TALKING JANE AUSTEN - LYNN SHEPHERD PART I

Get a chance to win a signed copy of Lynn Shepherd's novel

Read through this post and discover how!!!

I'm glad to have a very special guest to "talk Jane Austen" with today. She'll be here again next Thursday  19th August. My guest is Lynn Shepherd. Reading and commenting the two parts of this interview you'll have  a double chance two win a signed copy of her delightful Austen-based novel just published also in the Us and Canada. The details of the giveaway are at the end of the interview.

Lynn Shepherd  lives in Berkshire, England, with her husband Simon. Murder at Mansfield Park is her first novel, but she has  been a professional copywriter for the last ten years.

She studied English at Oxford in the 1980s, and went back to do a doctorate in 2003. By that time she'd spent 15 years in business, first in the City, and later in PR. She'd always wanted to be a writer, and going freelance in 2000 gave her the time she needed to see if she could make that dream into a reality. Ten years and two and a half unpublished novels later, it’s finally happened!

First of all,  a warm welcome! I’m so glad to have the chance to talk with you about your novel,  Lynn. I’ve just finished reading it and I’m so curious about what you had in mind while writing  but, of course, I know you can’t reveal all your secrets! First of all the characters I’m most stirred by Mary Crawford and Mr Maddox. Let’s start from her. When and why did you decide she was your heroine?

As soon as I got the idea for Murder at Mansfield Park I knew straightaway that Mary would be my heroine. I’ve always liked her, and always felt that Austen weighed the scales against her, when she’s actually far more appealing than Fanny. But of course, ‘my’ Mary is not the same character as in the original. She has no money for a start, which always made a vast difference in Regency society. She’s had quite a hard life, and a lonely one in many ways, and that gives subtleties to her character that aren’t there in Mansfield Park.

Your Mr Maddox is a very intriguing character. As I wrote in my review, he is the hero of the novel in my opinion, more than Edmund or Henry Crawford. Who inspired you this rude fascinating thief-taker?

He was my favourite character to write! Probably because he is entirely mine, and nothing like anyone you find in Austen. I loved the idea that he dresses beautifully and looks every inch the gentleman, but has a very different social background, and a very different code of behaviour, which is why he can play such sophisticated games with his aristocratic suspects. I didn’t have anyone in particular in mind as a model, but I think his detective methods owe a lot to Sherlock Holmes, who is also all about ‘logic and observation’.

 Do you think he could be involved in any other adventure of yours? It would be nice to have him investigating alone, with other Austen heroines or with Mary Crawford herself again.

You won’t be surprised to hear that many readers have asked if Maddox will make a return! In fact I’m nearing the end of the first draft of a second novel, in which Maddox appears, but not perhaps in the way people will expect…

 Your Fanny Price is not the typical Austen heroine and she is not at all what we all thought her to be in Mansfield Park. Was it fun to create such a new, complex, completely different character? Was it instead troublesome?I think I’ve mentioned before that my inspiration for my version of Fanny Price was Kingsley Amis’ quote about her being a ‘monster of complacency and pride’ operating under a ‘cloak’ of demureness, and using that to dominate what goes on. I’m not sure I agree with that as a description of the original Fanny, but it was a wonderful basis upon which to construct my new one. And yes, it was enormous fun to do that, and I was surprised how many of the original speeches I could re-use without changing them at all!

Edmund and Henry are the other male main characters in the novel. Again quite different from the original characters though substantially similar. Why did you decide to give them the same main features as JA gave them? Does this mean you basically like them?

I think Henry is one of those appealing bad boys that women have been falling in love with for hundreds of years. Again, by making my version poor, rather than rich, I was able to change the whole basis of Henry’s social status, and bring some new pressures and stresses to bear on his character, which result in some interesting twists. As for Edmund, I do find the original version very trying, and very pompous on occasion. My challenge with him was precisely the fact that I wanted to keep him the same, but show what might be going on behind that rather irritating façade – to make him more human and vulnerable, which I think also makes him more appealing as a character.

You gave some of the servants in the house a relevant role in the story. Is there any specific reason why you did it?

That’s a really perceptive point. Of course there are servants in Austen – dozens of them in fact, especially in a big house like Pemberley, but hardly any of them ever get a voice, or even a name. The intriguing thing about introducing a murder, of course, is that these silent and invisible people suddenly become just as important as the main characters, as potential witnesses. In fact, as Maddox knows perfectly well, they’re actually more useful, because they can tell him what’s really been going on behind closed doors, and they’re not trying to maintain an illusion of unity, as the family are.

Part of the investigation in the book reminds me of Christie’s Poirot‘s procedures and part of contemporary murder stories with several macabre details (coroner’s style). Are you keen on mystery and murder stories as a reader? Did you read anything in particular to prepare yourself to the task?
I absolutely adore mysteries – especially good old-fashioned English detective fiction. I’ve read and seen hundreds of these over the years, and one of the main inspirations for my book was the realisation that the set-up of Mansfield Park is exactly like a country house murder – the family in the big house, the buried tensions, and the charismatic outsider who sets off a disastrous chain of events. Having seen that connection, it was a wonderful puzzle to put together an authentic Regency ‘Christie’.

You left part of the mystery unsolved. Namely, Henry Crawford’s background story involves another mysterious unsolved crime. Are you going to write something starting from there?

Yes that was quite deliberate – I want to leave it open to my readers to decide what happened with that earlier crime. I don’t have any plans to solve it for them, but I suppose anything’s possible!

How long did it take to write and get to publish your first novel? Have you got any suggestion for the many bloggers dreaming to become published writers I know?

I first starting trying to write a novel 10 years ago, and have been working at it ever since. My first unpublished one included some Austen pastiche, and it lay in a drawer for about a decade before I finally had the idea for Murder at Mansfield Park, and was able to turn it into something someone wanted to publish. But that’s a hard process, and you have to be very determined, and grow a pretty thick skin. But the key thing is never to give up. And get a good agent!

My last question is one I’d have asked Jane Austen herself if I had had the chance to interview her about Mansfield Park. I’d like to ask you, thinking of YOUR novel … are you pretty sure that THAT is the finale you actually wanted to write? Any regrets? Is that the right man for your heroine? I’m still puzzled actually… I feel like something different can still happen … LOL

It’s hard to answer this one without giving too much away to those who haven’t read it! Shall we say that both Mary and I were very tempted by the alternative she’s offered in the closing pages, but I felt I had to remain true to the original, and return to that at the end – and as any Austen fan will realise, my last sentence (like my first) is exactly as she wrote it. So yes – I think mine ends the right way, though I’m not sure Miss Austen could say the same of hers…!

Ok! That's all for today, Lynn. See you next week. I've got much to ask you about Jane Austen and her work and still something about your novel. Thanks for your time and your kindness!
 

(Australia & New Zealand front cover)

Now darling readers and Janeite friends it's your turn! GIVEAWAY!!! Lynn Shepherd has generously granted one of you a copy of the American edition of Murder at Mansfield Park. You'll have a double chance to win it, leaving your comments both on  this post and  on TALKING JANE AUSTEN - LYNN SHEPHERD PART II  you'll find on My JA Book Club next Thursday.

1. The giveaway is open worldwide

2. Winner will be announced on August 26th

3. You can leave just one comment under each post (so double chance to win)

4. Don't forget to add your e-mail address. I won't enter you without it!

Follow Lynn Shepherd at  her site http://www.lynn-shepherd.com/ 

or on twitter http://twitter.com/GhostingAusten