Come and chat to LOUISE DOUGHTY about Apple Tree Yard (and all her previous books), TONIGHT, 9-10pm

[TillyBookClub]

'It is about the fine line women walk’. That’s how Hilary Mantel described our January Book of the Month by Mumsnet Academy speaker Louise Doughty. APPLE TREE YARD opens with a trial, where Yvonne (52, a well-known geneticist, attractive, happily married) is giving evidence. Yvonne has had a sexual encounter with a man about whom she knows nothing. Her one moment of madness pulls her into an increasingly alarming web of violence and brutality. A brilliantly addictive combination of courtroom drama, crime thriller and literary psychological novel, APPLE TREE YARD is perfectly structured. It is also a fascinating study of how society views an attractive woman in her 50s, and the injustices and manipulations of our justice system. Lots of hidden twists, so be careful not to give the game away…

You can find more, including Louise’s interview with Mariella Frostrup on Radio 4’s Open Book and a profile of her in the Telegraph, on Louise's highly informative website or read an interview with Louise and her editor on Faber's website.

Faber have 50 copies to give to Mumsnetters – to claim yours please fill in your details on the book of the month page. We’ll post on the thread when all the copies have gone. If you’re not lucky enough to bag one of the free books, you can always get your paperback or Kindle version here.

We are thrilled that Louise (author of seven novels, including Whatever You Love, and her non-fiction book A Novel in a Year, based on her hugely popular newspaper column) will be joining us and answering questions about APPLE TREE YARD, her writing career and her previous novels on Tuesday 28 January, 9-10pm.

So please feel free to discuss the book here throughout the month, pop up any advance questions and we will see you all here, Tue 28 January.

@SiouxieSioux

I finished it in a couple of days and found it absorbing. To me the theme of Judgement,Guilt,Truth and Innocence run through it. How we judge others, how the stories we tell about ourselves and others defines our perception ,arrogance and how the lies we spin become conveniently embedded as truths. Justice in the case of the characters in this book was it served and not just in the court room and is revenge a greater motivator than love?

You’re absolutely right, it really is a plea for us all to be a little less judgemental of others.

@rupert43

Brilliant for my first book of the month giveaway! Roll on the next book.....a totally unrelated book question but what would you get up to if you were invisible for the day?! :-)

Um, that's a good one... I would sneak into all the places I'm not allowed to go - I've already done the Houses of Parliament and the cell area of the Old Bailey, so it would be places like, the editorial offices of newspapers, the MI5 building, Downing Street. Just think of the material...

@sparkysparkysparky

Apologies for failing to post a full message (above). I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I loved the challenge of judging (and not judging) Yvonne as the plot unfolded. My only criticism is of the description of George's father as being in early stage MS. It jarred with me. If you have only recently been diagnosed with MS ( I got my diagnosis 3 years ago), it would be too soon to characterise it as a progressively degenerative condition (as was the implication here by the use of the term "early stage"). It is also unlikely that a man of George's father's likely age would have only had a recent diagnosis. I'm in my 40s and am a bit of late starter for MS. I'm guessing this character would be in his late 50'/early 60's. My questions for Louise is - Did you base George's father on someone you know with MS? I concede that the description of George's father may match somebody - MS is too capricious a condition to be the same for everyone. However, it would be unusual to be such a late starter and for the diagnosis of progressive MS (there are other versions) to be so clear. This minor character also had me asking myself whether I would exaggerate the extent of my condition - demand a wheelchair - if I thought it would increase the likelihood that my allegedly evil son's killers would be punished? It added an extra dimension to my "what would I do in this scenario?" sessions that I had when considering Yvonne and other major characters.

Yes I’m afraid George’s father is drawn from two of my family members who have/had MS – as you say, it’s a very capricious condition – but the family member of mine who was diagnosed relatively young is doing brilliantly. Good point about how he feels about the wheelchair – I hint it was the Family Liaison Officer’s idea, and it was, but he’s certainly ready to go along with it. Such factors do count in court, sadly, and of course from his point of view, he just wants justice for his son.

Hi Louise,

Loved the book!
Could you give us a brief idea of how you actually PLANNED the book?
what idea did you start with?Many thanks. Wish I could write like you!

@Gargamella

Hi Louise - How did you choose the trial to sit in on for your research? Did you have lawyers looking out for something suitable based on your parameter?

The ref to Juliet Stevenson re audio book reminded me she was in a TV programme a few years ago about the different ways you could portray a rape scene to make it either titillating or a clear depiction of violence. Anyone else see that?

