Vogue Contributing Editor!! Plum Sykes, WIVES LIKE US
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
[0:14]I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company, reading retreats,
[0:20]a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZiviMedia.com or follow me on social at Zivi Owens,
[0:26]or join the community at ZiviReaders.
[0:31]Plum Sykes is the author of Wives Like Us.
[0:34]You can check out my Instagram to see photos of when she came over for lunch the other day when we did an in-person podcast.
[0:41]Plum was born in London, educated at Oxford, and is the author of the novel's Burgdorf Bluns, the debutante d'Vorsé,
[0:48]and party girls die in pearls. She is a contributing editor at World's Materials and American Vogue.
[0:54]She lives in the English countryside with her daughters,
[0:58]and she was famously reported, along with her sister Lucy, to be one of the It Girls.
[1:04]We talk about that, too.
[1:06]Welcome, Plum. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to read books to discuss your novel, Wives Like Us.
[1:12]Congratulations.
[1:13]Thank you so much, Libby.
[1:14]I'm so excited to be here.
[1:15]Oh, I'm so excited to be here.
[1:16]You're the micro-opera.
[1:18]Apparently.
[1:19]Don't you love that?
[1:20]I love that.
[1:21]I love that.
[1:22]I had never heard that, and I'll take it.
[1:25]Thank you.
[1:26]I appreciate it.
[1:27]Congratulations on your award.
[1:28]Thank you.
[1:29]Last night.
[1:30]Thank you.
[1:31]Very much.
[1:32]Yes, big nights for real first.
[1:33]Congratulations on publication days.
[1:35]Thank you.
[1:36]So exciting.
[1:37]Complications sort of pre-day, which was yesterday.
[1:39]Yeah.
[1:40]We had a party, and I don't really drink, usually.
[1:43]And I said to you and my brother-in-law,
[1:46]I'm going to have two drinks tonight.
[1:48]Do you know how many I had?
[1:50]7,000.
[1:51]Which I never have a hangover.
[1:57]But I'm having so much fun in New York.
[1:59]I don't care.
[2:00]It's OK.
[2:01]It's all right.
[2:02]It's great.
[2:03]It's easy.
[2:04]Hangover takes place with the espresso machine at the ready.
[2:08]There you go.
[2:09]OK.
[2:10]Wives like us.
[2:11]Tell listeners what your book is about, please.
[2:13]Wives like us is a social satire set in the English countryside.
[2:19]It's a comedy of manners.
[2:21]It's all seen through the eyes of the executive Butler, Ian,
[2:26]we meet when the book opens.
[2:28]He's fast asleep in his cottage, and the phone rings,
[2:32]and it's his boss, Mrs. Hawkins.
[2:34]She's very excited because the new American who's just landed
[2:38]in the biggest date next door is coming for dinner.
[2:40]Very important to her because she's lost a social position.
[2:43]So the whole book is really a comedy about TATA,
[2:47]trying to regain her social position,
[2:49]and Ian Habatlow, who would also like to regain his social position.
[2:53]And how is he going to work it out?
[2:55]It's amazing.
[2:56]Thank you so much.
[2:57]It's so funny.
[2:58]No, it's funny.
[2:59]And I feel like I got to take this great vacation,
[3:03]and then spying on everybody.
[3:05]Kind of they're worst.
[3:07]They're most vulnerable and what they really want.
[3:10]So admitting it.
[3:11]Well, I think the thing is I think whoever you're writing about
[3:15]or reading about, the important thing is
[3:17]whether you're the author or the reader is to feel like
[3:19]where's the humanity?
[3:20]So where's the emotion?
[3:22]Where's the insecurity?
[3:24]Yep.
[3:25]So all these beautiful, rich, glamorous women
[3:28]that we see all the time on Instagram or in the newspapers,
[3:31]whatever, with the beautiful country lifestyle.
[3:33]Do you know what?
[3:34]A lot of that is driven by insecurity.
[3:37]And I wanted to write about that.
[3:39]But not, I don't want to write as sort of,
[3:41]I know a book about women's insecurity.
[3:43]I want to show it in a different way, in a fun way.
[3:46]You know.
[3:47]But it's just, it gives them that humanity
[3:50]that we sometimes think rich people don't have
[3:53]their lives perfect.
[3:54]They have all the same problems as everyone else.
[3:56]They just have less money worries.
[3:58]Cheers.
[3:59]So when did you, did something happen that was like,
[4:02]okay, this is the...
[4:04]Let's try the show.
