0:00:02 > 0:00:07Now on BBC News it's time for Meet the Author.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09Sarah Moss is an academic by trade who's worked
0:00:09 > 0:00:11at the universities of Oxford, Kent, Exeter and Iceland.
0:00:11 > 0:00:13She is currently Professor of Creative Writing
0:00:13 > 0:00:15at Warwick University, but alongside her teaching,
0:00:15 > 0:00:18she's built a career as a writer, tackling subjects as diverse
0:00:18 > 0:00:25as the Vikings, chocolate and 19th-century asylums.
0:00:25 > 0:00:28Her fifth novel, The Tidal Zone, is different again.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30Set in the Midlands, it's about a teenager who collapses
0:00:30 > 0:00:33at school and stops breathing for no apparent reason,
0:00:33 > 0:00:35and the effect that event has on her family, whose life
0:00:35 > 0:00:37is turned upside down.
0:00:53 > 0:00:58Sarah Moss, where did the idea for this novel come from?
0:00:58 > 0:01:01I think it started on a day, actually listening to the Today
0:01:01 > 0:01:05programme, which we always do in the mornings.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08And the news was that a hospital in Syria had been bombed and 27
0:01:08 > 0:01:10children had died in the bombing.
0:01:10 > 0:01:15I went on into my day feeling sober about that, as you would.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18When my kids got home from school I heard that a child at the school
0:01:18 > 0:01:20had collapsed that day and the helicopter ambulance
0:01:20 > 0:01:22had been scrambled.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25Of course, we were all very concerned for that family,
0:01:25 > 0:01:29and it was so hard to hold, at the same time, the idea that
0:01:29 > 0:01:32in one place in the world when a child collapses you scramble
0:01:32 > 0:01:37a helicopter ambulance to help them, and in another place,
0:01:37 > 0:01:39if there are helicopters in the context of children's
0:01:39 > 0:01:41lives, they are scrambled at any cost to kill them.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44And thinking that every one of those families in Syria
0:01:44 > 0:01:46was going through something much worse than the family
0:01:46 > 0:01:47whose child had survived.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50It was so strange and so hard to hold those two traumas together,
0:01:50 > 0:01:53I started looking for stories or narratives that might let us see
0:01:53 > 0:02:00both those kinds of things at the same time.
0:02:00 > 0:02:03You start the novel with the phrase, "Once upon a time," which I can't
0:02:03 > 0:02:07believe you didn't think very carefully about that.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09Why did you begin the novel in that way?
0:02:09 > 0:02:12Because I was interested...
0:02:12 > 0:02:14As a novelist I was interested in how stories and narratives
0:02:14 > 0:02:18sustain us or give us pathways through times of trauma on any
0:02:18 > 0:02:21scale, whether the small-scale and domestic or the much bigger
0:02:21 > 0:02:25national and international crises.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27We look for stories all the time to navigate those things.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30We imagine ourselves in a story.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33We have fairy tales to tell us what's going to come next.
0:02:33 > 0:02:37So I was thinking about the limits of those kinds of narratives.
0:02:37 > 0:02:38The teenager Miriam has this condition -
0:02:38 > 0:02:41exercise-induced anaphylaxis - which is rare.
0:02:41 > 0:02:46Yes. How did you come across it?
0:02:46 > 0:02:49It was suggested to me by a medical friend, actually.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52I was looking for a condition that would be sudden, devastating,
0:02:52 > 0:02:54but also at risk of happening again.
0:02:54 > 0:02:56Exercise-induced anaphylaxis is a kind of allergy,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59it's an allergic reaction, but you don't always know what's
0:02:59 > 0:03:02triggering the allergy.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05And in fact, this is vanishingly rare.
0:03:05 > 0:03:07There are only a handful of deaths in the UK each
0:03:07 > 0:03:09year from this, if that.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12But it seemed like such a good parallel for all those
0:03:12 > 0:03:14moments of sudden disaster, all those things that come out
0:03:14 > 0:03:16of the blue into an apparently prosperous and well-ordered life
0:03:16 > 0:03:20and change everything.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22And we watch how that unravels in the course
0:03:22 > 0:03:23of the novel, of course.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26And you create this family in what you describe
0:03:26 > 0:03:28as a state of emergency, the shadow of death is lurking
0:03:28 > 0:03:30around every corner.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32It's not the first time you've written about mortality.
0:03:32 > 0:03:37Why are you so obsessed with death and dying?
0:03:37 > 0:03:40I don't think I'm obsessed with death and dying,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43but I think once you've seen it, it's very hard not
0:03:43 > 0:03:46to think about it.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49I think I'm interested in stories that help us to live
0:03:49 > 0:03:51with difficult things, and of course the most difficult
0:03:51 > 0:03:54thing is the knowledge of mortality.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57But I'm also interested in how we live with quite ordinary
0:03:57 > 0:04:00small-scale traumas.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03I mean with the difficulty of having a new baby in one of my books,
0:04:03 > 0:04:06various kinds of fear that surround us.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08I'm interested in making stories that help us to decode those things
0:04:08 > 0:04:10and think about them, not make them easy,
0:04:10 > 0:04:12but just think about them.
0:04:12 > 0:04:16And it's not until a little while into the book that you realise
0:04:16 > 0:04:19that you are telling this story through the eyes of a man -
0:04:19 > 0:04:21Miriam's father Adam.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25Why did you choose to tell this story through the male eyes?
