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Reading The Truants changes Jess’s life. Why do you think The Truants speaks to Jess so powerfully? Is there a book you read when you were a teenager that changed you? What about as an adult? At the beginning of the novel, Jess thinks of herself as “a bystander: a witness, an observer” (p. 21). Why does she see herself this way? Does this identity change once she goes to college? How does Jess see herself at the end of the novel? Why does Jess admire Lorna Clay so much? What about Lorna inspires Jess? How did you see Lorna at the start of the novel? Did you feel differently about her by the end? Both Jess and Lorna become fascinated by Agatha Christie. Why does Lorna want to teach a course on Christie? How does Christie’s own life influence Jess? How does The Truants draw on Christie’s novels? Lorna begins her first class with the phrase “People disappear when they most want to be seen” (p. 41). What does she mean? Over the course of the novel, how does this phrase change Jess’s understanding of Lorna? How does it change Jess’s understanding of herself ? On p. 99, Lorna tells Jess to “think about triangles.” What does she mean? What role do triangles play in The Truants?
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Why does Hugh tell Jess about the “Vanishing Man of Mowbry” (p. 164)? Were you surprised by his perception of Lorna? Is his relationship with Lorna similar to Jess’s relationship with Alec? Is it similar to Jess’s with Lorna?
Discuss how motherhood is explored in The Truants. How does Jess feel about her own mother at the beginning of the novel? Why are her feelings different at the end? How does meeting Lorna’s mother change her perception of Lorna? Were you surprised by the choice Jess makes in chapter 22 (p. 173)? Why or why not? On p. 245, Jess has a vivid memory of Lorna that she thinks “must have been a dream, because she couldn’t have said that. Not the real-life Lorna.” Do you think Jess sees the “real” Lorna? Why or why not? Have you ever felt you misremembered a moment in your own life? Are these memories less important because they might not be real? Why or why not? The novel begins with the lines: “It’s hard to say who I fell in love with first. Because it was love, I think you’ll agree, when I’ve finished telling you” (p. 1). Do you think it was love? What does love mean to Jess? To Lorna? How does Jess’s understanding of love evolve over the course of her education?
A Conversation with
Your first novel, The Truants, is a bit of a hybrid. What is it about? What elements does the novel blend? What inspired you to write this story? As a reader, I always long for those rare novels that manage to combine strong characters and gripping plots, that don’t quite fit in any single genre. So, on a technical level, I aimed to write a book that was both character- and plot-led, that could be about small dramas as well as big mysteries. In the end, I took the elements from different genres—murder mysteries, coming-of-age dramas, love stories—and fed them through characters I believed in.
Agatha Christie hovers over the story, but the novel is not a conventional mystery in the Christie vein. What is the Christie connection? Lorna Clay, the professor in the book, relishes kicking against the establishment and its taste, so Christie is the perfect figure for Lorna to take seriously, sticking two middle fingers up at her academic colleagues. But Lorna herself is conflicted about Agatha: the more she learns, the more she believes that Agatha’s personal heartbreak and trauma caused her to duck out of life and not make some of the stands—especially as a feminist—that she could and should have. In this way, I wanted my novel to have an element of murder mystery of its own, but not [a conventional] one that wraps up in the neat way that a Christie murder mystery does. I wanted to leave some big questions unanswered that readers could decide for themselves. So you could say my novel is more of an argument with, rather than a homage to, Agatha. But as a Christie fan myself—a respectful, admiring argument!
Do you share your character Jess’s fascination with some of the mysteries of Christie’s life? What’s your own relationship to her work? Some of my earliest and best memories of reading were racing through Agatha Christies, trying to crack her ingenious plots before the reveal. I loved their jaunty, intimate tone, their tangled cat’s cradle of storylines—even if the characters could be stock and the world small and rarefied. But, if anything, I was more drawn to the real-life mystery about her. When I was around eleven or twelve, I chose Agatha as a topic for my English Speaking Board exam and discovered about the eleven missing days. I never forgot it, and it stoked a fascination about what can make a character go missing in their own life.
But, in fact, the truancy that has long fascinated me, and drives the novel, is about people who in different ways, and for different reasons, vanish in their own lives.
Many first novels are autobiographical, but you seem to have lent aspects of your own life to an array of characters rather than just one—Alec’s South African connection, Georgie’s boarding school background, Jess’s love of literature (and Christie!). Is any one character more “you” than the others? Like Jess, I used reading as a refuge when I was growing up. Having lost my mother at an early age, I found that books had a big role in parenting me—especially those with coming-of-age narratives like Jane Eyre, Catcher in the Rye, and To Kill a Mockingbird. I also share Jess’s pull toward intense and inspiring relationships, with all their accompanying pitfalls. But bits of me are scattered through all the characters, as you’ve suggested. My parents were originally South African Jews, like Alec’s. I hijacked some of my background and its settings for Georgie, as you say. And, like Lorna, I share an impulse to bend rules, test conventions, and escape versions of myself.
