Interview: Retired Louth teacher Florence set to release her second book in ten months

Local retired school teacher Florence Gillan is back with her second novel, ten months after her first.

‘The Forfeit’ follows Bree O’Hagan who, after enduring a turbulent childhood, has managed to build a good life for herself and her daughter Amy. The arrival of a letter threatens to derail everything she has created.

Suddenly, her world is invaded by a malignant voice from the past, a past she has kept hidden.

Now those secrets threaten to destroy her. She is forced again into playing the Game – a game of rewards and forfeits invented by her cousin Rory during a summer in Sligo when she was nine years old.

Terrified of facing the consequences of refusing to play – for herself, her mother, but especially her daughter – Bree has no choice but to be a puppet on a string once more.

“I’ve loved every minute of writing, even the horrible bits of editing and reediting. I still love it and don’t feel I’ve ever felt more alive than when I’m writing,” said Florence.

“It’s something that when I retired, I never thought it was going to happen.

“It’s been a great adventure.”

It hasn’t all been plain sailing, succumbing to the curse of the second novel, Florence found it hard to get going again after the success of her first book.

“I got straight into working on a second novel and it turned out to be a big mistake because when I got people to look at it I had very mixed reviews from friends and family.

“When I had lost all hope in it I dumped it and I still had a deadline from Poolbeg, so I had to get my act together.”

“So in an absolute panic I started again and in a way it’s the best thing that ever happened because I now know that I can work under extreme time pressure and I see now that sometimes you can be too organised.

“After I dumped the one I was working on, I went to bed in a panic and then just before I fell asleep this idea popped into my head.

“I decided to drive straight to Sligo the next morning, and I kept going over and over the plot on the drive down. And then when I got there, I wrote it down and basically told everyone to keep away from me.

“For the next month I hammered away so I could at least get a decent start and when I got the initial chapters done, I could see where it was going and I was able to breathe and I managed to get the first draft.

“This time I had to have the book completely plotted, which was different to the first one because I’d been kind of writing it on and off for fifteen years

“So you could say writing the second one was a bit like a rollercoaster,” she laughs.

After setting her first novel in her home county, Sligo, Florence decided to partly set her second book in Dundalk where she worked as a teacher for many years.

“The initial one {book} I was doing wasn’t set in Dundalk at all, but then suddenly I just felt it had to be in Dundalk. I think it’s because I knew it from when I was younger from working and living there as well.

“I enjoyed going back over it and thinking about places I associated with that time in my life.”

“It felt great to write about places I knew in Dundalk. I enjoyed every moment of writing it.

“I hope people aren’t going to be going ‘but that place doesn’t exist’ or ‘why did she mention places that are no longer there’ because I love Dundalk, it was my second home and I did really enjoy my teaching career in Cooley, in the Tech and Dunleer.”

The book jumps between two timelines, Dundalk in the 90s and Sligo in the 60s, and Florence says she finds it easier to set her stories in the past.

“It’s so much easier to write about times before mobile phones. Maybe I’m a dinosaur, but it’s freer not having to worry about that.

“I’ve listened to a lot of writers talking about writing and a lot of them say it’s part of the reason they set their books in the past and it just makes the plot more interesting.

“Even when I was young in Dublin and going out and doing really stupid things like walking home on my own, I didn’t have the security of knowing I had a mobile phone in my pocket to ring a taxi. You set off, and you just had to get where you were going. It does, I think, add a little more jeopardy [to stories].

“I set my novels back in time because I can remember what it was like to be a child back then. Now, I don’t think I’m that different to children now, but your experiences might be different.

“It’s about writing about what you know, particularly, when you’re still in the early days of writing which I am.

“The book I abandoned was actually set in the present day and it had teenagers and a ten-year-old in it and even when I was writing it I found it hard.

“It’s one thing seeing children and being around them and seeing how they react, but it’s another to actually be in the head of say a 15-year-old in their bedroom with their phone beside them as both their friend and their enemy.

“I think I’d have to do an awful lot more work to make it authentic whereas I found that writing about the past as a child in the 60s and a young woman in the 90s I could go right back there and access exactly how I felt.

“I would love to write a current novel, but I’d have to do a lot more research and think about it a lot more just to really make it more authentic.”

Another theme Florence said she wanted to explore in her book was the idea of giving the victim more agency.

“So many books written by authors depict victims, mainly females, as exploited and powerless. In The Forfeit, I wanted to empower my protagonist and turn her from a helpless survivor into an active agent in her own right.

“Bree had her moments of vulnerability, but I wanted to show that victims can fight back and even embrace their dark side.

"Like a cornered animal, I wanted to show that a victim can be just as dangerous as the assailant when pushed to the limits. Despite losing the trust of all the people she loved, she never lost sight of her truth and eventually found the resilience to resist.

Florence is also quick to acknowledge that:

“I know that people have terrible experiences and maybe aren’t able to bring about the justice that they want.

“But I think it’s good to have a model of something different. I hope people get that from the book.”

Although her books often deal with some dark themes and at times twisted plotlines, Florence is a self-confessed wimp who has to work hard to mine what she calls her “seam of darkness.”

“I’m actually a very nice person but I obviously have a seam of darkness somewhere in me because these ideas, and I’ve had worse ones, just come from I don’t know where because I’m actually a total wimp.

“If I’m watching a movie and there're any scenes of torture or violence or a child being hurt, I’m actually annoying because I have to leave the room and it drives my husband and kids mad.

“I have to listen at the door until the scary music stops and make my way back in and hope they catch me up.”

However, she does admit that nothing is scarier than waiting to see how a new book will be received!

The Forfeit written by Florence Gillan and published by Poolbeg Press is in bookshops from 1st of September and can also be bought at various online outlets.