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Why you must read Catriona Troth’s Ghost Town

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In 1981, the city of Coventry was synonymous with Two Tone music.  It was also riven with battles between skinheads and young Asians. Against the background of the real events of that violent summer, GHOST TOWN tells the story of two people who can’t afford to let the racists win.  They must take a stand – but it will cost them dear.

Who are these two people?
Baz is mixed race, but he grew up knowing nothing about his father or his father’s culture.  As his best friend likes to tell him, he’s ‘too Paki to be white, too gora to be desi‘. He’s a photographer, capturing the conflict on film, and that’s bringing him into the limelight.

Maia is an unemployed graduate, anti-Apartheid campaigner and serial champion of liberal causes.  When she finds she is pregnant with a mixed-race child, suddenly she is brought face to face with the stark realities of racism.

What genre is this novel?
Broadly literary fiction, though it has elements running through it of both a thriller and a love story.

What kind of readers will it appeal to?
Those who like books they can sink their teeth into, and who like stories that are rooted in real places and real events.

If you like stories that tackle issues head on while still telling a rattling good story, you’ll love my book.

We get the impression that you feel a real connection to your characters. Or are we imagining that?
I share some of Maia’s background.  And looking back I realize that, at her age, I was as naïve as she is. At the start of the book. she imagines she knows all about anti-racism and multiculturalism – and the truth is she knows nothing.  Because of what happens to her, she learns in a few months what it took me perhaps twenty years to learn.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I was born in Scotland, grew up in Canada and came back to England as a student – to study maths, which is perhaps not the most obvious thing for a writer.  I have always loved writing – I’m told I started writing stories as soon as a could spell out the words phonetically! But I spent twenty-odd years as a research analyst before following my dream and becoming a freelance writer.

Have you written any other books that we should read next?
I have written a novella called Gift of the Raven, about a young boy’s search for the father he never knew. The book is set in Canada in the early 1970s and his journey takes him from the suburbs of Montreal to the Haida Gwai in the Northwest Pacific.

My two books have been published with the author collective, Triskele Books.

We know about Triskele. We’ve interviewed JJ Marsh. For the sake of anyone who missed that interview can you tell us about it?
Triskele is a group of five women (and a small number of associates) from around the world who met online, admired one another’s work, and decided to try support each other through the jungle of indie publishing.

Why did you choose to publish with an author collective?
I had been reading about collectives for a while, at a time when several of my friends were thinking of self-publishing. I kept telling them, “This has to be the way to go. There must be strength in authors supporting one another, holding each other to a high standard, sharing the marketing.”

When Triskele Books was set up, I was still in negotiation with a trade publisher. But after they’d kept me dangling for two years, I wrote them a rejection letter and threw my lot in with Triskele. I can’t imagine now doing it any other way. I have complete creative freedom, control over how my book looks and how it is marketed. But at the same time, I have the support of a team around me.

Do you have a website where we can keep up with your work?
www.catrionatroth.com

How can we follow you on Twitter and/or Facebook?
My twitter handle is @L1bCat
My Facebook author page is https://www.facebook.com/catrionatrothbooks

What’s next?
I am playing with an idea that involves four generations of women, unrelated by
blood but connected through strong ties of loyalty. Also a bookshop because anything can happen in a bookshop! But I don’t want to say any more at the moment. Talking about an idea when it is too new and fragile is the kiss of death.

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