Dr. Lorna Clay is loosely based on a real person. Who was she and what did you borrow from her life? I was lucky enough to be taught by the late but unforgettable literary critic and writer Lorna Sage, when I studied for my creative writing masters at the University of East Anglia (which is more or less the university in The Truants). Lorna was the cleverest person I ever met or will meet. She ripped up everything I’d ever believed about literature. I’d studied as an undergraduate at Oxford University but never been taught by anyone as challenging and irreverent. She became something of a mentor to me, and when she died a few months after my course finished, a fellow student told me I would write about her one day. The truth is, I borrowed Lorna Sage’s charisma and intellect for my book, not her morality. That was entirely invented by taking her rebellious intellect to its logical extreme in her personal life.
The title, The Truants, seems double-edged: it references a book within the book that Lorna has written, but it refers to some of the characters as well. How does “truancy” drive the novel? There is a scene in the book when the students bunk off class. But, in fact, the truancy that has long fascinated me, and drives the novel, is about people who in different ways, and for different reasons, vanish in their own lives. Sometimes in a quest to be someone else, like Jess. Sometimes running away from their family values, like Georgie. Or a political situation, like Alec. Or a version of a life, or themselves, that they want to escape (Jess and Lorna). In Agatha Christie’s case, running away from unhappy truths. But in almost all cases, wanting on some level to be found.
Parts of the novel are set on a remote Italian island. Why that location? Eight years ago, I went on a hiking holiday in Filicudi, a remote island in the Aeolians. As I walked around, I thought how beautifully its wild, atmospheric terrain would lend itself to a suspenseful denouement. And, of course, islands feature in some of Christie’s most famous murder mysteries.
The Truants is about coming of age on a college campus. Did you always know you wanted to write a “campus novel”? What drew you to write about this pivotal time in life? I always loved campus novels. The Secret History was a big influence on me as a student, but when I re-read it I was struck by how it lacked strong female characters. So I wanted to experiment with that, and all the different dynamics female relationships bring to a story. University is a wonderful time to write about because it is a time of self-invention. Certainly for me it was not about coming of age in a straightforward way. It is the trying on of different identities, which lends itself beautifully to drama.
Certainly for me it was not about coming of age in a straightforward way. It is the trying on of different identities, which lends itself beautifully to drama. Given the influence Christie’s work has on some of the characters in the novel, would you classify your book first and foremost as a mystery or as something else? I think it’s a play on a mystery or crime novel. I reference this in the bookshop scene—“Crime doesn’t have its own section . . . It’s all under fiction.” I hoped that it would float above these genres and be a story with a suspenseful plot, complex characters, and strong themes.
You studied at Oxford. Why did you set the novel at a “less prestigious” university? Is that choice an integral aspect of the story? Firstly, I had been more switched on by my experience at the UEA than I had at Oxford. But I also wanted to steer away from the tradition of picturesque university settings— so the brutalist concrete campus at UEA offered the kind of unsettling realism that was a perfect counterpoint to Jess’s romantic expectations. It was also exactly the kind of place that a rebellious character like Lorna (the real one as well as my fictional one!) would base herself.
Like many aspiring writers, you undertook a number of jobs just to get by. What were some of the things you did, and did any of these influence your development as a writer? I flailed around a great deal in my twenties! But I stuck as closely to the world of books as I could. My experience as a ghostwriter and as a journalist helped me let go of the selfconsciousness I had as a fiction writer.
What other writers, if any, have had a particularly strong impact on your work? I’m a huge fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald and J. D. Salinger. Contemporary fiction writers I am inspired by include Jeffrey Eugenides, Donna Tartt, and Maggie O’Farrell.
Are you at work on a new novel? What is it about? Yes, I’m very excited! I’m developing a story about a woman who goes in search of the truth about her mother, who died when she was young, and—owing to dramatic family circumstances—who she knows virtually nothing about. The detective hunt takes her out to South Africa, where she becomes entangled in profoundly different versions of the past, and who her mother really was.
Dr. Lorna Clay’s Reading List Get a head start on the reading for Dr. Clay’s class, “Searching for Agatha”
1. The Murder on the Links
2. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
3. Ordeal by
Innocence
4. And Then There Were None
5. Agatha Christie:
An Autobiography
Dark and Stormy A perfect cocktail pairing.
INGREDIENTS 2 oz. dark rum 3 oz. ginger beer ½ oz. lime juice (optional) PREPARATION Fill a tall glass with ice cubes. Add rum. Pour in ginger beer and lime juice. Stir with a barspoon. Garnish with a lime wedge.
Enjoy.