Joanna Trollope live webchat 4 April 1-2pm

Dear everyone who wrote in this fascinating hour - thank you so much - I've loved it and so appreciate the effort to be involved that you have made. Long live grandmothers! Joanna T

Mamie

Hello Joanna
First of all thank you for an enjoyable read. As ever the writing was lucid and clear, the description rich and evocative and I had to restrain myself to make the book last a bit longer. Like others I was very irritated by Rachel and kept thinking "you need a proper job", until she realised that herself at the end. I was a bit surprised she chose B and B with a lifetime of picking hair out of shower traps, cleaning behind toilets etc, but still.
What interested me most was how she behaved as a grandmother. I think most people on here would see their relationship with their grandchildren as much more important than Rachel seemed to do. I would have thought she would have apologised to Charlotte (why ever not?) in order not to risk the relationship with the new grandchild, would have fought much harder to stay in touch with the little boys nearby and would have thought her grandaughter was worth the occasional trip to London. I would be very interested to know why you felt that she was so stuck in her role as a mother of sons, that she hadn't moved on to her role as a grandmother.
The character that I identified with most was Sigrid's mother. As a grandmother in France with my children and grandchildren in England and Spain, I thought that she represented an issue facing many families today. Is there a new book there?

dansgran

Sorry, I'm not going to be able to join you today, but I'm a fan and I'm looking forward to catching up with this later.

My question is - you seem quite hard on Rachel. Is that because you think it's the responsibility of the mother-in-law to make the relationship work?

Dear Mamie and dansgran - thank you and forgive a joint reply, but in haste! My view is that the older person because of greater experience and hopefully more consequent tolerance! should grasp the apology nettle whenever possible. And of course in an ideal world Rachel would have focussed primarily on those little boys and suppressed all her angry and primitive feelings. But she is far from ideal as, I dare to say, are most of us! But I'm delighted you approved of Sigrid's mother - so do I. Both mothers are as real as I could get them and are as likeable or unlikeable as people are in all our lives...

rosiemus

Hoping it's ok for me to ask another question. Do you have any advice for people who would like to write? Thank you

thistle

You have written a great many novels (I am pleased to say!) How long does it take you to write a book from beginning to end?

Dear thistle and rosiemus forgive a joint reply, but we are running out of time!
I suppose novels take anything from twenty years to two years in conception and brooding over, and anything between nine to eighteen months to write. And, if you want to write, I always feel that the first part of yourself that you have to train, is your powers of observation. The more you notice about your fellow humans the better the resultant fiction will be, because it will be authentic. So equip yourself with a stout backed, not too big spiral-backed notebook and take it everywhere to jot down things you notice or overhear or ideas that occur to you or passages of description that pop into your mind. You will be amazed what you can see when you really look! Best of luck!

soppygran

Charlotte was my favourite character. I loved the fact that she is beautiful and has a slightly daffy job and gets tripped up by life but turns out to be strong and intelligent. In novels good characters so often have to be plain to be good. I wondered if she was your favourite too?

Dear soppygran - that was such a lovely message! Thank you. I have to confess that I liked the children best in the novel, but then, I nearly always do... But I wanted Charlotte not only to be gorgeous to look at but also to have the rather coltish and unformed personality that a pretty but not wildly bright baby of the family might very well have, and to be full of potential which she is only realising as the novel ends. So although I didn't love Charlotte, I was very fond of her and felt quite indulgent towards her!

loosewoman

It's the fear of separation from the grandchildren that makes the older generation behave in the end (perhaps the younger ones too). Have you thought about writing a book about grandparents separated from their grandchildren? The idea of it looms over Daughters-in-Law but it is not fully explored. It is a big theme on the forums here. Have you thought about writing about these serious breakdowns in relationships?

Dear loosewoman, what an enormous and important question. Thank you for having the courage to spell it out. Broadly, I would think (and this is purely personal) that you are dead right. Almost all women and almost as many men need to feel necessary and connected to their blood relations, especially their blood descendants - it's a perfectly understandable and natural human requirement. And when it is threatened people often, however civilised, have a deeply primitive and visceral reaction. I wanted the shadow to hover in the background of the novel but no more in this particular instance because this huge subject deserves a book of its own, and who knows...

Icabodisitchy

Do you think it is very difficult for sons to stand up for their wives against their mothers? That seems to be the lesson of Daughters-In-Law. Is that because we bring boys up not to be quite independent of us, or is there something deficient in young men?

Hello Icadbodisitchy! What an intriguing question... I wonder if sons FIND it difficult rather than its actually being so! You are right to infer that some kind of apprehension, even fear, lurks in some mother-son relationships which suggests to me a degree of control by the mother which both have allowed to harden into a habit. I would suggest that we ALL remember ALWAYS that our children are lent to us and never belong...

fryertuck

I felt Daughters-in-Law was really about Rachel. She was the one who had to make the most progress through the novel (or give up the most, looking at it another way). Were you ever tempted to call the book The Mother-in-Law? And do you think it would have sold as well if you had?

