Helen Paris on The Invisible Women’s Club and Embracing Womanhood at Every Age
In this first episode of Best Book Forward I was delighted to be joined by Helen Paris; author of Lost Property and The Invisible Women's Club.
Helen shared wonderful memories of buying her childhood favourites with her dad at WHSmiths at weekends, a wonderful teacher who introduced her to a book she loves and the books that inspired her love of reading and writing.
Helen’s Desert Island Books choices are:
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
Of course, when you’re talking to somebody who is as passionate about books as Helen is, lots of other books get mentioned so here are the other books we talked about in this episode.
Second Spring by Kate Codrington
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
If you would like to hear more from Helen Paris, please do keep an eye out as there is a bonus episode coming where we discuss more about Helen’s life as a reader and a writer and she shares a bookish secret with us!
For more content from me you can follow me on Instagram or visit my website www.bestbookforward.org
This episode of Best Book Forward was produced by Buckers at Decibelle Creative @decibelle_creative / www.decibellecreative.com
Transcript
Welcome to Best Book Forward, the podcast where I talk to authors, publishers and book lovers alike about the books that have shaped their lives.
Speaker A:Think of it as like Desert Island Discs, but the bookish version.
Speaker A:Today I'm delighted to be joined by Helen Parris.
Speaker A: l Lost Property was billed as: Speaker A:Her new novel, the Invisible Women's Club was published this August.
Speaker A:It is a wonderful feel good and life affirming read about community and friendships, the power and strength of women and for standing up for what you believe in.
Speaker A:Helen, welcome and thank you so much for joining me today on Best Foot Forward.
Speaker B:Oh, Helen, I'm delighted to be here.
Speaker A:Good, good.
Speaker A:We just had a little chat before we came in.
Speaker A:So this is my very first episode of Best Book Forward, the podcast, and I'm so happy that you're here with me for it.
Speaker A:I feel like the world needs a bit of joy right now.
Speaker A:So would you like to start off by telling everyone a little bit about the Invisible Club?
Speaker B:Oh, I would love to.
Speaker B:And I love that you introduce it as being a little bit about joy, because that was absolutely part of my intention when I was writing the book.
Speaker B:So, in the Invisible Women's Club we meet janet Pym, who's 72 years old and who absolutely loves her allotment, but she is very lonely and she longs for companionship.
Speaker B:And we also meet middle aged Bev, by the way, a Scottish midwife who is struggling with the perimenopause and is is fighting for women's health.
Speaker B:And now these two women are the classic odd couple.
Speaker B:I mean, they are different in every way really, in physicality and personality, in life experience.
Speaker B:One's married, one's single, one's gay, one's straight, one's a mother, one is child free by choice.
Speaker B:But ultimately it's on these very differences.
Speaker B:But by the end of the book, a really firm friendship is built.
Speaker A:It is, it's beautiful.
Speaker A:They are both amazing characters.
Speaker A:Should we start off by talking about Janet?
Speaker A:So as you said, she is quite lonely when we first meet her.
Speaker A:Janet has seen an advert for a National Trust position that she loves.
Speaker A:The sound of it kind of sparks a bit of excitement in her life and she's convinced that this is for her.
Speaker A:She is very busy with her allotment and she's also very busy dodging Bev's attempts at friendship.
Speaker A:Bless her.
Speaker A:She does come across as quite prickly at the beginning because obviously we don't Know what her life experience is.
Speaker A:I warmed her very quickly and obviously as the novel progresses and you understand what she's been through, you can't help but fall in love with her.
Speaker A:And I'd love to hear a little bit more about Janet.
Speaker A:How was she for you to write and was there anyone in your life that inspired her?
Speaker B:With Janet, there wasn't really, you know, I actually to research the book, I knew I wanted to set it on an allotment.
Speaker B:So I was very lucky to sign up for an allotment plot.
Speaker B:I'd been on the list for quite a long time in preparation.
Speaker B:So I got my allotment plot because I, to be honest, I'm an actual, an awful gardener and Janet is a brilliant gardener.
Speaker B:She sort of committed her retirement to, to her gardening and particularly tending her evergreens and her medicinal plants.
Speaker B:So I got an allotment and I was very inspired just generally by the gardeners and real diverse population of gardeners who work on an allotment.
Speaker B:So Janet's not based on anybody real, but I did see her, she came to me on that allotment plot.
Speaker B:I saw her there sort of digging away and pruning and, and making compost.
Speaker B:And I saw this 72 year old woman who talked to her plants, who loved her plants, who nurtured her plants, who believed in the power and benefit of plants, but who was just really, really lonely.
Speaker B:But I think part of her prickliness and I did write her as prickly.
Speaker B:It's this interesting sort of give and take.
Speaker B:As an author, I think you want the reader to fall for your character, you want to entice them into the story.
Speaker B:So I didn't want to make it too prickly, I didn't want to make it too much cactus.
Speaker B:But at the same time Janet is.
Speaker B:She is lonely.
Speaker B:And I think the thing about Janet is that she tries her best.
Speaker B:You know, she makes some very pungent smelling compost for the people on the next door plot because she spotted that they've got tomato blight and she has the very best intentions.
Speaker B:She doesn't see it as a load of shit that she's put on their shed, you know, doorstep.
Speaker B:So a lot of her sort of friendly gestures misfire.
Speaker B:So she's sort of unfortunate in that way.
Speaker B:So I wanted somebody that we could initially, we could see, yes, they've got their defences up and maybe be a little bit curious as the reader why that might be.
Speaker B:And I think very soon into the book we start to find out why exactly Janet has built these Defences up and why her sort of garden is her refuge as well as a place of love and companionship for her.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:And as you say, as you start, sort of peel back her layer.
Speaker A:She is a really interesting lady and I loved.
Speaker A:I'm not a gardener, I. I mean I've got a plant here that survived, but many who don't.
Speaker A:But I loved.
Speaker A:I found it quite moving the way that she is in her allotment.
Speaker A:It's almost maternal towards her flowers like, and she's so interesting.
Speaker A:I think it's also quite current.
Speaker A:Just this morning I was listening to somebody talking about, you know, how healing our gardens could be not just from being outside, but from what we can actually grow.
Speaker A:I thought it was something that would sort of carry on after lockdowns when people were in their garden.
Speaker A:Do you think it has inspired a love of gardening for you, getting to know Janet and writing about her?
Speaker B:You know, it absolutely has.
Speaker B:I do think the plants are extraordinary.
Speaker B:I think we know more than ever how important plants are to our mental health, our physical health and to this extraordinary planet that we live on.
Speaker B:And Janet is particularly into the, you know, sort of the powers of medicinal plants.
Speaker B:So I read up a lot on medicinal plants and it's really quite extraordinary.
Speaker B:And actually before I started writing the book, I had been working on another performance project that was sort of a site specific piece that was about the environment and about sort of human caused damage to the environment and what we needed to do.
Speaker B:And so as part of that I had worked with this wonderful plant botanist and I had asked her, as part of the, you know, exchange with her, I'd asked her what it was that had drawn her to committing her whole career to working with plants.
Speaker B:And she just turned around and said to me, oh, I love plants because of their patience, because of their ability to stand their ground and survive.
Speaker B:And I thought that was so beautiful, this idea of plants having patience.
Speaker B:And I think that's part of that line at least has made it into the book.
Speaker B:And I think that's definitely part of Janet's belief system, she believes in the power and potency of plants and how important they are and our relationship with plants.
