Lisa Harding, BRIGHT BURNING THINGS: A Novel
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[0:40]Lisa Harding is the author of Bright Burning Things, A Novel.
[0:44]Lisa is a writer, actress, and playwright.
[0:46]She received an M. Phil and creative writing from Trinity College, Dublin, in 2014.
[0:50]Her short stories have been published in the Dublin Review, The Bath, Short Story, Anthology,
[0:55]Head Staff, and Winter Papers.
[0:57]Harvesting her first novel won the 2018 Kato Brian Award and was shortlisted
[1:01]for an Irish Book Award and the Carey Group Irish Novel of the Year Award.
[1:05]She lives in Dublin.
[1:06]All right.
[1:07]Welcome, Lisa.
[1:08]Thanks so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Bright Burning Things, A Novel.
[1:13]It's a pleasure to be here and love you to meet you.
[1:16]Lovely to meet you too.
[1:17]Could you please tell us news what this novel is about?
[1:20]Yeah.
[1:21]So this novel is about bad mom.
[1:25]No.
[1:26]Yes.
[1:27]She is an actress who is no longer acting.
[1:31]So that kind of, you know, that creative impulse has taken away from her.
[1:35]I think I heard you say something wonderful earlier actually about an injured athlete,
[1:39]my thought.
[1:40]Yes.
[1:41]That's kind of like what song is like.
[1:42]Basically, she's a very isolated woman with no supports.
[1:47]His acting career has come to a full stop whose on her own has a little boy and a rescue dog.
[1:52]And she's really struggling with profound isolation, with trauma from her past, which hasn't been dealt with.
[1:59]And we're sitting with herself.
[2:00]And then she turns to alcohol to try to see herself and then recreate those highs that she,
[2:08]you know, really misses from her acting career.
[2:11]But at the time we meet her in the novel, she's a full blown alcoholic.
[2:15]And she really is quite dangerous. There's a lot of mania.
[2:19]And yeah, so the little boy he's, he's turning five.
[2:23]And there's a huge amount of love in there.
[2:26]But he is at risk.
[2:28]I'm the dog.
[2:29]She can't even care for the dog.
[2:30]I mean, she leaves the two of them together.
[2:32]But I think the thing about Sonia is she is full of love.
[2:35]And that's why I could stay with her.
[2:38]Do you know when I was writing her?
[2:40]Well, her intentions always seemed so positive.
[2:44]And like the moment where, in one of your, in your opening scene where she goes swimming and leaves her side on the beach with the dog.
[2:50]And this sort of concerned older woman comes over and is wondering why she's swimming in her underwear.
[2:56]And why she's left her kids on the beach and the dog and everything.
[2:59]And yet she gets so fiercely protective.
[3:01]And, and as the reader, we're sort of alongside her being like, hey, get away from that kid.
[3:06]Like who is this old lady?
[3:08]And then you slowly give us signs of what it's really going on.
[3:13]And how she's fantasizing about the bottle, the cold bottle waiting for her and, and the smoke and the kitchen.
[3:20]I mean, it's like, you clearly get a sense that even though she is so positive and possessive right about her loved one.
[3:28]And how she's trying not to get him to cry in the backseat.
[3:31]Like all the mother things.
[3:32]Right.
[3:33]You see quickly how perilous the situation it is.
[3:37]And as you say, it's in spite of her better instincts.
[3:40]I know a lot about, you know, addiction and people in the grip of addiction and how I love that expression.
[3:46]The imp of the perverse.
[3:47]I don't know if you've heard of it, but Edgar Allan Poe.
[3:50]I don't know if you coined it, but he certainly spoke about it, but where people's impulses, you know, it's like a dark little imp kind of.
[3:57]Propelling you towards the destructive forces, whereas there is this other instinct that's constantly battling in her, particularly when she has.
[4:07]Clarity, so she's either deeply hung over, you know, which makes her very cranky and her reality is distorted at the moment, or she's drunk, right at this point in the narrative.
[4:19]And yeah, it's a very distorted lens that she sees the world through, but in her eyes, as with, you know, any addiction or mental disorder, it all makes perfect sense in there.
[4:31]So it's kind of, I was really interested in writing about how the world rubs up against her.
