Pod Insights Happy Place Book Club Meets: “Women are survivors and scapegoats!” Rage and revenge, with Elizabeth Day About this episode Elizabeth Day had an urgent need to say something about the way we’re living – about the power, politics, class, sexism, and discrimination that plague the world around us.
She explores all of that, plus perimenopause and female rage, through the entertaining lens of her latest novel One Of Us.
In this live Book Club chat with Fearne, Elizabeth talks about how she realised that – and wanted to write about – women so often being the victims, survivors, and scapegoats of male power and privilege. They also explore whether getting revenge is ever really as sweet as you hope it’ll be...
Elizabeth is famously obsessed with reality TV, so how did The Real Housewives franchise inspire parts of One Of Us, and what does she make of politicians rehabilitating their careers on reality TV and gossip podcasts? Plus, how writing about motherhood in this book allowed Elizabeth to process her own feelings about not having children.
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Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service.
Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/
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Transcript 14,887 words · 17 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:28 Speaker 01 They've spoken about Ben's desire for leadership a lot over the years, and she has always been supportive.
0:34 Fearne Cotton? Welcome to the Happy Place Book Club with me, Fern Cotton.
0:38 Speaker 01 The fact that he didn't make it an absolute priority to inform her, told her that
0:43 Fearne Cotton? Today, one of us, by Elizabeth Day.
0:45 Speaker 01 ...factor into his decisions, either because he knew she'd go along with it, or because it wouldn't matter if she didn't. The worst of it is, he's right. She doesn't want to divorce him. Ben gives her a comfortable life and social standing, and she loves her children. Dragging it all through the courts would be protracted and embarrassing, with no guarantee that she'd get a financial settlement equal to what she deserved. Divorce was for oligarchs and soap stars, not for her. So she makes a choice.
1:28 Fearne Cotton? Today is mega exciting, because you're going to get to hear what happened at our first ever Happy Place Book Club Live, with one of my best mates, author Elizabeth Day. A load of us gathered at the Book Bar in Chelsea, which is the cutest venue of all time. Imagine the most delightful room, with walls adorned with books and cute little lamps, and then a bar, where you can have a drink and some food. And we had the most gorgeous crowd, just like a lovely bunch of beautiful bookworms. I'm a fellow bookworm. And we all gathered together. Everyone was so kind. It was such a lovely atmosphere. There were goodie bags. There was chat. There was hugging. There was laughter. It was heaven.
2:10 Fearne Cotton? So November's Book Club read was One of Us. This is a story that so cleverly exposes topics like power and privilege and class in this country, as well as looking at perimenopause and personal identity shifting over time. Elizabeth and I got into all those areas in this chat, as well as some other stuff like Life After Death and, surprisingly, The Real Housewives franchise, because she's obsessed. I have not seen it. It's on my list for over Christmas. It was the absolute best getting to meet some of you in person and will definitely be doing more of these live book clubs because we just had the best night. So keep your eyes peeled for that. But I also love how involved you all get on Instagram. So do
2:53 Fearne Cotton? come and follow us if you love books, at Happy Place Book Club. This is Gemma. Hello, Gemma.
3:00 Speaker 03 Hi Fern. As a loyal follower of both Happy Place and How to Fail Podcast, I really welcomed this book from Elizabeth Day. One of Us brings together love, loyalty, betrayal, scandal, manipulation and revenge. The book had so much substance. I enjoyed it so much that after reading it, I also listened to the audiobook. The audiobook really did it justice with such excellent casting of its narrators, who brought the brilliantly written book to life. I absolutely loved it.
3:30 Speaker 04 My name is Rachel and I absolutely loved One of Us. It's the kind of book that is a page turner, that you never want to end. The characters are so brilliantly written that even though they're fictional, they feel completely recognisable. And I just wanted to continue to know how their lives unfolded. There was tragedy in the book that was again sadly familiar and a mystery running through it, but it was the characters that I wanted to know more about and that kept me engaged and wanting to turn those pages.
4:02 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, these characters are just so compelling. We deep dive into how Elizabeth wrote each of them, so I think you're going to love that bit, Rachel. This is what Victoria made of One of Us.
4:13 Speaker 05 Hello Fern. I really enjoyed reading November's book. I found One of Us an intense read at times, with themes of rage, revenge, power, isolation, sexuality and deception, with the standout one for me being revenge. The more the story went on, I found myself questioning, was the revenge delivered by Martin and Cosma justified? Was everyone better off for it in the end or not?
4:40 Fearne Cotton? Okay, Victoria, hold that thought because revenge, and whether it was worth it or not, comes up big time in this chat.
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5:20 Speaker 07 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the Headline Hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.
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6:26 Fearne Cotton? Come on then, let's do it. Here's the show.
6:50 Fearne Cotton? Hi. Hi everyone, so good to see you all. This is Elizabeth Day. Obviously.
6:59 Speaker 09 Hello.
7:00 Fearne Cotton? It's very swatchy, very comfy. This is our sold-out Happy Place Book Club event, our first proper live one. We've done little book club events at the Happy Place Festival, but this is our first proper Happy Place Book Club event with my darling friend Elizabeth Day. We're so excited. Before we get into it, first of all, massive thank you for coming along. It's so glorious to have you all here. Gorgeous bunch of women. No men allowed apart from my team. I mean, they are allowed, they just don't read books. And I'd like to say a massive thank you to the book bar. What a beautiful venue. We are definitely coming back. Also, I want to say a massive thank you to Never Fully Dressed,
7:44 Fearne Cotton? who worked with us on this event. Yeah, yeah. I'm wearing kilts, guys, first time since I was 12. And also cherries on my boots. And look at this suit!
7:54 Speaker 09 This suit, I'm sorry, I love Never Fully Dressed.
7:57 Fearne Cotton? This suit!
7:58 Speaker 09 Unbelievable clothes at a great price point.
8:01 Fearne Cotton? I know.
8:02 Speaker 09 And this, I love this suit.
8:03 Fearne Cotton? As we were saying before, green velvet, this is like your new thing now.
8:07 Speaker 09 Thank you, I'm going to lean into that.
8:09 Fearne Cotton? You really need to. Festive, too.
8:11 Speaker 09 Yes.
8:11 Fearne Cotton? And you've all got these glorious goodie bags, which also feature our dear friend Jamie's Candy Kittens, which is very generously given. We often have drunken trio nights out, which is so much fun. And I was just saying to Elizabeth in the staff room, I've been saying his surname wrong for forever since I've known him.
8:32 Speaker 09 Yeah.
8:32 Fearne Cotton? It's not Jamie Lang, it's Jamie Ling.
8:36 Speaker 09 But I think Jamie Lang sounds better.
8:39 Fearne Cotton? Well, that's his name.
8:39 Speaker 09 So I'm just gonna stick to it.
8:40 Fearne Cotton? So that's how a normal human would say it. Oh, by the way, that's your birthday present. Oh, Fern, thank you. Do you want to open it now or shall I?
8:48 Speaker 09 That's quite awkward.
8:49 Fearne Cotton? I'll leave it to later, yeah. That was so sweet.
8:51 Speaker 09 I think we'll do it later. Okay, Fern is an amazing friend for so many reasons. But you always are so thoughtful with presents. Sometimes you'll send me a present for no reason, other than I'm having a bit of a challenging time. Honestly, you are so thoughtful and lovely.
9:05 Fearne Cotton? You do the same.
9:06 Speaker 09 I'll put that down here.
9:07 Fearne Cotton? When one of my cats died ages ago, you sent me a little framed picture of me and my cat, and it broke my heart. It was like the sweetest thing.
9:13 Speaker 09 Oh.
9:14 Fearne Cotton? No, we love each other.
9:15 Speaker 09 I love her so much. Can I talk about our origin story?
9:18 Fearne Cotton? Yes, this is a good one.
9:20 Speaker 09 Before we go on to the book.
9:21 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
9:22 Speaker 09 Fern and I, well, actually, we met years ago when I interviewed you for The Observer.
9:26 Fearne Cotton? Yes, I remember.
9:27 Speaker 09 But then it was a journalist interviewee kind of relationship. So we didn't stay in touch, even though I thought you were amazing. And then years later, we both launched podcasts, but Fern paved the way for basically everyone else.
9:39 Fearne Cotton? I don't know about that.
9:40 Speaker 09 You launched yours in, I think, March 2018, and I launched mine in July 2018. And in 2019, we found ourselves sitting next to each other, well, rather, my husband was sitting next to you, at the British Podcast Awards. And Jamie was there too.
9:54 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
9:55 Speaker 09 And we all conspicuously failed to win anything. And we were all secretly simmering with rage.
10:00 Fearne Cotton? So angry.
10:01 Speaker 09 And then we bonded massively after that. And then we went on each other's podcasts, and it was the beginning of the friendship.
