A L Kennedy @ Edinburgh Book Festival, 18 Aug
Author A L Kennedy discusses her new novel Serious Sweet, and contributing to the Doctor Who canon with The Droston's Curse
“Middle-aged laughter,” A L Kennedy asserts, after a reference to Mint Yo-Yos homes in on the audience's collective funny bone with deadly precision, as a wave of hearty, nostalgic chuckling ripples across the room in its wake. Midday in the middle of Charlotte Square Gardens, a mostly middle class crowd of mainly middle-aged folks have gathered in an awfully polite selection of comfortable cardigans and sensible shoes, to hear Kennedy talk about her two new works – The Droston's Curse, her first foray into the world of Doctor Who, and her new novel Serious Sweet. With the former set in the era of Tom Baker's iconic seventies incarnation of the Doctor, the tone for the afternoon is firmly set to gentle nostalgia and the hour abounds with references to classic cookies, the uselessness of K-9 and the questionable killing potential of a Dalek (“They're basically armed with a kitchen plunger and a whisk”).
Her skills as a stand-up shine through while she talks about her work as a writer. A large proportion of her jibes are aimed back at herself – she is particularly quick to acknowledge the fun to be poked at a “serious” literary author sitting down to talk about a Doctor Who novel aimed at kids, prefacing her reading from it with an irony-laden promise to also read from Serious Sweet so that “you get some proper literature as well,” and describing the process of writing it as basically “like proper writing." Beneath the glib surface layer, though, there is a clear and heartfelt motivation behind her desire to tell tales of the man with the sonic screwdriver. Doctor Who had a big impact on her growing up, depicting a world not only full of wondrous places, strange beings and exhilarating adventures, but also one where good triumphed over evil and fairness always ultimately prevailed. As someone who has made her name in literature writing dark stories of gritty, fractured lives and senseless tragedy, it's easy to see why she jumped at the chance to craft something more uplifting to pass on to the next wave of little people – “You know, books where your spirit isn't crushed.”
A L Kennedy was speaking at Edinburgh International Book Festival on 18 August