SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
It's 1979, and the news in Yorkshire is grim. Mills are closing. Families are struggling. And a killer called the Yorkshire Ripper in news accounts has murdered women and is still at large. Miv and Sharon are 12-year-old local girls who get an idea. Miv tells Sharon...
JENNIE GODFREY: (Reading) We'll make a list, I said, a list of the people and things we see that are suspicious. And then we'll investigate them. And why exactly would we do this? Well, if we catch him, we might get the reward the police are offering, I said. Think of all the things we could buy - all the books and lip glosses and sweets we could want. Sharon's reflection was now smiling at me. But even if we didn't, think about all the prostitutes we would save. Even though neither of us knew what prostitutes were, I thought the idea of saving others would appeal to Sharon, who was the kindest person I knew. And everyone would know who I - I mean, who we were, I said.
SIMON: That is Jennie Godfrey reading from her debut novel "The List Of Suspicious Things." Jennie Godfrey joins us now from Somerset in the U.K. Thanks so much for being with us.
GODFREY: Thank you so much for having me, Scott. It's an absolute privilege.
SIMON: The Yorkshire killings aren't just an event from history for you, are they?
GODFREY: No. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of the day that Peter Sutcliffe, the man who was known as the Yorkshire Ripper, was caught, because it came apparent very quickly that my dad both knew him and had worked with him for some time.
SIMON: Tell us about the north of England and Yorkshire at this time. There's a lot of anger at the new prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, but the mills were already in a bad way, weren't they?
GODFREY: Yeah. So Yorkshire wasn't the happiest place. The economy was extremely depressed. And Margaret Thatcher, who was a populist right-wing prime minister, wasn't welcomed in the north and was seen as somebody who would make things worse for us, which actually did prove to be true. But as you can see from the novel, the kind of humor and stoicism of Yorkshire really shines through. It's very much in the character of the people who live there.
SIMON: And tell us, please, about Miv and Sharon. It's irresistible to wonder how much of you they carry around.
GODFREY: Oh. I know some debut novelists don't like the question, is the novel autobiographical. And, of course, the events of the novel absolutely are. But there is so much of me in Miv in particular and so much of the best friends I've had over the years in Sharon. I was very much like Miv as a child. I would have projects and hobbies and things that got me through, and books, of course. I was definitely a child who - when anything was difficult was happening, I would disappear inside a story. And the girls in the book manage the very grown-up and adult threats that are around them through making this list and somehow making it all manageable.
SIMON: Does putting a list together make Miv and Sharon see people suspiciously?
GODFREY: Very much so, and it's impossible for me to overstate the impact that the crimes had on young children in the north at the time because we weren't shielded from the news necessarily. There was no such thing as helicopter parenting. So even as a young child in Yorkshire at the time, I knew about the murders. I knew about the Yorkshire Ripper. And so although the list highlights the suspicious people in the area, there is no doubt that Miv and Sharon would have been looking out for people that might have been suspicious anyway.
SIMON: Well, I think, for example, of Mr. Bashir, who I don't hesitate...
GODFREY: Yes.
SIMON: ...To call the nicest man in the book - always singing Elton John songs.
GODFREY: (Laughter).
SIMON: How could they ever find him suspicious, even remotely?
GODFREY: Do you know, I'm so glad, Scott, that you loved Omar Bashir. He is so close to my heart, and he's my favorite character. You're not supposed to say that 'cause you're not supposed to have favorite characters. It's like having a favorite child.
SIMON: (Laughter).
GODFREY: But I guess what I wanted to come across was because of the kind of permeating fear created by the murders, we actually did start to look at everybody through a different lens, especially when the police started to put messages out through the media that he is somebody's father. He is somebody's son. Somebody knows him. And suddenly, we started to look at our friends and family differently as a consequence of that.
SIMON: Yeah. I found myself worried - loving and worried about his son, too, Ishtiaq.
GODFREY: Yes. And certainly race and racism was a part of 1970s West Yorkshire, like it's a part of modern-day life. And I felt that I absolutely needed to write about that and reflect it in the book. Ishtiaq and Omar experience a lot of racism throughout the novel and a lot of acceptance and community, as well, thankfully.
SIMON: Yeah. You are a bookseller as well as a novelist.
GODFREY: That's correct, yes. So when I started writing the book, I decided that what I would need to do was to understand how books get from writers into readers' hands. So I applied to my local bookshop here in Taunton, in Somerset, to become a part-time bookseller. And I only actually intended to do it for one Christmas. But it turned out that I absolutely love being a bookseller because it essentially means I get to talk about books a lot.
SIMON: What do you learn about being a novelist by being a bookseller?
GODFREY: What you learn, thankfully, is that there is a book for everybody, that if you write a book, someone somewhere is going to love it. And I was very relieved to discover that. There are so many niche interests that people have in books. It would take more writers than there are in the world to fulfill them.
SIMON: That is very reassuring. You bring this novel to what I don't - without giving anything away, a stunning conclusion. It is important for you to include the names of everyone who was murdered as well.
GODFREY: Yes.
SIMON: Why did you make a point of that?
GODFREY: Because I did not want this to be a book about him, and it isn't a book about him. It's a book about the impact of his crimes on a community, but it's not a book about the murderer or the murders. But at the same time, they do form very much the spine of the story, and I wanted to conclude it by honoring those victims. It felt really important for me to do that.
SIMON: Jennie Godfrey, her debut novel, "The List Of Suspicious Things." Thank you so much for being with us.
GODFREY: Thank you very much for having me, Scott.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRUCE BRUBAKER'S "MONK" ELLIS ISLAND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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