The Long Shadow
1. What can you tell us about your new book The Long Shadow?
The first edition of this book was out in 2005 and under a seven year contract. I don’t recommend anyone signing a contract as long as that with any publisher, especially in these times when things are changing all the time in the publishing world. Once the rights returned to me, I brought it out as Kindle edition and this is now available from Amazon and doing pretty well. I began writing the book many years ago and it explores the feelings and experience of a young man, half Greek, half English who wants to understand who he really is and how these two nations have shaped his nature. The story is written in two parts and takes place in two countries…all of which emphasises the split in Andrew’s nature.
2. The story begins from a fourteen year old's perspective, so how did you manage to capture this voice effectively?
I had to remember that this particular fourteen year old was living in the 1920’s and that his attitude would not be that of a modern teenager. In fact the word‘teenager’ hadn’t been coined at that time. Then it was also a case of the particular character I was dealing with, a boy who looked Greek but sounded and felt English and didn’t appear to fit in anywhere. A sensitive, reclusive boy by nature and circumstance.
3. How much research did you have to put into the First World War, given that this was the setting for the diary of Andrews' mother?
The most enjoyable part, as most writers will agree, is the research. I spent long hours in the Imperial War Museum and the British Library reading letters, diaries, books looking at photographs of the time. I also visited the Red Cross Headquarters in London and was shown old costumes and uniforms. In all these places, the staff were tremendously helpful. It was a moving experience reading all the letters, often very poignant. I also joined for a while The Salonika Campaign Society, a most interesting and informative group of people who wish to honour the often forgotten Eastern Expedition. .
4. How difficult was it to write in the format of a diary entry?
Not at all difficult. It came naturally, plus I had all those real diaries to base my ideas on. I tried not to let the language appear too stilted but needed to give the feel of the slightly formal way people expressed themselves in the early 1900’s. Naturally, no one would write a diary that was quite as detailed as Dorothy’s! It’s simply a plot device to tell the story in the first person and give the atmosphere of the Greek hospital camp, plus to tell Dorothy’s love story. I felt it was best to write the diary from the start to finish of her account rather than jump back and forth as many books tend to do. Basically I couldn’t bear to tear myself away from Dorothy’s story!
5. A lot of books are using diary entries as a means of telling a story now, so was this something you set out to use in the early stages of writing this book?
Yes, it was a necessary part of the story because Andrew discovers this diary and it opens his eyes to why his past is such a mystery and never spoken of by his mother or relations.
6. You have based most of this novel in Greece, you are half Greek, so how important is it to you to include this in your writing?
The point of the whole novel is the dichotomy of belonging to two different nations and exploring that idea. It has coloured my life and I still haven’t really got to grips with it. I think I’m more English, having lived here most of my life - but like Andrew, my MC, I have only to hear some Greek music and that side of me rises up with a yearning to dance and swig the ouzo! Writing The Long Shadow helped me to understand what I felt.
7. How important is it to provide the reader with aspects of the scenery and the culture of Greece without information overkill?
It is most important to set the scene, create a sense of athmosphere and it is a very colourful one in this case. When a place and its history are a part of your heart and soul, the descriptions come naturally and easily. I know how Greeks think and feel as well as how English people think and feel. And I did have all those amazing letters, diaries and descriptions from the British nurses and soldiers who were in Salonika in 1916 and who descibed the place in vivid detail. Much of the city has been altered by fire, earthquake and war. But it still retains it’s character. Yes, some have said there is a lot of detail but in the main most readers have written to tell me that they loved all the descriptions of unusual places and scenes and that they transported them to another world.
8. What is next for you?
I am actually travelling to Greece in a few days to research the era when the country was taken over by a military dictatorship in 1967. It is to be a sequel to The Long Shadow and already partly written. It will be called Dying Phoenix as the extreme right wing regime adopted the legendary Phoenix as their badge somewhat in the manner of Hitler taking over the swastika - which was really a beautiful ancient Indian symbol. I hope to meet up with some people who will talk about what they experienced, thought and felt during that time of repression and social injustice. I’m quite excited about it.
9. You wrote your first novel when you were just sixteen in an exercise book as well as others, so why did you stop for so long?
I wrote for many years from that first effort, even while I had young children. They enjoyed my children’t stories! But, you know, it wasn’t so easy to research then, we didn’t have the web, the facilities of now. And I didn’t want to be like Enid Blyton whose daughters buried her typewriter in the garden in order to make her pay them some attention! Another argument at that time was that there were so many books about…why add to them? Well, there are double the amount of books now but I’m retired, have the time and the energy so why not put in my ha’porth of experience?
10. Your father wrote a forty page love letter to your mother when they first fell in love, is this a format you would ever adopt in your books?
Well, Lucy, that’s a brilliant idea! I think I should use it. Sadly that letter is lost now. My mother destroyed most of my father’s things when she got older as she had been so unhappy in her marriage and wanted to forget. I would have loved to have kept it.
Click here to buy The Long Shadow by Loretta Proctor
Female First Lucy Walton