0:00:06 > 0:00:08Who doesn't enjoy a story that delves
0:00:08 > 0:00:10into the supernatural?
0:00:10 > 0:00:12It touches some of our deepest feelings and fears.
0:00:12 > 0:00:13Kate Hamer's new novel, The Doll Funeral,
0:00:13 > 0:00:16unfolds in a dark and mysterious place where a young girl,
0:00:16 > 0:00:19Ruby, finds some escapee from a nightmare childhood at home
0:00:19 > 0:00:27and a strange kind of solace in the presence of ghosts.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30A story where the two strands in an adopted child's life are wound
0:00:30 > 0:00:31together in the world.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35Where we cannot be sure what is real and what is imagined.
0:00:35 > 0:00:37Welcome.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54I read somewhere, Kate, that you were moved and I think
0:00:54 > 0:00:57horrified as a child by Grimms' fairy tales, and having read
0:00:57 > 0:01:02The Doll Funeral I'm not really surprised!
0:01:02 > 0:01:04Because there is so much of that spirit in here.
0:01:05 > 0:01:05Definitely.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09I had a very old edition of Grimms fairy tales as well,
0:01:09 > 0:01:12I think it was from around the turn of the 19th, 20th century,
0:01:12 > 0:01:14so they definitely were not sugar-coated in that version.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17In some ways, I feel the original fairy stories are crime
0:01:17 > 0:01:18stories, to a great extent.
0:01:18 > 0:01:23And so I was steeped in that from quite an early age.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27They are horror stories in a way, they are about lost children,
0:01:27 > 0:01:32about children being eaten, but fierce wolves coming out of
0:01:32 > 0:01:33the forest and witches, and so on.
0:01:33 > 0:01:40But our imaginations are stirred by these things, aren't they.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Yes, I think definitely because they speak to fundamental
0:01:43 > 0:01:52truths and fundamental fears within ourselves.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55So yeah, that's definitely something I have never shaken off, definitely.
0:01:55 > 0:02:05Particularly in this book.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09It begins with the revelation to a young girl, she is 13, Ruby,
0:02:09 > 0:02:10that she was adopted.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13She is not a natural child of the parents she lives with.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16And to that extent she is confronted by the beginning which is
0:02:16 > 0:02:20what we are talking about.
0:02:20 > 0:02:21Yeah, definitely.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25Ruby finds out on her 13th birthday that she is adopted.
0:02:25 > 0:02:30And her reaction to this is that she runs out...
0:02:30 > 0:02:35She's delighted!
0:02:35 > 0:02:40She's delighted and sings for joy, she just looks at the sky
0:02:40 > 0:02:44and start singing the joy.
0:02:44 > 0:02:50But there is a reason for this because her life has been such
0:02:50 > 0:02:54a brutish one up until that point.
0:02:54 > 0:03:00That was a very strong central image, a starting image
0:03:00 > 0:03:07for the book, I think.
0:03:07 > 0:03:13Of a girl just bursting out of the back door
0:03:13 > 0:03:18almost like a camera was Following behind her.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21It was kind of a jumping off point for the whole book.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24And what she then dares is to immerse herself, in a way,
0:03:24 > 0:03:26in an alternative world, where she is in the darkness
0:03:26 > 0:03:29of the Forest of Dean, dark in every sense,
0:03:29 > 0:03:31physically dark, a place you can get lost in,
0:03:31 > 0:03:33but also dark because there is evidence of the supernatural,
0:03:33 > 0:03:35there are strange people living different lives.
0:03:35 > 0:03:37It is in that sense a journey into the unknown.
0:03:37 > 0:03:38Yeah, very much so.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40And I think fairy tales again come in here,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43because a lot of them, I mean, the forest is
0:03:43 > 0:03:44so important in fairy tales.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47It is about maybe straying off the path and goodness knows
0:03:47 > 0:03:50what is going to happen if you do, it could be dangerous but it's often
0:03:50 > 0:03:53people looking for alternatives as well to the well trodden path,
0:03:53 > 0:03:54I think.
0:03:54 > 0:03:56And that is definitely what Ruby does in the forest.
0:03:56 > 0:03:58Above all, it is a dark place.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00And there is a very, very strong supernatural element
0:04:00 > 0:04:03in this story which I will not go into details because it
0:04:03 > 0:04:04will spoil it for the reader.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07But she finds for herself that the division between the real
0:04:07 > 0:04:10world and the past world and the world of her imagination
0:04:10 > 0:04:13is a division that she can easily get rid of, quite easily.
