Only Human

One of the key things about Only Human is that its heroine Marjorie Hemming is a woman of 42 with a grown up daughter of her own and the first of my heroines who has not been a troubled adolescent. I wanted to write a book in which a woman's professional life was shown in detail and the impact of professional life on personal life was explored in some depth. I was also interested in what happens when a child that is the focus of feelings that are overly intense grows up, and how dependency works between mothers and daughters. This book was very inspired by the novels of Anne Tyler all of which I have read and often reread.

It has been pointed out to me that as a mother of a three year old it is odd that I chose to write a book that has a strong empty nest theme running through it. Thinking about it I am sure that my sadness and anxiety about being away from my daughter in order to write for a few hours a day fed into this mother daughter separation theme and lent it an extra dimension.

Before this novel was really begun I trained and worked as a bereavement counsellor and became very aware of the complicated relationship between the interactions thoughts and feelings of the counsellor and those of the client. I also read a book called Group: six people in search of a life by Paul Solotaroff which helped me with the structuring of the book.

I wanted Marjorie's counselling sessions to read like little short stories with a life of their own that nevertheless shone light on Marjorie's painful relationship with her daughter which lies at the heart of the book.

Marjorie's resemblance to Nurse Dempsey was inspired not a little by a funny incident that happened on my honeymoon in Chicago. By complete chance, it transpired that my husband Tom was the spitting image of a superstar basketball player with the Chicago Bulls called Steve Kerr who had just scored the winning goal in the recent championships and was at this time a national hero. Several times a day Tom was saluted by admiring Chicagoans and we were treated very handsomely in the restaurants we frequented and once a small crowd gathered outside a sports shop to speak to Tom who was inside trying on trainers.

Only Human, like all my other books, is an easy to read book about extremely difficult things. I wanted to write powerfully about a difficult relationship between a mother and a grown up child, where you can always see the points of view of both sides. Only Human has less of me in it than any of my other books and this feels both exciting-it was what I wanted to do-but also a little threatening, as though I in some way have been displaced or pushed to the side of my own work..

BUY THE HARDBACK FROM AMAZON
Published July 5 2004

BUY THE PAPERBACK FROM AMAZON
List Price: £7.99 Amazon Price: £4.79