The High House by Jessie Greengrass #AuthorInterview

 The High House by Jessie Greengrass was published on 17 March in paperback by Swift Press. It was shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards 2021. I am delighted to welcome the author, Jessie Greengrass to the blog to talk about her writing today. First, here's a little about the book:

Perched on a hill above a village by the sea,Perched on a hill above a village by the sea, the high house has a mill, a vegetable garden and a barn full of supplies.

Caro and her younger half-brother, Pauly, arrive there one day to find it cared for by Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally. Not quite a family, they learn to live together, and care for one another.

But there are limits even to what the ailing Grandy knows about how to survive, and, if the storm comes, it might not be enough.

‘Deeply moving ... so grounded in reality and the ordinariness of the lives of this disparate group, that I had to read parts of it through my fingers’

Good Housekeeping Books of the Year

Welcome to  Books, Life and Everything. Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions on my blog about your writing.

Would you like to start by telling us a little about yourself and how you started as a writer?

I really started writing accidentally. I’ve always been a reader and have loved talking about books since I first figured out that was something you could do, but the idea of actually writing didn’t occur to me, or if it did then it was as something that was probably beyond me. I studied philosophy at university and loved it – and occasionally I would start trying to write a story on the side, but they were always very bad. It took me a long time to understand how to edit my own work, including my own ideas, and actually a lot of that I learned by writing essays, where clarity is so important. After university I sort of lost my way for a bit, but eventually ended up writing stories for a zine I put together with friends. Every month or so we would come up with a word and everyone would write something based on that word, and then we’d photocopy it, and then we’d go to the pub. We didn’t do anything with it, really, beyond that, but it was a brilliant exercise in having to get on with writing. I’m a great fan of deadlines, even ones you make up and impose on yourself. Really, that was the first time I thought maybe after all writing was something I might end up being good at – and many of those stories found their way into Great Auk, which was my first book.

What was your inspiration for The High House and which came first, the plot, the characters, the setting or themes?

It really started off as an interest in the history of coastal communities in the UK – of how precarity was a fact of life for the majority of their inhabitants for the majority of their history, and of how quickly it seems we have forgotten that. The fishing industry has been decimated within a generation and it almost seems like we’ve forgotten it ever existed. Then, I suppose, somewhere in the early stages of writing the book became more about climate change, which is bringing a return to precarity in many places, particularly in those stretches of the coastline which have always been susceptible to erosion.

   I suppose that it was really the setting which came first, but actually it all sort of emerged fairly organically out of a kind of ideas soup. I never really know what I’m doing or where I’m going at the very beginning of working on something – all the details emerge as I write them.

 Could you tell us a little about The High House, without giving the plot away?

It’s a novel set in a near future in which climate change has progressed to the point that increasingly devastating events are occurring in the UK. It’s not so much a post-apocalyptic novel as a novel about living through a slow burn apocalypse while also having to do all the ordinary things, like cook dinner, and look after your children.

 Climate Change is an important theme in the novel. How do you go about researching such a subject?

At this point it really just feels like a matter of reading the news. I decided early on that I wouldn’t try and craft the most scientifically likely future. It’s a version of climate catastrophe which I designed to suit the needs of the story, but still, I don’t think it’s wholly implausible, and also the most important thing was that it altered the lives of the characters in ways which felt as though they were likely. And writing it was strange, because I kept feeling that the world was keeping pace with the book, or even outstripping it.

 The Hill House has been shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel Award. How do you feel about this?

It’s always wonderful to be shortlisted for a prize! It’s lovely to feel that your work is being recognised, and also hopefully that it will find new readers that was. I am still delighted about it.

 What do you like to read when you are not writing?

I try and get a bit of a balance between reading purely for pleasure and reading books which feel as though they are important, either in terms of what they are trying to do in themselves, or in what they might show me or teach me. Both are their own kind of joy. But I don’t think there are many things in life which are as genuinely enjoyable as reading thrillers in the bath until the water goes cold.

Can you give any hints about any upcoming books you have planned?

I’m working on something new at the moment but it’s still fairly stuck in the soupy stage. It will definitely have the sea in it though.

Finally, have you three words which sum up The High House?

Wet wet wet.

Thank you so much for that insught, Jessie. 

About the Author

 

Jessie Greengrass spent her childhood in London and Devon. She studied philosophy in Cambridge and London and now lives in Berwick-upon-Tweed with her partner and children.

Her collection of short stories, An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It, won the Edge Hill Prize 2016 and a Somerset Maugham Award. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Sight, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018.

You can follow Jessie here: Twitter

Book link: Amazon UK 

Thanks to Jessie Greengrass, Swift Press and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the interview and a place on the tour.

Check out the rest of the tour!