Meg Mason on the Interview with Ann Patchett that Inspired this Novel
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:03]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show and learned endless amounts about
[0:09]storytelling, reinvention and life itself because when you talk about books, you're really
[0:13]talking about life.
[0:15]So get ready to hear from today's best authors, the best-selling and the not yet discovered.
[0:20]Come find your next great read and that the story behind it, enjoy.
[0:27]You may have heard my interview a few years ago with Meg Mason about her amazing book,
[0:33]Sorrow and Bliss, which went on to become an international bestseller after it was first
[0:38]published in Australia.
[0:40]It ended up winning the British Book Industry Book of the Year.
[0:43]It was shortlisted for the Women's Prize and has been translated into more than 30 languages.
[0:49]Her first career, by the way, was in journalism and she began at the Times of London,
[0:53]Writing for Vogue and Elle and many other places, including The Yorker's Shouts and
[0:57]Mirrors.
[0:58]Now she has a new book coming out and when I saw it, I literally gasped in excitement.
[1:02]It's called Sophie Standing There.
[1:05]And guess what?
[1:06]It is so good.
[1:07]I loved it and picked it as a Zibi's book club pick.
[1:11]I will put in the show notes when you can join Meg Mason and me for a virtual Q&A on Zoom
[1:17]where you all can ask her questions about the book.
[1:20]You can read it with us and I hope you love it as much as I do.
[1:24]It's really awesome and she is really awesome.
[1:27]Born in New Zealand, Meg Mason now lives in Sydney with her husband and two daughters
[1:32]enjoy our conversation, which I totally enjoyed.
[1:36]Welcome back, Meg.
[1:37]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to talk about Sophie standing there.
[1:41]Congratulations.
[1:42]Oh, thank you.
[1:43]I'm so happy to be there because you were like one of the first podcasts I ever did
[1:48]for the previous novels.
[1:49]I have such nostalgia.
[1:51]It's like you didn't even get on the ground floor.
[1:52]You got in that basement level.
[1:54]So I'm very grateful.
[1:56]Well, I'm so glad because as I hope you remember, I was so obsessed with Sarah on
[2:02]Bliss.
[2:03]And then this book came out and I was like, oh my gosh, I cannot wait to read it and it's
[2:06]so good.
[2:07]Yeah.
[2:08]Oh my gosh.
[2:09]Oh, I was so glad.
[2:10]And it's been a little while.
[2:11]The whole time that I was casting around for the right thing to write, I was like, it's
[2:15]too late.
[2:16]I've, you know, my deadline was like a year ago and then two years ago and then it was
[2:21]three years ago.
[2:22]And I'm like, no one's going to remember, you know, like I should have written three books
[2:25]by now.
[2:26]And you know what I didn't realize is that when you publish a book, you become part of
[2:30]a cohort, like the class of 2021, particularly if there were any prizes involved because
[2:35]you're going to go, you know, you're sort of dominated in a set.
[2:38]And then when you hit a period of not being able to write something, you begin to see
[2:42]everybody who was in your class, start publishing the next book.
[2:46]And whilst I'm incredibly happy for them on bad days, it wasn't a good feeling because
[2:51]I'm like, well, what are they doing that I can't do?
[2:54]So there were moments like that afterwards and it sort of calmed down and read Justin
[2:57]period that I hadn't experienced that before.
[3:00]It's a lot of meanness.
[3:03]I totally understand that.
[3:05]Oh my gosh.
[3:06]Well, maybe explain to listeners.
[3:08]The sorrow and bliss came out.
[3:09]It became a smash hit in the US, of course, massive in the UK.
[3:14]You won all these prizes, major bestseller.
[3:18]Why don't you just explain a little about how your life turned around at age 43?
[3:22]Yeah.
[3:23]Yeah.
[3:24]Well, I had a very nice, small life.
[3:27]I was a freelance journalist.
[3:28]I had two daughters who were mid teens by then.
[3:31]You know, we live in this nice part of Sydney that lived in for a long time.
