Ayo:
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Welcome to the UK! I know that you were born here and you only went to the States fourteen years ago, but not many people have heard of Maisie Dobbs over here. Would you like to give us a bit of background information about yourself?
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Jacqueline:
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I went to the US fourteen years ago, prior to that I was living in Sussex, and prior to that I lived in Surrey. I was born and raised in Kent. My mum and dad left London in 1950; they had had enough of bombsites and the blitz and everything and just wanted to get away. If you can imagine, kind of in the middle of Tunbridge Wells, Hastings and Maidstone near a small place called Cranbrook. I was raised two miles outside Cranbrook, between Cranbrook and Hawkhurst. I still go back there. I love it and my mum and dad now live in Sussex. Anyway, I went to the US fourteen years ago. In terms of work I had actually spent time working in publishing and only a very short time working in trade publishing. When I was about twenty-three, I worked for a year for Hutchinson and after that I went into academic publishing. From there I went into educational marketing and marketing communications and that is what I was doing just before I left here.
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Ayo:
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Having read Maisie Dobbs and read some of the reviews, it is has been hailed in some places as part Dorothy L Sayers novel, part Upstairs Downstairs as you can see the how she started off downstairs. Do you believe that it is fair to characterisation and are you happy for people to say that about Maisie Dobbs?
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Jacqueline:
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I have a terrible confession to make; I have never read Dorothy L Sayers. The Upstairs Downstairs thing I can understand because the series was so popular in its time and it’s gone around the houses since, so whenever people think of anything to do with crossing class boundaries out comes the Upstairs Downstairs reference because certainly Maisie Dobbs broke through a class boundary. It wasn’t a common thing but it was not unheard of. So I can understand why people say that. The other thing is that Maisie Dobbs has been described as a cross genre type of mystery - when people are trying to describe something, be it a book or movie or whatever, it crosses two different areas. They are always going to grasp what we’ve done before, so they say it is part Gosford Park and part Testament of Youth. If that helps you to get a handle on it, fine.
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Ayo:
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When you first started writing Maisie Dobbs did you have a clear idea in your mind what her character was going to be like and once you had finished did you still have the same view?
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Jacqueline:
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The first thing is the way Maisie Dobbs came to me; I always refer to it as my moment of artistic grace. I didn’t sit down and think I want to write a novel and I would like it to be this and here is how I am going to create this character and these sub-characters. I was driving along, stopped at a traffic light and went in one of those dreams we all go into at such times and literally saw Maisie Dobbs come out of Warren Street Station, talk to the newspaper vendor and walk off down the street. I saw the whole first chapter, by which time there was a car honking behind me. But it was one of those moments of grace when within a very short time I knew the story. I won’t say she came to me fully formed but it was as if she revealed herself to me as I was working on the book and of course drawing upon my own interests. I have always been really curious about World War 1 and I really like reading about that period of time between say about 1910 right up until 1945; you know art nouveau, art deco, love all that.
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Ayo:
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I take it you enjoyed doing the research for Maisie Dobbs? Did anything unusual happen while you were doing it?