[4:06]I have lived in the cotswolds
[4:08]and between London and the cotswolds for about 10 or 15 years.
[4:13]And I've written other books during that time,
[4:15]but in the last five years,
[4:18]or maybe a little bit longer than that,
[4:21]I started to notice that the English countryside
[4:24]was being invaded by very, very glamorous women.
[4:28]Some of whom are from here.
[4:29]Sorry.
[4:30]No, I love that it was being invaded.
[4:33]So for example, Amanda Brooks, who was the fashion director
[4:36]of Barney's, she lands in the cotswolds,
[4:38]she opens an incredible lifestyle store.
[4:40]It's all from John Darian.
[4:41]No one's ever seen anything like that, by the way.
[4:43]They used to go to stow to buy churned butter.
[4:46]Do you want to mean an heavy cream milk
[4:48]and things like that?
[4:49]Well, you can buy Oola Johnson.
[4:51]And it was as though these sort of
[4:55]Eicholum country princesses had taken over a bit like
[4:59]the Park Avenue princesses took over in the 90s
[5:02]when I wrote Bob Love Blonds, which I love.
[5:04]This is Bob Doff Blonds in the English countryside.
[5:07]I mean, literally.
[5:08]So I think that when I sort of see a social phenomenon
[5:12]around beautiful, interesting women,
[5:14]I think that's a little universe that I can mine
[5:17]and I can write about.
[5:18]And because these women came in
[5:21]to this beautiful area of English countryside,
[5:24]they started refashioning it to suit them.
[5:26]So it's got all the social intensity of London,
[5:29]all the pleasures of New York or Paris.
[5:31]Matthew Freud, who's this very famous media guy in England,
[5:35]he bought some huge estate in Barford,
[5:37]which is this very famous town.
[5:39]And he bought a pub and put turned into
[5:42]an incredible sushi restaurant.
[5:44]There is no farmer I know in the cotswolds.
[5:47]It's going to eat raw fish.
[5:49]So the client tells that.
[5:52]So it's changed.
[5:53]So it's about what's happened to the English countryside,
[5:56]what's happened to the people,
[5:58]and it's become like the Hamptons.
[6:00]Yeah, the New Hamptons.
[6:01]It's the New Hamptons.
[6:02]And the American spying houses are insane.
[6:05]And the other traffic.
[6:06]It's the traffic, they're now.
[6:08]Uh-oh.
[6:09]I know.
[6:10]Not as much.
[6:11]Not as that is.
[6:12]Oh my goodness.
[6:13]Well, there are real not to say that that's not real.
[6:15]These are all real issues, but there are real issues of
[6:18]infinality and betrayal and longing and
[6:24]like all of that in our problems.
[6:26]Yeah, exactly.
[6:27]Well, I felt like this world was some of the marriage problems.
[6:30]Yeah.
[6:31]But yeah, so all of the things that people don't necessarily want
[6:35]to talk about, the suspicions they have,
[6:38]all of that.
[6:39]I mean, you have this hilarious scene where Tada's ex-husband,
[6:43]not even ex, is living with this girlfriend.
[6:46]What do you mean, Arabel?
[6:47]Not Arabel.
[6:48]Toulula.
[6:49]Toulula, sorry, Toulula.
[6:50]And the dog comes running into her dinner party,
[6:52]where she like wants everything to be perfect.
[6:54]Right.
[6:55]And then like her, I mean, it's just so perfect.
[6:58]Like the scenes.
[6:59]And how you can feel like your heart drop.
[7:03]Oh, good.
[7:04]Yeah, that happened to you.
[7:06]But then with it, because it's all comic,
[7:09]you're laughing as well.
[7:10]Oh, of course.
[7:11]No, no, no.
[7:12]Yeah, that's what I'm always trying to give people that love.
[7:16]Yes.
[7:17]Because I think the world is tough.
[7:18]And we need love.
[7:19]That's lovely.
[7:20]That's a lovely gift.
[7:22]So when you construct these scenes, right?
[7:25]Yeah.
[7:26]Especially this dinner party scene where everything is like leaning up.
[7:28]Yeah.
[7:29]The kitchen.
[7:30]The kitchen separate.
[7:31]The kitchen separate.
[7:32]The kitchen steps.
[7:33]Where you're allowed to wear whatever.
[7:34]And the American wears like, you know, actual riding clothes,
[7:36]but you're not really supposed to do that.
[7:38]No, no.
[7:39]So there are all these rules.
[7:40]You know, it's a dressy without telling you it's very dressy.
[7:43]So room for error.
[7:44]Room for error.