Speaker B:And I think at the beginning, rather than describing exactly how Janet looks for the reader, which I do a little bit later on, but right at the beginning I describe her as being a little bit sort of curled over like a fiddlehead fern because I think those fiddle headed ferns are so beautiful.
Speaker B:They have this lovely almost sort of a licorice wheel spiral that they curl themselves into and.
Speaker B:And when you actually unfurl them, they're really quite tall and quite sort of angular and quite gorgeous, but they are.
Speaker B:They are most of the time curled up.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:So initially.
Speaker B:So we see Janet being in this curled up state and we sort of wonder why she's like that.
Speaker B:Because she is actually as.
Speaker B:She's a very interesting woman who's lived a very interesting past, she's very intelligent.
Speaker B:So what is it that has led her to being very sort of isolated and private and just really communicating with her plants?
Speaker A:Well, there'll be no spoilers here.
Speaker A:You have to read it.
Speaker A:I guess it is like throughout the novel, it is like watching her grow like her plants, you know, the nourishment of her friend making that friendship in the community, you know, where she is a bit of an outsider in the allotment to start.
Speaker A:But once she has that sort of community and friendship she does, she flourishes.
Speaker B:That's such a lovely way of putting it, Helen.
Speaker B:It really is.
Speaker B:I think we really do see her blossom.
Speaker B:And part of that is through friendship, and particularly this very unlikely friendship with Bev, by the way, who is.
Speaker B:This is an intergenerational friendship.
Speaker B:There's at least 20 years that separates these two women.
Speaker B:And as I say, they're very different.
Speaker B:But absolutely there is something about this friendship where both women flourish because of it.
Speaker B:And I think, you know, when I set out to write the book, I really did want to write about female friendship because I think it's very particular and I wanted to write about female friendship in later life.
Speaker B:And what is that?
Speaker B:You know, what is it?
Speaker B:What is it to make a friend?
Speaker B:Not when we're sort of 18 or whatever, at university or not in our first job in our 20s, but what is it when we're in our 40s or 50s or 60s or 70s or beyond?
Speaker B:What does it take to reach out and make a friend?
Speaker B:So I was really interested in what courage maybe that took and also to have this intergenerational friendship, because there's something very nurturing about it.
Speaker B:And even though Janet is older, there's something about Bev that allows her to be the maternal one, which then enables Janet to unfurl, to flourish and to sort of to find her own sense of humour.
Speaker B:And the book is called Invisible Women's Club and it does deal a lot with invisibility that women feel as they age, and I think particularly with the perimenopause and the menopause.
Speaker B:But I think the wonderful thing about friendship is that through our friends we, we are seen.
Speaker B:Through our friends we are made visible.
Speaker B:And through that visibility we not only are seen, but we see ourselves again or anew.
Speaker B:And that's definitely something that happens to Janet.
Speaker B:In fact, I think it happens to both women in the book.
Speaker A:Definitely.
Speaker A:It's really interesting with the intergenerational and sort of talking about the perimenopause.
Speaker A:So for me, I'm in my late 40s, I don't have any sort of older female relatives that are around, sort of share their experiences.
Speaker A:And I love.
Speaker A:I loved reading about their friendship.
Speaker A:I thought it was so special.
Speaker A:Obviously, perimenopause, menopause and beyond is talked a lot about in the media at the moment.
Speaker A:Lots of celebrities talking about it, lots of non fiction books coming out to help women, which is brilliant.
Speaker A:I personally love to read a fictional character that I can relate to and sort of, particularly when I can find humor and be inspired by.
Speaker A:And I just wondered how important you think it is in your book that women are reading about women in a later stage of life that they can relate to.
Speaker B:Oh, Helen, I'm so grateful for that question.
Speaker B:I mean, you know, I was going through the perimenopause as I was writing this book.
Speaker B:So that was absolutely my embodied experience.
Speaker B:And in a way I wanted.
Speaker B:I sort of created Bev because I sort of wanted her to be around.
Speaker B:I wanted someone who was going through it, who had this great sense of humor and real sort of positivism and optimistic take on life to be my chum, sort of to chum me through.
Speaker B:And I absolutely wanted that for my readers as well.
Speaker B:For readers, whatever they were going through, but particularly if they were going through the perimenopause or the menopause because it's such a sort of peculiar, tricky, interesting and quite challenging experience.
Speaker B:And in a way the character of Bev is actually inspired by somebody.
Speaker B:The character Bev is inspired by my mum, who is Scottish and was a midwife, worked for the NHS her whole career and has a absolutely wonderful sense of humor and who's gone through a lot of medical challenges, herself recently a cancer diagnosis and treatment and dealing with dementia.
Speaker B:And yet she has this incredible sort of joie de vivre and real Scottish fighting spirit.
Speaker B:So I really wanted that in Bev.
Speaker B:And I also wanted, I think one of the things, there's lots of things I think happen with perimenopause and menopause and at that stage time in women's lives and this feeling of invisibility.
Speaker B:And I think what I wanted with Bev, I wanted this ally, this chum for my readers.
Speaker B:I wanted them to link arms with Bev and feel she's on their side speaking with them and they're laughing with her and not at her.
Speaker B:Because I think historically, if one ever does talk about the menopause, historically, it was almost as a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, sort of mother in law joke, that sort of laughing at.
Speaker B:And that's absolutely not what I'm interested in.
Speaker B:What I'm really interested in is women finding a language to talk to each other and to our families and friends and employees.
Speaker B:And it's a big conversation, inclusive conversation.
Speaker B:But with Bev, I wanted to show that I wanted her to express her anger because I think that's something that really happens for women at that time in our lives.
Speaker B:I think a lot of women find it challenging to express that kind of anger.
Speaker B:And Bev says, you know, it's like you hit middle age and somebody just flicks the lights off.
Speaker B:That's how she feels.
Speaker B:So her diagnosis, her self diagnosis is to go out and buy a big high vis virulent green visibility jacket, you know, so no bugger's gonna bump into her or ignore her.
Speaker B:But, you know, she, I think like a lot of women at that time of life, or just at different stages of life, we feel not only unseen but also unheard.
Speaker B:And I wanted her to be able to articul, you know, how she's feeling.
Speaker B:You know, she says, oh, there's all this talk in magazines.
Speaker B:They're talking about a hot flush.
Speaker B:They describe it as an aura.
Speaker B:Aura my ass.
Speaker A:It's physical.
Speaker B:It's bloody chaotic.
Speaker B:You know, she talks about wearing her HRT patches as like sort of holsters on her hips, you know, cocked and ready for a fight.
Speaker B:She's angry.
Speaker B:She wants support for women's healthcare.
Speaker B:She wants an open dialogue about the menopause and about hrt and so.
Speaker B:And she was a really fun character to write.
Speaker B:And in the audiobook, the wonderful Sylvester Latuzel does the audiobook for which I am eternally grateful.
Speaker B:And she really, really, for me, brings Bev to life in a way that I couldn't have dreamed.
Speaker B:So I'm very grateful to that.
Speaker B:She does a much better Scottish accent than I were even trying.
Speaker A:She is.
Speaker A:She's such a great character.
Speaker A:Now I feel like it's slightly more special now that I know that she's based on your mom as well.
Speaker A:It's so lovely.
Speaker A:And it is.
Speaker A:You're right, because I think there has been a Sort of mocking of women going through this or a bit of an eye roll.
Speaker A:So I think it's really empowering that we're seeing these characters that we can relate to.
Speaker A:And I thought Bev, with her rage, I was like, oh, hard relates there.
