Lucy Steeds: Art, Deception & The Power of Secrets
Get ready for another absolute cracker of an episode this week, because I had the total pleasure of chatting with the incredible Lucy Steeds! Now, if you've been anywhere near me in the last six months, I will have no doubt absolutely insisted that you must read Lucy's stunning novel, The Artist. I’m so in love with this book, its one of my top reads of the year and I really want you to pick it up too.
It was such a joy to chat to Lucy about the Artist, her inspiration and get some fascinating insight into her writing process as well as hearing about her Women’s Prize experience.
Of course as always, we also discussed the five books that have shaped Lucy’s life and what an interesting list it was. I was absolutely convinced she wouldn’t be able to tempt me on the poetry of John Donne but I’m weirdly quite tempted.
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
A Room With A View by E.M. Forster
In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Also mentioned in this episode:
Fates & Furies by Lauren Groff
If you've enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it, please, please do me a little favour! Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe to Best Book Forward – it makes the world of difference in helping more book lovers find our little corner of the podcast world. And the absolute best thing you could do? Tell a friend who you think would love Lucy's book or our chats! Until next time, happy reading!
Transcript
Welcome back to Best Foot Forward.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Helen, and by now, you know the drill.
Speaker A:Together, we'll be discovering the books that have shaped the minds of our favorite authors.
Speaker A:Think Desert Island Discs.
Speaker A:But with a whole lot of bookish chat, I am absolutely buzzing to welcome the incredibly talented Lucy Steeds to the show today.
Speaker A:Lucy's debut novel, the Artist, well, it's just completely stole my heart from the very first page.
Speaker A:It's utterly beautiful.
Speaker A:I've read it twice and I could happily pick it up again.
Speaker A:The Artist is a story that gently explores the very essence of art and how we perceive it.
Speaker A:A celebration of creativity, a whisper of secrets, and the powerful journey of a woman ready to make her mark on the world.
Speaker A:In today's episode, Lucy and I will be chatting about how she approached writing the Artist, bringing to life such beautifully evocative scenes and weaving in such clever mysteries.
Speaker A:And later on, we'll be discovering the five special books that have shaped Lucy's life.
Speaker A:So without further ado, let's welcome Lucy to the show.
Speaker A:Lucy, welcome.
Speaker A:And thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker A:I am so excited to chat to you.
Speaker A:I love your book, the Artist.
Speaker A:It is definitely going to be one of my books of the year, so.
Speaker A:So cannot wait to get into this with you.
Speaker A:Do you want to start by telling us a little bit about it for anyone who hasn't read it already?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B: So the Artist is set in: Speaker B:And this is the home of Edouard Tartuffe, a fictional painter who is this reclusive genius.
Speaker B:And paintings just come out of his house, but he doesn't really engage with the world.
Speaker B:He just lives with his niece, Ettie, whose job it is to make sure this house works, make sure he can paint, set everything in order.
Speaker B:And into this very odd house comes Joseph, a British journalist who wants to write about this famous painter.
Speaker B:And he thinks he's been invited to the house.
Speaker B:But when he turns up on the doorstep, it becomes clear that he has not been invited.
Speaker B:And Tartuffe, the painter, has no idea he's coming.
Speaker B:He does not want to give him an interview.
Speaker B:He does not want to speak to Joseph.
Speaker B:And so there's this strange impasse.
Speaker B:And then he says, okay, I don't want to give you an interview, but I am in need of a model.
Speaker B:And thus begins this summer where Joseph has to Try and write this article by.
Speaker B:By stealth, by getting these little snippets where he can while modeling for this famous painter.
Speaker B:And as this happens, Ettie comes more into the fore.
Speaker B:She's very in the shadows to begin with.
Speaker B:And then she comes out and it's essentially these three characters inside a house together, circling each other.
Speaker B:And all of these characters have secrets, and by the end, all of them have been revealed and they've just stripped them away.
Speaker B:The temperature increases over the summer.
Speaker B:It gets very tense and claustrophobic and sweaty the longer it goes on.
Speaker B:And it sort of comes towards quite a fiery ending over the course of this one summer.
Speaker B:But that's the.
Speaker B:That's the long and the short of it, I think.
Speaker A:Yeah, it sums up perfectly.
Speaker A:But, you know, obviously there's lots of secrets for people to uncover along the way, which we are not going to reveal.
Speaker A:We'll keep this absolutely spoiler free for everybody.
Speaker A:So it is such a clever idea for a novel, as you say.
Speaker A:It's like, brilliantly claustrophobic and just like lots of layers.
Speaker A:So I've been desperate to talk to you because I really want to know, where did the idea come from?
Speaker A:What was the initial spark that set the artist off for you?
Speaker B:So many things.
Speaker B:I mean, a journalist coming to write about someone.
Speaker B:I've always been curious as to why there are so many writers in fiction.
Speaker B:And I'm always a bit like, is it because writers just think that writers are the most interesting people in the world?
Speaker B:And it's actually because a writer or a journalist is such a useful character to go into a strange situation and.
Speaker B:And out.
Speaker B:They need to get in and out.
Speaker B:You need to explain the situation to that outsider.
Speaker B:And it's a way of putting someone in a strange environment and having them explore it.
Speaker B:So that's just quite a useful technical device, I think.
Speaker B:And the first thing I wrote was the first line of the book, which is a stranger comes to town.
Speaker B:I wrote that line, which is a very classic storytelling idea, a stranger comes to town.
Speaker B:And then I was like, okay, who's the stranger?
Speaker B:What's the town?
Speaker B:And I built out from there.
Speaker B:But swirling around my mind were all these ideas about art, creativity, who gets to be an artist, how we create art and how we consume it.
Speaker B:And one of the things I was thinking about was why it's so hard to write about art, it's so difficult to write about paintings.
Speaker B:And why is that?
Speaker B:And I wanted to know if there was an interesting way of doing it and if I could do that.
Speaker B:So I was constantly thinking about how to translate a painting into words and what would be the most successful way of doing that without being frustrating.
Speaker B:I never wanted this novel to be frustrating.
Speaker B:So one of the things that really helped was a quotation from John Berger which made it into the epigraphs of the book, which is.
Speaker B:There's this quote which says, we only see what we look at.
Speaker B:To look is an act of choice.
Speaker B:And I love this idea that if you are looking at something, you are also missing out on looking at it from a different angle.
Speaker B:And I wanted to know, could I write a novel that embodied this idea, this idea of two people looking at the same thing and seeing different things, and their gazes miss each other.
Speaker B:And I wanted to explore what's in.
Speaker B:In the gap between what both of them are seeing.
Speaker B:So I just had this idea of how can I write a novel which shows the gap between what different people see?
Speaker B:That was my challenge.
Speaker B:And, oh, I was kind of inspired by Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.
Speaker B:Have you read that?
Speaker B:No, Helen, I think you'd really like it.
Speaker A:Okay, look, we're only two minutes in, and you've got me adding to basket already.
Speaker B:It's really good.
Speaker B:It's a story about this couple, I think they're called Ludo and Matilda, and he's a writer.
Speaker B:And the story begins, and you.
Speaker B:It's told from Ludo's perspective.
Speaker B:And you go through.
Speaker B:You learn about his writing career.
Speaker B:I think he's a playwright, perhaps.
Speaker B:And then you get to the halfway point and you are kicked out of his point of view.
Speaker B:It suddenly stops, and the second half of the novel begins, and you're in Matilda's point of view.
Speaker B:And I think from sentence one of her point of view, you suddenly realize you've been seeing things completely wrong.
Speaker B:You've been missing everything.
Speaker B:And as soon as you get inside her head, you go, oh, I've missed so much.
Speaker B:I've thought I knew what was going on, and now I don't.
Speaker B:And I loved that shift, that, like tide turning.
Speaker B:You think you're seeing one thing, and then another point of view comes in and shows you that you're seeing something completely different.
Speaker B:So I wanted to try and do that throughout the novel, not just tip it at the halfway stage.
Speaker B:I wanted to have these two perspectives looping around each other in a way.
Speaker B:I described it as these two perspectives playing cat and mouse throughout the novel.
Speaker B:Always one is a little ahead of the other, or they're slightly looking at things from the wrong angle.
Speaker B:And that's why?
Speaker B:Yeah, you can always feel this gap between what each of them is seeing, and the novel is about closing that gap, I think, about making it smaller.
Speaker A:So, so interesting.
Speaker A:You've said so many things there that I'm like, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Speaker A:All interested.
Speaker A:I mean, I have to say, when you were saying you wondered whether you could write a painting, like, I.