I didn't see that programme, interesting though, and a very potent topic. The trial was found for me by a wonderful lawyer contact at the Crown Prosecution Service. She asked me what I needed and I said I needed to sit through a trial with two defendants on trial for murder, where the forensics were not really in doubt but the issue was moral responsibility (actually true of most murder cases these days). She found me the perfect one - although it was incredibly sobering seeing the very real and potent pain of the family of the victim, who were in court, one of those occasions when being a novelist feels like a very small and insignificant thing next to the real-life drama. I still think of those people.

I know what you mean about Westminster. I had a job that took me into that area for a while and used to just wander in my lunch breaks...

Hi Louise. Hope it's not too cheeky to ask a second question. I was delighted you answered my first. Thank you! I was quite surprised up thread where you said there were a few possible venues for the first encounter. I had assumed that having it by the plaque for Emily Davison was a nod to some of the novels later themes. I thought it was a perfect, thought provoking location!. I'm intrigued to know what the other possibilities were!

@notqueenbee

Hi Louise,

Loved the book!
Could you give us a brief idea of how you actually PLANNED the book?
what idea did you start with?Many thanks. Wish I could write like you!

I never plan until quite late in the day - ie, when I have a whole body of material. So I wrote loads of scenes before I decided on the order in which they would appear. At one point, Chapter One was the opening of the trial as it begins in Part Three and the whole novel returned to the trial intermittently throughout. Then I realised it was a bit bitty and confusing for me - and that if I felt like that then the reader certainly would. So I ordered things more chronologically. Lots of restructuring needed though - it really was a complex one this time. I'm hoping to make my job a bit easier with the new book which has a much simpler structure.

@sherazade

SPOILER ALERT

Thank you mumsnet for my free copy of this riveting book! I have to say I have not carefully and slowly savoured every word of a novel for a very long time. I thought it very clever how our own hypocrisy and prejudices are unveiled throughout the course of the story. We are quick to judge Yvonne for her actions and are lead to pity her husband for her betrayal : 'a kindly man... large and balding', only to shortly discover that he is the one who has been breaking her heart all along with absolutely no remorse. The stark hypocrisy is blinding: his long standing affair conveniently carries on without drama, the results of hers are unspeakably disastrous. We are heartbroken along with her, when she reveals in her moment of utter despair, that she has never begged him for anything, and even her wish for him to leave his young lover as always been nothing more than a request, so subtly and humbly worded, with his interests at heart: 'Could he please, for both our sakes, finish it with his young lover, for once and for all'. Here is a woman who is so completely selfless and dedicated to her husband and family. Her only urgent plea in the entire lifetime of their marriage is that he stays away from her trial so that he and the children are protected from the awful revelation and possible humiliation. I thought that her characterisation throughout this novel was excellent.

I do have one quesiton regarding her however:

Was Yvonne mentally unhinged? The clues that point towards this possibility are her family history of mental illness, the fact that she reflects on her mothers own suicide and her sons's suicide without ever looking 'inwardly' at herself. She is so consumed by the motivations of others (constantly trying to deconstruct her lovers actions and intentions, constantly trying to figure out what makes her son tick and why he does what he does) but she very rarely unpacks her own actions and choices, leaving the reader to question whether she is capable of doing so. Her lover commites an obvious crime when he returns to the car with his clothes changed and she brushes over what could have happened, momentarily dipping into why, in hindsight, she never asked him what had happened and then quickly escaping the issue.

The other factor is that she was clearly enraged by the rape and expressed a desire to have the rapist killed and suggests to her lover that he murder him. (Although I have never been in this position so...)

Thirdly, she refers to the man who ultimately betrays her as 'my love' throughout the novel having full knowledge of the potential consequences for his betrayal. The thread that runs throughout the novel is the secrecy of their relationship, at several points in the story he reminds her that nobody must ever know that they were lovers. She sticks to her end of the bargain with the utmost fervour and it is him who betrays her in the end. Why then does she still refer to him with an irrational, almost manic tenderness throughout her retelling of her harrowing trial in court?

Thanks mumsnet once again for the opportunity to read this wonderful book and to Louise Doughty for having written it. A great choice for book of the month!

Thanks for all that – lovely to have such detailed thoughts on Yvonne. She isn’t unhinged, but she very easily could be. In a way, I was trying to suggest that her extreme rationality, and her choice of science as a career, is a flight from all the emotional upset she has experienced in other areas of her life: she is almost quite psychotically logical (if that makes sense), until something happens to her that all her rationalities cannot explain. You are right that her referring to Mark as ‘my love’ right until the end doesn’t really make sense – there’s an element of her being sardonic at times, but also an element of recognition on her part that what she is feeling isn’t logical at all.

