Assistant editor at the Observer magazine and non-fiction writer Emma Cook talks to us about her debut thriller novel 'You Can't Hurt Me' and her memories of growing up in Ipswich and visiting the local library.
Emma Cook has been an editor at the Guardian for 16 years and is now assistant editor and travel editor on the Observer magazine. She has written for a range of titles including the Guardian, the Independent, the Times, the Daily Telegraph, ES Magazine, Elle and Psychologies. She is author of two non-fiction titles, Ask Your Father and 5:2 Your Life and is an alumni of the Faber Academy’s six month Writing A Novel course.
You Can't Hurt Me, Emma's first novel, was published by Orion books in November. You can also find You Can't Hurt Me on the Suffolk Libraries catalogue.
I adored fairy tales. In particular Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books of Many Colours - I can still remember reading those late into the night as a young child, and loving that each collection was a different colour.
I first started writing fiction in 2016 when I joined the Faber Academy’s Write A Novel course. Our tutor really encouraged us to take ourselves seriously as fiction writers, and to allow us to feel this was an achievable goal if we persevered. His words, ‘just keep going’, really helped me to cross the finish line with my first draft.
I love working in journalism and although the worlds of fiction and features are very different, I find one invariably helps and informs the other. Both hone your editing skills and rely on an endless appetite for ideas. I spend a lot of time reading newspapers in print and online, searching out unusual stories and endlessly thinking about the ‘what if’s’, which hopefully feed back into books and journalism.
It’s my first novel, a psychological thriller, with overtones of Rebecca, set in a beautiful house inhabited by an elusive widower, Nate Reid. Told from the perspective of my narrator Anna, she is hired by Dr Reid to ghostwrite his memoirs. Nate's work at his mysterious pain laboratory could transform millions of lives, but his research is overshadowed by rumours surrounding the mysterious death of his wife Eva. As Anna writes Nate's story, she finds herself obsessed with Eva, a former patient of Nate's who was genetically unable to experience pain and as a result craves to feel anything. Through Eva’s story, I explore how we all fear the universal experience of pain, yet it becomes clear that a life without it is actually more frightening.
One story in particular got me thinking about the potential of pain in a fictional setting. The first one appeared five years ago about a woman called Jo Cameron who, at 71, became a news sensation after doctors discovered her rare genetic mutation that meant she couldn’t feel pain. She was blissfully unaware when she broke her arm and only noticed her skin was burning when she smelt her own flesh. I couldn’t help wondering how a completely different character, like Eva, might live her life if she inherited the same genes. It also raised so many interesting questions about the human condition. Without pain, how can we appreciate its opposite - pleasure? And how can you empathise with this very human experience unless you’ve felt it yourself?
Anna Tate was based on a combination of journalists I’ve met down the years. Like all writers, including myself, she is curious, nosy and obsessed with a good story!
I can’t wait to get cracking on my second idea, a murder mystery set on a rambling estate in Mallorca, famous for its life changing darkness retreats - I’ll keep you posted on that one!
I think the collaborative process has really impressed me. I’ve been lucky enough to work with two editors, one in London and another in America, where my book is also being published, who have both had such a strong vision for my book, my characters and plot - they’ve been invaluable in terms of their advice and suggestions.
Most recently, I’ve really enjoyed Susie Boyt’s Loved and Missed, a sharply drawn family drama. And I’d also recommend Claire Kilroy’s Soldier, Sailor - an acute deep dive into the early years of motherhood.
I’m a Suffolk girl at heart! I grew up in Ipswich and one of my earliest memories is visiting the local library with my mother to choose books on a Saturday morning and, later, as a sixth form student at Northgate High School, I would revise at one of the big oak tables in the reference library upstairs.
