Kate Furnivall: The Girl from Junchow
Book Club Discussion

August 10, 2009. Kate Furnivall talks with Queenie C about her novel,
The Girl from Junchow.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Kate Furnivall

You mention in the book that Chang believed that Communism "was designed to train the human mind to produce a new and improved version of mankind." Can you elaborate a little more on this?

I loved writing the character of Chang An Lo. He is an idealist and it is part of what makes him attractive to Lydia. She is a pragmatist and is astonished by this whole world of ideas he opens up for her.

He believes passionately that the aims of Communism will prove to be the salvation of China where he has seen greed and selfishness bring the country to its knees. He is convinced that when its people are taught a better way of living and thinking through Communism – by force if necessary – they will eventually become a purer human race. There will be no need for the evils of mankind to flourish – no murder, cruelty, robbery or war. People will live in harmony and justice.

Sadly, as we all know, human nature is not so amenable to change! Chang An Lo grows increasingly disillusioned as he sees corruption seizing hold in the Chinese headquarters of his leader, as well as in Stalin’s Russia. But he is also swayed by Lydia’s forceful and independent mind. The juxtaposition of these two very different characters made some scenes a real challenge to write.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Kate Furnivall

Without giving too much of the plot away, I believe that the fiery red hair of Lydia and Dmitri had a significance and might have been used as a foretelling tool for what was to come. Am I correct? If not, why did you describe their hair in such detail and repeatedly?

Lydia grew up knowing that the colour of her hair bound her forever to her red-headed Danish father. I use it as a symbol. Not only of her fiery character but also of this bone-deep connection she has with her father. This is what sends her off on her perilous search for him. She may have been raised by her mother, but it is her father's genes she bears for everyone to see.

In China Lydia's hair made her stand out from the crowd and contributed to her sense of being an outsider in society. So when she meets up with Dmitri Malofeyev in Moscow she cannot help but respond to this tall elegant man, who also carries the stamp of red hair. She is drawn to him, identifies with him, gets involved with him. The colour of their hair is a bond between them and it induces Lydia to trust him more than is wise.

Does it foreshadow what is to come? Yes, that was indeed my intention. Red, with all its connotations of Communism, blood, fire, destruction and renewal, is the colour of Lydia's life.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Kate Furnivall

"He touched her hand, briefest brush of skin, but it was all it took to make her understand. He was like her. Danger made his blood flow faster. What others saw as risk, he saw as enticement. They were the mirror image of each other; two parts of the same whole, and that moment of skin against skin was the drawing together of the splintered pieces." This was beautiful. Do you believe that a brief touch can cause this bond between two people or did you use this for strictly fictional purposes?

I do believe there are moments in our lives when we sense things about people around us. Split seconds of recognition and insight when the barriers come down. At such moments we see parts of ourselves in someone else and say, "Yes, I understand exactly how that person feels." At some profound level there is a connection.

Such incidents are rare as we are all such experts at keeping up our guard. But in this scene Lydia and Chang have already been drawn to each other by what has gone before, the life and death danger they faced together. Already they have been forced to trust each other, something that does not come easily to either of them.

So when their hands touch, it jolts Lydia into a greater understanding of Chang. She sees him not as a stranger, not as a Chinese or a martial arts hero. But as a person like herself. One who is not afraid to take a risk. He lowers his guard and allows her to recognise the bond that they share. It is this that allows her to test him and to request the ultimate of him. She asks him to risk his freedom - even his life - for her.

It is the connections between people that I am drawn to and which I explore in my novels, whether those connections are positive or negative. None of us exist in a vacuum and it is the connections that help us define who we are. So yes, I believe that such moments exist and that they enrich and inform our experience of other people.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Kate Furnivall

Lydia and Chang risked a lot for love. Was it purely for love or was it slightly for their own personal gain? Lydia had a problem with stealing; did this compulsion also make her do things?

In any expression of love, there is an element that is selfish. Lydia and Chang risk everything for each other, including their lives, but at the same time they each have their own agenda: Lydia to find her father, Chang to test the workings of Communism. Their love is an overwhelming passion for both of them, but by helping each other, they are also furthering their own desires. Lydia wants Chang for herself, not for the cause of Communism. And in the same way, Chang endeavours to rid Lydia of her obsessive need to find her father.

