10 Aug 2010 19:41:22
Linda Newbery has got a signed copy of her latest book, Lob, in the glove compartment of her car. She's waiting to give it to the person to whom the book is dedicated: "the man who walks the roads". Whether he'll ever get his copy is down to serendipity – he doesn't know Newbery, and he doesn't know he was the inspiration behind her latest novel, longlisted for the Guardian children's fiction prize. Yet, given his habit of turning up at significant moments in the book's development, there's a good chance he might find out.
The Walking Man…she has got one copy of her latest book called Lob in a car, with her sign especially for him.. We are talking about Linda Newbery, the author of “Lob”.
"I assumed he was a tramp because he looked as if he was carrying his belongings in a carrier bag, but he was always on the same stretch of road: heading south, not hitching a lift, taking no notice of the speeding traffic. I used to wonder about him. He brought to my mind the Edward Thomas poem, Lob, and to me he became an emblematic figure of the British countryside. Gradually, the ideas in the poem and this man combined in my head to give me the beginning of the story. I put the idea of Lob to my editor to see if he liked it; he did, and I passed the Walking Man in my car next day. I saw him again on the day I handed in the typescript. The last time I saw him, just over a year ago, he was waiting at a bus stop in London. It seems uncanny and I really thought that he'd appear on the day the book was published or soon after but I haven't seen him since. But I haven't given up – the book's still there in the glove compartment."
Her manner of writing is so easy, but at the same time all descriptions are very realistic. In spite of her troubles in writing for this age group wasn’t so easy. She is best known for her young adult fiction and her last novel, the Costa children's prize-winning Set In Stone, was a gothic thriller set in the late 19th century. With its adult themes, it is most definitely not for the under-11s (although a Green Man does make an appearance in the pages, carved into the stonework of the house that is central to the story). "Suddenly I wanted to do this book that would be very different, both in style and the implied age of the reader," she says. "With the first draft I just sort of set off – a bit like Lob walking, really, without really knowing what I was doing or how I was going to do it. I thought I'd see what happened. And that was fun but the result just didn't quite work: it was too long, too wordy, too 'knowing' as well."
The Walking Man…she has got one copy of her latest book called Lob in a car, with her sign especially for him.. We are talking about Linda Newbery, the author of “Lob”.
"I assumed he was a tramp because he looked as if he was carrying his belongings in a carrier bag, but he was always on the same stretch of road: heading south, not hitching a lift, taking no notice of the speeding traffic. I used to wonder about him. He brought to my mind the Edward Thomas poem, Lob, and to me he became an emblematic figure of the British countryside. Gradually, the ideas in the poem and this man combined in my head to give me the beginning of the story. I put the idea of Lob to my editor to see if he liked it; he did, and I passed the Walking Man in my car next day. I saw him again on the day I handed in the typescript. The last time I saw him, just over a year ago, he was waiting at a bus stop in London. It seems uncanny and I really thought that he'd appear on the day the book was published or soon after but I haven't seen him since. But I haven't given up – the book's still there in the glove compartment."
Her manner of writing is so easy, but at the same time all descriptions are very realistic. In spite of her troubles in writing for this age group wasn’t so easy. She is best known for her young adult fiction and her last novel, the Costa children's prize-winning Set In Stone, was a gothic thriller set in the late 19th century. With its adult themes, it is most definitely not for the under-11s (although a Green Man does make an appearance in the pages, carved into the stonework of the house that is central to the story). "Suddenly I wanted to do this book that would be very different, both in style and the implied age of the reader," she says. "With the first draft I just sort of set off – a bit like Lob walking, really, without really knowing what I was doing or how I was going to do it. I thought I'd see what happened. And that was fun but the result just didn't quite work: it was too long, too wordy, too 'knowing' as well."
