Lucy, Clara & Olivia was your debut novel. Was the idea for the book long in gestation?
While Clara & Olivia is my first published novel, I did write two novels in the twenties that I never managed to get published. I think of these as my practice novels, my ‘barre’ work to use the language of ballet. Then, by the end of my twenties, I was ready to return to the world of ballet after some years of struggling to understand how this could work for me now that I was longer dancing full-time. I decided I wanted to write a novel set during the early years of the Royal Ballet company and in my research I was delighted to see that the Vic-Wells Ballet put on a production of Coppélia in 1933. I have fond memories of dancing repertoire from this ballet, and love how it is a re-telling of the dark and sinister short story Der Sandmann by E.T.A. Hoffmann about a man who follows in love with an automaton doll. The plot for the novel developed in ever-increasing layers as I began to immerse myself in the research. It was hugely exciting when this novel immediately attracted the attention of an agent, and we got a book deal!
You worked at the Royal Ballet School for 8 years – were you glad to leave (ballet is notoriously tough), or was it devastating to stop doing something you love?
Training for any performing art is a hugely intense experience, and while I was at the Royal Ballet School I had my heart set on becoming a professional dancer. Therefore to leave that world was exceedingly challenging. I couldn’t imagine saying a final goodbye to ballet, and so I completed a diploma in dance teaching at the British Ballet Organisation and continued to dance and perform when I could. Eventually, however, I had to let it go. I became an English teacher and it simply wasn’t possible to train as much as would have been necessary if I was to keep up a high standard of dancing. To have returned to ballet through writing, therefore, has been wonderfully rewarding, bringing my love of dance back into my life.
What came first, plot or characters?
The two emerged in parallel, the ideas for the plot and the characters developing the more I read and planned. The joy of writing historical fiction is that I am constantly being inspired by my research, a historical event, person, piece of clothing, or performance helping spark ideas for my fiction. In Clara & Olivia, for example, the characters visit the Daily Mail Ideal Home exhibition, a real event that took place in Olympia, London. I learnt that the choreographer, Penelope Spencer, had created a sketch for the exhibition called ‘Ladies, Sigh No More.’ It featured women dressed as mannequins advertising five brands of stockings by I. and R. Morley. As well as including this sketch in my novel, it gave me the idea for another moment in the book – a man dancing with a mannequin as a replacement for the real woman he longs to possess.
Clara & Olivia are twins, so presumably they are very close?
The twin sisters are very close: they live together, walk to work together every day, rehearse together, take ballet class together. In many ways, they are living identical lives. However, their personalities are very different. Clara is rebellious, independent, and determined to be a star. Olivia is obedient, hard-working and dedicated, and she will do anything to fit into the world of classical ballet. But it is when Olivia starts to fall for Clara’s boyfriend that these differences shift into more dangerous tensions.
We’re in London in the 1930s – was it a thriving dance scene?
The 1930s was an important time for the development of British Ballet. Ninette de Valois, founder of the Royal Ballet, set up the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1931 and it was thanks to her work that British ballet started to become respected as a serious art form, rather than opportunities for short divertissements in variety shows. Before this time, ballet as art and innovation was associated with the Ballets Russes, but with the death of Diaghilev (impresario of the Ballets Russes) in 1929 and Anna Pavlova in 1931, there was space for de Valois’s ballet company to forge their own reputation, as well as other companies such as Marie Rambert’s Ballet Club at the Mercury Theatre. It did, however, take some years for the Vic-Wells Ballet to grow, and it was their work in bringing ballet to many town and theatres during the Second World War that truly secured their reputation. I write about this later time period in my second novel, The Sleeping Beauties.
The story is set around the ballet Coppélia. It’s not quite in the ranks of Swan Lake or the Nutcracker, but should it be?
I love Coppélia, but I can understand why it doesn’t attract quite the same volume of ticket sales as beloved classics such as Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. The third act, for example, has little to do with the rest of the ballet, and the attempt to take a dark and gothic short story and transform it into a comic ballet does require some suspension of disbelief. And yet Act Two in Dr Coppélius’s toy shop is, in my opinion, one of the most entertaining moments of any ballet I know, and the choreography in Act One is packed with fire and energy. The allegro sections are ridiculously fast and when performed well are a true delight. I recently watched Balanchine’s version of Coppélia in New York City, and Megan Fairchild’s performance of Swanilda was perfection.
The story was described as ‘chilling’ by one reviewer and that ‘dances with unease’ by another – in the competitive world of dance, are human emotions of envy and hatred ever present?
There is no denying the intense competition that exists in the world of dance. As with all performing arts, there are far more aspiring dancers than places in ballet companies. When you want something that much, and the stakes seem so high in the often insular and claustrophobic community of a dance school or company, envy and the self-punitive behaviours that come with this desire to succeed can creep into dancers’ lives. However, in Clara & Olivia, it isn’t the lives of the dancers that makes it chilling. It is the men who watch them, an obsessive desire to possess and control the twins quickly becoming far more unsettling than the behaviour of the dancers. When I was a dancer, the number of men who made sexualised comments to me about female dancers and our bodies was deeply disturbing. I expect my writing simmers with the rage I feel about all those years as a young woman struggling to understand my complex relationship with my body and the way men spoke to me.
Did any of your former dance colleagues read it, and if so what did they think?
I had a very special book launch at the Freed of London pointe shoe shop in Covent Garden and many of my former dance teachers came to the event. I was also invited back to the Royal Ballet School to be interviewed about my life since leaving the school. My former teachers sent me such kind messages about the book and how much they enjoyed it. I was nervous about using the history of the Royal Ballet as the backdrop for my story in case my fictional version did not match the real memories and knowledge of those closest to that world. But, remarkably, no one has sent me any complaints about my presentation of that time, so I hope I did a good job!
What’s next?
My second novel, The Sleeping Beauties, was published this year. It is a historical mystery set at the end of the Second World War, and the backdrop for the novel is the work of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet during the war and their tremendous efforts in bringing the performing arts to so many people during a time of conflict.
My next novel is a significant departure from my two ballet-themed mysteries. It has led me down some fascinating paths, exploring the world of psychotherapy in the 1960s, as well as women’s access to contraception at that time. I look forward to sharing more soon!
Lucy Ashe is a writer and the author of Clara & Olivia.