[7:46]And getting all the cast of characters together.
[7:48]Because you developed so many different characters here.
[7:50]And this is an ensemble cast.
[7:52]Yes.
[7:53]An ensemble cast.
[7:54]What is the art to that?
[7:55]How did you do that?
[7:56]Oh, so if you're doing a big scene like that with multiple characters,
[8:01]I think there's probably, you know, you're meant to feel
[8:04]that there's 30 people in the room.
[8:06]So it takes a really, really long time to write those scenes.
[8:09]And you have to, you start with saying to yourself as the writer,
[8:13]what is going to happen in this scene in terms of story?
[8:17]Okay.
[8:18]What we actually want to happen is we want tatas dinner party.
[8:21]It's going to be ruined by the husband's girlfriend's doggy bearing.
[8:26]And actually, the dog pees on one of the guest legs as well.
[8:31]So that's, that's all that's going to happen.
[8:33]It's actually the plot point is a simple one,
[8:36]but it's a huge, has a huge impact for the book.
[8:38]So that's where you start.
[8:39]That's your kind of first post-it note if you like.
[8:41]And I actually use Scribner for anyone who's writing a book
[8:43]and wants to know the best software for Jews it.
[8:47]I don't.
[8:48]What?
[8:49]I don't.
[8:50]Jews word?
[8:51]Yeah.
[8:52]What?
[8:53]I know.
[8:54]Sometimes even Google Docs.
[8:55]What?
[8:56]I know.
[8:57]I'm, I'm tutorial coming.
[8:58]Anyway.
[8:59]So that, you know, so what's the story?
[9:00]Right.
[9:01]What's the synopsis of this chapter?
[9:02]That's the first things.
[9:03]Have it really clear in your head what is actually happening?
[9:05]Then start building who are the characters?
[9:08]Where are they moving?
[9:09]Move them around the room like chess pieces and make sure
[9:12]you have a map of where they're standing.
[9:14]Literally.
[9:15]Because in that scene, there's a big scene at the beginning
[9:18]where all the guests are in the foyer and tattoo appears
[9:21]on the balcony.
[9:22]She walks down the stairs.
[9:23]She talks to different people.
[9:25]We see it from different points of views.
[9:27]So that was a very complicated scene to write.
[9:29]And I think it actually took me several months to write it
[9:32]and rewrite it.
[9:34]Whereas there'd be other scenes that are two people.
[9:37]Oh, I'm so sorry.
[9:38]Take away the pen.
[9:40]I'll stop clicking it.
[9:41]The other scenes, which might be two people,
[9:43]which are much more straightforward to write.
[9:46]And it's just interesting.
[9:48]I think you can't start writing those giant ensemble scenes
[9:52]until you've written several books
[9:54]until you've practiced and practiced at it.
[9:57]And you need an editor to come in and look.
[10:00]Go, you moved that person from the corner,
[10:02]but we don't know how they got outside, Plum.
[10:04]She said, I mean, there's a lot of logistics
[10:06]that people don't think about.
[10:08]And that's about being into the micro detail
[10:11]of where everyone is in the room.
[10:12]And even at the stage of the galley,
[10:14]I was going back into that particular scene
[10:16]you're talking about and going,
[10:18]are we sure lady back?
[10:20]How's the standing next to Regi?
[10:21]Okay, she's still standing next to him.
[10:23]She's still saying, Regi,
[10:25]please keep her mouth shut when you're eating,
[10:27]or whatever it is.
[10:28]You know, and then you can add all these bits of dialogue
[10:31]after you've got where are the people what are they doing?
[10:34]And you keep adding the dialogue and adding the jokes,
[10:36]and it's layers and layers and layers.
[10:38]It's not one right it's straight through for me.
[10:42]So some people may know you as the folk,
[10:46]if girl blah, blah, blah,
[10:47]I went back and read that article.
[10:49]It's all about, I went back and read this point.
[10:51]It's all back.
[10:54]Talk about becoming a novelist
[10:56]and how that has changed your life
[11:00]and hopefully improved it, or perhaps not.
[11:03]No, I mean, oh gosh, that's such an interesting question.
[11:07]So I sort of owe all the novels
[11:09]to working at American Vogue, right?
[11:12]And winter was my mentor, has been my mentor,
[11:16]is still a very supportive person.
[11:18]And actually without someone like that,
[11:19]to say you can do this, you may not do it.
[11:22]So I had been working at American Vogue for a few years.
[11:26]I wrote a funny column for the magazine called Fashion Fiction.
