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Hey everybody, it's Brett Benner, and welcome back to Behind the Stack, where today I am sitting down with author Meg Mason for her brand-new book, Sophie Standing There.
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Meg is so easy to talk to.
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She's funny, she's charming, she's just a delight.
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So this was a really fun conversation to have.
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A little bit about Meg.
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She is the author of You Were Mother and Sorrow and Bliss, which became an international bestseller after it was published in 2020.
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Winner of the British Book Industry Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Women's Prize, it has since been translated into more than 30 languages.
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Her first career was in journalism, beginning at The Times of London, later writing for Vogue, Elle, GQ, Sunday Style, and The New Yorker's Daily Shouts.
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Born in New Zealand, she lives in Sydney with her husband and two daughters.
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So I hope you enjoy this episode of Behind the Stack I am sitting down with the delightful Meg Mazin for her fantastic new book, Sophie's Standing Here.
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But I also have to just say I'm so thrilled to actually be sitting with you because I was such a huge fan of Sorrow and Bliss, and, it so kind of came out of nowhere, so I'm so glad to finally, just have this opportunity to say I love your writing and I'm so, thrilled you're here.
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I'm so happy to be here, and you and I fought for this.
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We really had to earn this because the, the universe interfered with us meeting, but we got there.
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We overcame, and here we are, We're high on our own ability to actually make this happen.
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So thank you very much
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We've overcome great obstacles, Um, I'm so fascinated by your childhood, which I just wanna dip into it a second when I know we weren't, we're not gonna go into deep.
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But growing up in this whole religious sect that's so fascinating.
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And I know, and we'll get into the book in a second, one of the elements of, Sophie's life is that she grew up in a cult, and I know that there's a difference between a cult and a sect, and what, what you grew up in.
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But one of the things that's so interesting about it was your reading and you're starting to read,'cause you grew up with no TV really.
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You grew up with, it was a very kind of,
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Mm-hmm.
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conservative upbringing.
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Where did the reading start?
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Where did the, where did that come out of?
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Okay, well, this is the thing.
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So Sophie grew up in a sect.
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I wouldn't, I don't know whether to call what I grew up in a sect.
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Like, looking at it maybe by some, you know, dictionary definition, it was certainly adjacent.
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But to me it just felt like, even now, it just felt like a very strict, yeah, religious environment.
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But what I'm really careful to point out in the book, and I want to be even more careful to point out in my everyday life, is that these are good people.
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I loved it.
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We were happy kids.
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You know, we had so much freedom I- in nature and, you know, in what we did and how we spent our time.
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Yeah, we didn't have TV, and we weren't allowed to listen to commercial radio, and all of these things.
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Nobody swore, and we weren't allowed to...
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The girls had to wear skirts and dresses.
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And so there were a lot of rules, and I, I know that that's unusual, but it wasn't...
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I don't have trauma from it, you know.
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So all of that is what I wanted to put into Sophie.
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and I never really thought that I would write about any of it, but I was trying to make Sophie this character who's slightly apart from everybody else.
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And so I began by making it that, oh, she doesn't swear.
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And it's like, oh, she's never been drunk and, you know, why is that?
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She's never smoked or anything.
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And then it kind of just went on and on, and I was like,"Oh, okay.
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Do you know what I've led myself to is, is the same childhood that I had." Um, but the reading for me began when I was about 18, coming up to 18, and we'd just moved countries, and my brother stayed behind, and obviously all of my best friends stayed behind.
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My whole life stayed behind, and I found myself in this new place.
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And I remember we had maybe nine months of the school, just not just the school year, but of all of school left.
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And so I wasn't gonna make friends.
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There wasn't gonna be time, and I knew it, and I tried, but I was just catastrophically lonely for that whole year, which is, you know, it's the most social year you're meant to have, and there's all these milestones and the prom.
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And I didn't go to the prom.
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I didn't go to my graduation'cause, you know, who was I gonna sit with?
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Like, it was really painful.
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Looking back, it was actually really sad.
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And I was sad.
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And mercifully for me, I found Emma by Jane Austen in that time was'cause we were meant to study it, and I read it'cause I wouldn't have read it in New Zealand.
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I would've had too many fun things to do.
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But then this turned out to be a fun thing, and I pivoted really quickly, and I studied English literature at university, made friends, thank goodness.
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But I think what's interesting, and I'd only put together, is that my mother read books.
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She snuck them into our house somehow, you know, because she wasn't born into this thing, so she'd already done her own English literature degree, and it must have been shocking to then find that reading was frowned upon and, you know, secular reading.
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So she read to us all the time, but I remember the two books that I loved the most as a little child were picture books, by which I mean they had no words.
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They were just pictures and, you know, you would tell the story yourself.
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And I sometimes just wonder if that's what I was straining towards, would be to tell the story myself.
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And I do remember I always wrote.
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Like, my mother has this amazing shoebox full of little stories that I wrote, and some of them sound so, like, I mean this in a humble way, but so novelistic.
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Like, if I can step outside myself for a minute, I'm like, this is someone who, whether or not she had a, the talent to be a novelist, she had the deep desire to be a novelist.
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But I didn't know that that was a thing'cause I hadn't read any books.
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So when I finally sort of turned to it, I was like,"Oh," but it took me Until I was 30 to maybe articulate that desire because it's hard to go around saying you wanna be a novelist and everyone's like,"Have you read this?
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Have you read that?" You're like,"No, no, no, haven't.
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Not that one either." Da, da, da.
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So anyway, so at least I had the good sense to keep it to myself.
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But yeah, I think it's been with me in some form my entire life
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That's amazing.
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I, I read once something said,"I- if you wanna know what you should be doing in your life, look back to what you did as a child."
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Age 11.
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I've heard age 11.
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I've heard the exact same thing.
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What were you doing at 11?
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And I used to have this game where I played this is really sad too, where I just sat at my desk and shuffled paper.
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That was all I did, and I pretended to write.
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Like, I don't know if I was writing.
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And my granny had this typewriter that...
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I think you and I are a similar age, but it was like a, it was like an early word processor, so you could type a whole line onto this tiny LED screen, like a calculator screen almost, and then you press return, and it came out all in one line, and it was like in Courier-type font.
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And even describing it to you now, I just gave myself goosebumps'cause I loved that thing so much, and she would let me use it.
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And I remem- I've got a novel that I wrote, like 250 words on that, on that thing.
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So I would've been around 11 then, and I just...
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Isn't it funny what you give to kids, and it's like, oh, this life-changing use of the typewriter
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Yeah, and we had one of those, we had one of those old typewriters that had the keys that literally the cl-clack, clack, cl-clack, clack, cl-clack, clack.
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I mean, the, the finger use.
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That and the rotary phones.
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I mean, God
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Oh my gosh.
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And also the address book where you slid the thing down the side and it popped open to the alphabet.
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Are you and I 100?
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Or is at least our combined age 100
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Yes.
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I'll- well, I'm 58, so I'm older than
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I'm 48, so there we go.
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Yeah, I'm much older than you are.
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I'm somewhere between
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almost Rolodex.
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You would've had your own Rolodex.
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I-
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They were starting to print paper at that point, yes.
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Oh, it's amazing
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I don't even think...
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No, I don't think I had a Rolodex at that point, but my mom had everything on slips of paper,'cause Post-its hadn't even
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Yeah.
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Packs of envelopes, index
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like just stuffed in a thing, like all the way down.
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But I loved that thing that you'd press the button, it would flip open.
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Okay.
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So, Sophie, staying there, do you have a, I know you do, an elevator pitch of the book?
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I always feel like I could give you an elevator pitch if I could jam the doors, like if I slammed that
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That's okay.
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And it could be a long building and it could be a tall building
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Exactly, right?
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And then we just decide to s- stop between floors so I can give you...
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I'll just read you the novel in its entirety.
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It is a novel about Sophie, who is 37.
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She's a technician at a literary festival, so she's in sound production, which is now ironic'cause you and I just struggled for 15 minutes to even get our AirPods to work.
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So clearly it's not autobiographical in that regard.
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Anyway, she's a very proficient, clever, professional tech at a literary festival.
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But when we meet her, she's just...
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Her, her husband has ended their marriage.
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She's...
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This is four months after that moment.
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So even though she's really popular at work, you know, her Gen Z colleagues really love her.
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She's got a best friend.
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She's got a brother that she adores.
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She looks around and her life is suddenly incredibly depopulated.
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There's just no one there, so you can see where I got the loneliness thing from.
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But in the middle of all of that, she connects with a novel.
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She's a big reader.
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She connects with a novel that she'd sort of read a long time ago and it didn't move her, but it does now because, you know, she's, I guess, she's aged into the, whatever this target audience, I guess.
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There's something about this novel that just speaks to her.
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And as well as getting very attached to the novel, she gets incredibly attached to the author in the way that it's possible to do now.
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You know, she sort of that first day goes and does the Google deep dive.
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She listens to all the podcasts.
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She reads all the articles and develops this preoccupation with the author, which sort of moves almost into, to imaginary friend territory.
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Like, after a short time she's sort of chatting to the author in her head and then having become so familiarized with her voice, you know, the author's voice from the podcast and things, she then starts to feel that the author's speaking back to her.
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And I would say in all of that, that, you know, words like obsession and parasocial are kind of being thrown around and, but what I wanted to show is that Sophie is not unhinged.
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You know, she's an incredibly sane, very sensible person, but she's just swept up in this kind of relationship that is fulfilling all of her needs in this really difficult time.
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And because my argument is this can happen to any and all of us and probably has, like especially for readers, I'm like,"Tell me truthfully, hand on your heart, that you've never thought in the direction of a particular author." Do you know what I mean?
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Have you...
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Because you're lying.
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You know what I'm saying?
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Like, as in you have definitely had...
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You know, you've chatted to Jane Austen in your head or when you read Middlemarch you became so obsessed that you imagined meeting George Eliot.
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You know, all of those things, or a modern-day author.
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I just think that's what we readers do, and I think it's amazing.
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And then of course in the novel, Sophie thinks she'll never meet this author because, you know, Sophie lives in this unnamed but clearly very secondary city and then the author comes and meets her and that's where the story really unfolds
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And then you place this, in the book community, and you use these events that she's the technician for, and, and effectively hooking people up with their mics.
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Um, you use real-life people that everyone can identify with, which is so much fun.
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But it's such an interesting thing Making her this technician because it's also placing her in this world where you're so close to the person.
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I mean, you're intimately close to the person by threading the mic actually through their clothes, and yet to them it's the invisibility thing.
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And it reminds me so much'cause, you know, I work in casting, and so I, I, I...
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looking at this so much, but being this close to these people but you're not really a part of those people
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Yeah.
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But likewise, I would imagine for a casting director, you know, y- if you have 100 people coming into your casting room in a day, you're not gonna remember any of their names, and yet they've come in, poured their heart and soul into this thing that they're doing, you know, in front of you, and you won't, you won't...
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You'll say,"Thanks very much," you know,"Off you go." And that was their whole day.
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And it's the same for Sophie.
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It's like she pours her heart and soul into this job.
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She loves books.
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She loves reading, and she is seeking connection with anybody, which is ironic since she is actually connecting their mics.
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But of course, based on her personality, she'd never put herself forward.
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You know, she'd never actually sort of try and talk to these authors.
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But it's just, it's so interesting when it can be so...
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There's such an imbalance between, you know, in this interaction, what it means to one person and what it means to the other person, and I think that's what I wanted to show, that I don't care about the writer.
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Do you know what I mean?
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I care about Sophie, so I'm interested in what it feels like from her side.
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'Cause I guess I kind of know what it feels like from the author's side when you realize there's someone's hand definitely deep diving down your dress, but you don't have time to turn around and say hello'cause you're so focused on, like, r- learning your lines to go out on stage or whatever.
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So yeah.
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Yeah, no, it's, it's, it, it really, it's just a fascinating thing.
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and you're so in it.
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Like, you're so in that moment of like you said, it's like I...
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You just wanna be seen, and you wanna be seen by that person, and you want them to, to see you.
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and maybe it's me, I never looked at her as...
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It is lonely, but again, it's just trying to find the connection and for someone to see her and acknowledge her and see her value and her worth
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Mm,
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all of it.
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Yeah, and a specialness.
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You know, I think everybody likes to feel that they've been recognized for something.
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Like, I was a journalist for 20 years before I wrote fiction.
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I remember going to interview Eddie Izzard, the comedian, who I really loved.
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And I was walking...
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You know, they would've been in the hotel room, having 50 journalists going through in a day.
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I remember walking there and I was like,"What if, what if she noticed me?
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What if she thought I was funny, and she said, like,'After this we'll go out for lunch?'" It was never gonna happen.
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Do you know what I mean?
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In a million years.
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But I just remember thinking, you know, you think,"What if, what if they saw something special in me?" And it's not their fault that they don't.
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Do you know what I mean?
