Author Saskia Sarginson talks to us about her latest novel Seven Months of Summer and how each novel set in Suffolk is a little love letter to the beauty of the county.
Saskia Sarginson spent her childhood in a cottage in the middle of a Suffolk pine forest. Her family kept goats, ponies, hens, and cats, and Saskia and her two younger siblings had the freedom to roam the forest alone. This experience helped inspire her to write her best-selling debut novel, The Twins, which was a Richard and Judy pick in 2013. Her other novels include Without You, The Other Me, and The Stranger. Saskia returns to Suffolk for her latest book, Seven Months of Summer, published by Piaktus on 19 January, which you can also find on our catalogue.
One of my first literary experiences was discovering the Just William books by Richmal Crompton, reading them under the covers with a torch at my grandparents’ house and trying to stop myself howling with laughter. At the age of 7, William, a boy single-minded in his pursuit of adventure, was my hero. I was also very influenced by the C.S Lewis Narnia books. I devoured all of them, longing to be those children having adventures in a magical world, adventures that tested their bravery and brought out their heroism. It made me want to tell stories.
As an adult, doing English Literature at Cambridge, I discovered Ezra Pound and his Cantos. I found Pound the man flawed at the same time as finding his writing inspiring and profound. Reading his later poems in the Cantos, his ego gives way to humility, and he admits his mistakes, his fragility as a human. Reading Pound taught me that you don’t always have to like or even approve of the writer to appreciate their work, and that vulnerability is necessary to the creative process. Admitting when you’re wrong and continually challenging yourself to do better are things I admire and in their way a kind of heroism.
I’ve always written short stories and poems but didn’t think that being a novelist was a viable career choice, so I went into journalism after doing the Fashion and Communication B.A at St Martins. I loved my career but never lost my yearning to tell stories. Then, as a mother of three young children, I did a B.A in English Literature at Cambridge, and it was that experience that gave me the confidence to try writing a novel, but circumstances meant I didn’t begin to write properly until a few years later. It was after doing an M.A in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway that I was published.
I was very lucky – it made a huge difference to the success of the book. I am so grateful to Richard and Judy for giving me that opportunity.
I walk my dogs first thing in the morning and then settle at my desk with a coffee. I try to work for at least five hours. At the weekend and in the evenings, I often find myself sitting at my desk re-thinking something I’ve written, with a pile of forgotten washing in my lap or a meal burning downstairs. I go on two or three writing retreats every year with a friend who is also an author. We rent a remote cottage on the edge of the marshes in Suffolk, and I write all day without any demands from anyone – no domestic duties, no social engagements – just the work. It’s wonderful!
No, but I do take inspiration from different people, pinching little snippets of their character, personality, gestures, facial features, verbal tics, etc, and part of the process of creating a character is sewing those snippets together to make someone new.
It’s a love story set in 1993. It begins in India, where Kit meets Summer on a backpacking holiday. Convinced it was much more than a summer romance, he tries to find her when he returns to England, but she doesn’t seem to exist. Heartbroken that she lied to him, and with no means of contacting her, he settles on the Suffolk coast to make a fresh start. Little does he know that Summer is living just a few miles away. A long, hot summer begins, but will they ever meet, and if they do, will it be too late to start again?
The Twins, Without You and How It Ends are all set in Suffolk. To imagine a story in that setting feels like coming home and is completely natural to me. The landscape and light, especially on the coast where I grew up, is etched into my bones. It’s a little like a love letter every time.
I’m working on a gothic mystery, but I also have another love story percolating at the back of my head.
This is the hardest question of all! There are so many inspiring works of literature, music and art in the world. But if I have to choose one, then it’s If This Is a Man by Primo Levi, because reading it made me question what makes us human. The book is a testament to how the best of humanity was distilled inside a tragedy created by the worst of humanity.
I’ve had some really touching and lovely correspondence from readers, but I think the one that amazed me most was from a young Russian woman who’d read The Twins in English after finding it on a second-hand book stall in Russia. She wrote via Facebook to tell me that she was also an identical twin but that she and her sister hadn’t talked for years. However, after reading my book, she had decided to contact her twin and make peace. That was wonderful to hear – although I never knew if it worked out for them. I hope it did!
I love to dance salsa, jive, five rhythms, and disco. But my favourite dance is Argentine tango. I’ve been dancing it for twenty years. After being inside my head to write, it’s a release to be inside my body instead. Dancing tango is a little like meditating. You must empty your mind and exist inside the moment, with no anticipation of what happens next – the opposite to constructing a story.
