An Interview With Cathy Dobson About Her New Book, The Devil’s Missal

Book #40 -

I first got to know Cathy Dobson on an Internet community called Newsvine where she was CartoonCat and I was Scoop. One of my hobbies is interviewing authors – something I have been doing for more than 15 years and which you can see an index of here.

So when Cathy published her first book, Planet Germany, in 2007, I asked to interview her and she agreed. This was the result.

Newsvine is no longer around but I am still interviewing authors, often mystery authors for the Mystery People blog - , and so when I heard Cathy put out a new book I asked to interview her and she agreed.

Compared to Planet Germany, this new book, The Devil’s Missal, is quite a different beast. I mean that literally – this new book has the devil, evil beasts and actions. Put simply, it is dark stuff. You have been warned. So as I posed questions to Cathy I thought, wow, how did this dark story come about. Read her answers below.

Scott Butki: How did you come to write this story?

Cathy Dobson: I was in a difficult period in my life when I started writing. I was very ill at the time and having tests for a late-stage terminal cancer. It was a scary situation. I began writing because, aside from hospital appointments, I was mainly confined to my bed. I needed something to occupy my brain and take me away from thinking about impending death. Even when the biopsy results came through and the tumours turned out not to be cancerous, I was still on heavy medication and unable to eat solid food for about eight months. Writing became a sort of therapy for me in that time. I chose a horror genre deliberately. I wrote about all the things I found terrifying and horrific, and it was as though I was shedding everything I felt relating to my illness – all the  fear, physical nausea and frustration flowed out of myself onto the page.

Scott: Which came first, the plot or the characters?

Cathy: It was a bit of both. Holda, Azriel and Rupert were in the concept from the start, the others appeared to me at the points where they were needed. I had the basic plot in mind, but when I was writing I didn’t know whether Holda might survive the experience or not (the prologue was written last).

Scott: How would you describe the protagonist, Holda?

Cathy: Holda starts out as a naïve, depressed student, in her early twenties, but with the emotional development of someone younger. She recently lost her parents in a car accident and is struggling to adjust. The fact that her relationship with her parents was a difficult one has saddled her with a great deal of guilt and she is not moving on with her life. When she is sent to Germany to investigate a medieval manuscript which recently came to light, it is similar to a medieval quest (the story is structured like a medieval legend). She not only finds out about the manuscript, but also finds out about herself. In the process she escapes the stultifying grief and depression and discovers inner strength, ingenuity, sexuality and a certain amount of recklessness within herself – and she certainly needs them, given the dangers she is about to encounter.

Scott: How are you similar to and different from Holda?

Cathy: Many elements in the story come from my own experience, but they are mainly tied to the locations rather than individual characters. I studied modern languages at Cambridge University and specialised in medieval literature in my final year. I have visited Bruges dozens of times and lived in Meerbusch for over twenty years, including six years living at Schloss Pesch.
The similaries between myself and Holda are less to do with character and more to do with facing circumstances which we each found horrifying. Holda is a strong, capable, sensitive, thoughtful and also vulnerable character. While getting her through various dangerous situations, I was echoing my own experiences of beating my own illness.

Scott: Why did you decide to have Holda growing up in a family speaking only Latin?

Cathy: There is a detailed backstory to this which will be revealed in a sequel. In The Devil’s Missal it serves to explain Holda’s isolation, lack of friends and social skills and absence of prior boyfriends. It also explains the rift with her parents and her dedication to the medieval period. In addition, it makes her an ideal candidate for the mission to Germany, as she is a medieval German specialist who happens to be fluent in Latin. This is essential in reading any medieval document which comprises a diary (written in the vernacular) and scholarly texts (which would always have been written in Latin in that period).

Scott: You talk about Holda's struggle with writer's block. Have you suffered from this malady?

Cathy: Yes, but it ended after the first sentence in Chapter 1 (the prologue was written later).

Scott: Did you set out to write such a scary story or did that happen as your writing progressed?

Cathy: I set out to write a horror story with supernatural elements. But I was also pushing my own boundaries to see how far I could make myself go. In previous things I’ve written, I’d been aware of a certain ‘self-censorship’ as soon as it came to sex, violence, gore etc. This time I wanted to force myself out of my comfort zone – just as I was way out of my own comfort zone in facing up to my illness.

Scott: How has the book been received?

Cathy: It’s been a real mixture. There are people who are absolutely blown away by it, and others who find it way too disturbing. People I studied with love the academic and historical references. Other people get caught up in the fast-moving plot. One person was emailing me literally all night about it.

What is more interesting from a writer’s perspective, is how some people can’t stop talking about it.. it seems to preoccupy them for weeks, while others (including friends and family) now refuse even to speak to me on the subject. I suspect I’ve pushed quite a lot of people beyond their comfort zone.

Scott: What are you working on next?

Cathy: I have written a sequel to The Devil’s Missal, which I hope to bring out before Christmas. It contains some of the same characters (Holda, Rupert), but tends away from pure horror more towards an intriguing mystery story. It is called The Devil’s Progeny, and deals with events in Meerbusch during the occupation of the Rhineland after the first world war up to the rise of Hitler and the aftermath of World War Two. I could say more, but I don’t want to include any spoilers.

There is another sequel which I am currently researching which will also be set around Meerbusch, which I’m really excited about. It is the one which will reveal more about Holda’s Latin upbringing. During the research for it I made an amazing discovery… I’m not going to reveal it here, but I’ll only say that I found a reference to something in an old document and after a great deal of research and fighting my way through thorny undergrowth on a piece of remote scrubland by an industrial area by the Rhine, I found what I was looking for. This discovery will play a central role in that story.

Scott: What is something we would find surprising to learn about you?

Cathy: After The Devil’s Missal, probably nothing I could say would surprise or shock anyone! What I am still focussed on is finding out surprising things about myself. In particular I like to learn new skills. Last year when I was bedridden I taught myself complex lace knitting from books and YouTube videos. Now that I am back to good health I’m looking for more active challenges. I welcome ideas. Possible suggestions so far have included rock climbing, carpentry and acting.