Your new novel, The Echoes, has been described as a ghost story and a love story. Tell us more.
It’s a story that starts off being told from the point of view of Max, who is dead. He’s watching his girlfriend Hannah as she grieves, and seeing things about her he wasn’t able to while he was living.
You grew up on your grandparents’ farm in Australia but have spent most of your adult life in Peckham, south London. How has this dual identity shaped you as a person and a writer? How distinctive is the Australian literary tradition?
As a kid I described myself as an Australian, despite quite clearly being English. When I wasn’t on the farm, which was most of the time, I dreamed about it, so much so that when I was there I worried I was asleep. I think the feeling of homesickness I have is the root of a lot of my writing. It fuels a desire to imagine places I’m not in.
Your debut novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice (2010), was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. What inspired it?
My Australian grandfather was in the second World War and my uncle was conscripted and saw dreadful action in the Vietnam War. They both lived on the cane farm along with my uncle’s son and as a kid I was fascinated by the three of them – their machismo, the trickle down effect war has on a family. I’ve always been most interested in the things people leave unsaid.
[ Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld review: a chomp out of your heartOpens in new window ]
Your second, All the Birds, Singing (2014), won the Miles Franklin Prize, the Encore Prize and was shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel award. Describe it.
A woman lives on her sheep farm on an island with only her dog for company. Something is tearing into her sheep at night – is it something supernatural or is it her past in Australia catching up with her?
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Everything is Teeth (2015), a graphic memoir, explored your obsession with sharks, but it was more fear than fascination?
As a child I was very fearful of sharks, but I was also (and am still) most fascinated by the things I’m afraid of. Ultimately that book is about my father.
The Bass Rock (2020) is the story of three interlinked women across centuries and explores misogyny and female empowerment. How did becoming a mother influence it?
I wrote this one with a newborn so I had to write it in small chunks. I’d write while my son napped, so about an hour a day. While it was sometimes frustrating, it did mean that I could not afford to think too much, I just had to write. The other thing about writing with a newborn is you’re exhausted and angry and lonely. All quite good things creatively, though not necessarily fantastic for your health!
You help run a bookshop, Review, in Peckham. What makes a good bookshop?
I’m in the lovely position of being almost completely useless to the shop these days – it’s run by several geniuses, Roz Simpson, Ben Pope and Vida Adamczewski. I would say a good bookshop is entirely dependent on the people who work there and their passions, which are reflected in the stock – it means they can hand sell books they care about to people whose tastes they understand. And a dog is always helpful.
Which projects are you working on?
Too many and all of them secrets.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
I grew up doing the Tennyson Trail on the Isle of Wight often – I don’t know if that counts – I was probably complaining the whole way.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Don’t talk to people about what you’re writing until you’ve written it. And even then, just be quiet about it.
Who do you admire the most?
Rodney Fox.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
Evie Wyld gets to be supreme ruler for life.
[ Evie Wyld: ‘It certainly wasn’t the book I was hoping to write’Opens in new window ]
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
Book: The Chain by Chimene Suleyman. Film: Late Night with the Devil. Podcast: Miss Me…?
Which public event affected you most?
I don’t go to many but I saw Lisa O’Neill in London and I still think about that.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
A smugglers’ cave on the Isle of Wight – caved in now.
Your most treasured possession?
My father’s photograph albums.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
To look at? I have an old scrapbook my dad gave me when I was 7 – it belonged to a little girl who lived in the 1800s.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
This sounds like a nightmare. Only people I know to be good in the pub: Richard Flannagan, Karen McLeod, Melissa Harrison, Max Porter. I want only writers who aren’t going to sit there and talk about writing.
The best and worst things about where you live?
I live on the same road as the bookshop. That’s the best. Right now the worst is that we have an ants’ nest by the back door and it’s flying ants day.
What is your favourite quotation?
Buckle up, Fucklehead – Tom Wambsgans
Who is your favourite fictional character?
Sam Quint.
A book to make me laugh?
Lifting Off by Karen McLeod.
A book that might move me to tears?
See above.
The Echoes is published by Jonathan Cape
