Five Minutes With… Author Emma Woolf
There is plenty of pressure on any debut author, but can you imagine what that is like, when you are related to one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century – Virginia Woolf? Emma Woolf is bravely following in the footsteps of her great-aunt, and has just released her first novel (although she already has six non-fiction books under her belt).
England’s Lane looks at the devastating consequences of an affair on the mistress, husband, and wife, and how life pans out beyond it. It is an emotional, thought-provoking, rollercoaster of a read so maybe literary skills can run in the genes!
Congratulations on the new book! It is a great read. You really bring certain areas of London to life in the pages. What is your own relationship like with the city?
I have lived in London pretty much all my life (with occasional spells in New York) and it will always be home. I was born and grew up in and around the areas I describe in the novel, Camden Town, Hampstead, Islington etc.
However, like most Londoners (and other city-dwellers) it’s something of a love-hate relationship. I recently spent a month writing in France, in deepest rural Burgundy and also on the coast of Brittany. Some mornings I’d be swimming in the ocean, gazing at another sparkling sunrise, wondering why on earth I live in over-crowded, over-priced, polluted, noisy, dirty central London! Should I sell up and move to the coast? Could I ever leave London for good?
The truth is, I crave it, thrive on it, cycle around it at breakneck speed, know and love this city like the back of my hand. But I also need to escape regularly!
You are related to Virginia Woolf, which we at Belle About Town found really exciting! Do tell us about the family connection?
So glad you found it exciting! Yes, Virginia is my Great-Aunt. My father Cecil Woolf is 91 years old and the last person alive to have known and to really remember Virginia and Leonard, his aunt and uncle. It’s wonderful to listen to my father talk about them, and other members of the Bloomsbury Group, and all his memories. It was a different world, back then, in the 1930s and 40s, those inter-war years, different values, a different way of life…
Inevitably people are going to compare your writing to hers. Is that scary or exciting?
Like many of Virginia’s novels, my novel England’s Lane is set in and around London. Of course comparisons will be made – our surname has literary resonance, and for me that’s a great privilege. And yes it’s scary, not for my own ego, but simply because I admire Virginia’s writing more than I can say. To be called a serious fiction writer in the same breath as her is quite incredible! But I don’t worry too much about the comparison: this is my 7th book now and like any skill, it takes years of hard work, whether it’s one’s diary, letters, book reviews, journalism, focusing on becoming a better writer. It’s practice in language and structure and capturing the essence of what one is trying to say – above all, getting at the truth. Hopefully my writing improves with each book.
To be honest I expected unfavourable comparisons, even literary snobbishness, but I’ve been surprised. The novel has had sparkling reviews in the UK and US from academics who really know Virginia’s work!
As for Virginia herself… I don’t know what she would have made of England’s Lane. Like her, I’m interested in love and loss, families and relationships, and how we get through our days. I try to write accurately and honestly about human life, about what matters. At the very least, I hope it wouldn’t have her turning in her grave.
Society still has a habit of blaming the ‘other woman’ when it comes to affairs, rather than the cheating husband. But in the book, Lily seems to be quite an unrepentant mistress. Was that a conscious decision?
Lily is not unrepentant but it is not her marriage. Lily did not marry Harry’s wife, Lily did not make that solemn vow to worship, love and honour another person, to forsake all others…
In fact, Lily resists Harry for a long time. She tries not to get involved with him. She respects his marriage and she does not set out to seduce him. We find it easier to blame the mistress, especially if they’re young and pretty, instead of blaming the husband who has made marriage vows and broken them. Lily thinks deeply about the serious situation she’s getting into, the potential for hurt and heartbreak all round. But she has betrayed no-one.
You have said although the book is fiction, it was inspired by your own experiences, so you must have had to revisit some pretty dark times during the writing process. Did you have any techniques for dealing with that?
All life is material for a writer, isn’t it? I suppose that all the experiences I’ve been through since my early twenties, when my partner killed himself, have made me into the person I am today. Sadder, wiser and hopefully a little bit kinder.
I wrote about my own life more directly in my first book (An Apple a Day: a Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia) so I guess I’m used to plumbing the emotional depths. For me, the question isn’t ‘how do I cope with writing about dark times’ – it’s the opposite: how do people who don’t write cope with their dark times?
It would be simplistic to say that writing is cathartic for me, or that my books have provided closure difficult events in my life, because they haven’t. But writing does provide an outlet, a way of processing grief, a place to go with all these painful, messy emotions. Giving them a shape in writing is the start of making sense of them.
This is a brilliant first novel, but you have written several non-fiction books in the past. What can we expect from you next?
Where to start?! My next non-fiction book, ‘Wellbeing: The Young Women’s Guide to Health and Balance’ will be published by Sheldon Press later this year. I’m also working on a new novel which should be hitting the shelves next year… but that’s all I can reveal!
- England’s Lane, by Emma Woolf, is out now. Three Hares Publishing, £8.99. Follow Emma on twitter at @EJWoolf
