Exclusive interview with author Laura Madeleine discussing her new novel about a woman in France haunted by memories of WW1
By Gabrielle Pantera
“I love the detective work of research, of delving deeper and deeper into a topic,” says Where the Wild Cherries Grow author Laura Madeleine. “The kernel of Emeline’s story actually came from a story my mum told me about her godmother. Aunt Mimi, as my mum called her, was engaged to a young man who was sent to France to fight during the First World War. Mimi was an accomplished guitarist, and one night, in the middle of a concert to raise money for wounded soldiers, she looked down at her hands and thought, just for a moment, they were covered in blood. She said she knew in that moment that her fiancé had been hurt and would die. It was true. He’d been wounded in an attack and died on a hospital train two days later.”
It’s 1919 and Emeline Vane has lost much due to the war. Desperate to escape, she runs away. Emeline takes a train and ends up in a tiny seaside village in the South of France. Maman, the owner of a café, takes her in. Emeline learns that her secret follows her. Fifty years later, a young solicitor Bill Perch finds Emeline’s diary. It leads him on a journey to find out what happened to Emeline.
“Her story brought with it the idea of a young woman, robbed of all certainty by the conflict, as well as a notion of the many women who were, and are, scarred by war emotionally, internally, battling alone in parlours, kitchens and bedrooms,” says Madeleine.
“The character of Bill, on the other hand, has his roots a lot closer to home. He basically is my father. My dad was also a working-class lad from Essex, who struggled to find his place before going off on his own, quite different, adventure.”
Madeleine did most of her reading research for Where the Wild Cherries Grow online. “I’m eternally indebted to the Internet Archive, and to Project Gutenberg. Being able to download 100-year-old, obscure, out-of-print titles as word-searchable ePubs is an absolute joy. I prefer primary sources: letters, diaries, newspaper articles. I read everything from turn-of-the-century travel guides, to the collected letters of Katherine Mansfield, to the first ever Catalan recipe book, the medieval Book of Sent Sovi. I also read more modern works, like Colman Andrews’ invaluable Catalan Cuisine. W.G. Sebald is a big influence on me, especially The Rings of Saturn, in this instance.”
For research, Madeleine visited Cerbère with her mother, who speaks fluent French. “We took the train from London to Paris, and then an overnight sleeper from the Gare d’Austerlitz all the way to the south. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was wonderfully exciting. It was early April, and Paris was grey and cold when we left, but when I woke up at dawn and looked out of the train window, I saw the Pyrénées-Orientales rising in the distance, the sun hitting their peaks. Wild irises grew along the tracks, terraces of vines marched down the hills, dotted with white houses and cypress trees. It felt like another world.”
Madeleine has written many historical books under pseudonyms. She has a new book out in the UK called The Secrets Between Us, set in the Alpes-Maritimes during the period of Italian Occupied France in 1943. Released as an ebook on January 1st, coming out in paperback in April 2018.
Madeleine is currently writing her fourth book for Transworld, another dual-narrative novel, this time set between the 1920s and 1970s in Cordoba and Tangier.
Madeleine is based in Bristol. She was born in Windsor and lived in Maidenhead until age eighteen, before going to Cambridge University. Her older sister is fantasy author Lucy Hounsom, published by Tor in the UK.
Madeleine’s website is www.lauramadeleine.com. She’s active on Twitter and Facebook.
Where the Wild Cherries Grow: A Novel of the South of France by Laura Madeleine
Hardcover: 336 pages, Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (February 13, 2018), Language: English, ISBN-13: 978-1250100580 $ 26.99
