Notes on Character
To fully understand the genesis of a novel, you cannot begin with the moment the first words are typed. A novel might have lived inside its author for decades. It is often noted that first novels are often veiled autobiography. This observation is sometimes nothing more than assumption from the reader. Many readers of my novel, The Inheritance of Things Past, have presumed that it is autobiographical, that I am in some way its central character, Will Hargreaves. Indeed, the comment was even made by one of the examiners in my viva voce for my PhD. It is a question that has haunted the background of all readers’ exposure to my novel. The Inheritance of Things Past My novel was loosely inspired by a real life situation – the suffering and eventual death of my cousin. I was not close to Ian Dutton – in fact his existence was unknown to me until just two years before his death. His father, my uncle, had fallen out with ...