Featured Reading Guide
Diana Evans
Identical twins, Georgia and Bessi, live in the loft of 26 Waifer Avenue. It is a place of beanbags, nectarines and secrets, and visitors must always knock before entering. Down below there is not such harmony. Their Nigerian mother puts cayenne pepper on her Yorkshire pudding and has mysterious ways of dealing with homesickness; their father angrily roams the streets of Neasden, prey to the demons of his Derbyshire upbringing. Forced to create their own identities, the Hunter children build a separate universe. Older sister Bel discovers sex, high heels and organic hairdressing, the twins prepare…
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Diana Evans is a graduate of the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing MA and has published short fiction in a number of anthologies. She has worked as a journalist and arts critic for Marie Claire, the Evening Standard, The Source and Pride magazine, and writes regularly for the Independent and the Stage. She lives in West London.
topAbout the Book
Identical twins, Georgia and Bessi, live in the loft of 26 Waifer Avenue. It is a place of beanbags, nectarines and secrets, and visitors must always knock before entering. Down below there is not such harmony. Their Nigerian mother puts cayenne pepper on her Yorkshire pudding and has mysterious ways of dealing with homesickness; their father angrily roams the streets of Neasden, prey to the demons of his Derbyshire upbringing. Forced to create their own identities, the Hunter children build a separate universe. Older sister Bel discovers sex, high heels and organic hairdressing, the twins prepare for a flapjack empire, and baby sister Kemy learns to moonwalk for Michael Jackson. It is when the reality comes knocking that the fantasies of childhood start to give way. How will Georgia and Bessi cope in a world of separateness and solitude, and which of them will be stronger?
topDiana Evans interview/review
Extract from ‘There’s a first time for everyone’ in The Observer, Sunday February 27, 2005. Full feature at: books.guardian
When I was 17, I dreamt I was sitting in a publishing office and on the desk next to me was a book called The Woman Who Turned Her Eyes to God. I knew it was me who’d written it, but I have no idea what it was about or how come it had such a rubbish title. On the cover was a woman wearing a dress and, predictably, looking up to the sky. That dream has always loitered at the back of my mind as a kind of casual, niggling prophecy.
Before I began to write 26a (which I doubt bears any relation to The Woman Who Turned Her Eyes to God), I spent a year or so hanging around wondering where to start. There was random note-making on the bus to work; there were hazy scenes and cryptic phrases scribbled on Post-its which sometimes got lost. I read more feverishly than I had ever read before and, eventually, I began to write a book about death. It became much more than that in the writing; it became a book that was also about childhood and family relationships, about weird twins in summer dresses, about ghosts and the power of myth.
Writing a novel, I discovered then, in that initial fumbling stage, is a test of absolute faith and absolute endurance. It puts you in a position of vulnerability at the same time as handing you a wand. For me, it felt like wading out into the sea on a raft in the dark and staying there all night, drifting and surging, worrying a lot, until the morning comes up and you can see where you are. That’s when the real work begins – the task of getting all that colour, all those images and meanings succinctly, with the right pitch.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- ‘There were thoughts with bows and thoughts without.’ Can you find other examples of where the twins’ own thoughts are invested with the life and persona of the twins’ own outward appearances? What is the effect of this narrative technique? Do you like it, and do you find it a unique way of writing?
- Discuss the significance of the characters’ time in Sekon, and how it impacts on the rest of their lives. Did you find that Evans’ use of colours to tell her story changed in any way after this time?
- How important is magical realism as a technical device for Evans to tell her story? Find some examples of this technique and consider why they are significant to the novel.
- How necessary is a belief in mythology or mysticism to your enjoyment of this novel?
- ‘It was the first time ever, in this land of twoness in oneness, that something had seemeed unsayable.’ Discuss what impact the ‘cartwheel’ incident with Sedrick has on the twins’ relationship.
- Consider the role of dreams in the novel.
Other Books by Diana Evans
26a
Identical twins, Georgia and Bessi, live in the loft of 26 Waifer Avenue. It…
The Wonder
As a child Lucas assumed that all children who d lost their parents lived on…
Suggested Further Reading
- Brick Lane ~ Monica Ali
- White Teeth ~ Zadie Smith
- Runaway ~ Alice Munro
- Blackbird House ~ Alice Hoffman
- Nights at the Circus ~ Angela Carter
- Midnight’s Children ~ Salman Rushdie
- Related Criticism:
- Magic(al) Realism ~ Maggie Bowers (Routledge:2004)
- Twins and the Double (Art & Imagination) ~ John Lash (Thames and Hudson Ltd: 1993)
- Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative ~ Wendy B. Faris (Vanderbilt University Press: 2004)