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Jacqueline:
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Absolutely I enjoyed it. Did anything unusual happen, I think a couple of things actually. A lot of research was something I was doing all my life but didn’t call it research; it was just me being curious about people and so I had information at my finger tips that I had known for a long time or that I had read about years ago. Then there was research that I was specifically doing, but information also came to me in a very serendipitous manner. In Birds of a Feather, my second novel which is coming out here in February, part of the action is based in Bermondsey and, as my parents come from Walworth, I knew that area as a kid because we used to come up here a lot to see the relations. But my brother turned up out of the blue, he also lives in California, and he said “I thought this might be handy, I found it in a flea market in Pasadena today” and it was an old, old book on the history of Bermondsey and I went “that will do nicely”. There is also the other thing about the research: I have spent a lot of time at The Imperial War Museum where I am trying to get a sense of the language and I also like to anchor my novels in their time by referring to what was going on at the time. Don’t have to make a big thing of it; you just need to float it in there.  But often at the Imperial War Museum what people have done is that they have found great uncle Albert’s letters under the bed when someone has died, seen that they have had to do with the first world war or the second world war and they donate it to the museum where it is catalogued and put into a box and put away. Then someone like me comes along and says I would like to see those letters. The last time I was there, about eight, ten months ago, I pulled up three different boxes - a couple of aviators and someone else - and very tentatively you lift the lid off and you undo the letters and you think that maybe I am the first person actually reading these since the initial recipient. You come to the work with a real gravity and a real respect. These three people were in different areas of France during World War 1 and I noticed on the letters the ink suddenly goes from very dark to really pale and I’m thinking well that’s very unusual and I could hardly read it. The same thing happened on the next one, and the next one; I thought this was unusual. Each one of these men mentioned about this French ink and I know it sounds like a little thing but I thought to myself hang on a minute, they are all moaning about the ink; not that I might never use this and maybe I will. You had troops being deployed in France and Belgium in hundreds of thousands, there must have been a run on ink and I thought because people want to write home they must have watered down the ink. So I guess that was one of the unusual things that happened, and with that went the thought how terrible that must have been if you think you are writing your last letter, that you can write your family before you go up the line and you’re thinking will they be able to read it when they get it. It was quite a melancholy day so; I don’t know if that was the kind of answer you wanted.
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Ayo:
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Can I go back a bit to what you were saying about language because I think that it is very, very important, especially if you are writing historical crime fiction, that get the language right otherwise it throws you when you come across some modern English and you think they couldn’t have said that in that day and age.
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Jacqueline:
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I think that there has to be a balance. There is a point when I am working on my novels, when I have done the first and second drafts, where I have to be an advocate for the reader. Gillian Linscott used a very good example and that is that years ago a suit was not called a suit but a costume. My dad, for example, he’s seventy-eight this year, he will still say, “That’s a really nice costume you’re wearing Jackie” or something like that, it’s part of the language. My book was published in the US first and I pondered over this because I knew that it should be costume but I used suit. The reason I used suit is because if someone was reading that deeply into the book and I suddenly say costume, the first thing they are going to think about is trick or treating on Halloween. Their mind is going to jump to a different place and I couldn’t have that. Even a lot of the readers in Britain might not know that; so it was a definite choice not to use that word. Whereas in other places I have been very, very strict. I often agonise over a word; do I use the modern one or do I not. The other thing that was interesting, and I got this from a book written by an American soldier, was the number of words that were picked up by Americans who went into France and Belgium in 1917 and 1918 from the British soldiers because they were fighting alongside them. They picked up a lot of slang and took it back to America and as that slang went out of fashion here it became fashionable there. So a lot of words that I had always thought of as American were not, they’re English words. Now do I use those words because someone reading it will think that’s American, she’s been in America too long. I have to make a choice. I think there has to be a balance.
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Ayo:
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Why Girton College?
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Jacqueline:
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Oh you’re going to love this answer. When I was writing my goddaughter was applying to go to Girton College and unfortunately she didn’t get in. It was one of the colleges that she really wanted to go to and I remember thinking maybe if I use Girton College it might add a little bit of energy to her. One of the archivists there was very helpful and what I found out was that at that point many of the women that were at Girton literally enlisted immediately to go overseas.
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Ayo:
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That’s a very good link as well because this is what Maisie does.
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Jacqueline:
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Yes, she does it in a different way, but she does it. I have a very dear friend, my friend’s father, who has helped me with a lot of my research and one of the things he sent me recently was pages from the Times from 1930. Of course the next Maisie I am working on right now is based in 1930. They actually had some major fundraising campaign at Girton and a lot of the newspapers had this. So I thought that that is an interesting little something that I can use.
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Ayo:
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Could you give us a bit more information about some of the other characters? Were any of them based on anybody? I know the newspaperman whose name is Jack and after reading the acknowledgements at the end it raised an interesting thought.
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Jacqueline:
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He’s a character, he is not particularly based on anyone although he does sell the Daily Express. My grandfather when I was five worked for the Daily Express, he was head of composition in his day, something like that.
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Ayo:
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They had a head of composition?
