A Day in the Life of Novelist Hannah Fielding by Margaret Graham

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  I wake early. In my Kent home – a former rectory surrounded by lawns and woodland – it is invariably birdsong that awakens me. But here in my French mas, it is the light that stirs me; whatever the weather, the sky reflecting on the Mediterranean is luminous. I linger in bed for a while, trying to recall the details of my dream. I remember a beach, and two lovers reaching desperately for each other over some obstacle. I grab my notebook, always ready beside the bed, and scribble down a few phrases.

Once I am dressed, I take a light breakfast and a cup of fruit tea on the terrace, taking in the view – the blooming flowers, the velvety lawns, and beyond, the ocean on which boats of all sizes are the heading out from St Tropez. This is my Zen place, where I set the mood for the day ahead.

Already the air is humid; it will be scorching today. So I retreat to my office. There is a large wooden desk on which I spread out all my research papers, shelves of books (the dictionary is particularly well thumbed) and, most importantly, a view of the garden and sea through the big half-circle patio doors. This is my little haven; as Virginia Wolf said, ‘A woman must have… a room of her own if she is to write fiction.’

 

I start with an hour of administration and marketing work. I am very strict about limiting that time; writing comes first. I answer some emails, check the publisher’s blurb for my next novel, converse with some readers on social media and – bleep, time is up. Now comes my favourite time of day: for the next six or so hours I will immerse myself in writing, with just a short break for lunch. My current book has been researched and planned meticulously, so I waste no time in diving in. Resisting the urge to edit yesterday’s words, I read over them and then pick up the story.

I am quickly immersed in another place and time, with characters who feel so vivid and real to me. Today I am writing a difficult scene: the lovers are arguing. A misunderstanding coupled with blind pride has caused them to lash out rather than reach out. Reach out – that is it! I open my notebook, where I jotted down some phrases inspired by my dream last night. Two of them fit perfectly; I work them into the scene.

Late afternoon, the writing slows. I am tired and restless. I close the laptop, and go out – not so much for a break from writing, but to stir the muse who loves nothing better than people-watching in a pavement café or paddling in the surf along the beach. I let my mind wander, and jot down new ideas in my trusty notebook.

Come the evening it is time to switch off and be with my family. We share a meal – today I am trying out an Italian fish recipe as part of the research for a future novel – and then we sit up late, talking and star-gazing around the chiminea. A peace descends on me as I realise the day is nearly done, and tomorrow I will be fortunate enough to get up and do it all again. This is my perfect ‘Groundhog Day’.

Legacy by Hannah Fielding is out on 29th September (£7.99) http://hannahfielding.net/

Pride and Prejudice at Jermyn Street Theatre pre-view by Milly Adams

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21 characters, 2 actors and 1 of the most romantic stories of all time…

This looks pretty good, and I’m trying to carve out time to see it, and thought our Frost readers should be made aware that hot on the heels of a highly successful 2016 tour, this richly praised retelling of the nation’s favourite novel comes to London in the run-up to Christmas. Pride and Prejudice is a must for all Austen fans and those looking for a fresh and surprising new piece of theatre.

Over 200 years after it was first published, Joannah Tincey’s adaptation brings Pride and Prejudice to life with just two actors. Using nothing but Austen’s text and their own ingenuity the actors illuminate Austen’s words in a fresh and relevant way for the modern viewer.

Joannah Tincey says, I wanted to create an adaptation where the characters talk to the audience in the same way that Austen talks to her readers. By addressing the audience directly and allowing the characters to speak for themselves, we are bringing Jane Austen’s unique and witty writing style to life in a truly theatrical context.

The full gamut of Austen’s 21 characters and locations, from the Meryton Assembly to the grounds of Pemberley, from Mrs Bennet’s nerves to Mr Wickham’s misdeeds all come to life in this inventive production. And, of course, there are Darcy and Lizzy, who move from instant dislike to something altogether more affectionate.

Fun, fast and, most importantly, romantic, this production sparkles with Austen’s wit and style. Pride and Prejudice offers a brand new interpretation of one of literature’s greatest love stories and is the perfect alternative to the traditional Christmas pantomime.

Sounds good, methinks.

