Notes from an Accidental Crime Writer by Isobel Shirlaw

I didn’t realise, when I set out to write a novel, that the sort of story I was trying to tell would one day be classified as crime fiction – just one of the reasons, perhaps, that that particular novel (a mash up of violence, family secrets and the supernatural) didn’t get published…. With the next one, I got closer. I was told by an agent that it needed to be ‘crimier.’ Again, I hadn’t spotted that it would be perceived as crime fiction at all, seeing it as a sort of semi-violent, coming of age, YA-slash-adult tragi-comic psychological thriller. Hard to pitch? Impossible to sell.

One thing I did realise was that I was writing about families – all sorts of different families but all with their own secrets and problems. These were stories with a darkness at their heart. And it seemed that whatever I wrote, the crimes kept creeping in.

Part of the problem was that I didn’t feel qualified as a crime reader. I love writers that put me at immediate unease – Patricia Highsmith, Mariana Enriquez, John Fowles, Donna Tartt. And I wanted to instil a sense of dread in my readers. But it still didn’t feel like proper crime fiction. But by book number three or four or five – my so-called ‘debut’, A Proper Mother, I had started to embrace the crimes at the heart of the family. I knew I had found the right story and the right genre.

A Proper Mother is the story of a frightened single mother, Frankie, a survivor of domestic violence, negotiating an often hostile world, terrified that her youngest son Michael will turn out violent like his father. An early review of the book, on the crime fiction pages, observed that it is not a conventional crime novel. I found myself nodding along.

But why? 

Has it got crimes in it? Yes. Police? Yes again. Court cases? Dead bodies? No comment.

I don’t think I’m alone in this regard. Some of the first other writers I have met have been crime writers. At this year’s CrimeFest in Bristol I was surprised to hear at least two other writers say, almost apologetically, that their book wasn’t necessarily crime fiction or that they didn’t see themselves as crime writers. It has made me think more deeply about this whole area. For if even the people who write it are not sure that it is crime fiction, then what exactly is crime fiction?

Perhaps it depends on another question: what is crime? And that particular question has been at the centre of my professional career for a long time. I have worked for many years for domestic violence charities in various capacities – supporting victims, developing services, fundraising, working with the criminal justice system; often trying to persuade the police, other professionals and wider society to take crimes perpetrated by people’s partners and ex-partners as seriously as those perpetrated by strangers.

A major problem with crimes relating to domestic violence is a perception in many parts of society that they are not as serious as other sorts of crime. Of course for those who work in the field of domestic violence, it is widely understood to be more dangerous. As Refuge (where I worked for many years) and the NSPCC often remind us: two women are killed every week by a partner or ex-partner. And the people at highest risk of homicide are babies, killed, usually by a parent or step-parent in a context of domestic abuse. 

I remember once calling the police to report my front door having been kicked in by a stranger one evening while I was out. Fortunately no-one succeeded in getting into the house; nothing was taken; no-one hurt. But the police response was extraordinary. A team arrived within moments. They took fingerprints, sought witness statements, returned the next day for further checks and sent countless leaflets offering support. That same week I had been talking to a woman whose ex-partner had climbed in her window and threatened to kill her with a clawhammer. She was carrying her toddler. When she called the police, no-one came. She was lucky to survive. And she managed to get to a refuge. But many women in the same position are not so lucky.

In my novel I wanted to put the reader in the shoes of the survivor. Frankie’s experiences are fictional but not uncommon. I hope they resonate. Having accidentally written a crime novel I hope it helps, in some way, to change our collective perception of domestic violence and recognise it as serious crime.

 

A Proper Mother by Isobel Shirlaw (Oneworld Publications) Out Now 

Ever since an ominous palm-reading on her honeymoon, Frankie has suspected that her youngest son, Michael, is different. From an early age he sees things no one else can. As he grows up – academically gifted, a musical prodigy and with an unshakeable religious faith – his mother can no longer deny there is something strange about him, or that it frightens her.  It is only when Frankie learns Michael is sliding into drugs and violence that she realises she can't keep ignoring the past. But by confronting her destructive marriage and her own responsibility for all that has gone wrong, she begins to see there is something darker at play.

You can follow her on "X" @isobelshirwal

Cherie Jones on writing How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House

I came to write ‘How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House’ at the urging of a voice on the bus. At the time, I was on the 472 bus to Thamesmead, on the last leg of the long commute back home from Brixton in London, where I (then) worked for a refugee charity.

I was exhausted that night on the bus, and didn't particularly feel like listening to anyone, but Lala sat inside my head and started to talk to me, anyway.

