Rachael King is the extremely talented author of The Sound of Butterflies and Magpie Hall and I think she’s one of the best in New Zealand contemporary fiction. Lucky me – she very kindly agreed to answer some questions I had thought of while reading Magpie Hall!

Did you have any influences in mind when you were writing Magpie Hall?

There are elements of many other novels woven into Magpie Hall. I wanted to write something very intertextual. So it has elements of the Turn of the Screw, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Woman in White, Northanger Abbey and Rebecca (as that was considered to be a rewrite of Jane Eyre), plus classic tropes from the Gothic tradition such as a maiden locked in a tower, doubles, ghosts, the cruelty of nature, castles etc etc. Other than those, I am always slightly influenced by The Crow Road by Iain Banks, which I think of as the perfect family mystery (although it’s been a few years since I read it).

How did you research the details of taxidermy and did you have any personal interest in it?

As with butterfly collecting, it is not the sciences themselves that interest me but the people and personalities that are drawn to such activities. I interviewed a young female taxidermist who was an inspiration for the book, and I read a lot of ‘how to’ manuals, including those from Victorian times. In fact, one of my most precious resources was a book I discovered during research for The Sound of Butterflies. As well as providing me with information about preserving butterflies at the time, it had instructions on how to skin a tiger. I just knew I would need to use that in a book one day. I have had some great compliments about my tiger-skinning scene from people who wondered if I had ever done it myself, which I haven’t. But nor did I just copy the information; I read how to do it, then imagined myself into the mind of my character as he did it, writing what he would see and feel and smell. I’m a great believer that if you do your research well, and most importantly, if you integrate that research well, you don’t have to have experienced something yourself. You just need a good imagination and to be able to translate that imagination onto the page.

How do you feel about your characters when you are writing them?

Very fond, usually. I love watching them become fuller as the writing progresses, knowing things about them which never make it onto the page but make them more real in my mind.

Do your feelings towards them change when the book is finished?

I just think ‘how will I ever come up with new characters when I put so much into these ones?’

Visually Magpie Hall is a wonderful looking book, (designed by Sarah Laing) how collaborative was the design (or did she just do what she obviously does very well!)?

Sarah designed the cover, but the inside of the book was designed by Laura Furlong, using some of Sarah’s illustrations from the back cover. I was able to approve the layout. For the cover, I had quite a few ideas about what I wanted, and as Sarah is a friend, thought perhaps I could easily manipulate her (ha ha). But her design sense was too strong for me and what we ended up with was nothing like what I’d envisioned and I love it. Some of my ideas involved using images that we couldn’t have used for copyright reasons anyway. Sarah mocked up about ten designs and I got to say which were my favourites, but of course sales and marketing (or S&M as I like to call them) had a big say and some of my favourites were nixed for not being commercial enough. I am thrilled with the way the cover turned out and the back cover is as gorgeous as the front. Sarah is so multi-talented it hurts.

Are you a book re-reader? and if you are, what are some books you always go back to?

Not that often, no – I have too many books to read and not enough time. But some books I have re-read over the years are often from my childhood - Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence and the Narnia books for example. I’ll probably go back to Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights trilogy too - something to do with old friends to escape with when you’re ill or something.

What was your favourite book (or books) as a teenager?

Tess of the D’Urbervilles was a biggy. An influential English teacher introduced me to it, probably around the time the Polanski film came out. Tess was my style icon. I wore long dresses, petticoats and Victorian-style boots for a period when I was about 16. What a freak!

A big thank you to Rachael for her time and for being my very first author interview. Plus it’s always cool to find a fellow The Dark is Rising fan!

P.S. You can read my review of Magpie Hall here.