Jenny Lecoat
Author Interview - Jenny Lecoat
Author of The Girl From the Channel Islands
“Now, the screenwriter, feminist, and daughter of the resistance, Jenny Lecoat, has penned a fictionalized story of her family’s experiences in the complex yet little know period of German Occupation of Jersey in THE GIRL FROM THE CHANNEL ISLANDS (Graydon House Books; February 2, 2021; Trade Paperback Original; $17.99). Capturing the oppression, terror, and defiance that characterized those years, Hedy Bercu is a Jewish refugee who fled to the Channel Islands to escape the Nazis, only to find herself cornered when the Axis powers invade Jersey.
Her only chance for survival is to make herself invaluable to the Germans by working as a translator, hiding in plain sight with the help of her friends and community – and a sympathetic German officer. But as the war intensifies, rations dwindle, neighbors turn on neighbors, and Hedy's life is in greater danger every day. It will take a definitive, daring act to save her from certain deportation to the concentration camps.”
Author Interview - Jenny Lecoat
Author I draw inspiration from: When I was just starting to write The Girl From the Channel Islands, I read Wake by Anna Hope. She has such a filmic use of language which enables you to see and feel the scene she’s describing, and I knew that’s what I wanted to achieve.
Author Interview - Jenny Lecoat
Favorite place to read a book: Depends on the weather. If it’s warm and sunny, the garden, if it’s cold and wet, in bed.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby. I’d like to ask him what he really thought about Jay Gatsby in the end, and what he made of the world a century on.
Author Interview - Jenny Lecoat
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: Never really had a specific moment. I’ve always written - stories in my bedroom as a teenager, my own stand-up material in my 20s, features for newspapers and magazines, then later scripts for TV and film. But I’d never mastered the novel format, so when I decided to attempt this in 2016 it was with the complete expectation that no one would ever want to publish it.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Paperback.
The last book I read: All the Light We Cannot See by Antony Doerr. It’s quite difficult to go back to your computer after reading something that good.
Author Interview - Jenny Lecoat
Pen & paper or computer: Both. I use pencil & paper for notes and planning, but when it comes to the prose, I re-write so much that a computer is essential.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Any of Ann Tyler’s heroines.
Author Interview - Jenny Lecoat
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: Probably retired! But I’ve also been a stand-up comic, a TV presenter, and, since 1994, a TV/ screenwriter, so I’ve had a really fortunate career.
Favorite decade in fashion history: 1960s - I always loved the Twiggy look. But I’m more interested in style than fashion
Place I’d most like to travel: There’s a few places in South America I’d like to see.
My signature drink: At the weekend, beer. Rest of the time, endless cups of tea.
Favorite artist: Unoriginal, but I’ve alway liked Edward Hopper, probably because I like the story-telling aspect. I saw an exhibition of his at the Metropolitan in New York in the 80s and loved it.
Number one on my bucket list: I don’t actually believe in bucket lists, I think they encourage a tick-box mentality, the idea that happiness comes from achieving goals or completing tasks. In my experience contentment has little to do with those things.
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Author Bio: Jenny Lecoat was born in Jersey, Channel Islands, where her parents were raised under German Occupation and were involved in resistance activity. Lecoat moved to England at 18, where, after earning a drama degree, she spent a decade on the alternative comedy circuit as a feminist stand-up. She also wrote for newspapers and women's magazines (Cosmopolitan, Observer), worked as a TV and radio presenter, before focusing on screenwriting from sitcom to sketch shows. A love of history and factual stories and a return to her island roots brought about her feature film Another Mother's Son (2017). She is married to television writer Gary Lawson and now lives in East Sussex. THE GIRL FROM THE CHANNEL ISLANDS is her first novel.