[3:34]And I had written two books before.
[3:38]One of them was sort of accidentally memory and I didn't love that book and then the
[3:41]next one was a novel, which was fine, but I don't think I ever earned out the advance.
[3:46]You know, it only was published here in Australia and, you know, I had no profile.
[3:50]I don't have social media.
[3:51]So you would expect it to sell not many copies and it probably sold slightly fewer than
[3:54]that.
[3:56]And then I tried to write again, you know, I wanted to write another book because I was
[4:00]contractually obliged to write another book and it just, it just wouldn't happen.
[4:04]And I think, you know, the story sort of was that I'd written a whole book and threw it
[4:07]away.
[4:08]And then in my own time kind of before and after work, I just felt compelled to try and
[4:12]write, you know, this other book, but, you know, which turned out to be homeless, but
[4:16]well beyond the point of believing, you know, that it would ever see the light of day that
[4:21]anything would happen.
[4:23]And then I found out, you know, if I was lucky, it might do as well as the others had.
[4:27]And then we realized that the publication date was going to fall at the very beginning
[4:30]of COVID.
[4:31]So I'm like, oh, it'll actually do much worse than the other two because, you know, right
[4:35]at the beginning, people were hustling, but there wasn't anything.
[4:38]You know, people hadn't figured out the Zoom event, you know, or the sort of the virtual
[4:43]thing.
[4:44]So there was no way of publicizing it.
[4:46]And so the first three or four months when it was just released here were very pleasant
[4:50]and quiet.
[4:51]And, but then what happened when it came out in the US in February, which is something,
[4:55]I mean, that's probably the first thing I never would have dreamed of because, you know,
[4:59]this is of you.
[5:00]may have been to Australia, but you don't need to come here to know how far away it is and
[5:04]how disconnected we are from the rest of the world and how small our market is. You know where
[5:08]the same size as you geographically, we have 25 million people where you have 350 million or
[5:13]something, don't you? So we're thin on the ground. But then, you know, for it to come out in the US
[5:19]and then I think what happened that started to make it feel like something was going on is that
[5:24]regular people started to post about it, but then famous people started to post about it,
[5:29]sort of first authors who, you know, I'd heard of these authors and I had loved these authors
[5:33]my entire life and, you know, for them to sort of have your book somehow in their hand, it was
[5:39]extraordinary and, you know, friends with some of these screenshots. And then I think the tipping
[5:43]point was when I woke out one morning to a picture of Olivia Wilde on a super yacht reading it with
[5:49]Harry stars off to one side looking bored. And I was like, oh, so it's kind of breached the walls
[5:55]of the literary world a little bit and it's gone out into the real world where people are actually
[5:59]famous famous, which is famous to us, you know, within our little circle. And then I still hadn't
[6:05]been to the UK to come out there and my publisher there had done a lovely job of like he would send
[6:10]me reviews in the mail to kind of, you know, because it was still locked down here. We had a
[6:14]really extreme lockdown. So no one had gone anywhere for a long time. And he'd really done such a
[6:20]love, you know, he would send me things and he would let me know how it was going. So I thought
[6:24]I had a sense of what was going on in the UK. And then I turned up and I honestly felt like
[6:30]I had arrived at my own wedding. And I didn't know it was my wedding. You know, it was just
[6:34]there were billboards and ridiculous things, which are, you know, you don't even
[6:40]dream. I mean, if I dreamt that far for my own work, I would have seemed like a fantasies. And
[6:44]I still feel like a retrospective fantasies, even now as I'm describing it to you. So I mean,
[6:50]there are authors who sell millions more. And I'm not in that league at all. But for me, it was
[6:55]just this dramatic change. And to suddenly find myself, you know, on book two or sort of on the other
[7:00]side of the world, when I'd never left my children before, you know, and suddenly I was working 12,000
[7:05]miles away. And the wonderful kind of fatigue of all of it and the kind of overwhelm. But I think
[7:11]the biggest change for me was that I had never met an author really in real life. I'd maybe
[7:16]interviewed a couple for magazines, but we'd never chatted beyond, you know, you're allotted
[7:21]half an hour or whatever. And then it's almost like authors all know each other, which is actually
[7:26]a line that's in Sophie. And so once you had brought into that world by one author, you know,
[7:32]says come to this party or whatever, they're all there, like physically they are all there.
