FANTAST IN FOCUS: ESSIE FOX
Essie Fox is a British illustrator, speaker, and author of three riveting Victorian Gothic mystery novels: The Somnambulist, Elijah’s Mermaid, and The Goddess and the Thief. Her latest book, The Goddess and the Thief is scheduled to be re-released in paperback later this month and features a curious and enchanting plot which pays homage to nineteenth-century Spiritualism and the adventure novels of H. Rider Haggard, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Rudyard Kipling. Fox also actively maintains a personal blog called The Virtual Victorian and has lectured in venues sponsored by companies such as A Curious Invitation, Antique Beat, and The Old Operating Theatre.
The Custodian: Given your background in visual art, do you find yourself sketching concepts or putting them into storyboards before you begin writing?
Essie Fox: Oddly enough, I don’t. I’m more of a daydreamer I suppose. At night, when I go to bed, I often find myself running through the latest scenes in my mind, almost as if I’m watching a film. So, rather than roughing out plot ideas or creating any storyboards I tend to carry the story, the settings, and the characters entirely in my imagination.
I’m not sure that’s the wisest way to go about writing novels. It can become confusing. But, it seems to work for me. It forces me to really think. And those times when I have tried to plan, as soon as the story is set on the page it always takes on a life of its own – spinning off in quite different directions. My brain is too chaotic for any pre-set course of direction!
C: Who are some of your favourite authors?
E: Oh, such a tricky thing to decide on. I’m sure my answer would be quite different if I came to this question in a week. But, for today…
Homer. Chaucer. Wilkie Collins. Angela Carter. A S Byatt. Peter Ackroyd. Isabelle Allende. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Philip Pullman. Kazuo Ishiguro. John Irving. Sarah Waters. Graham Greene. Kate Atkins. Wendy Wallace. Mick Jackson. Jane Harris.
C: Personally I’m very fond of Victorian and Edwardian literature and ideas. Why do you think these periods are so attractive and stimulative for fiction?
E: I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past few days. My first three novels are set in the Victorian era, and the latest – the one in progress – is moving forward into the Edwardian.
Essentially, in my mind’s eye – that is my creative writer’s eye, rather than from an historian’s viewpoint – the Victorian era is one of great contrast. There is the sense of social progress and enlightenment, with all of the advances in science, industry, and medicine. So, an intensely moral world (and one of great enlightenment) with a focus on happy marriages, devotion to family, and faith. How better was that personified than by Queen Victoria’s own life?
But the Victorian age is also one of darkness and hypocrisy. As far as scene-setting is concerned darkness is well-suited to creating an ominous atmosphere, especially when viewed through a murky prism of flickering candles or gas-lit rooms. Darkness can offer concealment – and much was concealed in Victorian times – socially – politically – and in the pages of my book by charlatan spirit mediums who practised deceits with lights dimmed low. Many sinister nighttime depravities were related to the demi-monde where crime and prostitution ran rife. There was a great contrast between the lives of those who were rich and those who were poor, with ill health, poverty and crowded homes leading to enormous suffering. As a contemporary novelist, but also a social commentator, Charles Dickens exposed such divides in his work, exposing the truth to blinkered eyes and often achieving real change.
The Edwardian age must surely draw its sense of a brighter and (supposedly) more open society on the character of its head again; in the form of King Edward VII: the pleasure loving, playboy king. The advance of science and industry was continuing its onward march – with combustion engines everywhere, with flying machines, and moving films, and labour-saving domestic tools that proved a boon to women’s lives. But, appalling poverty and terrible inequalities remained (even though we often view this as a golden era). With the end of the Boer war in 1902, and the sun of peace setting on the British Empire, many felt that stability would last, never dreaming of the hell to come with the darkness of the First World War. (And, of course, other wars were brewing; not least the battle for the vote, with feminism taking root to upset the long-held status quo.)
Only recently, while I was researching some old Edwardian films, I came across one with some small boys who were running along a seaside path, so full of joy and mischief as they tossed their caps high into the air for the sake of the camera. We know now what they could not have known: that such abandoned happiness would prove to be only too short-lived. That before they were very much older those boys would be fighting caked in mud, dying in the trenches.
C: Are you a comic book/graphic novel fan? If so, have you been to any conventions?
E: I haven’t read a lot of graphic novels. As a child, I used to raid my cousin’s bedroom to read all of his Marvel comic–lying on his bed for hours while savouring every moment. In later years, I discovered The Sandman books and was really enthralled by their links to history and myth. I really do think I should explore that genre more in the future. Although I haven’t yet managed to go along to any conventions, the more details I see of them on various social media sites, the more I think I should. They look to be such fun with a great sense of camaraderie.
