From the Orange Prize Readers' Day, Saturday 9 May 2009.
Session 4: Sadie Jones and Charlotte Mendelson: 'A great book speaks beyond its time, place and context'
Kate Mosse: What did being shortlised for last year's Orange Prize for Fiction mean to you?
Sadie: 'The Outcast' came out in February 2008 and the Orange Prize shortlist was announced only a few months later. The fact that my book had been picked up by the prize was a dream, it was such a great beginning and I felt so lucky. I knew then that I could relax because the book had exceeded all of my expectations.
Charlotte: I still don't feel like I should be writing, I'm on my third book now and it is hard as I know about everything that can go wrong, I get more neurotic for each book I write! Being shortlisted for the Orange Prize for 'When We Were Bad' was exciting because for me it was an affirmation.
Kate: Both of your books are about big families...
Sadie: In 'The Outcast' there are two families who are in a mess. People have said that my book presents a negative view of families but families are like that! I'm interested in what people don't say and the book is also about good people and the incidential crimes they commit against children...
Charlotte: I know adults that are so shaped by family and their experience as a children, they still retain the role of the rebel or the sensible one that they had growing up. Lots of people are trapped living the lives their families expected of them; it is very hard to escape the expectations of your family and live your own life. I wanted to explore that tension and look at how people get away. I was told by an interviewer that my book is about being lonely too though and Sadie's book being called 'The Outcast' obviously explores that theme as well.
Kate to Sadie: How did you decide on the time and place of the book?
Sadie: When I got the idea for the story I saw it as a sort of 50's melodrama and so many things about that era work for the story. People were rebuilding their lives after two wars and if you couldn't do that you were a casualty - an outcast.
Kate: Your next book is also set in the 1950s can you talk about your experience of writing historical fiction?
Sadie: My next book is set in 1956 and is about the army in Cyprus. This is a much tougher book to write because it is outside my experience, I have to do a lot more research for this book than 'The Outcast'. It is hard because just as I get going with writing the story I have to stop to check facts.
Kate: How do you view yourselves as writers?
Sadie: As a writer you have to have a weird arrogance because it is hard to balance that arrogance with a natural instinct for self depreciation.
Charlotte: I don't write because I want to tell the world my thoughts I write because that's what I do, I was born to do this.
Question from the audience: 'The Outcast' is very cinematic are there any plans to turn it into a film?
Sadie: I'm actually working on the screenplay at the moment! I'm really enjoying writing the story in a different way.
Question from the audience: What are the three things that make a great novel?
Kate: First I think a book has to speak beyond its time, place and context. Second, the plot and the characters have to work as one thing, a great story can only work when it has characters that are alive. Lastly I think with a great book you can open it at any page and any sentence in that book will give you pleasure.
by Karen
Session 4: Sadie Jones and Charlotte Mendelson: 'A great book speaks beyond its time, place and context'
Kate Mosse: What did being shortlised for last year's Orange Prize for Fiction mean to you?
Sadie: 'The Outcast' came out in February 2008 and the Orange Prize shortlist was announced only a few months later. The fact that my book had been picked up by the prize was a dream, it was such a great beginning and I felt so lucky. I knew then that I could relax because the book had exceeded all of my expectations.
Charlotte: I still don't feel like I should be writing, I'm on my third book now and it is hard as I know about everything that can go wrong, I get more neurotic for each book I write! Being shortlisted for the Orange Prize for 'When We Were Bad' was exciting because for me it was an affirmation.
Kate: Both of your books are about big families...
Sadie: In 'The Outcast' there are two families who are in a mess. People have said that my book presents a negative view of families but families are like that! I'm interested in what people don't say and the book is also about good people and the incidential crimes they commit against children...
Charlotte: I know adults that are so shaped by family and their experience as a children, they still retain the role of the rebel or the sensible one that they had growing up. Lots of people are trapped living the lives their families expected of them; it is very hard to escape the expectations of your family and live your own life. I wanted to explore that tension and look at how people get away. I was told by an interviewer that my book is about being lonely too though and Sadie's book being called 'The Outcast' obviously explores that theme as well.
Kate to Sadie: How did you decide on the time and place of the book?
Sadie: When I got the idea for the story I saw it as a sort of 50's melodrama and so many things about that era work for the story. People were rebuilding their lives after two wars and if you couldn't do that you were a casualty - an outcast.
Kate: Your next book is also set in the 1950s can you talk about your experience of writing historical fiction?
Sadie: My next book is set in 1956 and is about the army in Cyprus. This is a much tougher book to write because it is outside my experience, I have to do a lot more research for this book than 'The Outcast'. It is hard because just as I get going with writing the story I have to stop to check facts.
Kate: How do you view yourselves as writers?
Sadie: As a writer you have to have a weird arrogance because it is hard to balance that arrogance with a natural instinct for self depreciation.
Charlotte: I don't write because I want to tell the world my thoughts I write because that's what I do, I was born to do this.
Question from the audience: 'The Outcast' is very cinematic are there any plans to turn it into a film?
Sadie: I'm actually working on the screenplay at the moment! I'm really enjoying writing the story in a different way.
Question from the audience: What are the three things that make a great novel?
Kate: First I think a book has to speak beyond its time, place and context. Second, the plot and the characters have to work as one thing, a great story can only work when it has characters that are alive. Lastly I think with a great book you can open it at any page and any sentence in that book will give you pleasure.
by Karen
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