0:04:13 > 0:04:14Yes, she slips between them quite comfortably.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17And I think it's a lot to do with the book,
0:04:17 > 0:04:25is about how the past kind of enacts its presence
0:04:25 > 0:04:28on the present.
0:04:28 > 0:04:34And it is kind of, can you break away from that?
0:04:34 > 0:04:38Is the past resonating on the present, Ruby
0:04:38 > 0:04:42is trying to escape that.
0:04:42 > 0:04:48She goes through trials, trials of fire and ice,
0:04:48 > 0:04:56and all sorts of things, and it's the question,
0:04:56 > 0:04:59can we escape our past, can we make a new feature
0:04:59 > 0:05:01with different people.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04And a different outcome, can we find that alternative path in the forest?
0:05:04 > 0:05:07Because as this story unfolds she is at a very important point
0:05:07 > 0:05:10in her life physically and mentally, she is 13, she is going
0:05:10 > 0:05:13into adolescence, all sorts of things are happening to her,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16physical and mental.
0:05:16 > 0:05:22And it is a story that in our own way, we all know.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26I think it is just an interesting age where you are on the threshold
0:05:26 > 0:05:29and the cusp of so many things, it is an age where, I think,
0:05:29 > 0:05:30things happen for you.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34And also can go badly wrong, quite easily.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37The Girl In The Red Coat was a book that made a huge reputation
0:05:37 > 0:05:40feel and like the book, this book is written in a way that
0:05:40 > 0:05:42grabs you from the first page.
0:05:42 > 0:05:44Are you one of those writers who thinks that really
0:05:44 > 0:05:47in the end, everything is in the first 4-5 paragraphs?
0:05:47 > 0:05:48Oh, that is really interesting.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51I will tell you the way I write, I tend to write the beginning,
0:05:51 > 0:05:53maybe the first two chapters, something like that,
0:05:53 > 0:05:56and then very quickly move on write to the last paragraph,
0:05:56 > 0:06:03definitely the last line, which doesn't seem to change.
0:06:03 > 0:06:05Which suggests that they are related!
0:06:05 > 0:06:09Yes!
0:06:09 > 0:06:11That is very interesting because there are people who just
0:06:11 > 0:06:14head off into the wide blue yonder and say where will this idea
0:06:14 > 0:06:18take me, you are not one of them?
0:06:18 > 0:06:21I think, from point A to B, there can be various ways.
0:06:21 > 0:06:22Things can happen there.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24Did the supernatural element grow in your hands,
0:06:24 > 0:06:26once you got your teeth into the story?
0:06:26 > 0:06:27I think it did.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29There is a little character called Shadow in it.
0:06:29 > 0:06:39Quite a tricksy dark little character.
0:06:47 > 0:06:48He is an imp.
0:06:48 > 0:06:50His presence was much lighter in the first draft, I found,
0:06:50 > 0:06:53and this is what I find more than anything, it's the characters
0:06:53 > 0:06:59that kind of tag on your sleeve.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01And he was definitely one of those.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04Do you find yourself susceptible to the idea of occurrences
0:07:04 > 0:07:05that are inexplicable?
0:07:05 > 0:07:07I have never actually experienced it but I know people
0:07:07 > 0:07:09who I sort of trust, rational, sane people,
0:07:09 > 0:07:16who believe that they have.
0:07:16 > 0:07:17I just think it's fascinating.
0:07:17 > 0:07:19I believe the really supernatural thing is the mind, fundamentally.
0:07:19 > 0:07:28And actually the mind, it can do anything.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30And it plays tricks we can't understand.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Exactly.
0:07:34 > 0:07:38But in the end, to go back to where we began,
0:07:38 > 0:07:41it takes us into the world of the fairy tale because that kind
0:07:41 > 0:07:44of story, the Gothic gloom and excitement of some of those
0:07:44 > 0:07:48old fairy tales, passed down the generations,
0:07:48 > 0:07:52turn up in all sorts of cultures in different forms,
0:07:52 > 0:07:58never fades, does it?
0:07:58 > 0:08:02No, I think there is something about these folktales,
0:08:02 > 0:08:07these old stories that just goes very, very deep.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11And I bet you that if you picked up that battered old copy
0:08:11 > 0:08:13of your Grimms fairy tales you would know before you turn
0:08:13 > 0:08:17to each page what the picture was going to be on the next page!
0:08:17 > 0:08:18That's so true.
0:08:18 > 0:08:20Because I have still got it and those illustrations
0:08:20 > 0:08:21are so familiar, absolutely.
0:08:21 > 0:08:22I know exactly what you mean.
0:08:22 > 0:08:24Kate Hamer, thank you very much indeed.
0:08:24 > 0:08:34Thank you very much.