Banishing the Shadows

 

Fili, heroine of my novel The Case Against Fili Du Bois, was adopted as a baby after being abandoned by her mother in the grounds of a church. While her adoptive parents, Martin and Ray Du Bois, treat her as their daughter, Fili is haunted by the memory of the mother who left her behind. 

Yet there is also a strange element of gratitude: Fili's unknown mother chose to leave her at a church, presumably because she felt that the community would rally around the child and ensure that she was adopted into a loving home. And this does, indeed, happen. 

Seventeen years later, Fili asks her father to take her to the church where she was left. And it is there, in the grounds, that she finds the exact spot: a ditch running along the boundary. Fili lies down on the ground, closes her eyes, and waits for the sensation of the sunlight on her face that she remembers - and that returns to her so often as a yellow nightmare. 

Then, from around the side of the church comes a shout. It is the Minister. When Martin Du Bois explains who they are, he is astonished and delighted because it was he who found Fili all those years before, and made sure that she was cared for in the orphanage before she was adopted.  

As they leave, with the Minister's blessings, Fili realises she has made a new memory. A memory that will hopefully banish the nightmares and the shadow of abandonment that has followed her, and allow her to move on... 

From Fact to Fiction...

As authors, we draw on our personal history and past experience in creating a novel...
But how should we manage that transition when the facts directly inspire the fiction?

For me, that shift was especially important in my first novel, The Housemaid's Daughter. It told the fictional story of Ada, housemaid to an Irish immigrant family in South Africa, and how her life unfolded beside theirs. 

The facts that lay behind the story came from my own family history. More than a century ago, my maternal grandparents did, indeed, migrate from Ireland to Cradock, a small town in the Karoo semi-desert region. This happened because my grandfather was offered a job to open a branch of Cuthbert's shoe stores there. As a child, I was captivated by my grandmother's recollections, but I never imagined they would become the quiet impetus for the novel many years later. 

Yet, once you are committed, how to turn those real life memories into fiction? The first step, I have found, lies in research. You need an authentic, historical framework in which to place your story - a framework which might, incidentally, also offer plot lines you may not have envisaged. The next challenge involves taking those real memories and converting them into a story that goes beyond personal recollection and protects historical identities. And that was how Ada, the heroine, was born. Alongside her, my now-fictional Irish family develop their own characteristics independently.  
But, I confess, there were tiny snippets of reality that I included.
Fictional Irish matriarch, Cath, is a music teacher, as was my grandmother. 
And, poignantly, Cath's son, Phil, fights at the Battle of Sidi Rezegh in North Africa during the second World War. My real-life uncle did so, and sadly died. 
Phil, however, survives, and that's part of the story...  

  

Wine and Life...

In my research for The Case Against Fili Du Bois, I needed to understand the wine-making process - from grape to glass - so that I could write about it accurately. Even if you're writing fiction, it's important to get the facts correct!
And if you happen to specialise in historical fiction, as I do, then it's even more crucial. 

I was lucky to be taken under the wing of a wine estate owner and his wine-maker, who guided me through the process and its complexities. I also learnt about terroir, that magical combination of soil type, slope, rainfall and geographical setting that governs which grape cultivar you plant and therefore which wine you will make. Yet for all the technical details, when subsequently writing Fili's story I couldn't help reflecting on the similarities and connections between wine and life... 

From those early beginnings when the buds swell in spring and the infant bunches of grapes appear, then forwards to their fattening and picking, their path somehow followed the journey of a child like Fili from babyhood into adolescence and onward. Thereafter, the various fermentations, filtrations and maturations, can perhaps be thought of as the challenges and responsibilities of adulthood!
And, at the end, the wine that emerges - and the life we have built - hopefully holds the notes and flavours we would all aspire to... 
Fili, towards the end of her story, looks back on what she has learnt.
Turn vines, soil and water into wine... and into life. 

An Unexpected Inspiration

What is the spark that ignites a story? In a previous blog I have described the one that set me on the path to writing my latest novel, The Case Against Fili Du Bois: a sign on a church wall that said Baby drop-off. Ages up to 3. And I thought... what if a child was dropped off and never fetched?

