William Skidelsky 

Debut author: Francesca Segal

Francesca Segal's novel relocates Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence to modern-day Hampstead. By William Skidelsky
  
  

Francesca Segal
Francesca Segal: an acutely observed study of lives lived in proximity. Photograph: Antonio Olmos Photograph: Antonio Olmos/ Antonio Olmos

Rather in the manner of Zadie Smith in On Beauty, Francesca Segal has, for her debut, The Innocents (Chatto), sought inspiration from a classic early-20th-century work of fiction: Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. Segal, 31, a former debut novel columnist for the Observer, reread Wharton's book while living in New York a few years ago. Certain aspects of its privileged but constrictive milieux, she says, reminded her of her own upbringing in north-west London's Jewish community. And so she decided to relocate Wharton's tale to modern-day Hampstead, while altering aspects of plot and character and ending with a "very different message".

The result is a subtle, witty and acutely observed study of a narrow but very recognisable world. Segal says that she hopes the novel "transcends" its context and will be relevant to anyone from a community where "lives are lived in proximity". She says that one early reader, a Muslim, wrote to her and said: "You've described my life."

 

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