The Aesthetic Memoir: Interview with Caro Giles
On single motherhood and reclamation of self. And the beautiful light of the moon.
As I creep nearer to delivering my book, Into Being: The Radical Craft of Memoir, I am revisiting a series of interviews I did of writers of memoir, over on my blog site, and I will be featuring some of them here. The first one being the interview with
- hope you enjoy it.
In this series of interviews, I will be talking to memoirists, both published and working towards publication, about their writing process, and how writing memoir has helped them better understand themselves and their place in the world. I am also interested in how a writer navigates difficult territory for themselves and those they love. I will be using these interviews as research for my upcoming publication, INTO BEING: The Radical Craft of Memoir and its Power to Transform (published by MUP in 2025).
My fourteenth interview is with Caro Giles whose memoir Twelve Moons: A Year Under A Shared Sky is beautiful and lyrical, and explores what it is to be a woman on her own, parenting four girls, and finding relief in a wild landscape of Northumberland. Twelve Moons is Caro's first book, and was published by HarperNorth in January 2023. Caro writes a monthly column for Psychologies magazine, and other work has been published in The i, The Pilgrim, Motherdom, Corridor 8 and BBC Countryfile magazine. In 2021 Caro Giles won the inaugural BBC Countryfile New Nature Writer of the Year competition.
When and how did you realise you had to write Twelve Moons?
I wanted to write the story of how a woman got lost and then reclaimed herself. I wanted to explore themes such as fear and isolation. The idea had been bubbling in me since I had my children, when I started to question my identity beyond motherhood. I was blogging and tentatively testing out my voice for a few years before I committed to writing the memoir. Initially I was going to run a long distance route alone through the Scottish Borders into Northumberland, but lockdown and my daughter’s ill health put a stop to that and I had to find a different structure to hang the story on.
Did it start with an image, or an emotion, or first line, or an idea – or none of the above?
The book existed in my head as themes and feelings for months or years before I starting writing any words. Once I had decided to write the narrative over the course of a lunar year I knew I had to start the book in January, and became fixated on imagery connected to the moon and my home. I found myself on the landing with my four daughters and it was covered in ironing, with my table in the corner where I wrote, and the moon was flowing through the window. One of my daughters has long white blond hair and was spinning and dancing in the moonlight. It was a very strong image. I was busy getting my kids into pyjamas but was struck by this image. It was such a strong image. And when I woke up I wrote that image down, and the book started from there.
Did it feel essential that you do it? Was the need urgent? Persistent?
Yes, absolutely. I had no choice. It was a creative urge, a financial decision and a personal imperative. I was compelled both by circumstance and by a creative desire to pour my story onto the page. I have always told stories, but previously I used theatre or music to do so. The changes in personal life, resulting in me becoming a single parent-carer with four children (including two with complex needs), living quite remotely, meant that my options for creative work were very limited. I had also completely lost my sense of self during the final years of my marriage and needed to find way back to myself. I was quite ruthless and ambitious in my attempts to write Twelve Moons, it felt like a way to begin again and also seek new opportunities for myself and my children.
What is it about memoir that appeals to you?
Like many writers, I write to make sense of life. I love exploring my feelings and emotions in response to life through memoir. I am pretty comfortable exposing myself on the page as an act of curiosity and enjoy how it connects me with readers.
How does it differ to the fiction you write?
I’m fairly new to fiction but my memoir tends to be more raw and urgent. I am trying to find ways to reproduce that essence in fiction. I suppose fiction allows me the opportunity to dream and to excavate topics that might be impossible in memoir due to legal or moral reasons!
Did your narrative voice come naturally, and your authority as the person telling this story, or was that something you needed to work on – did it come more easily the deeper you went into writing the book and your research?
The narrative voice in Twelve Moons feels like a very natural place for me to exist in. As the book progressed I realised that I was creating a sense of mysticism and magic that was removed from my own voice, but certainly the way I express myself in Twelve Moons is very comfortable and close to how I articulate things in conversation or as thoughts run through my head.
The book poured out of me. I think there are several reasons for that. I was immersed in what I was writing, and I was writing what I was living. I call myself a life writer because I have so little time to write that I tend to write what is going on around me. There is an urgency to it, but it’s also meditative. I mostly wrote it in the early mornings often when it was dark with candles lit, and there was something about writing in that liminal place that influenced the writing.
And how did you navigate writing about family members or those who are close to you?
When I first started writing the book, I shared the chapters with a writing group. The first three chapters I wrote in the third person – the character of me was an every woman and it was because I was scared of putting me on the page. But my writers group said everyone will know it was me. So I changed it into first person.
