Page 12 - Rooftops

Brought to book, the galloping librarians
Catherine Larner finds out why local bestselling author JoJo Moyes has been on a ‘Star’ trek out west to reimagine the heroines of her latest novel
“Sometimes as a writer, you just see a story you
feel you have to
write,” says JoJo Moyes, the bestselling novelist on the inspiration behind her new book, The
Giver of Stars.
She recalls how one day she was
scrolling the internet “as writers are prone to do before starting work in the morning”, and she came across an article about the Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky.
A series of black and white photographs showed fierce, but sombre, immaculately dressed women on horseback. They had been enlisted by Eleanor Roosevelt to provide a travelling library across 1930s America.
“It contained all my favourite things: female friendship, horses, wild countryside, and a political backdrop which resonates today,” says JoJo. “Roosevelt was concerned that after the Depression people weren’t feeding their minds so were falling prey to misinformation and fundamentalism. I knew immediately this was a story I wanted to write and I pretty much booked my ticket to Kentucky straightaway.”
JoJo took three trips to the US, leaving her home on the Suffolk-Essex border to live out the story of her characters.
She stayed in a tiny cabin on a mountainside seven miles up a dirt track. There were no locks on the
doors, a toilet behind a curtain and no communication with the outside world. Here she imagined her tale of five women as they trekked across the Kentucky landscape taking books to the people.
The result is another instant bestseller with film rights sold to Universal Pictures. “I loved writing
this story, more than anything I’ve ever written before,” she says.
JoJo has been a full-time novelist since 2002 when her first book Sheltering Rain was published, but it was 10 years and eight books later that she enjoyed her greatest success.
Inspired by a newspaper report, Me Before You explored the relationship between a young man, confined to a wheelchair, and his female carer.
“I wrote that book for me,” says JoJo. “It was loosely inspired by a true story that wouldn’t leave my head.”
Will is angry, paralysed from a road accident, and determined to end his
life. Louisa is quirky, sunny, the eternal optimist, and eager to give Will reasons to go on living.
The moral dilemmas and the compelling characterisation meant the book was a global success, and three years later was turned into a film. There were two further novels continuing Lou’s story, with After You published in 2015 and Still Me released in 2018.
Our empathy with the characters in a novel opens us up to think about situations more deeply, and the response to Me Before You particularly highlighted the power of fiction, says JoJo.
“People were responding to the humanity of the story. These things are not black and white. They are a lot more complicated. The grey areas in life fascinate me, and as a journalist that never stops being of interest.”
JoJo worked for The Independent for 10 years in various roles including assistant news editor and as the arts and media correspondent. She also had a year in Hong Kong working for the Sunday Morning Post.
“I’ve been told that through my novels I’m reaching many more people with these issues than I did with my journalism,” she says. “It opens up a new subject to people who might not normally consider it. So rather than being mildly defensive, it makes me feel very proud of being a commercial fiction writer.”
While travelling extensively to talk about her books, JoJo is happiest at
JoJo Moyes and her latest novel
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