Beth Morrey, DELPHINE JONES TAKES A CHANCE
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[2:29]Beth Mori is the author of Delphine Jones Takes a Chance, a novel.
[2:33]She is also the author of The Love Story of Missy Carmichael.
[2:37]Both her books, by the way, have different titles, which is a little confusing.
[2:40]So in the UK, The Love Story of Missy Carmichael was called Saving Missy.
[2:44]And her latest book, Delphine Jones Takes a Chance, is actually called M and Me.
[2:49]And you can decide if you think those are our better titles or whatever.
[2:52]I think they're all awesome.
[2:54]Anyway, Beth is a TV producer.
[2:57]Now, she says she does mostly help with treatments, but she used to work for a long time
[3:03]at RDF television as Creative Director of Development.
[3:07]She helped create the secret life four-year-olds series on Channel 4 and 100-year-old drivers for ITV.
[3:14]She wrote these two novels and also hosts of hardcast, which is called One Torn Every Minute.
[3:22]And we discuss this a lot.
[3:24]Welcome, Beth.
[3:25]Thank you for coming on Monster.
[3:26]I have time to read books to discuss Delphine Jones Take a Chance or as is known in the UK.
[3:31]M and Me.
[3:32]Correct.
[3:33]Thank you very much.
[3:34]I really like M and Me.
[3:35]So why?
[3:36]I mean, not that I don't like this.
[3:37]Why the different titles?
[3:38]What happened?
[3:39]Well, my publisher in the US probably knows better than me.
[3:42]I trust them when it comes to marketing.
[3:44]And they just felt that was a better title for the US market.
[3:47]I think from what I've heard that US readers prefer titles with names in more than the full name.
[3:55]That's what I gather.
[3:57]And they felt quite strongly that that was a better title for the book.
[3:59]So we went with that.
[4:01]Oh, I actually started my own publisher company.
[4:04]And we have books coming out starting in January 23.
[4:07]I'm thinking of myself really?
[4:09]I don't think we have any names in any more titles.
[4:12]Uh-oh.
[4:13]Anyway.
[4:14]All right.
[4:15]Well, we'll store that little nugget away.
[4:17]Anyway.
[4:18]Okay.
[4:19]Please tell listeners about this book.
[4:22]What is Delphine Jones takes a chance about?
[4:25]And how did you come up with the plot, the narrative, the whole idea for this book?
[4:30]A struggling single mother called Delphine Jones, whose life was derailed as a teenager.
[4:36]Things went off track.
[4:37]She had a lot going for her, but things went wrong.
[4:39]And it's about her struggling to build a better life for her and her daughter, M.
[4:44]But also in flashback, the secrets and things that she did wrong that caused her life to deal rail in the first place.
[4:52]As to where the idea came from.
[4:54]It's so hard.
[4:55]I mean, I'm sure you know with the authors you work with.
[4:57]There's no suggestion.
[4:58]I shouldn't even ask that question.
[5:00]Okay.
[5:01]One thing.
[5:02]It's so many different layers and experiences I wanted to write about education as a power to transform.
[5:08]And I was very interested in single mothers because I admire them so much what they do.
[5:13]And you know, I wanted to write a companion piece to the love story of Missy Carmichael that dealt with different themes,
[5:20]but also offered a similar experience.
[5:22]It was lots of things coming together.
[5:24]Well, I mean, I feel like her life gets derailed, not derailed.
[5:29]But I think that one of the pivotal moments, of course, is the loss of her mother at a young age.
[5:34]And actually right before you, I interviewed a woman named Jane Peck.
[5:37]And right behind her was all this bicycle equipment.
[5:39]And I was like, you know, you have to be really careful because the mother of a dear close friend of mine from a previous book.
[5:45]Just, you know, got into an accident.
[5:47]I'm joking, but I'm not joking because it's like, they become so real to me.
[5:51]And I was so heartbroken. I hope that's not giving too much away. It didn't come that.
[5:56]Right? It's not that far into the book. I feel like I could say that there's mother lost in this story.
[6:01]And it felt so real and so sad and how one moment, whether it's loss or just something changing in your life that one moment,
[6:10]she's planning her afternoon with her girlfriends.
[6:12]And this and that is really important.
[6:15]And the next like nothing is important.
[6:17]And like everything has changed just like that.
[6:20]Have you had moments like that or are you interested in just exploring the effects?
[6:24]I mean, I feel like we've all had moments that are sort of bifurcating our lives into before and after in some way.
