We chat with author Clare Chambers about Shy Creatures, which is an alluring literary mystery full of secrets and lies, where an art teacher at a psychiatric hospital in 1960s England finds her life turned upside down by the arrival of a mysterious patient who has spent decades living in complete isolation with his elderly aunts in a decrepit Victorian house.
Hi, Clare! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I was born in 1966 in the suburbs of South London and have lived most of my life within a few miles of where I grew up. I wrote my first novel at 22 during what would now be called a Gap Year in New Zealand. My first job was in publishing – as an editorial secretary at the literary publisher Andre Deutsch Ltd. Since then I have also worked as a freelance editor, school administrator, and a university tutor. The unexpected success of Small Pleasures, my ninth novel, has finally enabled me to give up other work and write full time. I am married with three grown-up children.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
As a nerdy schoolgirl, using big words and telling stories was a form of showing off that seemed to bring me the attention I craved. I suppose my love of reading came before my love of writing – one just grew into the other.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Ant and Bee
- The one that made you want to become an author: The Bell by Iris Murdoch.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
Your latest novel, Shy Creatures, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Psychiatry, Art, Memory, Silence, Badgers
What can readers expect?
The old fashioned virtues of character and plot. Set in 1964 in a large progressive psychiatric hospital, it is the story of the relationship between an art therapist, Helen, and a mute patient called William. He has been discovered living in a semi-feral state in a house nearby with his elderly aunt, cut off from the outside world for more than two decades. When it emerges that he is a gifted artist, Helen makes it her mission to uncover his strange story.
Where did the inspiration for Shy Creatures come from?
The seed for the novel was a newspaper article from 1952 describing the discovery of a hidden man with disheveled hair and a five foot beard in a house in Bristol, UK, living under the radar of his neighbours and the authorities. He was removed to a nearby psychiatric hospital and appeared to be making progress. A year later the paper reported his death by drowning in the nearby river. I became preoccupied by his sad fate and determined to write a novel that gave him a past and a more hopeful future.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I particularly enjoyed writing the character of Gil, the vain, charismatic psychiatrist with whom Helen is having an ill-judged affair. A disciple of the controversial R. D. Laing who wrote the groundbreaking work The Divided Self, he believes that insanity is ‘an entirely rational adjustment to an insane world’. I have tried to be true to the spirit of 1964; his behaviour may seem outrageous to modern readers, but was not so at the time.
Can you tell us about some of the challenges you faced whilst writing Shy Creatures?
The chief challenge was the structure, which involves two strands, one moving forward in time through 1964 and the other moving backwards from 1964 to 1938. William’s story travels backwards in time in a kind of parody of psychiatry, peeling back the layers until the truth is revealed in childhood. About half way through I realised why so few books are written with this structure. It is quite the challenge to end a chapter on a cliffhanger and know that you are never going to revisit this period again to explain what happened next. (Luckily it makes more sense in the reading than in my explanation.)
What do you hope readers take away from Shy Creatures?
I always hope the reader will come away with the curious sensation that I have articulated feelings or experiences that they recognise but had never quite put into words; a sense that, at some level and without ever having met, we know each other.
What’s next for you?
As always when finishing a book I wait patiently for the arrival of a new idea that will form the seed of a novel. Sometimes this process can take a year of more, but I feel it is somehow unseemly to go chasing around for inspiration. As with old-fashioned dating, I want the idea to make the first move.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
Books I have particularly enjoyed this year are: You are Here by David Nicholls; God of the Woods by Liz Moore; James by Percival Everett and Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst is on my Christmas list.
