The Complexities of Sisterhood: Fran Littlewood on The Favourite
Oh my goodness, chatting with the wonderful Fran Littlewood in this episode of Best Book Forward was an absolute joy from start to finish!
Fran joined me to natter all about her absolutely fabulous new novel, The Favourite – which is just a brilliant, rollercoaster family saga about the Fishers. Their seemingly normal family holiday gets completely turned upside down when Dad accidentally lets slip... wait for it... that he has a favourite daughter! Talk about awkward!
In our chat, we dive into how Fran's own life as one of three sisters helped spark the story, how our relationships with our siblings really do shape who we are, the rollercoaster ride of parenting and ageing, and how our memories of the very same family moments can be hilariously (or sometimes frustratingly!) different from everyone else’s!
This episode was recorded in March (Season 3 took a little longer to bring to life than I'd hoped), the good news is there is no need to preorder you can rush to your local bookshop and grab your copy today!
And of course, as always, we uncovered the five incredible books that have played a huge role in shaping Fran's life. Get ready to add these to your list (or maybe revisit some old friends!):
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
Hey Yeah Right Get A Life by Helen Simpson
Also mentioned in this episode:
A huge thank you to the lovely @MrsMarr and @NicTheBookWorm! I really hope you enjoyed hearing your brilliant questions answered on the show.
If you enjoyed this episode (and I really hope you did!), it would mean the absolute world to me if you could take a few moments to rate, review, and subscribe – and even better, tell all your bookish buddies about Best Book Forward!
Have a fantastic week, and I'll see you back here next Thursday for more bookish fun!
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Best Book Forward.
Speaker B:I'm your host, Helen and this is the podcast where we discover the books that have shaped our favourite authors lives.
Speaker B:Think Desert Island Discs.
Speaker B:But for book lovers today, I'm delighted to be welcoming Fran Littlewood to the show.
Speaker B:Fran's debut novel, Amazing Grace Addams was a New York Times bestseller, a Today show read with Jenner Pick and also one of my favourite reads.
Speaker B:Fran's new novel, the Favourite publishes in June and it is another cracking read.
Speaker B:The Favourite follows the Fisher family as they navigate a week long holiday which is thrown into total disarray by a shocking revelation.
Speaker B:Their father has a favourite daughter.
Speaker B:As tensions rise and secrets surface, the family is forced to confront the question, will it take falling apart to truly come together?
Speaker B:In this episode we'll be diving into the dynamics of the Fisher family, exploring character motivations whilst not revealing any of their secrets.
Speaker B:And of course, later in the show we'll be discovering the five books that have shaped Fran's life.
Speaker B:Whether this is your first time joining us or you're back for more book chat, a warm welcome to you.
Speaker B:If you're enjoying the Best Book Forward podcast, please do consider subscribing.
Speaker B:That simple click makes a huge difference in helping this show to reach more book lovers.
Speaker B:With that said, let's get on with the show and welcome Fran Littlewood.
Speaker B:Fran, welcome and thank you so much for joining me on Best Book Forward today.
Speaker A:Oh, hi.
Speaker A:Thank you for having me.
Speaker B:I'm so excited to be chatting to you.
Speaker B:I loved your debut, Amazing Grace Adams and your new book, the Favourite is absolutely.
Speaker B:We were just saying, we've just talked for probably about 20 minutes before we started recording about it, but we have saved some for you, all the juicy bits.
Speaker B:So we're recording this in March and the favourite comes out in June.
Speaker B:Hopefully by the end of this conversation we will have got you to hit that pre order button because you don't want to miss this one.
Speaker B:So Fran, do you want to start off by giving everyone a flavor of what the Favorite is about?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So I've got it here.
Speaker A:So this is the favourite and it's the story of these, these three Fisher sisters and their father Patrick, who in a moment of crisis inadvertently reveals that he has a favourite daughter.
Speaker A:So yes, quite a lot to unpack there.
Speaker A:So it's the story of the, of the Fisher family and they're on holiday for a week in this sort of incredible glass house, glass house that has featured, I should say, on Grand Designs and it's the first Time.
Speaker A:They've been away for a long time.
Speaker A:And early in the holiday there is an almost accident.
Speaker A:I'm going to be opaque about it.
Speaker A:I don't want to sort of any spoilers.
Speaker A:At which point Patrick lets slip the father that he has a favorite and that precipitates the sort of slow unraveling of this, of this family and as they are trapped in this glass house with no escape.
Speaker A:So yeah, it is a book about family and about siblinghood and about those scripts that we can't escape.
Speaker A:So there's Alex, Nancy and Eva, you know, the sort of the beautiful one, the clever one, the screw up.
Speaker A:But it's about memory as well and the sometimes wildly different versions of the same past.
Speaker A:So these sort of three sisters.
Speaker A:And I'd tap into those sort of different, different experiences of often of the same event.
Speaker A:And I would say ultimately it's a book about what to hold on to and when to let go.
Speaker B:Oh, okay.
Speaker B:So much I just said to you.
Speaker B:I think this has probably been one of the hardest interviews for me to prepare for because there's so much that I could sit and chat to you about.
Speaker B:But I really don't want to ruin it for everyone.
Speaker B:So we will dive into some of the characters, we'll chat about your writing and a few things that jumped out me that I loved as well.
Speaker B:But we're going to start with a listener question.
Speaker B:So this comes from Mrs.
Speaker B:M.A.
Speaker B:charlotte on Instagram, who would love to know how you came up with the idea for such an intriguing plot.
Speaker A:Yes, so.
Speaker A:So I have three sisters and I also have three daughters.
Speaker A:And in this sort of fairy tale esque way, my youngest sister also has three daughters and my older sister has, ruining the symmetry, two daughters and a son.
Speaker A:My mom is one of three sisters and a brother.
Speaker A:So there is a lot of sister energy in our family.
Speaker A:And so I kind of thought, you know, I'm very well positioned.
Speaker A:I'm an expert in the, in the field and I love family stories and stories about sisters.
Speaker A:I think so many people do actually.
Speaker A:The first crabbalist, kind of Claire Lombardo I read recently and the bee sting, these sort of fish.
Speaker A:Fabulous.
Speaker A:So I really, really wanted to, to write sisters.
Speaker A:And also I think looking at my three daughters, I wanted to draw this line between the way I felt me and my sisters were, were compared growing up.
Speaker A:Not by my parents, I have to say, but by family, friends, teachers, boyfriends, you know, in that way there's, there's three of you.
Speaker A:You're a child, you're very.
Speaker A:There were 14 months between me and my older sister and a couple of years between.
Speaker A:So I, I really felt that.
Speaker A:That comparison that women feel anyway, and then watching my daughters and the awful social comparison online, I just thought, gosh, this is so similar and particular.
Speaker A:Lot of it obviously circling around beauty and the cult of pretty.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So I think those two things really made me want to kind of tackle this.
Speaker B:It's so interesting because actually when I was reading the favorite, there were a couple of points I thought, you know, you have to be so careful with children and what you say say or how you act around them.
Speaker B:There's a thing I can't remember because it wasn't in my notes.
Speaker B:I haven't written it down, but one of the girls reads a diary and it was like an innocentish thought that was written in the moment.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, you can see how that's really played out in her life.
Speaker B:When I do cards for my kids, I have twins, I have them side by side and I'm like, are they both the same?
Speaker B:Ish.
Speaker B:You know, like I really.
Speaker B:But it can carry through your life what could be just a thread throwaway comment and as you say, like social media and all the sort of, you know, the way you look, the way you are, the clever one, the pretty one, whatever.
Speaker B:That's really interesting.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The scene that you're talking about.
Speaker A:So this is seen in the past sections of the book.
Speaker A:So that we sort of have this, it's.
Speaker A:It sort of covers a week, but almost 40 years as well.
Speaker A:The book.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And this is as a child, Alex reading.
Speaker A:She finds Patrick's diary in a.