[6:30]Yeah. I think I really wanted to explore that idea.
[6:33]And I think I'm a chronic warrior.
[6:35]And I think I'm often thinking about life turning on a sixpence in that way.
[6:41]So I did want to explore it.
[6:44]And I guess when we're talking about inspirations, there was this viral clip that did the rounds a few years ago.
[6:50]It was an American clip actually. It was called the race of life.
[6:53]And it was they lined up a load of young people for a race for like a hundred dollars.
[6:58]Except that if you had certain things in your life that had happened to you, you were allowed step forward.
[7:03]So if you'd had a private education, if your parents were still together, if you'd never been hungry, you were allowed step forward.
[7:09]And at the end of the stepping forward, they were like, right, we're going to run the race. You've all got chance.
[7:14]But obviously the people who'd had the advantages in life had a much better chance of winning the money.
[7:20]And that really struck me and I wanted to explore the idea of somebody who started the race out okay.
[7:26]But then just things kept happening to her to pull her back.
[7:30]And it seemed to me that a hugely significant thing would be the loss of a mother.
[7:35]And perhaps in parent and another parent who's absent as a result of that loss.
[7:40]So in a way she's missing two parents.
[7:43]And that just seemed to me to be a profound thing that would derail someone and mean that they couldn't take the opportunities in life that might otherwise be there.
[7:52]The conversation that she has with her dad at the end where he's like, you've got to, you know, keep going, you've got to get out like don't let, you know, have the same thing.
[8:01]I'm moving like that he like knew all of it right like he was fighting he was trying like that it's not always what you see on the outside right all the interior life of people and what they want and then what they're capable of at different times like.
[8:14]And how much love can sort of conquer all in a way right it's oh my gosh really really meaningful.
[8:21]Thank you well I think Nathan is a bit of a divisive figure because I think it would be very easy to be quite exasperated with him and quite frustrated with his inability to function.
[8:33]But I never particularly wanted it to feel like 100 in that way I wanted that to be a bit of balance that while you can think of him as a little bit weak.
[8:42]At the same time he's just incapable he's yeah I grief and there's nothing he can do about it so I wanted it to be a kind of mix of how you feel about it you should feel about ambiguous about him.
[8:53]Yeah, interesting. I feel like you mentioned a million books in this book right there like I just wrote this memoir and at the end like I mentioned so many books I put a reading list because I was like okay.
[9:06]You know I feel like I'm like where is your reading us I know you have a song playlist in all that I need a reading list I should do that sometimes there's a I don't know if there's a US equivalent but we've got bookshop.org where you can we have it we have it.
[9:19]And I did one for for Missy Carmichael and I should do one for this as well because it is it does get quite lengthy.
[9:25]In the end they have quite reading is it's it's great it's almost like you know some of these books and Shakespeare and you know some of these I haven't read in quite some time I'm feeling a bit shamed.
[9:39]But you know it's some moments where you have like Bonjour two steps or like open and all of them have such meaning like I feel like you.
[9:47]The reasons why books came at certain points were so intentional at times like did you did you do that on purpose or was am I reading too much into it now when books appear generally there's a message in whatever book.
[10:00]is mentioned and so like with Bonjour's Tristess I think I probably googled for about half an hour
[10:06]to think what would be the book that she would have been reading at that point because it felt
[10:10]really important and some of them had the books like Flowers for Algin and by Daniel Keys has
[10:15]have huge importance in the kind of themes that they suggest that are aligned to Delphine's life.
[10:22]Interesting. Wow, I love it. And of course there's the importance of teachers which
[10:27]courses through the book and education and opportunity. The opportunity that the education alone
[10:33]provides right as you were sort of saying with this race but even just for your ability to feel
[10:40]good about yourself. I mean here she is Delphine this like brilliant woman with this brilliant
[10:44]daughter and she's like well you know it's easy for this rich woman to say I should get back to
[10:49]school right. I'm working as this cafe and this cleaning job and whatever and you know how do I
[10:55]stop all this I won't give anything away but you know it it seems so easy for people to say oh go
[11:01]back to school. Oh just do it part time or whatever and you know you really map out all the constraints
[11:07]and all the things working against somebody from pursuing something that maybe deep down their sort
[11:12]of soul is destined to do but then life gets in the way. Yeah I think it is really tough but I mean
[11:19]Delphine and I wouldn't be able to do it without teachers. I've got a real passion for teachers.