10:07 Fearne Cotton? You missed out on part of that story when I didn't win my category and walked out.
10:10 Speaker 09 That was amazing. It was the most baller move I have ever seen.
10:14 Fearne Cotton? We're gonna sit here, watching other people win. Oh, I go home, bye. Just walked out.
10:17 Speaker 09 It was amazing.
10:18 Fearne Cotton? Anyway, we now love hanging out and talking about books and cats and all things that we'll probably cover this evening for this book club event. So how I think we're gonna do things, because I'm making it up as I go along, guys, never done this before. We're gonna have a really nice chat about Elizabeth's brilliant book. Then I'm gonna open it to you guys if you wanna ask a question. So maybe get thinking, or maybe you've already come with a question prepared that you might wanna ask. And then we'll do some pictures, or if you want us to sign books, then we will happily do that as well. And then you can enjoy the rest of your merry evening. Does that sound good? Okay, great. Well, Elizabeth, first of all, I'm so chuffed that we get to do this.
11:00 Speaker 09 Me too.
11:00 Fearne Cotton? I'm so excited to talk about this brilliant book. As you well know, because I sent you a selfie of me, I think I was naked in bed, reading your book.
11:08 Speaker 09 I've sold it to the sun.
11:09 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
11:10 Speaker 09 Thanks very much. That was a good 500 quid.
11:12 Fearne Cotton? The only tip pick of me out there. I can't sleep with clothes on, it's too hot.
11:17 Fearne Cotton? I loved this book so much. And as you know, I've read all of your books, but this is your best book. And I think you know that.
11:26 Speaker 09 That's amazing to hear from you, because I know how much you read and I love your books and the way that you write. And I think we're really similar sometimes in the way that we communicate. And I hope that as a writer, and with anything I do, I hope I'm getting better with more experience and more accumulated wisdom. So therefore, I do like to think that it's my best book, because I hope that I'm learning with every other one that I write and every mistake I make.
11:54 Fearne Cotton? But you are already exceptional, but this is like, it's just so good.
11:59 Speaker 09 Thank you.
12:00 Fearne Cotton? And do you know what's so interesting? Obviously, I get to read a lot of books written by authors that I know personally. And I have maybe the first couple of chapters, I find it really hard to not imagine them.
12:12 Speaker 09 Yeah.
12:13 Fearne Cotton? As any of the characters. But from the minute I started reading Martin, I was like, you were nowhere in sight. You were nowhere in sight. And I think that is just testament to how like full-bodied the characters were, how well you knew them before you even started to put them on the page.
12:31 Speaker 09 I'm so glad that you said that. When I wrote my first novel, Scissors, Paper, Stone, I remember my mother coming up to me with a sort of very pale face saying.
12:40 Fearne Cotton? That's never good.
12:41 Speaker 09 You're very, you're very dark, aren't you? You've got very dark thoughts. And my sister then read it and was like, oh, that woman Claire that was friends with our grandparents, you've written her. Like she turns up in a tra- and I didn't, hadn't realised that I'd done it. And both of them struggled to separate the me that they knew from what I'd written on the page. And I do think that as I get older and more mature as a novelist, but also as a human, I feel like I understand people better. And I understand more about their nuances and their complexities and their contradictions. And doing the podcast is great for that as well. And with one of us, I just. Felt that I knew these people and I wanted to explore them.
13:25 Speaker 09 And part of the reason I was able to leap into their skin so easily is because one of us is a companion piece to an earlier novel I wrote called The Party. And some characters reoccur. And the world had already been invented. And actually, it made me realise why writing sequels are so great. Because you've done so much of the hard work already. And you can just then slip into it and have more fun. I should say, you don't have to have read The Party. This does work as a standalone. And there are new characters as well. But I think one of the seminal differences with this book is that I felt an urgent need to say something about the way we live now. And there were so many aspects of the way we live now that I wanted to explore.
14:09 Speaker 09 And I think maybe that comes across on the page, that kind of underlying certainty.
14:13 Fearne Cotton? Without a doubt. Before I pick up on that, by the way, The Party is being made into a TV show?
14:18 Speaker 09 It is. I'm so excited that I can finally say it.
14:23 Fearne Cotton? I'm so excited.
14:24 Speaker 09 Because, as you all know, trying to make anything for TV is an exercise in managing impossibility. So The Party came out in 2017, so it's been eight years of trying and failing. And now finally, I can talk about it. It's been announced, it is actually happening. There's been a press release, they're filming it. I'm going to be, I'm going to go to Bridge End in Wales in a couple of weeks to be an extra.
14:46 Fearne Cotton? Oh, that's so great. That's such a Jilly Cooper move. I love it.
14:50 Speaker 09 It was like my first question. I was like, yeah, this is great, great, but can I be an extra? Yes, it's being adapted for ITV, a five-part drama starring Luke Evans.
14:59 Fearne Cotton? Incredible.
14:59 Speaker 09 The amazing Luke Evans, Joanna Scanlon, Douglas Hodge and then Lizzie Duncan. I'm pinching myself. It's incredible.
15:05 Fearne Cotton? Well, you shouldn't, because you deserve every ounce of it. It's so exciting. Going back to what we talked about a minute ago, like you have just said, there was so much you needed to get out in this book. You've somehow managed to write a book that covers power, politics, discrimination, envy, sexism, racism. It's got like every difficult issue and challenging sort of moment that we could look at, all in one book, cleverly woven into all of these different stories and their characters. What were the urgent themes, the one that you thought when you set out to write this book, I have to include this, this has to be spoken about?
15:42 Speaker 09 Thank you so much for picking up on that as well, because I do want one of us to be entertaining. And sometimes, whilst I'm delighted that readers are entertained by it, I don't want it to be at the cost of the serious points that I'm also trying to make. And I think the most pressing thing that I wanted to examine, it was two things really. One was why we keep falling in love with and sometimes electing the people who damage us. And I think there's a lot to be said there about how we've been conditioned to view expertise. So historically speaking, in this country, we have often elected white men
16:25 Speaker 09 who are privately educated, who go to Oxbridge and who then sail into the Houses of Parliament without ever having lived a day of their lives as ordinary people. And it feels like we've been historically conditioned, particularly as women, to believe that these very often mediocre men know what's best for us because they're seen as experts and they know how to play the game. What they are taught in all of these elite institutions is how to play that game. And actually, I think a lot of them apply that game mindset to politics. So it's seen as a kind of chessboard, rather than something that really affects our lives and can often damage them too. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that democracy is a bit like love.
17:10 Speaker 09 It's a bit like dating. We start out thinking and hoping for the best of our romantic partners and our elected politicians. And again and again, they let us down.
17:20 Fearne Cotton? And turn into Boris Johnson.
17:21 Speaker 09 And turn into Boris Johnson, exactly. But again and again, we keep giving them chances because of the crushing irrepressibility of hope. So I wanted to look at that. And then alongside that, one of the things I'm always interested in, in any of my books, is how women are so often the victims, the survivors and the scapegoats of that kind of toxic masculinity. And I never think I'm going to write about it, but it always comes out because that is the world that we live in.
17:51 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
17:52 Speaker 09 And I've made that sound very sort of serious. I wanted to examine it through a lens of entertainment. And I mean that quite literally as well, because reality TV, as you will know, is one of the great loves of my life. And I, I believe genuinely that reality TV is one of the, the preeminent cultural forces of our age. It shapes how we live. President Trump, I believe we became so familiar with on The Apprentice. That then the American voters were like, oh, he's just like crazy Uncle Dennis, who sometimes acts inappropriate at a wedding, but we love him. And then you get the likes of, Matt Hancock. Rehabilitating himself through the vehicle of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. And guesting on various podcasts.
18:37 Speaker 09 And I sort of wanted to look at that as well, about how we are often fed a sort of narrative of someone. And we have short memories and allow them back into the fold. So there is an invented failed Tory MP in one of us, who does go on an invented reality TV show.
18:55 Fearne Cotton? Called?
18:55 Speaker 09 Called Shit Happens, exclamation mark. And celebrities have to get undercover as sewage workers. And he has to do various challenges that end up with him being covered in human excrement.
19:06 Fearne Cotton? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't become a real show after people have read this book.
19:10 Speaker 09 Do you want to host it?
19:11 Fearne Cotton? No.
19:13 Fearne Cotton? Absolutely not.
19:16 Speaker 09 But I had a lot of fun writing him.
19:18 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, he's an amazing character. I mean, the mix of characters are so interesting because there's some that you instantly loathe. And it's so enjoyable to loathe them. And there's some that you're really rooting for. And then there's, Martin, I think, is a character that you can make your own mind up about.
19:32 Speaker 09 Yes.
19:32 Fearne Cotton? He seems like somebody that at the start, you might go, what is going on with this guy? What a strange man. And by the end, you sort of understand him a lot more. Who were you rooting for? And who did you enjoy writing those sort of loathsome qualities about?
