Closer than we think

It’s only been out a few weeks but The Paper Bracelet is one of my 2020 reads already. Inspired by real events, Rachael English’s new novel recounts the efforts of a former nurse who worked in a mother and baby home, reuniting mothers with the babies they were forced to relinquish decades ago. Katie has kept a box of paper bracelets, delicate reminders of a not too distant time where things were very different. Aided by niece Beth, Katie meets a host of people who each have different reasons for meeting with their birth mothers. It’s emotional stuff, but beautifully written, and a novel that Rachael very much enjoyed writing.

“Because I’d written a book about a similar theme before [she published The American Girl in 2017, recounting the story of a young woman sent to Ireland to give birth in a mother and baby home], and I found that after that came out and when people asked me about it, I was taken aback by the amount of people who then told you another story, ‘That reminds me of my aunt because we never knew that she had a child,’ for example,” says Rachael.

“I was just amazed by how many people had a story. I remember being out one night and there was a table of people and nearly everybody had someone in their family or someone they worked with who identified… there were so many stories. The interest in the subject stayed with me the whole time.

“I went away and wrote another book, and then I wrote 15,000 words of another book, the interest was there the whole time. I kept coming up with bits and pieces and then when this one arrived, I felt, ‘I have to write that.’

“There’s been a couple of reports over the past couple of years. It’s very hard to explain that it’s so recent in one way. I know for anybody, especially anybody under 30, a lot of this stuff must seem like ancient history but it’s not, it’s all around us. It has only been in very recent times that people have started to open up about what happened and to realise and to acknowledge that there were a lot of women, a lot of children and indeed, a lot of men who were given no say, a lot of people who were treated very badly. And for what? To what purpose? None, none at all.”

We talk about the idea came from – a woman who got in touch with a similar story as to what Rachael had written in The American Girl – and just how widespread the practise of separating mothers and babies was.

“You’re talking about tens of thousands of families and yet, until relatively recently it was something we hardly spoke about at all,” says Rachael.

How will fiction in 2050 judge current events, I wonder.

“What is there that we accept as perfectly normal and it’s just the way the world works and in years to come, we’ll look back and think, ‘Why did we accept that? Why did nobody say that was a crazy way to carry on?’”

One of the hardiest characters in The Paper Bracelet is Ailish, who has had her share of knocks – perhaps it’s no wonder that she’s Rachael’s favourite.

“I wanted to write about somebody who, so much has gone against her and she keeps on rolling along,” she explains. “And then the notion that really good things could happen, that she could get what she deserves, that her persistence pays off. Other people make fun of her and belittle her but she’s a character who’d been in my head for a while. I just thought, ‘Yes, this is the book for Ailish.’

“If I walked down the street now and I saw Ailish, I wouldn’t be surprised. I know her.”

This leads nicely to plotting characters when writing and Rachael’s tip of taking your characters out and about is brilliant.

“I read a thing a few years ago and it really stuck with me as being true. You do have to imagine taking your character for a walk. You got for a cup of coffee and you have to try and imagine that they’re with you. What sort of coffee would they order? What would they do in the café? Would they want to talk or want to be on their own? I do think that works because they do become real for you.”

We spoke to Rachael a few weeks ahead of publication and she said nerves were kicking in.

“You always start thinking, ‘Maybe I should have done this or this,’ but it’s too late. Nobody is every totally behind because you’re always thinking how you could improve it. But in a way, because this is the second time that I’ve written about this subject, I suppose I’m more content with it than I am with the first one. Maybe the reason I went back because I felt there was something else I could give it.

You can’t stop yourself from thinking you could have improved it but yeah, at the moment, I’m fond of it, I’m very fond of it, I’m fond of the characters. At the moment, sure in a month’s time I might feel completely differently, I might be, ‘Take that book out of my sight!”

The Paper Bracelet by Rachael English (Hachette Ireland) is out now