[11:24]I really really admire them and they're acknowledged in the acknowledgements and I feel we all had
[11:31]a teacher in our life but the one that we remember is sort of pulling us up and being the one
[11:37]that we felt connection to or that pushed us a little bit further and I just wanted to celebrate
[11:41]them so pretty much everyone in Delphine Jones takes a chance is a teacher and they have tremendous
[11:49]power and significance because I think in real life they do as well and particularly after the
[11:54]pandemic as well with lockdown you know there were a lot of schools that you know most schools stayed
[11:59]open during during lockdown because they were educating key workers children so they were doing
[12:04]twice as much they were educating key workers children and they were providing resources for
[12:09]parents at home so I just feel like it's you know we should really celebrate them and honor what
[12:15]they do for our kids. I totally agree. I feel like you had some like policy suggestions in your
[12:20]acknowledgements. Yeah they should be funded and remunerated properly acknowledged and champion
[12:26]as Lynchfinn of our society. Next time you see a teacher dressed up for World Book Day or any day
[12:31]for that matter give them an elbow pump and tell them their ace. Yeah yeah so what can what can we do
[12:37]for a teacher? Like what what should we be doing? You know my dad has a series where the teacher
[12:42]shouldn't have to pay income tax. Wow that's very radical and I love it. I mean I don't pretend to be
[12:50]really knowledgeable about these things but it struck me that that you know teachers I don't know
[12:56]about the US situation either but in the UK they're not paid much and the schools are under
[13:03]and we didn't give them enough money to put in place all the measures that we needed for COVID.
[13:09]We just expected them to get on with it and to put themselves on the front line you know
[13:14]without masks and things like that. It just felt to me that they weren't being respected
[13:19]and appreciated as much as they should be. So I wanted to do that for a starter but I also have
[13:26]in the acknowledgements there there's a big thing I've got a big thing about teachers dressing up
[13:30]and whenever I see a teacher dressed up I cry because they don't they don't need to do it. It's
[13:35]not part of the job description and yet they do it. They dress up for all sort you know you see
[13:40]them dressed up for Halloween and World Book Day and I just think it's it seems to me to be
[13:44]symptomatic of how they always go the extra mile they always do more than they need to do
[13:49]which is you know why I love them so much. So true. I cry at the end of every school year with my
[13:54]kids as I'm like hugging the teachers. I'm just like there's this one teacher that now all of my kids
[13:59]have had well three of my four kids have had and this is my last year with her and I'm already
[14:03]like every time I pick up or drop off I'm already in my head like how am I going to separate from
[14:08]her at the end of this you know I'm like so attached myself. Yes. In our school the teachers are
[14:15]sort of like many celebrities you know we will all the parents pointing them out and I feel like
[14:19]that's the way we should be with them. Fade them as some of the teachers. It's absolutely true.
[14:24]Absolutely right. I also appreciated the return to basically grade school French in the book
[14:32]because I took French all through school and now of course I haven't like practiced it in 20
[14:37]years or even more frankly I mean I don't even want to say how many years and she's the same way
[14:41]right she's getting back into it. Her her stopping was quite deliberate when her mother passes away
[14:46]but how it's not just the language opening up it's so many things right that are opening up for
[14:51]her at that time and language in more ways than one I feel like our unspooling for Delphine. Yes.
