Sarah Vaughan's Blog, page 3

Anatomy of a Scandal. How my journalistic background informed the novel.

"Everything is copy," said Nora Ephron. It's a phrase I think about a lot. Because while I have reservations - I'm insufficiently ruthless to use my friends or family - I couldn't have written Anatomy of a Scandal without working as a journalist, both covering high-profile court cases, and as a political correspondent.

The columnist and author India Knight has tweeted that the novel is "so good, so forensic, and so authentic."  As well as working in Westminster, I'd shadowed a barrister in a sexual offences, and then a rape case while writing it, I explained. "You can tell. It adds this whole other layer that is (oddly) very rare," she replied.

Other reviews have picked up on this experience - which not only taught me about the worlds on the court room and the House of Commons, the language used, and the rhythms and cadences, but about the drama of a breaking news story or inherent in a trial.

And so I'm reposting a Waterstone's blog, in which I explain how being a journalist - for 2 years at the Press Association and then 11 on the Guardian - informed Anatomy of a Scandal:

 

The young man formally acquitted of murdering the black teenager Stephen Lawrence stood just over a metre from me in the witness box - and smirked.

It was February 1997. I was 24, had been a trainee reporter for just over a year, and as the only member of the press present at the very start of the inquest into the black teenager’s death was scribbling away at the old-style wooden press desk just in front of him. I looked up: pen poised, hoping for an intro-worthy line with which to nose my story. He remained silent. And then his lip curled.

Neil Acourt, his brother Jamie, and the other members of their gang, Gary Dobson, David Norris, and Luke Knight, had maintained what the QC Michael Mansfield would describe as a “wall of silence” during the inquest, repeatedly claiming the common law right of privilege so as not to risk incriminating themselves. But their continued repetition of the phrase gradually polluted the atmosphere of that dark Victorian coroner’s courtroom, so that it shifted from the ridiculous to the dramatic and taut. 

As the QC drove on, his questions acquired a hypnotic rhythm while the young men’s stonewalling and swagger conveyed their acute lack of compassion and exposed them, in the words of the Macpherson inquiry, as “the prime suspects” for the racially motivated crime. A year into a career that would see me covering murder trials and sexual abuse trials at crown courts and the Old Bailey, I saw at first hand the inherent drama, the high stakes and extremes of emotion that could be played out in court.

If my day in that coroner’s court illustrated the power of a courtroom drama – a power I’d try to harness nearly 20 years later when I came up with the idea of Anatomy of a Scandal - my experience covering criminal investigations such as the Soham murders confirmed how a narrative can turn on a comment, or a plot twist and then veer off course. 

Eleven days after the 10-year-old schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman disappeared from their tiny Cambridgeshire town, the caretaker of the local secondary school, Ian Huntley, told a journalist colleague he might have been “the last person to see them alive.” When the East Anglia correspondent for the Press Association asked to take a photo so that the story could be syndicated around the UK, and a TV reporter asked to film him, Huntley became shifty. And by the time I was begging him for an interview, he stood, arms crossed and immovable. 

His behaviour – sparked by a fear that police in Grimsby might remember his predilection for young girls and three alleged rapes, might recognise him - rang alarm bells with journalists and detectives, and late on the Friday afternoon, 12 days after the girls’ disappearance, the police called a press conference to say that a man had been arrested. 

“It’s the caretaker.” The whisper spread through the assembled hacks, as we noticed that the ubiquitous Huntley was absent from his usual spot at the back of the school hall. The man who’d kept an eye on police proceedings, during press conferences for nearly two weeks, who had tried to court and manipulate the media, had been undone by his cockiness.

But while courtrooms and murder investigations helped me to write a thriller, it was through becoming a political correspondent that I became even more conscious of power, privilege and entitlement - all issues at the heart of Anatomy of a Scandal. I watched charismatic, psychologically complex characters at work - and saw how the truth could be obscured. Nuance of language became increasingly important as Number 10 countered allegations that they had “sexed up” of the dossier into weapons of mass destruction. “Off-the-record” and “deep background” introduced layers of meaning beneath the official line. 

