SPECIAL FEATURE Q&A: Jane Rogers interviews Linda Newbery about THE ONE TRUE THING

 

"So much depends on the juxtaposition, and what I want the reader to think, wonder, predict or piece together at any one point."

Linda answers questions from our regular contributor Jane Rogers.

Jane: Congratulations, Linda! Re-reading this book (Jane read an earlier draft) transported me back to the beauties of Wildings and filled me with admiration all over again, for your clever plotting and beautiful descriptions of nature. I’m interested in the way you can shift between writing for children, and adult fiction. In your best-known book for young readers, Lob, you conjure a beautifully innocent child’s view of the world, where love of nature and a powerful imagination are the key ingredients. And that book appeals to adult readers too, because we all have a nostalgia for that kind of innocence.

In complete contrast, The One True Thing is a very grown-up novel, in its exploration of a whole range of sexual relationships: Bridget and Anthony’s marriage shifts through passion and intimacy to downright hostility and back, via infidelity, to a benign accommodation with one another; we learn of Meg’s lesbian love affair with Carrie, who dumps her for a man; there are hints of incestuous attraction between two other characters. How conscious are you of your readership, as you are writing? And does a story always present itself clearly to you as either YA or adult?

Linda: The One True Thing was never going to be anything other than an adult novel, and that's true of my work in progress, too. With teenage fiction there have been times when the boundaries (if there are boundaries) have been less clear: for example with Set in Stone, which I began as a YA novel but for fairly sophisticated readers, and with the hope (which I always have) that it would be enjoyed by adults too. Sometimes I find that a story wants to go in a direction I hadn't planned at the start, and that's what happened with Set in Stone, which caused some controversy when it won the Costa Children's Prize. Some argued - and I'd agree - that it isn't a children's book. But the eligibility for that category does include age groups up to and including YA, so the same could and probably has been said of other winners more suitable for the upper end of young readers. But I won't write any more YA - my focus now is on adult fiction, alternating with stories for young children. 

Jane: The creation of Bridget’s garden is at the heart of the book. Did you have to do a lot of research, or were you already a gardening expert?

Linda: I certainly wouldn't call myself an expert, but I do know quite a lot about gardening and had a clear idea of Bridget's style and approach. I did need to research Chelsea Flower Show garden criteria for the particular year in which two of my characters make a small artisan garden. At the time I was writing the novel, I attended a talk by James Alexander Sinclair, who lives locally and is a Chelsea judge; after the event I emailed him with a few questions, which he very kindly answered, showing me where to find out more.

Jane: Where did the novel spring from? Can you talk us through the inspiration, the starting points? Or maybe I should say, the seeds?  I was fascinated by the precise descriptions of Meg’s work as a stone mason, and I note the book is dedicated to a stone-mason. Can you carve stone? Is this another of your hidden talents?

Linda: I can't exactly remember the starting point - several years ago - but I do seem to have developed a fascination with stone. That started with my late mother's photograph of a caryatid at Copped Hall in Essex, which set me off on The Shell House - Graveney Hall in my novel being based on Copped Hall, inhabited by a fictitious family, but almost destroyed by a devastating fire in 1917, just as the real mansion was. The caryatid, and the sculptor who made it, didn't feature as much as I'd expected, the novel being concerned with a First World War relationship and with a young photographer who discovers the ruins in the present day. So, fairly soon after I'd finished it, I began another novel more focused on stone-carving: Set in Stone. While doing some hands-on research for that one with a local stonemason, Bernard Johnson, I learned to appreciate the beauty of letter-carving, and wanted to have a go. My efforts are very clumsy compared to Bernard's exquisite work (which you can see on his website) but at least I had the tools in my hands and began to understand something of the materials and techniques. I wanted my present-day stone-carver in the new novel to be female, and the character of Meg grew from there, along with how she'd fit around the other characters. 

Jane: What is your writing process? In this novel, Bridget, Meg and Jane all have their own stories and points of view, which are intercut. Did you write them like this, or work on each woman’s story-line separately?

Linda: I seem to have to work like that, moving back and forth in time and/or with intercutting viewpoints - my work in progress has a similar structure, and so do several of my young adult novels (Set in Stone, Sisterland, The Shell House). I don't think I could do it by working on each character individually, because so much depends on the juxtaposition, and what I want the reader to think, wonder, predict or piece together at any one point. When finishing a section from one point of view, I need to leave off for a while, go and do something else, then return (probably next day) with my head in the viewpoint of another character. 