Speaker A:In a bedroom drawer and she reads it and she gets to the section.
Speaker A:There's not much written in it, but she gets the section about her youngest sister's birth, Eva who.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And there's a line where Patrick has written born on this day, you know, and she's the most beautiful one so far.
Speaker A:And this is sort of something that then goes on to sort of haunt Alex through her whole life.
Speaker A:And as you say, it's that throw away with my.
Speaker A:And I know I've done it with my kids, you know, in a moment of kind of frustration or anger, something that you've said that you don't think, God, I may overheard that.
Speaker A:And now they're sort of identifying with that as their script for they're going to be in sort of therapy 30s, I think.
Speaker A:And my mom said I was the lazy one.
Speaker B:My father in law said to me when my two were very little like during their.
Speaker B:That tantrum age.
Speaker B:And he was like, whatever you, you're going to mess them up in some way.
Speaker B:He said, but as long as you do everything with love, you can justify it later.
Speaker B:He's like, but know we're all going to mess up at some point.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker A:And I think as hard as you try, as hard as you try and you realize kind of becoming a pairing yourself, I think it does let your parents, your own parents, off the hook in much more ways.
Speaker A:It's impossible.
Speaker A:It's because we're so hardwired, yet biologically, we are hardwired for parental approval.
Speaker A:And actually, really interestingly, researching the book, one of the things that really struck me is this kind of carries on.
Speaker A:It carries on into kind of midlife and beyond this sort of the sibling rivalry, the fundamental kind of in our gut fight for, you know, survival.
Speaker A:Isn't it at the end of the day, you know, to have your parent on side.
Speaker A:It still, it remains, it's still there, the residue of that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's funny that the whole favorite thing because my two will be like, do you have a favorite?
Speaker B:And I'm always like, it's impossible for one parent, for a parent to love one child more than another.
Speaker B:And they're like, I have a favorite.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because they try to like work out of me.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:I love to call them all my favorite at different times.
Speaker A:Of course.
Speaker A:You're my favorite child.
Speaker B:See, I can do.
Speaker B:You're my favorite son and you're my favorite daughter.
Speaker B:Then it's covered.
Speaker B:Okay, shall we talk about the sisters?
Speaker B:And were any of them.
Speaker B:So you've obviously all these sisters in your family.
Speaker B:Did you draw any of your own family in or is it like little bits from.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting and it's the same.
Speaker A:When I was writing Grace, I sort of magpie all these different bits for.
Speaker A:For the narrative.
Speaker A:So there is a scene in there.
Speaker A:There's the Chinese lantern scene where this.
Speaker A:And again, this is one of the childhood scenes where the sisters, led by Nancy, the middle child, decide that they're going to eat these Chinese lanterns.
Speaker A:We kind of come into the scene where they are being made by the.
Speaker A:By the adults to throw or drink salt water and throw up in the.
Speaker A:In the bathroom whilst one of the parents is on the phone to the poison unit.
Speaker A:This is so.
Speaker A:Things like that.
Speaker A:But yes, that is a.
Speaker A:That was the good old 70s childhood.
Speaker A:So I sort of draw.
Speaker A:I mean, there's a rich, rich theme of Stories to draw.
Speaker A:So I have Magpied Sun Bits, the Dartmouth Park Hands, which is the house where the Fisher sisters grew up.
Speaker A:And it's a house that Patrick and Vivian bought in.
Speaker A:In flats in an absolute state.
Speaker A:And they.
Speaker A:They sort of built.
Speaker A:They built this house as they sort of built their family.
Speaker A:And yeah, when I was growing up, we.
Speaker A:Lots of people were buying where we've got these Regency houses that were in a real.
Speaker A:A real state and nobody wanted them.
Speaker A:Everyone wanted the modern houses.
Speaker A:So this was sort of one of the houses at the.
Speaker A:At the center of the book is sort of based around.
Speaker A:Yes, one of my childhood homes.
Speaker A:And there's a.
Speaker A:There's a banister which has the spindle.
Speaker A:I was getting the bits running out.
Speaker A:And we had this banister in my.
Speaker A:In my childhood home with basically just an enormous gap.
Speaker A:And I was.
Speaker A:My sister was two.
Speaker A:My youngest is when we were four.
Speaker A:My mum was sort of.
Speaker A:Sort of said, well, I told you to be careful.
Speaker A:You know, and my sister has a.
Speaker A:Here's an interesting thing.
Speaker A:And we're sort of differing memories.
Speaker A:My younger sister has a memory of one of her friends actually falling through and sort of holding on to the thing.
Speaker A:And I don't remember that at all.
Speaker A:We've been talking about it recently with the book.
Speaker A:So she's sort of like, what did it.
Speaker A:Did it happen?
Speaker A:This whole kind of unstable memory, false memory.
Speaker A:Did it actually happen?
Speaker A:So, yes, I've magnified little beautiful bits like that and sort of sewn them into the narrative.
Speaker A:But yes, I sort of always think some of the things that have happened.
Speaker A:I've got a big sprawling family and some very eastenders moments.
Speaker A:But if you sort of put them in a book, people would.
Speaker A:Would be sure that didn't happen.
Speaker B:We're kind of the same.
Speaker B:I'm going to go off track again.
Speaker B:Just like we will come back onto memories.
Speaker B:But how did your sisters feel when you said, I've written this book, it's about sisters as family.
Speaker B:And the dad reveals that he has a favorite.
Speaker B:How do they feel?
Speaker B:Have they read it yet?
Speaker A:Yeah, they have.
Speaker A:Yeah, they have read it.
Speaker A:I did.
Speaker A:My younger sister hasn't finished it yet and she' and don't tell me what happens at the end, I think.
Speaker A:And my mum, too, my dad isn't alive anymore.
Speaker A:Died a couple of years ago.
Speaker A:But I think they found it quite weird reading in the beginning to try and kind of.
Speaker A:Because it's three sisters and we're three sisters to sort of kind of be going, this isn't us, this Isn't us, you know, and this is quite meta some of the.
Speaker A:In fact, my dad died while I was writing it, so and obviously I was sort of tapping into a lot of my sort of preoccupations and thoughts in childhood.
Speaker A:So I have sort of written him into the book in certain ways and not obvious ways, really.
Speaker A:So Vivienne is a.
Speaker A:Is a secret smoker and none of her family know about it.
Speaker A:And my dad was also a secret smoker and thought we didn't know, you know, so.
Speaker A:So that kind of.
Speaker A:Those kind of things I have.
Speaker A:I've written in the end.
Speaker A:And my mom very quickly sort of said, no, I realized this.
Speaker A:This character Vivian was not me and it isn't them.
Speaker A:But I think just because those couple of little things I've mentioned that I've pulled certain anecdotes from our childhood in different places.
Speaker A:I think that's kind of.
Speaker A:This is sort of weird for them.
Speaker A:But, yeah, quite quickly, I think you get into the plot and the story and.
Speaker B:Yeah, really special though, as well.
Speaker B:It must be lovely for them to read once they've sort.
Speaker B:I mean, I know I would be like, oh, gosh, is that me?
Speaker B:Is she saying that was me?
Speaker B:The paranoia would probably be high for me.
Speaker A:Well, it's so interesting, actually, because all the responses so far, you realize it's this kind of the universal in the specific.
Speaker A:And I know people talk a lot about birth order and the sort of different roles that different siblings take in families.
Speaker A:And yeah, there are so many kind of universal things.
Speaker A:In fact, when I submitted the book to my editor in the US she wrote back saying, you have written my family.
Speaker A:I don't know how you've done it down to.
Speaker A:What can I say that's not a spoiler.
Speaker A:No, I can't say that.
Speaker A:But really very specific thing.
Speaker A:She also had a secret smoking parent.
Speaker A:But one of the things that happens to Eva, the younger sibling, and for.
Speaker A:No, I can't.
Speaker A:She had a child very young, Eva in the book.
