In The Spotlight: Jill Dawson

©Jill Dawson

Name:- Jill Dawson

Job:- Author, Poet and Journalist

Website:- https://jilldawson.co.uk

Twitter:- @Jdawsonwriter

Introduction:

Jill Dawson is the author of 10 novels including The Crime Writer which won the East Anglian Book of the Year. Most of her books have either been long-listed and short-listed for a number of awards including the Whitbread and the Orange Prize. She has taught for the Arvon Foundation, the Faber Academy, the Guardian/UEA and for the Sunday Times/Oxford Summer School. She was instrumental in founding Escalator, an award for new writers, and is founder and director of Gold Dust Mentoring Writers, which matches new writers with established ones. Her most recently published book is The Language of Birds.

Current book? 

I have started a new novel set in the late 16th century so it’s a lot of non-fiction reading for research, with titles such as Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore (Enid Porter) and Hilary Mantel’s favourite: Religion and the Decline of Magic, Keith Thomas.

Favourite book –

The Ballad of the Sad Café, Carson McCullers (But it changes, and if you ask me next week I will definitely say something else).

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

Miss Amelia from The Ballad of the Sad Cafe – one of the strangest and most brilliantly drawn characters in fiction and Sula from Toni Morison’s novel of that name, so that I can ask her why she betrayed her friend.

How do you relax?

I’m always relaxed - as I think my friends will testify!

What book do you wish you had written and why?

Michael Ondaatchi’s Divisidero because it’s so sexy and startlingly beautiful on such an achingly sad subject (addiction).

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer.

I know this looks bad. But you know this will be great material, later…

How would you describe your series character?

I don’t have a series. But….my favourite historical crime fiction has to be George Simenon’s The Mahe Circle (1944) for the dreamy troubling atmosphere and brilliant description of an obsession. And Patricia Highsmith knows a thing or two about obsession, too. I’d go for The Talented Mr Ripley, such an original and perceptive depiction of a fantasist and psychopath, where many imitators since are corny, psychologically inaccurate and predictable. 

The Language of Birds by Jill Dawson (Hodder & Stoughton)

Drawing on the infamous Lord Lucan affair, this compelling novel explores the roots of a

shocking murder from a fresh perspective and brings to vivid life an era when women's voices all too often went unheard. In the summer of 1974, Mandy River arrives in London to make a fresh start and begins working as nanny to the children of one Lady Morven. She quickly finds herself in the midst of a bitter custody battle and the house under siege: Lord Morven is having his wife watched. According to Lady Morven, her estranged husband also has a violent streak, yet she doesn't seem the most reliable witness. Should Mandy believe her? As Mandy edges towards her tragic fate, her friend Rosemary watches from the wings - an odd girl with her own painful past and a rare gift. This time, though, she misreads the signs.