Speaker A:I could totally relate to that.
Speaker A:I think there's something that's really wonderful that can happen as a reader, and that's when you pick up the right book at the right time.
Speaker A:For me, when I started reading the Invisible Women's Club, I was feeling a little bit stuck and unsure of myself.
Speaker A:And I'm gonna.
Speaker A:If you don't mind, I'm gonna read a tiny little bit from your book.
Speaker A:There's obviously a theme between Bev and Janet, but this had a real impact on me.
Speaker A:Here she is, says Bev, who the Janet who caught the fish and cooked it on the open fire.
Speaker A:All the women you have been and all the others still to come.
Speaker A:And for a brief moment, Janet feels that again, that flicker of hope.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:When I read that, I put the book down, I was like.
Speaker A:I could so imagine myself in my 20s and 30s where I would willingly dream about my life of, you know, after chasing that promotion or getting married and having a family.
Speaker A:And I realized I was sort of seeing myself as now and not sort of allowing myself the freedom to dream about what might be coming.
Speaker A:So it had a huge impact on me.
Speaker A:So thank you for that.
Speaker A:I think it was a really beautiful little piece.
Speaker A:I wondered when you were writing it, was that something you were hoping for, that women would find something.
Speaker A:Something in your book that would inspire them and not see perimenopause, menopause, or wherever they are in their life, that it is.
Speaker A:We're still here.
Speaker B:Go for it.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I mean, I look at, you know, I was thinking as I was writing about people like, you know, Jane Fonda, you know, and I think.
Speaker B:I look at her, and I think in every single decade, that woman does something different and does something remarkable and is still out there sort of being an activist and.
Speaker B:And there is that sort of interest age is.
Speaker B:It's not that she's denying her age.
Speaker B:She's just owning every decade and sort of celebrating it.
Speaker B:And I think that it's.
Speaker B:That's hard and it's challenging, but that's absolutely what I wanted, you know, because I think there are moments when I'm thinking, all right, I'm in my 50s.
Speaker B:You know, I can still.
Speaker B:I can still do a downward dog.
Speaker B:I can still hold a plank.
Speaker B:You know, there are things that I'm thinking, yes, I'm still there, but there are other things where I have to sort of remind myself.
Speaker B:And I think, you know, I can.
Speaker B:All these things are still possible.
Speaker B:I can still have, you know, thinking about the language of plants.
Speaker B:You know, I can still have another season.
Speaker B:I can have another iteration.
Speaker B:And somebody wrote to me the other day, and she said, I want to be a member of the invisible women's club.
Speaker B:She said she just got back from a holiday with friends, long term friends, friends who she's been, you know, connected with for, like, 30 years.
Speaker B:Those kind of friendships, they've all sort of grown up together in that way.
Speaker B:And she said, there we were, these women of a certain age, you know, and there we were talking about hormones, talking about feeling invisible.
Speaker B:And she said, but in reading the book, she felt invigorated and she felt this sense of power, and she felt she was not going to allow herself, feel that she couldn't have an impact.
Speaker B:And I thought, oh, my holy moly.
Speaker B:You know, what else could you ever wish for as a writer than to have that kind of response?
Speaker B:Because I did want that.
Speaker B:I really did.
Speaker B:And I love that you read that bit out, Helen, because I want us to think of all the women that we have been and all those that we are yet to be, you know, and again, I think that partly our friends enable that with us.
Speaker B:They remind us of who we are, they believe.
Speaker B:They remind us of who we were, and they believe in who we are.
Speaker B:And they are also excited about the next iteration of who we can be.
Speaker B:And I genuinely believe in that.
Speaker B:And I really wanted that for my reader to feel that.
Speaker B:So I am.
Speaker B:I am very pleased that that line resonated with you.
Speaker A:Well, I think you nailed it.
Speaker A:I think it is a beautiful, beautiful read.
Speaker A:And just talking about the going back to the sort of taking it back to nature, you know, just made me think when you're saying that there's a book that I've got, and I forget who wrote it, but it is a nonfiction sort of help book for menopause.
Speaker A:And it's about.
Speaker A:It's called Second Spring, which is what they call menopause in Japan, I think.
Speaker A:And it's like, it's such a.
Speaker A:It's a much nicer way of looking at it, isn't it?
Speaker A:It's less sort of much as positive.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:It's beautiful, isn't it?
Speaker B:Who doesn't want to be in their spring?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'll take it.
Speaker A:Well, Helen, I've loved talking to you about The Invisible Women's Club.
Speaker A:It is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful read.
Speaker A:It's out now in hardback, and it's one that I would highly recommend.
Speaker A:So if you haven't read it yet, you're in for a treat and do pick it up.
Speaker A:So before we talk about your desert island books, I just want to say to anyone who's listening, all of the books that we're talking about, including Helen's, will be linked on the show notes.
Speaker A:So don't feel like you need to scribble them all down.
Speaker A:You will be able to find them.
Speaker A:So just sit back and relax.
Speaker A:So, Helen, how did you find choosing your desert island books?
Speaker A:Was it easy for you?
Speaker B:Oh, Helen, no.
Speaker B:I think, you know that it couldn't have been easy.
Speaker B:I mean, what a task.
Speaker B:What a.
Speaker B:What an excruciating task.
Speaker B:But also, of course, what a pleasurable task.
Speaker B:And I was chatting with you a little bit earlier about this, but I actually got the instruction sort of a little bit wrong because I just.
Speaker B:Oh, my five favorite books.
Speaker B:Okay, I've got them.
Speaker B:But then I looked again, and it actually is, for me, it's much more interesting than that.
Speaker B:The question that you asked, it was about books that had shaped my life or reminded me of an important time or reminded me of a person or got me through a difficult time.
Speaker B:And I thought, wow, that actually makes some changes on my list.
Speaker B:And it felt like a really wonderful way to spend time contemplating that.
Speaker B:And I would absolutely recommend to anybody to give yourself that moment to think about your desert island books, books that have stayed with you for a particular reason, because it is a wonderful way of sort of reflecting and remapping one's life.
Speaker B:That's certainly the experience that I've had, Helen.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:But that doesn't mean it was easy.
Speaker B:It wasn't easy.
Speaker B:But I have.
Speaker B:I do have five for you.
Speaker A:When I did it for myself for Instagram, I was like, I know mine totally.
Speaker A:And then when I started to look at, as you say, I was like, oh, no.
Speaker A:And it was really interesting because actually I looked at it from sort of, and I could remember places or things that happened and how that book related to it and how it.
Speaker A:I will always sort of, when I see the COVID be drawn back to those sort of times.
Speaker A:So it's quite interesting.
Speaker A:So it's not the same as your favourite book at all.
Speaker A:So I have only read two of your choices.
Speaker A:We actually share a slight favourite here.
Speaker A:So I'm very excited to talk about that one.
Speaker A:Yeah, let's see if you can convince me to go buying some more books, Helen.
Speaker A:Not that I need to.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:I can see your bookshelf in the back, Helen, and it's absolutely busting out.
Speaker A:There's not much room left there, so.
Speaker B:Well, I'm.
Speaker B:So I'm going to start with.
Speaker B:I mean, I feel like I've already broken the rules, Helen, because I'm going to start with, I said to you it was called.
Speaker B:It was Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Speaker B:Actually, I have to make a confession, which is the fact that that isn't just one book.
Speaker B:It's actually part of a whole set of books.
Speaker B:So I've got them all with me on my desk, sort of companionship.