[11:29]I went out for lunch with Anna at some point
[11:31]to discuss something.
[11:31]She said, you know, plumb this, but this column could be a book.
[11:34]And it kind of went in.
[11:35]I didn't do anything about it at that point.
[11:37]And then the reason that I actually started writing
[11:42]my first novel was because after 9, 11,
[11:45]I was so anxious and terrified and stressed.
[11:49]And I kept thinking, I just want to read breakfast
[11:51]at Tiffany's, but I've already read it.
[11:52]I just want something to take me away.
[11:53]And I thought, I'm going to write my own breakfast at Tiffany's,
[11:55]which is why it's called Bhavad of Blance,
[11:57]because of the stores.
[11:58]There was a lot in that.
[11:59]And also, gentleman with profile Blance,
[12:01]which I read at the time and kind of took me away.
[12:03]Have you read it?
[12:04]I've read it offline.
[12:05]No, gentleman with profile Blance.
[12:06]No, I have read your files.
[12:09]The need to lose gentleman with that is so funny.
[12:12]It's so funny.
[12:13]Highly recommended to all your readers.
[12:15]So it was actually my reaction to 9, 11,
[12:17]to try and cheer myself up.
[12:18]And actually, when you write something for yourself,
[12:22]it does resonate with people because there's
[12:24]a genuine emotional connection.
[12:26]It's because writing is all about connecting.
[12:29]Books are all about connecting.
[12:30]But Bhavad of Blance and the other books
[12:33]are all reported like a fashion story in Vogue, right?
[12:37]So in order to make these books seem real,
[12:39]in order to make the characters seem real,
[12:42]you've got to have the details to be real.
[12:43]If it's a very observational trendy book,
[12:46]which these are, and I learned all of that at Vogue,
[12:49]I was really trained in how to observe everything.
[12:52]And I think also, I'm natural observer.
[12:54]Anyway, like I came here, I'm like, my god,
[12:56]she's got kind of coded bookshelves.
[12:57]She's got awards everywhere.
[12:59]She's got fashion.
[13:00]I just take everything in.
[13:02]And then I always wanted to be,
[13:05]have sort of one foot in the magazine world,
[13:08]and another foot in having my own business,
[13:10]which is obviously what the books are.
[13:12]And that, for me, has been the most amazing balance
[13:16]in my career.
[13:17]And I feel like I've never changed careers.
[13:19]I've always worked for content asked,
[13:22]or with my same editor I've worked with for 20 years.
[13:25]It's just been a constant.
[13:27]So it's my stability.
[13:28]My career is my stability, actually.
[13:30]Does it actually help with anxiety?
[13:33]What?
[13:34]Writing?
[13:34]Does it like, I know you said it was post 9-eleven.
[13:36]Oh, oh, like, does your career help with new anxiety
[13:40]that comes out?
[13:41]Oh, or is it a stopgap?
[13:44]Such a good question.
[13:45]Well, sometimes it's very anxious making to think,
[13:48]oh shit, I've got to write a novel by this date
[13:50]two years, two years, hence, whatever.
[13:51]But I think that you can, I mean, after COVID,
[13:56]which I thought was a very anxious time for the world,
[13:59]that was when I really got going on this book.
[14:02]And I wrote myself out of the stress of COVID
[14:06]by making myself laugh, by writing about in the fabulous butler,
[14:10]have a, you know, just a dream world.
[14:13]You know, so I think it does.
[14:14]It's like reading a book.
[14:15]It's just, it's all the same.
[14:17]The connection between the reader and the author
[14:20]is a sort of invisible, incredible thing
[14:22]that happens between two people who've never met.
[14:24]Someone Rushdie says this in his new book,
[14:27]knife, if you read it.
[14:28]Not yet.
[14:29]Call it out.
[14:30]I'm reading all the books apparently.
[14:31]No, but he talks about the connection
[14:34]between the author and the reader who will never meet
[14:36]whatever, and that magical moment
[14:39]when it all comes together.
[14:41]And I think that this book, it's sort of happens
[14:43]just really connecting with people.
[14:46]I love that.
[14:47]But I work, I work very hard at thinking about the reader
[14:50]because the most important relationship
[14:52]the author has is with the reader.
[14:54]It's not with the reviewers.
[14:55]It's not the media, it's not the newspapers.
[14:57]It's that person in their bath with a candle reading that book.
[15:02]Are you going to keep them laughing?
[15:04]My thing is, keep the jokes coming
[15:07]because, you know, lots of books,
[15:10]it's keep the tears coming,
[15:11]but if you can keep an emotional journey coming for them,
[15:15]that will keep them reading.
