‘This is a masterclass in the show don’t tell school of writing’ … Pam Reader, Book Club Host of The Walk Cafe, Nottingham read more

Click here for the questions as a .pdf for printing .

Here are a few points which might provide interesting discussion triggers for book groups reading The Devil’s Music. Some of these questions have already been asked by various readers when chatting to me about the book. If there are any further questions about the book or the writing process you would like to ask, please don’t hesitate to get in touch through the contacts page.

1. ‘I don’t have any enchanted knots in the cupboard under the stairs. It’s dark. I don’t have any string to tie even a Reef Knot. Left over right, right over left and under, his fingers on my fingers, Grampy tells me the Reef Knot is one of the simplest and best of the uniting knots.’ (p28)

Almost on its last redraft, the novel’s title was changed from Left Over Right and Under to The Devil’s Music. Which title do you prefer and why?

2. Three narrative strands run throughout The Devil’s Music – Andy, the child’s, Andrew, the man’s and Helen, his mother’s, viewpoint. Did you find the voices in each strand were different? If so, in what ways were they distinct from each other? Did you find one point of view more engaging than the others? If so, why?

3. Each chapter of the novel is headed with one of three knots.

The names and descriptions of these knots can be found in the glossary of knots at the beginning of the novel. Why do you think the characters are represented with knots, rather than using their names as chapter headings? In what ways, for you, do you the knots symbolise certain qualities of the characters they represent?

4. Andrew’s viewpoint was the most complicated of the three to write. What could be the reason – because he is an adult man? Why might it have been a challenge to get inside his head?

5. Much of the story is set in late 1950s/early60s. What does this choice of era bring to the novel? The novel does not follow a traditional linear progression but shifts in time between the late 50s/early 60s and the 90s. Why do you think this approach was chosen to write a story which stretches over a time span of forty years? Are there any ‘clues’ in the writing which guide the reader through the switches in time?

6. In what ways do you think the form and structure/shape of the novel echo its content and subject matter?

7. ‘She soon learned it was easier not to tell people, easier not to feel their incredulity, their cooling towards her.’ (p305)

Did you feel sympathetic towards Helen as a character? Did you feel Helen was a good, or a bad mother? Did you feel she was wrong to make the decision she did, or was it rather that she had little choice?

8. Andrew and Sarah live unconventional lives. Are they missing something, searching for something, or are they being true to themselves?

9. What kind of man is Michael? Andy and Helen have a difficult relationship with him, but how does the novel portray him – as a domineering man? Or are there any scenes or revelations which soften his character? Did you find him sympathetic?

10. How important is the landscape, particularly the seascape, in the novel? What, if anything, did the descriptive detail add to your experience as a reader?

11. ‘(…) I’m comfortable and not sleepy yet so I experiment with a beginning. “Many years ago there was a small boy who loved this beach—”, and my memory of that terrible day becomes the story of Elaine.’ (p175)

What does the novel suggest about the influence and fallibility of memory? How significant is the past to Andrew’s character? Why do you think both past memories and present events are written in the present tense? What effects does the tense of the narrative have on you as a reader?

12. ‘You are empty, brittle as a shell, the blood in your ears the sea’s ghost. The clock ticks; your lungs rise and fall.’

For a writer there are pros and cons of the use of each point of view – first, second or third person. In this novel, the mother’s story is told almost entirely in the second person (you). Why do you think this point of view was chosen? What was its effect on you as a reader? What are the possible reasons for switching to third person (he/she) in the postscript?

13. At the beginning of the writing process the details of the novel’s ending were unclear to me. It was important that Andrew would be ‘alright’, that his passion for knots was the thing that would ‘save’ him. The ending didn’t evolve until almost two thirds of the novel was written and the postscript itself took a great deal of reworking. Did you find it satisfying, or not? Where there questions left unanswered?

BUY The Devil’s Music direct from Bloomsbury online for only £4.95 here