Speaker B:So it was a series of eight books that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote, and they're based on her childhood and adolescence, and I'm sure they're familiar with a lot of us.
Speaker B:Certainly the television program that they spawned is.
Speaker B:And I mean, talk about COVID I've got this one in my hands right now.
Speaker B:It's got a beautiful buttermilk cover.
Speaker B: It's from the: Speaker B:I'm sorry about that.
Speaker B:And it's actually.
Speaker B:The first in the series is actually Little House in the Big Woods.
Speaker B:And it starts, once upon a time, 60 years ago, a little girl lived in the big woods of Wisconsin in a little grey house made of logs.
Speaker B:So the beginning, of course, is very familiar.
Speaker B:You know, once upon a time.
Speaker B:And then everything else sort of blew my mind because I'm.
Speaker B:I'm sort of.
Speaker B:I didn't know, sort of eight or nine.
Speaker B:When I'm reading this, I'm growing up in Kent, and suddenly, you know, I've sort of gone back.
Speaker B:I mean, the book was actually sort of.
Speaker B: ilder was writing this in the: Speaker B:So I'm reading this book that's from a hundred years ago, that set, I think, thousand miles away in a place called Wisconsin.
Speaker B:Like, what is that?
Speaker B:You know, and even this little grey house made of woods, the wood, because it's American, the word gray is spelled with the A, you know.
Speaker B:And then I'm thinking of a log cabin.
Speaker B:There's me in my little sort of semi detached, you know, in Maidstone, Kent, and I'm looking at Laura Ingalls Log Cabin, and my whole world opens up, you know, And I loved all the fantasy of Alice in Wonderland and all of that, all of that wonderful writing.
Speaker B:But this, to me, in a way, felt even more extraordinary.
Speaker B:These, these.
Speaker B:This family that were making Their dresses from Calico and that were getting maple syrup directly from the tree and were eating something called pumpkin pie.
Speaker B:So I was just entranced by this.
Speaker B:This little girl growing up.
Speaker B:And really, it's an autobiography or a memoir.
Speaker B:You know, it's.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker B:It's fact rather than fiction.
Speaker B:And she writes it in such a sort of beautiful, detailed way that we are let into that family and the.
Speaker B:And the journey that they are on as.
Speaker B:As sort of traveling across America and setting up home.
Speaker A:Isn't that amazing?
Speaker A:They think, like, how different.
Speaker A:And it shows that.
Speaker A:How children's minds as well, can just accept and just move to different places, different times.
Speaker A:And even if the language isn't relatable to what we have now.
Speaker A:I was the same as lion the Witch and Wardrobe.
Speaker A:That was my one.
Speaker A:I was constantly obsessed with.
Speaker A:This book was actually picked by Jody Chapman when I did these interviews on Instagram.
Speaker A:She wrote Another Life and oh, Sister, and she talked about it and how she was obsessed again.
Speaker A:She grew up here with Little House on the Prairie and Calamity Jane.
Speaker A:And I never read the books, but I know my brother, my sister and I were obsessed with the TV program.
Speaker A:The guy with the dark curly hair.
Speaker A: It's like a: Speaker A:We loved that.
Speaker A:It was like Sunday Morning Football.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Absolutely no.
Speaker B:I. I read that Roxane Gay, she was a big lover of these books.
Speaker A:And I mean, you know, I did.
Speaker B:Think about it when I brought them up, because it's.
Speaker B:It's not an uncomplicated choice.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, in the books, there are very troubling depictions of native and black Americans.
Speaker B:And, you know, I do think that, you know, these sort of books have to be taught or read in context.
Speaker B:You know, not sort of a revisionist context, but absolutely for reading about these lives of this family out there.
Speaker B:You know, all the food was so amazing.
Speaker B:It's like nothing like the chops and peas that I was having.
Speaker B:They'd be having these pumpkin pies.
Speaker B:They were having something called Table with Quivering head cheese.
Speaker B:And I thought, well, that's probably something like an extraordinary souffle.
Speaker B:I've actually learned, you know, since then that it's.
Speaker B:I think it's awful in aspic.
Speaker B:It's something that I wouldn't thank you for.
Speaker B:But, you know, you know, as a.
Speaker A:Child, I was just.
Speaker B:I just drank it all in.
Speaker B:I was in love with all of it.
Speaker B:I was in love with the idea of living in a log cabin with pumpkin pie, with Almanzo Wilder, with just who.
Speaker B:Who Laura goes on to marry.
Speaker B:I was in love with it all, you know, because it was so different.
Speaker B:And the other thing about it that I think is that has really stayed with me.
Speaker B:And why I chose this book is because when I was growing up, my dad worked in London, so he was away most of the time.
Speaker B:By the time he got back from work, I was in bed.
Speaker B:But every Saturday, he would take me to WH Smith's and I would get to choose a book.
Speaker B:And I could choose whatever book I wanted.
Speaker B:And sometimes he would suggest, oh, this one.
Speaker B:The Phantom Tollbooth.
Speaker B:That looks good, doesn't it?
Speaker B:You know, and that's where I discovered Little House on the Prairie books.
Speaker B:But you couldn't get them all from WH Smith at the time.
Speaker B:And so then the other half of my family kick in there because my mom's family all live in the States.
Speaker B:And I was intrigued with them.
Speaker B:You know, I knew nothing about America except what I hadn't learned from Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Speaker B:And then once a year, these big boxes would come from my grandmother, full of dresses that my cousins had grown out of, or full of chocolates and candy that I had never seen before.
Speaker B:That was so different.
Speaker B:You know, Hershey's and red licorice, and everything was different.
Speaker B:I could have got in those boxes that were sent.
Speaker B:But I eventually got to go to the States when I was about 10.
Speaker B:So it was a huge, epic trip for me.
Speaker B:And then my cousin Sherry had got all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, so I was given them.
Speaker B:And so her books are from 70s, and they're the ones I have now.
Speaker B:And they have these beautiful sort of pencil drawings in them as well, which is so evocative.
Speaker B:And they're all done by Garth Williams, and they're just beautiful.
Speaker B:So it was just a way of going into this world and a world that I wanted to be part of, even though this world was 100 years ago and 1,000 miles away.
Speaker B:And I mean, that's what stories do.
Speaker B:And I think, particularly when we're children, we're so open to going to those places.
Speaker B:And I think books are such touchstones for us, aren't they?
Speaker B:And that we keep with us for the rest of our lives those memories that we build as children.
Speaker A:I think totally.
Speaker A:My daughter is a real little bookworm, so she's just.
Speaker A:She's going through a bit of a murder mystery stage at the moment.
Speaker A:She's really into it.
Speaker A:But she picked up Anne of Green Gables the other day she came down.
Speaker A:She's like Mum, do you think I'd like this?
Speaker B:I'm like, you will love it.
Speaker A:I will read it with you.
Speaker A:So it's such a pleasure to watch her sort of falling in love with their books as well.
Speaker A:I think it's so wonderful that.
Speaker A:Because I think it does start you on.
Speaker A:On your life as a reader, if you can sort of.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm sure there are people who.
Speaker A:Who don't read as kids and fall in love with it later, but I think it is wonderful to see children becoming little readers.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And, I mean, I like you.
Speaker B:I'm very partial to the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Speaker B:I think that was probably my first crush was on Aslan, I'm sure, you know, but.
Speaker B:But then when you have that joy, as I'm not.
Speaker B:I'm not a parent, but I am an auntie, and that absolute joy then of taking that story that still sits in your heart, you know, still channels through your blood, and you read it to your, you know, nephew or your child and.
