A story about an English spinster travelling to Venice who develops an overwhelming interest in religious art and Christian myths. What sort of a man was Julia’s father? What picture of him emerges to us through Julia’s intermittent recollections? We cannot commission desire,” Julia reflects at one point, referring not only to herself but also to Carlo. To what degree, and on what grounds, does Julia come to feel a sense of solidarity with Carlo, of all people? Explain.

Again I didn’t go about it —it arose as and when needed. I don’t plan, as I say, but I find ideas, and characters, arise like helpful genies when I need them. I loved finding some of the minor character in ‘Miss Garnet’ — Signora Mignelli, for example, Julia’s highly practical and unselfconsciously mercenary landlady, or Mr Akbar —the man who buys her flat an gives her fake champagne and plays her Elvis —I don’t know where he came from; or Mr Mills, the junior senior partner in the firm of solicitors, from whom she accepts coffee, even though it disagrees with her. That’s what the Mr Mill’s of this world make us do. By the time she was at university in the early 1970s she said she had, "crushingly high standards" in writing. "The people I loved were Jane Austen, Conrad, James and Dostoevsky. I felt you had to be in that sort of range. I couldn't just write any old book, so I thought about writing as something separate to earning a living." A story that has many levels and now – 20 years down the line – deserves a new generation of readers. It is an iconic novel for #literarywanderlust that will warm your heart. This is probably a book that will delight anyone who has been (or is about to visit) Venice. Sadly I can't claim either of those but I enjoyed it very much. The themes of religion and art, historical restoration and philosophy were excellent and all things I enjoy ready about but the real focus of the book are the reflections of Julia Garnet and the best thing about the book is the writing.How do you feel about the popular critical and commercial practice today of sorting contemporary novels into tidy categories: women’s fiction, men’s fiction, gay fiction, romantic comedy, literary fiction, etc.? To what categories have you most often found Miss Garnet’s Angel assigned? Following university she taught children with special needs. [ citation needed] She also taught English literature at Stanford, Oxford and the Open University, specialising in Shakespeare, the 19th-century novel and 20th-century poetry. [6] She was also a WEA and further education tutor for adult education classes. [ citation needed] During 2012–13 she was a Royal Literary Fund fellow of her alma mater, Newnham College, Cambridge. [7] Psychotherapy [ edit ] She went on to teach English at the Open University, Oxford and Stanford, specialising in Shakespeare, the 19th-century novel and 20th-century poetry. Her first major career move came when she left academia to become an analytical psychologist. "I eventually thought that literature is not a very good academic subject," she explains. "The great writers didn't write to be analysed, they wrote to entertain and to share a vision of human life. It's lovely to sit around drinking coffee and talking about books at Cambridge, but I sort of felt that English is a cheat subject." The habits of a lifetime are not easy to break and Julia seeks out a fairly basic lodging except for one detail: the balcony that presents to her view the glory of Venice's architecture and that indescribable light that so intrigued artists from da Vinci to Canaletto and beyond. From her tiny perch above the teeming canals, Julia Garnet will dive into a life she could not have imagined. Friends had been few and somewhat cold-blooded in England but from her first day in Venice Julia seemed to attract an amazing number of interesting and talented people and for possibly the first time in her life, she fell in love. Not once but twice. And one of the objects her love was - of all things - an Angel. An Archangel to be more precise. A beautiful androgynous Archangel whose presence seemed to follow her around the floating city. His name was Raphael. Well, this may disappoint you but I have no regime whatsoever. I write only when the fit (and it is a kind of fit) takes me —and that might be for ten days on the trot —or not at all for a month. once a book gets going I seem to want to be at it all the time. it’s like a love affair —irresistible —the book is like a secret lover, nothing else is of such interest. Perhaps because of this I write, when I do, very fast. I wrote Miss Garnet in nine months —but, as I am always saying —it took over twenty years to mature in y mind —most of the ideas I want to write about have been mulling about somewhere inside me, linking up with other ideas, for many years. Physically, I write on a, now, quite aged laptop and I have no plan at all other than a kernel of the idea. That grows inside me and then seems to flow down my arms —or not; and if not I stop till they do.

As the story of Miss Garnets sojourn in Venice unfolds, the story of Tobias and his Angel unfolds alongside, adding a wonderful extra dimension to this book. What was the germ for Julia Garnet’s story? What is it that drew you to Venice and the Book of Tobit as the setting and occasion for your novel?Julia Garnet is a lovely creation-inspiring, affecting, charming, utterly believable. Is she based on any real-life models? Did the first-person voices for Tobit and Tobias come easily? What particular sorts of challenges, risks, or liberties came with creating the voice of a Biblical character (and adopting a rhythm, tone, and syntax completely distinct from the narrator of Julia’s story)? Fair warning: Miss Garnet's Angel is an irresistible force of nature, a mystery with no solution but many possible answers. At the very least, you will question your assumptions about the possibility of "entertaining Angels unaware", the limits of material existence, and the finality of death. Not bad for one book.