Today’s professionals — including lawyers — are talking more than ever about the importance of having a life outside of the workplace. Turning that ambition into a reality, however, can be tough.
That struggle is at the forefront of The Hole in the Middle, a new novel by Kate Hilton, assistant dean at the University of Toronto’s faculty of law.
The story follows Sophie Whelan, a 39-year-old woman with a busy career, a difficult marriage and, on top of that, two young children. The Hole in the Middle is Hilton’s first novel and it hit bookstores earlier this month.
Here, Precedent speaks to her about the book.
Precedent: Kate, you are trained as a lawyer, but Sophie — your main character — is a communications specialist at a hospital. What can lawyers reading your book take away from your protagonist’s work experience?
Hilton: One of the distinctive aspects of The Hole in the Middle is the focus on Sophie’s life in the workplace, and the parts of the book set in the office are quite satirical. I think that lawyers will recognize many of their frustrations are universal to stressful professional jobs: the complexity of the relationships that we have with people both above and below us on the food chain, the ever-expanding nature of our work responsibilities, the failure of clients to respect boundaries and take advice and the jargon that all professions invent for themselves.
Precedent: There are lawyers in the novel — Sophie’s father and the guy she fell for in university — but their careers are not central to the plot. Why did you only refer to the legal profession in passing?
Hilton: The advice most people give to new writers is to write what you know. But in fact, if the characters and events in your book are too close to your life, it can be paralyzing because you worry too much about accurate representation. In my case, I wanted to draw on my experience of working with law professionals in a large institution, but I needed to change some of the details in order to create a healthy distance.
Precedent: What has the reaction been from lawyers you know?
Hilton: It’s been overwhelmingly positive. I’m actually amazed and touched by the number of lawyers who have written to tell me how much the book resonates with them.
Precedent: Your book explores several topical themes, including the growing desire for work-life balance and the difficulty for women to reach the top tiers of the corporate world. What do you want to contribute to these discussions?
Hilton: Over the course of my career, I’ve seen so many women — particularly lawyers — become overwhelmed by the demands of work and family. I’ve seen some of them soldier on rather miserably for years, while others have opted out of the workplace altogether. For most women, I think the solution lies somewhere in between those two poles. You can’t do it all, every minute of every day, and feel content with your life. Inevitably, you’re going to feel as though you are failing on all fronts. The key to having it all, or at least to beating back this creeping sense of failure, is to figure out what you want — not what you think you should want, or what you wish you wanted, but what you actually want. That answer will be slightly different for everyone, and it’s hard work to get to it. But there is incredible freedom in self–knowledge.
Precedent: You, like Sophie, are a busy professional, wife and mother. How did you find the time to write a novel?
Hilton: In the beginning, I set aside three hours each week on Sunday afternoons. It was all I could manage without upsetting the delicate balance of a household containing two busy professionals and two young boys. After 18 months or so, I felt confident enough about my writing to reduce my hours to 80 percent so that I could write on Fridays. That decision was a huge turning point, both in my sense of myself as a writer and also in the quality of my work.
Precedent: At first, you published the novel yourself. When did publishers start taking an interest?
Hilton: I caught the attention of an agent first, after the self-published version took off with 13,000 downloads. My agent, the wonderful Beverley Slopen, managed to sell the book very quickly to HarperCollins Canada. I think I had a book deal about six weeks after I self-published.
Precedent: Do you have any other books in the works?
Hilton: There’s one beginning to take shape in the back of my mind. I think it might have a few more lawyers in it this time.
Precedent: What’s on your holiday reading list?
Hilton: Roberta Rich’s The Harem Midwife, Elizabeth Strout’s The Burgess Boys, David Gilbert’s & Sons and Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen.