Books / Fiction
Interview: Imogen Hermes Gowar
Imogen Hermes Gowar’s debut novel set in eighteenth century London, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, was shortlisted for the high profile Women’s Prize for Fiction and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Now based in Bristol and on the eve of its paperback publication, she tells Joe Melia more about the impact of writing one of 2018’s most lauded novels and her fascination with the Georgian period.
What brought you to Bristol?
My grandparents have lived here since the early 70s so it always felt like home, and you can’t really miss the Georgian period here. I think that was what initially sparked my interest in the era, as a kid. It’s not like any other city.
is needed now More than ever
What or who is the biggest influence on your writing?
Probably all the books I was able to completely lose myself in as a reader, starting with Joan Aiken. I think I started writing to replicate that feeling of total enrapture.
What drew you to Georgian London for the setting of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock?
All the cities I’ve lived in, I’ve enjoyed walking around discovering their history, and I did a lot of that when I moved to London in 2010. I was fascinated by how small and dense Georgian London was – you could walk from east to west in about two hours – and by the duality of it, the commercial City in the east supporting the more leisured Town in the west. Before I started writing the novel I was living in south-east London, not far from Deptford: once I started exploring there, I realised how special it was as a kind of maritime satellite to the city, where ships were built by extraordinarily skilled craftsmen, and where goods came and went. That story still exists in its buildings and geography, but it’s rarely remembered now. Learning about it led to writing about it quite straightforwardly.
Does the 18th century hold a particular fascination for you?
Definitely. I was really interested in it for about a decade before I thought to write about it. There is something very buoyant and energetic and vivacious about the period. I loved the language and the aesthetics, and you can’t miss the very beautiful art and architecture, but there was also this savage social commentary going on, as well as a radical questioning of what we humans are and should be capable of. I find it compelling in so many ways. I don’t think I’d have been able to do so much research if it hadn’t been so interesting to me.
Social status plays a significant role in the novel. Do you think the preoccupation with status is as strong now as it was it the 18th Century?
Of course, although in quite different ways. It’s quite a human impulse to codify success, I think. Then as now it’s all about what parties you’re at, what you’re wearing and who you’re with. Maybe we’re more able to control the narrative nowadays via social media, but there’s the same scramble to have Arrived.
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Bristol-based Imogen Hermes Gowar has been shortlisted for a number of prizes
What impact, if any, have the brilliant reviews for the novel and it being shortlisted for major prizes had on how you approach your writing?
It’s a major privilege to know that my writing will have an audience – when I wrote Mermaid I really wasn’t sure if anybody would ever read it or like it – but I still try not to think of anybody else when I write. Readers can smell self-consciousness in an author. I focus on pleasing myself: if I’ve written the story to the best of my ability, without laziness or disingenuity, then I can stand by it whatever anybody else thinks of it.
The novel is very visual and it feels like it’s prime material for a screen adaptation. Is anything like that in the pipeline?
It’s actually been optioned by Playground, the production company who made Wolf Hall. I’m thrilled – they’re my dream team – but there’s no guarantee it’ll be made. It would be lovely, of course, but I try to avoid any fantasy casting.
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is published in paperback on January 24. For more information, visit https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1113246/the-mermaid-and-mrs-hancock/9781784705992.html
Read more: Guy Gunaratne discusses his acclaimed debut novel.
Main photo: Ollie Grove
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