Plight, characters, action

AFTER AN HOUR WITH ALISON MILLER, I HALF expect to see Laetitia at the next table in the café, chain-smoking moodily, on her third espresso of the morning. Not Clare though - it's not Clare's sort of place. I have to remind myself that Laetitia and Clare are products of Miller's imagination. I'm tempted to think otherwise because she talks of them as if they are real, with a compassionate, almost motherly concern.

Miller is the latest writer to emerge from Glasgow University's MPhil in Creative Writing course, in the footsteps of Louise Welsh, Anne Donovan, Colette Paul, Rodge Glass and other talents. Her first novel, Demo, the story of four young people whose lives intertwine against the backdrop of the recent anti-war protests, was snapped up by Penguin on the strength of the first section.

Miller, who still has a soft Orkney accent despite having spent most of her working life in Glasgow, has been attending protest marches for decades. "Anti-war, anti-racism, Reclaim the Night marches for women," she smiles. She was on her way back from the anti-war demo in Florence in November 2002 when she "started to hear the voice" of 16-year-old Clare.

"I know that sounds quite strange, but actually that was what happened. I thought, I must write this down," she says. Clare, from Castlemilk, is allowed by her reluctant parents to accompany her older brother Danny to the demo. There they meet two middle-class anti-capitalists, dreadlocked Julian and his ex-girlfriend Laetitia, and the encounter changes all of them. Clare's fresh, engaging voice is full of teenager immaturity but astute observation.

By the time Miller had written Clare's account of her Florentine adventure, she had something "too long for a short story and too short for a novel". On the advice of Glasgow University's Professor Willy Maley, she sent it off anyway, and Penguin's Judy Moir signed her up straight away. "I thought the best she'd say is, 'This is interesting, get back in touch when it's finished'. It felt great when she accepted it, but terrifying."

Miller smiles, and says she is "not a finisher of things". When she applied to the MPhil in 2001 her scribbling had chiefly consisted of occasional lines of poetry on the backs of envelopes. Her first year tutor, Zoe Wicomb, persuaded Miller to take her writing seriously. "The kind of work I did - I was co-ordinator of the counselling and groupwork service at the Centre for Women's Health in Glasgow - was always absorbing and didn't leave any space for my own creativity. I made a conscious decision to see if I could improve my writing, and if I could take it seriously. I got an awful lot out of the course. My biggest achievement is still that I finished the novel. I can't actually believe I've done it. I've always wanted to write a novel. I always thought maybe I will some day, but I don't think I ever really believed I would finish it. And now I have, for good or ill."

Demo has been described as "intimate and politically charged", never letting its pertinent political backdrop draw attention away from the four young protagonists. Miller chuckles about one review which mentioned its "heavy plotting". "That's a laugh because I didn't plot it at all! I followed my characters. I didn't know what was going to happen until they knew. I didn't know what was behind the door until the character opened it. Once Clare's voice formed in my head and I started to follow her on her journey, it was as if I was just two steps behind her, and the same with the other characters."

That meant following them through the rough times, too. "It feels like horrible hard work actually. You are putting yourself through the ups and downs of your characters as well as living through your own ups and downs. The characters felt real to me, so I was with them in their vicissitudes."

That left Miller with a deep sense of loyalty towards them. She is haunted by the feeling that she somehow "let down" Laetitia, whose story takes over from Clare's, because some readers have found its quieter, more formal tone less engaging. Laetitia is a brittle, spikey character, smarting from the break-up of her parents' marriage, uncertain of her own future. Her journey is perhaps the most dramatic in the book. "I did feel it was a real struggle for her," Miller says, quietly. "I realise I'm talking about my characters as if they really exist."

As well as a deep compassion for her characters, Miller has a lively interest in their voices - Clare and Danny as West Coast Scots, Julian and Laetitia from public-school-educated middle England. In sandwiching the standard English narrative of Laetitia's story between two blocks of Clare's vigorous Glaswegian, she makes a point about the politics of language.

"Most books are written in the third person past tense in standard English. If a Glaswegian comes into a novel like that, they will then talk in a Glaswegian accent in the dialogue. That in itself gives the message that this is the correct way to talk and here is somebody who can't talk properly. By putting this section in the middle, it reverses the normal way of things, it becomes embedded in Glaswegian dialect at either end."

The real-life events in the anti-war movement provide the "framework" to the novel, from the demo in Florence in 2002, through the anti-war march in Glasgow in 2003, and ending in January 2005 - the last section written just before Miller delivered it to the publishers. "I wanted it to be as up-to-date as possible," she says. "But of course, after I finished it there were elections in this country, the G8 and Live 8 and the Make Poverty History march, the bombs in London, Hurricane Katrina. It made me think how quickly the world changes."

The subtext of the book touches on a spectrum of political issues: the clash of Clare's father's Clydeside socialism with the new single issue protests; the presence of radical Islam in multicultural Scotland; the fact that the Iraq war went ahead, despite the vigorous protests against it. "I did feel there was a sea-change in the demos in the run up to the Iraq war," says Miller. "Unlike other demonstrations, where you'd just see the usual suspects, it was a much broader crowd, and that was interesting and hopeful. People did find their voices for a time. I think I got quite caught up in that feeling, that maybe things were changing, although of course, the outcome was that we went to war anyway, so it's hard for that helplessness not to return."

Despite a political awareness learned from childhood, when her parents braved the distaste of their neighbours to march for CND from Kirkwall to Stromness, Miller says she is "not a political animal". "I've never been a joiner of groups. What I'm feeling at the moment is that I personally have to find some form of political action. It feels as though the world is becoming more polarised and dangerous." She breaks off and laughs. "It's really funny being allowed to go on about my opinions, instead of just sounding off in the pub!"

Miller is both disturbed and fascinated by the way that as human beings we can mistreat one another, even when in pursuit of worthy causes. "Even though we can throw ourselves into very good causes we're still human beings, there are always tensions and power struggles. When people identify with an oppressed group it's as if they can do nothing wrong, because everything they do is for that oppressed group. In actual fact, we can all behave badly and we do."

Which brings us back to Julian, a political rebel, a loose cannon, a charismatic figure who is nonetheless capable of maltreating Laetitia and taking advantage of Clare's vulnerability. But his creator has a soft spot for him. "I like my characters, even Julian," says Miller. "I suppose his motivation is a lot more opaque than the others but I don't completely write him off as a human being either."

I don't blame her. As I leave the caf into the rainy Glasgow morning, I half expect to meet him strolling nonchalantly through the streets, a roll-up dangling from his lip. I wonder how he's getting on.

Demo by Alison Miller is published by Penguin, 12.99.