Music and literature may be inextricably connected in the mind of British novelist Margaret Leroy, as she believes a sense of rhythm plays an important role in her writing.
As a child, Leroy wrote elaborate fantasy stories that she showed to no one. When she turned 12 she stopped writing and turned to music. Later, she studied music therapy at Oxford and became a pianist. But she found the work exacting and "difficult to maintain a certain standard."
One day, while in her 20s, Leroy was teaching music to an autistic child when she had a serious confrontation with her supervisor. Afterward, she went home and wrote a poem — the symbol of her earnest return to the writing life.
Having grown up in Hampshire's The New Forest, the medieval deer-hunting ground known for its wild and beautiful scenery, Leroy was quite naturally given to vivid description, as exemplified in her most recent novels "Postcards From Berlin" (2003) and the newly published "The River House."
"I took some classes on story structure for screenwriters," Leroy said by phone from her London home. "It was very useful, and I became very interested in developing a story, and how to grab and move the reader. It makes you realize why you did what you did."
She finds writing a novel to be "a private, intimate thing you create at your desk," which she does daily from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with the help of daily rituals that include "smudgy 4B pencils," a gardenia and coffee from the same green cup.
That's why she was stimulated at seeing her first novel, "Trust," transformed into a television play "with happy results. There I was walking on the set, seeing my story grow from a seed into something involving all these other people — it was quite exciting."
After getting an initial burst of inspiration, Leroy carefully plans her novels. "When our youngest daughter was ill, we couldn't figure out what was wrong. I had a difficult encounter with the pediatrician. I got sort of shrill and hysterical in our conversation because he blamed me for my child's illness. That's what gave me the idea for 'Postcards' about a young girl whose psychological problem is blamed on her mother."
"The River House" came from a different image: "A few sentences in a newspaper story about a man released from prison on false charges. There was a witness who needed to come forward, and she didn't because she was having an affair, and coming forward would expose it. That was intriguing to me."
She considers her new novel "a sort of middle-aged story. I'm in midlife like Ginnie is in the book, and in midlife you wake up in the night thinking about death and are troubled with sick or dying parents at the same time as you are dealing with teenagers."
Although her book outlines are a little like "brainstorming," Leroy said she actually develops major characters and then writes down what will happen in each chapter before she officially begins the book. She leaves the ending for another time. "Writing is a mysterious thing. Sometimes you can't write a thing and sometimes it just happens. It would be lovely if it always came easily."
Leroy used to consider sex scenes in a novel uncomfortable to write, but since she has studied women's sexuality through interviews with 50 women, she believes she is better prepared. "I think a sex scene should be difficult to write, because there is a lot of potential for getting it wrong and alienating the reader. So I always try to develop a fresh way to do it."
One thing she has learned is that her own physical attraction to the appearance of men's hands is a little-known impression she shares with many other women. The germ of her "House" novel was a case of adultery, which happens in a house by the river in the "wilds" of London.
"It is very suburban where I live, but there is this strip of wild ground by the Thames — on the other side of the river that is very much the scene I imagine. I sensed that the lovers needed a special place that was different from the rest of their lives."
More important than adultery was the moral crisis faced by Ginnie, who must decide whether to expose her adultery by coming forward to testify that from the window of the little house she clearly saw a man accused of a criminal act. When her testimony becomes a necessity for the prosecutor to build a murder case, she faces the clash of her own reputation vs. the need for justice. "I wanted her to do the right thing even if it was a morally difficult thing to do," said Leroy.
Leroy said there is some difficulty in writing suspenseful stories. "A lot of writing is about craft — but some of it you do instinctively."
E-MAIL: dennis@desnews.com