Early in the book in an important scene with Antonina, I establish that Lydia is a girl who is impetuous and attracted to the excitement of danger. A compulsion of sorts, you might say. It's true that this leads her into actions that put her at risk, but it is her courage in facing these risks that draws both Chang and the reader to her. Lydia will never be someone who let's life happen to her – she will always want to seize it by the scruff of the neck and shake it into submission.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Kate Furnivall

Why did Antonina have OCD-like compulsions?

Antonina is a difficult character, one who shifts in and out of focus, not easy to pin down. When she married Dmitri Malofeyev years earlier, she loved him. Who wouldn't? He was good looking, intelligent, sophisticated and clearly bound for great things within the Communist Party. She was ambitious and he was clever enough to out-manoeuvre political opponents as he climbed the slippery ladder of the elite.

Blinded by his attractions, what Antonina hadn't realized was that he lacked a moral core. He was corrupt, abusive and controlling. When finally he fell foul of the Party system and was dispatched to Siberia to oversee one of the brutal labour camps, his wife was appalled at the ease with which he became a ruthless camp commandant. Forcing the prisoners to ever greater exertions, dismissive of their suffering, indifferent to their deaths. This realization broke her spirit.

She was ashamed. Of herself. As well as of him. However hard she scrubbed her hands, however raw they became, she could never get herself clean. Nothing was ever enough to remove the stain. Yet she couldn't bring herself to leave this man. She had become attached to him by hooks that he had sunk into the heart of her, and which she was too weak to tear out.

It was when Antonina become involved with Alexei that she gained strength from him, and through him she saw with what freedom of spirit Lydia lived her life. It opened a chink of light for Antonina and enabled her to begin to take control of her obsession. But only Dmitri's death finally freed her from her addiction. I actually became very fond of Antonina when I was writing the book, despite her faults, because at times we all do it, we all build a trap for ourselves. I was determined to offer her a hopeful future.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Kate Furnivall

This is not your first work of historical fiction. How did you decide to create works in this genre? Will you ever work in a different genre?

I have now written three historical books and am working on my fourth. Why historical? I was originally drawn to this genre when I discovered the life-story of my grandmother as a White Russian who fled from the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution is 1917. She and her young daughter fled across Siberia's vast wastelands and down into China. When I heard this I felt it was such a breathtaking story, I couldn't walk away from it. I did nine months of research into this extraordinarily momentous period in Russia's and China's history, and it became the basis of my first book The Russian Concubine. The actual plot of the love affair between Lydia and Chang An Lo is fiction, but I set it against the backdrop of the real world my grandmother must have encountered there.

In fact I became quite addicted. So I kept researching, and the more I researched, the more I wrote. Hence The Red Scarf (Under a Blood Red Sky – title in UK) and The Girl from Junchow (The Concubine's Secret – title in UK), which were my next two books. Both are set in Russia in the 1920s and 1930s.

Will I work in a different genre? I have no plans to at the moment, but if there is one thing I have learned in life it is never say never.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Kate Furnivall

Can you tell us about what you are currently working on? Will there be another book with Lydia?

The book I am writing now is the prequel to The Russian Concubine. It is set in St Petersburg in the glory days of tsarist Russia with all its opulence and all the extravagance of the court of Tsar Nicholas II. It follows the story of the young Valentina Ivanova and how she meets and falls in love with a fiery-haired Dane, Jens Friis, against her parents fierce opposition. Meanwhile Russia itself is bound for rebellion, with the Tsar, the Duma and the Revolutionaries at each others throats. It is an explosive period in the country's history – explosive in every sense of the word, as homemade bombs were the weapon of choice among the Revolutionaries.

It is a great change for me to be writing about a world of glitter and glamour, rather than living day by day through the bleak harshness of the Stalinist regime, as I did during my last two books. It opens up a whole different aspect of Russian society for me to explore and I am enjoying the experience immensely.

As for Lydia's reappearance, she does in fact start her life in this book! But will I do another book with Lydia and Chang? Though I haven't yet decided, already ideas are whirring through my brain!

I regard it as a real privilege to be able to communicate with readers, to draw them into the worlds I weave. By writing historical fiction I hope to lift a corner of a different world and give them an intimate glimpse of a time and a life that would not normally cross their path. I hope to continue to do so.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Kate Furnivall

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