As I learnt during the course of the remaining 45 minutes of that bus-ride, Lala, like me, was from Barbados, like me she was a mother, like me she was the ‘one’ of the estimated one in three women worldwide who experience domestic violence at the hands of an intimate partner and endure a cycle of running and return as a result. These facts, in themselves, did not make her remarkable, what made her remarkable was her resilience, her calm quiet, the halting, almost apologetic way in which she spoke, as if she knew I was tired but could not leave me alone unless she was sure that I’d heard her, that I understood and accepted what she was asking me to do.

What she was asking me to do was write her story. 

Domestic violence, and especially violence against women, is a continuing social problem in the Caribbean. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, in a statement at the end of her visit to Barbados in April, 2012 ¹ said

“Domestic violence against women and children, and sexual harassment, occur all over the world. However, reports suggest that they are particularly serious problems here in Barbados and in other Caribbean countries, and rape is shockingly commonplace…” 

Ingrained social attitudes to gender and power contribute to a culture of silence about domestic violence in the Caribbean. The physical abuse of women was traditionally (and to an extent remains) an accepted part of local culture – widely practiced but rarely talked about. I had always been aware of women within my family who were being abused – the wife of a beloved uncle, for example, who was reportedly regularly beaten with the butt of a gun. In whispered conversations I wasn’t supposed to overhear, female relatives chastised her for her sullen demeanour and her feisty retorts to a husband whose demanding work hours made his meanness understandable, her inability to submit less so. 

At the same time, the Caribbean is the exotic paradise of postcards, a place of pink powdery beaches and clear blue water. It occurred to me that the paradise of the affluent tourist was simply a backdrop for the horror suffered by some of the women who served them daily. A paradisical beach became the setting for Lala’s story to be told.

When I got off the bus, and home, I wrote as I always do, longhand, from the first line of the last page of a ring bound red Royal Mail notebook, writing towards the front. This became a ritual I repeated for several nights, through several drafts, droughts of inspiration, crises of conscience and the glitter of other, less wrenching writing projects. Through it all, Lala would talk to me. Until one day, somewhere around the end of the the third draft, she fell silent.

Much as I’ve listened for her I’ve never heard from Lala again. I do not know whether she is dead or alive now, whether she is still haunted by a gruesome murder on a beach in Paradise. I am not aware of whether she still bears the scars she has told me about or whether a rusty-haired rasta called Tone has managed to meet her again, whether his love has made her forget how she got those scars.

I wish the best for Lala, but I understand that her silence does not matter now. Only the story needs to speak.

There was just one thing Lala asked me on that bus, and that was if I could write the part of her story she had told me about- that one summer in 1984 when her life changed forever.

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is my first novel. It is a work of fiction – and it is also my way in which I answered 'yes'.

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones (Published Headline Publishing) Out Now 

In Baxter's Beach, Barbados, Lala's grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister, a cautionary tale about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers. For Wilma, it's the story of a wilful adventurer, who ignores the warnings of those around her, and suffers as a result. When Lala grows up, she sees it offers hope - of life after losing a baby in the most terrible of circumstances and marrying the wrong man. And Mira Whalen? It's about keeping alive, trying to make sense of the fact that her husband has been murdered, and she didn't get the chance to tell him that she loved him after all.

More information about the author can be found here and you can follow her on Twitter at @csajthewriter.

1^ UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=41723 (accessed on 10 March, 2015)

An interview with Denise Mina

Ayo:- Your last couple of books Conviction and The Last Drop and have been quite different from your other books. What made you decide to to make a foray into true crime as the background to the books?


Denise:- I have always used true crime stories as starting off points, I think a lot of writers do read the newspapers or keep their ears open for striking incidents, so it was more a question of degree than a volt face. I have always loved the form of true crime though and I think knowing that a story is largely true can add to the resonances for a reader like me. 


Ayo:- The Long Drop is a reimagining of the trial and of the drunken night the two men spent carousing in Glasgow, Convicton about a true crime podcast and sexual violence whilst your latest book The Less Dead is about violence against women inspired by a series of real murder cases. What made you decide to write about this particular topical issue?


Denise:- Books have to be written a year or so before they’re published so if the topic in them seems timely it’s usually just good luck! With The Less Dead it was the Staunch Book Prize which was established to draw attention away from crimes of violence against women by rewarding books that did not do that. It was very well intentioned but I think neglected the fact that victims in the real world are valued differently. I wanted to write about that and about a woman who couldn’t choose not to face up to her own privilege. 


Ayo: Do you believe that violence against women is taken as seriously as it should be?


Denise:- Yes, but only against some women: white middle class stranger women. Everyone else gets a lesser service and that’s not just from the police or the courts. It’s from the public and from juries and from newspapers. If domestic violence was taken as seriously as it should be other crimes associated with it could be stopped. Crimes of violence against sex workers are treated as if they are inevitable. They’re no more inevitable than football violence.


Ayo:- Are you often struck by the different ways in which books can be interpreted by those who read them and have you any thoughts on the way you expect The Less Dead to be interpreted?


