February book club - The Trouble With Goats and Sheep

gardener

Thank you so much for the book which I have enjoyed reading ..bringing back memories of life in the sixties and seventies .
I've been looking at Joanna's website .. It's really interesting.
Even the photographs of the printing process !
It was good to hear Paula Wilcox doing the audio version. She is brilliant.
I too loved " Man about the House ".

Joanna ....you mention a presentation you did, so I would like to ask these questions.......
1. How did your experience in psychiatry inspire the novel ?

2. Why was writing this story so important to you ?

Looking forward to your next book !

Psychiatry definitely inspired me, because of the patients I meet who, like Walter, live on the edge of society and are only generally noticed when something goes wrong. Also, taking a history in psychiatry usually requires me to look at non-verbal clues – the patient may be too afraid or too ashamed to explain how they’re really feeling, so I have to search for other evidence to make a diagnosis. This is very much like introducing a character to a reader – psychiatry is all about showing not telling! To answer your second question, telling the story was important to me because I feel people like Walter (and the patients I meet), are very rarely heard. They all have a narrative, a story to tell about how they came to be in the place they are, and I wanted to explain that in a novel. I strongly believe we all have a little unbelonging in us, it’s just that some people are better at hiding it than others!

Shinyredcar

I seem to be an ungracious lone voice about this book. I did read it all (and in my dotage I have at last decided it is permissible not to finish something I am not enjoying!)

I found it very worrying as I read it, and then came to the Acknowledgement at the end, where the author thanks all the patients she worked with in the mental health field. There seemed to be no one in the book who was not suffering from some mental health problem, and I was concerned whether we were supposed to find them funny, annoying, strange, or what?

At a practical level, yes, the large size of the book was unusual and made it a bit of a handful, but the larger typeface it allowed it to use was a relief after most paperbacks. I agree with the poster who suggested including a map of the Avenue with the names of the people who lived in the houses. That would help a lot.

Stylistically I found the use of so many complicated linguistic 'tricks' rather trying, like consuming a box of chocolates at one sitting, and also confusing when Grace, a 10 year-old, used the same style of language as the narrator.

I was curious about why the summer of 1976 attracted the author, and what research she had to do to describe the continuing heat.

The heat was a catalyst for the seemingly respectable neighbours beginning to deconstruct, and lose the ability to hold things together quite so well. I also wanted the environment to reflect that break down, so as the tarmac melts and the lawns crack, the residents’ secrets also begin to unravel. I think talking to people about the drought was the best way of revisiting that era, because everyone has such vivid memories. I also remember it myself, despite being very young, and it’s amazing how sharp childhood memories can be. A lot of Goats and Sheep was actually written in the winter, and I remember the snow falling outside as I was writing about soaring temperatures and water shortages!

Purpledaffodil

I really enjoyed this book and there was some lovely use of language. "Widowhood wore a beige cardigan and said very little." Like others, I did find the ending a bit abrupt. Tilly miraculously recovered, Mrs Creasy reappeared, but visited the police first. What did she tell them? I should like to ask the author whether she intended readers to find their own ending and whether a sequel is planned?

Yes, that’s exactly right! I really wanted readers to make up their own minds about the ending, and who is to blame, although the clues are hidden in the story if anyone wants to know who started the fire. As a reader, I always think books that make you do a little work are much more satisfying and I’m not a huge fan of everything being tied up in a neat bow at the end! No plans for a sequel at the moment, but I wouldn’t rule anything out!

Maggiemaybe

I just loved this book for so many reasons - the evocative depiction of the 70s and particularly our long hot Summer, Grace's voice which to me was spot-on for a rather precocious child of that age, the character of the much-underestimated Tilly, the interwoven tales of intrigue and loss in that narrow community and yes, the big print (a treat for the eyes, though maybe not the shoulder when carrying it around!). For me, it is the best book I've read for ages.

My question to the author would be: I'm intrigued by the fact that in your 30s you went back to college, completed your A-levels and become a doctor, and that you got the idea for your first novel from the blog you started while working in hospitals. You're such a natural and gifted writer, did you not consider writing as a career from an early age?

