Sophie: The feedback I give Emily is less organised than the feedback she gives me—this is mainly because she knows how to do complicated spread-sheets and I don’t! And I’m too busy to work out how to. So I just read through whatever she’s sent me and make a list of all the points I want to make—what’s working well, what isn’t, what almost is; the changes I would make to improve the text—that kind of thing.
Emily: I usually have half a dozen early readers for my books, and each one has a different emphasis. One proofreads my British English, another comments on my University and local references. Sophie’s feedback focuses on that logical flow. She questions my characters’ leaps and assumptions, and challenges me about the overall structure. When she says it “works,” I feel confident.
Q: What do you most enjoy about each other’s books?
Emily: I love the unique setups. In Sophie’s Little Face, a new mother comes home from the gym and discovers that her baby is not her baby, but a different one; her husband, who was home the whole time, disputes her claim. In Lasting Damage, a woman viewing property listings sees a crime scene in one of the photos, which then disappears; of course no one believes her, but she knows what she saw. Kind of Cruel begins with a visit to a hypnotherapist, which leads to an arrest for the murder of a woman the main character has never met. Even though Sophie’s series books all have the same police and similar style, the plots are always absolutely distinct, from one another and from other stories out there. You can also see her origins as a poet shine through in her eloquently expressed psychological insights.
Sophie: I love the structure of Emily’s books—they’re never straightforward linear narratives. They’re more like circular shapes with added ripples of psychological significance that spread out in all directions. There’s something very organic and natural about them, and I also love the fact that Emily has a totally unique authorial voice. I could read three sentences of Emily’s work without her name attached to it, and I’d know I was reading Emily. It’s very rare to come across an author who has that distinct a voice. I like the psychological layering in Emily’s stories, also—the sense of every character having his or her own complicated mental landscape, and then all those individual psyches colliding …
Emily: It’s a real treat to get to read Sophie’s books early. When they hit the shelves, I feel a little tickle of pride that I already know the ending, and that I had a small effect on the finished work.
This interview originally appeared in The Bookseller, June 17, 2013.
http://www.thebookseller.com/feature/neighbours-crime-sophie-hannah-and-emily-winslow-338563
About the Book
Questions for Discussion
The original title of the book was Still Life, meant to evoke Hannah-Claire’s “still alives” and the truth about Annalise. Another considered title was Only the Gone Are Good, referring to perfection existing only in cherry-picked memory (as of Annalise or Tom), not in messy, in-progress life as it’s currently happening. The published title refers succinctly to the Annalise investigation. What would you have chosen as the title for the book, and why?
People grieved for Annalise for decades on a scale that very few deaths inspire. Why do you think some deaths are put in the spotlight and remembered more than others? Should they be?
Morris and Chloe have the benefit of the discoveries from investigations that went before them, but also the hindrance of all the old assumptions. If you had started with Annalise’s case where Morris and Chloe started, would you have approached it differently? Do you think you would have solved it sooner, or at all?
Anna’s obsession with Annalise is a kind of jealousy. What is there about Annalise for Anna to have been jealous of? Do you think her envy is justified? Why or why not?
Anna finally gets to be “like Annalise” when she becomes a victim herself. What do you think she gets out of that experience, if anything? What is it about being a victim that was appealing to her? Do you think it’s still appealing after she is attacked?
Do you think Anna’s obsession with Annalise will continue now that she knows the truth? If yes, in what way? If not, why not?
How is Laurie’s relationship to the Annalise case different from Anna’s? She also grew up in the shadow of the murder, but has not developed the same obsession with it. Why do you think that is?
Laurie has to respect her clients’ privacy, but she has some leeway. What in your opinion is the justified tipping point in this story for sharing information with the police? Do you think Laurie should have done so sooner, or later, or not at all? Do you think there should be stricter, more specific rules, that either better restrict the sharing of information, or that obligate the sharing of it more quickly?
Laurie loves both Tom and Simon, and only gradually through the course of her relationship with Simon is she able to let Tom go. Do you think she should have fully let Tom go before committing to Simon, or was her relationship with Simon part of what enabled her to finally move on?
Read On
Have You Read? More from Emily Winslow
FROM THE WHOLE WORLD
*
“Come on,” Nick said, tugging my arm. He dragged me past the plesiosaur and iguanodon skeletons, and unlocked a stairwell. He prodded the elevator button within. It had one of those old iron grilles, which he shoved aside for entry. He pressed me against the back wall of the box and kissed me.
He has lovely hands. Later, when the people making “missing” posters asked for a detailed description of him, I uselessly went on about his perfect hands.
When the lift went ping at the top floor, he stalked out down a long, dingy hallway. I trotted after him. I’d forgotten that he has an office up in Earth Sciences—but of course he would. It’s a tiny space, nothing more than books and a coffee maker and a desk and a lock on the door, which is enough. We perched on the desk and he pulled my face to his.