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Jacqueline:
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Yes, they had something like that years and years ago in the 1920s. He was a compositor and he was head of a department. He was one of those guys who went to work in the early hours of the morning and was in a pub on Fleet Street by eleven. Jack wasn’t particularly based on anyone. Maurice Blanche: he is, I would say, a combination of teachers, people that I have learnt from in my life. In his manner alone he has a certain quiet dignity, he is very much based on someone who was one of my teachers and to whom my second book is dedicated. Otherwise he is a real mish mash. Billy Beale - funnily enough he is not based on anyone in particular, he is also a bit of an amalgam. I guess he has a little bit of my brother and a little bit of a few other people that I know, but I always had this picture of Billy Beale in my head - and you’re going to laugh at this - the first time I ever watched Jamie the Naked Chef on television I thought, Oh my God, it’s Billy Beale. He just reminded me of him. As for some of the other characters I really can’t say much about them because I have people saying “I didn’t know that you based it on me”. Generally they are an amalgam more than anything else. Everybody is an amalgam.
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Ayo:
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Is there any part of you in the character Maisie Dobbs?
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Jacqueline:
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There is actually very little of me in Maisie Dobbs, except I think she is much cleverer than me. She’s also extremely intuitive to a very high degree; I am not going to say that I am that intuitive, but it is a muscle I like to use. I’d like to be that intuitive and I think we could all be if we listen.
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Ayo:
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Did you always intend for it to be a series?
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Jacqueline:
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In the first two weeks of writing scenes were coming to me very rapidly and when you really devote yourself to that creative process it is like opening the floodgates. Scenes were coming to me that I knew were not part of Maisie Dobbs, that I knew were a part of another book, and then in another scene I would think “That’s not even part of the second book, maybe there is a third book there” and soon I know I had ideas in my head for about six books within a short time. Not fully-fledged ideas but it was just like the tree growing and dropping an acorn here and there. That was what was happening.
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Ayo:
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So how have you managed to keep those thoughts?
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Jacqueline:
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I should write down more of them. I have started to take a notebook with me everywhere because I will be walking my dog and think “I hope I’ll remember by the time I get home” and then I’ll forget it. But basically I keep a log of ideas, or I will be working away and something will come to me. I’ve got this file on my laptop, I call it Fragments or something, and I’ll just write a fragment and stick it in there and sometimes there are scenes that I’ll take out. Also some facts will come my way in a serendipitous manner. Someone will say “Did you know…”. I am a great one for listening to a did you know. You don’t know what that might lead to in terms of a scene or a plot point or whatever.
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Ayo:
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When Maisie Dobbs was published did it turn out how you visualised and were you pleased with the end result?
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Jacqueline:
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Generally speaking yes, I was pleased with the end result.  Not a lot was edited, to tell you the truth. One of the things I did with my editor was to move some of the chapters around. It was in a slightly different order and then she said what about this, and I would say what about this, and so there was more synergy working on the book. It’s lovely to have it published here in the UK in British English and to see the right words for things. To give you an example, you know here the word alright is used a lot - “Alright, yeah I’m alright, you alright?” and we use alright a lot and when you spell it is alright. Now in the US there is all right, but there is not alright, and I found that very frustrating because no one says all right, and to try and explain that this is just something that people say is difficult. The way I got round it was to actually emphasise Billy’s accent with awright. I found it very frustrating but it was something we were able to put right, which felt good, it’s one of those things that annoyed me. It’s lovely and I love the cover design and everything about the UK edition.
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Ayo:
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When you are writing what do you consider the most important element of crime writing?
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Jacqueline:
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Most important element? For me characters are really important and I hear a lot of people say that time and time again and in some ways I am so new to this process: Birds of a Feather is only my second novel, I’m working on my third. The characters are really important to me. The first time I went to The Poisoned Pen, as Barbara Peters, the owner, introduced me she she talked about the richness of the characters to the audience and she said character is something that is really hard to get right whereas if you have made errors with the plot you can always correct them. She said you can’t correct character, if it is not there, it is not there. So for me it has to be character because if there is something wrong with the plot I can always go back and fiddle faddle with it.
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Ayo:
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Would you consider writing something contemporary?
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Jacqueline:
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Funny you should say that, there is something I am working on. It is very early stages, it’s slightly more contemporary set in the early 90s. I think the reason I started writing it is almost as an antidote to Maisie because in my research I do have to go to some fairly dark places. So I am doing something that is crime but it is more upbeat, it’s actually more like a comedy. So more than consider it, I’m doing it.
