Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - Maria Semple on writing strong women and embracing vulnerability in books

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

In this funny and uplifting conversation, novelist and screenwriter Maria Semple discusses her desire to re-write women in fiction, why she feels “naked” when writing books and her fascination with stoicism.Maria used to work in television, producing and writing for sitcoms and comedy specials such as Arrested Development, The George Carlin Show and Mad About You, which earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination. Maria’s novels – Today Will Be Different, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, and This One Is Mine – have been translated into forty languages, and Where'd You Go, Bernadette has sold over 200 thousand copies in the UK alone and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2013. Go Gentle, her most recent novel, is out now. Maria’s book choices are: 11:02 Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido18:16 The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard24:40 The Art Of Living by Epictetus32:29 Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt38:51 Demon Copperhead by Barbara KingsolverYou can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org  – every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops. Every week on Bookshelfie, Vick Hope is joined by inspirational women to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world, is run by the Women’s Prize Trust, the charity building a better future by championing women’s writing. Don’t want to miss the rest of season nine? Follow or subscribe now!This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

Coming up on Vouchalphi. I wanted to write a woman who was, you know, sexy and kind and a good mother and also really in love with her own intellect and just showing the joys of the intellect for a woman, which, again, I don't think is that feminine, you know. I think that we are taught to not be the smartest person in the room. I just feels like being naked, standing out there naked and just saying, everyone, this is the best I can do. And you kind of can't blame anybody for what's in your book, but yourself.

To be in that Hollywood development machine is really to be driven insane. Okay. It's just to live in a state of constant agitaph because other people have just control over you. When I'm reading a book and it's just not, it's maybe too complicated or it's too dense or the story isn't happening, I really am reading the book. And I'm like, what about me? Don't you care about me? Like, I'm the one who spent all this money and made the time.

And it's like, you don't even care about me, you know? Hello, I'm Vic Hope. And this is Bookshelfy, the podcast from the Women's Prize that asks women, with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Now, before we begin, remember to subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode with thanks to our sponsor, Bailey's. Today, I'm joined by Maria Semple. Maria is a novelist and screenwriter. Her novels today will be different. Where Do You Go, Bernadette? And this one is mine, have been translated into 40 languages. Where Do You Go, Bernadette has sold over 200,000 copies in the UK alone and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2013. Maria used to work in television, producing and writing for sitcoms and comedy specials such as Arrested Development, the George Carlin Show and Mad About You, which earned her a primetime Emmy nomination. Go Gentle. her most recent novel is out now. And it is such a pleasure to welcome you to boot shelfy.

Oh, thank you very much, Vic. It's so fun to be here. It was a great moment. I think I can say this, because I'm not sure exactly what order the episodes are going out in when we're recording. But you came in the room and Terry Jones was here and there was a beautiful moment of friendship and getting to reconnect. And I'm so fascinated by the relationships between authors because, of course, you know each other. Yes. And that's actually the most fun. thing about being an author. As you said in the intro, I'd been a television writer for a long time. And those were my people. And when authors to me were so far above me, they were just like on this plane that was inaccessible to me in my mind of just like people I could never meet, I could never

know. And so the festivals and being on the tours and getting to know the authors is truly why I keep writing books because I just want to read Tiari Jones and then meet her and then become friends with her and then we FaceTime each other and we run into each other. It's really the pleasure of the job is getting to know the other novelists. I love that. I became a novelist because I wanted to be friends with it. Exactly. Why not? Why not? Yes. What was that transition like from from television writing to the literary world? In TV, you're really surrounded by a big machine, you know, and all the scripts are written by a group of people. It's everything's done by committee. It's a big rewrite room. Maybe a writer goes off. I'd say perhaps on half the shows, a writer would even go off alone at all to

spend, they get maybe five days to write a script. But generally, the ideas are come up within a group. You're breaking the story in a group, meaning you're kind of figuring out how it all lays out into scenes in a group with somebody standing at the whiteboard, figuring it out, everyone's shouting on top of each other. And then, somebody maybe goes off to write, then you come back and it all gets rewritten as a group. And then beyond that, it's network notes, it's studio notes, it's actor notes. You're just, there's so many, there's budget, there's so many considerations. And so I feel like at the end of a TV show, even if one's name is on it, there's no sense of authorship. And you, you feel like if the show's good or bad, you're just like, yeah, whatever, you know, we, we did our best and everything is,

