Faye Murphy reads excerpt from The Dishonest Miss Take

Tindle News

Farnham Library was host to an evening of joy and pessimistic humour as a former staff member hosted a Q&A evening. Faye Murphy sat down to discuss her book “A Dishonest Miss Take” at the library on Tuesday, November 19. guest, friends and family watched on as Faye answered questions on her writing process and the journey of her first book being published in Michigan, USA. The book is set in a reimagined Victorian London where the pollution of the Industrial Revolution gives people special powers. At the heart of the story is Clara a notorious villain turned unlikely superhero. Despite her selfish, sarcastic and cynical nature she takes on the city’s corrupt and powerful elite with her power to take people’s pain away. Her literary inspirations include Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. Her favourite book was “The Last Chance” released in 1990 by Adams. She kicked off the Q&A by reading an excerpt of the book to the audience. Faye opened up to the audience about her organised chaos saying her writing process revolves around creating a “biosphere of chaos”.  Sometimes Faye would throw herself into writing the story and then later find she needed to plan in more detail.  She however said “No word I have ever written has been a waste of time every word I write is honing my craft. Faye revealed she will continue to write but has no intention at the moment in writing a sequel but is open to exploring a prequel to her first published story.

Transcript

00:00Draved above the entrance to the hulking clubhouse, that somehow reminded me of Arthur's face, was

00:05Protection is our function. I was supposed to be happy that I had a function, a use to which society

00:11could put me. It could have been worse. Function was the term that it caught on, but other names

00:16I'd heard directed at people like me included freak, monster, devil, stuff like that. My personal

00:23favourite was Thames baby. It made it sound like my parents had dumped me in the river as a newborn.

00:28If there was any evidence that near drowning increased your chance of getting a function,

00:31they would have. They were good at many things, but consideration for my well-being was not one

00:36of them. I took a moment to gather my thoughts and hair. Putting it in a bun always threw Arthur.

00:41He was scared of necks. The lump in question was in his office, growing out of his feet like a

00:47nasty spot of mould. The utilitarian room was gloomy, mostly because there was only one window,

00:52and Arthur blocked it when he stood up. He made a show of pulling my chair out for me,

00:57turning the simple task of sitting down into a three-act farce. I gifted him one of the dazzling

01:02smiles I handed out with free samples. Now, Miss Blakely, I won't beat about the bush, so to speak.

01:09I waited patiently. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He swallowed.

01:15Did I bring tea? Would you like tea? No, thank you, I replied sweetly. He was staring at my

01:21neck like it might transform into a snake and strangle him. There was only so much entertainment

01:26one could draw from a man floundering out of his death. I let my eyes drip to the portrait behind

01:31his desk. Only people with heads larger than their hats had portraits of themselves on display in

01:36their own rooms. It showed Arthur gesturing to the crystal palace with his cane, that great

01:41waste of wealth constructed as part of the great exhibition of the works of functionables of all

01:45nations. That had been ten years ago. Why then did Arthur look twenty years younger in the painting?

01:51The last decade must have been rough on him. Right, he stammered. To business. This business

01:58would be, uh, how shall we put it? Prison? Yes, that. It is rather bad business, you understand?

02:07I was falsely accused. It was a matter of wrong time, wrong place. The police were very apologetic.

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