Viva Brighton April 2015 Issue #26

literature
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DARK AEMILIA by Sally O’Reilly
Shakespeare’s muse?
‘Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.’
Shakespeare’s three witches
shadow the narrative of Dark
Aemilia, Brighton-based author
Sally O’Reilly’s first historical novel.
“I had wanted to write a version of
Macbeth from Lady Macbeth’s point
of view but I struggled with the 11th
century,” says O’Reilly, who has
published two contemporary novels,
and teaches creative writing for the OU. “Then I
thought about setting my novel when the play was
written.” Looking into primary sources from the
turn of the 17th century - Macbeth was first staged
in London in 1606 - O’Reilly stumbled upon Aemilia
Bassano, a courtier’s mistress, England’s first
female professional poet and, possibly (according to
some scholars), muse for Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’
sonnets. O’Reilly had her heroine. “If you can read
someone’s writing, you can get inside their head,”
the author says of Bassano, whose single volume of
poems was published in 1611. “I felt such a strong
connection with her.”
O’Reilly was able to trace the real life Bassano
through her appearances in the diaries of the
16th-century physician and astrologer
Simon Forman, who kept annotated
records of the comings and goings
of his clients. “Historical fiction is
a compromise,” says the author. “A
negotiation between fact and fiction. Of
course one is anachronistically projecting
a modern viewpoint, but if the story
and characters feel authentic, then the
reader will make the leap.” O’Reilly has
Aemilia ‘lie with’ Shakespeare, and the
ensuing erotically charged tug o’ love between the
bard and the dark-eyed female poet is laced with
sorcery and the occult. ‘I am a witch for the modern
age,’ begins the novel in Bassano’s beguiling voice.
Does O’Reilly believe in witches? “Not in the
tall-hat-plus-cat sense, no. But I had my Tarot cards
read in the North Laine recently by a woman who
had an amazing atmosphere about her - she was
no-nonsense, no frills, no customer service. But she
had an incredible way of reading people - reading
me, anyway. Maybe that is the fascination for me - a
good witch will take female intuition to the max. In
that sense, there is a bit of witchcraft in all women.”
Dark Aemilia by Sally O’Reilly (Myriad Editions) is
published in paperback on 23rd April.
bookends
Mary Portas, the instantly recognizable, orange-haired champion of High Street retailers, is coming to
Brighton in April. Shop Girl, her keenly awaited memoir, tells of the young Mary Newton growing up
in a Watford semi, constantly in trouble – eating Chappie for a bet, setting fire to the school – whilst
dreaming of being an actress. The ever-entertaining Queen of Shops will be reading from her book and
explaining how, due to a family tragedy, her thespian dreams were diverted into the window displays of
Harvey Nicholls. Amongst the mannequins, handbags and frocks, she found her true calling.
Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham, 7pm, 1st April, £8.00, ropetacklecentre.co.uk, 01273 464440
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