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It's just that they've met 50 of you today, and you've met one of them.
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So I think it's just a really interesting, as I said, it's a really interesting imbalance.
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And I think Sophie's such a particular personality.
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And I think when her life was all going swimmingly she, you know, it wouldn't have meant so much to her.
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But she's just lost everything, so suddenly, you know, this, these moments that she has, this might be the only physical contact she has in an entire day.
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You know, but she contains it all because she is so stoic.
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It's just that w- when she kind of goes home to her cold, empty flat she allows her imagination to flourish
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It's so funny,'cause I even think about it doing this podcast,'cause I've, certainly have had that experience even on the other side with actors where you'll be like,"Oh my God, we're gonna be friends." Or I've done it with this podcast because I've gone through with, with, you know, like anyone, you have chemistry with certain people and more than others, And I'm like,"Oh my God, we're friends now."
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Yeah.
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But also the chemistry is essential.
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You have to...
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Like, it even says in the novel about stage events with the moderator is on stage, and she explains that, you know, the author explains that it's like a 55-minute affair.
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You have to have chemistry.
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You have to kind of fall into each other and discuss and chat, and then share stuff and share your trauma and do all of that.
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And it's like,"Okay, bye.
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Cool.
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Where's my Uber's coming?" You know, and it's over, and you sort of, you cut each other dead, but you were both just doing your job, and it's such a funny world.
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And then, you know, I think in the literary festival as well, like, I've heard actors say you have these six intense weeks with these actors, you know, while you're making a movie, and then it's all over.
00:15:16.366 --> 00:15:17.427
It's like the end of camp.
00:15:17.706 --> 00:15:19.697
And it's very similar with literary festivals.
00:15:19.697 --> 00:15:28.287
You're sort of thrown in, but it's even more concentrated because maybe you'll be on stage with this author for an hour, and then they go fly off to their next one, and you fly off to your next one.
00:15:28.287 --> 00:15:39.307
And, and you sort of, y- you have to attach to these people for a short time, and it, it is kind of, you know, there's real emotional resource and emotional labor involved in that just to give a good show
00:15:39.465 --> 00:15:39.825
Sure.
00:15:40.264 --> 00:15:45.835
And I think, and you can speak to this, the, the demands of writers have changed so radically.
00:15:45.835 --> 00:15:54.144
Like we talked earlier about when Sorrow and Bliss came out, there wasn't all of this, you know, podcasting and all of these different elements to things.
00:15:54.198 --> 00:15:54.471
Mm-hmm.
00:15:54.471 --> 00:15:57.568
Well, there were podcasts, but they were never filmed.
00:15:57.928 --> 00:16:02.379
That was the thing that like six weeks ago when the book first came out in Australia, I did my first podcast.
00:16:02.379 --> 00:16:06.979
He's like,"Okay, we're filming now." And I'm like,"Why?" And you know,'cause I'm so tech avoidant.
00:16:07.369 --> 00:16:07.849
I'm not...
00:16:08.278 --> 00:16:11.168
I just don't want any part of social media.
00:16:11.619 --> 00:16:16.908
And so when it was filmed, I was like,"You mean I have to put makeup on for a podcast now?
00:16:16.918 --> 00:16:21.708
Are you crazy?" Plus also, I live in Australia, so these podcasts are for me, they're gonna be at 10:00 PM.
00:16:22.028 --> 00:16:27.938
And I'm like,"Do you know how un- unnatural it is to be putting concealer and foundation on for me at 9:30 PM just so that you can see my face?
00:16:27.938 --> 00:16:30.548
It's not why I'm in the business." Do you know what I mean?
00:16:30.578 --> 00:16:32.418
So that's all been shocking.
00:16:32.428 --> 00:16:33.808
But anyway, sorry I cut you off.
00:16:33.918 --> 00:16:34.308
Please
00:16:34.404 --> 00:16:34.654
no.
00:16:34.654 --> 00:16:44.004
All I've been saying, yeah, all I'm saying is it must be just a different thing, and I, I think about it Because there's a different expectation of how, you know, a writer used to just, it was a solitary thing.
00:16:44.004 --> 00:16:51.205
You'd write and then you'd put out a book, and then maybe you'd go to some bookstores and sign some copies and meet some of your, your readers.
00:16:51.264 --> 00:16:55.154
And now it's expected, like, let's have a social media presence.
00:16:55.154 --> 00:16:56.044
Let's have this, let's have...
00:16:56.504 --> 00:16:59.884
And it's, uh, do you find it, it's gotta be strange in a way
00:17:00.106 --> 00:17:02.486
Well, it is so strange, but I think that it's...
00:17:02.927 --> 00:17:07.287
So I was on, I was on Instagram till like 2018.
00:17:07.787 --> 00:17:14.567
And I'd written in 2018 a novel that I got to the very end of it, 85,000 words or whatever it was, and I was like,"This is no good.
00:17:14.707 --> 00:17:16.737
I'll throw it away." I was devastated.
00:17:17.047 --> 00:17:18.247
I'd been on Instagram all that time.
00:17:18.257 --> 00:17:19.037
Like, I wasn't active on it.
00:17:19.037 --> 00:17:20.507
I had maybe 500 followers.
00:17:20.517 --> 00:17:20.777
Do you know?
00:17:20.777 --> 00:17:25.156
Like, I'd written one novel before that that was fine, but it didn't, you know, change the world.
00:17:25.787 --> 00:17:33.106
And I remember,'cause I was so sad after I threw this novel away, that I kind of just looked at my life and I was like,"What is helping?
00:17:33.106 --> 00:17:35.116
What is not helping?" And Instagram wasn't helping.
00:17:35.126 --> 00:17:47.797
I remember just thinking, you know, i- if you have a certain amount of emotional resource gifted to you in a day, how much of that do I wanna spend on looking at someone's holiday that is way better than my holiday?
00:17:47.826 --> 00:17:48.507
Do, do you know?
00:17:48.507 --> 00:17:50.596
Because that drains off, what, 10%.
00:17:50.997 --> 00:17:52.436
And then whatever else.
00:17:52.436 --> 00:17:56.237
I look on Twitter and someone's having a big argument, there's another 10% gone for me.
00:17:56.497 --> 00:18:03.527
And I just realized that if I was gonna write again, I wanted 100%, or as much as I could get, to be used on the novel.
00:18:03.527 --> 00:18:03.916
And I...
00:18:04.267 --> 00:18:06.356
It felt very risky because I'm like...
00:18:06.396 --> 00:18:11.116
You know, and again, I'm saying this all as someone who wasn't this huge, you know, Insta presence.
00:18:11.116 --> 00:18:13.686
It's not like I was an influencer or anything like that.
00:18:14.136 --> 00:18:21.326
But I just remember thinking, if I choose to put all my resources into the book, I'll write a better book, and I just have to hope it will sell itself.
00:18:21.616 --> 00:18:27.676
You know, that the extra I give myself to put into it will be much more powerful than please asking 500 people to buy it.
00:18:27.696 --> 00:18:29.737
And that is indeed what happened.
00:18:29.737 --> 00:18:35.166
And I think what I learned was, yes, there's demand, but that's just...
00:18:35.277 --> 00:18:36.547
it's an ideal.
00:18:36.567 --> 00:18:39.507
Maybe my publisher would like me to be on it, but I'm not willing to be.
00:18:39.547 --> 00:18:43.257
And I, I just think that you can avoid it.
00:18:43.267 --> 00:18:44.767
You know, you have choice in this.
00:18:44.767 --> 00:18:45.997
You don't have to be on it.
00:18:45.997 --> 00:18:47.737
It didn't exist 20 years ago.
00:18:47.807 --> 00:18:48.886
You'll get by.
00:18:49.237 --> 00:18:54.297
You know, if you write the best thing you can that's the most truthful thing you can, other people will sell it for you.
00:18:54.537 --> 00:18:59.707
Like, there's still nothing better than word of mouth when it comes to selling books, whether that's, you know, over BookTok and stuff.
00:18:59.787 --> 00:19:05.777
So I'm very grateful to the people who can be on social media and find it perfectly healthy, but I just wasn't one of them.
00:19:05.777 --> 00:19:08.557
So I find I can live much better without it.
00:19:09.067 --> 00:19:10.957
Does anyone find it perfectly healthy?
00:19:11.007 --> 00:19:11.737
Yeah.
00:19:12.196 --> 00:19:13.146
I don't know that anybody does.
00:19:13.186 --> 00:19:20.666
God, you've talked about how there, there are definitely parts of you that you've drawn into this world of your own self in terms of Sophie.
00:19:20.666 --> 00:19:30.280
But it's so interesting to me'cause as I was reading it, you know, this author Lilac Dunn, who she's, taken with, I just kept thinking so many people would view you as that writer.
00:19:30.300 --> 00:19:44.580
Not as this character by any stretch of the imagination, but in terms of viewing you as that person who they're finding things to identify with you because of what you've written, in much of the way Sophie does with this woman.
00:19:44.651 --> 00:19:49.784
Then I love that you find so much of yourself in Sophie.
00:19:49.963 --> 00:19:50.203
I don't know.
00:19:50.644 --> 00:19:51.054
Mm.
00:19:51.403 --> 00:19:55.413
Yeah, well, I think it's intentional because I didn't want to write about the book world.
00:19:55.413 --> 00:19:57.733
Like, I actively didn't want to, if that makes sense.
00:19:57.733 --> 00:20:08.344
I didn't wanna be this writer who, you know that whole second album syndrome where the first album's got your whole heart and soul, and then the second album is just about airports and hotel rooms because that's all you've been doing with your life for two years?
00:20:08.653 --> 00:20:12.693
So I was like,"I am not gonna do that," but it's all I'd been doing with my life for two years.
00:20:12.973 --> 00:20:15.683
So there it was, and it sort of had to be used.
00:20:16.013 --> 00:20:21.413
But I wanted the character of the writer of Lilac Dunn to stay very opaque.
00:20:21.423 --> 00:20:25.314
Like, I wanted it to be Sophie's voice, Sophie's world, Sophie's thoughts.
00:20:25.753 --> 00:20:31.284
It's not that I didn't care about the author, but I didn't want us to know anything about her that she herself wouldn't have put into the world.
00:20:31.564 --> 00:20:44.193
So there's kind of this balance there that, that Sophie discovers what she thinks is everything about the writer, but of course it's a heavily curated, probably quite inauthentic version of the writer that's just her public persona.
00:20:44.523 --> 00:20:59.314
But so for me, it was more of a study of fame and of privacy and of what to give away, and the only parts of myself that I put into the writer are probably the way that you behave when you start to believe...
00:20:59.344 --> 00:21:00.423
Like, I was 43.
00:21:00.453 --> 00:21:01.193
I was so lucky.
00:21:01.193 --> 00:21:02.433
When Stormoss happened, I was 43.
00:21:02.634 --> 00:21:10.861
Like, I was pretty certain of who I was and, you know, where I stood in life, so I wasn't easily swayed by the, you know, the, the attention.
00:21:10.901 --> 00:21:18.181
Like, I was, I was very, I was very much able to hold that at a distance and just enjoy the good bits, but not let it sort of inform who I was.
00:21:18.510 --> 00:21:20.330
The data was very much in there.
00:21:20.590 --> 00:21:33.550
But, um, yeah, there were times when I'm like,"Oh, this could really have changed me if this happened at a different time," and I was lucky to be able to put all of that into the author, but really holding her at arm's length while connecting deeply with Sophie
00:21:34.005 --> 00:21:41.545
One of the things I love that you, she touches on briefly, is Sophie talks about she never felt that she did it right with reading.
00:21:41.924 --> 00:21:42.444
And
00:21:42.636 --> 00:21:43.916
Yes, me neither
00:21:44.615 --> 00:21:49.535
and I love this, but I, I love this whole idea because I don't know people who do feel that they do it right
00:21:50.275 --> 00:21:50.884
Exactly.
00:21:51.075 --> 00:21:54.644
And I thought that that was just me because of my late start.
00:21:55.325 --> 00:22:02.954
And then I gave the book in proof to a novelist called Cathy Rentzenbrink, who's a writer, she's a moderator, she was a bookseller.
00:22:03.464 --> 00:22:09.805
She was, you know, she was that precocious child who read under the covers with a torch since, you know, since she could read.
00:22:09.815 --> 00:22:11.234
She's read everything.
00:22:12.005 --> 00:22:13.944
And I gave her The Girl, and she's like,"Oh, me neither.
00:22:13.944 --> 00:22:29.055
I don't think I'm doing it right either." And I'm like,"Babes, if you don't, then nobody's doing it right." And, you know, it's probably is exacerbated by BookTok and all of those things of, like,"I read 60 books in a year," and, you know, there's this real performative element that's come into reading.
00:22:29.065 --> 00:22:32.575
And I think it's such a shame because it's the most personal and private thing you can do.
00:22:32.575 --> 00:22:35.875
And, and it's lovely to chat about it, but there's no right way.
00:22:35.894 --> 00:22:42.214
It's just that we all feel this self-condemnation about what we have and haven't read, and I just think there's no wrong way to read.
00:22:42.224 --> 00:22:45.035
If you're reading at all, you know, and, and this is...
00:22:45.035 --> 00:22:53.515
I say this all the time, but it's because I really mean it, is that even though this book is kind of, you know, it's, it's very book-lovery.
00:22:53.515 --> 00:22:55.404
It's got lots of real authors mentioned in there.
00:22:55.404 --> 00:22:57.105
There's lots of real books mentioned in there.
00:22:57.644 --> 00:23:00.575
It isn't for literary people only, do you know?
00:23:00.595 --> 00:23:05.944
Like, you don't have to know who those writers are to understand a book, and you're not, you're not gonna feel excluded.
00:23:05.944 --> 00:23:07.674
It's not literary.
00:23:07.674 --> 00:23:10.384
It's not really intense and, you know, all of those things.
00:23:10.444 --> 00:23:15.095
It's a very chatty novel as though Sophie sort of voice noted the whole story to you.
00:23:15.444 --> 00:23:19.424
And so I think that is my way of saying there's, there's no wrong way.
00:23:19.444 --> 00:23:20.825
Just come and sit.
00:23:21.255 --> 00:23:22.595
Come and listen to a story.
00:23:22.653 --> 00:23:23.573
Yeah, 100%.
00:23:23.613 --> 00:23:30.962
I find myself reading through the Booker longlist this year and watching the chatter, and there's certain things that I'll read and I'll be...
00:23:31.113 --> 00:23:47.563
I, I literally will be like,"I don't get it." And other people are like,"Oh my God, it's so brilliant, and it's so..." And I'm, and I'm like,"Okay, is it just me?" And then I feel incredibly stupid and, like, trying to find, you know, people are like,"Oh, the themes and what it's saying." And I'm like, I,
00:23:47.901 --> 00:23:50.260
I just was letting the words wash through my head.
00:23:50.280 --> 00:23:50.810
You know what I mean?
00:23:50.810 --> 00:23:51.201
I'm just...
00:23:51.401 --> 00:23:52.121
But, but is that...
00:23:52.151 --> 00:23:53.300
And I'm so uncritical.
00:23:53.320 --> 00:24:01.520
There's this whole part where Sophie is sort of explaining to the author the way she reads, and saying,"I never question it, and I never see a twist coming." And I, I just, you know.
00:24:01.520 --> 00:24:02.830
And who are these people who know?
00:24:02.830 --> 00:24:07.631
I mean, I did a literature degree, and I still don't know how to talk about novels like that, you know, in that way.
00:24:07.931 --> 00:24:09.651
But it doesn't mean I don't enjoy them.
00:24:09.681 --> 00:24:13.201
You know, it doesn't mean I don't love them, and that they, they mean something to me.
00:24:13.201 --> 00:24:17.010
But I just accept what the writer is trying to do, and I just don't think too deeply about it.
00:24:17.010 --> 00:24:18.721
I just, I just love to read
00:24:19.250 --> 00:24:20.030
Yeah, I'm the same way.
00:24:20.060 --> 00:24:25.863
And I also find that, I don't know about you, but like I, I do have kind of a, a gentle judgment about a book.
00:24:25.873 --> 00:24:41.623
If I'm not loving the book, I still have to look at a book and think,"Okay, someone sat down to write this." So I have a very hard time even like I watch some people eviscerate a book on some form of social platform, and I'm always like"What did it do to you?" And I understand people have a reaction.
00:24:41.633 --> 00:24:51.803
You may not like something, but I'm, I, I'm also just kind of the person like,"Okay, I'm taking this for the experience it is, and ultimately it might not be for me." But that, but that's just, you know, individuals.
00:24:51.903 --> 00:24:53.333
But I've very much been...
00:24:53.673 --> 00:24:57.613
So Sorry and Bliss was fairly, like, universally adored.
00:24:57.653 --> 00:25:03.833
Like, as in if I can say that, and I only mean it in the sense of within the group of people who read it, I didn't get bad reviews.
00:25:03.913 --> 00:25:05.163
You know, which is ridiculous.
00:25:05.163 --> 00:25:06.133
I just didn't get them.
00:25:06.173 --> 00:25:14.923
And there were people who didn't like Martha, and there were people who thought she should pull herself together, but that to me wasn't a review, that was people misunderstanding the fact she had a chronic mental illness.
00:25:15.103 --> 00:25:17.042
So that didn't affect me at all.
00:25:17.292 --> 00:25:25.873
But this book is much more divisive maybe, just because I've picked a direction and I've gone in that direction, and it's maybe not the direction that people expected.
00:25:25.873 --> 00:25:28.242
It's certainly not the direction that I expected.
00:25:28.563 --> 00:25:30.163
So the response has been more mixed.
00:25:30.163 --> 00:25:37.863
But I'm like,"Guys, the stakes are not nearly as high as, as you're kind of..." You know, I read this one negative review, and it was like road rage.
00:25:38.113 --> 00:25:39.982
And I'm like,"Guys, just, just put it down.
00:25:39.982 --> 00:25:40.532
It's fine.
00:25:40.542 --> 00:25:43.212
It doesn't matter." Like, you know,"I'll give you your money back.
00:25:43.222 --> 00:25:44.103
Like, we can chill.
00:25:44.103 --> 00:25:45.363
It's just a book, and it's...
00:25:45.563 --> 00:25:53.423
I'll write more." And you know, Jane Austen wrote Mansfield Park right after Pride and Prejudice, and I bet if she was alive, you wouldn't have been so thrilled.
00:25:53.452 --> 00:25:56.042
But nobody wishes she didn't write Mansfield Park.
00:25:56.212 --> 00:25:57.863
She was just in a different mood.
00:25:57.903 --> 00:26:09.393
But I think when you're alive and you're producing novels, you don't have this, you know, this canon of your own that, you know, Austen has six novels, this is the one you love, this is the one you don't love.
00:26:09.593 --> 00:26:13.502
I think people are tracking someone's career much more and being like,"Has she lost it?
00:26:13.702 --> 00:26:20.712
Was it a fluke?" You know, like, it's just like, but one day I'll be dead, there'll be six or seven hopefully, and you can choose which one you like, and we'll all just calm down
00:26:21.285 --> 00:26:21.674
Right.
00:26:22.325 --> 00:26:23.375
That's exactly right.
00:26:23.724 --> 00:26:24.744
It's not that deep.
00:26:25.295 --> 00:26:28.214
There's one line I, I just loved that, that kind of gutted me.
00:26:28.214 --> 00:26:51.035
I have to say, I was reading this on a plane, I was, like, burning through, and I hit this line which comes at a point later in the novel, which one of the characters says to Sophie, which was,"I've never met someone who tries so hard to be happy by being kind." And that literally Now I'm like,"Okay, Meg, we're in therapy." That saw through me.
00:26:51.035 --> 00:26:52.875
I mean, I burst into tears on the plane.
00:26:52.875 --> 00:27:01.278
I had this just moment of like,"Oh my God, it- It was really impactful,
00:27:01.409 --> 00:27:02.939
that means so much to me.
00:27:03.108 --> 00:27:06.729
I had that line quite early on, and I knew that that's where we were gonna go.
00:27:07.148 --> 00:27:10.048
And I, I don't remem- like, as in I should remember it as...
00:27:10.278 --> 00:27:12.159
I should just use that to describe Sophie.
00:27:12.159 --> 00:27:19.298
You know, in the elevator pitch, I should just say,"You'll never meet someone who tries so hard to be happy by being kind,"'cause that's exactly who she is.
00:27:19.638 --> 00:27:23.808
Um, and I guess you're just lucky as a writer when those little lines float into your head
00:27:24.303 --> 00:27:28.472
Where do you fall on the, don't meet your heroes or do meet your heroes debate?
00:27:29.025 --> 00:27:31.474
Oh, do meet them because I'll tell you why.
00:27:32.194 --> 00:27:39.025
If they, if they disappoint you, well, as in they'll either be more wonderful than you ever could have imagined.
00:27:39.035 --> 00:27:42.515
That's what happened to me when I met all of my heroes out of Sorrows.
00:27:42.555 --> 00:27:49.255
Every single one of them was more incredible than I had even dreamed them up to be in my mind, or they'll let you down and you're free.
00:27:49.545 --> 00:27:51.174
You don't have to admire them anymore.
00:27:51.295 --> 00:27:51.855
Do you know what I mean?
00:27:51.904 --> 00:27:54.414
You'll be kind of released from your adoration.
00:27:54.664 --> 00:27:55.224
But there was...
00:27:55.275 --> 00:27:58.065
Someone told me yesterday, there's a quote from Dr.
00:27:58.065 --> 00:28:00.694
Johnson saying that the only novelist...
00:28:00.734 --> 00:28:08.204
If a novelist raises admiration in you through his work, in real life, he will raise disgust in you, so you should never meet them.
00:28:08.234 --> 00:28:10.865
But meet any author you don't care about, you can meet them.
00:28:10.924 --> 00:28:11.505
It's fine.
00:28:11.744 --> 00:28:18.154
Which I can kind of understand,'cause maybe if you didn't have the moment that you wanted with this author, you'd be gutted.
00:28:18.154 --> 00:28:24.035
You know, if this author means so much to you, and then they're kind of crisp or a bit cold with you when you meet them, that would be heartbreaking
00:28:24.377 --> 00:28:24.827
Yeah.
00:28:24.998 --> 00:28:32.218
Is there anyone, in line with that, it doesn't have to be an author, that, that you would be trepidatious to meet?
00:28:32.428 --> 00:28:33.827
Probably not after what you just said.
00:28:34.458 --> 00:28:36.127
I don't mean trepidatious like scared, but-
00:28:37.018 --> 00:28:42.337
Well, I mean, no, maybe if, yeah, maybe if she was still alive, Nancy Mitford,'cause I've had such a passionate parasocial relationship with her for so long.
00:28:42.607 --> 00:28:50.397
But I can im- even though she's brilliant and funny, I can imagine her being kind of cruel and imperious in real life, and I maybe wouldn't wanna get near that.
00:28:50.867 --> 00:28:53.788
So I think I would choose to admire her from a distance
00:28:54.776 --> 00:29:07.903
Yeah, and I get it from the different angle'cause I've had actors that we've worked with that it's a similar thing, where what's projected is to everyone, oh my God, charming, lovely, and then it's quite the opposite
00:29:08.692 --> 00:29:08.893
Mm-hmm.
00:29:08.932 --> 00:29:11.752
Comedians also are sometimes not funny in real life.
00:29:12.012 --> 00:29:16.542
But I think, don't you think that that's a response to the demand that's on them to be funny?
00:29:16.553 --> 00:29:24.353
Like, particularly with that more than anything, like no one goes up to a model and is like,"Be beautiful, be beautiful." But they'll go up to a comedian and be like,"Say something funny.
00:29:24.512 --> 00:29:27.093
Say something funny." And of course that's gonna close you down.
00:29:27.093 --> 00:29:30.262
Like, you're not a performing monkey, but that's how you're sort of made to feel.
00:29:30.472 --> 00:29:34.932
I think with writers we're just lucky'cause we do it in private, so no one's gonna be like,"Write something right now and let me
00:29:35.163 --> 00:29:36.262
Yeah, right Right.
00:29:36.772 --> 00:29:47.012
But I also feel like comedians are their own kind of group because so many of them are so damaged anyway, and that's what so much of their comedy is coming from because they're so kind of tortured.
00:29:47.128 --> 00:29:54.108
But I'll tell you what I learned actually, and someone described it to me, and then another author described it to me, and then I realized, oh yeah, that's exactly what you do.
00:29:54.519 --> 00:29:55.868
So you're doing a literary event.
00:29:55.878 --> 00:29:56.818
You've written this book.
00:29:56.828 --> 00:29:59.499
To some extent it will involve you and your life.
00:29:59.888 --> 00:30:03.578
You know, there'll be something of your heart in it, and you'll go on stage.
00:30:04.288 --> 00:30:17.419
To make people laugh, you'll unpack all of your stories, and some of them are traumatic, and maybe in my case I'll talk about the sect for 20 minutes, and I'll try and make it funny to make the event engaging, and everybody takes away what they want from that.
00:30:17.729 --> 00:30:19.058
And then the event ends.
00:30:19.058 --> 00:30:20.148
You've had this connection.
00:30:20.159 --> 00:30:27.808
You go back to a shitty Marriott and try and put all of your trauma back away again while gnawing on some hideous protein bar.
00:30:28.058 --> 00:30:38.939
And then in my case, everybody I love is asleep'cause I'm on the other side of the world, and it is so lonely, and so, you know, bizarrely sort of like disparate.