But what about the very first spark, the one that inspired my debut novel, The Housemaid's Daughter?

It came from my Irish grandmother who inadvertently sowed the seeds for the plot while teaching me to play the piano - and thereby launched my future writing career. She loved to reminisce. Sitting by her side, I learnt more than the names of the notes and where to place my fingers to make a tune. I learnt about her history. She and my grandfather had left Ireland to make a new life in a small rural town called Cradock, in the semi-desert Karoo of South Africa. Her memories stayed with me, and many years later I started writing a tribute to her. I planned to circulate it within my family but then thought: why don't I add a fictional housemaid? Soon, Ada, my fictional heroine, began to take centre stage and I realised I was writing a novel... 

It took 8 to 10 years of writing, research and rejections, but finally The Housemaid's Daughter was published. It became a bestseller and was translated into many languages as you can see from the photo above. 
So, to all those aspiring novelists out there, find that spark!
You never know where it might lead... 

Swapping Screen for Page...

Latest reports show that an interesting shift in reading patterns is taking place. After years when publishers - and authors - feared for the future of physical books, younger generations are rediscovering their attraction and driving an uptick in sales. It seems that more and more young people are switching off their screens and turning back to print. Settling down with a real book in hand is becoming desirable once more.   

The trend is being encouraged by innovative bookshops and libraries that are offering book clubs, coffee shops and places to read without the distraction of mobile phones and other electronic devices. 

So what are younger readers choosing to read - preferably in print?
While modern genres such as 'romantasy' and contemporary fiction are popular, it turns out that the classics are coming back to the fore - often thanks to the very screens from which young folk are attempting to abstain! For example, the modern adaptation of Wuthering Heights has led to a rise in sales of the original book, and rekindled interest in the great authors of yesteryear. 

So let's encourage our young family members and friends to make the leap not just from their phones... but also into genres they might once have avoided.
From my own selfish (!) perspective, can I suggest a dip into historical fiction? 
Who knows what it might inspire in young minds...   

What sparks a story?

What is the spark that fires a novel? For me, it's often an event or a conversation or a newspaper article or a chance remark that causes me to think... Wouldn't that make a great starting point for my next story? And that was how The Case Against Fili Du Bois came into being. 

Fili, heroine of my novel, is abandoned by her mother in the grounds of a church. That abandonment becomes the thread that winds its way through the book and determines Fili's future - and the future of the family who adopt her into their home on a wine estate in the beautiful Franschhoek Valley. 

Yet what made me choose that particular beginning for my novel? 
Some years ago, I happened to be passing by a church in the southern Cape Peninsula. Mounted on the side wall of the building was a sign that said:
Baby drop off
Ages up to 3

Clearly, it was an advertisement for a free creche run by the church to give young families some respite from full-time parenting duties, a place to leave their babes for a hour or so. But it got me thinking...
What if a child was dropped off at the church - and never fetched?
Would she languish in an orphanage? Would she be adopted? What would happen if her adoptive parents then have a child of their own? 
And The Case Against Fili Du Bois was born. 

More next time...

  

A special visitor...

In 1836, a young man - 27 years old - arrived in Simon's Town on a ship named HMS Beagle. During the 19 days that the Beagle was anchored in Simon's Bay, the young man went ashore to meet someone far more famous than he was. The young man was Charles Darwin. His famous host was astronomer Sir John Herschel. 

The discussions they shared were so influential to Darwin's approach to scientific investigation - and therefore to his thinking about evolution - that he later wrote: "These facts... seemed to throw some light on the origin of species - that mystery of mysteries..."  

The young man would go on to eclipse his mentor, and produce his ground-breaking Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, which was published as On the Origin of Species, some 20 years later in 1859. 

Darwin's visit to the Cape has now been commemorated in Simon's Town by the placement of a bust on the town pier. The closing paragraph of his ground-breaking book is engraved onto the side of the memorial.

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been equally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

From those early beginnings...