BOOKCLUB: Smash All the Windows by Jane Davis

It has taken conviction to right the wrongs.
It will take courage to learn how to live again.

For the families of the victims of the St Botolph and Old Billingsgate disaster, the undoing of a miscarriage of justice should be a cause for rejoicing. For more than thirteen years, the search for truth has eaten up everything. Marriages, families, health, careers and finances.

Finally, the coroner has ruled that the crowd did not contribute to their own deaths. Finally, now that lies have been unravelled and hypocrisies exposed, they can all get back to their lives.
If only it were that simple. 

Tapping into the issues of the day, Davis delivers a highly charged work of metafiction, a compelling testament to the human condition and the healing power of art.

All the members of Triskele Books have long been fans of Jane Davis's books and there was no doubt we'd read her latest novel. Here, Gillian Hamer, Catriona Troth and Liza Perrat respond to JJ Marsh's questions about Smash all the Windows.

JJ: The first thing that struck me about the book was the structure. The book starts with the coroner's verdict. Then it moves back in time to before the disaster happened and to the aftermath. How did the fact that we know what happened in the end affect your experience of the story?

CT: A chronological telling, with the focus on a sequence of events, would have made the book more like a disaster movie. By telling the story in the way she did, Davis ensured that the focus was on the impact of the events on the lives of the characters.
LP: For me, the coroner's verdict was not the crux of this story; it was rather an exploration of the effects of the disaster on the different people involved. Therefore, my story experience was in no way affected by this beginning.
GH: Yes, I agree with Kat, it changed the tone of the book completely because we already knew the people were without fault and helped us focus on the character's stories rather than the guilty or not guilty issue.

JJ: Davis employs a large cast of characters, and as a result, many different points-of-view. What do you see as the advantages of that?

CT: There are so many different human responses to grief, loss and trauma. The multiple points of view of the families of the dead - all written in that close third person point of view that makes the reader inhabit the characters skin - allow us to explore and understand a huge range of those responses.
LP: Yes, I agree with Kat and as such, each individual reader will certainly be able to identify with at least one of these characters.
GH: I think it gave the book a much more rounded and balanced feel, each character had their own story, their own baggage, their own guilt and their own way of coping with their grief.

JJ: Was there a single character you identified with more than most?

CT: Probably Gina. I have been through the phase of having two embattled teenage kids in the house. It's all two easy to imagine what it would be like to have that life cut short - to have everything frozen in a bad moment that you would otherwise have lived through and grown out of. (I've also been a London commuter through two pregnancies, so I had a lot of empathy for Cassie too.)
LP: I identified with many of the characters, but mostly, I'd say, with Jules. I found it amazing the way he could sift through the physical and literal rubble, and create something beautiful and evocative.
GH: I think I connected most with Maggie. I've walked streets and drove to places just to evoke memories and remember what it was like to be there with a loved one I've lost. And I felt a great deal of empathy both for her loss and what she went through trying to defend her daughter's name.

JJ: I was impressed by the way the author made a completely fictional disaster feel so convincing. What were the elements that contributed to its believability?

CT Again, this has something to do with points of view. By showing it to us through the several pairs of eyes, Davis allows us to see it evolve as in a four dimensional reconstruction. But it is also to do with carefully chosen details that would conjure up the Tube to anyone familiar with travelling on it.
LP: I think it was entirely believable as I could truly envisage this kind of disaster occurring. Coupled with the fact that we have actually experienced just these kind of disasters in real life.
GH: There was something of the tragic events of Hillsborough that echoed through my mind as I read this book, and because we know these awful, life-changing events can happen, and that miscarriages of justice aren't as rare as they should be, it added to the whole believability factor that the author created.

JJ: The novel is full of powerfully affecting moments. Are there any that particularly stood out for you?

CT: Very difficult to pick just one. The opening of Ollie's room, Eric's breakdown, Helene finding her role - they were all deeply moving. But I think the opening of the exhibition stands out for me, for all the reasons I explain below.
LP: For me it would have to be when Ollie's room was finally opened.
GH: Again, Maggie coping with her inner grief stood out for me because it felt so real. Gina's battle with her emotions and coming to terms with her son's death in gradual stages was also very powerful.


JJ: There is a sense of closure for some of those left behind at Jules Roche's exhibition, Objets. Why does an artistic representation of people's pain and grief have such an effect?

CT: Visual art, like poetry, distills emotion down to its essence, so it connects directly with our own emotional centres. The descriptions of art pieces probably shouldn't, in theory, be quite so powerful. But I was blown away by Davis's description of the different pieces in Objets. Envisaging each of those art works was a tour de force in itself. Not to give too much away, but crib was an especially stunning concept. I think Davis may be a visual artist manque!
LP: I think because, as each of us is an individual, each person views, loves, hates and/or appreciates, art in completely entirely ways. Just as it is with each individual's perception of pain and grief.
GH: I felt the exhibition acted as a form of closure because it brought everyone together in a 'beautiful' way - rather than in a courtroom. It's difficult not to give the plot away but the objects themselves had real meaning too that seemed to heal those left to cope with the aftermath.

