Little wonder: meet author Jessie Burton

Reader, we bunked off. We’re not proud, but we couldn’t help it. I had arranged to meet Jessie Burton, author of this summer’s runaway bestseller The Miniaturist, at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, my somewhat optimistic idea being that we could calmly inspect its doll’s houses and other pint-sized exhibits while discussing literary matters in hushed tones. Cue us standing at the threshold, nervously contemplating a maelstrom of holidaying children, and beating a retreat to a nearby park, where we discovered a tiny eau-de-nil van dispensing homemade Victoria sponge. Then a brilliant after-the-fact rationalisation: The Miniaturist is set in Golden Age Amsterdam and deals in part with the tension between riches and restraint, puritanism and hedonism; sugar as a forbidden source of pleasure is one of its recurring metaphors. Our slabs of cake were practically an homage to the book.

But more to the point, Burton deserves a) a treat and b) a rest. The 31-year-old’s debut novel, acquired for a six-figure sum after an intense auction, was published only a few weeks ago. It has since climbed to number two in the booksellers charts, outselling Robert Galbraith, aka JK Rowling; at the time of our interview it was only 500 copies away from toppling number one, Peter Robinson’s Abattoir Blues: The 22nd DCI Banks Mystery.

Meanwhile, Burton has been racing up and down the country to meet both the readers and retailers who have put it there. ‘I just have to steel myself a little bit for the next couple of months,’ she laughs, as we talk about a schedule that will take her to Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Oslo and five US cities, then back to these shores for ‘something called a glitterary lunch’ and festivals at Budleigh Salterton and Cheltenham. And given that The Miniaturist, which critics have called a ‘lushly written debut’ (The Independent) and ‘gripping and gorgeous’ (The Telegraph), is on sale in 29 countries, things are unlikely to ease up any time soon. Not that she’s complaining; she’s far too well mannered and also, I suspect, genuinely bowled over. When we talk about how proud her parents are — they are very close, and the book is dedicated to them and to her partner, actor Pip Carter — she explains that ‘they are thrilled, but in a quiet way’. Perhaps they don’t want to jinx it, I suggest. ‘That’s how I feel, too,’ she replies. ‘I want to enjoy it, and I know that it will pass. I want it to stay, and I know that it can’t.’

‘It’, like all overnight successes, has been a while in coming. After studying Spanish at Oxford and then attending the Central School of Speech & Drama, Burton set her sights on an acting life. Some work followed at the National Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse and on regional tours, but much of the time was spent waiting for the calls to come — ‘very disheartening, especially when the phone rings and the part is to play a dead body in a ditch’. Or indeed, as she semi-humorously, semi-crossly explains, stereotypes in adverts: ‘I had one yoghurt commercial, and it was like, “She’s French, but she’s still a good mother.” ’

Would she ever want to give acting another try? ‘Never say never,’ she replies, ‘but I would say that writing and the world of publishing has opened its arms to me far wider than the world of acting ever did.’ But while the casting directors weren’t calling, something else was happening. Burton was earning a living as a City PA — always as a temp, though she was constantly asked to go permanent — and often filling in the bits around the edges. ‘I’d always be working on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, when nobody else was there. The lights would go off and I had to like… [she wheels her arms around over her head to activate an imaginary sensor]. I thought, “What am I doing?” ’

What she was doing was writing. In 2008, she began a novel, set in London’s theatreland at the end of the 18th century, and sent three chapters out to agents. ‘One of them said, “Can you send me some more?” and I’d write some more and then eventually I had to confess, because I was temping so much I didn’t have time. And I didn’t know the game; I didn’t realise I should have really polished it and sent it fully. But that sort of fizzled out.’ The novel, Entitlement, still exists, about 80,000 words — ‘a full go’, Burton says, although she can’t remember whether she finished it. Good title, I say. ‘I know! I think I might use it again.’

