Alice has a perfect life – a great job, happy kids, a wonderful husband. Until he goes missing one night; she receives a suspicious phone call; things don’t quite add up.
Alice needs to know what’s going on. But when she uncovers the truth she faces a brutal choice. And how can she be sure it is the truth?
Sometimes it’s better not to know.
What Alice Knew is published by Black Swan on 4th May 2017.
What Alice Knew is Bibliomaniac's Book Club choice for June. You can find my review of
What Alice Knew here and everything you need to run a book group session on
What Alice Knew here.
But this post is a
Bibliomaniac Book Club EXTRA! Questions for TA Cotterell himself! Read on for some fascinating insights into the novel, the author TA Cotterell and his favourite painting. Thanks so so much to TA Cotterell for answering my questions and taking part in this special blog post as part of my June Book Club feature. I am very grateful! I hope you all enjoy reading his answers as much as I did!
Can you sum up the
book in one line?
What Alice Knew is a psychological thriller that turns on a
character and an idea rather than a set of fingerprints and a smoking gun.
What is your most
favourite portrait painting? Why?
Edward Hopper’s ‘A Woman in the Sun’ (1961). Hopper captures
the solitariness of existence better than any other painter. His people,
whether standing naked or playing the piano or sitting at a bar, are always
alone, whether they are depicted in company or otherwise, whether it is his
wife (as in this case) or a stranger. I hope I caught something of that quality
in Alice. In Hopper’s art there is no possibility of communication or
interaction, no sense of togetherness. Yet the paradox is that through this
separateness his work communicates something to us about the mystery of
existence far more powerfully than if there were jovial figures socialising. Often
one sees a lonely house or service station, or near-empty bar or café, particularly
at night, and a Hopper image leaps to mind. In such a way he creates some sort
of communion where there is none.
"What is a portrait if not the opening up
of a character, the physical manifestation of the story of a life." [What Alice Knew]
If you could write a
story behind the face in one painting (portrait or scene) which painting might
you choose?
‘Bonaparte on the Bridge at Arcole’ (1801) by Jean-Antoine
Gros
This painting really is ‘the physical manifestation of the
story of a life’, and portraiture, as Alice knows, “spares no one”.
Classicism and Romanticism are the twin poles of art
history. The former venerates order, reason, drawing, the study of the
ancients; the latter energy, emotion, colour, innovation. They are mutually
exclusive.
Gros trained under a stern Classicist, Jacques-Louis David,
but his sensibility was Romantic. Unable to restrain his impulses he painted a
series of paintings, such as this, noted for their dazzling brushstrokes, bold
colours, rejection of Classical ideals of composition, near abstract
backgrounds, sacrifice of clarity to effect, and rejection of the conventions
of portraiture. In such works, Gros became the founding father of Romanticism
and looked forward to, and hugely influenced, Romantic masters such as
Delacroix and Géricault. A direct line can be drawn (or painted) between
Napoleon on the Bridge and Liberty on the Barricades.
David was horrified. From post-revolutionary exile, he
poured scorn on his former pupil and exhorted him to return to classical
ideals. The sensitive Gros wilted under his glare and, betraying his nature,
retreated into a sterile Classicism.
But the world had moved on. Delacroix and his Romantic
followers dominated the Salon; Gros (and David) had nothing to offer. That is
why this portrait resonates: Napoleon, marching forwards, looking backwards,
becomes a metaphor for his creator. Gros had turned his back on his destiny,
leaving suicide as the only rational, if Romantic, option.
I would like to write this story because although we are
familiar with the external events – David’s entreaties, Gros’ reluctant retreat
to Classicism, his suicide – it would be fascinating to try to get inside Gros’
mind and understand the conflict as he slid towards his suicide. The psychological
conflict between what someone must do and yet cannot lies at the heart of every
story.
This book is written
in the voice of a female character. In my opinion it is completely convincing.
Can you tell me a bit about how you found writing from a female point of view
and if it was more challenging than writing in the voice of a man?
I was not intending to write in the voice of Alice. The
novel was originally written in its entirety in the third person. I sent it to
agents but the message came back that the story had possibilities but that Ed
was too dull. This was a reasonable response to a page or so and a synopsis,
because it was reasonable, if wrong, to assume Ed was the protagonist. For the
same reason everyone can remember Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction but not
the name of the actress who played his wife.