[7:37]And also in London in particular, I would keep turning up for another week thinking, oh my gosh,
[7:43]I just happened to straight, you know, strike the week where all the parties are because, you know,
[7:47]two launches a year down here. And I'd never been to any of them. And I'm like, oh, I eventually
[7:53]figured out there's just a party every night in London at 365 days a year. It's just, you know, it's
[7:58]just a literary sort of society. And so that was wild. And I loved it. And every time I would come
[8:04]home from a trip there in particular, my husband would be like your unpleasant for two weeks. He's
[8:09]like, I get it. I understand, but you're depressed and unpleasant for two weeks because, you know,
[8:14]it's like, you know, every astronaut comes off the moon and gets divorced because they can't
[8:19]reintegrate into real life. And it was a bit like that. There'd be this reentry period because
[8:25]also, you know, a mother at home, no one treats you like your special. And no one tells you
[8:29]every day that you're amazing and that, you know, you're this and that. And then you, you go there
[8:35]and people are telling you these things. And you're like, I know this isn't true.
[8:39]I'm 43. Like, I'm not going to get hooked into this. But it's still, you know, people, people say
[8:46]really nice things. And you're like, I could kind of, I could get used to it. Or I could just let
[8:51]myself feel special just for today. Like, when no one's looking. But then, you know, you come home
[8:56]with a bump. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't change anything about it. It was wild. But then, but then
[9:01]sort of reality of having to write another book really hit. Like, I couldn't, I couldn't keep
[9:06]running away from it. And I was really intent to not stay too long at the fair. You know,
[9:12]like not to be the last person that I didn't talk to you about those. I mean, like, you guys,
[9:17]you guys, do you remember that book I wrote four years ago? Wasn't it great? So that was like,
[9:22]kind of, that was enough to compel me back into the work because I'm like, that would be
[9:25]mortifying. Oh, anyway. But then the landscape had kind of shifted a little bit. And the thing
[9:31]that I rely on most is a feeling of privacy and isolation, not, not just physically isolated from
[9:38]people, but the idea that there's no one out there in the world who knows what I'm doing.
[9:42]And that was no longer something I could convince myself as true. People were and I'd taken,
[9:50]I'd taken their money. I'd taken it fast. So it's like, oh, I'm going to jail because I'm never going to,
[9:56]no, they're going to write another book. So, yeah, it was messy. It got really-
[10:00]messy. So then how did you come up with this idea? And when I read it I was like I wonder if this
[10:05]is just based on one time when Meg was at a festival and wondering about the tech and wondering what
[10:11]their life was like and thinking oh wait that's a really interesting idea for a novel. Yeah well
[10:16]you're basically exactly right. So I thought I'd be on the publicity circuit for six weeks previously
[10:22]and then it became a you know matter of years and that was all new to me. So whenever you get
[10:28]a window into a new world as a writer you're just like you're kind of hovering it up you know
[10:34]there's just so much to notice but I was never doing it with the idea of it as material. In fact I
[10:40]think I was doing it as the opposite because you know there's that absolute insularity that comes
[10:46]sometimes with writers writing about writers writing you know that's kind of the phrase and it can become
[10:51]very self-vaccinated and very like this is our closed world and to readers it can feel really
[10:57]exclusive like I've read so many novels when I'm like well this just isn't isn't you know my life and I
[11:02]sort of feel somehow I can be in kept outside of it you know you know it's a bit rarefied
[11:08]and so I never thought I would do that but about three or four manuscripts in all of which were
[11:13]hideous fact similes of the previous thing which is another horror that you know you're just
[11:19]going to basically write you know when you photocopy a copy of a photocopy and it gets
[11:24]grainier and less clear every single time that's basically what was happening plus in the middle
