Photographer: Angela Feely.

Charlotte Levin has been shortlisted for the Andrea Badenoch Award, part of the Northern Writers’ Awards, and for the Myslexia Short Story Competition. Charlotte lives in Manchester and ‘If I Can’t Have You’ is her debut novel, published by Pan Macmillan in July.

JO

From page one, the book is a kind of assault on the senses as you start at the end of the story and we’re plunged deeply into Constance’s traumatic world. As the novel progresses, we begin to understand that only people at arm’s length feel truly safe for Constance, even though this seems to set her up for loneliness. Constance is starved of real human connection and yet she picks someone to attach to who will always be just out of reach. In this way, you construct this perfect push-pull, between the two main characters, dropping us right in the middle of a suspense filled drama of attachment. I think the way you render Constance, the aspect of genuine tragedy in her inner conflict really comes over. I wondered where you got your influences for Constance?

CHARLOTTE

For the story to work, it was important that Constance felt separate from the world and had difficulty forming healthy connections. Her relationship with her mother was, although loving, fairly co-dependent and, along with events surrounding her father, she was likely to develop attachment and abandonment issues. I am incredibly interested in psychology and have read lots about attachment styles. People with anxious attachment styles are scared of abandonment but often subconsciously go for someone avoidant or even narcissistic who will, in turn, likely abandon them. The avoidant person is also only that way due to fear of abandonment themselves. So, you get the push/pull thing you mentioned. I never wanted to write a plot-driven thriller about a stalker. I always wanted it to be her realistic unravelling, with backstories, combinations of people and events that would create the perfect synergy for that to happen. As you’ve said, wanting to be with someone who is just out of reach, is a common issue. I’ve made this mistake myself. Repeatedly! So, although Constance is extreme, and does some morally dubious (and sometimes illegal) things, I wanted the reader to still relate to her on some level.

JO

Absolutely! There are red flags early on with Samuel, Constance’s love interest, and you make these available to the reader but you don’t clue Constance in, which again really adds to the suspense and sense of danger. The narcissistic, gaslighting Samuel tries, early on, to get her to wear clothes his ex girlfriend has left behind (they may as well be his mother’s). And I thought this was a really clever way to build suspense. As much as this is a novel about grief and loss, and all the ways in which attachment can go wrong, it’s also very much about the inner scripts we have as we head into romantic relationships, isn’t it?

CHARLOTTE

It is, yes. Though, interesting that you say I don’t clue Constance in, because I think we can ignore red flags so well when compelled to enter into relationships, that we’re only unaware of them on a conscious level. Constance decided that Samuel was the one person who could give her the happiness and love that she craved without much evidence to support that, only that she wanted it to be true.

JO

I wanted to talk to you a little more in depth about the male protagonist, Samuel, because he’s a really fascinatingly drawn character. And to your immense credit, even though his behaviour is terrible, narcissistic, grandiose and gaslighting, only superficially charming, and we very often want to rugby tackle Constance to the ground and set Samuel on fire, and yet he is not a one dimensional villain. You really show us, with these small but growing psychological revelations as the novel progresses, how he became the way he is. Can you say what your influences were when you were creating Samuel? And have you had any strong reactions to him from your early readers?

CHARLOTTE

Haha, I love that! I’d read certain Samuel scenes back and swear furiously at the screen! The book wouldn’t have worked if he’d been some moustache-twirling villain. I wanted him to be oblivious as to how awful he was. To be so entitled, so narcissistic that it often doesn’t dawn on him that his words and actions might actually hurt and affect others. His only motivation is to get what he wants and to do what he wants, rather than hurting people. Aside the times he does want to hurt and gaslight. And within all that, he still considers himself a nice guy. Samuel is an amalgamation of people I’ve encountered in my life. Unfortunately! And as with those people, he has reasons for being the way he is. I kept in mind that he’d stopped developing, emotionally, when he was a teen. He too is unable to form healthy loving relationships, pushing them away through his own issues. I needed that dynamic to create the story. To blur the lines as to who the villain is. And, yes, lots of readers seem to have the same reactions towards him that you had! Thank goodness!

