An Interview with Melanie Golding

I am an author.

I get up, I pack the kids off to school. Then, still in my pyjamas usually, I write for a few hours. Eventually, I will get dressed, go for a walk or a run (I just started running and it’s HARD), do some chores. I pick the kids up and it’s parenting all the way until bedtime.

I’m reading The Turn of The Screw by Henry James, because people often refer to it when they are talking about the themes in Little Darlings.

I remember that the house was full of books. I also realise in retrospect that there wasn’t much to fill the gap in between the picture books and Beatrix Potters and the teenage fighting fantasy books that my older brothers had. Things got dark pretty fast: I remember that I read The Rats by James Herbert when I was about nine. I suppose that must have been quite formative.

Bookmarker.

All my life I have been deeply in love with reading.

When I was about six I wrote a story at school, a kind of ‘what I did on my holidays’ that included some extremely fictional aspects. My teachers were concerned at what they saw were lies, but I stuck to my story, which included a magic house and a short superman flight from the top of a hill. I believed that because no one could prove none of that stuff happened, then it had. I felt like it had, and that seemed enough.

I could and did gift myself books at those ages, and many of them. Age 16: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, which shows how a ghost story can be brutal, and beautiful, and important. Age 25: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, which is a classic that needs to be critically considered in light of what we find entertaining and why.

This is a huge question. I’m writing a thesis on it at the moment, so check back in a few months.

Reading is required, but three books wouldn’t cut it. Read as many as you can.

Sylvia Plath, because I love her work, though I’m not sure she’d be that much fun. Stephen King, because I imagine he would be. Terry Pratchett, because he was such a lovely man. Toni Morrison, though I’m not sure I’d have the guts to speak to her. Kate Atkinson, because I want to soak up some of whatever it is she has.

I bought The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, because it looks amazing and I’ve heard about the intricacy of the plot

It’s immersive, and I learn so much.

I read The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. It was horrific. In a brilliant way.

I have no desire to be a character in a book; I’m an observer. If I could just go and hang out in any book it would be at the offices of Mma Ramotswe. She wouldn’t need my input though. I would just make the tea.

1. Don’t stop until you get to the end 2) Re-write it until it looks like all the stuff that happened while you were writing it was always supposed to happen.

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks was the first really shocking twist I’d read. I loved it, and it gave me something to aspire to. If I could write something even half as good as that I’d feel like I really made it.

Jeanette Winterson was very influential, especially Sexing the Cherry and Written on The Body. I loved The Time Traveler’s Wife, for its form, its prose and its story. Wild Swans by Jung Chang made a big impression. Also, I am a big fan of Lawrence Block.

I have a signed copy of Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale. I’m waiting for a free weekend to sink in.