Midlands, mystery, and a mall

CATHERINE O'FLYNN

Catherine O'Flynn's first novel, "What Was Lost" (Holt, paperback, $14), is not only a convincing mystery and a wonderfully evocative picture of childhood, it is also a tremendously funny depiction of life in and around a British shopping mall, a world that O'Flynn, a former mall employee, knows intimately. Through the eyes of 10-year-old Kate, one of modern fiction's most memorable children, and of characters like store manager Lisa and security guard Kurt, O'Flynn portrays despair and resilience with the lightest touch.

She spoke from her home in Birmingham, England.

Q. The opening of your novel recalled for me the Enid Blyton adventures I read as a child. Does that make sense?

A. I think so because I was thinking back to my own childhood as I wrote this. I read Enid Blyton, of course, and things like "Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators." I also had the kind of books that Kate loves - "Clues and Suspects," "Fakes and Forgery" - which I took incredibly seriously. Being a detective is part of most childhoods, I think, because children spend a lot of time watching.

Q. We see the world initially through Kate's eyes. Why did that perspective appeal to you?

A. There's a lot to write about regarding what is lost between childhood and adulthood. I also found it almost embarrassingly easy to write in the voice of a 10-year-old. But it was important that she be real and vivid, not just a victim or a symbol of innocence. So I thought a lot about Kate; how seriously she takes things, how she doesn't see the humor in certain situations.

Q. She has suffered, of course.

A. Yes, she's had a lot of loss, she's quite lonely, but I'm not sure she's very aware of that. The main thing I wanted to show is that her life is very full, she has lots of projects, she's very busy, unlike the adults in the book, who drift along fairly aimlessly. She's far more conscientious and professional than I was as a child detective.

Q. The adults mainly work in the shopping center, another secret world you reveal. Is it a place of safety as well as despair?

A. Yes, I always thought in terms of contrasts when writing about the shopping center. The safe, secure, closed nature of it and also the sinister emptiness of it. There's also the contrast between the customer's experience and the staff experience, of the center in the daytime and at night. I remember coming in to work early, as Lisa does in the book, and savoring the peace and calm of that time before the customers arrived and all hell broke loose.

Q. Is it frustrating to be asked more about your time working in a mall than about the writing of this novel? That seems to happen a lot.

A. It's a good question because I'm quite self-conscious about it. I'm always a bit embarrassed by how fascinated people are with the fact that I worked in a shopping center when millions of people do that. As though it's a marvelous novelty that someone who worked in a shopping center writes a book.

Q. You write about those "ordinary" people. Is that an increasing trend in British literature?

A. Perhaps. But those people are often portrayed with a certain amount of viciousness, I think, whereas I write about the mundane and see that filled with all manner of humanity.

Q. Did it take much rewriting to achieve that subtlety of tone?

A. It was more a matter of rearranging, working to get the timing right. My initial attempt had a leisurely early pace, then a sudden sprint at the end. It reminded me of when I tried to knit as a kid. I would get the tension wrong and have to go back and ease it out a little. That's sort of what I did here.

Q. Did you write about Birmingham, the industrial Midlands, out of affection?

A. I have perhaps a perverse nostalgia for those industrial wastelands because they were my playground, and when I go back now and see new offices or parks I get really sad. I remember the strange little places, empty factories and so on. I felt a strange wistfulness for that time and an elegiac sense of that childhood. Yes, I wanted to describe that almost for myself.

Q. Did you make changes for the American edition? You use "mom," for instance, not "mum."

A. It's funny you noticed that because it's actually Birmingham speech. We say "mom," and I didn't realize that wasn't universal in England until the book came out. Actually if you look it up in Wikipedia it says "used in America or in the British Midlands." No, there were only minor changes for the US, things like "housing estate" becoming "housing development."

Q. After such a success, multiple awards, what next?

A. I never thought about writing anything else because this was a long time coming. Now I'm just trying to ignore the second-novel pressure. I'll just try to write for myself again and not have any expectations. I'm fortunate in being a natural-born pessimist.

Anna Mundow, a freelance journalist living in Central Massachusetts, is a correspondent for the Irish Times. She can be reached via e-mail at ama1668@hotmail.com.