Columnist Zahra Barri chats to Sevenoaks author Kit Conway about suspense, suburbia, savagery, salaciousness, Desperate Housewives and, of course, Sevenoaks!

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Kit Conway’s Cat Fight has got Reece Witherspoon’s Book Club vibes all over it. In fact, the novel has already been compared to Liane Moriarity’s Big Little Lies, which Witherspoon adapted into an HBO series.

However, instead of Big Little Lies’ Monterey, Conway chooses a far more picturesque location. Move over the Californian West and the HBO Hollywood Hills and welcome west Kent and, in particular, Sevenoaks!

For this is both where Conway is from and where she tells her tale. A tale that after reading I’d describe as a darker version of Motherland – a kind of Kent rendition of Desperate Housewives.

Furthermore, how Conway uses the Sevenoaks landscape to depict implications about the seemingly serene suburbs is akin to the way Heathcliff uses the wildness of the moors to depict the wildness of Heathcliff’s character. (Yes, I just quoted Phoebe from Friends for that, not York Notes.)

Cat Fight uses its geography to make eco-critical literary statements. As it ruminates between the rural charm and urbanity of its commuter-town setting, the characters who inhabit the Sevenoaks estate become obsessed about rumours of a panther-like cat running wild in the community.

Conway shrewdly uses this as a metaphor for us to analyse whether underneath the perfectly controlled and contrived veneer of suburbia, it is in actual fact rooted in wildness, cattiness and mayhem. Many of the characters, although pulled into the colloquial conventionalities of the neighbourhood, are deep down just like the alleged cat – bloodthirsty. Their fingernails may be perfectly manicured, but make no mistake, they are not afraid to get their claws out!

Conway’s style also reflects this collision between perfection and pandemonium. She effortlessly weaves light or humorous prose into darker subjects such as the dangers of gossip, fame, ego and cancer and – perhaps as a result of her past experience as a lawyer – domestic abuse. Here’s our chat, where Kit and I discuss suspense, suburbia, savagery, salaciousness and, of course, Sevenoaks!

1. Being a mother yourself, have you based any of the catty characters on mums and dads you’ve met in the school playground? Or as a former lawyer are you legally obligated not to say?

I’m legally obliged to confirm that none of the characters are based on anyone in real life! But I wouldn’t base a character on someone I knew – I think I would find that too restrictive and a lot less fun than creating my own cast of characters from scratch. Having said that, while I’m fortunate to know some lovely local parents, the playground can be a Petri dish of possibility when it comes to catty comments, so I do – like most writers – have an ear cocked for something juicy!

2. There’s very much a sense of the superficialities of daily life covering a more sinister and primal existence. As a writer, what are you trying to say about suburban life in particular?

A friend noted to me once how interesting it is that as humans we strive to be ‘civilised’, to cultivate a sophisticated veneer that separates us from the animal kingdom – cultured, educated, advanced. And yet for women, natural birth reduces us back to an animal state that for all our knowledge and technology can’t be avoided. It’s so raw and uncontrollable.

Parenthood follows the same lines: a blinding deep love, an instinct to protect. This conflict – between how we desire to be and our natural instincts – fascinates me and suburbia is the perfect setting to amplify it. As a society we carve out these secure-seeming suburban bubbles when often our safety – whether by natural forces such as the weather, or otherwise – is out of our hands.

There’s something captivating about these communities that can seem so manicured and genteel but scratch the surface and a dark underbelly is exposed. I’m not trying to say anything about suburban life itself in particular –it’s more an acknowledgement that humans are essentially all the same, and money and privilege can only go so far to mask that. And as a writer it can be fun and lend itself to some satisfying satire, searching for the dark underbelly!

3. What were your artistic influences writing this novel?

I’m a big fan of Desperate Housewives, so that’s one! I love community-based novels that explore the ripple effect of trauma, such as Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies and Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere (and I thought both TV adaptations were excellent, too) and novels that deal with serious issues but with a darkly humorous touch. Marian Keyes and Holly Bourne are particularly good at this. When I’m writing, I always seek to include a splash of glamour and where possible satire, as is achieved so brilliantly in The White Lotus.

I had the idea for Cat Fight before watching Tiger King, but when I watched it – and witnessed the obsessive, addictive personalities at play or some of the people entrenched in big-cat communities – I knew I was on to something.

4. Cat Fight is set on ‘the Briars Heart Estate’ – is this a real place?

There is no real Briar Heart Estate (that I am aware of), but it is loosely based on Montreal Park, a housing development in Sevenoaks, while the Jutland Estate is geographically similar to the Montreal Estate. I renamed them (and the general area of Riverhead to Puddleford) so I wouldn’t feel tied, creatively, to the real-life locations, but having a rough idea of the area did help when visualising the action.

5. What made you decide to write in the third person multi-perspective, rather than the more intimate first person?

I tried writing some parts in first person, but ultimately I wanted an almost voyeuristic experience for the reader of peeking through the curtains of these different households and indeed the Puddleford community as a whole. The third person seemed the best fit to achieve this.

6. Finally, favourite Kent literary activity or thing?

Sevenoaks Bookshop. I feel so extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to see some amazing authors – Lemn Sissay, Clare Mackintosh, Bonnie Garmus and Liane Moriarty, for example – all speaking live around five minutes from my house! And their children’s section is truly excellent – my sons love to visit and we always leave with armfuls of books.

Cat Fight is published by Transworld / Penguin Random House and is out 15th May.