[11:29]of all of it the whole notion of sad girl fiction had sort of landed and I don't know how you
[11:34]feel about that label but I struggle with it because I just think it sounds so pejorative and
[11:40]particularly when it's female authors or female readers using it to describe what we love and I
[11:47]think is that really how we feel about it do we see Virginia Woolford's a sad girl because she
[11:52]was do you know what we would never you know so why are we kind of denigrating both our taste
[11:57]and the work of women in our sort of realm so I was really eager to react against it basically
[12:04]but I didn't know how because I've only ever written you know women who are inclined to melancholy
[12:09]and that's what I'm like myself so anyway I had to take a break to go to Auckland in New Zealand
[12:16]which is where I'm from to interview Anne Patcher who'd come down here for Tom Lake and you know
[12:22]sort of ridiculously would become friends in this time and so because I knew her and because
[12:28]this was a home crowd and because probably I was tired I didn't prepare properly it's the first
[12:33]time I ever done it I'd written no questions I hadn't read the moderator's notes because I thought
[12:38]they'd be the same as everybody else's notes you know it's just bathrooms and master points and
[12:43]you know you don't need to revise that every single time except this time I at five minutes before
[12:50]in the wings in the dark no glass is full cortisol and adrenaline you know like Bonnie Garm has
[12:56]turned up back there just to say hello it's swarming with techs you can see the blazing lights out
[13:01]on stage you have that rumble of the crowd so it really becomes this kind of moment it's like
[13:07]you're well beyond the past you know point of no return at that you know at that moment you're
[13:11]going out there and moderating is so much harder than being an author because you have to shape
[13:18]the event steer the event make sure everybody who has come gets what they came for absolutely
[13:24]recede in yourself you know it cannot be about you I'm sure you've been to events where the moderator
[13:28]has killed it by talking 70% of the time you know and you're just the whole audience just
[13:34]betterly resent you for the terrible job that you're doing so I was about to go out there and do
[13:39]a terrible job and then I open the notes I read the book I read the book thank goodness I had
[13:47]read the book that that was all good but I hadn't read these instructions and I'm like I better just
[13:52]quickly skim over them with you know in the dark and I saw that I was required to give a greeting
[13:58]in Toreo Maori which is the indigenous language of New Zealand I quite a lengthy greeting
[14:04]and I left New Zealand before Maori was on the school curriculum so don't speak it I know what
[14:08]it sounds like but I don't speak it and it's a sacred thing to go out there and address the crowd
[14:15]in an indigenous language and I was about to I don't want to read it off paper you know I had to do
[14:20]it and there was a closing you know sort of address as well and I just kind of turned around
[14:26]and grabbed the nearest tech that I could find and said I don't know how to do this and it turned
[14:32]out to be a girl from my high school in New Zealand who I hadn't seen her for 35 years and when
[14:37]you move away from where you're from you never bump into anyone you know ever I honestly can't
[14:41]remember another you know occurrence of that and she just stood with me while I was shaking like a
[14:47]leaf and she just kind of explained what it meant we worked on the pronunciation and I went out there
[14:53]and did it and then I went home and I forgot about the entire thing and two weeks later this idea of
[15:00]be really the character arrived in my mind.
[15:04]Lots of authors say it, it's like they walk into your mind
[15:07]and it really is true.
[15:08]And then she was, but she wasn't the author
[15:11]and I was suddenly so fascinated
[15:12]because I could never have written this
[15:14]but from the perspective of the famous author,
[15:16]even just partly because people would think I was,
[15:20]I thought I was that.
[15:21]Do you know?
[15:22]Like, oh yeah, this is the sort of famous author
[15:23]and she's really pretty and really talented
[15:25]and it's all mined from my own experience.
