In conversation with Hannah Regel

“The book is so much about doubt, self-identity, and how you perceive yourself…”

 - Hannah Regel

Hannah Regel

Poet and novelist Hannah Regel’s debut novel, The Last Sane Woman, is a compelling exploration of the emotional lives of two aspiring artists living at different times, yet connected by the discovery of a box of letters in a forgotten feminist archive. It is an assured study of friendship, success, envy, and what it means to be an artist.

FLO contributor Ellen Hodgetts sat down with Hannah to find out more about her creative process and some of the influences behind the novel.

This is your debut novel after writing two poetry collections (When I was Alive and Oliver Reed).How did this change the way you approached the work?

It happened quite naturally. Initially it was more poetic and experimental in its form, I worked on it very slowly and it just grew and grew. As I spent more time on it, it started to become more novelistic in terms of the character development and plot but that was almost an accident. It started off as unconnected fragments and it slowly got knitted together.

What led you to focus on ceramics as the main form of art in the novel?

Aside from how rich ceramics and pottery can be metaphorically – clay comes from the earth and it has to undergo this process with the hands and then it’s fired to become permanent – if you’re thinking about history and archives as well it lends itself quite happily to that. The book is so much about doubt, self-identity, and how you perceive yourself, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find another art form whose status is so contested in terms of whether it’s fine art or functional.

You also have a background in art. How did your own experiences feed into the characters and world you created?

I went to art school, so I’ve made pots, but I was already writing at the same time. I never tried to make a career as an artist. I have worked with clay in the past, but I think that to an extent all art forms have the same set of struggles.

When I was describing some of the emotions Donna goes through it’s completely the same with writing. You have to sit there and generate it from inside of you, it doesn’t come from anywhere else – you have to be bizarrely overconfident and at the same time it’s very humbling.

The perspective shifts between Nicola, Donna and Susan and becomes more fragmented throughout the novel. I’ve seen it compared to Virginia Woolf - were there any particular literary influences that shaped The Last Sane Woman?

I’m thrilled with the Virginia Wolf comparison, I love her a lot. When I was writing The Last Sane Woman, I read a book called Meridian by Alice Walker- it doesn’t seem to be very well known but it’s brilliant, I can’t understand how more people haven’t read it!

It’s about the civil rights movement and it tracks one woman’s life from childhood to death, but it toes the line of incorporating the world of dreams and fantasy into reality really well. Anyone who does that – so Denis Johnson for example – is a big influence. It’s the same in Virginia Woolf’s writing, the world of dreams and fantasies blends into realities.

One difference between Nicola and Donna is that Nicola exists in the online world too. How do you think social media has impacted artists and creators?

I suppose something similar will always have existed in some kind of warped capacity, even before the social media age. But now it feels like you’re on show a bit more, or there’s a pressure to opt into the cult of the personality that runs alongside it. I’m quite a private person, I find it quite frightening – but I also feel myself compelled to do it.

You referred to Nicola as experiencing a ‘crisis of desire’ – could you explain a bit more about what you mean by this and how desire fits into the narrative of the book?

When we meet Nicola at the start of the novel, she doesn’t know what it is she wants. She has an idea of it but she’s so easily influenced by outside forces. Her desires and impulses are in crisis. She talks about wanting to be an artist, but doesn’t really seem to be that invested it in and doesn’t do it either. Then as the book goes along she ends up having this sort of Katy Hessel idea of herself that is also never really realised. She’s quite impressionable, and this element of her personality drives the narrative of the novel – otherwise the archive wouldn’t have such an influence and hold on her.

The Los Angeles Review of Books described the novel as ‘simultaneously comforting and uncanny’. What were you trying to achieve with the uncanny elements?

On some level the uncanniness is sort of a trick – it builds from the connection that Nicola feels to Donna and to the letters in the archive. There are some similarities, they’re from the same place and they tentatively do the same thing, but that’s where it ends. They’re not actually that similar at all and their lives take completely different trajectories.

It’s a delusion and a construct in Nicola’s head, but I wanted the reader to be complicit with her and the impulses she feels towards Donna. She has this impulse to see the body and know how it ends, to pull the curtain down. I really wanted the reader – maybe against their better judgment – to want that too. The uncanniness is a smokescreen to get you on Nicola’s side, and that’s what gives the narrative its forward motion.

Can you tell me a bit more about the friendships in the novel and how you developed these characters?

For a very long time the whole book was just the dynamic between Donna and Nicola and Susan wasn’t really in it at all. Everyone I showed it to or got any feedback from actually said that it was a bit boring! Someone suggested that it needed a third voice to triangulate it and shift the perspective a bit, so then Susan came in. Once I let that happen, it seemed to fall into place a lot more easily. Susan’s voice opened it up, and there was so much room for bringing even more people in. So you have Marcus and Leonie and these people that encounter both Donna and Susan at various different points and bring up feelings of inadequacy or jealousy.

The friendships you have with people you’ve known since you were very young can often have an interesting dynamic. With Donna and Susan they are almost trapped, they can’t let the other be different from how they view them – you’re the creative one, you’re the motherly one. They box each other into these categories and don’t allow the other to have a fully rounded personalities in case it destabilises the dynamic. There’s something quite violent about it. They can’t let each other change and it can get quite constrictive. Susan rolls her eyes a lot and doesn’t take Donna seriously. They’re not very nice to each other a lot of the time!

What else are you working on at the moment and what would you like do next?

I’m trying to write another novel. My dad is Bengali, so it’s sort of about my family, another historical book, but I’m going very slowly at the moment! I also want to get back into writing poems as I got out of the habit and I miss it.

Hannah Regel’s debut novel, The Last Sane Woman, is out now.

Debut London Literature will present the new works of Hannah Regel, Varaidzo, Kaliane Bradley and Tom Lamont, chaired by Barry Pierce at the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival on 23 October. Tickets from £12. southbankcentre.co.uk.

Interview by Ellen Hodgetts