Arts

Happy Thursday! Today I have the privilege of interviewing Debbie McGowan, whose novel The Making of Us just released a couple of days ago. I reviewed it, and you can read that here. It’s a fabulous #OwnVoices novel with a lot of great themes. Check out our conversation below, and then go read the book!

*Note: The interview questions have been edited for clarity, but the author’s answers have not been changed.

Welcome! I’m completely tempted just to talk about my favorite books and characters (oh, Josh…), but I don’t think anyone wants my opinions. They’d rather get to know you better. For starters, what are some of the jobs besides writer that you’ve held?

This might take a while…

My first job – aside from delivering newspapers – was as an ice cream vendor, in a kiosk in Southport (rain or shine…mostly rain) and in the Victorian Sea Bathing Lake, which is no more. It was amphitheatre-shaped with raked seating all around the oval pool, which had a dark-painted strip through the middle to demarcate the ‘shark-infested waters’ – the deep bit. No sharks, but swimming when you can’t see the bottom is a bit scary! Other memories from that job…adding blue-raspberry slush syrup to the Mr. Whippy machine to make blue ice cream (we weren’t supposed to, but it was a commercial success), floating on my back at the end of a long shift with the lustrous, mellow tones of George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ filling the air, and reading Nineteen Eighty-Four in November in a kiosk on the coastal road. Br-r-r-r.

The bit about adding the blue syrup cracks me up. I think my 13-year-old would approve. What else have you done?

I’ve also been a care assistant (and planned to train as a nurse, but changed my mind), a cashier in a timber yard, a mental health/learning disabilities advocate, a groundsperson, an unofficial (and unqualified) music therapist, a bartender, a high school teacher and a university lecturer (which is still my salaried job).

And I thought I had a lot of jobs in my history! Goodness. Speaking of history, tell us a bit about your cultural and ethnic background.

I’m white English working class. In the UK, class and nationality are significant to our identity. Some people identify as ‘British’, and there are some aspects of culture that are referred to as ‘British’ but are, in fact, examples of the English claiming sovereignty over the other parts of the UK. Except for tea-drinking. It’s a national pursuit – in Eire (The South of Ireland) and all the constituent parts of the UK.

My heritage is a mix of Scottish, Irish and English; my Scottish paternal great-grandfather (one Ebenezer John Black McGowan) and his Irish wife moved from Dumfriesshire, Scotland, to Liverpool, North-West England. My maternal ancestry is a mix of Liverpudlians and ‘Moonrakers’ (from Wiltshire in the south-west of England), and I’ve managed to trace back as far as an army captain by the name of Robert Deangeli in the 1400s whose name was anglicised from Italian (because of Henry VIII’s Anglican Church) to Angell.

With that genetic mix, I have the dark colouring (brown-black hair, brown eyes, olive skin) typical of many in Liverpool (which had a lot of Irish settlers) and Ireland – and maybe the Italian influence? If he had really dominant genes.

I can understand that. My own background is fairly mixed, which isn’t uncommon here in the U.S. Sadly, I seem to have gotten the pasty-pale genes and not the lovely southern Italian ones in my family. So how does this all factor into your writing?

That’s one aspect that informs my writing – the Irish influence. But also, the UK is a mix of so many different cultures, and that mix varies from place to place. I try to reflect that diversity in my writing; my stories feature characters from the UK’s closest neighbours as well as the nations within ‘the union’, and of various ethnicities and religious backgrounds. I love that richness of culture in the UK, and I hope to convey that through my stories, because it’s fantastic.

 I can’t speak to it as an insider, but from my perspective, you seem to have succeeded at integrating a wide range. While we’re on the subject, what cultural value do you see in storytelling?

Storytelling is so important. I feel like that should be in capital letters. Yes, stories are fiction, but they represent our lived reality, and the world is changing so quickly. Like, for instance, I read something recently where the character flipped open their phone, and it made me smile; Nige had a flip phone and he was far too excited about it, because it was like a Star Trek communicator.

Ha! I remember those. My first cell was a flip phone, and I may possibly have enjoyed it for the same reason. In one of mine, I had to figure out how a non-verbal character might use texting without words. But I had to work in a pre-emoji setting! How do we connect readers who may be unfamiliar with those times and places?

Stories link the past, present and future in ways that transcend time. Another example: a few younger people who’ve read When Skies Have Fallen (my historical novel about two WWII airmen who fall in love) commented in their reviews that they hadn’t realised what it was like for LGBT+ people during that era, and again, it’s a fictional story, but I grounded it in fact, because those facts are so important. In democratic societies, rights can be taken away as easily as they can be granted, and if we forget what went before…well, we mustn’t.

That’s really interesting because I sometimes find that people now don’t even really know the more recent history, let alone as far back as WWII. So how do we pass this knowledge on?

Regardless of the genre, storytelling is our legacy. We live in a throwaway culture where everything is disposable or digital, but as long as there are stories, we will have a record of what it is like for us, here and now, how we think about the past and what we imagine for the future.

Unless a coronal mass ejection wipes out our hard drives, of course…

I sure hope that doesn’t happen! Let’s talk about something else I know is really dear to you—animals. First, and most important: Cats or dogs?

Both!

Do you have any pets, then?

Two dogs, one cat.

Our first cat moved in last year, and he’s friendlier than the dogs (this is what happens when you live with a border collie and former street dog). He’s ginger, but he’s not called Jinja. He’s called George.

Aw, they are so adorable. Related to that, and I already know the answer to this (though other readers may not), what’s a charity or cause you support?

Animal welfare – I donate regularly to the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA – who kept my epileptic dog alive when we were poor) and The Dogs Trust (rescue/rehoming). I also donate to a rescue for disabled dogs at Christmas (instead of sending out Christmas cards) because dogs on wheels are great! (see below)

Also, all of the pets my characters have are rescue animals – that’s how strongly I support the cause.

Yes! I’m not sure if you knew this, but your various writings about rescue pets inspired me to include a disabled dog in my Christmas story last year. So much of your work and that of other authors has influenced me quite a lot. Who has inspired you the most?

Goody – my dog who passed away in 2012. She lost the use of her back legs due to a degenerative disorder and spent two years getting around on wheels. She didn’t care; she just lived in the moment. She taught me how to do the same.

She’s beautiful, and that is definitely inspiring! Thank you so much for chatting. I’m looking forward to seeing whatever you’ve got coming up next.