0:04:25 > 0:04:29It never feels like as much of a choice as I think it seems
0:04:29 > 0:04:31later, how you tell a story.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35I mean, the narrative voice is there in your head or not.
0:04:35 > 0:04:37But I had written half of the previous book
0:04:37 > 0:04:39from a male point of view, Signs For Lost Children,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42which switches between a husband and a wife's point of view,
0:04:42 > 0:04:45and I thought that was going to be a very difficult...
0:04:45 > 0:04:47And it probably was difficult, but also quite interesting
0:04:47 > 0:04:48and quite liberating.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51He's a stay-at-home dad, he's the one fitting work in around
0:04:51 > 0:04:53the school run and doing the laundry and clearing away
0:04:53 > 0:04:54the breakfast things.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56And his wife goes out to work.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00How much was that drawn from your own experience?
0:05:00 > 0:05:02A bit.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05My husband and I have been able to do it both ways.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08So I have been the stay-at-home parent, he has been
0:05:08 > 0:05:09the stay-at-home parent.
0:05:09 > 0:05:10Each of us has been part-time.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13We had a brief phase where we were both full time,
0:05:13 > 0:05:15so I know those roles from both sides.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18I wanted to write about somebody who was simply and primarily a good
0:05:18 > 0:05:22man, whose main ambition in life was to be a good person.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25And interestingly, I think to do that, you need to lift away a lot
0:05:25 > 0:05:28of the ambition and drive towards career and success that
0:05:28 > 0:05:35motivates many of us.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37If his primary interest in life is to love his wife
0:05:37 > 0:05:40and daughters and to behave as if he loves his wife
0:05:40 > 0:05:46and daughters, then it just shifts the idea of success.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49Rather success is no longer about how much money you can make
0:05:49 > 0:05:51or being better at things than other people.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55It's just about enacting love on an hourly basis.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57Alongside the story of this family in crisis, Adam is writing -
0:05:57 > 0:06:00he works as an academic - and he's writing about
0:06:00 > 0:06:02the destruction after the Second World War
0:06:02 > 0:06:06of Coventry Cathedral and then its subsequent rebuilding.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10Why did you want to tell the two stories in parallel?
0:06:10 > 0:06:13There were some obvious parallels.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16It's about reinventing beauty after trauma,
0:06:16 > 0:06:19finding a way forward after loss.
0:06:19 > 0:06:25But I'm also very interested in that post-war moment.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28The late 40s and 50s were a time of austerity, but also a time
0:06:28 > 0:06:31of rebuilding and hope.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34And that's where you see the building of the welfare state,
0:06:34 > 0:06:37huge changes in the architecture of our cities in ways that are now
0:06:37 > 0:06:40quite hard to see as beautiful, but at the time clearly were,
0:06:40 > 0:06:42and were important.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45The redesign of Coventry was meant to replace the medieval city
0:06:45 > 0:06:49with one that really worked for modern citizens,
0:06:49 > 0:06:51for ordinary people, and it's built so that,
0:06:51 > 0:06:54for example, you can do your shopping with your pram
0:06:54 > 0:06:55without everybody getting wet.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57It's that level of concern for the ordinary lives
0:06:57 > 0:06:59of ordinary people.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02And I think it's very interesting to look back now at that moment
0:07:02 > 0:07:06and see these cityscapes we think of as ugly, but were built with such
0:07:06 > 0:07:09hope and such ambition, in a way that I don't think we have
0:07:09 > 0:07:11at the moment.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14It's interesting that you say that, because one thing that struck me
0:07:14 > 0:07:17about the novel is that in some ways it's quite an angry book.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20You're quite angry about poverty and homelessness and tuition fees
0:07:20 > 0:07:23and private education, but you seem most cross about the state
0:07:23 > 0:07:26of the health service.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30Why did you want to write about the NHS?
0:07:30 > 0:07:33Because I think the NHS is where the body politic
0:07:33 > 0:07:36is also intimately in us.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39I think one of the reasons we all care so much about the NHS
0:07:39 > 0:07:42is because it's the one thing that unites what happens in Westminster
0:07:42 > 0:07:46with what happens in our own bodies.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49And our daily experience of aches and pains, or fears or disease
0:07:49 > 0:07:50connect so closely and so immediately there
0:07:50 > 0:07:52with what happens in Parliament, in the highest
0:07:52 > 0:07:56places of power.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58You teach creative writing... Yeah.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02How important is it to be a published author to do that well?
0:08:02 > 0:08:09I don't know, because I haven't done it as an unpublished author.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12I think it's very useful to be able to be realistic with students
0:08:12 > 0:08:14about the publishing process, about what it's
0:08:14 > 0:08:16like to be published.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19I also think it's very important that we don't say that creative
0:08:19 > 0:08:21writing is an apprenticeship in becoming a writer.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24Teaching people to write is not just about getting publishing contracts
0:08:24 > 0:08:26and making a professional life in the literary world.
0:08:26 > 0:08:27It's about controlling narratives, understanding how
0:08:28 > 0:08:32they're constructed.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34It makes people good readers as much as it
0:08:34 > 0:08:36makes them good writers.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38Do your students critique your books for you?
0:08:38 > 0:08:40I don't think they would dare!
0:08:40 > 0:08:42LAUGHTER
0:08:42 > 0:08:44Sarah Moss, thank you so much for talking to us
0:08:44 > 0:08:45about The Tidal Zone.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49Thank you.