Recently, I had the honour of sitting down and speaking with Sean Lusk, author of The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley and A Woman of Opinion — and recent winner of Scottish Fiction Book of the Year at the Saltire Awards. I had been excited to talk to Lusk about A Woman of Opinion, a semi-biographical story of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a pioneering English 18th-century aristocrat, poet, traveller, and feminist most known for introducing smallpox inoculation to Britain. The story was partly compiled around Mary’s letters and publications, which Lusk complemented with his own stylistic flair and dramatic retelling.
Lusk described his writing career as an exciting road, yet one full of twists and turns. He has worked as a gardener, speechwriter, and diplomatic official prior to debuting his first novel; and has lived in places like Greece, Pakistan, Egypt — currently residing in the Scottish Highlands. These travelling experiences have given him a deep sense of understanding for other cultures, and the recognition that while people elsewhere may live differently, they are ultimately united by universal experiences. It is up to the author to expand their repertoire and write about worlds they were previously unfamiliar with, and to convey this human universality through a sense of sincerity. In fact, Lusk’s first writing endeavour was set among the Pakistan mountains, and since then, his books have aimed to convey the alchemy among differences.
For Lusk, reading and writing have always been essential. He said that he would be utterly lost without writing, and that there is no better feeling than writing a first draft when he is “in the zone.” He carries a notebook around at all times, and frequently records snatched conversations from surrounding people on public transports for authentic dialogue. These half-conversations are perfect for the beginning of any story, as he believes that great stories must be started in the midst of everything. He strongly abides by the writing rule to “step on firmly, step off lightly,” meaning that it is a bad habit to do too much scene-setting (or what he calls throat-clearing), and that instead one should start writing in the middle of a scene.
For A Woman of Opinion, Lusk felt irresistibly drawn to tell the story of Mary Wortley Montagu, as a good example of how women have been consistently overlooked in history. He was interested in writing as celebrating the oblique, and the fact that Mary’s diaries were burnt by her daughter offered a lot of gaps to fill in. Although Mary published her writing frequently, it was occasionally anonymized, as she was conscious of her aristocratic status, and of how her letters to other aristocrats could become somewhat performative. This led Lusk to wonder: who was the woman who lived between such different voices?
Lusk’s portrayal of Mary was sympathetic, nuanced, and undoubtedly fearless. As the oldest child in the family, she had always felt constrained and frustrated by the fact of being a woman. Throughout her life she strived to uplift women’s rights, workers’ rights, and was skeptical of religion — though she respected Islam, and brought a new understanding of life in the Ottoman Empire to the West through her writing. Yet, her forceful, and at times overbearing, personality strained her relationship with her sister and daughter, and her occasional disregard for reputation also landed her in unfortunate situations. Lusk masterfully balances the multi-faceted nature of Mary’s attitudes and actions, as the novel does not simply detail her biography but also attempts at understanding her emotional states. He contends that the trick to bringing any character alive is to let the readers know what they fear and what they love. Therefore, he depicted Mary as someone who is constantly in pursuit of love but is scared that her loved ones would die, making her fearful of love itself. Truly, Mary is brought to life in A Woman of Opinion by Lusk’s witty and tender voice.
Upon finishing our conversation, Lusk shared a teaser for his upcoming project, No Place For Us, a novel set under the dictatorship of the Dominican Republic and detailing an unforgettable journey taken by German Jewish refugees. The book is set to release in February 2027, and is highly anticipated by the Scottish book world.
Photos provided by Sean Lusk for The Student