[14:58]It unlocks a bit of a memory a particular thing and when she and Letty speak French it's like
[15:04]an intimacy between them that they can say things in French to each other that they couldn't say
[15:08]in English which felt really important to me but that said I fondly imagined I was really good at
[15:13]French but you know fine I can do this and so I wrote it all down and then when we were doing
[15:19]all the copy editing and stuff I had to check it and I got my husband's niece on board who is
[15:24]French and it turned out my French isn't nearly as good as I was and she ripped it apart and we had
[15:30]to put it back together again so it was a lot harder than I imagined but I'm really careful I hope
[15:36]readers will understand that they can read it and they'll either understand it because it's you
[15:42]know basic enough or it's translated immediately afterwards to explain but also there'll be the
[15:49]odd word that you don't know is a reader that maybe Letty explains that then you've learnt a new
[15:57]word in French which is quite fun so you know I learnt Puf gas which I don't mean it's
[16:03]easy but you would peck it throughout so a reader can be enriched at the same time as I
[16:10]already forgotten the one the words you the first words you teach it's like dishy maybe was it
[16:16]dishy yes among you El Macron is dishy yeah there we go yeah and I forgot on that word as well
[16:22]that's terrible I will have checked the two notes great we'll see how much I learned you know
[16:31]I'm sure I'm not the first to suggest this but is there any hope of a novel about Em as she
[16:37]grows up I don't I mean I never think about sequels particularly I always think it's sort of done
[16:42]when it's done Em was conceived as a sort of modern-day Matilda you know well Darls Matilda
[16:49]and I wanted her to be she's quite sort of manipulative and ruthless I you know I kind of twisted it
[16:56]a bit but there's also mentioned a kind of eariness like a slightly supernatural thing which was a
[17:01]sort of reference to Matilda so now you talk about it I think the thing that I would explore
[17:08]probably is Em's relationship with Dylan mm-hmm I'm not sure how long that relationship would
[17:14]last but I'm interested in it because he's not her father but they get on okay he's her teacher
[17:20]and it's sort of I'm quite interested in those sort of slightly unconventional relationships
[17:28]between people who are not necessarily who are kind of odds so hence Delphine's friendship with
[17:34]Lettie who she would never particularly be friends with and starts with kind of an element of self
[17:40]interest so I suppose yeah I could I could explore Em's it's kind of like a Nick Hornby-ish
[17:49]relationship do you know except with girls that is a great that's the greatest compliment to me
[17:56]because about to boy is one of my favorite books of all time I just love that book it's wonderful
[18:01]amazing it was so good I had him on this podcast it was like such a
[18:05]oh he's he's the dream amazing also you then wrote a song that is performed by this
[18:13]pictures band and then like that was so cool too so do you write lots of songs or was this a one
[18:18]off just to be funny it was mad I was just sort of thinking you know I can quite let this
[18:24]let the story go and I've been thinking about that song which appears as a snippet in the book
[18:30]and I just thought I wonder if I can carry on the song I wonder how the whole song would look
[18:35]so I wrote the lyrics and then having wrote the lyrics I thought well it would be quite interesting
[18:39]to see how it sounds and so I have a songwriting friend who's in a band called sugar cane
[18:45]and I said to him I wonder if you could write this I wanted to sound like a mix between Nora Jones
[18:51]and he did PF and he really took that and ran with it and then he had a friend who's a vocalist
[18:58]who had a beautiful voice and she sang it and then he deranged it and then we had a friend who
[19:04]was a music producer who put it all together for us and it was just like a really fun and slightly
[19:10]bizarre thing to go with a book so if you know if you want to hear Delphine and the tiny pennies
[19:15]in Mahaba I would love that it was so satisfying to like read the book and then find something
[19:22]in real life to echo the book it was very cool okay wait just switching gears for a second you
[19:28]a hilarious podcast called one tour in every minute about the actual nuts and bolts of
[19:35]the indignities of having children essentially tell me about the podcast and why why
[19:41]tell me all about it why is a really good question it's because when I worked in television
[19:47]after I'd given birth I pitched a show about childbirth and I never got it wait because you know
[19:53]it's kind of grim and niche and I thought when I'd left television podcasting is such an
[20:00]Terry and world and you can just do stuff and I had a few friends in the comedy world I knew
[20:05]who had stories to tell and my husband is a podcasting and producer himself so it was a sort
[20:12]of easy setup and again it was just like the song really we thought we'd just try it and so I
[20:18]interviewed a series of women about giving birth and it's nothing else apart from that it's not
[20:23]about parenting or anything like that it's just about getting pregnant once you're pregnant
[20:28]what's that's like and then as you say the nuts and bolts and a piece of your tummies and
[20:33]placenta delivery and guts and gore of the birth process but it's kind of playing it a bit for
[20:41]laughs there were kind of poignant moments in it as well but mainly it's reclaiming the process
[20:48]through laughter and ridicule because a lot of it is a ridiculous process and I love it because
[20:54]every story you get similar elements but every story is different and every story is fascinating
[20:59]what happened to women so I really enjoy doing it and I might do another series if I can nail down a
