A chat with Bonnie Meekums about her novel, A Kind of Family (Between the Lines Publishing, 2024)
How would you describe A Kind of Family in one sentence?
Haha! This is always the most excruciating question to ask any author, but here goes:
A Kind of Family tells the story of Rachel, a forty-something psychotherapist and academic who dreams of being part of a perfect family - but when fate deals a cruel blow, she must find a new kind of family – one that doesn’t quite fit the pictures in her head.
How long did the book take to write?
Years and years. This was my first novel, and it started out around 2010 as a group of short stories, linked by two central characters (Rachel and Fran), then Aggie appeared, and Richard. Finally, in 2017, with 30,000 words under my belt, I went for it. I completed my first draft later that year, sent it out to beta readers (kind souls who gave me gently ruthless feedback), spent the following year rewriting and sending it off to agents and publishers – and finally got a book deal at the beginning of 2019. My publisher released it in early 2020, just in time for everyone to go into hiding, so they did a re-edit, commissioned an exciting new cover, and re-released it in June this year (2024).
How did you choose a publisher?
I spotted a tweet from Between the Lines Publishing, saying they were open to reading, and so I sent them the usual first few pages, synopsis, and so on. To my amazement, in the autumn of 2018, they asked for a full manuscript. I had almost forgotten about it when, in early 2019, I received an email that made me cry. They wanted to bring my book to the reading public.
Do you have any advice for someone wanting to write a novel?
First, a bit like doing a PhD (which I have also done, being a glutton for punishment), you need to really be into what you are doing. There is no point in thinking ‘I will write a novel’ and having no passion for what you are writing. I think we all have to write not just what we know, but what keeps coming up as a theme to write about. As a Quaker and feminist, I am passionate about equality. I’m interested in non-traditional families (I’m part of a step-family, which has enriched my life). Family and belonging are enduring themes in my life, as are loss and separation, and linked to that, migration. Once you have your passion, just start writing. Be prepared to kill your darlings later, but get those words down. And keep writing. I realised, once I had 30,000 words, that I just needed to write a thousand words a day for a couple of months and I would have a book. Once I broke it down like that, it didn’t seem so daunting. My rhythm is a thousand words a day, but yours might be 500. It’s all good. Just do it – like daily meditation, you just have to make time for it. There is plenty of time for other stuff. All you need is an hour a day.
Which living novelists have inspired your writing?
There are so many – most are women writers, but not all. The big exception is Kazuo Ishiguru, one of the most poignant, understated writers who always uses accessible language. Other than him, these writers have really stayed with me: Shelley Read (Go as a River), Jojo Moyes (The Giver of Stars), Rose Tremain (The Colour), Kit de Waal (My Name is Leon), Laura Pearson (The Last List of Mabel Beaumont), Brit Bennett (The Vanishing Half), and Sarah Waters (The Night Watch). I could so go on, but just as we have to know when to finish a novel, I will end there.
Which dead novelists have inspired your writing?
The Bronte sisters – partly because of where I used to live in West Yorkshire, partly because my sister and I are both writers and bond over our writing, partly because they broke the mould and wrote when women were not supposed to write, and partly because I am a big old softie romantic at heart.
What has been the reaction to the novel?
I was lucky enough to have a ‘Book Bub,’ which gave it the right exposure to become #2 on Amazon the day after the ad, in the category of step-parents and children.
Family is one of the themes of the novel, and you portray many different types of family: one of friendship, lesbian parents, single parenting, etc. What constitutes a family for you?
Having family who live in New Zealand (my daughter, her partner and their three boys), I am strongly influenced by the Maori concept of ‘whanau’ (pronounced Fah-noh). This is not cultural appropriation – Maori culture influences all of New Zealand life. I am considered by my grandsons’ school to be part of their whanau, and when the twins were born, I stayed in the whanau room at the hospital.
I am part of the older generation in my family – the youngest Meekums cousin at 72, with the oldest being 98. My sense of family includes memories of our extended family in South-East London, which influenced my writing of the character Aggie. But these days I belong in the North of England. I am lucky enough to have two sons, a stepson, and four grandchildren living nearby. My stepson’s children are every bit as much my grandchildren as the ones I am genetically linked to. My husband and I have created our family in much the same way as Rachel does in the book, albeit using different routes to get there. I was a single parent for ten years before marrying, and although not in a same-sex relationship myself, many of my friends are or have been, including some with children, and one of our nieces is. I strongly support marriage equality, and wanted to portray this as utterly ‘normal’ in the novel.
What other novels about family have you enjoyed / would recommend?
One of the most recent novels I have read, which highlights different ways of being a mother, is Go as a River by Shelley Reid. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett addresses some of the more painful aspects of family associated with one family member moving on in terms of aspiration and identity. It made me wonder at what stage my own ancestors decided to ‘pass’ as white.
With the character we assume is a ghost, there seems to be a spiritual dimension to the book which fit with the way the novel moves between times and locations. I wonder if you could talk a bit about this?
I sometimes wonder what my parents and ancestors would advise me if they were here today. I know also that many of us have internal conversations. There is a concept in psychotherapy of ‘sub-personalities’ – parts of ourselves to which we can assign names and characters. One might see Aggie as one of Rachel’s sub-personalities, and to begin with, Rachel tries to explain her away using that logic. But I also believe there is far more in the universe than our five senses can perceive. To assume otherwise is arrogant. Any scientist knows we can only measure the existence of something if we have sufficiently sensitive equipment, and our bodies have limitations as instruments. As a Quaker, I believe we can all tap into an infinite source of wisdom, but we are fallible humans who sometimes tune the radio to the wrong frequency.
I’m interested in the ancestors’ stories, in particular my own ancestors who were not born in this country, some of whom were people of colour. How did they cope? How did they blend in? My father grew up as white, in a white family, but he was very dark. He told stories of his grandmother, believed to be of Indian descent (and since having my DNA tested, I suspect was also partly African), who wore a trilby hat and smoked a hookah. We now know her own grandmother was born in the Caribbean. In 1950s London, no one stopped to wonder why my dad had a permanent tan. He was just thought of as a dark white guy. This fascinates me, and led me to write about Ahurewa, a child of colour who is born abroad but grows up in London in a white family.
Imagine the novel is made into a TV drama – who can you see in the main roles (Rachel, Fran and Aggie, for example)?
Oooh, what a great question!
Julie Walters would make a great Aggie – she would play her sensitively, though I might need someone with slightly darker skin. I will work on it!
For Fran, I’d love it if she could have some Maori heritage, so maybe someone like Tatum Warren-Ngata (but she would have to speak with an English accent).
And Rachel? I can see Kate Winslet playing her.
What are you working on now?
I have a prequel to this novel on the books with the same publisher (Between the Lines Publishing). It’s Aggie’s story, set in the Second World War.
In November, during National Novel Writing Month, I intend to edit my third novel – a romance! I’m also working on a professional book about trauma, and I keep churning out flash fictions and the odd poem.
Most recently, I had a lyric essay published about the Peterloo Massacre by Roi Fainéant Literary Press. It’s going to be used by the People’s History Museum in Manchester for their upcoming Peterloo day. I’m chuffed that my work is being used outside of the usual circular world in which writers read each other’s work. You can read the essay here: https://www.roifaineantpress.com/post/when-sixty-thousand-marched-and-danced-by-bonnie-meekums
And if you want to buy my A Kind of Family, it’s available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CZHZKY1Q
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