Dundee professor takes a novel approach

Kirsty Gunn tells Mitya Underwood why she thinks readers want to be challenged with every book, and how her new novel, Caroline’s Bikini, reveals more than most about the writing process

For Scotland-based author Kirsty Gunn there is nothing quite like pushing herself out of her comfort zone to produce a bestseller.

Her latest novel Caroline’s Bikini takes the reader on a somewhat unusual journey of a behind-the-scenes and unusually honest look at the much-mythologised process of novel writing.

It is remarkably different from Kirsty’s other works, including the acclaimed The Big Music, which told the story of John Sutherland and his dying wish to compose a piobaireachd in the Scottish Highlands.

Caroline’s Bikini, meanwhile, is set predominantly in bars and pubs of London over many a gin and tonic, and tells the very modern story of two old friends looking to create a permanent record of a fleeting obsession.

“Every book is different for me and that makes it a bit of a nightmare for my publishers, because every time I create a readership around a novel, I then destroy that with the next book,” Kirsty says.

“So all of my readers who gathered around me for The Big Music – I gathered a community around me because it was based in the Highlands around family life, and around piobaireachd (bagpipe) music – all of those readers are going to take one look at Caroline’s Bikini and think ‘What?’”

In the new book, middle-aged financier Evan Gordonstone returns to the UK after a lengthy period abroad and becomes a lodger in the rather grand Richmond home of the Beresford family. He instantly becomes infatuated with the matriarch of the house, Caroline, a former horsewoman turned housewife.

He recounts his infatuation to London friend Emily Stuart, a copywriter, with the intention of Emily creating a written record of his experience. It is this recounting by Evan and processing of the information by Emily that forms the basis of Caroline’s Bikini, not the actual tale of glamorous Caroline and infatuated Evan.

For Kirsty, who is also a Professor of Writing Practice and Study at the University of Dundee, the book is far outside her usual writing remit.

“Once one decides to write a certain type of book that we know works and creates readers and a marketing opportunity, one grows and grows and grows.

“I don’t know what it is about me – I want to set these new challenges and have different kinds of imaginative experiences.

“The idea of the engaged and intelligent reader who wants to be taken to new places is very much in my mind. I get bored with writers whose work I’ve started off really admiring and been involved in, serving the same dish over and over. It feels like an insult to my intelligence so I stop reading that work.”

Caroline’s Bikini started life as one of Kirsty’s short stories and, ironically, was not one she was overly happy with despite predictions of potential publishing success.

Not wanting to retire it completely the author instead developed the idea and layered it into a novel, and included more than 60 pages of further notes – including alternative narratives and personal social narratives of the characters – to further engage the reader in the writing process.

“I couldn’t let the title go, it was such an amazing title and it worked on me in peculiar ways. Although that story ended and had content that was quite conventional in my terms, I couldn’t let go of that bikini and I couldn’t let go of Caroline herself.

“From that came the idea that there would be another story, the story of trying to write about Caroline.”

Another breakaway from Kirsty’s tried and tested formula for success is that Caroline’s Bikini is set wholly in and around London, mainly in its fantastically named pubs such as The Gin Whistle, The Kilted Pig, Ripeness is All and The Remarkable.

Kirsty, who splits her time between Sutherland, London and Dundee, appreciates that some of her faithful readers may feel “far away from the world of Caroline and her bikini”, especially those who enjoyed her earlier works which had very clear Scottish contexts.

However, she says, she has not strayed too far.

“There’s a sly little story going on beneath the surface of the very glamorous Caroline Beresford and her Richmond chums, our two protagonists have the names Stuart and Gordonstone. There would be no story without that underpinning.”

As Professor of Writing Practice and Study, Kirsty is always keen to incorporate her life as a novelist with her teaching life, using her experiences of writing, editing and publishing her own works as learning tools.

The Dundee program is one of the most respected of its kind, she says, and it is important that the students are offered something unique.

“We had a really nice session together with our graduate students talking about the process of making Caroline’s Bikini from the first scribbles, right through to galley pages and discussions about the cover and I took with me versions of the process in paper form. It was a really wonderful session and gave the students a great insight into the process.”

Every book is different for me and that makes it a bit of a nightmare for my publishers, because every time I create a readership around a novel, I then destroy that with the next book

Kirsty Gunn is also Professor of Writing Practice and Study at Dundee University.