Tracy Chevalier was in Edinburgh today to launch her new novel A Single Thread. Her Book Festival event was chaired by Clare Hunter, author of Threads of Life, and while the discussion naturally looped back often to embroidery - the book's main character Violet Speedwell is one of the 'broderers' of Winchester Cathedral - it covered much else besides, and the audience spent a happy hour learning about the writer's craft - in the widest sense.
Asked about the novel's genesis, Tracy explained that she had always been fascinated by cathedrals and knew they would feature in a novel one day. On a visit to Winchester she discovered all the stories and associations for which its cathedral is best known, but then she came upon a display of ecclesiastical embroidery done by a group of volunteers between 1931 and 1936, and she realised she had her subject. Something about the seat cushions, kneelers and alms bags - made under the guiding hand of Louisa Pesel and all worked in wool on canvas - caught her imagination, and she decided to explore that world through her character Violet, one of the so-called surplus women, those from whom the terrible losses of the First World War had taken all prospect of marriage.
Violet has left an overbearing mother in the family home in Southampton to try to make an independent life for herself. Working as a typist in an insurance office in Winchester, she lives in a boarding house, ekes out her meagre income, and is uncomfortably aware of the condescension and judgement - express or implied - to which the single woman is constantly subject. She comes upon the work of the broderers and on impulse she joins the group, learning the stitches from scratch, making friends, finding in her new interest an absorbing occupation and in the cathedral itself a place of refuge.
On the therapeutic aspects of needlework, Tracy spoke of her association with the charity Fine Cell Work and the ways in which stitching benefits the prisoners who take part in the scheme. As Miss Pesel says in the book, "When there is an upset, there is nothing like needlework to bring calm and focus," but in common with the fictional Violet, the inmates also find a sense of achievement, of having made their mark in the world through colour and texture and the creation of something beautiful and lasting: every good reason to pick up a needle. Asked whether anyone could learn how to stitch, while in the novel the skilful broderers prize evenness, Tracy spoke to the craft's inclusivity, making the point that it is often the very irregularity - the obvious handmade-ness - of handwork which gives it its character.
I'll cover what Tracy had to say about her writing process in another post, but for now I'd urge you to get hold of a copy of A Single Thread (officially released on 5th. September) and hope you will enjoy the story of Violet, the embroiderers, and Winchester Cathedral as much as I did.
