Interview with Yvvette Edwards

I wrote a few weeks ago that I would be reviewing Yvvette's Edwards, A Cupboard Full of Coats, Here's the review, that I've written for Lime magazine - which is in the current (July) edition, and below that you'll find the interview that I've done with Yvvette. The edited version of the interview will appear in Lime at the start of August. Yvvette's work is thoughtful and vibrant and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.

The review

Yvvette Edwards debut novel, A Cupboard Full of Coats, is an intense read, that achieves what it sets out to, which is to create a terrifically emotional love story. While the intensity takes place in one claustrophobic weekend, much of the story is told through a series of flashbacks. The main characters are from the Caribbean island of Montserrat, but what really shines through is the author’s knowledge of London’s Hackney. The love story told is a universal one, so it barely matters that all the lead characters are Black Londoners, though you'd have to be a West Indian or child of, to fully appreciate the careful pleasure that goes into cooking the 'Saturday soup' and preparing Guinness Punch. It seems to me, that the things that get people really talking about books are sex, motherhood and the depiction of black men. All three are covered in this book in ways that readers will either find shocking, show quiet recognition or heartily dispute. This is definitely a book to discuss.  

The interview
Tells us how the themes for A Cupboard Full of Coats came about?

I find the process of writing cathartic, so my themes arise from issues that trouble me or ones I wish I understood better.  One of these is single parenthood.  I am an avid reader and I think that contemporary family structures are not depicted enough in fiction.  There are lots of families living, (as I have) in single parent units, or where the parent is involved in a relationship with a new partner, and there are minefields of issues around this, some of which I explore in my book.  I’m also seriously info food, and I was very keen to give airplay to the yummy, nostalgic dishes I grew up on.  I love books that offer a porthole into another culture, and I wanted to take my readers on a culinary journey, as well as crafting a heady tale based inside the settled Montserratian community in London.  I also explore the concept of love in my novel.  There are so many different kinds of love, so many barriers to giving and receiving it, infinite possibilities for joy and disaster.  I’ve played around with this theme, but I suspect that a thorough understanding of love is probably a lifetime’s work.  There are many themes in my book, but these are three of the biggest.

When did your family settle in London?

My mum moved to London in the late sixties, when I was still a baby.  I have spent the vast majority of my life in this fabulous city.

Has any of your friends/family seen themselves in the book? 

No.  They haven’t, and I have to confess, I’m very glad about that.  The character who bears the strongest resemblance to anyone I know is Lemon.  He has many of my late grandfather’s attributes.  My grandfather was a great teller of stories.  He could have you in fits of laughter, or shock you to an extent it was impossible to speak.  Sadly, he died about seven years ago.  I think he might have recognised some of his traits in Lemon, and though he would never have admitted it, he would probably have been quite chuffed.

I understand that your agent remarked that there were ‘no white people’ in the book. How do you feel about that comment now the book’s published? 

My agent has always been passionate about my novel.  Her observation was entirely correct.  I was the one who had failed to notice that detail.  But then I deliberately limited my characters to those who had an integral part to play in the story.  It just so happens that they were all Montserratians or of Montserratian descent, which given my cultural heritage, might not be enormously surprising.  For this particular tale, every character is perfect.  Given a chance to write my novel over again, I would not make any changes to my cast.

What have you been doing to promote the book?

I’ve done author events at bookshops and libraries.  I executed a nerve-wracking radio interview, and have written a couple of articles for papers.  I’ve attended lots of reading groups where it has been my pleasure to discuss my novel.  I have been carrying around a copy of my book, held in a particular pose, cover out, title visible, on the tube and train.  I’ve stared at my own book in bookshops, with an expression of wonder on my face, an expression that strongly suggests to other browsers standing nearby, that I am overwhelmed by the infinite pleasure promised by the novel on the shelf in front of me, whose author I know nothing about!

What was the strangest thing you had to during the research for the book?

I visited City of London Cemetery, studying the graves and stones, the immortalised intensely-personal engravings, trying to get a feel of being there, and my bearings.  It was both profoundly sad and incredibly beautiful.  And slightly surreal, as I wasn’t actually visiting anyone.  I’m an excessive daydreamer, but I was present for the duration of this visit. It was so moving.

What is your favourite part of A Cupboard Full of Coats?

