Karen Swan on Quick Reads and the escapism of reading
7 min read
With six authors publishing abridged books or short stories for the Quick Reads 2024 programme, novelist Karen Swan explains why escapism through reading is so important
Publishing on April 11, 2024, The Reading Agency has announced that six best-selling authors will champion Quick Reads for 2024: Karen Swan, Kia Abdullah, Malorie Blackman, Matt Cain, Kit de Waal and Jo Nesbo. A mix of original and specially abridged titles, there really is something for everyone. Quick Reads helps engage the one in three adults who do not regularly read for pleasure and the one in six adults who find reading difficult.
Karen Swan's abridged book The Last Summer (Pan Macmillan) is an epic historical romance set in the untamed beauty of the island of St Kilda in 1930s high society. We talked to Karen Swan to ask why Quick Reads is so important and why she chose an abridged version of the first book from her Wild Isle series for this year's programme.
Why
does Quick Reads and the UK’s adult literacy crisis mean so much to you? Do you
think not reading for pleasure means you miss out on so much emotion and
exploration?
I think
any writer, before they become a writer is first a reader—you come to it
through being a consumer of content yourself. When I look back on my childhood,
I spent a huge amount of time in my local library. What I always loved was just
that emotional connection of being able to disappear into a story, and not
really have to think about it. You could just be, and that was what I loved. Now
that I write, I sort of get to live in books, which is wonderful. Whenever I'm
getting stuck, I just think, as a reader, what would I want to happen right
now? I sort of come back at it as a reader rather than as a writer.
I just
think that books can give you an escape from your everyday life. So, I do have
a lot of readers, for example, who have cancer. And they find my books, because
they're sitting in the chemotherapy chair for five or six hours in a day. And
I've written a lot of books. If they pick up one of my books and they then see
they've got 24 others to go, they often love it. And it's not because I'm the
best writer in the world. But what I am able to do is give them escape from
that moment that they're in, sitting in that chair, with a grim reality of
having to have this put in your body. I can take them away from that just for a
few hours. And so that's one example of being able to escape, just to be a
different character, to travel through different identities. And I think that's
so important to just walk in those shoes for a while.
"I have a lot of readers with cancer and I can take them away from that reality for a few hours"
That's why
I think it really matters, that books should be accessible to everyone,
regardless of where they've come from, where they're going to, and what's going
on in their life. I think it’s part of the human experience—to have that
comfort, feeling of escape and a new perspective. I think that what Quick Reads
is doing is really introducing that to people for whom maybe books have been
seen as a privilege, a luxury or just not for them—they don't consider
themselves to be a reader.
Do you find it interesting how technology has changed
for people to read?
There's no
time for some people to read these days. The way we consume content has
changed. Of course, now people can have audiobooks. The other day I saw this
thing on social media talking about the trend of silent walking, as like a
wellness thing. And of course, I realise that for them, for this younger generation,
they're permanently walking around with their Airpods in. They don't know what
it is to just walk out of the house and go for a walk for the sake of going for
a walk. They have to have content.
But it’s wonderful
because people are able to walk around listening to books. If you want to
listen to a book, you know, because you're too busy and you're tired when you
come in for work, then that’s fine. Listen to the book on the train, as you go
into work. I think that the way we can access books is multifaceted. Now we can
read digitally too. I'm still old school and I want an actual book in my hand.
Why did
you choose The Last Summer as the book to be included in this
life-changing scheme? It’s an abridged version of your first book in the Wild
Isle series from 2022?
It’s a
very abridged version. The original book is about 110,000 words. Actually, my
publishers commissioned a special editor to abridge it, because having lived in
that world I created, I don't actually think I would be physically capable of
cutting it down. When I was reading the edited version, I wondered how they did
it, because it is a very specific skill, to be able to reduce that much
material down to the core.
I think
that the Wild Isle series is a good one because it is a series. If you
can bring people in, then they are already invested in the characters and in
the world you've created. It's then easier to pick up the next book, and then
the next book, because you've got that way in.