JO

I think it would be quite difficult to talk about your novel without talking about class. And I am using the word in its strict sociological sense, to describe, in a neutral way, a division between people, stripped of any pejorative associations the word also has. And I felt the need to define what I meant there, because I think that although we can talk about gender and, increasingly, race and ethnicity in Britain, class still seems to be the big taboo. And yet class infiltrates every aspect, it seems to me, of Constance and Samuel’s intimate relationship. Samuel’s relative privilege really informs his views about, and ultimately treatment of, her. His relative social power affects the interpersonal dynamics between them (she’s often left feeling humiliated by micro aggressions he affects to be unaware of). And his relative privilege seems to be an aspect of his entitlement and narcissism generally. Class is certainly one of the ways in which he hurts her. Were you thinking about this issue when you were creating him, or would this have been the same novel if Samuel hadn’t been, in effect, Constance’s boss?

CHARLOTTE

Oh, yes. I kept this in mind at all times. I think it essential to the story. I set it in a private medical practice to instantly create that dynamic. He is privileged but being a doctor also ‘respectable’. One of the reasons he doesn’t consider her girlfriend material is because of her background and his being her boss means he has control over her and the situation, which he abuses. But at the same time, Constance is continually aware of the class difference, and she flits between shame and bitterness when acknowledging the privilege that surrounds her, which also affects her behaviour and actions.

JO

I’m going to ask you a question which I love asking writers, because their answers are so individual, and so enlightening. How do you get into a creative head space for your writing? Do you have any special rituals or routines, and what does the act of writing do for you?

CHARLOTTE

I look at other writers on Instagram and Twitter, with their lovely workspaces with freshly cut flowers and rituals, and in comparison, I’m just a mess. Despite having an office and a dining table I could work on, I prefer to write on/in my bed. If I try and sit at my desk, I feel a bit of an idiot and can’t write. I need it to be more relaxed than that, especially doing first drafts. I’m not good with a blank page, I can struggle to get words down. But when I’m editing, I go to the other extreme and become quite obsessive. Though I’m going to try and not do that with my next book because I’m not sure it’s healthy!

Writing is such a weird thing for me because I both love it and hate it. I sometimes wonder why I have a compulsion to do it as it can be so hard, then other times, it’s a massive buzz. I think of it as my drug of choice. And finishing If I Can’t Have You was such an amazing feeling. I still keep looking at my proof copy and thinking, ‘I can’t believe I wrote that.’

JO

Who would you say are your own writing influences? I thought I spotted Joyce Carol Oates in your very strong use of suspense, in the psychological insights, the touch of southern gothic and the great twist at the end of the novel. You play with ‘Wuthering Heights’ in several wry asides. There was also a smidge of Jean Rhys’ ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, I suspected, and of course I’m thinking of the scene where the madwoman in the attic stalks down the corridor, setting all the curtains deliciously alight. Who do you like to read when you’re writing?

CHARLOTTE

I’m honoured you’d even make a connection with those writers! I refer to Wuthering Heights in the book because, although completely different from my novel, they’re both stories of unhealthy obsessional love. Wuthering Heights is also a favourite of mine.

But as far as influences go, to be honest, I am not sure there are any authors. At least not consciously. There are many that I, of course, hugely admire and have learnt so much from reading, but If anything, I think I was influenced more by playwrights. Unlike most authors, I didn’t get into reading novels until I was an adult. Before that, I was very into acting and obsessed with reading plays. Particularly, drawn to playwrights who used a mixture of sadness and humour, such as Jim Cartwright, Alan Bennett and Mike Leigh and many others also for different reasons. I wanted to write plays initially. I did write one. Though, I’m not sure how good it was!