00:30:38.939 --> 00:30:45.598
Like the one, the under the lights 45 minutes ago you feel like, you know, the king of everything, and then you're alone in this hotel.
00:30:45.898 --> 00:30:54.009
And it's just like, that's why you can't do it all the time because, you know, so if someone comes up to you and wants to connect with you, you're like,"I just, I just did that yesterday.
00:30:54.009 --> 00:31:04.388
I have to turn inward and kind of be interior, and I can't just be almost, as it were, giving this stuff away for free." Like, if there's gonna be enough to be on stage, I've got to protect myself the rest of the time
00:31:04.449 --> 00:31:04.808
Yeah.
00:31:05.148 --> 00:31:05.548
Yeah.
00:31:05.729 --> 00:31:06.598
No, I get that.
00:31:06.925 --> 00:31:10.306
And comedians surely unpack their trauma more than anybody else, you know?
00:31:10.346 --> 00:31:13.365
Plus with the very high-wire act of trying to make people laugh.
00:31:13.385 --> 00:31:18.675
Like, if I make people laugh on stage, that's really just a bonus, but no one's demanding it from me.
00:31:18.685 --> 00:31:20.016
Like, you don't get heckled.
00:31:20.395 --> 00:31:23.195
Like, stand-up comedy, I mean, is there anything harder?
00:31:23.256 --> 00:31:25.316
It's probably why we all have bad dreams about it
00:31:25.798 --> 00:31:26.147
Yeah.
00:31:26.188 --> 00:31:26.698
No, you're right.
00:31:26.708 --> 00:31:28.488
You're, you're 100% right.
00:31:28.718 --> 00:31:34.667
I think it's an asset though, for you, and there are certain authors, you know, Ann Patchett, Kathryn Newman.
00:31:34.678 --> 00:31:43.738
You're all kind of writers who are incredibly gregarious and incredibly charming, so that is an asset.
00:31:43.778 --> 00:31:44.198
You know what I mean?
00:31:44.208 --> 00:31:49.788
You will, you, you more than likely will be on that stage and make somebody laugh by something you'll say just by who you are.
00:31:49.988 --> 00:32:07.127
But it's also another thing why I think that you are the people that so many people generate to because they recognize something in you as a person and as a writer that kind of creates that own parasocial relationship for them towards you, if that makes sense
00:32:07.414 --> 00:32:10.884
well, I mean, maybe, and they're very welcome to do that, you know?
00:32:10.924 --> 00:32:24.164
But I think, I think'cause I'm sometimes asked, like,"How do you mix humor and pathos?" And I'm like,"Exactly the same way that you do." You know, everybody, if you're telling me a sad story, will make a joke during the recounting of that sad story.
00:32:24.164 --> 00:32:26.424
And the sadder the story, the better the joke will be.
00:32:26.704 --> 00:32:31.565
And you do it because you want this to be bearable to yourself, and you wanna be engaged with me.
00:32:31.765 --> 00:32:37.595
And the only difference in my case is that I write it down and try and make it sound truthful, but that's what humans do.
00:32:37.694 --> 00:32:40.464
So I'm no more amazing than anyone else.
00:32:40.474 --> 00:32:45.035
Like I can't even, you know, sort of stress that enough.
00:32:45.055 --> 00:32:50.575
It's just that I can do it on paper, and so it's sort of recorded, and it's there, and it's accessible.
00:32:50.575 --> 00:32:53.384
But people are tossing off amazing jokes all day long.
00:32:53.585 --> 00:32:54.115
Everybody.
00:32:54.144 --> 00:32:55.115
We all are doing it
00:32:55.230 --> 00:32:56.641
Writers, they're just like us.
00:32:57.050 --> 00:32:57.540
Um,
00:33:05.123 --> 00:33:05.173
bodies
00:33:05.815 --> 00:33:09.525
Is there anything you're reading, like, while you're doing all the tour and everything else that you're loving?
00:33:10.535 --> 00:33:15.644
Oh my gosh, I have never been in more of a reading desert in my life.
00:33:16.005 --> 00:33:28.805
But I think it's because I came off the back of The writing experience is very intense, and I can read fiction when I'm writing, but only if the person's dead, because I just can't deal with a contemporary novelist in my head when I'm trying to write contemporary fiction.
00:33:28.805 --> 00:33:31.295
Plus, if they're doing really, really well, I don't need to know that.
00:33:31.295 --> 00:33:31.994
Do you know what I mean?
00:33:32.454 --> 00:33:34.825
And so they have to, they have to pause.
00:33:34.825 --> 00:33:40.444
And then I read Middlemarch in this weird fallow period between finishing your novel and the novel actually.
00:33:40.444 --> 00:33:52.585
There's, like, months and months and months while it's sort of in production, and then you've got more months until it comes out, and then And I just haven't picked anything up from Middlemarch, since Middlemarch, that's moved me to that extent.
00:33:52.585 --> 00:34:02.005
And I waited, not intentionally, but to 48 to read that book for the first time, and it was so earth-shatteringly incredible that I'm kind of like, I think I've quit fiction now.
00:34:02.005 --> 00:34:04.545
I'm just gonna read Middlemarch over and over and over again.
00:34:04.855 --> 00:34:18.244
But I was in Bath, the town of Bath, not the actual bath, yesterday, and there's a beautiful bookstore there that I'm sure you know called Persephone, which prints its own editions of books by women that have been sort of lost to time.
00:34:18.244 --> 00:34:20.195
They've got these beautiful silver covers.
00:34:20.844 --> 00:34:24.394
And I bought a book called Cheerful Weather for the Wedding.
00:34:24.405 --> 00:34:25.355
I think it's Cheerful.
00:34:25.355 --> 00:34:28.255
We should check that, pop that in the show notes, by Julia Strachey.
00:34:28.255 --> 00:34:31.614
I think it's from the 1930s, and I think it's gonna get me there.
00:34:31.675 --> 00:34:33.065
I think it's gonna break the drought.
00:34:33.315 --> 00:34:45.614
So I read it on the plane, and there was, I mean, the most amazing description of a man shaking salt onto his plate that has ever been put into writing by any human, and will always remain thus
00:34:45.896 --> 00:34:50.387
Okay, we'll check it.
00:34:50.387 --> 00:34:51.206
Well, Meg, you were delightful.
00:34:51.217 --> 00:34:52.867
The book is fantastic.
00:34:52.876 --> 00:34:54.586
I don't know why I'm holding it up'cause this is audio.
00:34:54.586 --> 00:34:55.927
I'm holding it for you to see your own book.
00:34:56.509 --> 00:35:01.969
I literally said to you,"Can we not film this because I look like such a mess?" It's the end of a very long week of Book Tour.
00:35:01.969 --> 00:35:03.798
It's like Friday afternoon at 6:00 PM.
00:35:04.048 --> 00:35:09.268
My head is almost resting on my desk at this point, but it's just been so nice to chat, just no one needs to see it.
00:35:09.759 --> 00:35:14.668
Ultimate how the sausage is made, so you're very, very kind to let me be audio only
00:35:15.275 --> 00:35:17.304
Whatever you need, Meg, I'm here for you.
00:35:17.744 --> 00:35:21.065
Well, thank you again, and, I hope you have a wonderful weekend
00:35:21.105 --> 00:35:21.965
Thank you.
00:35:22.184 --> 00:35:24.074
And we'll meet one day in real life.
00:35:24.130 --> 00:35:25.010
Lovely to chat.
00:35:25.077 --> 00:35:25.467
You too.
00:35:25.556 --> 00:35:26.077
Talk soon.
00:35:27.411 --> 00:35:28.271
Thank you again, Meg.
00:35:28.481 --> 00:35:35.690
And if you liked this conversation or other conversations you've heard on Behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing so that you never miss an episode.
00:35:36.121 --> 00:35:44.701
Also, what would be really helpful to me is if you can like and give this show five stars on your podcast platform of choice.
00:35:44.710 --> 00:35:46.150
That would be really helpful.
00:35:46.380 --> 00:35:51.150
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00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:57.971
All of these things help new people find the podcast so I can continue to bring you conversations like this one.
00:35:58.291 --> 00:36:01.121
I will be back with another episode next week.
00:36:01.331 --> 00:36:08.710
In the meantime, you can always find me on Instagram, Substack, and YouTube at Brett's Book Stack.
00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:10.670
And as always, thanks for listening
00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:10.617
Hey everybody, it's Brett Benner, and welcome back to Behind the Stack, where today I am sitting down with author Meg Mason for her brand-new book, Sophie Standing There.
00:00:10.737 --> 00:00:13.452
Meg is so easy to talk to.
00:00:13.503 --> 00:00:17.609
She's funny, she's charming, she's just a delight.
00:00:17.733 --> 00:00:20.013
So this was a really fun conversation to have.
00:00:20.222 --> 00:00:21.713
A little bit about Meg.
00:00:21.932 --> 00:00:29.263
She is the author of You Were Mother and Sorrow and Bliss, which became an international bestseller after it was published in 2020.
00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:36.840
Winner of the British Book Industry Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Women's Prize, it has since been translated into more than 30 languages.
00:00:36.887 --> 00:00:46.447
Her first career was in journalism, beginning at The Times of London, later writing for Vogue, Elle, GQ, Sunday Style, and The New Yorker's Daily Shouts.
00:00:46.523 --> 00:00:51.012
Born in New Zealand, she lives in Sydney with her husband and two daughters.
00:00:51.127 --> 00:01:08.112
So I hope you enjoy this episode of Behind the Stack I am sitting down with the delightful Meg Mazin for her fantastic new book, Sophie's Standing Here.
00:01:08.442 --> 00:01:22.263
But I also have to just say I'm so thrilled to actually be sitting with you because I was such a huge fan of Sorrow and Bliss, and, it so kind of came out of nowhere, so I'm so glad to finally, just have this opportunity to say I love your writing and I'm so, thrilled you're here.
00:01:22.313 --> 00:01:24.722
I'm so happy to be here, and you and I fought for this.
00:01:24.763 --> 00:01:30.263
We really had to earn this because the, the universe interfered with us meeting, but we got there.
00:01:30.263 --> 00:01:34.903
We overcame, and here we are, We're high on our own ability to actually make this happen.
00:01:34.912 --> 00:01:36.692
So thank you very much
00:01:36.748 --> 00:01:45.429
We've overcome great obstacles, Um, I'm so fascinated by your childhood, which I just wanna dip into it a second when I know we weren't, we're not gonna go into deep.
00:01:45.778 --> 00:01:49.129
But growing up in this whole religious sect that's so fascinating.
00:01:49.129 --> 00:01:57.858
And I know, and we'll get into the book in a second, one of the elements of, Sophie's life is that she grew up in a cult, and I know that there's a difference between a cult and a sect, and what, what you grew up in.
00:01:58.338 --> 00:02:05.248
But one of the things that's so interesting about it was your reading and you're starting to read,'cause you grew up with no TV really.
00:02:05.248 --> 00:02:07.069
You grew up with, it was a very kind of,
00:02:07.257 --> 00:02:07.787
Mm-hmm.
00:02:07.948 --> 00:02:09.419
conservative upbringing.
00:02:09.596 --> 00:02:10.786
Where did the reading start?
00:02:10.806 --> 00:02:12.316
Where did the, where did that come out of?
00:02:13.271 --> 00:02:15.012
Okay, well, this is the thing.
00:02:15.012 --> 00:02:16.912
So Sophie grew up in a sect.
00:02:17.502 --> 00:02:21.331
I wouldn't, I don't know whether to call what I grew up in a sect.
00:02:21.562 --> 00:02:27.771
Like, looking at it maybe by some, you know, dictionary definition, it was certainly adjacent.
00:02:27.782 --> 00:02:33.512
But to me it just felt like, even now, it just felt like a very strict, yeah, religious environment.
00:02:33.512 --> 00:02:40.931
But what I'm really careful to point out in the book, and I want to be even more careful to point out in my everyday life, is that these are good people.
00:02:41.171 --> 00:02:42.102
I loved it.
00:02:42.151 --> 00:02:43.481
We were happy kids.
00:02:43.491 --> 00:02:49.337
You know, we had so much freedom I- in nature and, you know, in what we did and how we spent our time.
00:02:49.337 --> 00:02:54.608
Yeah, we didn't have TV, and we weren't allowed to listen to commercial radio, and all of these things.
00:02:54.608 --> 00:02:56.698
Nobody swore, and we weren't allowed to...
00:02:56.728 --> 00:02:59.177
The girls had to wear skirts and dresses.
00:02:59.177 --> 00:03:04.247
And so there were a lot of rules, and I, I know that that's unusual, but it wasn't...
00:03:04.837 --> 00:03:06.437
I don't have trauma from it, you know.
00:03:06.437 --> 00:03:09.228
So all of that is what I wanted to put into Sophie.