19:46 Speaker 09 Such a good question. Well, I love Martin.
19:48 Fearne Cotton? I love Martin, and he's got a cat.
19:50 Speaker 09 He's got a cat, that's basically it.
19:51 Fearne Cotton? That's the only bit of you, I think, in the book, the cat. And the spa on the lake.
19:57 Speaker 09 And the perimenopause, yes.
19:58 Fearne Cotton? And the perimenopause, we'll get to that.
19:59 Speaker 09 Yeah. So I don't know how many of you, if any, have read The Party, or indeed one of us. But The Party ends with Martin stroking his cat. And one of the questions I was most frequently asked when I went to literary festivals to promote that book was, does he kill the cat?
20:19 Speaker 09 And it hadn't even crossed my mind, because along with the reality TV in Foe and Cotton, one of the other loves of my life are just cats.
20:27 Fearne Cotton? Cats, you could never kill a cat in a book.
20:29 Speaker 09 I could never kill a cat. So I, part of the reason I wanted to write One of Us was to ensure that the cat survived.
20:34 Fearne Cotton? Wow.
20:35 Speaker 09 And is actually on the cover, so we know that the cat survives. And Martin, for me, he's a sort of quintessential outsider who is desperate to belong. And he hasn't realised yet that true belonging begins with being true to yourself, about yourself. So he's struggled with his sexuality all of his life. He's been secretly in love with his best friend, Ben Fitzmaurice, ever since they met at school. And then something happened at Ben's 40th birthday party that made them fall out in dramatic style. But Martin is still hell-bent on revenge, which, if you think about it, is a kind of love.
21:13 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
21:13 Speaker 09 Because he's so sort of obsessed with getting back into Ben's inner circle to bring him down. And that's where we meet him at the beginning of One of Us. And the reasons I end up rooting for Martin out because I believe that it all comes from a sort of self-torture. Like, his feeling that he isn't accepted is all self-imposed. It's all this fear that he's not enough, and I think so many of us can relate to that, even if we can't relate to the unlikable ways in which he sometimes acts. And the other thing that I like about Martin is that he's a serbic, he's an acerbic observer, and he's brave enough and funny enough to say the things that I wouldn't say.
21:50 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, I love that about him.
21:52 Speaker 09 So I can kind of use him as a vehicle to say things that I don't think and would never say, but that amuse me, that he does. And then I end up giving him a bit of a redemptive arc, so I love that it ends up more hopeful than it began for him.
22:06 Fearne Cotton? Absolutely, although you, for a couple of characters, and I don't know who's running and who's not, so I'm sort of being choosy with how much I say, and there's something I want to say in a minute that might blow a bit of the plot, but we'll see how it goes.
22:17 Speaker 09 You've read it, you've read it.
22:18 Fearne Cotton? But with a couple of the characters, they realise that revenge actually isn't as sweet as imagined. And I thought that was so interesting, because... You know, again, a very relatable storyline. Many of us will have, you know, dealt with injustice or someone's done us over or whatever the situation is. And you plot revenge in your head or fantasize about it. And you imagine that it's going to feel so great and conclusive by the end. But actually, that's not the case for your characters. Why did you decide that?
22:48 Speaker 09 Exactly that. I think, you know, I'm a Scorpio. And there was this amazing video of Margaret Atwood being asked recently about being a Scorpio. And I feel I set the trend for that because she came on How To Fail and I asked her about being a Scorpio.
23:04 Speaker 09 And she said, you know, of course I hold grudges. I'm a Scorpio. It's the life I've been given.
23:10 Fearne Cotton? And it's so true. Just blame the stars.
23:12 Speaker 09 Yes. I definitely hold a grudge in that I will forgive, but I will never forget. And it is very rooted in injustice. If I feel someone has done something wrong to someone I love, it's like I'm keeping a list of names.
23:26 Fearne Cotton? Yeah. Are you writing them down?
23:28 Speaker 09 I'm not actually that bad. I'm not quite writing them down. But it's a bit like that with exes as well. If you feel like an ex has done you wrong and you have that sense of like, well, what am I going to wear today in case I run into them in the street? And I want to prove the point that they made a massive mistake by breaking up with me. And then if it ever does happen, and if you ever do cross paths with that ex or that person who did your friend wrong, it's actually not that satisfying because the narrative you built up in your head, you're right, bears very little relation to the disappointing individual that they actually are. And you realize...
24:00 Fearne Cotton? That's the revenge, maybe?
24:01 Speaker 09 Yeah. Yes, that's true. My friend said to me once, the best revenge is a life well-lived, which I think is very wise.
24:08 Fearne Cotton? I love it.
24:09 Speaker 09 But yeah, I just wanted to show that revenge really is a form of twisted power in and of its own way. And Martin is seeking revenge on Ben because part of what he now thinks he loathes about Ben is the fact that power has corrupted Ben and he's on course to become the next Tory Prime Minister. But actually revenge is twisting Martin into someone he isn't fundamentally.
24:34 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
24:34 Speaker 09 And it's partly why I developed this somewhat unlikely friendship between him and the eldest daughter of Ben Fitzmaurice and his wife Serena Cosima, who's an environmental activist. Because there's something about Cosima, who's 17... There's a purity in her vision. Her ideals are entirely uncorrupted by the realities of adulthood or cynicism. And I liked the idea that Martin could reconnect with an innocent part of himself through their friendship.
25:03 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, you can just see how tortured he is, you know, even sort of looking back to the school days of feeling like, and it's, again, you've woven in class into this storyline as well. And I found that so interesting because, again, like many of us, I've certainly felt like, oh, I'm not, I'm not in the cool gang or I can't penetrate that group of people, they will not accept me. And again, it could have been all completely in my head. And I had this really interesting shift in my teens where I went to a state school and I became really good friends with a group of public schoolboys. It was very unlikely pairing and we all found each other completely fascinating. But there were at times where I'd be maybe at a party and there'd be an extended group that I didn't know.
25:46 Fearne Cotton? And I would feel really like sort of common as Mark excluded, not accepted. Or I would see them as much more sophisticated probably than they felt. They were all about 16. But it just shows how the lengths that you go to and also the mental torture you put yourself through. Because it's almost comfier to think of yourself as an outsider because then it sort of validates all the feelings of insecurity you've got, like, oh, I'm right to not like myself very much. I'm not accepted by anybody. It was just such a clever, a clever dynamic between the two of them.
26:20 Speaker 09 Thank you. I'm obsessed with class, it turns out. And again, I didn't, I didn't realise what I was writing about until someone told me, oh, you're very good at class. I was like, oh, is that what it is? Interesting. And you're so right about outsidership. Exclusivity thrives on othering because you can't be exclusive unless you're tribally defining yourself.
26:45 Speaker 09 In relation to someone who's outside of all of that. And that's an interesting dynamic to play with. And I think part of the reason I'm obsessed with class and belonging and all of those things. As you know, I grew up in the north of Ireland, even though I speak with a very English accent. So we moved out there when I was four. My dad got a job as a surgeon in the local hospital. And I never fitted in, even though it was my home. And then I ended up getting a scholarship, just like Martin, to a boarding school in England when I was 13. And from the first day of that school, I was sort of accepted because I spoke in the right way. But there again, I didn't belong because I hadn't grown up in that environment and I didn't know the rules.
27:27 Speaker 09 And quite quickly, I felt like I had to learn how to code switch. And that's a sort of performance. And so then when you're performing, you can't accept yourself either. And I always remember our queen, Brene Brown. Oh, love. I know. We are blessed to live in the same lifetime. We really are, in this time, correct. Yes, what a time to be alive. I know. But I remember her saying something that has always stuck with me about the difference between belonging and fitting in. So when you're fitting in, you're changing yourself according to what you think that cool group wants of you. And when you belong, you're accepted exactly as you are. And so I think all of my characters are searching for belonging. And only a few of them are brave enough to do the self-work that true belonging requires.
28:13 Speaker 07 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.
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29:17 Speaker 11 It's time. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Halloween!
29:25 Speaker 12 And you guys know we don't do Halloween by halves. Full costume, full prosthetics, full commitment. I'm a rat. And I'm a chef. It's our Ratatouille special. Then we're grabbing our broomsticks for the witches. We've got a spooky hotline caller. An update from our woman who was in love with the ghost of Prince Albert. And your tarot card dilemmas. Listen to our Halloween specials, search for The Girl's Bathroom.
29:55 Fearne Cotton? I mean, much like the character Fliss, who I loved. I love Fliss. How much can I say about Fliss?
30:00 Speaker 09 I feel like, I mean, does anyone mind spoilers? No. You can say, no.
30:05 Fearne Cotton? There's a question I really want to ask.
30:07 Speaker 09 Okay, I think you should.
