New York Times bestselling author Helen Simonson talks to us about her latest novel 'The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club' and what drew her to write about 1919 and the immediate post war period.
Helen Simonson is the New York Times bestselling author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and The Summer Before The War. Her latest novel, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, is published in July 2024. She was born in England and spent her teenage years in a small village near Rye, in East Sussex. A graduate of the London School of Economics, with an MFA from Stony Brook Southampton, she is a former travel advertising executive, dual US/UK citizen and a proud New Yorker. Helen is a longtime resident of Brooklyn and is married with two sons. You can find Helen's books on the Suffolk Libraries catalogue.
From a very young age I remember being taken every Saturday to the local library and let loose among the children’s books. My sister and I always took out the maximum and then Sunday mornings we would lie on the living room carpet surrounded by books. Mum and Dad would be cooking the Sunday roast and the radio would be playing ‘Family Favorites,’ dedicating records to British families spread all over the world. The richness of stories, the radio’s slightly bittersweet messages, and the sharp tang of fresh gravy, are forever linked in my memory.
To a teenager from the suburbs west of London, Sussex seemed sprung from the pages of D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy and H. E. Bates. Different county of course, but the rolling green fields, pebble-bank shore, chalk cliffs and medieval towns on steep hills were endlessly romantic. Of course, when the visions of myself running through the wheat in a white summer dress wore off, I realized the bus service to town only ran every few hours and the movie theater had closed years ago. But in the Rye bookshop I spent all my Saturday job money on ‘local’ authors – Henry James (and his visiting friend, Edith Wharton), Radclyffe Hall, Virginia Woolf, Rudyard Kipling, E.F. Benson and John Ryan (of Captain Pugwash fame). I still yearn to live in Henry James’ house in Rye – but I’ve managed to have coffee in the garden once or twice.
I’m a dreadful procrastinator and there are always a million domestic obligations I can use to avoid the panic of the empty page. All who now work from home may at last understand how everything expands to occupy the working hours! But with this book I’ve discovered something wonderful. After years of failing to write in the dawn hours, I’ve discovered I may be an afternoon writer. So now, with my mornings free to pay bills, welcome the plumber and cable TV technician, and even indulge in some exercise, I find it satisfying to float to my desk after lunch and enjoy the sound and feel of spinning straw words into gold.
I always say I was an overnight success that only took fifteen years. Major Pettigrew sold immediately (to Bloomsbury in the UK) and came out to unexpected fanfare. I was a middle-aged Cinderella suddenly thrust into the ball. I loved it all – the bookshop appearances, the award parties, the flying around and the hotel rooms all to myself – and yes, Ms. Simonson will charge that dinner to her expense account, thank you. It was every stay-at-home mum’s dream. It only takes about three weeks to turn into a total diva but when one comes home, the children look up from their laptops, as if they never realized mum was gone, and immediately ask after their dinner and their laundry. It keeps one grounded!
This is a hard question to face now as my beloved American editor, Susan Kamil, died too young in 2019. She was the kind of editor who never demanded changes, but only asked questions that prompted one to slash and burn and believe it was all one’s own idea to do so. She once persuaded me to drop a stampeding elephant in the name of subtlety – and then congratulated me on (my) decision, as it “threw the exploding chickens into such high relief’’. My new American editor, Whitney Frick, shares her sensibility and sense of humour. Meanwhile Charlie Greig and my previous editors at Bloomsbury edit with an authentic English sharpness and are not shy about correcting my occasional Americanisms! I feel I have landed in such capable hands that I barely noticed myself agreeing to cut the entire interior tour of a German U-boat and a chapter-long treatise on post-war religious reckonings. To be serious about the editing process, it is the chance to take in all the editors’ expertise and to be playful, and to refine, all at the same time. I feel like a sculptor with a fine chisel in hand, turning a rough marble block into a smooth work of art.
Set in the summer of 1919, at the end of World War One and the Spanish Flu pandemic, this book is about a young woman named Constance who is forced from her job and her home as the men return, and is expected to be grateful to be sent to the seaside for a few weeks as a lady’s companion. For Constance this summer of peace celebrations is a race against time to find regular employment and also to find herself. When she comes to the rescue of Poppy, a young woman who is being turned away from tea at Constance’s rather grand hotel, she finds herself catapulted into Poppy’s group of fiercely independent, trouser-wearing young women who have founded a Motorcycle Club to keep themselves riding and employed as the women of Hazelbourne, and all of England, are asked to return to their kitchens and drawing rooms.
In the midst of Covid, it was both an escape and a sanctuary for me to visit the English seaside in 1919, where people were emerging from a pandemic and taking stock of their futures. The summer of peace celebrations allowed me to feel optimistic about our own future in a dark time. And I was eager to follow the women of England, who had sacrificed so much for the war effort, as they fought to keep their hard-won freedoms. The inter-war years are so rich in women’s achievements – establishing themselves in professions, setting flying records, entering politics – and I thought 1919 was fascinating as a foundation year for the successes and the struggles to come.
Right now, I’m luxuriating in having time to read, time to sort out the endless chaos of my writing office, time to meet readers and talk about writing. But writers are like magpies, always collecting shiny objects. So, I’m also taking notes on subjects, objects, issues and images that catch my eye. I’m joyfully waiting for the strange alchemy to occur that will translate some of these things into living characters who will walk into my head and demand I tell their tale.
The strangest thing, shared with me by multiple readers of my newest book, is how many people had a relative who died of the Spanish flu. And they report this to me as if my book has highlighted an otherwise overlooked piece of family history. There are monuments everywhere to those who died in the First World War but none to those who died of the flu. Perhaps my book, in this small way, has allowed them to be remembered.
The funniest response was a pilot who wrote recently to ask if I would shoulder the blame for his breach of a civil aviation association’s honour code. He had borrowed my book from a friend and loved it so much he was deliberately neglecting to return it! I resisted the urge to suggest he buy his own copy – simultaneously restoring his honour and contributing to my retirement fund – but insisted he must return it when and if asked directly.
Writing being a sedentary occupation, readers may not picture me hiking to Everest Base Camp, Machu Picchu or along the length of Hadrian’s Wall. But perhaps from a youthful attachment to the Girl Guides I am an avid hiker and never feel more youthful, free and inspired than when I’m strapping on my boots and slogging over a mountain pass. I have many expeditions left on my bucket list – though Kilimanjaro is now in question as this outdoorswoman is not quite as fond of primitive camping as she used to be!
