Episode 36 - Kate Hamer: Part 2

Part two of our interview with Kate Hamer begins with a discussion of Carmel, the 'Girl' in The Girl in the Red Coat. Having avoided the subject of her special power - spoilers alert etc - we move onto:

• love and its distortions
  
• 'I am not really interested in monsters': Hamer on her villains
• religion in the novel
• Hamer and the Gothic
  
• Beth, Carmel and the use of tenses
• parents making maps of their children's lives
• time in the novel
• stasis and waiting: the challenge of writing Beth's narrative 
  
• 'For both of them it was like a journal of survival'
• how parenthood changes you
• parents and their parents
• is it an optimistic novel?
  
• how to end the novel
• Hamer's own childhood in Wales
• religion, mysticism and storytelling
  
• formative reading: 'Anything deeply, deeply tragic'
• influences and Hamer's current literary crush: Nicole Krauss
• why Hamer took so long to write her debut!
• life as a novelist and future plans