The Hunger Within
Another winter approaches, another book of mine has been published. If you had have asked me this time last year I never would have imagined that in the space of twelve months I would have two crime fiction novels under my belt along with a short story published in a number one bestselling anthology!
The Hunger Within, my second published crime novel, is based around the characters of my very first published novel, Freedom First Peace Later. This original novel was written and released over a decade ago, and just this summer I gained my rights back from the previous publisher. My current publisher, Endeavour Press, had agreed to republish it along with another old novel of mine.
At the time I thought it would simply be a case of emailing Endeavour Press the original manuscript, but when I read through it, I realised how much my writing skills have improved in the ten years since I wrote it. Not only my skills, but my life experience too. It wouldn’t do to send it how it was, so despite saying I’d never work to such a tight deadline that I faced last autumn with Exclusion Zone, I undertook the task of rewriting the entire novel.
One of the challenges I faced was getting a true account of the historical aspect, because The Hunger Within is based around the hunger strikes that occurred in Northern Ireland in 1981. It is a huge piece of history that many people are so passionate about, and I couldn’t afford to make any errors in writing about it. In 1981 twenty three men took part in the strikes and protests and ten of them died. I set about trying to contact as many of the surviving protestors that I could track down, and I struck gold when Laurence McKeown responded to my email.
In 1981 Laurence was serving a life sentence in HMP Maze. He was a former I.R.A gunman and fully participated in the hunger strikes. Rather than write answers to my questions, he would talk about his experiences and then send them to me in voice recordings over the email. This added an emotional element that really drew me in.
He didn’t shy away from anything I asked him, talking frankly about the physical side effects of starvation, some of which are still suffered today, the camaraderie and friendships with his fellow prisoners and the mental strain as well as his political passions. Laurence was actually only one day away from certain death when his mother stepped in and ordered that he be force fed. When I was researching a lot of the news articles that came up were written from a ‘Thatcheresque’ point of view.
In Britain, during that time, we referred to them as the dirty protests and when I mentioned this in an email to Laurence he corrected me, they called them the no wash protests. I heard his tut of disapproval over the voice recording when he set me straight and this is just one example of why I’m so pleased I went straight to the expert instead of relying on English news reporting. Being factually correct was vital in this tale and gleaning information direct from an I.R.A member who lived through that time was the highest source of authenticity I could possibly get.
The Hunger Within is dark, possibly even darker than Exclusion Zone, but where the Chernobyl disaster was localised around a manmade event, The Hunger Within explores the wider reaching effects, bringing in notions such as politics and religion during extremely turbulent times. I wanted it to have a bit of a domestic noir feel, so I focussed mainly on the women’s points of view with the only exception being Danny Granger, the hunger striker.
In the eighties, it was generally the men who were marching and striking and protesting, and I wondered what the wives and the mothers were doing. The Hunger Within is mostly a story of their lives, and it may come as a surprise, but the women can be just as tough as the men, and they can play just as dirty too.
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J.M Hewitt writes in the crime suspense genre and likes to combine 20th century Historical events in her novels. She has had two novels published, Exclusion Zone (2016, Endeavour Press) and The Hunger Within (2016, Endeavour Press.)
Exclusion Zone reached number 1. in the Warfare category on Amazon USA. The Hunger Within was released October 2016.
J.M Hewitt’s short story, Fingers, was published in the horror anthology Twisted, (2016, Create) in October 2016. Twisted reached number 1. on Amazon UK.
Buy The Hunger Within HERE
Buy Exclusion Zone HERE
Find out more about J.M Hewitt on her website: www.jmhewitt.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/j.mhewittauthor
Follow her on Twitter: @jmhewitt
Category: On Writing
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