….a grim discovery? some significant item lost? a betrayal witnessed? a secret tryst? inner turmoil? a reconciliation?
Which dramatic moment would you locate in which of these settings?
Photographs © Patrick Rangeley
What is it about a place? It might be vast and open – a marsh, clifftop or expanse of sea – or small and close – a seat by a window, a gap in a fence, a locked box under stairs. Spaces can hold powerful identities. Did something significant happen here once – or does this spot somehow just suggest, or even invite, a certain possible turn of events?
Patrick Rangeley has driven round North Norfolk with a list of some of the settings used in the novels of Rachel Hore and Henry Sutton and taken the photographs on this post (more of which you will see in our first big literary event on Friday 4th October at 6.30). These photographs may or may not be anything like what Henry or Rachel imagined when they built the worlds of their romances, histories, literary fictions and crime novels. (We look forward to hearing!) They may not be what you might imagine when buried in their stories and playing out the descriptions and dramas in the private space of your own mind. But who is right?
And what is it about place?
Rachel Hore has sold over a million copies of her novels which bridge the gap between past and present. As two stories unfold, one in our time and one in the past, a trauma is unburied, confronted and resolved. Henry Sutton, who is Norfolk born and raised, turned his dark, playful wit twenty years ago from literary fiction to noir crime, and now writes about and lectures in crime writing at UEA. We invited them both to Wells Maltings next Friday not only because they are brilliant writers and entertaining speakers but because they have both set stories around here and we want to know…
….do a crime writer and a historical novelist see places differently or the same?
There are still spaces left for their talk and readings at 6.30pm on Friday 4th October. Please join us!
Literature & Landscape 