Bestselling novelist and non-fiction writer Francis Spufford visited UEA Live on 24th February to discuss his bizarre and brilliant new novel, Nonesuch.
Its title reflects the threshold between existing and not existing, an apt header for a story set within the liminal environment of World War Two, where the boundaries between reality and fantasy blur.
From the beginning of the talk, Spufford described Nonesuch as a “historical fantasy,” though he admitted that it was the “baggiest term” he could coin.
In fact, it would be apt for Nonesuch to be renamed Everythingsuch. It combines history, fantasy, romance and spiritual thriller, a fusion made possible by Spufford’s unique approach to genre.
His genre mastery fundamentally lies in his writing process. “My different ideas converge and tend to be part of the same stories,” he laughed. While some may consider the World War and fantasy as polar opposites, Spufford sees them as conjoined.
For him, the darkness of war was fertile ground for the bizarre and magical, and the perfect podium on which his protagonist could shine.
Set in London in 1939, the novel follows Iris, a determined young woman navigating her ambiguous wartime freedom by attempting to thwart a plot by time-travelling fascists.
Iris is, in part, Spufford’s challenge to C.S. Lewis, who infamously erased Susan from the Narnia ending for her lack of interest in anything but “nylon, lipsticks and invitations.” Spufford wanted a bold protagonist to counteract Lewis’ ‘Bachelor’ narrative, yet he still wanted to keep her femininity intact. Iris is a pivotal force in the battle between good and evil, but she is also interested in “nylon, lipsticks and invitations.”
Nonesuch is not the first of Spufford’s World War Two novels.
The first, Light Perpetual, imagined the future lives of the five children killed in the 1944 London Woolworths bombing. Spufford felt he had only scratched the surface of the War, and he wanted to go in deeper.
The inspiration for Nonesuch lay in the resilience of Londoners, who would wait out the air raids and then “dusted themselves off and went to work” as if nothing had happened. Spufford viewed the War as an environment, not an event, comparable to “the black forest of fairy tales.”
Fusing historical fiction with fantasy allowed him to “see the dangers of the war freshly,” not escape them.
This freshness was evident in his reading of the novel’s opening. Spufford’s prose is electric and transcendent, and Iris felt fully fledged from the first page.
Writing a 20-year-old woman protagonist as a man in his 60s, however, was not without its challenges. Spufford felt a “great responsibility” to get Iris “right,” avoiding the feminine caricatures of his predecessors (cough cough C.S Lewis).
He drew inspiration from his grandma, whose “rackety youth” and enjoyment from dating married men – “they spend so much more money on you!”- helped him construct a young woman confidently in possession of her desires.
Spufford admitted that even now he has no idea what Iris looks like. What matters is that she is always the subject of desire, never its object.
But apart from a fresh take on wartime female sexuality, what relevance does Nonesuch have to today’s world?
It turns out, everything. Spufford acknowledges that part of his aim for this book was to challenge fascism’s resurgence.
“The threat is back,” he warned. “History is not repeating. It’s rhyming.”
He hopes readers will ask themselves these questions: “what in the past is like the present? What information from the past can equip us to tackle the present?”
In Nonesuch, he suggests, these answers are hiding in plain sight.
As the talk drew to a close, Spufford cryptically revealed that a Nonesuch sequel is in the works. The first book ended with three terrible words (“to be continued”), and Spufford is eager to deliver on this ominous promise.
“I want to satisfy expectations in unexpected ways,” he remarked, “but I can’t reveal anything else.”
No release date has been announced, but if the sequel matches the invention and brilliance of Nonesuch, the tantalising wait is guaranteed to be worth it.
To be continued…
Spufford’s talk is part of UEA Live’s Spring Programme. Other talks include three-time Booker Prize nominee Tash Aw on March 10th and Life of Pi author Yann Martel on 27th March.
Student tickets are only £6, and the events are a fantastic way to see authors in the heart of the City of Stories.
To book, head to https://www.uealive.com
Image Credit: Polly Dye
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