I don’t think he meant for much more than petting—he doesn’t seem like someone who would rush anything. But when he unbuttoned my shirt, I said no. I’m certain I did, but it got muffled in his cheek. So he undid the next button. I shoved his shoulder, hard, and said no again. He was surprised, I think. I was too. I mean, it’s fine to say no to anything, but this was abrupt. He leaned in to kiss me again. I don’t think he deliberately ignored me; I think he was just on a roll. So was I, frankly. I kissed him back, which was disorienting—he had a right to be even more confused. It was all so …
There was this line. I wanted to be on one side of it. I tried to stay there, and haul him back there. But he couldn’t see the line. All he knew was that I was still leaning into him. He kissed me all down my neck, and then lower, down into where my shirt was open from the first two buttons. It made me crazy, in a good way, and it made me angry, which was strange. I shoved him so hard that he was suddenly standing; I had pushed him off the desk onto his feet. I leaned over the other side of the desk and vomited into his rubbish bin. It had papers in it, not crumpled, just all smooth and rounded, clinging to the side of the basket. I vomited in it, and then over it onto the floor.
The sounds were horrible. I tried to stop. I covered up my mouth but just ended up with stuff on my sleeve.
Nick put his hand on my back. I elbowed him off. More stuff came out of me. I didn’t think I’d eaten enough for it to go on this long.
When it finally stopped I held still. A minute flipped on his clock, one of those old “digital” clocks that has the numbers on little cards attached to an axle.
Nick said something. I made a noise to cover it up and bolted. I didn’t wait for the elevator, instead I lurched onto the stairs, which I hadn’t realized go on forever. Every corner I turned there was another flight down. I passed the museum level by mistake. Then the ground floor stopped everything.
Through the window in the stairwell door I saw a dozen students gathered, for a club or a meeting. My shirt was still open at the top. I turned to the wall and buttoned it up.
I wanted to brush my teeth. I wanted to change my clothes. I went back up one flight to get my jacket from the window seat in the gem room. On Trumpington Street I started running.
FROM THE START OF EVERYTHING
*
I rubbed my finger along the envelope’s triangle flap. It was sealed all along the V, except for a small gap at each corner.
I pulled the letter off the pile and down into my lap, under the table. No one saw. Everyone had their own work. I slid the tip of my smallest finger into the puffed-up right corner.
The printer stopped. It had been spitting pages for thirty minutes. Without the noise of its grinding and rolling as background, a rip would scream.
“I have to leave,” I said, standing up. It’s important to explain abrupt movements. “I have an appointment.” I pushed the letter into my bag, then threaded my arm through the handles to shut the bag between my ribs and upper arm.
I always sit at the end of the table so I can’t be trapped or nudged. Table legs touching mine are completely different from someone else’s knee. But today someone had already been in place at the end of the table, with papers spread out for sorting. Not only had I been made to sit along the side; I had to sit well in. Then she made her stacks, creating space again, space that got filled before I noticed it. Trevor had sat down next to me. Now he leaned onto his chair’s two back legs. There was no way past. I waited, bouncing my elbow against my bag.
“Oh, sorry!” he said, and pulled his chair in. I squeezed past, holding my breath. The back of my skirt rubbed against the windowsill. The tips of his dark hair brushed against my shirt buttons. I popped out into the small open space next to the copier. The door was only five feet away. If I lay down across the carpet, I would push it open with the top of my head. That’s how close it was.
But Lucy squatted in front of the filing cabinet, blocking the door. She did it deliberately.
“Lucy!” Trevor hissed. She looked up, and he stifled a laugh.
She closed the drawer and stood but was still right there. I turned sideways so I didn’t graze any of her body as I opened the door.
I was unobstructed from there. The corridor was empty. The receptionist in the entrance never speaks to me. I charged outside into the courtyard and stopped. The spring sunlight was so bright that I closed my eyes. The letter crinkled against an apple in my bag.
A hand came down on my shoulder. I shimmied to throw it off. Too close, too close. I snapped my eyes open. George is a big man. I took a step back.
“Er, Mattie?” he said. “Where are you going?” He rocked from one foot to the other.
“What?” I said. Another step. My heel hit the bottom step behind me.
“Mattie, I was coming in to get you. It’s your father. He’s had another heart attack. He’s been taken to hospital. I should bring you.”
The hospital. It would be full of people. There would be rules I don’t know.
“No,” I said.
“We’ll stop by your house first. We can pick up some things for him to …”
He reached out, and I smacked his hand. The contact shocked me. I don’t like to have to do that.
He made two fists at his sides.
I retreated up the steps, back into the registrar’s reception area. “Would you tell him to leave me alone, please?” I said to the woman at the desk. I stood sideways to her, facing a wall. But she knew I was talking to her.
George followed me. “Her father’s been taken to Addenbrooke’s,” he explained. “He’s Dr. Oliver, from Astronomy.”
“Miss?” the receptionist said, asking me if it were true, or if I cared.
“I don’t have to go,” I said. “There isn’t a rule.”
“No, there isn’t,” she said. She lifted the phone, as if she might call security. Or not. It was up to George. He rocked back and forth again. He pushed air out of his mouth. He turned and left.
“Are you all right? Do you need an escort?” the receptionist asked. She leaned forward. Next to her hand was a calendar that had just the number of today’s date on it, and a dictionary definition of the word “anodyne.”
