Photo by Sophie Davidson
Lianne Dillsworth is the author of the new novel House of Shades. She also has written the novel Theatre of Marvels. She lives in London.
Q: What inspired you to write House of Shades, and how did you create your character Hester?
A: At the time I began working on the idea that would become House of Shades there were a lot of articles in the press about stately homes and where the money came from to build them.
I’ve always loved Victorian novels that take a big house and try to unearth its secrets and that gave me a great jumping-off point for taking an alternative approach to the gothic theme of inheritance, which is particularly loaded in the context of slavery.
As for Hester, it’s important to me that my Black female characters have agency as well as authenticity, so I started by researching real Black women living in Britain in the 19th century.
Mary Seacole, originally from Jamaica, was a much-loved figure in the 1850s. She called herself a doctress, an occupation I borrowed for Hester, but she was also a businesswoman and an author - she wrote an autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, and the strength of her voice was a big inspiration to me.
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I found “follow the money” to be a great maxim when I was researching House of Shades. The Bank of England and The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at UCL have done great work on tracing the compensation payments made to British slave owners and how they were invested.
One thing that surprised me was how many people and companies in Britain had financial interests in plantations. It wasn’t something restricted to the aristocracy – middle-class widows and even vicars received payouts, too.
Q: The writer Hester Musson called the book a “cracking read and a deft (and timely) unpicking of complex questions around atonement and accountability.” What do you think of that description?
A: I love that and it means a lot coming from Hester, whose debut novel The Beholders is a great example of Victorian gothic.
First and foremost, I wanted to create a compelling story and a lead character that readers would root for. The backdrop is about playing with the form and conventions of the 19th-century novels I love and claiming space for people we know were there but are too often absent from the historical record.
When Black bodies are included in period pieces it invites us to think beyond the dominant narratives that are usually given to unearth stories we may not have considered before.
Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: One of the things I enjoy about the editing process is how stories can change shape as you move from one draft to the next. I always have an ending in mind when I start but often find that as the characters develop on the page my perspective changes on where and how they finish up.
Which is a long way of saying that I’m not as much of a planner as I think I am!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: What I hope will be my third published novel! I’m in research mode at the minute and planning a trip to The National Archives just outside London to see some primary sources first-hand.
Starting a new project is one of my favourite parts of the writing process, and having not long finished editing, which requires a fair bit of discipline, I’m enjoying the freedom of trying out different ideas and seeing where they might take me.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The gorgeous cover was designed by Holly Ovenden with art direction by Glenn O’Neill. I love how it encapsulates some of the novel’s themes and imagery from the medicine bottle representing Gervaise Cherville’s illness to the spiked railings that make such an impression on Hester when she first arrives at the house.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
No comments:
Post a Comment