MEET THE AUTHOR

Rosemary Collins talks to ELEANOR ANSTRUTHER, the author of the new historical novel A Perfect Explanation

In 1939 Enid Campbell, the granddaughter of the 8th Duke of Argyll, sold the custody of her son Ian to her sister Joan for £500. Now Eleanor Anstruther, Ian’s daughter, is telling the story of her grandmother’s momentous decision in her debut novel, A Perfect Explanation.

How did you come to write the book?

We always knew that my father had been sold. It was one of those things we grew up knowing, and never questioning at all. But when I became a mother myself, it just occurred to me to ask him about it. For about six months, with his blessing, I read the entire family archive – medical papers, legal papers, and many, many letters. Then I travelled around the country, visiting the locations of the major events in the story.

What was it like writing about such a painful and intimate experience?

I think that anyone who writes a family story will find that it’s a bit like getting out rugs and shaking them, and the dust fills the air. The ghosts all just come springing up. Writers always say that they feel they’ve laid their ghosts to rest, and I feel that’s what I’ve done. Because these emotional traumas were unresolved, they were still very much alive.

Enid is a very complex figure – she harms her children, but she’s also a victim of both her circumstances and mental illness. Did the book change your perspective on her?

What I found was that I began to see her as a human being. In fact all of the people that I wrote about were only human, and they made terrible mistakes. I think the starting point of viewing their humanity was opening myself up to compassion. You, me, the readers of this magazine – the whole lot of us are flawed to a degree. I set out to tell the story of my family with fairness, and I think that the net result is that the humanity of each player in the drama is brought to the fore.