0:00:00 > 0:00:00Now its time for Meet the Author, with Jim Naughtie.
0:00:07 > 0:00:11Fiona Mozley's Elmet is a story that you might describe as contemporary
0:00:11 > 0:00:17Gothic, raw and dark and lyrical with a rich bit of melodrama, debut
0:00:17 > 0:00:21novel powerfully enough to take it to the man Booker short list in the
0:00:21 > 0:00:24autumn, told by a 14-year-old, it sets the here and now against a
0:00:24 > 0:00:28brutal and more elemental past and explores a complex and ambiguous
0:00:28 > 0:00:33flesh ship between three members of a family who are all in their own
0:00:33 > 0:00:48ways different -- ambiguous relationship. Welcome.
0:00:52 > 0:00:57It's interesting that in trying to write about the contemporary world,
0:00:57 > 0:01:00trying to say something about the contemporary world, you were drawn
0:01:00 > 0:01:07to a wild past, a man who lives on land that he doesn't own in a house
0:01:07 > 0:01:11that was built with his own hands. How did you come to feel that that
0:01:11 > 0:01:19was the best avenue to write about the here and now?I think contrast
0:01:19 > 0:01:25is always a good two when trying to talk about something very specific,
0:01:25 > 0:01:30and I did want to address the issues of today. I think those are brought
0:01:30 > 0:01:38into relief by considering the history of the place, kind of old
0:01:38 > 0:01:43ways of living, different ways of living, and I wanted to place those
0:01:43 > 0:01:46things together and see what happened.To suggest although we
0:01:46 > 0:01:51think we are more civilised than people were many years ago, that is
0:01:51 > 0:01:57not necessarily true?Modes of reality change, sometimes for the
0:01:57 > 0:02:01better and sometimes for the worse and I wanted to examine that. I also
0:02:01 > 0:02:03wanted to suggest that the boundaries of landscape have not
0:02:03 > 0:02:11always been the same. Borders change. They are mutable. By giving
0:02:11 > 0:02:18the novel a older feel, I wanted to suggest that not only things have
0:02:18 > 0:02:21been different in the past but they can be in the future.The question
0:02:21 > 0:02:27of ownership of land and property, it produces a very dramatic even
0:02:27 > 0:02:30melodramatic ending which we won't describe in detail, to spoil it for
0:02:30 > 0:02:35those who haven't read the book, but let's talk about the plot. It is
0:02:35 > 0:02:39told by Daniel who is 14, and it is a story that revolves around his
0:02:39 > 0:02:44slightly older sister and their father. It is a very tight
0:02:44 > 0:02:51conception. The stage is not very crowded.I wanted to include these
0:02:51 > 0:02:55three characters and they are all serving a different purpose, by our
0:02:55 > 0:03:01very different in temperament and very different physically. I wanted
0:03:01 > 0:03:05to explore the relationship between temperament and body and they are
0:03:05 > 0:03:12all trying to look at each other and thing, how do you work, I can't
0:03:12 > 0:03:16understand it because I'm so very different from you.The father is a
0:03:16 > 0:03:23very Heathcliff type of figure. Slightly unfair, but you know what I
0:03:23 > 0:03:30mean, there is a strength and fearsome strength about him. The way
0:03:30 > 0:03:36he feels he can mould the world to his purpose physically.Yes. He's a
0:03:36 > 0:03:40masculine archetype, exaggerated and deliberately exaggerated and there
0:03:40 > 0:03:45is much about this book which is deliberately excite you read it. --
0:03:45 > 0:03:50deliberately exaggerated. He embodies everything which is
0:03:50 > 0:03:54positive and negative about masculine table top Cathy, the
0:03:54 > 0:03:57daughter, she rolls her own cigarettes all the time. She does
0:03:57 > 0:04:02indeed. Her issue is that she takes after her father in many respects
0:04:02 > 0:04:06but not physically, she can never match his strength. She is
0:04:06 > 0:04:10constantly being underestimated by those around her.Daniel is stuck
0:04:10 > 0:04:15with telling the story which it does worry touchingly and lyrically. When
0:04:15 > 0:04:18you have described it justifies the phrase which are used moment ago,
0:04:18 > 0:04:24that it is a Gothic novel in many ways. It uses extremists, almost as
0:04:24 > 0:04:35if it is lit in bright colours and dark moustache extremes -- extremes.