The theatre of the courtroom was replaced for the theatre of the Commons chamber. Bound by the same rules of privilege, the stakes were high – not prison, but reputation - and robust egos were now thrown into the mix. 

I witnessed moments of high tension. The resignations of cabinet ministers Peter Mandelson, over the Hinduja affair, and Robin Cook, over Iraq. Ken Clarke’s blistering speech during the debate into whether we should go to war. Most powerfully, I was with Tony Blair, on a trip to Istanbul, when the news broke that the former weapons inspector Dr David Kelly had committed suicide. I watched the blood drain from the prime minister’s face as a tabloid journalist asked him: “Do you have blood on your hands?”

I also saw how sex scandals involving politicians broke and played out. I was in the lobby when the Home Secretary David Blunkett was exposed by the News of the World for having an affair with the publisher of the Spectator; and I saw Boris Johnson colourfully deny and later admit to lying over, his affair with Petronella Wyatt. 

Working on news stories showed me how the media generates and drives the news agenda – something that has intensified since my days in the lobby with the arrival of social media and 24-hour news coverage. Alistair Campbell famously said that if a story was on the front page for over a week – 8 to 10 days, the figure’s been debated – the minister would have to resign. Though political expediency means some ministers currently seem untouchable, I suspect the period would now be shorter.

All of this fed into my writing Anatomy of a Scandal – a novel I couldn’t have conceived without that experience of working in the lobby, or those early years of court reporting, when I sat, straining to capture each choice quote in 110wpm shorthand.

Westminster inspired me but perhaps the idea of writing a novel that’s part courtroom drama and part psychological thriller, came from that moment in Southwark coroner’s court, when I witnessed the power of a QC’s examination – and a story conveyed by the absence of words.

 

Anatomy of a Scandal: Sunday Times bestseller!

My clever, loving 12 year-old daughter is nothing if not ambitious for her mother. For Christmas this year she bought me a present I refused to wear. A tiny badge, from Southwold Books, with a single word on it: Bestseller. 

I felt bad refusing to play along with the joke but even more uncomfortable at the thought of pinning it to my sparkly top, over a fortnight before publication. 

"But you will wear it if it happens, won't you?" 

"I don't think it will," I said - not because I lacked faith in my publishers but because, like an actor refusing to name The Scottish Play, I couldn't countenance thinking - let alone talking - about something that seemed so unimaginable. 

"But if it does..."

I needed to manage her colossal expectations.

"I really don't think it will but, if it does, I promise."

Reader, I'm wearing that tiny badge now because just three days after being launched Anatomy of a Scandal thrust its way into the list of Sunday Times bestsellers. Backlit tube posters are on show at Westminster tube station and my novel - about power, privilege, and consent - has been catapulted into the very apt number 10 slot - a number that inevitably makes me think of an address at the heart of government, Number 10 Downing Street.

I'm hugely grateful to the fellow authors who read it as a proof and provided me with wonderful quotes; to my editor and the team at S&S who have marketed, sold and publicised it so passionately; and to the book blogging community and journalists who reviewed it in force and championed it on social media.

This would never had happened without you.

 

 

 

 

Anatomy of a Scandal: publication day!

For the past 15 months, I have been focussed on one particular date: January 11th.

Imagine that peculiar mix of excitement and apprehension in the run-up to a wedding, then add a splash of the fear experienced before Finals.

I felt all of this during the long build-up to publication day for Anatomy of a Scandal. 

Insomnia plagued me for the first time in my life; my hair began to fall out; my fears grew out of all proportion. Imposter syndrome - which dogged me at Oxford, when I joined the Guardian, and when I became a political correspondent - raged in the still, quiet hours of the night. What if I was about to be found out? And what if, in tackling a novel about consent, I was baring too much?