is like you're settling for something. I feel like TV really finds the middle a lot. It's never so much worse than what you've written because there's, like, really good actors and there's good sets, and there's good camera work and everything, and it can elevate it. But also, I feel like you have all these big lofty visions for budget and things that don't happen. Now, so there's that. And then fiction on the other hand, you're just fully on your own. And you're, I just feels like being naked, standing out there naked and just saying to everyone, this is the best I can do. And you kind of can't blame anybody for what's in your book with yourself. It's just me. And this is my taste. And I can't act like, oh, I wanted it to be better. You know, and I feel like that's the world I came from

is where you just thought, oh, it would have been better, but everybody ruined it. But equally, is there more pride in it if it is just you? Yes, very much so. There's more. pride in it. And it really is, it's all the pleasure of just having the courage to go out and to do something that nobody asks you to do. Even as a best-selling novelist, there really is not the need for my next novel out there in the world. And it's this thing that you're kind of fighting against every time when you sit down to write. And so to me, just the books, it's funny, because once I write a book, then it's perceived a certain way by people. And I, really like that and it's fun for me to hear about it. But to me, it's always the fact that I was

just like alone in her room and I had the courage to think that this was any good and then put my name on it. Well, let's talk about your most recent book, Go Gentle. It's a mystery. It's a romance. It's a globe-trotting adventure. But at its heart, it explores midlife reinvention. Can you tell us a little bit more about it? Yes, Go Gentle is the story of Adora Hazard. And she's a woman in her late 50s who's recently divorced, mother of a teenage girl. And she has, she moves to New York. She's a philosopher. And her philosophy is, is a thing called stoicism, where her whole vibe is to only desire what she has, that that to her is the root of happiness is not to live her life according to what she doesn't have and to wish things were differently, but to only want the things she has. And so

it gives her enormous amount of inner freedom. And one of the extensions of that or one of the ways she applies that is her living situation. She lives in this apartment on the Upper West Side in New York. And she lives on a certain floor. And there are four or five other single women, her age, who are divorced or widowed, who live on the floor with her. And she calls them the coven. And so the idea is that they're going to grow old in kind of curated.

company among their favorite people in the world, which are their women friends. And so she's living this great life where she's thrilled with, she's vexed by her daughter, but just fully delighted by having this teenage daughter and thinks it's hilarious. She has a job as a moral tutor to this rich family who lives across the park. This rich family has employed her to teach their twin boys' ethics. And so she's a morals tutor. And she's a morals tutor. And she's a rich family. And she lives with her friends and then what do you give to the woman who wants nothing? I enter a handsome stranger, whereas suddenly Adora who thought that she had kind of snuffed out desire now is inflamed with desire.

In a review, one right I described tearing through it with headless pleasure, which I love as a description. Yes. How important to you is creating joy and pleasure for your books? because I feel like so often we talk about authors wanting to make you uncomfortable, but actually wanting to make you have a great time is something to be valued. Yes, well, that's all I ever want to do. I really am trying to think about at any point when I'm writing the book, when I'm really

thinking about the plot, I'm very into plot and I'm very, you know, right from the beginning to the end. And so whenever I get to a juncture, I think so hard about what would be the best, the best thing that could happen right now, you know, in terms of the reading experience, really, and that's all it is. I'm thinking what would be really surprising, what would people gasp at, what would, what could be fully based in reality, that you believe what happened, but that just pushes it a little, a little more into the heightened reality. Because a lot of times the way I like to think about my writing, and is I like to think about if you've had an interaction

that's upsetting to you. And maybe on the drive home, you're thinking, I wish I'd said that. You know what I should have done? You know what I should have done in that situation? Right, you know the feelings? So what I like to do on books is have them actually do it, you know? Because I think it's really fun to read that.

And so I think that's like a very pleasurable thing, is that watch kind of characters very much like you take actions and do things that maybe you wouldn't have the courage to do you wouldn't, you know, you have too much kind of social concern to do things. And so that's where kind of the sweet spot of where I live. And I think it's pleasurable to read something like that. So that's really all I'm trying to do. And does that reflect what you want from your own reading experience is the books that you gravitate towards? Oh, for sure. Absolutely. Yes. I'm pretty hard on books. You know, I feel like I, they,

have to do their job to entertain me. I really believe that. Like what a lot of times when I'm reading a book and it's just not, it's maybe too complicated or it's too dense or the story isn't happening. I really am reading the book and I'm like, what about me? Don't you care about me? Like I'm the one who spent all this money and made the time and it's like you don't even care about me, you know? And so I really think about that. And I feel like what I'm writing a book, I like to think of myself as a benevolent hostess. You know, it's like you've come into my house. I'm giving you the signature cocktail. I have a lot of really interesting people you're going to love who have stories for you

that you're not even going to believe and that are going to blow your mind. And I kind of lead you around the party to just give you the best possible time. Well, let's talk about the books that have thought about you that you have loved and have been benevolent hosts at their own parties. Yes, yes. Your first book, Shelby book, is Brother of the More Famous Jack. by Barbara Trapido. In Barbara Trapido's first novel, A Coming of Age story, 18-year-old Catherine navigates life with the eccentric and bohemian Goldman family at the start of her university journey.

