Graham Wilson
asked
Katherine Webb:
Hi Katherine, have just discovered you through reading "A Half Forgotten Song" I loved it, particularly how it plays with memory - the shifting understanding of things from a long time ago. Charles Aubrey felt so real I thought he was an actual artist thought clearly not - did any particular artist/s inspire this character? I will now read something else you have written - any suggestions?
Katherine Webb
Hi Graham, thanks so much for getting in touch, and I'm delighted to hear you enjoyed A Half Forgotten Song so much!
I don't usually use real-life figures to inform my characters, but in the case of Charles Aubrey, the character was inspired by (but not based upon) Augustus John, who was an important British artist of the twentieth century. He loved women, and had some very bohemian living arrangements with his wife, his mistress, the sister of his mistress and a variety of their children... A google search should bring up some of the wonderful pencil drawings he did of the women in his life, which inspired my descriptions of Charles Aubrey's work.
My new book, The English Girl, just came out and you might give that one a try - it's a sweeping adventure story, and my long song to the Arabian desert. Or you might go back to the beginning with my debut, The Legacy - a mystery which again plays with memory - how we deal with it and how it deals with us. Great to hear you want to read another!
I don't usually use real-life figures to inform my characters, but in the case of Charles Aubrey, the character was inspired by (but not based upon) Augustus John, who was an important British artist of the twentieth century. He loved women, and had some very bohemian living arrangements with his wife, his mistress, the sister of his mistress and a variety of their children... A google search should bring up some of the wonderful pencil drawings he did of the women in his life, which inspired my descriptions of Charles Aubrey's work.
My new book, The English Girl, just came out and you might give that one a try - it's a sweeping adventure story, and my long song to the Arabian desert. Or you might go back to the beginning with my debut, The Legacy - a mystery which again plays with memory - how we deal with it and how it deals with us. Great to hear you want to read another!
More Answered Questions
Virginija Traskeviciute
asked
Katherine Webb:
Dear Katherine, I would like to learn about one phrase from "The Unseen", in the very beginning of the book: "It had been a blousy summer day; all diaphanous clouds, with a curling breeze that had caught the donkeys' tails, made them stream out behind them, and made the empty deckchairs billow." THE DONKEYS' TAILS – what does it mean, and what do they here?? I am not an English-speaker. Thank you so much in advance!
Hanna Hamre
asked
Katherine Webb:
Hey i wonder why you were so intresting in focusing on how woman were treated in 1900- century and before offocurse i have an assigment about the books "The Unseen" and " A Half Forgotten Song "? What message is it in this book ? what do you want to people to understand in this book by reading it ? From Hanna
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