[21:05]few more women I love it it's almost like unthinkable that these things happen to us like we
[21:11]pretend we're all modern and dressed up and you know the world is spinning so you know everything
[21:16]goes so fast and we're all like doing all these jobs and running the world and all this stuff and
[21:22]these you know it's at our most primal this is what we do is like birth more people for the world
[21:29]to continue and yet that's the part that gets pushed down and it's embarrassing or we don't discuss
[21:35]it so it's about 45 minutes when you can just stop and go no this is exactly what happened to me
[21:42]and I'll say whatever I like and I'll tell you all the gory bits and we'll really stop and
[21:48]analyze it from every angle it's really traumatic for some women I mean it's a trauma that they
[21:52]have to like get past like some of the childbirth stuff is just out of control so well I'd be
[21:58]careful about that you know with my interviewees because finding the funny in it I probably would
[22:03]interview someone who'd found it tremendous traumatic I would stick you know we have a fair
[22:07]degree of trauma but it's largely people who feel a bit more comfortable about the first test
[22:12]it's not for everyone no it's hilarious I love it I'm like that is genius that's just
[22:17]so great I love podcasts that just like what you're saying that it's like oh well look at this
[22:22]why not and tell me about all your TV stuff so tell me yeah tell me about you and the TV world
[22:30]and development and the ideas that don't get made and the ideas that get made and all of that
[22:36]well I've sort of left it behind occasionally I write treatments for production companies which is
[22:40]always good fun dipping my toe back in the water but I did it for 20 years and I was basically a
[22:45]a developer so I came up with ideas I'm trying to think of formats that might have been over in
[22:49]the US because some of them won't will just be UK based I don't know if secret life of four-year-olds
[22:54]ever made it over to the US I don't think it did that was basically like a reality soap opera set
[23:00]in a nursery of four-year-olds it was great and that's very well loved showing the in the UK and
[23:08]it's kind of unusual that I would have developed something that in in the UK is really successful
[23:13]everyone watched because mostly when I say what I developed people go no not heard of that one
[23:19]I developed a show called a hundred-year-old drivers which is as you could guess of people
[23:25]just all driving aged a hundred and they're all brilliant characters and it was all a bit
[23:30]hair raising watching them drive and then I developed a show called Sun Sex and Suspicious
[23:34]Parents which is where kids who are like 17 18 going to the beef of the first time are
[23:41]spied on by their parents I'm not proud it was really good fun I loved it and I loved the people
[23:51]but I guess I've kind of come to the end of what I could do in Delhi and I was quite ready to move
[23:55]onto something else so it was quite useful the publishing stuff happened so that's when so you put
[24:01]that aside and that's when you wrote your first novel you just decided to go for it and here we are
[24:06]now I'm a bit of crossover I was on maternity leave so that's how I managed it we put on a nursery
[24:12]two days a week and I managed to carve out the time because otherwise I don't think I would have
[24:16]done it you know it was incredibly difficult with a full-time job and children it was really hard
[24:23]Wow and so what is your what are you working on now like what's your next thing?
[24:28]Well talking a plate spinning I'm writing my third book which is about that it's about a burnt
[24:34]out TV executive who just stops one day and decides to do something totally different and go
[24:43]rogue and then a lot of gets into a lot of trouble as a result and I just delivered a first draft
[24:49]to my editors. Congratulations I think I first draft so very near the beginning
[24:56]looking forward to all the work I have to do first draft is a major or major milestone so that's
[25:02]yes you have a working title or can you not share? It's called Clover Stops I don't know if that
[25:09]will be the entire title that's my working title so you got the name in there again
[25:20]let me go back to your title today what advice do you have for aspiring authors? Firstly if you
[25:28]are writing then you're a writer and it doesn't take anybody publishing you to make that more
[25:35]true it is true if you write and I think the key thing is to just keep going keep going to the
[25:42]end of the draft keep refining keep querying keep submitting because I think a lot of what happens to
[25:49]authors comes down to luck and timing and you never know whether if you send it to one more agent
[25:57]write one more draft whether that will be the difference between you not getting a deal and you
[26:03]getting a deal so that's it the resilience that you need which I have from working in tally and getting
[26:10]rejected at all the time I think is a real quality that people need so stick at it would be my advice
[26:18]love him Beth thank you thank you for chatting today thanks for
[26:22]bringing us Delphine and Em and your crazy cast of characters the passion for education and
[26:28]schools and books and reading which I share so it was really fun to read and thank you for putting
[26:34]up with all my technical issues at the beginning thanks thank you very much okay have a great day
[26:40]and thanks to your husband as well thank you thanks very much bye thanks for listening to this
[26:48]episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget to follow me on instagram at
[26:52]zebiowans and at moms don't have time to read books also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowans.com
[26:58]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week thanks so
[27:02]much to Steve and Ryan back texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon
[27:07]productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music