Page Turner: Writing is not therapy

What is your latest book about?

Earlier I wrote on Mary Wollstonecraft and her feminist ideas. After that I wanted to see them being worked out in her pupils and her daughters. The Irish pupils are the subject of “Daughters of Ireland, The Rebellious Kingsborough Sisters and the Making of a Modern Nation” (Random House) and her daughters, especially Fanny Imlay but also Mary Shelley, are the subject of my next book. I want to show how Wollstonecraft’s radical ideas become culturally influenced when they are adopted by Irish aristocrats and by younger women living in the conservative years of the 19th century.

What is your writing routine? Are there ideal conditions?

I write just about every day, especially in the early morning. Like a lot of women in the past I am happy to write in a house with someone else or in a crowded public space. I find I can get completely lost in what I am doing and sit far too long for “health and safety.” I keep meaning to get up every hour and do press-ups as we are told to do….

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

It depends. If success and money are most important, follow or try to second-guess fashion. If it isn’t, then enjoy yourself and write what you want. Just occasionally the two might come together. One other thing: writing is not therapy.

Name three books that are memorable in terms of your reading pleasure?

Well it has to be Jane Austen first; “Persuasion” is a constant and absolute favorite. I also love Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey.” I love loads of contemporary novels, including those of my friend Anita Desai, especially “Clear Light of Day.” In a very different mode I loved Hilary Mantel’s “A Place of Greater Safety” about the French Revolution.

What book are you currently reading?

“Whoever you choose to love,” a collection of short stories by Colette Paul, a young friend from Glasgow where I used to teach.

Is there a book you wish you had written?

“Yes, According to Queenie” by Beryl Bainbridge. It has a light touch about serious subjects and seems to me a brilliant way to do fiction and biography.

Name a book that you were pleasantly surprised by?

I had always avoided reading Elizabeth Bowen, having heard that she was what might be described as “sentimental” Irish. But then I read “The House in Paris” and was hooked.

If you could meet one author, living or dead, who would it be?

After having attended many book readings and signings I have concluded I don’t really want to meet writers outside their books.

What book changed your life?

In terms of my professional life the influential book has to be Kate Millett’s “Sexual Politics,” wrong on almost all of its precise readings of books but absolutely mind-blowing in its approach to literature. I knew I felt there was something distasteful about D.H. Lawrence who was, according to my Cambridge tutor F.R. Leavis, the greatest novelist but only when I read Millett could I cut through all the arguments about style and form and accept that fiction is also about content and is made through interaction with the reader, her life and her moment. I was working in America at the time and from then on I became devoted to the feminist project of investigating and excavating forgotten women writers, many of whom are now as studied and written about as Lawrence once was.

What is your favorite spot in Ireland?

I am always moved by places that have particular literary or historical associations, especially when these concern someone or some events I am working on or have worked on, I found Kilworth, near Mitchelstown, a favorite place. I could have walked for weeks round its houses, the inn, the bridge and the old stables in what is left of the great house grounds. I found these remnants of what had been more moving than the preserved “heritage” houses of Carton and Castletown, which are of course lovely in their own way.

You’re Irish if . . .

Alas I am Welsh. There are similarities and differences. The Welsh made the mistake of going to the Appalachians instead of Boston and therein hangs a tale…