As far as reading goes now, I read all sorts although I steer more towards literary fiction. But I also enjoy a good thriller. In terms of what I like to read when writing – during the early drafts, I consumed loads of novels. I found it helpful to trigger ideas and get my creative juices going. But once I was fully engrossed in edits, I found reading quite difficult. I needed to stay focused on the story I was writing.

JO

Can you say yet what you’re working on next?

CHARLOTTE

I can, but I haven’t worked out a pitch yet that doesn’t give it all away, so I won’t! But I will say that it’s not as much of a thriller as If I Can’t Have You, but it is similar in terms of good people doing bad things. It’s very early days, but I’m looking forward to delving into a new project and creating a new character which I hope I grow to love as much as Constance.

JO

Thank you so much Charlotte Levin! ‘If I Can’t Have You’, Charlotte’s critically acclaimed debut novel, is published by PanMacmillan in July.

If I Can’t Have You

Amazon – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1529032393/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DMy.EbNB8KQ8C
Waterstones – https://www.waterstones.com/book/if-i-cant-have-you/charlotte-levin/9781529032390

JO:

Mickey, the chief protagonist of your novel, seems hemmed in on every side by The Troubles and the necessity of staying out of No Mans Land or finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong accent or school uniform. Being called Mickey instead of Ian on the protestant side of town. But on the catholic side, he has to stay off the radar of the local IRA hard men. For instance, for those who haven’t read the book, and without, I think, too much of a spoiler, at one point young Mickey falls out with another kid in the usual playground sort of scuffle. Chillingly, the other child tells on him to her IRA connected Ma.

My question is, how important was it, growing up, not to hack off your neighbours. And did that create a pressure on relationships? Was there power play between those who were well connected with the IRA and those who were not? And how does that square with everybody keeping their doors open constantly?

PAUL:

To be honest, there was a lot of friendliness, support and generosity in the area. From what I gather, working class areas are like that throughout the UK and Ireland – or were back then, anyway. It’s known that poor people are the most generous in society – giving the most to charity, for example, which is a beautiful irony.

I was once ‘called in’ as a ten year old over something I’d said to another kid who told their mum. I was warned

I try to track a change in the area in the timespan of the novel with the ‘open door’ policy of Ardoyne. It all began to change with new mini-estates being added on, bringing people from outside the area, causing front doors to be closed instead of always open.

It definitely was the case that children used their parents or family members involvement with paramilitaries to threaten you. Of course, coming from a family who weren’t ‘involved’ would put you in a difficult situation as it was the ultimate throw down in an argument. Almost always, though, this was bluster and childish stuff, as in – ‘My Da is in the RA and will get your Da killed!’, was really just a version of ‘My Da’s a boxer and he’ll beat your Da,’ stuff. I was once ‘called in’ as a ten year old over something I’d said to another kid who told their mum. I was warned, like the posters in the novel, that ‘Loose Talk Costs Lives’. I took that incident as my inspiration, fictionalized the content, upped the tension and stressed the repercussions. I think we writers do that a lot with our lives.

JO:

That’s really great news about the sense of community, and the generosity. And on a related note, possibly, there is a lot of dark, sparky humour in the Belfast you depict. I’m thinking particularly of the banter between Mickey and his beloved Ma. The dialect itself seems rich in wry and poetic insults. How important is humour in the world you grew up in, and what was it used for?

Impoverished communities often have a dark humour that exclusion, want, making the best of it, and ‘don’t let the bastards get you down’, brings.

PAUL:

Again, I think it’s related to being working class. Impoverished communities often have a dark humour that exclusion, want, making the best of it, and ‘don’t let the bastards get you down’, brings. Those without agency become experts at mockery – those in power don’t seem intimidating when you’re sniggering at them, cutting those big figures down to size.

Humour was a weapon back then and also a shield. You were hardened by having mental strips torn off you from a young age. In ‘The Good Son’ Mickey’s mum is trying to toughen him up for the streets and provide him with some weapons (in the absence of physical prowess or brutality, he needed it more than most). Teaching him to be good at cruel jibes gives him a weapon to fight with others (and he’s smart enough to be the best at it) and by using them on him, getting him used to it, leathers his thin skin, providing a shield. They’re sparring.

