Glasgow-born Luan Goldie’s debut fiction, Nightingale Point, bears uncanny similarities to London’s Grenfell Tower inferno, even though the writing of the novel was conceived more than five years before that fateful night of June 14, 2017.
So close is the book to the aftermath of the catastrophic North Kensington event that claimed 72 lives, publishers were reluctant to put it into print.
“They didn’t want to be the publisher putting out the Grenfell book,” says the author, who grew up in London.
“I understand that,” she concedes.
“Even I felt like I didn’t want to read it now or work on it, because like a lot of Londoners, Grenfell really hit me. I was watching the footage and sitting on this book and there were so many similarities with the aftermath in Nightingale Point.”
The Costa Short Story Award-winner’s offering – out in paperback next week – is inspired by Holland’s Biljmer disaster; when a cargo plane crashed into a housing estate in 1992.
Luan, 38, reveals: “After Grenfell I was scared as I thought people would draw comparisons, but now I think people SHOULD draw comparisons.
“The communities are angry, they feel that they have been left, that it hasn’t been handled properly, there is this sense of injustice, just as with Biljmer.
“People felt they were not being listened to, that they had lost everything, and were not being helped. There are so many similarities. It has been difficult but it keeps the conversation going.”
HQ saw the value of her work and took it on. The hardback hit bookshelves bolstered by great reviews and Nightingale Point became a BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick.
Luan reveals she stumbled on Biljmer’s tragic history while visiting Holland with her Dutch husband, music producer Patrick.
Luan, mum to four-year-old Annabelle, explains: “The more I read about it and watched news footage, the more I became interested in the community who went through this and came out the other side.
“I was fascinated by the community spirit. How can you get on with your life after you go through something like that? I had to write about it, and that’s when the characters started to form. I was about 30 at the time.”
Her debut success has meant her second novel, The Homecoming, is on its way.
For Luan her family are the wind beneath her wings: “My family in Glasgow rushed out to buy the book and got their friends to buy it, they are really proud.
“I’m mixed race – half Nigerian but I was never brought up by my dad. All of my family are white Scottish – which is unusual for someone who looks like me.
“I am really proud to be Scottish. It is a big part of my identity. It is still where my family are and where we go back to. I always say I am Scottish – I might be from London but I am also Glaswegian.
“I want to write something set in Scotland next.”
Luan Goldie, Nightingale Point, HQ, £8.99
Enjoy the convenience of having The Sunday Post delivered as a digital ePaper straight to your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Subscribe for only £5.49 a month and enjoy all the benefits of the printed paper as a digital replica.
Subscribe