Speaker B:And you see the same pleasure and you remember it and you were both there in that world.
Speaker B:We can all time travel through books, which is so glorious.
Speaker A:We had the opposite experience.
Speaker A:So lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, When I was 30, we got two cats, they were called Lucy and Mr. Tumnus, who have now sadly passed away.
Speaker A:But when I read the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with my twins, I was so excited because I remember reading with my mum.
Speaker A:She liked it, he hated it.
Speaker A:Even though Aslan comes back, he just was like, checked out, didn't like it.
Speaker A:So I was like, that's not how this is supposed to happen.
Speaker A:Never mind.
Speaker A:Right, well, should we move on to your next choice?
Speaker A:Then Helen finds out what your next desert island book is.
Speaker B:Yes, so.
Speaker B:So the next one is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
Speaker B:So I suppose I was about, oh, 13, around 13 when I read this book.
Speaker B:And this is a book from childhood that has absolutely inspired me, inspired my love of reading and my love of writing, but also, I think, made me think of what books can do politically.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, I was reading it at a time when I was reading a lot of Toni Morrison and Mayor Angelou, and I think I was forming a social and political consciousness, some semblance of one, anyway.
Speaker B:And again, this is a book, you know, this is what I love about books, when they get into your circulatory system and they just stay there, you know, and that line about when Atticus says, you know, you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.
Speaker B:And for Scout, in that moment, just standing on the Radley porch was enough.
Speaker B:And that for me is what I mean.
Speaker B:I think it's not just what literature does, it's what the arts do.
Speaker B:You know, it's what the humanities do.
Speaker B:I think the arts and humanities are high value subjects that let us walk in each other's shoes.
Speaker B:They let us collectively pay attention to one another.
Speaker B:They let us root for protagonists who have different wants and needs and experiences than we do.
Speaker B:They let us hope and imagine things together.
Speaker B:It's a space where we rehearse doing things and doing them better.
Speaker B:And I think this book really makes me think about that.
Speaker B:I mean, I think, you know, it's what books can do politically, like, you know, Barbara Kingsolver's Damon Copperhead.
Speaker B:This is me getting a few more in.
Speaker A:Okay, I'll let you.
Speaker B:What that book does in terms of, you know, looking at sort of social and political justice and, you know, so I think that something like, you know, To Kill a Mockingbird made me.
Speaker B:Made me aware of what books could do and made me aware of what art can do.
Speaker B:And, you know, for a lot of my life I had been a performance artist.
Speaker B:And a lot of my work has been around social justice, environmental justice, and, you know, and real belief in how the arts can have that conversation and make a change.
Speaker B:And so to read something like To Kill a Mockingbird, and of course it's so rich with symbol, and that's something that I have, I really enjoy in writing, and I particularly enjoy and was enjoying in American literature as I was going through teenage into teenage, just how extraordinarily symbolic writing could be and how that.
Speaker B:How that could work.
Speaker B:And what Harper Lee does in terms of talking about race and talking about prejudice, talking about racism from this child's perspective, this sort of awakening to this world, there is the beauty and innocence of a childhood and Scout's relationship with her brother and all the playfulness and all the joy in that.
Speaker B:And there is also this absolute heartbreak as there is this awakening to the other side of the reality of what it is to live in this world, which is about, you know, a destruction of innocence, which is about racial injustice.
Speaker B:And I think what she covers in terms of courage and compassion and talking about class and also actually talking about gender, I think is quite extraordinary in a book that is also a really compelling page turning read.
Speaker A:Yeah, I read.
Speaker A:I don't know how I read.
Speaker A:Got through so much of my life without having read it.
Speaker A:I was in my 30s, I think, when I first picked it up.
Speaker A:And it is.
Speaker A:You're right.
Speaker A:There is like, reading for pleasure and for escapism.
Speaker A:But there are books, as you said, are so important.
Speaker A:Sort of, they say, you say, about walking in somebody else's shoes.
Speaker A:Reading fiction builds empathy, doesn't it?
Speaker A:It's like, you know, you start to understand one another.
Speaker A:And I was thinking, as you're just talking about how some of these books sort of get on my soapbox now, but, you know, about being banned and actually how necessary they are, like.
Speaker A:And it's such a good way of teaching people, you know, to cooperate and to get on and understand.
Speaker A:It's really important.
Speaker A:And it's such a shame that, you know, it still happens.
Speaker A:But, yeah, it's one of the books that I.
Speaker A:When I saw on your list, because it was picked with again when I did these interviews on Instagram, Chantelle from the little bookshop in Cookham, she picked it as her choice.
Speaker A:And when she talked about it, I was like, I've got to go and pick it up again and read it.
Speaker A:And I was listening to you.
Speaker A:I was like, yeah, you know what?
Speaker A:I've got to read this one again.
Speaker A:Actually, it's definitely due a reread.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I think it is.
Speaker B:I reread it a couple of years ago, you know, and for me, it's one of the books as well, where I think it's rare that this happens, I think.
Speaker B:But the film, I mean, maybe it's to do with Gregory Peck, but I think the film has quite a nice close allegiance to the work that Harper Lee was doing in the book.
Speaker B:I think he does it quite a sort of good homage to the.
Speaker B:To the book.
Speaker B:But it's like you say, there's something about revisiting a book and actually going back to that Hard Copy.
Speaker B:Do you know, actually going back to that.
Speaker B:Because that also holds memories, that tactile memory that we have, you know, in the pages of books.
Speaker B:And I mean, I read a lot on my Kindle because I often awake in the middle of the night, but I.
Speaker B:There's nothing like holding on to a book.
Speaker B:And one of the things that's been such a lovely part of this journey for this wonderful podcast is that I've gone back, you know, and I've picked up those books again.
Speaker B:And, you know, and that just.
Speaker B:That embodied experience of what it is to be holding that story in your hand once you.
Speaker B:Once again, and wondering where it's going to take you this time, I think is glorious.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's lovely.
Speaker A:I love, like my husband always says to me, he's like, I'm playing bookshops.
Speaker A:But I love sort of looking back through the books I've read and sort of pulling them out and if you find like an old receipt or something in them, because I'm not very good with bookmarks.
Speaker A:But I love it when you find things.
Speaker A:You're like, oh, my gosh, I remember where I was.
Speaker A:It's so cool.
Speaker B:Isn't really is.
Speaker B:It really is.
Speaker B:It's like it's its own little sort of album or its own little talisman, you know, to.
Speaker B:To a part of your life and yes, goodness knows what's in it, what's going to fall out of it or what's written down the margins of it.
Speaker A:You know how you read it differently as well, I think, like, you know, if you read things later.
Speaker A:I mean, for me, when I always go back to is the Handmaid's Tale.
Speaker A:I've read that in my 20s, 30s and 40s several times and I.
Speaker A:Every time I've picked something different up from that book, different experience of reading it.
Speaker A:Which I think is so interesting how, you know, as you age, you'll look back and see things differently.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:I mean, you know, when you've got a writer like Margaret Atwood, I mean, that's what she does, you know, I mean, she's so brilliant that it's like you can sort of, every time you read that book, you are.
Speaker B:You are there.
Speaker B:There are your familiars, there are the places that you remember and there is something in you and that is, you know, I mean, I think that's really the mark of a brilliant writer.
Speaker B:But, you know, it's like I think we are shaped by books, but I also think we are always changing and so my list, in a way, is always going to be changing, you know.
