Dr Susan Cahill tells us about her new book The World Between the Rain
Where are you from, Susan?
I’M from Clonakilty though we moved around a bit when I was younger – I even lived in Saudi Arabia for three years when I was six to eight years old. But Clonakilty is always home.
In 2011, I moved to Montreal, Canada where I taught Irish literature in a university and then moved to London in 2019. And even though I live in London now, I go home to Clon as much as I can. I have a four-year-old son and I want him to have as strong a relationship with the place as I do, so I take him back all the time – my mum, and my brother and one sister still live in Clon and my other sister lives in Dublin.
I really miss the landscape and the beaches and the rain, all of which inspired The World Between the Rain.
What’s The World Between the Rain about?
The book is about 13-year-old Marina, who lives in a small town in West Cork. (The town is basically a mash-up of Clonakilty and the village of Ardmore in Waterford, where I spent childhood summers.)
When we meet Marina, it’s the first anniversary of her father’s death and she’s staring out her bedroom window, daydreaming, when she notices the rain is behaving strangely. But before she can investigate, her sister Seri interrupts saying that their mother is in a deep sleep and won’t wake up.
This sleeping sickness is affecting the whole town, and maybe the whole world.
That night, Marina accidentally slips between the raindrops into a watery world full of forgotten gods and strange creatures where something beneath the water is threatening everything. Can she find her way back home and wake everyone up before it’s too late? It’s a book about loss and hope, family and sisters, imagination and dreams and has some very funny talking frogs.
Who is it aimed at?
The book is aimed at readers aged 10-plus. I strongly believe that children’s books should be read by anyone. They’re some of the wisest and bravest and most sophisticated books out there. And they’re the hardest to write because you’ve got to grab that child reader from your first sentence. My ideal reader is probably myself aged 9-10 which means it will appeal to anyone who loves books about daydreaming heroes, other worlds, ancient gods, and who long to slip between the raindrops themselves.
What inspired the book?
My main inspiration is West Cork: the sea, the beaches, the landscape, and the ever-present rain. The landscape around West Cork has always seemed so ancient and magical to me and because I’ve always been a huge daydreamer, I’ve spent a lot of time dreaming about what kind of magical stories are just waiting in the land. I started asking myself questions like: what were the stories told around fires on rainy nights but have now been forgotten. And what if there were ancient gods who’d forgotten they were gods, what would they be like if they lived next door, or were even part of your family!
Then another idea joined with that one. I’ve always loved books where characters begin in our world and then find a doorway into another world. So I knew that I wanted to write a book in which the main character falls into another world. An image popped into my head of two girls in a wardrobe trying to get to another world and I was intrigued. I thought, what else could I use as a portal? And because one of the most reliable things in Ireland is the rain, I thought, what if the other world could be glimpsed between the raindrops.
Is it special to visit Kerr’s with the new book?
It’s so special. Kerr’s is one of my favourite bookshops. Trish Kerr, who runs it, has created such a book sanctuary. I make a point of calling in to say hi every time I’m home.
I remember spending lunch breaks when I was at school browsing the shelves and dreaming of having a book there. It’s a literal dream come true to visit Kerr’s with my own book. I’ll be there from 2pm to 3pm on Saturday October 26th signing books and it would be wonderful to meet some readers!
• Susan co-hosts the podcast Storyshaped with fellow writer Sinéad O’Hart where they interview children’s writers about books that influenced them. She is on Instagram @susancahillwrite
