Here's an email interview I did with Hilary McKay, author of The Exiles series and those delightful books about the eccentric Casson family. (We were going to run it with my review of the latest Casson novel Permanent Rose in Star Mag on 16th April, but we had to hold it back at the last minute.)
Are the Cassons based on a real
family?
No, I am sorry to say they are not. I would like to know them if they
wre.
If not, before you started writing the Casson books, did you already
know all about the family and what would happen to them?
Again no, I only
intended to write one book. I got to know them as I wrote about
them.
Do you have a favourite Casson?
I am very fond of
all of them, but especially Eve.
What made you think of naming the
children after colours and is there really a colour called Cadmium Gold?
Yes,
there is a colour called Cadmium Gold. I think the names of colours are
interesting and often beautiful. If I was an artist I would name my children
after colours.
If you were named after a colour, which would it be and
why?
Yellow. I love yellow.
Was there a special reason why you made
the Casson parents as neglectful as they are?
They are not neglectful. The
children are loved, supported and never physically or mentally abused in any
way. I know neglectful parents. They are not like the Cassons.
How have children reacted to your portrayal of
the parents?
They have written me letters saying they wished their parents
were like that.
Why did you decide to make Sarah wheel-chair
bound?
Why not? Wheel chair bound children exist and read books. Should they
not have some one to identify with.
Do you draw or paint?
yes, I do!
What
would the Cassons do if they found themselves in a picture book?
They would
scrutinise the artwork!
How did you become a writer?
I wrote a book to see
if I could and it won an award so I carried on.
What advice would you
give anyone who wanted to write? Would there be different advice for anyone who
wants to write specifically for children?
I would say “Read” and “Listen” .
The same advice for any age. And the less self indulgent woffle you put in the
more you will be read, especially by children.
What would you say to
those who already write and want to be published?
What’s stopping you ?!
What is your favourite thing about
being a writer?
The children who read the books.
From Star Mag, 16th April 2006 Mad maudlin caper
PERMANENT ROSE
By Hilary McKay
Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books, 216 pages
(ISBN: 0-340-88243-3) IT really doesn’t bear thinking about: There is now just one more book
to go before Hilary McKay’s series about the Casson family ends. Saffy’s Angel, winner of the 2002 Whitbread children’s novel award, started it all and was followed, in 2004, by Indigo’s Star. Now the youngest Casson, eight-year-old Permanent Rose, gets a book to herself.
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Unless each of the children’s estranged parents (Eve and Bill) get books of their own, it looks like ravishing eldest daughter Cadmium Gold will have the last word. Better to hope for McKay to write spin-offs featuring the Cassons various friends: Sarah, who is Saffy’s wheelchair-bound friend with the courage of a young Amazon; big, lumbering, candy-scented, bully-turned-hero David; Tom, Indigo’s cool, guitar-strumming New Yorker buddy, also the object of Rose’s devotion. Fingers crossed, then.
Permanent Rose is set several weeks after the events that took place at the end of Indigo’s Star.
Tom is in New York and missed by everyone, especially Rose, who waits
for the postman every morning and the phone to ring every night. It’s
all in vain though as the days pass and Tom remains silent and elusive.
Indigo, in the meantime, copes with Tom’s absence by reading Morte D’Arthur and forging a friendship with his former tormentor, David.
Of course, this would not be a book about the Cassons if there weren’t
at least three crises (real or imagined) going on. Besides Rose
suffering separation anxiety, Saffron, who discovered in Saffy’s Angel
that she is the illegitimate child of Eve’s twin sister, decides she
wants to track down her real father. And newly-engaged (to her driving
instructor, Michael) Cadmium Gold is getting cold feet and keeps losing
her diamond engagement ring. To David, they are a glorious yet
terrifying lot, and he is both appalled and bewitched by them,
especially the three younger females who all but paralyse him with
their beauty and aloofness. Well, considering how he once tried to
stuff Indigo’s head down a toilet bowl, it’s not surprising that the
latter’s siblings aren’t exactly eager to make his acquaintance.
Their coldness doesn’t faze him though. David, having made up his mind
to stop being aimlessly, ignorantly unkind and start being helpful,
useful and worthy of Indigo’s friendship, simply ignores all slurs,
taunts and negative suggestions and proves that he “may not be such a
bad boy as he looks”.
Truly, despite his dodgy past, David is the most likeable character in
the book. Eve and Bill are pretty annoying – irresponsible, selfish,
clueless. And their offspring! Well, with the exception of Indigo (who
is nice, but so boring that his American friend Tom steals the
limelight in Indigo’s Star),
they are a mean, manipulative, self-absorbed bunch – very attractive of
course, and amusing, but only if you’re not the butt of their jokes and
unkind, supercilious observations.
You can’t help feeling a wee bit sorry for the kids though.
While Eve hides out in her garden shed painting pictures that her
estranged husband considers “not exactly Art” and drinking
coffee-and-coke cocktails, and Bill keeps himself free from
family-induced stress and mess by retreating to his posh London
apartment with a posh new girlfriend, the younger Cassons are left to
their own devices.
Fending for themselves amounts to drawing on walls; cooking so ineptly
that the house and everyone is very nearly burnt to a crisp; eating, at
odd times, even odder meals of doubtful nutritional value; wishing for
money to appear miraculously in the jam jar marked “HOUSEKEEPING”; and
taking up shoplifting as a hobby.
It sounds exciting and fun, and it’s true that the average cosseted
child may view the Cassons’ bohemian lifestyle with envy, but the
reality of their situation is rather depressing.
McKay’s series makes light of the matter and even glamorises it by
making the Cassons so charismatic, good-looking and talented that their
haphazard, rather pointless existence seems oh, so romantic and
desirable. Of course, it helps that no one gets battered or killed.
After having read all three Casson books, I’m pretty sure that McKay
means for her series to be merely entertaining and has no intention of
making any points or raising any issues.
Any intelligent child would wonder though, “Is Rose old enough to be
allowed to wander about on her own?” “Why doesn’t Eve care more about
what her children are eating?” and “Why does she keep referring to the
man who dumped her and abandoned their children as ‘Darling daddy’?”
McKay does not answer any of these questions and although she carries
out some damage control when it comes to the family’s minor troubles,
she steers clears of the larger, more serious problems that are the
root of the Cassons’ various difficulties. Maybe she’s leaving all the
major mending for the final book. We’ll have to wait and see. In the
meantime, just enjoy the mad, funny, maudlin caper that’s Permanent Rose (out in paperback this month). And try not to take it too seriously.n
i love the book Saffy's Angel. i also love the picture on the cover,but i would like it better if it had the photographs on the cover. why is the picture of permant rose differnt in london?
Posted by: cori | Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at 21:37