Speaker B:But I remember my mum always says to me that when I was little, I would say to her that books were my friends and I don't know what that said about my social life, to be honest, but.
Speaker B:I just think that, you know, and so when you take that book in your hand again, it really is, you know, that duet with that old friend, you know, and where is the old place they're going to take you and where's the new place you're going to discover?
Speaker B:And great books, I think, do all of that.
Speaker A:And it's like when you pick up a new book, isn't it?
Speaker A:I thought it's like all my unread books I'm like, oh, I wonder who I'm going to meet there, where I'm going to go.
Speaker A:And when you finish a book that you love, I do this thing, like, if I love a book, I have to give a little cuddle, finish it.
Speaker A:I'm just like, oh, that's so lovely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Books are our friends.
Speaker B:They really are.
Speaker A:Yeah, they are.
Speaker A:Right, then, should we move on to book number three?
Speaker A:Helen?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:This is another friend.
Speaker B:This is a very beloved friend is the Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald.
Speaker B:And this is absolutely a book that has shaped my life.
Speaker B:I mean, in response to your beautiful call for this.
Speaker B:I mean, it has shaped my life in lots of different ways.
Speaker B:I don't actually have it with me today, but I know I can, you know, I can see it so clearly.
Speaker B:It's full of marginalia.
Speaker B:It's a very ripped cover.
Speaker B:I've had it sort of.
Speaker B:I think I must have had it for, let's say, for 40 years, that book.
Speaker B:I think I read it when I was so.
Speaker B:I read it when I was 15, and it was my Introduction to American Dream Literature.
Speaker B:And this is.
Speaker B:You may have noticed, dear Listener, that this is the third of the books on my list which are by American writers.
Speaker B:And that's been interesting to me to sort of reflect upon, but it was given to me.
Speaker B:So this was a book that was given to me by my English teacher.
Speaker B:And I was.
Speaker B:I was absolutely floored by the poetry.
Speaker B:I was absolutely floored by how devastating a metaphor can be.
Speaker B:And I think one of the reasons I've chosen this book is because it reminds me that not just books that are touchstones, but our teachers are touchstones as well.
Speaker B:And, you know, Mrs. Elizabeth Duffy, wherever you are, thank you for everything that you gave me.
Speaker B:I mean, teachers are invaluable.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They should absolutely be paid according to the gifts that they give us, because I don't know where we would be without them.
Speaker B:You know, if we are shaped by books, then it's partly we are shaped by the people that put those books in our hands and help us navigate them, especially when we are, you know, in that moment of sort of being, that almost liminal moment of sort of 14, 15, 16.
Speaker B:Everything that we're open to is such a powerful and potent moment.
Speaker B:And teachers can really come in at that moment and many others, and they really hold us and help us and let us see, you know, all the possibilities.
Speaker B:So, you know, but I have to say, having said all of that, one of the reasons I was so glad when Mrs. Duffy first gave it to me.
Speaker B:I was thinking, oh, that's a small one.
Speaker B:That won't take very long.
Speaker B:That's nothing like, you know, test of the Durables.
Speaker B:You know, I'll get that one done over the weekend.
Speaker B:You know, which is.
Speaker B:Which is kind of, again, one of the extraordinary things about that book because of what it holds, you know, that it's about.
Speaker B:You know, in that tiny little volume, there's a whole critique of the American dream.
Speaker B:You know, it's this sort of extraordinary sort of love story of absolute hope and absolute sort of nihilistic pessimism and despair.
Speaker B:It is a duet of both.
Speaker B:You know, it's a bloody power ballad, you know.
Speaker B:Know, it's extraordinary, and I'm such a sucker for that.
Speaker B:And it's incredibly romantic and incredibly heartbreaking and.
Speaker B:And just for me, I.
Speaker B:Again, I mean, I'd felt it with them To Kill a Mockingbird, but I was really feeling it here, like how symbolic language works.
Speaker B:What could be conjured up in Gatsby, In Gatsby shirts, for example, you know, and metaphor.
Speaker B:How extraordinary metaphor is that.
Speaker B:You know, Fitzgerald is talking about a whole country, a whole dream of a country, a whole civilization, and a dream that's lost before it really starts, told through this love story, you know, and those things like the Dr. Eckleburg's big eyes that are there in the valley of the ashes, all of those things that are sort of totems all the way through the book.
Speaker B:And the language.
Speaker B:The language is so extraordinary.
Speaker B:I mean, that is language that I feel.
Speaker B:I don't have tattoos, but I feel that language is indelibly marked in every one of my cells that sort of, you know, votes against the current born.
Speaker B:See Sisley back into the past, all of that.
Speaker B:I mean, I'm such a sucker for all of that.
Speaker B:You know, the city scene from the Queensborough Bridge.
Speaker B:The city scene for the first time and all the power and mystery and beauty of the new world, all of that.
Speaker B:I mean, for a young teenager, I was.
Speaker B:This was a huge, huge love affair for me.
Speaker B:And, you know, and it's interesting for me because I think, all right, I am a woman from Kent.
Speaker B:I'm a girl from Kent, you know, there at Maidstone Grammar.
Speaker B:And I am somebody who's lived in the States for a large part of my life.
Speaker B:I've married an American.
Speaker B:I mean, this has definitely shaped my life.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's amazing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I haven't read it, and I'm thinking.
Speaker A:As you were talking, I was thinking, it's so Interesting.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:I'm really not good with classics at all.
Speaker A:I really struggle with them.
Speaker A:And I think it's probably I'm the slight opposite of you in that I really struggle with them.
Speaker A:At school, I always felt like I didn't get them, and I would sort of sit back and just try and stay quiet and hope I wasn't asked a question, which is a real shame that, you know.
Speaker A:And I think it's always put me off sort of trying.
Speaker A:I also always think classics as, like, being big, long books you have to trawl through.
Speaker A:But when I looked at this and, like, I was like, Helen, it's 150 pages.
Speaker A:I don't think it's even that.
Speaker A:And I was like, come on.
Speaker A:But somewhere in me I have this feeling like I won't get it and it's too hard or something, which is a real shame.
Speaker A:And it's, I think, you know, with, as you say, with the right teacher, when they inspire your love and of reading and.
Speaker A:Yeah, so I think I was a slight different, which is a shame.
Speaker A:I needed your teacher.
Speaker B:You needed Mrs. Duffy.
Speaker B:I'm going to see if I can find her and pop her over to you.
Speaker B:But, you know, and some books aren't for all of us, but I do think, you know, I think some we have expectations about books or we think books aren't for us.
Speaker B:And, you know, I think that books are absolutely for us.
Speaker B:They are there, they are our friends, and they are waiting for us.
Speaker B:But sometimes we discover books at different times in our lives, and that's what's also joyous about them, you know, that there may still be a time for you that the Great Gatsby.
Speaker B:And there may not be, you know, but I think that's the lovely thing about books, books that they are, you know, what makes a classic a classic.
Speaker B:And I think we can also reinvent the canon and make our own classics.
Speaker B:In fact, I think we must, you know, so there's that as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker A:You're right.
Speaker A:You're right.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:I've been so lost in my own little world of listening and taking it all in.
Speaker A:I've forgotten how many books we've talked about.
Speaker B:I'm sorry if I'm going on, but, you know, I'm loving it.
Speaker A:Carry on.
Speaker B:Well, so number four.
Speaker B:It's another one I.
Speaker B:Everybody, there we are.
Speaker B:It's another American writer.
Speaker B:It is the wonderful, glorious Ann Tyler.
