Summer Reads 2010 - Questions for Mick Jackson

As part of Summer Reads, Mick Jackson, author of The Widow’s Tale, kindly offered to answer questions from readers in Norfolk. Here are his responses.

Liz Ashby: Did you ever consider writing this book as The Widower’s Tale rather than The Widow’s Tale; having a male narrator rather than female?

Mick Jackson: To be perfectly honest, no.  I imagine that’s largely due to how the idea came about – reading the article by Katherine Whitehorn about the loss of her husband and thinking that I’d like to write a piece of fiction about a character in a similar situation.  So I guess an intrinsic part of the reason I found the idea appealing was because it entailed having a female protagonist and seeing things from her point of view.

Megan Ruddock: When you came to Norwich in June you said that The Widow’s Tale was not you’re original title and that there were others you would have preferred. Given the pilgrimage theme that runs throughout the book this surprised me as it seems a perfect title. Was pilgrimage always a central theme in the book or was that aspect increased to fit the title?

Mick Jackson: Actually, The Widow’s Tale was one of the titles I was quite happy with, but there had been plenty that had come before, such as: Widow’s Weeds, Widow’s Walk, Widow-Woman, The Widow-wife, Widow-next-the-sea (I still quite like that, though it’s perhaps a tad too quirky … Cley-next-the-sea is just along the coast), Stations of the Cross, The Blakeney Widow, Widowhood (I’m just searching through my original notes, here – and, trust me, I’m leaving out some of the really bad ones), A Small Black Heart (referring to the bruise under her thumbnail which seemed to correspond to her infidelity) and The Apprentice Widow.  That last one was around for a while.

I had a hunch when I started developing the story that there might be some sort of pilgrimage in there.  I knew that Little Walsingham was nearby and thought I might be able to find a way to fit in, but I was some way into blocking out the book before I realized that the village where she was staying could have some personal resonance.  When I was playing around with the narrative early on, I considered her having an affair with a younger man whilst she was in Norfolk in the present time, but it always felt rather tacky.  Her recalling an earlier affair just seemed to work better.  For what it’s worth, when I’m working on a book, from first having the idea right through to the last revision I’m constantly making little decisions and to some degree each of those thousands of decisions has an impact on the narrative, so it can be difficult in retrospect to work exactly how something came about.

But the debate (between me and my publisher) about the book’s title came after it was finished so I certainly didn’t change the content to fit the title.  No siree.

Megan Ruddock: And on that note, what is the significance of the pilgrimage/religion theme of The Widow’s Tale?

Mick Jackson: Other people have pointed out there’s often religious imagery in my work.  I hadn’t really noticed, but they’re probably right.  And it’s probably a little more overt here.  Some of my protagonists are coming towards the end of their lives or confronting someone else’s death or having a crisis, so I suppose religion is often quite close at hand.  I was brought up in a church-going family, so it has a sort of historical and emotional weight for me.  I imagine that’s probably true for a lot of people.As I hinted above, the theme of my character in The Widow’s Tale having a sort of pilgrimage just evolved as I was researching and developing the book.  I was definitely aware of that, but often it’s not until you’re two-thirds of the way through writing the first draft that these things become clear.  Sometimes it’s only when you give it to someone else to read that they tell you what it’s about.  But it can be a little depressing to spend so long on a project then have to think of a way of describing it in a couple of sentences to go on the back jacket.  I’d quite like people to just read it and decide what it’s about for themselves.  (I should add that I’m grown-up enough to appreciate that that’s not about to happen.  That you need to give the potential buyer/reader some idea what they’re in for, but you have to be careful not to give too much away.)

Anon: What is it that draws you to slightly mad characters like the Widow here, or the Duke in The Underground Man?

Mick Jackson: I imagine I’m just attracted to characters who are in the margins or a little close to the edge (which is literally true in The Widow’s Tale as she’s at the land’s end).  If I had to justify it I’d say that it’s because those situations are where the drama is, but it’s not a conscious thing.

I can see that there are similarities between The Underground Man and The Widow’s Tale, but I don’t see the protagonist in The Widow’s Tale as eccentric in the way that the duke clearly is in The Underground Man.  I mean, she’s frantic and depressed and clearly under pressure but to me she’s quite a regular sort of person who’s just beginning to come to terms with a traumatic event.  Thankfully, plenty of readers seem to agree with me.  I’ve read reviews in which she’s described as unsympathetic or a drunk or mad, but she’s never seemed any of those things to me.

There’s no denying that I’m interested in the eccentric and the arcane and the gothic.  I’ve no idea where that comes from, but I was a little shocked when one of the reviews described me as eccentric – in a very flattering review, by the way … in fact, Faber used the quote on the cover of one of my books.  But I do sometimes think, ‘Well, my books may be eccentric, but that doesn’t mean I am.’

Lauren Higbee: What do you imagine the Widow was hoping to find when she looks for Paul?

Mick Jackson: I don’t think she knew.  I don’t think she was thinking that clearly.  Or to put it another way, whatever she was chasing after came from a buried, unconscious need.

Certainly, when she jumps in the car at the start of the novel she has no grand plan as to where she’s going or what she hopes to find.  Her first instinct was to get out of London, then she had to choose which road to take.  Once she ended up on the north Norfolk coast she had the chance to turn over some of those memories and things move on from there.  Perhaps a psychologist would say that it’s no coincidence that she ends up in that particular place.

But by the time she’s doing her low-level bit of stalking later on I think she’s clearly deluded to some degree.  And, in one sense at least, she just wants to be near someone who once loved her.  Wants to be comforted and consoled.   Right at the end, as she says herself, she wants to tell him how their affair had screwed up her marriage.  But I’m one of those people who feels that half the time we really aren’t aware of our motivations – that life is never that cut and dried.  The temptation when writing a book is to make things much more straightforward.  Perhaps that’s why we like stories – they’re equations that can be solved.  But the longer I write the more I try to resist that temptation.  I prefer things to be a little messy.

Anon: On the second to last page the Widow says:
“It may well be that there is some terrible entropy at work. That everything that is, and ever was, is slowly torn apart. But human beings aren’t built for living under those sort of conditions. We need to draw things together. We need to decide what is precious to us. What is sacred. And hold onto them.”
What is the Widow saying here? That it is only by drawing herself together again that she can start the rest of her life. Or is it a wider comment about the fragility of humanity and the need for stability in life through relationships (even imperfect marriages like hers), religion, and such like?

Mick Jackson: That really is a difficult question.  Not least because we’re talking about the concluding moments of the novel and I really wouldn’t want to be too prescriptive about how a reader interprets it.

All I’d say is that she’s been desperately depressed and has come to the conclusion that either she focuses on what’s gone wrong in her life or appreciates some of those things that are important to her.  She’s been to Walsingham and whilst that didn’t quite work out for her she’s beginning to appreciate that she has her own spirituality, in which people / places / events in her life are sacred, and she takes strength from that.