Magic Classical Book Club: "Hunger & Thirst" by Claire Fuller

Today’s guest on the Magic Classical Book Club is Claire Fuller who will be talking to Tim Smith about her new book: "Hunger & Thirst"

1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job in the postroom of a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and―delightfully― some new friends, including wild-child, Sue. When Ursula is invited to join a squat at The Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can’t resist the promise of a readymade, hodgepodge family.

But as Sue’s behaviour and demands become more extreme, Ursula who has always been hungry―for food―and more importantly for love, acceptance and belonging, carries out her friend’s terrible dare. It's a decision that will haunt her for decades.

From critically acclaimed and award-winning author, Claire Fuller, Hunger and Thirst is a compelling and chilling tale of loneliness and female friendship, of the dangerous line between wanting and needing, and of how far a person will go to truly belong.

Tim firstly asked Claire what the novel is about:

"So it's about a woman who is a famous and reclusive sculptor and she is looking back at the events of 1987 when she met a young woman who became her best friend, Sue, for a short while, and Sue dares her to do various things. She dares Ursula to do all sorts of things, and Ursula is easily manipulated, and in the end, Sue dares her to kill someone. And when Ursula actually does, she is haunted by them for the rest of her life."

Tim then asked about how easily manipulated Ursula is by Sue in the book:

"Yes, absolutely. She has been brought up in care. She doesn't have a family, she doesn't have many friends. She's a little bit of an outsider, and she's absolutely looking for love, looking for a ready-made family, which Sue has looking for friendship, looking for a boyfriend. And so she, yeah, it's definitely easily manipulated."

Tim then asked Claire whether she knew where the story was going to end up when she started writing:

"Absolutely no idea. I don't write with a plan in mind. I have no plot. I didn't know what year it was. I didn't know who she was or how old she was or what was gonna happen at all. I start with a person in a place and I just kind of write organically, see which way the story goes, and then just follow along."

Tim then asked whether she knew whether she had this subject matter in her when she was writing this:

"No. Although, when I first started reading, so I say that I didn't write start writing till I was 40, which is right. But I was really a reader for all those years beforehand and I still am. I would read a couple of books a week and I still do. And so I think some of that rubbed off on me. And the first books I found as a young reader were kind of ghost stories, Mr. James. And some horror, some Stephen King. Those were the kinds of things that I was reading early on when perhaps other young women might have been reading Pride and Prejudice. You know, I, certainly wasn't, but I never set out to write a dark book."

_“I'm gonna have scary things happen, that has just evolved and all my books have some kind of dark element or a mystery in them. This perhaps more than the ones before, but that's not to say that my next one is also gonna be as dark. Maybe I need a little bit of lightness next.”_

Tim finally asked for Claire’s favourite piece of classical music and why:

"I have chosen La campanella by Liszt because it's a beautiful piece of music, but also it's the piece of music that my main characters play in my first novel, Our Endless Numbered Days. So there's a character called Peggy who is taken to a European forest, but she learns the piano without a piano.

And I know that sounds odd, but she does, and the piece of music she plays is La campanella. So really, I wrote that novel listening to this piece over and over and over and over."

If you want to listen back to Tim's full interview with Claire Fuller, click here to see all of Tim's past shows.