[15:16]And what should people know
[15:18]who have never been to the cuts was
[15:20]who have not opened the book yet?
[15:22]What makes it such like prime material for you?
[15:26]It's possibly the most beautiful part
[15:29]of the English countryside
[15:31]because it's been protected.
[15:32]It is the Beatrix Potter fantasy on acid.
[15:37]Okay, with Range Rover's helicopters, whatever.
[15:39]There's the most amazing nature
[15:42]and the most amazing places to buy food, farm shops,
[15:46]candles, there's incredible private clubs and things there.
[15:50]But to my mind, it's the poetry of the countryside there.
[15:56]The beautiful phallies, hills, you know,
[16:00]and actually where I live is where Laurie Lee lived
[16:03]who wrote side of his rosy.
[16:05]And he writes about the poetry of the cotswolds.
[16:07]And you only have to go back to his words,
[16:09]which are so beautiful.
[16:11]And it just, it's just alive.
[16:12]It's like the long grass, the cow parsley, the daisies,
[16:15]the cows, the horses, the dogs.
[16:17]You know, it's just that dreamy thing.
[16:18]I mean, I think everyone should come to the cotswolds once.
[16:21]I'm in.
[16:22]Yeah, please come and stay.
[16:23]We do these retreats.
[16:24]We should have a retreat in the cotswolds.
[16:26]No, please.
[16:27]Do I don't buy house?
[16:28]Okay. Yeah, don't.
[16:30]Oh, yeah.
[16:30]Oh, I mean, really?
[16:31]And it just comes stomping in.
[16:33]Mm-hmm.
[16:35]So what do you make of social striving?
[16:38]Wow, what is social striving?
[16:40]What do you make of when somebody is trying to elevate themselves?
[16:45]You could call it socials.
[16:46]Social planning, social climbing.
[16:48]Well, I love a social climate because it's so great to write about.
[16:51]I think we're all social climbers, aren't we?
[16:54]In a way.
[16:55]Continue.
[16:58]We all want to know someone fabulous.
[17:00]Whether it's our neighbor, the other moms at school,
[17:04]the queen, you know, I think it's when we judge people
[17:09]who are social climbers.
[17:11]Do we really have the right to judge them?
[17:13]Are we really not occasionally wanting to meet the next new
[17:18]interesting person?
[17:19]I feel like that's different.
[17:21]Oh, OK.
[17:22]I feel like wanting to meet an interesting person
[17:25]is different than trying to sort of lasso your way up
[17:30]and attach yourself to someone and then
[17:32]like pull yourself up to their station.
[17:35]OK, yeah.
[17:36]Like, it's like using people a little bit.
[17:38]Oh, OK.
[17:38]No, I don't like using people.
[17:40]I don't think you need anything to do with that.
[17:43]But do you think in the book?
[17:46]So it's a hard time to meet a main character.
[17:48]OK, so how does social climbing?
[17:51]Yes.
[17:52]Is endearing because it goes back to her insecurity.
[17:56]So it goes back to her heart.
[17:58]She's lovely, but she's super, super flawed.
[18:00]And she thinks that if she improves her social position,
[18:04]her husband will like come more, which is absurd.
[18:06]And that her friends will like come more.
[18:08]And she wants to be queen, be of the cotswolds.
[18:10]And I think we all make that mistake when we're insecure.
[18:13]Instead of looking at ourselves and going,
[18:15]I just need to be happy with me.
[18:17]We look around us and say, what can I do?
[18:18]What can I have?
[18:19]I know.
[18:19]I'll buy a deal of gown.
[18:21]I know.
[18:22]I'll get my head on.
[18:23]I know.
[18:25]I'll get a facelift or whatever.
[18:27]People look at the external so much.
[18:30]So I have a lot of empathy for a social climber.
[18:33]Because I think it comes from a hole in the song.
[18:37]I feel like people would never, ever believe
[18:41]that you could empathize with insecurity.
[18:44]Can you empathize with insecurity?
[18:45]That's quite insecure.
[18:47]Impressive.
[18:48]No, I am.
[18:48]I am, actually.
[18:50]I am.
[18:51]I think everyone's insecure.
[18:53]And I think you can spot it a mile away.
[18:56]And as they say, if you can spot it, you've got it.
[18:59]I don't think you're insecure.
[19:00]I bet you're going to tell me different, though.
[19:03]Are you insecure at all?
[19:04]I used to be horrifically insecure.
[19:06]Right.
