After graduating, Amanda Robson worked in medical research at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and at the Poisons Unit at Guy’s Hospital where she became a co-author of a book on cyanide poisoning – and this book makes terrifying use of poison throughout. Amanda attended the Faber novel writing course and writes full-time. Obsession is her debut novel and today, upon its release, she tells us a bit more about herself.
Amanda Robson
My favorite day is a day spent writing, followed by a meal and a bottle of wine in the evening with my husband, or friends and family. I suppose that means I like writing, eating, drinking very much and being with special people. My husband, my friends, and my family, are very special to me.
I have wanted to write a novel since I was eighteen years old but it has taken me a while to get started. Exactly how long? Ha. Ha. I don’t really want you to know how old I am, but let’s put it like this; you can count it in decades rather than years. Having a late career is very exciting, pulling my life forwards at a time when I always imagined it would be closing in and moving backwards.
When I was a teenager I was in the local drama club. If time had permitted, acting would have also been my passion. Whenever I am writing, I act every scene out in my mind. I think the creative skills of writing or acting, both of which entail imagining being someone else, are closely interlinked. An old friend of mine from drama group, who is now a very successful actor, has recently started writing and this fascinates me. I am looking forward to meeting up with her to discuss it.
Unlike the characters in my book I love my girl friends dearly. I would like my readers to know that I am not a bitch! I might write about toxic relationships, but I do my best to avoid them in real life.
I have a one-eyed golden retriever who sits at my feet while I write.
The first book I really fell in love with was Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. I love it to this day. It is classified as a psychological thriller- not that I realised that at the time I read it. So I must have always been interested in psychological thrillers, and I’ve ended up writing one too!
My husband and two sons are lawyers. When they talk about law I don’t understand a word they say and I have been with my husband for thirty-eight years.
I love dancing. After my book launch party I intend to dance the night away.
I talk too much. As soon as I open my eyes in the morning my lips start moving. When I am quiet my family become seriously concerned. People who are very quiet make me feel uneasy. When I am with them, try as I might to tone my personality down, the more I tend to fill the airwaves with sound.
I would like to think that our love for others is like energy: that it can’t be destroyed but lingers in the world long after we are dead.