[4:36]And as you say, like, you know, she's constantly in conflict with herself and with the world outside her, but she doesn't have any support, like nobody is looking out for her.
[4:46]No, it's very sad, you know, very sad, yeah.
[4:50]And I think, you know, few of my friends read the novel during COVID, and they were like, wow, their performers, a lot of my friends are performers.
[4:58]And that part once it's caught away is like what you're saying, but be actually just well, or if you're used to living at such a level of intensity and that's taken away from you.
[5:08]You do feel bereft and you do feel slightly mad, you know, I was not just for about 20 years and my own career stopped.
[5:18]And I mean, there were, you know, there was a variety of factors there, but I remember facing the void thinking I'm mad.
[5:24]You know, I have this like, what am I going to do with this energy that you sequenced performing?
[5:30]Yeah, like Ruby wax writes about it brilliantly. I don't know if you read and you've heard work about the getting addicted to the charge of attention and performing.
[5:41]And so my Sonya character is very much an addictive personality and it latches on to different things at different points in her life.
[5:51]There's another book to it's sort of a different genre, but it's called Palm Beach by Mary Adkins and in it, the it centers on a man who used to be an actor and a working actor for many years and even was nominated for something and then he has a throat, like a polyp type removed and he gets his nerves damaged or I'm not saying the science right.
[6:12]I'll just say he couldn't be an actor anymore and went on to be a house manager in Palm Beach, which is what the story is about.
[6:17]It's about like how you go from doing something like that and something he was so good at and loved and was rewarded and shifting.
[6:25]And of course, this book sort of makes fun of the scene in Palm Beach of the uber wealthy blah, blah, blah, but it's that same sort of post acting and it's the same for athlete.
[6:33]I know I keep saying this, but yeah athletes too. I mean, after this intensity, what next, what do you do, where do you go?
[6:41]Very difficult and we know a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people become very profoundly depressed.
[6:48]I think Sonia is actually in a state of depression, although her actions are quite manic and you know she seems quite because she does get there is you know when alcoholism gets to that stage where she's drinking possibly three bottles of wine a night at this stage.
[7:07]Really, it does bring on a kind of a mania and I think there's something very magical about Sonia because of the actress in her.
[7:15]I don't know if you remember, but there are scenes where she kind of play acts Shakespeare with her little boy and she teaches him like the line, you know, and he's he's Romeo and the little dog is dressed up and it's like it's completely bonkers him in her world, but yeah, there's a lot of peril and it's awful to know that a child.
[7:36]Is that risk despite the mother's better instinct, you know, yeah, it's a horrible thing to witness.
[7:43]Sometimes they get like overwhelmed doing this podcast because I feel like every book has a story about some poor child that has been traumatized or mistreated or something happens and like it is or any kids out there, okay, like maybe just not the ones.
[8:00]Yeah, there's a kind of a high stakes isn't there with you if you're writing about something like alcoholism anyway.
[8:08]Yes, but your writing style itself is so beautiful. I mean, I know you won a prize for your first novel and everything like that, but it is so literary and beautiful and almost poetic the way you write about the most mundane thing. I mean, a scene with like a boy in the backseat of a car.
[8:25]I would say like the way I would write it. Yeah, like the versus the way you read it, it's unbelievable.
[8:32]And then I'm trying to find when they were in the car as the car heats fog forms on the windows.
[8:37]I draw a heart on the windscreen keeping one hand on the steering wheel and right mommy loves you inside it.
[8:42]Tommy, look, I trace the letters with my fingertip reading aloud.
[8:45]He opens his eyes squinting leans into her beat tries to hug him arms only reaching a third of the way around his wide girth.
[8:51]My bones are happy contented sound. Good boy. Her me best boy is thick tail thumps on the tatty nylon seats. My best boy is what would I do without you?
[9:00]And then you go on from there. It's just like so beautiful. And then you say you think somebody's following her somebody the character thinks somebody is following him and you say I turned to the right checking the mirror and see him still.
[9:12]But then no, it's not him. He was just having his fun harmless fun. It's okay.
[9:16]It's okay. My heartbeat slows down as I think of the promise waiting for me in the fridge. I'm glad I had the foresight to do that. She'll it. It's hot in the car now and it's still warm outside.
