Local author, Christopher Bowden, has recently published his first novel, The Blue Book. He tells Dulwich OnView about his inspiration for the book and the writing process.
The Plot
The Blue Book is set partly in south London. It is the story of the chance discovery of a mysterious note inside a secondhand book, sending thirty-something Hugh Mullion on an obsessive search for its previous owner. Hugh discovers secrets that have lain hidden for sixty years and turn upside down his views of personal identity and the certainty of the past.
The Inspiration
As a civil servant, I spent a lot of time drafting on a wide range of topics. Housing, health and safety, the environment, and so on. Important stuff but for years I’ve wanted to write on my account. Fiction, that is, where I could use my imagination and create people and places and plots, without having to worry too much about the facts. The issue was having the time and space to do it. Taking early retirement in 2004 gave me both.
I have collected secondhand books for a long time. Often I find things slipped inside them, like postcards, bus tickets and chocolate wrappers. This gave me the idea of someone finding a mysterious note hidden between the pages of a book, setting them on a trail to discover the meaning of the note and the identity of the person who wrote it, uncovering secrets, lies and deceptions along the way. That is the essence of The Blue Book.
The Process
I didn’t map things out in inordinate detail before I started. I made a couple of pages of notes to get me going and things took off from there. Plot and characters developed as I wrote, often taking unexpected directions. I did a fair amount of research – background reading, using the internet, visiting potential locations. The research itself sparked plot ideas too.
The first draft only took a few months. The lengthy part was the process of refining and revising it – and trying to get it published.
South London
The setting of the book draws on various parts of south London I’ve lived in over the last 20 years or so. It’s more an amalgam than a specific place, though some people may well remember a shop with a parrot in it! Sadly, a lot of the secondhand bookshops I’ve known have now closed and there are far fewer jumble sales and carboot sales than there were. But I can still be spotted under a table with my head in a cardboard box…
Advice to Other Writers
I’m not a full-time writer. Writing can be pretty intensive and isolating. It’s very rewarding in terms of personal satisfaction but I wouldn’t want to cut myself off from the real world completely.
I would certainly encourage other local people who want to write. The main thing is persistence. Never give up, however many rejections you get. And always be prepared take advice, even if it’s not what you want to hear. Especially if it’s not.
Second Novel – The Yellow Room
I have recently finished a second novel called The Yellow Room, focussing on a country house and the family that owns it. Events are triggered by a twenty-something City solicitor’s discovery of an old guide to the house after her grandmother’s funeral. Starting and finishing in the present day, the story takes place over half a century, set against the background of the Coronation, the Suez crisis, and the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. It is not set in south London but it features a number of fictitious paintings which may or may not owe their inspiration to real ones on the walls of Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Win a copy of The Blue Book in our Prize Draw
Christopher has very kindly donated three signed copies of The Blue Book for our June prize draw.
All you have to do to stand a chance of winning a copy is to add a relevant comment to any article on Dulwich OnView. We will pick the names of three commenters at random on 30th June 2008 and notify the winners by email. Please see our prize draw rules for more information.
The Blue Book is available from local bookshops and libraries and from Amazon and other on-line suppliers.
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