Speaker A:I've said, I feel like I walked into a masterpiece when I read the Artist.
Speaker A:So you nailed it.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:You touched on, briefly, the epigraph.
Speaker A:So there's one.
Speaker A:There's two, actually, in the book, which I would love to talk to you about, because I think in probably more the Artist than any book I can think of, those two epigraphs really got me because I was like, they sum up the book so beautifully.
Speaker A:So could you tell us how you came about finding them and, you know, what you hope they convey to the reader?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So the book has two epigraphs.
Speaker B:One is from John Burges's essay Ways of Seeing, which, if no one's read it, is a really good essay on looking at paintings.
Speaker B:It's really fun.
Speaker B:It's not dry or boring at all.
Speaker B:And it's just about how to look at things.
Speaker B:And so that quote that I picked out was, we only see what we look at to look as an act of choice.
Speaker B:And then the other quotation is from Celia Poole's memoir, Self Portrait.
Speaker B:And Celia Poole is an artist who, for a lot of her career was just known primarily as being the girlfriend of Lucian Freud.
Speaker B:And this memoir is about her desire to be seen as an artist and to be seen and understood as herself rather than something else.
Speaker B:And also about her quite controlling and at times abusive relationship with Lucian Freud.
Speaker B:So the quotation I picked up from her, I think it's something like, I deceive him, and by lying, I can dance in and out of the prison bars.
Speaker B:And it was this idea of deception being a form of power.
Speaker B:I really liked this idea she talked about, about how it was through lying that she could take a little bit of power from him and claim some freedom for herself.
Speaker B:And she can dance in and out of the prison bars only through deception.
Speaker B:But that's a very powerful position.
Speaker B:And I was thinking, I really.
Speaker B:It added to this.
Speaker B:This idea of deception, which I tried to embed into the novel, of not seeing things and of things going unnoticed.
Speaker B:And I wanted to create a character where her power comes from her secrets.
Speaker B:I really liked that.
Speaker B:And about how, actually there's a lot of power to be had in secrets.
Speaker B:Because I always think that secrets is just knowledge that you have and other people don't have and knowledge is power.
Speaker B:So I wanted to show this and to create a woman where her power comes from her sneakiness, her deception and her secrets and how actually by lying and by deceiving people, she creates a life for herself and to try and paint this quite, quite nobly.
Speaker B:So I wanted to have these two epigraphs because, yeah, you've got John Berger, Celia Paul, you've got a man's perspective and a woman's perspective.
Speaker B:And that echoes the novel, which is structured by Joseph and Etti's perspectives, which alternate.
Speaker B:Yeah, I really.
Speaker B:I'm glad that you feel like they represent the novel.
Speaker B:I actually had a load of options for epigraphs.
Speaker B:I love epigraphs and I love finding quotes.
Speaker B:I love research as well.
Speaker B:So whenever I found a really good nugget of research, I would just put it in this document which was full of quotes.
Speaker B:And it was quite grounding because I could always go back to it.
Speaker B:And it was almost a way of saying, this is what you want to write about, this is what the heart of the book is.
Speaker A:So when you had your first sentence, then where did the epigraphs come along?
Speaker A:Were they at the same sort of time or were they further down the line in your writing?
Speaker B:I think they were quite early on.
Speaker B:I read and write at the same time.
Speaker B:It's not like I do all my research and then start.
Speaker B:I do it in a quite an integrated way.
Speaker B:So they were definitely quite an early stage of the process.
Speaker B:And the John Berger ways of seeing.
Speaker B:That's because the research I did, I didn't necessarily want to do loads of heavy research about art history which would weigh the novel down.
Speaker B:So I didn't do secondary research, if that made sense.
Speaker B:I never wanted to read about what other people think about paintings.
Speaker B:I just wanted to look at paintings to see what I thought and to have that first hand emotion in the book.
Speaker B:And John Burgess writing is all about how to look at a painting and how to really get into a painting.
Speaker B:So that was more the research I did.
Speaker B:The research of how to look at a painting, how to get inside it.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker A:Because actually when I picked it up and it first landed, I was like, oh, I don't really know much about art.
Speaker A:I wonder how this is going to sit with me.
Speaker A:But it's so beautiful and just so readable.
Speaker A:And I've said, I mean, I'm literally recommending it to anybody I saw somebody in Waterstones just glance at it.
Speaker A:Didn't even put their hand.
Speaker A:I was like, it's brilliant.
Speaker A:It's brilliant.
Speaker A:You've got to get it.
Speaker B:You can be an extended member of my marketing team.
Speaker A:Absolutely, Absolutely.
Speaker A:They're probably looking at me like, okay, let's talk about your writing style.
Speaker A:Because I just think it is so beautiful, Lucy.
Speaker A:I mean, it is just such an experience to read the Artist.
Speaker A:I've read it twice as well, so reading it felt like a really visual experience to me.
Speaker A:You bring it to life so vividly.
Speaker A:I could see it.
Speaker A:I could feel it coming off the page.
Speaker A:I think it really takes great skill to make a story leap off the page the way you have.
Speaker A:And I think everyone who reads it is saying the same.
Speaker A:They could see it.
Speaker A:Could you tell us how you were able to bring that level of sensory detail into your writing?
Speaker B:Well, I'm.
Speaker B:Firstly, I'm so glad you say that, because this was my worry and my fear all along.
Speaker B:I never wanted to write a book about art which pushed people away.
Speaker B:I never wanted you to feel held at arm's length by this book.
Speaker B:And like you said, you're a bit like, oh, I think a lot of people are a bit intimidated by art.
Speaker B:Think, you know, don't really.
Speaker B:That sounds a bit heavy and intense, but I just wanted it to feel immersive and enveloping and for everyone.
Speaker B:So it's very important for me, this is not a book just for art lovers or for people who know things about art.
Speaker B:I think you don't need to know anything about art to read this, but perfect.
Speaker B:So I wanted to find a way of writing about art which was embracing rather than holding the reader at arm's length.
Speaker B:And this was difficult because so much writing about art can be very abstract or vague or lofty.
Speaker B:And I wanted to bring it straight down to earth.
Speaker B:I want to say, no loftiness.
Speaker B:We're going to dig our hands into the earth and feel it.
Speaker B:So I used to.
Speaker B:I used to just go to galleries and stare at paintings.
Speaker B:And I did free writing, which is this thing where you connect your pen to paper and you just write.
Speaker B:And I would look at paintings, fill my eyes with the painting, and just free write.
Speaker B:And you don't look back at what you've written.
Speaker B:You don't edit it, you don't doubt yourself.
Speaker B:And this slight loosening of the tightness of your brain lets lots of things out.
Speaker B:And it meant that when I was writing about paintings, it was never anatomical, it was never clinical.
Speaker B:It was Never.
Speaker B:There is some brown paint in the top, and then there.
Speaker B:It was never like that, because I think if you can't picture things, that will tell you nothing.
Speaker B:It was always.
Speaker B:When I got into the heart of the painting, it was so much more about the texture of the paint and.
Speaker B:And the movement and the glossiness and things like this where you're like, oh, yeah, okay, I can.
Speaker B:I can feel this.
Speaker B:And I always tried to use all of the senses in some way to.
Speaker B:To make it not just a visual thing, because painting is so visual, but I also think it involves all the senses, and I wanted to really get that in there.
Speaker B:And it's a weird thing where I think by almost limiting the scale of the book, I could go really intense.
Speaker B:So the book is just set over one summer, three months in one house, really.
Speaker B:And by limiting it in those ways, by putting those boundaries on the time frame, on the setting, and on the characters, in a way, it's mainly three characters.
Speaker B:Then I could go really intense.
Speaker B:I could push against all those boundaries.
Speaker B:I'd set up myself and go deep.
Speaker B:And the type of writing I really enjoy doing is really granular, really detailed.
Speaker B:So just describing a mote of dust on a jar of honey in the sunlight, that is the kind of writing I love.
Speaker B:And I think by.
Speaker B:By limiting certain things, you can then go really detailed into other things.
Speaker B:So in terms of how I focused on those details, I'm big observer in general.
Speaker B:I like just sitting with things and, yes, staring at painting for an hour.
Speaker B:You notice so much after an hour.
Speaker B:I realize that sounds a bit insane, but there's a.
Speaker B:Another book called the Site of Death by T.J.
Speaker B:clark, and he looked at two Poussin paintings for a year.
Speaker B:He went back every day to these same paint, and every day he saw something new.
Speaker B:So this was a kind of lesson, how to look at paintings.
Speaker B:And I just wanted to get that intensity into the book.
Speaker A:Oh, you really do.
