Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.
Zilla: Activism brings its own ethical questions and challenges, alongside its deep friendships and joys. Frances Boyle tells the story of the nuances of connection and love within this sphere. We’re delighted to have her here to talk about her book, Skin Hunger. So Frances, take it away! Can you tell us the blurb as a starting point?
Frances: When passionate young animal lover Rowan Shea falls in with a group of radical animal liberationists, she must navigate fine lines between activism and extremism and between sex and intimacy to learn where true connection can be found. Rowan’s estranged mother Evie struggles with mental health challenges and a conviction that her essence will harm her child, yet yearns to be re-united with Rowan. Skin Hunger intertwines themes of motherhood and psychosis, human-animal relations, and the essential need for physical touch while exploring complicated friendships and infighting in a cast of well-meaning activists.
Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?
Frances: Several strands came together as inspiration: I’d long had unanswered questions about a family member’s stays in mental institutions, so used fiction to explore them. Early days of COVID-19, when the absence of human touch was challenging for many people, brought to mind a scene in Helen Humphrey’s novel, The Lost Garden, where an isolated character opens up in response to touch. The vital nature of touch led me back to early memories of photo-essays about cruel monkey experimentation by scientist Harry Harlow, and those recollections sparked the animal liberation activities.
Zilla: What do you wish you could tell your characters?
Frances: I’d want to tell both of them to be easier on themselves, tell Rowan that intimacy is more than just sex, and give Evie advice that would allow her to fight for her child rather than caving to seemingly-insurmountable opposition.
Zilla: Do you surprise your readers?
Frances: I hope so! I play in different genres: poetry plus both short- and long-form fiction, with varied styles, settings and subjects. Some works derive from real life or simulate it, others hark to myth and fairy tale (e.g. my Rapunzel-channeling novella, Tower) and I sometimes write speculative, haunted and eerie stories and poetry.
Zilla: If you weren’t a writer, what do you think you’d do instead?
Frances: I’ve long thought that I would have liked to have been a filmmaker. I love the possibilities of the visual medium.
Zilla: What’s your next writing project?
Frances: Editing a forthcoming chapbook about my childhood neighbourhood in Regina, SK, and a second collection of short stories, working title Turbulence, which has more weird and speculative stuff than my first, Seeking Shade. And a bunch of poems towards a new collection are simmering in the background.
Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?
Frances: Skin Hunger is available from my publisher, Guernica Editions, and through bookstores (preferably indies!).
My website is www.francesboyle.com
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/francesboyle19/
Blue Sky https://bsky.app/profile/francesboyle19.bsky.social
(very occasionally) Twitter/X: https://x.com/FrancesBoyle19
