York, viewed from above the York Minster bell towers.

This article is more than 8 years old

Fiona Mozley on York: ‘The Mystery Plays influenced my writing more than any book’

This article is more than 8 years old

The Booker prize-shortlisted author reveals why her hometown’s past is both a blessing and a curse

Fiona Mozley
27 January 2018

My hometown is known for a few different periods of ascendency and cultural boom, and these eras loom large. Indeed, as anyone who has visited York will know, this “looming” is literal as well as metaphorical: York Minster is the largest gothic cathedral north of the Alps. In addition to its later medieval churches and treasures of stone and glass, York also has Roman remains, Viking artefacts, and a very active Richard III society. Whenever I tell someone I’m from York they will invariably mention the Jorvik Viking Centre, and fondly recall its moving “time travel” carts that take visitors through a reconstructed Viking-era street. As a teenager, the city’s fixation with its past could become wearisome.

To my mind, York’s most significant literary output is the Mystery Plays, which were staged on wagons in the streets by trade groups in the late middle ages. Based on narratives from the Bible, the plays were written in distinctive and beautiful alliterative verse. They were revived in the 1950s and have been performed by locals ever since. In 2000, aged 12, I took part in the large-scale staging in the Minster, and subsequently became involved with other drama groups, such as the York Settlement Players and the York Shakespeare Project. I still consider these early introductions to drama as having influenced my own writing more significantly than any books I have read.

My first novel, Elmet, was set just south-west of York, and growing up in the city certainly informed its genesis. I wanted to capture the ambiguity of local historical recollections; to say something about their double-edged thrall; to examine the desire to live in the past and the need to extricate oneself from it. Last year, the York literature festival held an event on “Northern Gothic” with Andrew Michael Hurley and Mark Blacklock, in which the pair discussed the appeal of that genre in regions that have this very particular relationship with their history; in which the cultural memory is almost haunted by certain eras or events. I think the same could probably be said of my writing.

In 2013 I moved back to York after time away, and am happy to report that much is being done by locals to avoid this poisoned chalice.

To my ears, the York-based band the Howl & the Hum sound particularly fresh, albeit with the kind of nostalgia that is typical of the region. I especially like their song “Terrorforming”. As with my writing, it tells of young women burning things to the ground.

 Elmet is published by JM Originals.

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