[9:25]Oh, thanks. It's just lovely to hear it read out like that. Oh, it's so good. It's just like such great writing. No words are wasted.
[9:35]Like I just I love this style.
[9:37]Thanks. Yeah, it's not for everyone that style because it's quite staccato and it did like I did climb right inside her and wrote her from the inside out and you've just read it's the first person.
[9:50]So it's I it's the first person present tense and yeah, it meant that I was living with this woman for three years.
[9:58]And you know, they were asked.
[10:00]like of rising her, there were aspects of people I love and
[10:04]aspects of myself that I was like, oh, you know, that it was
[10:07]quite difficult to write. But thank you for saying that about
[10:10]the pros, because I think I do love lean pros, like I love
[10:16]pros that that it doesn't use it. You know, if you can get
[10:20]their quicker get there, that's how I feel. I mean, I'm quite
[10:23]an impatient, just rereader. And I don't go in for like, long
[10:27]pages of description or writers that are kind of, you
[10:30]know, paralyzing on the page. I do love that lean meme, machine
[10:35]style. But there's a little bit of poetry in there too,
[10:39]because I love language. And I think she is, she is very
[10:44]magical in her thinking. So thank you for taking that.
[10:47]I love that. Pure wedding on the page. That's really
[10:50]what I mean. I do. I know exactly what you mean. I'm like,
[10:54]yes, I do. Sometimes that's really beautiful too. I mean, it
[10:57]depends, you know, what the, if it is exactly, I mean, if it
[11:01]merits it, I often think it's like the form, you know, the
[11:04]form and the content need to kind of marry up for me. So
[11:09]sometimes you can feel when a writer is really reaching. And
[11:12]sometimes as you say, it's completely intrinsic to the,
[11:16]to the way a writer, right? But I personally love, yeah, getting
[11:21]to the bones of it. And I love editing. I think editing is a
[11:25]huge part of writing. Anytime I like write an essay or whatever,
[11:28]because my, my go-to form is essay writing. Anytime I
[11:32]finish, I'm like, okay, now I have to go back and cut a
[11:34]hundred words at least, because it always gets better with
[11:37]fewer words. I don't know why. And you know, it's what you're
[11:40]saying. Like you take out the stuff that you don't need and
[11:43]then it just makes it better. Yeah. I mean, it suits how I
[11:46]write. But you know, like I was reading that on both
[11:49]over again recently, you know, she's wonderful,
[11:52]flow by book. Oh my God, he goes on. And they add just
[11:56]goes on the ad for us. I know that was the style as well.
[11:59]But it's interesting, isn't it? And it does kind of lull you
[12:02]into that when you get into that world where it's really
[12:04]lush. The writing is really lush. And, you know, you can kind of
[12:08]get in there. But I think the modern sensibility suits
[12:13]better that that approach, or particularly in a first person as
[12:17]well, it would be completely unnatural for me to start
[12:20]writing long kind of, you know, overworked descriptions, because
[12:23]it's through her eyes. Yeah. Yeah. So I had to stay true to
[12:28]her and what she sees and notices. It almost reminds me,
[12:32]have you read? There's a, it's a memoir in recipes. It's
[12:36]called a memoir. And anyway, it's by Phyllis Grant. It's
[12:38]called Everything Is Under Control. It came out right as
[12:40]the pandemic was starting. And she has a similar style in
[12:45]the sort of the way she parses words and how she can tell a whole
[12:49]story about like, I don't know, something terrible happening
[12:53]or whatever. And just a few images and a few, I don't know. I
[12:56]think you probably liked it. It sounds wonderful. Yeah. I
[12:58]haven't read it. Everything is under control. It's
[13:00]long. But it's a memoir. It's not a novel. But still,
[13:04]anyway, that's it. Well, I should ask, maybe I shouldn't
[13:07]if I shouldn't. So like, what do you like to read? I shouldn't
[13:09]aside from Phyllis. And, you know, Phyllis Grant and
[13:13]San Francisco. What do I like to read? Yeah. What do you like to
[13:17]read? I mean, I adore Elizabeth Streis, maybe who doesn't.