C: Recently I read an article in The Atlantic on the effect the environment has on creativity. The author speaks about the sensory effects of low light, late nights, and noise but I’m sure other things like seasons and smells are also effective. Perhaps “it was a dark and stormy night” is the worst way to start a novel, but writing one during a thunderstorm could be the way to go. What would you say?
E: Last night I was watching a programme linked to the BBC’s Gothic season – a documentary all about the time the Shelleys spent in Switzerland with Byron and Polidori, and how the highly-charged atmosphere of that shared ‘vacation’ resulted in the story of Frankenstein – and also the first ‘modern’ interpretation of the vampire legend. What I hadn’t realised before was that during that summer of 1816, the weather in Switzerland had been dramatically altered by the debris from a volcanic explosion – so that the days were short and dark, and the lake over which their dwellings faced was often the scene of violent storms, with great forks of lightning and crashings of thunder. So, yes, in that particular case I would say that ‘a dark and stormy night’ might well have inspired creative minds.
C: Do you ever visit any antique shops or museums of curiosities for inspiration?
E: I don’t visit antique shops quite as much as I once did…although when I lived in Chiswick there was not a week went by when I wasn’t tempted to walk the aisles of The Old Cinema on the High Road. It was always full of wonders – not only items of furniture, but stuffed animals, jewellery and clothing too. A real historical treasure trove.
These days I am far more inclined to visit museums and art exhibitions – and so often I have come away inspired to include something quite unexpected in whatever I might be working on.
A visit to the Horniman Museum in South London resulted in my viewing its exhibit of a Feejee Mermaid – a common taxidermist’s ‘trick’ in Victorian and previous eras, with the head and torso of an ape attached to the tail of a large fish, creating what would then be presented as a real ‘mermaid’. That hideous mummified creature I then reimagined in a scene in my novel, Elijah’s Mermaid.
With my first novel, The Somnambulist, I included an entire museum of sorts – describing Wilton’s Music Hall, a Victorian hall in the East End of London which can still be visited today.
And with The Goddess and the Thief, it was during a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London that I saw a carved relief which showed the marriage of the Hindu gods, Shiva and Parvati. That scene, and those two characters, all the myths that are woven around them, then came to feature heavily in my story about a young woman who is born and raised in India before coming to live in England… where she is then drawn into a plot to steal a sacred Indian stone.
I really enjoy taking myths, fairytales and historical facts – even real historical characters – and then fusing them with my imagined worlds.
C: How did you first get involved with the Memento Moriatas events?
E: The Memento Moriatas are a collective of writers and musicians who appear in unique historical venues, from which places they draw inspiration to weave related stories and song. The collective was formed only last year when some of us went on a visit to The Dissenters’ Chapel at Kensal Green Cemetery, finding that place so inspiring that we hired it for a literary event.
Kate Mayfield spoke about the chapel itself, and her life in a Kentucky funeral home as described in her memoir, The Undertaker’s Daughter. Wendy Wallace, whose novel, The Sacred River, is mainly set in Egypt – gave a reading from her book and also spoke more factually about Kensal Green’s Victorian graves, many of which are adorned with emblems inspired by Egyptian tombs. I was able to relate to scenes in The Goddess and the Thief, where I feature a real deposed Maharani. That woman was actually interred within the chapel’s catacombs, before being removed from there and taken back to India.
That first event – on a winter’s night, with candles to light the cemetery paths and lead our guests to the chapel hall – proved to be a great success. Since then, The Memento Moriatas have performed at The Coffin Works Museum in Birmingham, at The Manchester Gothic Festival, and most recently at The Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret in London. Our line-ups vary, depending on who is available and individual expertise. We have worked with guest speakers such as Brian Parsons, a London writer and undertaker – and also with Lloyd Shepherd, who writes acclaimed Regency Crime novels and the talented singer, lyricist and composer, Kirsten Morrison, who has added such a thrilling addition with her astonishing musical skills.
C: What are your other upcoming projects?
E: I’m preparing for the Richmond Literary Festival on the evening of Friday November 21 – and that event – A FEAST OF BLOOD – will coincide with the paperback publication of The Goddess and the Thief. I’ll be joining the author Lynn Shepherd and Professor Peter Howell to explore blood cults and vampiric themes in history and literature. As the event is being held in Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill House, I think it’s going to be an incredibly atmospheric night.
But, apart from that, I’m taking a break from external events for the rest of this year while I research my Edwardian novel, Silence Electric. It is the story of an aging and reclusive actress, along with the discovery of some films in which she starred when she was young. The setting of an antique/junk shop will feature very heavily!