Jane: I hope you won’t mind me saying that I found a lot of you in this novel; yoga, gardening, Extinction Rebellion! 

Linda: Yes, at times while writing I feared that I was using up everything I knew and could write about with authority ... but luckily there are more interests left over (photography, animal activism, an artist I've been intrigued by for many years) for the novel I'm working on now. In The One True Thing, each of the three characters - plus Adam, first appearing as a young artist, who isn't a viewpoint character but is equally important - finds, or tries to find, the activity that gives purpose and meaning to life. Meg is the one who uses the phrase, but it's significant for all of them. 

Jane: I know this novel has been a long time coming to fruition (sorry about the gardening metaphors!) Both you and I, and indeed many other writers, have had trouble finding a publisher for a completed novel – can you tell us the publishing history of this book?

Linda: Sadly, it can be very difficult for an author, even a well-established one, to find a publisher if her or his sales are less than spectacular - and that category includes most of us! Having published only one adult novel before (Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon, in paperback as Missing Rose) I'm not yet established as a writer for adults, and I've heard from you and from other acquaintances that much better-known authors than me are finding it a struggle. The One True Thing was submitted, but isn't what publishers are looking for at present, and even though most praised the writing, characters, etc., they clearly didn't think they could make money from it. Although it's tough being rejected, I never lost the sense that readers would enjoy my novel, so I refused to give up on it. 

I'm grateful to Fiona Mountain, a well-regarded and traditionally published author of historical fiction who I met through a reading group, for telling me how and why she had self-published her latest novel, Keeper of Secrets (which I recommend). When I discussed this possibility with friends Celia Rees and Cindy Jefferies, both of whom have wide experience of the publishing industry, Celia had the brilliant idea of forming an imprint, Writers Review Publishing, linked to this blog. That was a moment of epiphany! I'd felt diffident about publishing and promoting my own book as a solo effort, but being part of an author collaborative would be really rewarding - helping other writers to launch new books or reissue backlist titles that deserve to reach new readers, and all benefitting from joint publicity. It was so liberating to find that everything I needed was available: cover designers, interior layout designers, proofreaders, publicists. It had never occurred to me that I could commision my own audio book, but I've now done that through Audio Factory, choosing my preferred narrator. 

It didn't take long to assemble three of us - Judith Allnatt, Mary Hoffman and myself - to be part of the launch. Both their titles are excellent reissues: Judith's The Poet's Wife tells the story of Patty, the wife of poet John Clare, while Mary's David: the Unauthorised Autobiography imagines the life of the model for Michelangelo's iconic sculpture. Another well-established writer, Sheena Wilkinson, will publish with us later this year. How we progress will depend on what comes our way - though we already have two titles pencilled in for 2026. Watch this space!

The One True Thing is published by Writers Review Publishing. The cover design is by Owen Gent.

Jane Rogers' short story collection, Fire Ready, is published by Comma Press. Read more here.

The other two launch titles for Writers Review Publishing are Judith Allnatt's The Poet's Wife and Mary Hoffman's David: the Unauthorised Autobiography

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: LILLIAN BOXFISH TAKES A WALK by Kathleen Rooney

 

"Lillian charmed me into her life."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

Two words. Flâneuse, something I certainly am, though perhaps not to the extent Lillian Boxfish is: and anhedonia, something I don’t suffer from but a word I had come across for the first time in an online article I was reading recently. I had never seen the word before, but being distracted for a moment I neglected to look it up. Then, with the serendipity I so love in life, a few days later, there it was again, in the book I was reviewing. Wikipedia will give you a useful definition if you don’t know the word but I won’t enlighten you here, because to do so might spoil your pleasure a little, in reading Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk.

Kathleen Rooney’s novel was a slow burn for me. There was the happy anticipation of encountering a character who shares my enjoyment of wandering alone through the streets. Also, it is always a pleasure to handle a Daunt paperback. The substantial cover and the high quality of the paper, smooth and sensuous to the touch, both delight. However, there was no street map, to help me with Lillian’s walk through Manhattan on her cold, New Year’s Eve night. I thought it would be essential, and mourned the lack as soon as riffling through the pages revealed it.

My only experience of New York is being driven through the city at speed to try and catch a plane. (Fortunately for me it had been delayed and I caught it.) My feet have never walked these streets and I feared that my lack of knowledge would spoil the novel experience. So, I started to read, a little disengaged; but as the book had been a present from my daughter I felt I should give it a go. I’m very glad I did. The wistfulness at the lack of a street plan was soon forgotten, as Lillian charmed me into her life.

