Topography of a novel: The Hopeful by Tracy O'Neill

Every book needs help coming into the world. Here, Tracy O’Neill explains the role hot coffee, soft pants and a sweet puppy played in the creation of a hypnotic debut

By Tracy O’Neill for Topography of a Novel by Blunderbuss Magazine, part of the Guardian Books Network

Every book has its own texture, materiality, and topography. This is not only metaphorical; the process of creating a novel produces all sorts of flotsam–notes, sketches, research, drafts–and sifting through this detritus can provide insight both into the architecture of a work and into the practice of writing. Blunderbuss is excited to run this series, in which we ask writers to select and assemble the artifacts of a book in a way that they find meaningful and revealing. In this instalment, Tracy O’Neill shares the soft pants and goddamn multiplication tables that helped her write The Hopeful.

In The Hopeful, 16-year-old figure skating prodigy Ali Doyle feels her Olympic dreams shatter along with of her two vertebrae. When she finds herself addicted to amphetamines, however, something more than a gold medal might be on the line. This debut novel has been described as “hypnotic” (KarolinaWaclawiak) and “brilliant and bold” (Julia Fierro), and earned O’Neill a spot on the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 list.

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