025, called No Filters, which I co-wrote with my daughter, Rowan Egberongbe. It explores gender, race, class, mental health, social media and anything else that we argued about!
We wrote it between her ages of 16-18 (she’s now 19) and although it was a challenging project, we are so happy we did it. We wanted to help other families going though a difficult time, also trying to make sense of the world we live in. I’m now working on a new novel, which will be another medical drama, and the characters are speaking to me loud and clear.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’m very grateful to readers. Thank you for reading about Moral Injuries, and if you buy or borrow a copy, I truly hope you like it.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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