JJ: Jane Davis recently wrote a guest blog for us on the ghosts of fictional characters. This book is shadowed with the spectres of lost individuals, even those not yet born. Yet it did not make me melancholy, instilling if anything a feeling of reverence. What was your feeling when you finished Smash All The Windows?

CT: I think there was an immense feeling of hope, as if Jules has allowed the bereaved - those with whom we have shared this journey at least - to reconnect with those they have lost. This wasn't an anodyne 'everything's all right now' ending - more that each of the characters could now begin a healing process that had been denied them for years.
LP: It definitely left me with hope too; that the characters had been able to acknowledge their grief and could thus continue their lives on a more hopeful and peaceful, arc.
GH: A feeling of closure, not just in the book but in the journey of the characters. The victims' voices had been loud and clear in the earlier sections and flashbacks, and it was as if they had finally fallen silent. I felt sure that the bereaved would now be taking the first small steps towards the rest of their lives with the acceptance that they could never change what had happened but could finally start to learn how to live with it.

Read Liza's Bookmuse review here

Do Fictional Characters Have Ghosts?

 By Jane Davis

 St Mary’s Church in Beddington is normally bolted during the week, but on my mother-in-law’s tenth anniversary, I found the doors unlocked, and so I stepped inside and lit a candle. 

But at the same time as thinking how much Maureen would have liked the building (pointing out that the vicar would never have agreed to play ‘Fat-Bottomed Girls’ at her funeral, as hers did), I was aware of two other presences: Jim and Aimee.

Who are Jim and Aimee? They’re old friends of mine.

There’s something transportative about living in the same neighbourhood all of your life; walking around familiar geography, knee-deep in the history of the place. And superimposed over a street map carried both inside and outside your head (the housing estate that now stands on the site of your old high school), are important milestones. When you learned to ride a bike. Your first kiss. The first flat you owned. But when I started setting fiction within my personal geography, I added an additional strata.

Let me explain. In Smash all the Windows, my character Maggie takes several walks. I work in the City of London so I’m familiar with its streets, so familiar that I was afraid I might neglect the detail. As research for my novel, I walked her routes – from Tower Hill, down the Thames riverside path, over London Bridge, through Borough Market and along Bankside to Tate Modern. I made notes about all of the sights and sounds, notes that made it onto the pages of my book. But now, when I take the same walk, I think, ‘Here’s where Maggie saw the starling’, and ‘Here’s where Maggie bought her copy of the Big Issue’. Her presence is real. Particular locations are now imbued with a certain energy. And by some definitions, such a presence might be called a ghost.

In fact, ghosts are frequent visitors in my daily life. I might park in Shere at the beginning of my favourite walks in the Surrey Hills, and see Sir James Hastings crossing the square from his home, past the war memorial, to the pub he drank in, his elderly German Shepherd called Isambard in tow. (I Stopped Time). I take a short cut through Honeywood Walk in Carshalton and see the tree that caused the collapse of the wall that Judy Jones was buried under (These Fragile Things). I cross the small wooden bridge at the foot of the waterfall in Grove Park and Aimee swirls round, elbows on the rail. (A Funeral for an Owl). I come across a lone stag when out walking in Richmond Park, and somehow it is the stag that blocked Alison’s path, looking her straight in the eye (An Unchoreographed Life).

We live with our characters so long, they’re kin to us. In a way, we know them better than friends and family, because we’ve seen through their eyes and know their every thought. Every single one of these things was a memory of my own, a memory that I’ve since given to a character, and in editing my novels – that constant re-reading – I’ve made the memories more theirs than mine. You might even say that I’m the intruder. Perhaps, inadvertently, I’ve become the ghost.  

Publication Details, Smash all the Windows:
 

It has taken conviction to right the wrongs.

It will take courage to learn how to live again.

For the families of the victims of the St Botolph and Old Billingsgate disaster, the undoing of a miscarriage of justice should be a cause for rejoicing. For more than thirteen years, the search for truth has eaten up everything. Marriages, families, health, careers and finances.

Finally, the coroner has ruled that the crowd did not contribute to their own deaths. Finally, now that lies have been unravelled and hypocrisies exposed, they can all get back to their lives.

If only it were that simple.

Smash all the Windows will be released on 12 April, but you can pre-order it now for the special price of 99p/99c (Price increases to £1.99 on 12 March. Price on publication will be £3.99).

Smash all the Windows is available at all of these retailers.