Pride and Prejudice, a Richard Darbourne Ltd, in association with Jermyn Street Theatre, presents The Two Bit Classics production

Wednesday 30th November – Wednesday 21st December 2016 Tuesday-Friday, 7.30pm
Saturday-Sunday, 3.30pm and 7.30pm
Additional performances 8th and 15th December, 3.30pm

2 and a half hours (including an interval) @TwoBitClassics, @jstheatre, #PrideAndPrejudice

 

 

 

Where do congressmen go to eat? The best steaks in Washington!

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The Capital Grille in Washington DC – a great place for upmarket steak

Washington DC is the home of Government in the USA. As a result it has a number of restaurants where the Presidential staff, the congressional staff, the senior lobbyists and all the congressmen get wined and dined – at great expense. So when I visited Washington, a friend of mine insisted on taking me to one.

When it comes to feeding congressmen, there are a couple of places that fit the bill. We tried to book the Caucus Room, but it was closed for refurbishment. So we decided to go to the Capital Grille. This is part of a chain of restaurants – but a particularly plush one. When you eventually stagger out, filled with good food and drink, you get a great view up Capitol hill to the Capitol building: the big place with the dome that you’ve seen on all the postcards.

If you are a lobbyist, trying to get a congressman to see things in your way, this is the place to go. It is all oak panelling and very plush. And yet it is also very American: there is a large head of a bison behind the bar.

The place absolutely shouts money – but in a restrained way. It is designed to look like an exclusive gentlemen’s club. The carpets are very thick, the flooring around the bar is marble. When you sit down you are given huge steak knifes which must cost around $30 each and the table napkins are of the finest linen.

As in some private members clubs, where members have their own bottles of whiskey in a locker, this one also has lockers for the private supply. But this is obviously done in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. One of the lockers had the name of Frank Sinatra (the singer who died 18 years ago) and another had a brass plate with the name Strom Thurmond. Thurmond was probably the best known Senator in Washington: he lived to 100 and served in the senate for 48 years. But as he died in 2003, his name plate was probably an in-joke for the Washington crowd.

So what do you eat? Well naturally you eat steaks – and the very finest steaks that money can buy. But as we were splashing out, I decided to start my meal with half a dozen oysters. They were lovely little things – very fresh, juicy with a choice of toppings. I dressed mine with shallots and vinegar. I thought the horseraddish, which I was offered, would have killed the taste of the oysters. My wife had asparagus dripping with butter.

Oh, the bread was very good – crispy and incredibly fresh and yielding. It was quite perfect. In fact it was so good that we asked the waitress to take it away, lest it should ruin our dinner.

So how should I describe the steaks. They were wonderful. I ordered a ribeye with porcini mushrooms and balsamic vinegar. It had that lovely crust that you get when you fry a well aged steak in butter. And the meat was wonderfully – marbled with just a tiny bit of fat. And the meat hadn’t been trimmed, so I got to eat a slice of that full, rich fat, which is probably dreadful for cholesterol levels, but which tastes so good.

We ordered two bottles of Dutton Chardonnay – at $70 a bottle. We had brought two bottles of our own red wine. Normally we’d have expected to be charged for corkage – opening the wines – but when we looked at the bill we hadn’t been charged. And for dessert, I shared a superb creme brulee with my wife.

The meal costs $550 for four, which I have to admit is the most I have ever paid for a meal. If we had had four starters and four desserts (rather than sharing them), and bought all the wine at the restaurant and a rounded off with a decent brandy, the bill could easily have been $1000.

Jacques by Tanya Ravenswater Reviewed by Jan Speedie

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pic-1-jacquesTanya Ravenswater has produced a simple but unique story of Jacques Lafitte’s life and the relationships he forms along the way.

Jacques Lafitte is only 11 when his life changes forever. Following the death of his parents Jacques’ guardian, Oliver Clark moves him to Chester to live with his family. Life with the Clark family is very different from his life in Paris with his loving parents. Jacques forms a close relationship with Rebecca Clark who helps him to accept his new surroundings. As the years pass Jacques realises he has fallen in love with Rebecca and he must decide if she feels the same – the outcome could affect the whole family.

Tanya’s story centres round young Jacques Lafitte as he copes with his new life, the suicide of his closest friend while he tries to find his own stable and loving world.

Tanya Ravenswater was born in County Down, Northern Ireland. After graduating from St Andrews University with a degree in Modern Languages she followed a career in nursing, bereavement support and counselling education. Tanya writes for children and adults and has published a collection of short stories for women and has been short listed and published in the Cheshire Prize anthologies. She won the Cheshire Prize for Literature in 2014-15 for her children’s poem ‘Badger’.

