I attended a Q&A with Sarah Waters at Norwood library last night, which was fascinating. She's a lovely, fluent talker who fielded questions with tact and intelligence and gave some real insights into her working process. I must go back and re-read if only for the delicious spookiness of the brown smudges. Interestingly, she found out the electrical procedure used to treat Roderick's leg is known as 'Faradism'; apparently the coincidence (the narrator being Dr Faraday) was too much for her to be able to put that in the book, but spooky, no?
(I might add the evening was only slightly marred by the terribly officious librarians, who needed to clearly demonstrate who was in charge by pointedly asking each and every person 'Have you booked?' If the answer was yes, you were shown through with a smile; should you say - as I did - 'No and was I meant to as it doesn't say anywhere that you had to', you got told to line up for the 'yes' people to contemplate their 'There-but-for-the-grace-of-god' fate as they ambled past. I wouldn't have minded if it weren't for the fact that there were at least 5 seats near me going spare once they'd assessed status and ushered everyone in. Not to dwell, but really, if libraries are in such strife - and I am a staunch supporter - isn't it even a little incumbent upon them to act graciously and hostingly and make everyone welcome so they come back and join...? Just a thought.)
Anyway, sorry, hot news is her next book is taking a leap back 10-20 years and she'll be exploring the 20s and 30s. The bad news is she's a really slow writer, so could be 2011. Relish, absorb and memorise The Little Stranger in the meantime... Oh and apparently she has laid cunning clues throughout so that the ending is not such a mystery.
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