Interview with Sarah Hall

Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974. She is the author of Haweswater, which won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award, and a Lakeland Book of the Year prize. In 2004, her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia region), and the Prix Femina Etranger, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her third novel, The Carhullan Army, was published in 2007, and won the 2006/07 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tiptree Jr. Award, a Lakeland Book of the Year prize, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and a radio adaptation of her third novel. Her latest novel is How to Paint a Dead Man.

Mark Thwaite: What first gave you the idea for How to Paint a Dead Man?

Sarah Hall: There were probably a few preoccupations circling -- for me there never seems to be just one clean central idea around which a novel is based. The enigmatic, beautiful still life paintings of Morandi were a key starting point - I have admired them for a long time - though Giorgio in the novel is certainly not Morandi, not an attempt at any kind of fictional biography. To me these paintings, a well as being visually and domestically pleasing, are like questions marks. The novel is about life's big questions perhaps. If that sounds terribly grand, it isn't meant to. Susan's story in particular I think encompasses our contemporary anxiety about who we are and what life is. The other operating keys for the book -- its themes -- are identity (vocational and personal) grief, sex and love -- and I was interested in how these things might be expressed through art and through human interaction, how we make connections and share meanings.

Mark Thwaite: Your novel spans fifty years, some of which is based in Italy in the 60s -- did you spend much time doing historical research?

Sarah Hall: Yes, I did. Italy in the 1960's is an interesting period that includes the economic boom. I had a writing residency in Umbria in 2007, which helped too, gave me some time to get acquainted with the place, to gather its folk histories and cultural details, learn about its flora and religious traditions (particularly relevant to Annette's story), talk to people about their lives and memories, and also to encounter firsthand those very famous works of art I'd known about since studying an art history degree. I also researched San Francisco, New York and Liverpool in this period, as Peter's story is partly set in these locations.

Mark Thwaite: How long did it take you to write your novel? Is this the usual timeframe for you?

Sarah Hall: About 5 years from start to finish. This is a little longer than the previous three novels, but I think it's a more complex and subtle piece of fiction, with four varied, interlocking narratives, and the final stages of the project, as well as the inspiration and the drafting, required space, grace periods, and careful arrangement. Though I've now written four novels I hesitate to say what might or might not be normal for me. Each book has felt different and the processes have been different each time.

Mark Thwaite: How do you write? Longhand or on a screen? Straight off or with lots of editing?

Sarah Hall: These days I tend to use a laptop for composition. For editing I still like to make marks on the page. It's always a balancing act between getting the words out and ordering them somewhat before moving on. Questions like this, while they appear very straightforward, are quite hard to answer. I think writers are usually too engrossed in their projects to deploy a detached aspect of their selves to observe the proceedings and report back on the findings. This writer anyway.

Mark Thwaite: Your book is a study of art and loss. By default, is it also about the art of writing?

Sarah Hall: Not consciously, though in all forms of creative production there may be some similarities. Certainly some of the inquiries and explorations into discipline and industry might apply to the literary profession as well as the art world -- the interest in the practitioner as a representative of their work, the desire to find celebrities in the field, the way critical response often attempts to obviate or fix an interpretation of the work, unsuccessfully. I think in the end the book is probably more of a raw human study than an academic meditation or treatise.

Mark Thwaite: Whilst all your books are very different, as an author do you feel you have ongoing concerns, which you continually interrogate in each of your novels?

Sarah Hall: Identity is something I often consider, or at least ask questions about in the books -- whether through place and locality, profession, societal definition or marginalization. Also landscape, which I treat almost like a characterization, wherever the settings for the novels might be. There are usually gender debates of some variety at work too, challenges to conventional notions of the feminine and the masculine. Art is a very interesting arena for such things. Think of the names in the history books. Think of the iconic forms on the canvases. Think of the muse.

Mark Thwaite: You have been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (for The Electric Michelangelo) and you've won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2007 (for The Carhullan Army) -- what do those awards mean to you? And what is your general view of literary prizes?

Sarah Hall: I'm very honoured, and I also know I have been very lucky. My work is particular, often divisive, so it's a little baffling that there has been enough agreement over the years for a nomination or an award to be given. There is no getting around how useful such things can be for marketing purposes and profile. But even now, I possibly retain something of an underdog status, or an outsider status. That's OK; I like trying to punch above my weight.

I don't have a general view of literary prizes. Having been a judge myself I know how difficult the process can be, how rewarding and uplifting, how compromising and frustrating. There are different agendas at work. Some awards are longstanding and obviously pride themselves on integrity, always selecting knowledgeable and expert judging panels, and focusing on excellence. Others don't, and seem to be devaluing their role in literary advocacy -- are a little too keen on working the media by employing residents of the celebrity cul-de-sac, often under the banner of leveling democratization.

Mark Thwaite: Do you read the critics? Have you learned anything from their responses to your books?

Sarah Hall: No I don't, but inevitably some reviews will find me. I've learned that there are astute, balanced, well-read critics and then there are the opposite numbers. Positive and negative reviews come from both. The perceived weaknesses and successes in my work have been noted. I've also noted sexism, genre-bias, personal attacks and careless mis-readings.

Mark Thwaite: What was the most difficult aspect of writing How to Paint a Dead Man? How did you overcome it?

Sarah Hall: The macro-management. It was tricky alloying the four narratives, splicing them together, and forming the overall body of the text. The possibilities were endless, so a system had to be engineered. I knew each story had to work independently, but also work as part of the whole. The chapter tie-ins are both small and large, from domestic detail, to erotic drama, to existential transcendence. My hope is that there is satisfaction in following each character's story independently, hearing each fictional voice telling a tale, but also that the four pieces converse and chorus with each other, thematically and structurally.

Mark Thwaite: Did you have an idea in your mind of your "ideal" reader? Did you write specifically for them?

Sarah Hall: I've never had an ideal reader in mind. I wouldn't presume to know who that might be, or that I could wholly meet the needs of a particular reader, or that I could disqualify anyone from finding within the text something worthwhile. The responses to my writing have been wonderfully varied and very surprising. A farmer recently showed me an extract from Haweswater he had taped to his kitchen wall -- a little passage about cows that had appealed to him. What more could be hoped for?

Mark Thwaite: What are you working on now?

Sarah Hall: A radio adaptation of The Carhullan Army for the BBC and a collection of short stories. I'm also learning to play the banjo -- it's definitely work.

Mark Thwaite: Who is your favourite writer? What is/are your favourite book(s)?

Sarah Hall: There are lots, but I'll throw a few out there: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck; The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox; Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell; Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson; The Optimists by Andrew Miller; The Tree House by Kathleen Jamie; and The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy.

Mark Thwaite: Favourite quote?

Sarah Hall: From Withnail and I -- the poacher's note: "Here hare here."

Mark Thwaite: Do you have any tips for the aspiring writer?

Sarah Hall: Dozens.

Mark Thwaite: Anything else you'd like to say?

Sarah Hall: Thank you.