INTERVIEW: Precious Williams > from Black Book News

Interview with Precious Williams

 

Precious William’s memoir Precious: A True Story has just been published by Bloomsbury. I am pleased that she agreed to answer my questions about her book and the books that have inspired her.

 

 Thank you Precious.

 

 

Your book is a memoir about your being privately fostered to an English family in West Sussex during the 1970s. Why did you decide to write it in this narrative non-fiction style when you could have protected yourself and your family by writing it as fiction? 

I decided that if I was going to write down my story, I was going to go all the way with it and write it in a naked, tell-it-all way. One of the themes running through the book is the subject of childhood abuse. Even in 2010 there is this 'don't talk about it' attitude (especially within black communities) that allows child abuse to happen, the secrecy of it gives paedophiles a chance to thrive. It's not an easy task to talk about it and admit it happened to you but talking about it and bringing it into the light is an important thing to do. That's why I did it.

· How has your family responded to the book?

For most of my family members (foster family and biological family), this book doesn't contain any revelations. They knew what had happened, we just didn't talk about it before. The transformations that have taken place with some of my family members and friends, as a result of writing and talking about this book, are just amazing. Relationships have been taken to a whole other level of openness and mutual respect and compassion. One of my family members apologised to me as she felt she hadn’t been ‘there’ for me during the traumatic moments. Ironically she was one of the relatively few people who were very kind during my childhood and it was extremely sweet of her to say she wished she could have done more.

· There are some enormously painful moments in the book, how did you cope with writing those? 

There are two particular scenes in the book I found really difficult to write. The first one is a scene in which I am sexually abused as a child. I found it really difficult to go there and I was tempted to really gloss over it because I just couldn't take it. My book is written in present tense (aside from occasional flashbacks and flash-forwards) but when tackling the childhood abuse scenes I suddenly started to lapse into past tense without realising it because I was so keen to distance myself from the abuse. The second difficult scene was being raped as a 16 year old. That is probably the most harrowing scene in the book. An interviewer recently described it as 'unflinching'. After writing that scene I printed it out and hid the pages in a cupboard in the kitchen. I felt this really strong need to distance myself from what had happened. That indicated to me that although I’d thought I was ‘over’ it, I actually wasn’t and I did some work on it in therapy. Even now, I can’t talk about it without tears welling up. I suppose I will never fully come to terms with it.

· You have been very open about your periods of depression and personal crises by writing this very raw work, has it helped to deal with your past and do you think that this could help people who have been through similar experiences? 

Writing the book didn't help me deal with my past, exactly, but it did force me to confront it. I got my book deal in 2004 and it's taken six years for the book to actually be published. It took a solid year of therapy before I could even think of continuing with the manuscript. That said, not all of the book is dark and harrowing – there were some scenes and chapters that were absolutely exhilarating to write. The bizarreness of my childhood made for some hilarious, absurd episodes.

Finding that somebody else has been through what you've been through can feel quite comforting and I hope that readers with similar backgrounds will feel less alone after reading my book. In my younger years I found reading books that tackled abuse issues very reassuring, it made me realise I hadn't been singled out. Abuse is just one of those things that, sadly, happens. 

 

 

· How has your reading as a child influenced the writing of this book? 

Well I’ve been a huge Dickens fan for as long as I can remember. When my book proposal for Precious was submitted to publishers I received several offers and there was a bidding war. In a meeting with one of the publishers who bid on the book, an editor said my characters were Dickensian. I was thrilled. Dickens is my favourite author ever. Being told your characters are Dickensian is not necessarily a pure compliment as some literary snobs consider his characters to be caricatures. For me though there is no higher praise.

· I thought that the use of quotes from Dickens’ Oliver Twist, Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens to set off each section of the book was inspired as it shows the journey of understanding that you have been on and how you’ve found a place that means something to you. Can you tell us what each of those books means to you now? 

I identified with the character of Oliver Twist for quite obvious reasons – feeling marginalised, exploited and alone in the world for much of my childhood. I also identify closely with Lewis Carroll and specifically with his character Alice.

Buchi Emecheta, Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison and Chester Himes too. I remember scraping the cash together to buy more and more of these books and I literally felt like every day was Christmas. With each of these books I felt a sense of wonder and a sense of longing to write books of my own and a sense of connectedness. When I first read Alice Walker's Meridian was so thrilled and breathless with excitement that I remember reading whole chapters of it aloud to my foster mother, Nanny. She seemed to think it was pretty good but she was a bigger fan of Angelou's (I also read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings aloud to her) than of Walker's...

· 2010 has been the year of ‘Precious’ with the movie based on the novel Push by Sapphire, did you consider entitling the book something else in order to avoid confusion? 

I began writing my book in 2004, long before Sapphire's novel 'Push' was renamed 'Precious' and we didn’t consider re-naming my book at any point.

· How do you feel about trans-racial adoption now? 

My view is that until we have true equality, until there isn't that awful, sometimes subtle assumption that black people are inferior/flaky/stupid/unattractive then trans-racial adoption (which in theory almost always means the adoption of a child of colour by a white family – how often do you hear of a black family adopting a white child?) is never an ideal. That said, the alternative for a parent-less child of colour may well be a children’s home so it's a case of being between a rock and a hard place.

