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Cold Earth tells the story of an
archaeological dig in Greenland. The six narrators are excavating the
remains of a medieval Norse settlement while becoming increasingly
concerned about the spread of an influenza virus back home. I was
thinking of avian flu while I wrote the early drafts, but the WHO –
rather disconcertingly - declared swine flu to be a global pandemic
on the day of publication.
I think I can date my fascination with
archaeology to an early memory of becoming obsessed by Skara Brae, the remains of a Neolithic settlement in Orkney, during the
first of several childhood summers spent on the islands. I went back
to Orkney a few times as an adult, always drawn by the chambered
cairns, standing stones and pre-historic dwellings that shape the
land. I planned to be an archaeologist, and spent the summer I was
seventeen working on a Roman dig in central France, which was when I
noticed how the developing community of archaeological workers
mirrored the ancient community we were uncovering and thought that
the parallel stories would provide the structure of the novel I
intended one day to write.
After Cold Earth was published,
several childhood friends made contact, remembering how I used to
tell ghost stories at sleepovers and on winter evenings. I’d
forgotten about those sessions, though as an insomniac child I
certainly used to scare myself with dark imaginings, but – without
exactly ‘believing’ - I remain interested in the idea of ghosts,
the way their stories relate time and place to each other, the
hauntedness of particular objects and buildings.
Cold Earth reviews include
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