Speaker A:And a similar thing had sort of happened in my American editor's family.
Speaker A:She's also one of three siblings.
Speaker A:And I sort of explore that whole thing in the book about the fact of this grandchild coming along very early.
Speaker A:And she had lived with the parents with Vivian and Patrick.
Speaker A:So that sort of closeness that the other siblings had felt left out of when their own children came along later.
Speaker A:And yes, my US Editor was saying hard relates all over the place.
Speaker A:So, yes, it has definitely tapped into sort of a common conscious.
Speaker B:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:I don't Think we'll ever.
Speaker B:I mean, like, family stories, family dramas are just, you know, it's just so much.
Speaker B:And like, you will see, really, it.
Speaker B:But it is.
Speaker B:It's that sort of like, it's so intimate because we're with them for this week.
Speaker B:That should be so special.
Speaker B:You know, it's the mum's 70th birthday.
Speaker B:It starts off with this incident, you know, then sort of all unravels when the dad accidentally sort of reveals this secret.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But, yeah, you just think it's so interesting because you do feel like you're sort of watching because we get the backwards and forwards as well in time.
Speaker B:You know them, you know their childhoods, you can see how they all interact.
Speaker B:It's so interesting.
Speaker B:I love it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it's all those kind of repressed memories, the things we don't want to know, actually, that start kind of, particularly in the case here of the oldest sibling, Alex, who is the kind of keeper of the family flame.
Speaker A:She doesn't like her parents to be criticized to the point that she would rather blame another sibling than blame the parents, even if the parents are at fault.
Speaker A:And it was so interesting.
Speaker A:I did so much research.
Speaker A:I read some incredible sort of psychology books on psychology of siblinghood, and lots of them were sort of talking about these.
Speaker A:These various roles that.
Speaker A:That different siblings can.
Speaker A:Can take and, and digging into that.
Speaker A:This sort of the family law, you know, we have our family codes and there are the children among children into adulthood who fit into that and those that try desperately to fit in, that can't, and those that.
Speaker A:That never fit in.
Speaker A:So all of those sort of things that I wanted to.
Speaker A:To unpick and the resentments that can.
Speaker A:That can unfold from.
Speaker A:From that and that continue into, you know, into midlife as well, and beyond.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so it's just these girls, they're not girls, they're women.
Speaker B:But, you know, there is a lot of love between them, but they do.
Speaker B:They have their resentments and things, but there's.
Speaker B:It's so believable because, you know, even when they're mad at each other, you know, you can.
Speaker B:There's a scene at the end again, which sister is like, these women are, you know, sort of driving her crazy, which is.
Speaker B:Just feels so much love.
Speaker B:And I was like, that's.
Speaker B:I have a sister and a brother and, you know, I'm the youngest.
Speaker B:Shops the best, let me believe.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's just really interesting, I think, like the whole dynamics as well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, I think it's that Thing that our siblings, they.
Speaker A:They validate and they invalidate us, which is something that was in, again, one of these kind of fabulous books that I read.
Speaker A:And they absolutely do, you know, so we see, as you say, this kind of incredible love between the sisters.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:When the chips are down, they are each other's people and they will be there for them no matter what.
Speaker A:But at the same time, yeah, they're sort of.
Speaker A:They can also be absolutely awful to them, and it's the little things and those sort of physical things.
Speaker A:So with.
Speaker A:With Alex, who has a sort of bit of a receding chin, you know, which has been picked upon by her two siblings from a young age, you know, so in the book, they're kind of saying, alex, have you lost something?
Speaker A:Have you lost something?
Speaker A:I think I found it.
Speaker A:I think I found your chin.
Speaker A:You know, we can all identify with those awful, awful things that friends would never do.
Speaker A:But siblings will go there because, you know, you've got this kind of.
Speaker A:Oh, for me, this has been my experience.
Speaker A:I know this unconditional love underneath it.
Speaker A:But that's not to say the residue of that doesn't stay with you, actually, as you kind of move forward into.
Speaker A:Into adulthood.
Speaker A:But, yes, I mean, that is one of the reasons that I think, again, I sort of wanted to write this book at this time.
Speaker A:I was thinking, thinking of it, it was just after lockdown, and my sisters were absolutely my people in lockdown.
Speaker A:You know, I've got my wonderful, wonderful friends, but actually, there's that real.
Speaker A:Yeah, just the.
Speaker A:The pull of them and the closeness and their sort of arms around you.
Speaker A:It really was a kind of real moment of realization.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So given that you've got this big family, this.
Speaker B:Now I'm sort of understanding a little bit more.
Speaker B:I'm like, this question's probably not as difficult as I thought it would be, but I was thinking when I first read it, I was like, there's a lot of storylines, there's characters, so we're going backwards and forwards.
Speaker B:And I was like.
Speaker B:I was imagining it must have been quite tricky for you to plan.
Speaker B:Was it tricky or, you know, is that something that you're sort of quite used to?
Speaker B:And also, did you always know how this was going to play out?
Speaker A:Yeah, I'll answer the last bit first.
Speaker A:I didn't always know how it was going to play out.
Speaker A:I knew there had to be.
Speaker A:So actually, the idea of.
Speaker A:I love this idea of this almost accident that sort of kicks off events.
Speaker A:There's an almost accident, and nothing happens but everything happens and that kind of starts this, his family unraveling.
Speaker A:And so actually, I was sort of sitting with that.
Speaker A:And there's a film, Force Majeure.
Speaker A:It's a Swedish film.
Speaker A:It's the most brilliant film which has kind of similar concept.
Speaker A:There is a.
Speaker A:There's an avalanche and a family of four at a ski resort, and they're sitting in a restaurant at the top of a mountain, and this avalanche is coming towards them.
Speaker A:And in this moment, the father of the family leaves.
Speaker A:He leaves his family, his wife and his two kids behind, and then the avalanche stops right before it gets to the cafe.
Speaker A:And so it's that sort of nothing happens and then.
Speaker A:And everything happens.
Speaker A:So I love that idea.
Speaker A:So I've.
Speaker A:That's how I've been thinking about that for a long time.
Speaker A:So, yes, I had that at the beginning and then I thought, how on earth am I going to get from that point to the end point to sort of.
Speaker A:Then, you know, nobody's really saying anything.
Speaker A:They're very much in denial.
Speaker A:One of us, Alex, is in denial that the older sister at the beginning, Nancy, is much more.
Speaker A:I knew this was going to happen all along.
Speaker A:And Eva is sort of, you know, hedging her bets.
Speaker A:So I knew I had quite a long way to get through to the end before the sort of drama started happening.
Speaker A:But, no, I knew there had to be an event at the end that would sort of.
Speaker A:This family sort of deconstructed over the course of the narrative that dismantled, and then something that would sort of bring them back together at the end.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And I didn't know what that event was going to be.
Speaker A:So now I didn't have the ending.
Speaker A:I had the sort of structure of it.
Speaker A:And I think it's funny, it's the same with Grace, with my structures.
Speaker A:I always.
Speaker A:It does seem to come quite organically.
Speaker A:So I've done this sort of.
Speaker A:There's the present day strand and then this past strand that sort of starts way, way back with Alex as a child, is the first chapter in the past and runs forward.
Speaker A:But I think I just couldn't really see another way to write it.
Speaker A:So it came kind of quite, quite, quite organically.
Speaker B:Yeah, but that's like.
Speaker B:With the backwards, you feel like you.
Speaker B:Because all of the sisters have their flaws.
Speaker B:I love a flawed character, but as you're going back, you start to understand it more.
Speaker B:It's like, I don't know if you didn't have that backstory, if you wouldn't have sympathy or sort of care about them as much as you do.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it feels like it had to be that way for.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:No, you're absolutely right.
Speaker A:And people have really, I think, chimed with those particular backstories, their childhood stories, because, again, I think everybody has their thing and they're quite little things, a lot of most small things, but that have left a big mark into.