Lillian Boxfish is inspired partly by the real, highest paid female advertising copywriter in the world during the 1930’s. The author’s notes expand on this but I won’t here. Suffice it to say that in this unusual and enjoyable novel there are written adverts, poetry, humour, memories and walking. Take a trip to your local, independent bookshop; walking if possible, and seek out this book.

I was going to leave you with one of the rhymes scattered through its pages, but decided instead on one sentence that has, sadly, perhaps never been more true.

People who command respect are never as widely known as people who command attention.

Lilian Boxfish Takes a Walk is published by Daunt Books.

More of Cindy's choices for Writers Review:

Buddha Da by Anne Donovan

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

Guest review by Graeme Fife: THE NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP NORTH by Richard Flanagan

 

"He writes with passion, sensitivity and somehow retains his composure even in face of the worst details of the story he is telling."

Graeme Fife is a regular reviewer here. He has written many plays, stories, features and talks for radio, stage plays and articles for newspapers and magazines, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent. He's the author of a string of books - children's stories, biography, works of history and fiction. His novel of the French Revolution, No Common Assassin, tells the story of Charlotte Corday. His new novel, Memory's Ransom, a compelling wartime story, is published by Conrad Press.

The Bushido code ‘Warrior’s path’ has governed Japan's warrior classes from the 8th century. Making no distinction between life and death, its principles still feature highly in Japanese culture

This compelling novel’s true and grim story stretched my comprehension but humans have the capacity for so much and we are only ever a step away, circumstantially and emotionally, from being something we daren’t consider, let alone truly know. We must face the problem of being unable to understand, to embrace that unknowable, aware that there’s probably no conclusive answer; no final full stop only ever a hanging comma on which we sit, as on a swing in a hidden garden. Flanagan himself says: ‘Horror is just horror.’

The title comes from a collection of Basho’s writings marking the high point of Japanese culture whereas this novel relates events at its lowest point: building a railway (never used) through the Burmese jungle, cleared largely with blunt tools by prisoners of war who were sickly, ill-fed, maltreated, beaten for disobedience – despite simply being too ill or weak to comply - by guards aware that if they failed to obey orders to beat disobedient prisoners they themselves would be thrashed. Such is the impasse of horror at the heart of this novel. It deals with terrible circumstances: the inhumanity of war and, in this war’s theatre, an irreconcilable clash of cultures. To Japanese bred on the warrior cult, the very notion of prisoner-of-war was incomprehensible: why would anyone surrender rather than die and save face? A man who had given in made himself less than a man so that whatever happened to him, didn’t matter. Impossible demands were made because the Emperor required them and refusal was unthinkable

The courage and nerve required to go to the core of what must seem to many of us an ugly absurdity are remarkable, and Flanagan has overcome his obvious dismay at the chronicling of this wretched episode in what is already a wretched circumstance – war, that grievous misuse of human action which makes victims of both the warrior and his foe. He writes with passion, sensitivity and somehow retains his composure even in face of the worst details of the story he is telling and it is, I feel, a story that needs to be told. It’s no good our saying that we do not need to know something merely because it happened, I say that awareness of both aspects of human nature, the evil and the magnanimous, impinge most powerfully on our own willingness to acknowledge our own incomprehension and to accept, if painfully, that we do not understand. I don’t and this wonderful novel encourages us to walk our own narrow road to that depth of incomprehension.

If we don’t hold to bushido as we revile war, armed conflict, the lingering impulse to belligerence, then it’s important to see that there have been elements of it in the culture that we inherited – the Roman general falling on his sword to avoid the ignominy of humiliation after defeat; the abject men who lost their nerve on the killing fields and mud of the Western Front: shot at dawn as an example to others and buried in honour’s graveyard…

Flanagan writes beautifully and with compassion which is the real test of his own fearlessness in telling a fearful story: his description of the young, miserable, ill-nourished ill-clad Japanese soldiers tramping along the wearisome jungle miles past the lines of hapless prisoners who may even have envied them their energy, diminished as it was: at least they could stand up and carry equipment yet were treated cruelly by vicious compadres ‘just obeying orders’.

