As I wrote it, that world from before I was born came alive for me as vividly as if I could actually see it and smell it and taste it, as if I were present in it. Conjuring it was a heady experience, uncanny-I channelled knowledge I hardly knew I had.
Children have a strong awareness of the recent past, if they're at all interested; the evidence is all around them, in the streets and in the schools... in the mind-set and preoccupations, the conversations and material surroundings of their parents and grandparents.
Also, my mother was a great storyteller, and the world that Moira and Evelyn live in was the world of her youth, which loomed hugely in her imagination forever afterward, as a high point of excitement and fun. She was an art student, and studied dressmaking, just like Moira, although Moira isn't her.
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