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Ayo:
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Your second novel is Birds of a Feather and is due out here next year I believe. Could you tell us a bit about it?
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Jacqueline:
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Basically Maisie Dobbs is called in to meet with a gentleman called Joseph Waite. Joseph is what we would call today an entrepreneur, he is a self made man. He started off life as a butcher’s boy and now owns a whole chain of food emporiums, blah, blah, blah. His daughter is missing and he wants Maisie to find the daughter. The interesting thing about the daughter is that she is not a teenager, she is actually thirty-two, but clearly well under her father’s thumb. In her search for Charlotte Waite, Maisie has trouble with whether she cares for her or not, but it’s another mystery that takes Maisie back to World War I and to look again at her background in that war, but is another look at that through a different lens. Also in this particular novel Maisie has to deal with her relationship with her father.
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Ayo:
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I always thought she had a really good relationship with him?
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Jacqueline:
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She does, but there’s definitely been a wedge drawn and I can’t say too much about that. Also in this one we find that Maisie has two suitors.
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Ayo:
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You’re working on the third Maisie Dobbs novel. Does it have a working title?
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Jacqueline:
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It has a working title, yes - Pardonable Lives.
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Ayo:
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Is there a book you would have liked to have written?
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Jacqueline:
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Is there a book that is published that I would have liked to have written? Oh, there are a thousand of them. I have very broad reading habits. Just to give you an idea, one of my favourite books of last year was Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, which I think, may have only just come out here. I really enjoyed that and I often think I wish I could have written something like that. What else would I have liked to have written…there are so many they are not actually lining up getting crushed in the door here. Oh gosh, loads of books. I hope I am not going to embarrass myself but one author that I am really intrigued by is Susan Howatch; she did the Starbridge series and what fascinates me about her is that she does these books that are highly commercial and yet have such scholarly underpinning. She is a person of great humour in her books and well-drawn characters - you can really giggle at them and yet it is really serious stuff; she’s dealing with the church for goodness sake. I am fascinated by that and to be able to write that kind of novel I think would be quite amazing. When I think of the kind of novels I wish I would have written I would have loved to have written Tender is the Night, I would love to have written The Old Man and the Sea. In terms of the crime writers obviously P D James.
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Ayo:
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Within the crime fiction world, you are relatively new. You are writing your third book, your first book has only just been published here and the second one has only just been published in the States. What do you think of the state of historical crime fiction?
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Jacqueline:
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That’s a really good question and I don’t know that I am qualified to answer it. I know that there is a great deal of interest in it right now and I think that it comes from several places. Number one, that you know that you are going back in time to places where there were certain rituals and structures to life. It is what we know and I believe that, in a time in our history when you know some of those things are falling away, when there are threats and so on, you’re dealing with that which you do not know. I think we are in such a state of flux all over the world and I think that a lot of people believe that our leaders have got our priorities wrong. Far be it for me to say but why are we spending billions fighting a war when there are people starving in Sudan? I’ll try not to get political but I think what interests people is going back to times when we think we understood things, at the very least rituals; and also I think in a mystery there is actually an archetypal journey and even if it is completely transparent to people we are drawn to them for various reasons. I think one of them is because of the mystery of life and I think also in a crime novel you start not knowing and you end knowing. I think if I were to pitch on anything those are the reasons why historical crime fiction is really experiencing something of a renaissance at the moment.
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Ayo:
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Maisie Dobbs has received a lot of good reviews, not only from critics also from fellow crime writers. Have you been surprised about the way it has been received?
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Jacqueline:
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Really surprised. The reviewers have really liked it and I think that they have also been intrigued by Maisie Dobbs. When I sat down to write it I just wanted to write my story. I knew it was a mystery but I didn’t have it in my head that this is going to be a mystery, I wanted to tell the story so that’s why it has these other threads to it to which people have been intrigued by. Maureen Corrigan in National Public Radio in America is a very well known reviewer and referred to it as a quirky literary creation that took a lot of risks etc. But what has been really amazing is the response from my fellow crime writers. A week ago I was at a mystery writers’ conference in California and Lee Child was there; he was the last person on earth I thought would like my book but he came flying up to me and said, “I have been dying to see you as I just wanted to tell you how much I loved your novel” and just went on about how he really liked the characterisation and he kept plugging it to people. So that has been really heart warming and it’s sort of validation for me, that there is something in that character and something in this story that is really engaging people.