Speaker A:Into adulthood.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:I mean, the approach that I always take is in every chapter, I just kind of sort of throw a bomb into the room so that I feel like if I don't want to write this chapter, I feel like no one's going to want to read it.
Speaker A:So it is that kind of something happening in each thing.
Speaker A:And because of the way the plot, there had to be certain things that had to be a certain.
Speaker A:In the order of siblinghood.
Speaker A:It had to be a certain character that certain things happened to.
Speaker A:So my hands were kind of tied on that in terms of which characteristics I gave to which sister.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, it's so interesting.
Speaker B:We're going to move on just to talk about the mum, Vivian.
Speaker B:We were talking about this before we started recording because there's a scene very early on which I just thought was so beautiful and so poignant.
Speaker B:I think it's gonna be one that a lot of women will be touched by and sort of think about.
Speaker B:And Vivienne is watching her daughter.
Speaker B:So these women who are in their 40s and she's noticing their signs of aging and sort of reflecting on her own, but also that sort of marveling of, like, how did they come from me?
Speaker B:Like, which I just thought.
Speaker B:I've seen lots of women's stories where it might be them caring for their aging parents or looking after their children, but I haven't seen that sort of aging mother looking at her children growing and what that means to her.
Speaker B:And I just.
Speaker B:I think it's really, really beautiful.
Speaker B:So I'd love to know, for you as a mum, how that was for you to write that story, that little piece.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, Vivian.
Speaker A:So Vivian's about to turn 17.
Speaker A:The book.
Speaker A:This is one of the reasons they gathered for her 70th birthday.
Speaker A:And I just.
Speaker A:I have.
Speaker A:My three daughters are now 21, 18 and 15.
Speaker A:And it is that most bizarre thing that you see.
Speaker A:So I was.
Speaker A:We were just chatting earlier.
Speaker A:So my middle daughter has just turned 18.
Speaker A:And we put together just for.
Speaker A:For a card, photos of her in sort of every birthday up to the age of 18.
Speaker A:And looking at these photos, thinking, you know, who is that person you Know, and that sort of yearning you want to sort of get back to, you know, could you just have a day with that?
Speaker A:And they're the same person, but different, you know, and it's such a strange, strange thing to think, you know, knowing my sort of 18 year old daughter as I know her now, to think that baby and that toddler, it was the same person.
Speaker A:And they are the same in so many ways, but also so different, this, this evolution.
Speaker A:And I feel the same way about my sisters.
Speaker A:And so, yes, all of this I wrote into the books.
Speaker A:I think all of the sisters have a point when they are kind of.
Speaker A:That there's one scene and they're all getting a tattoo down the sisters and one of them is looking at the others and looking at her.
Speaker A:Alex, who has become a teacher and is there with her sort of lanyard around her neck.
Speaker A:And Nancy, who's a doctor, who's her, but looks more like an opera singer.
Speaker A:And looking at them and sort of thinking, these are the same people that I, you know, sat in the lounges after school and watched telly and you know, and yet here they are as sort of grown women and I, you know, it's something, I think I certainly felt it with my sister.
Speaker A:I felt it with my, with my daughters.
Speaker A:They're the same, but different.
Speaker A:And those questions of identity of, you know, who were we and who have we become?
Speaker A:And I, I think also there's that sort of feeling, I certainly feel it of, you know, have you somehow betrayed your, your true self in a way, you know, as you, I think once you move out of those childhood years into the more straight jacketed teen years and something, I think we can reemerge as we come into that, that midlife.
Speaker A:But yeah, that was something I wanted to investigate as well.
Speaker A:This feeling of, I think Nancy in particular in the book, wanting to get back to the person that she felt she was.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I loved that.
Speaker B:I thought it was really, really special.
Speaker B:I can't wait for people to read that and be able to sort of chat to them about it.
Speaker A:Oh, thank you.
Speaker B:In your intro you mentioned the house, which is something I'd love to talk to you about.
Speaker B:This amazing glass house.
Speaker B:It's almost like a character or a presence throughout the book.
Speaker B:It's, you know, it has its own role.
Speaker B:So I'd love if you could talk to us about the house and its relevance in the story as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, completely.
Speaker A:So there are the two houses, really.
Speaker A:So there is the glass house, which is in this wilderness and there's a lot of weather in this book.
Speaker A:I was like to write the climate and sort of my nudge to the climate crisis in there.
Speaker A:So it's, it's almost this sort of liminal space actually the glass house where the family are here for a week and everything starts to change from them.
Speaker A:They're in this kind of huge sort of moment of sort of steadily gathering flux.
Speaker A:But it's this seemingly perfect house.
Speaker A:You know, it's beautiful, it's exquisite, but there is a seeping bad smell in the house.
Speaker A:And I think really I was thinking a lot about curated social media, about consumers, humorism, about what you see is not necessarily what you get.
Speaker A:And so in terms of this family and this sort of, yes, it's sort of an image of perfectionism, the glass house, but really, actually it's see through and we're starting to see through to the, to the secrets and the sort of the darker depths that's sort of underneath this family.
Speaker A:But also it was really in contrast to the house that I've mentioned before, the Dartmouth park house where the Fisher sisters grew up and the house that Patrick and Vivian bought.
Speaker A:And as I say the same, that they dismantled this house that was in flats and they built it together and that was sort of building their family.
Speaker A:And the Dartmouth park house is imperfect.
Speaker A:You know, it's got scratches in the walls and it's got a wonky spice rack and a broken chair, but it's a home, you know, And I feel that this, again, getting back to that notion of, of memory and homes being a real repository for our memories in a literal sense, but also in a more philosophical sense in the.
Speaker A:Our past selves are stitched into the fabric of the houses that we, we've lived in.
Speaker A:And I think, again, I think a lot about this is my daughter's.
Speaker A:A house that, that we lived in before, this house that we brought them back to as babies, you know, and gosh, you know, that's such a huge part of your identity and who you were.
Speaker A:I still dream about my childhood homes, you know, but it's, it's, it really kind of, it builds you, it's.
Speaker A:It's a part of you and, and yeah, a repository for memories.
Speaker A:And I think that's sort of analogous with that sort of the sisterhood.
Speaker A:Your sisters are also repositories for your memories and you might, you may have experienced them in different ways and often do.
Speaker A:And there are sort of, I try to show that in the book actually how they, how they have experienced the same event in A very different way and kind of rewritten it as we've gone on.
Speaker A:So, yes, I loved writing those houses and yes, the imperfection versus the seeming perfection.
Speaker B:And I would take the imperfection every time.
Speaker B:Yeah, I loved reading about the glass house and as you say, like, the smells coming.
Speaker B:It was like really sort of.
Speaker B:It's just like it did.
Speaker B:It felt like a presence in those scenes as well, which I just love.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And Vivienne sort of sang the past is treading on my heels.
Speaker A:So there's something weird about this place.
Speaker A:It's quite.
Speaker A:Quite kind of.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I wrote a bit of sort of fair.
Speaker A:I realized I was sort of writing a lot of fairy tale references in there and it feels like a bit of a sort of eerie fairy tale space.
Speaker A:The darker side of that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, amazing.
Speaker B:Okay, so we've got a listener question just to end from.
Speaker B:This is Nick the bookworm, who is on Instagram, who is asking if you have siblings yourself, which know you do now, and whether you have a favourite.
Speaker B:Now, given that we know the chaos that can come from saying who your favourite is, I'm going to give you an out.
Speaker B:And if you want to pick a favorite from the favorite, you can go there rather than upsetting two of your sisters.
Speaker A:Do you know, it's so funny, isn't that?
Speaker A:How interesting I thought, oh, people will ask me, do I have a favorite child?
Speaker A:Or am I the favorite child?
Speaker A:But not do I have a.
Speaker A:Oh, I love both of my sisters so much.
Speaker A:And this is what you kind of realize and spit.
Speaker A:Why.
