any of you have probably heard me mention Talitha Stevenson around these parts. She was recently included on my list of Authors I Would Die To Meet, and her first two books, An Empty Room and Exposure are among my favorites. I first came upon her work while browsing the shelves at the Barnes and Noble at Lincoln Triangle (this was not only before I started working there but also when the fiction section was on the Columbus Avenue side of the store). A single copy of An Empty Room sat inconspicuously on the shelf yet somehow got my attention. I debated whether or not to buy it, even going so far as to replace it on the shelf and walk away. But for whatever reason, it kept calling me, and I went back and purchased it. Five years later, I am still glad I did.
I was therefore beside myself when Leo Robson put me in contact with Ms. Stevenson so that I could request an interview with her, and of course I was even more thrilled when she actually said yes. A special thank you to her for kindly granting me the interview presented below.
Tell us a bit about your writing process/approach. Do you have any writing habits or rules for yourself? Are you one who outlines or someone who jumps right in? Do you have a set schedule? etc.
I would write all the time if I could. Writing is a compulsive activity. I think the core delusion in a writer’s character is that fiction offers a real opportunity to make harmony or balance in the world. It can feel quite urgent that you get back to it when you’re having lunch with friends or talking on the phone and it’s important to resist this urge sometimes or you lose all sense of proportion.
Which authors or books were especially influential to you growing up? Was there a particular author or book that made you want to be a writer?
I read Jane Austen’s Emma when I was sixteen. It was the first novel I had ever read and I began writing one myself right away.
I read in your Evening Standard interview that you were training as a psychotherapist. How has psychology helped and informed your writing?
Henry James advised the aspirant writer to ‘Try to be on of the people on whom nothing is lost’ Studying psychology and learning the art of psychotherapy has fine-tuned my intuition and helped me to see the ways personality reveals itself in the smallest actions. I think I’m better equipped to make a subliminal impression on the reader now and also to perceive and tidy-up my own unconscious design when it comes to the process of editing.
You began writing Disappear a couple of years before the financial collapse. Where did the seeds for the novel come from? Did you know immediately this was going to be a story about hedge fund manager Charlie Bell or did one of your other characters come to you first
I knew I wanted to write about a son in competition with his father. I came up with the idea in 2005 at a time when I knew some men with successful hedge funds. They had a sense of Icarus about them and their wives were always tearful in the restaurant bathroom. There was a rumble of impending disaster.
Charlie arrived in one piece just as he is in the first scene: in robust health, sitting on the kitchen counter with a gin and tonic, reading a newspaper article about his own success.
Speaking of characters, Disappear has quite a few, each with his or her own distinct personality and quirks. Who was the easiest to write? The most difficult? And why?
Kate was the easiest to write because she’s an articulate insomniac with a gift for self-sabotage, so the incidents that illustrate character were bound to cluster around her. Leila was pretty difficult because she’s introverted and kind and quiet. It’s hard to depict goodness without it seeming banal or like high-mindedness, and because being good involves resisting so many temptations there’s a risk that a good character will frustrate the wish-fulfillment pleasures of reading Since a plot is often driven by characters letting instinct overtake reason in one way or another, Leila’s self-control meant that the action had to take place around her, driven by other characters, and, again, there was a risk she might seem static. While Kate makes scenes and dramas, Leila’s experiences are mostly internal and hushed.
Though the backdrop of Disappear is the current financial crisis, the novel still feels very personal, very much about these individual characters. The story is never bogged down with too many financial details or intricacies that might distract or deter the reader from continuing. Was it ever difficult for you to strike a balance between your story and providing the reader with enough information to understand what was going on?
As you say, the story is much more about the characters than about the financial crisis. I could have used more research detail than I did, but everything I tried to do with Disappear was connected with simplifying what might have been complex. It was an experiment: could I write a novel in which the characters do almost no internal reflection? Could I write in a much plainer style than I’d used for Exposure? My efforts were all to leave-out, to pare down, to make a world we look at rather than into.
What, if anything, are you working on now?
I’m writing something exciting and intricate. The story moves from London to New York, to Madrid and Paris and Malaysia – and it’s about painting and the contemporary art world with the figure of one artist at the centre.
Talitha Stevenson is an English author whose work has appeared in the Daily Mail and the Guardian. Her debut novel, An Empty Room, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award (now known as the Costa Book Award) in 2003. Her latest novel, Disappear, published by Virago Press, is currently out in paperback in the UK.
