{"id":890,"date":"2017-02-10T21:05:38","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T21:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/?page_id=890"},"modified":"2018-11-28T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T13:22:08","slug":"edith-oliver","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/books\/edith-oliver\/","title":{"rendered":"Edith & Oliver"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Edith<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Synopsis<\/span><\/h1>\n

Edith was born into a different world. But her rebellious nature brought her to the seedy glamour of the music hall, where she plays the piano by night.\u00a0 Oliver is an illusionist. And he is a man of ambition. He wants to tour the world, to pioneer ground-breaking illusions.<\/span><\/p>\n

History and fate have other ideas. When Edith and Oliver meet they fall headlong in love. But their children arrive as the world begins to change, as cinemas crowd the high street and the draw of the music hall wanes.\u00a0 What follows is a struggle: against the trials of marriage, against the march of time, and against Oliver’s flaws – flaws that may cost them everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

We meet Edith and Oliver the morning after what appears to have been a lively party the night before. Amidst the remnants of chaos the pair stand together \u2018one a fulcrum for the other\u2019 \u2013 does this steadying effect go to the heart of their relationship?<\/em><\/p>\n

Edith and Oliver are life\u2019s double act, both on and off the stage. \u00a0When they first meet they are drawn to one another in equal measure \u2013Edith to Oliver\u2019s charm, his intelligence, his \u2018brutish presence\u2019 as an illusionist; Oliver to Edith\u2019s feistiness, her tenderness, her talent as a pianist.\u00a0 Together they discover a blossoming of \u2018some forgotten joy\u2019.\u00a0 However, as circumstances change they find themselves side-lined in the world of entertainment and they struggle to cope with unemployment and mounting debts, as well as with a quickly changing social, cultural and political landscape.\u00a0 As the years pass they become more and more adrift in a world which conspires to debase their relationship as husband and wife and as mother and father, and the steadying force which was once at the heart of their marriage finally comes under threat.<\/p>\n

Edith and Oliver is set in the twilight days of the Music Hall and explores reasons for its decline in popularity. Could you tell us a little about this?<\/em><\/p>\n

Music hall reached its peak in the 1890\u2019s.\u00a0 By 1906 \u2013 where I begin story of Edith and Oliver \u2013 the art form was still vibrant but its steady decline had already begun. \u00a0\u00a0It was the new rival attractions developing alongside music hall which were increasingly dominating public taste and pulling in the crowds. There was a growing love among audiences for musical theatre, farce, revue-style shows and variety, and theatre owners could book one single production for a long run rather than hiring individual music hall performers every week.\u00a0 With the advent of cinema, theatres mounted short visual presentations to spice up their programme (at one point in the story Oliver reads an article in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner<\/em> about what \u00a0claims to be the first purpose-built cinema to open in Colne, Lancashire).\u00a0 Audiences were flocking to see music hall performers like Charlie Chaplin and George Robey star on the big screen.\u00a0 Ragtime and jazz also caught the public\u2019s imagination and when radio test transmission licences were issued in 1920 entertainment was brought right into people\u2019s homes.\u00a0 By 1921, as the book closes, it is clear to Oliver that the heyday of music hall is well and truly over.<\/p>\n

Oliver seems to me to be a very complicated man, one of extremes. He is capable of great love and tenderness, but also of indifference bordering on cruelty. Was he an interesting character to write?<\/em><\/p>\n

As a character Oliver was incredibly interesting to write.\u00a0 His energy is central to the novel because he cannot find a point of rest and so he propels the narrative forward.\u00a0 He also has a mercurial quality about him which meant that I could frequently push the action beyond the\u00a0 predictable.\u00a0 A traumatic childhood experience means that his adult self is entrenched in a sense of its own powerlessness and this sets him at odds with the world around him allowing a kind of narrative friction to happen.\u00a0 In terms of themes I was interested in how families often get caught in repeating patterns of behaviour and so I explored how the difficult relationship Oliver had with his father plays out on his own son and daughter, overruling his capacity for better judgement.\u00a0 He is not, however, completely ensnared by his own flaws, he also has the capacity to be magnanimous and charming, to be thoughtful, to love greatly. The difficulty is that his expression of those qualities tends to be sabotaged by his lack of self-worth and he ends up hurting the very thing he loves.<\/p>\n