 

Published by Twenty7 2016 pb £7.99

 

On Becoming a Mother When Your Own Mother Lives Far Away

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pregnancyWhile becoming a mother brings on a tsunami of new emotions, becoming a mother when your own mother lives in another country (or kingdom in my case, I live in London, my mother lives in Scotland), adds a tornado to the mix. I remember walking around The Baby Show while heavily pregnant, trying to bury down the melancholy because it seemed that every other woman was there with her mother.

My mother was there for the birth of my son. Not in the room, but she came down for the week. Unfortunately I was in labour for five of those days and she barely got to see her grandson before she had to head back up to Scotland. He was born in April and she didn’t get to see him again until January and is only seeing him again now, in October. It is slim pickings indeed. It hurts as she misses the milestones. It hurts that she doesn’t see him on a regular basis, get to cuddle him and breathe him in. We FaceTime and that makes a difference, but as the months go by it just isn’t enough.

It has been hard being without my family a lot in my life, but it is so much worse after you have a child. My brother has childcare whenever he needs it, day or night. My mother saw my nephew grow and become the 5-year-old he is today. I missed seeing my nephew grow up. When I saw him after a 6-months or 12-months gap I would not recognise him at first. Such was the incredulousness of this little boy being the baby that was my nephew. My mother even missed my son’t birthday weekend. We both felt that.

I only saw my mother once when I was pregnant and by that time I was six months gone. I had an awful pregnancy and missed having my family around me. I wish I could take my mother to the park with my son, have lunch with her, see him cuddle her and take her by the hand. It has been almost ten years since I moved to London. I always knew the move was permanent, but I was so young getting married and having children didn’t enter my head. Raising your own family so far away from your own can feel like a stake to the heart. I miss my family everyday, but more than that; I miss them seeing my son grow up. I guess the upside is that when we are with them we make the most of it. It is all the sweeter for being rare. It is a small consolation.

A Crime Round Up by Margaret Graham

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I haven’t been out hunting down criminals but something rather more restful – choosing a few crime books I have enjoyed, and I feel might help you through the autumnal evenings.

 

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A Good Month for Murder by Del Quentin Wilber

 

This is a real life cop book, praised as writers like Lee Child, and he should know. Peter James also joined the gang, and called it a stunner. Well, is it? Yep, I thought so. It’s a moment in time in a homicide unit, full of detail, some – well a lot of darkness as the team of detectives carry out their almost impossible job, one that demands not only their expertise, but their duty to the dead. Thought provoking. I don’t know how they do it and remain humane.

 

A Good Month for Murder. Pub. Pan Macmillan hb. £16.99

 

Are You Watching Me   by Sinead Crowley

 

This is a creepy, but cracking novel which was short listed for Crime novel of the year at the 2015 Irish Book Awards. Liz Cafferty has been rescued from her past by the owner of a drop-in centre for older men and she soon finds herself as the face of the charity, and the less than willing darling of the Dublin media. A murder occurs, Liz receives notes… Sergeant Claire Boyle is stumped. With no leads how can she protect Liz?

 

Read and find out.

 

Are You Watching Me pub. Quercus pb £7.99

 

Keep you Close by Lucie Whitehouse – author of Richard and Judy Summer Bookclub pick Before We Meet

 

Marianne Glass falls to her death, accidentally, or so everyone thinks. But not her closest friend, Rowan, who has connections with the family, or once had. This is another creepie, and cleverly plotted psychological thriller.

 

I liked this. It kept me turning the pages. Clever, with a great ending.

 

Keep you Close by Lucie Whitehouse. Pub Bloomsbury HB £12.99 ebook £10.99

 

 

Tall Oaks by Chris Whitaker. Reviewed by Margaret Graham

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As an author I am so used to starting a book and recognising the signals almost immediately of who dun it, or at least a sense of who, why what.

 

Not with Tall Oaks. The first chapter drew me straight in, without me having a clue what was going on, not really. Yes, it was a recording of an event, and the man listening was reluctant to continue listening at times. But who was he, what, why?

 

Was it a ghost story? Was he a psychiatrist? Was he a copper? The tension built, and I totally colluded with the author, trusting in him and his writing, and the world he was creating.

 

Tall Oaks is a blast. For a debut novel it is extraordinarily self-confident, almost swaggeringly so as it strides across the pages, a scarf drifting in the wind behind it, gathering characters, events, emotions, action, and storming to a resolution.

