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Carole Cadwalladr Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Carole Cadwalladr

Carole Cadwalladr

How to pronounce Carole Cadwalladr: CAD-wall-uh-der

Carole Cadwalladr Biography

Carole Cadwalladr is a British author. Her first novel, The Family Tree, was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Author's Club First Novel Award, theWaverton Good Read Award, and the Wales Book of the Year. It was also a Daily Mail Book Club pick and was dramatised as a five-part serial on BBC Radio 4.

She used to be a journalist and travel writer for The Daily Telegraph and is now a features writer and columnist on The Observer. She has twice been shortlisted in the British Press Awards.

Carole Cadwalladr's website

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Interview

Cadwalladr discusses many aspects of her first novel, The Family Tree, in this very interesting interview.

This book successfully employs an unusual and complicated structure while balancing multiple storylines. How did you decide on this particular mode of conveying the lives of the Monroes? How easy or difficult was it to maintain the structure as you wrote the book?

I wish I could say that I had some grand design for the novel, but I'd be lying. And the structure, the multiple plot lines, was something that evolved along the way. I started out with two plots – the 1970s one and the 1940s one. A few months in, I realized that they weren't hanging together but instead of axing one of them (which would have been by far the most sensible option), I ended up writing a third – set in the present day. Juggling these was like undertaking a huge never-ending jigsaw puzzle. As soon as I shifted around one segment, it impacted on all the others….and I spent months cutting and pasting chapters, striking them out, jigging them around, cursing myself for making life so complicated. A year or so into it, I developed intense pangs of jealousy for "simple stories well told" sorts of books: one timeline, one narrator, one perspective. But, at the end of the day, families and family histories are ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Carole Cadwalladr at BookBrowse
The Family Tree jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Carole Cadwalladr but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Kate Atkinson

    Kate Atkinson

    Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her four bestselling novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie became the BBC television series ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Family Tree

    Try:
    When Will There Be Good News?
    by Kate Atkinson

  • Jonathan Franzen

    Jonathan Franzen

    Jonathan Franzen is the author of five novels, including The Corrections, Freedom, and Purity, and five works of nonfiction, most recently Farther Away and The End of the End of the Earth, all published by Farrar, Straus and ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Family Tree

    Try:
    The Corrections
    by Jonathan Franzen

We recommend 6 similar authors

View all 6 Read-Alikes

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