Speaker A:I think I used to think we were really similar.
Speaker A:And then you realize, you know, how different we are in.
Speaker A:In so many ways.
Speaker A:Oh, I couldn't.
Speaker A:I couldn't pick a favorite.
Speaker A:Attempting to and then get them.
Speaker B:I really don't want you.
Speaker A:I don't want you playing this back.
Speaker B:What we could do.
Speaker B:Or we could record different versions so you could say each of them.
Speaker B:Yes, yes.
Speaker A:But, you know, the funny thing is, Helen, I don't.
Speaker A:I couldn't even pick my favorite sister in the book.
Speaker A:I'll tell you why.
Speaker A:When I write, I write bits of.
Speaker A:I think Stephen King talks about this as well in his own writing.
Speaker A:And in fact, this is true of every character.
Speaker A:I write pieces of myself into each of them.
Speaker A:I think, as I see it in quite a filmic way.
Speaker A:So I'm sort of stepping into that character and that space.
Speaker A:So I don't.
Speaker A:I feel like honestly, that almost would be asking me to pick my favorite child.
Speaker A:I will say to you, the people who have, who have said they've had a phobia so far.
Speaker A:Most of them do say Nancy, who I have birthday in middle child and I'm middle child and my husband is like, you've given, you've given her all the best finds.
Speaker A:I don't think I have.
Speaker B:I have to say I felt like Dancy.
Speaker B:I not so much related to, but I just.
Speaker B:There's so much.
Speaker B:It's so hard to talk about because I don't want to ruin anything.
Speaker B:But there's so much about her that there's like vulnerability and strength and all this sort of stuff that I was like, I just felt a connection with her probably.
Speaker A:So that's interesting.
Speaker A:I mean they all, as you say, they're all, you know, beautifully perfectly flawed and they all go on a, on a journey and I mean Alex goes on a huge journey in the booker and I was so invested in Alex's story.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, man.
Speaker B:So shall we say to Nick then we're going to learn from Patrick's mistakes and not reveal a favorite?
Speaker A:Yes, because actually this is one thing that the research shows that having a favorite is horrendous on all the siblings and even actually the favorite.
Speaker A:And yes, because you see that I won't say the favorite is in the book but you know, the guilt that comes with it and that worry of resentment.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Okay, well let's, let's, let's not do that then.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So the favorite is a story about rivalries and long held resentments.
Speaker B:About loss, grief and blame, but above all, love.
Speaker B:It is also a brilliant read.
Speaker B:Read one that I loved and I cannot wait for you all to read.
Speaker B:So maybe grab your sisters or your girlfriends and read it together.
Speaker B:The favourite is out in June and it's.
Speaker B:If it's one that you like sound of, please do pre order it because it makes such a huge difference to authors.
Speaker B:So click that, click that.
Speaker B:Add to basket.
Speaker B:So before we move on to talk about the books that have shaped your life around, just to remind listeners that all the books will be linked in the show notes so they'll be easy, easy to find.
Speaker B:Okay, how did you find choosing your five?
Speaker A:Oh, see that was like picking your favorite child.
Speaker A:I just have to be very brave.
Speaker A:Is that what other people say?
Speaker A:Yeah, and actually I didn't pick my favorites.
Speaker A:I tried to pick ones that was, I mean they were, you know, favorites in the broadest sense, but ones that were sort of significant at certain moments in my, in my life.
Speaker A:So that's how I sort of squared it.
Speaker A:With my, with myself.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think that's why I've always sort of tried to do is like as you say, if you pick your favorites, what you pick today might be different in, you know, a few weeks or months, whatever.
Speaker B:But yes, in your life they do sort of transport you.
Speaker B:I mean, I will look at books on my shelf and I will remember where I was when I read it or what it meant to me as well.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So yeah, okay.
Speaker A:It's true.
Speaker B:So three of the books that you've picked haven't been picked before or the authors haven't.
Speaker B:And I'm really, really surprised because when I started doing this series, they were names I had sort of on my list.
Speaker A:Oh, I wanted to remember to tell me which ones those are.
Speaker B:I will do.
Speaker A:I'm intrigued.
Speaker B:Come on then, Fran, tell us about your first book.
Speaker A:So I had to pick Ena Blyton.
Speaker A:I had to pick her and I picked specifically Malorie Towers because I think of all of them.
Speaker A:I believe so strongly in reading what you love.
Speaker A:And I loved those books, you know, with an absolute passion.
Speaker A:And my poor mum, who would be kind of, will you please read something?
Speaker A:And I did of course read other, other things.
Speaker A:Yeah, your room of gardens and bedknobs and room six.
Speaker A:All of her, you know, secret garden, all that stuff.
Speaker A:But Ina blind had my heart, you know, and I think she just, I mean, you know, if we could set aside the slight political dubiousness.
Speaker A:But she just wrote for children in a way that I sort of think Food in the far away Tree, you know, was it for me, I think it was hot tempered Daryl Rivers.
Speaker A:You know, I just connected with them.
Speaker A:I just absolutely adored them and kind of escaped to those spaces.
Speaker A:And yeah, I have to tell you I.
Speaker A:I took them on to such a degree that I got in quite a lot of trouble at my.
Speaker A:Not my infant school, my junior school.
Speaker A:And I think when I was seven, I know it was in the first year and I'd had a, an altercation with the teacher.
Speaker A:I'm not.
Speaker A:I can't remember what it was about.
Speaker A:But I went home that night and wrote a letter of apology.
Speaker A:And I remember that I wrote on the back of the letter, I wrote a quote from the naughtiest girl, so from spoilt Elizabeth Allen with her also who also had a hot temper which was obviously quite.
Speaker A:Yes, the hard relates to me.
Speaker A:And I wrote on the background and still remember the quote.
Speaker A:I'm a bold bad girl.
Speaker A:Beware.
Speaker A:I bar, I bite.
Speaker A:And I took this in the next day to give to the teacher, who was like a teacher out of like a Roald Dahl thing with sort of a shelf of bosom.
Speaker A:So I was living and reading those books.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker B:How brilliant to see their reaction.
Speaker B:Wouldn't you love to be in the staff room when everyone talking?
Speaker A:Did she come up to me in the playground afterwards?
Speaker A:I think she was quite sort of.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Found it quite amusing and it's quite.
Speaker B:I think that's brilliant.
Speaker A:Ena blights him in the back.
Speaker B:You got an A from.
Speaker B:From Villain to Hero.
Speaker A:I have to say, I revisited them with my kids and I'm afraid that Ena had lost her touch.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Goodness.
Speaker A:Like, really?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But, yeah, my kids didn't like them.
Speaker B:No, actually, they.
Speaker B:They did love the Magic Faraway Tree on audiobook because it's read by Kate Winslet and she reads it so beautifully.
Speaker B:So they would listen to that over and over and over again, actually, to sit down and read the books of them.
Speaker B:Not interested.
Speaker A:No, they did not stand the test of time for me, unfortunately, which, as.
Speaker B:You say, it's like Ena Blyton's never been picked on this series, which I was absolutely convinced.
Speaker A:What does everybody else probably pick?
Speaker B:Sort of dick, really high brow.
Speaker A:But it's something reading has always been about for me.
Speaker A:I mean, not always that sometimes you're kind of reading for curiosity and reading because you want to kind of know what it's all about and.
Speaker A:But I think go high, go low.
Speaker A:I just, you know, reading for love.
Speaker A:Yeah, that feeling.
Speaker B:But we.
Speaker B:I mean, we had all that.
Speaker B:Do you remember the hardback books, like.
Speaker B:And they'd have like the little white sort of band at the top.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's my brother, my sister.
Speaker B:I just loved that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, that's the other thing about the Kisma.
Speaker A:It's the wrong cover.
Speaker A:These cartoony covers.
Speaker A:And so, you know, and all of your kind of childhood books, you are transported by those covers.
