"WE WALKED for hours and hours searching for a castle. We must have looked weird, with Ma carrying her rucksack and me still in pyjama bottoms, cos that was the first time I noticed the way some people can look everywhere except at you."
Homelessness, alcoholism, materialism, commercialism, family life and society's compassion, or lack of it, come under the spotlight in Sarah Carroll’s debut novel, The Girl In Between.
Set in an abandoned mill in the heart of Dublin, Sam and her ma take shelter form their memories of life on the streets, and watch the busy world go by. While the windows are boarded up and the floorboards falling in, for Sam it's her 'castle' – a home of her own like no other, and a place of safety.
But as alcohol takes a hold of her ma and the authorities move ever closer, Sam finds herself trapped in the crumbling mill with only the ghosts of the past for company.
Author Carroll lives on a houseboat moored in Dublin's Grand Canal Dock, with husband Bob and their nine-month old daughter, May. The view from her window is the abandoned Boland's Mill, a multi-storey warehouse building, parts of which date from the early 1800s.
The mill, which is now surrounded by high-tech multinationals including Google, Facebook and Airbnb, stopped production in 2001. Only the facade of the building currently remains, as work continues in transforming it into to Boland's Quay, accommodating new residences, commercial and retail spaces.
"I walk past the mill every day and see a homeless man asleep in the shadow of it," says Carroll, about the inspiration for this novel. "To me, the mill was a symbol of a crumbling past forgotten by an uncaring digital future. I thought of how the old man and the mill was invisible. One day, I looked at the mill and I thought to myself, there's a young girl trapped in there. Why? Because it is her refuge from life on the streets.
"That evening, I sat down and wrote the words, I'm invisible. I decided that would be my opening line. Because to the outside world, the girl does not exist.
"But she is also trapped in the mill, a symbol of the past. And so, until she can understand her own past, she cannot leave, she cannot move on."
While Carroll says The Girl In Between wasn't an issue-driven book, she hopes people do take away a compassionate message about homelessness, as well as being able to personally explore "what we must give up in order to move on".
"The most vulnerable in society need to be heard rather than ignored. We are so used to walking past the begging cup and not looking behind it. I wanted to write a story that stepped behind the begging cup and examine how a young girl could live such a brutal existence and yet find beauty in life. It's a unique story that is both heartbreaking, loving and ultimately uplifting. I hope it will give food for thought.
Although written through the voice of a 10-year-old, Carroll doesn't see The Girl In Between as being young adult fiction.
"I write in the voice of a child because their naivety and innocence helps hold a mirror to the world. Just like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which has an eight-year-old narrator, it can enjoyed by everyone."
Until six years ago Carroll, who has a degree in geology, never considered a career in writing. In fact she admits English was her worst subject at school.
"A friend and I used to work at a filling station on a Sunday night and we would be there shaking, trying to remember the lines of a poem, as we would be called upon, one by one in class the next day, to recite it. It was very uninspiring and more like learning 12 times tables."
While she loved geology and the study of the Earth, she admits that when it came to practically applying what she learned she was "totally opposed to what those mining companies stand for". After graduating she did some work in geophysics for underground surveys to earn enough money to go travelling.
After volunteering in northern Tanzania in 2006 for seven weeks with a well-known international volunteer agency, Carroll remained there, opening a hostel for volunteers on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Working alongside various local grassroots organisations, she helping to connect volunteers with local projects.
So what inspired her to start writing?
"It was about six years ago I had just returned to Tanzania from a cold Ireland. I was lying in bed, sweltering, wishing I was in a place that was nice and snowy. I built up this imaginary world and when I got back to Ireland I had to write the story down. I started doing writing courses and got hooked. Landing a publishing deal was amazing."
Upon returning to Ireland she also helped set up The Ethical Volunteer website which acts as a signpost to facilitate ethical and independent overseas volunteering.
Travel and volunteering is something she believes everyone should experience.
"You've got to leave your own comfort zone and see the world in order to understand it a bit better," adds Carroll, whose time in Africa has also inspired a future novel.
However, her next book is the direct follow-up The Girl In Between, following the story of a 12-year-old girl whose father is the developer who bought the mill.
"The next one looks at the upper end of society in Dublin. I think materialism and how we misplace values in today's society is always going to be a theme in my work."
So does she fancy living in a castle?
"No, I don't need a castle, but I wouldn't mind a house that is more than four square metres," she laughs.
:: The Girl In Between by Sarah Carroll is published by Simon and Schuster and is available now.
