Sally Magnusson has brought readers another exceptional novel of historical fiction. We caught up with her to find out more about her writing and reading.

Music in the Dark
By Sally Magnusson
Published by John Murray

Congratulations Sally on the publication of your latest novel, Music in the Dark. Could you tell us a little bit about what readers should expect from it?

I hope what they’ll enjoy in it is a love story in later life, in which two people hurt by life find healing and joy. And also thatthey’ll discover new things about the role of women in resisting the Highland Clearances – and the cost of that resistance.

Your novels are all set in the past, in different times, in different locations. What is it that draws you to write historical fiction? How do you choose your times and places?

I love stories. I am endlessly fascinated by history. And I’m always drawn to the atmosphere and feel of place.  So when I have a good story – especially one that excavates the experience of women from the vacuum that is the historical record – and a good place to set it, that’s me on my way.

Do you read a lot of historical fiction too? Do you have recommendations of your favourites from this genre?

I do read a lot of historical fiction. I am Hilary Mantel’s number 1 fan. When it comes to The Clearances, Neil Gunn and Iain Crichton Smith are shining beacons from the last generation.

Music in the Dark is set at the time of the Highland Clearances, a significant moment in Scottish history. What did you want to bring to readers in exploring this period?

I wanted readers to feel what it was like to grow up in a Highland township as a talented girl who composed songs and had been well educated in the local parish school as well as being mentored by the Free Kirk minister, Rev Gustavus Aird (a real historical figure who championed the people of Strathcarron). I wanted them to understand the kind of community these townships were, and what it meant to lose it. I wanted to introduce them not just to the appalling violence with which the women of Greenyards were treated by the police in March 1854, but to the aftermath in the years and decades that followed What happened to these women afterwards with their head injuries and their bright dreams crushed? I want readers to think, but above all to feel their way into the minds and hearts of these people – men too – who are only a few generations away from us all. Jamesina’s later life in Glasgow and then Rutherglen, where the novel is set over the course of one night 30 years after the events in Strathcarron, is inspired by the life of my own great-grandmother.

Your main character, Jamesina Ross, is also a writer. Did you feel a kinship in writing a character who wants to bear witness too?

Yes, her love of words is something I identify with, and the way Latin has stayed with her through the decades, as it has done with me, and did too with my mother, who lost a lot when she succumbed to dementia in her later years, but never her Latin. And yes, I wanted Jamesina Ross to be concerned with bearing witness, because that mattered to people then and it matters now, as much as ever.

It is also an intimate story of love found later in life. How do you tackle writing emotional vulnerability?

I feel my way into the character and try to be honest. I’m attracted to ambivalence and nuance – the fact that people can feel one way one day, one hour even, and something different the next. I like characters who can be irritable and grumpy … I identify with them.

What are your favourite love stories in fiction?

Goodness, there are lots.  Sebastian Barry’s Days Without End leaps to mind. I also like love stories that don’t involve romance, like the one between Shuggie Bain and his mother.

What are you looking forward to reading next?

I’ve just finished Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. May need to give myself a laugh with some Dickens next – Birnam Wood has quite an ending.

Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson is published by John Murray, priced £16.99.