“Read books you like and take them apart, analyse them, to see how the author managed to do the things that captivated you.” — Claire Fuller

In your book one of the pivotal characters is a survivalist. Survivalism is a topic which has not been explored much, especially in fiction. What made you choose this as one of the central themes?

The theme grew out of a practical requirement. I had Peggy (age eight) and her father, James in a forest, and I wanted them to survive there for a number of years, so I quickly realised that James would need some skills, and the easiest way to do this seemed to be to make him a survivalist. Having said that, extreme survival has always been a fascination for me.

I believe you got the idea about this book from a news story about a Dutch boy, Robin van Helsum, who walked out of a German forest claiming to have survived there with his father, in 2011. What specifically about his story piqued your interest?

Yes, that’s right. Following on from the extreme survival interest, I’ve always been curious about feral children — those children who have been brought up by dogs for example — and although the circumstances around this boy’s disappearance weren’t the same, I was interested to know what had happened to him. He claimed that he’d been living in the forest with his father for five years, and that sparked a few ‘what if’ questions, as well as the one that we all probably ask ourselves — how long could we survive in the forest on our own?

CLAIRE Fuller is a novelist, artist and short fiction writer. Her first novel, Our Endless Numbered Days, won the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction, and was nominated for the Edinburgh First Book Award, longlisted for the Waverton Good Read award, and was a finalist in the American Booksellers Association 2016 Indies Best Book Awards. She is also the recipient of the Royal Academy of Arts and Pin Drop Short Story Award 2016. She is currently working on her second novel, Swimming Lessons, which will be published in January 2017. Following are excerpts of an interview with Fuller:

Lucid descriptions of the landscape and mountains played a pivotal role in making your story emotive. As an artist, do you think your creative sensibilities helped you with your writing?

That’s a hard one to answer because I’ve always made art and in a way writing is an extension of that, so it feels more about who I am rather than one type of art helping another. Readers tell me that they can really ‘see’ the landscape I describe, and when I write I also see it in my mind. But perhaps all writers, even if they’re not artists, see their books in that way.

You ran a marketing agency in the past and used to be a professional sculptor. What made you dabble in writing?

I hadn’t ever planned to be a writer; it was something I didn’t start until I was 40. I had been doing some art projects with my husband, some of which were quite challenging, public performance-based that really took me out of my comfort zone. When we finished doing those I was looking for another challenge, and I came across a short story evening at my local library. Each month anyone could sign up to write a short story and then read it out to a paying audience who then voted on their favourite. I hadn’t done any writing or read anything aloud before, so this certainly was a challenge for me. But I enjoyed it, and after many months I actually won.

Our Endless Numbered Days deftly deals with complex topics like paranoia, confabulation, post-traumatic stress, and dissociation from reality. What research went into it?

In terms of the medical side of the book, I did a lot of mostly online research. I read many medical sites and papers about these issues — the causes, effects, and treatment. And I read a few autobiographies of people who have suffered extreme trauma, taking note of how they coped mentally and physically. I also have a good friend who is a nurse. She isn’t a specialist in this area, but she was able to give me some insights and point me towards other research that was useful.

I read in one of your interviews that it is important for you to have a sense of setting before you work out the plot details. In this case, was it the picturesque mountainside location of Die Hütte which served as the starting point?

It is really important to me to know where my characters are — what space they have to move around in; what objects they are handling; what they can see. When I started Our Endless Numbered Days I began with the middle of the book, with Peggy and James walking towards the cabin they call Die Hütte, and crossing the river, so it was the countryside that came first. The setting of the cabin came shortly after. And then I started writing the chapters set in London, so I got to know the London house very quickly too.

As the writer of a prizewinning debut novel, what would your advice be to budding writers?

Read, read, read. Read books you like and take them apart, analyse them, to see how the author managed to do the things that captivated you. That might be looking at character, structure, writing style, tension, plot, narrative device or any number of things. And then you’re more setup to write the kind of book you like to read.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 17th, 2016