Speaker A:I mean, as I say, it's like even, like the light and everything, like when he's painting or when Etty's setting up the food for him to paint and things, I just felt like I could see it.
Speaker A:It was a really, really wonderful experience.
Speaker A:So thank you for.
Speaker A:Did you have to do lots of editing for it or did it come quite easily then if you're with your free writing?
Speaker B:Kind of.
Speaker B:I mean, I'm quite a polished drafter, if that makes sense.
Speaker B:I can't leave a draft in dis.
Speaker B:I always edit as I go, and I like sentences to look good and to sound good on the ear as well.
Speaker B:So my drafts are quite polished.
Speaker B:But nevertheless, you do.
Speaker B:You do have to do many, many edits.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You mentioned the food.
Speaker B:That was also another way of getting into the senses.
Speaker B:So the taste and smells of that are in this house are equally strong as all the things you can see, I think.
Speaker B:And food was a really good way of combining those two things together.
Speaker B:To have painting food and to embody all these senses that way.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I have to say, I don't think I'd want to have a meal with Tata if he took my plate away to paint it.
Speaker A:I was like, I don't know how.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:I couldn't handle that.
Speaker A:I don't like sharing my food anyway.
Speaker A:Even if you're not going to eat it and just take it away to look at and paint it.
Speaker A:I was like, no, couldn't have that.
Speaker B:Deeply stressful.
Speaker B:But that was also because I wanted this house to start off as this quite Edenic setting, this glorious place in beautiful south of France in the summer.
Speaker B:And originally you're like, that sounds lovely.
Speaker B:And then the more time you spend in this horrid house, the more you're like, oh, no, it's.
Speaker B:It's awful.
Speaker B:And this tyrannical man makes me eat horrible things that don't taste nice.
Speaker B:And then he takes my plate away anyway, and there are all these tempestuous tantrums.
Speaker B:And it becomes, throughout the novel, more and more of a prison.
Speaker B:It's this beautiful place, but it's also a prison.
Speaker B:And I wanted the tipping of the scales to happen throughout the novel.
Speaker B:So it starts off as a paradise and it ends as somewhere you just need to escape.
Speaker A:Yeah, you feel it.
Speaker A:You really do feel it.
Speaker A:So, still looking at your writing style, I mean, I just love your writing.
Speaker A:I think you've got such a beautiful mix of, like, these rich descriptions, but then also some.
Speaker A:So it's told in the two point of views, and some of them are really sort of short and punchy.
Speaker A:I mean, ETI has one page where she just has one very short line, which tells you a lot.
Speaker A:How did you balance those two styles, having this rich writing and then sort of the more punchier parts?
Speaker B:Well, I think it's that contrast that is so important.
Speaker B:I really like contrasts in general.
Speaker B:And it's these two characters where their style embodies their characters, if that makes sense.
Speaker B:So Ettie's chapters, sometimes, as you said, they are one spiky little sentence where she gives you nothing.
Speaker B:And that's because as a character, she Gives Joseph nothing to begin with.
Speaker B:She's very closed up and you have to earn her trust, you have to work for it.
Speaker B:So there'll be some chapters where she's just like he is not looking properly and you're going, oh, he's missing something and I'm missing something, what is it?
Speaker B:So I needed the, the way they speak or the way that their perspective is presented in the book to really embody who they were.
Speaker B:And I think it works quite well together because Joseph's self and his perspective is quite innocent, quite wide eyed, a little bit naive at times, very optimistic, very wow, I'm here in this amazing place, what secrets can I uncover?
Speaker B:And then Ettie is this, this quieter holder of all the secrets and she's not just gonna give them up.
Speaker B:So it's the bouncing off of each other, of this wide eyed sort of lamb of a person and this very closed up person and how they, they do eventually crack each other open towards the end.
Speaker B:But I think it's the contrast between the two and I think if you were just in Ettie's head for the whole book you'd get a bit spiked out and if you're just in Joseph's head you'd get a bit find his wide eyed adoration a little bit frustrating.
Speaker B:But I think the balance of it is what hopefully unlocks it.
Speaker A:Yeah, it does and it's interesting.
Speaker A:I wanted to talk to you about the characters, about these three characters.
Speaker A:So we have obviously Joseph, Nettie, Tata doesn't have a say actually as in for the reader.
Speaker A:But his presence is felt throughout.
Speaker A:But I love the way they all move between each other.
Speaker A:So as I said the first time I read this book, I think I just was reading it to enjoy the beauty and the intrigue and I was just enjoying myself the second time I went back and I was able to sort of watch these characters because I knew what secrets were coming and it's really, really clever.
Speaker A:And I guess it takes us back to that epigraph you choose to.
Speaker A:What does he say?
Speaker A:Sorry, we only see what we look at.
Speaker A:Could you tell us how you built these layers or unpeeled the layers between the three characters and sort of worked out their secrets.
Speaker A:How much planning went into this story?
Speaker A:Story.
Speaker B:So I always knew the shape of the story but I actually did not know the answers to all the secrets.
Speaker B:And there are lots of like small reveals as well as one quite big one.
Speaker B:I didn't always know it.
Speaker B:And I think that's quite useful as a writer to be able to be surprised by your own characters.
Speaker B:Because if I had set up at the very beginning, here is the entire trajectory of the story of all of these characters.
Speaker B:Here are all their secrets.
Speaker B:I think I would have written very differently to how I did, which was quite exploratory and in a way in time with the reader.
Speaker B:Like the reader discovers things in the cinema sort of way that I did.
Speaker B:And as I was writing, I actually didn't know how things would turn out.
Speaker B:And there were several mysteries I hadn't quite tied together at one point.
Speaker B:And then I realized I had these two mysteries I didn't know the answer to.
Speaker B:And then I just connected them one day I was like, ah, the answer to mystery A is mystery B.
Speaker B:That was such a satisfying moment.
Speaker B:But I would never have got there if I had decided everything at the beginning.
Speaker B:So it was quite fun.
Speaker B:Both fun and nerve wracking, I'll say, to write like that.
Speaker B:But in terms of all the characters, the really frustrating thing about writing is the time you know your characters best and the time you feel most confident in how they would act, the decisions they'd make is when you get to the end of a draft.
Speaker B:You don't know it until you've spent 90,000 words with them and you've got all the ways to the end.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And as you finally finish the book, you're like, right, well, now I know them, now I understand how they die.
Speaker B:And then you have to go back to the beginning and almost rewrite it in a way that you'll come across scenes you wrote months ago and you'll go, that's not how Etti is.
Speaker B:That's not how she would behave.
Speaker B:Because now I know all her secrets, now I know all the answers.
Speaker B:I have to change things.
Speaker B:So it's an iterative process where you layer it on and you work until finally you have a cohesive character.
Speaker B:But it can.
Speaker B:It's a lot of holding a lot of different drafts in your head at once and trying to work out the best way of telling the story.
Speaker A:That's so interesting.
Speaker A:I love it when authors say that because I think there's a real mix of people who say, like, their characters lead them as well.
Speaker A:And I think, like, as you're saying with this, that's feels like it was the only.
Speaker A:I'm just trying to sort of make sure I don't spoiler.
Speaker A:It feels like it was the only believable outcome.
Speaker A:So, like, all you're working through for those mysteries feel so real.
Speaker A:So obviously, you know, that's Worked really well for you to sort of to do it.
Speaker A:Let's talk a little bit about Ettie, because she is brilliant.
Speaker A:She is such a great character.
Speaker A:She's quite mysterious to begin with, isn't she?
Speaker A:And as you say, she's quite spiky.
Speaker A:And I love what you were saying about her, you know, having the secrets and that's her strength.
Speaker A:And it's sort of that she's underestimated as well.
Speaker A:So what was it like to write Ettie, but also when you got to the end, how did you feel about leaving her where she's left?
Speaker B:So she was a really fun character to write.
Speaker B:I really had fun writing her sections because she tells you the bare minimum of what you need to know.
Speaker B:And you always have more questions at the end of an Essie chapter than at the beginning, I think.
Speaker B:And I always wanted to give this impression of someone who there is so much under the surface that you're not seeing.
Speaker B:So every little snippet you get implies so many hidden depths.
Speaker B:And I wanted to use this idea of someone who is overlooked and how powerful that is about what you can get away with when no one is looking at you and no one thinks anything will come of you.
Speaker B:When you are underestimated and overlooked.
Speaker B:That's really powerful because you can get away with so much.
Speaker B:So I wanted that feeling where at the beginning, I think the reader doesn't really pay her much attention.
Speaker B:She's always in the periphery.
