She studied law and obtained her degree in 1961... But she began to find the practical side of law boring and looked around for other work. In 1964, she immigrated to the United States where she married. She worked as a secretary in New York, in the music business, preferring it to law.. then married Joseph Howatch, a sculptor. The couple had a daughter and Susan began to write at home, intent on writing a novel. For a few years, she wrote short Gothic novels which sold, but she wanted to write something longer and with more depth and regarded the shorter novels as a training ground.
In 1971, she published Penmarric a long
family saga, set in 19th and 20th century Cornwall. It was a rather novel idea, in that the story was loosely based on the history of
the Angevin Kings, Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their sons but it was updated to 19th and 20th Century England.
The story starts in the 1890s with the meeting of Janna Roslyn, a beautiful woman who rose from poverty to marry a farmer, but then lost her elderly husband. Janna's beauty is a double edged sword as it attracts the wrong sort of men and alienates women. She then meets the Castallack family who are the local gentry. She has had a brief affair with Laurence, the father of the family, but he dies suddenly, and she has a farm but no money. She then embarks on a relationship with Mark, his son, who is 11 years her junior. They are passionately attracted to each other and decide to marry, but their age difference and the class conflicts cause the marriage to be difficult and unhappy, though they have several children.
Mark takes a mistress, whom he finds more congenial, and there is a dramatic scene where Janna and her son Philip find out about the existence of his mistress and her two children. Mark and Janna separate but the breakup of the marriage causes divisions in the family, which affect the children and Janna, and the story goes on till the end of World War II. The novel was an amazing best seller and Howatch followed it up with more family sagas with similar themes.
She had achieved best seller status with her first long novel. Her next work was Cashelmara, which is set in 19th Ireland. It followed the same format of using the history of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III as the model for the story..
Howatch moved to Ireland in the 1970s and lived there for a few years. She liked it there and Cashelmara was set partly in Ireland and partly in America. She then turned to a different era, Rome of the 1st century, as her model. Her novel "The Rich are different" was based on the story of Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. It was set in the 1920s and 1930s, the main characters were investment bankers in the Roaring 20's prior to the Wall St Crash. Dinah Slade is a young English woman who seeks to set up her own business, and sleeps with Paul Van Zale, to get a start in the business world. He is assassinated and she later marries his friend, Steven Sullivan, who is a successful businessman but has a drinking problem... This novel and its sequel, Sins of the Father, were also very successful...
end part I
The story starts in the 1890s with the meeting of Janna Roslyn, a beautiful woman who rose from poverty to marry a farmer, but then lost her elderly husband. Janna's beauty is a double edged sword as it attracts the wrong sort of men and alienates women. She then meets the Castallack family who are the local gentry. She has had a brief affair with Laurence, the father of the family, but he dies suddenly, and she has a farm but no money. She then embarks on a relationship with Mark, his son, who is 11 years her junior. They are passionately attracted to each other and decide to marry, but their age difference and the class conflicts cause the marriage to be difficult and unhappy, though they have several children.
Mark takes a mistress, whom he finds more congenial, and there is a dramatic scene where Janna and her son Philip find out about the existence of his mistress and her two children. Mark and Janna separate but the breakup of the marriage causes divisions in the family, which affect the children and Janna, and the story goes on till the end of World War II. The novel was an amazing best seller and Howatch followed it up with more family sagas with similar themes.
She had achieved best seller status with her first long novel. Her next work was Cashelmara, which is set in 19th Ireland. It followed the same format of using the history of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III as the model for the story..
Howatch moved to Ireland in the 1970s and lived there for a few years. She liked it there and Cashelmara was set partly in Ireland and partly in America. She then turned to a different era, Rome of the 1st century, as her model. Her novel "The Rich are different" was based on the story of Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. It was set in the 1920s and 1930s, the main characters were investment bankers in the Roaring 20's prior to the Wall St Crash. Dinah Slade is a young English woman who seeks to set up her own business, and sleeps with Paul Van Zale, to get a start in the business world. He is assassinated and she later marries his friend, Steven Sullivan, who is a successful businessman but has a drinking problem... This novel and its sequel, Sins of the Father, were also very successful...
end part I
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