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Ayo:
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Since Maisie Dobbs has been written it has been nominated for an Edgar® and a Dilys Award and an Agatha Award. Then it went on to win an Agatha Award and it was also named as one of the seven best mysteries of 2003. It also won an Alex Award and Publishers Weekly named it as one of their top ten mysteries of the year. And I know that recently you have just been nominated for a Barry Award, which is the one that is given by Deadly Pleasures, and a Macavity.
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Jacqueline:
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And also just been nominated for two Anthony Awards. Anthony for Best First Novel and an Anthony for Best Historical Crime. So eight in all.
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Ayo:
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So what is your reaction to all this?
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Jacqueline:
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Well, put it like this. I found out two days ago about the two Anthony nominations when I was in Harrogate and I sat on my bed in a daze. I thought I do not believe it so I phoned my mum and dad and said “You never guess what” and she said, “Oh you must be overjoyed” and I said, “You know I am actually incredulous”. I mean it is amazing, it’s wonderful, it tells me that the mystery and crime fiction fans have really taken to Maisie Dobbs. When I accepted my award at the Agathas I said, and I really mean this from the bottom of my heart, that to create a character that you enjoy, you may not like but you enjoy, you become passionate about telling that story, but then to see other people became passionate and really enjoy your character is so enormously rewarding. I’d do this anyway, even if no one’s buying these books and no one wanted to publish them I would still sit and write them.
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Ayo:
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When you won the Agatha Award did you feel that there was added pressure on you when you began to write Birds of a Feather?
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Jacqueline:
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It was written, done deal, in the warehouse. By the time I had started my author tour I had finished Birds of a Feather but I think I felt pressure anyway with it. I understand now that people do, and I’ll be quite frank with you, lose quite a lot of confidence because I really allowed it to get to me. I had a dark night of the soul - thinking, “This is the worst book that anyone has ever written,” moaning to my husband, “No one will ever read it.”
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Ayo:
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How would you like the character Maisie Dobbs to be remembered?
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Jacqueline:
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I would like her to be remembered as a woman of her time and as a woman of our time, that’s really it. Women of that era, the women who lived and worked through World War I, and we tend to forget them so easily, they were women who were called to work in every field of endeavour to release men for the battle field. Just think of any job you had to do and they did it. For most of them their lives changed beyond anything they would have imagined because there was no husband and kids etc, because a whole generation of men were lost. We all know the old ladies that lived up the street when we were kids and they were spirited, they were strong, opinionated, call it what you will, and they did this country a great service. If Maisie can show just a bit of that spirit I will be grateful and if she can reflect as a woman some of the things we all experience today then so much the better.
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Ayo:
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Part and parcel of being a crime writer is the camaraderie that goes along with it and I know that you have just returned from attending the second Harrogate Crime Festival. Do you enjoy attending conferences and book signings?
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Jacqueline:
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I do, and for two different reasons. Before I became a crime writer I didn’t know that there was this great big community out there that is enormously supportive, that will say, Jackie you don’t want to go to this, go to that, make sure so-and-so and so-and-so has seen your book, and I was steered in the right direction. For example Rhys Bowen, just before the Edgars®, said to me to remember not to wear something you can’t sit down in or walk upstairs in. All those little things. There’s that camaraderie I found so enormously supportive and I’ve made some lovely new friends, and then there’s the fans that you meet. Someone once said to me as I was signing books “Oh my God, you write every single letter in your name” and I said, “All the time someone is coming to buy my book you’d better believe I’m going to write every single letter in my name.” They’re the people that are reading my books and it doesn’t matter how tired I am, I’m going to sit and talk to them. I think it was Mary Higgins Clark - and I hope I’m quoting this correctly - that someone once said to her, “Doesn’t this make your hand hurt?” She had a line out the door and she said, “Not as much as it hurt when I only had two people lining up for my books” so you know people love your books and they’re interesting and they are curious. It is a joy to spend time with them, it’s a privilege.
