Interview: Sue Cook

Last week I reviewed Sue Cook's latest novel Force of Nature. This week she has popped in to say hello. It is not every day we have a television legend come to visit so I have tried to make the most of it.

During her broadcasting career Sue spent over 20 years at the BBC presenting shows such as Nationwide, Crimewatch, Breakfast Time, Pebble Mill at One and Children in Need. She is a genuine household name and is even mates with the Sutan of Brunei, well she has co-written a book to mark his 40th anniversary as ruler anyway.

More recently she has turned her hand to writing novels. On Dangerous Ground saw a middle-aged middle-class woman desperately searching for her missing daughter in modern day Vietnam. Force of Nature looks at the ethics and morals of IVF and what could happen when things go wrong. They are both great page-turners and suggest her new career will be as successful as her previous one.

SP: IVF has only been around for 30 years so is a relatively new subject for novelists but it must be a very appealing one - so much potential. What made you choose the particular angle you have taken with Force of Nature?

SC: I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that you might be sitting on the bus or tube one day sitting next to a brother or sister or parent or grandchild and get off at your stop never knowing who it was you have just been in such close proximity with. It must happen more often than we think with the amount of sperm, egg and embryo donation that goes on now. Donors and the resulting children have to be kept in ignorance of each other and I can understand why secrecy can be valuable to all parties in some ways but if you are the result of a donated embryo, shouldn’t you have the right to know about it? What about your medical history and your genetic heritage? As a journalist, of course you hear remarkable true stories all the time and what triggered this book was a story similar to the one I’ve written in Force of Nature. The parent didn’t manage to track down the child in this case… but I reckon it’s only a matter of time…

SP: And what sort of research did you have to undertake?

SC: I read extensively all round the subject; books and blogs and online support groups to access oral testimony from people involved on all sides. I met a lot of couples who’d undergone IVF themselves and several counselors and therapists. In particular I interviewed in depth a recently-retired counselor who specialized in advising couples undergoing embryo donation and also embryo recipients. Very few counsellors do specialize in this field. I also went into the whole subject of twins (another long term fascination of mine) and police procedure in these matters. I am finding that the research takes a lot longer than the eventual writing. The ethics are quite knotty too. As I said on the ‘blurb’ science comes up with these wonderful life-changing miracles but it’s not the scientists’ job to tackle the ethical dilemmas that inevitably tag along behind. We ordinary humans have got to sort that out the hard way. Oh and I had to learn about girls and ponies. I was never a horsey child myself, unlike the girls in the book, so my young niece had a lot of patient explaining to do.

SP: The book was out in hardback last year and is published in paperback this month. Have you had any response from readers so far, particularly those with experience of IVF?

SC: A few couples, including several friends, have read it and commented how accurate the book is as far as the procedures and emotional turmoil is concerned. I’m looking forward to hearing more reactions, and especially to finding out if anyone else has experienced anything similar to the two families in the story.

SP: Having spent many years on our television screens and radios are you now a full-time novelist?

SC: Yes. To be honest it’s what I always wanted to do. I really enjoy writing, losing myself in a fantasy world with a whole lot of imaginary friends and companions. (I had two imaginary friends when I was a child – Dalla and Laggart. No I’ve no idea where the names came from either!) I was praised for my stories at school and decided at an early age I was going to be a writer, so I feel I’ve finally, very late in the day, got there. Having said that there are certain aspects of broadcasting I really miss. The adrenaline shot of presenting a live TV programme as the green light starts flashing and the next hour or so is all down to you. And I miss the buzz of asking very personal questions of people you’d never normally get the chance to say ‘hello’ to. And I don’t just mean celebrities. So called ‘ordinary’ people very often have much more interesting lives. I suppose that’s what I’m trying to say in my books now.

SP: And how are you finding the publishing world compared to broadcasting and journalism?

SC: I’m still in the foothills of the learning process! Publishing is a hell of a lot slower, that’s for sure. I submitted my final draft for Force of Nature at the end of 2007. and here we are in March 2009 before the paperback is released. Agonising! Journalism is all about deadlines that were yesterday and turning round 2000 words in the space of 24 hours. The other thing I hadn’t realized was that publishers have to ‘buy space’ as it were in the bookshops for certain novels they think are worth spending the money on. I thought if you wrote a book, it would be out there on the shelves and that was that. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of work the authors themselves have to put in to making the reading public aware of their book’s existence. Obviously once you become an Ian McEwan or Jodi Picoult (since you mention her) then people are on the lookout for your next offering to snap it up the minute it’s released but for the rest of us… the future is far from certain. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

SP: Any news on a possible film adaptation of your first novel, On Dangerous Ground?

SC: Nothing more at the moment. It’s in the hands of a production company in Hollywood – which sounds very exciting, but the next stage is for them to find a suitable writer in LA who will do the screenplay. Once the chosen writer is on board, it then gets put up for sale (or not) by the Studios… It’s a long road. I’m not holding my breath!

SP: I don't suppose I could persuade you to divulge some gossip about the Sultan of Brunei can I? I am sure he doesn't read my blog.

SC: Well… he’s very small and quite shy… but looks very fetching in his red silk running shorts. That’s all you’re getting!

SP: There are a lot of Sue Cooks on the internet. I stumbled across a psychotherapist, a painter and an author of books on cross stitch. Are any of these people you? Are they all you? Have you met any of them?

SC: No none of them is me and I haven’t met any of them. Damn their eyeballs. Perhaps I should blame my parents for not calling me something a bit less…well…common. In fact there are more I know of at least three more – one works for the BBC somewhere and we often get each other’s emails – another does the Letters page for the Sun newspaper – or used to, and one makes miniature furniture for dolls houses. Not that I spend time Googling my own name or anything. Whatever gave you that idea! The ones who produce books are the most annoying - especially the woman who writes copiously about cross stitching which regularly come higher up the Amazon rankings than my novels. I know diddlysquat about cross stitching – except that sewing does make me cross on the rare occasions when I have to do it. Perhaps we should start a club. There are certainly enough of them. The SCC.

SP: Pointless celebrity question now. I have fond memories of the series you presented for a while, Collector's Lot. I suspect I would catch it when throwing a sickie or working from home. As I recall it was all about the weird and wonderful collections that ordinary people had hoarded over the years. What was the oddest collection you had to appear charmed by?

SC: A collection of two hundred and four miniature ceramic lavatories.

SP: When can we expect novel number three and would you care to tell us anything about it?

SC: I’m researching number three at the moment and wondering if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. It’s one of those subjects that gets more complicated the more you look into it. I don’t think I’m going to divulge the subject matter right now, if you don’t mind, but there’s a lot of it about and a lot of misapprehension.

SP: Finally, I always ask guests to recommend a good book. What would you pick?

SC: Ice Trap by Kitty Sewell.

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Thanks Sue, and I am delighted to say that her book recommendation is actually once she discovered via this very blog. Sue's own website can be found here and she has just joined Twitter. You can follow her tweets here.

Comments

[DJ Kirkby]

I have to confess that I ddin't know who Sue was other than what I had read on your blog about her books. I really must make an effort to watch more TV I suppose. Anyway, this interview was fun to read and has made me want to buy her books. My thanks to you both.

[moving quotes]

Thanks for that great post, I love Sue and think she is a great writer, her books are a maze that fun to go trough. Me and her have something in common, I also love to build miniature houses with miniature furniture, that can keep me busy for hours.