Lovesong completes my trilogy about women in tough places.
I wanted to write a contemporary story about a woman who's trapped in
some way, a love story that'd hit readers in the guts. It's presented
as a crime novel, but I guess I wanted to write a book that would affect
people in a similar way to how I'd felt after watching films like "The
Piano" and "Breaking the Waves."
Once again, landscape is almost a character. I begin with an extremely
strict religious community that's high up in the mountains, a place
scraped by the wind and the sun. It's a farming community controlled
with an iron fist and rarely encroached upon by the twenty first century.
The men are long-bearded, the women long-skirted. The only book to be
read is the bible.
The two young protaganists, Lillie Bird and Dan Macguire, eventually
find themselves in England.
They've never seen such a place, never walked through such a cram of
people. The sky's so low it almost touches the rooftops, the light licks
them instead of bashing them, the air roars. But they soon dive into
this new world and grab it complete. They discover in London the delight
of double beds, skin, icecream, sex - and they fall deeply in love.
But it's difficult to escape the past. Lillie and Dan carry a secret
from their old community that explains why they're in England and it
threatens to destroy them both.
I wanted Lovesong to be sexy, compelling, heartbreaking, a novel that
celebrates love. I also wanted to mint a language of my own if I could,
to make it a novel-length song with its own rhythm and beauty. It went
through sixty drafts and took me three years to write, and I almost
collapsed with exhaustion after completing it. I don't think I could
ever write with that intensity again.
See
an interview with Nikki on Lovesong
courtesy of relaxwithabook.com
Requires RealPlayer