 

From 13 February to 10 March, US readers can also enter a Goodreads Giveaway for a chance to win one of 100 eBooks.

About Jane Davis

Hailed by The Bookseller as ‘One to Watch’, Jane Davis is the author of eight novels.

Jane spent her twenties and the first part of her thirties chasing promotions at work, but when she achieved what she’d set out to do, she discovered that it wasn’t what she wanted after all. It was then that she turned to writing.

Her debut, Half-truths & White Lies, won the Daily Mail First Novel Award 2008. Of her subsequent three novels, Compulsion Reads wrote, ‘Davis is a phenomenal writer, whose ability to create well-rounded characters that are easy to relate to feels effortless’. Her 2015 novel, An Unknown Woman, was Writing Magazine’s Self-published Book of the Year 2016 and has been shortlisted for two further awards.

Jane lives in Carshalton, Surrey with her Formula 1 obsessed, star-gazing, beer-brewing partner, surrounded by growing piles of paperbacks, CDs and general chaos. When she isn’t writing, you may spot her disappearing up a mountain with a camera in hand. Her favourite description of fiction is ‘made-up truth’.

CONTACT DETAILS

Website
Facebook Page
Twitter
Pinteresthttp://pinterest.com/janeeleanordavi/boards/

Press enquiries: janerossdale@btinternet.com

High resolution photos available from https://jane-davis.co.uk/media-kit/

Literary Fiction – Isn’t it all just clever marketing?

By Jane Davis

Jane Davis

Asked whether she wanted to market her fiction as literary or commercial, Adele Parks enquired, ‘What’s the difference?’ The reply came: ‘Literary fiction sells an average of 7,000 copies. Commercial fiction sells an average of 70,000 copies.’ There was her answer. She wanted to eat.

It’s just as well that the advice received on this occasion was practical. I have always thought that careers’ advisors neglect the question, ‘How much do you want to earn?’ The agent in question might well have waxed lyrical about great literary traditions. Because once an author has made his or her choice, the chances are that they will be pigeon-holed.

Parks was only offered this choice because elements of her writing might be considered to be literary. While we all know what it is not, debate continues about what literary fiction actually is.

"Literary Fiction is experienced as an emotional journey through the symphony of words, leading to a stronger grasp of the universe and of ourselves." (Huffington Post)

‘Literary fiction’ is a label I continue to feel uncomfortable with. As someone with few formal qualifications, it seems arrogant to claim a title shared by the likes of Dickens, Austen and Booker prize-winners. I am also aware that it can be off-putting for some readers, who associate it with something difficult or inaccessible, something that will have them constantly reaching for the dictionary. As John Gardner wrote in The Art of Fiction: “I don't want to be lectured, have issues thrust down my throat or, dare I say it, be called upon to admire the beauty of the language.” While Eimear McBride used her competition wins as a platform to urge publishers to back fiction that is challenging, a large section of readers just want to be entertained.

This week, The Telegraph published an article under the heading, ‘Why Great Novels Don’t Get Noticed.’ In this case, the great novel had been written by Samantha Harvey, whose debut had been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for both the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Guardian First Book Award, and had won the Betty Trask Award. Her third novel, ‘Dear Thief’ had a cover quote from Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, and scores of glowing reviews following its September release, yet, even with these advantages, it has only sold 1,000 copies. Harvey’s editor Dan Franklin explained that, ‘She writes serious books, which is not to the modern taste.’

When we hear Will Self mourn the death of the literary novel, we tend to think of this dilemma as being new. A recent re-reading of Diana Athill’s wonderful memoir ‘Stet’, about her career working as an editor at Andre Deutsch Ltd, served as a reminder that it is anything but. Athill goes on to describe how, when the typescript of a literary book arrived on her desk, she would hope it was bad, because then the decision was easy. But if it was good, the dreaded editorial conference would follow at which the team would estimate how many copies they thought they might shift, and the answer would generally be, ‘About eight hundred’. The decision was then to turn something wonderful in the knowledge that it wouldn’t wash its face, or to accept that they would make a loss.

So, what’s the answer? Kate Mosse, author, founder and defender of the Orange Prize for fiction has found one. She has begun to distance herself from the literary tag, claiming that her skill is story-telling, not literary fiction. The inference is that genre labels are all just clever marketing.


Jane Davis’s debut, Half-truths and White Lies, won the Daily Mail First Novel Award and was described by Joanne Harris as ‘A story of secrets, lies, grief and, ultimately, redemption, charmingly handled by this very promising new writer.’ She was hailed by The Bookseller as ‘One to Watch.’ Five self-published novels have followed: I Stopped Time, These Fragile Things, A Funeral for an Owl, An Unchoreographed Life and now her latest, released March 2015, An Unknown Woman. Jane’s favourite description of fiction is that it is ‘made-up truth.’ http://jane-davis.co.uk/