Maisey
asked
Jacqueline Winspear:
I love your books but I sometimes find it frustrating that it seems you really don't want Maisie Dobbs to be happy. How many bad things can happen to one character?! I realize you want to concentrate on aspects of the mystery at hand but often, crucial events in her life seems to be handled in the space of a few scant pages or in flashback, especially in "A Dangerous Place".
Jacqueline Winspear
A DANGEROUS PLACE was an exception, and it is explained in JOURNEY TO MUNICH. Not everything is revealed in a single novel - I have always seen the series as a saga driven by history and character development, with each book underpinned by mystery, that archetypal journey through chaos to resolution (or not, as the case may be). Maisie has known much happiness - although her journey reflects the lives of so many women of that era. That is why the strengths of endurance and resilience are so often seen in her generation of women - war, industrial accidents, disease and poor healthcare made life incredibly difficult in the first half of the 20th century - hence the timeliness of the saying, "Keep Calm and Carry On" used in WW2.
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Natalie [genreneutralreader]
asked
Jacqueline Winspear:
First I wanted to tell you that I love Maisie Dobbs so much, I named my new puppy after her! Through reading the whole series,one thing I have wondered about is your perspective on women "having it all". Is it possible for women to be brilliant and ahead-of-her-time career-women, while also having personal happiness and fufillment? It seems to be that Maisie is doomed to only have one. Please tell me there is hope!
ZENmama
asked
Jacqueline Winspear:
Hello Jacqueline, I am so thrilled to have this opportunity, thank you! My question is about Maisie: While she has some insecurities and makes some decisions fueled by those emotions, she seem to have no actual human vices (yet is still very complex/developed!). Is her character designed to reflect the morés of women in her class of British society at the time, or is her "self-actualization" a writing strategy?
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