The Dying Swan, a gripping drama surrounding the hunt for an elusive killer known for trademark ritualistic burials, dramatises not just how girls or women are victim to sexual abuse and its shattering impact, but the normalisation of inappropriate sexual attention. McKenna’s novel also provides a backdrop gleaned from real life experiences.
“I thought of Tess as a child kidnap victim due to one of my childhood memories and an extremely near miss,” the author explains. “I was about seven and had walked to the local shop to buy something and as always, my dog Rags followed me. Rags was a stray that my parents had taken in and our bond was so close. He was a black raggy looking dog.
“I crossed the quiet road to get tom the shop and as I got to the other side a car pulled up. A man with very dark hair and a beard asked me to come over to the car, I was apprehensive as adults always tell their children not to approach strangers but when an adult like the man asks a child to do something they do it. The man said he had some sweets for me so I headed for the car, as I got closer my dog lunged in between myself and the car growling at the man and foaming at the mouth, my dog simply would not let me pass. The man quickly drove off as Rags was trying to get him through the window.”
Though her storytelling in The Dying Swan may be fictitious, McKenna packs it with chilling realism. The author grew up amid a serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, aka The Yorkshire Ripper who killed 13 women and attacked at least eight more between October 1975 and November 1980.
“He lived just across the valley in neighbouring Frizinghall,” McKenna said. “The tension at that time was awful. Women had to be chaperoned everywhere for their own safety. My mum worked at the local picture house and dad would walk to meet her, so she was safe.
“The man who tried to entice me into his car that day looked awfully like Peter Sutcliffe. I know he attacked adult women and not children, but you never know.”
Born in Shipley, West Yorkshire, to a Glaswegian father who was a builder and a Yorkshire mum who was a housewife, McKenna worked in casinos most of her life. During her early thirties, she studied law, gaining a law degree.
Ten years ago, she followed the calling of her Celtic roots and moved first to Glasgow, then settling in Argyll and Bute near the town of Dunoon.
She started studying archaeological research as she was always interested in what lies beneath her feet, becoming “obsessed” with a module titled Death and Burial, which focuses on ancient ritual burials. “I passed with a postgraduate diploma but realised I didn’t like academic writing, although I thrived writing theoretically,” McKenna recalls. “When I studied archaeology, I became fascinated with ancient burials and skeletal remains, I knew a little about osteo archaeology and so my character Dr Tess O’Brien was created. Her beauty and vulnerability are based on an article I read about Picassos muse The Girl with The Ponytail, Sylvette David. In her interview she spoke about the downfalls of being so beautiful and those were negative attention and childhood abuse. Tess’s looks are based on Sylvette, someone so stunning that all genders stop and stare. I also wanted Tess to have suffered trauma, she is not a victim but a fighter.”
In McKenna’s beautifully written and painstakingly researched The Dying Swan, the protagonist Dr Tess O’Brien flees to Scotland following a painful breakup, seeking refuge in Glasgow University’s archaeological department. Haunted by the trauma of her teenage kidnapping, she is drawn into a chilling investigation of murders and war crimes worldwide, uncovering disturbing parallels to her past.
“I have a good friend Lucy Rose who was an archaeologist and she being exceptionally beautiful and blond also inspired my character,” McKenna said. “Tess is kind, funny and a good friend who is also extremely intelligent, I want people to like her, to aspire to be her, when she is sad, angry, happy, or scared I want people to feel it. She loves hard so when she falls in love it is all consuming and she has a trusting nature in some respects.
“Tess is obsessed with bones, this might seem macabre to some but to her this is where she feels most comfortable, she also feels compassion and empathy for the victims she excavates, knowing full well that could have been her as a thirteen-year-old victim of sexual predators.
“In the writing I also look at how girls or women are victim to sexual abuse, comments, assault. I wanted to show how most women at some point in their lives have been victims to inappropriate sexual attention so much so it can seem normal. I wanted Tess to highlight this.”
Image : DAVID COHEN on Unsplash