 

It is by turns funny, dark, and ultimately comes close to ripping your heart out as Whitaker exposes the secrets of Tall Oaks, California. Of course the media descends once it sniffs out the story of a three year old who has gone missing, but without an end game, they leave. Together the young lonely distraught mother and Jim the local police chief are left to try to find the boy. There are other living breathing characters, some missing, some not, some suspicious, some…

 

Nope, read it. Clever, original and not really fair because this is a new writer, and it all seems so effortless. But then we all know it isn’t. This has been thought through, and then again, and the idea pushed further until originality came to the fore. The writing is tight, the plotting supreme.   Bravo young Chris Whitaker. Get going on the next one please.

 

Tall Oaks pub Twenty7. £7.99 ebook £4.99

New York Delis – the best of the best!

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New York Delis – Junior’s, Katz’s, Carnegie Deli and Russ&Daughter

According to Allen Ginsberg – the famous New York poet -‘Allegories are like lettuce in reality sandwiches’. The implication is that a sandwich should have very little lettuce; the important thing is the meat.

New York sandwiches traditionally have vast quantities of meat – often far more than anyone would actually want to eat. This is particularly true of the delis – some of which are very famous.

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One of the giant corned beef sandwiches at Carnegies in New York

Possibly the most famous is Carnegie Deli near Carnegie Hall on Seventh Avenue, which specialises in corned beef sandwiches (in Britain we would call it ‘salt beef’) and pastrami. A corn beef sandwich at Carnegie is an eloquent argument against the American way of life. I visited two years ago. The corn beef sandwich costs $30 and is about the size of a small football. I split one with my wife and between us we managed to get through about half of it. They do a nice chicken and matza ball soup, but the matza ball is slightly larger than a tennis ball and has about a zillion calories. We did ask the Chinese waiter if anyone ever finished the food. He told us that such events are a rarity.

Carnegie is a New York institution. The walls are literally covered with photos of celebrities eating there. It’s a lovely place to sit and talk and to push the food, that you can’t possibly finish, around your plate.

Katz’s is another institution. It is in the Jewish area around the East Village. If you ever watched the film When Harry Met Sally, you’ll remember the scene in which Meg Ryan is sitting in a deli and fakes a very noisy orgasm. This was filmed in Katz’s and there is a banner above the seat where Meg Ryan sat.
Mercifully the portions are smaller in Katz’s than at Carnegie. The corn beef is better at Katz’s but the soup is more flavoursome at Carnegie.The thing I love about Katz is the old posters including one with the slogan ‘Buy a Salami for your boy in the army!’ I bought a T-shirt with this slogan on it.

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Juniors Deli at Broadway – nice food, good prices and manageable portions

These delis are about 80 years old. There are some great new places. After going to the theatre one night, we dropped into Juniors on Broadway. The food is reasonably priced and very good. I shared a corned beef sandwich and a cup of matza ball soup with my wife.The corn beef is manageable – not too big – and very tasty. The soup is delicious – although a bit heavy on the salt. And the chopped liver was absolutely wonderful – very creamy, deep flavours of onion and lots of mashed up egg. The burger, which my son ordered, was nicely cooked and the chips were crisp and well sized. It cost $70 for four, which I thought pretty reasonable.

More recently there has been a move towards upmarket deli food. Russ & Daughters has for many years operated a traditional Jewish delicatessen shop in the Jewish area around Houston Street. It sells salmon, bagels, dried fruit etc to take away. More recently, the firm has opened a sit-down restaurant on Orchard Street. They sell large platters of traditional Jewish deli food – and it’s all very classy. You can buy caviar and shots of vodka, as well as various types of herring. It is served by neatly dressed women in suits and – in addition to the elderly Jewish couples – there are lots of businessmen at lunchtime.

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A quiet meal at Russ and Daughters – a new upmarket deli

We ordered one of their large platters, which will serve three or four people. In our case, the platter, which cost $90, contained smoked salmon, sturgeon, smoked trout, smoked cod and wild Alaskan roe – along with bread, cream cheese, onion, tomato salad and capers. By the time we’d ordered a couple of side dishes, the bill came to around $150 for four. It’s not a bargain, but the quality is good.

If I lived in New York, I’d probably go to Russ and Daughters every few months, Juniors about once a fortnight and Katz’s about once a month. And I’d go to Carnegie if I got tired of life and decided to eat myself to death.