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 About
the book…
When Esther recognizes a face in the crowd, it brings back a past
she's been trying to forget. And memories flood back of her eccentric
childhood - the large, shabby house, her adored elder brother Christian,
and their parents' rich collection of feckless "guests".
Into this shambolic world came Donavan - regularly deposited by
his unreliable mother - and Penny, Christian's girlfriend and Esther's
idol. Until tragedy struck and shattered all their lives. But now,
it seems, their lives are about to become intertwined once more…
 "Exquisite…
addictive reading"
Anna Maxted
"Modern, intelligently observed and highly original"
Daily Mail
"Delightful"
Sunday Times
About the author…
Clare Chambers was born in 1966, attended a school in Croydon, read
English at Oxford and wrote her first novel while she was living
in New Zealand. She is the author of Back Trouble, A Dry
Spell and Learning to Spell, which won the 1998 Parker
Romantic Novel of the Year award. She now lives in Kent with her
husband and young family.
Clare Chambers talks about the process of writing the novel and
where her ideas and inspiration came from…
The inspiration for a book often starts with a single idea - which
you roll around your mind for a while like a ball of plasticine
to see what bits of fluff and grit it picks up. In this case it
was the hero worship of a younger sister for her older, 'perfect'
brother. I remember quite clearly from my own childhood, looking
up to my much older siblings with a sense of yearning admiration,
in the knowledge that they would always be ahead, cleverer, faster,
better at everything, and impossible to impress. I suppose there
are elements of my own brother in Christian - he always seemed to
excel at things without exerting himself overmuch - but real people
will never quite do. You always end up distorting, tweaking, until
only a few little details of the original remain.
I started near the end of the story, with the balance of power
slightly skewed: the brother and sister are in their thirties, and
living together. He is now a paraplegic; she is his carer, and yet
emotionally she is still the dependent one and the announcement
that he is planning to marry throws her orderly life into disarray.
I hoped that the mystery of his accident - the whiff of tragedy
- would be the lure that would pull the reader into the story, and
that, once in, the characters would grip. The other mystery, the
real 'twist', that ties the whole book together, only came to me
when I was well over half-way through, and it was one of those all
too rare moments of inspiration. It just seemed to drift down and
settle on my shoulder. It's never happened since.
A friend of mine is a prison chaplain and would often have stories
to tell about life 'on the in'. I started to imagine the father
of my characters in this role: there seemed to be so much comic
and tragic potential in that clash between someone with huge faith
in human nature, determined to put his Christian belief into practice,
and people intent on abusing that hospitality. Once I had my 'family'
I spent quite a lot of thinking time just trying to place them.
One day when I was out in the car not far from home I saw a house
that I could imagine them having grown up in - one of those large,
slightly shabby Victorian houses, like an old rectory or schoolhouse.
The setting was important - when you are a child and too poor to
travel, your local area is your whole universe, so most of the book
was going to be set within walking distance of the house. It had
to be somewhere I knew well - unlike most writers I've got a terrible
memory for places. I forget them the instant I leave, and even revisiting
old haunts only rings the faintest of bells. Very awkward. I think
it's a form of cheating to plonk your characters in a deliberately
dramatic or picturesque location. I chose that nowhere-land where
I live, just inside the M25 where the suburbs start to drizzle out
into not-quite countryside. It's not obvious territory for fiction
- imagine the opening line: Last night I dreamt I went to Caterham
again… but there is a rich seam of eccentricity in the suburbs,
which is there for the taking.
I always enjoy writing about childhood - especially those self-conscious
teenage years, trying to fit in, then trying to stand out, kicking
around, waiting for life to begin. And parents, seen through a teenager's
eyes, are such bizarre, alien creatures.
My characters are often underdogs or innocents - both species I
relate to - but it is quite a challenge to make goodness interesting.
The selfish, feckless, pilfering Aunty Barbara was much easier to
write than the good-hearted father, who throws his doors open to
the Less Fortunate with increasingly disastrous results.
I wanted the book to have some of the qualities of a fairy tale
- but an ultra-realistic one, so the plot had to feel driven by
the characters, rather than the controlling hand of the author.
I only allowed myself one coincidence - a meeting on a train - the
other apparent 'coincidences' are in fact down to Swiss-style precision
plotting - or your money back!
My hero and heroine had to be people you would fall in love with
and not want to close the book on. I've tried to make them less
than perfect - charming people are often flawed - but by the end
of the book they have been forced to acknowledge their weaknesses,
and that makes them the more likeable.
Click
HERE to read an extract of In a Good Light
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