Encouraged by the positive reaction rather than discouraged by the fizzling out, Burton tried again, this time inspired by a visit to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. There she saw a ‘cabinet house’ — a sort of oversized doll’s house, built into a large, glass-fronted cabinet — that had belonged to Petronella Oortman, a merchant’s wife who had filled it with specially commissioned furniture, fixtures and fittings, from elaborate glassware and china to an opulent canopy bed. In The Miniaturist, Burton imagines a life for Nella in which her marriage to the wealthy Johannes is arranged after her own family’s fortunes founder, but when she arrives in Amsterdam from the countryside in 1686, she is mystified to find that he barely takes notice of her. Instead, she is given her own cabinet house to furnish, which leads her to the mysterious ‘miniaturist’ of the title, via a tale that encompasses hints of the supernatural and explores the position of women in a society torn between piety and sensuousness. Not bad for a book that was written in Microsoft Outlook while she was at work: ‘I was pretending to write emails. It would be *in* the email: “Johannes walks up to the...” ’

Surely she didn’t write a whole book in the gaps between taking calls and updating spreadsheets? No: a couple of years ago, she started taking longer gaps between temping jobs and also got herself a place on a creative writing course run by literary agency Curtis Brown. Manuscript finally finished, she signed up with a dynamic young agent called Juliet Mushens of The Agency Group (interested readers and aspiring writers should visit Burton’s website, where their initial exchange is reproduced in full). Burton is tactfully reticent about why Curtis Brown didn’t end up representing her, explaining that by the time they offered, she had decided to go with Mushens: ‘She was the one. It’s like speed-dating.’ Less tactful industry-watchers might imagine that Curtis Brown are absolutely kicking themselves now.

When first novels go out to publishers, anything can happen — including nothing. Most writers and their agents would be happy with a prompt response, a modest cash offer and a commitment to publish. So what happened? ‘That’s something that I’ve been trying to understand since [the book] went up for sale,’ she answers. ‘I remember asking my agent, “Why has this happened?” When you’re the actual creator of something, you can’t step outside it particularly easily; you know how hard it’s been, and how hard it is for everybody else, so you go, “Why me?” It was when there were still nine publishers in the auction, and no one was leaving the auction, and it was just going mad. She said, “It’s just the right book, the right time... and the right agent!” ’

Whatever the magic formula, it has been a dream start for Burton. Now she just has to believe it. She pays huge tribute to the support of her family and of Carter, who reads her reviews to her and who is happy for her to take the limelight. His career is also flourishing; earlier this year, he starred in New Worlds with Jamie Dornan and in Posh in the West End. The couple met seven years ago, when he was starring in a Noël Coward play, and she was understudying. ‘He’s a very understated actor,’ she says, ‘and by that I mean he’s not interested in glitz or glamour, but he’s magical. He’s really good. He’s got it.’ They live in East Dulwich and Burton — who grew up in Wimbledon and attended the multi-borough comprehensive Lady Margaret School in Fulham, ‘so everywhere from Portobello to Camden was my playground’ — is a thoroughly committed Londoner. ‘I was just reading about Katherine Mansfield. She said, “London, it is life.” And I feel that so much.’

She mainly writes at home (‘I don’t have a glamorous schedule... it’s word-count’), but has recently treated herself to membership of the London Library in St James’s. ‘It’s really cool, I love it. And every now and then you see someone mega-famous.’ Such as? ‘Natascha McElhone. I was in a room full of men, I was the only woman. She walked in and I was like, “Guys, guys, it’s a chance to look at a really beautiful woman.” And they were just not interested. They were reading about Norse mathematics or something.’ There is a very endearing touch of the fan girl about Burton; when she wrote to Hilary Mantel, whose work she loves ‘with a zealous passion’, and Mantel replied and wished her luck, she framed the note, ‘because I love her so much’.

Meanwhile, what of the famously difficult second novel? She reports being 30,000 words or so in, and aims to finish a draft by the end of the year. Called Belonging, it concerns a fictional Spanish artist, who flees the country in the 1930s, and his work, which turns up in London in 1967; it will explore the ‘psychic scar’ left by the Spanish Civil War, and also London’s Trinidadian immigrant community.