Speaker B:This one is Breathing Lessons.
Speaker B:Although, you know, to be honest, it's another one with a torn Cover I'm thinking I should not be allowed to have, but actually bitten something out of this cover.
Speaker B:I mean, I have absolutely digested it.
Speaker B:You know, this is like an American literature course I think I'm giving.
Speaker B:You know, But I love Ann Tyler because.
Speaker B:I mean, because of how she writes character.
Speaker B:And I think I chose this one today because you asked about.
Speaker B:Maybe it was a book that had got me through a difficult time.
Speaker B:And I reread this book.
Speaker B:So I think that's so interesting when we choose to go back and read a book again.
Speaker B:As you were saying, you know, with Handmaid's Tale, what is it that makes us go back?
Speaker B:What are we looking to find?
Speaker B:And how trusty our friends are because they are there waiting for us.
Speaker B:And so I went back and it was Covid, and I was so sick.
Speaker B:It was right at the beginning of COVID So it was just, you know, me and my partner and bloody Boris Johnson, you know, and we were the ones with it.
Speaker B:And so we've.
Speaker B:So there was, you know, at that point, we weren't lucky to have the vaccines.
Speaker B:We were just so sick we couldn't move.
Speaker B:We thought we were just.
Speaker B:That was it.
Speaker B:And I thought, all right, I need some help.
Speaker B:So I went to Aunt Tyler because, you know, because I wanted to go back and I wanted to have Maggie Moran with me.
Speaker B:I wanted to have this wonderful, you know, sort of in some ways, super ordinary or what.
Speaker B:I mean, what do we mean when we say that?
Speaker B:But, you know, that's.
Speaker B:It's like she's very ordinary in that way that we all are.
Speaker B:You know, she's this wonderful, relatable character which Ann Tyler does so well.
Speaker B:You know, she manages to write about.
Speaker B:About people that we recognize, but not in a way that's over sentimental.
Speaker B:You know, she writes it in a way that we just know them and we.
Speaker B:We see them and we believe in them and, you know, sort of like Jane Austen in a way, you know, as well, this incredible skill to write about everyday people and show all their sort of vulnerabilities and their irritants and their faults and also make us love them.
Speaker B:So I wanted.
Speaker B:I wanted to be with Maggie.
Speaker B:And it's this lovely story.
Speaker B:You know, Maggie and her husband, Iron Moran, are going off to a.
Speaker B:It's a memorial for.
Speaker B:For a friend who's died.
Speaker B:So that in a sense, the whole action takes place over a.
Speaker B:And they're on this road trip to go to the memorial.
Speaker B:And it's all the.
Speaker B:It's all the sort of things that happen, the things that Maggie is thinking about.
Speaker B:But it's an odyssey as well.
Speaker B:It's a.
Speaker B:It's just a road trip.
Speaker B:And it's also this odyssey of their lives, of their marriage, of their love, of their incompatibilities, of their irritants, of all their sort of annoying things.
Speaker B:And nowhere does a couple irritate each other more than in the confines of, of a car, you know, we've all been there, you know, and so she just does this beautiful, beautiful encapsulation of, you know, of a couple who are their, their disappointments, their incompatibilities, and also their absolute love and their companionship and their connectedness.
Speaker B:And she just does it.
Speaker B:And the thing is, Ann Tyler does it with every single bloody book that she writes.
Speaker B:Because one of the things in here that I love is that it's almost like a sort of a fingerprint for a book she writes.
Speaker B:Sort of, I don't know, maybe eight years later, which is Ladder of Years, where Delia Grinstead gets up, leaves her family on the beach and sort of walks out of her life to sort of.
Speaker B:To start afresh.
Speaker B:And I think a lot of us, we, you know, we were talking at the beginning of the conversation about middle aged women in the menopause.
Speaker B:I think that's a time when a lot of women want to get up and get off and get out, you know.
Speaker B:But in breathing lessons, there's a moment where it's like Maggie has a moment where she just sits and thinks, what would it be like if I just got up and went and started a new life somewhere else?
Speaker B:And then in a way, we find out how Ann Tyler would do it, because we see it a few years later in Ladder of Years with me getting another book in.
Speaker A:But it's okay.
Speaker B:I won't be allowed back, will I?
Speaker B:But it's just a wonderful book.
Speaker B:She's a wonderful writer.
Speaker B:You know, she never lets you down.
Speaker B:And that's the other thing, isn't it?
Speaker B:You know, you have with writers that you read.
Speaker B:And you know, Ann Tyler is one of those you do, you wait.
Speaker B:You wait every next book and you are never let down.
Speaker B:Of course, some you love more than others, but, you know, they're just this extraordinary gift that these writers do.
Speaker B:And I know how much work it is.
Speaker B:You know, I know that even if you're brilliant like Ann Tylor, you are still working.
Speaker B:You are still applying, you know, bottom to seat, chair and just having to do that graft of, you know, of writing.
Speaker B:And yet every time she just does It.
Speaker B:And she just does it so beautifully.
Speaker B:Brilliant.
Speaker B:It's such a skill, I think it's such a skill to write.
Speaker B:To write something so momentous that is just couched in the ordinary.
Speaker B:You know, these are the lives that we all live, you know, they are epic and they are every day.
Speaker A:So something about her writing obviously really appeals to me.
Speaker A:Ish.
Speaker A:Because I have her books on my to be read pile and there's a very different hobby that reading and collecting books are very different hobbies, aren't they?
Speaker A:So I know I've just bought her new ones.
Speaker A:French braid, isn't it?
Speaker A:There's a paperback out.
Speaker A:I bought that because I thought, oh, that sounds brilliant.
Speaker A:And then I went to put on my shelf and I was like, oh, couple more there of hers.
Speaker A:Naughty.
Speaker A:Just talking about the American writers that you're drawn to.
Speaker A:I was thinking as you were talking then as well, when you look at your two books, Lost Property and the Invisible Women's Club, thinking about the beginning of the Invisible Women's Club and how.
Speaker A:How British it is and.
Speaker A:Wonderful idea.
Speaker A:The National Trust and the flowers and Lost Property, it's obviously the London Underground.
Speaker A:It's funny, isn't it, how your writing, you know, you obviously love to read your American writers, but your writing is so, you know, warm and full of Britishness, which is brilliant.
Speaker A:But it's quite interesting to see your choices.
Speaker B:No, it absolutely is.
Speaker B:You know, I have thought that, you know, I think I am, whatever it means, I think I am a quintessentially British or even quintessentially English writer.
Speaker B:And those are the characters and the situations, you know, Absolutely.
Speaker B:They are set in.
Speaker B:They are set in England and they are very sort of much about that peculiarities of what it is to be.
Speaker B:To be British.
Speaker B:But yes, you know.
Speaker B:Well, I think we're also always drawn to something that's so different, isn't it, from what we can do?
Speaker B:And I, you know, I do absolutely.
Speaker B:Yeah, I do absolutely love those books.
Speaker B:And I think.
Speaker B:I think partly there is something about metaphor and symbolism that's so rich in American literature that I've really enjoyed.
Speaker B:Not that other writers don't have that, because of course they do.
Speaker A:Do you know, I'm so excited because your last book is one of my absolute favorites.
Speaker A:So I cannot wait to hear why it's so special to you, too.
Speaker A:Do you want to tell us a little bit about your last choice?
Speaker B:Well, so I'm actually giving it a little bit of a hug now as I'm talking about.
Speaker B:It's such a huggable book.
