 | Kate Morton, author of The Shifting Fog (aka The House at Riverton) and The Forgotten Garden, now has her third novel, The Distant Hours, published this week by Allen & Unwin. She was interviewed recently by Rosemary Sorensen for "The Weekend Australian". |
The Distant Hours begins with a prologue quoting a (fictional) classic tale called The True History of the Mud Man, written by the father of three spinster sisters living in the crumbling Milderhurst Castle in Kent. Then, the story's narrator, Edie (who Kate admits is in many ways much like the author), begins her part of the story.
"It started with a letter," she writes. "A letter that had been lost a long time, waiting out half a century in a forgotten postal bag in the dim attic of a nondescript house in Bermondsey." Going on to muse about the sighing of thwarted messages and letters that eventually "make their secrets known", Edie then laughs at herself, pleading with the reader: "Forgive me, I'm being romantic."
"It's not a self-conscious decision to write the way I write," Edie's real-life creator says. "It's what I like to read, so it's very natural to me. Before The Shifting Fog I'd written pretty crappy manuscripts, but when I wrote that one, I had no expectations of publication. I'd just had a baby (Oliver, now six), and I can be very honest, my thoughts and expectations about publication had dried up.
"As I was writing it, I said to Davin [her husband] many times, "This is really fun, but no one is ever going to want to read this. It's for me.' "
A video trailer for the novel has been produced:
