Guide

Lidia - I really liked your novel. What I strongly felt, while I was reading, is the regret for the relationship that people had with nature: life was deeply conditioned by the seasons and the weather, not only in a bad sense. Don’t you think that we should find again this bond?

Brooks - Absolutely. Although i am Australian, I live half my year in a long settled rural village of just 250 people in Virginia, USA, where the seasons do still really matter. Everything I write of Anna noticing–the apples, the newborn sheep, the storms– come from my own experiences of living in the country, drawing water from the very ancient well near my old house, knowing it will dry up if we don’t get sufficent rain in summer, and so on. I feel that living this way is an increasingly rare privilege for most of us in the modern First World. Americans, especially, are alienated from nature in a way that is not only impoverishing to the spirit, but dangerous for the planet. Many Americans don’t really know the difference between winter and summer anymore, as they live in the artificial world of over-airconditioned, apartments, malls, autos….and this change has happened to us in just a couple of generations. We have cut ourselves off from nature, and are losing our respect for it.

You wrote a novel that makes readers think over the meaning of the life, death, disease… Is this one of your aims?

Brooks - My aim was not so grand as this. basically I was intrigued by what I learned of the true story of the village of Eyam, and by the voids in the historical record–those things we could never know for sure about what it felt like–the emotional truth, if you like–living through that time. I wanted to tell the story in a way that would move people as I had been moved…and if it provokes these thoughts, I am happy.

You tell us that in 1666 religiousness could easily become superstition, arouse hatred and cause brutal and cruel acts, even acts of madness. Unfortunately, after more than 300 years, isn’t it still true?
And doesn’t it seem - SARS emergency teaches - that isolation is still the only way to carry through epidemics?

Brooks - Absolutely, although when I wrote the book in 1999, I had no idea that it would come out at a time of modern catastrophe, fanatcism, scapegoating, mysterious germs and fear of the unknown. I was on a lecture tour about the book on 9/11 …and suddenly a story about how people coped with catastrophe was painfully relevant to our own predicament.

Your telling voice, Anna, is a heroine at many points of view: how can she be so modern in 1666?

Brooks - I urge anyone who thinks Anna is too modern to go and read more about, and by, 17th century women in England! There were some amazing changes go on in women’s status at this time, from the royal court to the humblest villages. Women like Aphra Behn were writing plays, working as spies; women in the villages, like Anna, were stepping out of their accustomed roles –you only need to read the sermons and the court records to see how many women were daring to challenge expectations about who they should be and what they should do. We are not the only generation of women to have questioned our lot in life, I assure you!

Among your unforgettable protagonists, all your male characters, sooner or later, show their worse side. Do you think women can face hard times better than men?

Brooks - It is true the book is very hard on men. This was a bit subconscious, I htink…but my experience as an Afroica and Middle East correspondent did give me a great admiration for the way women, even from the most circumscribed oand limited of backgrounds, are able to cope with hard times and rise out of their assigned roles to do it.

The novel ends with a reference to the Arabic culture: is this an homage to the places where you lived as correspondent? Can we read this conclusion as an assertion of the Middle East culture supremacy?

Brooks - I think it is worthwhile reminding ourselves that there was a time when Islamic cities outpaced western society in science and civilization. It is certainly not true today, unfortunately. But that’s not why Anna ends up there. Her journrey is based on a true story of two young Irish women –midwives–who became respected healers in 17th century north Africa. I wanted her to wind up somewhere lively, bright, noisy–a total contrast to Eyam…and the fact that Camus set his great novel,The Plague, in Oran…well, it was a little miscevious of me, but…I want to pay him homage…

Do you know if any of Ayam inhabitant - maybe some descendants of the people you wrote about - has read your novel? And which is their opinion?

Brooks - I went back to the village for a visit, and was very relieved to know that the book is well received there. Eyam still has stocks in the town square, and I was a bit worried they might clamp me in them, for taking liberties with their history. But no one expressed any negatives at all…