[15:27]So I knew it wouldn't be her,
[15:29]but then there was this Sophie,
[15:31]she's this freelance text, she loves books
[15:33]and she's in this world,
[15:35]but she's in it in a completely different capacity
[15:37]and yet she's the reason
[15:39]and all her colleagues are the reason that this world runs
[15:42]and all of the authors I've met have been just truly delightful
[15:46]and better than you could ever imagine them to be
[15:48]as people, even more wonderful than they seem
[15:51]in the press or in podcasts.
[15:55]But in those five minutes,
[15:56]do we always notice who's around us helping
[15:59]because you're so focused on what you're doing
[16:01]and the responsibility that you have
[16:03]or just the peril of what's about to happen on stage?
[16:05]And I just thought, did I thank her properly
[16:07]because she saved me and did I thank her
[16:10]and what does that feel like from that side
[16:14]and then to build the extension that Sophie is this book lover?
[16:17]She's just so passionate about books
[16:19]and she's kind and she's naturally cheerful
[16:21]and her main concern is the happiness of others
[16:25]but we meet her in this time that she suffered
[16:27]this extreme loss through no fault of her own.
[16:31]And it's not just, you know, taking her,
[16:33]it's not just affected her marriage,
[16:34]but it's had that ripple out effect
[16:36]where she's now sort of semi estranged
[16:38]from her best friend, her lovely brother,
[16:41]who she adores, he's kind of moved away
[16:43]and she's lost that connection.
[16:45]And so she becomes, as I believe we all have at some point,
[16:49]she feels the void with an author
[16:51]and becomes sort of, you know, I guess parasocially attached
[16:54]to this author, thinking of course
[16:56]that she'll never meet her
[16:58]because that's the definition of a parasocial relationship
[17:00]as a relationship that, you know, it is,
[17:03]it will never come to be, it's entirely framed
[17:05]in the mind of a person where there's a power imbalance
[17:09]as it were or a fame imbalance.
[17:12]Because Sophie lives in the secondary city,
[17:14]we don't know which city it is,
[17:16]I never named it, it's not even based on a real city,
[17:18]it just is a place that has a semi thriving literary scene
[17:22]that's kind of all you know about it.
[17:24]But of course, she is gonna meet her and she does meet her.
[17:27]And so the book is really about what happens
[17:30]when your imaginary friend,
[17:32]version of an author collides with the real person,
[17:35]who is, you know, who is acting in a persona
[17:39]because that's what famous people, you know,
[17:41]someone like this author who's been famous
[17:43]and she was 20 and, you know, is famous
[17:46]beyond the world just a literature.
[17:48]You build up a way to cope with it all
[17:51]and a way to distance yourself and kind of preserve
[17:54]your actual true self and you develop this way of being
[17:58]in the world that isn't, it both is you and isn't you.
[18:01]But then I guess from a technical perspective,
[18:03]what I realized was if Sophie has become so habituated
[18:08]to thinking about this author, because in a way,
[18:11]you know, in those times of loneliness
[18:13]an author is, or you know, whoever you sort of attach
[18:16]to in your mind, so much more accessible to you
[18:18]than an actual best friend,
[18:19]because when you wake up at 3 a.m.,
[18:21]you can start sort of what I described as thinking to them,
[18:24]you know, it's like talking to them,
[18:26]but it's a conversation in your mind.
[18:28]And so when Sophie meets her and they happen to connect,
[18:32]the imaginary version of the author hasn't gone away.
[18:35]She's still trying to think to her,
[18:37]but now she's talking to the real version as well.
[18:39]So my two characters kind of became three characters
[18:42]at which point the tremendous momentum
[18:45]that I'd had really slowed down
[18:47]because that first half of the novel took maybe three weeks.
[18:51]And then the second half once the author ended
[18:53]was like nine months because having to work out
[18:55]and manage all of that and to not let it turn into,
[18:59]like to not let the focus drift from Sophie
[19:02]or for the voice to become the author's voice
[19:04]to maintain so fuel the way through.
[19:06]But having said all that, it was so joyful.
[19:09]And people have always said,
[19:10]oh, it's writing cathartic for you and I'm like,
[19:12]no, like writing is why you need catharsis later.
