All About My Best Friend’s Girl

by Dorothy Koomson

My Best Friend’s Girl is my third novel and it centres around the tale of Kamryn a career woman who over the course of a day becomes a mother to a five-year-old girl called Tegan. It almost sounds like a fantastical, mystical tale when described in those basic terms, but that is essentially what the book is about—and that simple idea was the inspiration for the book.

When I start to come up with the idea for a novel, I usually have a scenario—a ‘what if?’ situation —bubbling away at the back of my head that needs to be nurtured so it can be grown into a story. With My Best Friend’s Girl, I wondered: ‘What if you woke up one morning and by the end of the day you are responsible for another person?’ Usually when a woman has a child she has nine months to get used to the idea of becoming a mother—even if she doesn’t use that time to prepare herself properly, she still has time to grow accustomed to the idea. But in this case, what if the child is given to you without warning and you have no option but to go along with it?

After I had this initial idea, I thought: ‘What if this child you were suddenly asked to give all the unconditional love, support and care a mother provides for her child was the one person on earth you wouldn’t want to be around? What if becoming a child’s mother hurts you more than you can imagine?’ I then set about trying to work out why that child would cause such pain. And also why you would be in that situation of having a child under your arm, and a whole new, unexpected set of responsibilities resting heavily on your shoulders by the end of the day. Where is the ‘real’ mother? Of course, then, the story takes on a whole life of its own as it grows from the seed of an idea to the tree of a whole story. That story focuses not only how the initial situation came about but also how you would rearrange, adjust and decimate your life to fit in with this new responsibility, and how the struggles you face along the way would change you as a person.

At the core of any good story, I believe, is this idea of change. How something startling, out of the ordinary or unforeseen will change a person and if they meet the challenge or buckle under the strain. It doesn’t necessarily have to be as major a change as becoming responsible for a child, it could be starting a new job you feel drastically unqualified for, it could be moving into a new place and having to develop new relationships, it could be kissing someone you shouldn’t, it could be having to face up to a secret that you’ve hidden for many years.

Stories like that, which show how the human spirit can bend, change or break, which show how people’s emotions are tested, how their personalities are opened up, or altered or are given the opportunity to blossom are my favourite kind. When I read a novel, I want the words and the story to touch me. Even if it is not a particularly emotional subject the author is dealing with, even if it makes me laugh from beginning to end, if there is something that resonates with me—makes me laugh (which does take a lot), causes me to think about something in a different way, or makes me feel as though I know the characters by the end, then I label it heart-lit. Literature that strokes its fingers over the strings of the heart. Books that fit the label of heart-lit, I find, deal with subjects that other types of books don’t. These novels allow the reader unrestricted access the minds, lives and hearts of another ordinary person they may not otherwise get to know; these novels allow the reader to consider what they would do in that situation without ever having to go through the trauma of it themselves.

My favourite types of heart-lit books are the ones that have characters that are real. These characters aren’t nice every minute of every day, they can be difficult at times, they can—like all of us—annoy others, they can be wrong at moments and refuse to see they are. For an author it is much harder to create a character who is real because readers may not like them all the time. I remember when my British agent read the first few chapters of My Best Friend’s Girl he said he was worried Kamryn came across as being pretty unpleasant at times. (I remember thinking he should try talking to me first thing in the morning— then he’d know what unpleasant really was!) I explained to him that Kamryn, as I was creating her, was a real woman and therefore not going to be all smiles all the time. When he had read more of the book, my agent did change his mind, and agreed she seemed more like a real person because of her character flaws.

From the emails and letters I’ve received from readers of My Best Friend’s Girl across the world —it has been sold and translated in over 20 countries— it is this sense of reality that has touched people. The fact that Kamryn is not perfect, but she tries to be a better person while coping with what has been thrown at her; the fact that Tegan is a damaged child who wants nothing more than to have a family; the fact that these two bereaved people who don’t know much about each other are now having to create a new life together has inspired hundreds of people to contact me. And to tell me how much they loved the book, to share their similar stories, to confess that the novel made them cry!

I love receiving emails like that because it shows that I’ve done what I want to do with my writing—I’ve told a good story. And I’ve touched another person’s heart.