Speaker B:She's always to the side of a scene, darting in and out, you can never really catch her.
Speaker B:And then she slowly comes into the focus.
Speaker B:And one of the my favorite things people have said is that a lot of people have said this wasn't the book I thought it was going to be.
Speaker B:And they'll say there is a point, an indefinable point, where it changes and it shifts.
Speaker B:And they'll say, I thought it was a book about men to begin with.
Speaker B:And then it just shifts, becoming a book about women.
Speaker B:And I was like, yes, that's the tipping of the scales.
Speaker B:That's exactly the 180 I wanted to happen.
Speaker B:So she really embodies that change where she's always been there.
Speaker B:You just haven't really been looking at her or seeing her properly.
Speaker B:She was a really fun head to be in.
Speaker B:And I, yeah, I love her a lot.
Speaker B:I think there's that spikiness on the top, but such a tender heart underneath.
Speaker B:I think she's a really soft hearted person and all of her spikiness is purely circumstantial because she's never had an opportunity to exist in the world in a normal way.
Speaker B:So there are occasional moments where she leaves the house to go to the village nearby.
Speaker B:And she's so aware that she's different, but she doesn't really understand how.
Speaker B:And she can't make a connection with other people because she's never learned how to hang out with other people or how to do it.
Speaker B:And she can feel this on herself.
Speaker B:And I think it's a defensiveness where she then puts up her spikiness a little bit.
Speaker B:But, yeah, this person who is so different and knows she is, but can't help it and can't do anything, that was really important for me, that she has grown up in this one house within the shadow of one man, that's necessarily going to change your brain chemistry.
Speaker B:You're not just going to have a regular psychology after that.
Speaker B:And that was very important for me.
Speaker B:So when she meets the outside world, occasionally she interacts with it in unexpected ways.
Speaker B:Sometimes in terms of where I left her, I always wanted to leave her in a place where.
Speaker B:Not going to do too many spoilers, but I know.
Speaker A:Sorry, I was thinking.
Speaker A:It's really hard, isn't it?
Speaker B:No, like.
Speaker B:But that you know, what will happen next, if that makes sense.
Speaker B:I don't need to tell you everything that happens next because you're like, oh, I know what she's going to do.
Speaker B:She'll be fine.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:It's interesting endings because I am not someone who needs an ending of a book I read to be perfectly tied in a bow.
Speaker B:I don't always like it when, you know, all the characters come on for a sort of final bow.
Speaker B:It's like, and this person from chapter two, they did this.
Speaker B:I don't need that.
Speaker B:But it was very interesting that my editor, my agent, was sort of saying, do we need to push it a little bit further?
Speaker B:How.
Speaker B:How much do we tie it up?
Speaker B:And I think it needs to be satisfying in that you know what will happen to all the characters, but you know that from your own head, not from the page, if that makes sense.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm the same.
Speaker A:I love a well done, sort of slightly open because I think that just leaves them to be your characters a little bit because they'll sort of come back into your life and you'll think about.
Speaker A:I can see myself reading this book again, for sure.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:And I think having read it twice, I wonder, reading it the third time, how much more of ETI I'd pick up.
Speaker A:Because as you say, the beginning, you're sort of.
Speaker A:The men are sort of taking the spotlight a little bit and then she sort of comes in.
Speaker A:But I was like, I really want to sort of go back and read.
Speaker A:I definitely will read it again.
Speaker A:It's such a great read.
Speaker A:I loved it.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:Before we go on to talk about the books that shaped your life, I'm not the only person who is loving your book.
Speaker A:It is doing so well at the moment.
Speaker A:We've got the amazing news that you've been longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, which is amazing.
Speaker A:Congratulations.
Speaker A:We're recording this on 31st March and the shortlist is just about to be announced and I really want you to be on the shortlist.
Speaker A:Can you tell us how does it feel to hear that news that you're on the long list?
Speaker A:What was that moment like for you?
Speaker B:Oh, so exciting.
Speaker B:So I found out at about.
Speaker B:It was like 10pm And I got an email from my editor, which subject line, all caps Confidential.
Speaker B:And when you get an email at 10 o'clock@ night, Confidential, it's usually a good thing.
Speaker B:Like, it's.
Speaker B:It's either really bad or really good.
Speaker B:And then I opened the email and it was very much just like, you can't tell anyone, but.
Speaker B:And then this amazing news and I didn't know what to do with myself.
Speaker B:I mean, the Women's prize is.
Speaker B:It was like a dare to dream, once in a lifetime career level.
Speaker B:Maybe that'll happen one day.
Speaker B:Goal.
Speaker B:And then I got that email two weeks after publication and I was like, ah, what do I do with myself now?
Speaker B:That was so exciting.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:You do get alerted a little bit before the public announcement.
Speaker B:So I didn't know who else was on the list.
Speaker A:Oh, interesting.
Speaker B:I only found out at 8am on that Tuesday with everyone else.
Speaker B:And I just was watching this video going, look at all these people.
Speaker B:And it was just the idea of being in a list with all these other writers who I admire is so exciting.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'm just so honored to be included with them.
Speaker B:I think someone, someone said to me the other day, they were like, oh, you're up against someone.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:And I was like, not up against.
Speaker B:Alongside.
Speaker B:That's how it feels.
Speaker B:It feels like, what an incredible gang to be part of.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I'm just like completely thrilled to be on this ride.
Speaker A:I'm thrilled for you.
Speaker A:When I saw it, I was like, oh, my God, that's amazing.
Speaker A:It was so good.
Speaker A:So is it.
Speaker A:I think it's tomorrow.
Speaker A:That shortlist.
Speaker A:Tomorrow, Wednesday.
Speaker A:This is this week.
Speaker A:Well, best of luck.
Speaker A:We have everything crossed for you.
Speaker A:And if anyone hasn't picked up the Artist yet, you must pick this book up.
Speaker A:It is so, so beautiful.
Speaker A:Definitely one of my top reads of the year, and I will be pushing everyone to read it.
Speaker A:So please do pick it up.
Speaker A:Before we just talk about the five books that shaped your life.
Speaker A:Just to remind listeners that all of the books that we've.
Speaker A:We are about to talk about and the ones that Lucy has already mentioned, I'll pop them in the show notes so they will be really easy to find.
Speaker A:So, Lucy, how did you find picking your five?
Speaker A:Was it difficult?
Speaker A:Difficult for you?
Speaker B:So hard.
Speaker A:I know, it's horrible, isn't it?
Speaker B:It's so much fun, but so hard.
Speaker B:And I have this feeling of, like, you could ask me tomorrow and I'd pick five different books.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:In that way that, like, probably every book you read has shaped you in some way, even if you're not aware of it.
Speaker B:So trying to decide on five, it's a little bit of an arbitrary five, maybe, but it's definitely five that.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's an interesting five and five that.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I haven't read any of these, so let's see if you can convince me to pick any of these up.
Speaker B:Yeah, let's try and get a 5.
Speaker B:5 at the end.
Speaker A:Oh, okay.
Speaker A:Let's see.
Speaker A:Let's start with book number one, then.
Speaker A:Lucy.
Speaker B:Okay, this is.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I've already cheated.
Speaker B:I've already gone for A Series of Unfortunate events, which is 13 books.
Speaker A:I was at 13 books.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:I can play by the rules and just do book one, which is a bad.
Speaker B:The bad beginning.
Speaker B:But these are the books I read as a child that.
Speaker B:Oh, my God.
Speaker B:Just had such an impact on my love of books and my relationship to words.
Speaker B:Are you familiar if I hold up this.
Speaker B:Are you familiar with the vibe of that book?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah, I haven't read them, but, yeah, they're so great.
Speaker B:So they are.
Speaker B:I can outline the series, which is vaguely.
Speaker B:They are the story of the three Baudelaire siblings, Violet, Klaus and Sunny.
Speaker B:And they are known throughout the series as the Baudelaire Orphans, because in book one, like, page one, their parents die in a terrible fire.
Speaker B:And the series is the story of the Baudelaire orphans being carted around from relative to relative and the escapades they get up to because they're always handed off to, like.
Speaker B:It'll be like your mother's third cousin.
Speaker B:Eight Times removed Uncle.
Speaker B:And that'll be who they have to stay with.
Speaker B:And as they are shepherded around between various relations who are all really colourful and fun, there is this malevolent figure called Count Olaf who is out to get their fortune.
Speaker B:And it's the orphans versus this count.
Speaker B:And Count Olaf has a tattoo of an eye on his ankle, which is how you recognize him.
Speaker B:He always turns up in disguise in the book, but then you see the tattoo of an eye on his ankle and there he is.
