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ANNABEL PITCHER Claire Wisdom
Annabel Pitcher is a young woman from West Yorkshire whose love of writing and telling stories led to the conception of her debut novel; ‘My Sister lives on the Mantelpiece’. The brilliantly crafted novel has been incredibly successful and has been critically acclaimed.
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etting comfortable in her study and trying to eradicate the dreaded white page, Annabel Pitcher speaks of how she remains focused and driven, as she says: “It’s the love of telling stories really, so it doesn’t require a lot of motivation. I loved English when I was growing up, I was an English teacher, and it’s just being able to tell stories and getting back to the characters. Because everybody that I know is at work, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t sit and write, I’d get really bored. Because I’ve got the house to myself for 10 hours a day, so I think I would go round the twist if I wasn’t actually writing.” “It seems to be very difficult to come up with anything other people haven’t done, really, really hard. I was just hoping I’d get struck with inspiration because you do get influenced by others, especially if you enjoy it. I’ve just read Engleby by Sebastian Faulks and you start to think, oh I wonder if I could write something similar and it is quite hard. I think that’s why when I’m actually writing a book, I tend not to do a lot of reading, because I’m scared you’ll get influenced by things that you like.” Despite this, the spark of inspiration for My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece came to Annabel one night, while travelling, when she watched United 93, a film about the September 11th tragedy, admittedly because this was the only English film on at that time, but extremely influential none the less. Annabel says: “How weird it is to lose someone
personal to you in such a public way – that’s what really interested me.” Given that the novel was born from the theme of terrorism, this features predominantly in the background, and in the foreground is the ten year old narrator Jamie’s brutally honest depiction of his heart wrenching, yet humorous struggles regarding the death of his sister. Despite many underlying themes Annabel refutes the idea of the novel being an issues novel. “I think the difference between an issues novel and a story, is within an issues novel, the issue is the most important thing, whereas in a story, its character led and I saw it as Jamie’s story. I never ever thought of it as book about grief or a book about this or that. I just wanted to tell this story about this little boy, who happens to have all these things in his life and I saw it like that and I wrote it like that and hopefully that’s what makes it readable and not completely depressing. I think if you would have gone into more depth about the alcoholism or his sister’s anorexia or the dad’s grief or the mum’s affair, it might have been really depressing.” To take a reprieve from writing during her working day, she enjoys heading outdoors, stretching her legs and striding across a field as she so energetically puts it. It is unsurprising then to find that in the novel the family is relocated to Ambleside in the Lake District. Annabel says: “I love the Lake District; it’s my favourite place in England and Ambleside in particular.”
“It’s the love of telling stories really, so it doesn’t require a lot of motivation.”
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As readers, we’re always eager to learn what influences an author and despite the evident melancholy occurrences in the novel, there are aspects of Annabel and her life immersed within the pages. She tells how: “Every character has got a little bit of someone in them; I think more I just drew on my own experiences of having brothers and sisters, that’s what was really useful. I’ve got younger and older siblings and I drew on that quite a lot when I was writing the Jamie and Jasmine scenes and how you kind of have that love, hate relationship, because I didn’t want Jasmine to be perfect. My editor wanted to take out all the bits where she swears at Jamie and gets impatient, but I like that, because I think it makes it more real. With my little brother I’d do anything for him, but he’s annoying and that’s just how it is in real life. I’d like to think I was a bit like Sunya, but I’m probably not.” Next in store for Annabel is her second novel entitled Ketchup Clouds, taking on a totally different persona of a 15 year old girl and I think it’s safe to say, she is feeling the pressure of matching the success of her initial novel: “It was hard at the beginning, because people have really liked Mantelpiece and I was so worried I was going to write something rubbish and it took me ages to get going, it really did take me months and months. You know that feeling you get in an exam, where you just feel paralysed, it was like that. I was so anxious and thought write something good, write something good. It was only really when I relaxed and thought well, I’m going to write and do my best and then it started to flow more naturally and once I had relaxed the voice came quite easily. With the first one I never knew I was going to get published so I kind of wrote whatever. And the second one, I’m glad to have got that one done, I don’t think I’ll feel like that again, I feel really excited at the thought of my third one. Annabel’s career has started with a bang and she is looking forward to what is to come. She says very enthusiastically: “I’m so excited to come to the festival, I haven’t been to the Lake District for ages and I really do love it.”
Monday 5th: 2.30pm – THE STUDIO