Reading To Write #2
Jessica Andrews - Saltwater
I hardly know where to start with my next choice, but the one word that sums up my reason for choosing it is place. Saltwater is a story told in lyrical fragments and was Jessica Andrews debut novel in 2019. I’d just started working at Forum Books in Corbridge, as both writer-in-residence and as a bookseller. Jessica was coming to Newcastle to talk to Kerry Hudson about Lowborn, so I read both books in quick succession and adored each of them for very different reasons (Lowborn will be in this series very soon too).
A little while later, Jessica came back to Newcastle on a quiet Thursday evening to sign copies of her book. Sections of the novel are set in and around the places we both grew up, and for me, were the first time I’d seen these places on a page. My actual childhood and life represented in a beautiful hardback that was being pressed into people’s hands.
“A set of disused railway lines ran the whole length of Washington, a proud scar from our colliery past. We hung out on them sneaking cider and people climbed onto the old viaduct and snogged in damp corners, daring each other to hang off the edge, legs dangling down onto the motorway below.” Pg.167, Saltwater
As it was quiet, we had time to chat and realised we shared connections, as is often the way in the North East. We went to neighbouring schools (quite a few years apart) on the edges of a sprawling new town, dangled our legs over the same viaduct, loitered around the same shopping centres and underpasses. And this is why for me, the book has become a touchstone for my writing practice.