Author Guest Blog – Susan Rendell

This is the first in a series of occasional Guest Blogs from Authors published in audio by Rattling Books.

Susan Rendell is the Author of In the Chambers of the Sea, a collection of short fiction originally published by Killick Press in 2003. Rattling Books released an unabridged audio edition of In the Chambers of the Sea in 2004, narrated by Anita Best, Deirdre Gillard-Rowlings, Joel Hynes, Susan Rendell, Janet Russell, Janis Spence, Francesca Swann and Agnes Walsh.

Author Guest Blog – Susan Rendell

Janet Russell, my beloved publisher, has asked me to write something about characters for her new blog. So, characters.

Well, the way it goes with me is that they just show up on their own, usually with names and other stuff – pets, allergies - homicidal impulses – no, wait, those are Ken Harvey’s characters – mothers, fathers, kids – and if I’m lucky, designer shoe fetishes (in which case I get to put down Manolo Blahnik a bunch of times, and fantasize). And then they get involved in stuff over which I have no control - I listen and watch and type as fast as I can, stretch and strain after dialogue and images that waver and go out if, for instance, my daughter comes in and says, “Where’s the umbrella?” (The customary reply is, “You know where the umbrella is, you spawn of Satan, you’re just trying to kill your mother, you. . .” – at which point the door usually closes quickly and firmly. She doesn’t come back until the next line that’s going to propel me firmly in the direction of a magnum opus or Magna Carta or at least a contract is dancing just out of my reach, and I’m reeling it in and it’s coming, it’s coming, yes!, and – “Has the dog been fed?” To which the customary reply is “I am going to kill you and the dog and the neighbour’s dog and the cat up the street who looks like a dog. . . Slam.)

Sometimes I use real people as characters, but they are so cleverly disguised I would never get grabbed by the real person at, say, a big fancy reception where the booze and the food are flowing freely and I’m wearing a new dress and feeling pretty cool in my knock-off Blahniks, when suddenly a hand comes out of the crowd and grabs me hard around the wrist and a voice dripping with menace says, “You put me in your book,” and I can feel all the hairs on my body standing to attention, even the ghosts of plucked and shaven hairs, and then. . .but this never happens, as I said, because of the clever disguising, etc. It might have happened to a friend once, though.

Speaking of characters, there are some in the excerpt from the novel I’m working on. I thought one of them might be my great aunt, owing to certain similarities in era, pursuits, etc., but my aunt never murdered anyone and stuck the body in a well - as far as I know - as this person seems bent on doing unless one of the other characters stops her. I have no faith in any of them that way, their collective intelligence or moral fibre - indeed I’m not even sure how they manage to button their boots in the morning – so it’s likely there will end up being a body in the well. I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be the dog’s, because he does have a few redeeming qualities – he never kills or even chases chickens, for instance, even though his mother was murdered by one.