At first, the family feels like home, but a romantic entanglement and subsequent heartbreak leave her with no choice but to leave. Funny and rich with characters, we follow her journey back into the fold after more than a decade away, which yields many unexpected surprises. So when When did you read this book? When were you invited in? So first of all, I'm like tearing up even just here. It's like even hearing the taking you back? I know like it's just making me cry. I love this book so much and I love Catherine so much. And I, you know, I discovered this book when a, because Barbara Tripito, we don't know where over in the United States largely. And I was at a library book sale.

and and there was like a dollar table of old library books that they were selling. And on the jacket, it said, better than Jane Austen. And it was so outrageous to me that someone, you know, the guardian or something, I don't know, was some legitimate thing calling this better than Jane Austen. I was like, well, I'll pay a dollar to prove that person wrong, you know? And I read it and just was so blown away by this book. And by just the humor of it, the quirkiness of it, the originality of it. But particularly, I think, that what and I've returned to the book often and I think that what's so special about the book is this Catherine character because she's young and and her intellect is so giant and her heart is so open and and I feel like she she's the only one who doesn't know that she's going to grow into

this wonderful smart amazing woman you know and I think that that there are a lot of times now that I'm older and I see young people and I think, oh, you're going to be okay. And they don't understand why I'm saying that, you know, but there's something you can kind of tell about it. And people would say that to me, even if I was just, you know, I was like overweight and hated myself and didn't have a boyfriend and was crying and, you know, was just really thought there was no path forward for me to happiness. There were adults who would be like, no, no, I'm going to bet on you, you know. And I feel like, it. like Barbara Trapito really captures that so well. She's, because Catherine is, she's rough,

you know, she hasn't been properly educated, but she's so smart. And these other, the character, the Goldman family she falls in with, they're real intellectuals. But she really matches them in a really pure way. And, and it's honest. And just her journey is just so beautiful. So to me, to really read about a character on the cusp of greatness who doesn't know. that about herself is really heartbreaking. You described this book as the book closest to your heart and seeing tears in your eyes as you talk about it and you touched on being a young woman and what might have connected for you, looking back, what does it make you feel about yourself at that time of your life?

Well, I think very much, I think I really was a lot like her in that she's very bookish, you know, but she doesn't, it's almost like it's interesting. Earlier in the interview, I said, oh, I love books, but books were for, you know, authors were smarter people, you know, than I was. There was no access to it. And I really think that kind of is Catherine. I think that she is, is, as I was, maybe smart enough to be a novelist. I mean, obviously I was because I am, but I just would never call myself that because I

was so down on myself and so insecure that I think that that's what so much of my life has been and what in fact Go Gentle is about is like stepping into your power, you know, and your vastness. And I think that women, it's a really scary thing. I think that it's safer because it's safer to feel limited in a lot of ways. And that to feel gigantic is scary, you know, to feel like your limitless and powerful is something that's not very feminine. When did you start to feel limitless and powerful and gigantic? Well, I'm just starting to, I'd say. You know, it's kind of crazy that it takes this long in life.

Do you feel powerful and limitless and gigantic? I'm just asking you're younger. Not all the time. Sometimes. And sometimes, I mean, I don't feel one way. I'm constantly moving dynamic, I guess. That's right. And then feeling really low and feeling high and all of that stuff.

But sometimes I do. Right. Sometimes I do. And I think I did not when I was 18. Yes. Crucially. Right. I did not.

And so if I was told it's going to be okay and you're going to be amazing, I wouldn't have believed it exactly like you said. Exactly. And so I think that what I'd say as, as, someone older than you is that I think that who really relates to what you said, that there were like, I was just kind of toggling all over the place, you know, when I was younger is I think that what my experience has been is just this slow, slowly stepping into a much more solid, firm feeling of the positive, where it's secure, you know, where it feels

not insecure. You know, in stoicism, there's something that I like to call that it gives you secure joy. And I really like that idea because I think that a lot of time joy or power or freedom is, it can just depend on other things, just external things, just how people react to you or, you know, it's really out of your control. It's provisional. And so I think that that they're, the secure freedom and secure power and secure largeness is what is starting to enter into my life now. Because they come from within as opposed to external. Exactly. This episode of Bookshelfy is sponsored by Bayleys.