00:03:09.548 --> 00:03:18.187
and I never really thought that I would write about any of it, but I was trying to make Sophie this character who's slightly apart from everybody else.
00:03:18.487 --> 00:03:21.098
And so I began by making it that, oh, she doesn't swear.
00:03:21.108 --> 00:03:24.177
And it's like, oh, she's never been drunk and, you know, why is that?
00:03:24.187 --> 00:03:25.578
She's never smoked or anything.
00:03:25.587 --> 00:03:28.407
And then it kind of just went on and on, and I was like,"Oh, okay.
00:03:28.427 --> 00:03:44.467
Do you know what I've led myself to is, is the same childhood that I had." Um, but the reading for me began when I was about 18, coming up to 18, and we'd just moved countries, and my brother stayed behind, and obviously all of my best friends stayed behind.
00:03:44.508 --> 00:03:48.237
My whole life stayed behind, and I found myself in this new place.
00:03:48.647 --> 00:03:54.674
And I remember we had maybe nine months of the school, just not just the school year, but of all of school left.
00:03:55.133 --> 00:03:56.413
And so I wasn't gonna make friends.
00:03:56.413 --> 00:04:06.963
There wasn't gonna be time, and I knew it, and I tried, but I was just catastrophically lonely for that whole year, which is, you know, it's the most social year you're meant to have, and there's all these milestones and the prom.
00:04:06.963 --> 00:04:08.433
And I didn't go to the prom.
00:04:08.723 --> 00:04:11.943
I didn't go to my graduation'cause, you know, who was I gonna sit with?
00:04:11.963 --> 00:04:13.433
Like, it was really painful.
00:04:13.443 --> 00:04:15.484
Looking back, it was actually really sad.
00:04:15.984 --> 00:04:16.834
And I was sad.
00:04:16.843 --> 00:04:25.324
And mercifully for me, I found Emma by Jane Austen in that time was'cause we were meant to study it, and I read it'cause I wouldn't have read it in New Zealand.
00:04:25.324 --> 00:04:26.853
I would've had too many fun things to do.
00:04:27.264 --> 00:04:35.134
But then this turned out to be a fun thing, and I pivoted really quickly, and I studied English literature at university, made friends, thank goodness.
00:04:35.574 --> 00:04:41.014
But I think what's interesting, and I'd only put together, is that my mother read books.
00:04:41.024 --> 00:04:53.733
She snuck them into our house somehow, you know, because she wasn't born into this thing, so she'd already done her own English literature degree, and it must have been shocking to then find that reading was frowned upon and, you know, secular reading.
00:04:54.103 --> 00:05:02.783
So she read to us all the time, but I remember the two books that I loved the most as a little child were picture books, by which I mean they had no words.
00:05:02.783 --> 00:05:05.954
They were just pictures and, you know, you would tell the story yourself.
00:05:06.423 --> 00:05:11.634
And I sometimes just wonder if that's what I was straining towards, would be to tell the story myself.
00:05:11.634 --> 00:05:13.963
And I do remember I always wrote.
00:05:14.064 --> 00:05:22.723
Like, my mother has this amazing shoebox full of little stories that I wrote, and some of them sound so, like, I mean this in a humble way, but so novelistic.
00:05:22.733 --> 00:05:31.634
Like, if I can step outside myself for a minute, I'm like, this is someone who, whether or not she had a, the talent to be a novelist, she had the deep desire to be a novelist.
00:05:31.644 --> 00:05:34.704
But I didn't know that that was a thing'cause I hadn't read any books.
00:05:35.014 --> 00:05:46.264
So when I finally sort of turned to it, I was like,"Oh," but it took me Until I was 30 to maybe articulate that desire because it's hard to go around saying you wanna be a novelist and everyone's like,"Have you read this?
00:05:46.264 --> 00:05:48.394
Have you read that?" You're like,"No, no, no, haven't.
00:05:48.413 --> 00:05:49.923
Not that one either." Da, da, da.
00:05:49.923 --> 00:05:53.413
So anyway, so at least I had the good sense to keep it to myself.
00:05:53.564 --> 00:05:56.593
But yeah, I think it's been with me in some form my entire life
00:05:56.898 --> 00:05:57.367
That's amazing.
00:05:57.367 --> 00:06:03.648
I, I read once something said,"I- if you wanna know what you should be doing in your life, look back to what you did as a child."
00:06:03.790 --> 00:06:04.850
Age 11.
00:06:04.850 --> 00:06:05.730
I've heard age 11.
00:06:05.730 --> 00:06:06.971
I've heard the exact same thing.
00:06:06.971 --> 00:06:07.891
What were you doing at 11?
00:06:08.350 --> 00:06:14.870
And I used to have this game where I played this is really sad too, where I just sat at my desk and shuffled paper.
00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:17.310
That was all I did, and I pretended to write.
00:06:17.771 --> 00:06:19.211
Like, I don't know if I was writing.
00:06:19.230 --> 00:06:22.391
And my granny had this typewriter that...
00:06:22.471 --> 00:06:38.831
I think you and I are a similar age, but it was like a, it was like an early word processor, so you could type a whole line onto this tiny LED screen, like a calculator screen almost, and then you press return, and it came out all in one line, and it was like in Courier-type font.
00:06:39.091 --> 00:06:45.350
And even describing it to you now, I just gave myself goosebumps'cause I loved that thing so much, and she would let me use it.
00:06:45.670 --> 00:06:49.911
And I remem- I've got a novel that I wrote, like 250 words on that, on that thing.
00:06:49.911 --> 00:06:52.880
So I would've been around 11 then, and I just...
00:06:53.261 --> 00:06:57.781
Isn't it funny what you give to kids, and it's like, oh, this life-changing use of the typewriter
00:06:58.379 --> 00:07:06.569
Yeah, and we had one of those, we had one of those old typewriters that had the keys that literally the cl-clack, clack, cl-clack, clack, cl-clack, clack.
00:07:06.569 --> 00:07:07.699
I mean, the, the finger use.
00:07:07.699 --> 00:07:08.879
That and the rotary phones.
00:07:08.918 --> 00:07:09.658
I mean, God
00:07:09.906 --> 00:07:10.747
Oh my gosh.
00:07:10.766 --> 00:07:15.177
And also the address book where you slid the thing down the side and it popped open to the alphabet.
00:07:15.396 --> 00:07:16.906
Are you and I 100?
00:07:17.187 --> 00:07:19.427
Or is at least our combined age 100
00:07:19.490 --> 00:07:19.781
Yes.
00:07:19.810 --> 00:07:23.201
I'll- well, I'm 58, so I'm older than
00:07:23.259 --> 00:07:24.759
I'm 48, so there we go.
00:07:24.821 --> 00:07:26.100
Yeah, I'm much older than you are.
00:07:26.130 --> 00:07:27.230
I'm somewhere between
00:07:27.249 --> 00:07:28.189
almost Rolodex.
00:07:28.189 --> 00:07:29.968
You would've had your own Rolodex.
00:07:30.399 --> 00:07:30.899
I-
00:07:30.956 --> 00:07:33.586
They were starting to print paper at that point, yes.
00:07:33.819 --> 00:07:34.478
Oh, it's amazing
00:07:34.916 --> 00:07:35.497
I don't even think...
00:07:35.497 --> 00:07:40.266
No, I don't think I had a Rolodex at that point, but my mom had everything on slips of paper,'cause Post-its hadn't even
00:07:40.630 --> 00:07:41.100
Yeah.
00:07:41.151 --> 00:07:42.951
Packs of envelopes, index
00:07:43.036 --> 00:07:45.466
like just stuffed in a thing, like all the way down.
00:07:45.466 --> 00:07:48.297
But I loved that thing that you'd press the button, it would flip open.
00:07:48.716 --> 00:07:49.026
Okay.
00:07:49.026 --> 00:07:54.764
So, Sophie, staying there, do you have a, I know you do, an elevator pitch of the book?
00:07:56.004 --> 00:08:00.343
I always feel like I could give you an elevator pitch if I could jam the doors, like if I slammed that
00:08:00.463 --> 00:08:00.874
That's okay.
00:08:00.874 --> 00:08:02.803
And it could be a long building and it could be a tall building
00:08:03.283 --> 00:08:04.274
Exactly, right?
00:08:04.274 --> 00:08:07.233
And then we just decide to s- stop between floors so I can give you...
00:08:07.233 --> 00:08:09.204
I'll just read you the novel in its entirety.
00:08:09.533 --> 00:08:12.934
It is a novel about Sophie, who is 37.
00:08:13.353 --> 00:08:21.343
She's a technician at a literary festival, so she's in sound production, which is now ironic'cause you and I just struggled for 15 minutes to even get our AirPods to work.
00:08:21.634 --> 00:08:23.963
So clearly it's not autobiographical in that regard.
00:08:24.244 --> 00:08:29.303
Anyway, she's a very proficient, clever, professional tech at a literary festival.
00:08:29.824 --> 00:08:31.663
But when we meet her, she's just...
00:08:31.663 --> 00:08:34.724
Her, her husband has ended their marriage.
00:08:34.734 --> 00:08:35.004
She's...
00:08:35.004 --> 00:08:36.683
This is four months after that moment.
00:08:36.703 --> 00:08:41.153
So even though she's really popular at work, you know, her Gen Z colleagues really love her.
00:08:41.903 --> 00:08:42.813
She's got a best friend.
00:08:42.813 --> 00:08:44.403
She's got a brother that she adores.
00:08:44.673 --> 00:08:47.854
She looks around and her life is suddenly incredibly depopulated.
00:08:47.874 --> 00:08:51.244
There's just no one there, so you can see where I got the loneliness thing from.
00:08:51.634 --> 00:08:55.374
But in the middle of all of that, she connects with a novel.
00:08:55.374 --> 00:08:56.344
She's a big reader.
00:08:56.644 --> 00:09:06.703
She connects with a novel that she'd sort of read a long time ago and it didn't move her, but it does now because, you know, she's, I guess, she's aged into the, whatever this target audience, I guess.
00:09:06.744 --> 00:09:09.153
There's something about this novel that just speaks to her.
00:09:09.573 --> 00:09:15.884
And as well as getting very attached to the novel, she gets incredibly attached to the author in the way that it's possible to do now.
00:09:15.884 --> 00:09:19.394
You know, she sort of that first day goes and does the Google deep dive.
00:09:19.394 --> 00:09:20.923
She listens to all the podcasts.
00:09:20.933 --> 00:09:28.484
She reads all the articles and develops this preoccupation with the author, which sort of moves almost into, to imaginary friend territory.
00:09:28.494 --> 00:09:40.703
Like, after a short time she's sort of chatting to the author in her head and then having become so familiarized with her voice, you know, the author's voice from the podcast and things, she then starts to feel that the author's speaking back to her.
00:09:40.703 --> 00:09:50.994
And I would say in all of that, that, you know, words like obsession and parasocial are kind of being thrown around and, but what I wanted to show is that Sophie is not unhinged.
00:09:51.144 --> 00:10:01.153
You know, she's an incredibly sane, very sensible person, but she's just swept up in this kind of relationship that is fulfilling all of her needs in this really difficult time.
00:10:02.333 --> 00:10:15.083
And because my argument is this can happen to any and all of us and probably has, like especially for readers, I'm like,"Tell me truthfully, hand on your heart, that you've never thought in the direction of a particular author." Do you know what I mean?
00:10:15.094 --> 00:10:15.453
Have you...
00:10:15.700 --> 00:10:16.559
Because you're lying.
00:10:16.779 --> 00:10:17.440
You know what I'm saying?
00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:20.429
Like, as in you have definitely had...
00:10:20.450 --> 00:10:26.779
You know, you've chatted to Jane Austen in your head or when you read Middlemarch you became so obsessed that you imagined meeting George Eliot.
00:10:26.789 --> 00:10:28.429
You know, all of those things, or a modern-day author.
00:10:29.110 --> 00:10:32.289
I just think that's what we readers do, and I think it's amazing.
00:10:32.639 --> 00:10:45.169
And then of course in the novel, Sophie thinks she'll never meet this author because, you know, Sophie lives in this unnamed but clearly very secondary city and then the author comes and meets her and that's where the story really unfolds
00:10:45.514 --> 00:10:54.994
And then you place this, in the book community, and you use these events that she's the technician for, and, and effectively hooking people up with their mics.
00:10:55.543 --> 00:10:59.864
Um, you use real-life people that everyone can identify with, which is so much fun.
00:10:59.982 --> 00:11:09.785
But it's such an interesting thing Making her this technician because it's also placing her in this world where you're so close to the person.
00:11:09.806 --> 00:11:18.346
I mean, you're intimately close to the person by threading the mic actually through their clothes, and yet to them it's the invisibility thing.
00:11:18.596 --> 00:11:22.316
And it reminds me so much'cause, you know, I work in casting, and so I, I, I...
