A couple of weeks ago I reviewed The Schoolboy by Holly Howitt. I was most impressed.
This week Holly is my guest here on the blog and has agreed to answer some questions.
SP: What is a nice girl like you doing writing a book like this?
HH: Haha! I could be all coy and coquettish and say 'well, perhaps I'm not that nice after all', but actually the truth is I just fancied writing something a bit different. What started it all was that I overheard a conversation where a woman was talking about a young boy's (very innocent and sweet) fascination with his teacher. I thought, no, that's not how the story goes, and it went from there.
SP: How on earth did you know what goes in inside a teenage boy's head? And by that I mean the filthy stuff.
HH: Ah, this is the question I get asked the most, and sadly is the one I have the least satisfactory answer for: I just wrote what sounded right. Everything to Nick is sexualised, but at the same time almost clinically so; there is a strange parity between his desires and his actions, I think. Teenagers, both male and female, are conflicted by very strange lusts a lot of the time (I think) - I just reverted back to my teenage years and remembered the things I'd half-heard, the stories that the older kids fabricated, and took it from there, making it up as I went along.
SP: Do you know if any teenagers have read it and, if so, what was their reaction?
HH: I hate to drop him in it here, but at the time I wrote it my brother was still a teenager. He read the draft, and I asked him what he thought. He said it was believable. That was enough for me!
SP: What about the response from older readers?
HH: I have had really positive responses from older readers. I remember a while ago I was a speaker at a conference, and quite by accident as I sat waiting for the event to begin, two retired ladies sitting nearby began talking about my book. I was absolutely on the edge of my seat, honestly quite literally, as they didn't know who I was and they were not the sort to mince their words. Anyway, it turned out they loved it. Obviously then I revealed my true identity and wallowed in their praise (not really). But I was thrilled that they were so open-minded and positive about it.
SP: The content of the book is, shall we say, rather frank when it comes to sexual matters. Was they anything you decided not to put in? (Don't tell me what it is, for goodness sake!)
HH: Yes, there was! I think everyone has had a lucky escape!
SP: In all seriousness though, this is a very dark and disturbing book, how were you able to write it without doing your head in?
HH: It sounds really quite strange, but the truth is that I found writing from this point of view, and using Nick's voice, absolutely fascinating. It was incredibly fun to write, bizarre as that may be. I wanted the book to have not so much a shock value as a resonance with the loneliness being a teenager creates. It's such an isolating, sad time. In many ways it was that strand of the book that made me more sad than the things Nick gets up to.
SP: And what sort of research went into the book?
HH: When I wrote the book I was only 22, so I wasn't that far off being a teenager myself, and I had had a little time to reflect on my teenage years. From that not-very-lofty vantage point, I began piecing it all together and fictionalising it all. The rumours that echo down school corridors, the faked brags the boys come out with in the form room, the girl who was always crying for some reason - all that was fodder for me, the near-misses and the half-truths that are the fabric of many people's school experiences. I'm not saying for one moment that the story is based on me, on people I know, or the schools I went to, but I do think that the things I saw and heard went into it - they just metamorphosed into terrible things.
SP: What's next? A light and fluffy romance? A children's picture book?
Since this book I've written another which is much less rude but probably more experimental as a narrative, called Desk, and a novel about grief and a psychic. I've also been writing a lot of short stories and poetry. So it's ok! There is some balance there.
SP: And finally, guests at my blog are always invited to recommend a favourite book. What would you love my readers to rush out and buy tomorrow?
HH: It has to be Richard Gwyn's The Vagabond's Breakfast
---
The Schoolboy
Is she sure she didn't listen into teenage conversations on public transport? They really are shocking! ;)
Posted by: Ellie | December 05, 2011 at 08:16 PM
Not convinced that she isn't writing about some of her own experiences, and embelishing them. Fair play, was an interesting read and looking forward to something a bit more contemporary. Feel she has a lot more to offer. What about a creative scientfic visionary with bipolar disorder who loses the plot and becomes disillusioned with the research process? Fingertips on something close, but heart on something else - true love. It would be fascinating to see how that plays out. Whether he wins back his sweetheart, or maintains his sanity. Or dishes the dirt on world class academics to save his own skin. A vulnerable scientific genius with human emotions. What a paradox!
Posted by: Miguel De Soto Hilario | January 20, 2012 at 04:28 AM