Bayleys is proudly supporting the 26 Women's Prize for Fiction, helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Baileys is the perfect adult treats, whether shaking in a cocktail over ice cream or paired with your favourite book. Check out baillies.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. Let's move on now to your second book shelfy book. By the way, just to say, that just made me feel amazing.

But we now have to move on to another book because I would have liked to have just kept feeling like that, kept talking about that. But we do have to move on to your second boot shelphy book, which is The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard. First published in 1990 and set in 1937, The Light Years is a modern classic of 20th century English life and is the first novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard's extraordinary best-selling family saga The Casalette Chronicles. It follows the wealthy but emotionally complicated Casillet family during the late 1930s, as they gather at their Sussex home and navigate marriages, affairs, childhood, anxieties and the looming threat of war. told from multiple notably female heavy perspectives, it quietly reveals the tensions beneath upper middle class English family life just before World War II changes everything.

Now, you've said that the Casillates live in your heart. What is it about the light years and the family particularly at its centre that creates such a lasting attachment for you as a reader? Well, I, it, this is one of those books. Well, maybe it's all of these books, but it's very hard for. for me, I think particularly with women writers, not to really experience the books as being written by individual women, you know, to read about the castle, to read the light years, and to just understand that a woman made this choice to tell a World War II story

from the point of view of women. You know, women who are like trying to figure out how often do I actually have to have sex with my husband each week, you know, in order to just keep the peace. Women on their periods, women who are terrified of the pain of childbirth, just all these things that don't get represented in other books. It really felt like, even though it's World War II, it felt like a Victorian novel in terms of just the way it, just the way it deals with family and love affairs, but you never hear about it from a woman's point of view. And so when I read the book, and it's just a huge family that is, there's so much variety in it, and the cousins, all the little kids. I've never found little kids so interesting to read about. Usually, they're,

they're not interesting enough to hold my attention, but she really gets the little kids interesting. All the different siblings, the heads of the family, the affairs that, that they're all having. they feel so modern and it makes you, you know, I think that when you read about historical books, and I think a lot of them were written by men. Yeah. And so you just think, well, there's no, women just didn't have inner lives back then. You know, you could think that, right, reading these books. And now you're just reading one of those books only from the perspective of the inner life of the women.

And it's just so, it's refreshing, it's radical. It's just beautiful. You mentioned that Howard remains largely undiscovered in the US. Why do you think that is? And how could she reach a broader audience? Because those women's inner lives during this time that is so heavily documented, but in a very particular way, very heroic, combative way by, you know, male stories. It's of interest to everyone, surely.

Yes. Well, it's, you know, I'll say what's happening now with her is that I feel like she's having a moment, and I know they're reissuing her books. And so I really think it's going to come to the forefront. Her books are, people are going to really start to read them, and that I don't even know how I found out about them. I'd never heard of her. I'd never heard of these books. There's a book by James Salter called The Light Years, and he's very much in like the canon over. in the United States. So anytime even I write it.

Isn't that terrible? And so when I heard that some woman wrote a book called the light years, you were like, yeah, no, there's already a light years and it's written by a man, you know, which is terrible that I thought that. And then you read this and you're like, move over James Salter. There's a new light years that's just dominated. And I think that, I think that with the reissue, I do believe it's going to be a word of mouth thing. What I will say, it's one of those books that I've told everybody about and people just flip out and they're like, I'm on book seven, you know, after like three weeks. It's crazy. You've called this retelling of World War II through the eyes of women as radical, as political, and this importance, focusing on the importance of their interior lives. How has your writing been influenced by reshaping the world this way?