00:11:22.436 --> 00:11:29.176
looking at this so much, but being this close to these people but you're not really a part of those people
00:11:29.562 --> 00:11:30.022
Yeah.
00:11:30.211 --> 00:11:46.272
But likewise, I would imagine for a casting director, you know, y- if you have 100 people coming into your casting room in a day, you're not gonna remember any of their names, and yet they've come in, poured their heart and soul into this thing that they're doing, you know, in front of you, and you won't, you won't...
00:11:46.272 --> 00:11:49.861
You'll say,"Thanks very much," you know,"Off you go." And that was their whole day.
00:11:49.871 --> 00:11:51.111
And it's the same for Sophie.
00:11:51.111 --> 00:11:53.731
It's like she pours her heart and soul into this job.
00:11:53.731 --> 00:11:54.572
She loves books.
00:11:54.581 --> 00:12:01.642
She loves reading, and she is seeking connection with anybody, which is ironic since she is actually connecting their mics.
00:12:01.682 --> 00:12:04.802
But of course, based on her personality, she'd never put herself forward.
00:12:05.111 --> 00:12:09.241
You know, she'd never actually sort of try and talk to these authors.
00:12:09.241 --> 00:12:11.412
But it's just, it's so interesting when it can be so...
00:12:11.481 --> 00:12:21.091
There's such an imbalance between, you know, in this interaction, what it means to one person and what it means to the other person, and I think that's what I wanted to show, that I don't care about the writer.
00:12:21.152 --> 00:12:21.572
Do you know what I mean?
00:12:21.572 --> 00:12:24.991
I care about Sophie, so I'm interested in what it feels like from her side.
00:12:25.302 --> 00:12:37.322
'Cause I guess I kind of know what it feels like from the author's side when you realize there's someone's hand definitely deep diving down your dress, but you don't have time to turn around and say hello'cause you're so focused on, like, r- learning your lines to go out on stage or whatever.
00:12:37.331 --> 00:12:38.542
So yeah.
00:12:38.851 --> 00:12:41.461
Yeah, no, it's, it's, it, it really, it's just a fascinating thing.
00:12:41.489 --> 00:12:42.619
and you're so in it.
00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:44.979
Like, you're so in that moment of like you said, it's like I...
00:12:45.101 --> 00:12:50.302
You just wanna be seen, and you wanna be seen by that person, and you want them to, to see you.
00:12:50.325 --> 00:12:52.195
and maybe it's me, I never looked at her as...
00:12:53.245 --> 00:13:03.254
It is lonely, but again, it's just trying to find the connection and for someone to see her and acknowledge her and see her value and her worth
00:13:03.366 --> 00:13:03.797
Mm,
00:13:03.975 --> 00:13:04.465
all of it.
00:13:05.277 --> 00:13:06.476
Yeah, and a specialness.
00:13:06.586 --> 00:13:11.017
You know, I think everybody likes to feel that they've been recognized for something.
00:13:11.017 --> 00:13:13.517
Like, I was a journalist for 20 years before I wrote fiction.
00:13:13.517 --> 00:13:18.397
I remember going to interview Eddie Izzard, the comedian, who I really loved.
00:13:19.297 --> 00:13:19.917
And I was walking...
00:13:19.917 --> 00:13:25.576
You know, they would've been in the hotel room, having 50 journalists going through in a day.
00:13:25.897 --> 00:13:30.366
I remember walking there and I was like,"What if, what if she noticed me?
00:13:30.657 --> 00:13:37.517
What if she thought I was funny, and she said, like,'After this we'll go out for lunch?'" It was never gonna happen.
00:13:37.527 --> 00:13:37.996
Do you know what I mean?
00:13:37.996 --> 00:13:39.126
In a million years.
00:13:39.447 --> 00:13:46.067
But I just remember thinking, you know, you think,"What if, what if they saw something special in me?" And it's not their fault that they don't.
00:13:46.086 --> 00:13:46.486
Do you know what I mean?
00:13:46.486 --> 00:13:49.856
It's just that they've met 50 of you today, and you've met one of them.
00:13:50.067 --> 00:13:53.716
So I think it's just a really interesting, as I said, it's a really interesting imbalance.
00:13:53.787 --> 00:13:57.027
And I think Sophie's such a particular personality.
00:13:57.246 --> 00:14:01.476
And I think when her life was all going swimmingly she, you know, it wouldn't have meant so much to her.
00:14:01.547 --> 00:14:09.917
But she's just lost everything, so suddenly, you know, this, these moments that she has, this might be the only physical contact she has in an entire day.
00:14:10.206 --> 00:14:13.037
You know, but she contains it all because she is so stoic.
00:14:13.057 --> 00:14:19.027
It's just that w- when she kind of goes home to her cold, empty flat she allows her imagination to flourish
00:14:19.476 --> 00:14:37.756
It's so funny,'cause I even think about it doing this podcast,'cause I've, certainly have had that experience even on the other side with actors where you'll be like,"Oh my God, we're gonna be friends." Or I've done it with this podcast because I've gone through with, with, you know, like anyone, you have chemistry with certain people and more than others, And I'm like,"Oh my God, we're friends now."
00:14:38.407 --> 00:14:38.927
Yeah.
00:14:39.187 --> 00:14:41.116
But also the chemistry is essential.
00:14:41.116 --> 00:14:41.697
You have to...
00:14:41.726 --> 00:14:50.907
Like, it even says in the novel about stage events with the moderator is on stage, and she explains that, you know, the author explains that it's like a 55-minute affair.
00:14:50.927 --> 00:14:52.456
You have to have chemistry.
00:14:52.456 --> 00:14:59.336
You have to kind of fall into each other and discuss and chat, and then share stuff and share your trauma and do all of that.
00:14:59.336 --> 00:15:00.017
And it's like,"Okay, bye.
00:15:00.057 --> 00:15:00.307
Cool.
00:15:00.307 --> 00:15:07.236
Where's my Uber's coming?" You know, and it's over, and you sort of, you cut each other dead, but you were both just doing your job, and it's such a funny world.
00:15:07.236 --> 00:15:16.366
And then, you know, I think in the literary festival as well, like, I've heard actors say you have these six intense weeks with these actors, you know, while you're making a movie, and then it's all over.
00:15:16.366 --> 00:15:17.427
It's like the end of camp.
00:15:17.706 --> 00:15:19.697
And it's very similar with literary festivals.
00:15:19.697 --> 00:15:28.287
You're sort of thrown in, but it's even more concentrated because maybe you'll be on stage with this author for an hour, and then they go fly off to their next one, and you fly off to your next one.
00:15:28.287 --> 00:15:39.307
And, and you sort of, y- you have to attach to these people for a short time, and it, it is kind of, you know, there's real emotional resource and emotional labor involved in that just to give a good show
00:15:39.465 --> 00:15:39.825
Sure.
00:15:40.264 --> 00:15:45.835
And I think, and you can speak to this, the, the demands of writers have changed so radically.
00:15:45.835 --> 00:15:54.144
Like we talked earlier about when Sorrow and Bliss came out, there wasn't all of this, you know, podcasting and all of these different elements to things.
00:15:54.198 --> 00:15:54.471
Mm-hmm.
00:15:54.471 --> 00:15:57.568
Well, there were podcasts, but they were never filmed.
00:15:57.928 --> 00:16:02.379
That was the thing that like six weeks ago when the book first came out in Australia, I did my first podcast.
00:16:02.379 --> 00:16:06.979
He's like,"Okay, we're filming now." And I'm like,"Why?" And you know,'cause I'm so tech avoidant.
00:16:07.369 --> 00:16:07.849
I'm not...
00:16:08.278 --> 00:16:11.168
I just don't want any part of social media.
00:16:11.619 --> 00:16:16.908
And so when it was filmed, I was like,"You mean I have to put makeup on for a podcast now?
00:16:16.918 --> 00:16:21.708
Are you crazy?" Plus also, I live in Australia, so these podcasts are for me, they're gonna be at 10:00 PM.
00:16:22.028 --> 00:16:27.938
And I'm like,"Do you know how un- unnatural it is to be putting concealer and foundation on for me at 9:30 PM just so that you can see my face?
00:16:27.938 --> 00:16:30.548
It's not why I'm in the business." Do you know what I mean?
00:16:30.578 --> 00:16:32.418
So that's all been shocking.
00:16:32.428 --> 00:16:33.808
But anyway, sorry I cut you off.
00:16:33.918 --> 00:16:34.308
Please
00:16:34.404 --> 00:16:34.654
no.
00:16:34.654 --> 00:16:44.004
All I've been saying, yeah, all I'm saying is it must be just a different thing, and I, I think about it Because there's a different expectation of how, you know, a writer used to just, it was a solitary thing.
00:16:44.004 --> 00:16:51.205
You'd write and then you'd put out a book, and then maybe you'd go to some bookstores and sign some copies and meet some of your, your readers.
00:16:51.264 --> 00:16:55.154
And now it's expected, like, let's have a social media presence.
00:16:55.154 --> 00:16:56.044
Let's have this, let's have...
00:16:56.504 --> 00:16:59.884
And it's, uh, do you find it, it's gotta be strange in a way
00:17:00.106 --> 00:17:02.486
Well, it is so strange, but I think that it's...
00:17:02.927 --> 00:17:07.287
So I was on, I was on Instagram till like 2018.
00:17:07.787 --> 00:17:14.567
And I'd written in 2018 a novel that I got to the very end of it, 85,000 words or whatever it was, and I was like,"This is no good.
00:17:14.707 --> 00:17:16.737
I'll throw it away." I was devastated.
00:17:17.047 --> 00:17:18.247
I'd been on Instagram all that time.
00:17:18.257 --> 00:17:19.037
Like, I wasn't active on it.
00:17:19.037 --> 00:17:20.507
I had maybe 500 followers.
00:17:20.517 --> 00:17:20.777
Do you know?
00:17:20.777 --> 00:17:25.156
Like, I'd written one novel before that that was fine, but it didn't, you know, change the world.
00:17:25.787 --> 00:17:33.106
And I remember,'cause I was so sad after I threw this novel away, that I kind of just looked at my life and I was like,"What is helping?
00:17:33.106 --> 00:17:35.116
What is not helping?" And Instagram wasn't helping.
00:17:35.126 --> 00:17:47.797
I remember just thinking, you know, i- if you have a certain amount of emotional resource gifted to you in a day, how much of that do I wanna spend on looking at someone's holiday that is way better than my holiday?
00:17:47.826 --> 00:17:48.507
Do, do you know?
00:17:48.507 --> 00:17:50.596
Because that drains off, what, 10%.
00:17:50.997 --> 00:17:52.436
And then whatever else.
00:17:52.436 --> 00:17:56.237
I look on Twitter and someone's having a big argument, there's another 10% gone for me.
00:17:56.497 --> 00:18:03.527
And I just realized that if I was gonna write again, I wanted 100%, or as much as I could get, to be used on the novel.
00:18:03.527 --> 00:18:03.916
And I...
00:18:04.267 --> 00:18:06.356
It felt very risky because I'm like...
00:18:06.396 --> 00:18:11.116
You know, and again, I'm saying this all as someone who wasn't this huge, you know, Insta presence.
00:18:11.116 --> 00:18:13.686
It's not like I was an influencer or anything like that.
00:18:14.136 --> 00:18:21.326
But I just remember thinking, if I choose to put all my resources into the book, I'll write a better book, and I just have to hope it will sell itself.
00:18:21.616 --> 00:18:27.676
You know, that the extra I give myself to put into it will be much more powerful than please asking 500 people to buy it.
00:18:27.696 --> 00:18:29.737
And that is indeed what happened.
00:18:29.737 --> 00:18:35.166
And I think what I learned was, yes, there's demand, but that's just...
00:18:35.277 --> 00:18:36.547
it's an ideal.
00:18:36.567 --> 00:18:39.507
Maybe my publisher would like me to be on it, but I'm not willing to be.
00:18:39.547 --> 00:18:43.257
And I, I just think that you can avoid it.
00:18:43.267 --> 00:18:44.767
You know, you have choice in this.
00:18:44.767 --> 00:18:45.997
You don't have to be on it.
00:18:45.997 --> 00:18:47.737
It didn't exist 20 years ago.
00:18:47.807 --> 00:18:48.886
You'll get by.
00:18:49.237 --> 00:18:54.297
You know, if you write the best thing you can that's the most truthful thing you can, other people will sell it for you.
00:18:54.537 --> 00:18:59.707
Like, there's still nothing better than word of mouth when it comes to selling books, whether that's, you know, over BookTok and stuff.
00:18:59.787 --> 00:19:05.777
So I'm very grateful to the people who can be on social media and find it perfectly healthy, but I just wasn't one of them.
00:19:05.777 --> 00:19:08.557
So I find I can live much better without it.
00:19:09.067 --> 00:19:10.957
Does anyone find it perfectly healthy?