Speaker A:You know, you're back there.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But I think it probably her books, probably, as you say, this, like, will sort of sidestep the problems.
Speaker B:But for a lot of us, I think probably of our age, you know, she did probably form a lot of us into readers.
Speaker B:I loved, like the Famous Five and all of those.
Speaker B:That was amazing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I loved reading before then.
Speaker A:I was thinking, I do remember, you know, you remember when used to read through with your bookmark, Janet and John and I.
Speaker A:The other one.
Speaker A:I'd be so interested if anyone else can remember this.
Speaker A:Roger Red Hat, Billy Blue Hat.
Speaker A:These are like really early readers.
Speaker A:Like I think sort of four or five.
Speaker A:And I googled them and trying to find them.
Speaker A:I don't think this is a false memory having been talking about, but I just remember that sort of visceral love of those.
Speaker A:Yeah, Very early book.
Speaker B:Oh, okay.
Speaker B:So we're going to move on then to book number two.
Speaker B:Have you got them there?
Speaker A:I've got it here.
Speaker A:I didn't have Enid by.
Speaker B:Oh wow.
Speaker A:Nancy.
Speaker A:Nancy.
Speaker A:What a gorgeous blog.
Speaker A:Well, funny enough though, I found this in a, in a secondhand bookshop in Norfolk recently and, and so I'd reread it quite recently, which I, I don't usually reread books, I don't go back there.
Speaker A:But I picked this because this was sort of from my teen years, sort of going forwards chronologically and we didn't have YA back then and we didn't have kind of the book club books and I felt there was a real, a real gap.
Speaker A:So for me it was kind of you could either read the classics.
Speaker A:So I sort of, you know, you did your Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and you did a bit of Jane Austen, but I'm not certain I really understood the social satire at, you know, 12 and 13.
Speaker A:And then there was things like Lace, you know, Shirley Conrad, which don't get me wrong, Resin loved the Thornbirds obsessed with Richard Chamberlain and things like Wilt.
Speaker A:I remember, you know, Tom Sharp Wilt, which is sort of, you know, a book about a kind of middle aged polytechnic lecturer and his nagging white, you know and I mean it's quite funny but I really compared to what, you know, I, my kids have had access to, I just think it just felt sort of my mum's farewells and I don't, you know, really wasn't the moment.
Speaker A:So when I found the Nancy, my parents copies of Nancy Mitford.
Speaker A:So the Pursuit of Loving a Cold Climate as well.
Speaker A:I absolutely love them.
Speaker A:And so funny and irreverent, wonderful characters, you know, the girls and young women and also this sort of shambolic the Radlets, this sort of aristocratic family.
Speaker A:And I have got this huge extended family of cousins and aunties and great uncle, you know.
Speaker A:So I think I related with that but just the width of it and the vernacular actually of these books.
Speaker A:So my dad loved them.
Speaker A:So he was.
Speaker A:So there's Uncle Matthew is the sort of cantankerous patriarch in a book.
Speaker A:So he was sort of quote from him.
Speaker A:And also the Narainte Fanny, her mother is called the bolter in the book because of her wayward her wayward ways.
Speaker A:Dashing off of various men.
Speaker A:And my dad, the less sad about that the better.
Speaker A:But he had a group of friends who called themselves the Bolters and they'd go off on their bird watching.
Speaker A:So I think it was a real kind of family book.
Speaker A:And I just remember.
Speaker A:Yeah, there were.
Speaker A:There were not very many books I felt really passionately about during that.
Speaker A:That period.
Speaker A:But yeah, Nancy Mifflin.
Speaker A:Yeah, loved.
Speaker A:Loved them.
Speaker B:I have never read one of her books.
Speaker A:Oh, honestly, you might.
Speaker A:I mean, to be honest, because I re.
Speaker A:As.
Speaker A:Again, I don't really.
Speaker A:I reread it again recently and it really does kind of.
Speaker A:Yes, that's something that has stood the test of time.
Speaker A:But they totally sort of.
Speaker A:You'll be subsumed by.
Speaker A:By the family and the characters.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I will definitely have to give it a try.
Speaker B:It's interesting you say about the ya.
Speaker B:I think it's.
Speaker B:Come on.
Speaker B:My daughter is a massive reader.
Speaker B:She's doing a reading challenge at the moment.
Speaker B:So she's.
Speaker B:She's come down, she's like, I need to find a YA horror.
Speaker B:I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker B:I think there's so much out there.
Speaker B:It's like for them and I think it's.
Speaker A:I think so.
Speaker A:And at the point that mine didn't want to read the YA stuff anymore, which is quite early on.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Then there's the stuff that's more in that kind of book club, more accessible and Yeah, I just.
Speaker A:I feel really envious.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:Because I.
Speaker A:It's that kind of reading apothecary thing.
Speaker A:It's finding the thing that really speaks to.
Speaker A:To you.
Speaker B:Oh yeah.
Speaker B:So, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:She's really.
Speaker B:She's an interesting sort of stage because she's clearly sort of experimenting with genres and things and she's.
Speaker B:I think she's leaning slightly more towards like fantasy.
Speaker B:But then she.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's that sort of thirst that she's got at the moment.
Speaker B:So I keep like.
Speaker B:Anytime she asks me, I'm like, here, here, here, here.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Feed it.
Speaker A:And trying to find the thing as well.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Well, on the other hand, her brother just.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Just does not read at all.
Speaker B:I think boys are a little bit more tricky to get into reading sometimes.
Speaker A:Oh.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:To discuss.
Speaker A:But I will save it for my.
Speaker A:For my next book.
Speaker B:Oh, well, your next book is.
Speaker B:Are we going in the order you sent them to me?
Speaker A:Yes, I think so.
Speaker A:Have you got.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I haven't read this one, the Secret History for ages.
Speaker B:I Feel really intimidated by this book.
Speaker B:Go on then.
Speaker A:I'm feeling.
Speaker A:Because essentially I've been talking.
Speaker A:So I've been talking about all these books with people this week.
Speaker A:It's so interesting how we're picking them.
Speaker A:It's essentially, it's a murder mystery with a nice sort of, you know, and it has amazing sense of place.
Speaker A:This, this book, it is, you know, very, very visceral.
Speaker A:It's very talented.
Speaker A:Mr.
Speaker A:Ripley or Saltburn.
Speaker A:It's got the kind of.
Speaker A:The sort of voyeuristic outsider, the narrator, who is beguiled and seduced by this sort of group of wealthier students.
Speaker A:I think I was asking someone else.
Speaker A:I feel like it's the sort of og dark academia book from sort of way back.
Speaker A:I don't know if it was the first, but I feel like it was.
Speaker A:Oh, no, it's surreal.
Speaker A:It tracks along, although not as much of a pace as actually lots of books now.
Speaker A:But the reason I picked this was because I did an English lit degree and I having been forced to read, you know, however many books, I fell out of love with, with reading during that time.
Speaker A:And my mum always used.
Speaker A:So she had a friend, Brenda, who worked in a chocolate factory one summer and at the beginning of the summer she loved chocolate and by the end of the summer she couldn't bear the smell of it.
Speaker A:And so I did.
Speaker A:I did.
Speaker A:I completely.
Speaker A:I had had enough of reading.
Speaker A:By the end of university, I think I was distracted by other things as my social life, it wasn't the moment for me, but this was the book, the secret history that made me fall back in love with reading.
Speaker A:And again, sort of talking about that thing of it has to be the right book, finding the right book at the right time.
Speaker A:And so interesting what you were saying about your kids.
Speaker A:So two of my kids have sort of, you know, their reading has really sort of Peter with voracious readers and then during the teenage years have sort of dwindled some of that as you're fighting, obviously with hideous screen time and social media.
Speaker A:But it does make me wonder if there is a kind of brain plasticity thing, something that goes on maybe to do with concentration.
Speaker A:I certainly felt it, you know, having just read and let, you know, have the sort of teetering pile by my bed.