And, in the end, there was no need. I had the most glorious day - in which I finally realised that bookshops were buying my book, that people were excited about it, that I should relish this opportunity because they're rare, these moments in the sun. I didn't know it but within its first three days, enough copies were sold to thrust Anatomy of a Scandal into the very apt number 10 slot of the Sunday Times bestseller list.

So, this post is all about celebrating my launch day. I am going to behave with a touch of the swagger of the members of the Libertines - the dissolute drinking club, based on The Bullingdon Club, that I satirise in my novel. And I'm going to shout about a book I wrote out of contract, with no guarantee that any publisher would buy it, and of which I am immensely proud.

Forgive me. Humour me. It won't be long before characteristic self-deprecation resumes.

The day began with an early train to Westminster, where one of a fleet of 50 black cabs branded with the book's cover was parked. There is little I won't do for this book, I discovered, and that includes sitting in a black cab leaning out of the window while clutching the book, infront of the Palace of Westminster.

Then after a photo-shoot that involved trying to get pigeons to eat out of the book, we jumped in the cab for the first of my bookshop visits and the signing of 100 first editions at Goldsboro Books:

Waterstone's Gower St was next, where I'll be doing an event with Elizabeth Day on January 25, details here, before a quick spot of prosecco at Waterstone's Picadilly - and more book signing.

Back in the cab, we were off to Hatchards, where there only a were few copies left. Then on to Waterstone's Clapham Junction - and finally Foyle's, Waterloo, where I saw that Anatomy of a Scandal had commandeered the entire window - a moment that made me positively teary with pride:

By this stage, I was giddy with excitement as the Evening Standard's survey of London booksellers - at Waterstone's, Blackwell's and Foyles in the capital - had highlighted Anatomy of a Scandal as their fiction "Dark Horse". Things became even more surreal when I discovered I had trumped Trump in this display at the door:

After dismantling the display, and signing and sticking around 100 copies, it was back to Foyle's, Charing Cross, for my launch. There was the most spectacular cake:

Speeches:

And several photos with friends. Former journalist colleagues and prime writer friends - all authors commercially published over the age of 40 (I was 41) - turned up, as well as the QC who had helped me hugely with the novel.

My children and niece and nephew charmed everyone, including the staff of Foyles who let them pore over Fire and Fury (their vocabulary already much enhanced by a cursory glance. "Did you know he said the f word 3 times by page 12?" ) My son and daughter got to pose in "my" taxi - my photo of the night - and, as I continued celebrations with the team from S&S, friends were already texting me photos of the backlit adverts now on the tube:

Today, it's back to the rainy dog walks, the washing, the staring at the computer, the writing of blogs and marshalling of ideas. But, briefly, there is no self-doubt.

It's a novel, and rather lovely, feeling. And, as I remember this surreal, ridiculous, marvellous day, I'm going to cling onto it for all it's worth.

Anatomy of a Scandal - the blog tour.

The Anatomy of a Scandal blog tour kicks off today with a stellar review from Katherine Sutherland and a Q&A that explains the background to the novel and what I was trying to achieve in writing it. The full tour's listed here and I'll be posting a link to each review each day. Do hope you enjoy:

Here's Bibliomaniac UK's thoughtful, eloquent review and my Q&A.  

Anatomy of a Scandal - the trailers.

In the long run-up to Anatomy of a Scandal being published, nothing has made me more excited than the creation of a video to promote my novel.

It's a Net-flix style trailer that's dark and tantalising with a soundtrack of searing strings in a minor key; a moody midnight blue and grey palette; and words which appear and disappear, teasing the reader with questions at the heart of the book. Every time I play it - and that may have been more than once - I get goosebumps at the back of my neck. Here it is:

Not content with creating one video, the S&S team have created a further two: one from the viewpoint of Sophie - the wife who wants to believe her husband - and another through the eyes of Kate, the criminal barrister who's convinced he is guilty. 

