{"id":164184,"date":"2022-04-11T11:11:12","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T00:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=164184"},"modified":"2022-04-11T16:16:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T05:16:29","slug":"read-a-qa-with-zoe-coyle-where-the-light-gets-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2022\/04\/11\/read-a-qa-with-zoe-coyle-where-the-light-gets-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Read a Q&A with Zo\u00eb Coyle | Where the Light Gets In"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Zo\u00eb<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Zo\u00eb Coyle has spent over 15 years in corporate and communication training, building on her 20 years\u2019 experience as a film and theatre actor in the UK, US and Australia. She is the communication coach of choice for the CEOs of some of Australia\u2019s largest companies, small businesses and not-for-profit organisations.<\/em> Where the Light Gets In<\/a><\/strong> is her first novel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Zo\u00eb Coyle is on the blog to answer a few of our questions about her debut. Read on …<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
\"Zo\u00eb<\/a>

Zo\u00eb Coyle<\/p><\/div>\n

Please tell us about your book, Where the Light Gets In<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

ZC:<\/strong> Delphi is a woman who is just getting her life together in London with the prospect of a new love and a new job when her mother, who has a terminal illness, asks her to cross the world to join her in Australia to help her die. It is about grief, bereavement and the courage that is required to heal, to become whole again when we\u2019ve been broken. One of my epigraphs is the Japanese term Kintsugi, which is the art of mending broken ceramics with gold. Rendering the repaired object with its golden fractures more beautiful than the original. I love that.<\/p>\n

And if that all sounds very heavy, I\u2019m a big seeker of joy, and I very much hope that is in the novel too. Other themes are love, hope, friendship, sex, art, and dogs. All the good things.<\/p>\n\n\n

Where did the inspiration for this novel come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZC: <\/strong>There was a singular moment actually. The genesis of this story arrived when I was in a bathtub heavily pregnant with my first child. I felt compelled to take stock of who I was, of my history, of who I wanted to be for my child, of what I wanted her to inherit and what I needed to clean up in my psyche so it wasn\u2019t hers to solve or survive. In essence I knew I wanted to get myself together. That is the seed of my lived reality that I planted and it grew into the fictional tree that is this novel. As a writer we get to ask \u2018What if?\u2019 over and over again, and explore those wonderful concentric circles that radiate out from that questioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mother-daughter relationship between Inica and Delphi is obviously hugely complex, encompassing both trauma and love. How did you go about bringing it to life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZC:<\/strong> I am endlessly fascinated by the relationships that form us, particularly those profoundly significant ones from childhood. Some years ago I attended a retreat called The Hoffman Process where the participants are guided to unpack the patterns in their lives to see where and why those patterns were born. It was one of the most intense but deeply rewarding experiences I\u2019ve ever had. It\u2019s not about blaming our pain on our parents or guardians, it\u2019s about coming to understanding so we can evolve and live more fully and peaceably. It\u2019s the work of consciousness raising or, and I love this term, it\u2019s about coming home to self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an aside Delphi\u2019s surname is Hoffman. Which was my celebratory nod to the Process. It also works so well because she is a seeker, she craves to understand and be free of confusion and pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother died over twenty years ago, she euthanised herself when it still wasn\u2019t legal to do so in Australia. So I couldn\u2019t be with her when she died. As I speak to you now, 5 of our 6 states have passed Voluntary Assisted Dying laws with so far only two states currently operational (Western Australia and Victoria), but when my mother needed help it wasn\u2019t available to her. This novel is not her story, I created fictional characters and a fictional storyline to best explore the themes and questions I wanted to mine around the right to die. Trauma, grief and bereavement aren\u2019t talked about very much because they so complex, frightening and dark. But I know grief – (of course we all do) – I know what it is to be smashed to pieces by the death of someone I adored. I also know something of the precarious route out of the darkness and I wanted, in part, to write about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am also the mother of 4 children. So I think about mothering and how to do it well every single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What appeals to you about the novel as a form for writing about contentious themes and topics like euthanasia?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZC:<\/strong> I am a constant reader. My life has been deeply enriched through literature. It has opened doors on worlds and experiences I will never have the opportunity to live. It has exposed me to ideas and people, and delivered me such riches. Literature has made me braver, less judgmental, more open minded and without a doubt has increased my capacity for empathy and swollen my wild love of life. If I am without a novel, which doesn\u2019t happen often, I feel diminished, as if parts of me deflate and go grey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also I have so many adored friends from novels, which of course are created characters but they carry on living inside me. And some writers whom I\u2019ve never met but I consider beloved long term buddies, that I carry on having conversations with throughout my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literature is a great antidote to loneliness and I think it\u2019s also a form of meditation. I love my focus being utterly drawn to one point, making my Zo\u00eb-ness recede. So nice to have a break from myself!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Literature has made me braver, less judgmental, more open minded and without a doubt has increased my capacity for empathy and swollen my wild love of life.’<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Who did you write this book for? Who do you wish would read it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZC:<\/strong> For everyone. But if that is a bit ambitious and broad, I hope anyone who has known loss and isolation will find comfort and companionship in this book. My intention was to offers up big questions but also some possible pathways to peacefulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Curt Richter who worked at John Hopkins did some fascinating drowning rat psychology experiments in the 1950\u2019ies. Delphi refers to it in the novel. What Richter found is that if you put a rat in a bucket of water it will drown in fairly short order. So grim I know. Sorry, stay with me. But if you take the rat out of the bucket of water and give it a look around then return it to the bucket it will swim on for days. Why? Because it\u2019s been given hope. A shocking experiment to be sure but what it so powerfully illustrates is that hope is extremely powerful. I think about that often and try to cultivate and cherish hope in my life, and this novel is threaded through with hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you tell us a little bit about your journey towards becoming a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZC:<\/strong> I have always wanted to be a writer, but life, fear and not knowing how got in the way. Ira Glass spoke some years ago about taste, and that what gets a person into creating is that they have, to use his term \u2018killer taste\u2019 but because of that, in the beginning, when they\u2019re inexperienced they can see this terrible gap, between what they can initially create and what they know to be good or indeed great. But without the doing it badly, we can never get better. I was atrophied in that gap for many years. I started and failed to complete seven novels, but turning 40 I just bit the bullet and made the choice to throw caution to the wind, to turn up at my computer and write. To try to put my fear, ego, and sense of not-enoughness on a short chain, and get out of my own way. There\u2019s an Arthur Miller quote that has been really helpful for me, he said of his own work, \u2018take it or leave it, this is the best I\u2019ve got.\u2019 That I\u2019ve found is really freeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was lucky enough to be given a two book deal from Ultimo Press. I am grateful because I have learnt so much from writing my debut that it\u2019s a luxury to be able to harness that and dive back in with greater confidence and daring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re the founder of Pilot Light Consulting and you trained with Bren\u00e9 Brown to be an accredited Dare to Lead facilitator. How much of your approach to that kind of work informed the writing of this novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZC: <\/strong>Hugely. In my business I work with organisations as a leadership facilitator and agent of cultural and personal change. Bren\u00e9\u2019s work because of who she is, and that it\u2019s underscored by extensive research gives it a legitimacy that brings so many people across the line to a place of greater self-awareness, emotional intelligence, courage and positive behavioural change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I went to Texas being to be trained by Bren\u00e9, it changed my life. It is exciting and a privilege to pass those teachings on. I\u2019m interested in constantly evolving, in looking at my blind spots, my prejudices, my protection mechanisms and doing better. As Socrates said \u2018The unexamined life is not worth living.\u2019 That seems a bit extreme to me, my dog doesn\u2019t examine her life I don\u2019t think, but she\u2019s having a great time and has amazing skills at being in the present. Animals and babies are Zen masters in a sense. But where I do agree with Socrates, is that the examined life allows us to live with purpose and to love and be loved fulsomely. Which to me seems the whole point of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the last book you read and loved?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZC:<\/strong> I have read many excellent books this year so thank you for asking me which was the most recent rather than the best. Mothering Sunday<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Graham Swift I thought was all sorts of wonderful. I keep retuning to the imagery, and wonder about the characters with great tenderness. It reminded me a little of Ian McEwan\u2019s On Chesil Beach<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, but where that novel is dark greys, this one, even shot through with tragedy is bathed in sunlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also I have to mention Jonathan Franzen\u2019s Crossroads<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. What spectacular understanding he has of us as a species. His skill is masterly. When I finished it I just carried the book around for a while because I didn\u2019t want to let it go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you hope readers will discover in Where the Light Gets In<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZC: <\/strong>I hope they\u2019ll find beauty and some interesting questions about belonging versus fitting in. I would love it to provoke conversation about euthanasia and how we societally deal with bereavement and trauma. I really resile from certain sectors of the wellness industry that preach that we are broken, and only if we do this, eat that, be with this person we\u2019ll be saved. I don\u2019t agree with that thinking, it\u2019s actually quite sinister. Or the trope that we need to be in a romantic relationship to be valid and that a lover will solve us. We all get battered about by life, everyone suffers, but what I\u2019m fascinated by is how we find our way back to the light. And the valour of that struggle. And if we make it, ultimately as I say in the book a cathedral is built within us, a place of reverence, awe, gratitude and perspective. That we are more capable of love and self-compassion and kindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also hope my readers will enjoy the travel, Australia, England, Italy, because we sure haven\u2019t had much of that in the last few years. And I hope they\u2019ll be warmed by the fires of rich friendships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, what\u2019s up next for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZC:<\/strong> I am about to hand my second novel to my terrific publisher and editor at Ultimo Press Alex Craig. This one is quite different to Where the Light Gets In<\/em>, it\u2019s about sex, power and rage. It has been so much fun to write. My main character Odessa comes to such an extreme moment of provocation that she wades into her friends\u2019 marriages to teach and manipulate their husbands. Her heroic aim is to get those men to evolve but her strategies know no limits. It\u2019s a sex-soaked modern day morality tale. I\u2019m often asked if Where the Light Gets In<\/em> is a memoir. It will really make me laugh if I\u2019m asked the same thing about book 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Where the Light Gets In<\/a><\/em> by Zo\u00eb Coyle (Ultimo Press) is out now.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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