00:19:11.007 --> 00:19:11.737
Yeah.
00:19:12.196 --> 00:19:13.146
I don't know that anybody does.
00:19:13.186 --> 00:19:20.666
God, you've talked about how there, there are definitely parts of you that you've drawn into this world of your own self in terms of Sophie.
00:19:20.666 --> 00:19:30.280
But it's so interesting to me'cause as I was reading it, you know, this author Lilac Dunn, who she's, taken with, I just kept thinking so many people would view you as that writer.
00:19:30.300 --> 00:19:44.580
Not as this character by any stretch of the imagination, but in terms of viewing you as that person who they're finding things to identify with you because of what you've written, in much of the way Sophie does with this woman.
00:19:44.651 --> 00:19:49.784
Then I love that you find so much of yourself in Sophie.
00:19:49.963 --> 00:19:50.203
I don't know.
00:19:50.644 --> 00:19:51.054
Mm.
00:19:51.403 --> 00:19:55.413
Yeah, well, I think it's intentional because I didn't want to write about the book world.
00:19:55.413 --> 00:19:57.733
Like, I actively didn't want to, if that makes sense.
00:19:57.733 --> 00:20:08.344
I didn't wanna be this writer who, you know that whole second album syndrome where the first album's got your whole heart and soul, and then the second album is just about airports and hotel rooms because that's all you've been doing with your life for two years?
00:20:08.653 --> 00:20:12.693
So I was like,"I am not gonna do that," but it's all I'd been doing with my life for two years.
00:20:12.973 --> 00:20:15.683
So there it was, and it sort of had to be used.
00:20:16.013 --> 00:20:21.413
But I wanted the character of the writer of Lilac Dunn to stay very opaque.
00:20:21.423 --> 00:20:25.314
Like, I wanted it to be Sophie's voice, Sophie's world, Sophie's thoughts.
00:20:25.753 --> 00:20:31.284
It's not that I didn't care about the author, but I didn't want us to know anything about her that she herself wouldn't have put into the world.
00:20:31.564 --> 00:20:44.193
So there's kind of this balance there that, that Sophie discovers what she thinks is everything about the writer, but of course it's a heavily curated, probably quite inauthentic version of the writer that's just her public persona.
00:20:44.523 --> 00:20:59.314
But so for me, it was more of a study of fame and of privacy and of what to give away, and the only parts of myself that I put into the writer are probably the way that you behave when you start to believe...
00:20:59.344 --> 00:21:00.423
Like, I was 43.
00:21:00.453 --> 00:21:01.193
I was so lucky.
00:21:01.193 --> 00:21:02.433
When Stormoss happened, I was 43.
00:21:02.634 --> 00:21:10.861
Like, I was pretty certain of who I was and, you know, where I stood in life, so I wasn't easily swayed by the, you know, the, the attention.
00:21:10.901 --> 00:21:18.181
Like, I was, I was very, I was very much able to hold that at a distance and just enjoy the good bits, but not let it sort of inform who I was.
00:21:18.510 --> 00:21:20.330
The data was very much in there.
00:21:20.590 --> 00:21:33.550
But, um, yeah, there were times when I'm like,"Oh, this could really have changed me if this happened at a different time," and I was lucky to be able to put all of that into the author, but really holding her at arm's length while connecting deeply with Sophie
00:21:34.005 --> 00:21:41.545
One of the things I love that you, she touches on briefly, is Sophie talks about she never felt that she did it right with reading.
00:21:41.924 --> 00:21:42.444
And
00:21:42.636 --> 00:21:43.916
Yes, me neither
00:21:44.615 --> 00:21:49.535
and I love this, but I, I love this whole idea because I don't know people who do feel that they do it right
00:21:50.275 --> 00:21:50.884
Exactly.
00:21:51.075 --> 00:21:54.644
And I thought that that was just me because of my late start.
00:21:55.325 --> 00:22:02.954
And then I gave the book in proof to a novelist called Cathy Rentzenbrink, who's a writer, she's a moderator, she was a bookseller.
00:22:03.464 --> 00:22:09.805
She was, you know, she was that precocious child who read under the covers with a torch since, you know, since she could read.
00:22:09.815 --> 00:22:11.234
She's read everything.
00:22:12.005 --> 00:22:13.944
And I gave her The Girl, and she's like,"Oh, me neither.
00:22:13.944 --> 00:22:29.055
I don't think I'm doing it right either." And I'm like,"Babes, if you don't, then nobody's doing it right." And, you know, it's probably is exacerbated by BookTok and all of those things of, like,"I read 60 books in a year," and, you know, there's this real performative element that's come into reading.
00:22:29.065 --> 00:22:32.575
And I think it's such a shame because it's the most personal and private thing you can do.
00:22:32.575 --> 00:22:35.875
And, and it's lovely to chat about it, but there's no right way.
00:22:35.894 --> 00:22:42.214
It's just that we all feel this self-condemnation about what we have and haven't read, and I just think there's no wrong way to read.
00:22:42.224 --> 00:22:45.035
If you're reading at all, you know, and, and this is...
00:22:45.035 --> 00:22:53.515
I say this all the time, but it's because I really mean it, is that even though this book is kind of, you know, it's, it's very book-lovery.
00:22:53.515 --> 00:22:55.404
It's got lots of real authors mentioned in there.
00:22:55.404 --> 00:22:57.105
There's lots of real books mentioned in there.
00:22:57.644 --> 00:23:00.575
It isn't for literary people only, do you know?
00:23:00.595 --> 00:23:05.944
Like, you don't have to know who those writers are to understand a book, and you're not, you're not gonna feel excluded.
00:23:05.944 --> 00:23:07.674
It's not literary.
00:23:07.674 --> 00:23:10.384
It's not really intense and, you know, all of those things.
00:23:10.444 --> 00:23:15.095
It's a very chatty novel as though Sophie sort of voice noted the whole story to you.
00:23:15.444 --> 00:23:19.424
And so I think that is my way of saying there's, there's no wrong way.
00:23:19.444 --> 00:23:20.825
Just come and sit.
00:23:21.255 --> 00:23:22.595
Come and listen to a story.
00:23:22.653 --> 00:23:23.573
Yeah, 100%.
00:23:23.613 --> 00:23:30.962
I find myself reading through the Booker longlist this year and watching the chatter, and there's certain things that I'll read and I'll be...
00:23:31.113 --> 00:23:47.563
I, I literally will be like,"I don't get it." And other people are like,"Oh my God, it's so brilliant, and it's so..." And I'm, and I'm like,"Okay, is it just me?" And then I feel incredibly stupid and, like, trying to find, you know, people are like,"Oh, the themes and what it's saying." And I'm like, I,
00:23:47.901 --> 00:23:50.260
I just was letting the words wash through my head.
00:23:50.280 --> 00:23:50.810
You know what I mean?
00:23:50.810 --> 00:23:51.201
I'm just...
00:23:51.401 --> 00:23:52.121
But, but is that...
00:23:52.151 --> 00:23:53.300
And I'm so uncritical.
00:23:53.320 --> 00:24:01.520
There's this whole part where Sophie is sort of explaining to the author the way she reads, and saying,"I never question it, and I never see a twist coming." And I, I just, you know.
00:24:01.520 --> 00:24:02.830
And who are these people who know?
00:24:02.830 --> 00:24:07.631
I mean, I did a literature degree, and I still don't know how to talk about novels like that, you know, in that way.
00:24:07.931 --> 00:24:09.651
But it doesn't mean I don't enjoy them.
00:24:09.681 --> 00:24:13.201
You know, it doesn't mean I don't love them, and that they, they mean something to me.
00:24:13.201 --> 00:24:17.010
But I just accept what the writer is trying to do, and I just don't think too deeply about it.
00:24:17.010 --> 00:24:18.721
I just, I just love to read
00:24:19.250 --> 00:24:20.030
Yeah, I'm the same way.
00:24:20.060 --> 00:24:25.863
And I also find that, I don't know about you, but like I, I do have kind of a, a gentle judgment about a book.
00:24:25.873 --> 00:24:41.623
If I'm not loving the book, I still have to look at a book and think,"Okay, someone sat down to write this." So I have a very hard time even like I watch some people eviscerate a book on some form of social platform, and I'm always like"What did it do to you?" And I understand people have a reaction.
00:24:41.633 --> 00:24:51.803
You may not like something, but I'm, I, I'm also just kind of the person like,"Okay, I'm taking this for the experience it is, and ultimately it might not be for me." But that, but that's just, you know, individuals.
00:24:51.903 --> 00:24:53.333
But I've very much been...
00:24:53.673 --> 00:24:57.613
So Sorry and Bliss was fairly, like, universally adored.
00:24:57.653 --> 00:25:03.833
Like, as in if I can say that, and I only mean it in the sense of within the group of people who read it, I didn't get bad reviews.
00:25:03.913 --> 00:25:05.163
You know, which is ridiculous.
00:25:05.163 --> 00:25:06.133
I just didn't get them.
00:25:06.173 --> 00:25:14.923
And there were people who didn't like Martha, and there were people who thought she should pull herself together, but that to me wasn't a review, that was people misunderstanding the fact she had a chronic mental illness.
00:25:15.103 --> 00:25:17.042
So that didn't affect me at all.
00:25:17.292 --> 00:25:25.873
But this book is much more divisive maybe, just because I've picked a direction and I've gone in that direction, and it's maybe not the direction that people expected.
00:25:25.873 --> 00:25:28.242
It's certainly not the direction that I expected.
00:25:28.563 --> 00:25:30.163
So the response has been more mixed.
00:25:30.163 --> 00:25:37.863
But I'm like,"Guys, the stakes are not nearly as high as, as you're kind of..." You know, I read this one negative review, and it was like road rage.
00:25:38.113 --> 00:25:39.982
And I'm like,"Guys, just, just put it down.
00:25:39.982 --> 00:25:40.532
It's fine.
00:25:40.542 --> 00:25:43.212
It doesn't matter." Like, you know,"I'll give you your money back.
00:25:43.222 --> 00:25:44.103
Like, we can chill.
00:25:44.103 --> 00:25:45.363
It's just a book, and it's...
00:25:45.563 --> 00:25:53.423
I'll write more." And you know, Jane Austen wrote Mansfield Park right after Pride and Prejudice, and I bet if she was alive, you wouldn't have been so thrilled.
00:25:53.452 --> 00:25:56.042
But nobody wishes she didn't write Mansfield Park.
00:25:56.212 --> 00:25:57.863
She was just in a different mood.
00:25:57.903 --> 00:26:09.393
But I think when you're alive and you're producing novels, you don't have this, you know, this canon of your own that, you know, Austen has six novels, this is the one you love, this is the one you don't love.
00:26:09.593 --> 00:26:13.502
I think people are tracking someone's career much more and being like,"Has she lost it?
00:26:13.702 --> 00:26:20.712
Was it a fluke?" You know, like, it's just like, but one day I'll be dead, there'll be six or seven hopefully, and you can choose which one you like, and we'll all just calm down
00:26:21.285 --> 00:26:21.674
Right.
00:26:22.325 --> 00:26:23.375
That's exactly right.
00:26:23.724 --> 00:26:24.744
It's not that deep.
00:26:25.295 --> 00:26:28.214
There's one line I, I just loved that, that kind of gutted me.
00:26:28.214 --> 00:26:51.035
I have to say, I was reading this on a plane, I was, like, burning through, and I hit this line which comes at a point later in the novel, which one of the characters says to Sophie, which was,"I've never met someone who tries so hard to be happy by being kind." And that literally Now I'm like,"Okay, Meg, we're in therapy." That saw through me.
00:26:51.035 --> 00:26:52.875
I mean, I burst into tears on the plane.
00:26:52.875 --> 00:27:01.278
I had this just moment of like,"Oh my God, it- It was really impactful,
00:27:01.409 --> 00:27:02.939
that means so much to me.
00:27:03.108 --> 00:27:06.729
I had that line quite early on, and I knew that that's where we were gonna go.
00:27:07.148 --> 00:27:10.048
And I, I don't remem- like, as in I should remember it as...
00:27:10.278 --> 00:27:12.159
I should just use that to describe Sophie.
00:27:12.159 --> 00:27:19.298
You know, in the elevator pitch, I should just say,"You'll never meet someone who tries so hard to be happy by being kind,"'cause that's exactly who she is.
00:27:19.638 --> 00:27:23.808
Um, and I guess you're just lucky as a writer when those little lines float into your head
00:27:24.303 --> 00:27:28.472
Where do you fall on the, don't meet your heroes or do meet your heroes debate?
00:27:29.025 --> 00:27:31.474
Oh, do meet them because I'll tell you why.
00:27:32.194 --> 00:27:39.025
If they, if they disappoint you, well, as in they'll either be more wonderful than you ever could have imagined.
00:27:39.035 --> 00:27:42.515
That's what happened to me when I met all of my heroes out of Sorrows.
