#BlogTour #GuestPost – Books That Influenced Let Her Go by Dawn Barker @Canelo_co #LetHerGo

Books that influenced Let Her GoWhen I’m writing, I deliberately avoid reading books that are similar in theme to my manuscript and so I didn’t read books specifically to research the issues in let Her Go. I worried that if I did, I’d become anxious about my own writing, at least thinking, ‘oh no, someone’s already done that’, and most likely thinking, ‘they’ve written it so much better than I ever could’!However, there were a couple of books that influenced me in a way, books I’d read before writingLet Her Go, books that kept popping into my mind as I wrote.The first was Margaret Atwood’s amazingThe Handmaid’s Tale.I’ve read this book several times, and as I started to writeLet Her Go, I saw that the world she imagined in a speculative fiction novel – where an underclass of women are used for reproductive purposes – is not that far removed from the one we live in now. I love how she uses speculative fiction to make us think about contemporary issues. Once I understood how much I was thinking about this book, I found some amazing images of her characters and book covers and placed them on my desk as I was writing as inspiration.Another book that was an inspiration was David Vann’s brilliantCaribou Island. David Vann is one of my favourite writers: I love how he’s not afraid of dark themes. WhileCaribou Islandis set in Alaska, a long way from Western Australia (whereLet her Gois set) Vann is an expert at using landscape – Caribou Island – to increase the intensity between characters. I loved the idea of an island being an escape from life, but also how it can quickly turn into a prison. This gave me the idea to set some ofLet Her Goon Rottnest, a small island just off Perth, which is now a holiday destination but has a dark history.Finally, Robert Drewe’sThe Drowner,a fictionalized account of the life of CY O Connor, whose story appears in the background ofLet Her Go, was very useful. CY O Connor was a brilliant Irish engineer who built Fremantle harbor, and then was in charge of developing a pipeline to take water from Perth to the Goldfields of Western Australia, an engineering feat initially thought to be impossible. His story was both brilliant and tragic, and as I looked for settings forLet Her Go, CY O Connor kept appearing (literally, with statues of him in many places I looked!) and the drama of his life influenced the drama inLet Her Go.It wasn’t only books that influenced me when writingLet Her Go; it had a soundtrack in my mind too. That was Florence and The Machine’s soaring album,Ceremonials. I often listened to it as I edited Let Her Go in my local library, as it seemed to match the mood perfectly.It’s now been a couple of year since Let Her Go was first published in Australia, and only recently I have a read a couple of books that deal with similar themes: M.L. Stedman’sThe Light Between The Oceans, and more recently,Truly Madly Guiltyby Liane Moriarty. I am glad that they weren’t around when I wroteLet Her Goas they are both excellent books and would have caused me a lot of anxiety!