‘To live was to struggle through terror and pain but, he told himself, one had to live’ is, if amazingly, what somehow rescued those beaten, diseased and broken men. And the ingenuity of some of the men with them, particularly the doctor Dorrigo Evans, in many ways the story’s protagonist, also strains belief: conducting operations with hardly any medical equipment, by sheer determination to get the necessary job done to save a man. It doesn’t always end happily and his own life – before, during then afterwards, his passionate love, his bravery, told in time jumps of the narrative which work well, here – underpins a novel which conveys the sense of something unquenchable in the human spirit, despite the inhumanity it encounters and, as one character says: ’Lest we forget, we say. Isn’t that what we say?’ Crowning the story, the wondrous redemption through self-knowledge and moral strength of a surviving prisoner, Bigelow, ‘haunted only by the way he was haunted by so little of it’.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is published by Chatto & Windus.

Graeme's Memory's Ransom is published by The Conrad Press.

BRAIDING SWEETGRASS by Robin Wall Kimmerer, reviewed by Linda Newbery

 

"The fear is that the world has been turned inside out, the dark side made to seem light."

Linda Newbery has published widely for young readers and was a Costa category prizewinner for her young adult novel Set in Stone. Her second novel for adults, The One True Thing, will be one of the launch titles for Writers Review Publishing this month.

This remarkable book had been mentioned to me so many times that it was about time I read it. First I listened to the audio version, read by Robin Wall Kimmerer herself, then had to buy a copy to keep. Combining poetic observation, botanical knowledge, folklore and social history, it compelled me to note down something from almost every page. It'll be difficult to do justice to this much-admired, wide-ranging exploration of our relationship to the natural world, but I'll have a go.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a tribe of the Anishinaabe people of Canada and the northern United States. She's a professor of biology as well as founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to bring together science and indigenous wisdom to raise awareness, protect ecosystems and create true sustainability. References to 'sustainable food' and 'nature restoration' are everywhere now - but what do those terms truly mean? Can we live and feed ourselves in sustainable ways without fundamentally shifting our perception of nature and our place in it? 

The term 'ecological services', often heard in political discussions of growth and the economy, supposes that the natural world exists purely to support humanity. Indigenous wisdom holds the different view that humans are part of nature, no more important than other species or than trees, rivers or mountains. This fundamental difference, Wall Kimmerer suggests, is apparent in creation stories: the Genesis account of the expulsion from Eden is based on concepts of ownership, rights, permission and exclusion, whereas the Anishinaabe Skymother myth which begins her book emphasises co-operation, acceptance and natural generation - and, of course, femaleness.

Her explorations of language highlight differences in perception. Alarmed to realise how few fluent Potawatomi speakers are left in the world, and how much will be lost if the language dies out - its culture, myths, beliefs, traditions and practices - she sets out to learn. At first, she's exasperated by the lack of precision in nouns; rather than a noun equivalent for 'bay', for instance, the Potawatami word means 'to be a bay'. Then the realisation comes to her that this is part of the animacy of Potawatami language and world vision, with the profound difference that a tree is not objectified by the observer but seen as something with its own life, its being. Felling a tree that's seen as an animate being requires more thought and justification than if it's just an object for human use or disposal.

Central to the indigenous way of life is the 'honorable harvest'. This means taking only what's given and what's needed; being grateful; giving something in return ('reciprocity' is a term that appears often in this book); being responsible about what you take and using all of it, for example when an animal is killed for meat. 'I believe that the principles of the Honorable Harvest have great resonance in an era when over-consumption threatens every dimension of our well-being. But it can be too easy to shift the burden of responsibility to the coal company or the land developers. What about me, the one who buys what they sell, who is complicit in the dishonorable harvest?' Acknowledging her privilege in living in the country, growing her own fruit and vegetables, buying from neighbours or swapping with them, she takes herself to a shopping mall, far from her 'comfort zone' where, looking at many of the plastic items on sale, she feels no sense of their living origins and is overwhelmed by the power of the market economy. The idea of taking only what you need gets lost when 'our needs get so tangled with our wants.'

'If we are fully awake,' she writes, 'a moral question arises as we extinguish the other lives around us on behalf of our own' - (a question that surely can't occur to most consumers of animal flesh). She describes the return of salmon to inland waters to breed and the indigenous ritual of celebration, allowing four days' worth of salmon to swim upstream unhindered before catching any to eat. That way, there will always be fish: 'you never take the first, and you never take the last' is another core principle of the 'honorable harvest'. The bones of eaten fish are placed back in the river, enriching the water with minerals and demonstrating respect and gratitude. This watching and waiting for the year's marker-point is a far cry from the abysmal treatment of farmed salmon, denied their migratory instincts and kept in crowded pens. 