[19:07]Interesting.
[19:08]But I can still feel insecure.
[19:13]And probably the time I've felt the most insecure was
[19:16]after my husband divorced me, to be honest.
[19:19]I mean, that talk about making you feel insecure.
[19:22]Hello.
[19:25]You know, this always things that will come out here to me
[19:31]have to keep building yourself back up.
[19:33]Like Barack Obama said, pick ourselves up,
[19:35]dust ourselves off, start over.
[19:37]We're all doing that all the time.
[19:39]And my business is insecure making,
[19:41]because you're depending on people enjoying
[19:43]and liking what you're doing.
[19:45]And the media is a tough business.
[19:49]It's fun, but it's tough.
[19:50]Yeah, that's true.
[19:51]There is nothing that can make you feel insecure,
[19:53]like writing a book.
[19:54]Yeah.
[19:55]Yeah.
[19:55]Having to be out there.
[19:56]Yeah.
[19:57]Having reviews.
[19:58]But it's a weird thing as well.
[20:00]Because then you only need one person who you've never met
[20:04]or whatever to send you a message on Instagram saying,
[20:07]oh my god, I'm laughing so much.
[20:08]And you just feel amazing.
[20:10]You know what I mean?
[20:11]Because it's a connection.
[20:12]And you go, I did what I set out to do.
[20:15]That's the really nice thing.
[20:16]Yes.
[20:18]That's very true.
[20:19]I love that.
[20:20]I love it.
[20:21]What plans do you have for more books?
[20:24]Well, it's interesting you should ask that,
[20:26]because I think that I'd like to know what you think
[20:29]should be actually.
[20:29]So I think that in Palmer, the Executive Butler
[20:32]is for me, a Geeves character.
[20:35]OK.
[20:36]Now, as we know, PG Woodhouse wrote many, many Geeves
[20:40]and Worcester books.
[20:41]And he wrote many, have you read lots of PG Woodhouse?
[20:45]No.
[20:46]I promise you I read.
[20:48]I really do.
[20:49]We just have to read different things.
[20:50]You know what?
[20:51]I'm going to feel so bad reading.
[20:52]No, I am.
[20:53]Totally insecure.
[20:55]You have to feel so insecure.
[20:56]Thank you for creating that.
[20:58]So PG Woodhouse, to my mind, was the greatest.
[21:02]He's the greatest comic author of the 20th century.
[21:04]He wrote 93 comic novels.
[21:07]You imagine?
[21:07]No.
[21:08]I mean, some of them, when he was in detention,
[21:12]like the Nazis put him in detention for like three years.
[21:15]And he wrote some of them in a prison.
[21:17]All about like Blanding's castle and, you know.
[21:19]But what I'm trying to get to is this
[21:21]is that I love a series.
[21:23]And Geeves, who is the famous Butler in PG Woodhouse,
[21:26]comes back again and again.
[21:28]With Worcester, who's his silly rich, tough boss.
[21:32]And when I was writing this book,
[21:34]I actually was very inspired by Geeves and Worcester.
[21:36]And I thought, can I do?
[21:37]Because I love that kind of double act so much.
[21:40]Can I do a Geeves and Worcester for today?
[21:44]Worcester is a very rich silly lady.
[21:46]And I love writing about Rich silly lady.
[21:48]Don't we all love to read about them?
[21:49]And Ian is the Geeves.
[21:51]And I think that the readers are loving in so much.
[21:55]They want to read about him again.
[21:56]So I think a trilogy to start with.
[22:00]It's gonna take me a long time.
[22:01]Thank God I've written one part of the trilogy.
[22:03]But I think wives like us, husbands like them, kids like theirs.
[22:08]Oh my gosh, so brilliant.
[22:10]I mean, so brilliant.
[22:12]Don't you think?
[22:13]I really think.
[22:14]And I just, I've always wanted to write a series.
[22:16]And I think this is the one that I can do.
[22:19]And I purposely left the ending open.
[22:20]You'll probably notice that.
[22:21]Yes. It doesn't have, it has an ending
[22:24]that's incredibly satisfying.
[22:26]But there's more adventures to come.
[22:29]It's perfect.
[22:30]That's so funny.
[22:31]And then of course the movie, right?
[22:32]Is there a movie?
[22:33]Well, I mean, I'm being asked about TV and film and stuff,
[22:38]but I'm very nervous about it.
[22:39]I don't trust all those LA people.
[22:41]I shouldn't say that should I.
[22:43]I don't trust them.
[22:44]I feel like it's a great way to get more people
[22:46]that interested in the book.
