In Conversation with Ann Cleeves

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This article was published 19/10/2024 (691 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ann Cleeves is a crime writer from northeastern England with more than 35 books to her name. Her detectives include Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez and Matthew Venn, each of which has their own TV series: Vera, Shetland and The Long Call.

Her latest book is the 11th Vera Stanhope novel, The Dark Wives.

Cleeves will be appearing in Winnipeg Oct. 24 at an event organized by McNally Robinson Booksellers at the Crescent Arts Centre at 7 p.m. After Cleeves’ reading from The Dark Wives, she and novelist Joan Thomas will have a conversation.

Free Press: What do you want people to know about The Dark Wives?

Ann Cleeves: I want them to come away with the understanding that we have a duty to care for all children and especially those who are angry, difficult and aggressive. They will be the ones who have suffered from childhood trauma and neglect. I want them to know that this is my angry book!

FP: Tell me about the inspirations for your mysteries. Are you always looking for scenarios/crime scenes in your everyday life? (The Dark Wives was inspired by an investigative piece about private children’s homes, yes?)

AC: I’m not looking for inspiration, but because I’m so curious I get inspiration from the people around me — overheard snatches of conversation in buses and trains, glimpses into my neighbours’ domestic lives as I walk down the street. And yes, The Dark Wives grew out of a radio documentary called Profit or Care. Apparently, overseas private-equity firms are investing in these care companies, because they get such a good rate of return. In contrast, our troubled teenagers have very little support, continuity or counselling.

FP: I like both Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez as characters, but I so appreciate seeing an older woman as a detective, who isn’t particularly worried about pleasing people or being attractive. She gets frustrated, even angry, and isn’t afraid to show it. How did you decide the world needed that kind of character?

AC: Vera arrived fully formed halfway through a book! It wasn’t a conscious decision to describe an older woman who is competent and authoritative, but who doesn’t care what she looks like. Thinking about it later, I think Vera grew out of some of the formidable women I knew in my early childhood, women who had decided that they’d rather stay single than be 1950s housewives. Over the years, I’ve come to know her very well and to like her. The first book came out 25 years ago, so I’ve lived with her for a long time.

FP: You’re known for your lead detectives but your books are really about the entire unit, the ensemble, about managing relationships. What do you draw on for that part of your storytelling?

AC: For the first 20 years of being published, I had no commercial success and had different day jobs — I ran youth clubs and play groups, sold tickets for an airline company and (my favourite) worked in public libraries. Living in the real world and having a family gave me some insight into managing tricky relationships!

FP: You write about detectives, about victims and suspects, who live far from the centres of power. Put another way: what does it mean to be from a small place? (We know about that on the Canadian Prairies…)

AC: Apart from a few months’ community service in London between school and university, I’ve always lived in smaller places a long way from the centre of power. If you live in a community with limited resources, it’s important to work with your neighbours even if you don’t particularly like them. You might need them when a storm comes and knocks out the power, or the snow cuts you off from the closest town. I’m very interested in those places where secrets are known but not spoken of. In small places, privacy is important.

FP: How does class play into your books? It seems to me that Vera understands class and privilege better than most detectives.

AC: I think all British writers are obsessed by class, because it still has so much importance in our society. It still matters how a person speaks and we judge them by the food they eat, the clothes they wear, the books they read. Vera is interesting because she has a foot in both camps. Her father’s family were landed gentry, not particularly wealthy but with land and pretensions. She works with people who have very little money and no power at all.

FP: Tell me about your Reading for Wellbeing project, which you launched in 2021 with local authorities across northeastern England.

AC: The Reading for Wellbeing project celebrates the power reading can have over our mental and physical health. It provides an escape if we’re feeling low or anxious or if we’re in chronic pain. I sponsored the first two project workers and organized the brilliant training provided by Opening the Book, but now it’s pretty well self-supporting and it’s spread to nearly every local authority. People are prescribed contact with one of our workers or membership of one of our reading groups. And it works! The project is based in libraries or with charities and is supported by GPs and Public Health England.

FP: What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?

AC: I’ve just finished reading Hard by a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili, a wonderful book set in Georgia (former Soviet republic). It’s impossible to describe — magical and heartbreaking at the same time — so just read it! And I’m just about to start Kate Atkinson’s Death at the Sign of The Rook, which looks great fun. I’m writing a new Matthew Venn book.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Her latest book is Fungal: Foraging in the Urban Forest.