𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Last year, Trespasses was turned into a Channel 4 drama, starring Gillian Anderson and Lola Petticrew giving the story a “much longer and bigger life” than Kennedy ever anticipated.

So has Kennedy thought about where her new novel could go and who she would cast?

The short answer is no.

Whilst the book has been auctioned for TV and film adaptation rights, Kennedy is putting no names in the mix.

“I kind of sat back a lot with that because I just thought it wouldn’t be helpful for me to be asking loads of questions.”

However, with a sly smile Kennedy confesses that her granny “would have been absolutely tickled pink to think of Gillian Anderson playing her”.

In Trespasses, Anderson plays the character Gina, who has alcoholism and is the broken mother of Cushla, based on a version of Kennedy’s grandmother.

“Even as a scruffy Gillian Anderson, she’d have been thrilled.”

In 2019, Kennedy was diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer, which, over the following years progressed to further discoveries and a stage 4 diagnosis.

She googled everything – apart from her prognosis.

“I never asked. I never said ‘how long have I got if these drugs don’t work’,” she says.

The drugs were successful and after eight months the cancer was gone but there are ongoing health challenges as a result.

She has previously praised Trespasses for enabling her to “largely ignore all the health stuff, external” as the writing of it Kennedy told The Times “got her through the first melanoma diagnosis”, and its publication, sustained her through its return.

It’s then not surprising that the acknowledgement in her new novel pays homage to the medical team who continue to look after her and “the legend who figured out how to use Chinese hamster ovary cells against melanoma”.

“I owe you my life.”