Ididn’thavethis romanticdream aboutmarriage andbabies..thenI fellinloveandit justallhappened
Scots writer and TV host Dawn O’Porter on motherhood and how the three women in her new book represent different facets of her
DAWN O’Porter, novelist, columnist, broadcaster and vintage fashion buff, has never been one to follow the crowd.
The 38-year-old said: “As an adult I never think, ‘What’s everybody else doing? Let’s do that’. I follow my own instincts in life, and that’s how I’ve managed to carve out a career that’s my own.
“Instinctively, I’ve got a rebellious attitude. I would almost actively not follow what everybody else was doing.”
Indeed, Dawn – who a decade ago looked set for a career in TV, having made her mark in cuttingedge documentaries covering subjects including polygamy and extreme dieting – now lives in California and is a full-time author and mum, and married to Irish actor Chris O’Dowd, 37.
Born in Alexandria, near Loch Lomond, she grew up in the Channel Islands and moved to Hollywood nine years ago to further her career.
But she was back in Scotland last night promoting her latest novel The Cows – a feisty, funny contemporary tale following the fortunes and fates of three women who make non-stereotypical life decisions.
The women all have different attitudes to motherhood: Cam, a successful blogger, doesn’t want children; Stella, an efficient PA to a photographer, desperately does, despite health worries; and Tara is a single mum whose high-flying TV career takes a turn for the worse when she indulges in a private sex act on a train, thinking she is alone, only to be filmed by an onlooker who posts it on the internet.
As the story progresses, the women’s lives intertwine, as each deals with her own problems, judging each other and themselves along the way.
“None of them were supposed to have children but when I had my little boy I thought I had to give one of them a child,” Dawn explained.
“Tara is me understanding what it feels like to be a mother, Cam is my alter ego, who I always thought I would be until I met my husband, and Stella is the tragedy and sadness and part of me that is deep inside.”
Stella – whose mother and twin sister died of cancer and who has the BRCA gene, giving her a higher risk of having breast or ovarian cancer – has evolved in part from the writer’s own history.
Her mum died from breast cancer, aged 36, two days before Dawn’s seventh birthday.
She said: “I lost my mum to cancer, so it’s always in the back of my head. I didn’t have the BRCA gene and I don’t face what the character is facing but I know how it feels to worry about that.
“And I made a documentary about breast cancer a few years ago and interviewed lots of women in Stella’s position.”
Dawn began writing the novel when she was pregnant with her first son Art, who’s now two. She’s already handed over the manuscript for the next novel, and is expecting her second child this summer.
But she wasn’t always intent on having children, she reveals.
She said: “I wasn’t that bothered. I didn’t have this romantic dream about marriage and babies.
“I always loved kids and loved my nieces and nephews, I just didn’t know I wanted to do it myself. Then I fell in love and it just all happened.
“I took to motherhood really naturally. I find it a complete pleasure being a mum.
“There’s a lot of messages in the book – the main one is that no matter how out of control your life feels, you can always pull it back together. You are in control of your own life.”
She and Bridesmaids star Chris live a pretty regular family life in LA. They hardly ever go to red carpet events, aren’t so famous that they’re constantly hounded by paparazzi or a hoards of fans and clearly aren’t fazed by fame.
Dawn had moved to Hollywood at 29 to make a series of documentaries for Channel 4 but when a second series was not commissioned, found herself
‘The book’s main message is no matter how out of control your life feels, you can always pull it back together’