The Light Between Oceans begins on a lighthouse off the coast of Western Australia. Lighthouses have inspired stories from many writers over the years – can you tell us a bit about how you came to write about this one, and what makes them such an important literary setting?



When I write I just let a picture or a phrase float into awareness, and follow where it leads. For this story, a lighthouse was the very first thing that came to me. I closed my eyes, and there it was: solid and mysterious and the instigating image of a tale about which at that point I knew nothing at all. I was curious to find out more, so I kept writing.

Of course the people I discovered at the lighthouse – Tom and Isabel – drew me into their lives, and the dilemma they face as they try to stay true to their love, yet true to themselves and their own sense of right and wrong.

To answer the other part of your question – I think lighthouses attract writers perhaps because they automatically betoken the drama of journey and of risk. Wherever you see a lighthouse, there's something at stake, which is great territory for fiction.

As I worked on the book, I discovered that they appeal not only to writers, but to just about everyone. When you mention lighthouses, people generally get a gleam in their eye and lean in a little. They're an archetype that gives people freedom to imagine, and freedom to explore the human condition stripped down to its very essence. They represent the ultimate unfair yet heroic struggle: man’s fight against the forces of nature, with its hidden hazards and infinite power. And they're a fulcrum: between safety and danger, light and dark, journey and stasis, communication and isolation, on which our imagination can – has to – pivot, because they're not just one or the other.



The theme of isolation is central to the novel, and as such could apply in any time period. Why did you choose to set it in the early twentieth century?

Again, the choice wasn't conscious. From the beginning, I could tell that the story was set quite a while ago, and then I had a clear sense that Tom had been in the First World War, so the timing followed from that. The more I researched the period, the more everything just fell into place.



The characters in your book are torn by complex moral dilemmas. Yet, despite the occasionally poor choices they make, they reveal themselves to be sympathetic individuals. Would you say that reflects the way you see the world?

There's a great deal to be said for that old expression "walk a mile in the other person's shoes", don't you think? I believe that people are born with a strong instinct for good. Of course, views of what 'good' looks like differ wildly. But I think it's usually possible to find compassion for even the most misguided of individuals: that's different from condoning harmful behavior. It's just recognising that the business of being human is complex, and it's easy to get things wrong. Compassion and mercy allow society to heal itself when we do.



Did you have any favourite characters?

I actually like pretty much all of the characters, or at least could find compassion for them. I have to say that Tom was my favourite, and I did find it terribly upsetting to write what he was going through – he, and Isabel for that matter, have a harrowing journey in the book. I was also very fond of Sergeant Knuckey, and Ralph. I had great fun writing Mrs Mewett, who just turned up and took over her scenes.



Did you know how the story was going to end when you started it? If not, did you find it difficult to resolve it in the end?

I had no idea how the story would end until it ended: it really could have gone any way. I loved having complete freedom to see where it wanted to go – because I don't plot in advance, I didn't have to arrive at a given destination, so I didn't have to contrive a way of getting there. I think the ending emerged just by letting the characters be who they were – letting them stay true to what they would really do, and how society was at that time.



The descriptions of the landscape are incredibly vivid – how did you achieve that?

I was writing about a landscape I know and love – Western Australia, where I grew up. I adore the ocean, so it was a joy to get to put it on the page – particularly when I was writing in WA, near where I imagined Point Partageuse to be.



Is Janus Rock a real island? If not, how did you invent it? Does the name "Janus" have any significance?

Janus Rock is a figment of my imagination (I hate to disappoint any would-be visitors...). It just appeared as part of the story, and at some stage I realised it was located at the point where the Indian Ocean and the Great Southern Ocean meet.

The name is taken from Janus, the Roman god who has two faces looking out in opposite directions. The doors of his temple in the Roman Forum were open in times of war and closed in times of peace. He stands for beginnings and transitions, so his image is often found on doorways and thresholds. Janus's two faces are a literal reminder of one of the main themes of the book, namely that there is more than one way of looking at things.

In contrast to Tom and Isabel when they make their fateful decision on the eponymous island, Janus can see the past and the future. In some ways, too, the figure is symbolic of Lucy, who effectively has two lives in two worlds. It also ties in with the motif of division that runs through the book, particularly when Tom and Isabel can no longer see eye to eye.



Tell us a bit about your research for the novel. Was it an aspect of the writing process that you enjoyed?

I loved every minute of it. Lighthouses are very addictive (reader beware!), and their history is simply fascinating. As well as reading about them, I climbed up them, inspected lenses, and scoured old log books in the Australian National Archives, as well as Lightkeepers' correspondence: still voices, still resonating silently in the pages.

I also researched Western Australia's role in WWI, and spent time in the British Library reading battalion histories and other materials, frequently in tears at letters home from boys, or stories of fallen comrades told plainly by those who survived. Australia's war records are beautifully maintained, and there's something bittersweet in the surgical precision with which these documents, which are ultimately a story of chaos, have been kept, and now digitised.

More broadly, friends and family loaned expertise in fields ranging from botany to pediatrics to toxicology. (I owe a lot of people a lot of drinks...)



What are you reading now?

I always have several books on the go at the same time. I'm reading The Pendragon Legend by Antal Szerb, and The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. Other books I've read recently and loved are Old Filth, and The Man in the Wooden Hat – both by Jane Gardam, and Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, by Elizabeth Taylor.