00:27:42.555 --> 00:27:49.255
Every single one of them was more incredible than I had even dreamed them up to be in my mind, or they'll let you down and you're free.
00:27:49.545 --> 00:27:51.174
You don't have to admire them anymore.
00:27:51.295 --> 00:27:51.855
Do you know what I mean?
00:27:51.904 --> 00:27:54.414
You'll be kind of released from your adoration.
00:27:54.664 --> 00:27:55.224
But there was...
00:27:55.275 --> 00:27:58.065
Someone told me yesterday, there's a quote from Dr.
00:27:58.065 --> 00:28:00.694
Johnson saying that the only novelist...
00:28:00.734 --> 00:28:08.204
If a novelist raises admiration in you through his work, in real life, he will raise disgust in you, so you should never meet them.
00:28:08.234 --> 00:28:10.865
But meet any author you don't care about, you can meet them.
00:28:10.924 --> 00:28:11.505
It's fine.
00:28:11.744 --> 00:28:18.154
Which I can kind of understand,'cause maybe if you didn't have the moment that you wanted with this author, you'd be gutted.
00:28:18.154 --> 00:28:24.035
You know, if this author means so much to you, and then they're kind of crisp or a bit cold with you when you meet them, that would be heartbreaking
00:28:24.377 --> 00:28:24.827
Yeah.
00:28:24.998 --> 00:28:32.218
Is there anyone, in line with that, it doesn't have to be an author, that, that you would be trepidatious to meet?
00:28:32.428 --> 00:28:33.827
Probably not after what you just said.
00:28:34.458 --> 00:28:36.127
I don't mean trepidatious like scared, but-
00:28:37.018 --> 00:28:42.337
Well, I mean, no, maybe if, yeah, maybe if she was still alive, Nancy Mitford,'cause I've had such a passionate parasocial relationship with her for so long.
00:28:42.607 --> 00:28:50.397
But I can im- even though she's brilliant and funny, I can imagine her being kind of cruel and imperious in real life, and I maybe wouldn't wanna get near that.
00:28:50.867 --> 00:28:53.788
So I think I would choose to admire her from a distance
00:28:54.776 --> 00:29:07.903
Yeah, and I get it from the different angle'cause I've had actors that we've worked with that it's a similar thing, where what's projected is to everyone, oh my God, charming, lovely, and then it's quite the opposite
00:29:08.692 --> 00:29:08.893
Mm-hmm.
00:29:08.932 --> 00:29:11.752
Comedians also are sometimes not funny in real life.
00:29:12.012 --> 00:29:16.542
But I think, don't you think that that's a response to the demand that's on them to be funny?
00:29:16.553 --> 00:29:24.353
Like, particularly with that more than anything, like no one goes up to a model and is like,"Be beautiful, be beautiful." But they'll go up to a comedian and be like,"Say something funny.
00:29:24.512 --> 00:29:27.093
Say something funny." And of course that's gonna close you down.
00:29:27.093 --> 00:29:30.262
Like, you're not a performing monkey, but that's how you're sort of made to feel.
00:29:30.472 --> 00:29:34.932
I think with writers we're just lucky'cause we do it in private, so no one's gonna be like,"Write something right now and let me
00:29:35.163 --> 00:29:36.262
Yeah, right Right.
00:29:36.772 --> 00:29:47.012
But I also feel like comedians are their own kind of group because so many of them are so damaged anyway, and that's what so much of their comedy is coming from because they're so kind of tortured.
00:29:47.128 --> 00:29:54.108
But I'll tell you what I learned actually, and someone described it to me, and then another author described it to me, and then I realized, oh yeah, that's exactly what you do.
00:29:54.519 --> 00:29:55.868
So you're doing a literary event.
00:29:55.878 --> 00:29:56.818
You've written this book.
00:29:56.828 --> 00:29:59.499
To some extent it will involve you and your life.
00:29:59.888 --> 00:30:03.578
You know, there'll be something of your heart in it, and you'll go on stage.
00:30:04.288 --> 00:30:17.419
To make people laugh, you'll unpack all of your stories, and some of them are traumatic, and maybe in my case I'll talk about the sect for 20 minutes, and I'll try and make it funny to make the event engaging, and everybody takes away what they want from that.
00:30:17.729 --> 00:30:19.058
And then the event ends.
00:30:19.058 --> 00:30:20.148
You've had this connection.
00:30:20.159 --> 00:30:27.808
You go back to a shitty Marriott and try and put all of your trauma back away again while gnawing on some hideous protein bar.
00:30:28.058 --> 00:30:38.939
And then in my case, everybody I love is asleep'cause I'm on the other side of the world, and it is so lonely, and so, you know, bizarrely sort of like disparate.
00:30:38.939 --> 00:30:45.598
Like the one, the under the lights 45 minutes ago you feel like, you know, the king of everything, and then you're alone in this hotel.
00:30:45.898 --> 00:30:54.009
And it's just like, that's why you can't do it all the time because, you know, so if someone comes up to you and wants to connect with you, you're like,"I just, I just did that yesterday.
00:30:54.009 --> 00:31:04.388
I have to turn inward and kind of be interior, and I can't just be almost, as it were, giving this stuff away for free." Like, if there's gonna be enough to be on stage, I've got to protect myself the rest of the time
00:31:04.449 --> 00:31:04.808
Yeah.
00:31:05.148 --> 00:31:05.548
Yeah.
00:31:05.729 --> 00:31:06.598
No, I get that.
00:31:06.925 --> 00:31:10.306
And comedians surely unpack their trauma more than anybody else, you know?
00:31:10.346 --> 00:31:13.365
Plus with the very high-wire act of trying to make people laugh.
00:31:13.385 --> 00:31:18.675
Like, if I make people laugh on stage, that's really just a bonus, but no one's demanding it from me.
00:31:18.685 --> 00:31:20.016
Like, you don't get heckled.
00:31:20.395 --> 00:31:23.195
Like, stand-up comedy, I mean, is there anything harder?
00:31:23.256 --> 00:31:25.316
It's probably why we all have bad dreams about it
00:31:25.798 --> 00:31:26.147
Yeah.
00:31:26.188 --> 00:31:26.698
No, you're right.
00:31:26.708 --> 00:31:28.488
You're, you're 100% right.
00:31:28.718 --> 00:31:34.667
I think it's an asset though, for you, and there are certain authors, you know, Ann Patchett, Kathryn Newman.
00:31:34.678 --> 00:31:43.738
You're all kind of writers who are incredibly gregarious and incredibly charming, so that is an asset.
00:31:43.778 --> 00:31:44.198
You know what I mean?
00:31:44.208 --> 00:31:49.788
You will, you, you more than likely will be on that stage and make somebody laugh by something you'll say just by who you are.
00:31:49.988 --> 00:32:07.127
But it's also another thing why I think that you are the people that so many people generate to because they recognize something in you as a person and as a writer that kind of creates that own parasocial relationship for them towards you, if that makes sense
00:32:07.414 --> 00:32:10.884
well, I mean, maybe, and they're very welcome to do that, you know?
00:32:10.924 --> 00:32:24.164
But I think, I think'cause I'm sometimes asked, like,"How do you mix humor and pathos?" And I'm like,"Exactly the same way that you do." You know, everybody, if you're telling me a sad story, will make a joke during the recounting of that sad story.
00:32:24.164 --> 00:32:26.424
And the sadder the story, the better the joke will be.
00:32:26.704 --> 00:32:31.565
And you do it because you want this to be bearable to yourself, and you wanna be engaged with me.
00:32:31.765 --> 00:32:37.595
And the only difference in my case is that I write it down and try and make it sound truthful, but that's what humans do.
00:32:37.694 --> 00:32:40.464
So I'm no more amazing than anyone else.
00:32:40.474 --> 00:32:45.035
Like I can't even, you know, sort of stress that enough.
00:32:45.055 --> 00:32:50.575
It's just that I can do it on paper, and so it's sort of recorded, and it's there, and it's accessible.
00:32:50.575 --> 00:32:53.384
But people are tossing off amazing jokes all day long.
00:32:53.585 --> 00:32:54.115
Everybody.
00:32:54.144 --> 00:32:55.115
We all are doing it
00:32:55.230 --> 00:32:56.641
Writers, they're just like us.
00:32:57.050 --> 00:32:57.540
Um,
00:33:05.123 --> 00:33:05.173
bodies
00:33:05.815 --> 00:33:09.525
Is there anything you're reading, like, while you're doing all the tour and everything else that you're loving?
00:33:10.535 --> 00:33:15.644
Oh my gosh, I have never been in more of a reading desert in my life.
00:33:16.005 --> 00:33:28.805
But I think it's because I came off the back of The writing experience is very intense, and I can read fiction when I'm writing, but only if the person's dead, because I just can't deal with a contemporary novelist in my head when I'm trying to write contemporary fiction.
00:33:28.805 --> 00:33:31.295
Plus, if they're doing really, really well, I don't need to know that.
00:33:31.295 --> 00:33:31.994
Do you know what I mean?
00:33:32.454 --> 00:33:34.825
And so they have to, they have to pause.
00:33:34.825 --> 00:33:40.444
And then I read Middlemarch in this weird fallow period between finishing your novel and the novel actually.
00:33:40.444 --> 00:33:52.585
There's, like, months and months and months while it's sort of in production, and then you've got more months until it comes out, and then And I just haven't picked anything up from Middlemarch, since Middlemarch, that's moved me to that extent.
00:33:52.585 --> 00:34:02.005
And I waited, not intentionally, but to 48 to read that book for the first time, and it was so earth-shatteringly incredible that I'm kind of like, I think I've quit fiction now.
00:34:02.005 --> 00:34:04.545
I'm just gonna read Middlemarch over and over and over again.
00:34:04.855 --> 00:34:18.244
But I was in Bath, the town of Bath, not the actual bath, yesterday, and there's a beautiful bookstore there that I'm sure you know called Persephone, which prints its own editions of books by women that have been sort of lost to time.
00:34:18.244 --> 00:34:20.195
They've got these beautiful silver covers.
00:34:20.844 --> 00:34:24.394
And I bought a book called Cheerful Weather for the Wedding.
00:34:24.405 --> 00:34:25.355
I think it's Cheerful.
00:34:25.355 --> 00:34:28.255
We should check that, pop that in the show notes, by Julia Strachey.
00:34:28.255 --> 00:34:31.614
I think it's from the 1930s, and I think it's gonna get me there.
00:34:31.675 --> 00:34:33.065
I think it's gonna break the drought.
00:34:33.315 --> 00:34:45.614
So I read it on the plane, and there was, I mean, the most amazing description of a man shaking salt onto his plate that has ever been put into writing by any human, and will always remain thus
00:34:45.896 --> 00:34:50.387
Okay, we'll check it.
00:34:50.387 --> 00:34:51.206
Well, Meg, you were delightful.
00:34:51.217 --> 00:34:52.867
The book is fantastic.
00:34:52.876 --> 00:34:54.586
I don't know why I'm holding it up'cause this is audio.
00:34:54.586 --> 00:34:55.927
I'm holding it for you to see your own book.
00:34:56.509 --> 00:35:01.969
I literally said to you,"Can we not film this because I look like such a mess?" It's the end of a very long week of Book Tour.
00:35:01.969 --> 00:35:03.798
It's like Friday afternoon at 6:00 PM.
00:35:04.048 --> 00:35:09.268
My head is almost resting on my desk at this point, but it's just been so nice to chat, just no one needs to see it.
00:35:09.759 --> 00:35:14.668
Ultimate how the sausage is made, so you're very, very kind to let me be audio only
00:35:15.275 --> 00:35:17.304
Whatever you need, Meg, I'm here for you.
00:35:17.744 --> 00:35:21.065
Well, thank you again, and, I hope you have a wonderful weekend
00:35:21.105 --> 00:35:21.965
Thank you.
00:35:22.184 --> 00:35:24.074
And we'll meet one day in real life.
00:35:24.130 --> 00:35:25.010
Lovely to chat.
00:35:25.077 --> 00:35:25.467
You too.
00:35:25.556 --> 00:35:26.077
Talk soon.
00:35:27.411 --> 00:35:28.271
Thank you again, Meg.
00:35:28.481 --> 00:35:35.690
And if you liked this conversation or other conversations you've heard on Behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing so that you never miss an episode.
00:35:36.121 --> 00:35:44.701
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00:35:44.710 --> 00:35:46.150
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00:35:46.380 --> 00:35:51.150
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00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:57.971
All of these things help new people find the podcast so I can continue to bring you conversations like this one.
00:35:58.291 --> 00:36:01.121
I will be back with another episode next week.
00:36:01.331 --> 00:36:08.710
In the meantime, you can always find me on Instagram, Substack, and YouTube at Brett's Book Stack.
00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:10.670
And as always, thanks for listening
