by Linda Green
The last few months haven’t been easy, but they have also been the best four months of my life. Yes, being a single mum is hard. Yes, I’m still crap at sleep deprivation and yes, sometimes I collapse in a heap at the end of the day and cry. And it’s important I tell you that, which is why I’ve posted stuff on the tough days too. Because for every glowing, smiling Facebook post there’s another one that doesn’t get posted. One that shows the other side of life – the tough times, the tears, the terror of getting through another day.
But today I’m doing a positive post, which is why I’ve got a smiley photo of me and Harry to go with it. Because today I am simply happy to be alive.
About This Book
Warning: Spoiler Alert!
Sadly, it was the deaths of two friends that led to me writing this book. I had been playing around with the idea of writing a novel about a young woman who finds pages of her life story and has to choose between keeping every detail the same or changing it all. I was interested in how, when we say we’d like to change the past, we often forget that the thing that we’d like to change may have had a positive consequence as well as a negative one. However, it wasn’t hanging together as a novel and didn’t seem to have much modern relevance.
When a friend died from breast cancer, it was my first experience of losing someone who I was friends with on Facebook, as well as in real life. Before her death, her family and friends used social media in a positive way to help raise money for her children, giving her huge peace of mind in her final days. What I also discovered was that reading the messages that her friends posted on her timeline after her death was enormously comforting and built a new community of friends (many of whom had never met before).
My second friend died in very different circumstances. She had documented her mental health problems on Facebook, and when she sadly took her own life, there was an outpouring of grief on her timeline from people whose names and photos I recognised as those who had, like me, tried to offer support to her on Facebook during her troubled life.
Again, there was comfort in reading other people’s memories of her and piecing together the areas of her life I hadn’t known much about. When I attended her funeral, I got talking with some of the people whose tributes I had read on her Facebook timeline.
Since their deaths, friends of both have continued to post thoughts and memories of them on their timelines, particularly on significant dates. As I write this, I have been reminded by Facebook that one of them will be celebrating her birthday this week. She won’t, of course, but what will happen is that loved ones will post tributes on her Facebook page as part of this new phenomenon of social mourning.
That is how the premise of this novel developed, from the idea that if someone saw the outpouring of grief on social media after their future death, it may impact on the way they lived their life.
Look away now if you haven’t already read the novel, but the obvious situation for this was one of domestic violence. As a journalist, I had covered so many appalling cases and interviewed many women about their experiences of domestic violence, as well as spoken to men about how they had become a perpetrator (and I’d like to make it clear at this point that although Lee witnessed domestic violence as a child, I am in no way saying that all boys who do so will become abusers. Many boys in this situation do not go on to become perpetrators and are often vocal in opposing male violence against women).
I particularly had in mind the statistic that, on average, women are assaulted thirty-five times before their first call to the police. I have often heard people questioning why they stay so long, people who don’t understand the complexities involved in such cases – the controlling behaviour, the way women are often psychologically and emotionally abused, their self-esteem eroded, not to mention the worries surrounding any children involved and whether they will be able to care for them if they leave the family home.
But I wanted to give my central character the ability to see into the future, and explore how the knowledge that the abuse would continue and ultimately lead to her death would impact on her. I also wanted to highlight the fact that thirty per cent of domestic violence starts or gets worse when a woman is pregnant. When, twenty years ago, I relayed the findings of a survey on this from a local women’s refuge, my news editor said, ‘Yeah, that’s because the men have got more to aim for.’ When I objected to this ‘joke’, I was told that feminists lack a sense of humour. Sadly, these attitudes still exist today; we need to go on challenging them in an effort to ensure that violence against women is one day eradicated. I will be making donations to the following charities, all of which do brilliant work in this area, from the royalties of this book. I would be hugely grateful if you could support them too – or pass on the helpline number to anyone you know who may need support. Thank you.
The White Ribbon Campaign – men working to end violence against women
www.whiteribboncampaign.co.uk
Women’s Aid – national charity working to end domestic abuse against women and children
www.womensaid.org.uk
Refuge – the country’s largest single provider of specialist domestic violence services
www.refuge.org.uk
National Domestic Violence Helpline – run by Women’s Aid and Refuge
Freephone 0808 2000 247,
available twenty-four hours a day
Book Club Questions
1.Does it matter that we never discover the truth about if, why or how the Facebook posts are sent from the future?
2.How do the Facebook posts colour your view of what is happening in the present-day storyline?
3.Does Jess’s history of mental health issues impact whether we believe what she is seeing?
4.Does the fact that Jess is so feisty at the beginning of the story mean that her future demise has more impact?
5.What was your response to Angela, both in the future storyline and in the present?
6.How do your feelings towards Lee change throughout the novel?
7.The theme of parental love is a strong one. Contrast the love shown to Jess by her father and late mother to the love shown to Lee by Angela.
8.How does Jess’s love for her son, H, influence her decisions during the story?
9.How does Jess and Sadie’s friendship change during the novel?
10.Do you think you would live your life differently if you could read the tributes paid to you at your death?
11.How has social media affected the way we discuss the deaths of loved ones or celebrities?
12.Did you feel the novel gave you a greater insight into the reasons why women may stay in abusive relationships?
Acknowledgements
I thought I’d do the acknowledgements Oscars-acceptance-speech style this time – hoping I haven’t muddled any envelopes! Writing a novel is a solitary process but an awful lot of people are still involved in bringing that novel out into the world and ensuring it gets read. Huge thanks to my editor, Kathryn Taussig, for helping me knock the story into shape (it’s a better book because of her) and championing it everywhere – and to the whole team at Quercus for all their hard work. My agent, Anthony Goff, has been there for me since the beginning and his expertise and wisdom are invaluable, as is the support from all at David Higham Associates.
Thanks to Emily and Mylo for braving the camera for the book trailer, and Julia and Karen for providing a location; Lance Little for again giving my website a fantastic new novel makeover; and to David Earl for answering yet more police questions. Thanks to all the authors who read early copies and provided quotes; the book bloggers who reviewed and helped spread the word; and independent bookshops and libraries for still being there to support readers and writers – the book community is a truly lovely one.
Thanks to my family and friends for their ongoing support and for putting up with the anti-social periods
. And a special thanks to the four of you who loaned your Facebook photos to Jess, Angela, Sadie and Joe – you know who you are!
To my husband, Ian (camera cuts to long-suffering man with grey hair in the third row), thanks for filming the brilliant book trailer, taking the author photos, doing all the housework and accompanying me on all those walks where I thrash out the plot and, somewhat annoyingly, for suggesting the Facebook idea. To my son, Rohan (eyes tear up), thanks for all your technical help, ideas and enthusiasm, and for being such an ‘overrated actor’ (cut to a laughing Meryl Streep) and getting cast in shows on stage and screen to allow me the extra time needed to finish writing this book. I promise to wear a ‘proper dress’ for your future award ceremonies!
To the survivors of domestic violence whom I interviewed during my years as a journalist, thank you for sharing your experiences to try to help others – your strength is my inspiration (full-blown tears).
And to you, my wonderful readers, for borrowing, buying, recommending and reviewing, and whose appreciation, feedback and comments constantly remind me what an honour it is to do this job, thank you. Please do get in touch on Twitter @lindagreenisms, Facebook at Fans of Author Linda Green and via my website (www.linda-green.com) to let me know what you think of this one – all apart from the person who reviewed my previous novel on Amazon by saying, ‘this is the first book I have read by Linda Green – and it will be the last’. I hope you’ve found something better to read!