Here they are. First Sophie:

And then Kate:

The videos mirror the two main points of view in the novel, although we also see events from the point of view of James (who doesn't merit his own video), Ali and Holly. I think they capture the claustrophobic, introspective nature of these women's points of view, while the camera's gaze moving across and up the House of Commons, highlights how these personal dilemmas have wider moral and political implications.

As the text indicates, and current allegations in Hollywood, Westminster and beyond indicate: some secrets go all the way to the top.

 

 

Anatomy of a Scandal - cover reveal

The literary agent Jonny Geller recently tweeted that there were three components that were crucial to a novel selling: title, cover and the timing of the release.

As  a reader, I'm hugely influenced by that second part. Unless I've read a review, or have read the author before, it's the cover that will draw me to pick it up - particularly if it's placed alluringly on a table at the front of a shop.

My first two novels - dubbed women's fiction for the reading group market - have the swirly font associated with women's fiction in their UK editions, something that perturbed some readers when they found unanticipated darkness within the covers of the books.

For my third novel, Anatomy of a Scandal, published by a new publisher, we needed something very different. Because although I'm still interested in female psychology and relationships, the truths we tell ourselves and the compromises we make, Anatomy is more deliberately suspenseful and darker with a very current and problematic theme at its heart.

I'm thrilled that my editor Jo Dickinson, and Simon & Schuster UK's art director Jack Smythe, had such a strong vision for my book. Anatomy of a Scandal is partly a courtroom drama and the black strips conjure up the shredding of legal documents or the spooling of cassette tapes - the ripping up of words, of different truths - because the idea of differing perceptions of the truth is key. And the woman glimpsed through these ripped words, enticing you to enter the world of this novel? Just watch her carefully:

Anatomy of a Scandal will be published in January in the UK and December this year in the US as well as in 15 other languages. It will be fascinating to see how the covers vary - or whether this striking version adopted elsewhere. The US cover, by Simon & Schuster US, brilliantly complements this - with another black cover, and another woman glimpsed through a gap. But I'll reveal that another day.

Meanwhile, here's the blurb, which will run on the back, and should hopefully entice the reader even more:

Part courtroom thriller; part portrait of a marriage; part exploration of how our memories still haunt us, Anatomy of a Scandal is a disarming and provocative psychological drama.

Sophie’s husband, James, is a loving father and a successful public figure. Yet he stands accused of a terrible crime. Sophie is convinced he is innocent and desperate to protect her precious family from the lies that threaten to engulf him. She’s kept his darkest secret ever since they were first lovers, at Oxford. And if she stood by him then, she can do it now.

Kate is the barrister prosecuting his case. She’s certain that James is guilty and determined he should pay.  No stranger to suffering herself, she doesn’t flinch from posing the questions few want to hear. About what happens between a man a woman when they’re alone: alone in bed, alone in an embrace, alone in a lift . . .

Is James the victim of an unfortunate misunderstanding or the perpetrator of something sinister? Who is right: Sophie or Kate? This scandal – which forces Sophie to appraise her marriage and Kate her demons – will have far-reaching consequences for them all.

 

 

Paris - and the French book launch of La Ferme du Bout du Monde.

Being filmed discussing La Ferme du Bout du Monde.

Most of an author's life - or this author's life - is mundane and isolated, I've discovered. Compared to the buzz of a newsroom when a story's breaking, or the hum of a lobby corridor, my previous work environments, it's solitary, doubt-inducing, and, when the words won't flow, a peculiarly toxic combination of stressful and dull.

So it's particularly lovely to experience rare moments of excitement and glamour: a recent trip to the London Book Fair to have dinner with my US and UK editors; a Simon & Schuster crime evening where I met fellow writers; and, most recently, three packed days in Paris launching and promoting La Ferme du Bout du Monde, the French version of The Farm at the Edge of the World.

At Thé-rittoire, Paris, discussing La Ferme, and answering questions from bloggeurs, some of whom I recognised from my previous French launch.

