When a student from Wilmslow was penning her debut novel during her Creative Writing course, she could not have dreamed that it would lead to publishers scrabbling for the rights. But that is what happened to 26-year-old Emma Chapman who parents live on Bollin Hill.
Leading publisher Picador has secured the rights to How To Be A Good Wife – a tale of marriage and memory in a pre-empt deal, leaving Emma shell-shocked and delighted in equal measure.
"Until two weeks ago, I still wasn't sure that all the hard work and time I had put into the novel would pay off," she reveals. "The thought that after three years of work I might be sent back to the drawing board with a blank sheet of paper was pretty terrifying."
Emma wrote the novel during her year-long course at Royal Holloway, from 2008-2009 while juggling the commitments of the full-time course and working part time for a literary agency.
She said: "The course was recommended to me by my creative writing tutor at Edinburgh University, where I studied English Literature. I was drawn to the course as it was one of the best in the country, tutored by Sir Andrew Motion. It was invaluable for my career: it made me show my writing to an audience, to recognise the flaws as well as the merits, and gave me the time and space to get going with my novel."
The novel tells the story of Hector and Marta, who have been married a long time - so long that Marta finds it difficult to remember her life before him. Marta has done everything she can to be a good wife, and Hector has always taken care of her. But when Hector comes home with a secret, their careful domestic life begins to unravel, and Marta begins to see things, or perhaps remember them. In the darkness, there is a blonde girl who only Marta can see, and she is trying to tell her something.
Emma explains that the inspiration for How To Be A Good Wife came from a documentary about Post Traumatic Shock syndrome. "I was fascinated by possibility of repressing a memory, only to have it resurface many years later," she said. "It is amazing what the mind can do to survive certain traumatic situations. This is where the idea for the book came from, though it changed dramatically throughout the writing process."
How To Be A Good Wife is due to be published by Picador in Spring 2013.