30:08 Fearne Cotton? Which involves me having to say that she dies.
30:11 Speaker 09 That's okay. We learn that she dies quite early on.
30:13 Fearne Cotton? We do.
30:14 Speaker 09 Yeah, yeah.
30:14 Fearne Cotton? It's early on and it becomes a really interesting, deep thread of the story. So we haven't really ruined anything there.
30:20 Speaker 09 No.
30:21 Fearne Cotton? But what I found so fascinating was that you wrote a very short chapter where she's talking about being dead.
30:30 Speaker 09 Yes.
30:30 Fearne Cotton? I was like, that is such a great idea. Fascinating. Why did you do it?
30:36 Speaker 09 Oh, my gosh, you're so clever to ask about that.
30:39 Fearne Cotton? I mean, I'm really not.
30:40 Speaker 09 You are.
30:40 Fearne Cotton? No one else has.
30:42 Speaker 09 Oh, okay, good, I am.
30:42 Fearne Cotton? And you are.
30:44 Speaker 09 Great, thank you. It was a very late addition, that chapter. So, Fliss, yes, she dies. And in the opening chapter, Martin is invited to her funeral. And that's his way back into the Fitzmaurice family fold. And we don't know how she's died or why. And so there's a slight mystery there as well. And when I wrote the first draft of the book, I wrote it straight through four narrative voices on rotation. So Martin, Richard Take, Serena and Cosima, the daughter. And then I wrote one big chunk of Fliss that sort of opened the second half of the book, just explaining what had happened to her from her perspective. And then when I read through that draft,
31:29 Speaker 09 my agent said, you know, actually, the beating heart of the story is Fliss. And I think she should be seeded through the book earlier and like all the way through. And I realised how right she was because in a way, by constraining Fliss to just one part, I'd been guilty of doing what so many of the people that she knew and loved had done to her, which was to sort of treat her as the black sheep of the family and kind of sideline her and not pay her much attention. And so I decided to thread her through the book. That's, by the way, quite annoying in the middle of writing a book. So annoying. You've then got to do that. I know. Yes, that's wonderful because you now got that, but you're like, I know. I've got to do that, watch. It's going to take me so long. I know, there was so much re-doing.
32:14 Speaker 09 But then I thought, oh, how can I do it? What if she has this voice from beyond the grave, which gives her the power that she never had in her lifetime, which is that she can see everything that's happening and all the motivations. And I knew it was a risk and I thought, oh, have I gone a bit mad? No. But then I did it anyway. And I said to my agent, if I've gone a bit mad, just tell me. And she really liked what I'd done. And so that's why she exists in that form. And actually, I mean, you and I have spoken about this so much. My belief is that not everything can be explained by the materialist scientific paradigm. Actually, energy does last forever. And I love the idea that there is this collective spiritual plane.
32:59 Speaker 09 Me too. Yeah, where people can communicate from. Otherwise, life is really bleak. Yeah.
33:06 Fearne Cotton? I just can't bear the thought of like, you just die, that's it.
33:09 Speaker 09 No.
33:09 Fearne Cotton? Bye, everyone. I love the fact that you included that and that she has this sense of belonging, actually.
33:14 Speaker 09 Yeah.
33:15 Fearne Cotton? When, after she's died. I thought that was so, so beautiful. By the way, on that note, who's listened to the telepathy tapes?
33:21 Speaker 09 Me, I was about to ask you that too.
33:23 Fearne Cotton? Have you not?
33:23 Speaker 09 Has anyone listened to it?
33:24 Fearne Cotton? Oh, guys, you're about to lose hours of your life.
33:27 Speaker 09 Forget the book, forget one of us, just go and listen to the telepathy tapes.
33:29 Fearne Cotton? Hours. I'm up to date with series two.
33:32 Speaker 09 Oh, my god.
33:32 Fearne Cotton? It's incredible. I'll say no more, but if you like that kind of thing, then that is the podcast for you, as well as Happy Place and How to Fail.
33:42 Speaker 09 Yes.
33:43 Fearne Cotton? Putting that out there.
33:45 Speaker 09 But it's a limited series, whereas Happy Place and How to Fail just continue to...
33:49 Fearne Cotton? Go on forever.
33:50 Speaker 09 Until the sun burns out.
33:51 Fearne Cotton? Until we die and then talk to you from the dead.
33:53 Speaker 09 We'll continue on to that.
33:53 Fearne Cotton? Oh, yeah, we'll continue podcasting from the other side.
33:56 Speaker 09 We need to hit those quotas.
33:58 Fearne Cotton? You really do. That's ridiculous. But I loved that character. I loved how misunderstood she was and I think, again, many of us will relate to that, that nobody quite gets us or understands our motives or, or in her case, you know, flat, sort of don't, don't believe what she's saying. I found that so heartbreaking, so heartbreaking.
34:20 Speaker 09 There's a lot of women in this book who aren't believed when they speak their truth. And a little fun fact is that there is a scene set in One of Us, which is quite a seminal scene for the things that happen, which is set in the British Museum and it's set against a backdrop of an exhibition on female rage. And that's an exhibition that I was asked to be a guest curator for. And it was an amazing experience because it was looking at representations of female rage through the millennia and all of these extraordinary sort of sculptures from Indonesia and bronze castings of Lilith. And it was just really mind expanding. And they asked me to give a speech to, for the opening, which I did.
35:02 Speaker 09 And in the book, Ben and Serena attend that opening. And Serena's looking at the woman giving a speech in a purple jumpsuit. That was me.
35:10 Fearne Cotton? Yes, that's so great.
35:12 Speaker 09 She's just whanging on about female anger. Why can't she just shut up? And that was me. So that was quite fun.
35:17 Fearne Cotton? That's so brilliant. I didn't know that. Let's talk about Serena because I know that she's a character that you adored writing.
35:23 Speaker 09 Yes.
35:24 Fearne Cotton? Tell us why.
35:25 Speaker 09 So Serena is really unlike me in terms of... How she looks in terms of her background, in terms of what she values, and in terms of her emotional repression. Well, can't even say it. That's how unrepressed I am. Her emotional repression. But there was one stark point of similarity, which is that she is the first woman I've written who's going through the perimenopause slash menopause as I was going through it. And I don't think there's enough representation of that in fiction yet. There's so much amazing work that has been done by our dear friend Davina McCall and many other phenomenal women. And I'm so grateful to them because I know so much more than I did. But I want to see more of that in fiction
36:09 Speaker 09 because hormones affect us so hugely.
36:12 Fearne Cotton? Half the population go through it. Like, I've never seen it represented in a film that I can think of.
36:18 Speaker 09 No.
36:19 Fearne Cotton? Why is that? Like, it's a guarantee we're going to go through it and it's just missed out of all these stories.
36:23 Speaker 09 And it's so interesting because there probably are characters who, subconsciously or otherwise, are informed by what they're going through because they're a certain age, but it's never been explicitly stated. So I wanted to write Serena going through hot flushes and anxiety and also grappling with this idea of transition. And for Serena, it's a fear that she's losing the one thing that she has always thought is her worth, which is her physical beauty. And she finds it very difficult to grapple with the fact that she thinks she's losing that. She thinks that her body's changing. And that was a very interesting character to write because she's sort of on a threshold. The other way in which I really appreciated writing her and getting to know her
37:07 Speaker 09 is that she is a mother of four children. And because she comes from this certain background, this kind of upper-class background, she's packed them off to nannies and boarding schools without really questioning it because it's just what her family have always done. And during the pandemic, the children come back home and she realizes to her surprise that she loves being a mother. But she doesn't feel that she can admit that. So there's still this slight sort of distance between her and her children. And she's trying to make amends but kind of getting in her own way. And the reason that was so powerful for me was because I had just come to terms with the fact that I was not going to be a mother in the conventional sense. I'd just come to the end of a 12-year fertility journey.
37:50 Speaker 09 And this is the first book I wrote in the aftermath of that. And I think that informed one of us in so many ways. It gave me a sense of liberation that I'd never had before. It gave me a sense that maybe I was enough without having fulfilled this thing that I thought of as a kind of biological imperative. I thought it made me a failure as a woman not to have children. I'd no longer think that. And part of the reason I'm able to say that is because writing Serena healed me, because I was able to explore motherhood on the page. And that's one of the great privileges of what we do, is that we can explore other lives on the page.
38:29 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, and think how that's going to touch so many other people as well, who have been through the same as you. It's gonna, that ripple effect is amazing. It's another beautiful part of getting to write down your thoughts, your feelings, and have that level of catharsis. It's amazing.
38:44 Speaker 09 Absolutely. And you can also write down what you imagine and all the really difficult things about being a mother too.
38:48 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
38:49 Speaker 09 And so just having that opportunity to explore someone's internal mechanisms around that, that was really, yeah, it was, it was, it was really helpful to me, actually.
