Yesterday, I shared my review of Jodie Matthews’ debut novel, Meet Me at the Surface.
Today, we hear from Jodie herself, who wrote this exclusively for the Compendia community.
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The very first piece of writing I did for Meet Me at the Surface was a scene of a girl, on a train, travelling from the north back down to Cornwall, not quite knowing what to expect, fearing that she’d been away for too long. It’s a journey I’d done many times myself, in the ten years I’d lived away from Cornwall, a journey that I couldn’t take, during the time of writing the book, due to my job, money and national lockdowns. Meet Me at the Surface started as a way to write myself home, an ode to the Cornwall I missed and loved. As I kept working on the book, I cut that scene, but kept exploring that same feeling throughout the writing. What does it mean to leave a place that is a part of you, that has shaped you? How does it feel to go back, and find yourself and your home changed?
I believe this is a journey many of us have experienced, whether we have moved counties, countries or just out of our childhood homes. It’s a journey I’m experiencing again now, in a different way, as I move from writing in isolation and writing for myself, into publishing, and having my book read. Publishing a debut novel means publishing not just years of work, but a whole lifetime of interests, fascinations, and obsessions. I’ve heard many debut authors say that they have poured their whole selves into their first book, and I agree, in many ways, Meet Me at the Surface is the most personal thing I have ever written.
This novel is, of course, inspired by more than just my own personal taste (that would probably veer on narcissism, and if it was only that, there would likely be a full chapter dedicated to the TV show Lost). Instead, it’s a story inspired by a place, one that I have steeped in folklore – mostly Cornish, but also generally – and the traditions of storytelling. Growing up in a village on Bodmin Moor, there wasn’t a lot to do, aside from act like a feral child in the countryside, create, and read. When my sisters and I were younger, my mum would read us stories each night. We would either travel into to town to buy a new book or wait for the fortnightly mobile library to visit the village and choose a book, which she would then read to us before bed. As we got older, we would share books, and as the youngest (for the first thirteen years of my life), I would get the book last, devouring a twice read, cracked spined paperback with joy. Having a love of books instilled in me from a young age is what made me a writer, and without the storytellers, teachers, librarians, and booksellers in my life, Meet Me at the Surface would not exist.
During the writing process, I immersed myself in the stories of my childhood and the characters of Cornwall – the Beast of Bodmin, Joan O’ the Wad, the Giant of Carn Galva. I was lucky enough to win a one-year membership to the London Library, based on my novel pitch, and there my research went deeper – beyond family tales and into the cultural importance of folklore in the county. It was with this access that I learnt more about Dozmary Pool – a body of water with many stories related to it, from Jan Tregeagle and his pact with the devil, to King Arthur and Excalibur – and read for the first time about the eels that were believed to live within in. These two things – Dozmary pool and the eels – became the foundation for the folklore that I created for the novel.
Dozmary, apparently meaning ‘drop of sea’, was believed to a bottomless pool, though in reality, it’s about six feet deep. But reality is never as fun, is it? In one story, Dozmary was drained, to see what lived in the water. As the pool lay empty, there was nothing living found, apart from a large bed of eels. This image, along with Patrik Svensson’s non-fiction book The Gospel of the Eels, that I happened to be reading at the time, took the novel in a whole new direction, and helped me to create the uncanny feel throughout.
The Bodmin Moor I have written about in my novel is different to the real one, which is a lovely, sometimes stark place, covering sixty miles. Dotted with gorse, few trees and many wonderful pubs, the real Bodmin Moor is a beautiful place to visit. In Meet Me at the Surface, I have created my own folklore, condensing the moor, bringing landscapes closer together and making superstitions into law. I chose to create my own folklore, rather than write a retelling, as Meet Me At The Surface is, at its heart, a story of discovery. By avoiding a tale that people may already know, I placed the reader in the same position as Merryn, our protagonist – unaware of what will happen, what to believe, and what is true.