THE SEED of an idea was planted long, long
ago. A painter friend told me that he’d remortgaged his Suffolk house in order
to buy up the last known supply of the same make of watercolour paper used by
JMW Turner.
I was astonished that he set such store by the
paper he clearly revered. An amateur dabbler myself, I’d assumed it was purely
the talent of the person behind the brush and not the materials that mattered.
I was wrong.
A cursory investigation into the
illustrious Whatman paper company in Kent and its connection to some of the
greatest artists the world has ever known sparked something in my sub-conscious
that eventually led me to writing my first novel.
The
Sense of Paper started out as a love story - a tale
of obsession with paper and with art – set in the wild coastal landscape that I
had moved to. I had no clear idea of an ending, or even a middle, when I began
it and – although I’d written many other books – this experience was different
and exhilarating.
There were times when I didn’t feel to be
in control of my fingers as they flew across the keys as if my magic. I watched
the words they typed scroll out on the computer screen and marvelled that a hidden
part of my brain was purging itself of its secrets and dreams.
I never intended the book to be remotely
autobiographical but I didn’t seem to be able to prevent that. My experiences
as a journalist on a national newspaper and – for a while – a foreign and war
correspondent – spilled out of me in a torrent and before I knew it I had both
a middle and an ending that was dramatic, obsessive, and tragic.
The novel-writing process took me two
years. During that time I wrote two other (non-fiction) books, which were
published with all the attendant publicity. The
Sense of Paper felt to be my secret – my own little world into which I
could immerse myself day or night and find release.
Although I was an established non-fiction
author with hopes of being a novelist too one day, the idea of offering up my
finished creation to public scrutiny scared me. I showed it to my husband and a
few close friends first. All urged me to get it published. My agent loved it
and immediately sent it out into the big wide world.
As a journalist for more than 20 years, I
knew all about rejection. Like all reporters, my copy was often thrown back at
me to rewrite and I was well accustomed to the feeling. The rejection letters
from publishers were a new experience for me, though, and they stung.
My debut novel, they said variously, was
‘remarkable', 'astonishing', 'brave', 'lusciously textured' and poetic.’ They loved the contrasts
between Turner’s life, the Suffolk scenery, and descriptions of some of
the more brutal war zones of the modern age. After due consideration, though,
more than thirty of them passed on publishing it because they couldn’t be
certain which pigeonhole to place it in. (I was somewhat comforted to
read recently that a book that is currently on the Man Booker longlist was
rejected 47 times before it found the right home).
“But is The
Sense of Paper a thriller, a mystery, or a romance?” one publisher asked my
agent. “How do we market this?” asked another. “Where exactly would we place it on the
shelves?” The view was that it didn’t fall into any neat category – something
which others might have seen as its unique selling point.
Fortunately for me, an editor at Random
House, New York, felt differently about my work. She loved Paper so much, having read it in one sitting, that she rushed into her
office at 6am the following morning to catch her boss and demand that they
publish it.
They did, in the autumn of 2006, to
widespread critical acclaim. The reviews were amazingly gratifying after such a
tortuous path and I still receive emails from fans begging me to write another,
similar book.
Goldie Hawn, my friend and co-author on
another project, hosted a glittering launch party for me at the Mandarin
Oriental Hotel overlooking Central Park. The night was all the more poignant
for the fact that it was my first major outing since recovering from viral
encephalitis which had almost killed me and confined me to bed for a year.
The
Sense of Paper is still in print in the US seven
years on but is now published as an ebook in the UK for the first time. It is
still something of which I am proud. People say that parents will always favour
a first child over later children, no matter how hard they try not to, because
of all that they went through to produce it. I feel the same way.
Since Paper
was published, I have gone on to write many more books – all of them published and
all very different. They are mostly the biographies of remarkable women whose
lives read like works of fiction. I have also written a novella, Mr Scraps, about a dog caught up in the
London Blitz, two screenplays, and have two unfinished novels on file which I
hope to have the time to finish one day.
None of them, though, can ever mean as much
to me as The Sense of Paper.
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