Author Rachel Joyce talks to us about her latest novel Maureen Fry & the Angel of the North and her appearance at the upcoming Lavenham Literary Festival this November.
Rachel Joyce is the author of the international bestsellers The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, The Music Shop, Miss Benson's Beetle and a collection of interlinked short stories, A Snow Garden & Other Stories. Her new novel, Maureen Fry & the Angel of the North was published by Doubleday in October 2022.
Rachel's books have been translated into 36 languages and two are in development for film. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book prize and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Rachel was awarded the Specsavers National Book Awards 'New Writer of the Year' in December 2012 and shortlisted for the 'UK Author of the Year' 2014. You can also find Rachel's books on our catalogue.
Rachel will be speaking at the Lavenham Literary Festival on Saturday 19 November at Lavenham Village Hall, sponsored by Mattioli Woods Wealth Management. Tickets are available from the What's On West Suffolk website.
Daisy Ashford because she wrote her first book when she was nine, the Brontes because they were the Brontes – though I didn’t want the TB bit, or indeed the bad teeth. I loved My Naughty Little Sister, whilst already accepting that I was always going to be the one who told the story, as opposed to the one who inspired it.
The realisation that comes to introverts very early - that the world is divided between noisy people and listening ones. So if you want to express yourself, it is better to write it down.
I was very ready to write a novel, and actually I had wanted to write one for all those years since I was a child. My experience in writing radio drama was incredibly useful because radio drama is about structure, and keeping the listener with you, and creating a world that transports the listener - appearing whole and real even though you only have forty-five minutes in which to do it - as well as dialogue that communicates information without ever hitting it like a nail on the head. Those are all true of the novel. So I suppose it was like taking my old tools and then discovering I had some completely new ones too – internal monologue, descriptive passages, a voice. I found it very liberating, though I still try to write for radio when I can.
It has been an extraordinary adventure. I have, in so many ways, been lucky to have found a place for my voice – though I am still amazed if I see a pile of my books in a shop. But the worries and insecurities and doubts that I suffered from then are still with me now. The only difference is that I recognise they are a necessary part of being creative.
We pick up Harold and Maureen in 2022, ten years after the walk that changed Harold’s life, and Maureen’s, too. They have lived through the pandemic and Harold is at ease with himself. But even though their marriage has been healed by his walk, Maureen knows that something inside her still has not healed. She has not been out. She has not made that solitary journey into the unfamiliar.
This was a book I had wanted to write for a very long time and couldn’t find. It was only the experience of living through lockdown and realising too how much I respected the novella as a form, that helped the book fall into place. I knew too that it needed to make sense of the other two – to round them off in some way – and to hold one more surprise for the reader.
I am involved in a few projects at the moment. It’s like having lots of pots on my desk and seeing which one is going to come to the boil first. There is a new novel, though, about four siblings and an outsider. There is always a new novel.
It’s going to be very special because my husband, Paul Venables, is going to interview me. Many people will remember Paul from May to December, though he also plays Jakob in The Archers. Actually I suspect most of the audience questions will be for him. I certainly have a few of my own.
I am one of the judges for The Women’s Prize this year so my reading pile is taller than I am. If a book’s written by a woman, I am reading it.
That they had gone to the wrong event, so could I please pause a moment while they put on their coat and left.
I wish I could say I was a deep-sea diver or a judo queen or had even run a marathon. I have done none of these things. If there are things about me that readers don’t know, maybe it should stay that way. A little mystery is very helpful.