@PlatoonBuffoon

Hi Louise. Hope it's not too cheeky to ask a second question. I was delighted you answered my first. Thank you! I was quite surprised up thread where you said there were a few possible venues for the first encounter. I had assumed that having it by the plaque for Emily Davison was a nod to some of the novels later themes. I thought it was a perfect, thought provoking location!. I'm intrigued to know what the other possibilities were!

Oh the list is endless... disabled toilets, MPs offices, endless disused rooms and cubby holes... but you're right, it was the plaque to Emily Wilding Davison that swung it.

@brendarenda

Spoiler alert Like others, I really loved this book and thought it was a great choice. I struggled a bit at first to understand Yvonne's reasons for falling for such an unappealing man as Mark. Their sexual encounters were all on his terms, and she was largely powerless throughout the relationship. But there is obviously something strangely appealing about not being in the driving seat, perhaps especially for a woman like Yvonne who was used to being in control. Later on we discover that Yvonne feels she was open to Mark's advances because she had fallen out of love with her own 'competence'. She was very able in lots of ways and in control and had coped and juggled for years and then perhaps just wanted to let go. Was this something that Louise was interested in exploring? The idea that when we fall for someone, it might say more about our own situation than the person we happen to fall in love with? I was also intrigued by the male characters and the way they evolved throughout the book. The husband starts off safe and predictable, then we find out he?s an adulterer, but he morphs into a bit of a hero by the end. The lover is mysterious and sexually exciting before being revealed to be a sad Walter Mitty character who ultimately betrays Yvonne to save his own sorry skin. The affable colleague turns into a violent rapist. None of these characters occupies a set role. Instead they all switch between different positions, leaving the reader with an uncomfortable feeling of shifting sands. Maybe this is the point? Like someone else said, it?s playing around with the idea of judgement and our desire to judge others in black or white (guilty/not guilty) versus the reality of lots of grey.

You’re right about the male characters – they do all stand on shifting sands. In several places, I was trying to hint that George is almost Mark’s evil twin, what the passion and persuasion of Mark could turn into if it was tinged with violence. It was quite important that Guy had his flaws too, as I wanted the reader to feel some sympathy with Yvonne’s choices, given what she has put up with at home.

@over40andmumtoone

I found this book absolutely gripping, it kept me up until the early hours. I found Yvonne rather interesting, to be 'respectable' and then have an affair like she did. Should I have been shocked by the twist at the end? I was a bit, I'd been taken to totally by her persona, but not sure I was ever totally convinced on Mark's 'career'. Brilliant book though, I await your next one!

Thank you - yes what made Yvonne interesting for me is that her behaviour is, as it turns out, so out of character. If she'd been a person who did that kind of thing all the time, I wouldn't have found her nearly as interesting to write about.

@bunnybing

Really enjoyed Apple Tree Yard, especially the court scenes and the interplay between the legal professionals, defendants and witnesses.

One thing I wondered - did you always intend to make Yvonne's husband Guy an adulterer, or did you decide that later on, based on a decision to make Yvonne seem more sympathetic to your readers than if she'd taken a lover without this as a precedent?

Yes, completely spot on re Guy being an adulterer, see answer to Brendarenda above – poor old Guy. But I didn’t want him to be just the Good Husband figure waiting at home. He had to have his own sins to count.

@frogletsmum

Hi Louise, I hope I'm not too late to ask a question. I was absolutely gripped by this book and found myself completely caught up in Yvonne's narration, only starting to wonder quite late on just how reliable she is. I particularly liked the way we find things out slowly, little by little. I wanted to ask, how much of your plot do you have worked out before you actually start writing? And did anything about the characters surprise you and make you change the plot as you went along? Thanks for a great read and I can't wait for the next one!

In this case, I had very little of the plot worked out beforehand. When I stuck Yvonne in the witness box at the Old Bailey, I wasn't even too sure what she was charged with, other than I knew it was very serious - and I knew that she was about to be caught out in a very damaging lie. I also knew what she had done in Apple Tree Yard but I didn't know how it connected up with her 'crime'. Then I had to write the novel to find out the answer.

@musicmaiden

I found it very powerful and well written, I thought it brought up a lot of very interesting issues that made the book more than just a thriller.

My question is: what was the thinking behind the preface with its partial spoiler pointing towards the ultimate outcome? I thought it was a very curious thing to do and I felt the courtroom portion would have been a lot more shocking and unexpected without it. It was clearly a very deliberate choice on Louise's part so I'd like to understand her thinking.

