Memories of Murder: Aly Sidgwick on Lullaby Girl

It seems somehow relevant, for Aly Sidgwick to be sipping black coffee in the Scottish/Swedish bar Sofi’s, chatting away in a local accent seasoned with Nordic vowels. Her debut novel Lullaby Girl is set in the savagely beautiful norths of both regions. The cynic may view this as a catch-all approach, cashing in on the successes of Scandi-crime and Tartan Noir, but for somebody who has lived extensively in both regions it’s a natural pairing. “Yeah, they’re both really important to me,” she says today. “When I wrote Lullaby Girl I was living in Sweden and I was really homesick at that time for Scotland. So it was kind of like me longing for Scotland. I feel kind of at home in both places so wanted to include them both.”

This bilateral approach is taken beyond geography and into form and genre. Lullaby Girl is a book of two distinct yet integrated parts. In the current timeline, the amnesiac protagonist, found face down on the banks of a remote loch, convalesces in a mental institution as her memory gradually returns. It’s a reflective piece of work which runs alongside a back story in the traditional style of a fast moving thriller. “I think it works well to have a contrast,” Aly says. “'Cos then you realise the change between the two. I never intended to write a thriller, but my publisher kind of pointed out that it was edging on the thriller, and I had never thought of it as that, I just thought of it as literary fiction.” It is very much wrapped and presented as a psychological thriller, a sensible move from the publisher; thrillers sell. It does mean that some readers are presented with more than they were expecting, and perhaps are used to (as some Amazon reviews testify – one mistakes creative use of language for grammatical fault and rails at Amazon for allowing such an error strewn work through).  The book exists as a sort of hybrid between literary skills and genre thrills. “It started off really Wuthering Heights,” Aly laughs, “running about the moors. It was the back story that changed the most because I felt that it wasn’t enough and I just kept building into it and it just got darker and darker. But for me, initially, the really important thing was her state of mind now, in the current timeline.” The psychiatric home, Gille Dubh, is a setting reminiscent of Jenni Fagan’s The Panopticon, although Aly says it’s “strongly based on a nursing home my Great Aunt was in when I was a kid. I was always terrified to go there because it was just full of these screaming old ladies who thought it was their house.” It’s a sort of purgatory for Kathy, the Lullaby Girl – so named as she recites a lullaby of unknown origins, dragged from the abyss of her memory. This current timeline strand may be static yet is in no way stagnant. It holds the depth while the back story possesses the movement.

Based in part on Andreas Grassl, named ‘Piano Man’ by the world's media, Lullaby Girl’s reminiscences are opaque but gradually take disturbing form. Through them we uncover Kathy’s fragile mental state – a topic Aly was keen to address. “I’ve personally lived with it all my life,” she states. “Depression and anxiety. When I first wrote the book – I started in 2010 – I had a nervous breakdown in 2009 so it was kind of me coming out of that and trying to make sense of it. The book in a lot of ways is just me trying to deal with what had happened.” A form of catharsis then? “Oh yeah, yeah. It felt kind of productive...In the beginning it was just for myself but by the end of the first draft I was intending to get it published. More than any of the other things I have written, this is me, it is really personal to me."

Lullaby Girl is not Aly’s first creative work. She is an experienced tattooist who has worked across Europe, and her visual artistry found its way to the page in the form of comic strips. She talks enthusiastically of the Norwegian underground comic scene, raving about the great artists she has discovered. “My favourite one actually was called Jason. They’re quite dark but they’re with animal characters. It’s almost like noir, but with rabbits talking and skulking around corners, it’s really, really cool.” It’s a background which must colour her way of writing. “I think I write in a really visual way,” She concedes. “I noticed that when I was reading it back that I’m constantly describing what stuff looks like.” She makes this sound like a weakness, but it’s a skill which pays dividends in Lullaby Girl, forming significantly bleak landscapes. “They are really different,” she says, comparing the forms. “But it’s all art, it’s all making sense of the world… I’ve been a visual artist all my life so this is kind of a new thing for me, to be writing. I’m just finding my feet.” Finding them firmly.