In Falling Snow

In Falling Snow

Iris is getting old. A widow, her days are spent living quietly in Brisbane and worrying about her headstrong granddaughter Grace, a busy obstetrician and mother. It's a small sort of life. But one day, Iris receives an invitation in the post, to a reunion in France, where she served as a nurse during WWI. Determined to go, Iris is overcome by the memories of her past...

The year is 1914 and a naive young Iris goes to France to bring home her 15-year-old brother Tom who's run away to fight. En route, she meets English surgeon Frances Ivens who's setting up a field hospital in the old abbey of Royaumont north of Paris. Putting her fears for Tom aside, Iris decides to stay at Royaumont and it is there that she truly comes of age, finding her strength, her passion for medicine, making friends with the vivacious Violet and falling in love. But with war comes terrible tragedy, and the price Iris pays will echo down the generations.

Based on the fascinating true story of the Scottish Women Doctors who ran hospitals in France and Serbia throughout WWI, In Falling Snow took Mary-Rose ten years to research and write, including a visit to the real abbey of Royaumont which is now a cultural centre for France. This is a story about the enduring power of secrets and the great goodness of ordinary people when the extraordinary is expected of them.

Mary-Rose MacColl is an Australian writer whose first novel, No Safe Place, was runner-up in the 1995 Australian Vogel literary award. Her first non-fiction book, The Birth Wars, was a finalist in the 2009 Walkley Awards and the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. Mary-Rose MacColl holds degrees in journalism and creative writing and lives in Brisbane with her husband and young son.

In Falling Snow
Allen & Unwin
Author: Mary-Rose MacColl
Price: $29.99

Interview with Mary-Rose MacColl

Question: It took ten years to research and write In Falling Snow - can you talk about the journey?

Mary-Rose MacColl: Yes, it did take ten years although I was doing other things in the in-between times. I had the idea for In Falling Snow about ten years ago when I was at the University of Queensland Library in the wrong isle because I had transposed two digits in a core number and I came along this book called 'The Women of Royaumont' and because my heritage is Scottish and the book mentioned Scottish women Doctors and the book was French and I had just been in France, the book caught my eye so I sat down and started reading about the history of these women, I had never heard of. These Scottish women Doctors had started a number of hospitals in France and Serbia and one was in a mediaeval abbey of Royaumont and I thought 'wouldn't that be a great setting for a novel?'

As I only had the setting not a story I was working on other things at the time but a little while after that, my Grandmother, who I'd been very close to when I was growing up, died and she was a magic Grandma who was born about the time when a young women working at Royaumont might have been born and the idea came into my head about the difference in my Grandmothers life, if as a nurse, she had gone to Royaumont to work and seen this other life where women are doctors and running their own lives; which contributed to the journey of In Falling Snow.

I then came up with the idea of Iris who is the central character of the novel who goes to Royaumont. I needed a reason why Iris would go to Royaumont from Queensland and that's when I came up with the idea of her brother, who she's raised, had run away to go to war and she is sent to bring him home; instead of war she goes to Royaumont and finds this whole other world.


Question: When your book was officially finished, how did it feel?

Mary-Rose MacColl: It's funny with writers because a book is never really finished, in a way. What did feel good was when I received the first printed copy about a month ago - it's such a beautiful object and the cover is stunning.

Question: What was your favourite part about creating the character of Iris?

Mary-Rose MacColl: I wanted Iris, as young women, to be very bright, intelligent and innocent in the truest sense of the word and she comes to this world and thinks oh my goodness. My first thoughts had been of this person who comes to Royaumont and sees these women doing these amazing things which has an effect on her. I really enjoyed writing the old lady Iris, she was my favourite, and I love her initial scene. I loved being able to write a character who comes to the end of her life, so we see the whole life span, in tack and a more full person than she came into the world almost as she has grown through her life.


Question: What do you hope readers take from In Falling Snow?

Mary-Rose MacColl: First and foremost I think this is a good story and the job of a writer isn't to preach or moralise although there are lots of messages in the novel about what both women and men have had happened to them as a consequence of something as traumatic as war and there are messages about women's lives and all the things that happened. In Falling Snow is historical fiction but the themes (love, tragedy, heroic acts) are timeless. I often say it is a novel about ordinary people when the extraordinary is expected of them and I hope people take away the great goodness of ordinary people. It's not a novel about war and I couldn't have written a novel about war as there are too many good novels, about war. I wanted to write a novel about the effects of our experience and how those effects resonate on and on through generations.


Question: Are you currently working on another book?

Mary-Rose MacColl: I am, I am working on two books; one is set in Canada about a woman who disappears from her life and the other is set in the 1930's at the time of the dawn of civil aviation, which is more interesting than it sounds (laughs).


Interview by Brooke Hunter