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that I loved working in the evenings. I know it sounds kind of crazy, and I was exhausted – but there was something escapist about coming back from a day at work, getting the kids into bed and then settling down with my novel. I was so sleep-deprived, I can’t think what I was doing,” she laughs. “But I loved doing it. When I finished it, I sent it off to my then-publishers at Harper Collins, and they said they liked it, but not quite enough. I lost heart, and put it away in the attic until 2002, when an agent looked at it and said ‘go on, give it another try’, and I wrote a very different version.” This second version of the novel was also confined to the attic for almost 15 years, before Madeleine decided to have another go in 2016. “I brought both versions down – neither of them were on computer so I had to scan them all in and convert them to Word – but I then looked at both versions and it was really fascinating. I was really rather unhappy at the time of the first version, and I could see that in the writing. When I wrote the second version, I was much, much happier, so there was quite a dramatic jump between the two, in terms of tone and approach. Fiction comes out of our imagination, but is really closely allied to our emotional life, and actually what I wrote is what happened, which was that my marriage fell apart. It was really unnerving to go back to that first version and think ‘actually you did see it coming: here it all is: it already is true in your imagination.’ It was really strange.” Madeleine wove the two versions together, chopping and changing plotlines as she worked. “I thought I was wasting my time, but I was prepared to take the risk: I have such a Protestant work ethic and the idea of wasting time – it’s a terrible sin!” she laughs. “It took me until my 50s to think: ‘I can waste time if I want to’ – but I was astonished when Granta said they wanted it. So yes, for me, this is the story alongside this novel: about being prepared to take a risk, about self-belief and the lack of it – all of those things.” Now with a completed draft of her next novel (the subject of which couldn’t be further away from Guernsey) and a clear idea for the third, Madeleine has wholeheartedly embraced fiction writing, putting her diligence down to many years working for The Guardian as a journalist and her background in non-fiction books. “I’m very disciplined, but I don’t know
whether this is down to the non-fiction or the journalism! I always start the day with yoga and meditation. It’s taken me a long time to get here, but now the day just doesn’t work if I haven’t done both of those – so I often don’t get down to writing until 9:30am or 10am. And then I usually stick at my desk until about six.” Although Madeleine had the ideas for Island Song such a long time ago, it’s in the process of writing that the true story reveals itself. “I never had a very clear blueprint,” she says: “I had a few ideas, but then in the writing of it, so much more comes to life as I write. It’s immensely hard work. There is a very craft-like side to writing, which isn’t about ideas: writers can have very different ideas and preoccupations, but the craft of it and dealing with the emotional side is the same.” Madeleine talks enthusiastically about a book’s ‘afterlife’, or what happens once a book is released into the world: encountering different interpretations and readers with differing viewpoints is a process she finds truly compelling. “One of the weird things about writing a book is that you’re not entirely sure what you’ve written,” she says. “Readers all have such different perspectives, and bring their own life experience to how they interpret the novel. This afterlife of a novel is just fascinating: it gives you
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insight into how your writing is landing, what interests people, what moves them, what annoys them. I think this is important – the legacy, the time that comes after publishing – which enables you to have a better understanding of the work you’ve created – and I would hope to then take that on to a next novel.” As is unsurprising for someone who’s spent the best part of 25 years writing and talking about the occupied Channel Islands, the author has looked elsewhere for her next subject – but is still uncovering gripping stories every time she visits the islands. “By and large the German occupation [of the Channel Islands] was nothing like many of the occupations in Europe, but still – all it took was breaking a regulation, someone getting annoyed, and you end up in a prison in France – and that could just spiral. There are stories of quite trivial incidents that led to tragedy, just so many extraordinary stories of how people managed and didn’t… I feel like a novelist could carry on quarrying Guernsey for incredible novels for decades to come. Another novelist!” she laughs. l
“It’s in the process of writing that the story reveals itself”
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