War and its legacy is a recurring theme in your writing: do you regard Restitution as a pacifist novel?
There was a point when I was researching Restitution where I almost wondered what the point of the war had been; there was so much horror on each side in the last months as the Russians swept through Germany. I felt my illusions fall away; I'd always taken it for granted that the Allies were morally superior to the Nazis but here were the Soviets--who were on 'our side'--behaving in this appalling manner. But I think Hitler had to be fought and the main characters in the novel, Alix and Gregor, certainly understand this imperative, even though they are painfully and personally aware of the ironic consequences of the fight.
The main character in Restitution, Alix, appears both as a young girl and an old woman: tell us something about the role of memory in the novel.
I'm always fascinated by the way that we interpret what we see around us by jumping backwards to remember what has happened to us in the past. And the jolt that occurs when we perceive the gap between what was remembered and the current reality is creatively very exciting.
Much of the hardship in Restitution is experienced by German characters: to what extent have you sought to reverse the traditional roles of villain and victim during that conflict?
Any attempt to obtain restitution usually hits the innocent as heavily as the guilty, even if it's unintentional. But what the Red Army did to German women (and any others they encountered) goes beyond 'collateral' damage, it was a sickening war crime committed against women as young as 11 and as old as 80. I suppose there is a bit of a reversal of sympathy going on in Restitution and some people may find that questionable, given what the Germans had inflicted on other people. But my point is that a gang-raped teenage girl is an outrage no matter which nationality she is.
What was the last book you read?
The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard. It's a very clever book: starting with the disintegration of a marriage and jumping backwards in time from one major 'incident' in the relationship to another over a time period of about 25 years. The opening chapters see the protagonists preparing for a final separation. And the very last chapter describes them meeting for the first time. There's great poignancy as the deep-rooted causes of the marital breakdown emerge.
If you could be any fictional character who would you be?
I wouldn't mind being Harriet Vane in the Dorothy L Sayers books exchanging verbal strokes with Lord Peter Wimsey, while looking very elegant in thirties fashion. But I would like to be Harriet after she's been cleared of murder and not have to go through the Old Bailey trial.
Where is your favourite place in the world?
On a clear day where I live, in the Vale of White Horse, is as good as it gets for me. I love the steep line of the Downs above our village and the way its outlines and shadows change as the light shifts. On very warm summer afternoons in term time our village is the quietest place on earth and it's incredibly restful to go for a walk and hear only the clip-clop of racehorses in the lane (we live near Lambourn, the 'capital' of National Hunt racing).
What started you writing?
When I was a completely misunderstood teenager I wrote a diary, detailing the usual adolescent woes. Then I didn't write a thing for about 15 years, until I was pregnant with my first child; the hormones must have done something to me. I wrote a dreadful book, which I promptly destroyed. A couple of years later I tried again more seriously and started writing Restitution, which took about five years on and off. I'd read some newspaper articles about the treatment of civilian women in Germany by Russian soldiers and that inspired, or rather, incensed me, to write a novel about it.
If you had three wishes, what would they be?
The first would be to get more people reading: a very cost-effective form of entertainment during a recession. Women seem to read a lot and belong to book groups, but men don't seem as keen.
The second would be that someone would find a viable way of running a proper bookshop again in my home town of Wantage.
The third would be that I could develop an aversion to chocolate and biscuits, which I eat in large amounts when I'm writing a novel.
