THE NOVEL

I Am Not Your Eve was published in March 2022 as the lead title for the award-winning indie Bluemoose Books. It tells the story of Tahitian muse and child-wife of the post-impressionist painter, Paul Gauguin, Teha’amana. The novel shares her thoughts as he works on one of his masterpieces, The Spirit Of The Dead Keeps Watch, a painting so important to Gauguin that it appears in the background of his own later self-portrait.

As we listen to Teha’amana herself, the other voices in the novel include those of the Tahitian goddess of the moon, a lizard watching from the eaves of their hut, and Gauguin’s mask of Teha’amana’s face, carved from a sacred tree belonging to the island’s interior.

Interwoven are the origin myths that underpinned Polynesian society before the islanders turned towards the Christian faith introduced by Spanish, British, then French colonists, and also distant diary entries of Gauguin’s favourite daughter Aline – who was the same age as her father’s new ‘wife’.

I Am Not Your Eve finally gives Teha’amana a voice as her story is told through the myths and legends of the islands and one that travels through history and finally asks to be heard.

THE PROCESS

I began the novel on the MA in Creative Writing programme at the University of East Anglia and it took me 17 long years to finish writing the book, to define the main character’s voice, and fully inhabit her mind and world. When I was awarded a research and development grant in 2018 by Creative Scotland to travel to Tahiti, all the pieces in the puzzle finally slotted into place. In form, it became a polyphonic novel without meaning to, but it is Teha’amana’s voice that unifies all the voices and the voices in turn serve to illustrate her journey. The story revolves around the celebrated painting Gauguin made of her, lying naked on his bed, The Spirit Of The Dead Keeps Watch. Before I went to Tahiti, I lived in the two dimensional and stuffy world of research material called up from the archives of The British Library in London. I immersed myself in detailed accounts gleaned from books written by men, missionaries, New World explorers, and social anthropologists.

My passion for telling Teha’amana’s story never diminished. It became an obsession. I somehow connected with that image of her lying naked across his bed. She is vulnerable, yet powerful. She could have been a woman of any origin. I first came across the image in a Sunday Times literary supplement, then later, in 2003, I stood before the actual painting in Paris at a retrospective of Gauguin’s Tahiti paintings. It was the centenary of his death. I’ve always wanted to know more about her, who she was, and what happened to her. I ultimately wanted to give someone who never had a voice, a voice, to tell an untold story.

When I lived in London, I had a full-time office job working in academic publishing, and I would write for an hour every day after work, or during my lunchtime, then I’d be at The British Library on Saturdays, doing further research, drafting notes from anything interesting I may have found. Trying to keep that space free was not always possible, and my writing practice changed as my life challenges evolved. I scribbled down thoughts, scenes, and ideas on the train journeys, to and from work. I would type up my hand-written notes later into my computer where they might crystallise into definite forms, but I wound up with pages and pages of writing that never seemed to go anywhere, that never found a form or an end. When I left London and came to live in Edinburgh, I found the space, the time, and opportunity to finish my project, which had up to then, felt monumental and life-long.

It was going to Tahiti that was the crucial chapter in the writing of this book. It was the grant awarded to me by Creative Scotland that gave me the opportunity to travel to the other side of the world, more than 9000 miles away, to see the place I’d been dreaming of for far too long. I was able to finally feel it and breathe it. Through my many interactions and meetings with people native to Tahiti, everything fell into place, and on my return I completed a final draft of the book within six months.