The Interview: Bookbag Talks To Natasha Solomons

The Interview: Bookbag Talks To Natasha Solomons

Summary: We were really impressed by The Novel in the Viola, published in May 2011, which took us back to Dorset in the war years and we couldn't pass the opportunity to ask author Natasha Solomons a few questions.

Date: 29 March 2011

Interviewer: Sue Magee

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We were really impressed by The Novel in the Viola, published in May 2011, which took us back to Dorset in the war years and we couldn't pass the opportunity to ask author Natasha Solomons a few questions.

• Bookbag: When you close your eyes and imagine your readers, who do you see?

Natasha Solomons: When I started writing 'Viola', I realised that Elise wanted me to get out of the way and let her tell her own story. I think in this instance I felt rather like I was the reader.

• BB: I've just finished The Novel in the Viola and what impressed me most was the period detail which was simply there. You obviously knew a lot more than you felt any need to shoe-horn into the book! Did you know this part of Dorset – and this period – well before you started the book? How much research did you have to do?

NS: I immerse myself in literature of the period. I had such fun working my way through a shelf of Persephone books. I spent weeks in the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden, reading everything from Marianna to Molly Panter Downes' Wartime Stories, as well as lots of Daphne Du Maurier, Evelyn Waugh and non-fiction accounts of life in service and the country house tradition. My husband and I also had a season watching old movies like Brief Encounter and In Which we Serve – movies really help me tune my ear to the speech patterns. I like to be gently marinated in the culture and time period before I start to write, then I find it feels instinctive.

As for Dorset – I grew up here, and I love the countryside so much. It's always changing. At the moment the daffodils are out, and next it will be the apple blossom and the horse chestnuts and then, best of all, the bluebells in the woods.

• BB: Tyneford – the great house on the bay where most of the story is set – felt utterly real to me. Is it based on a real property? Would you like to live somewhere like Tyneford?

NS: Tyneham, an abandoned village on the Dorset coast, is the inspiration for Tyneford. The story in the novel of how the village was emptied is based on fact. There was a manor house there, but I've never seen it – it lies deep within the MoD lands. I found some old photographs and floor plans of the house in a book, which I pinned above my desk and my husband discovered a Victorian print of it in a little shop and had it framed for my birthday. I think that houses like Tyneford belong to a period with staff and servants. I love the romance, but I think my stone cottage is a bit more manageable. Saying that, I do love a mullioned window…

• BB: Elise didn't practice her Jewish faith, but was unwilling to become even peripherally involved in any other church services or ceremonies. Is faith important to you?

NS: Like Elise, I feel terribly uncomfortable around religion. I like the sound of the Cantor singing, and I love choral music – some of the world's greatest music has been written in praise of God – but for me, the music is enough.

• BB: Do you think that everyone can love more than one person?

NS: There are so many different kinds of love. I think that most people experience many of these: platonic, filial, romantic… and I certainly hope that most people can love more than once - the world would be rather lonely otherwise. After grief it can take time to fall in love again, and every love is different.

• BB: Where and how do you write?

NS: In spring and summer I mostly write in a little painted summerhouse at the bottom of the garden. On cold days, I have a study under the eaves. And on very cold days, I write by the fire.

• BB: Is reading important to you? Which books have influenced you most and are there any books which you feel that everyone should read?

NS: I love reading. Like most writers I am obsessed with stories: whether novels, films or simply an anecdote. I am a huge Jane Austen fan. I often re-read her novels, and find that my readings change with time. As a teenaged girl I loved Pride and Prejudice for the romance, while as an adult I adore the melancholy and compromised happy ending of Persuasion.

I don't think I ascribe to books that 'everyone must read'. The joy of literature is that we all love different things. While I adore Austen, I realise that some people don't and forcing them to read 'Persuasion' probably isn't going to convert them.

There are so many books I love. The ones that influenced 'The Novel in the Viola' the most were probably Rebecca, Brideshead Revisited, Moontiger, Atonement, The Remains of the Day and, of course, the grandmother of all country house role/ reversal novels, Jane Eyre. I remember the pleasure and intensity of reading the Brontes as a teenager and I wanted to try and create the fervour of that experience - even if it is just for a single reader.

• BB: Do you have any books from your childhood? Which was your favourite?

NS: The Magic Faraway Tree. When I was about six I wrote to the TV show Jim'll Fix It asking Jim to introduce me to Moonface and Silky and the Saucepan man and Dame Washalot. I really, really wanted to climb the Faraway Tree and visit the Land of Sweets at the top.

• BB: You've got one wish. What's it to be?

NS: To find the Magic Faraway Tree and visit the land of sweets and eat anything flavoured ice cream.

• BB: What's next for Natasha Solomons?

NS: I'm just starting to research book 3, so I'll be sitting at the bottom of the garden lost in books.

• BB: We'll keep our fingers crossed for a lovely warm summer and that the research goes well. Thank you for talking to us, Natasha.

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