0:00:00 > 0:00:00You are watching BBC
0:00:00 > 0:00:04You are watching BBC News.
0:00:04 > 0:00:05Now it's time for Meet the Author.
0:00:05 > 0:00:08Mal Peet was a much-loved writer of what book shops
0:00:08 > 0:00:11like to call 'young adult fiction' although he greatly disliked labels
0:00:11 > 0:00:12of that kind.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15When he died last year he left an unfinished novel, Beck,
0:00:15 > 0:00:18the story of an orphan boy marooned in Canada during the Depression and
0:00:18 > 0:00:22trying to make a life for himself.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24Now the book has been finished by his friend,
0:00:24 > 0:00:27another favourite among young readers, Meg Rosoff.
0:00:27 > 0:00:29So what is it like to finish the story of a friend
0:00:29 > 0:00:32and bring it to a conclusion?
0:00:32 > 0:00:35Welcome.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54It must have been quite an emotional experience to pick up the manuscript
0:00:54 > 0:00:59of a friend and try to finish it?
0:00:59 > 0:01:01Yes, it was emotional in the best way, actually.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05We had never really made a firm arrangement and when Mal called me
0:01:05 > 0:01:12to say that the chemo hadn't worked and that he knew he was going to die
0:01:12 > 0:01:17quite soon, he said my great regret is that I haven't been able
0:01:17 > 0:01:20to finish this book.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23And I just said, I will do it for you and that was it.
0:01:23 > 0:01:26And we never spoke about it, he never told me what he intended
0:01:26 > 0:01:28or what I should do with it.
0:01:28 > 0:01:30So it was like a kind of silent dialogue, in a way,
0:01:30 > 0:01:33and because we were such close friends, it was like keeping
0:01:33 > 0:01:36that conversation going.
0:01:36 > 0:01:38That's rather interesting.
0:01:38 > 0:01:40Did you know anything about the book before these conversations?
0:01:40 > 0:01:42Nothing, literally nothing.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44I had no idea it was historical...
0:01:44 > 0:01:46So you opened it like a reader?
0:01:46 > 0:01:48Yes, yes.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50It was...
0:01:50 > 0:01:53I guess it was incredibly lucky, actually, that I connected with it
0:01:53 > 0:01:58enough so that I could treat it as my own book.
0:01:58 > 0:02:00But every writer has a voice, a way of expressing himself
0:02:00 > 0:02:03or herself on the page.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06That is individual.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08That's what makes a writer a writer.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12And here you were, with your friend stalking the pages.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14Did you want to write as him or as yourself
0:02:14 > 0:02:18and will we see the join?
0:02:18 > 0:02:22Well, I hope you don't see the join, although I think anyone
0:02:22 > 0:02:25who knows my writing and Mal's writing really well might recognise
0:02:25 > 0:02:29bits and pieces that are more Mal or more me.
0:02:29 > 0:02:31But...
0:02:31 > 0:02:34Yes, it is two separate voices but on the other hand,
0:02:34 > 0:02:38he and I were so close, in a way, and we had such similar sensibility
0:02:38 > 0:02:44that I didn't have to think about writing like Mal Peet.
0:02:44 > 0:02:46I was writing as the voice of the book and that,
0:02:46 > 0:02:49for some reason...
0:02:49 > 0:02:51Because it's a strong enough voice.
0:02:51 > 0:02:53So that you can pick it up.
0:02:53 > 0:02:54Get its rhythms.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57Exactly.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00I found it remarkably effortless in the sense of picking up the voice
0:03:00 > 0:03:06and because I can't write the way Mal writes.
0:03:06 > 0:03:07He and I write quite differently but...
0:03:07 > 0:03:12You know, it's like adopting someone else's baby.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15You're not always thinking of someone else's mother, you are
0:03:15 > 0:03:18being the mother to that child.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21The boy in Beck, he is born as it were, by accident,
0:03:21 > 0:03:25by a sexual liaison, as a result of a sexual liaison that
0:03:25 > 0:03:29shouldn't have taken place or wasn't meant to.
0:03:29 > 0:03:31He is orphaned, educated by the Christian Brothers,
0:03:31 > 0:03:38in a school, in pretty harsh circumstances.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41He finds himself in the wilds of Canada during the Depression.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44This is the classic boy thrown into the wilderness and having
0:03:44 > 0:03:45to find himself, isn't it?
0:03:45 > 0:03:49It's an elemental story.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53It is an elemental story and it's interesting that the trajectory
0:03:53 > 0:03:55from Liverpool to Canada...
0:03:55 > 0:03:58I mean, Canada was such a wilderness and it was a wilderness
0:03:58 > 0:04:00after the American West was a wilderness.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02It almost has elements of the western, you know,
0:04:02 > 0:04:09the individual against nature as well as...
