Author Interview: Maybelle Wallis
JMR-Welcome to the Books
Delight, Maybelle. Tell our readers where you live, what you do for fun and
what does the perfect day look like?
MW- Hello Jeanie! It’s great to
join you. I live in Ireland, on top of a hill in Co. Wexford. It’s known as
‘The Mountain’ locally. There’s forestry uphill and downhill from the house so
the views are getting smaller as the trees grow up, but there are glimpses of
the sea, which is about 12 miles away.
I suppose that on a perfect day
there would be no Covid, and I’d be able to see my son, who lives and works in
Manchester, UK. We had planned to fly to Heidelberg for a meet-up in May, which
we had to cancel.
Otherwise in my spare time I love
exploring the beautiful Irish countryside with my partner. I also have a friend
who goes open air swimming and in the summer we swim in the river at St Mullins
in Co. Carlow, or in the sea at Ballinesker beach - gorgeous though really
cold. I used to be a scuba diver but nowadays the gear is too heavy for me to
manage.
JMR-Maybelle tell us about
your favorite historical time period? Why?
MW- I am fascinated by 18th
and 19th century history. It was a time when science and reason
replaced superstition, and when there were huge changes in technology and
medicine, as well as in politics and economics that laid the foundations for
the modern world.
JMR-Which historical female do
you most admire? Why? If you could ask her one question, what would it be?
MW- One day I would like to write
the fictionalized biography of Marie Paulze Lavoisier, the wife of Antoine
Lavoisier, the French chemist who developed the concept of the chemical
elements. She was taught by him and became an able scientist. She documented
their chemical experiments and, some years after he was guillotined during the
Terror, she published his final work. I would ask her “how much of the work was
yours and how much was Antoine’s?”
JMR-You are a medical doctor,
how did you come to write both short stories and novels?
MW - Writing, whether
correspondence about patients, guidelines for colleagues, or articles for
medical journals, is a regular part of my day job. But I’ve wanted to write
fiction ever since reading my way through most of the fiction section of my
local public library as a teenager. When my son went off to university in 2011
it gave me the chance to study Creative Writing with the Open University. I got
involved with some writing groups and it all went on from there.
JMR- Your novel Heart of
Cruelty was just released, tell us about it.
MW- It’s set in 19th
century Birmingham, England, where I lived and worked for about 20 years. Here
and there, the built environment of Birmingham recalls the Industrial
Revolution with its foundries, canals, and terraced houses, and where I worked
in the NHS hospitals there were former workhouse buildings that had been
converted to offices. My starting point was Dr Doughty, a Coroner and his inquests;
I wove in a story about institutional abuse which was partly informed by my
experiences in child protection and partly by some big news stories of the
modern day like Jimmy Savile and Harvey Weinstein; My female lead, catalysing
the situation into a crisis, owes a lot to Jane Eyre.
JMR- Your book is not the
typical romance and it explores some very dark themes. What do you want the
reader to take away from it?
MW- It’s about a woman finding
her voice and speaking up for herself and others. I want the reader to question
whether a happy romantic ending is actually in her best interest. I’ve also
tried to show how hard it is for victims of abuse to be heard and believed; how
privilege and status insulates perpetrators from being challenged, and how even
the formal use of language in a court situation may work against the victim.
JMR- Some of my ancestors
spent much of their lives in and out of the Crumpsall workhouse in Manchester,
England. Life was pretty brutal for them and the working poor. I imagine there
was little joy to be found. What surprised or shocked you the most while
researching your book?
MW- That’s so interesting that
you have researched that workhouse. I was appalled at the way that the Poor
Laws amounted to a politically driven persecution of the poor; that paupers,
who were often old and /or ill, were treated worse than convicted felons, and
given longer hours of forced labour and shorter rations. My opening scene in
the workhouse yard was inspired by a scandal about the Andover workhouse where
paupers were so hungry that they were gnawing at the rotting bones that were
supposed to be ground up for bone-meal.
JMR- I read your very
interesting blog post about the Alpha-male found in many romance novels. You
don’t like him. Why? What, if any, responsibility to we have as writers to do
away with this stereotype?
MW- I don’t think we can, or
should, do away with the stereotype, but, hey, we writers have the power over
our characters! In my novels I aim to ration the men on their alpha attributes
and burden them with flaws – and we can give these men a tough time. Didn’t
Charlotte Bronte burn Mr Rochester in a fire? In my WIP I am working on a young
Irish doctor who is passionate about his work and about the cause of Irish
nationalism but goes off the rails because of it and gets into a lot of
trouble.
JMR- What’s your next project?
MW- I’m writing a sequel to Heart
of Cruelty in which I might get Jane and Doughty back together; the working
title is City of Famine. It’s set in Dublin during the Famine years. At
that time the rich led a glittering lifestyle just a few streets away from the
worst slums in Europe, Irish nationalist political activity was severely
suppressed, and pandemic disease was rife, with cholera adding to famine fever
(typhus/ typhoid). Against that background Dublin was actually a centre of
excellence in medical teaching renowned throughout Europe, and I’m working a
little medical history into the book. I’m experimenting with a number of story
threads - the relationship between Jane and Doughty; the young Irish doctor
(Joseph) battling the cholera epidemic; Joseph’s love story; and a third doctor
who is a secret poisoner. It’s only at first draft stage so the story might get
slimmed down in the final version.
JMR- Tell our readers how to
find you on social media and the web.
MW-
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MWallisHistWriter
Twitter: @DrMWallis
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drmwallis_histwriter/ (I’m not very good at Instagram!)
My website is: HistWriter.com and
subscribers receive a monthly newsletter ‘The HistWriter’
JMR- What question were you
hoping I’d ask but didn’t?
MW- I wanted to brag about my
study and my bookshelves, including a small but growing collection of 19th
century medical textbooks…
JMR- Thank you Maybelle for a great interview. The Books Delight wishes you the best of success with your writing. Readers, I've included a link to Heart of Cruelty below, please check it out.
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