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Ayo:
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When you do get a chance to relax what do you enjoy doing?
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Jacqueline:
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I love walking; I love walking my dog and my husband. I start off my day walking and I end my working day walking. Obviously I love reading and I love to write, even as a recreation. I’ll try different types of writing that I don’t normally do; I’ll write poetry or something. I love being with horses, I love animals. Anything to do with the outdoors - animals, nature, gardening, you know. I haven’t ridden for a few years but my brother has a draft horse and I train him. What else do I do? I sail, I live not far from the coast, and sometimes I just like hanging out doing nothing.
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Ayo:
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Have there been any authors that have influenced your writing?
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Jacqueline:
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I wouldn’t say that there are writers that have influenced my writing.  I was asked this question the other day and I thought it was a really interesting thing because it’s almost like they’re two different questions to me. The first being what has inspired you to write and why do I write, and that comes from a love of words, what you can do when you put words together and being a craftsperson with words. And there is the other question of authors that have influenced you, not necessarily the writing but you as a person, and I have a whole list of them. I have always loved the American authors; I love Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos, those I love. There are writers that I enjoy now, I’m reading a lot of new authors now - I love Zadie Smith and John Paul Herren but I also like to read things that make me laugh. I really like to laugh so I grieved when Lawrence Sanders died - I loved his characters. There are plenty more to be going on with - in terms of the crime world, Jonathan Kellermann, what I like about his work is that you know he really knows what he is talking about. He has published almost as much non-fiction as he has fiction, and Patricia Cornwell. I don’t like things that are too gruesome because then I have terrible nightmares. I am also now delving now into the writers of yesteryear. I’m particularly reading a lot more fiction written during the years of Maisie and that way you get the language, the intonation and so on, plus it’s great reading.
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Ayo:
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You are going to have a dinner party and could invite five fictional characters. Who would they be and why?
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Jacqueline:
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Fictional?
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Ayo:
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They do not have to be crime.
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Jacqueline:
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Bridget Jones.
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Ayo:
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Why?
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Jacqueline:
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I just think she’d be one heck of a laugh to hang out with, with a bottle of wine. It’s a frivolous question so you are going to get some frivolous answers. I would like to invite Jay Gatsby, I would like to invite…who else would I really like to invite? You know these people would never get on but I would like to invite Sophie from Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron. I would also like to invite...I’m up to three and I’m going to kick myself when you’ve gone because all these people are going to rush into my head. I could probably draft in anyone from Anne Tyler’s novels but let me think, oh there is a book published called The Amazing Adventures of the Hunt Sisters and it’s the narrator in that that I would invite. All these characters are coming to me now and I’m going to have to pick just one. To keep Bridget Jones company Sebastian from Brideshead Revisited. Just to keep them happy over the wine. Shove them down the bottom of the table, they can giggle like crazy and annoy everybody else. That is a real mish mash of people isn’t it?
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Ayo:
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Yes that is why I normally ask it at the end. However, I have just thought of something that I didn’t cover. I have to say that I loved the book cover from the UK editions.
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Jacqueline:
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Isn’t it fabulous!
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Ayo:
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This is the Victoria Embankment and I have walked down here so often.
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Jacqueline:
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Yes, me too.
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Ayo:
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Did you have much choice when it came to choosing the cover?
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Jacqueline:
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No, no they sent me that one and I said, “Oh that’s really nice I like that” and so no I didn’t but I am really thrilled with it. I love it especially because in Birds of a Feather there is a scene where she walks along the Embankment and so that’s rather nice. So I absolutely love it because it gives a sense of Maisie’s aloneness. Of her singular character and there’s the quality here of light.
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Ayo:
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Foggy is not the word to use but it’s the atmosphere, the fog, that it is evocative of the war; there’s hardly anybody around. She must be hurrying along trying to get home.
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Jacqueline:
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The shady character in the background.
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Ayo:
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We are not sure if there is somebody following her or if it is a police officer walking the beat.
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Jacqueline:
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It looks like a soldier to me, an officer off duty. But anyway I loved it.
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Ayo:
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Thank you very much indeed.
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Jacqueline:
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You’re welcome.
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