New Meets Old in Philip Caveney's latest book

When I first sat down to write Flipped! I had just a few rules in mind. First and foremost, I wanted very much to write a book that was set during the COVID lockdown. It has taken us writers quite some time to deal with this tricky subject in print but we’re finally starting to think about the possibilities. I feel very strongly that this period was such an important part of our recent history, especially for young people, a time when they should have been enjoying their formative experiences, making connections and having fun. Instead they were handed this long bleak period where they were separated from their closest friends and expected to entertain themselves. I wanted to create a story that dealt with that.

I had the idea of writing about a teenage boy caught in that situation, a boy called Flip who finds that he must spend a lot of time in his own head. He hardly ever sees his mum, because she’s working around the clock at the local hospital trying to deal with the disastrous influx of sick people who are coming in with this new condition that nobody has any idea how to treat. And Flip’s dad is long out of the picture, he broke up with Flip’s mum some years back and now lives with a partner that Flip has never even met.

I decided that Flip would spend a lot of time that summer walking, exploring the marshes around the estate where he lives, not because he particularly likes exploring, just because there’s nothing else to do. And in my imagination, I saw him discovering an old derelict house in a little valley, a house that he’s never noticed before, even though he’s lived in the area all his life.  And in my mind’s eye, I saw Flip ignoring the ‘keep out’ signs and entering the house. At the top of a flight of ancient stairs, he finds a girl waiting for him. A girl who says her name is Estella...

Now, I have to confess here that I hadn’t planned this bit at all! It just sort of happened in my head and I decided to go along with it. Of course, I knew that Estella was a character from Great Expectations, and I also knew that around the time Dickens wrote the book, Britain was beset by epidemics: cholera, tuberculosis, diphtheria. And I thought, ‘Hmm, lots of similarities there.’ So I decided to develop the idea, thinking of the delicious possibilities of a modern day boy bumping up against these famous Victorian characters and trying his best to interact with them. Flip, I decided, has never read Great Expectations but, like most people, he has some idea of the characters from various films and TV series that he’s seen down the years (usually while doom-scrolling on his phone at the same time).

And in a way, that’s the real power of the original book. Dickens’ characters are larger than life, incredibly memorable even to those who haven’t read a word of the story. They are powerful enough to suggest that they could exist outside of the book that introduced them to the world. Pip Gargery, Miss Havisham, Estella… we are all aware of them. And of course, they’re open to reinterpretation.

And this was great, because the last thing I wanted to do was create a dour, miserable story - even while reserving the right to slip in the odd spooky scene. But I realised I could off-set the chills with the humour generated from this contemporary kid trying to deal with things that are quite outside of his experience: learning to waltz, having to engage in formal conversation and navigating an outmoded class system - more often than not, getting the wrong end of the stick.

Mind you, my favourite chapters to write were the ones where Charles Dickens turns up and starts to berate Flip (who he thinks is Pip), complaining that he doesn’t look right, that he has the ‘wrong hair,’ and that he keeps losing the fights he has with Herbert Pocket, when he’s actually supposed to win them! Dickens believes that an author is a puppet-master and that the characters he has created must do exactly what he instructs them to do. Flip, of course, has other ideas!

But the scene I derived the most pleasure from writing was the one where Flip has the opportunity to tell Dickens what he actually thinks of Great Expectations (Flip has started reading it in the hope of giving himself a competitive edge against all these weird people he keeps bumping into). He assures Dickens that it’s probably really good (all the teachers at school seem to think so) but that the book is ‘a bit wordy.’ Dickens is of course completely bamboozled by this, arguing that words are all he has to work with! And when Flip tells him his favourite Dickens adaptation is ‘the one with the Muppets…’

Of course, this strange story I was creating kept prompting questions that I knew I would have to do my best to answer. How responsible is an author for the things that his or her characters do and say? Is it wrong to take the work of a famous writer and mess about with it? And will this book encourage reluctant readers to pick up a copy of Great Expectations and give it a go? I really hope so. Joking aside, Charles Dickens is one of the greatest authors that ever lived and I hope I haven’t done anything to offend his legacy.

I’m all too aware that in 2025, we authors have a lot more competition for readers than Dickens ever had to contend with. But all writers begin as readers and I still enjoy the experience of losing myself in a good book. In Flip’s case, this is quite literally what happens to him. And once in there, how will he ever find his way out again? Well, that’s the final question I needed to find an answer for…