Definitely a deliberate choice: I wanted to signal what was at stake for Yvonne, and I wanted the reader to know that when she takes that first step in the Chapel in the Crypt, it’s going to lead in disaster – to the Old Bailey in fact. I have to say everyone loved the Prologue and Faber gave away thousands of copies of it when the hardback came out. But Prologues aren’t to everyone’s taste and I think there’s an argument for saying it’s sometimes more pleasurable when the opening to a book is a slow burn. That’s what I’m aiming for with the one I am writing at the moment.

Thanks for answering. Your book is also about marriage - do you have any tips for a happy marriage/relationship? Do you believe in monogamy?

When I read this I was strongly reminded of the many marriages of friends' parents that broke down once their children had grown up - ie when they were a similar age to Yvonne. Actually, why did Guy have his affair? Was Yvonne too busy with her work? Or was he 'just a man' as she often says.

@hollytom

I am enjoying the book, not finished yet. I will be looking to read some of your other books next! I see Apple Tree Yard has been selected as a Richard and Judy book club does that make an impact on sales still? I know that it used to but is it still a big thing for an author to be selected?

Yes it's still a huge deal. There's no television sofa interview now but R&J have a website and, crucially, the interest of WHSmith. Being at the front of a bookshop and in the window transforms the fortunes of a novel because it means you get picked up casually - people don't have to go hunting for you. It was a great piece of luck being picked - and great that the book club and all book clubs such as this and in people's homes and workplaces still seem to be thriving - a cause for celebration, I think.

Hello Louise

I'm not really here as on maternity leave but wanted to say how much I thoroughly enjoyed the book - could not put it down.

I read it before I had my twins 6 weeks ago - can't see much time for reading at the mo, I have recommended it for my RL book club and can't wait to discuss it with them, too.

Am late to the chat because I've been watching trashy tv (the jump)
My question is what's your guilty pleasure?

@TheOnlyOliviaMumsnet

Hello Louise

I'm not really here as on maternity leave but wanted to say how much I thoroughly enjoyed the book - could not put it down.

I read it before I had my twins 6 weeks ago - can't see much time for reading at the mo, I have recommended it for my RL book club and can't wait to discuss it with them, too.

Am late to the chat because I've been watching trashy tv (the jump)
My question is what's your guilty pleasure?

Guilty pleasure... well not encounters with strangers in alleyways, that's for sure! Mine pleasures are all terrible cliches: chocolate, coffee, long walks, long baths... and now my children are older, being able to read the newspaper at the weekends. I still get a huge kick out of that after the many years in which it was impossible.

@ktlq

Thanks for answering. Your book is also about marriage - do you have any tips for a happy marriage/relationship? Do you believe in monogamy?

When I read this I was strongly reminded of the many marriages of friends' parents that broke down once their children had grown up - ie when they were a similar age to Yvonne. Actually, why did Guy have his affair? Was Yvonne too busy with her work? Or was he 'just a man' as she often says.

I think he was just a man, I'm afraid... I wanted to raise the issue that his (actually far more conventional) affair has, in fact, caused infinitely more damage than her supposedly reprehensible sexual misconduct. What she has done may seem more shocking but she does genuinely believe she can protect her marriage in a way he has failed to do. And in answer to your first question - no, no tips - if only! I believe in monogamy as an ideal to aim for.

Hi Louise,

Another question!
How do you structure your writing day? And how long did the book take you from start to finish?

A question from me if we have time (but don't worry if not):

I heard you on Radio 4 Open Book when the HB was published, discussing Yvonne's treatment by society because she's a 52 year old woman who has dared to be sexual (at least, I think I remember you and Mariella discussing that!) - do you think Yvonne's age is important in the way she is viewed, and how respectable she is supposed to be? Is she punished all the more because she 'should know better' at her age?

@notqueenbee

Hi Louise,

Another question!
How do you structure your writing day? And how long did the book take you from start to finish?

I find that nowadays I have to write first thing in the morning - as soon as the front door slams after the last family member to leave the house. If I start unloading the dishwasher or checking my emails, I'm done for. So I put my laptop in my bag and go out to a library or cafe - it's the only way to get anything done.
Apple Tree Yard took 18 months for the first draft, start to finish. Then there was about 6 months of the publication process, including two edits for my editor at Faber and then copy editing, proof reading etc. So really, 2 years.

I think that's what keeps you enthralled, seeing Yvonne going on an unexpected journey and wondering how you would cope with the rape and aftermath too.

at alleyways!!
Couple of other questions: -
What are you working on at the moment?
Which of your other novels should I download first?
(hopeful of reading time emoticon)