We recently caught up with January PREM1ER author, Lucy Rose, to ask our burning questions about her chilling and captivating debut, The Lamb.
When did you first have the idea for The Lamb?
A couple of years ago! Recently, I was digging through my desk and found a scrap piece of paper where I wrote the first pieces of the idea. I always knew the story was about a mother and a daughter, and I always knew they were cannibals. Over the last few years, I got to shape them and explore their world (and I did so with lots of distinctly vegetarian desk snacks).
Margot is a compelling protagonist – can you tell us more about her?
I loved writing Margot. The thing I love the most about the perspective of a child is that it allows you to be a little bit more blunt and honest - because children aren’t quiet about their feelings unless they’re conditioned to be that way. Margot is unrelentingly fierce and she too often says what she thinks. And if she doesn’t say it, you can see it written on her face. I think that inherently creates a lot of conflict for her. She’s always finding herself in little pockets of trouble and that’s why she was so exciting to write.
The novel is very much rooted in the Cumbrian landscape. How important was it to reflect this landscape in your work?
Cumbria, as a space, is so fascinating to me. I spent much of my childhood there in a rural space outside Carlisle. There was no public transport (except for the school buses) so it felt very trapping. And as I grew up and learned more about its incredibly bloodthirsty, folkloric, rich history, I fell even more in love. It’s a unique place - unlike anywhere else in the UK (in my opinion - though I am biased). Being at the border, it's a place of near-constant political conflict, fought over and colonised not just by the Anglos and Celts, but also by the Romans and the Norse. And still, thousands of years later, the impact that has had on Cumbria’s culture, language and dialect is felt even now.
The book takes place largely in a run-down cottage nestled in the woods. The echoes of folk stories and fairytales are everywhere in the novel. Why so?
I’ve always loved folktales. Humans are about 200,000 years old and of all the things that have stayed with us as we’ve evolved, oral storytelling and folktales have never seemed to lose their power. They’re messages and warnings from our past and I find that comforting to know - that the one thing passed down from human to human is a message to say ‘hey you, be safe, okay?’. It makes me feel very loved.
This is your first novel after years of making films. Why did you want to tell this story in this medium? What is it about the novel form that interested you?
I love films, but I’ve always loved books too and I’ve spent a long time looking for the perfect story to tell in this format. As much as I adore the collaborative nature of filmmaking, I love the immediate intimacy I feel writing for novels and I welcome the isolation of the process. With novels, I can be unapologetically myself, whereas, when you make films, your job is to let everyone’s voice come through - whether that’s the cinematographer or the production designer or costume, it’s about finding what makes their voices distinct and working hard to cook it into something that all tastes good together.
The Lamb takes a unique approach to writing female desire, rage and appetite. Is this important to you? What was going on in our world when you wrote the book?
I don’t think I realised it so overtly while I was putting together the first draft, but especially as I broached my second and third draft, I started to peel back these layers of women’s relationship to capitalism and how we consume. And that’s not just general consumerism of products, but also food and desire. Our relationship with these very animal, natural things has steadily become more eroded. Maybe I was looking for catharsis. Somewhere I could escape into where these women could gnaw and chew and swallow as much as they wanted in complete abandon - because that’s not real life. I’ve felt for a very long time a steady drag backwards, away from progress, and I think all that anxiety I felt about what is happening to women (and other marginalised communities) went into The Lamb.
Is there anything that changed in the editorial process?
(Vague spoilers ahead for this one guys). Since the beginning of the process, I worked closely with my agents and co-agents, and then of course with my editors, to get the novel right - the thing that’s changed the most is probably the ending. It was originally a lot more gory and dramatic, but we pulled it back to make the moments feel tighter and more singular. More focused. It was a really exciting experience to try packaging the ending in different ways until we got it right. By the end of the process, it was clear that I wanted to make sure the ending was true to Margot - I wanted to give her a sense of immortality in a way and the best way I could do that was to look to the folktales.
Who influences you? Were there any books, films or music which inspired the way you wrote The Lamb?
Badlands by Terrence Malick was a huge inspiration to me. There’s such a sense of unease crawling closer and closer as the film goes on and yet, at the same time, this sense of folklore. Shirley by Josephine Decker for similar reasons. But I also devoured Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Celine Sciamma too. I’m a horror girlie, but I love a story with romance and infatuation right at the centre. Obsessive relationships really interest me. In books, I was reading a lot of Kirsty Logan, Max Porter and Shirley Jackson. I also devoured How Saints Die by Carmen Marcus and The Island Child by Molly Aitken multiple times. And I have various playlists, some of them are score and some of them are folk, but my favourite to listen to by far is this one: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0wLqtGifRJf40cD5NqMvzf?si=7e064b80b074463f
When and where do you read?
On my commute to work! It’s the only time I get, but sometimes, if I have a quiet weekend, I love to have a cheeky lie-in and read in bed with a cup of tea while I give cuddles to the cat.
Why do you think there is such a surge in interest in horror?
I could write a book about this. Horror is a genre for the highly empathetic (which is something I think a lot of people who misunderstand horror don’t recognise). But horror has always been popular, especially in marginalised communities. There’s something about being able to safely experience anxiety and trauma in such a controlled environment that is beyond therapeutic. I think it’s coming out of the margins at the moment because we’re living through times of deeply concerning political change and people are frightened. And if there’s a space where they can explore those fears through a medium which is highly expressive and metaphorical - that seems like a healthy way to process and explore those feelings. I love horror. It’s a genre that has helped me survive many difficult moments, and no doubt, many others too.
How do you feel about being chosen as a Goldsboro Premier book of the month pick and about the special edition?
ECSTATIC. It’s honestly difficult to find the right words to articulate just how excited and humbled I feel. So many of my favourite novels have had utterly beautiful Goldsboro editions, which I’ve collected for my own personal library. I hope people love this beautiful meaty edition just as much as I do. To me, it’s such a perfect marriage of my UK edition, my US edition and of course, my lovely limited edition meaty proof. I can’t wait to hold one in my hands.
What do you want people to take away from The Lamb?
I want people to come away feeling courage. I want people to know that it’s important, now more than ever, to stand up for what is right and fair even if it’s a difficult decision to make (which is something we are all having to do more and more these days). That is ultimately the choice that Margot has to make. Above all else, she must be brave.
What are you working on next?
I’m working on a new story at the moment. I’m still very much at the stage where I’m learning what it is, but I know that it is coastal, I know that it will still have that folktale feel about it and I know for certain that it will continue to probe compulsive and obsessive relationships, and what desire looks like in the human body.