Speaker B:But it's written in this style, which is just so zany, so not for children.
Speaker B:In a way, it's really like, just delights in language so much, and it impacted my vocabulary so much.
Speaker B:So it's a book which teaches children words through just using really complex vocabulary and language and just assuming they'll catch up.
Speaker B:And you kind of do.
Speaker B:And it does this thing where it'll use a really long word and it'll say a word which here means.
Speaker B:And then it'll explain it to you.
Speaker B:And I think I just learned words so much from these books.
Speaker B:There's a bit where, like, someone's just, like, children, your parents have perished.
Speaker B:Perished means died.
Speaker B:And, like, it'll be stuff like that where it's really arch, really tongue in cheek, and just really loves language so much.
Speaker B:And I think that impacted my brain and how I relate to words.
Speaker B:I also listen to the audiobooks, and the audiobooks were read by Tim Curry.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker B:Tim Curry, doing what I would describe as the performance of a lifetime.
Speaker B:He gives so much to the performance of these children's books.
Speaker B:It's incredible.
Speaker B:There's, like, one character who coughs a lot, and Tim Curry just.
Speaker B:It's like he's coughing up a lung.
Speaker B:And when you're a child listening to great actor Tim Curry, giving so much to this performance, it's just like your spirit so immersed in it, and it's so funny.
Speaker B:It's a real, like.
Speaker B:I don't know why, as a child, it's so funny because we listen to it on road trips a lot.
Speaker B:And my parents.
Speaker B:My parents refused to listen to it because they were like, this is so sad.
Speaker B:My sister and I were like, no, no, it's funny, it's funny.
Speaker B:And my parents were like, these poor orphans with these terrible events happening to them.
Speaker B:And we were like, no, it's funny, obviously.
Speaker B:So it's just a book which speaks to children on a level at which I think children like to be spoken to, which is treating them like adults who understand lots of words, who can Deal with lots of heavy subjects.
Speaker B:And the whole package of the book is so great.
Speaker B:So they don't have blurbs.
Speaker B:They have a letter on the back which says, dear reader, I'm sorry to say that the book you're holding is extremely unpleasant.
Speaker B:And then it goes through and it lists all the horrid things in the book and it just says, put it down.
Speaker B:Don't do it.
Speaker B:Which, as a child, you're like, great, I'm gonna read every single word of this.
Speaker B:So I think that, yeah, that really got inside my brain as just being like, language is fun.
Speaker B:This is how you learn words having a huge, big vocabulary.
Speaker B:I think I really credit these books with that.
Speaker A:How old do you think you were when you were reading these?
Speaker B:I want to say, like 6 to 12.
Speaker B:That kind of.
Speaker B:I think if whenever people sort of say that their children aren't much of a reader, I'm always like, read A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Speaker B:Because they're so much fun.
Speaker B:And part of the fun is just being enveloped by all these fun words.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:Yeah, really like just a whole world you can dive into.
Speaker B:And there are 13 books.
Speaker B:So, I mean, it was like a large chunk of my childhood.
Speaker B:Yeah, really fun.
Speaker A:That's really interesting.
Speaker A:So I've got twins.
Speaker A:My daughter is like a huge reader.
Speaker A:She's just off.
Speaker A:She's found her.
Speaker A:Her love of reading.
Speaker A:My son really struggles, but I was like, I think they both might like this.
Speaker A:And I love the idea of an audiobook as well for, like, my two loved.
Speaker A:Oh, gosh, quite.
Speaker A:Name it.
Speaker A:Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Speaker A:That's what they wanted to listen on or.
Speaker A:Because actually the production of that's quite funny as well.
Speaker A:It's like all the noise.
Speaker A:I was like, oh, I wonder whether I might give these a try.
Speaker A:Try for them.
Speaker A:Because she's really into words as well, so she might quite like this.
Speaker B:I think she'll love it.
Speaker B:I mean, Tim Curry's performance, he should get every accolade and prize going for actors for that performance.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:It's just.
Speaker B:I can still.
Speaker B:I think something about listening to it means it embeds itself in your brain.
Speaker B:Because I can still quote large tracks of these books.
Speaker B:I still do it with my sister.
Speaker B:If I say the beginning of a sentence, she can usually say the end of it.
Speaker A:Yeah, but it does.
Speaker A:We used to listen to, with the kids as well, the Magic Faraway Tree, which Kate Winslet reads.
Speaker A:And she does it beautifully.
Speaker A:Did you.
Speaker A:I loved it.
Speaker A:But they will sometimes.
Speaker A:Oh, I Forget the name of the character.
Speaker A:But they'll sometimes say that, and they'll sort of quote it to each other because they found it really funny.
Speaker A:So I think it does sort of stick in your mind.
Speaker A:Oh, that's pretty.
Speaker A:I'm going to have to add those to.
Speaker A:I might even read myself, honestly.
Speaker B:I think you'll have a great time.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:In between, like, heavier reads, maybe.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, Perfect.
Speaker A:Okay, so book number two.
Speaker A:This is one I have said that I would read before, and I haven't, so.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:A Room with a view by E.M.
Speaker B:forster.
Speaker B:Thing is, Helen, it's quite short.
Speaker B:Like, look at that.
Speaker B:It's like a centimeter.
Speaker A:What's the.
Speaker A:What's the text like?
Speaker A:Is it teeny, tiny?
Speaker A:Oh, not too bad, not too bad, not too bad.
Speaker B:Quite short.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:A Room with a view by E.M.
Speaker B:forster.
Speaker B:I feel like this is, like, on a lot of lists of books you should read, which means you don't want to read it.
Speaker A:It's exactly that it was when people say, you should read it, like, I don't want to.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:So when you said books that have shaped your life, this one, I really think shaped me.
Speaker B:So, okay, there's a story behind this book, which is when I was at school at gcse, we studied Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Speaker B:Fine.
Speaker B:When I got to A level, I also did English.
Speaker B:And I got to my A level classroom, day one, and my teacher said, we're doing Jane Austen again.
Speaker B:This time we're doing Sense and Sensibility.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:Okay, this tells you how much of a precocious teenager I was.
Speaker B:I was just like, no.
Speaker B:She's like, I can't do Jane Austen again.
Speaker B:I was like, I can't do it.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:And my teacher was like, okay, well, I'm teaching Sense and Sensibility this year, so what are you going to do?
Speaker B:And this is such a lesson for what to do with precocious teenagers.
Speaker B:She was just like, all right, what do you want to do?
Speaker B:And she was like, you can pick any of the other books which are, like, technically on the exam board syllabus.
Speaker B:Study that.
Speaker B:Write about that at the end of the year on your head, be it.
Speaker B:She was like, I'll mark any essays you write, but I'm teaching Sense and Sensibility.
Speaker B:And the deal is you can do what you want, but it's on your head.
Speaker B:And that is the best thing to do with a stubborn teenager in your classroom.
Speaker B:Just to be like, fine, you do.
Speaker B:You go for it.
Speaker B:And so I studied A Room With a View on my Own.
Speaker B:And I would just deliver these essays to my teacher, she would mark them and I just had such a great year because it was like I was finally.
Speaker B:I think one of the frustrating things as a child is you have no real power in the world.
Speaker B:You're basically just doing everything people have people tell you to.
Speaker B:And when you get a little bit of decision making power and you get told, okay, your A level rests on you entirely.
Speaker B:It was the best thing she could have done because the other option was just to tell me to get over myself and study Sense and Sensibility with everyone else.
Speaker B:But she really knew how to handle me, which was just saying, okay, do it.
Speaker B:So I sort of took this book into my heart and because it was just mine and I had to make something of it, I loved it so much.
Speaker B:I was thinking through my notes, I mean, I don't know if you can see the amount oh wow on this book is it's like equal parts my writing to Forster's writing.
Speaker B:Dense with like scribbles.
Speaker B:So this story, for those who have not read it or who have seen it on those best of lists and gone, no, thank you.
Speaker B:It is a love story between Lucy and George and it's set in Florence.
Speaker B: I think it's written in like: Speaker B:And it's all about these clashes of these different values.
Speaker B:But it's this beautiful love story at its heart and it's beautiful writing because it's Forster.
Speaker B:It's just a really tender, beautiful book.
Speaker B:And it started my affair with E.M.
Speaker B:forster.
Speaker B:I really love E.M.
Speaker B:forster.
Speaker B:I've read all of his books now, I think multiple times.
Speaker B:Just love him.
Speaker B:And this was like the catalyst for it.
Speaker B:I read this and then I read the other ones and I wrote about Forster, my undergrad.
Speaker B:I think I wrote him for my masters.
