Interview with Kathleen McGurl - Author of ‘The Lost Child’
‘The Lost Child’ is out January 30th, 2024
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Interview with Best Selling Author - Kathleen McGurl
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It is always such a pleasure to chat with Kathleen and this one is extra special!
Previously you wrote a novel on the Titanic titled The Lost Sister. What drew you to write another story about one of history’s great sea transport tragedies but from the vantage point of the Carpathia ship (rescuer of Titanic survivors)? What was it about this rescue mission that made you want to write, in some ways, a companion novel?
Hi Cindy! Thanks for inviting me onto your blog again. Well, as I explain in the author’s notes in The Lost Child, it was when you contacted me following your reading of The Lost Sister and told me about Jay Ludowyke’s non-fiction book, Carpathia. As you’d guessed, as soon as I read that book I knew there was a novel in it. I’d previously read Violet Jessop’s memoir Titanic Survivor when researching my earlier novel, and the image of her bringing an unknown baby onboard when she was rescued had stayed with me. I put the two ideas together and The Lost Child was the result.
While doing your research for The Lost Child, what one or two facts did you learn that surprised or shocked you?
I was fascinated to learn the part the early Marconi radio equipment played in the rescue, and it was a sobering thought that if Titanic had struck the iceberg just a few years earlier, quite possibly nobody would have been rescued and we’d never even have known what happened to her. We’d remember the Titanic now only as a disappearance mystery (though I suspect we’d still have lots of novels about it!) The radio operator and captain of Carpathia were real heroes in the way they responded to Titanic’s distress call, turning the ship around in the night and heading north on full steam.
Can you tell us a bit about the writing process of The Lost Child such as how long it took to write, any obstacles you faced and how you overcame them?
The elapsed time for this book from start to completion was about a year. That’s quite long for me. I had another writing commitment that overlapped with this one and had to take precedence. I had to keep breaking off and working on the other project, then coming back to it, which was frustrating. But I knew it was a good story and I had it so firmly fixed in my mind it was relative easy to pick up again each time.
The Lost Child covers a broad spectrum of heartbreaking issues such as miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, mother-child separation, adoption. Why did you choose to focus on these potential challenges women can face and how does it help tell your story?
I knew I was going to have a lost child at the centre of the story – the one Violet Jessop brought onto Carpathia. So to tie the timelines together I decided to focus on lost children in various other ways. I am incredibly lucky in that I personally had two straightforward pregnancies resulting in my two sons, but I know many people who suffered the pain and anguish of miscarriage. In the past it was so often dismissed as ‘women’s troubles’ and I tried to illustrate this by the callous way Madeleine’s doctor tells her she can never have a child in the 1912 storyline. These days we are better at recognising even an early miscarriage as the tragedy it is, and supporting women and men as they come to terms with their loss.
As a writer our imagination allows us to take on the forms of many characters as we must step inside their shoes and help tell their story. Which character from The Lost Child did you feel most in tune with or who echoed your own thoughts and why?
That’s a hard one to answer! There’s usually a bit of me in every character I write, though none are exactly me. In this book, I think I’m probably more in tune with Madeleine than Jackie. I like the way she used helping others as a means of getting over her own heartbreak.
This is a dual timeline with Jackie in 2022 and Madeline in 1912 each telling their own stories. How are these two women similar and/or different? Is there a common thread between them?
They’ve both lost pregnancies yet long for a child of their own. They both have husbands who apparently don’t quite get just how devastated they are by their losses. But their problems are resolved in very different ways. Jackie finds that researching Madeleine’s story helps her process her own problems, while Madeleine is healed by realising there are people much worse off than she is, and finding one in particular who she can help.
Tell us about the Marconi instrument, its importance in time and in the rescue of Titanic passengers. How did the passengers in your story initially view this piece of equipment?
Being a bit of a geek, I really enjoyed researching early radio equipment and learning how in 1912 the technology was still in its infancy. By then most larger ships, certainly liners, had radio, but the range wasn’t very far when transmitting from a ship. Titanic was very lucky that Carpathia was within range. These days we take it for granted that messages can be sent almost instantaneously around the world, but back then it was so new that its importance hadn’t yet been recognised. In fact it was the role radio played in Titanic’s rescue that brought it home to many people how crucial such equipment could be.
Carpathia’s captain seemed to have an odd relationship with the technology, refusing to send details of the rescue but allowing personal messages from survivors to take priority. I found that an interesting fact.
News reporting of the Titanic disaster created some havoc for newspaper reporters. Can you share a little about how it affected those involved on ship and on shore?
I read many newspaper headlines from the days immediately following the tragedy, when garbled reports were circulating. Some papers reported that the ship was still afloat and being towed to port; others that all on board had died. It’s hard to imagine how terrible people back home must have felt, not knowing if their loved ones had survived. This was another theme I wanted to pull out in the novel; comparing it with the modern day. Even now with some disasters there’s a period of uncertainty as facts slowly emerge, and in that period fake news can travel fast.
Have you taken any exciting research trips this past year and, if so, how has it helped with your writing?
I’ve taken lots of trips – as always spending about half the year away from home. None were specifically research trips but what tends to happen is that a few years on I might decide to set a novel in a particular place that I’ve been to! The Lost Child has a couple of chapters set in the Abruzzo region of Italy – we travelled through there in our motorhome about 6 years ago. We were in Amsterdam for a while last year – that’s a fascinating city I’d quite like to write about. And right now I’m in Morocco, so who knows what might come from that!
Do you have a writing project in progress (at any stage) and can you provide a hint or brief description?
Yes, as always I have a work in progress! This one is set partly in India around the time of Indian independence. This is quite a challenge to write about but as usual I love the research. It begins with a missing diamond that’s supposedly cursed…
As always, thanks for all your support not just for me but for all the writers whose books you showcase on your blog. I hope you know just how much we all appreciate you and other bloggers!
Thanks so much Kathleen for being my guest author today. I wish you much success on your amazing new novel ‘The Lost Child’ that is sure to captivate many hearts.
Visit Kathleen’s website for more details on her writing and books. And find her on social media! (Links on her site.)