Denise:- I believe a book is half the work of the writer, half the work of the reader – readers bring the prism of our own experience and our own prejudices with us to every book. I don’t believe in original intention with book interpretations. Of course, sometimes people tell me what my book is about and I’m secretly thinking they’re completely wrong but I wouldn’t say that. For me the best writers ask questions that raise more questions. Boring writers tell you what to think. Some people are already very offended because I’ve used the terms ‘sex worker’ and they don’t think it should be classed as work, which I understand but I think if people are going to be legally protected the categorisation is useful.


Ayo:- In all your books you appear to have this nuanced approach to seediness. Is this deliberate and do you feel that it is inevitable due to what you are writing about?


Denise:- The great thing about crime fiction is that the story can go anywhere and I like there to be contrast in my books – from the top to the bottom. I’m always aware of how visceral the city is and how seediness can lie anywhere.

Ayo:- What was the most interesting thing that you’ve found out while preparing to read a book that you’re working on?


Denise:- The ring road around Glasgow (M8) was proposed after WW2 to contain a Bolshevik uprising. It was felt that Glasgow was the city most likely to fall to the Communists and the road was built so that the city centre could be cut off by the army.

Ayo:- While you’re never one to repeat yourself, The Less Dead, on the surface, reads as a very different kind of thriller for you. How did it come about?


Denise:- Several of my family members are adopted and quite recently made contact with their birth family, so there was that experience going on in the background. There was also the series of murders of sex workers in the 1980s and ‘90s that really bothered me. The last person to be murdered was a lovely person and came from a really sweet family, it was devastating for them, but I kept thinking about the women who had been killed before and how little of the same sort of coverage there was because so many grew up in care. They didn’t have nice families to go on Crime Watch and if felt wrong.

Ayo:- What generally sparks the idea for what you want to write about next?


Denise:- Usually I stumble on a story that makes me wonder ‘what does THAT feel like?’ It can be a bit of a newstory or something over heard in conversation. If I find it intriguing I think a reader might.

Ayo:- I believe that writing crime fiction and reading crime fiction is a good way of having an insight into society and its ills. Do you agree that this is the case and do you think that today's crime writers do so.


Denise:- I do agree but crime fiction is such a broad church. Some is sociological or criminological. Some criminological crime friction is completely wrong, for example, profilers are a bit useless on the ground but they’re all over crime fiction. You can’t find a murderer by correctly guessing he lives with his mum, can you? Some crime fiction is basically a puzzle and some is a very familiar story that we’ve heard a hundred times and I do love that sort of crime fiction as well. It would be a shame if we were all writing the same things.

Ayo:- Over the years you have won many accolades for your writing how does your success make you feel as a writer?


Denise:- I don’t feel successful but I do feel incredibly lucky that I get to do this for a living. That sounds trite and ever so humble but the longer I do this the more I’m aware that better writers than me stopped or got ill or got dropped or made a load of money and forgot to write the next book, got sucked into teaching or whatever. Sometimes I get all my prizes out of the cupboard and look at them to remind myself how incredibly fortunate I’ve been.

Ayo:- Bearing in mind the issues that you write about do you think that there is such a thing as an apolitical writer?


Denise:- No. All fiction is political. What we perceive as neutral is just closer to the status quo. I can’t believe we still have police procedurals with a resolution of the cops shooting the suspect. 

Ayo:- Are the narratives of crime and justice still as important to you today as they were when you wrote Garnethill?


Denise:- More so. I think I’m more nerdy about them and the hunch I had that they mattered -that the way we constructed victims and notions of justice in narrative fiction was important – is even more acute now. I see legal policy being made on the basis of fictional constructs. 

Ayo:- What do you think about the state of crime writing today and do you think that it has become more gratitious?


Denise:- It’s hard to answer that because I’m not really all the way across the genre. It’s vast now! I remember when it was just you me and Val McDermid, I don’t know how you do it!

Ayo:- What question would like to be asked but never are?


Denise:- Are you grateful? I think we should all ask ourselves that but it’s a bit existential. Anyway the answer is – not enough.


Ayo:- What next?


Denise:- OOOOO! I’m writing a follow up to Conviction called Confidence. Someone has found a document that proves Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Romans, they kill themselves and then the document ends up on the international market for historic artefacts. I’m very lost in that whole world right now!

The Less Dead by Denise Mina (Published by Vintage on 20 August 2020)

 When Margo goes in search of her birth mother for the first time, she meets her aunt, Nikki, instead. Margo learns that her mother, Susan, was a sex worker murdered soon after Margo's adoption. To this day, Susan's killer has never been found. Nikki asks Margo for help. She has received threatening and haunting letters from the murderer, for decades. She is determined to find him, but she can't do it alone...

The Less Dead can be bought here.