Hot Press meets Lottie Moggach

Many debut writers find their work compared to other more established authors. Journalists do this because categorising novels and writers helps readers discover new books. It must be frustrating for novelists however, and Lottie Moggach is thus in the unenviable position of having her debut novel compared to her mother’s work. Deborah Moggach is a much loved British writer whose book These Foolish Things was made into the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Having a well-respected author as a parent must play into people’s perceptions of her work.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’m sure it does, but probably more with journalists rather than readers,” Moggach reflects. “It hasn’t been negative; on the whole it has been extremely positive and having her as my mother gave me an ‘in’ – I knew my stuff would get read. It didn’t help me get published because it took me 10-years and several books before it happened! But I knew that it would get read. That’s something lots of writers don’t have.
“It’s so different to my mother’s stuff. That was on purpose. That was my attempt to distance myself.”
Kiss Me First, Moggach’s debut novel, is a psychological thriller for the information age. Leila is a socially awkward and unattractive young woman with no real friends. When she joins an online ethics discussion community called Red Pill she befriends the charismatic Adrian. Adrian grooms Leila and offers her an unusual job – to take over a young woman’s online life and social media accounts. Tess wants to commit suicide but to continue living virtually so that nobody will know she’s dead.
To a greater or lesser extent all of Moggach’s characters are liars and use the internet to live duplicitous lives, suggesting that the medium itself encourages us to be flexible with the truth.
“No one really challenges you on the internet. No one is double-checking what you’re putting out there. You are your own subject, journalist and editor and you can sell yourself however you want. It’s not at all surprising that people edit their lives and personalities to come across in the best possible way.
“I think we all lie on the internet. Not necessarily big lies. Lies about how good a time you had or presenting a more successful version of ourselves. That’s partly why I came off Facebook and Twitter. Even though I knew other people were editing their lives and not showing bad stuff I still felt that other people were having a better time than me. Even though you know this, it still affects you.”
Leila’s social interactions are almost all conducted online. She prefers the virtual world to the messy, human one.
“Leila finds a place there that she doesn’t have in the real world. She doesn’t understand the complexities of real life but online she can find her people – people who aren’t interested in Justin Timberlake. That’s what’s wonderful about the internet – people who are different can find a place. What I wanted to show with Leila was that social networks are meant to enhance relationships but for lots of people they replace them. It seems preferable and more appealing because you can control how you’re presented in a way you can’t in real life.”
The book asks difficult ethical questions about euthanasia. We learn early on that Leila has helped her suffering mother to end her life. Adrian persuades Leila to impersonate Tess and help her commit suicide by arguing that if you own yourself then you have the right to decide how and when you die, but as the novel progresses we learn that Adrian has motives he doesn’t disclose to Leila.
“I didn’t want Leila to just be a victim of an evil internet predator,” explains Moggach. “She is colluding in a way; she’s not completely naïve. It was a more interesting scenario. She’s getting something, Adrian is getting something, Tess is getting something – it’s not just a case of victim and predator. I wanted things to be slightly murky.”
Most of the book centres on the relationship between Leila and Tess. Before taking over her online life, Leila wants to know about her family, friends, and romantic and sexual relationships. Tess is Leila’s opposite – attractive, social, popular with men, but she suffers from depression and cannot stand the thought of alternating bouts of mania and depression as she ages.
Using two characters to drive the novel involves a fair amount of risk – if readers dislike one of them, there’s a possibility that they will throw the book aside entirely.
“I was aware of that and knew that making Leila the narrator was risky. In the beginning my first agent didn’t like her and he wasn’t alone. Many people thought Leila was cold and unappealing. That agent said I should change it and make Tess the main character because she’s more exciting. I wanted to take that risk. I think part of it was the challenge and to make life difficult for myself!
“I find Leila quite sympathetic. She is so different from me and all her interests are so different from mine. I had to really think about everything she said. Because of that, the book took a long time to write. I don’t know why I made life so difficult for myself. I think I had some idea that the book would only be worth writing if it was really difficult to do,” she laughs.
“I was a books journalist for ages and I used to have so many books coming into the office every day – really good books – and I thought that to add to this pile it had to be really worth it. Maybe next time I’ll write something simpler. It would be much quicker!”