How have you undergone your research for your current book?

Jo Baker Hi Rebecca - i've been answering quite a few general questions about research (see below) but just to add something specific about this book to what I've already said (i hope) - there are three biographies of Beckett, and I used them all to some degree or other. I also used his Collected Letters. Between them I drew up the bones of the story, but this needed more context - period detail, timeline of the war, that kind of thing - so I got stuck into more general histories. I love reading 'contemporary' fiction when researching a period - you can get really useful detail from the fiction generated by a particular time. i also read memoir and biographies of others who'd lived through this time - including Resistance memoirs. Alongside that, I re-read my way through Beckett's own work, looking for moments where i could make connections, and find echoes.

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