The hottest new crime novelist on the block talks to RTÉ Arts and Media correspondent (and acclaimed crime writer) Sinead Crowley about her debut novel, Good Me Bad Me.
Ali Land is enjoying being a first-time novelist. That’s not as obvious a statement as it might first appear – sending your first baby, sorry book, out into the wilderness on its own can be a daunting prospect!
But Land, when I meet her in RTÉ, is in flying form and despite a crammed launch schedule seems genuinely energised by the publicity process. It wasn’t always this way, she says. When the first proofs of her debut Good Me Bad Me went out she was terrified and didn’t relax for a long time. But then the reviews started to come in and it was clear readers were going to be very supportive. As she puts it, she had a long conversation with herself deciding that as you only get one chance to be a debut novelist, you might as well make the most of it.
Having read the book I reckon she’s entitled to enjoy every minute. In the wave of ‘domestic noir’, or family based crime novels that are washing over readers at the moment, Ali Land has written a book that really stands out. It’s a crime story with one crucial difference – we never really meet the criminal at all. The woman who has perpetrated the murders at the heart of the novel is a truly evil creation, a serial killer of children, but in Land’s book you never learn her name, never even see her. Even during courtroom scenes that require her to be physically present she is behind a screen, hidden from her young daughter who is giving evidence against her. In fact it’s that girl, the killer’s daughter Milly, who is at the centre of the book and it’s her voice you hear, crystal clear throughout.
Ali Land was working as a childrens’ mental health nurse in Australia when she decided to come home to the UK to write her first novel. She secured a place on the Faber Academy creative writing course where, she says, some of the other participants had already finished entire novels, making her feel for a while that she wasn’t in the right place at all. But then, as she puts it, ‘channels opened up’ – she also began looking at scrapbooks she had kept while nursing - and Milly’s voice started to emerge. Having worked for years with children from troubled backgrounds, the story behind Good Me Bad Me had been on her mind for years, and when she did come to write it down found it ‘tore out of her’. She completed a first draft of fifty-five thousand words in just four-and-a-half months, writing at night while working full time as a nanny and PA during the day.
What followed was every debut author’s dream – her first draft gained her an agent and, almost immediately, a publishing contract with Penguin. As with many other authors, however, Land then realised that the real work was only just starting, her new publisher gave her pages of editorial notes and an instruction to double the book in size. Along with the notes, however, came much needed support, with her editors telling her to put the book aside for a while, take a break and give herself a chance to breathe.
That’s exactly the advice Stephen King gives writers in his seminal handbook On Writing and the finished version of Good Me Bad Me shows just how useful it can be. The book is tightly edited, compelling and has a ring of complete truth to it - and feedback from reviewers and readers alike has been incredibly positive.
Land herself might be enjoying the success Good Me Bad Me has achieved, but that doesn’t mean she is treating the central theme in any way lightly. Her former patients were very much in her mind as she was writing the book, and it in no way trivialises their experience. Alongside Milly there are other teenagers in the story too and, almost as shocking as the central crime itself, is her pin-sharp description of how cruel teenage girls can be, particularly in a social media age when a nasty photograph can spread quicker than a virus with one tap of a phone key.
It’s clear from talking to Ali Land just how passionately she feels about her work, and how she wanted to do justice to the children she worked with over the years. In fact Good Me Bad Me is a book that she said she needed to write. Her next novel is already in the planning stages and will also feature teenagers, this time on a remote Scottish island where things, she says, do not unfold as you might expect.
I’m already looking forward to it.
Good Me Bad Me (Penguin) is out now.
