Author Q&A: Clare Pooley

This Q&A is edited for brevity and clarity. You can listen to the taped interview on my podcast Elena Meets the Author.

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Hi Clare, can you first tell us about your inspirations for writing How to Age Disgracefully?

I think the main inspiration for the book came because I turned fifty-five and I realised that I am closer to sixty than fifty. And yet, I didn’t feel any different from the way I felt when I was in my twenties. And I don’t imagine that when I’m in my seventies, I’m going to feel very different either.

And I was fed up with the way that in film, TV, and novels, the older generation are so often depicted as people who are hopeless with technology, at sea in the modern world, a bit sad and lonely, and they’re generally saved by the younger generation.

I thought actually, I want to see older characters who are bossing it, who are using the wisdom that they’ve accumulated and are actually teaching the younger generation how to navigate the world rather than vice versa. So, that was where it started from.

And, in addition to that, I started seeing a number of newspaper reports and TV programs about these centres in the Netherlands where they combine senior care and nursery care. Apparently, it works incredibly well having seniors and toddlers in the same space.

The final thing is I heard this great story about this very famous jewellery raid in Hatton Garden in London, where all the culprits were in their seventies. I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to take a group of senior citizens, mix them with a group of younger people, and give them very naughty backstories.

This is your third novel, the first two being runaway successes, as I’m sure this one will be too. Novel number one, The Authenticity Project, was translated into thirty-two languages. You wrote that in your late forties– 

Yes, actually it was published when I was fifty.

How did you get the idea for The Authenticity Project?

That was probably the most autobiographical of my novels. I think many writers start off with their first novel being most closely tied to their own lives. And The Authenticity Project really was about what happens when strangers tell the truth about their lives and the impact that it has on other people – how it can create a sort of real community, which effectively is exactly what happened when I started blogging.

So, I told the truth about my life, which is very different from what people saw on my social media or at the school gate or whatever. One of the characters in The Authenticity Project, Hazard, is an alcohol and cocaine addict. So, his story mirrors mine to an extent.

You said something about how you could use the invisibility of being a senior to your advantage in How to Age Disgracefully.

I think when you get past about the age of fifty, particularly as a woman, you do start feeling like you’re a bit invisible. And that makes me really cross, but it suddenly struck me that there are real advantages to invisibility, because you can sort of sneak under the radar. So, one of my main characters is called Daphne. And at the beginning of the book, we know that she is sort of mysteriously wealthy. We don’t know where she gets her money from. We don’t know why she’s been in hiding for fifteen years. And gradually, we discover her backstory. And let’s just say she’s not been entirely good her whole life, but who has by the time they get to seventy?

When timid, menopausal Lydia takes over the senior centre which Daphne has just joined, Lydia suggests they could play bingo, bridge, or maybe even just sing. The septuagenarians suggest otherwise. What about skydiving? Target practice? Speed dating? What other stereotypes are high on your list besides ageism?

I started writing nonfiction as a form of therapy. And when I moved into fiction, I still write as therapy, so I still write about the things that make me angry. And things I want to change and things I want to understand. Ageism, sexism are some of those things. Addiction is another.

There’s a line of Daphne’s where she talks about how she’s gone from the frying pan of sexism into the fire of ageism.

Moving on to canines, in this book there’s a dog called Maggie Thatcher. And in your first book it was Keith. And in Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting, Lulu. Do you have a lot of fun choosing dog names? What extra element do dogs bring to a book that humans might not?

I think dogs are really important in books because the way a person reacts to a dog says a lot about them. With the dog Maggie Thatcher, three different characters take turns looking after her.

The different ways they look after her says a huge amount about them. The reason I chose the name Maggie Thatcher is because the three characters that adopt Maggie Thatcher are not fans of the original Maggie Thatcher – and they all call her different variations of her name.

One calls her Maggie, one calls her M, another one calls her Margaret. They can’t even agree on her name, let alone what to feed her, or what the rules are about sitting on the furniture, and that sort of thing. I think having a world without dogs would be very sad. I have to live with this imaginary world in my head for two years and so I wanted to have a dog in it. I like my worlds to have dogs.

You quote a fellow author referring to the point when the author becomes the character’s personal assistant (PA) – how when the words flow, it’s like taking dictation. How quickly does that happen to you when you’re working on a novel?

