The Glass Woman by Alice McIlroy was published by Datura Books on 2 January 2024.
Alice kindly answered a few of my questions.
1. Tell us a little about The Glass Woman.
The Glass Woman is a psychological thriller exploring the rise of AI, and the tensions that surface when you can no longer trust those you love. It asks the question: what if you could flick a switch and delete pain and loss, would you do it? The protagonist, a young female neuroscientist, has purposefully, misguidedly, distanced herself from her own humanity and is living the consequences. She has made a machine of herself and must find a way to undo it, before it’s too late. It’s quite a dark book. In writing it, I thought of it (unofficially) as my own mini-Frankenstein creation, because it explores some similar themes of unorthodox scientific experiments, and our responsibility for what we create. I think readers will either love or hate it, but I just hope it sparks some debate! If you like unreliable narrators, then hopefully you’ll love it.
2. What inspired the book?
When I started work on The Glass Woman in 2017, I decided to write about what I feared. Surveillance technology and AI were starting to become more prominent, and the potential for where that could lead us really frightened me. I took this to the extreme in The Glass Woman, and began asking: if AI were implanted into a character’s brain, how would they know what to trust of the information being fed to them? Would the human mind be able to cope, and where would consent and control begin and end? The AI character, Ariel, also has parallels to Ariel in ‘The Tempest’ in terms of the Prospero/Ariel power dynamic. The novel explores AI as a manifestation of our very human desire to transcend our own limitations, and in the novel the characters are exploring transcending the boundaries of human perception, as well as escaping past trauma.
3. Do you plan before you start writing or do you sit down and see where the words take you?
For my first novel, I started by writing an inciting incident and the character dynamic, and then the concept and plot were built from there. I think quite cinematically when I write and so setting is really important for building the world. I like to write my way into the story for a chapter or two, and the world and characters start to emerge. But I have learnt to plot the narrative as thoroughly as I can before embarking beyond 10k words. I’ve lost count of how many times I replotted and rewrote The Glass Woman, once almost from scratch. There is a lot of re-planning along the way – characters never quite conform, and the plot evolves.
4. Is there anything about the process of publishing a book that surprised you?
A lot of things! How long it takes (the lead-in time), for one. Another writer, Carole Hailey, author of ‘The Silence Project’, said to me recently that one of the most exciting stages is seeing the physical book in readers’ hands and I completely agree. One of the most exciting stages has been seeing the physical book for the first time, and then people reading it and giving it reviews. It’s incredible, after seven years of working on the book, for it to be out there in the world and people to be responding to it.
5. What do you do when you aren’t writing? What do you do to relax and get away from it all?
I actually find writing quite therapeutic! When it doesn’t involve plotting, that is… But away from writing, seeing friends and family, lots of reading, some film, and walking in the Lake District or the West coast of Ireland with my husband.
6. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life which book would it be?
That’s a really tough call, but perhaps a poetry book, as inspiration for writing. I think it could take me a lifetime to understand Eliot… Or the Upanishads or Bhagavad Gita. Or Robert Macfarlane’s Underland because I love nature writing for escapism!
7. I like to end my Q&As with the same question so here we go. During all the Q&As and interviews you’ve done what question have you not been asked that you wish had been asked – and what’s the answer?
Can I be honest and say this is my very first Q&A! I’m a novice. I would like to be asked about my journey to getting published though, because we often hear success stories, but the reality is that it takes a long time to get published. I experienced a lot of setbacks, and I found having a really strong writing community and support network is vital to maintaining morale. I have a group of writing friends from the Faber Academy course we did together in 2017, under the guidance of Sarah May, and they’ve been a lifeline throughout the whole journey.
About the Book
When you wake up without your memories, who can you really trust?
Iris Henderson wakes up in a hospital bed alone, with no memory of why or how she got there. Moments later, she is introduced to her husband Marcus, a man she does not even recognise. And things only get stranger from there.
Iris is told that she volunteered to be the first test-subject for a ground-breaking AI therapy, and that she is the pioneering scientist behind the experimental treatment.
Whilst everyone warns her to leave it alone, a confused Iris continually scratches beneath the surface of her seemingly happy marriage and successful career, setting a catastrophic chain of events in motion.
Secrets will be revealed that have the capacity to destroy her whole life, but Iris can’t stop digging…
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