A Canny Knight in the Ali-way: Alison Knight Captivates - Saturday, 31 August 2019
Reflection by Paul Karp
Visit Paul Karp's Poetry Website at:
Alison's presentation began with a brief description of life growing up in 1960's Manchester. She later wove some of these experiences into her novels.
Her own writing history began with a short story her mother kept for
her; a version of Cinderella with a jelly and trifle food fight.
While her English classes at primary school lacked creativity, she wrote a book called 'The Dinner Time
Kids'. Drama class opened her
eyes. Drama classes opened her eyes. Her first playwriting venture was inspired by 'Arsenic and Old Lace'.
After her undergraduate degree at Birmingham University, she went to Manchester university where she read everything by and about the author Henry James for her Master of Arts research thesis. She taught at high school before
migrating to Melbourne with her Australian husband in 1983.
Her writing lapsed until her children attended high school when she
joined local theatre group, Peridot Theatre. Her early plays were of older people
behaving badly, staged in suburban and regional theatres. She wrote
short stories. After reading them, her older son told her, 'I'd really like to read a novel written by my mother.'
Though resisting genre pigeonholing Alison accepts that her writing
most closely accords to the Crime genre. She was surprised though when a
thirty-something aged editor described her writing as 'Historical
Fiction'.
Alison observed that a third of all books sold are crime novels. She offered several explanations for their popularity. They satisfy '...our need for a moral and narrative conclusion,' and they '...examine race and gender social issues'. Alison also quoted Australian crime novelist Mark Brandi, '...reading crime is a safe thrill...a unique insight into the desires (and depravities) of those dwelling in the shadows'.
Alison attributes 'shades of grey' to her characters. ‘No-one is irredeemably bad'.
Alison took the title of her 2015 novel 'Peter Stone' from a place
called 'Peter's Stone' in Derbyshire near Manchester.
It has a gruesome history, where a murderer's dead body was suspended in a cage for all to see. She gave the name 'Peter Stone' to a nice guy who worked in a nursing home but who harboured dark secrets and exhibited an obsession about white linen.
It has a gruesome history, where a murderer's dead body was suspended in a cage for all to see. She gave the name 'Peter Stone' to a nice guy who worked in a nursing home but who harboured dark secrets and exhibited an obsession about white linen.
Alison described the novel as being about
'how people deal with the legacy of past deeds'.
An example is from a news story she recalled from her childhood about ten year old Mary Bell, jailed for 13 years for murdering two little boys. Years later the press resurrected the story and came to her door. Mary's 16 year old daughter had no knowledge of her mother's past.
In a similar vein, Peter Stone discovered his mother had committed an atrocity.
Alison described how she incorporated several plot threads into her novel, set in different times and places, from different points of view.
Alison read an excerpt of Peter Stone that showcased her imaginative narrative and deftly observed character traits.
Alison described her second novel 'The Close' as 'being deeply rooted in
the 1960s - a childhood Gothic reinvention of games played by children
and stories told by adults'. Craters in the top field across the road
from her leafy suburban Manchester childhood
home were attributed by her mother to World War Two bombings, but
Alison discovered they were coal mine entrances.
The kitchen of her childhood home had a trapdoor over a hazardously waterlogged two metre deep shaft. A boy's nearby home underground den reputedly housed
'incurables that came up and scared you'.
 | |
| Miners on a half mile trek to the coal face at one of the Manchester Collieries pits. December 1937. (c) Mirrorpix |
The kitchen of her childhood home had a trapdoor over a hazardously waterlogged two metre deep shaft. A boy's nearby home underground den reputedly housed
'incurables that came up and scared you'.
Alison described elements of the novel that explored secrets such adultery, murder and domestic violence. Examples were the shunned 25 year old woman about to bear her fifth child, and the eight year old main character Valerie who spied her reclusive neighbour, Mr Oliver, holding a woman's severed head.
Alison read an excerpt from the novel that followed the acrimonious musings of Mr Oliver as he shovelled snow in his backyard.
'The Undiscovered Room and Other Stories' is Alison's collection of
mainly thousand word long stories, some about crime, others about
'people in extreme situations under duress'.
A visit to HM Prison Beechworth (closed 2004, re-opening in 2005 as Beechworth Correctional Centre in Victoria Australia) inspired one story 'Me Big Day', based on Elizabeth Scott who was the first woman hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol after killing her husband. She was married off by her mother at 13 to a 35 year-old man, dragged off to the goldfields where she suffered miscarriages while her husband drank away their earnings.
Her final 'Big Day' of her execution was a strange pinnacle in her tragic life, the only time she'd been the centre of attention. It was her day.
Another story of Alison's was 'Anna By Lamplight', inspired by the Victorian era film 'Gaslight' but set in Berlin 1938 two days after Kristallnacht, the devastating destruction of Jewish shops and places of worship throughout the city of Berlin.
Alison impressed and engaged us, giving insights into her writing routine - 1000 words a day after solving a sudoku.
Alison has self-published her books on Amazon.
See for yourself by visiting Alison's online platforms:
https://alisonknightauthor.com/author/alialight88/
https://www.facebook.com/pg/alialight88/posts/
Bookings have now opened for the following theatre productions Alison has written for or helped prepare for public showing:
The Monash One Act Play Festival
(October 4-6 2019)
http://www.peridot.com.au/index.php/2-uncategorised/39-monash-one-act-play-festival
&
'Stage Kiss' by Sarah Ruhl
(November 15-30 2019)
http://www.peridot.com.au/index.php/2-uncategorised/47-season-12
Legends of the Skies Theatre Inc. presents LOTS: Series Seven:
https://www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=533461
Alison,
Mentone Public Library
thanks you for a truly enthralling
and historically engaging morning.
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