That’s so kind, thank you! I’ve always written for my own entertainment – I think writing (and reading) are great ways of trying to understand the world, and to help us see things from a different perspective. I only started writing to show other people when I began my blog (and again, that was more to do with processing the things I saw as a junior doctor). I had such a lovely reaction, I decided to start writing a novel, but I had no idea it would ever escape from my laptop!

annemac101

I've not finished this yet but I wanted to put something here before the end of the month. I have followed the author's blog for a few years not and the content in it is so lovely it always had me in tears. I always knew she would one day write a book but this was not the kind of book I expected her to write. I know this book is about mental health problems and fitting in to society which I expected it to be but it is done in such a subtle way which is very clever. I am enjoying the story and Joanna has such a lovely way with words which she uses through the story. Grace really made me laugh she had such funny ideas. I know there was many salutes to the seventies, I just thought at times there was maybe too many. If I could ask Joanna a question it would be, where did the idea come from for the story.Was it from the goats and sheep from the bible or did the story in your head then lead to that quote? Right I'm off to finish the book now.

The story definitely came first! I decided to write about belonging and being accepted, and how people often present different versions of themselves in order to fit in. I also wanted to write about how powerful communities can be, both negatively and positively. I’d been reading about people in history who had been persecuted for being “different”, and when I asked around for examples, someone said, “what about Jesus?”. Religion is such a powerful bond (whether you believe in God or not), and the idea of goats and sheep slowly began to take shape in my mind.

baNANAGran3

Phew - last day to review. I have not got to the very end, partly because I was reading a long book when this one arrived so I started a bit late in the month. (I somehow cannot cope with reading two books at once). However, I'm really enjoying the three quarters read so far. The narrative suits the period very well and there are many references that take you right back to that hot summer. I would like to know from where the idea of the story came and a small point, a map of the numbers of the houses in The Avenue at the front of the book would have been a good reference, I have to keep going backwards to find out exactly where people live in relation to each other - but maybe that's just me!

Finally, while the print of the book is lovely (big!) I hope that physically large sized books don't become too fashionable because they are a bit unwieldy while reading in bed and to take away travelling. Sorry, this is being picky and not meant to take away from what is an unusual and very enjoyable novel. Thank you GN and Joanna Cannon.

(Sorry if I've repeated, not read all the reviews as don't want to know the ending!)

Yes, the idea was mainly from my work as a psychiatrist and from the media treatment of Chris Jefferies, plus my own interest in the strange criteria we all use to decide if someone fits in or not! You are definitely not alone in requesting a map! Although it’s not so important who lives in which houses, I think the human brain automatically searches for visual order of some sort, so we’re looking at putting a map into the paperback!

ginnie

I enjoyed this book and found it very visual and real in the everyday details. I think that Joanna Cannon has a gift for making the words come alive and engaging all the senses. I could almost feel the stifling heat of that summer in 1976. I also love her clever use of metaphor, for example....'with a wind that bit scarlet into faces....' on page 271.
There are so many themes running through it......addiction, secrecy,
victimisation...... It was an interesting approach, sometimes humorous,
sometimes disturbing about a group of people forever drawn together by a deep secret which is hinted at throughout.
I'd like to ask Joanna why she decided to tell the story from the perspective of a child and about the religious element, searching for God, and how that relates to the rest of the story. I feel they must be linked, but I would need to read it again!
Once I started the book I couldn't put it down, but I was slightly disappointed by the rather abrupt end. There were some surprises....that it had been Mrs Morton who had taken the baby in 1967, for instance, but I was still left wondering. It is a book that I would like to read again!

I decided to have a child narrator for most of the story, because I wanted someone without an agenda to explain everything to the reader. All the neighbours have an agenda of some sort (some more than others!), but as a child, Grace sees the world without a filter, and I think that’s so important to present the characters as they truly are. However, I also love unreliable narrators, so a child was the perfect choice! I brought religion into the story, because I was looking at different ways communities are bonded together, and religion plays a huge part in that (whether you believe in God or not). I didn’t want the book to be preachy, though, and as Tilly says at the end of the story, it doesn’t really matter if it was Brian Clough or Jesus, it gave all the neighbours a common goal and showed they were capable of positive things given the right circumstances. Searching for God was a way Grace could take us around The Avenue (and into all of the houses), but it was also a chance to show that you can find God (or faith, or love) in the most unlikely places. Even on a drainpipe.