· In a key moment in your book you read sections from Uncle Tom’ Cabin that feature the character Topsy and it feels to me that from that moment on things do really spiral out of control for you. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin it is love and gentleness that helps Topsy to reclaim her true self for her peace of mind, do you think if you’d understood that at the time things might have been different for you? 

My reaction to finally reading that passage about Topsy was dramatic. I felt sooo ugly. As a child I just fixated on the unflattering physical description of Topsy and not on the bigger story.

· The first person that you give thanks to at the end of the book is Maya Angelou. I would say that you in a comparison with I Know When the Caged Bird Sings, that you both cover the same kinds of issues. How influential has Angelou’s work been for you?

Maya Angelou’s work has influenced me hugely. Caged Bird and her poem, And Still I Rise, took me through some very dark times during my adolescent years and gave me the hope and courage to continue trying to survive and to aspire to be a writer.

· The film Precious, Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple and more recently in the UK, Ugly by Constance Briscoe, have all been accused of putting the spotlight on aspects of black life, that some believe we would be best not to share. Do you think that your book’s portrayal, particularly of your mother, might be viewed in the same way?

This is a great question. Firstly, I can’t see The Colour Purple and Ugly as belonging in the same category. The Colour Purple depicts areas of black life we needed to know about and look at. I think the key is to have a diverse array of depictions of black life available to us on the screen and in literature. The Cosby Show and its depiction of functional, middle-class black life is as important and relevant as The Colour Purple. However, I think it would be naive and ridiculous to pretend that the darker issues – as shown in Sapphire’s Push, The Colour Purple etc – do not exist. But with the memoir Ugly, I didn’t like the fact that the author seemed to see black people as supremely negative and abusive and uncouth and white people as angelic, heroic saviours. That really bothered me. 

In my own life history I was badly let down by both my biological parents and of course both my parents happen to be black. But mine is not a book about an abused little black girl being ‘rescued’ by wonderful white people. While my natural parents were not great parents, they had other admirable traits. My family members, paternal and maternal, were educated, well travelled, smart, and ambitious. As a result, career-wise, I didn’t feel any doors were automatically closed to me. So that mindset is a huge gift my parents gave me, even though I barely saw them. And my white foster family aren’t some heroic superior beings – they just did what any family with any compassion would do in the circumstance – they looked after me because clearly nobody else was going to. Wouldn’t it have been lovely and heart-warming and positive if the foster family who cared for me when nobody else would have been Caribbean or African or black British? But that’s not how it turned out in my case. One thing I enjoyed about Antwone Fisher’s memoir Finding Fish was that while it was black characters who abused and neglected him it was also black characters who nurtured and loved him later on. In my case much of the nurturing I enjoyed actually came from afar, via the African-American authors (Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor) I read while growing up!

· As a journalist you’ll be very knowledgeable about that publishing process, can you tell us what you think about the book publishing process?

I’ve spent twelve years now working as a journalist and I’m very used to tight deadlines and writing articles with an editor leaning over my shoulder saying ‘how much longer before you file your copy...?’ Journalism is amazing but can also feel frenzied and rushed. The process of publishing a book is far more intense and multi-layered. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to spend time debating over a single sentence or even a particular word, with my editor. It gave me an opportunity to enhance my craft and there was no sense of feeling rushed. I’ve learnt a lot and writing a book has enhanced my feature-writing skills too. I’ve found the publicity aspect quite eye opening, I must say. At one point I found myself being sent for a photo-shoot where I was presented with an array of saucy little dresses and sky-high stiletto shoes to wear. I had fun but I also felt very surprised – surely being an author has nothing to do with your ability to rock a little black dress. 

· What is your writing routine?

I don’t have a set routine, I just write wherever and whenever: in notebooks, on scraps of paper, at my desk and more recently on this tiny netbook I carry around with me in my handbag. When inspiration strikes, which is often, I tend to write and write long into the night.

· You are studying for an MA in Creative Writing in how does that compare with doing your original degree of English Literature? 

It’s very interesting indeed to have written a book and then go back to university to learn how to write a book! One thing I’ve learned is that there really are no rules.

· Are there any plans to publish the book in Nigeria or Sierra Leone? 

I would absolutely love to publish my memoir in West Africa! I'm in the process of organising a book tour in Nigeria as we speak in fact. There are still many, many parents in Nigeria who send their children to the UK (or to America) to be privately fostered and I'd like them to read my book and, perhaps, reconsider their options.

· What is your favourite bookshop and why? 

My favourite bookshop is Treadwell's in Covent Garden, a charming, olde-worlde bookstore that stocks books on subjects like alchemy.

· You have attended one of the recent Black Reading Group’s discussions, what would you recommend that we read next? 

True Murder by Yaba Badoe. It’s an extremely interesting unique and brilliantly written coming-of-age tale about a Ghanaian girl finding her way at an exclusive English girls’ boarding school in the countryside.

· What question do you think I should have asked you? And what is the answer?

Q: What can we expect from you next?  A: I’m working on an historical novel. 
 

 

via tricia-blackbooknews.com