Kate Long Talks About ''The Bad Mother's Handbook" and Robert with Lancashire Life

Kate Long Talks About ''The Bad Mother's Handbook" and Robert with Lancashire Life

What inspired your first book?

I decided to write The Bad Mother’s Handbook because I felt no one was really writing about the struggle of ordinary women – lower middle/working class mothers who might have to hold down a job and run a household single-handed. There were plenty of books on the market about London mums who had fabulous careers and nannies, but I wanted to create a world where the clothes labels were C&;A or Topshop rather than Issey Miyake and Ghost. I didn’t actually set out to make it northern, though. The characters themselves announced it, speaking with Bolton accents. So my home ground of Blackrod became the novel’s ‘Bank Top’. The story itself follows the lives of three members of the same family, a grandmother who is in her late 70s, a 30-something mother and a teenage daughter, and the story reveals what happens to them during the course of a year.

Tell us about your new book?

I wrote Bad Mothers United in response to readers’ letters and emails asking what happened next, so there was a weight of expectation which was slightly daunting. In addition the character of Daniel Gale, Charlotte’s boyfriend, was played in the TV film by Robert Pattinson and this had led to Daniel having a fan base all of his own. He has his own Facebook page, I was surprised to learn, and his own Twitter account. I can’t tell you how weird that felt, to see a person I’d invented living his own life away from me.

What was it like seeing your work on adapted for television?

It was fascinating to watch. They shot the outside action in Otley because the funding was coming from Screen Yorkshire – oh, the irony! It was thrilling to meet established stars like Catherine Tate and to hear them speaking lines I’d only ever heard in my own head. Of course we didn’t realise what a star-in-the-making we had among us in R-Patz; Robert Pattinson was only 20. A striking-looking young man, though. I felt very proud to have my story broadcast on a mainstream channel to an audience of millions.

Source => Lancashire Life / Via => Gossip Dance