Amidst the beauty of Cornwall, two women struggle with their past: one cannot remember hers, the other cannot forget...
Hi there I'm your host Jenny Wheeler. The Guardian newspaper called Liz Fenwick the "Queen of the Cornish novel" and today Liz talks about the emotional stories of family secrets and lies across generations she loves to write - and explains why Cornwall is the perfect place for heart-deep drama.
Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:
Liz's dedication to getting it rightHow the 'Queen of Cornish fiction' made 34 drafts of one bookWhat's so special about Cornwall How she hasn't let dyslexia hold her backShowing them how its done: encouraging her sons to dreamWhy she'd never put a deadline on dreams
Where to find Liz Fenwick:
Website: http://lizfenwick.com/
Facebook: @liz.fenwick.author
Twitter: @liz.fenwick
Instagram: @liz_fenwick
Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.nz/lizfenwick3/
What
follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for
word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.
Jenny: But now, here’s Liz. Hello there Liz and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.
Liz: It's great to be here!
Jenny: Beginning at the beginning – was there a “Once Upon a Time” moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction? And if so what was the catalyst for it?
Liz Fenwick - Women's fiction author
Liz: Ooh... that's always an interesting question because I have always wanted to write from early on. I was an only child, and so books became my best friend, and my grandfather who was from Ireland. He lived with us and he was a great story teller and a huge lover of poetry so I was surrounded by words and stories from an early age, and I was that typical kid that loved the story so much that I would continue the story in my head and I started telling my own stories, and then eventually I started writing it down.
And what happened was I went to university, got a degree in English literature, wrote three quarters of a novel for my senior thesis and then the real world happened... I went out and got a job... But the interesting thing was my professor gave me an agent's name to show her my novel that I'd started for my thesis and at that point I got cold feet and I didn't follow through.
Cornwall became home for Boston-born writer
It wasn't until 2004, when I realized I didn't want to just be writing non fiction. At that time we were living abroad, I had run a huge expat organisation, I had given many talks about how to move with expat children, I had written many articles for corporate magazines about organising an ex pat life, and I just realized I wanted to write fiction again. I went back through my papers and found the name of the agent and Googled her and I thought "Oh my God, what have I given up?" If I look back now, many years since, I think I was a far better writer when I was coming out of university in 1985 - 86 - but I didn't have the life experience.
The book I had written was called The Irish Woman and it was based on the experience of my grandmothers and aunts who were all living around us in the Boston area. It was a cracking story but I realized when I looked back on it - there were childbirth scenes in there - and I thought 'Oh My God I didn't have a clue.' so I think that to become the writer that even then I wanted to be I had to have lived life, had the shiny edges knocked off a bit, come to understand sorrow and grief - all those things that happen in the course of most people's lifetimes.
So when I came back in 2004 I wasn't as skilled, because I hadn't been writing fiction, but I certainly had a better grasp of what it was like to live...
Jenny: It is intriguing because you do have an English accent and you have mentioned you were born in Boston, so how did you establish yourself as an American-born writer who has made Cornwall your domain?
St Ives, Cornwall - a typical Cornish scene. One visit to Cornwall and Liz fell in love
Liz: How did I get rid of my American accent? Well that was a by product of my working life in the UK. This is one of those funny stories in a way.. I was 25 and I was bored with American men and my father was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts which is the daughter company of the Honorable Artillery Company of London. They came over when I was 25. They'd been doing exchanges for several years and the first time I met this group of people I was 13 and certainly not at my finest.
The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company . . training gentlemen since 1638
Well move on till I am 25 and I had gone from being a mousy, spotty faced- wearing braces teenage girl to a bit of a blond bombshell and it was one of those lovely things. There was a drinks party on the Quayside and the day before my mother said to me the day before "Oh you go ahead, I've done enough of these things over the years, you go so I attended this event with my father, it was a beautiful June evening and we were just at that age where Dad was looking incredibly distinguished and I was looking as I said a bit of a blond bombshell, and people's jaws dropped and they were saying oh my goodness what happened to Jim and where is his wife?
But the funniest thing was one of the young men that Dad had met years before and they'd kept in touch and Tony had seen me when I was 13, and Dad walked up to him and said Tony you remember Elizabeth and Tony's jaw dropped and he said "I remember Elizabeth" and we had the most tremendous fun and he issued as invitation as did a number of the others who I had shown around Boston - "Do come to London, we'd really enjoy showing you the city."
That was June, I went in October and one - I'm sorry to say very intoxicated evening they asked me if I was eligible for Irish citizenship, which I knew I was, so the next morning with a rather large hangover, I picked up the paper work. That was October and the following April I came to London with the expectation that I would stay about three years.
I met the man who is now my husband two weeks after I arrived and he is the one who introduced me to Cornwall. Less than a month after we met he brought me down here to his parent's house; it was a beautiful June weekend, the hedgerows were in flower, there were foxgloves like exclamation marks into the deep blue sky and I fell in love with Cornwall. And I don't think, if I hadn't have fallen in love with Cornwall, that we would have been married coming up 28 years in July . . .
Cornish foxgloves
Jenny: That's a lovely story and it does bring us very nicely to your writing because you have made Cornwall your domain and I wonder what was special about it as a literary location? There are a range of mysteries set in Cornwall, there are the cozies, but yours are darker and deeper. What is it about Cornwall that appeals to writers and readers?
Liz: There are certain places that speak to people and Cornwall is one of those places. When I went to Ireland I felt very clearly my roots go deep there and I wanted that. I came to Cornwall and I had no roots here - well I do now, but I will never be Cornish and the only way I could hold onto that was to write about it. The landscape inspires me Cornwall is such a raw and wild place, you cross the Tamar and there is magic and something that is very untamed about it that just spoke to me.
Historic Poldark image - Cornwall captures the imagination
Jenny: Number seven in your Cornwall books I think is about to be published, is that right?
Liz: Yes it's A Path To The Sea.
Jenny: You feel very much accepted by the Cornish community now, is that right?
Liz: It is very much so. They've taken us very much to their hearts. We have been global nomads. We bought our home here in 1996, and at that time my husband was working in the oil industry and we were sent all over the place. Our Cornish neighbors never treated us as if this was our holiday house, they understood that this was out base, this was the place my children were always going to regard as home. I was if you like, their "token American" and now I am living here virtually full time they have opened their arms and accepted us fully.
Jenny: That's great . . . Now you've described One Cornish Summer as a “Marmite book.” Apart from the fact that it’s surprising to meet an American who has heard of Marmite, what did you mean by that? And may be you should begin by explaining what Marmite is to those listeners who may not know.
Quintessential British product - BBC photo
Liz: Well I experienced Marmite because my husband likes it on his toast. It's very rich and dark and I think quite frankly it's disgusting. It's very rich in Vitamin B . . . Supposed to be very good for you and my children like it too - it is very much an acquired taste and one I've never acquired. I suppose the closest thing to it - I think the Australians have Vegemite - it certainly isn't to everybody's taste - it divides people. And One Cornish Summer I think does that on a couple of accounts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-8683vgO90
I think the biggest one is the use of poetry. there is a lot of John Donne's poetry in it. The book is about early onset Alzheimer's which is not an easy subject to deal with but if you have ever worked with or loved anybody with Alzheimer's one of the things they hold onto is music. You''ll be aware that copyright is an issue particularly in music, so it was easier to use poetry which is out of copyright. But there is another reason I chose John Donne's poetry one I love it, but two its so full of metaphor and it changes meaning at every reading and I think it really expressed Hebe, the character who suffers the illness is as a person.
