Jacqueline Wilson has been writing for more than five decades and has published hundreds of books. She describes her new novel Picture Imperfect – her adult sequel to the The Illustrated Mum – as “the easiest and the hardest thing” she’s ever written. The Illustrated Mum tells the story of two sisters – Dolphin and Star – who struggle to cope with their unstable and heavily tattooed mother Marigold, whose bipolar disorder threatens to pull their family apart. The sequel focuses on Dolphin, 33, still looking after her mum and feeling dejected with life living in a bedsit and working at a tattoo parlour. Wilson insists she has no regrets about the tougher themes in her books, despite occasional criticism that she was going too far. She acknowledges young people now are exposed to far more than readers were in the 1990s or 2000s, with conversations about misogyny, online abuse and even incel culture filtering down into classrooms. Wilson’s commitment to honesty – sometimes shocking, but never gratuitous – remains intact in Picture Imperfect. The author knows a thing or two about life’s imperfections herself. Having married young, she speaks frankly about the mismatch with her ex-husband and the lonely years that followed. For the past 23 years, the 79-year-old has been happily partnered with a woman. One of the most touching themes in Picture Imperfect is Dolphin’s attempt to understand love. Wilson says she used to be cynical about what love felt like, but that changed when she met her now partner. Wilson tells me she relishes the freedom of adult fiction. “In children’s books, you can’t go too far – you don’t want to frighten or bore kids with adult details. With adult books, you can put in whatever feels true so it’s like getting two bites of the cherry and I feel very lucky.” So will more beloved characters reappear in her adult novels? Wilson is coy, but hints she is already 30,000 words into another sequel.
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