Madeleine Andersson
Olivia's Dead is my first novel so I am very excited about it. It’s essentially a traditional love story, but with a modern twist. I am not interested in writing Mills & Boon-type love stories. I wanted a girl-meets-boy scenario that demonstrates it really is possible to fall deeply in love with someone regardless of circumstance, but also to show that the course of true love is never smooth. I believe love and sex doesn’t have to be Fifty Shades of Grey, but can still be every bit as seductive and tantalizing.
The book is interspersed with conversations between Olivia and Alice and this idea comes from my own experiences after my friend Daryl died. She talked to me a lot and I gained inspiration and comfort from our chats. I know some people might think it a bit weird and of course I know it was in my subconscious, but it was so real I wanted to incorporate it into the book. She has gone now and we haven’t talked for quite a while. I think she knows I’ve got the message and am acting on her advice, so she is happy because her death was a catalyst for major change in my life. In the time that she chatted to me after her death she would often cajole me, shout at me and badger me into doing things I might never normally have done. Before writing the book I was always a bit of a procrastinator whereas Daryl was the proactive go-getter. I like to think I have made her proud.
Please tell us about the conversation you had with your friend that sparked the idea of the book.
Daryl was a woman of supreme composure, but on the day that she was having her intravenous tube fitted for the chemotherapy and other drugs she wept uncharacteristically. This was the day of our conversation. She suddenly looked me in the eye and said: "I waited too long. Don't make the same mistake. It's too late for me now, but it's not too late for you. You have wanted to write a book for as long as I have known you. Write that book for me. Follow your dream and live it for me. Go and have an adventure. Don't wait for life to come to you. Go and get it."
I promised her I would. That chat changed my life. Thanks to her words I had an adventure and followed my dream. I have so much to thank her for and I hope she knows how grateful I am.
Daryl and I had been friends for 18 years. We were absolute opposites in every way. She was effortlessly cool and chic. I was – am – tempestuous and chaotic. But our friendship worked so well. When she told me she had cancer it came out of the blue and I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Life changed for her – and for me – and became as she described it: a different kind of normal.
Please tell us about the time you spent in Kenya not long after she died.
Daryl's death affected me more than I could ever have imagined possible. She was 49 when she died one warm May morning. Life seemed too cruel. I was desperately trying to adjust to the loss of her and one Saturday morning while reading a newspaper I saw an ad for cheap flights to Kenya. I remembered my childhood in Liberia – Africa is in my blood – and suddenly it seemed the perfect time to return. I booked the flight there and then, knowing neither where I would go nor what I would do once I got there. But one thing I decided I had to do was to go on safari and I selected a company online and booked with them. In usual African fashion, communication with the company was scant and erratic and I landed in Nairobi not knowing even if I would be met by anyone. But my anxiety evaporated when their jolly driver Willy rolled up in his Landcruiser – and I knew then that this would be the trip of a lifetime.
I found being back out in the bush a healing experience. My sorrow and grief lessened, some of it thanks to the charm and hospitality of the safari company owner, a flamboyant man who also happened to be one of Kenya's foremost rally drivers. In Kenya I discovered I knew some people from the UK who had just built a house in a coastal village called Watamu and they invited me to stay after the safari. Our safari host offered to drive me to Watamu. He was taking part in a rally en route and suggested I could travel with his group.
I drew my inspiration for my hero Jamil from the many handsome rally drivers I met and saw on this trip. Aside from their obvious good looks, there is something highly intoxicating about the speed, the heat and the dust. It gave them a devilish sex appeal! True to his word, Mr Safari drove me to Watamu and Al-Hamra, the beautiful house that was to be my home for the next 12 days and where I was left to my own devices in this large luxurious and fully-staffed villa. It was fabulous. I could amble along the beach every day in peace and solitude and the calm of the place helped focus my mind. I have never felt as inspired as I did in that villa. My story started to take shape and once I had begun to write I just couldn’t stop.
The only way I can describe it is to say that 40 odd years of pent-up ideas and creativity burst open like a dam. Here on one of the many terraces, against a backdrop of trickling water fountains, I wrote daily in longhand, formulating the plot for the book. I still have and treasure that battered notebook with its neat handwriting. Without sounding too slushy, it has to be said that Al-Hamra, in all the exotic glory of an Arab African bygone era was exactly what I needed right then. My retreat from the world.
I returned to England thinking that, yes, life was now very much a different kind of normal.
How many autobiographical elements does Alice's character have?
Ah, now that would be telling wouldn’t it? Of course there are elements of me in there, they always say write about what you know. And with a first book that is probably good advice. I have called on all my experiences from the past few years, good and bad, people I have met. Actually, even people I have not met, but know of anecdotally.
Like me, Alice is an only child with parents who lived and worked abroad, and also a journalist.
We both lost a friend to cancer and as a result changed the course of our lives. We both went to Kenya and had an incredible adventure. We both visited Zanzibar.
In temperament Alice, who is much younger than me, is more like my friend Daryl whilst I am more like Olivia. Alice is sweet and calm whilst I am fiery and far from calm.
How much of your journalistic background helped you write this book?
I don’t think I could have written this without my journalistic training. It has helped me form the beginning, middle and end of the story and keep it tight. I trained as a reporter many years ago in the traditional way – mostly unknown to young journalists today. I was indentured on a local paper (that’s like an apprenticeship) for three years and was sent on block release courses to get my diploma in journalism. Local paper training in those days was rigorous and there was no room for error. But it has imbued in me the need for a tight, concise writing style and also the art of strong intros and attention-grabbing prose.
I have a journalist’s mind that registers and retains details other people might miss and I know I can tell a good story. The devil is in the detail.
You have travelled the world. Where is your favourite place to be and why?
Oh, Kenya definitely, because it holds my heart and always will. But a close second is Sweden. I am Swedish so there’s no place like home, especially in the summer with long balmy evenings, endless daylight, stunning countryside and picking blueberries and wild strawberries in cool shady woods. Lots of lazy days in log cabins, messing about in boats on crystal clear lakes.
Elsewhere there are some strong contenders – Liberia, where I had a gloriously carefree childhood in the bush; Costa Rica, where I met my first boyfriend, and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which ignited my fascination with ancient cultures.
How does it feel knowing now that you have fulfilled one of your dreams?
I am still getting used to the fact that I have done it. I am a little shocked that after years of procrastination, I managed to give myself a kick up the backside and get on with it. I thank Daryl every day for encouraging me to live my life, and not waste time. I believe she would be delighted with the outcome. I have written Olivia’s Dead as a tribute to a remarkable woman and wonderful friend.
What is next for you?
I have been working on the sequel to Olivia’s Dead – Blood of Butterflies – and have almost finished it. It’s a much grittier read and even more of a thriller. I realized as I was writing Olivia’s Dead that it worked better when I introduced the thriller element, rather than being just another love story. I have developed the thriller side of the story much more in Butterflies. The themes in Butterflies include terrorism, blood diamonds, death, excitement and more.
I’ve also written a black comedy set in a village graveyard. The idea for that came from visiting Daryl’s grave. It sounds horribly morbid, but is actually rather gently hilarious. A couple of agents and a TV company have looked at it and given me some positive feedback and suggestions for changes, so I am tweaking it at the moment. I could see it as a TV series.
After that – well, I have lots of ideas for more novels. A journalist friend who helped edit Olivia, has a wonderful idea for a dark psychological thriller and we will start that this year. I am planning to pursue a few more of the dreams on my list, too.