For my slot today in The Grinning Throat blog tour I have the great privilege of interviewing the author, Kate Wiseman.
The Grinning Throat is the first in a new historical middle-grade series of The Mudlark Mysteries about orphans living in Victorian London. Our main protagonists are Joe is 15 years old and Edie is 13. Forever worried that they will be sent to the dreaded workhouse, they scratch out a living the best way they can by mudlarking on the foreshore of the River Thames and selling their finds to the notorious Hempson. One day they discover something macabre, and it will change their lives forever.
‘My first thought is that it’s a pig that someone has lost to the river. Perhaps it fell off one of the barges that choke up the Thames. They’re a constant feature, toiling up and down, day and night, giving off black smoke that clings to the water.’
The Grinning Throat by Kate Wiseman
Kate Wiseman writes middle grade and YA fiction and has a specific interest in writing historical fiction. She grew up in Oxford in the 1970s. She has won the Eyelands price twice and holds a BA and an MA in literature and creative writing.
Her degrees gave her the courage to do what she’d always dreamed of doing: being a writer. Since then she has had many books published by ZunTold including, her middle grade Gangster School series and a YA fantasy, Icarus and Velvet. She loves visiting schools to deliver workshops in creative writing. Many of them are based on her own mudlarking finds.
Without any further ado I will proceed with the interview…
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Tell us a little about yourself and the inspiration for your book The Grinning Throat.
I’m a lifelong reader, of course. I think all authors are. I came to writing fairly late – about 7 years ago – and have been fortunate enough to have my MG and YA books published in several languages. My first novel for adults – about a girl who disguises herself as her brother to fight in the First World War – will be published next summer.
My devotion to mudlarking is more recent. A friend and I went mudlarking with an acquaintance a couple of years before lockdown and I was completely hooked. I’ve always loved history and historical fiction and mudlarking is history-hunting and treasure-hunting all mixed up! I started making plans to write a series on mudlarking.
It made sense to me to set it in Victorian times, when mudlarking was a recognised and fairly unenviable way for the very young and very old to scratch a living. This was in the days before there was social assistance for people in need. That creates a sense of urgency to the adventures of my characters. They aren’t mudlarking for pleasure, as I do. It’s a survival tactic.
Why did you decide to write a book about mudlarking for children?
It had to be for children because the majority of mudlarks were children. I think today’s kids will be amazed if they put themselves in the shoes of the Victorian mudlarks. Not that many of them had shoes! I think they’ll be astonished at how kids were allowed to live back then.
What has been and/or what would be your greatest find when mudlarking?
My greatest find would be a bellarmine jug, sometimes called a witch bottle. There’s one that features quite heavily in The Grinning Throat. I’ve found fragments but never a whole one. They’re very, very rare. If I found a bellarmine jug, I think I’d scream and dance around the foreshore in a very alarming way.
Witch bottles were usually used to avert witchcraft. Sometimes they’re found with hair and nails and urine and other fairly unpleasant things sealed up inside them. I have a friend with a 17th century cottage who found one under his front door, buried there to prevent witches and curses entering the house. For the purposes of my story, the characters use a bellarmine jug to set a curse on a very evil man. If you want to know if it works, you’ll have to read the book.
How did you decide on the title of The Grinning Throat?
In my book, the Grinning Throat are a gang of European anarchists who like to cut the throats of their victims. I once read a description of that kind of injury, likening it to a kind of lipless smile. The image stayed with me.
At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a gang of Serbian anarchists called The Black Hand. One of them assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which started the First World War. I was thinking about them when I devised the name.
What research did you have to do into the Victorians and the workhouses to write The Grinning Throat?
I teach English Language and Literature, including the works of Dickens and Conan Doyle and Stevenson, and I studied Victorian literature at university, so I already had a decent knowledge of how Victorians lived and what they believed in. The workhouse was designed to punish the poor for being poor, and everyone dreaded having to enter it. It was a last resort for most and many never came out again.
I did a lot of research into the circumstances under which mudlarks lived. There’s a book by Henry Mayhew called London Labour and the London Poor, which was a real eye opener. Mayhew was a social commentator who tried to record the working conditions for all kinds of poor workers in Victorian London. Some of the jobs people had to do were absolutely ghastly.
I also had to check out when certain buildings and landmarks were put up, so I didn’t make any goofs. For instance, I would like to have included Tower Bridge, but it wasn’t opened until 1886 and the Mudlark Mysteries are set in the 1870s. I hope I haven’t missed anything.
Is there anything else you would like to tell readers about The Grinning Throat and other books you have written?
The Grinning Throat is the first in a series of historical adventures with mudlarking at their core. The second one – The Hampstead Terror – is set in the world of toshers – mudlarks who operated in London’s sewers. I think it’s coming out next year.
I’m currently working on the third one – The Cursed Skull – which focuses on Wapping and the site of Execution Dock. I have plans for two more. Each book is narrated by a different member of the group of friends that form in The Grinning Throat. I love writing them and hope readers of mystery and history will love them too.
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You can find out more about Kate on her website: katewiseman.co.uk. She is on Instagram as @kittywise999, on Facebook as Kate Wiseman, Twitter as @KateWiseman and TikTok as @katewiseman99.
You can purchase a copy of The Grinning Throat by Kate Wiseman direct from the publisher ZunTold, or any bookshop will be able to order it in, if it’s not in their stock. It’s also on Amazon.
To follow the rest of the tour check out the schedule below:
I would like to thank Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in this blog tour. Thank you.
Much To Do About Writing 