Not a fair question!  I love Lemon.  Of every character I’ve ever created, he is my all-time favourite.  I love the dialogue, with its quirky unexpected shifts.  I love chapter twelve, where over ten pages, so many details of the story are downloaded, and where there is the greatest contrast of passion, beauty and tragedy.  I also desperately love the paragraph that reigns in the significance of the coats.  I have too many favourite parts to single any one out.

With which character do you most sympathise in A Cupboard Full of Coats?

Funnily enough, I come down on the side of the women; Jinx, her mother and Lemon’s wife, Mavis.  Each of their lives has been relegated to the realm of ‘making do’, salvaging what they can from the rubble left over.  I think many women’s lives are like that, their personal desires left to idle, while everything else, the children, the men, the daily demands of life, come first.

What is your ideal writing environment?

I’m not that precious about the environment I write in.  I often write on a laptop, so I end up wherever I fancy on that particular day, sometimes in the garden in summer, or in my bedroom in the winter.  But I do need to be comfortable.  I like quiet and zero interruptions, (which is a virtual non-starter if there are children in the house!)  My most creative hours are probably nine till one.  After lunch I do other things, like editing, or supermarket shopping lists.  In my imagination, my ideal writing room is at home, in a dedicated library, with French doors opening onto a mature garden. 

What books did you enjoy as a child/teenager?

As a child I read everything.  I love the Grimm Brothers to bits.  Enid Blyton, AA Milne, Roald Dahl, all the classics - Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, Hans Christian  Anderson.  I’ve read The Cat in the Hat so many times I can actually recite it!  I’ve bought my daughters’ Charlotte’s Web and still cry when Charlotte dies, even though I know it’s coming.  As a teenager I ventured into ‘adult’ fiction, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Of Mice and Men, 2000 random Mills and Boon books, James Herbert’s The Rats, Animal Farm, 1984… this space is not big enough. I have always been an obsessive compulsive reader of fiction.

What book do you wish you had written?

I wish I’d written Beloved.  I could probably have died happy once it was finished.  What an achievement!  Toni Morrison is my idol.

Did you study writing? 

I’ve done many courses.  I’ve been writing my whole life, without ever settling on a particular genre and actually, the experience has been enriching.  I’ve studied writing stage plays, (minimal cast and change of set), writing screen plays, (show, don’t tell), Hollywood Blockbusters, (one page one minute, page 15 - first turning point), Journalism, (active not passive tense).  I won an excellent residential course (Channel 4’s Young Black Writers Competition) with The Arvon Foundation, Writing From the Heart, which focused on the power of authenticity and realism.  I think that course especially influenced the direction of my writing, and is evidenced in my novel. I’ve also attended a number of workshops and writing groups.  Writing is such a solitary process, it is impossible to say enough about the value of sharing time and space with like-minded people.

What would you say to encourage new writers?

Books on the bookshop shelves are evidence of persistence, not genius. 

What are you working on now?

Sadly, I am currently a frustrated novelist.  I have a family, I work full time and I’ve just had my first novel published.  There are no consistent pockets of time in my life to write.  But my head is filled with my next novel, about a group of young cousins, who share a life-changing summer.  I am, at present, in the stalls, braced on tiptoe, awaiting the first sound of the starter pistol.

What book changed your life?

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.  I read it when I was 19 or 20.  I had never read anything like it before.  What stunned me most was the realization that it was possible for a black woman to write an accomplished ground-breaking novel, equal to any criterion of literary excellence.  To this day, it is one of my all-time favourite re-reads.

Suggest a book that you think that The Black Reading Group should read. 

Tsotsi, by Athol Fugard  It is a trip through an almost unimaginable psyche, written with complete authority and authenticity, the type of literature I’m most passionate about.

What question should I have asked you and what is the answer?

‘What is your favourite wine?’ Well…I hardly really properly drink that often, but if my arm was twisted hard enough, I’d probably mumble ‘Campo Viejo Rioja Crianza’. 

The Lime magazine question: Please share a carnival experience that you have had. 

I went to the Notting Hill Carnival with a group of about eight friends in the late 80s.  We had spent hours dolling ourselves up, and about a half hour after we arrived, the heavens opened and drenched us.  It then rained non-stop for the rest of the day.  Having accepted that we now - as did everyone else – looked like drowned rats, we went on to enjoy the least posey, most fabulously enjoyable, wild, wet, musical celebration of our lives.  It’s one of my favourite memories.  I caught a serious cold afterwards, but it was an acceptable price to pay