‘Fiction can take us to places that history often can’t’
Novelist Kate Mosse tells Tanya Sweeney about using fiction to tell the story of women written out of history. She explains how she ‘tiptoed up to being a writer’ and reflects on her passion for the past
ELEVEN novels, four non-fiction books and four plays into her career, it stands to reason that Kate Mosse is a trove of writerly wisdom.
“Every writer will feel at some point isolated and overlooked and under-appreciated, especially when they see things going better for other people,” she says. “It’s part and parcel of being a writer. A writer needs to concentrate on their own work and not compare themselves to others. That way, madness lies.”
Then there’s this: “The brilliant writer Kit de Waal once told me something great: ‘never dip your pen in other people’s pain’.”
And this: “I say to all writers, the person you are as a reader is not the person you are as a writer. You need to let your writing self find you.”
Another tip, for those taking notes, is to “separate the joy of the work and what happens to the work”. “Things like reviews, whether it gets to Number One — these things are out of my control,” she says. “so, I don’t let them influence and spoil my joy of the writing.”
The British writer, a founder of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, is on a roll when she talks about how to write good historical fiction: “The thing I tell writers is that, make sure none of the 21st century is there. You can’t put 21st-century ideas into the mouths of 16th-century people, or else you break the fourth wall and the novel fails. These characters have to have the attitudes of their time, however uncomfortable they may be.”
Readers, naturally, have found contemporary parallels in Mosse’s latest historical fiction series. The City of Tears, the second book in the Burning Chambers series (the first, eponymously titled instalment was released in 2018), explores the devastating effects of religious wars, as well as the experience of becoming a refugee and leaving one’s homeland.
“History goes in cycles,” Mosse says. “One of the most significant stories of the Bible sees Moses leading people to a new land. Stories of displacement are as old as people themselves.”
Readers find themselves back in Mosse’s beloved Languedoc, in the south of France, where Minou Joubert lives happily and quietly with her husband Piet and two children in a “green valley set in the foothills of the mighty Pyrenees”.
Piet starts to support Calvinist rebels in the Dutch Provinces, making him a target for Vidal, a powerful Catholic cardinal. Vidal had nearly succeeded in killing Minou and taking her inheritance some years ago. The couple attend a royal wedding in Paris after nearly a decade of religious wars, kick-starting a taut and fierce chain of events that will have long-term consequences for the entire family.
As is Mosse’s trademark, the novel concerns itself primarily with amplifying women’s voices throughout history through its fictional characters.
“There was a great deal of dishonesty surrounding how women lived in the past,” she says. “There was this sense that all women were kept at home and did the sewing, and that’s not true.
“It was so important to animate the lives of ordinary women.
“Historical fiction is often about a tiny, minute part of society, namely the court, which means that so many women in historical fiction are the queens and duchesses, and mistresses of great men.
“History was so often written by men with a male agenda, so we ordinary women were all too often written out. Fiction can take us to places that history often can’t. If a woman loses her child, her heart breaks in a way that ours would now. We’re the same as them in the end and that’s what I find so fascinating.”
Mosse began her writing career as a non-fiction writer.
After working in publishing for years, she penned Becoming a Mother at the behest of a literary agent friend after complaining that she could find no such book on the market during her two pregnancies. Part-memoir, part guide, the 1993 title became one of the most respected books of its kind. Two contemporary novels followed before she found her metier in historical fiction with the hugely successful Labyrinth in 2005.
“I tiptoed up to being a writer,” she reflects. “It was only with my fifth book that I realised the sort of writer I was supposed to be.”
On her pivot from contemporary fiction to historical fiction, Mosse adds: “I’m not interested in putting on the page what I can see outside the window. I’m interested in imagining what was here before. The films I tend to enjoy aren’t the modern, gritty ones. They are ones that shine a light on the past as a way of knowing who we are now. Everything about where we are in the present day is dictated by what happened before.”
As with many historical fiction writers, the research is among her favourite parts of the process. The background work on this series was three years in the making.
“Once you read into the paintings of the time, once you go to
‘It was only with my fifth book that I realised the sort of writer I was supposed to be’
Kate Mosse
churches and read about christenings and deaths, it’s all there in plain sight,” Mosse says.
In a case of coming full-circle, Mosse has returned to non-fiction for her next book. This year she publishes An Extra Pair of Hands, a timely and deeply personal story of finding herself in middle age, caring for elderly relatives.
Writing and releasing work during the pandemic has been a different experience for Mosse, who usually thrives on the faceto-face interactions from readers. An online publication event will happen on Wednesday January 20, giving her the chance to interact with fans.
“I love the out-and-about stuff,” she says. “You learn about the book even more from the [readers’] comments.
“I do try to engage with people who ask me questions. In a funny sort of way, they’ve given up time and money to be with your book. I think the least they deserve is an answer.”
Details of a live reading event on January 20 are available on katemosse.co.uk. The City of Tears by Kate Mosse, published by Mantle, £20