Speaker B:I've just always loved him.
Speaker B:And yeah, I, I was flicking through this yesterday and just finding my notes and I love scribbling in books.
Speaker B:I know you don't.
Speaker B:I know you're better than that, but I like it because you meet your past self in the, on the page.
Speaker A:Oh, I love that.
Speaker B:And I'm looking at this and I'm like, I've written things like does Forster entirely trust the novel he was writing?
Speaker B:And I'm like, Whoa, good question.
Speaker B:17 year old.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:And there are all these questions I'm writing and I'm like, I love that 17 year old me is in this book.
Speaker B:And she'll always be there.
Speaker B:And, yeah, the book will always sort of embody that time for me.
Speaker A:See, now you've got me thinking.
Speaker A:I wish I didn't stick with that plastic post its.
Speaker A:I put my thoughts in there.
Speaker A:What a lovely.
Speaker A:What a lovely thought.
Speaker B:I scribble in all my books and I find it really interesting because then you go back sometimes and I'll open up a book and I'll be like, why did I highlight that?
Speaker B:That meant something to me at one point.
Speaker B:Doesn't really mean anything to me now.
Speaker B:I always feel like I'm a different reader every time I read a book because I've changed, even though the text is the same.
Speaker A:Definitely, definitely.
Speaker A:I've got awful handwriting, though, Lucy.
Speaker A:Like, quite often I will.
Speaker A:I'll write things and I'm like, I have no idea.
Speaker A:It's why I can't do.
Speaker A:I can't write shopping lists.
Speaker A:I have to text it to myself.
Speaker A:Because I get to the supermarket, I'm like, what, Helen?
Speaker B:I have the handwriting of a Victorian ghost.
Speaker B:No one else can read it.
Speaker A:I just want to go back to the A levels.
Speaker A:I think that is so interesting because I.
Speaker A:I didn't.
Speaker A:I was supposed to do A levels the summer before I started them.
Speaker A:I decided I didn't want to do them, probably because, I mean, I didn't know I had adhd, so I didn't realize how difficult I was fighting, you know, that's why I was finding everything so difficult.
Speaker A:Difficult.
Speaker A:But I wonder what would have happened because I loved English.
Speaker A:I wonder what would have happened if somebody had said, you know, what's.
Speaker A:What's going on?
Speaker A:Like, if we do it in a different way.
Speaker A:I think that's such an.
Speaker A:Obviously it'd be a nightmare for a teacher of 30 kids.
Speaker A:Like, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do it.
Speaker A:But it's such an interesting idea.
Speaker A:So I love that, that it's.
Speaker A:You know, I do sometimes one worry with education, like in English, that it, you know, we all have books we think remind us of something.
Speaker B:School.
Speaker A:Like when I think, like the Hobbit, I will never read that book again.
Speaker A:Because I remember being dragged through it and I'm like, no, I'm done.
Speaker A:You think, oh, I wonder if there is a way that we can sort of foster love of reading in kids, like from the freedom kill.
Speaker B:A love of books.
Speaker B:It's such a shame because often you'll recommend a book and people be like, no, I had to do that at school, so I hate it.
Speaker B:Oh, but there's a.
Speaker B:There's a world in which you like it, but it's so hard to get there.
Speaker B:And I think giving people agency in some way, that was what I always found hard about school, was that by the time you're, you know, doing your A levels, even when you're doing your GCSEs, you're younger, you are a full person with opinions and an ability to move through the world like an adult.
Speaker B:And then you have to sit in a classroom and be told to analyze chapter four of Pride and Prejudice.
Speaker B:And you're like, so, yeah, handing people a little bit of agency over their own life at that age, when they are essentially an adult is really freeing.
Speaker B:And it's like saying that you trust them.
Speaker B:I think so often children feel like they're not trusted to make their own decisions.
Speaker B:I mean, it could have gone really badly.
Speaker B:I could have messed up.
Speaker A:Well, no, I think you wouldn't know, because then you almost have something to prove, don't you?
Speaker A:You know, that you've stepped out of doing something that's out of the ordinary.
Speaker A:Do you know where your English teacher is now?
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, I'm still in touch with her.
Speaker B:She's got my book.
Speaker A:Has she?
Speaker A:Oh, lovely.
Speaker B:She was a really transformational force on my life.
Speaker B:She was a little bit like, have you seen Dead Poet Society?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:Oh, it's that film.
Speaker B:Where is it Robin Williams?
Speaker B:Is that really inspirational teacher?
Speaker A:Oh, yes, actually, I think I have.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, she was like that.
Speaker B:She was so good.
Speaker B:I think she taught us for gcse, and we did.
Speaker B:On our first lesson, she had us all stand on the desks and jump off the desks one by one, shouting sex as loud as we could.
Speaker B:And we were obviously teenage girls.
Speaker B:We were giggling away.
Speaker B:And this was like the weirdest thing anyone had ever had us do.
Speaker B:And then she looks at us, she's like, right, now, you've all had a giggle and you've said the word sex.
Speaker B:No more giggling for the rest of the year.
Speaker B:We're treating it seriously.
Speaker B:And that was it.
Speaker B:She was like, you've got it out your system.
Speaker B:You've done your giggling.
Speaker B:Now we're going to go forth the rest of the year.
Speaker B:And I'm not having any smirking when we talk about sex or anything like that.
Speaker A:She's just amazing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Just great at being like, I'm gonna treat you like adults, which was so nice.
Speaker A:Yeah, amazing.
Speaker A:Oh, I'm glad she's got your book.
Speaker A:I was like, it must be lovely for her to.
Speaker A:To have that Land.
Speaker A:So Rumors of youf.
Speaker A:I have to just say very quickly, this was picked by Sarah Winman when this series was on Instagram, because obviously still life.
Speaker A:And I said to Sarah, I'm going to read that one day and I haven't, so I will.
Speaker B:You could also watch the film.
Speaker B:There's that gorgeous film with Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands.
Speaker A:I haven't watched that either.
Speaker A:Okay, maybe I'll do that.
Speaker A:No, I can't.
Speaker A:That's cheating.
Speaker A:It's a short book.
Speaker A:I will do it.
Speaker A:Okay, let's move on to book number three.
Speaker A:Lucy.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:How did you feel when you looked at my list and saw the Collected Poems of John Donnell?
Speaker A:Well, funnily enough, I read it all the time.
Speaker B:I bet Helen's not going to be thrilled when I add the poetry of 16th century clergyman John Donne.
Speaker B:But Helen, it's so much fun.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:John Donne was the horniest man ever to exist.
Speaker B:His poems are filthy.
Speaker B:I think a lot of people are intimidated by 400 year old poetry with good reason.
Speaker B:There's a lot of.
Speaker B:It's very dry John Donne, just such sexy poems.
Speaker A:Oh, really?
Speaker A:I would not have guessed that.
Speaker B:I mean, the thing is, most of John Donne's poems are poems he wrote to his mates about wanting to get women into bed with him.
Speaker B:It's mainly him whinging about people not sleeping with him and he's just so funny.
Speaker B:This was so.
Speaker B:I read this at school as well and this was really eye opening for being like, oh wait, people in the past were funny.
Speaker B:This thing of.
Speaker B:I think there's a sense because the main way we perceive people from the past is through black and white photographs or like portraits where they all look very dour and they're not smiling and they're not having fun.
Speaker B:So you just assume that's how they are.
Speaker B:And then you read these poems and you're like, oh, of course they like had piss ups with their mates and wrote filthy poetry.
Speaker B:Of course they laughed.
Speaker B:Like, of course they had a sense of humour.
Speaker B:And his poems were the ones that really brought the past alive for me in that sense.
Speaker B:So he's just, yeah, such a, like teenage boy for so much of it.
Speaker B:But he is also, he contains multitudes.
Speaker B:So half his poetry is this like really filthy love poetry where he's just trying to get women to go to bed with him by any means necessary.
Speaker B:And half of it is really poignant and heartbreaking religious sermons.
Speaker B:So he began, he's a man who embodies so much contrast and change, which is also what I really like.
Speaker B:He was born a Catholic and died Protestant, Dean of St.
Speaker B:Paul's Cathedral or Anglican.
Speaker B:But he contains all these changes and all these multitudes.
Speaker B:And I just love that you can find anything in his poetry.
Speaker B:So the collected poems of John Donne is.
Speaker B:Because you can find everything of life in there.
Speaker B:And he really just embodies so much.
Speaker B:Yeah, there's just.
Speaker B:I think I can find every single.
Speaker B:If you ever need anything, it'll be in these poems.
Speaker B:And I completely understand that.
