Tracing Futures and Histories: Roisin Dunnett on Crafting A Line You Have Traced
A Line You Have Traced follows three women trying to build meaningful lives despite a decaying future.
Speculative fiction is not something we read often, but as we love supporting debut authors, we were keen to read Roisin Dunnett’s A Line You Have Traced.
The book is set against the shifting landscape of East London marshes across three centuries, following three women who are connected together by unknown forces. The story is a much-needed one, as the conversations around climate, anti-fascist, and queer rights are more urgent than ever. And Roisin Dunnett started this discussion beautifully and organically in A Line You Have Traced.
To celebrate the release of A Line You Have Traced, we invited Roisin Dunnett to discuss how she planned her novel, including picking the time periods and designing the future world.
Did you already know how the novel’s three central characters, Bea, Kay, and Ess, would be connected before you started writing the story?
Yes, although originally, I imagined them being much more similar. I had envisioned the novel exploring, in part, how one person, or type of person might face particular challenges in particular eras. Quite soon after I started writing it became clear that three distinct voices and protagonists were developing, which was also a lot more interesting to write.
A Line You Have Traced spans multiple time periods, from post-World War I to a near-future setting. How did you pick the time periods? For example, why did you decide to feature the Battle of Cable Street?
I chose interwar east London because that is a time and place that features in my own family history, and which I was interested in exploring. It is also a really interesting time in Jewish and left-wing history in the city, and there are lots of different protests and disputes that I could have focused on. I did write a draft that was much more centered on the east London rent strikes that took place in the 1930’s, and they do still get a mention. Ultimately however, the iconic nature of the Battle of Cable street, the fact that so many people know it as a famous anti-facist demonstration, not to mention some of the brilliant eyewitness accounts we have of that protest, made it the best choice for that moment in the narrative. I always knew I would write a contemporary section, because of course, that’s the world I know best! It’s kind of pleasantly symmetrical that my future takes place about a century later, but it also works in terms of the kind of future I wanted to portray: a lot has changed, but the world is still recognisable – we aren’t quite in the ‘next phase’ yet, whatever that’s going to turn out to be!
And how did you keep each character’s voice distinct across these diverse timelines?
After a while I think I knew each character well enough that I dropped into their registers automatically. However, from when I started writing I had some distinct features I knew each would have – Bea would express herself carefully, but with this flavour of irritability and grief, and then the mystic moments that increase in frequency along with her angelic visions. Kay has a very modern colloquial cadence, and the immediacy of first person. I wanted Ess to have all the names of plants and to be more aware of the specific ecological systems around her, as well as sometimes quite a dogmatic way of expressing herself.
Please tell us about how you crafted the future world Ess inhabits?
I read a lot of speculative fiction! I also looked at some of the different social and political systems that people have attempted over the years, from families and communes living in different ‘off grid’ arrangements to more ambitious political projects. I also had conversations with friends about the sorts of futures we could imagine, and how we might find our way towards them. As someone who enjoys being by myself, I am also fascinated by the challenge of continually showing up for a community and a vision when maybe you’d rather just do your own thing. Ess attends most of her community meetings quite begrudgingly, but she does attend them.
Your novel touches on the important issue of climate emergency. Do you think fiction is more effective in influencing discussions than non-fiction?
Non-fiction is crucial, because that’s where (at least in theory) you’re going to find the facts! Most fiction writers who are writing about the climate emergency are making use of information that non-fiction writers and researchers are putting before us. However, one of the benefits of fiction is that you can take more liberties to elicit emotion and build narratives. Some non-fiction books about the climate emergency, including Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring,’ (one of the earliest!), include moments of speculative writing or fables to illustrate the possibility of good or bad environmental outcomes. I suppose if you’re going to write about the future of the planet you have to move into fiction, unless you have access to a reliable time machine.
Finally, A Line You Have Traced also features great queer representation. Why do you think it’s important to portray queer identities in a book that discusses resistance, survival, and community?
Queer life is life, as I am lucky enough to know it. I’m not interested in portraying a world or a future or a community that doesn’t include queerness. When it comes to resistance and survival, I think it becomes clear quite quickly that many movements – climate, anti-fascist, and queer rights to name just a couple – are intimately connected, and learn from and rely on each other, and I hope that the communities portrayed in A Line You Have Traced reflect that to some degree.
Order a copy of Roisin’s ‘A Line You Have Traced‘ now.