0:04:09 > 0:04:14The emptiness that lies ahead.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17The great emptiness and the kind of emptiness of his future and how
0:04:17 > 0:04:21he is going to somehow resolve what it means to have a home.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24Do you think because you didn't talk to Mal Peet about this,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27as you've told us, do you think the way you see
0:04:27 > 0:04:31the boy coming through it, developing,
0:04:31 > 0:04:37finding himself, is probably the same as he would have found it?
0:04:37 > 0:04:40I think he would have written a whole extra section to the book
0:04:40 > 0:04:44and I didn't want to get into writing a quarter of a book
0:04:44 > 0:04:47completely from scratch.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50I wrote a bit less than that in the end and...
0:04:50 > 0:04:54Do I think he would have been happy with what we did?
0:04:54 > 0:04:57Yeah, I think he would have been very happy, actually.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00And in fact I was rereading at the other day and thinking,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03damn, it would have been such fun to collaborate on a book
0:05:03 > 0:05:07because he did all the stuff that I don't particularly like doing,
0:05:07 > 0:05:11which is the plot and I did all the stuff that I think he liked
0:05:11 > 0:05:13doing less, which is the going over and over and refining
0:05:13 > 0:05:17and refining and you know, adding characters and fixing
0:05:17 > 0:05:21the dialogue and all that kind of stuff.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24You have written, both of you, he did and you do,
0:05:24 > 0:05:28for the same kinds of readers.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31He didn't like and I don't think you like the categorisation
0:05:31 > 0:05:33of readers by age because it can become a straitjacket, really,
0:05:33 > 0:05:37you write a book for all ages.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40But your focus has been for a similar, maybe
0:05:40 > 0:05:42what they call young adults.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45And I suppose in that sense, you are looking at the world
0:05:45 > 0:05:50through the same lens.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53I think both of us were interested in adolescence, more than interested
0:05:53 > 0:05:57in an adolescent audience and I think that there's
0:05:57 > 0:06:02a distinction, in a way and most writers will probably tell
0:06:02 > 0:06:04you that they are not very much focused on their audience
0:06:04 > 0:06:08when they are writing.
0:06:08 > 0:06:09No.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12You are focused on what is in your head.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14My own adolescence was quite a difficult period, not in the sense
0:06:14 > 0:06:18of having ended up in jail or being a drug addict or anything
0:06:18 > 0:06:20like that, but in terms of struggling to figure out
0:06:20 > 0:06:22where the edges of the world were and what it
0:06:22 > 0:06:25meant to be grown-up.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27Now, now that I am somewhat older, I actually think that really
0:06:27 > 0:06:30the whole trajectory of life is a transition from childhood
0:06:30 > 0:06:32to adulthood and that really, that process doesn't end
0:06:32 > 0:06:37until the day you die.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39The question is, do you ever get there?
0:06:39 > 0:06:41And I think the answer is no.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44A lovely phrase you used earlier when you talked about finding
0:06:44 > 0:06:47the edges of the world and in a way that is what the boy in Beck
0:06:48 > 0:06:52is trying to work out.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54He is in the wilds of Canada, has had a particularly
0:06:54 > 0:07:01difficult childhood, no home, cast adrift,
0:07:01 > 0:07:07so it's a very unusual experience and yet, the feelings he has
0:07:07 > 0:07:10and the things he learns are things that people who are living
0:07:10 > 0:07:15very conventional lives will also recognise.
0:07:15 > 0:07:16Yes.
0:07:16 > 0:07:17They've just been exaggerated.
0:07:18 > 0:07:18Exactly.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21That is what fiction does, an awful lot of the time.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24I'm always a little bit suspicious of too much plot in a novel
0:07:24 > 0:07:27because I sort of think the ideal novel should have no plot
0:07:27 > 0:07:30at all and really just concentrate on the mental journey but actually,
0:07:30 > 0:07:32it's a little bit more readable when the character
0:07:32 > 0:07:35is going through real hardship, in real life.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38I suspect what you hope most of all about this book
0:07:38 > 0:07:41is that Mal Peet would have liked the way it ends.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44I feel...
0:07:44 > 0:07:47Absolutely convinced that he'd have just had a laugh and a drink
0:07:47 > 0:07:51and said, you know, thank you for doing this,
0:07:51 > 0:07:53let's try it again.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55So I...
0:07:55 > 0:07:59Never felt any self-doubt in picking this up as a project and it was
0:07:59 > 0:08:02partly because when you are very close to someone you can almost
0:08:02 > 0:08:06hear their voice in your head.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10And it wasn't that he was directing me what to do, he was mostly,
0:08:10 > 0:08:11kind of, cheering me on.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13Meg Rosoff, thank you very much.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16Thank you.
0:08:26 > 0:08:26Hello.
0:08:26 > 0:08:27Hello. Good