One of the most important things about writing a memoir is what you choose not to put on the page, and I found ways of alluding to things, and there is something about the language around it. I allude to a darkness that is there and that I don’t want to articulate any further and it’s enough and then the reader can fill in the gaps.
Did you share the text with relevant people before it went to press? Did you give them veto as to what was kept?
I shared relevant sections with my oldest daughter, who is represented as The Mermaid in the book. Even though I gave my children archetypal names on the page, to protect them, The Mermaid, The Whirlwind, The Caulbearer and The Littlest One, I had written very openly about her mental health and autism diagnosis, and needed her consent. Other than that I shared it with my writing group, my agent and my editor.
Were there aspects of your story that you resisted, that you thought you could get away with not writing, but then realised it wasn’t possible – and if so, how did you protect yourself, or how did it feel to write those sections?
I always knew the parts of my story I was not willing to publish. I was advised by author Marina Benjamin a few years before I wrote the book to write out write it all out in a first draft, and then edit. I resisted this for some time because some of the material felt very distressing and I had not processed or made sense of those aspects of my life. But I did as she suggested, with the support of my editor, and then I removed them. I'd like to think that I left a ‘ghost on the page’ of what was there in the first draft, and readers have picked up on this undercurrent through the rhythm and language.
Was it a process to become ‘ready’ or ‘prepared’ to go to the places that you might have otherwise resisted?
I was unprepared to expose my ex-husband or my children beyond telling my own story. I feel strongly that women’s stories have been stifled for many years, and the fact that women are often caregivers with responsibility for vulnerable children must not be an excuse for not sharing the truth about our experiences. I was determined to find a way to protect my family whilst sharing my story.
Did you have any rituals to protect yourself?
My editor gave me invaluable advice which was to remember, whenever I felt scared about the exposure of others, to ensure I was telling my story from my point of view. I found this really helpful. To be honest I did not feel particularly worried about anything. I was writing about my own feelings or experiences - I was happy to be candid. It has only been in the aftermath of the book’s publication though that I have fully understood the impact of my story being ‘public property’. Mainly I have found it challenging when I meet new people because they are able to read the book or find out information about me from the promotion around the book, and they can make assumptions that Twelve Moons is a defining description of me. But it is a story and only a snapshot of a certain period of my life.
Do you think personal narrative is a platform for exploring the unspeakable? Or even the unthinkable? If so, please expand:
I think perhaps memoir is becoming more experimental as a genre which is opening up possibilities away from more traditional explorations of real life. But I think there is still a stigma attached to writing memoir, particularly for women and other marginalised groups, and I’m aware of writers who feel that more support is required for authors who publish stories involving personal narrative.
How is memoir different from lived experience?
Memoir must be truthful and authentic otherwise the reader will not trust the narrative voice, but obviously it is a crafted piece of work. Everything I wrote was accurate but I was selective and ameliorative in order to paint the picture I wanted to portray.
Do you write a journal and if so, how did that help when it came to writing your memoir?
No I don’t but I wish I had! Luckily Twelve Moons was mainly written in real time so I was living and writing simultaneously. I was also making a lot of notes in my phone or writing them down in order to make sure I had all the details as well as the emotional impact.
Does writing memoir offer cohesion to otherwise fractured memories and experience, and is that cohesion empowering? If so, expand on why?
I think when memories and experiences are fractured this opens the writer up to huge creative potential. It is also surprising how much appears from the corners of the mind when you start writing. I was able to recall a lot more than I realised for the historical passages in Twelve Moons. But I love looking for new ways to set scenes and reimagine scenes within memoir. It’s so exciting and often yields unusual and highly original results. Issues that appear to be problems are almost inevitably amazing creative opportunities.
Do you think memoir has the power to change lives, both that of the writer and that of the reader?
Absolutely. I’m an avid reader of memoir and the very best ones always affect how I think and often how I behave. Memoir is so powerful in the way it helps readers to understand the universality of life and connect with others.
How has writing Twelve Moons changed your life?
I have used Twelve Moons as a campaigning tool to try to effect change for other parent-carers, which was not something I imagined would be an outcome of publishing the book. I have connected with so many readers - I get messages every week from people who have seen something in my story that has affected them in a positive way and this is the biggest joy of all. Such an enormous privilege. I wrote Twelve Moons partly to make my world bigger and that is exactly what has happened.
This was a really interesting and insightful read. Thanks for sharing.
Great post - insightful questions and thoughtful responses. Thanks for sharing.