Q&A with Jenny Lecoat

 

 

 

Jenny Lecoat is the author of the new novel Beyond Summerland. She also has written the novel The Girl from the Channel Islands. She lives in East Sussex, UK.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Beyond Summerland, and how did you create your character Jean?

 

A: Two things inspired Beyond Summerland. The first was a conversation with old friends in Jersey in 2019, discussing our parents and how affected they’d been by the war and Channel Island Occupation.

 

The second was a thought that hasn’t left me since I wrote my 2017 film Another Mother’s Son, which is that the two women accused of my family’s wartime betrayal never had any evidence brought against them. I wondered how often that had happened in the island in the years after the war, and how a scenario like that might play out.

 

I wanted to create a character who was at the centre of such a dilemma - angry, hurt, and wanting vengeance, but also willing to grow and listen. Jean is young, physically and emotionally, at the start of the book, but the changing circumstances force her to grow up very quickly.

 

Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Dozens of titles were considered. But the name of Jersey’s historic wartime factory, Summerland, seemed a perfect irony given what the invaders did to the island during Occupation.

 

Q: The writer Ruth Hogan said of the novel, “Beyond Summerland is a beautifully written testament to both the resilience and duplicity of human nature in the most challenging and complex times.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Obviously it’s wonderful to receive praise from an established writer. I think what Ruth is referencing here is what I hope is at the heart of the book - the courage and cowardice, the rationality and idiocy that we are all capable of, and that we wrestle with every day.

 

When we’re angry and frightened we make more extreme choices; the characters in Beyond Summerland are full of anger and fear with good reason, and faced with life-changing decisions.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: I hope readers consider how this story reflects on the contemporary world. We live in times fiercely divided by beliefs that come to define us. I’d like this book to remind us of our own fallibility.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’ve recently started a new Jersey novel, this time set in the 1970s. A time when the world was transitioning in so many ways, but the shadow of WWII still hung over everything.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Beyond Summerland was published in the US, Canada, UK and Australia on July 4, and in France and Germany later this year.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Jenny Lecoat.