[13:21]But I really, I really admire her. I think all of
[13:24]Kishri's was one of the best creations. I love that. She
[13:29]was so spiky and so unlikable in so many ways. And
[13:33]again, a character that's kind of, you know, not able to take
[13:37]charge of her own tongue and so cruel to her son and husband
[13:40]the times. And yet so capable of such extreme love and warmth
[13:44]to people outside. So, you know, that the, what do they call it?
[13:48]The house devil, street angel thing. But I think Elizabeth
[13:51]Streis has a beautiful style. And she writes with such heart,
[13:55]but it's also quite funny and caustic. You know, I really love
[13:59]her. I love like, I read it. I mean, it's part of what I do
[14:02]is reading, which is really wonderful. And, you know, I read
[14:06]very widely. I love that Australian author Tim
[14:09]Winton. I don't know if you've come across on the haven't.
[14:12]Yeah, he's kind of remarkable. I've read all of his works on
[14:16]like, I came across them because I saw a play of his at the
[14:18]National Theatre in London years ago was an adaptation of one
[14:22]of his novels called Cloud Street. And he creates these
[14:26]extraordinary worlds, I mean, in Western Australia. And he,
[14:29]but he writes very differently to me in that, you know,
[14:32]he writes a lot about landscape and the place being
[14:35]essential character in his novels. But he's funny
[14:39]again, I do really, I really, you know, the older I get
[14:43]as well, the more I really appreciate even, I mean, I do
[14:45]go to the dark places and my writing. But I do appreciate
[14:49]the, you know, the ability to offset it against humor.
[14:53]I love that. But I was just finished reading before I went back
[14:57]to flow by the lonely passion of Judith Hearn.
[15:00]Don't know if you've heard about both Brian Moore.
[15:03]Very grim. Very grim, very beautiful. 1950s Ireland,
[15:07]this aging spinster. Just this kind of aching portrait and
[15:12]loneliness, you know, and I love books and translation. I read a lot of
[15:15]French authors. There's this incredible novel called
[15:18]Beside the Sea. And I'm trying to remember her name.
[15:22]Veronique Olmie, O-L-M-I. And she's a playwright too.
[15:27]But she wrote this extraordinary novel. It was quite a while ago
[15:30]about a mother with very serious depression,
[15:33]who's again is very isolated. And I'm not giving anything away,
[15:37]but she actually ends up because it's on the back of the
[15:41]blower. Smothering her children. Oh boy, thinking she's
[15:44]protecting them from this awful life. But it's, it's so
[15:48]sparsely written. And so tender if you can imagine.
[15:51]Wow. That's really good. It's very powerful.
[15:54]Wow. Yeah. Okay. As if I needed my reading list to grow.
[15:57]but thank you for that. So it's not when you're not
[16:02]reading and writing. What do you do? Like what's your life like?
[16:06]Well, it's been pretty limited in the last couple of years. I
[16:09]restricted. Our hands has had a tough time of COVID.
[16:13]We had quite, you know, extreme lockdowns here. So I am not a mother.
[16:19]And I live with my rescue dog. And so a lot of the things that I love to do,
[16:24]like my dance class and teaching creative rising and
[16:28]being with friends, going to the cinema, going to the theater,
[16:30]that was so much a part of my life. It was a good balance
[16:34]with the rising. Whoops, stopped. So I feel like I'm just kind of
[16:37]emerging back into life. And I feel a little bit like,
[16:41]like I hit the madness of Sonia. Thankfully, I don't have an
[16:47]addiction substance with, you know, and God.
[16:49]But that, you know, that thing where you're on your own too much.
[16:53]And your thoughts just go round and round. It's very hard to
[16:56]interrupt from even if you're conscious.
[16:59]But what I love to do is I love to hike in the mountains.
[17:01]One, like we weren't even allowed to go beyond two kilometers here.
[17:05]So I couldn't, I couldn't even go up the mountains
[17:08]for hiking, which I would do every weekend. I've got back into it.
[17:11]And I love to, I love my rescue dog. And Herbie is such a big character in
[17:16]the book. And I think he's one of my favorite characters.
[17:19]You can see your beautiful dog there. Yes. Yeah.
