There's just over 2 weeks to go until the start of this year's Salisbury Literary Festival and I for one am looking forward to attending quite a few events. One of the events I have already bought a ticket for is the Crime Writers Panel so it's my pleasure to welcome Clare Empson to the blog to talk about her debut novel Him and her festival appearance.
Well it’s been a long one! I’ve spent my career as a journalist but have been writing novels in one form or another for almost two decades.
Twelve years ago I had a manuscript picked up off the slush pile by an agent but it didn’t get a deal. That was a sharp learning curve because really it was just a very unpolished first draft. I realised that if I wanted to write the kind of novel I like to read then I needed to spend more time crafting it. It took almost nine years to get HIM into shape but when I finally did the agent and publishing deal came pretty quickly. I signed with Orion in the UK and 7 other European territories in 2017.
If you had to give an elevator pitch for Him, what would it be?
An author recently described HIM as ‘Brideshead Revisited meets Big Little Lies’ which sums it up so well I have pinched it as my elevator pitch. It’s the story of a woman who becomes mute after witnessing a traumatic event and must revisit a passionate love affair from the past to heal herself. HIM is about those choices and decisions we make, often with little thought, and they end up imploding our lives.
Where did the inspiration for the central character Catherine to suffer Elective Mutism come from?
Years ago a teacher told us our daughter had Selective Mutism (she didn’t) but it triggered an interest in mutism and how it affects a wide range of people for many different reasons. I’m lucky enough to have a very learned psychiatrist friend who was able to help me research this condition in depth.
'You're stuck there, aren't you? Right at the end. And I wonder if it might help to go back to the beginning, to put everything in some kind of order.'
Catherine needs to start with HIM .
Fifteen years ago she met Lucian at university and fell into a passionate love affair. They were meant to be together forever. But something happened. Something that destroyed them.
Catherine married someone else. Had two children. She moved on - or so she thought. Now Lucian is back, showing her how different life could have been.
But going back to the beginning won't change the ending.
In fact, it might be the thing that finally breaks her...
I'm looking forward to your panel at this year's Salisbury Literary Festival, how did you feel to be invited to be part of the festival?
I’m so thrilled to be invited, it’s such a great festival and also local to me which makes it special. The author line up is amazing this year and I’ve booked in for quite a few events.
