Somewhere Close to Happy: The heart-warming, laugh-out-loud debut of the year
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belongs.
Everyone cranes their necks to try to see further down the aisle; to see Olivia and David meet at the altar, but I catch someone across the aisle waving, behind me. I rise a little on my toes, to see who it is, beneath the very elaborate, teal hat. My heart jumps. It’s Mum. Mum and Clark, side by side. Clark doesn’t see me, he’s looking forward, face formal and serious. But Mum’s looking right at me. Her face explodes into a grin. ‘Hi, darling,’ she mouths, then blows a kiss.
Dad leans in, then. ‘Who’re you waving at?’ he asks.
I smile. ‘Mum.’
His eyes widen, then he pauses, gives a nod, and turns, stretching his neck to see her. When he does, she simply holds a hand up in a wave; just a little, lifting her hand to wiggle her fingers, before both turn and face the front of the church. Nathan nudges me and gives a victorious smile. ‘See,’ his smile says. ‘Things are changing. Things are better now.’
The doors of the church are still open, and golden sunlight from the outside pours through, lighting the aisle. I can just see the gate from where I sit. The gate Roman and I stood by, on the gravel, all those years ago, him in his tux with the skewed bow, me in that dress. The gate we ran through together – flew through, like two birds dying to be free.
A pregnant lady walks by, a toddler on reins, zigzagging in front of her. An elderly man with gelled white hair and a newspaper under his arm, pauses by the gate, craning his neck to see inside. He walks away, the sunshine on his face. A bus. A man, face contorted and angry, rambling into his phone. Then, two teenagers, chatting, laughing, drifting by the gate; neither looking up to take notice of anything but one another. If I squint, it could almost be us.
The music stops.
We all take our seats.
The church doors close.
This PC/D: Lizzie Laptop/Roman/
Roman signed in on 03/06/04 21:37
Roman: Hey, it’s me. Roman. The boy with the big gob from The Grove.
Lizzie: hiya. just added you :)
Roman: Cool :)
Lizzie: was nice to meet you today Roman M.
Roman: Cool to meet you too Lizzie J.
Acknowledgments
Like raising babies, it takes a village to bring a book from a niggle of an idea and ‘can I do this? Can I really write this story?’ to a finished, shiny novel you can hold in your hand and I am lucky to have had the help from a small village of wonderful people. (Here is where I start breathing into my brown paper bag, sure I will miss someone crucial and they will forever hold an acknowledgment-page-shaped grudge.)
First, thank you to Juliet Mushens, my brilliant agent, who made my author dreams come true one wet and rainy morning in January in Soho. You got this book, wholeheartedly, and you got me, and everything I was trying to do with Lizzie and Roman. Thank you for absolutely everything, and of course, to the whole team at Caskie Mushens, too, for your cheerleading and endless hard work.
Thank you to the entire incredible team at Trapeze and Orion, and of course, to my editor: the dreamy, funny, talented and relentlessly hard-working, Katie Brown. For ‘knowing’ and loving Lizzie and Roman as much as I do. For helping me elevate this book beyond anything I could have imagined. For making me delete my ‘shit’s. For the Mini Eggs. For it all. Working with you is such magic.
Thank you to my writing clan. Where would I be without you? Gilly McAllister, Hina Malik, Becky Williams, Laura Pearson, Stephie Chapman, L D Lapinski, Hayley Webster, Lynsey James, and so many more of you on Twitter who have kept me going. Thank you.
Now for some non-writerly nods. (This is where I start crying and thank God you can’t see me at my keyboard, right now.) Pat, you always knew I would. Michelle, I wonder if I would be here without that Jimmy ‘Shoe’ belief we never let go of. (We did it!) Grace and Sally, my over-the-road and round-the-corner buddies, thank you for looking after my babies so I can write in peace, and most of all, for looking after me. To every friend who has stuck by me, through the good, the bad, the ugliest times: thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are why I write about friendship. You know who you are.
To my Nan and my lovely, lovely late Grandad. I couldn’t have written about the impact of wonderful, loving grandparents if I didn’t have any myself. Thank you for your love.
Bubs, my little brother, my best friend, for believing I would do this more than I ever did, (and for casting all my characters for me with an undiscovered-casting-director’s eye.) I could not have done this without you.
Dad, thank you for showing me from the second I could understand that there are no stupid, unreachable dreams, and that jobs didn’t have to feel like work if you loved what you did. That was invaluable.
Mum, through every high and every low, you never ever once stopped believing in me. Thank you for it all. There are no words.
And like saving your Yorkshire puddings until the end of a roast dinner, I saved the very, very best until last. Ben, my three babies: my whole entire world. Thank you for the happiness you bring me every day. I love you.
Author Q & A
Catriona Innes interviews Lia Louis
The book begins with a letter … is this what came first in your writing process?
I knew there was going to be a letter very early on in getting the idea for Somewhere Close to Happy, but it was actually one of the very last things I wrote. I wanted it to be short, but at the same time, carry a lot of mystery and prompt questions from the reader, so I kept putting it off (until I had no choice but to sit down and just get it written!)
It deals with these mental health issues in such a realistic, relatable way. How much research did you do?