[17:22]Yeah. And I love like, there's so many things. I love dance. And I love
[17:26]going to theater and reading and hanging out with friends.
[17:31]So it's just like life is beginning to come back to normal. But then we're
[17:35]getting all this dreadful. I don't know media stuff at the moment. So
[17:40]I think genuinely, I think people that lived alone during the pandemic,
[17:44]because you know, quite a few of my friends are single.
[17:48]I mean, it seems to be, I don't know. It's a great proportion of society.
[17:53]I don't know what it says about society now, but are living alone, right?
[17:58]And I think that's had a great toll on people's mental health. I don't think
[18:03]we fully understand, but the impact of kind of being locked down on your own in
[18:07]this space and everything going online was very, very peculiar.
[18:13]Yes. And I agree. I think that many of the effects, the effects of people who
[18:19]are alone, the effects on children, effects on, I mean, I know that mental health
[18:24]and children, I was just at this event by the child minded to like, they
[18:28]don't even know the fault to be it. They were calling them like COVID kids. Like,
[18:31]what does that mean? What does it mean? You can't see people's spaces.
[18:34]Yeah. But you're right. Isolation. And I mean, I felt like I was going out of my
[18:39]all the time. Anyway. And I think, yeah, and I think I remember like some of my
[18:44]friends, you know, are in partnerships and they have kids and some of them, not all of them,
[18:49]but some of them said it was beautiful time because they got to spend time with their partner
[18:53]and their kids in a way they haven't such a busy life. And that really can make people feel
[18:58]quite bereft that don't have that. Interesting. I mean, like, it's really back on this kind of
[19:05]of supposed idea. They do use the word bubble or, but family. And if people's family relations
[19:11]are very stressed or they don't have that, yeah, I think that there was just people really
[19:17]kind of looking at their life choices and thinking, you know, oh, yeah, what is this?
[19:24]Yeah. But also, the alcoholism thing that I've written about in the book where people
[19:28]turning to alcohol, that's really been on the rise. And also, you know, we know abuse within
[19:36]relationships where that was already there. There was times where I would actually get overwhelmed
[19:43]really overwhelmed when I think of kids that were in families where all this was going on.
[19:49]And I know, you know, it does. And I have a friend who works for a women's aid. It's here in Ireland.
[19:55]And she was saying like that the amount of phone calls from women in
[20:00]these situations, and children just not even getting out
[20:03]to school, so not getting their usual outlets, you know,
[20:07]and where everybody's kind of stuck in a pressure cooker.
[20:10]So yeah, in a weird way, that character that I wrote
[20:14]who's so profoundly isolated, it kind of,
[20:18]a lot of people ended up living that life, you know.
[20:21]Wow.
[20:22]Makes me very sad.
[20:24]Yeah.
[20:24]I know, I hope I just, yeah, I hope people are okay.
[20:27]I mean, I think there's a kind of a PTSD at there, don't you?
[20:31]Like, I guess people are, I got on an airplane for the first time.
[20:34]I don't know if you've traveled.
[20:36]Oh my gosh, the first time I went on an airplane,
[20:38]I was having a panic attack, literally.
[20:41]I had a panic attack going to a football game.
[20:42]I was like, I can't do this.
[20:44]I can't like, it's been really hard.
[20:46]Yeah, it was hard getting back.
[20:47]I feel like I've crossed over some thing,
[20:49]like thing, as there are more and more events,
[20:52]like I'm getting used to it.
[20:54]But yeah, I spoke to some woman.
[20:55]She's like, you know, you have like undiagnosed PTSD right now.
[20:59]Like, that is why everything is loud and everything is hard.
[21:02]And you're scared to go to a restaurant and all the stuff.
[21:05]Because it takes me a very long time.
[21:06]The emotions are very, like, very raw, yes.
[21:10]So yeah, and the way Sonia in the book,
[21:13]lives her life, it's kind of like everything is hyper saturated.
[21:16]And yeah, she feels everything way too intensely, you know?
[21:19]Yes, no, I get it.
[21:20]We're really, I think so many people will get it.
[21:24]Oh my gosh, well, it's so beautiful.
[21:26]Are you working on anything now?
[21:28]I am actually my first book has been option for a film.
