Laurie Graham
The Liar’s Daughter is the story of Nan Prunty McKeever, a girl who lifts herself out of the squalor of her childhood and makes her determined and successful way in life, driven on by the urge to solve the mystery of her father’s identity. The itch to know where we came from can be a very powerful one. Nan travels unusually far for a woman of her time and circumstances and she finds her answer where she least expects it. The other major thread to the story is Lord Horatio Nelson, one of England’s first ever celebrities, whose death in 1805 left forever unanswered the question of how he came to ‘adopt’ baby Horatia Thompson.
Please tell us about the character of Nan.
Nan is a tough nut, as is often the case when a child has been obliged to grow up fast. She has a sharp eye for the foibles and follies of those around her and a quick wit, but her mother’s tantalising stories about her father are her Achilles heel.
You have been praised for bringing out the sights, sounds and smells of yesteryear, so how do you achieve this in your writing?
The setting for The Liar’s Daughter is principally London in the mid-19th century. Also Balaklava during the Crimean War. The sounds and smells, how people travelled, what they ate, are easy enough to research. I think the main thing is not to overload the reader with information. Let’s say I try to give my books just a whiff and a whisper of the times. The sights, the locations, are harder to get right. Deptford, for instance, where Nan lives much of her life, is now largely unrecognisable. After a day of mooching and gazing I chose to place her in a street that has survived all the redevelopment, but the dockyard, which would have given Deptford so much of its character, has gone.
How do you get your characters to breathe life and energy?
Living, breathing characters… well, that’s my job. I almost always use First Person voice in my novels. It has its limitations but it gives a sense of immediacy that’s hard to create with an anonymous, all-seeing narrator. So my first job is to find that voice. Nan came to me fairly easily. Once I’d written the first few pages I knew I was sufficiently convinced by her to carry on. But sometimes things don’t work out. Characters develop as the book progresses but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life we may have to put up with tedious people but not in novels.
Who are you reading right now?
I’ve just finished David Cecil’s fabulous biography of Lord Melbourne, and finishing a good book always leaves me feeling bereft. Next up, I have John Ashdown-Hill’s Eleanor, the Secret Queen and Tim Robinson’s Connemara. It’ll be a toss-up which I open first depending on my mood when I go to bed tonight.
How do you juggle your writing as a novelist and a journalist?
I’m not really a juggler. Nothing so elegant. I’m more like a Wimbledon ball boy, hunched and scuttling and praying I don’t drop anything. As well as writing novels and doing short-order journalism I am also the full-time carer of my husband who has Alzheimer’s. Each day feels like a race that must be run. But I’m thankful that I have a profession that allows me to work from home, at any hour of the day or night, and in pyjamas if necessary.
What is next for you?
The wheels of publishing never slow down. I have already completed another novel, The Grand Duchess of Nowhere, which will be published by Quercus in October. I’m now working on next year’s book, set in the time of the Whitechapel Murder.