Pieces of Molly
What can our readers expect from Pieces of Molly?
As readers we always bring our own hopes and expectations to whatever we read. While this is the story of one particular small girl’s life, it ranges over the questions we all ask ourselves, about who we are, who we’d like to be, and how our lives shape us as we go along. It’s about boxes too – those made for us and those we make ourselves, and how to extend beyond them.
Where did your inspiration come from?
I’d read so many memoirs which seemed to suggest that there was just ‘one story’ – life is a lot more nuanced than that, and I decided to write about my own life with that in mind – so the title Pieces of Molly proceeded out of thinking about the many different facets of oneself, as well as all the outside influences which make up our lives as we grow and develop. We all have many different ‘voices’ inside our minds.
How much of a challenge was it to write in the style you selected?
I’ve done a lot of academic writing, and for me the subject itself and just starting to write gradually suggests the structure and style. This book turned out to be rather the same in how it grew and developed. So it reflects both the seasons and also this central idea of a tapestry, which grows and alters over time, and how to restore it when it becomes damaged. The chapter headings reflect the style of old story books (beginning with books such as Tristram Shandy in the 18th century) where the content is announced before each chapter begins.
What was is about the East coast of England that made you keen to revisit this in your writing?
We all carry our childhood experiences deep within, and for me that barren East Coast landscape where I was born, jutting out into the often quite wild North Sea symbolized something about what might seem like a bleak beginning, but which sets the stage for future adventuring. That sea still lies deep within me, and I wanted to convey that on the cover of the book.
How did you go about resarching this period in history?
Again I mostly waited for my own memories to surface – as I say somewhere in the book, ‘this isn’t magic, is it, just liberated bits and pieces’ and then I read around what came up in quite a random way, until things seemed to ‘click’ with what I’d turned up within my memory.
There is a lot of psychology in the book (which centers around the construct of a child's mind) how much did you have to look into this before writing?
I’ve worked as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with young children and their families for more than twenty years, so the idea of how a child’s mind grows and develops has been central to my thinking for a long time. I’ve heard so many ‘stories’, so from many points of view. None of us is quite who we may think we are. I took a perspective on my small girl self, ‘Molly’ so I too could have a look at her from the outside as well as try to be her as she grows up in her particular family. All children have a host of concerns about themselves and their worlds, and that’s what I hope to show here, but using my own particular experience to show how ‘an ordinary life’ is never simple. As Don De Lillo once said ‘the shock, the power, of an ordinary life-You could not invent it if you had a bank of computers in a dust free room.’
Is the book a reflection of just your memories or did you involve other children's experiences in the creation of this book?
These memories are mine- and as I say in the book, we have to trust our memories & also not trust them – no memory is ever a finished thing. It grows and changes as we learn more, and as we in our own turn have children, and look back on the lives of our parents. A singer songwriter who has been caring for some years for her husband said Pieces of Molly so inspired her to think about her own childhood that she then wrote the first song she has written for many years. That says a lot to me about the power of something which goes beyond the ‘ordinary life’ of one individual, and taps into something universal that we all have somewhere inside us.
What have you got lined up for the future in terms of your writing?
I write a lot professionally (under a different name) and have some projects on the go with that. But in terms of this sort of writing, I’d like possibly to go back to that same period in history and write from a non-linear, narrative perspective on the lives of others. But this is all to emerge- as did Pieces of Molly.I wrote it first to give my son an idea of my early life, then started to see gradually that while it had meaning for him and me, it was also something which could have a wider relevance.
When did you realise you wanted to write?
I wrote a lot when I was a small girl, encouraged by a teacher nun at my first convent school (and I talk about this in the book). Then life rather took over in my early adult years, with family and career, apart from a few unpublished short stories. It was embarking on my third profession (after being both a publisher’s editor and a teacher) as a psychotherapist that awakened the wish again, and it was channelled into professional writing for many years. I would not want to use the stories of those I worked with, although I’m aware some people do, and so this book about ‘me’ was the result. I use a different name because those in my profession don’t tend to raise their heads above the professional parapet, although of course we were all ‘patients’ once, and all children with our own experiences which have shaped who we are.
What advice could you give to someone wanting to write a book that is as innovative as yours?
Oh it’s such vague advice really- I’d say that if you have an idea, even in some very embryonic form, don’t lose it, write it down somewhere, let it turn over in your mind, then let it grow and develop. Other ideas will come and join the original one. You find your way as you go along – it may take time (this book took over ten years) and perhaps this is rather different from advice you might get from people wanting to produce a book a year, say. I truly believe that’s a good way to start – a bit like the conception of a baby, starting from a few cells… Nothing is too insignificant as a beginning, just begin.
Interview by Lucy Walton