Oh God, you’re never entirely sure that it will. There’s a magical turning point when your characters go from feeling very awkward and wooden and two-dimensional and you’re telling them constantly what to say and what to do, and it feels like really hard work – and then suddenly (if you’re lucky, and as I said, you’re never quite convinced that it is going to happen) they start improvising. And at that point, you’re just writing down what they’re doing. And it’s the most magical thing when it happens, if it happens. And for me, it takes at least three months before I get to that point.

It’s often at the point where I say to my agent, this isn’t working. I’m going to have to throw it away and start again. And she goes, “no, no, no, no, no, let’s not be too hasty.” And at that point, often, things start to change. It’s just when you start to despair, I find.

I listened to this great quote by Frederick Backman. He did a fabulous short talk called “Creative Anxiety” in the US and it’s on YouTube. He says that being a novelist is the best way he can think of to get paid for being insane. You spend your whole life in an imaginary world talking to imaginary people and then thinking that they are talking through you, and you’re just some sort of PA. It makes you feel insane – insane in a good way, but totally insane.

Writing a book requires deep reserves of energy. What do you do to prepare?

I like to get away. I live in London, and I love London. I get a lot of creative energy from it because it’s filled with people of all nationalities, all ages, all types. The food is really varied and eclectic. It has an amazing theatre scene, cinema, and art. So, in terms of filling that well of creativity, London is the most amazing place. But London can make you feel depleted of energy sometimes because it’s so full on. It can be exhausting. So, I like to get away at the beginning of the writing process. And my favourite place to go is Cornwall, which is right down in the southwest of the country.

It’s just one of the most beautiful places on earth. That fills my energy reserves.

I like to be out in the wild. I like the contrast between city and wildness. That’s what gives me my reserves.

Your books take place in cities, which provide you with so much creative energy.

One of my great inspirations was Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. He wrote about 1970s San Francisco. Those books were set around a boarding house that was owned by Mrs Madrigal. That house brought together a really eclectic group of people who became very firm friends. That series lodged in my subconscious because that’s what I love to do – take people in a city who are very different, different ages, different backgrounds, different types, and somehow bring them together in a way that creates an extraordinary sort of alchemy.

I love asking authors what they would be doing if they weren’t an author, but somebody else beat me to it with you. I saw that you said in an interview, if I wasn’t an author, I’d love to be a witch. Can you expand?

I love books about witchcraft. I don’t know if you’ve read Weyward by Emilia Hart yet?

Not yet.

It’s a great book, about three generations of witches. I’m fascinated by things like The Crucible and the Salem witch trials. In the UK we had many witch trials in the mediaeval times. I’m fascinated by that whole sort of witchy thing. My little party trick is I will read people’s palms or do tarot cards. So, yes, I would love to be a witch.

And then you said something in your book that piqued my curiosity: Never trust a yucca. Why not?

When I create characters, I always start from thinking what is this person good at? What does this person struggle with? What do they find really hard? What’’s their fatal flaw? And I start from that, and then I sort of add these little layers and details over time, and they become more and more three-dimensional and interesting.

One of Daphne’s little quirks is that she talks to her plants. And I thought she’s the sort of person who would dislike a particular plant just because she herself is quite spiky. She’s not the sort of person who would treat all plants the same.

And tell us, are you working on your next book? I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, because it’s too early. Are we likely to see stereotypes dealt with there?

Yes. But a completely different sort of stereotype, and different age group. I’m at that really scary stage though, where I’ve written about 20 percent of it and I’ve sent it to my editors to check whether they’re happy with the way it’s going.

And now I’m waiting to hear back. So as a result, I feel I really can’t talk about it, because, you know, I have thrown a whole book in the bin between The Authenticity Project and Iona Iverson. It took me a year and I threw it in the bin. So I worry about jinxing it. 

Don’t jinx it, because I want to be interviewing you again in two years’ time. I love all your characters.

I was telling somebody that I don’t know how authors can write things like psychological thrillers or horror or extreme crime novels because I would find it really disturbing and hard to live with these characters in my head for two years.

I have to know them really well and I have to really like them for them to be able to take up that headspace, so I’m glad you like them too. Imagine if you had an axe murderer in your head. What does that do to you?

Says a little bit about the author possibly. But we don’t need to go there. Anyway, this was great Clare. Thank you very, very much.