I feel like one of the things I tried to do with Go Gentle was in a way that's similar, I'd say, to Elizabeth Jane Howard, what she's doing in like years, is I really wanted to try to map not just the inner life of a woman, but the intellectual inner life of a woman, which I feel like you don't really see that much. And I wanted to write a woman who was, you know, sexy and kind and a good mother and also really in love with her own intellect and just showing the joys of the intellect for a woman, which, again, I don't think is that feminine. You know, I think that we are taught to not be the smartest person in the room. It's intimidating. Right. And that that's going to turn off men, you know, if we. We really are loud and proud about how much we love the life of the mind. And so that's really what I think I was trying to do with Go Gentleist,

really celebrate the life of the mind of a smart woman. Which is another case of stepping into our power, into our freedom. But we're doing so securely. And you've said the word stoicism a few times, which brings us on to our third bookshelfy book, which is The Art of Living, by Epictetus, translated by Sharon LaBelle. Now, Epictetus was a Greek-stoic philosopher who taught in Rome until he was banished by

Emperor Dmitan, around 94 AD. In exile, he established a school of philosophy where his distinguished students included Marcus Aurelius, author of Meditations. The Art of Living is considered a classic manual on virtue, happiness and effectiveness, offering guidelines on moral progress and personal character development, and emphasizing the need to recognize what you can't control. Technically, it doesn't fit our bookshelfy brief. It's not written by a woman.

However, you've said that what makes this specific book singular is that it's been translated by a woman. So tell me why that's so significant. Yes, so sorry to get a man into the bookshelfy. It's okay. But to me, so stoicism, which I love, this philosophy, it's dead white men, right? and and and and uh which is fine god bless them but uh this one book that i really love is it is this

translation by a woman Sharon LaBelle and I what she does is bring Epictetus's writing which I've read many translations of that is a little removed you know it's a little tough the translations that are out there and she just made this choice which she writes about an introduction, where she didn't learn Latin, she didn't learn Greek, she just basically read all the English translations and put them into modern parlance. And it is so easy to read, it's so accessible. And the thing I really love about Epictetus in particular and what Sharon LeBelle does is that it's very much the realm of the domestic. It's very much like about what happens if a vase breaks or if, you know, it's about relationships a lot, which I, I, to me,

is the most interesting part about this. And so I think that what Sharon LaBelle has done is really brought what could be a challenging philosophical readings really into, into the every day. And I think it's a great gift. It is interesting. What a female perspective can bring to a classical text by a man on ancient philosophy. And also the role of translation. I studied languages at university in translation. You make a decision about what it is you want to convey because it's not necessarily lifting directly what has been written.

It can have completely different effects. And as someone whose work has been translated, are you aware of the effect of the translation on your work? Because I don't know if you speak all the languages, but that's the problem. I have no idea. I'm just assuming. that it's kind of works.

Now, wait, now I want to ask you, is when you, so you were trans, did you translate things? Yeah, I mean, we did, I did French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and we did modules on translation in each. I specialized more in sociopolitical kind of readings of literature and culture, but we all had to do translation. However, if you want to go on to become a translator,

it's a whole other world. And, you know, I'm not qualified by any means to be translating texts. But were you aware, did you try to put a woman's, perspective into the things that you were translating? Hmm. Probably subconsciously, purely because I am a woman. Right, right, right. And so when I'm reading it, this is what I take from this.

Right. But I wouldn't have been thinking about what the reader is gaining from it because I'm female. I see, I see, yeah. So I think it's really interesting that. And so in Go Gentle, I have Adora Hazard as a translator. and I've really kind of modeled her after the Sharon LaBelle that she kind of brings all of the stoics, which actually are quite easy to read and accessible,

but just for the purposes of my book, I have them a little harder to read and then she's the one who brings them into kind of the everyday. So I just kind of stole Sharon LaBelle's career for this. But the everyday is potent. Yes. And it influences our spirit, our understanding of the world and how we want to. navigate it. Talk to me about your relationship with Stoicism. You said that this is a gateway book for you. Yes, yes. Well, I really love the philosophy and I study it almost every morning. I didn't do

it today. But I normally, I sit down and I read the Stoics. I decide what virtues I'm going to work on that day, which sounds very churchy, but it's not. It's just, you know, a virtue could be focus. It could be modesty. It could be kindness. It could be not casting blame and just taking responsibility for yourself. So I've written this strange little 70-page book for myself. That's my whole like self-help primer that's based on stoicism. And it's it's like protocols before a Zoom call of like what to do to center myself. It's all this stuff. And it's all based in stoicism. And it's just really fun for me. It's something that I love. It's brought me a lot of inner peace and a lot of happiness and it's just kind of chilled me out and relax me. And I feel like I can kind of roll with anything and handle

anything. And if you are going through life feeling like you can just kind of handle anything, then there's just a lot more joy, you know, and tranquility that just can go during the day. And the Stoicism deals with control, acceptance, inner freedom. Was there anything going on in your life at the time that you found it that made you feel that you really needed this? Well, what it was was being in development in Hollywood. Right. I'll see that. Exactly. It was that I had spent about, gosh, it's like crazy to me to think of how much time I spent. It was about six years in development where I had two TV shows that I'd sold with big stars attached. One was to HBO with Julia Roberts.

