Joanna Cannon: ‘Inspiration Strikes In The Middle Of A Field’
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22 minutes ago
A decade on from her debut, Joanna Cannon publishes her fourth novel – a mystery of grief, loss and an unexpected visitor – and tells C&TH about the night-time writing habits and early-morning walks that fuel her fiction.
Joanna Cannon’s fourth novel, An Unlikely Visitor, publishes today (4 June), a decade since her debut, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, landed in 2015 – a period the author describes as ‘incredible’. ‘I’ve done things I never imagined I would do, I’ve met the most wonderful people, and it’s a huge privilege to continue writing books people enjoy,’ Joanna tells C&TH.
In the interim, readers have devoured Three Things About Elsie (2018), A Tidy Ending (2022) and memoir Breaking & Mending (2019), which illuminated Joanna’s original career as a doctor. All were written after dusk: ‘I get up when most people are going to bed, and I write through the night. It’s the time I’m most productive, there are much fewer interruptions, and it feels as though I have the world to myself,’ the writer says.
The inspiration, however, comes at the opposite end of the day: ‘I go for very long walks in the early hours of the morning with my German Shepherd, Lewis,’ Joanna says. ‘John Clare wrote “I found the poems in the fields and only wrote them down,” and I can completely relate to that. Very often inspiration will strike in the middle of a field and I have solved many plot riddles whilst climbing five bar gates. I think those walks are the only time I truly relax and my mind is empty.’
In An Unlikely Visitor, we meet Margaret, a woman in her seventies widowed just three months earlier. ‘Margaret is finding it impossible to go on without him. Not only has she lost the man she loved and her best friend, she also lost the only person who truly understood what they both went through, 40 years earlier, when their daughter Jeanie disappeared on a paper round, aged 11, and was never seen again,’ Joanna shares. ‘However, one day Margaret returns home to what she thinks is an empty house, only to find an unexpected visitor waiting for her. Someone who will encourage her to find the joy in life again, and someone who might be able to help her solve the mystery of what happened to Jeanie all those years ago. It’s a story about loss and grief, but it’s also a celebration of love, and a reminder that the answer to most of life’s problems can be found in the unlikeliest of places.’
As for what’s next: ‘I never talk about a book until it’s written,’ Joanna hedges, ‘partly because it feels too fragile, and partly because it can take the most unexpected turns. But I’m very excited about it and it’s a story I can’t wait to share with everyone!’
Until then, C&TH delved into Joanna’s reading life for the latest edition of Shelf Life, where book-lovers tell us about the reads that shaped them. From Louisa May Alcott to Abraham Verghese, you can find her picks below.
Shelf Life: Joanna Cannon
This book made me a reader…
Definitely Little Women. I spent my childhood in the local library and it was a book I renewed every week for the best part of a year. I didn’t appreciate there was more than one copy in the world, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it living at anyone else’s house!
This book made me want to be a writer…
When I was working as a junior doctor, I read Sarah Winman’s When God Was a Rabbit and I adored it. It made me want to write a book of my own, just for fun, and as an escape from all the stress of being a medic.
This book was formative in my youth…
As a teenager I read a non-fiction title by Jesuit priest and psychotherapist Anthony de Mello. It’s called Awareness and it contains a spiritual message about hope, self-belief and awareness. It begins with the story of an eagle who spent his life thinking he was a barnyard chicken, and the philosophy de Mello explores is something I’ve returned to again and again during my life.
This book is one I can’t stop returning to…
This would have to be Three Men in a Boat. Whenever I’m stressed or I’m going through a reading crisis, this is the novel I turn to. It’s incredibly funny, timeless, and it always makes me feel better about the world.
This book broadened my horizons…
Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water is a multigenerational novel set in India, and it’s one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read. In addition to taking me to a place I have never visited, its underlying message about the many connections between us is something which made me think so much more about a world without boundaries.
This book is my comfort blanket…
Very strangely, thrillers are my comfort blanket! I like nothing more than to settle down with a dark and twisty story, and watch fictional strangers suffer a great deal! One of the best thrillers I’ve ever read is Jane Harper’s The Dry. Utterly magnificent. The heat of the Australian outback crackles from the page.
I wish I’d written this book…
I would love to have written Rebecca, which has to be my favourite book of all time. A gothic house, a dead first wife, a sinister housekeeper…It has everything you could wish for. The perfect story.
I can’t stop talking about this book right now…
I have recently discovered Elizabeth Strout (so late to the party) and I adored Olive Kitteridge. I cannot stop telling people how brilliant it is, and they all reply ‘we know, Jo – what took you so long!’
I can’t wait for this book to hit the shelves…
There is a beautiful debut out in August called Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt, by Ben Reeves. It’s the most extraordinary story about living (and dying) and appreciating the life we are blessed with. It’s a story that will genuinely change your life and how you live it.
I recommend this book to anyone and everyone who will listen…
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. It’s a recent read, but one I will be recommending forever. It’s such a powerful book and I have never had such a strong physical reaction to a novel. The writing is exquisite, and it’s such a profound, haunting, and important story.
An Unlikely Visitor by Joanna Cannon
Out now.
The Borough Press, Hardback, £18.99
