Catherine Dunne
What can you tell us about your new book The Things We Know Now?
Like all novels, THE THINGS WE KNOW NOW is ‘about’ many things – love, loss, guilt, parenthood, adolescence – but the real beating heart of the story is a family in crisis. Patrick and Ella, happily married, are the loving and conscientious parents of Daniel, a talented and artistic child. When Daniel dies suddenly, his parents’ lives are shattered: they are distraught, baffled. The novel explores their relationship with their son and their desperate search for the answers that will help them understand Daniel’s life and the forces that shaped him.
They have to confront difficult truths about themselves and each other before peace and redemption are possible.
The story is of a family Patrick Ella and Daniel, so how important is family to you?
Family is hugely important to me. I grew up with two brothers, with several aunts and uncles and cousins within easy striking-distance. It’s where I learned about intimacy, loyalty, friendship – and fighting!
As a writer, the theatre of the family is where I like to spend my imaginative life. On every family stage, there is love, resentment, rivalry and conflict: all the ingredients that are essential for the telling of a compelling and suspenseful story.
You have been praised for taking everyday lives and making them compelling fiction, so how have you developed this talent?
I think one of the most important things for me is that I love to dig below the surface of things, to ask that most important of writer’s questions: What if?
What I have discovered – and keep on rediscovering – is that there is no such thing as an ‘ordinary’ or ‘everyday’ life. Each individual experience is extraordinary, no matter what it looks like from the outside. For me, the ‘ordinary’ is story-worthy, precisely because it leads to the exploration of startling and unexpected inner lives.
Many people like to read your books, but who do you read?
Authors too numerous to mention! Right now, I’ve got several books on the go: Hilary Mantel’s ‘Bring Up the Bodies’, James Salter’s ‘Burning the Days’ and a book of short stories by Irish authors called ‘Silver Threads of Hope’. I feel as though my reading life is a constant process of catching up – there are so many books that I want to read, and so little time! My bedside table is proof of this quandary…
What is your favourite novel?
Now, that’s a tough one! I’m going to choose a few that I think were outstanding – books that stayed with me long after I had finished them, books that had a huge impact at particular times in my life.
‘Life Before Man’ by Margaret Atwood, ‘The Shipping News’ by Annie Proulx, and ‘What I Loved’ by Siri Hustvedt. The wonderful thing about reading is that I keep on finding new voices, new stories – and this never ceases to be a rewarding and satisfying voyage of discovery.
Which authors have affected your wrriting over the years?
Most certainly Margaret Atwood. I came across her books in Canada in the seventies, when I was beginning to flex my own writing muscle, however tentatively. Up until then, fiction for me had meant rural stories, written by men – with the obvious exception of Edna O’Brien. Atwood showed me that the domestic, urban, ‘ordinary’ lives of her female characters were fruitful subjects for well-written, insightful and compelling fiction.
Many of you books have been optioned for film, sho who would play Patrick and Ella if this one were adapted?
Liam Neeson would be my perfect Patrick: physically imposing, with great presence and the wisdom of having lived a complex life. Cate Blanchett can be Ella anytime: her emotional range is stunning.
Tell us about your writing process, what is your daily routine?
I hate a cluttered desk. It makes my head feel cluttered, too. So every morning, the first thing I do is clear any paperwork that’s hanging around from the day before. This includes my ‘virtual desk’ – so I deal with emails, Facebook messages and, if I can, phone calls. Once the clutter is cleared, I get down to what I regard as the real work.
On a good day, while I’m at the first draft stage, a thousand words is great progress. Some days are longer than others – if the work is going well, I lose complete track of time.
The words produced will be rough, though – stream of consciousness, unformed ideas, bits and pieces of dialogue. If writing a novel is like climbing a mountain, then the first draft is akin to putting on your boots and assembling all the bits of equipment you need before the climb begins in earnest.
And first drafts never get any easier – because, after all, each one is the first time you’ve tackled the initial draft for this particular book.
Tell us about some of your previous novels for fans of this book.
I like to immerse myself in something different with every novel. My characters are always the most important part of the narrative.
I live with each book for around two years, day in, day out, so I’d find it very unsatisfying to write to formula.
My last novel, ‘MISSING JULIA’ is the story of a woman who simply walks out of her life one morning, leaving her partner and family baffled as to the reasons for her disappearance. Her partner, William, is unwilling to let Julia go and he follows her, understanding the clues that she seems to have left him. Julia has a secret, one that she has been keeping for many years, and it threatens to destroy everything she has lived and worked for.
Part mature love story, part psychological thriller, part mystery, ‘JULIA’ was very well-received by critics and readers alike.
I’m interested in the secrets people keep, and why they keep them. The previous novel ‘SET IN STONE’ is a psychological thriller in which secrets from the past return to threaten an apparently secure and affluent middle-class family.
Lynda, the central character, is forced to fight to protect her family and in the process, discovers some uncomfortable truths about her family as well as the inner resources that she never knew she had.
What is next for you?
Novel number ten! I’ve started on the nursery slopes but I never reveal anything about my current work-in-progress. Writing has a certain element of magic dust attached to it: luminous and fragile, it can blow away if not nurtured and protected in silence.