Sheila Kohler's new project

Some days ago we published about Sheila Kohler's new novel apparently centered around the writing of Jane Eyre. We contacted the author and this is what she told us:

Thank you so much for your interest in my book. It is, though, as you suspected, still at a very early stage--I have just finished a first draft and I have recently been very busy promoting my new and ninth book: "Bluebird or the Invention of Happiness" a historical novel based on the life of Lucy Dillon, a French aristocrat of Irish origin who leaves France during the revolution and comes to this country and becomes a dairy farmer.

It was writing this life and turning it into fiction that gave me the idea to do something similar with the much more famous Brontes. I have had a fascinating time reading everything I could find on them and particularly Lyndall Gordon's wonderful biography of Charlotte which you must know.

I think "Jane Eyre" the start of which an aunt read to me when I was very young--the scene in the redroom, was what made me want to write. Of course, this undertaking is both easier and much more difficult than the one I have just completed, as so much has already been written about the Brontes, but I have found that the book has mysteriously found a shape of its own: in three volumes with each of the sisters presiding over a volume of her own. It starts in Manchester with the father's eye operation--but I wont tell you any more than that!

Curiously enough, Lyndall Gordon is one of the (enthusiastic) reviewers of her last book, Bluebird or the Invention of Happiness:

A triumph ... Kohler brings the whole fascinating and terrible period of the French Revolution and its aftermath to life — a massive feat.

Categories: Books, Fiction