Authors: C. L. Taylor
Before I Wake (27 page)
Group Guide
1.
As Sue searches for the truth behind Charlotte’s accident, she realizes she had no idea what was going on in Charlotte’s life. Was that her fault, or Charlotte’s, or is it normal in a mother/teenage daughter relationship?
2.
The novel alternates between the main story line and Sue’s diary entries from fifteen years earlier. How effectively do you think this works as a literary device in this novel?
3.
Brian lies to Sue several times throughout the course of the novel. Was he justified in doing so, or should he have been completely honest with his wife?
4.
There are several clues in Sue’s early diary entries that James is controlling. At what point did you notice the warning signs? What do you think Sue could have done?
5.
Discuss the theme of “secrets and lies” in the book and the impact they have on Sue’s attempt to find out why Charlotte stepped in front of the bus.
6.
Sue is forty-three. How does she change over the course of the book?
7.
Sue won’t go to the police because she doesn’t think they’ll take her seriously (because of an incident that occurred during one of her PTSD “episodes”). At which point would you have gone to the police?
8.
Sue sees a mirror of her relationship with James in Keisha’s relationship with Danny. Do you think she is justified in being concerned? How so?
9.
Could young Sue’s friends and coworkers have done more to help save her from James?
10.
What do you think would have happened if Charlotte had woken up before Liam admitted to Sue that they’d been sleeping together in “Mike’s” house?
11.
Sue doesn’t turn to her friends for help during her search for answers. Why do you think that is?
12.
At the end of the novel, when James and Sue face each other in Charlotte’s hospital room, Sue asks if he ever really loved her. Do you think he did?
13.
What did you think of the ending? Would you have liked it to end differently?
14.
What do you think the future holds for Sue and her family? What effect do you think these events will have on their relationships?
15.
What other books would you compare this to? What books would you recommend to other readers who have enjoyed this book?
with the Author
Q:
Where did you get the idea for
Before I
Wake
?
A:
I was pregnant with my son when the idea first came to me. I wanted to write a novel about “keeping secrets,” but I had no idea who would be keeping the secrets or what those secrets would be. Then one day, when I was walking back from the supermarket—waddling along under the weight of my groceries—the first three lines popped into my head:
Coma. There’s something innocuous about the word, soothing almost in the way it conjures up the image of a dreamless sleep. Only Charlotte doesn’t look to me as though she’s sleeping.
I heard Susan’s voice as clear as day, and I knew immediately that she was the mother of a teenage girl who’d stepped in front of a bus. I kept repeating those three lines over and over again as I walked home so I wouldn’t forget them, then frantically scribbled them down. I kept writing and, less than two hours later, I had the first chapter.
I didn’t write any more until a couple months after my son’s birth. As a new mom in a new town, I was lonely, and very sleep deprived, and I missed writing, so, during his naps, I started plotting the rest of the story. I finished the first draft in five months.
Q: How did your personal history inform the novel?
A:
Like Susan, I was once in an abusive relationship. Unlike Susan it wasn’t physically or sexually abusive, but it was emotionally abusive, and over the course of the four years it lasted, it changed me as a person. It took me a long time to find the courage to leave the relationship, and even longer to heal from it.
When my son was born, I was overwhelmed by how protective I felt of him. I barely slept for fear something might happen to him in the night, and I watched him like a hawk in the day. When I started plotting
Before
I
Wake
, I began to wonder how I’d react if my son was in danger from something very different from SIDS or choking or falling or any of the other “normal” dangers. What if there was a person who meant him harm? I never really believed that that would happen, but I channeled those fears into Susan, who’d been through a much more horrific experience than me. What if she’d taken something precious from her abusive ex and he wanted revenge? And what if that revenge was wreaked on her own child?
Q: Why did you use diary entries alongside the main thread of the story?
A:
I felt it was really important that the reader understands why Susan is the way she is. She’s nervy, neurotic, and paranoid, and without the diary entries, it would be hard to be sympathetic toward her. During the course of the novel, Susan moves from whole to broken to whole again, and I thought it was important for the reader to see—via her diary entries—how very broken she was. Both threads of the stories build at the same time, and I hope the climaxes are as satisfying for the reader as they were to write.
Q:
Your main character, Susan, is a very “unreliable” narrator. Did you find her difficult to write?
A:
Not really. Once I’d heard Susan’s voice in my head, the words just spilled out of me. That said, there were times—when she was lashing out at people who didn’t deserve it—when I just wanted to shake her and tell her to trust people, but I totally understood why she was the way she was and why it was so important that she discover what had happened to Charlotte in her own way.
At the beginning of the novel, Susan says she feels like she was “sleep walking” through her own life, but by the end, she’s totally in charge of it. That was incredibly satisfying to write.
Q: Did you always know how the novel was going to end? Did you ever consider an alternative?
A:
No, I always knew that James would die at the end and Charlotte would wake up. I did consider Susan killing him, but I didn’t want her to become as vicious as he was. I also ummm’d and ahhh’d about whether Brian should return to the hospital room. I didn’t want him to be a “hero” and save the day, but I liked the idea that the habit that had annoyed Sue so much at the beginning of the novel (of him always returning to collect something he’d forgotten) actually helped save her life at the end. I also thought that, given how Sue had done so much over the course of the novel without Brian’s support, it would prove his love for her if he came to her aid.
Huge thanks to my editor Shana Drehs and the team at Sourcebooks for their support, encouragement, and enthusiasm. I’ve always dreamed of being published in the States and you made that dream come true. I’m very proud to be working with you.
Massive thanks to Madeleine Milburn for supporting me every step of the way. You kept believing, even when my own belief faltered, and that marks you out as a very special agent indeed.
A big thank-you to my friends and family—particularly my parents Reg and Jenny Taylor and my brother and sister David and Rebecca—for continuing to ask “how’s the novel?” even when the answer was little more than a sigh. And lots of love to Suz, Leah, Sophie, LouBag, Steve, Guinevere, Angela, Ana, Nan, and Granddad.
Grateful thanks to everyone on Twitter and Facebook who helped me out with research—particularly Andrew Parsons for his hospital procedure/drug expertise and Kimberley Mills for sharing her experience of caring for a coma patient. Thank you—and sorry—to Emily Harborow. The video research footage you surreptitiously filmed for me ended up on the editing room floor, but I’m sure I’ll be able to use it in another book.
Big thanks to Jim Ross for taking my lovely new author photos and to Rebecca Butterworth for doing my makeup.
A huge thank-you to my writer friends. Writing can be such a lonely business and you keep me company (and watered with booze). Special mention must go to Carolyn Jess-Cooke, Sally Quilford, Leigh Forbes, Helen Hunt, Helen Kara, Karen Clarke, Rowan Coleman, Miranda Dickinson, Kate Harrison, Julie Cohen, and Tamsyn Murray for being particularly lovely.
Lastly, and by no means least, all my love and thanks to Chris and Seth. I wrote this book while I was on maternity leave—not because I had a very sleepy baby and lots of time on my hands, but because I thought I was going to go mental from sleep deprivation and writing was the only thing that kept me sane. I couldn’t have done it without you, Chris. Thank you for pushing the baby around town at 5:00 a.m. so I could sleep, thank you for taking him to visit your relatives so I could write, and thank you for telling me, over and over, that I
could
do it. It looks like I did.
Photo credit: Jim Ross
C. L. Taylor lives in Bristol in the UK with her partner and young son. Born in Worcester, she studied for a degree in psychology at the Northumbria University–Newcastle and currently works as a manager for a London university. She is a member of the Crime Writers Association and a graduate member (MBPsS) of the British Psychological Society.
