Meet the Author: Abigail Dean

Image (c) Nicola Thompson

Abigail Dean is the debut author of Girl A which is set to become one of the standout titles of 2021. Girl A was the subject of a fierce bidding auction with TV rights snapped up by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Girl A is published by HarperCollins and is also available from Suffolk Libraries.

1. Who were your literary heroes as you were growing up and when did you first realise you wanted to write?

I was the kind of painfully shy child who preferred books to people, so there were quite a few. My parents would take me to the library in the village where I grew up, and I would just go wild. In particular, I loved the Darren Shan novels, R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps, Judy Blume, and Michael Morpurgo.

I’ve wanted to be an author since I was very little, maybe seven or eight. My mum recently uncovered a very early story of mine entitled The Thum-Up Book of Friendship, so it’s good news for everybody that Girl A has been subject to careful proofreading.

2. Girl A was the subject of a bidding auction. How did that feel for a first time novelist?

When the news of the auction came in, I was away in India, travelling for work, with very patchy phone signal. I could see that my agent was calling, but couldn’t hear a thing that she said. That was a tense few hours! At first, I was so stunned that I felt nothing at all. I would wake up in the night scrabbling for my phone, convinced that it wasn’t actually happening.

A year later, I’m so excited for readers to meet Lex and the Gracie family. They’ve been real in my head for three years, now, and I feel absurdly lucky that they will become real for other people.

3. For those who have not yet read Girl A, can you give us a flavour of it and how Lex (Alexandra) came into being?

Girl A is Lex Gracie, who escapes from her family home as a child, freeing her six siblings from her parents’ insular cult. That home becomes known as the House of Horrors in the press, as Lex’s parents’ crimes are revealed. Girl A opens 15 years later. Lex is a successful attorney, living in New York, who refuses to be haunted by her past. But when her mother dies in prison, she leaves Lex and her siblings the House of Horrors in her will, forcing them to come together to decide the fate of the family home.

Girl A is the story of how each of the Gracie children have copied and failed to cope with their childhood. It’s about family strength and resilience, but it’s also about the pervasive nature of childhood, how the past returns to haunt the present.

When I was first plotting Girl A, I thought that each of the Gracie siblings may have their own narrative, tell their own story. But Lex’s voice very quickly prevailed. She has a real gallows humour, and she is fiercely clever. She also has a good dose of self-awareness – which some of her siblings lack!

4. You use different time periods and flashbacks. Was it always planned to use this structure or did it evolve as you worked on the book?

That structure was always planned. As Lex meets with her siblings, those encounters unsettle old memories, shake out long-standing battles and alliances that Lex has tucked away for many years.

I was also determined that Girl A would start with Lex’s escape from the House of Horrors, before looking back to the Gracie family’s deterioration – to Father’s slow sink into cruelty. I wanted the comfort of the present there, so that Lex faces the darkness of her childhood home from the relative glamour of the present: the hotels and airport lounges and bars where she now spends her time.

5. Is there anything you can share about your latest project?

I’m working on my second novel, slowly and unsurely! The book follows two characters in the aftermath of a shooting. One of those characters loses her mother in the attack; the other believes that it was a hoax, and sets out to disprove it. It’s been strange and unsettling to write this story in a year muddled with conspiracy theories and intrigue.

I find reading pretty crucial for writing, and it’s been a gorgeous escape this year. I loved travelling the world with Less (Andrew Sean Greer), which follows a writer on a globe-trotting literary tour to avoid his ex-boyfriend’s wedding. I’ve also been gripped by the families at the heart of Ask Again, Yes (Mary Beth Keane), and fell in love with Casey, the deadpan, resilient hero of Lily King’s Writers and Lovers.

7. Do you have a message for your readers in Suffolk?

To be honest, the message is just a huge thank you. There are so many wonderful books out there, and it’s a real privilege that you’re reading mine. I’m pretty sure that my eight year-old self would be screaming to find out that she had readers (and my thirty two year-old self isn’t all that different).

8. Can you tell us one thing about yourself that your readers may not know?

I grew up in the Peak District, and one of my favourite ways to pass the time is hiking. I haven’t been able to get home this year, but I’m still walking around the parks of South London, listening to podcasts and playlists. It’s also the time when I tend to have the best writing ideas.