Speaker A:So it may.
Speaker A:It does make me wonder.
Speaker A:And then one of my kids has kind of continued to in reads kind of hugely and broadly.
Speaker A:And I just keep saying, I think you're better read than I am.
Speaker A:She's such a, you know, has a thirst for it, but they're returning to it.
Speaker A:So my, my oldest daughter, and I think it is she felt well, growing.
Speaker A:Grace came out.
Speaker A:This is my bit of a showbiz story, Helen.
Speaker B:Okay, go on then.
Speaker A:Not me.
Speaker A:When Grace came out, I got an amazing quote from Leanne Moriarty, which was amazing.
Speaker A:And I think because my daughter saw the Liang quote on the top of Grace, she went out a while after and bought herself apples.
Speaker A:Never for the Lian, but which actually is another amazing family.
Speaker A:And she just loved it.
Speaker A:And because I'd had this quote from the Anim I'd emailed via my editor to thank her, I was able to send her a little email saying I have to thank you again because thanks to you, my daughter has fallen back in love with reading.
Speaker A:So that was, that was her.
Speaker A:And since then, this Christmas, it was just the two meeting Leanne Moriarty, you know, and I'm sort of thinking like what, you know, Maggie Farrell and going on.
Speaker B:But yeah, yeah, I think there are because I know when I start.
Speaker B:So this series originally started on Instagram during like COVID lockdowns.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, what would your desert island books be?
Speaker B:And when I did mine, I sort of went through from childhood when I got sort of like teens to my sort of twenties, I really was like, oh, there isn't a book that I'm sort of really sort of obviously picking out.
Speaker B:And I didn't go to university, so it's not that I over read or anything, but I think you do sort of have a period where.
Speaker B:I mean now I live in fear of a reading slump.
Speaker B:I'm like, please don't give me a reading slump.
Speaker A:But I do that sort of rewiring.
Speaker A:And yeah, I want to know what your picks were.
Speaker B:I'll send you them.
Speaker B:I'll send you them.
Speaker B:My childhood one was the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Speaker A:Oh, yes.
Speaker A:I mean, so yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Well, I will try and read the Secret History then I might try and do it as a book club one.
Speaker A:Yeah, I honestly, I would.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm rereading it for the first.
Speaker A:I've been meaning to reread it since I read it and have started started again just to remind myself what it was about it.
Speaker B:And did you fall straight back in?
Speaker A:No, well, no, I think it's never the same going back.
Speaker A:I think you can never.
Speaker A:It's hard to recapture it because I think you've kind of created this sort of perfect book in your head.
Speaker A:But yeah, it's great.
Speaker B:See, I do reread Books.
Speaker B:And I quite like reading them through, you know, my different eyes as I sort of grow up.
Speaker B:So I think it's always really interesting.
Speaker B:Like, I don't know, you will say about the.
Speaker B:The Handmaid's Tale.
Speaker B:I've read that in my 20s, 30s and 40s.
Speaker B:And every time I've read it, I've read it with different sympathies for different characters.
Speaker B:Like, you know, when I was in my 30s and sort of struggling with IVF, I was like, oh, I wouldn't be a Handmaid.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'd be a Martha.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Really interesting to read different books.
Speaker A:I mean, it's such an amazing book.
Speaker A:And that also that.
Speaker A:That's one of his books that.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And my younger daughter was desperate to read that and I was kind of like, oh God.
Speaker A:Sort of the content.
Speaker A:I don't know, how long can I hold her off before I kind of.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay, we're gonna move on then to book number four.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Oh, I've picked my goddess and Tyler.
Speaker B:Oh, that's another gorgeous cover.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker A:Do you know, with my answer.
Speaker A:So I really.
Speaker A:I have picked this back when we were grown ups.
Speaker A:But really with.
Speaker A:I'm picking her of how.
Speaker A:I can't kind of.
Speaker A:To be honest, I can barely.
Speaker A:I can't separate them out.
Speaker A:I can't remember such that.
Speaker A:I've got more than one copy of lots of Ann Tyler's.
Speaker A:I think my.
Speaker A:My mum put me onto Ann Tyler and it was one of those beautiful moments when I then could read, you know what the back catalog as it was then, you know, just sort of splurging on.
Speaker A:And Tyler, I mean, she is one of my favorite authors.
Speaker A:You know, she's so many people's favorite author and just her kind of.
Speaker A:She just writes the human condition, but she writes it with sort of this incredible quirk and sort of making the ordinary extraordinary.
Speaker A:And they're just completely immersive.
Speaker A:And I feel like these are books for me that I kind of live and breathe them and I do not want to leave the characters at the end of the book.
Speaker A:Yeah, I adore her.
Speaker B:So I haven't read that one.
Speaker B:I've read a few of hers.
Speaker B:This is the second time Helen Paris picked her breathing lessons.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:So I've read a few.
Speaker B:What I noticed was I buy a lot and then I leave them on.
Speaker A:The shelf and then.
Speaker B:Yeah, but I have just read.
Speaker B:Have you read her new one?
Speaker A:No, I haven't.
Speaker A:I've Been looking at it going, I can't, I can't buy another book.
Speaker A:I'll wait for the paperback.
Speaker A:Is it, is it amazing?
Speaker B:So pretty.
Speaker B:I really enjoyed it for such a short book.
Speaker B:I was like, I've got so much out of it.
Speaker B:It's really.
Speaker B:I really enjoyed it.
Speaker B:And then when I finished it, I was like, I must pull the other ones off the shelf that I've got of her.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have.
Speaker A:So I've read every single book of hers apartment and there's not that there are some authors I've done that with, Meg Wallitzer and who are sort of Chimamanda Negro, Dietzsche and Jennifer Egan.
Speaker A:You know that I've kind of read the whole shebang.
Speaker A:But yes, with Anne Tyler.
Speaker A:I've literally got more than one copy.
Speaker A:And I think that's because I've forgotten that I have.
Speaker A:I read that word.
Speaker A:I can't.
Speaker A:Whether I've read it or not, of course, because when you start rereading it, you then remember it halfway through.
Speaker A:But I'll tell you, I'll read you the first lines.
Speaker A:I would so recommend so back when we were growing up, only because this.
Speaker A:I just found it so beguiling.
Speaker A:So it opens with the line, once upon a time there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.
Speaker A:She was 53 years old by then.
Speaker A:And so it's everything that we were talking about as it's such a preoccupation of my levels, a preoccupation with grace and a preoccupation in sisters, this whole question of identity and who you become and who you were.
Speaker A:And the sort of central character of this book, Rebecca, she's sort of the beating heart of this family, of her, of her husband.
Speaker A:This is a step family, huge.
Speaker A:Another kind of rambling family.
Speaker A:But she's sort of in this moment in time looking back and thinking what happened to the 19 year old me who was much more serious and introverted.
Speaker A:And that question again, has she betrayed her true self?
Speaker A:In a way.
Speaker A:And I think that is something maybe, you know, in the kind of post 40 years that you start looking at who you were and who you've become and evaluating and assessing.
Speaker A:So I find that all completely.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Fascinating.
Speaker A:But it's such a great first line that sort of sets you up as though it's going to be a sort of fantasy shifted reality book.
Speaker A:But it isn't, you know, it's a little.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:That's funny you say that as well.
Speaker B:I often think like on a Friday, when I'm like going up to bed at like 9:30, I'm like, yes.
Speaker B:I go to bed and I'm like, what is 20 year old me thinking?
Speaker B:What happened?
Speaker A:Not be impressed.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And I think it's that weird thing that you think you haven't changed at all and then you kind of have these moments of thinking very specific things like that.
Speaker A:Thinking, oh yes, I have.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Or when you meet somebody from a long time ago and you think you can tell from the way they're talking to you that they're remembering you and you're like, oh, I'm not the same person.
Speaker A:So I have a brilliant one on this is that I met up with an ex boyfriend.