Speaker B:People be like, they look tricky and dull, but they're just poems that need a little bit of attention and then they unlock for you and they're really fun.
Speaker B:Yeah, I've had some of the most fun time with poems have been these poems.
Speaker B:One of his most famous ones is the Flea.
Speaker B: which is, I think in the like: Speaker B:They vaguely believed that when you had sex, your blood's mingled, Right.
Speaker B:So he uses this image of a flea where he's like, okay, you see the flea that just bit you, and then it just bit me.
Speaker B:So our bloods are mingling in the flea.
Speaker B:We're having sex inside the flea.
Speaker B:Anyway, we've basically had sex already.
Speaker B:Come to bed with me.
Speaker B:We've done it like first time done within the flea.
Speaker B:Now let's have sex.
Speaker B:And the poem goes through all of this, like really like, pretzeling himself into this mad logic.
Speaker B:And then it ends with the woman smashing the flea.
Speaker B:So it's just so much fun and really just strange.
Speaker B: I mean, to be writing in the: Speaker B:And just to be writing about having sex inside a flea, you're like, you weird little dude, John Donne.
Speaker B:What's up with that?
Speaker B:I think a key part of his appeal is also he was very hot.
Speaker B:So there's the portrait of John Donne that we have, which is called the Jimi Hendrix Portrait.
Speaker B:And Katherine Rundle described his attractiveness as being such that he deserved walk on music wherever he went.
Speaker B:So, like, he's just really larger than life.
Speaker B:And I think people should give him a chance.
Speaker B:He's a lot more fun than you'd think.
Speaker A:I thought when I saw this list.
Speaker A:There is absolutely no way she's going to be able to say anything that would make me even want to pick up this.
Speaker A:And suddenly I've got walk on music, Jimi Hendrix sex poems.
Speaker A:I'm like, sign me up, right?
Speaker A:But I think poetry is.
Speaker A:That sort of is another Thing, isn't it from school, you think, oh, well, I guess I only started really reading poetry in lockdown.
Speaker A:I bought Nikita Gill's book.
Speaker A:Oh, it's gorgeous.
Speaker A:I can't remember what it's called, Where Hope Comes From.
Speaker A:I think it's the lockdown one.
Speaker A:And that was.
Speaker A:I was like, oh, gosh, I've really enjoyed that.
Speaker A:And it's something.
Speaker A:I often come back and think I should try more poetry.
Speaker A:But it's just.
Speaker A:It does sort of think.
Speaker A:Sit in that sort of category of something.
Speaker A:You have to learn to understand and appreciate properly, like art or, you know, the classics as well.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Which is so silly, because the way to understand poetry is just like, read it and enjoy it.
Speaker B:And the first way to do it is just like, do you like the sound the words make together?
Speaker B:And I think also, again from school, we're so trained to digest poems by getting our highlighters out and underlining all the similes and things.
Speaker B:Whereas the way to do it is just to read it out loud and go, oh, those words feel nice together in my mouth and to feel it that way.
Speaker B:Have you got Ella Risbridge's poetry anthology, Set Me on Fire?
Speaker A:No, this is so good.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:This is her spirit of poetry as well, where she's like.
Speaker B:Lots of people think that poems have to be about big things like love and the soul.
Speaker B:And she's like, poetry can be about texting your friend and getting ramen.
Speaker B:That's also poetry.
Speaker B:That's also poems.
Speaker B:And it's this anthology which is full of a really joyous and interesting bunch of poems where you're like, oh, yeah, this is fun.
Speaker A:I was just trying to look.
Speaker A:I was trying to think of the other poets.
Speaker A:I know she's on my shelf somewhere, but I can't see it now.
Speaker A:Is it Holly?
Speaker A:Holly, Holly.
Speaker A:Holly McNichol.
Speaker A:Did she write Slug?
Speaker A:Is that hers?
Speaker B:Possibly.
Speaker A:That's one I've sort of been dipping in and out of as well.
Speaker A:So, I mean, I'm blown away.
Speaker A:I thought that on the list.
Speaker A:I was like, yeah, that's not gonna happen, but maybe it will.
Speaker A:Well done, Lucy.
Speaker A:That's a win.
Speaker B:Bringing 16th century filth to the people.
Speaker A:What a claim to fame.
Speaker A:Okay, let's move on to book number four, then.
Speaker B:So this is in the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado.
Speaker B:And this.
Speaker B:I think Carmen Maria Machado is one of the.
Speaker B:Well, she's one of our cleverest living writers.
Speaker B:She is so brilliant.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:Have you read this?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:No, I looked it up, actually.
Speaker A:I Was like, it sounds really good.
Speaker B:In the Dream House is an account of an abusive relationship and her attempt to get out of this relationship.
Speaker B:And it goes from the enthrallment to the poisonousness of this relationship.
Speaker B:And she uses the metaphor of the dream house for this relationship and the idea of you cannot get out of the house.
Speaker B:And the book is her attempt to get out of the house.
Speaker B:But the thing I love about this book and the reason it's on my list is because it really emboldened me in terms of what a book can be and what writing can be.
Speaker B:It's a book where you read it.
Speaker B:And I read it, and I was like, oh, wait, you're allowed to do that.
Speaker B:So every chapter of the book is different.
Speaker B:And it begins with Dreamhouse as prologue, and then there'll be a little prologue, and then it says Dreamhouse as like inspirational quote or epigraph at the beginning.
Speaker B:And every single chapter is the Dream House as something else.
Speaker B:And she writes the chapter in that mode, if that makes sense.
Speaker B:So I'm just looking through.
Speaker B:It's like Dreamhouse as erotica.
Speaker B:There's an erotica chapter.
Speaker B:Dreamhouse as omen, Dreamhouse as Star Crossed lovers.
Speaker B:And she does every single chapter where, like, the story progresses, but every mode is different.
Speaker B:And one of the best chapters is this chapter called it's the Dream House as choose your own adventure.
Speaker B:So, you know, choose your own adventure novels.
Speaker A:Loved those.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Where you read it and then you get to the bottom of the page and it says, you know, if you want to do this, go to this page.
Speaker B:It's such a clever way of describing this abusive, coercive, and controlling relationship.
Speaker B:Because there's this chapter which, I mean, it's got a little bit of like, a scenario.
Speaker B:I think it's waking up in bed and they've, like, had a little argument or something.
Speaker B:And then the bottom of the page, it says, if you apologize profusely, go to page 190.
Speaker B:If you tell her to wake you up next time, go to page 191.
Speaker B:If you tell her to calm down, go to page 193.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So it gives you these options.
Speaker B:Scenario.
Speaker B:And depending on what you choose, you go to the page, and in each one it ends disastrously.
Speaker B:And then it says, okay, go to 195.
Speaker B:And so you get this sense of nothing you can do in this relationship is right.
Speaker B:And it makes you feel this entrapment.
Speaker B:And then you've seen the scenario on page 190, 191.
Speaker B:And then you turn to page 193 and it just says, you shouldn't be here.
Speaker B:There's no way you can get here with the options given.
Speaker B:You cheated.
Speaker B:And it does this horrible thing where it accuses you of cheating by getting to this page and it's like, get out.
Speaker B:What are you doing here?
Speaker B:And it's this really anxiety inducing experience as a reader because you feel the abusiveness of the book towards you and it's such an incredible way of making you feel the very immediate emotions.
Speaker B:So I think the subject matter feels quite heavy for this book, but it's such a experimental and exploratory way of embodying it and it's ultimately hopeful, I think.
Speaker B:But that was a book that just blew my mind wide open in terms of what a book can be, what you.
Speaker B:How you could write, the ways in which a book could play with forms.
Speaker B:Just a really.
Speaker B:It's really compulsive as well.
Speaker B:You read one chapter and then you read the next one because you're in a completely different scenario in a way.
Speaker A:That sounds amazing.
Speaker A:I'm definitely gonna add that one.
Speaker A:Maybe sort of another one to sandwich between.
Speaker A:Sounds like it's not a sandwich between some light reads.
Speaker A:But yeah, when I looked it up, I was like, actually it's interesting because I looked up.
Speaker A:I didn't.
Speaker A:When I read the description, that didn't really come across very well.
Speaker A:I think I would have sort of been quite surprised by the sort of format, but I love the idea of that, so.
Speaker A:Oh, loosely.
Speaker B:I don't know how they would describe it.
Speaker B:That did.
Speaker B:It does accurately convey it.
Speaker B:It's always interesting trying to work out the best way to like package a book to.
Speaker B:To make sure it delivers on its promises.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, I quite like going in blind sometimes.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Sometimes I'll do that without books and I get proof.