39:00 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, she's a great character. I love following her whole story and some horrendous things that she goes through and trying to find her own self-worth. You really get a sense of that throughout the whole book. And also, as you say, the importance of touching on perimenopause and menopause in fiction is huge. And you've definitely kick-started that for many people. Now, as you said earlier, you are a huge fan of reality TV. And I want to know how your favourite franchise, the Real Housewives franchise, may have informed some of the dynamics, some of the power play, maybe even some of the characters, I don't know.
39:37 Speaker 09 And now we're getting to the real stuff.
39:38 Fearne Cotton? Okay, let's get to the meat of this shit. Come on.
39:41 Speaker 09 Oh my gosh, The Real Housewives informs my everyday. Like, there's barely, there's barely a day that goes by that I don't watch some kind of episode of Real Housewives.
39:50 Fearne Cotton? Really?
39:51 Speaker 09 It's my comfort.
39:52 Fearne Cotton? Can I admit something?
39:53 Speaker 09 Yes.
39:53 Fearne Cotton? Never seen it.
39:54 Speaker 09 That's okay, that's okay, there's time.
39:57 Fearne Cotton? That has caused a gasp over everything we've said so far. There's still time, I've got Christmases coming, so I can watch it then.
40:04 Speaker 09 And I am your perfect guide.
40:05 Fearne Cotton? Okay.
40:06 Speaker 09 I will take you by the hand and lead you through.
40:07 Fearne Cotton? Okay.
40:09 Speaker 09 Part of the reason I love The Real Housewives is because when I started watching it, it was still so vanishingly rare to see groups of women of a certain age grappling with things like widowhood, dating through menopause, bankruptcy, going to jail.
40:26 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, it's quite, I'm getting the picture is extreme.
40:29 Speaker 09 Yeah, well, but it's also mundane in the sense that they're also grappling with raising teenage children or what to wear on a trip to Amsterdam, like, there's all that sort of stuff as well. And it was so rare to see that age group of women on our screens in any scripted drama. And it was also the first place that I saw the reality of fertility treatment depicted on The Real Housewives of O.C., Meghan King Edmonds, if anyone remembers that. That was, that was happening.
40:57 Fearne Cotton? So niche.
40:58 Speaker 09 That was happening when I was going through IVF and there was no other conversation about it. So that's why I first got into it. And as a novelist, it's an incredible resource to see how women who are not always like us can interact. And of course, yes, it's camp and fabulous and over the top a lot of the time, but it's also real. And there are, there are true friendship dynamics at play there, where they fall out and they make up. And I suppose one of the things it's taught me again and again and again is that people act in unexpected ways all of the time. And that actually to make your characters believable, you shouldn't make them consistent. You should always throw in an element of surprise, something where you're like, oh, I can't believe they did that.
41:43 Speaker 09 Or I would never do that, or that makes them a bit unlikable, because that is all of us.
41:48 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
41:49 Speaker 09 We are all a bit flawed. And when placed under pressure, we do act in unexpected ways. So it definitely informed some of the character dynamics.
41:58 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, I love that. I mean, none of us are consistent, my god.
42:01 Speaker 09 No.
42:01 Fearne Cotton? I mean, we're really, really not. I think that's so important to weave into all the characters.
42:09 Speaker 07 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.gle/workspacewithGemini.
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43:13 Speaker 13 Hello, I'm Joanna Fletcher.
43:15 Speaker 14 And I'm Marco Burchella.
43:17 Speaker 13 And this is Boots Off.
43:20 Speaker 14 We are friends who've spent a decade together, walking up mountains, across deserts, and along coastlines with some seriously awesome groups of humans.
43:28 Speaker 13 And something happens when you're out there, feet on the ground, surrounded by nature. The conversations just spill out of you.
43:34 Speaker 14 This series is about the adversities that lead to adventure.
43:38 Speaker 13 The adventures that lead to adversity.
43:40 Speaker 14 And how life can be one big adventure in itself.
43:43 Speaker 13 Listen every Thursday. Just search for Boots Off.
43:50 Fearne Cotton? I would love to know more about your writing process this far into your writing career. Because I think, like you say, not only do you, you know, hopefully get better at writing, I'm not just talking about you, like any writer, like doing any, any skill, you hope that you get better at it. But also, I think you hone the process. And I don't know about you, but when I first started writing...
44:14 Fearne Cotton? I very much applied the rule that I should write until I'm like on my knees. I've got nothing else to say. And actually, again, listening to one of our greats, Elizabeth Gilbert. I've learned so much from her about knowing when to stop. And you know, her whole thing is like she'll have an unfinished sentence. I think that might be a Hemingway thing, but she'll have an unfinished sentence. So she has to go back to it. But I think knowing when to stop during a day is so key to writing well. And often you can just flog a dead horse and then, you know, the next day you're like, everything I've written, I'm deleting, it was shit, you know, the thing you did the day before. It's maybe little and often, but I wonder what your process is at this point.
44:56 Speaker 09 There is so much that I want to say about this. It's such a rich topic to discuss because Elizabeth Gilbert is totally right. And she, she writes in Big Magic about the myth of the torture creative genius.
45:08 Fearne Cotton? I love that book.
45:09 Speaker 09 Who is very often male and in his garret and just tearing his hair out because it's just so awful having to create and be a genius. Where is the muse? And ultimately, for most of us, we don't have that privilege. We, we are not independently wealthy. We can't afford a garret. We've got day jobs and like if we want to write, we have to fit it in around the rest of our lives. And I think there's a really great and magical discipline to that. And I think we fetishize the other thing without paying attention to this bit, which is living life. That makes you into a better writer, in my opinion. And for me, because I started out writing novels when I did have a full-time job on a newspaper
45:50 Speaker 09 as a staff feature writer, I had to get scraps of time in my lunch break. I would go to Costa Coffee on York Way or on train journeys or at weekends. And my deal to myself was that I would write a thousand words and then I would stop. And it didn't matter if I thought those 1,000 words were terrible, because as you say, you go back and edit them, and that's the great joy of writing a book, is that there is an element of time. And so, yeah, I don't force myself to have five, to rise at 5am, have like a matcha tea, go for a five mile run, do my affirmations, my meditations, my journaling. I mean, I'd be exhausted by that. It's overwhelming. So I don't do,
46:31 Speaker 09 I don't have a routine. The only thing that I try to do is at the beginning and end of a book, I do try and go away for a consistent period of time. It might just be a week, but just so that I can really focus on landing the plane, like landing the creative plane.
46:46 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, it's so important. And also to honour it and mark it. I think we're, we're all guilty of whatever we do, going, oh yeah, done that, great, next. And you don't stop and go, wow, I wrote a book, or I'm really proud of that, or even get excited about what's to come next. Thinking about Big Magic, which again, Elizabeth Gilbert features, I'm going back to the telepathy takes, guys, but she features in series two.
47:07 Speaker 09 I haven't listened to series two yet. Is she on it?
47:09 Fearne Cotton? She's on it. She's on it. Talking all about creativity. And that book, who's read Big Magic? It's the most, I mean, I saw it on a shelf somewhere over there. It's just the most brilliant book. And, you know, she talks about all of this stuff, but also talks about the, the notion of an idea landing in your head. And if you don't then apply discipline and action to that bit of, you know, creativity that's landed in your brain, it will float off into the ether and then someone else.
47:40 Speaker 09 Did she talk about the Anne Patchett story?
47:42 Fearne Cotton? Yes.
47:43 Speaker 09 Oh my gosh.
47:43 Fearne Cotton? That story is, and it's in Big Magic, isn't it? But it blows your mind, that story.
47:48 Speaker 09 Basically, Elizabeth Gilbert had this idea for a novel about scientists in the Amazon, and she knew it was a slightly unhinged idea, but she knew it was a good idea, but she could never like quite get it. And she sort of tried and it wasn't flowing. And then she met Anne Patchett at a books conference, and they hugged, and they felt an immediate kindred spirit thing. And she could feel the transference of her creative idea into Anne Patchett's mind. And without Ever having spoken about it, Anne Patchett then wrote State of Wonder, which was all about scientists in the Amazon.
48:19 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, and like a sort of a lonely woman who is in love, like the exact story.
48:24 Speaker 09 It was the exact story, exactly.
48:25 Fearne Cotton? It's what, that makes me panic more than feel comforted, like.
48:28 Speaker 09 I know.
48:29 Fearne Cotton? Well, I've had loads of ideas and I haven't had time to do them yet, so please don't steal them, anyone, but.
48:32 Speaker 09 Don't transfer them to Stephen Bartlett.
