Episode 91 - Rebecca Thornton: Part 1

Rebecca Thornton's The Exclusives is a debut novel: a thriller about friendship, paranoia, success and secrets set in an all-girls boarding school. This Writing Life didn't need a second invitation to talk to Rebecca at her publishers in central London. The setting was a glass meeting room, which later inspired a lesson in how Thornton's mind works like her fiction. But after a little to and fro about swearing, we began by discussing the intensity of writing the novel itself. This had something to do with readers' fascination with the possible autobiographical elements of the story: Thornton like her heroines went to an exclusive boarding school. From here we touched upon:

• how it felt to release the novel out into the world
• endless re-writes
• The Exclusives: the summary
• Faber Academy, Tim Lott, Esther Freud 
• from romance to psychological thriller
• 'Female friendships are not always very funny'
• putting the bored into boarding school
• school or prison?
• Thornton's school days and persona
• after-school life and returning to schooldays
• heroines: Freya and Josephine

Part 2 of 3 to follow.