Every now and then, I like to ask writers, “Is there a question you’d like me to ask?” I’m always surprised by the types of questions they’d want to ask themselves, so I decided to take the idea of the self-interview and give writers some restraints.
One. Use Who/What/When/Where/Why questions.
Two. Have fun.
Our next Debuti-Self Interview features Alice Chadwick, author of the debut novel Dark Like Under, which explores resilience, connection, and the emotional undercurrents of adolescence. Set in an English school in the 1980s, the novel follows students and teachers as they navigate grief, rivalry, and buried secrets in the wake of a sudden death. Prior to her debut, Chadwick studied English at Cambridge and was a student in City Lit’s selective fiction Masterclass. Dark Like Under is her first novel. She lives in London.
But enough from me. Let’s turn it over to Alice Chadwick.
What is the first line of your book?
“It was only the second time Robin had walked the weir.” The novel opens with Robin, a teenage girl, who has left a party late at night and is about to walk across a deep, fast river. She’s with her best friend’s boyfriend, but it’s her friend, Tin, she’s thinking about. With that opening scene, I wanted to capture the blurring together of friendship and desire in adolescence, the confusion of risk with pleasure. My book is about the death of a teacher and the impact that loss has on the teenagers and adults in the school over the course of a single day. From the very first moment, something of the instability, the change to come, is there with Robin on the edge of the weir. Her plunge into cold water sets the book going.
When is your novel set?
The mid-1980s, a time of nuclear proliferation, rising unemployment and social division – but also Blondie, The Cure, breakdancing, blue mascara and industrial-strength hairspray! It’s fascinating to revisit that decade and see how the world has changed, and how it hasn’t.
Which is more fun, writing or editing?
I love them both, but writing is the fun bit. It can be – and probably should be – playful, exciting, surprising, sometimes scary. Editing is the grown-up stage when you look dispassionately at what you have done and ask yourself the hard questions. Is this necessary and is it true? Does it work? Working with an editor was one of the unexpected pleasures of publishing a novel. It was demanding but deeply rewarding.
Where is the best place to think?
Outside, sitting in the garden early in the morning or walking in London’s green spaces. I like to go to the wetlands near my house where the sky is big and open and where nature is allowed to run a bit wild. Last week I saw swan’s eggs in a nest; here (below) my phone camera has caught a butterfly on the wing. It’s a great place to walk and think or lie in the grass and dream. Ideas, or the right words for a tricky sentence, often come to me there as though they’ve fallen from the sky.
Who are your influences?
For this book, which takes a circadian form, Virginia Woolf was central. In Mrs Dalloway, she folds a whole life (and maybe more than one) into a single day, and every time I read it, I find something new and astonishing. This little matchbox (below) came from a damp bookshop in Venice; it sits near my desk and reminds me of Woolf’s bravery and purpose. I have always loved school novels and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is one of my favourites. Spark’s teenagers are funny, clear-sighted – and ruthless.
Why did it take you until the age of fifty to publish a novel?
Tough question! I have always written, but to pull a novel together required, for me, stretches of quietness and solitude, which – when I worked full-time and my children were young – were hard to come by. It’s become much easier for me to work as I’ve got older. Plus, someone invented noise-cancelling headphones!
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