My Name Is Leon
Page 26
7. Why did you choose to set the novel during the 1980s? In your opinion, have racial tensions improved since then? If Leon and Jake were to be taken into foster care today, do you imagine their fates would be different?
I set the novel in 1981 because racial tensions were very high; the Royal Wedding of Charles to Diana had reached frenzy point by the summer, and I wanted Leon to be as insignificant as possible in relation to these big social events. I also wanted him to be outside of the house, and as we know, these days boys of that age are on their PlayStation 24/7! Unfortunately, yes, if Leon and Jake were taken into foster care today they would very likely be split up.
8. As someone who has worked for years in criminal and family law and who frequently writes about the forgotten and neglected, do you think Leon’s story is a common story? Do you think that arguably all of the characters in the novel are forgotten or neglected in some way?
Leon’s is sadly a very common story. Black boys over seven years of age are extremely difficult to place in adoptive homes. White, healthy babies are very easy to adopt; there is a long waiting list for them. Leon’s story is played out over and over in adoption services all over the UK. He will go into care: if he’s very, very lucky he will stay with the same foster carer until he grows up, but that would be unlikely. More commonly, he would move several times during his foster care. Black men and boys are overrepresented in prisons, in mental health institutions, and in unemployment. Many of those men and boys have come through the care system which, although it is populated by committed social workers and foster carers, often fails to replicate the best of family life. That is not to say that all family life is good. Leon would not have thrived had he stayed with his mother, but when family life works for children, it works well.
I think all the characters are forgotten or overlooked in some way. I am truly fascinated by the notion of being nobody or being seen as nobody. Maybe it’s being the onlooker again, being slightly outside of the mainstream. I don’t think there are any insignificant people or insignificant stories. There are huge domestic dramas happening all over the world at any given time: on a park bench, in a small kitchen, in a hospital waiting room, at the side of the road. Those are the stories I’m drawn to telling.
9. Share with us your writing heroes. Who is your favorite author? Who are you reading now?
I have so many heroes. I began my reading career with the classics so I have to include some of those authors in my top ten, who are:
Gustave Flaubert
Graham Greene
Walter Mosley
Cormac McCarthy
Arnold Bennett
Kevin Barry
Sebastian Barry
Jane Gardam
Emile Zola
Zadie Smith
I’m currently reading Kevin Barry’s new novel Beatlebone, which is about John Lennon and his purchase of an island off the coast of Ireland. I say I’m reading—I’m actually listening on audiobook because Kevin Barry himself is reading it, which is an absolute treat. Not every author is a good reader, but Kevin Barry gives a true performance.
10. Can you share with us any news of upcoming writing projects? Will we get to meet any of these characters again in future stories?
I’m currently writing my second novel, which is about a dollmaker. Can’t say anymore at this stage but I love it! And love her. Leon will definitely be back. He’s forty-three now and he’s the man I originally met in one of my other stories. He’s changed, obviously, and he’s been away, but he’s still Leon, and two of the other characters are still around when he comes back to town.
About the Author
Justine Stoddart
Kit de Waal is published in various anthologies (Fish Prize 2011 & 2012, The Sea in Birmingham 2013, Final Chapters 2013, and A Midlands Odyssey 2015) and on Radio 4 Readings. She came second in the Costa Short Story Prize 2014 with “The Old Man & The Suit,” second in the Bath Short Story Prize 2014 with ‘The Beautiful Thing,’ and second in the Bare Fiction Flash Fiction Prize. She won the Readers’ Prize at the Leeds Literary Prize 2014, and the Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction in 2014 and again in 2015. She lives in Leamington Spa, England with her two children. My Name Is Leon is her first novel.
@KitdeWaal
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Kit de Waal
Originally published in Great Britain in 2016 by Penguin Random House UK
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: De Waal, Kit, author.
Title: My name is Leon : a novel / by Kit de Waal.
Description: New York : Simon and Schuster, 2016.
Subjects: LCSH: Brothers—Fiction. | Ex-foster children—Fiction. | Racially
mixed families—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6104.E2336 M9 2016 | DDC 823/.92—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016000754
ISBN 978-1-5011-1745-9
ISBN 978-1-5011-1747-3 (ebook)