Your darkly funny novel is also a coming-of-age story of a woman trying to emerge from her father’s shadow and deal with the idea of shame, along the way.Author Siân Hughes (Stretton Studios)I think it’s quite an angry book, but it’s really a journey into the heart of shame. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.It’s interesting you call it a coming-of-age story, because, obviously, Steffie is 54 at the start and 55 at the end, but it’s coming of age, as she can’t step into her own shoes and be herself until she’s free of her father.[Stan Cartwright] has not just dominated her life, but he has also written the version of Steffie, this character that she is. Her challenge is to be allowed to step outside and decide what kind of a person she’d like be to. That’s when she asks herself questions: Am I free now to contact my sister? Do I have the freedom to make this choice for myself?That interested me, exploring what would happen to her when this lid gets lifted. The lid that Stan has on her. Can she deal with this flood of shame coming out of it? How will she negotiate her way through that? That’s why I killed him off in the first sentence.Wherever Steffie goes, she’s either looked at with suspicion, as someone going through a bad divorce, or is invisiblised. This metaphorical lid you mentioned can be a substitute for systems like patriarchy.Steffie is a typical person who’s invisible in society. She does these low-status, non-contractual jobs. She only exists by the hour. She lives in places that are illegally rented or have no security, so she’s invisible in the housing market. I think middle-aged women are considered undesirable when they reach a certain age and are invisiblised by societies all over the world. But as you say, there’s this ancient suspicion of independent female characters: What’s she doing? What’s matter with her? What has gone so terribly wrong with her?I find it slightly frustrating in a lot of fiction that are fixated on this idea of happy ending. That it’s supposed to involve riches. Or romance of some kind. And where it doesn’t involve good fortune is when the protagonist is rich anyway; then they’re not even interested in money. That’s where I see my hero, Steffie, an invisible woman, stepping out of the shadows, saying, this is my kind of a happy ending. I’m a real person. Now, would you notice me for a minute?Money has a role to play in Steffie’s life, and the narrative, too, as several chapters overtly mention it. I find such details in books intriguing myself because I like to know where the story is positioned. How much things are costing? It’s really an important aspect of plot to me. So, I positioned the whole action of the story within the timeframe of how long it would take somebody on a minimum wage, in insecure work, to pay for a funeral.Stan hasn’t left her enough money to pay for the funeral, and the most basic funeral will take you 12 months of instalments on a minimum wage to pay for it. During this time, you’re going to have limited means, so you can’t save up a deposit for a new place to live in, can’t travel anywhere, and can’t have any disposable income.In lifting of this emotional lid, at that time, there’s also another lid slamming down harder on Steffie, of this acquired debt. She has no way to increase her earning ability other than doing more hours to get to the end of the debt.Would you say that Steffie is incapacitated to even ask for help?Some people have commented on the book that Steffie doesn’t seem to have a support network. Strength and resilience in people who’re living hand-to-mouth come from the fact that they’ve a strong supportive network of mutual support. Among women, it’s certainly true. That happens culturally a lot here. We do tend to create a very good support system. But Steffie doesn’t have it because whenever she tries reaching out, her father cuts her off from all the female support she would’ve normally had. The little one she has is from the AA charities.Then, Steffie’s problem is that she doesn’t know how to ask for help. She doesn’t feel worthy of help. Or love. She hasn’t reached out to her sister, her mother’s friends, or her mother’s extended family. She has failed to create a supportive network for herself because she’s still Stan’s daughter. In her mind, she’s in the baddie camp.When she does make a friend, she’s frightened. She worries if her friend will find out who she is. So, finding Debbie, she is surprised, I’ve got a friend! Oh my god, how did that happen? She realises it has something to do with being open with her, talking about her sister. But she’s also frightened if she’ll be called “Cartwright’s bitch”, so there’s this shame hanging over her head. She has an imposter syndrome in every possible way.And she doesn’t know how to accept love either. But I think she’s a very affectionate, warm, and forgiving person. She won’t say something kind. Or give you a hug. But she’ll do your laundry. She’ll bleach your sink. She loves in practical ways, but in terms of building networks, she hasn’t got any, for she’s crippled by shame.It’s shame that stops her from having such a network.Was cleaning clothes also a metaphor?Yes, the whole concept of cleaning clothes as a metaphor for washing your soul clean. That was an inspiration for me for the book. It came from this medieval poem, Purity, which claims to be about preparing your soul for heaven. It has lots of stories in which it tells you if you want to get into heaven, you better make your soul clean and ready. Don’t turn up scruffy. This poem is so interested in the details of how you mend and clean clothes. There are statuses of cloths and how to look after them the best.So, to have this link, along with Steffie’s mother, who took to laundry for a living, that’s a massive metaphor to try to wash your sense of shame out of yourself. Then, Stephanie’s relationship with clothes is a bit difficult, too, as she’s constantly stealing them.Did you struggle with whose narrative to centralise in the novel?As it’s a story of a profoundly abusive household, where the person who’s in control has decided to torture one girl and pet, nurture, the other, I was clear that it would have nothing intrinsic to do with the girls. The abuse came from their father. It had nothing to do with what these girls said or who they were. It was just his method of control.Because Steffie has the good treatment, she isn’t allowed to feel that she has been abused. As Stan has separated Steffie from her sister, driving a wedge between them, she doesn’t realise she’s held hostage. He even keeps their mother hostage because he has total control over Steffie. He’s got his claws into her. And their mother, Eileen, is his slave, doing everything and getting belittled and no respect for anything in return. She’s so frightened of leaving the house that she dies of a chest infection that could’ve been cured had she gone to a doctor and gotten some antibiotics. So, in the end, he kills her through fear.And Steffie is a complicated voice to inhabit because she feels she’s the one to blame. It was easier to take the POV of the tortured child. It was difficult to tell it in Steffie’s voice because she has PTSD as she has been damaged a lot. Someone who doesn’t know the abuse she has suffered to be abuse and finds herself guilty, for she has been told that she’s the lucky one.It’s this guilt perhaps that makes her reflect on ‘goodness’. She assumes Caroline was good and she can be good later. Well, yes, because of the damage Steffie has suffered, she can’t see herself as good. She has been taught to see the bad camp she is in — an exclusive club where everyone seems to be saying that good people are too stupid to understand the fun being in a bad camp.What I really wanted Steffie all along was for someone to tell her, someone whom she could trust completely to say the most powerful thing anyone can say to somebody going through the kind of damage she has witnessed: It’s not your fault.On some profound level, she has been implicated in this, so I really wanted someone to just look her in the eye and say, It’s not your fault.But I was faced with this question while writing this story, well, whom will she believe? Who can tell her that and for her to believe in this person? And I came to this conclusion that there was nobody who could say this, so I’m going to try and make Steffie rescue herself, which is why she reaches a point, saying to herself, I’ll do.Saurabh Sharma is a Delhi-based writer and freelance journalist. They can be found on Instagram/X: @writerly_life.