The book is set in 1930 but it feels very modern to me. I probably spent three
or four months researching island life on St Kilda. The heroine of that first book,
The Last Summer, her name is Effie Gillies, is very much a tomboy, she's
a really wild spirit. They’re an isolated island community so she doesn’t care
about manners and the rigid class structure that's found on the mainland. I
think she’s an accessible heroine.
Have
you experienced the difference that Quick Reads £1 books going into libraries, care
homes, homelessness centres, colleges, prisons, trade unions and hospitals make
to people’s lives?
When I'm
writing, I've not got one person in mind that I'm thinking about, but people
say to me, “who is your reader?” Everyone! Yes, it’s largely women, but I do
have men reading my books, and they're always slightly surprised that they
enjoy them. That slightly irks me that the way the books are packaged. When you
talk to people, almost invariably the biggest and most important stories are
about love.
I think
that what I'm particularly pleased about with Quick Reads, is it is going
across the board. It’s going into care homes, so there will be people for whom
the 1930s is recognisable. There will be people in hospitals, in prisons or
women's shelters, or who just have never had these sorts of experiences that
I'm writing about in my books, but I can bring that to them.
"I'm pleased that Quick Reads is going into care homes, hospitals, prisons and women's shelters "
I think
what's so exciting about this initiative is that I'm going to be reaching
people who would not ordinarily think, I'm going to read a Karen Swan book.
In a very short space of time, you're going to get a sense of what it is I'm
trying to do. You might hate it and never pick me up again. Totally fine. Or
you might love it and go read the whole series.
My mum
is a huge fan of yours. Have you had a lot of emails and social media messages
from your readers saying how much your work means to them?
I get a
huge amount of messages on social media and they're very humbling. I really
mean that. I know I'm not going to change the world with my books. But what I
do think I can deliver, and I think I do deliver, is I give people what I call
a three-day mini break. For three days, roughly, people will read my books, and
they're just immersed in it, and they live with those characters. And then they
finish it, they might think about it for a few days, and then they move on to
the next one. And that's brilliant, because that's that has its place in
people's lives, because everyone is busy. And I have had messages that I have
just thought, I can't believe that I was able to make such a positive impact
to you.
One
example is I had a lady write to me, after her daughter had died. I just cannot
begin to imagine it, as a mother myself. And she said, reading this book was
the first time she actually felt hope. I used to get quite a lot of
correspondence from another lady who would contact me on Facebook and we’d chat.
Then her best friend contacted me and told me that this woman had had cancer
and she had died. I didn't know any of that. She lived in Australia. When she
died, how there were certain things in certain lines in my books that her
husband then quoted at her memorial service at the funeral service, because
they had just resonated with her when she was facing very dark times. And that,
to me, just made feel like I wasn’t qualified. With my next book, I dedicated
it to her memory, and I sent it over to her husband and her best friend. It was
all I could really do, but I wanted to sort of give something back because I
was so honoured that I had made some sort of impact on her life.
Have
you been enjoying writing the Wild Isle series? The third book, The
Lost Lover, is out in July?
I am
loving doing the series as an intellectual exercise because carrying a plot
over four books, you've got this prismatic experience of seeing it through four
different characters. Everyone’s got their own truth, their own perspective,
their own experience. So in each book, we come back to circumstances and we see
them from another angle, which changes the story.
"In each book, we come back to circumstances and see them from another angle, which changes the story"
It's
really interesting for me as a writer to do that. But it’s super hard. I'm not
aware that there are any textbooks out there telling writers how to write a
series, you know, so you have to sort of muddle your way through it. And that
leads to a lot of fear, because until I've actually finished it, I don't know
if I can pull the whole thing off. I've written now three out of the four books
in the series. I've just started the last one but I'm very pleased with how
it's gone so far. But trying to draw everything together with the last one, it could
fall flat on its face. It keeps me awake at night thinking, can I actually
do this? but I just have to trust in it.
The Last Summer (Pan Macmillan) and the other books for the Quick Reads 2024 programme are published April 11
The Lost Lover (Pan Macmillan) is available July 18
The Lost Lover (Pan Macmillan) is available July 18
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