One of them was Olivia Coleman and Apple. So these were like big time shows, and neither of them went for various reasons. But neither of them worked out. But I had staffs. We wrote scripts. And to be in that Hollywood development machine is really to be driven insane. Okay. It's just to live in a state of constant agitaph because other people have just control over you.

You know, you're just getting noted to death. You have so many people telling you what to do and what not to do and they're contradicting each other. And then you do what they want. And they're like, no, we just talk to the boss who you're not allowed to talk to, but do the other thing. And you're just going around in circles. And you're supposed to be paid to do a draft and then you get yes or no. But you get paid to do a draft.

And then there's 15, 20 rounds of free rewrites that they promise you this will be the last one. And it's not. And you really need some kind of program not to go out of your mind in that situation, especially to me after I'd tasted the freedom of being a novelist and not having anyone get in my business with my writing. So I really needed something from the outside to help me. And stoicism was it? Yes. You found your stoic philosophies. I'm going to go and have a little read, I think, after this.

Yes, please, please. I think I'd like to. But right now, we need to talk about your fourth bookshelf. book, which takes us on a very different path, actually. This is a beautiful piece of literature. It's loved and missed by Susie Boyt. This whipsmart and incisive novel from 2021 follows a mother, Ruth, who takes care of her granddaughter Lily while grappling with her daughter, Eleanor's drug addiction.

Exploring themes, including familial love, loss, and the complexities of relationships, this critically acclaimed title has been described as a quietly heroic family drama. Why have you chosen it today? God, again, I'm like tearing up. I know this one, yeah. Right? I mean, you've read it. Yeah. It's so unbelievable. The protagonist is so noble. And she's so strong. She really is stoic with a small S. You know, it's what we think of you Brits of keep calm and carry on. You know, she really is that, but she's so funny. And it's joyful. You know, in, in, in, in, I think it's a perfect example of why I never like to describe books that I recommend. Because if I say, I go, this is the most incredible book. It's hard to do it justice, isn't it?

Yes, and it just sounds depressing, you know, and it's about a grandmother who has to raise her daughter, raise her grandchild because the daughter's a drug addict. And people are like, yeah, no, I'm not going to be reading that. This her her kid she's so winning you know she's so she's so noble and and she's so funny and and to me this is a book that that also I think maybe so you said it came out in 2021. 2021. Okay. So about two or two years ago people in the States, it just kind of spontaneously happened that everyone started reading this book. And it was one of those things where you'd go to certain parties and go, there's a book. And they're like, I know, loved and missed. I've read it. You know, that everyone was just kind of, it was just collectively being discovered. And I really thought the woman who wrote it must have been like 80 years old, but she's not. She's young. I saw a picture of her. Susie Boyt, right? And you think how? How have you recognized it? You say no, but I think in your notes, you said honorable and aspirational. Yes. The way that Ruth loves. Yes, the way that she loves. And it's just, it's that whole book is just

a miracle to me. And in fact, I have the book. I don't know if you have the same jacket that we do. It's a painting of a mother and like a mother and a child. There's been a couple, I think, but I think I know the one you mean. Okay. Yes. And that's the one that's the one that we have. And I have it on my coffee table. And there are times when just, I mean, loved and, see, I'm loved and missed is so incredible that title, just to think loved and missed. And I literally have to like flip the book over. So I'm not looking at the title because I'll walk through the house and start crying. It's just it really moves me that book. It's just incredible. There's something extremely powerful. I think like you said, it's the way, the way that she loves, I think, just is really penetrating, you

know, and it's like shakes you up that love could be so simple and so strong. The way she loves is heartbreaking, but it's practical and it's fierce. Yes. Did it change the way you think about love? Yes, I mean, I think the acceptance of it. And I think that that's, is the heartbreaking part, is that you just understand that you don't, you can't choose who you love, you know, and if it's an addict or that's in your life and that you're faced with that, it really is, really does go now into stoicism with

the capital S is you just have to accept it and love it and accept that this has happened to you. And there's a term in Go Gentle that's a stoic term called Amor Fati, which is Latin for love fate and that's what the stoics lived by and to not just accept that something's happened but to actually love that something bad has happened because there's always a way you can grow from it there's always something better that can come of it and to me that's really what loved and missed is is this fate has happened to her and she is just choosing love um and as you say it's not the cleanest love, but she is aspiring to love, and it's just really beautiful. The book asks us to sit with quite a lot of ambiguity. Yes. We have loyalty versus survival.