[22:47]Well, that's what my agent says.
[22:48]Yeah.
[22:49]But I'm scared.
[22:50]Sometimes people don't even watch the show,
[22:52]but they're like, oh, this shows me
[22:53]I don't have a book and then they are a book.
[22:54]Yeah.
[22:55]I also think there's so much rubbish on television right now.
[22:58]Yeah.
[22:59]Two.
[22:59]I mean, I loved Barbie.
[23:02]And I love some English film producers and directors
[23:06]who I think are amazing.
[23:08]Like the director who did the Paddington movies,
[23:11]so I just think he'd be brilliant.
[23:12]And he did one for as well.
[23:13]Yeah.
[23:14]Have you seen it?
[23:15]Not yet.
[23:18]I think Timothy Chalamet should be Ian.
[23:20]Oh, that's not how I pictured Ian, but okay.
[23:25]So he's got time to age a little bit for the three books.
[23:28]Oh, my gosh.
[23:29]That's good.
[23:30]How did you picture it?
[23:31]I just like a little bit older, a little bit.
[23:34]He's only 36, but he looks 32, remember,
[23:36]because of the tinted moisturizer.
[23:38]That's true.
[23:39]That's right.
[23:39]That's like on the very first page.
[23:40]Yes.
[23:41]I don't know.
[23:42]Well, he's like a color, it just like goes old.
[23:46]I know he is down here, right?
[23:48]I'm so sorry.
[23:49]The whole point, no, but you know what?
[23:50]The whole point about these butlers now
[23:51]is they're very swive and sophisticated
[23:54]and they are young.
[23:54]No, I know and he's looking for love.
[23:56]I know, I know.
[23:57]I'm looking for love.
[23:58]I know, I know, I know.
[23:59]He's a great character.
[24:00]Yeah, I don't know.
[24:01]But you know what?
[24:02]I just, today, I wrote peace in the New York Times
[24:05]about butlers then and now in the style section,
[24:08]has just come out today.
[24:09]Oh, my gosh.
[24:10]It'll be in the paper Thursday.
[24:11]It'll be in the paper Sunday.
[24:13]Sunday.
[24:13]So it's online today.
[24:15]I mean, the photographs they've done are wonderful.
[24:17]Oh, my gosh, I can't wait.
[24:18]I'm so glad you're doing it.
[24:19]I'm so glad you're in England who is the ultimate executive
[24:22]butler and the pictures are incredible.
[24:25]And then I did a sort of trajectory
[24:27]because I went back to my childhood.
[24:30]I've got a cousin who lives in this very grand estate
[24:33]in Yorkshire called Slidmay where I got married.
[24:34]It's the most beautiful place.
[24:36]And there was a butler who worked there
[24:38]when I was a child and he'd been there since 1959
[24:41]if you can imagine him.
[24:43]He would come in to the dining room, okay,
[24:46]which had the Romney portrait at one end of the room,
[24:49]for the chandeliers, the silver,
[24:51]wearing a wig when children were there.
[24:54]And he would serve the entire lunch with a completely straight face
[24:57]of like a pink wig or the glasses with the springs coming out.
[25:01]And I was talking to my cousin Christopher about it.
[25:02]I was saying, we loved Michael
[25:04]because he was a practical Joker.
[25:06]If a butler did this now,
[25:08]people would think they were either rude, drunk, or mad.
[25:12]But there's a picture of him in the New York Times today.
[25:15]Oh, my gosh.
[25:15]Yeah, it's the most amazing photograph.
[25:18]And he was buried next to the family.
[25:20]And you know what it says on the headstone?
[25:23]Like Michael, Kenneley, then his dates.
[25:26]And the underneath it just says the butler.
[25:29]Oh.
[25:30]I mean, it's just so sweet.
[25:31]We all loved him so much.
[25:33]But he's very different to a very swab executive butler now
[25:36]who can like put your her appointments,
[25:38]get your net of Porte Hall in, you know,
[25:40]bring some cocaine over if you need it for a dinner party.
[25:42]Yeah.
[25:43]Oh, my gosh.
[25:45]Now, I just keep thinking now
[25:47]about why I don't think it's Timothy Shalomay.
[25:50]I feel like my head in is like taller and thinner
[25:54]with like a longer nose.
[25:55]I have like a long nose than Timothy Shalomay.
[25:57]Interesting.
[25:58]Like I have him like more narrow.
[26:00]Okay.
[26:01]I don't know.
[26:02]You probably didn't even say that.
[26:03]This is just my in my, I love it.