Speaker B:I've got the hardback with me.
Speaker B:This is Ms. Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce.
Speaker B:You know, and for me, Rachel Joyce, like Ann Tyler, you know, every time she has a new book coming out, I'm so excited.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:She never lets me down, you know, this is the story of Marjorie Benson and Enid Pretty, you know, And I mean, right there.
Speaker B:Marjorie Benson and Enid Pretty.
Speaker B:I mean, just there.
Speaker B:You just love them already, don't you?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:They are absolutely one of my favorite odd couples.
Speaker B:There is no couple other than those two.
Speaker B:You know, she does it so beautifully.
Speaker B:But in terms of humour, in terms of warmth, of character, you know, I think this book would have made it on my, you know, just any list.
Speaker B:This.
Speaker B:This book for me.
Speaker B:But I did choose it because it was also a book that got me through a difficult time, because this was a book that I did read again in lockdown.
Speaker B:And, you know, this thing about books being our friends, Enid and Marjorie, what it is to read those women and reread them, you know, and I think that the thing is with Rachel Jo, she has that with all of her characters.
Speaker B:It's how we feel about Maureen, it's how we feel about Harold.
Speaker B:You know, she's just this extraordinary talent where it's like, with her characters, you feel, you know them.
Speaker B:You feel it.
Speaker B:You know, you feel like if they'd come and sit on your sofa, that would be the dent that Harold would have made.
Speaker B:You know?
Speaker B:You know that.
Speaker B:You know, their.
Speaker B:You know, their shoes that they wear, you know, the clothes that they wear, the sort of the gates that they would walk in.
Speaker B:You know, she just has that incredible talent to be able to do that.
Speaker B:And I definitely.
Speaker B:I mean, you feel that so beautifully with Marjorie and with Enid.
Speaker B:What a wonderful.
Speaker B:What a wonderful story.
Speaker B:What a wonderful story about female friendship.
Speaker B:So funny.
Speaker B:This is what happened to me today.
Speaker B:I was getting this book out and I was just sitting, flicking through it.
Speaker B:I was thinking, I just really love this book.
Speaker B:And then there's this line.
Speaker B:Marjorie beamed triumphantly and stood taller in her girdle and stockings than she had ever stood before.
Speaker B:Oh, come on, Rachel Joyce, you're so brilliant.
Speaker B:But the thing is, though, Helen, I started to read it again as I was just sitting at my desk.
Speaker B:I had all this work to do, and I was just sitting there.
Speaker B:Got it out.
Speaker B:Oh, this is.
Speaker B:This is dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.
Speaker B:But, you know, the thing that I love about this book, and I think that Rachel Joyce does, is that she always challenges herself in terms of genre, because this is a book about women's friendship, but it's also, it's adventure writing, you know, it's derring do, it's swashbuckling, it's quest, you know, and it's two pioneers, two fabulous women, one well into, you know, sort of middle age, aftermath of the Second World War, you know, there's a lot of other things that are going on in this book as well, about class, about race, about colonialism, light touch that she has, but it's all there.
Speaker B:But what it is to be middle aged and female.
Speaker B:And there's so much pluck and resilience and bravery in it.
Speaker B:And the relationship between these two women, their friendship, you know, and how they hold each other at different times, how they care each other, care for each other.
Speaker B:And for me, one of the things that I thought about when I finished reading it was that it was such a beautiful depiction and I'm actually really hugging it as I'm talking to you is a depiction of like an alternative family.
Speaker B:You know, it's an, it's a queer family, if you like what.
Speaker B:It's just another kind of family.
Speaker B:How they are as a couple, how they are with the, with the child that comes into the story.
Speaker B:How it's about humor and love and heartache and this, it's, it's definitely, it's definitely up there.
Speaker B:And you know, the thing is, I had an absolute pleasure of meeting Rachel Joyce just once at a dinner.
Speaker B:And you know that thing when you, you, you shouldn't.
Speaker B:But you want, you know, that writer to be everything that you want them to be, every one of their characters.
Speaker B:And you want to love them as much as you love all of their characters.
Speaker B:And you should never put that underwriter.
Speaker B:But the thing is, Rachel Joyce is completely lovely and charming and, you know, intelligent and gracious woman.
Speaker B:What a woman.
Speaker B:Full of grace and what an extraordinary talent.
Speaker B:So there's my sort of ceaseless monologue on Ms. Smithson's fetal.
Speaker A:I hope wherever Rachel is right now, her ears are burning and she just feels the love because she is amazing.
Speaker A:I again, I was lucky enough to interview her for dessert.
Speaker A:Allen Books.
Speaker A:And I did the on Instagram.
Speaker A:She was amazing.
Speaker A:And then I got to meet her at the Harold Fry screening.
Speaker A:As you, you just summed her up perfectly.
Speaker A:But for me, this book, I mean, I've got mine here and I'll give it a little cuddle too.
Speaker A:I read this in one of the lockdowns and I was homeschooling and just it was hard.
Speaker A:And I would just sit down and be like, right, come on, ladies, let's see.
Speaker A:Let's see where we're off to today.
Speaker A:What's happening?
Speaker A:But I did think, when I saw this on your list, I was like.
Speaker A:I was so happy because I feel like it really complements your books as well, like in the sort of, you know, the friendships of these two very different characters.
Speaker A:But there's a line at the back of.
Speaker A:At the end of Ms. Benson's Beatle that says something like, the real.
Speaker A:I've written it down.
Speaker A:The real failure as a woman was not even to try.
Speaker A:And I just thought it really, really sort of sits in with your books as well.
Speaker A:I just think, yeah, it's one that I will always, always love, too.
Speaker A:So I was very happy that you picked it.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Absolute joy.
Speaker B:Absolute joy to be with that book again.
Speaker A:Well, I got the last question, which is a bit of a tough one, Helen, and I'm not mean, so if you can't decide, I won't force you to it.
Speaker A:But if you could only have one of these books to read again, which one would it be?
Speaker B:Well, it is a bit of a tussle, but I think I am.
Speaker B:And I'm holding on to Rachel Joyce as I say this, but I think I am going to go with the Great Gatsby, because I think of how much it connects to so many things.
Speaker B:For me, it connects to Mrs. Duffy, that wonderful English teacher.
Speaker B:You know, it connects to sort of an American dream and an absolute love of language and what poetic language and symbolic language can do.
Speaker B:And it has just been there throughout such a huge portion of my life and in, what, 35 years or whatever, that book, I have read it and I have reread it, and, you know, I feel indelibly marked by it.
Speaker B:So I think that is the one I'm gonna go.
Speaker B:But I.
Speaker B:You know, I'm very good at sneaking other books in, so if you don't think that.
Speaker A:I just could never say no, you're not having it.
Speaker A:Like, whenever I do this, I'm like, why am I even asking that?
Speaker A:Because if somebody asked me, I'm like, I'm not choosing one favorite.
Speaker A:Oh, Helen, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today.
Speaker A:I have absolutely loved chatting.
Speaker A:I could sit here and chat to you all day.
Speaker A:Both of Helen's books, Lost Property and the Invisible Women's Pub, are out now, and I would highly recommend them both.
Speaker A:They're brilliant.
Speaker A:All of the books that we've talked about today, including Helen's are linked in the show notes and you'll also find links to buy them as well.
Speaker A:I really hope you enjoyed this episode of as much as I have and if you did enjoy it, please please take time to rate, review and subscribe and most importantly, tell your friends about it.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening.
Speaker A:Take.
