worked on it. At that time I was also feeling like the world was an incredibly noisy place. I was craving silence. It appealed to me to have a character who was quiet. “When I fi rst started writing the
book I really didn’t want to have her say anything. Not to be mute, but to not speak. In the end that had to change. T e other thing I had to work with was that Quakers are not allowed to lie. I found that the hardest thing to get around, because most novels are built on lies or on how people omit to say things to others. When you don’t get to have that, it’s really diffi cult.” So how did Chevalier create
tension in a world peopled by such black-and-white ideals? “I had to make sure I didn’t end up with a book full of goody-goodies on my hands!” she laughs, explaining that as Quaker belief holds that everyone has God in them, so everyone is held equal – and so the idea of enslavement would be antithetical to them. “But then I discovered that some early 18th-century Quakers had kept slaves, and things became a lot more interesting. Honour has to come to terms with the idea that life is not principled in the way that we might like it to be. It’s nuanced.” In addition to her engagement
with the underground railway, the delicately drawn Honour takes on signifi cantly stronger characters than her English upbringing has
prepared her for, from the charismatic slave- hunter Donovan to his fiery, straight- talking sister Belle. “Well, [Honour] is attracted to Donovan when she certainly shouldn’t be,” says Chevalier with a twinkle in her eye, before admitting that she wanted Honour’s friend Belle to be “as little like a ‘Belle’ as possible. I found an image of [a real] Belle Mills’ Milliners Shop while researching and I knew that I wanted a character who was the opposite of what we would imagine a milliner being like. She had a tiny part in the fi rst draſt but I liked her. I had fun writing her. I moved scenes primarily so that we could have more of Belle.” Chevalier mentions her research
T e Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier Harper Fiction HB Out 14 March
visiting Amish farming communities to see people working with no electricity and even without nails. “I couldn’t take
notes or photos in front of my host so I just had to take it in. T at feeling of utter
alienation from the way we live was very powerful. It was how Honour must have felt. T e smells and sensations were interesting but most of all that powerful sense of otherness overwhelmed me. I am sure I remembered it better because I couldn’t photograph it.” T e research continued back
with a lightness of touch, almost as if it were little more than procrastination, but it’s clear that what she does is considered. When asked if her husband ever accompanies her on research trips she hoots with laughter: “He’d be bored out of his mind! My idea of research is to drive a little bit, stop, pull over, sniff the air, take some pictures of wild fl owers to try and identify them. I also became fi xated on barns,” she confesses. But it is clear how far she went to be able to feel what Honour felt – she tells of
See Tracy Chevalier discuss her writing at this year’s The Independent Bath
AUTHOR
Literature Festival on 10 March at 4.30pm Visit bathlitfest.org.uk for more
home with the help of a local group of quilters. Honour is a talented sewer, admired for her miniscule stitches, and Chevalier was determined to study the craſt directly – by learning to quilt herself. Honour’s craſt ing calms her and creates a sense of continuity between her old life and the challenges of the new. “I like to have my characters doing things with their hands while they’re working,” Chevalier explains. “It feels more natural.” Moments later, she is pulling her
own eff orts from her bag, delightedly explaining that she is on her way back from her own quilting group. “When you get into the intricacies of how something works it’s just easier to write about,” she says, tugging pieces of fabric from her bag to show me. “I am trying to [use] old bits of clothes – some trousers someone leſt at my house, and all sorts.” Her quilting might not yet be up the standard of her novels, but she’s well on the way.