[26:05]I love that you've got an image.
[26:06]I have a total image, but it's not Timothy Shalomay.
[26:09]Who is it then?
[26:09]I don't know.
[26:10]English actor maybe.
[26:11]Yeah.
[26:12]Let me let me think.
[26:13]Oh, like a Tom Hiddleston.
[26:15]Yeah, more like that.
[26:16]That look actually, yes.
[26:17]More smooth.
[26:19]Yeah, more British.
[26:20]Yeah.
[26:21]That is like.
[26:22]I loved romantic.
[26:23]Tom Hiddleston's a really good idea.
[26:24]Yeah.
[26:25]See?
[26:26]Cara, do you know?
[26:27]I know.
[26:28]Just your mom.
[26:29]Maybe.
[26:29]Let's get in the book.
[26:31]Okay, plums friend Cara is here as well.
[26:34]Okay, last question.
[26:36]What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[26:39]Um, my advice for aspiring authors is to, well, it's a few things.
[26:48]It is to read as much as you can all the time.
[26:53]Don't spend your whole time scrolling through a phone and watching television.
[26:57]Go and see the great movies.
[27:00]Billy Wilder, you know, the incredible directors, the golden age of cinema, because they
[27:05]are as good as great novels and great books.
[27:08]They need lots of books by authors about writing Stephen King's book on writing.
[27:13]Yes.
[27:14]That I read.
[27:15]Thank you.
[27:16]I've read it so many times.
[27:18]That's one of the great, it's a, it's a, it's a helpful guidebook.
[27:21]Ian forced a wrote a book about writing as well.
[27:23]I also went on the very famous Robert McKee course story three times to just keep constructing
[27:30]a story that classical cut structure story is very, very, very important to understand
[27:36]that a story has a structure.
[27:38]It's not just a random messy, floaty thing.
[27:40]It's got to have a beginning, middle and an end.
[27:42]And if you want to do it in three acts, that's fine.
[27:44]If you want to do it in five acts, you can do it in seven acts if you want.
[27:47]But make sure that you structure it in that way or else it's never going to work.
[27:54]Doesn't mean the story has to be a formula that doesn't work either, but your story has
[27:59]to fit into that classical structure, I believe, which goes back to Greek place.
[28:03]And then I was very lucky because I had a job writing, so I was practising all the
[28:08]time and I was able to develop my voice and be paid and do it for and have a lot of inspiration.
[28:14]I think being an author now, compared with when I started is much, much, much more difficult
[28:19]because people don't buy books as much, they don't read print as much.
[28:23]I mean, hopefully people, you know, there's a lot of good books out this summer and
[28:29]I feel like people are actually ready to get off the TV in a way because it's all got
[28:33]a bit too much.
[28:34]We've watched a bit too much television and I think working in people who work in social
[28:40]media right now and who are journalists for online newspapers and things, they're going
[28:44]to be the great authors of the future.
[28:46]They are learning how to write at the cold face, you know, in the same way that we were,
[28:51]it's just the medium is different.
[28:53]You know, I did it for print, but you can go on work for Vogue.com and you'll get exactly
[28:58]the same training.
[29:00]You need to be trained, you need a mentor, you need a lot of support.
[29:04]I mean, my view still is that if you can go and sort of start with a blue chip company
[29:09]like Conde Nast, then you're set up life.
[29:13]It's much hot, but if you're a genius, you can probably do it on your own.
[29:16]You know, you're a genius, you probably don't know.
[29:19]I mean, look at, for example, if you look at, say, kind of special and Helen Fielding
[29:24]to examples, they were both columns in big newspapers that went on for several years.
[29:29]That's how they found their voice, Anna Quinlan, Anna Quinlan, exactly, Charles Dickens.
[29:35]Oh.
[29:36]The serial.
[29:37]The serial answer, yes.
[29:38]He wrote, you know, as in one, so I don't think anyone should just regard writing for
[29:44]websites and writing for the internet because that's actually how people learn and that
[29:48]actually goes back to how people used to publish books.
[29:51]It was in little chunks.
[29:52]I love that.
[29:53]You know.
[29:54]Amazing.
[29:55]All right, cute.
[29:56]Lives like us.
[29:57]And I'll thank you, darling.
[29:58]That's a lot.
[29:59]So fun.
[30:00]So fun, thank you.
[30:01]That's the best interview, Libby.
[30:02]Thank you.
[30:06]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[30:09]If you love it, please leave a review.
[30:10]And follow us on social at Libby Owens and at Libby Readers.