I loved Edith\u2019s spirit; there\u2019s a scene early on when she refers to her knitting as representing \u2018the washted [sic] moments of my life in regular and pearl.\u2019 Motherhood has a profound effect on her, in a way far beyond the impact of fatherhood has on Oliver, was this something you purposely wanted to address?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, I did.\u00a0 Oliver comments early on that he thinks Edith is a little too cocksure of herself.\u00a0 And she is, and she\u2019s funny too.\u00a0 But that perky personality is also balanced with a sense of life\u2019s frailty.\u00a0 Within the world of the music hall Edith has economic independence (at a time when that was difficult for a woman to have) and can flex her creative muscles as much as any man.\u00a0 But when she gives birth to Agna and Archie she steps out of that world to take on the more traditional role of a woman at home.\u00a0 I was interested in this.\u00a0 To me it was a kind of reversal to what we expect today, where in the process of self-actualisation a woman is expected to step out of the home into the wider world.\u00a0\u00a0 For Edith motherhood becomes a hugely transformative experience principally because she allows it to transform her, she embraces it fully and becomes the richer for it.<\/p>\n

I was struck by the sense of community, both within the world of the Music Hall and more widely in the neighbourhood. At times, Edith and her family rely on this kindness for survival. Do you think we have lost this community spirit in the 21st century?<\/em><\/p>\n

Regarding a sense of community in the 21st<\/sup> century, I think we think<\/em> we have lost it, but it\u2019s still there, perhaps more so now.\u00a0 In the world which unelected big businesses and dubious elected governments are creating for us today I\u2019m hearing more people expressing the need to connect with each other at a grassroots level and to talk about and act on the things which matter to them, and that can only be a good thing.\u00a0 These smaller communities are almost like micro-solutions to the challenging, and often damaging, policies governments appear to be offering us.\u00a0 Also, having a background as an actor I know how disparate groups of people can find a commonality and become very close.\u00a0 Theatre brings people together and the friendships they forge last. \u00a0Of course no community is without its moments of friction between people, as Oliver will testify, but I wanted to convey the connectedness and the warmth which I have experienced as a theatre actor in my depiction of the music hall world.<\/p>\n

Food features frequently in the novel: beef shirt and onion pie, meatloaf and champ, nettle soup, scallions \u2013 is this a way of cementing the time, place, and even social class of your protagonists?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, it was a conscious thing for me to do that. \u00a0Describing food and cooking and the complexity of association it holds for all of us creates a very rich palette for a writer to play with because we all have a visceral relationship with food. \u00a0I can still conjure up the smell and taste of champ from my childhood growing up in Northern Ireland at a moment\u2019s notice \u2013that wonderful buttery mixture of scallion and potatoes. Within the narrative it was an extremely useful tool in evoking the time, place and social class of my characters in a particular and immediate way.\u00a0 It was also useful in adding interesting detail to character \u2013 the lump of custard for example which sits \u2018like a pustule\u2019 on the fat lips of the odorous Sydney Brown.\u00a0 Mmm, delicious\u2026<\/p>\n

As well as Oliver\u2019s illusions, there are little drops of magic sprinkled throughout the book such as snowflakes falling or the appearance of the beautiful and comforting Eurielle Hope. Did you intend these to have a talismanic quality?<\/em><\/p>\n

The creation of other worlds which have talismanic qualities and exist in parallel to Oliver\u2019s own conjuring tricks and illusions is a crucial device in the novel.\u00a0 For Agna particularly these other worlds take on a poetic resonance and help her to manage the sometimes frightening real world she lives in.\u00a0 As a child who has a fraught relationship with language she is able, through her images of snow and snowflakes, to not only make sense of her experiences and find comfort from that but also to discover a way to \u2018be\u2019 in the world. \u00a0In the same way Eurielle Hope, the exotic cross-dressing performer who appears to Oliver at times of crises, acts as a harbinger to warn him of danger and is a manifestation of Oliver\u2019s own deep need to find solace.<\/p>\n

There is a beautiful line about storytelling in the book; it\u2019s not truth that matters but \u2018intent and\u2026 generosity in giving them\u2019. Is this your philosophy of storytelling?<\/em><\/p>\n

I guess it is.\u00a0 It\u2019s never really about the truth of a story, it\u2019s about the exchange which happens when a story is told, it\u2019s about the connection between people, and it\u2019s about the possibilities of self-discovery which it affords both to the person who tells the story and to the person who hears it, and that\u2019s why fiction works.<\/p>\n

For Foyles Bookshop<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Listen to Michele Forbes talking to Sean Rocks about ‘Edith & Oliver’ on RTE’s Arena<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen to Michele Forbes reading from ‘Edith & Oliver’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Watch Michele Forbes on Ireland AM talking to Mark Cagney about ‘Edith & Oliver’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a0Synopsis Edith was born into a different world. But her rebellious nature brought her to the seedy glamour of the music hall, where she plays the piano by night.\u00a0 Oliver is an illusionist. And he is a man of ambition. He wants to tour the world, to pioneer ground-breaking illusions. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":5,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1013,"href":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/890\/revisions\/1013"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micheleforbesauthor.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}