Shelfies #35: Eleni Kyriacou

I have a few obsessions, but my main ones are the 1950s, old movies, glamour and crime, and my bookshelves reflect that. I also have a thing about cigarette brands and cocktails of the fifties, but we don’t have space to get into that. I write historical crime novels and the past, for me, provides pure escapism and is so much more interesting than the scary present.

Why the Fifties? It’s the allure of the post-war optimism and opportunities for immigrants (like my parents, who arrived in London from Cyprus) rubbing up against the glamour of Soho nightlife, lawless bars and dangerous streets where everyone scrapes a living no matter what it takes. London’s Soho was full of gangsters and villains, and one wrong turn could land you in trouble. My debut, She Came to Stay, was about just that, a Cypriot woman who arrives in London and falls in with the wrong people.

Another obsession is New York, a city I love where I’m considering setting my next novel. The New Yorker’s Book of the 50s, Story of a Decade (edited by Henry Finder) is a treasure trove of articles, from Truman Capote on Marlon Brando to an item on McCarthy, from fiction by Eudora Welty to poetry by Sylvia Plath. To create an American character of that time, I need to understand what life was like in America then and it's so helpful for that. This is a library copy and I’ve renewed it so many times I’m going to have to find one and buy it.

Next up is The Real Mad Men by Andrew Cracknell, a deep dive into the advertising industry of late fifties/ early sixties New York. I bought this second hand, as I do most research books, and it’s a great source of inspiration for one of my characters who’s working in that world. (I will, of course, be forced to rewatch the whole of the Mad Men series for research purposes – someone has to.)

Bad Girls, A History of Rebels and Renegades by Caitlin Davies, is the story of Holloway Prison – and the women who lived within its walls. It’s a book I can’t recommend highly enough. My second novel, The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou, was inspired by the true case of Styllou Christofi, the penultimate woman in England to be hanged for the murder of her daughter-in-law, and who spent the last five months of her life in Holloway. Davies’ research was invaluable as she was instrumental in finding Christofi’s records and making sure they were preserved when Holloway demolished.

Miss D and Me, Life with the Invincible Bette Davis is great fun and moving, too. Written by her assistant, Kathryn Sermak (with Danelle Morton) it’s a wonderfully affectionate portrayal of possibly the greatest movie star of all time. Neither sycophantic nor a hatchet job, it shows Davis as the consummate professional she was, a woman who took Warner Brothers to court, lost, but still seemed to come out on top, with her popularity soaring and her career going from strength to strength. My latest novel, A Beautiful Way to Die, is a noir thriller set in 1950s Hollywood and Ealing studios. Reading celebrity biographies was a great way to create my two main characters, who are actresses – one on her way up and one on her way down. If you love old movies, you’ll love Miss D and Me.

I couldn’t miss out re-reading Hollywood Babylon, by Kenneth Anger, when researching my new book. It’s described as ‘the legendary underground classic of Hollywood’s darkest and best kept secrets’. But of course, they’re no longer secrets. Many are tawdry and salacious, but addictive too, confirming that the wildest stories are the ones that the studios tried to hush up. My novel is inspired by the true crimes of Hollywood and researching such a juicy a topic has been so entertaining. 

Eleni Kyriacou is an award-winning editor and journalist. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Observer, Grazia and Red, among others. Her second novel, The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou, was selected as a BBC Between the Covers book club pick. Her new novel, A Beautiful Way to Die, is about the underbelly of Hollywood and Ealing studios, and is available in hardback, eBook and audio. Follow her @elenikwriter.

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin.
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