Q&A with Adele

You are a working mum, are you managing to strike a balance between looking after your child and your career?

I am in an extremely privileged position that I am able to work from home and therefore have a career that I love as well as being able to be mum, with little or no guilt. As I say, this is a privilege. I know mums that work out of the home, mums that work in the home and mums that are not paid for the work they do. Nearly all of them are wracked with guilt as to whether they are neglecting their children, their careers or both.

There is no easy answer but it is worth pointing out that all these women work. A bit of solidarity please ladies! Some mums works out of the home and make alternative childcare arrangements for their children, they might to this out of financial necessity or  because they like their work. They have nothing to feel guilty about, it is their right to work. Others give up their careers to care for their children on a full time basis. They are not silly or boring, nor are they quitters – certainly not that! Some mums try to manage a part time career and still mind their children. They are not overstretching, neglecting or screwing up. Please be nice to each other whatever choice your neighbour is making, try to support her. It’s pretty tough out there!

I take it from what you’ve said there that your experience has been that women don’t support each other through out pregnancy and motherhood?

No, not at all. Since becoming a mum I have become much closer to a number of my girl friends and made more new friends through the child support groups. Women are fabulously supportive, funny, relaxing, honest, witty, exciting company. There is definitely a ‘silent club’ that you join as soon as you become a mum, and I’m proud and happy to be a member. However, ever so occasionally, I’ve witnessed women letting each other down by condemning one another’s choices. It’s clear to me that the psychology behind this is justifying their own choices. It’s unnecessary.

You seem to be a girls girl and yet a number of your heroines are easy to dislike. George is ‘the other woman’ and initially she appears rather vain and cold, why did you chose to do that? Why didn’t you make your heroine more traditionally nice, and therefore easier to like?

Because I like a challenge and because I like to think my books tackle life’s realities. Life is not ‘yes or no’, it’s a scramble of ‘maybes, what-ifs and good intentions.’ George is an obsessive. Her personality disorder clearly comes from a lack of inner confidence. Unfortunately one sexual experience, when she was very young and naïve, has formed her outlook for her entire adult life. She is wrong to have an affair with a married man but she is so convinced that she is in love and ‘meant for’ Hugh that she justifies her unfair actions. Equally she is wrong to starve herself and place so much emphasis on outward appearances, again she justifies this by saying her passion is motive enough. Some people actively dislike George initially, I just felt sorry for her - but then I’ve a very forgiving nature. By the end of the book readers are always cheering for her, which is important to me. It was essential that George came to understand the unreasonableness of her actions and that she repents and puts right as much as she can so that she can go on to live a more worthwhile life. I guess that makes me a moralist or at least a believer in happy endings.

Your other books, Playing Away and Game Over, are about infidelity and clearly in Larger than Life infidelity is still an important theme to you, why?

Because being unfaithful is so damaging and painful to everyone involved, and whilst everybody knows this, infidelity still thrives. This fact bemuses and fascinates me. And I’m not just talking about sexual infidelity, although that is clearly the most cut and dried permutation of infidelity, I’m talking about broken promises, lies and the lack of trust between any two people. The world would be so much simpler if we were all more faithful in our actions and words. Yet the reality is so far from that. It’s a pity, but a reality, that nice people sometimes do not very nice things. I find that unsettling.

Do you write to help you understand things?

Yes I suppose I do. I write to explore and explain the mysteries, misunderstandings and mistakes in my own life as much as anything else. I’ve always found writing very therapeutic. It was always an automatic reaction to any type of excitement or trauma for me. I was never disciplined enough to keep a diary but ever since I was a child if ever I wanted to understand something, or express my self clearly, I wrote it down. I’ve been fascinated, and somewhat overwhelmed, by the power of my subconscious. It is now clear to me that when I wrote Larger Than Life I was preparing myself for admitting that my relationship wasn’t a happy one although I’d always insisted it was.

Do you think about your reader when you are writing?

It sounds rude to say not much but in fact I don’t. I dare not. I think as soon as a writer starts to wonder, ‘what would they like to read about?’ then he/she will tie themselves into knots. If I do imagine my readers I always imagine them as sympathetic friends who are cheering me on, which may not always be accurate but it is a comfort! I love hearing from my readers. I’m still thrilled and astonished when someone tells me that they’ve read one of my books and that they enjoyed it or that it made them laugh or cry. I think this is an honour.