Thanks.

Hello fryertuck, and thank you! I agree about Rachel's development but actually the girls and the boys come a long way too. Charlotte, thanks to her co-daughter-in-law Sigrid, learns that she has Rachel to thank for her lovely husband as Sigrid herself does. So, because this book has three of one kind and only one as another, I let the majority dictate the title.

redamanthas

As a daughter in law I always felt I was working hard to make the relationship work and not to upset my mother in law. As a mother in law I find I'm doing the same thing!! I haven't read the book yet but will be getting a copy straight away.

Dear redamanthas, thank you so much for bringing up the daughter-in-law's point of view in this discussion! I can't tell you how many people on my recent book tour bent over me while having their copy signed and whispered "you cannot believe what I have to put up with from his mother!" For every wonderful mother-in-law it seems there is inevitably a less wonderful one and I'm afraid that the latter make much better copy for a novel in which page-turning tension is a vital ingredient!

faible

Sigrid's mother says she is saved from empty nest unhappiness by work and (spoiler alert!) this also seems to be the conclusion Rachel reaches at the end of the novel.

Do you think that older women benefit from/need to work/ can lack a role if they're not careful?

Thanks

Oh faible, thank you for bringing up Sigrid's mother! She's a fairly small character in the book but I have to confess that I both liked and admired her. What I am about to say is a purely personal opinion but I agree with Frank Field's view that on the whole work is good for us. I think it gives us validity, identity, interest and value, so my answer to your question is yes, work as long as you can and as long as your heart is in it.

johanna

Hello Joanna,
Do you have a degree in psychology?
Your understanding of human nature is mind blowing.

Dear johanna Hello! and how very flattering of you... the answer is no, merely a degree in EngLang and Lit that I got about 100 years ago it feels now! But I have always been absolutely fascinated by human nature and human beings and spend most of my life watching and eavesdropping. I'm very gratified if the results of these decades of observation ring so true. Thank you.

rosiemus

I too enjoyed the book. I wondered do you have daughters in law? And if so did you make Rachel everything that you never wanted to be as a mother in law?

Hello rosiemus! I have two stepdaughters-in-law to whom I am devoted and have had, in my time, two adorable mothers-in-law... so my own experience was no use whatsoever for this novel. Rachel and her behaviour came straight out of extensive research among women who only had sons and women married to men who only had brothers. You may draw your own conclusions!

labelphreak

Hello Joanna,

I loved the bits in Daughters-in-Law that were set in London. They were set in an area I know and seemed very realistic and atmospheric. I am slightly ashamed to say I hadn't read any of your recent books and I slightly thought of you as a Gloucestershire writer. Is that because you have moved, or simply that your books have?!

Dear labelphreak - please don't apologise! I have been writing for so long that no one could possibly have read everything. In fact, I left Gloucestershire almost ten years ago and am a blissfully happy transplant to West London. I had a goddaughter living in Luke and Charlotte's part of London so all those bits are absolutely accurate!

upwardsandonwards

I hated Petra! I thought she was passive-agressive and lacking in any will of her own. Is she a product of research as well?

Hello upwardsandonwards - and, I quite agree... The point about characterisation in a book is that they have reality even above and beyond likeability, so as long as Petra was real enough to irritate you then I have done my job as a novelist! Petra has been in fact almost groomed by Rachel and Anthony to be a biddable wife for their complex and perverse son, so even if there is no excuse for her conduct, there is perhaps a reason.

floozie

Welcome to Gransnet, Joanna. Your books are the opposite of cosy, I think and yet you have a slightly cosy reputation. Do you agree and is that something you try to get away from?

Thank you floozie - lovely to be here! And you are spot on about the cosiness - it's such a relief when someone like you is perceptive enough to identify the more than mild subversion! I dont know where the tinkling teacup image came from, but it has exasperated me from the beginning, and I would love to think that there are enough people like you who can see it for the nonsense it is.

clumsy

Do you write with a single reader in mind, or do you think about all your readers, or do you write simply for yourself?

Hello clumsy, and thank you. I am more conscious of the dramatic effect a particular scene or situation is going to have generally than visualising a specific person or category of people. I write really for human beings rather than for any section of them... And I certainly write to communicate and not for myself!

mibs

In the last 4 months my daughters have presented me with 2 more grandchildren, making me a grandmother of 3. I read Joanna's book whilst waiting for the latest arrival, and so identified with Rachel that I couldn't put the book down. Thank you Joanna for a timely insight and a wonderful book. It should be a legal requirement for all mothers of sons ( and daughters) to read and memorise, and be regularly tested on it. I shall be mending my ways forthwith

Mibs, thank you for this! I do think that the mothers of sons alone have a different problem and perspective when their boys fall for another, First Woman. And you have to be in such a position to understand it! I wish you the daughters-in-law you plainly deserve, in the best sense!