[21:32]And we've just landed in a, yeah, a screenplay
[21:35]with there's this, it's called a British film industry, BFI.
[21:38]Yes. This side of the world.
[21:40]And that's in development.
[21:41]And then this by burning things has just been optioned.
[21:43]And I was talking to a wonderful iOS director.
[21:47]And we're discussing by turning it into a series.
[21:50]Actually, so yeah, I will be involved in that.
[21:53]I won't be the only writer and I'm writing novel number three,
[21:57]which is actually funnier.
[21:58]It's dark because it's kind of my bent,
[22:00]but it is funnier and all I know so far
[22:03]because I'm in the process of writing
[22:05]and I never know what I'm writing really,
[22:06]but it's about a group of first year college students
[22:09]who come from very dysfunctional homes
[22:12]and kind of find themselves and form this alternative family
[22:15]and then they kind of turn on each other.
[22:17]So it is pretty dark.
[22:18]It's almost cult like what they create.
[22:21]Oh, that sounds really good.
[22:24]Wow, but it's funnier.
[22:26]You know, I am enjoying rising.
[22:29]It probably has a little bit more of a thriller edge.
[22:31]Yeah, and I'm allowing myself go there.
[22:34]Well, I hope you're allowed to get out of your house more.
[22:37]I know. Well, it's beginning to open up.
[22:39]But then in Ireland, in Dublin,
[22:41]they're very, very frightened here
[22:42]because of our healthcare system.
[22:45]It can get overwhelmed very easily.
[22:47]And they're talking about all these kind of bringing in more restrictions.
[22:51]Oh, no.
[22:52]And we're coming into the winter here
[22:54]and our last winter, we were locked down fully
[22:59]for three months, two kilometers.
[23:01]And I think everybody's just in fear
[23:03]that's going to happen again, you know, really.
[23:07]I'm sorry.
[23:08]I'll be, I'll be...
[23:09]No, we'll be okay, won't we?
[23:11]I mean, look, we're all the...
[23:13]I don't know what the percentage in America is,
[23:15]but a lot of us are vaccinated.
[23:17]I could just keep you here in like a Zoom
[23:19]in the corner of my screen.
[23:20]We could just hang out.
[23:21]Zoom doesn't do it for me, though.
[23:23]I know. It's like this weird alternate reality, isn't it?
[23:27]Yes, I agree. I'm ready for 3D.
[23:30]Maybe Zoom has to be up to 3D or something.
[23:32]Maybe someone's working on that.
[23:34]Anyway, last question.
[23:35]Do you, what is your advice to aspiring authors?
[23:38]Yeah, no, aspiring authors, as in an author hasn't written anything yet.
[23:42]I think it's really good to find a creative writing class.
[23:45]I think that's a great idea.
[23:47]And to give you impetus and support in the beginning,
[23:51]and then what I did was I moved from, you know,
[23:53]I did go back and do an end fill,
[23:55]but you don't have to, at all.
[23:56]Just do a course.
[23:57]There's so many amazing courses online at the moment as well.
[24:00]And then it's lovely to be part of a writing group.
[24:04]And, you know,
[24:05]an I'm part of a very supportive writing group at the moment,
[24:09]and they're wonderful,
[24:10]they're wonderful bunch of women.
[24:12]Yeah, and to have people that you really respect their opinion,
[24:17]I think is important and respect their writing.
[24:19]That's important to me anyway,
[24:21]because I don't want to take advice from someone.
[24:23]You know that I don't like this.
[24:26]But yeah, I think it's good to seek out people who are on the same journey.
[24:30]It's a great advice.
[24:31]Excellent.
[24:32]Well, Lisa, thank you.
[24:33]I'm so glad our paths crossed,
[24:36]and thank you for introducing me to your character,
[24:39]and sort of taking me in and, you know,
[24:42]I just love the way you write.
[24:43]So, thank you, Cynthia.
[24:45]It's been lovely to meet you.
[24:46]Thank you so much for having me.
[24:48]All right, bye, bye, bye.
[24:51]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[24:55]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[24:57]at Zibi Owens, and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[25:00]Also, sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[25:03]and sign up for my virtual book club,
[25:04]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[25:07]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[25:08]in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[25:11]And, thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[25:13]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.