Humour was a weapon back then and also a shield.

JO:

I think a lot of British people have a sense or a belief that the Catholic-Protestant divide in Ireland is chiefly an ideological or tribal divide. To be honest we’re quite uncomprehending about it. But you make it clear in the novel, in a hundred small ways, that the area was in fact a geographical, social and economic trap. And that if people supported sectarian violence then in many cases it was because they’d been cornered into doing so, or manipulated in one way or another. That these kinds of decisions and allegiances are the pragmatic ethics of survival. How do you spring people from a trap like this? And until you do, what hope is there?

PAUL:

Jesus, if I knew that lol. The community is not the same as it was during The Troubles and there have been major advances – equality in voting, the ability to work and access to housing (all denied to the Catholic community during the Troubles) and that has changed the tensions a huge amount. Not to mention the peace process and decades of relative harmony.

To a large extent the day to day trauma of The Troubles was endured by the poor of both communities – as Mickey says in the novel, when he first visits a posh area, something like ‘rich people don’t have The Troubles, as well as having everything else, it’s just not fair!’. I think in the years since, the poorer communities of Belfast have learned how much they had in common at that time and it has brought some to see they were manipulated by forces using, at times, their poverty and their religious beliefs to keep them apart.

JO:

Paul, you’ve spoken out about the fact that children and adolescents are dying in Belfast and not from sectarian violence, the youth suicide rates are well above average for the region. And in your novel you write about a group of youngsters who are glue sniffing. A quick internet trawl would suggest addiction levels in the area are also on a spike, which shouldn’t really surprise anybody. What is the role of the writer here? For instance, do you see it as the role of the writer to use story to communicate the issues involved to the outside world? To help young people find the words to fit their experience? And if so, can you tell us a bit about this? Has it been possible for you to have this conversation with other writers? This is about five different questions, sorry.

I think in the years since, the poorer communities of Belfast have learned how much they had in common at that time 

PAUL:

Personally, I found it shocking when I returned to live in Belfast to find out that the teenage suicide rates were the highest in Europe, prescription drug abuse was at epidemic levels, in some areas of Belfast 50% of the population were on disability benefits and the paramilitary punishments and extortion still going on – nearly always, in poor areas only. During The Troubles so little of what was going on in Northern Ireland appeared on the news down South or in the UK. I spoke to a reporter who used to take what they’d filmed and motorbike it down South to try to get it on the news down there (which we wouldn’t see up North nor would people in the UK). The invisibility and lack of reporting on the North continues which is part of the reason, I believe, that terrible things still go on here including the denying women and minorities like the LGBTQ community their rights and equality.

I was frustrated when I moved back home, asking,‘where are the writers talking about this?’ My theory is we all have gifts, and we have a responsibility to use that gift, share that good fortune, for the benefit of our fellow humans, especially for those who lack the thing we excel at. If the young people of Northern Ireland are so frustrated, so desperate, unable to express what it is that ails them, that they are compelled to take their own lives then who best to help them find those words? Who best to give a voice to the voiceless? Who better than a writer?

I said this in a pub about a year ago and two tables of writers disagreed with me, bar two of my generation, saying that their only duty was to their art. They said they saw no link between The Troubles and what was going on now. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. They more or less got up and walked out. They said I was angry and of another generation. They were right. I’m glad I am.

In the end, I realised though, every writer must chose their own path. And who am I to tell them otherwise.

The invisibility and lack of reporting on the North continues which is part of the reason, I believe, that terrible things still go on here 

JO:

Well I agree with you in that, if they’re really not feeling it, and they don’t care, then there’s absolutely no point in them writing about it. Their lack of interest will come across to the reader and no one will be listening anyway.

PAUL:

Reading Wendy Erskine’s brilliant recent collection made me feel there was another writer who was tackling the stories I wanted to read about Belfast – we’re of a similar age, so maybe it is a generational thing.

