‘True or false’ with UoE lecturer Kim Sherwood: Bond author responds to online rumours

From writing in Agatha Christie’s house to continuing the legacy of James Bond, author and screenwriter Kim Sherwood has quickly become one of the most intriguing voices in modern fiction.

We sat down with Kim, who’s currently a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, to separate fact from fiction, tackling some of the most viral rumours about her life, career, and writing process.

As part of our latest interview with Kim Sherwood, I sat down to get the whole story on some of the most viral rumours about her.

‘True or False? Your grandfather played 007’

“True, in a way,” she explains. “Because he is Sir Hilary Bray in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. He dubs Lazenby for about a third of that film… because Lazenby couldn’t do his accent.” She adds that he may have dubbed even more scenes, “including the love scenes, which I find strange…”

Kim said she hadn’t listened that intently (understandable when it’s your grandfather…)

‘Your undergraduate dissertation was on Virginia Woolf?’

Rumours about her academic past, however, don’t quite hold up. While many assume she focused on Virginia Woolf, Sherwood says her undergraduate work was actually creative.

“False – it was a creative writing dissertation! It was the beginning of A Wild and True Relation!”

A Wild and True Relation is Kim’s latest historical novel, a swashbuckling tale set on the high seas, available at all major book retailers.

‘You learned to drive on a Formula 1 racing track?’

That novel, her latest, has been years in the making – but some of the stories behind her research are just as unexpected. One of the more surprising claims, that she learned to drive on a Formula 1 track, turns out to be entirely accurate

“That is true. I don’t know how to drive or have a driver’s licence, and when I was researching and writing Double or Nothing, the Fleming estate asked me to put an Alpine car in the book. I of course said yes, but I also said, ‘in order to write this scene with real authenticity, I will need to go out in an Alpine…’

“So they sent the car out to Edinburgh to take me out, which was huge fun. Then I told that story on the press tour, and journalists started opening conversations by saying, ‘It’s a famous fact about you that you don’t know how to drive.’

“And I thought, do I want that to be a famous fact about me? So the very kind folks at Alpine got wind of this and said, ‘we can teach you how to drive on a race track.’

“Obviously, my family thought it was a terrible idea for me to learn to drive at 150mph. But it was too good an opportunity to pass up. So we get to the track, and they ask, ‘how much experience do you have behind the wheel?’, to which I say, ‘I literally don’t know how to turn this car on.’ And by the end, I was going really fast! And the instructor said, ‘that was great, Kim, but you do need to remember to brake.’ Small details.

“That is now all the driving I’ve done, and I’m sort of tempted to leave it there. So for the rest of my life I can say, ‘I can’t drive, but I can drive a sports car.'”

‘You wrote a section of A Spy Like Me at Agatha Christie’s house?’

Her writing process has also taken her to some iconic literary locations. Sherwood confirms she did, in fact, work on A Spy Like Me in Agatha Christie’s house – an experience she clearly relished.

“True! It was in Agatha Christie’s garret, at the top of her house. The staff said to me, ‘so how many books have you written?’, and I said, ‘three,’ and they said, ‘so not as many as Agatha.’ I mean – give me time! It was amazing though. She called it the loveliest place in the world, and it is.

She also credits Agatha Christie with shaping her storytelling instincts: “All of my novels start with a death or a near-death because of her advice to get to the body as quickly as possible.

“I love Agatha Christie; all of my novels start with a death or a near-death because of her advice to get to the body as quickly as possible.”

‘Your favourite Kim Sherwood novel is Testament?’

via Rosie Sherwood

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“False. If I had to pick a favourite, it would be A Wild and True Relation, because it took me 14 years from start to publication, so it means so much to me.”

‘In an early draft of Double or Nothing, there was a cameo appearance by Vivienne Michel’

[If you know, you know!]

And while fans might hope for deep-cut references, some never made it onto the page. Kim confirms that a rumoured cameo from Vivienne Michel in Double or Nothing simply never existed.

“False. I have other cameos of women in Bond’s life, but as much as I love her, she never came back. And you’d sort of hope that she wouldn’t, because she has such a traumatising time.

“You’d hope that everything comes true that Bond wishes for her in that beautiful letter he writes at the end. You’d hope she just gets to have an amazing career and meet some nicer men.”

‘Your first ever story was a spy mystery about your neighbours?’

Other stories, however, reveal how early her imagination took hold. She confirms that her first piece of writing really was a spy story inspired by watching her neighbours.

“Yes, true. I used to pretend that I was a spy and play these games of spying on our neighbours. I would then make up stories about them. Thankfully, they were very tolerant.”

“You didn’t accidentally witness any infidelity or cause any marital spats?” I ask.

“No, thankfully! I didn’t break up any marriages.”

‘True or false: Your decompression activity at the end of a day of writing is Mario Kart.’

Even her downtime isn’t quite what people expect. While she laughs off the idea that she unwinds with Mario Kart, she shares a more personal ritual instead.

Kim said: “False – although that sounds great. When I delivered the first draft of Hurricane Room, that day we adopted our greyhound, Pat. (It’s now a rule, if you finish a trilogy, that you have to adopt a greyhound.)

“We brought him back from the rescue centre, and my decompression was to fall asleep with him on the floor in relief.”

‘You once gave a copy of A Spy Like Me to someone as a Secret Santa present?’

[I was curious about this one because that would not be a very secret Secret Santa present…]

However, she replied:”False…although I did give a copy to my sister to give as a Secret Santa present.”

‘And finally, when the next Bond film comes out, you’ve said you’ll have to wear a disguise to go and see it?’

And as for the idea that she’d need a disguise to watch the next James Bond film? Kim was quick to dismiss it.

“Completely false. The great thing about being a writer is that you’re known to your readers in a very niche way. At Bond events, you feel famous for the day, which is really fun, and then you step back onto the street and nobody knows who you are. That is a very healthy balance in life!”

Hurricane Room, Kim’s latest, is published in May. Her first two Bond novels, Double or Nothing and A Spy Like Me, are available from all major book retailers.

Featured image via Rosie Sherwood