We have forgiveness versus self-preservation. What do you think that this novel understands especially well about the emotional contradictions inside family life? I think it, to me, it's that you, you never know what's happening inside a house or I think that that Ruth, I think everyone would have an opinion about what Ruth should do. Yeah, they would. Yeah. Everybody, here's what you got to do. You just, you know, just do this, just do that, just do that. And that it's not that easy. It's easy to throw the jests around for other people. But when it comes to you, there's never a simple solution. There's never a just with yourself, is that? No, no, there never is. We dish them out to everyone else.

Exactly. We just freely give them out. And then when it comes to us ourselves, it's just really private. It's really challenging. It's just a history of trauma that we bring to it that makes it harder than just do something. And so I think that's really where the book lives because other people's problems seem very easy to fix. And this is a really beautiful existence. and it really makes you sit in the challenges of somebody else's problems.

Well, take a deep breath before this next one, because on the subject of someone else's problems, we'll move on to your fifth and final bookshelfy book, which is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingselver. Set in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between. Here, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, its parents, its friends. Family could mean love or it could be reluctant foster care for demon, born on the wrong side of luck. The affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of one day seeing. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.

suffused with truth, anger and compassion. Demon Copperhead was the winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2023. It's a book that sits so heavily in my heart. But you've also described it, line for line, the funniest book you've ever read. It's striking, giving how much suffering is in the novel. When did you first read it and what did it do to you? I only recently read it. And I am a huge David Copperfield fan.

Okay. I love Dickens so much. And I really felt like take David Copperfield's name out of your mouth. Yeah, you know. Yeah, like, no, you're not allowed to just skim off of David Copperfield, you know. But so many people are like, you've got to read the book, you've got to read the book. But I was just too proud of my own opinions to think that I could let in somebody's interpretation of David Copperfield. but it is so funny and it's just the voice and the attitude again.

I think that it's very similar to loved and missed is that what I think the charm of the book is it's in the attitude of the person towards the events, right? Is that these are harrowing events, but there's such a music to the way that she writes and to his voice. and it's just so hilarious. I think it's just this constant set of surprises how funny it is. You're just reading and then just suddenly there's a hilarious joke at the end of the, a funny word at the end of the sentence or the whole paragraph is wrapping up

in this very funny insight that you never saw coming. So I just think it's this, it just constantly surprises you and it was so weird because I'm a smart reader. I kind of get a book when I get what somebody's doing. And it just, I felt like Charlie Brown with the football. Like I never could adjust to it. I was just like, what, what, what, what, what? Like everything. I was like, is this really happening? And I just never, just the surprise and the freshness of it. I never got over it for the whole book. I rarely laugh out loud. I was laughing out loud at that book. It's crazy. You're so right. It's the way demon these horrific things that are happening to him.

But the whole time I'm just thinking, how has she managed to get inside the head of a little boy like this? Yes, yes. Because he's a little boy. He grows, but how does she do it? And it's funny because I wouldn't say it's a book about addiction or about the opioid crisis, even though it clearly is, but that was just not my takeaway from the book.

And it wasn't, I think also it sounded really depressing to me, which is why I was like, I don't want some take-your-medicine book about the opioid crisis and people in Appalachia. Now we have to all open our hearts to these Trump voters, you know, like really is what I thought that we were being asked to do with that book. I was like, yeah, I don't need to be doing that. Sorry. But I was like, no, this is so. And this was not depressing that way. It wasn't like super negative.

It was, I thought just purely joyful the book was. I find that so interesting. I guess around the time that it came out, I remember chatting to Barbara Kingsolver and she really wanted to cast a light on this, what she felt was a very forgotten part of the country and the reasons why these people who are so often termed rednecks are disenfranchised, disengaged and often mocked as well.

But there is this dark humour, or just pure humour throughout it, that makes it such an incredible epic tale. Yes, and it's really what fiction does. Yes. Is that, at least for me, for this reader, I went in thinking I wasn't interested in that and then I come out of it just deeply sympathetic and compassionate and then wanting to know more about that.

You know, and that's, I think, only kind of fiction can do that or good writing about something because I really went in with a close-minded, attitude about this and almost resenting it for my own reasons. And then you read it, you feel, you laugh, it opens your heart. And then you're a changed person with a broader perspective, which is really what fiction is all about. Because a book can do both. Yes. It doesn't have to and shouldn't do just one thing. No, no. And yeah, Barbara Kingselves, a master of doing both. Yes, yes, and she has a new book coming out this fall, which I'm very excited about.

