Gail Schimmel recently chatted to Radio Today’s Sue Grant-Marshall about her fourth novel, The Accident.

The author of Marriage Vows (2008), Whatever Happened to the Cowley Twins? (2013) and The Park (2017), still calls her writing a ‘side gig’.

‘The Accident happened while I was in the bath,’ Schimmel tells Grant-Marshall of how the story emerged.

She says she’s ‘lucky’ not to have a creative day job (she’s a lawyer by profession). ‘I think the more creative your day job is, the harder it is to have a creative hobby.’

The Accident tells the story of a mother, Catherine, and her adult daughter, Julia, who are both living in the shadow of a car accident which happened when Julia was a child. ‘The Accident was a terrible accident,’ Schimmel says, ‘it emerges through the book and she (Julia) is very scarred by it.’ That doesn’t stop her from having an affair with her good friend’s husband.

Schimmel explains why she writes: ‘I don’t do it for the money – I don’t make any. I don’t do it for the fame – I’m not famous. I can’t not do it. I have a need to tell stories and the stories need to come out. Maybe if I kept them in I’d be locked up in Sterkfontein because the voices would be carrying on in my head. Maybe I need to let them out.’

Listen to the conversation:

• Read an excerpt from The Accident here
• Watch the book trailer
• Read an exclusive interview with Gail Schimmel

 

 

Categories Fiction South Africa

Tags Gail Schimmel Interviews Pan Macmillan SA Podcast Podcasts Reading Matters Sue Grant-Marshall The Accident