How Sarah Clutton came to write The Bookshop of Buried Pasts
- Sarah Clutton
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Read a piece written by Sarah Clutton about her latest novel The Bookshop of Buried Pasts.
I love second-hand shops. I thrift for clothes and knick-knacks and lean towards the handmade and the wrinkled. Old houses, old wine, old souls; I’ll take old over new most days (apart from new babies. I am bonkers for newborns).
I also love to read. So, it will come as no surprise that I’m in my element fossicking inside an antiquarian bookshop. Invariably, old books have something in them that make me stop and ponder this grand, strange world we live in. Ever wondered about the healing properties of raw beef tea or the narcotic quality of potatoes? Check out Mrs Beeton’s spectacularly illustrated Book of Household Management, first published in 1861. If you’re interested, she provides seventeen pages dedicated to styles of napkin folding: The Boar’s Head, The Bishop, The Cactus – take your pick of these ‘indispensable accompaniments to the dinner table’ (if you happen to be in possession of 30 square inches of lightly starched pure linen). Or, if you leaf through enough second-hand books, you might discover a yellowing bookplate showing the provenance of a tome, inscribed with the devotions of the gift giver on the occasion of a long-ago birthday. Written decades or centuries earlier, you can imagine young faces lighting up at illustrations in a worn picture book, or editors tut-tutting as they discover the now-famous typos in a rare first edition.
I was lucky enough to work on a project with an antiquarian bookdealer some years ago, and I heard some incredible stories of selling and buying books across the course of a very long lifetime. Often the stories weren’t of the books, but the people who collected them; their quirks and foibles were endlessly fascinating. Sometimes, remnants of the owners remain with the books. Folded love notes and recipes fall from between pages, or just occasionally, a telegram, a photograph or a postcard whisks you back to another place and time.
Antiquarian bookshops can be maps and pathways to the past. They are the ultimate story starter. And so, when it came to finding a setting for my elderly protagonist, the joyful and mischievous Phyllida Banks who has always been interested in exploring the mystical and physical aspects of the world around her, what better setting than a dusty old bookshop in a tiny village, filled with beautiful gardens and an odd array of neighbours? There is something about village living and bookshops that seems to go hand in hand. And as it happens, I am lucky enough to live in one of Australia’s most beautiful villages in the New South Wales Southern Highlands, just down the road from an antiquarian bookshop.
When it came to actually writing this mystery – spanning fifty years, two antiquarian bookshops, and two very different villages on opposite sides of the world – I had to take account of my exceedingly low boredom threshold. I find it hard to dwell on one thing for too long, so I amuse myself by writing multiple narrators. That way, as a writer, I can alternate – between young and old, male and female, admirable and despicable – without getting bored. It offers you, as reader, the opportunity to keep the pages turning quickly, which (I hope) keeps you immersed in the story. Plus, I like to write suspense and mystery, so in this instance I was able to ponder the dark secrets that lurk in quiet spaces between shadowy shelves, worn timber countertops and squishy leather armchairs inside beautiful bookshops.
This is the story of Phyllida Banks and the burden of her secrets. Ultimately, it’s the story of her survival, but it is also about her granddaughter, Lottie, a university dropout who is left to grapple with the fallout of her grandmother’s inexplicable actions in a village that is far too quiet for her, and where people know too much about each other. She craves the anonymity she enjoyed in the city while understanding that something about this small village and its dark past will help her face her own uncertain future. The Bookshop of Buried Pasts is an exploration of family and how far we will go to protect our hearts and those of the people we cherish. It’s about flawed people, and difficult choices; about love and hope. It’s about the old, the worn, the parts of ourselves we are forced to leave behind. And it’s about renewal. But most of all, it’s a rollicking good mystery. I hope you enjoy it.
Love,
Sarah
The Bookshop of Buried Pasts by Sarah Clutton releases 28 April.
The Bookshop of Buried Pasts
by Sarah Clutton
Secrets, humour, love and mystery abound in this uplifting novel from the bestselling author of The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains.
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