Madeleine Dunnigan: "I’m interested also in punk’s relationship with reggae and ska, and I watched a lot of documentaries with Don Letts”

English author Madeleine Dunnigan has delivered one of the debut novels of the year in Jean, which focuses on the titular character, a student at a boys-only Sussex boarding school in summer 1976. Jean’s alienation is exacerbated by being the only Jew in a school full of gentiles, and by the fact he is still coming to terms with being gay, having fallen in love with fellow student Tom.

In amongst the heady scenes of teenage love are much darker textures, with Jean having a tormented relationship with his mother, Rosa. There is also abuse in his past, the pain of which manifests in violent outbursts – he was expelled from his previous school for stabbing a classmate in the face with a compass, and at one point he butchers a carcass in particularly gory fashion.

It’s an unsettling but captivating read, and heralds the arrival of an exciting new literary voice. Intriguingly, Dunnigan says an initial spark came from the story of a family member who disappeared before she was born.

“There are similarities to my life,” the author reflects from her London home. “There is someone who was similar to Jean. My grandmother was also a German Jewish refugee, an artist and single mother like Rosa. But characters have been heightened, twisted, shifted and manipulated.

“Narrative has been recreated to create drama, so it’s about trying to understand someone I only knew through stories, and through a kind of projected image. I was trying to understand what their experience of life was.”

Did the author herself attend boarding school? And how did she find writing a male protagonist?

“People always ask me about the violence and masculinity in the book,” Dunnigan replies. “I didn’t feel it was particularly violent when I was writing it – that felt very natural to me. Maybe I just have a well of rage that I draw from! The butchery scenes as well felt very normal. I didn’t go to a boarding school – I went to a mixed grammar school.

“But I did go to Cambridge, which I suppose can mirror that cloistered environment. It’s particularly that element where you’re very young, and in a coveted, beautiful, historical space. There’s a disjuncture between Jean’s age and the 17th century building where he lives. What I did do is camp a lot as a kid, so all of the wilderness camping aspects of the novel are drawn from that experience.

“I worked with a charity that took children camping, so there’s an amalgamation of experience and imagination.”

After a period in literature where publishers seemed loathe to take on more challenging writing, of late transgressive fiction has been making a welcome comeback. Leading the way has been Dutch author Lucas Rijneveld, with the refreshingly nasty duo of The Discomfort Of Evening and My Heavenly Favourite.

Against the backdrop of an increasingly sanitised literary landscape, Rijneveld’s work is radical not only for its unsettling violence, which echoes the likes of Irvine Welsh and Dennis Cooper, but also for the fact it’s not especially concerned with its characters being likeable.

“I think I’m drawn to the aesthetic of transgressive writing,” Dunnigan considers. “I don’t keep a diary, and I find my stories and characters often channel the darker feelings I have. I actually love The Discomfort Of Evening. Now you say it, it probably influenced the character of Jean in some ways. I read it years ago as I was starting to write this, but that twisting obsession and intensity made an impact on me.

“In terms of the more violent content in the book, I didn’t encounter any resistance. I think when I initially wrote the novel, I didn’t handle the subject matter with as much nuance as I hope it now has. So rather than resistance, there was maybe feedback around how sensational or dramatic it was made to be. I know what you you’re getting at, that a lot of books don’t want to go to where it’s dark and sticky.

DIFFICULT RELATIONSHIPS

“Particularly relationships between family members, there’s a lot of shame surrounding that, and not wanting to press upon it. I suppose I wanted to show these difficult relationships between young boys and older men, between mothers and sons, and between boys themselves. But I wanted to resist the urge to encourage blame or any kind of didacticism.

“With regard to a wider shift in books, what goes hand-in-hand with that is people writing different stories. For a long time, people felt like there had to be this element of authenticity to the storytelling, based in autobiography – which isn’t necessarily true.”

In setting Jean in 1976, Dunnigan anchored the story in a period where England was experiencing dramatic political upheaval, which has uncomfortable parallels with the tumult of the 2020s.

“It was actually something I thought about while I was writing it,” the author notes. “1976 was very crucial to the plot, because of its proximity to, and distance from, the Second World War. You can sense that time was in the shadow of the war, but also emerging into a new light.

“The socialism of the ’50s and the hope of the ’60s had been rejected for the nihilism of the ’70s, and that felt very appropriate to our current times. This is a period book in many ways, but it feels quite relevant.”

After leaving Cambridge, Dunnigan next pitched up Stateside to do her MFA at NYU, where her tutors included Pulitzer-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides. As it happens, her second novel – which she’s currently working on – has some parallels with Eugenides’ classic debut The Virgin Suicides.

“My second novel is flirting with the horror genre,” she elaborates. “Again there are teenagers, but teenage girls this time, who become obsessed with blood, and there’s butchery in it. The Virgin Suicides probably was a great influence. I would love if it had as clean a style as Jeffrey Eugenides – this novel is a bit camper. But yes, it has a bit of The Virgin Suicides, a bit of Heathers; that kind of vibe. It’s that idea of ’80s/’90s girlhood excessiveness.”

With her father being one-time head of screenwriting at London Film School, Dunnigan has also had a long-term interest in movies. Now thankfully in remission from breast cancer, she spent her recovery last year creating a pitch for a feature, which is in development with Channel 4.

Were movies also an influence on Jean?

“Yeah, definitely,” nods Madeleine. “Call Me By Your Name was a really big influence, and God’s Own Country, in terms of the visual language of gesture and touch. Because Jean really relies on what isn’t said, and the way the boys move and interact with each other physically, rather than what they say explicitly. Generally I watched beautiful languid films made in the ’70s.”

Music also plays a powerful role in the novel, with references to Bowie, Cohen and the nascent punk scene. Indeed, I found myself wondering if the book’s title may even be an allusion to ‘The Jean Genie’.

“No, I chose Jean simply because I needed the name to occupy this slightly foreign space,” says Madeleine. “It’s an English woman’s name and a French man’s name, so even his name marks him out as different. In terms of the music, I’ve always loved The Slits and areas of punk. I really loved The Clash when I was younger, but there also was an element of research.

REMARKABLE INFLUENCE

“I used to assist a playwright and help her develop projects. At one point, I was looking at the biography of Vivienne Westwood, so my work in other areas spoke to this book. But I’m interested also in punk’s relationship with reggae and ska, and I watched a lot of documentaries with Don Letts.”

Going back to Vivienne Westwood, her clothes designs for the Sex Pistols continue to have a remarkable influence not only on fashion, but also on music, art and film.

“I found it so interesting, the interconnectedness of music, art and culture at that time,” says Dunnigan. “I used to have this really long scene that was set in Butlers Wharf, where Andrew Logan held the first Alternative Miss World. Among the people who went were Leigh Bowery, Derek Jarman and Vivienne Westwood. I think Malcolm McLaren was also there – I think he punched someone. Or maybe she did!

“Everyone was in the same places, hanging out in the same ways. So the shift between music, philosophy, culture and politics was amazing. That was what I found really interesting about it, but when I tried to write about it, it did seem like really bad fancy dress. It felt very heavy-handed, like I was just trotting it out.

“Which is why, in many ways, punk and music are central to the novel – but they’re also background texture.”

• Jean is published by Daunt Books and out now.