BATH LIVES Meet Bath author Keith Stuart

KEITH STUART

From eavesdropping in libraries to staring at walls, the author reveals how Bath inspires his writing

Keith started his writing career on the video gaming magazine Edge, published by Future, and went on to be video games editor of The Guardian, who he still writes for. In 2016 he started writing novels – his debut, A Boy Made of Blocks, was an international bestseller; then followed by Days of Wonder about a single father who manages a tiny local theatre. His latest is The Frequency of Us, a timetravelling love story set in both modern day and wartime Bath.

I honestly think I’ve always wanted to be a writer. The only part of school I enjoyed was writing stories and plays, and English and Drama were the only classes I cared about. I didn’t think I’d ever make a living out of it though.

Writing a story is like solving a giant video game puzzle: you have all these moving parts – characters, plots, relationships – and you have to manoeuvre them into a narrative that tells people something and makes them feel. Writing stories is kind of emotional alchemy.

My first novel came about because Ed Wood from the publishers Little, Brown, emailed me and asked if I’d consider writing a novel based on an article I’d written for The Guardian about my autistic son playing Minecraft.

I’ve been lucky enough to speak at literary festivals all over the world, including Brazil, Spain and Dubai, and they’re always amazing fun. I got to have

“I wrote a lot of The Frequency of Us at Bath Central Library”

a pint with Ian Rankin and Chris Brookmyre in Dubai (you’re allowed to drink in the hotels) and that was pretty unforgettable. I also met Jilly Cooper at a Richard and Judy book club party, which was incredible. My wife slipped a copy of my novel into her handbag.

The first novel took me a year to write, the second 18 months, and the last was two years, which is not a pattern I want to continue really.

The Frequency of Us is about an elderly man who claims his wife mysteriously disappeared during the war. Everyone thinks he has dementia apart from the vulnerable young carer who is sent by her agency to look after him. It is full of Bath locations, from Victoria Art Gallery to Sham Castle.

There was so much research to do for this third novel – it’s quite hard to find reference materials for Bath in the 1930s and 40s as the city was rather neglected and unfashionable at that time. I really had to dig for information and I was helped a lot by local historians Cath Spence and David McLaughlin.

I’ve spent the last two years wandering about with various history books, old guides, and maps, looking for evidence of the wartime city – the shrapnel wounds on some of the buildings, areas where the stone has been dyed pink by flames.

I really like to write in cafés pubs, and libraries – I like the buzz of having other people around and catching snippets of conversations; you pick up lots of inspiring little character details from strangers! I wrote a lot of The Frequency of Us at Bath Central Library, which is such an interesting place to work and there are so many fascinating reference books there on the city and its history.

My wife Morag runs a charity named Frome Community Drivers providing transport for elderly and vulnerable people. We have two sons, Zac, 15, and Albie, 13. They’re both very into video games. I have no idea how that happened…

My most prized possession is my Sega Mega Drive console. It was my dad’s – he died of cancer 15 years ago, and we used to play games on it together. He loved technology and it makes me sad he never got to see iPads, Netflix, Xbox One, or PlayStation 5 – he’d have loved it all.

One of my favourite Bath pubs is The Raven on Queen Street. American airmen used to frequent it during the war – apparently they’d lift women up and get them to kiss the ceiling then sign the lipstick mark. Sadly this was all painted over in the 1960s.

The last meal I ate out in Bath was at Yak Yeti Yak. I had a meeting with my editor – we planned out the ending of The Frequency of Us while eating gorgeous Nepalese food.

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