48:34 Fearne Cotton? I'm not hugging anyone, but I don't want to bump into Anne either, she's not having my idea. But did you have an element of that with any parts of the story? Or it could be the whole thing, you know, when I wrote scripted, or before I'd written scripted, I was out running. And I was running up these steps near where I live and there was like an old shoe on the floor and then a plastic bag. And for some reason, my brain went, what if you found a script of your life on the side of the road? And I was like, what, I am, what is going on? I'm losing my mind. And by the time I'd got home, which is maybe another five minutes of the run at the end, I thought, that's quite an interesting concept. Maybe that could be, could it be a TV show? Or like, how could I flesh this out? And then I thought, I'd never written a novel, maybe it could be a novel.
49:17 Fearne Cotton? And it was my friend Clay who said, just start writing it tomorrow. It doesn't matter if you do anything with it, just get it out of you and write it. So she was the one that sort of motivated me to do the action bit. Otherwise, I think I probably could have just ruminated about that weird concept for Yonks and done absolutely nothing. How much of that was sort of like a download or even small elements of the story?
49:38 Speaker 09 Can I just say before I answer that, that I remember when Fern was writing scripted, going for one of our dinners with Jamie, Lang Lang.
49:47 Fearne Cotton? Ling.
49:49 Speaker 09 And us asking Fern what the novel was, and she told us. And Jamie and I looked at each other and we just couldn't, we were like, that is the most amazing idea. It was so high concept and you were like so kind of humble about it. It was brilliant.
50:05 Fearne Cotton? But who is ever purely confident about anything they're doing? I am certainly not, ever, ever. And sadly, I think for many of us, it is when you get a good reaction to something, whether we like that or not. When people say, oh my God, one of us, this character or.
50:23 Speaker 09 This is how I felt reading it. That's the bit where you go, oh, yeah, I do believe in that idea. I think. I mean, with a book, it's slightly different because you have to commit to it enough to go back to it every day for like a year, two years. So you do have to have belief, but I think there is still an element of doubt. Like, I've just made up this whole world in my head and I'm expecting strangers to get it. Like, that is, it's a weird process to go through. It's magical. And then when people do get it and they do read it, it's like having this extraordinary connection. And so a lot of the time you'll never meet the person that you had a connection with on the other side of the page. And that's, it's such a beautiful thing. But in terms of how much of one of us was a download.
51:06 Speaker 09 I had a psychic tell me once that there was a novel I was going to write and it was going to come to me in a dream. And I was like, okay, let me get to sleep right now. And it didn't come to me in a dream. I'm always longing for that, like Paul McCartney.
51:22 Fearne Cotton? That's what my next, but that's happened with my next novel, that I started half writing and then ditched because I wrote another one.
51:27 Speaker 09 I've transferred that idea to you. You've dreamt, wow.
51:32 Fearne Cotton? Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell you about it later.
51:34 Speaker 09 The book, but, well, not the book about, no, I can't.
51:37 Fearne Cotton? No, that one, yeah.
51:38 Speaker 09 Okay, okay. So I didn't dream it, but I was offered a trip to an Austrian fasting clinic, which is in the book.
51:46 Fearne Cotton? Sounds really fun.
51:47 Speaker 09 Yeah, okay. Now, I don't know, I was in a weird headspace and I was like, yes, it sounds, I definitely, I need that. I need to punish myself. So I went and they encourage mindful eating, which is actually a really great thing. And you sit at this crisp white tablecloth and you stare out the most beautiful view of an Austrian lake and kind of mists unfurling in the background across treetops. And you have to chew for at least 15 bites, every kind of mouthful of buckwheat cracker.
52:15 Fearne Cotton? I'm never going.
52:16 Speaker 09 I know, okay. While I was doing that, because you're encouraged not to talk or look at your phone or read anything. So I was just staring out at this lake and these mists. And I thought of the book, like every mealtime, I thought, okay, this is where I want to start. What's that character going to do in this chapter? And then I would rush back to my room and I would write it all down. So there was a kind of dreamlike quality to it. And I had that week of pure percolation and sort of sitting with an idea. And I think that's so important, that very often in this hustle culture, we are constantly encouraged to be doing.
52:53 Fearne Cotton? Yep.
52:54 Speaker 09 And if we're not doing, we feel guilty. And actually, if you are creating something, anything, it doesn't have to be a book, it can be like a patchwork quilt or an evening meal. You need time to allow your soul to breathe. And so I think that's what that week gave me.
53:10 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, without a doubt, we did. You're so right, you know, we are constantly filling our time and feeling guilty when we're not. How do we expect any creativity to find its way to us when we're constantly on the go? And also, we need to get out there and live a bit as well. I think that's the other part of hustle culture is that we're meant to be so like robots who are so disciplined. But actually, I think most great ideas, whether it is, you know, it doesn't have to be a book, it could be artwork or music, whatever. Is informed by you feeling something. And when again, when we're constantly distracted, that's so much less about feeling and so much more about just the doing bit. You're almost numb in in those states. So it is, it is important to do that.
53:54 Fearne Cotton? After you, I mean, not only do you write the book, but then you go out and you do this bit where you're talking about the book and you're getting people excited about it. What happens after that? Do you feel a pressure like, I've got to have another idea straight away, I've got to start work on another book? Or are you again, you know, decent at giving yourself that breathing space to see what might turn up?
54:14 Speaker 09 I am not that good at giving myself the breathing space. Because I find it very helpful when I have a book out in the world, not to be too hung up on how it's received. Obviously, I love it being received well, but I'm also aware that it's not going to be by everyone. I now no longer read reviews unless. They have been filtered by my trusted and beloved publicist.
54:40 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, a bad idea, never doing it.
54:42 Speaker 09 I've done it before and I know that it's only me looking for evidence that I'm a terrible person and it doesn't actually help. So, part of the way in which I avoid being too hung up on how this book is being received is to have an idea for the next one and to hopefully be writing the next one as this one is coming out. So I have an idea for the next one and I have started writing it, but only just started. And I love having an idea bubbling away because it's almost like a refuge as well. It's somewhere I can go that feels safe. So, in that respect, I always like to be writing something.
55:21 Speaker 09 But in another respect, part of that is actually breathing space because it's breathing space into a new idea.
55:28 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
55:28 Speaker 09 But it has been a relentless schedule, which is something that I have wanted because I am so passionate about meeting all of you. I know that you could be doing a million other things tonight and the fact that you've chosen to spend your time here and your money on books, I will never take it for granted. And it's a really important part of why I do everything that I do. It's connection, that's what I love about it. So, I've wanted to do all of that and over Christmas, I've deliberately not booked anything. And Justin, my husband, was like, "Let's pretend we're going away." I was like, "Well, I don't want to lie, but I just want to be at home doing nothing."
56:07 Fearne Cotton? Nothing, heaven.
56:08 Speaker 09 So yeah, I do have that time coming up.
56:10 Fearne Cotton? Same. I mean, that, my favourite words are "do nothing." Oh my god, yes. When there's a weekend and there's nothing.
56:19 Speaker 09 Yeah.
56:19 Fearne Cotton? Oh my god, it's nothing greater.
56:22 Speaker 09 I agree.
56:22 Fearne Cotton? Heaven, just like watch shit, telly, watch The Housewives.
56:25 Speaker 09 Yeah, which is great telly, not shit.
56:27 Fearne Cotton? Great TV, sorry.
56:28 Speaker 09 I had to correct you there.
56:28 Fearne Cotton? Such a diss. But you're so, before I ask this next question, how are we doing for time? I have no clue. Yeah, okay, one last question.
56:37 Fearne Cotton? It's not even a question, it's a statement, but you're so right about the gorgeous people turning up tonight. And venues like this, this gorgeous venue, the book bar. I went to this amazing orchestra, it wasn't orchestra, it was a quartet. But this beautiful string instrument night of Hans Zimmer music the other day. And you weren't allowed to get your phone out until the last song. And in a similar way to books, I think moments like that prove that yes, we get scared about AI or how much our kids are using their phones or how much we're screen addicted or whatever. But actually, those things are removable and people do want to feel something. They want to share a collective experience.
57:20 Fearne Cotton? We all are craving that more than anything. The other stuff's all just bad habit. Books aren't going anywhere. Live music isn't going anywhere. And I think you're so right, we just need to keep going out and doing this stuff and talking about things that really give us fire in our belly and make us feel you know, part of something. That's what we're trying to do with the Happy Place Book Club. But also something that really lights that imagination in us all. I think we get slightly deadened in adulthood where you're just doing boring stuff all the time. More to books and you know, and music and all of that good stuff.
57:55 Speaker 09 Yeah, and I also think, just to add to that, that the thing that distinguishes us from AI, it's our flaws. And you have blazed the trail for celebrating the flaws and the imperfections. And how to fail does its bit for that as well. That is the thing that makes us unique. And it's also the thing that gives us our unique creative voice is actually the flaws and the imperfections. And if you read something that's generated by AI, it can be incredibly helpful when you're drawing up a legal contract. But you can always sort of tell it becomes this sort of soup of mildly Pinteresty blandness.
