Me Before You

I tried all sorts of settings for this book. I drove all over Scotland trying to find a castle and a small town that would ‘fit’. It was essential that Lou came from a small town, rather than a city, because I live in one myself and I’m fascinated by the way that growing up in one can be the greatest comfort – and also incredibly stifling. I wanted a castle because it was the purest example of old money rubbing up against ordinary people. Britain is still incredibly hide-bound by class, and we only really notice it when we go somewhere that it doesn’t exist in the same way, like the US or Australia. I needed the class difference between Will and Lou to be clear.

4. Me Before You deals with a very sensitive subject matter – a person’s right to die. Did you find this difficult to write about? What made you decide to write about this subject?

A few years ago, I heard about the case of Daniel James, a young rugby player who was paralysed and persuaded his parents to let him go to Dignitas. I was horrified by this case initially – what mother could do that? – but the more I read about it I realized that these issues are not black and white. Who is to say what your quality of life should mean? How do you face living a life that is so far from what you had chosen? What do you do as a parent if your child is really determined to die? And living as a quadriplegic is not just a matter of sitting in a chair – it’s a constant battle against pain and infection, as well as the mental challenges. So these issues refused to go away. And I do believe you have to write the book that is burning inside you, even if it’s not the most obvious book for the market.

In fact, I wrote Me Before You without a publishing contract – and I wasn’t entirely convinced it would find a publisher, given the controversial subject matter. It was just something I needed to write. But doing it just for myself was strangely liberating. And luckily several publishers bid for it when it was finished, so I was very happy to move with it to Penguin.

5. Your books always have an incredibly moving love story at the heart of them. What is it about the emotional subject of love that makes you want to write about it?

I have no idea! I’m not very romantic in real life. I guess love is the thing that makes us do the most extraordinary things – the emotion that can bring us highest or lowest, or be the most transformative – and extremes of emotion are always interesting to write about. Plus I’m too wimpy to write horror …

6. Have you ever cried while writing a scene in any of your books?

Always. If I don’t cry while writing a key emotional scene, my gut feeling is it’s failed. I want the reader to feel something while reading – and making myself cry has become my litmus test as to whether that’s working. It’s an odd way to earn a living.

1

St Peronne

October 1916

I was dreaming of food. Great sticks of crisp white baguettes, the crumb of the bread a virginal white, still steaming from the oven; warm, ripe cheese, its borders creeping towards the edge of the plate. Grapes and plums, stacked high in bowls, dusky and fragrant, their scent filling the air. I was about to reach out and take one, when my sister stopped me. ‘Get off,’ I murmured. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘Sophie. Wake up.’

I could taste that cheese. I was going to have a mouthful of the Reblochon, smear it on to a hunk of that warm bread, then pop a grape into my mouth. I could already taste the intense sweetness against its rich aroma.

But there it was, my sister’s hand on my wrist, stopping me. The plates were fading, their scents disappearing. I reached out to them but they began to pop, like soap bubbles.

‘Sophie.’

‘What?’

‘They have Aurélien!’

I turned on to my side and blinked. My sister was wearing a cotton bonnet, as I was, to keep warm. Her face, even in the feeble light of her candle, was leached of colour, her eyes wide with shock. ‘They have Aurélien. Downstairs.’

I stared at her. My mind began to clear. From below us came the sound of men shouting, their voices bouncing off the stone courtyard, the hens, woken, shrieking in their coop. In the thick dark, the air vibrated with some terrible purpose. I sat upright in bed, dragging my gown around me, struggling to light the candle on my bedside table.

I stumbled past her to the window and glanced down into the courtyard. The soldiers, illuminated by the headlights of their vehicle; my younger brother, his arms wrapped around his head, trying to avoid the rifle butts that landed blows upon him.

‘What’s happening?’

‘The pig. They know about the pig.’

‘What?’