A country walk with the dogs. At dawn.
Celebrating the release of her fourth novel, Lie of the Land, it's Kerry Hadley-Pryce Week all week in Outsideleft. Together, we've visited some locations for her book, climbing Stourbridge's muscular multi storey car park, we've trodden along the towpath of the Canal — heading towards Netherton, but of course. Today we end our rambling interview with Kerry, actually, rambling with her and her dogs in the early hours. With head torches and with dogs with head torches.
Outsideleft: If you need What3Words to find a place. You probably shouldn't bother. Pretend you're a terible speller. Take a principled stand for the dyslexic. Of this software, simply say, simplicity is vulgar. Which is always true. What what what3words shows us is an absolute need for large-print, waterproof, backlit, Ordnance Survey maps that highlight the contour lines so that you don't inadvertently go on a hillclimb. "So, this is a common walk for you with your dogs.? This is an uncommon walk for me. Tell me about it before we go too far."
Kerry Hadley-Pryce: I’m out of the house at 5am with the dogs. This is not particularly by choice, but because there’re actually not enough hours in the day if I don’t. This time of the year, it’s pitch black dark, and very cold. I have to wear several layers and have a head-torch strapped to my forehead. The field by the canal is about a mile and a half away. We have to cross a dual carriageway and walk through a housing estate to get there. Once there, there is no light, except from my head-torch, or occasionally, the moon. Horses appear out of the darkness. I don’t know who they belong to. The dogs – one of the dogs – always goes ape at them, but they don’t react. At the bigger field, which is a great expanse of hummocky grass hemmed by woods at the top and the canal at the bottom, I let the dogs off and they leap about, snooping for sticks. I like the aloneness. I think about what I have to do that day, and if I’m writing something – a novel, say – then I think about that. If it’s rained, I can hear the river Stour, which is the other side of the canal. I like that. I walk with the dogs into the woods. It’s absolutely pitch black in there. My head-torch wakens the birds. There’s a peregrine Hawk and a couple of woodpeckers. One of the dogs always races out of sight chasing (I imagine) squirrel(s). Occasionally, the eyes of a fox appear. I always, always, always think I should write a crime novel when I’m walking in these woods. I get home about 7am, never having seen a piper or a bagpiper, sadly.
OL: I can imagine how your novels could take shape out here. I just want to finish up something I have been thinking about and not mentioned. Cover design is an important facet of all of your books. There's a consistency, a 
branding of sorts for sure, without a doubt. But this cover, Lie of the Land, carries a threat. The house is foreboding, it is creepy? In Lie of the Land's cover, we see in, we see where we are going? Generally then, let's hear it for your book art…
KHP: Chris at Salt Publishing is the person behind the book covers – except for my first novel, which was designed by John Oakey. I get a say, of course, but Chris reads the novel, seems to get what atmosphere and themes are going on, and presents me with a couple of choices. I don’t put up much of a fight.
OL: Is a bigger house ever a better answer in a media text of any kind? Since that is a want in this world. More space. That it always seems to go appallingly, desperately and dangerously wrong, although - readers - I am not saying it goes wrong here, seems like an old testament response to avarice. A condemnation of a neoliberal house and everything perceived as assets.
KHP: Well, yes. In fact, ‘The Rocks’ in Lie of the Land is very loosely based on a house I used to live in. We needed a big house because of the number of children we seemed to have. It was a practical decision, but it was a money pit, and a monstrosity. So, some of the aspects of the house in the novel are my own (warped) descriptions of that place. It took nearly three years to sell, and I wrote some of the novel whilst still living there. So yes, you could be right about the condemnation.
OL: Let’s stick with big old houses and sounds… What would you need at your disposal to render the myriad of sounds from Lie of the Land? Would it wreck the entire story for the reader if I were to mention, none of these sounds bode well for them?
KHP: My old house made these sounds. The kids used to say it was haunted, and a friend once came round and said he ‘felt a presence’. I didn’t go for any of that. The people who bought it have completely gutted the place. I wonder if it still makes those sounds now… Anyway, no, it wouldn’t wreck the story for the reader to know ahead of time about those sounds.
OL: Your characters are often unnerved, scared, agitated by a constant distressing hum of fear. It’s not the first scary story you’ve written. When was the last time you were frightened? (IRL not by something like a movie, Farage’s popularity etc.)
KHP: A difficult one. I’m not a person who gets frightened or freaked out particularly easily. I try to kind of rationalise things. But I visited New York a couple of years ago and got Covid. When I came home, I felt pretty ill, and there was one night where I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Again, with the night time thing: the darkness, that sense of an ending of something. And I couldn’t breathe. I was frightened then.
OL: Do you ever find yourself in situations where you think, - and it would make a snappy bangle- WWJD - What Would Jemma Do?
KHP: Hah, yes, let’s get some of those bangles made up. When I was writing the novel, I did wonder how she would react to various situations. It can be energising to do that, when you’re in the writing zone. But, for me, once the novel is out there, that’s it. It’s over between us.
Next. The Happy Shopper...
Essential Information
KERRY HADLEY-PRYCE WEEK at OUTSIDELEFT
1. Introducing KHP...
2. Excerpt from Lie of the Land
3. Brutalist is the multi storey car park in Stourbridge
4. The Canal
5. Welcome to the Walking Week
6. The Happy Shopper (#41)
Main dogs image by Kerry Hadley-Pryce
Kerry at Salt Publishing is here
Kerry is appearing at the Bear Bookshop in Bearwood on January 25th at 6pm, info here
And at the Wolverhampton LitFest with R.M. Francis, info here
