University of Bristol: Penguin buys PhD student’s ‘extraordinarily moving’ novel, with translations planned in 4 languages
The List of Suspicious Things follows 12-year-old Miv as she navigates a 1970s Yorkshire plagued by the Yorkshire Ripper.
Jennie drew heavily on her own experiences growing up in the West Yorkshire town of Dewsbury, where the ‘Ripper Squad’ – the team investigating the spate of murders – was based.
Peter Sutcliffe’s presence dominated Jennie’s early life, but it was only upon his arrest that she realised how closely their lives had touched. Her mechanic father worked with Sutcliffe, frequently servicing the lorries he drove.
Jennie said: “I remember my dad staring open mouthed at the television and saying ‘but I know him, I know him’.”
If Sutcliffe played an outsized role in Jennie’s life, so did books. She was once dragged to the doctors by a mother worried she wasn’t sleeping because she spent so much time reading under the covers.
“I was obsessed,” Jennie remembers. “It was my way of escaping.”
A passion for books led her to a degree in English and Politics at De Montford University in Leicester. Three decades on, she is a student again, this time studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol.
Jennie said: “I loved university and wanted to be a journalist, but at that time I couldn’t see myself as a writer because that seemed a leap too far for someone of my background: a working class, northern woman.
“During my degree my parents separated and my mum became homeless. It was during the recession, when things were just awful.
“I realised any high ideals of wanting to write had to be put to one side. I graduated and immediately went into business to make sure my family was secure.”
Jennie excelled in business, eventually working her way up to HR Director of a FTSE-100 company. But despite her success she always felt out of place playing the role of a “hard-nosed businesswoman”.
Jennie said: “It’ll sound really trite, but I really did have a moment where I thought: ‘I’m nearing 50, and I’ve had this thing that I’ve wanted to do since I was child. If not now, then when?’
“It was a midlife crisis, or maybe an existential crisis!”
Jennie gave herself six months to make a success from writing. After a few scrunched up manuscripts, Jennie leant on her love of true crime and hit upon her idea for The List of Suspicious Things. Soon her pen was ablaze.
“Writing the book was a homecoming and it’s fantastic to be showcasing my home area and people,” Jennie said.
“Both parents are really proud that it’s about Yorkshire, because it’s not necessarily a place that is reflected in literature in abundance.
“This isn’t a London-centric, middle-class novel; it’s a northern, working-class novel, and I love that the translations will be read all over the world.”
Jennie is now finishing the final edit of the novel. Hutchinson Heinemann (an arm of Penguin) plans to publish it in 2024, before translations into German, Spanish and other langauges.
Venetia Butterfield, managing director of Hutchinson Heinemann, said: “Jennie’s extraordinarily moving, accomplished and beautifully written novel kept me awake until 3 a.m.
“I was transported back to being 12, back to navigating an adult world that was at once confusing, exciting and mystifying. This is that very rare thing, a novel that is unputdownable, thoughtful, profoundly moving and genuinely universal in its appeal.”
Meanwhile Jennie, who lives in Somerset, will continue studying for her PhD at the University of Bristol.
During the PhD she will write another novel and produce a piece of original research into something that has always interested her: the difference in media coverage given to children missing from wealthy families, compared to those from poorer families.
Jo Nadin is Jennie’s PhD supervisor, a Senior Lecturer in the University’s English Department and an author of several successful books. She said: “I’m thrilled for Jennie, but not at all surprised. Her writing is touching, funny and insightful. I can’t wait to see it in print.”
And after her PhD? Perhaps a memoir, perhaps another novel, but her die is cast; and they aren’t showing a return to HR.
“I don’t ever want to go back to corporate life,” Jennie said. “I cannot express how different I am now and how differently I feel about life. It’s a much less secure life – I don’t know what’s coming next and for a long time I didn’t know if I was going to get paid – but I’m still so much happier.”