[19:16]But I think this actually was because it was a way
[19:19]of just getting everything I'd seen in the last three years
[19:22]out of my body.
[19:24]Do you know and finding somewhere to put it all
[19:26]and to not waste all the little details of what I had seen?
[19:30]And so that was really, I love that.
[19:32]And the funny thing was a year later, after Auckland,
[19:37]I went back to Auckland to do that festival again.
[19:40]But it was part of a lineup, like it was the gala night.
[19:44]And so there was like David Nichols was there
[19:46]and Harriet Walter was speaking in column two being
[19:49]was speaking.
[19:49]And unlike somebody, the fourth person must have died
[19:52]because there is no other way that I would be invited
[19:56]into the script.
[19:56]I don't even have a book yet, you know?
[19:58]So if he wasn't was I'd finished.
[20:00]I think it finished it like two days before actually, but as a manuscript, and I was so nervous and you're down in this green room
[20:07]That's actually just a bunker. It's a concrete bunker underground with like slightly dusty
[20:12]You know wet military walls and then they come in and they're like we're gonna take you up to the wings now
[20:18]And I just honestly thought I was gonna be sick
[20:20]I was so nervous. We won a lad notes
[20:22]It was a 10 minute you know delivery from nothing and obviously, you know I hadn't done well there the previous year
[20:27]So I have history of botching it in this place
[20:30]And then I walked back into the wings and I'm like these are my wings
[20:34]I've just spent nine months in these wings like mentally
[20:39]Recalling every detail like every cable and every folding chair
[20:42]And I just instantly felt so at home, but I'm like where is she?
[20:46]We're so fit you know because I she was so real to me by then
[20:50]But I just I loved being able to tell the text that I'd written a book about
[20:54]Production text because that's a weird thing today
[20:57]So that was really enjoyable now you have to write a novel about the novelist who has a parasocial relationship
[21:04]Exactly it's gonna go on forever in this kind of I'll never escape it now
[21:09]There'll always be someone else's perspective to tell it from or maybe I'll never have to write about authors again
[21:15]That would also be really nice
[21:18]Well, you included so many authors who I'm sure are going to be immensely flattered by their inclusion in this
[21:24]Lovely book. Um, so amazing. You I'm glad you brought up the art of moderating because I
[21:31]Moderate a lot and you had a line here now. It's like oh, she thinks moderating is easy
[21:36]But it's actually not that easy. Absolutely. No, wait. I want to read this line
[21:42]I also have a there's a pair of book sellers in the book. This little independent book
[21:47]So if he goes to his a haven and every single time since it's been in galley
[21:51]I've met booksellers and been like I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry
[21:54]I know those characters are sitting down all the time
[21:57]They're just chatting on a pair of stools behind the counter and I'm like
[22:00]I know you never sit down. I know you don't
[22:02]But you know to kind of portray them as slightly gossipy. They're like the comic relief
[22:06]They kind of so I think they got tea and biscuits and
[22:10]Exactly and then they sat back down again and there was sort of no customers coming to interrupt them
[22:15]But I don't remember the line where I lovingly satirized moderators
[22:19]I have it here. So if he says Jenny's such a good moderator. I thought she was it isn't a difficult job
[22:26]I like replied all you need to do is let your entire self-worth depend on a famous person for 50 minutes
[22:31]Saying someone is a marvelous moderator is like saying they're marvellously co-dependent
[22:37]I mean, it's kind of true because you know when you interview someone who's giving you nothing and
[22:43]And it's just so awful and we've all seen that event too where that author is
[22:48]Constantly countering you and you offer them a question
[22:51]They're like no absolutely not and you're like okay
[22:53]Dead bullying me again and you feel it slipping out of your hands and you're just like it's my fault everyone hates me
[22:59]And it's because this author is tired. It's because it's the fourth event. They've done