Of course, I knew Alice was the protagonist rather than Ed because
Ed is, for most of the novel, simply a ‘dangling man’ unable to shape events. I
tried to raise Alice in the mix but eventually realised the optimal solution
was to re-write the story entirely from her perspective.
The re-write was far more challenging as I was forced to
confront male received wisdom about womanhood. I was unable to rely on
instinctive responses to situations but had to question those responses. I had
to reject stereotypes and be permanently alive to the danger of slipping into
generic characterisation. This was a good thing as it allowed no writing on
‘autopilot’.
Ultimately, I tried to circumvent the imaginative leap
required by writing less as a ‘female’ than as a ‘human being’. Although I hope
Alice feels fundamentally ‘feminine’, she is ultimately a human being
struggling with forces beyond her control. It is the conflict between what she
believes (or thought she ‘knew’) and harsh reality, which undermines her belief,
drains her self-confidence and sets in train the denouement.
Have you ever known
something you wish you hadn’t? Have you ever told a white lie that grew into
something much bigger?
I know a secret about unhappiness and betrayal in a friend’s
marriage that I wish I didn’t.
When I was a child I stole from the village sweetshop. I was
caught and banned but was too ashamed to tell my parents. There was a second
sweetshop that was further away, which I had to pretend I preferred. Although
the lie never became bigger, it became ever more contorted as I attempted to
justify why I “preferred” walking further to a less good shop. It was an early
and salutary lesson in where lying can take you.
Generally, people are unwise to confide in me. Unless a
secret is very important (as defined by me!), I’m not good at keeping it. For a
while after university I was a stockbroker salesman. One day I rang a client
and told him something and he responded: “Not only did I tell you that… but I
told you not to tell anyone.” I realised I needed a new career.
I wonder now if one shouldn’t expect novelists to be good
secret-keepers, or if it would be contradictory for them to be so. Their job,
after all, is to take secrets and inner lives and expose them to the public
gaze. It is the exposure, the breach of trust, that makes a novel interesting.
There are several big
themes in this novel for example, truth, marriage, friendship and parenting. Was
there one theme in particular you were interested in writing about?
All those themes you’ve picked up were of interest to me but
if I had to pick one it would be truth. The lack of truth and the need to keep
a secret is both the fount and engine of the novel. Around the time I was
starting What Alice Knew I learnt a secret about my parents that made me
question how far the basis of trust in a family is eroded if there are secrets.
However, I was also conscious that children do not necessarily have a right to
know everything about their parents, who are individuals struggling to live
their own lives just as the children are or will. It is the conflict between
these two conflicting but eminently justifiable positions that pulls Alice and
Ed apart.
What question would
you like to put to a book group about “What Alice Knew”?
I would like to ask how they found the ending. I believe (I
would!) that Alice is a red-blooded, admirable and compelling if not
necessarily always likeable character. Clearly the ending loses its power if
the reader doesn’t share that view. Yet some readers who are engaged by Alice feel
the ending is too open-ended. Obviously(!) I disagree. It is hard to go into
detail without spoiling it, but I’d love if I reader could reach the critical
moment and shake their head in disbelief, thinking ‘hold on, that can’t have
happened’. But then, as they consider the trajectory of the book and the
characters, they begin to think ‘yes, that could have happened’ and finally
‘not only could it have happened, it had
to happen.’
Can you tell us
anything about your next writing project?
I have started a novel with the working title ‘Prospect Row’,
which is the name of a street in Cambridge. The idea was sparked by a line in
‘What Alice Knew’. It occurs when she is trying to extricate herself from having
to paint three portraits. The second man she calls, Alex Quoyle, is a property
dealer ‘who preyed on old ladies with short leases’. There was something
pregnant about that line. It begged questions. Although the book I have started
has moved a long way from that character and idea, it is still about a property
dealer whose life is going wrong and whose wife (in)advertently makes things
worse. There will be a dead body, and a set of fingerprints and smoking gun,
but again the focus will be on character and motive, and that little grey area we
can all get lost in between right and wrong.
Thank you so much for such interesting and detailed answers. I really appreciate your time and really enjoyed hearing your thoughts. I am intrigued by your new novel and can't wait to read it!
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What Alice Knew.
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