0:04:35 > 0:04:41I do see this as a genre piece and I was influenced by the narrative arc
0:04:41 > 0:04:44of Westerns, I was influenced by the setting of Yorkshire, and because
0:04:44 > 0:04:49this plays with the genre there are moments which are familiar in their
0:04:49 > 0:04:58in their extremity and melodrama. There's a lot of touching the
0:04:58 > 0:05:04landscape involved in this. Elmet is a place to this day, but it was the
0:05:04 > 0:05:11last Celtic kingdom?That's right. In around the seventh and eighth
0:05:11 > 0:05:17century, it was the last kingdom that kept... In England, that is,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20that kept its Celtic heritage, and that was a term which is problematic
0:05:20 > 0:05:23in many respects, but there is something separate and distinct
0:05:23 > 0:05:31about it. Ted Hughes has written about this.Ted Hughes came from
0:05:31 > 0:05:35that soil and he did write about this, do that influence you?Yes and
0:05:35 > 0:05:43no.-- deed.I read his poems as I was drawing to the end of the
0:05:43 > 0:05:49project. But I think that they did influence it in some respects.The
0:05:49 > 0:05:54passion that he instils in the relationship between people and
0:05:54 > 0:05:58their surroundings, physical surroundings, is one of his great
0:05:58 > 0:06:01characteristics, and that is clearly what you are trying to get to here,
0:06:01 > 0:06:07there's a great deal of lyricism in the course of a story which is
0:06:07 > 0:06:11sometimes quite dark and spare and even brutal, and the plot, but you
0:06:11 > 0:06:15imbue this with a lyrical top
0:06:15 > 0:06:19even brutal, and the plot, but you imbue this with a lyrical top.I was
0:06:19 > 0:06:22aware there were so much darkness in it, so much which was a pleasant and
0:06:22 > 0:06:26I really wanted to counter balance it with some lightness -- on
0:06:26 > 0:06:32present. I wanted the description of the place and the family
0:06:32 > 0:06:35relationships to have a warmth and in terms of the landscape is so much
0:06:35 > 0:06:39about physicality and I wanted it to be a landscape that you could reach
0:06:39 > 0:06:44out and touch, something that appealed to all the human senses.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47Without going into the details of the climax of the book, there is a
0:06:47 > 0:06:51sense with which there is a victory of sorts but nevertheless the book
0:06:51 > 0:06:59has a feeling of something that has been lost.There is a sense of loss.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03So much of the book is about a lost world, people trying to recover that
0:07:03 > 0:07:12lost world.You are still in your 20s.Just about.So, this is a book
0:07:12 > 0:07:18that to some degree must be seen as one that speaks of your generation.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20Do you think the sensibility you are bringing to this is one which is
0:07:20 > 0:07:26quite common? That there is a feeling as people of your age look
0:07:26 > 0:07:34forward, that it is inescapable that something has gone?I think so.
0:07:34 > 0:07:39Certainly in terms of forging a home and finding a place to live, that is
0:07:39 > 0:07:45one of the greatest challenges.That is at the centre of the story.It is
0:07:45 > 0:07:48a book set in Yorkshire but I started writing it in London, so it
0:07:48 > 0:07:55has a double identity.First novel, you end up on the man Booker short
0:07:55 > 0:08:00list, alongside the winning book and authors like Paul Auster,
0:08:00 > 0:08:11extraordinary.Yes, it is. The enormity of it only hit me at the
0:08:11 > 0:08:14ceremony, because part of me had been trying to shut it down, and
0:08:14 > 0:08:18just take it one step at a time, but when I got to the ceremony and all
0:08:18 > 0:08:22those people around me, that is when it dawned on me, that my life had
0:08:22 > 0:08:29changed.To put it crudely, it must be encouraging, you want to write,
0:08:29 > 0:08:32you are doing a Ph.D. Part-time at the University of York.
0:08:32 > 0:08:36Fundamentally you want to write fiction and that is not bad way to
0:08:36 > 0:08:41start.Yes, it is a pretty good way to start, and one other thing is the
0:08:41 > 0:08:44short listing has done for me is allowed me to be more daring in the
0:08:44 > 0:08:49future. There is an issue with who gets to write, the sort of fiction
0:08:49 > 0:08:52that different people get to write and feel entitled to write and this
0:08:52 > 0:08:56short listing allows me to be brave in the future, I hope.Fiona Mozley,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59author of Elmet, thank you very much.Thank