The Little, Brown Blog talks to Linda Gillard, author of Star Gazing - shortlisted for the 2009 Romantic Novel of the Year Award - about the background to the story and what it means to her to receive the nomination.
LBB: What made you decide to choose a blind woman as your heroine? Linda: Star Gazing is set in Edinburgh and on the Isle of Skye, where I lived for seven years. Trying to write about somewhere as beautiful as Skye is daunting. What can you say that hasn't already been said? How do you avoid descending into breathless travelogue cliché? I decided I would write about the landscape, but from an unusual point of view, or rather no point of view. I would make my heroine blind - and not just blind, but congenitally blind. She would have no visual frame of reference at all. And because I dearly love a writing challenge I decided I would tell a good deal of the story in the first person, from my blind heroine's 'point of view'. Could it be done? I didn't know. I embarked on my third novel in the spirit of an experiment. Writing the book took me on an amazing journey to a world I'd never imagined. (Which is pretty much what happens to Marianne when the hero, Keir, takes her to Skye.) LBB: Much of the story is set on Skye - why did you choose this particular island? Linda: Until quite recently, I lived there. I lived on Skye for 7 years and moved to Glasgow about 6 months ago. I'm still not sure if it was a good idea. I'm very homesick for the island. I love Glasgow and my daughter lives near by but I miss the silence and the stars. LBB: Were there many challenges in writing from the point of view of someone who's blind? Linda: It was certainly tricky to begin with. I'm not blind or visually impaired and I didn't even know anyone who was. I kept dropping into 'sighted-speak', but once I got into it, I actually found it quite easy (and so much more interesting!) to write from a blind 'point of view'. I did some research of course, but mostly I relied on my imagination. It was certainly a challenge having to create a hero by describing how he sounded, felt and smelt! But rather exciting actually. The romantic bits of the book are quite sensuous, I think. LBB: How did you research this? Linda: There's very little in print form written by the congenitally blind. There's a lot of biography written by people who have lost their sight, but that wouldn't have been the same at all. So I researched online. (Where would authors be without Google?) I relied largely on my imagination and just made things up. I figured there wouldn't be many readers who could tell me I'd got it wrong (at least not before the audiobook came out.) But in fact I must have got it mostly right. I had an email from a reader in Canada whose daughter suffers from Marianne's condition (Leber's congenital amaurosis/LCA) and he said he thought I'd captured his daughter's experience very well - so much so, he was going to have the book brailled for her. LBB: Your hero is sympathetic, but not to a soppy extent. How important was it to get his manner towards your heroine just right? Linda: Keir is a strange - and to me, adorable - mix. He is a huge, dour Highlander with a caustic sense of humour, but at the same time he loves music and is passionate about conservation and the natural world. Keir is a sensitive and vulnerable man, too shy even to make eye contact with women, which is why he clicks with blind Marianne. He can open up to her. But he makes no allowances for her condition. He doesn't patronise or protect her, simply because he doesn't see her as disabled in any way. "You have eyes, Marianne," he says, "They're just not in your sockets." It's because Keir refuses to see Marianne as limited in any way that he's able to open up another world for her, a world of adventurous experiences quite new to her - wildlife, stars, mountains and his wonderful treehouse. LBB: Star Gazing has now been shortlisted for the RNA award. What does being shortlisted mean to you? Linda: I am absolutely thrilled, but surprised at the same time. I never would have thought a book about a blind, 45-year old widow could speak to so many people. Women over 40 just don't appear in books as romantic heroines, certainly not having raunchy sex in a treehouse. I was aware I was breaking new ground with the book and I am very pleased to see that readers and judges have responded so positively. But when all's said and done, Star Gazing is very romantic. I defy anyone to read that last chapter without a tear in their eye!
You can read a two-chapter extract from Star Gazing here on the Little, Brown Blog and read this news item for more information on Linda's nomination for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award!
Posted 16/01/2009 16:33:12 by Darren Turpin with 0 comments.