The book is a series of essays, several focusing on particular plant species and what they have to teach us: black ash, red cedars and especially sweetgrass. Why sweetgrass? Because it holds a special place indigenous lore: 'Our stories say that of all the plants, wiingaashk, or sweetgrass, was the very first to grow on the earth. Accordingly, it is honoured as one of the sacred plants of my people.' It is used to weave baskets and, along with the other three, tobacco, sage and cedar, it provides health and medicinal benefits. Learning from plants is crucial in chapters describing Wall Kimmerer's interactions with students, including camping trips. One student is dismayed to learn that they'll pitch camp miles from medical help or the nearest Walmart: "I mean, what if you need something?" Days in the wild reveal that everything the group needs can be provided by plants: food, building materials, shelter, comfort, kindling for their fires.

A chapter near the end focuses on Windigo, the legendary monster of the Anishinaabe people: a huge, fearsome figure, a terrorising cannibal. The more it eats, the more ravenous it becomes. The metaphor is all too clear. In Donald Trump's second term as President, Windigo is louder, brasher and more wasteful of the natural world than ever before. What chance does indigenous wisdom have of standing up to the brute forces of ignorance and greed? 

'The fear is that the world has been turned inside out, the dark side made to seem light. Indulgent self-interest that our people once held to be monstrous is now celebrated as success. We are asked to admire what our people viewed as unforgivable ... we have unleashed a monster.'

Can traditional wisdom save us, or have we already gone too far down the road of exploitation and neglect?

Braiding Sweetgrass is published by Penguin.

More reviews of nature writing:

Sarn Helen, by Tom Bullough, reviewed by Alison Layland

Featherhood by Charlie Gilmour, reviewed by Tina Jackson

Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie, reviewed by Sue Purkiss

The Invention of Nature: the Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science, by Andrea Wulf, reviewed by Linda Newbery

The Place of Tides by James Rebanks, reviewed by Laura Parker

The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn, reviewed by Sue Purkiss

Walden by Henry David Thoreau, reviewed by Linda Newbery

Special feature: Leena Norms answers questions from Celia and Catrin Rees on HALF ARSE HUMAN

"This is the only self-help book that will tell you to give up. Except ... you don't need to give up, do you? Because you didn't start.

Me either."

Leena Norms is a poet, vlogger. podcaster and presenter. She has amassed over 25 million views on her YouTube channel and has 199K followers. She was named by London Book Fair in 2020 as Book Vlogger of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Bookshop.org 2022 Indie Champions Award and for the Best BookTuber prize at the 2022 Blogosphere Awards. Leena received the London Book Fair Trailblazer Award in 2019 and the Bookseller Rising Star Award in 2016 for her online book campaigns and was a Winner in the Indie Champions Award, Bookshop.org, 2024.

In 2022 Leena published her debut poetry collection Bargain Bin Rom-Com (Burning Eye Books) and in 2024 Half Arse Human, a self-help book with a difference. Leena has worked with Icon Books, Pan Macmillan, Telegraph Books and Penguin Random House. She uses her YouTube Channel to talk with engaging verve and and real passion about everything: poetry, politics, coping in your twenties, books and reading, practical fashion and protecting the planet.

Website: https://leenanorms.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@leenanorms
Podcast: https://leenanorms.com/no-books-on-a-dead-planet
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leenanorms
X : @leenanorms

Celia: A self-help book with a difference. A book for those who are, well, half arsed about self-help in the first place. If you can identify with that, if you are, or ever have been, half arsed about making choices about your life, whether that be style (what clothes to wear), going vegan (what to eat/not eat), your career (or lack of it), your home (clutter, décor, bins etc. etc.), your body, your future, if you’re deafened by all the conflicting advice coming at you from all directions and if your heart sinks at the very thought of dealing with any of it, then this book is for YOU.

Despite the jokey title, this book is serious in its intent. It’s for all of us who serially fail to: keep New Year’s Resolutions, stick to diets/exercise regimes/morning rituals, work schedules and never get round to de-cluttering. Leena knows all the cut outs and excuses. There’s nowhere to hide. Leena’s book will take you from full time hoverer (read the book and you’ll understand) to whole arser and it's all backed up with science. The girl has done her research. I absolutely loved it. One of the best self-help book that I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a fair few. Throughout the book, Leena’s honesty shines through and resonates. She backs up each chapter with her own fears and failures and all the ways she’s found to overcome them. The penultimate chapter is entitled ‘Hope’ and this is what the book gives you. If Leena can do it, I can do it and that makes it possible to whole arse whatever you want to do.