“No, I—”
Trevor was suddenly there, next to the desk. He must have finished the filing. It must be lunchtime. He had a jacket on. “Mathilde, a sandwich?”
“No,” I said.
“You left your notebook on the table.” He jerked his thumb back towards the office.
“It’s in my bag,” I said, squeezing the canvas mouth more tightly shut against my ribs. It had to be in my bag.
“No, you left in a hurry. I can get it for you if you want.”
“No!”
This is just the kind of thing my father doesn’t understand. He thinks that just because the lists I keep aren’t embarrassing, they aren’t private. But they’re mine. That makes them private, even if what I write down is ordinary. It’s not anybody’s business what I keep track of.
“I’ll get it,” I said. I walked forward and stopped.
“Mathilde?”
One of Trevor’s buttons had a wild thread unravelling through it. It was right in front of my face.
He backed up until there was space for him to move sideways, and he let me pass.
FROM THE RED HOUSE
*
The digger’s caterpillar wheels stopped short of its target, a peach-coloured house with uncurtained windows and an unlocked door. Services had been disconnected; saleable materials had been salvaged. There was nothing left to do to prepare the building for razing. Erik was tempted to start the job today, to get a jump on things, but he hesitated.
Listless brown and grey rabbits dappled the field, dozens of them. They should have tensed as the digger’s vibration spread through the ground; the noise of it should have set them sprinting. But these rabbits—lumpy, swollen, and blind—meandered. One headed towards the digger and Erik pitched forward in his seat as he stopped short of it.
It lolloped past, limp and with little spring.
It would have been a mercy to crush it, but too fucking disgusting, Erik thought. Sweat slid from under his hard hat down the side of his nose. He jumped down from the seat. From the boot of his car he got his shotgun.
He didn’t like to shoot rabbits. Healthy ones scampered off when approached, and that was good enough for him. His garden at home didn’t have anything in it that he didn’t mind sharing.
Myxi rabbits needed killing. They were dying already, but dying in pain.
Fucking Aussies, he thought, loading a shell. They had purposely introduced myxomatosis for the express purpose of rabbit genocide. Then, fucking French. By the fifties it was in Britain and running wild.
The rabbits were stupid from pain and moved slowly. One even came towards him, labouring to push itself forward in awkward spurts. It was as if it wanted it.
The repeating noise of the gun covered the shouts. It was only in the pauses that he made out the words: “Stop it!” and just “Stop!” and, eventually, a wail.
Bitch should be grateful, he thought.
It was her decision to remain. The other homeowners had given in and sold. If she wanted to hold out while construction cleared and drilled and poured and hammered around her, that was her choice. She’d been made a good offer. She refused to leave.
She continued shouting at him from a window in the bright red barn. He knew that no one was home in the white house beyond the barn; it was school hours and work hours. He continued shooting.
Her fence was meaningless to the rabbits. He counted six of them on her side. He loaded and took aim. The sick ones took their deaths gratefully; the few healthy ones scattered. One dived into the blackberry bushes at the back of the barn, twisting between stems and thorns, then plunging into the soft earth, through groping roots, until it scrabbled against something hard: a pelvic bone. Nestled in that bone’s crook, a smaller, more curled skeleton was shifted upwards by the rabbit’s churning movements.
There was a flash of movement in a window
of the barn, but Erik couldn’t see the old woman’s face. She must be tucked behind the curtain.
Afraid of me? Stupid cow, he thought, tears tumbling down his cheeks. He hated to shoot anything. He’d kept a rabbit when he was a boy: Milly, he remembered. She’d been soft, long-haired, fat from treats, and glossy from brushing.
He replaced the shotgun in the boot of his car and returned to the digger’s seat. He ignored the furry bodies now under his treads and scooped into the bucket; they weren’t really rabbits any more, now were they. Like Milly, they were elsewhere. Peaceful. Fuck streets of gold, he thought. His heaven was all grass.
In the ground next to the red barn, the rabbit kept digging, nudging the bones up towards the surface.
IN JANE DOE JANUARY, NOVELIST EMILY WINSLOW TELLS HER OWN TRUE-CRIME STORY.
*
In 1992, as a college student in Pittsburgh, Emily was raped by a stranger. In 2013, she had created a new life in England, with a husband and sons and an established writing career, when her attacker was suddenly identified and arrested. Highly inquisitive and restless for answers, she applied her experience as a crime novelist to a personal investigation. She was thrust into an unexpected prosecution that pulled her between two very different worlds: a hard-boiled American drama of intense detectives and legal bureaucracy, and her rarefied new world in Cambridge, where the university’s rituals and pervasive formality were both a comfort and a challenge. Jane Doe January is the intimate memoir of a woman’s traumatic past catching up with her, and a strikingly honest narrative about the surprise possibility of justice after twenty years.
“With remarkable emotional insight and precision, mystery writer Winslow turns to memoir… . Powerfully redemptive.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Meticulously constructed and ultimately terrifying… . Her story reveals a stark, maddening reality: that rape victims must often become their own legal advocates if they want an opportunity for retribution.”
Look for Her Page 26