It's fair to say that, while The Farm at the Edge of the World has had the most beautiful, reviews in the UK it hasn't troubled the bestseller lists. But the French edition, published by Préludes, a sumptuous imprint of Le Livre de Poche, entered the charts in the top 50 has already reached number 34. There have been reviews and a full page advert in French Elle and it was reviewed on Télé-Matin by Nathalie Iris, the owner of Les Mots en Marges bookshop, which held a signing. Click for the link for the TV review here. There's also a fantastic Youtube review with influential bookseller and literary festival organiser Gérard Collard here.

Likened to Daphne du Maurier - a huge inspiration for this novel - in French Elle.

My trip involved being interviewed by bloggeurs and journalists, two signings, videoed interviews, in which my schoolgirl French finally became more fluent, and a celebratory lunch where I was plied with raspberry macarons infused with lychee and rose water and rosé champagne just because they complemented my novel's spine. But the best moment came in Les Mots en Marges bookshop where a voracious reader told me she was so immersed in the book she walked to work reading, dodging other commuters and lamp posts. "It's the pearl in my day," she said.

Signing at the launch, where we drank tea - or champagne - and ate delicate savoury scones, a take on the food of Cornwall.

Le Livre de Poche/Préludes team - with my editor, Audrey Petit, dressed to co-ordinate with the cover; directrice générale Véronique Cardi, (right), and marketing director Florence Mas (left). Photo by Bobby Hall (my lovely mum.)

At Les Mots en Marges - Notes in the Margin - bookshop, where one reader made my trip by telling me she walked to work while reading my book. 

Celebratory Pierre Hermé macarons, forest fruits and basil ice-cream, and rosé champagne, consumed because they correspond with this edition's raspberry pink spine.

I've deliberated about posting these pictures, back home in a world shaken by the Manchester bombing - an echo of the Bataclan shootings - and the political unease generated by Brexit and an imminent, needless general election. But just as I went to Paris weeks after the devastating November 2015 attacks - and blogged about it here - so I've decided to celebrate something so positive.

I was overwhelmed by the response from French readers, whose questions were, without exception, thoughtful, probing and incisive. It seems that a novel which probes the past - the dramatic thrust set during the Second World War, something within living memory of the parents of these readers - and is preoccupied with "la psychologie feminine" resonates across the Channel. There was also much enthusiasm for La Cornouailles.

La Ferme du Bout du Monde has been described as "une petite pépite" - a little nugget - and this trip is my equivalent. A reminder of the best part of writing - engaging with readers; and that - with the connections I've made with readers and my French publishers - I feel more European than ever. 

As I battle with book 4 - currently in its disconcertingly anarchic first draft stage - I'm feeding off these memories - and looking forward to creating more of them. On June 24, I'll be at the Salon Saint-Maur en Poche, the largest paperback literary festival in France. I'd love to meet any French readers there.

The Farm at the Edge of the World: giveaway for local readers.

The Farm at the Edge of the World has just come out in paperback and to celebrate I'm organising an exclusive give-away of a copy of the novel and a box of clotted cream fudge to local readers of the Great and Little Shelford newsletters.

All you need to do is tell me, in the comments below, your favourite childhood memory. It doesn't have to be long, exotic, or exquisitely written. It just needs to capture the essence of childhood. The competition ends on February 10 and I'll get David Martin, who compiles the newsletters, to choose the winner.

I also thought I'd share the cover of the German edition of this novel, which has a changed title of The House of Hidden Dreams. The low-slung granite farmhouse has been a rather beautiful Georgian home and Maggie, my farmer's daughter, has become rather more glamorous but I love the high cliffs and sense of romance and impending tragedy:

Here, too, is the French version, published on 5 April, which keeps my title. This farmhouse reminds me of those in East Sussex but the sense of it being isolated and remote - a farm at the edge of the world - is intense. This Maggie is truly at the cliff's edge. I'm fascinated by how my farm at the edge of the world has been interpreted:

If you'd like to hear more about the story of the novel, and how I came to write it, I've recently been interviewed on local radio. Here I am with Jeremy Sallis at BBC Radio Cambridgshire, 2 hrs, 22 minutes in; and here on Radio Cambridge 105's Bookmark programme, 14 minutes 50 seconds in.