First of all, have to say, I’m no stranger to self-help books, they have been my ‘go to’ in times of stress and have been for more decades than I care to count. Yours is one of the best. My daughter, Catrin, agrees. She’s a lawyer, and no stranger to self-help books and courses, either, but she loved it. She’s ‘all in’, too. While my take away was Hope – Change Is Possible, hers was Action – how do I effect change? A generational difference? I don’t know. Anyway, we came up with these questions together, so here goes:

Celia (CR): Can you share the when, where and why of the idea for Half Arse Human?

Leena (LN): I’ve always been a bit of a natural half-arser but ashamed of it - I tried to squash my instincts for shortcuts and become someone who was thorough in all aspects of their life. As I improved, the catch became clear: perfection wasn’t possible, and trying to hone all aspects of my life was resulting in serious burnout!

It occurred to me that if I fess-up to half-arsing (and explore what I suspect to be true: in most areas of our life, half-arsing is all we have the resources for) and start intentionally doing it, I might be able to pick a few things that matter to me and focus on them, without feeling ashamed to have not mastered it all. Intentionally meant looking at each aspect of my life and thinking ‘if I only put in half the effort society expects me to, which parts of the task would I prioritise?’

CR: Does Half Arse Human have a message beyond purely personal self-improvement?

LN: As I started honing my half-arse muscles, I also started becoming more aware of all the things we need to urgently change about society in order to adjust for the new coming climate emergency - and noticed how frequently the focus is on individual change rather than collective change. I thought ‘hang on a minute, if preserving the PLANET isn’t a group project, what is?!’

I began ‘half-arse Veganuary’ - a challenge encouraging people to join cutting down on dairy, eggs and meat in January, even if they weren’t able to be strict about it. It’s collectively that we need to reduce, so if many hands make light work, surely many mouths make… easier chewing?! It caught on and I love seeing people do half-arse veganism where they might not have participated before at all. That approach started spinning out of control, and I realised it made sense in lots of contexts, from clothes to careers to conservation – so I started writing about half-arsing in those contexts too.

CR: Half arse vegan really made sense to me! You back up all you're saying and, for me, one of the real strengths of Half Arse Human is the depth of your research. What were your go-to sources?

LN: The library of course! There’s also some really well researched podcast series out there that are always very well sourced. In particular I love Maintenance Phase, Science Vs and The Financial Diet.

CR: What was/is your intention behind Half Arse Human? What would you like the reader to take from the book?

LN: I’d love for them to feel invited back into their lives, not as a failing groundskeeper, but as a realistic landscaper - that it’s not shameful to admit that we’re only running on half a tank and to strategise accordingly. In fact, being a bit more slapdash can move you closer to your goals than sitting on the sideline - and you’re bound to have a lot more fun along the way!

Catrin Rees (CJR): How do you half arse an excess of small choices when they are stopping you from doing anything at all?

LN: See if there’s a theme running through all the micro-decisions that are on your plate - is it about who/what is prioritised? Time? Energy? It’s good to set a Manifesto, whether that’s for your day, your week or your life (What is it about? What is it trying to achieve?) and then see which tasks on your to-do list serve your mission and which are just extras that snuck on there by default.

CJR: Do you have one or any quick practical fixes to snap out of spells of procrastination?

LN: Halving the task you’re supposed to be doing and doubling the time you’ve allocated to it - even if just for now. Lowering the bar and lifting the restrictions can make it easier. Also the promise of a Curly Wurly at the end, that always helps ;)

CJR: Have you any half arsed tips to get writing a first book in a busy half arsed life?

LN: Tell everyone! Blurt out how excited you are about it, how much you’re enjoying it, bring people in on your mission - they’ll be much more understanding when you bow out of things to go and write, and can often pitch in to give you the time you need. Just like with children, writing a book takes a village - so go ask your villagers!

Half Arse Human is published by John Murray

Special feature: WRITERS REVIEW PUBLISHING!

 Introducing our first three books!

Exciting news - we are branching out into publishing! Our new venture launches on April 24th with titles by Judith Allnatt, Mary Hoffman and Linda Newbery, and more on the way. We will publish both new fiction and reissues of well-reviewed novels that deserve to reach new readers. 

At present we're publishing only fiction, but as we develop that may change to include non-fiction, memoirs or poetry, depending on what comes our way. 

Find out more on our website.

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The Poet's Wife by Judith Allnatt

It is 1841. Patty is married to John Clare: peasant poet, genius and madman.

