For rocketstop
Q - I really enjoyed the book and felt all the issues had become magnified in intensity by the plot being set in such confined quarters as a military base. I found myself distrusting and disliking 'Betty' as soon as the character was introduced and even though she was only a bit player in the plot, she was very real in my mind's eye. Hedy and Chris had become damaged children and I suppose in this day and age, social services would have become involved with their family. Saskia, why did you choose to write them both as being gay? Did you decide that from the beginning? Did it just evolve in the writing, or was it a deliberate effort to connect the behaviour of twins who are said to have the same traits etc?I see you wrote your previous book called 'Twins' - is this a theme in your writing? Are you a twin?
A - Hi, thank you so much for your comments. I am not a twin, but I have identical twin daughters who are now 28. My debut novel, The Twins, was very much inspired by watching my girls grow up, observing their close and complicated relationship. Hedy and Christopher, although non-identical and different genders, are born at the same time from the same mother, which suggests they’ll have an equal inheritance of health, looks, personality etc. So when one twin is born physically disadvantaged, it carries a sense of injustice. This sense of unfairness Hedy feels on behalf of her brother effects her deeply and makes her feel guilty, giving her a heightened sense of responsibility for him. The main reason the twins are gay is because a big theme in the book is identity, both how we form our identity and what challenges, undermines, or even destroys it; and I believe our sexuality plays a deep role in our knowledge of ourselves and in the way the world perceives us.