The Bedside Table Interview: Gaynor Arnold

 Horizon Review: What is on your bedside table at the moment?

A reading lamp and a DAB digital radio that’s almost permanently tuned to Radio 4. At night I there’s also my alarm clock and a glass of water. Usually I have to put my alarm clock onto the floor as my husband complains about the ticking. I have a terrible cold at the moment so a giant box of balsam tissues is jostling for space on the floor along with the phone.

 

HR: Any books there, and why are you reading them?

I can’t get any books actually onto the table, so they sit in a pile on the floor half underneath the bed, next to the phone. I always have at least one book by the bed, and it’s nearly always a ‘pleasure’ read. If the bedside book is particularly gripping I carry it from room to room and read it whenever I have a moment. I did this with An American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, which I’ve just finished, and have now replaced with Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger.

In between those two, I got wrapped up in Michael Slater’s new literary biography of Dickens (a Christmas present) which I initially opened just to peep at the illustrations and then got drawn in. I’m still amazed at the amount of work (and play) Dickens got through in his lifetime. Sarah Waters still nestles beneath the Kleenex awaiting her turn. On top of the bedroom bookcase are the other books I’ve had for Christmas. I love the anticipation of knowing there’s another book ready when I finish the one I’m on.

 

HR: Which is your favourite of those books, and why?

Well, I haven’t read the Waters yet and the Slater biography is probably mainly for Dickens enthusiasts like me, so I’d have to say that the Sittenfeld novel, An American Wife, is the one I’d recommend. The book is loosely based on the life of an American First Lady, and Sittenfeld’s great skill is convincing us (me at any rate) how Charlie Blackwell, an uncomplicated sports-jock of a man, could become President of the United States, as well as managing to attract a wife who is so much more intelligent, gracious and well-read than he is. Sittenfeld’s depiction of the whole Blackwell clan with their in-jokes, ghastly family rituals and challenging summer plumbing, is brilliantly done, a mesh of the Kennedys and the Bushes and perhaps a few other dynastic families too. But it’s primarily a psychological novel about a girl growing up in a small town in Wisconsin and the significant choices she makes.

 

HR: Any books there you’d rather not be reading?

I don’t read books I don’t like these days. It’s one of the joys of being (almost) grown-up. However, sometimes I have to read books offered by publishers and agents who want an opinion — preferably a glowing endorsement they can print on the cover — and it’s a case of noblesse oblige. I’ve one such obligation book which was sent to me by my American publishers just before Christmas, and I have a feeling I should really have a look at it before I start the Sarah Waters, which I really don’t want to do.

 

HR: Any books you wish you could be reading right now, and why?

I don’t think there is anything that can’t wait. In fact I’ve got too much reading matter if I’m to get down to writing my second novel. After The Little Stranger, I have Marilynn Robinson’s Home, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, Dan Simmons’ Drood, Richard Ferguson’s Wanting (Dickens-related, these last two) — and The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon, which was a Secret Santa swap from my writers’ group, so I’ve no idea what to expect.

 

HR: Lastly, are there any books you researched for your debut novel, Girl in a Blue Dress, that you would recommend?

I read around the subject generally for about forty years — just from interest — and deliberately didn’t go back to any of those sources while I was writing my novel, as I wanted the connection between Charles Dickens and my protagonist Alfred Gibson not to be too biographically determined. The only book I re-read beforehand was Dickens as I Knew Him by George Dolby. Dolby was Dickens’ road manager on his reading tours — a period of time not really covered in my book — so it gave me the opportunity to refresh my ideas about how Dickens talked and behaved from a first hand account, without interfering with my own scenarios.

However, for those looking for straight biography, I would recommend Peter Ackroyd’s magnum opus Dickens, which brilliantly brings together most of what was known about him at the time of its publication in 1990. I’d also recommend Michael Slater’s Dickens and Women, Fred Kaplan’s Dickens, Christopher Hibbert’s The Making of Charles Dickens, Claire Tomalin’s The Invisible Woman — about his relationship with Ellen Ternan — and the small but interesting Dickens, Women and Language by Patricia Ingham, which shows how Dickens’ use of language gives a lot away.

The House of Fallen Women by Jenny Hartley gives a fascinating and detailed account of his involvement in a project to rehabilitate destitute and deviant young women, and Dickens’s Young Men by PD Edwards gives a good insight into his later journalistic life and how he ‘managed’ his stable of young assistants.

Lucinda Hawksley’s Katey is especially informative about Dickens’ relationship with his children and what happened to them all after his death. Finally, Michael Slater’s new book Charles Dickens, referred to above, is a huge but very readable biography which concentrates on Dickens’ writing career, looking at every bit of writing he did — his journalism as well as his novels — and all those damn letters he found time to write to everyone.

HR: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions, Gaynor, and good luck with your next writing project!