For most of my life, I have suffered intermittently with anxiety and depression – as a teen and also, as an adult. I spoke to friends who I knew were comfortable with discussing certain mental health struggles they’d had, but I wrote mostly using my own personal experience. It was cathartic at times, but I have to admit that it also had the opposite effect some days, where writing a certain scene or having to ‘dig deep’ into a memory would leave me feeling emotionally exhausted. I like to think that’s what makes it feel realistic and relatable though and for me, if others can relate, or it helps someone feel less alone or understood, that’s completely worth it.
The characters - even those who have smaller roles – are so 3D. What character development did you do? Do they all have huge back stories that the reader doesn’t know?
I think their 3Dness is a lot to do with how long I have been writing Lizzie James and her family (eight years, on and off, give or take!) She was such a strong voice in my head, as were her family, but it took me ages to decide what sort of story she should be telling. All of the false starts I had with Lizzie James – scenes and chapters and a whole book I scrapped some years ago – served as practice and a way of really finding out exactly who they were before I finally started what became Somewhere Close to Happy.
It takes a long time before we get to meet Roman in present day … so much so that we’re absolutely dying to meet him (yet are already in love with him). Were you tempted to bring him in earlier?
I can’t tell you how excited and desperate I was to write the present-day Roman scenes! Weirdly, one of my original book ideas actually opened with Lizzie and Roman meeting again for the first time in twelve years, but in hindsight (and with a little more experience now!) I don’t think that would have ever quite worked as a whole book.
You manage to balance the light with the dark so expertly. This can be tricky when dealing with such heavy subjects - you don’t want to look like you’re poking fun at them, yet humour is how so many of us cope with the tough times in our lives. How did you find writing the funny parts?
I loved writing the funny parts. They were the perfect anecdote and light relief to some of the harder, sadder scenes I had to write. I find humour to be a life-line during difficult times, and I really wanted to show that although someone might be really up against it and struggling, th
ey are not totally defined by that one thing. They are still ‘them’, can still laugh and joke, and I wanted to be sure I did that realistically, without belittling or making fun of their struggles or experience.
The ending is happy, but not everything is tied up in an expertly tied bow. Was this deliberate? Did you write lots of different endings and this is the one that felt the most real?
I knew from the very beginning that I wanted it to end the way it did. Although the fairy tale lover inside of me toyed ever so slightly with the idea of them running off into the sunset together, in my heart, I knew the only ending that made sense was this one. I wanted them both to finally have the closure they so badly needed to be able to fully live their lives once and for all. Whilst Lizzie’s journey was about finding Roman, it was more about finding herself and facing her fears. In the beginning of the book, she was living quite a lonely, confined life, and by the end, had become her own hero, getting on planes, standing up to family members and starting college.
Priscilla and Lizzie’s friendship is so real, is it based on any of your real-life friendships?
I am lucky to have a small number of friends who I feel I can be ‘warts and all’ with and that was exactly what I wanted Lizzie and Priscilla’s relationship to be – the sort of friendship where nothing at all prompts any sort of judgement, only love and acceptance. I think those friendships are very rare, but when you find someone like that – someone that loves you for everything that you are, even those vulnerable, flawed pieces you’re scared to show the rest of the world – it is a very special and powerful thing.
It places real emphasis on the power of the friendships we make in our formative years – do you think the friends we make in our teens stay with us, somehow, throughout our lives, even if we no longer see them?
Absolutely. In our teen years, relationships are so intense and full of firsts – those first true belly butterflies, first kisses, first staying-out-too-lates, first fights – that naturally, they get under the skin more than perhaps friendships in adulthood do. There’s something about ‘coming of age’ with someone that knits you together in some way, even if those people are no longer in your life. Those first friendships and relationships shape who we come to be.
Credits
Trapeze would like to thank everyone at Orion who worked on the publication of Somewhere Close to Happy in the UK.
Agent
Juliet Mushens
Editor
Katie Brown
Copy editor
Laura Gerrard
Proof reader
Linda Joyce
Editorial Management
Charlie Panayiotou
Jane Hughes
Alice Davis
Audio
Paul Stark
Amber Bates
Contracts
Anne Goddard
Paul Bulos
Jake Alderson
Design
Lucie Stericker
Joanna Ridley
Nick May
Clare Sivell
Helen Ewing
Janette Revill
Sidonie Beresford-Browne
Finance
Emily-Jane Taylor
Jasdip Nandra
Afeera Ahmed
Elizabeth Beaumont
Sue Baker
Victor Falola
Marketing
Jessica Tackie
Production
Claire Keep
Katie Horrocks
Fiona McIntosh
Publicity
Alex Layt
Sales
Jen Wilson
Victoria Laws
Esther Waters
Rachael Hum
Ellie Kyrke-Smith
Frances Doyle
Ben Goddard
Georgina Cutler
Barbara Ronan
Andrew Hally
Dominic Smith
Maggy Park
Linda McGregor
Sinead White
Jemimah James
Rachel Jones
Jack Dennison
Nigel Andrews
Ian Williamson
Julia Benson
Declan Kyle
Robert Mackenzie
Operations
Jo Jacobs
Sharon Willis
Lisa Pryde
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Trapeze,
an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment,
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Lia Louis 2019
The moral right of Lia Louis to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior permission of both the copyright owner and the
above publisher of this book.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 4091 8417 1
www.orionbooks.co.uk