JO:

Paul, would you consider turning The Good Son into a screenplay to make it more accessible to the kids who don’t read books and to find a wider audience generally? The book definitely lends itself to that kind of treatment, doesn’t it? It shouldn’t surprise us that with your writing background much of the novel is dialogue.

PAUL:

I wish. Firstly, I’ve never written a screenplay (not the same as a play) and would have to spend a some time learning the craft, when I want to write other things too. Also, it took years to get out of plays and into prose, so it would feel like going back. And it’s very, very hard to get a film made – a historical film, even harder. We were made some offers but my agent and I weren’t convinced at the time so we didn’t go for it.

JO:

I was just thinking about Mickey, and how a smart thoughtful kid in a rundown school, a tough community, has to be quite careful outing himself as a poet. And then I remembered how Kundera said that the house of your childhood still exists just as it always was, it’s just that the way home, the road back is gone. Is it ever possible to return to your roots, and what does it mean to you to go home now?

PAUL:

I’m home; it feels like that. I’m very happy (for the most part) to be back and living with my family, discovering parts of the city and countryside I wasn’t able to visit back in the day, when going there would have been dangerous. They say all Irish people end up coming home and it’s certainly true of all of my family. I said I’d never come back here but really, in the end, I’m just a cliché. I think as you get older, life becomes so simple – be near the people you love and who love you.

They said I was angry and of another generation. They were right. I’m glad I am. 

JO:

You are that rare thing, Paul, a male writer who writes strong nuanced female characters. Who inspired your women and girls?

PAUL:

Try growing up with a Ma who would take on the Brits and the IRA too if she had to, and all the while bringing up seven kids single-handedly and holding down two jobs. Never met anyone I admired more. I had five sisters I adored, who also helped bring me up and were my best friends.

Maybe the key for a male writer to write ‘strong, nuanced female characters’ is to love women; to have the utmost admiration and respect for them, as well as, an understanding of your debt to their strength.

JO:

How much of you is there in Mickey Donnelly, Paul?

PAUL:

Mickey is braver, funnier, smarter and more resilient than me. In the early short story and attempts at the novel he was more similar to me. But the more I wrote, the more I edited and rewrote, the less and less Mickey was me and the more he was his own person. Certainly, there is nothing he does that isn’t emotionally true, but the things he does and what happens to him are mostly fictional.

JO:

Can you tell us what you are working on right now, Paul?

PAUL:

I’m putting the finishing touches to a collection of short stories which will being going out to market. I’m writing a commission for Sky Arts 50 for television to be in by November (you haven’t seen me on here). I’m also working with the Jaipur Literature Festival in India on an international short story strand. And, hopefully, I’m going to start another novel. Yikes!

JO:

Well that’s something for the rest of us to really look forward to!

Thanks so much Paul!

Website: paulmcveighwriter.com/

The Good Son: Winner of The Polari Prize

‘A work of genius from a splendid writer’ Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/RCQASE9G3J5ZP?ref=pf_vv_at_pdctrvw_srp

Ely: In this era of political upheaval, we’re seeing a proliferation of poetry events, poets collaborating with musicians, filmmakers, and other artists. And as poetry is very social-media friendly, poets are finding new audiences. Do you feel that there’s been a real renaissance in poetry?

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CM Taylor is a literary, science fiction, and dystopian novelist who has published under the names Craig Taylor, Ed Lark, and CM Taylor. He has ghostwritten for an internationally famous author and contributed material to Plan B’s The Ballad of Belmarsh album. His journalism has appeared widely, including in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, and he is the author of five novels: Light and Grief’(both published by Thoughtplay), Cloven (Osiris), Premiership Psycho and Group of Death (Corsair). Grief was nominated for Best Book of the Year 2005 by the British Science Fiction Association. CM Taylor is Associate Lecturer at the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies.

