A stunning debut and winner of this year’s Guardian Not the Booker Prize, Fishnet follows one young woman’s search for her missing sister as she is drawn into a world of escorts and prostitution.
When a local sex workers’ refuge is threatened with closure because of a property development Fiona herself is working on, she forms an unlikely alliance that will challenge every preconception she had about the industry, challenging her to face the secrets of the past, re-examine her relationship with her lost sister and propelling her towards changing her life forever. This is a landmark novel from one of the UK’s most exciting new women authors.
Kirstin Innes on Fishnet
What inspired you to write Fishnet?
I’d begun researching sex work and the Scottish sex industry for a possible article for the magazine I was working for, and the blogs of politically-active sex workers that I discovered really surprised me and challenged my views.
During the process of writing the book, I met with sex workers and had my views on the industry confronted, and changed by people who had real experiences of it. There’s so much stigma surrounding sex work: everybody thinks that they know what “prostitution” is because of the cliches that surround it, and because sex workers’ voices aren’t often heard to challenge these narratives.
What do you hope readers will take from your book?
I’m interested in empathy; I think reading a novel, particularly one with a first person narrator where you’re inside the character’s head, can really take a reader somewhere that even the best non-fiction can’t. If reading my book makes even a couple of people reconsider the way they think about sex workers, and take on board that sex worker safety is more important than the moralistic and often uniformed politicking that informs it, I’d be happy. At the same time, this isn’t just an issue book. It’s a story about sisters and female friendship, about the effects that low-paid, monotonous jobs can have on people, about the pressures that contemporary society puts on women. I hope readers enjoy the story as a story just as much.
How have you established a sense of place within your writing?
Fishnet is a city novel, and a city centre novel at that. It needs the sort of inner-city space full of office towers that block out the sky, cramped streets, chain food outlets and identikit bars for the office workers. The sort of place where almost nobody actually lives. Because I was very familiar with the area I wanted to set the book in, I found it easy to write about. Lots of short sentences; that idea of sad workaday bustle.At The Reading Agency we aim to support people on their reading journey throughout their lives. Why is reading important to you, and how do you choose what to read?
I’ve always, always read. Since I was tiny. I can’t think of any other activity that allows you to experience so many other worlds and lives, whilst also making your imagination work. Readers, unlike television watchers, aren’t passive. They’re doing imaginative work in their heads, filling in the gaps the author has left for them, the faces, the places. It’s vital. This year, I’m making a point of reading mostly new work, and new work by women at that. If I’ve got a gap in my book pile, i look for certain blogs, websites & reviewers whose opinions I’ve agreed with in the past.
Giffnock South Reading Group on Fishnet: ‘We had more discussion about this book than any others we have read!’
Giffnock South Reading Group is a church-based group, set up through Giffnock South Parish Church. They are all women and have been meeting for 18 months. What they enjoy about being in a reading group is that it encourages them to read things they may never have encountered otherwise, as they all have very eclectic tastes. What they do agree on is that a book has to be well-written or they will give up on it quickly!
’None of us would have chosen it from the blurb, nor from downloading a sample, as we’d have been put off by the overt sexual language and the subject matter. However, the sexual language was really the only thing we didn’t like and everyone agreed that it was a necessary element, given the subject matter, and that this added to the authenticity of the book.
We found the book to be well-written, with well-developed characters. Reading this has widened our horizons, and certainly has changed our attitudes to the sex-worker industry. We hope that we will be more careful in the future about using dismissive language when referring to any minority group, and will be less judgemental.
While we disliked the sexual content and language, we had a more in-depth discussion about this book than any others we have read, because there was so much to talk about, and all agreed that it was well-written, and superbly researched. We all agreed that it felt honest, and that we were reading about real people and real lives. In two words: enlightening and thought provoking.’
Get involved
Find out more about Fishnet by Kirstin Innes, published by Freight Books.
Read about all the fantastic Scottish authors taking part in Home Grown Talent Week.
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