Travelling home one day, Patty finds her husband sitting, footsore, at the side of the road, having absconded from a lunatic asylum over eighty miles away. She is devastated to discover that he has returned home not to find her, but to search for his childhood sweetheart, Mary Joyce, to whom he believes he is married.

Patty loves John deeply, but he seems lost to her. Plagued by jealousy, she seeks strength in memories: their whirlwind courtship, the poems John wrote for her, their shared affinity for the land. But as John descends further into delusion, hope seems to be fading. Will she ever be able to conquer her own anger and hurt, and reconcile with this man she now barely knows?

‘Affecting and beautifully written. Patty’s voice is at once homely and poetic, and her lyrical descriptions of the rhythms and customs of nineteenth century England – where it is unlucky to look at the moon through glass, and where a bundle of corn is left in the field at the end of every harvest, like an offering to the gods – are at the heart of the novel.’ The Times

‘This novel will leave you reaching for the nearest copy of John Clare’s powerful poems’ Daily Mail

'A subtle and sympathetic portrayal of losing a loved one to mental illness’ Times Literary Supplement  

‘A fascinating, compelling book, written with subtlety and a delicate touch, about the wife of John Clare, and the bewildering effects of her husband’s madness’ Clare Morrall  

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David - the Unauthorised Autobiography by Mary Hoffman

Michelangelo's statue, David, is famous around the world. Millions flock to Italy every year to admire the physical perfection of the young man captured within the marble. But the identity of the model has never been known . . . until now.

Acclaimed author Mary Hoffman imagines the story of Gabriele, a naive but incredibly handsome young man who is hired as Michelangelo's model, only to find himself drawn into a world of spies, political treachery, and murder. Set against the vibrant backdrop of Florence in its most turbulent times, this rich, colourful, thrilling tale gives life to one of the world's greatest masterpieces.

"An engrossing political murder-mystery." Amanda Craig, The Times

"This is a meaty, satisfying piece of work, astute and convincing, detailing Gabriele's burgeoning sexual and artistic nature." Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times

"Mary Hoffman has written an elegant novel which is totally believable, witty, and hard to put down." Kathy Stevenson, Daily Mail

"David brings a sexy immediacy to the creation of a sculptural marvel . . .the book makes palpable the contemporary meaning of the statue of a giant-killer - a (literally) gigantic anti-aristocratic gesture." Suzi Feay, Financial Times

"It is a brilliant premise for a novel. . . . Full of carefully-researched detail, David is at once the tale of a fictional character, the story of a work of genius and an evocation of a particularly compelling moment in Italy's past." Linda Buckley-Archer, The Guardian

*

The One True Thing by Linda Newbery

When the ground shifts, where is one true thing to be found?

Jane, in her twenties, is left parentless when her father dies suddenly; a second shock follows when his Will reveals the existence of a son no-one knew of. Now Wildings, the family home, must be sold. Spanning two generations, the novel tells the story of Bridget, Jane’s mother, trapped in an unhappy marriage on which her career depends, and of stone-carver Meg, who wants only independence but is enmeshed in conflicting loyalties and desires when Adam, a young artist, enters their lives, to devastating effect.

Now far from Wildings, Meg is bound by a promise to support Jane in her loss. Having thought of herself as an observer who saw everything, she’s forced to realise how much she failed to see – and the cost to those she loves.

‘A beautifully complex tapestry of lives and relationships … a novel to immerse yourself in.’ Jane Rogers, author of Mr Wroe’s Virgins

‘Newbery writes wonderfully.’ Financial Times

Cover artwork and design by Owen Gent.

*

See our Bookseller feature - Linda Newbery talks to Tom Tivnan about how Writers Review Publishing came about.

Guest review by Penny Dolan: SMALL BOMB AT DIMPERLEY by Lissa Evans

 

"A novel that cheers the heart. She writes with a wry sense of the comedy and tragedy of life ..."

Penny Dolan works as a children’s storyteller and writer. Her last novel for older children, A Boy Called Mouse, was nominated for the Young Quills Historical Fiction Award, and she is currently completing a companion book. She posts on The History Girls, on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure and can be found on Twitter @PennyDolan1.

Lissa Evans’ Small Bomb at Dimperley is a novel that cheers the heart. She writes with a wry sense of the comedy and tragedy of life, and with a sympathy for her characters, no matter how flawed they prove themselves to be.

I had loved her previous three novels, set between 1918 & 1945: Old Baggage, Crooked Heart and V for Victory. Written with a joyful sense of humour and an awareness of the absurd in life, it is clear that Evans is familiar with these decades. Her earlier historical novel, Their Finest Hour and a Half, is about a young female copy-writer drafted into the Ministry of Information to add a woman’s perspective, and was later made into a film.