Your work is also known for its humor, it's dark humor. What is the key as a writer for balancing humor and tragedy in a novel? And do you instinctively see difficult situations as potential material for comedy? Oh, very much so, yes, yes. I mean, I think that I have kind of a wicked eye for things. You know, I think that if, I think there are a lot of things that if somebody saw something that upset them, I think I would probably be upset, but also very amused at the same time. What a nice way to be. Yes, yeah, yeah.

I just like the human. Yeah, the human nature aspect of everything, I find really funny and interesting. Like, I find it so fascinating that it kind of goes into humor, you know. I'm not fascinated in like a negative pessimistic way. It's just kind of the folly of men and women, you know, is what I think about stuff. And I really do, I enjoy getting into the heads and just thinking like, God, what are they thinking? What are they driven by? Oh, it's probably that. And then it's like, and then it turned into this horrific thing. And there is something that is kind of funny about that. if you think about that. Now, I'm also, you know, very open to the horrors of everything of the world we

live in, obviously. But there is something that I just have to laugh at it at the same time. And I think that's something you're kind of born with. Yeah. Considering the folly of men and women is the crux of the people watching that we do that then go onto the pages of these novels that we love or the TV shows. Yes. And it's a great way to look at the world. It's how we get by, really. Yes, very much so. Yes. I mean, with that. out and it would just be too heavy. Oh, it would be too heavy. If you, if you don't laugh, you'll cry. Yes, yes. So it's good to laugh. Yes. Well, I would like to just look over the five books just finally that you brought today and see if you could pick a favorite because you feel

so passionately about all five of them clearly and you've spoken so, I mean, just so eruditely about them that I want to reread or read if I haven't already, particularly about the art of living, which would you pick and why? I think I would pick the brother of the more famous Jack because that was a book I read before I became a novelist. And I think that I'm kind of growing into my... inner Barbara Trapito. You know, I think she really writes like an outsider. I think that that was her first novel. She wrote it when she was a mom. She wasn't just a young person starting out.

And it feels like outside art that a brother of them were a famous Jack. It's just a really weird and hilarious book. And I think that that Catherine, I really related to, I think especially as I was starting to think of myself as a novelist, it almost kind of parallels Catherine's journey or her insecurity was my insecurity when I started writing a book. And I think that it was a book that I, like I say, I feel like I'm still growing in, as a novelist, I'm still growing into that book. Because it's a really feminist book. And I think that in the beginning of writing books, I was very much like in the patriarchy and felt like I needed to write a book for men that men like. You know, it just felt like men were the important novelists, you know, back back then. This was a while back. Which is understandable because you want, you know, you want the book to do well. To do well. And that was just the world we lived in as those were the good book.

Those were the books that got attention. And so I've really embraced being a woman novelist writing for women about women in a new way, trying to find new models of like being of comic heroines, you know, that are not, that are not just like made fun of, which I think is a very male thing to do, you know, was like belittle the women characters and romances and things like that. So I'm really trying to change that myself. And I really feel like Brother of the More Famous Jack, it was it was right there the whole time, you know, and it really inspired me. And also I think it's like the beacon, something that I'm still writing towards. To feel like you relate to both protagonist and the

author, I can see why you carry it in your heart. Yes. Like you said. And And as we keep returning to this idea of stepping into our power, stepping into our freedom and into our joy as well, it feels like to relate to the protagonist and the author and be growing with that book. Yes. Having it inside of you is going to help in that journey because it's not always, we're not always there. We can get there and we come back like we said before.

Right. And you need to have something inside you that you can keep returning to to remind you. That's right. That's right. Absolutely. It's so beautifully put back. Oh, thank you so much, Maria. I've loved this chat so, so much. And like I said, I've got so many little pearls of wisdom to wear like a necklace that I'm taking away from this. So thank you. Oh, beautiful. Thank you so much. This was great. I'm Vic Hope. And that was Bookshelfy from the Women's Prize, supported by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media.

Thanks for joining me for this episode. You'll find all the books that we discussed in our show notes. There's also a link to our bookshop.org shelf. every purchase supports independent bookshops and the work of the Women's Prize Trust, a charity helping build a better future by championing women's writing. Now remember to hit the follow or subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you liked this one, then leave us a rating or review to help other readers discover even more brilliant books by women. I'll see you next time.