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
