Q&A: The Wildelings author Lisa Harding

The Wildelings tells the story of childhood best friends who come from troubled backgrounds and escape to Wilde College - an elite university in Dublin - in the 1990s. There they meet a new circle of friends, all sharing similar childhood damage. An older philosophy student and auteur-in-the making named Mark preys on the group. He generates mayhem and madness in order to write about it. A terrible tragedy ensues.

I was interested in exploring childhood trauma in young adulthood, the bonds we form, our ways of skewed relating, troubled attachment styles. I was also interested in exploring the genesis of creativity.