Speaker A:This one's girl for how five years ago now.
Speaker A:And we had gone on holiday together to San Francisco to California.
Speaker A:And he was sort of talking about this holiday and it was though I'd sort of taken a memory loss drug.
Speaker A:I was thinking, what?
Speaker A:I don't remember any of that at all.
Speaker A:And he was kind of filling in these blanks of my life.
Speaker A:It was the most bizarre experience.
Speaker A:And I sort of.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That you can't kind of.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:As though you had some blackout.
Speaker A:And I can remember bits, but not bits.
Speaker B:But that's like, I guess coming back to the favorite.
Speaker B:That sort of, you know how memories, you know, everyone's memories of the same thing are different completely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So not just your siblings.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And how you kind of.
Speaker A:And that's the thing.
Speaker A:Every time we bring a memory into consciousness, we rewrite it apparently.
Speaker A:Every single time.
Speaker A:But yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And I think also fascinating.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes, the same.
Speaker A:But the appropriated memories as well.
Speaker A:We were talking around the table the other day and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:This doesn't reflect very well on me.
Speaker A:A poor parenting moment when I'd forgotten to pick up one of my children, my middle daughter, from a drama class and her teacher had to bring her home.
Speaker A:And as you were talking about it, my older daughter said, oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Do you remember the time that Lindsay had to bring me home from my middle one looked at her and said, that wasn't you, it was me.
Speaker A:You know, which is something that I do in the book with your sisters as well.
Speaker A:But you know, she absolutely had taken that memory as her own.
Speaker B:That's so interesting.
Speaker B:I remember Kathryn Newman saying, like when your kids get to teens and they sort of start.
Speaker B:Start coming out with a list of grievances.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:You've done this wrong and this wrong and it's only going to get.
Speaker A:Oh, I love.
Speaker A:See, I could Easily have picked Sandwich, that amazing book.
Speaker A:She's fabulous.
Speaker B:I'm very excited about her new book to go back and revisit Rocky.
Speaker B:I can't wait.
Speaker A:Yes, I saw that.
Speaker B:Oh, we've just.
Speaker B:Look us, we're sneaking books in here.
Speaker B:Let's crack on back with number five, then.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So this book I've chosen is.
Speaker A:Hey, yeah, right.
Speaker A:Get a Life by Helen Simpson.
Speaker A:And yeah, I chose this book.
Speaker A:Again, I think it's that kind of the right book, finding you at the right time.
Speaker A:And so this is when I was kind of drowning in young children.
Speaker A:So I had three, I think, of five and under, and I was reading a lot of short stories.
Speaker A:It was all I felt that I could have the concentration for.
Speaker A:So I was sort of a bit of Chekhov short story and some Raymond Carvers and some more contemporary stuff.
Speaker A:And then I hit upon Helen Simpson and she's written a sort of book, a short story every five years.
Speaker A:And she very much, I think, seems to write the moment that she's in and I think often goes on and sort of frights the fancy as well.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:So this.
Speaker A:This book is very much about motherhood.
Speaker A:And she.
Speaker A:There's an introduction in.
Speaker A:I think she wrote it in the 90s, but I've got an introduction in my copy.
Speaker A:And she sort of talks about the fact that actors.
Speaker A:The time she felt nobody was writing with honesty about motherhood, that she was sort of.
Speaker A:There was a conspiracy of silence surrounding it.
Speaker A:Obviously, you know, there's been an explosion in motherhood, fiction about motherhood since then, but so interesting to think of that perspective.
Speaker A:So she really.
Speaker A:I mean, she writes superbly.
Speaker A:It's very.
Speaker A:She writes sort of the politics of parenting, really, and motherhood into it.
Speaker A:But it's so.
Speaker A:So relatable.
Speaker A:It's written in such a raw way, such a sharp, smart, clever, clever way.
Speaker A:And I think she.
Speaker A:So, in fact.
Speaker A:So I.
Speaker A:So I was reading this around the time I did my creative writing, Mat Royal Holloway, and I wrote one of my dissertations about kind of motherhood in fiction.
Speaker A:And so I.
Speaker A:So I wrote some of this.
Speaker A:And what's really interesting to me is she uses a sort of vernacular of war in quite a.
Speaker A:Quite a lot of it.
Speaker A:So one of the muggers described herself as cannon fodder.
Speaker A:And in another short story, they're linked short stories, there's a husband who says he wishes he could put a bomb under his wife.
Speaker A:And I think.
Speaker A:And I sort of remember there's that amazing Virginia Woolf quote that talks about this.
Speaker A:This is Eileen's Part of Paraffin.
Speaker A:This is an important book the critic assumes because it deals with war.
Speaker A:This is an insignificant book the critic assumes because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing room.
Speaker A:And she kind of absolutely encapsulates that.
Speaker A:That quote, I think in this book, in.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Digging into this is what an awful lot of women do.
Speaker A:We still do far more than our fair share of the domestics and the.
Speaker A:And everything else, the lists.
Speaker A:So, yes, it's kind of really digging into.
Speaker A:Into the politics of that and that this is.
Speaker A:This is an incredibly important book.
Speaker A:But more than that, it's just a brilliant read.
Speaker A:And, yeah.
Speaker B:That kind of feels to me like that really links to your books, like in that, you know, brilliant reads, important.
Speaker B:I think, you know, women read your books.
Speaker B:I know, like, when I read Grace Adams, I was like, I think people really feel seen in that.
Speaker B:I think it is so important.
Speaker B:I think fiction's got such a important role in our lives.
Speaker B:Sort of help people, you know, feel seen and things.
Speaker B:So I think that sort of links.
Speaker B:Oh, thank you.
Speaker B:I was thinking of you when you were saying that.
Speaker A:Oh, God, I love.
Speaker A:And I do remember particularly writing Grace because she was such a kind of fierce character.
Speaker A:And I do remember kind of going, oh, I hope that women are going to be punching the air reading this.
Speaker A:And it's funny, actually, because I didn't when I was writing it and also I was writing it on the back of my creative writing I made.
Speaker A:But both talking about the Ann Tyler book and that sort of the identity.
Speaker A:The women's identity, and then talking about this and that whole kind of the politics of motherhood.
Speaker A:I don't think I really consciously thought about it at time, but you realize doing this for you, going back, you see how everything you're reading is.
Speaker A:Is feeding into.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What you.
Speaker A:Your own preoccupations and fixations.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's a lovely thing to say.
Speaker B:Oh, thank you for your wonderful books.
Speaker B:So I'm going to hit you with the last hard question now.
Speaker B:If you could only read one of those books, and we're going to like.
Speaker B:I know you're already reading the Secret History, so I'll let you carry on reading that one.
Speaker B:So if you want to choose, which.
Speaker A:One would I read if I could only read one?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, I'd have to be the Ann Tyler.
Speaker A:It would have to be.
Speaker A:I nearly put in Heaven Simpson, I guess.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I would never say to somebody that's there, you can't.
Speaker B:You could have them all.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's it?
Speaker B:Put them away.
Speaker B:Pack them away.
Speaker B:Oh, Fran, it's been so lovely.
Speaker B:I think I could sit here and chat to you.
Speaker A:It's been very fun.
Speaker B:It's been so much fun.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker B:I've just loved it.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:That was so much fun.
Speaker B:I love chatting to Fran about the favourite, so much so that I could happily go and read it again.
Speaker B:Now, the favourite is out in June and if it's one that you like the sound of, please do consider a pre order.
Speaker B:And of course, if you haven't read her debut, Amazing Grace Addams, do give that a try.
Speaker B:I really hope that you've enjoyed this episode as much as I have.
Speaker B:I will be back next week chatting to another author and I really hope that you'll join me for that episode too.
Speaker B:In the meantime, if you've enjoyed this show, I would be so grateful if you could take the time to, to, like, review, subscribe and of course, tell your friends about it.
Speaker B:Thanks for listening and see you soon.