58:39 Speaker 09 And that sometimes serves its purpose, but it's not satisfying for a human reader to read a whole book like that or to listen to a whole podcast like that because the flaws aren't there. And I think that that's such a great metaphor for everything, really. And I just want to add my thanks, not only to Chrissie and everyone at Bitbar, but to you, Fern. On a personal level, you are such a dear friend, but you've really sort of supported and championed me at moments of my own insecurity and doubt. And I really also value, as a listener to Happy Place, and someone who loves everything that Happy Place stands for, what you do for primarily women, but some open-minded men too.
59:23 Speaker 09 But for what you do for all of the rest of us. And I know that that has come at personal cost. And I just want you to know that what you do is so deeply meaningful and appreciated.
59:35 Fearne Cotton? It's so lovely of you.
59:38 Fearne Cotton? Don't make me go all emotional. Crikey.
59:41 Speaker 09 Cry, cry. That means it's a successful interview.
59:43 Fearne Cotton? Exactly.
59:46 Fearne Cotton? I know what you're thinking.
59:48 Fearne Cotton? Well, look, it's likewise, you know how much I love our friendship, dearly. And this is the great thing about being a woman, like I say, it's just women here. Is that we want to like hold each other up and cheerlead each other and support each other. And that's just the best feeling ever. You know, your brilliant book doing so amazingly boosts me. And I know that you feel the same, you know, if I'm doing something, you'll champion me. It's just an amazing, amazing thing. So I love you, Elizabeth.
1:00:15 Speaker 09 I love you too. And if someone does you wrong, the Scorpio will bear a lifelong grudge.
1:00:20 Fearne Cotton? Correct, and rightly so.
1:00:21 Speaker 09 I've already got a few.
1:00:21 Fearne Cotton? So what we're going to do now is open the floor to any of you that would like to ask a question. Already hands up, amazing crowd. Sometimes we get very sort of British audiences who are like heads down, don't want to look at anyone. Right, who have we got first? What's your name and what question would you like to ask?
1:00:39 Speaker 15 I'm Nissah the Eunice. You write so well across different genres. I wondered if your editor or agent had ever said, please don't write in this genre and stick to bits. I'm, for context, writing my very tricky second novel. And I suspect it's more bonkers than my editor or agent are going to want. When do you know to stick to your guns and if you're doing your thing creatively? And when do you know it's time to listen to advice?
1:01:09 Speaker 09 Wow, that is an amazing question. And actually, you'll probably have very good advice for this as well.
1:01:16 Speaker 09 She will.
1:01:19 Speaker 09 I have had a past experience of someone not getting what I was trying to write and saying, "No, it should be structured entirely like this other very popular book", which bore no resemblance to the book that I was writing. And I learnt not to send my work to that person. Because for me, it's such a sensitive period of time when you're sharing your creative work for the first time, that you really need to be able to trust that the person reading it, if they do have suggestions, can express them with equal sensitivity and can sort of express them as questions, like, "Oh, can you tell me what you were trying to do here?", and that's so much better.
1:02:01 Speaker 09 And if they lead with love and saying, "Oh, I love this bit that you did, and I wonder if we could work some of that into this chapter", it's so much better to receive. So I would say it's not about dismissing someone's advice, it's about asking them to express it in a way that you can digest. And I think only you can answer the question of when it's an idea that you really want to lean into, and the reason you will know is because you cannot ignore it. You might put it aside for a few days or a few weeks, but there's something that compels you to return to it. And I would say just trust your instinct. And as women, we have been so conditioned not to trust our instinct over so many millennia, because so many people find it incredibly scary
1:02:44 Speaker 09 and threatening and powerful, that actually you need to trust that creative voice and stick to it whilst taking advice from people that you also trust and respect to express it sensitively.
1:02:58 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, amazing.
1:02:59 Speaker 09 This sounds great, by the way.
1:03:00 Fearne Cotton? I mean, I definitely echo all of that. I think, yeah, you have to go with that sense of guts, definitely. And... Dare to do things differently when it feels right as well and to break the mould. And I think you're so right with the critique. You do want somebody that's gonna be able to deliver it appropriately. I've definitely got a lot better with, I mean, obviously, doing the job I've done even before I started writing books. You get so sadly used to people just telling you exactly what they think of you and you're meant to stomach it. But I think with writing, because I've always had a huge element of imposter syndrome. I've greatly received any feedback because I believe I can only get better. From again, listening to the right people.
1:03:45 Fearne Cotton? I'm not like giving it to hundreds of people and saying, oh, Auntie Kevin, can you tell me what you think? You know, it's people who are professionally there to do that. So I think the first, especially with the copy edit, the first book I wrote, I was like, oh my God, I don't even know who this per- Who's Jane and why is she saying this? So I found it so unnerving and I'm like, oh, that's so interesting that they've pulled that out and they don't quite understand it. You know, why am I not articulating it properly? So I think if you can even apply the stuff that feels tricky to knowing that it could be leading you down the right path. Then I think sometimes that works too. Thank you so much for your question. Who's up next? Yes, what's your name?
1:04:25 Speaker 09 Hi, my name's Jen.
1:04:26 Fearne Cotton? Hi Jen.
1:04:28 Speaker 09 I thought it was great that you've spoken a lot on the process because I think a lot of what we hear is like the end results and like the final story that goes out. So it's really quite nice to hear. I'm a physio, but I have loads of different creative outlets and I kind of work in performing arts sector. And I just wondered in your process, both of you of writing, whether you found these periods of like creative block? And whether you reached to something outside the world of writing that you found useful? Or like, I hope I'm like an exercise or something that you found helped you come back to?
1:05:02 Fearne Cotton? First of all, thank you for the amazing work that you do. For me, being a physio is so creative because you have to be so in tune with people's bodies. And I think you're incredible.
1:05:13 Speaker 09 Yes, is a short answer. I find exercise incredibly helpful. I know you're the same. And I grew up thinking that I hated exercise because I hated team sports at school. Because I was rubbish at any team sport. And then I went through a divorce in my 30s. And I also went through unsuccessful fertility treatment and recurrent miscarriage. And I wanted to get back in my body and to focus on the things that my body could do and to make myself feel strong and connected again. And I started running. It was a short-lived period. And I also started doing spin classes, which I found that I loved just like being in that chapel of sound.
1:05:56 Speaker 09 And you're sort of in a team, but you're individual. And I realised that it wasn't exercise I hated. It was just the fear of letting everyone down. And I got into that and I got into yoga. And now I've got into strength training in my 40s. And all of those things are so important for me to get out of my head and into my body. And when I'm doing those things, I'm not actively thinking, I'm being. And so that's an important part of my routine. And I think it's probably helped me not have creative block. She said touching wood, superstitiously. But I think the other thing that's helped me not have creative block, and I wonder if you're the same, but I've so constantly worked to deadline as a print journalist and even doing podcasts.
1:06:40 Speaker 09 You kind of have to get the work out there. So you have to be less precious about it and think, okay, well, it's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be the great work of literature that I imagined I might write. But it's unique because it comes from me and my voice is unique and your voice is unique. And actually, it's pretty good. So every time I start writing a book, I think I'm going to build a beautiful cathedral. And what I end up with is a perfectly serviceable garden shed. But garden sheds are great and you can store loads in them. So it's sort of about that. So exercise, basically.
1:07:16 Fearne Cotton? I hate spinning, just gonna put that out there.
1:07:19 Speaker 09 You're a runner.
1:07:19 Fearne Cotton? It's not for me, it's not. And my knee's bad, so I can't even run right now. Anyway, this is an interesting question for me to answer at the moment because I started writing a second novel and halfway through, like almost exactly halfway through, I was in a really good flow. I had this lightning bolt moment of inspiration for a non-fiction and there was such urgency behind it. I was like, if I don't do this now, I will never write this book. So I called my literary agent and said, "Bad news." And good news, actually, but I've had another idea and I have to do this book now. I've got to, so that, you know, I've got two different publishers. So one of them had to be gently told that there would be a slight pause on that book.
1:08:04 Fearne Cotton? And then this new book that I've got coming out in March flew out of me and I'm so glad that I took that sort of swerve and went down a different lane because I needed to write this book. It's come at the right time for me in my personal life. It's taught me lots. I think it's fast-tracked me in certain ways. So I'm really excited about it. It's quite a punchy book. It's definitely the most honest writing I've done, which is quite scary. But I've almost finished. I'm on the sort of the last edit and that means that very soon I have to pick back up with a book that I wrote ages ago that is half-done. And I am shitting myself. Like, what if it's not there in my head anymore?