This recent novel, Small Bomb at Dimperley, begins in 1945 and deals with a society used to war, to hardship and to bravely making the best (or the most) of it. Now that the Peace has been announced, people are faced by a different world. Do they look to the past, or the future?

The main focus, the fictional Dimperley House, is an almost symbolic place from the past: an Elizabethan manor house in the Buckinghamshire countryside. Past generations had adorned the exterior with architectural whims and stacked the inside with curiosities, including an unseen ghost in a passageway.

Dimperley withstood bombing by passing aircraft, the roughness of army requisitioning and practical neglect as a war-time mother-and-baby home. The house has survived the war, but how, under a new Labour government, will it survive the peace?

Evans fills her novel – and Dimperley - with a rich collection of characters. The imperious Dowager Lady Irene Vere-Thisset has remained in occupation, along with her brother Uncle Alaric, a reclusive archivist and Cedric, her brain-damaged middle son. Also resident is Lady Barbara, the Dowager’s bullied daughter-in-law, along with a few devoted and less devoted servants, an old horse in the stables and the Dowager’s yappy dogs. Adding to the air of irritation are Kitty and Priss, Barbara’s rebellious teenage daughters, appalled by Dimperly’s deprivations after the plenty of childhood years spent in California.

And then it happens: a telegram brings news from the Far East. Handsome Felix, the adored son and heir, was missing but is now definitely dead. Consequently, Valentine, the youngest son, who has served the war years as a lowly army Corporal, is summoned home to become, unwillingly, lord of the manor. He has to face what Felix’s death has brought: a large and long-avoided inheritance tax demand and a storm of financial troubles.

How will the awkward, injured Valentine, known at school as ‘Thicko’ Thisset, manage to deal with all the debts and responsibilities and paperwork? How can he make the money needed to deal with the crisis? Who should he marry for money – and should he? And of course, there are the complications of Felix’s personal legacy.

Dimperley is, at heart, an almost traditionally romantic novel: by chance, dull Uncle Alaric has employed a capable young woman, Mrs Zena Baxter, to assist him in writing his history of the house. For Zena, and her determined two-year-old daughter Allison, Dimperley is a magical place. Zena, who grew up in grim circumstances, is determined to help the house and grounds survive. The novel is as much Zena’s story as it is of the Vere-Thisset family; gently reminding the reader that history belongs to us all. Eventually, when all the alarms and subterfuges are over, the expected ending comes as a satisfying pleasure.

The plot within Small Bomb at Dimperley stretches way beyond the manor gates, offering the reader a wide cast of characters: moneyed middle-classes, salesmen, shopkeepers and delivery drivers; women at home and church fetes, men in pubs and clubs, all the remains of the old class-bound society all struggling to seize a place in this new era.

I felt, as the story grew, that the author was gently honouring the many ordinary people who endured the war years on the home front: those who were ordered about, sometimes with ignorance, and forced to accept all manner of official regulations without being recognised in return. Now, in 1945, as the nation’s public life moves on, their quiet sufferings are ignored and invisible.

But not here, within Lissa Evan’s lovely book. I do recommend this novel: a perfect mix of nostalgia, poignancy, written with humour and for today’s audience. Although the ‘quiet’ might depend on how easily you laugh aloud.

Here is one of the many smaller moments, as Barbara takes the injured Valentine out in the car.

The whole road surface as far as the East Lodge was in a dreadful state and Valentine jammed his good hand against the roof to keep level, as they lurched between the potholes. His sister-in-law steered with immense concentration, her knuckles white, her gaze rigid.

‘When did you learn to drive?’

‘When the chauffeur left. It was just before Dunkirk, I think, and he told everyone he was joining the marines, and then it turned out he was driving a tea van around an airbase in Cheadle.’


Additional News. Doubleday have just published Lissa Evans’ ‘Picnic on Craggy Island: The Surreal Joys of Producing Father Ted’, a slim hardback based on her diary notes and memories as a producer on that famous comedy tv series. It would be interesting to read this alongside episodes of the Father Ted  TV series still available on Youtube or other platforms. Lissa Evans’s novels for children include Wed Wabbit and Wished.

Small Bomb at Dimperley is published by Doubleday

Lissa Evans' Old Baggage is reviewed here by Pippa Goodhart

More of Penny's choices:

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders

Seven Miles of Steel Thistles by Katherine Langrish