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Interview by Press literary editor, Jo Ely

Matthew Smith has spent the last 25 years working with books, beginning as a Waterstones bookseller in 1991. He was a commissioning editor and manager at major UK publishers  Routledge, Longman, Arcturus, Hodder Headline, Pearson and Kogan Page. In early 2014 Matthew founded Urbane Publications, an independent UK publisher, producing print and digital books in a number of genres from fiction to poetry to business. Matthew has a special interest in genre-busting fiction, publishing debut authors, as well as new works from established writers. http://urbanepublications.com

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Interview by Press Literary Editor Jo Ely, with  Alan McMonagle of alanMcmonagle.com. Read his story “Bleeding Boy” featured in The Woven Tale Press Vol. III #12.

Firstly, congratulations, Alan, on your recent two book deal with Picador. This is wonderful news and well deserved recognition for your work. You are clearly one to watch. I wonder what first drew you to the short story form. [Alan has previously published two short story collections.] And what caused your later shift toward the novel?

Thanks a lot, Jo, and yes, it’s been an exciting couple of months, and, I suspect, yet to fully sink in (that would be down to the delay mechanism I come with). As to my leanings towards the short story, it was probably the manageability of the form initially that appealed to me. And an early belief that I was chock-full of ideas, and full of ‘look-at-me, aren’t I wonderful’ nonsense every time I thought I had converted one of these ideas into a short story. I also had a tendency to take words like ‘short’ and ‘story’ at face value and so quickly convinced myself that I was naturally prolific. Ha-ha. Of course, I eventually discovered that a short story is neither necessarily short or for that matter prepared to adhere to that age-old ‘once upon a time’ convention. As I developed and acquired some stamina as a writer I began to fathom how a novel or at least how my idea of a novel could accommodate what I was interested in writing about. I have just completed my first novel and having managed to get it done makes me want to try another, and another. That said, I enjoy flitting from one form to another. I have published poems, written a few radio plays, and so long as the ideas keep landing I will always have a yen to convert them into short stories.

David Gaffney comes from Cleator Moor in West Cumbria and now lives in Manchester. The Guardian says that “One-hundred-and-fifty words by Gaffney are more worthwhile than novels by a good many others.” He is the author of several books of fiction and flash fiction, including Sawn-Off Tales (2006), Aromabingo (2007), Never Never (2008), The Half-Life of Songs (2010) and More Sawn-Off Tales (2013). He has also written “Buildings Crying Out,” a story using lost cat posters (Lancaster LitFest 2009); 23 Stops To Hull, a set of stories about every junction on the M62 (Humber Mouth Literature Festival 2009); Sawn-off Opera, a set of operas with composer Ailís Ní Ríain (BBC Radio 3, RNCM, Liverpool Philharmonic and Tête a Tête festival London 2010); Destroy PowerPoint, stories in PowerPoint format for Edinburgh Festival 2009; The Poole Confessions, stories told in a mobile confessional box (Poole Literature Festival 2010); Station Stories, in which six writers linked to the audience with wireless headphones performed short stories in Manchester Piccadilly railway station (Manchester Literature Festival 2011); Boy You Turn Me, a sound installation (Birmingham Book Festival 2011); guerrilla writing project Errata Slips (Cornerhouse Manchester 2011), Men Who Like Women Who Smell of Their Jobs,  (Manchester Literature Festival 2014) a visual art exhibition with painter Alison Erika Forde, and The Three Rooms In Valerie’s Head, (Lakes Comic Art Festival 2015)  a graphic novel with artist Dan Berry. He has written articles for the Guardian, Sunday Times, Financial Times and Prospect magazine  and was a judge for the 2015 Bridport prize. David is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Manchester. His new novel, All The Places I’ve Ever Lived, is due out on Urbane in Spring 2017.

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Welcome to Jo Ely, author of Stone Seeds.

Thanks so much for inviting me on to My Life in Books, Ruby. It’s been a fun but really tricky job, whittling down my all-time favourite books to just these ten. Hope you enjoy reading my list as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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