Speaker A:So I'm like, I'll just pick it up, just see.
Speaker A:Which I quite like.
Speaker A:It's quite exciting.
Speaker A:Quite exciting to do.
Speaker B:Surprised by a book.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, there's nothing better, is there?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:We've got your final book, which I've nearly bought this book several times, so.
Speaker A:And I've never bought it, which is weird for me.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Okay, this is the Idiot by Elif Batuman.
Speaker B:And this is a book where I'm not sure.
Speaker B:It's like.
Speaker B:I wouldn't say it's shaped my life, but it feels like it reflects my life in a way where this book feels like the diary I never kept.
Speaker B:And so when I read it, I was like, great.
Speaker B:I'm like, I didn't need to write a diary.
Speaker B:It's all in here.
Speaker B: in, who arrives at Harvard in: Speaker B:And so much of the joy of this book is just being in this intense academic setting in the 90s, which is such a.
Speaker B:Even though it feels so recent, it's clearly such a different world.
Speaker B:I think it begins with her.
Speaker B:I'm saying she begins by saying something like, I had heard of email and I knew that in some sense I would have it, but I still don't understand what it was.
Speaker B:And so you're immediately like, okay, this is a pre email time.
Speaker B:Or like email is the most exciting thing that could ever happen.
Speaker B:And it's the story of Celine's first year at Harvard studying literature.
Speaker B:And it's one of the few books I've read where.
Speaker B:So one of my things about academic like academia set books, like dark academia is they always use academia as a setting and nothing more.
Speaker B:And I'm always there going, no, take me to the lecture, I want to sit in on the lecture and know what you're talking about.
Speaker B:And this book brings you to every seminar and you're involved in every conversation.
Speaker B:And it's so good because Selen is just there, quite baffled by everything that's going on around her.
Speaker B:So there's a bit where they're studying.
Speaker B:I think it's Anna Karenina.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And she's like, I just wanted to know why Anna had to die.
Speaker B:But the entire seminar was about whether Russian farmers felt that they were part of Europe.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:She's constantly feeling like she.
Speaker B:The things she cares about in books like why did Anna have to die?
Speaker B:Are somehow beside the point or they're thought of as irrelevant.
Speaker B:She's like, I don't want to talk about European agricultural collectives.
Speaker B:I want to talk about why Anna's dying in this book.
Speaker B:And it's just a really great book about the sort of.
Speaker B:Okay, this book is one where I, I think is the book where I have taken photos of the most pages and sent them to friends and been like, haha, it us in a sense of just sending these.
Speaker B:And my friend did the same.
Speaker B:She sent pictures to me and we were talking about it and she was just like, it completely sums up the stupidity and the fun of talking about books.
Speaker B:So I think if you're someone who talks about books a lot or thinks about books or studies books, this is just such a great one for being like, it's all so silly and so Fun.
Speaker B:And it's a book about being a very intelligent person and also an idiot, which I think is such a distinction you don't always see, but she's constantly feeling like a little idiotic dude while also being one of the smartest people in any room.
Speaker B:Um, it's just a really fun time.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:I love the mix between your books as well.
Speaker A:I think it's probably the most interesting mix we've had so far.
Speaker B:Like, I read pretty much anything.
Speaker B:I like when people are like, what genres do you read?
Speaker B:I'm like, the idea of reading just a genre.
Speaker B:I really find lots of different things in different books.
Speaker B:And I'm also aware that the boundaries between genres are so blurred anyway.
Speaker B:And I think, you know, the purpose of genre is to know where to put books in shops.
Speaker B:But, yeah, I think when you, yeah, just dip into loads of different things, you are so often surprised.
Speaker A:Yeah, we're just having this with my daughter.
Speaker A:She's doing a challenge for this reading challenge, and she's got to read all these different genres.
Speaker A:And one's like science fiction, one's like fantasy.
Speaker A:And I'm like, darling, that's, you know, just read whatever you fancy.
Speaker A:It doesn't.
Speaker A:Don't, like, try and pigeonhole your.
Speaker A:Try everything.
Speaker A:I mean, I say that I'm.
Speaker A:I do try to be.
Speaker A:And I think actually since doing Bookstagram and all this, I do sort of pick up things that I wouldn't have before.
Speaker A:And I love it when you pick up something you think you're not going to like and you love.
Speaker A:So I.
Speaker A:I'm really struggling here because I feel like I want to add all of these.
Speaker A:And I've literally just said I'm not adding any more books.
Speaker A:But, yeah.
Speaker B:Is your book limit also on audiobooks?
Speaker B:Because I.
Speaker B:I find audiobooks a really good way of studying.
Speaker A:I love audio.
Speaker A:I love audio.
Speaker A:I do.
Speaker A:I mean, I've said this before.
Speaker A:I read them.
Speaker A:So I have the physical copy and listen at the same time and then sort of do a little bit of both.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:This is.
Speaker A:This has been a dangerous episode for me.
Speaker B:Well, the genre thing is so interesting because that's what in the Dream House is like.
Speaker B:Because in the Dream House, you'll have a chapter which is Dreamhouse as sci fi, and then you'll have Dream House as fantasy or Dream House as a Hallmark movie.
Speaker B:And you get, like, the same story told progressively in all these different modes.
Speaker B:And it's such an example of how the story is the emotional heart, and the mode is like Just the lens you look at it through.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think definitely the last.
Speaker A:Why I say that, I don't know.
Speaker A:They're all going to have to be added.
Speaker B:I think you need to read A Room with a View if that's.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's also.
Speaker B:I think it's one of the smallest of my list.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:Yeah, you got it.
Speaker A:Well, I've got 13 books to get through for the first one, haven't I?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, Lucy, if you could only read one of those books again, which one would it be?
Speaker A:Are you going to go with a sea?
Speaker A:Are you going to sneak in 13 books?
Speaker B:I've known this question was coming and I still can't choose.
Speaker B:I might go for the John Donnell for the aforementioned reason of all of life is in there.
Speaker B:And these poems make me laugh.
Speaker B:They make me cry.
Speaker B:I mean, you know when people are like, laugh out loud.
Speaker B:And you're like, it's, you know, actually laugh out loud.
Speaker B:I laughed out loud at some John Donne poems.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Is it a big book as well?
Speaker A:I feel like it's going to be a chunk.
Speaker A:Oh, no, it's not too bad.
Speaker A:Yeah, that'll keep you going.
Speaker B:You can still see my little school, like, you know, you have to name and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, that's cute.
Speaker A:That's so cute.
Speaker A:Oh, Lucy, it has been so lovely.
Speaker A:I have loved chatting to you.
Speaker B:It's been such pleasure.
Speaker B:And also it feels like a really full circle moment because while I was writing the Artist, I used to listen to Best Book Forward.
Speaker B:And whenever I'm stuck with my writing, I need to, like, go for a walk and just fill my ears with writers talking about, like, their process or their books.
Speaker B:And so I just used to listen to your podcast and it's like, may, like the book wouldn't have been written without that.
Speaker B:It's weird, but, like, it does feel like you sort of went into the writing of this book.
Speaker B:So to be talking to you out the other side feels like, oh, that.
Speaker A:Makes me really emotional.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:I can literally picture stomping up and down the canals, listening to your podcast, trying to sort out prop plot problems, and usually by the time I got home, I'd sort it out.
Speaker A:Oh, well, that's because we've had so many wonderful authors who've been really generous with their information and their tips and things, so.
Speaker A:Oh, that's really wonderful to hear.
Speaker A:Thank you so much, Lucy.
Speaker A:I absolutely loved that conversation.
Speaker A:And honestly, I'm genuinely, really touched to hear that this podcast has played even a small part in Lucy's journey that's just so incredibly special to me.
Speaker A:If you haven't yet had the pleasure of reading the Artist, please, please do pick it up.
Speaker A:It is without a shadow of a doubt one of my absolute top reads of the year, and I truly believe that you'll fall in love with it too.
Speaker A:I really do hope you enjoyed delving into Lucy's literary world as much as I did.
Speaker A:I'll be back next week chatting with another wonderful author about the books that have shaped their life, and I would absolutely love for you to join me for that episode too.
Speaker A:In the meantime, if you've enjoyed our chat today, I would be so grateful if you could take a moment to rate and review the podcast.
Speaker A:It really helps others discover the best book Forward podcast and of course subscribing means you won't miss a single episode, but perhaps the biggest compliment you could give is to tell a friend who you think might enjoy our bookish conversations.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for listening, and I can't wait to chat with you all again next week.
Speaker A:Until then, happy reading.
