The No-Show

From the author: “Unusually for me, I wanted to write an ensemble piece—a bit like Love Actually, where everyone is tied in ways you don’t expect. I think it was perhaps because The Road Trip is, in lots of ways, a very claustrophobic book with lots of tension and it’s about intense drama between two people. After that, I wanted expand and meet a whole cast of characters again. I love writing secondary characters and this book has so many characters. I was looking at different ways to connect people and then hit on this idea of them all being stood up by the same guy, Joseph, and it immediately lends the question of, ‘Where is he then if he’s not with them?’ That felt like the question that excited me and that I hoped would excite other people. But I didn’t want it to be about one man. He’s the connecting point for the women, and I found it very helpful to think of this novel as almost three novellas about three different women. It meant that they needed their own story arcs, I wanted them to have that depth. It wasn’t until I was two-thirds of the way through the book that I realised what I wanted it to be. And then there was a moment where I was writing a scene where an idea came to me. I was like, ‘I can’t do that. Could I do that?’ I was so hyped I sent my friend a voice note where I was really trembling. And I just felt like I had to do it because I felt so excited by it. I found writing the twist for this novel really hard—it’s the only time I’ve used a proper plan and I only did it towards the end, because it felt like I couldn’t keep it all in my head.”