Douglas Stewart

There's so much that can't be fixed or squared away, that can't be healed, and instead has to be sort of digested in silence and dealt with alone.

It's very, very good on the oppressive nature of fathers and on men's desire to have control and shaping their children.

And it's very good on duty.

That's right.

Isn't that an incredible opening line?

But it also sort of tells you how we're interdependent in a way and become to become afraid of your daughters.

It's such a dark line because for what have you done?

Why?

Yeah.

But it's wonderful.

It's.

Yeah, but it's funnily enough, his daughters are incredibly tender to him in the book.

They really, they almost remain afraid of him.

And what a terrible place for fathers and daughters to be, I think, you know, to have fear be a guiding thing in any relationship with your children.

That's right, yeah.

I mean, the great tragedy of John MacLeod in my novel is that he wants so desperately to be loved.

I wrote a scene where him and Cal have had a fight and they haven't spoken for seven weeks in this house.

They've avoided each other.

and he decides he can't take it anymore and he goes into the kitchen and just as he's about to sort of try and try and break the tension between them he sees cal at the kitchen sink with his grandmother ella and they're laughing and they're joking and they're you know hugging and bumping into each other and the minute they see him come into the room they freeze and they go quiet and that for john that being on the endless outside of their affection is the heartbreak for him because actually he loves them very deeply and he wants to be loved by them

But, you know, we reap what we sow.