And if you're unsuccessful in the giveaway, The Farm at the Edge of the World will  be half price - £3.99 - from 7-21 February in WH Smith stores if you buy a copy of Woman magazine. Thank you for taking the time to read, and I hope you enjoy it.

 

One giveaway and two radio interviews for this paperback writer

First sighting in the wild - at WH Smith's Travel, Heathrow Terminal 5.

The Farm at the Edge of the World was published in paperback last Thursday and to celebrate Hodder have kindly arranged a giveaway of 10 copies of the novel plus 20 boxes of sea salt and caramel and clotted cream fudge. 

All you need to do is visit the Bookends page on Facebook and mention your favourite childhood holiday adventure after clicking here. I'd enter if I could because the caramel sea salt, from the Buttermilk shop in Padstow, is mouth-wateringly good. Hopefully, you'll also enjoy the book.

I've also been on local radio discussing the inspiration for my novel, the setting, and how I write. Normally I hate listening to myself - "posh" says one child; "low" says another - but I think these interviews might be interesting and perhaps even useful to readers and writers.

Here I am talking to the perceptive Leigh Chambers, on Cambridge 105's Bookmark programme, 14 minutes 50 seconds in (for about ten minutes). To listen, just click here.

And here I am on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's Jeremy Sallis's arts and entertainments show. I'm 2 hours 23 minutes in for nine minutes (until 2 hrs, 32) if you click here. I never know if you should admit to how difficult writing can be - but I'd be interested as a novelist or a reader in knowing the various stages of writing; and in hearing about the inspiration for a novel. Anyway, lulled by Jeremy, I divulge all...(or quite a lot...)

And now it's back to the brain ache of copy edits for Anatomy - and the excitement and daunting trepidation of starting a new novel: all those characters I'm creating want to get going but I'm not quite sure how to order them in my book.

The very best of luck with the competition - and if you do buy The Farm - half price from February 7-21 at WH Smith's with Woman magazine - I'd love to know what you think.  Happy New Year, and thank you for reading.

Publication day flowers from Hodder 

On birth, renewal and the writing process

One chilly midwinter's night nine years ago my youngest was born: a mewling mass of dark hair and skinny limbs who gazed at me with the deep blue eyes of a newborn and reminded me of Christmas as a time of birth and renewal.

That Christmas baby is now the tallest boy in his class. A delicious combination of that infant, still, but with ever stronger flashes of the beautiful young man I can see him growing into. Adolescence is a good few years off but so are those precious baby years.

If Christmas makes me contemplate change then that cycle is played out in my writing. The day my children broke up for school two years ago, I delivered the manuscript of The Farm at the Edge of the World, my second novel, with a feeling of intense relief. Four or five drafts, and many, many revisions later, it's been published in hardback and this week a box of paperbacks arrived ready to be sent out into the world on January 12 - a hopeful start to the new year.

I'm very proud of this novel - about love, loss and atonement played out on a desolate stretch of the north Cornish coast. And yet, just as the mother of a newborn can never give her toddler enough attention, so I'm going to have to let the paperback edition of The Farm make its own tentative first steps. Because, the day my box of books arrived, I was finishing the copy edit for Anatomy of a Scandal, my third novel, which will be published in a year's time - in January 2018.

It would be tempting to focus solely on this book baby in the New Year. To my utter delight, it's sold to 15 different publishers and will be published in 20 countries so I imagine it will be clamouring for attention. And yet it will have a new sibling of a novel, still very much in the gestation process, to stretch the birthing analogy, but with a clear due date - or deadline - of February 1 2018.

The writerly cycle of birth and renewal will continue just as my not-so-baby boy and his big sister will grow and flourish. And, at the end of a universally bleak 2016, that fills me with hope and an immense, almost overwhelming sense of gratitude.

Thank you for reading and supporting. And a very Merry Christmas.