Perspective: Coffee with Clare Houston on her debut novel ‘An Unquiet Place’

When a friend suddenly becomes a published author with Penguin Random House you have to sit up and take notice.

Many of our readers will remember Clare Houston who lived in Salt Rock for five years, while she and her husband Peter led All Souls Anglican church.

They now live up the road in Kloof.

Her debut novel ‘An Unquiet Place’ is set in a small, fictional town, much like Clarens.

Hannah Harrison, a young woman from Cape Town looking to escape her past, takes up a position at a second-hand book shop.

She stumbles on a concentration camp journal from the South African War in a dusty box of old stock.

Poring over the journal she is introduced to the author, Rachel Badenhorst, a young girl separated from her family who perhaps possesses the courage that Hannah lacks. This is a poignant tale of self discovery, trauma, healing and love that delves bravely into parts of our history that many would rather forget.

Now, apparently publishing a first novel is no small feat. I called Clare up to chat about the process.

Q: What is the most difficult part of writing a novel?

A: Definitely finding a publisher. The odds are not in your favour. You send the manuscript out and then you wait. It sits on someone’s desk and you wonder if it will even get read. I got so used to rejections.

Q: How long did ‘An Unquiet Place’ take to write and publish?

A: The story took only four months to write, then a year to sell and a year in production – that was the really exciting part. The editing process was very collaborative, you get so much input. I thought I knew grammar!

Q: How did your faith influence your writing? 

A: In a big way and on two levels. Firstly in the writing process, landing a publisher. When I say it was miraculous it really was! The story itself also lent itself to the supernatural but I won’t give too much away.

Q: Tell me about the writing process. How did you create characters with such depth?

A: I was learning to write as I wrote, going online to research writing techniques as I went. Each character has a backstory with minute details about their lives. There are details about them that aren’t even in the book. To me they became real.

Q: I understand that part of the novel is based on on historical record?

A: The story is fictional but it easily could have happened, because it did happen. I spoke at length to an archaeologist who is yet to publish his own findings on the Boer War concentration camps. So little is known about them but the research is showing that it was not just the Boers who were imprisoned. Black people suffered too. About 26 000 Boers were incarcerated and possibly three times as many black people. The level of suffering experienced by these people has received very little air-time.

Rachel was a character born out of the research. I first saw ‘her’ in photographs and I was captivated by her story.

Q: Has the reception to the novel surprised you?

A: I wrote ‘An Unquiet Place’ in the genre of commercial women’s fiction because there are not many South African writers catering to this specific niche, so I was quite surprised to hear that many men have been enjoying it. Possibly because of the historical element.

Q: But this isn’t your first story to get noticed. Your first children’s book, The Magic Bat, was the winner of the Maskew Miller Longman 2017 Literature Award for English fiction?

A: Yes, that was quite a surprise. I wrote it quickly, for the competition. It is written for the classroom for children age 10. I hope it gets picked up by schools and used for that purpose.

Q: So what’s next? Another novel?

A: I sent one to Penguin Random House to be reviewed by their readers and the comments back were quite harsh. So I’ve shelved that one for a little while to think on it. But I am definitely going to keep writing.

What I love about Clare’s story is that she is so normal and yet she possess this creative spark for genius that I believe we all possess in some form or fashion.

But to discover it she had to believe in her story.

If she had not had the courage to put pen to paper and give it a go, and then to face the mountain of rejections, pressing on until she found someone who was willing to take a chance on her, then she would never have known and the world would be poorer for it.

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