[23:03]You know that week and they're hungry and they've blisters or whatever
[23:08]So it's never usually the moderator's fault
[23:10]It's just the chemistry isn't there that particular time and and before I was ever in the wings
[23:15]I was always in the audience of literary festivals
[23:17]so you you know just adoring and being in the signing line not behind the table and
[23:22]You know you just see it you see it as it's this very brief affair
[23:27]Basically that happens on the stage and if there's no chemistry
[23:30]It doesn't work and it but it will end and so it's a question below and badly or well
[23:35]You know in the same way as an affair. Do they ever and well? They probably don't
[23:39]You had another I mean you had eight million really funny things
[23:43]But there was a scene where
[23:45]Sophie is talking about another author and says people think he's quite talented and then like goes
[23:52]He's written 40 novels Sophie. That's not talent. That's a disorder
[23:56]Which is a line I stole from someone. I stole it from another author
[24:00]There's a lot of stuff and then that's lifted except I would say
[24:05]an absolute truth and
[24:07]Earninessness is that there's 10 authors 10 real life authors that I mentioned starts with George Saunders
[24:12]And it basically scrolls through every author I've ever loved
[24:16]I feel like was one of the last ones. Yeah, and and I use that
[24:20]I didn't just have Sophie
[24:22]mentioning them as authors of her famous book. I use them as characters
[24:26]So the action turns on Elizabeth's chat having to cancel because she's co-vetted and in the first couple of pages George Saunders
[24:32]Like famously the nicest man in the world has a tantrum because he doesn't like his Madonna mic
[24:38]And he wants a regular microphone because he can see the spongy bit in his peripheral vision
[24:43]And so I knew I was gonna have to ask all of these authors for permission and
[24:48]And I was like they will never say yes. Why would they say yes? There is nothing in it for them
[24:53]Like it's it's not like they need my help to get some publicity
[24:59]and so
[25:00]I wrote them these emails where I was just almost too mortified.
[25:03]You need to send them, but I would send them chapter one and then I would send them
[25:07]this section in which they appear and then like, you don't have to do it.
[25:10]You don't have to do it.
[25:11]It's just because I, you know, your work is meant something to me.
[25:14]And every single one of them came back and said yes.
[25:16]And I was so shocked and stunned.
[25:19]I'm still stunned.
[25:20]But the thing that was the most delightful about it was that the email they sent back
[25:25]was so intrinsically them in the way that they responded.
[25:29]They didn't just say yes, like George Saunders said, yes, that's fine.
[25:32]But you haven't mentioned my incredible charisma and good looks, you know.
[25:36]And I can't, I can't remember right now some of the other ones.
[25:40]I'll Mick Harren, who, you know, the right of slow horses was like, yeah,
[25:43]but can I have a neck tattoo?
[25:45]Like it was just so perfect.
[25:46]And I still have those emails altogether and a little, you know, you collect ephemera
[25:51]as you're writing a novel and that's the most valuable thing I possess.
[25:54]I think.
[25:55]Oh my gosh.
[25:56]Well, you also, and I know we're almost out of time.
[25:59]I could talk to you seriously all day.
[26:00]I just want to sit and listen.
[26:01]And like quite not to be like, you know, a Sophie.
[26:03]No, I don't know.
[26:04]It feels like we should have some coffee or some wine and be in person.
[26:07]I would love that.
[26:08]I would absolutely love that.
[26:09]But there is a whole other dimension, which is Sophie's marriage and the demise of the marriage,
[26:14]which is really consuming her and that she has to get through.
[26:19]And you have something where Sophie is quoting another author, which is you can marry
[26:24]who you think they are.
[26:25]But it's really the broken part of you wanting the broken part of them.
[26:29]Mm-hmm.
[26:30]I love that.
[26:31]It's a, well, it's a paraphrase of Margaret Dribble.
[26:33]I feel like you're exposing all my cheating.
[26:36]No, you said it in here, Margaret Dribble.
[26:38]No, it didn't.
[26:39]No, you said you said that one.
[26:41]Did I?
[26:42]Oh, thank you.
