"To Capture What We Cannot Keep"

Beatrice Colin was born in London and lives in Glasgow, Scotland. A former arts and features journalist, she also writes novels for adults, children, short stories, radio plays for the BBC. She has spoken at numerous book festivals, taught at Arvon and was a judge and mentor for the Scottish Boom Trust's New Writers Award.

Colin was also once a singer in the band, April Showers, whose single, "Abandon Ship," reached the number 144 in the charts.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, To Capture What We Cannot Keep, and reported the following:

Emile Nouguier, an engineer who was one of two who designed the Eiffel Tower that was built between 1887-8, is having dinner with his mother in her apartment. She wants him to take over the family business - a glass factory - marry a suitable wife, produce heirs and provide for a host of elderly aunts and distant relations. In this scene the divisions between the sexes are laid out – he eats pudding and she watches him – and we see the kind of pressure he is under.

Unless they were very wealthy and able to be independent, women acted as supporting structures to their husbands. But men also were constrained by convention. Cait Wallace, the other narrative voice in the book, is not suitable wife material for a man like Emile Nouguier and he knows it. On this page, the central conflict that drives the book is laid out. Emile cannot marry for himself; he must marry for the benefit of other. He can’t face it and escapes the apartment, desperate for fresh air.

Visit Beatrice Colin's website.

My Book, The Movie: To Capture What We Cannot Keep.

Writers Read: Beatrice Colin.

--Marshal Zeringue