Hello!
To celebrate the launch of Christopher, Running, here is a Q and A with me about the behind-the-scenes of the book…
Tell us about Christopher, Running in one sentence…
It’s a novel about a man who suffers a tragedy in his childhood and can never fully move on. It’s about how he manages to come to terms with the past and learn to live again…
What themes are in the book?
Mental health, belonging, letting go, the space left behind when someone disappears, recovery.
Why did you choose to write about the Fens?
My dad grew up there, and I loved going as a child – it all seemed so odd – the funny road names, the tales my dad would tell, the endless skies, and all the piles of junk left around on my uncle’s farm. The character of Christopher was born out of the childish wish for things to be different. My uncle died when I was seven. As kids, we didn’t want it to be true, so we pretended that he hadn’t really died but had gone missing and was still living a life somewhere else.
How long did it take for this book to come into being?
A very, very, long time! I first started writing about the fens in my English GCSE class. I carried on during my MA. I submitted it to agents, didn’t get anywhere, then hid it in a drawer. I forgot about it for a few years, then after Murmuration, I pulled it out and started to write it again, making sure that every character had an interesting story arc. I cut so much of the book out, but I like what remains. So I must have started writing bits of it in 1998 and finished it in early 2025. That’s 27 years!
Who is this book for?
It has the mystery of Susan Hill, the strangeness of Max Porter’s Lanny, and the innocence of Of Mice and Men so for fans of those books as well as Sorrow and Bliss, which I really admire.
What are you working on next?
Murmuration 2 and then there’s another standalone in the works…
elisabeth pike 