Aoife Clifford was born in London of Irish parents, studied Arts/Law at the Australian National University, and now lives in Melbourne. Aoife is the author of best selling literary crime novels, Second Sight, Highly Commended in the Davitt Awards, and All These Perfect Strangers, which was long listed for both the ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year and the Voss Literary Prize. Aoife is a Ned Kelly Award winner, has won the Scarlet Stiletto and been shortlisted for the UK Crime Association’s Debut Dagger among other prizes. Her award winning short stories have been published in Australia, UK and US. Her new novel is When We Fall.
Today, Aoife Clifford is on the blog to answer a few of our questions about When We Fall. Read on …
Aoife Clifford
Please tell us about your book, When We Fall.
AC: In the small Australian coastal town of Merritt, Alex Tillerson and her mother make a shocking find on the beach, connected to the death of the local art teacher, Maxine McFarlane. The police dismiss it as an accident but people in the town are not sure. Could it be linked to an earlier unsolved murder? Bella Greggs was found next to a river but died from drowning in salt water. Maxine was pulled from the ocean but there was no water in her lungs. Black feathers were found with both bodies but what do they mean? Merritt has a long history of being unkind to young women and a habit of burying the truth. It’s a beautiful, wild place where victims and perpetrators live next to each other and good people have their reasons to look the other way.
The protagonist of this novel is Alex Tillerson. Who exactly is she and why is it so important to her that the truth is uncovered?
AC: Alex is an underemployed barrister with time on her hands and lots of reasons to avoid dealing with her own life. One day walking along a beach, she finds a severed leg and feels responsible enough to make sure that is appropriately investigated by the local police. They claim it’s an accident but when an acquaintance tells her that she has evidence it was a murder, Alex gets involved. As she becomes further embroiled in what happens, she realises that the consequences of this case have implications for herself and her own history.
The blurb for When We Fall suggests that ‘good people keep looking the other way’ when it comes to the town’s murky past. As a crime writer, what do you find so compelling about this idea?
AC: Because we all do it, all the time. It is such a human trait. We can always give ourselves excuses for letting bad things unfold in front of us. It is a rare brave person who stands up and forces us to see with our eyes what we know in our hearts. Too often their calls fall on deaf ears. We see it with Indigenous activists telling us the way forward to true reconciliation or individuals trying to change Australia’s inhumane immigration policy. We see it in young women like Grace Tame and Greta Thunberg.
Aussie crime fiction is often set in rural, remote locations like Merritt, the coastal town at the centre of this novel. Why do you think these kinds of settings are so appealing to writers and readers when it comes to crime fiction?
AC: There are at least three reasons I can think of. The first is practicality. Crime fiction works well in closed communities, because there is an implied promise that you will already have met the (unknown) killer. It super-charges the puzzle element of crime fiction. It also can show the impact of the crime on those left behind. As a character says in When We Fall, ‘It isn’t strangers you need to worry about here. Blood lines run deep and in unexpected places. Every victim, every accused, we’ll know. The past runs alongside us all the time. Some days it spills into the open.’
The second reason is landscape. Not only is it useful for plot purposes and excitement levels, it’s a wonderful challenge to write about bushfires, floods, climbing up mountains at night and storms. Landscape can become a character in the book, reflecting back choices made and carrying the scars of past wrongs.
And lastly, I grew up in a country town. So for me this isn’t just a useful backdrop, I want to create fictional towns that ‘work’, filled with plausible characters that readers can believe have lives off the page. Often in crime novels we are reading about death and disfunction. I don’t want that to be the only focus in my novels.
‘Crime fiction, more so than other types of fiction, invites the reader to participate, to be the armchair detective. There will be clues to unravel, red herrings to avoid, and just maybe you will discover the murderer before the protagonist does.’
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey towards becoming a writer?
AC: I was always someone who wanted to try writing but I’d never made the time to actually sit down and do it. Fifteen years ago, I was at home with two small children (another was going to arrive) and made a New Year’s resolution to write a short story. Being a person who needs a goal and a deadline, I decided enter the Scarlet Stiletto writing competition run by Sisters in Crime. Embracing the advice that you should write what you know, I wrote about a kindergarten as my eldest had just started going to his. Being interested in crime, I set a murder mystery there. (This was a few years before Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies so it was a more original idea than it sounds now). To my surprise and delight, it won the competition and that was all the encouragement I needed and here I am three novels and countless short stories later.
What do you love about writing crime fiction?
AC: The promise that is implicit in all crime novels is that in the beginning the reader is presented with a tight knot that by the end will once again be a piece of string. You will know who did it and you will know why. It is the great comfort of fiction that we can organise the world. I know I’m biased, but crime fiction, more so than other types of fiction, invites the reader to participate, to be the armchair detective. There will be clues to unravel, red herrings to avoid, and just maybe you will discover the murderer before the protagonist does.
What is true for the reader is also true for the writer. I don’t meticulously plan my novels before writing, so in my first draft, I also experience wanting to get to the end and find out what happened and why.
What is the last book you read and loved?
AC: 2022 has not had the greatest start, but I have been fortunate enough to read some exceptional books. I scored an early copy of Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House, which is a work of genius. I am in awe of her talent and her ability to have amazing ideas and develop them into something wonderful.
What do you hope readers will discover in When We Fall?
AC: I’m a bookseller so I know that word-of-mouth is the most powerful endorsement to get, so I hope they discover a book that they enjoy so much they want to recommend it to family and friends.
And finally, what’s up next for you?
AC: I’ve got a couple of short stories coming out in publications and it’s back to the fourth book. It’s still in first draft so I’m excited to discover how it will end.
Thanks Aoife!
—When We Fall by Aoife Clifford (Ultimo Press) is out now. Limited signed copies are available while stocks last.
When We Fall
Limited Signed Copies Available!
In the wild, coastal town of Merritt, Alex Tillerson and her mother make a shocking find on the beach. The police claim it’s an accidental death but there are whispers of murder and that it is not the first.
Bella Greggs was found dead at the bottom of a ravine but drowned in salt water. Maxine McFarlane was pulled from the ocean but with no water in her lungs. Black feathers were found with both bodies but what do they mean? As Alex fights for answers to honour the dead, and to discover...
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