[26:43]On a podcast, you were paraphrasing Margaret Dribble, I think.
[26:46]She definitely.
[26:47]And Liley doesn't enjoy it.
[26:48]She doesn't enjoy being found out for that, but only Sophie would know, you know, because
[26:52]she's such a reader.
[26:53]But, but you know, there's one thing that I feel really, you know, because people say,
[26:57]what do you hope to take away from this novel, you know, that readers will take away
[27:01]from this novel.
[27:03]And the first thing is that loneliness is not your fault.
[27:06]You can be delightful and wonderful the way Sophie is and still be lonely.
[27:11]But it's temporary except that when you're in it, it doesn't feel temporary.
[27:15]It feels like a reflection of who you intrinsically are, like you are not a beloved person.
[27:20]But it's because probably you've just got divorced or you've just moved cities or you've
[27:25]moved jobs or, you know, your kids have just left home, but we don't tend to see that
[27:29]and we don't believe it will ever change.
[27:31]And I think it's so important to remember that it will and that becoming attached to someone
[27:36]mentally and that times just how you're getting through, you know, it's just company.
[27:39]And eventually that will fade when real people come back into your life, which Sophie
[27:44]it happens to her.
[27:45]There's a little love story in there as well because there always has to be a little love
[27:48]story in there.
[27:49]But the other thing I think that I'm so sort of, I so want to express is that, you know,
[27:56]this is described even by my own publisher as a book for book lovers and a book for readers
[28:00]because it's about our world.
[28:02]But it isn't a book for, you know, the most serious and kind of intellectual readers.
[28:11]It's not exclusive in that way.
[28:13]Like it's a very easy book to read.
[28:16]Hopefully it zips along and you don't have to have read proof to be invited into it.
[28:22]You know what I mean?
[28:23]It's it's jokey and it's it's written in highly everyday language on purpose.
[28:28]Like it's in Sophie's voice.
[28:30]She makes grammatical mistakes, which drove my copy editor and saying she came back with
[28:34]the manuscript.
[28:35]It had 9,300 suggested changes in it, which I'm like, isn't that one every five words?
[28:42]But I think that's so important to express is I don't want anyone to think, you know,
[28:46]well, it's not for me then because I don't read the right things because I don't read
[28:49]the right things.
[28:50]There are no right things.
[28:52]And like Sophie, I didn't start reading properly until I was really old.
[28:56]So it isn't, it isn't that thing of like, I'm sorry, this is just exclusively for
[29:00]a few very serious readers.
[29:02]Okay.
[29:03]Meg, I'm obsessed.
[29:04]The book is so good.
[29:06]Everyone's going to love it.
[29:07]I'm glad that we're on the basement floor again before this one takes me.
[29:12]I hope so.
[29:13]Anyone can achieve that for me.
[29:15]It's you.
[29:16]And this time I am going to meet you in real life because I think you're going to moderate
[29:19]at an event when I come to the U.S.
[29:21]Am I?
[29:22]Yeah.
[29:23]They haven't asked you yet.
[29:24]I might have.
[29:25]Oh my God, I would love to.
[29:26]I would love to.
[29:27]I think they have.
[29:28]But remember, it's a really hard job and you must prepare properly.
[29:30]Oh, I'm already prepared.
[29:31]When you read the book.
[29:32]I can do this.
[29:33]Exactly.
[29:34]Exactly.
[29:35]I'll just send you a greeting that you have to learn off my heart so that you'll have
[29:37]total sympathy for my family.
[29:38]Well, now you've probably gotten it wrong, and now I'm going to feel bad when nobody
[29:41]ever asked me.
[29:43]Thank you so much for having me and thank you to everyone who's going to read the book
[29:47]or has already.
[29:48]I'm just, I'm so grateful.
[29:50]Thank you for coming on.
[29:51]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi, formerly momstone have time to read
[29:56]books.
[29:57]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review.
[30:00]Follow me on Instagram at zippyowans and spread the word.
[30:04]Thanks so much.
[30:05]Go and buy the books.