1:08:48 Fearne Cotton? What if, I'm gonna have to read the first half, I can't remember half of it. But what if I don't have that feeling of magic and, you know, that fire in my belly with it? I'm really nervous about it and I don't know until I start. But I do think, like you said, Elizabeth... Yes, there's gonna be that bit of excitement, I love this idea, this is amazing. And then sometimes you just gotta bloody do it. And you cannot wait for this magic moment where today is the day where I start and I feel like inspired and ethereal and it's all gonna flow out of me, I'm gonna wear a kaftan and it's my, you know, put a hat on, you know, you've just gotta get up in your pyjamas and do it. And that's what I'm gonna have to apply with this half finished book, because I know I'm sort
1:09:30 Fearne Cotton? of almost dreading like getting back into it, because I'm, I can't remember if it's any good or not, you know, the whole thing's freaking me out. So I think that's where you have to apply just the action bit and not wait for, to feel motivated, I guess.
1:09:44 Speaker 09 Great question. And can I just add to that, I know exactly how you feel, because before writing One of Us, I had to reread the party just to like get all my facts in, in shape. And I was dreading it, absolutely dreading it. I put it off ages and ages and ages, a bit like a dog being confronted with his own vomit. I was like, oh my God, it's gonna be awful, it's gonna be awful. And then I read it, I was like, huh, pretty good.
1:10:06 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, I quite like that actually.
1:10:07 Speaker 09 And I think, I think you'll be so pleasantly surprised.
1:10:09 Fearne Cotton? I really hope so.
1:10:10 Speaker 09 Yeah, don't worry, it's gonna be fine.
1:10:11 Fearne Cotton? I really hope so.
1:10:13 Speaker 09 Okay, who's next? Hey, what's your name?
1:10:16 Speaker 16 I'm Christina Fulcher.
1:10:17 Speaker 09 Hi.
1:10:17 Fearne Cotton? Christina. I saw Christina last week.
1:10:20 Speaker 16 And we're not cheating.
1:10:21 Speaker 09 Fellow, fellow Housewives fan, just saying.
1:10:23 Fearne Cotton? Oh, love.
1:10:23 Speaker 16 And fellow Scorpio.
1:10:24 Speaker 09 Yeah. Happy birthday.
1:10:26 Speaker 16 Yes, happy birthday to you.
1:10:27 Speaker 09 Thank you.
1:10:27 Speaker 16 And my question is, as we're getting to the end of 2026, you've absolutely smashed it, like all different like debuts and, and now you have another, you're publishing other books. And like how, thinking into now 2025 and then into 2026, how do you dream into like other businesses, other projects? Do you manage a team? How do you kind of dream into that, bring that all kind of together?
1:10:52 Speaker 09 Well, thank you for the question and thank you for your amazing support. So Christina and I connected during the pandemic when she ran an online yoga class along the principles of my book, Philosophy. And I learned about it on Instagram. I was like, please can I come to the class? And it was amazing. It was like very early on in the pandemic and we've stayed in touch ever since.
1:11:11 Fearne Cotton? That's so great.
1:11:12 Speaker 09 I know. I want to be really honest because it's the Happy Facebook Club and I feel like I can be. I don't have a plan and I don't know. And part of this year has been feeling a degree of panic and overwhelm at the relentless pace of the last 11 months. And the other part has been extraordinary gratitude that I'm in this place in my life where there are so many opportunities and I do fizz with excitement when I get to pursue them all. But I haven't necessarily always been good at finding the right teams to execute the right things. Because what I do is creative and it's not managerial.
1:11:56 Speaker 09 Like my skill set is not managing people necessarily. I've got no boundaries and I'm very conflict avoidant. That's not a good manager.
1:12:03 Fearne Cotton? Hard relate.
1:12:04 Speaker 09 Yes. And actually changing out members of the team for a conflict avoidant, people pleaser has been a real challenge, but through it I have grown. And so I think 2026 for me is like now the right people are in place. And so it's almost seeing what they say to me and how they envisage the year. And my aspiration is to be more considered around the things that I do. Not that I'm not considered, what I mean by that is sort of doing less with more consideration and more elevation almost. And therefore having more space in my life to feel aligned with peace and my sole purpose. That's what I want for...
1:12:50 Speaker 09 I turned 47 on Monday. I was about to say for the second half of my 40s, I was like, for the remaining three years of my 40s.
1:12:58 Speaker 09 That's what I'm striving for. So that's a slightly vague mishmash in answer to your excellent question. But I'll let you know how I get on.
1:13:07 Fearne Cotton? Well, you look hot.
1:13:08 Speaker 09 Oh, thank you.
1:13:09 Fearne Cotton? This suit.
1:13:09 Speaker 09 That is literally the main thing.
1:13:11 Fearne Cotton? This suit.
1:13:11 Speaker 09 But I do want to ask that because I feel like you have such an empire and you do it with such grace.
1:13:17 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, I mean, very quick and short. We, the Happy Place, if you don't listen to the normal podcast, is much like Elizabeth's. We do a weekly episode interviewing someone brilliant. We have our festivals, we've just launched early bird tickets if you want to come along. There's all sorts of gorgeous, like-minded people and you can do everything from yoga to listening to live podcasts to shopping and eating nice food and silent discos and all sorts of fun stuff. And we have a book in print, Much Like You. I know, I feel like I just copy you. No, I mean, I'm just copying everyone else, anyway. So we have books we publish. We had two amazing books last year. We published Young Blood's book and also Playmate Faith's amazing Sunday Times bestselling book, MILF, which is an incredible read. So we are continuing to publish brilliant stories that will hopefully be helpful to people.
1:14:03 Fearne Cotton? And we launched our Happy Place Marketplace as well last year. So we're trying to make the wellness space less overwhelming. And we've curated and handpicked some gorgeous little brands that we love working with. A lot of them are female-run and British-run businesses. So do go check it out. And we do these gorgeous edit boxes that we do, like four drops a year, full of amazing products. A hundred quid's worth in a box for £29.99. So it's a very bargain. Yeah, love it. Sorry, that was a much better answer. I mean, I don't know what I'm doing next year. I still have no clue. I'm fumbling through all of that and trying to parent a near-teenager and a 10-year-old and all sorts of drama. But yeah, none of us know what we're doing, do we? We're just, we're bumbling along, all of us.
1:14:47 Fearne Cotton? But look, I think now what we're going to do is sign some books, if you want them signed. If you want to leave and go home, we won't be offended. We're just going to wave you on your merry way. But yeah, we'll maybe form some sort of queue, because again, we're British and we do queues. But before we do that, massive thank you to the amazing Elizabeth Day. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you to amazing Tom. Thank you, my darling. Oh my god, that was the most fun ever. I just loved it. And if you watch this on YouTube and don't just listen to it, you need to check out Elizabeth's suit, which I can't stop thinking about. It's this like emerald, sparkly velvet dreamboat of a suit.
1:15:30 Fearne Cotton? It was just the best. If only I could hang out with my mates every night and chat about books. That's what I'm thinking. I simply cannot believe we are already in December. What is going on? So do you want to know what our final read of the year is? Of course you do. It's called Fundamentally by Nasiba Yunis. Now, do you recognise that name? She was the first member of the audience to ask a question to me and Elizabeth at the book bar. So she's already a dedicated member of the Happy Place Book Club and we just love this. Do you know what? Elizabeth and I were actually a little bit mortified because Nasiba asked a question about advice for anybody who's looking to write something a bit different to something they've written before. And we both gave advice before we
1:16:13 Fearne Cotton? realised that she is a celebrated author. This book Fundamentally has had a lot of hype and love around it for very good reasons. So we were sort of quietly mortified that we had offered any advice at all. So let's talk about the novel. In this book, Nadia is an academic who's been disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, Rosie. So she decides to make a getaway, accepting a UN job in Iraq. Meanwhile, Sarah is a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just 15. And Nadia is struck by how similar they are, both feisty and opinionated from a Muslim background with a shared love of dairy milk and rude pick-up lines. This book is so funny, so well-written. You might not have expected that from the description that I just gave,
1:16:58 Fearne Cotton? but it is laugh-out-loud funny. I'd love it if you would read along with us. So come and have a chat about the book on Instagram at Happy Place Book Club. In the meantime, a massive thanks again to Elizabeth, to the producers of this episode, Anushka Tate and Basil Oxtaby, and to you, whether you were there on the day or have joined us here, I appreciate you loads, bookworms.
1:17:45 Speaker 07 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the Headline Hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.
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1:18:49 Speaker 11 It's time. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Halloween!
1:18:58 Speaker 12 And you guys know we don't do Halloween by halves. Full costume, full prosthetics, full commitment. I'm a rat. And I'm the chef. It's our Ratatouille special. Then we're grabbing our broomsticks for the witches. We've got a spooky hotline caller. An update from our woman who was in love with the ghost of Prince Albert. And your tarot card dilemmas. Listen to our Halloween specials. Search for The Girl's Bathroom.
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