Investigations journalist to give book talk at The Grove Bookshop

Woolrich won a BAFTA-nomination for his Channel 4 documentary The Dying Rooms about babies being left to die in Chinese orphanages. As well as television, he’s also reported for national newspapers and magazines.

The 61-year-old largely gave up his undercover journalism career to follow a lifelong ambition to write books, ten years ago.

“As an investigations journalist, I had guns, knives and a samurai sword pulled on me, but to be honest, it wasn’t as scary as writing books. Some of my newspaper stories took over two years, but if I’d told my editor one was going to take ten years, he wouldn’t have been happy,” Woolrich says.

Although A Corroded Soul is presented as a novel, it’s loosely based on Woolrich’s own life growing up in Nottingham. He had a particularly difficult relationship with his mother who, after inquiring into her secretive background, he discovered had her expectations dashed after the war. His also uncovered that his emotionally distant father had a similar experience.

“Whilst I wasn’t physically or sexually abused, as many youngsters are in the most horrible circumstances, I’d say I suffered severe emotional neglect. When my mother died, I started questioning the impact she’d had on the sort of person I’d become, and this became a novel. Some of what’s in the book really happened and some of it didn’t, but |I’m not telling anyone which bits are true!”

A Corroded Soul has been described as a darkly comic exploration of what makes us who we are, and has been compared to Prince Harry’s Spare, as well as D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. Morality, regret and the perverse nature of grief are explored. “It wasn’t until after I’d finished writing the book that I realised part of the process was me grieving my mother,” Woolrich adds.

The Grove Bookshop is hosting an author evening with Peter on Monday, June 19 at 7pm.