Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S2 Ep14: #ReadingWomen: Love

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

In this episode Zing Tsjeng is joined by Juno Dawson, a novelist, screenwriter and journalist, Sophie Hellyer, founder of Rise Fierce - a cold water community which exists to empower women through wild swimming and kinship and feminist historian, Dr Charlotte Riley who Lectures Twentieth-Century British History at the University of Southampton. The theme of today's #ReadingWomen book club is love. The reading list: The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville from 2001 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller from 2012 An American Marriage by Tayari Jones from 2019 Every fortnight, join Zing Tsjeng, editor at VICE, and inspirational guests, including Dolly Alderton, Stanley Tucci, Liv Little and Scarlett Curtis as they celebrate the best fiction written by women. They'll discuss the diverse back-catalogue of Women’s Prize-winning books spanning a generation, explore the life-changing books that sit on other women’s bookshelves and talk about what the future holds for women writing today. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and this series will also take you behind the scenes throughout 2020 as we explore the history of the Prize in its 25th year and gain unique access to the shortlisted authors and the 2020 Prize winner. Sit back and enjoy. Produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Zing Singh, your host for Season 2 of the Women's Prize podcast, coming to you every fortnight throughout 2020, our year of Reading Women. From Zadie Smith's White Teeth to Naomi Alderman's The Power, we're spotlighting all 24 women's prize-winning books during this podcast series with eight book club episodes in which our guests discuss three of the brilliant winning novels from past years.

And we want you to join the conversation. Go to hashtag Reading Women on Twitter and Instagram to share your thoughts as you read along and head to the Women's Prize website at Wemenspriceforfiction.co.com to learn all about the 24 books plus lots more to set you off on your reading journey. Hello and welcome to another episode of Reading Women. We have an excellent group of guests and of course some brilliant books to discuss. But firstly, I'll fortly reminder that we are still practicing social distancing. So this recording is being done remotely. So please excuse any minor sound hiccups. I am joined today by some amazing guests. Juno Dawson is a novelist, screenwriter and journalist. Sophie Hellyer is the founder of Rise Fier's, a cold water community that exists to empower, women through wild swimming and kinship and feminist historian Dr. Charlotte Riley, who lectures

20th century British history at the University of Southampton. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having us. So today's book club theme is my favorite thing in the world, love. And I think it's arguably a theme that can be found in most novels. But today we're focusing on three women's prize winners that have the theme at its very core. And they are the idea of perfection by Kate Grenville from 2001, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller from 2012, and an American marriage by Tiari Jones from 2019. So, Juno, how did you find reading all three of these books as a trio? I enjoyed them. So I read Song of Achilles last year while I was in Greece, so I have very lovely memories of reading that one. And then I was really, really excited about

an American marriage and less excited about the idea of perfection and actually ended up preferring the idea of perfection. Oh, interesting. What about you, Charlotte? So I had, the only book I'd read myself before was the idea of perfection, which I read when I was in Melbourne last year. I was looking for books by Australian women to read when I was there. And I reread it and read the other two.

And it was funny reading them from the theme of love because I'm not. They obviously are all love stories, but I'm not sure that I would have off the top of my head said, like, that's a theme they have in common or that's, I don't know if that's where I would have gone immediately and kind of blinking them. So I found that really interesting kind of having that as a framework to think about them. And what about you, Sophie? Did you enjoy reading all these three books together? Had you read any of them before? No, I hadn't read any of them before. And I found them all very different. I loved American marriage and kind of gobbled it up in two days. And then actually ended up loving the idea of perfection as well, although it was a lot more slow pace and it kind of took me a couple of weeks to get through. And then I'll go on to the song of Achilles when we talk about it. Excellent. We'll have that to look forward to. And what about the theme of love? Did you think that came across in all three of them or are you a little bit more?

I actually, while I was reading them, I didn't know what the theme of this podcast was. And I was thinking today, I was like, what is the theme? And I was thinking it must be relationships because that's kind of the theme that's really. woven through all of them in quite different ways. But yeah, love and relationships is definitely a big part of all of the books. What about you, do you know, did the theme of love come out quite strongly? I must imagine, I did guess. I sort of thought, well, again, maybe, like Sophie said,

maybe more relationships or couples than love itself. But certainly, yeah, they are three very different ways. I guess they are all love stories, but with very different kind of flavour. I guess. And very different endings, although I don't think we want to spoil that for people. We tried to avoid spoilers as much as possible on the podcast. We don't want angry listeners writing it. So we'll go on to the first book, which is the idea of perfection by Kate Grenville. And obviously this won the Women's Prize in 2001. Charlotte, do you mind giving us a quick summary of the book? Yes, so it's an Australian novel written by an Australian author. And it's set in this kind of

tiny town in New South Wales called Karakuruk which is apparently an Aboriginal word that means elbow and the love story is between well I guess it's kind of two love stories but the main love story in the book is between Harley Savage and Douglas Cheeseman

and they both have they both have kind of very complicated histories of they've both been divorced before Harley Savage's and married three times before the book starts. And they're both kind of very tentative and awkward and difficult, quite difficult people.

And it's about their kind of very, very gradual relationship, I guess. I thought that this book was so interesting because I don't know very much about small town Australia. I don't know about you guys. Yeah, no. Nothing, nothing at all. I don't know. Did you guys grow up in small towns or towns or cities that felt small?

I grew up in a very small village in the countryside and the coast, yeah. Yeah, me too. I grew up in a small town in Lincolnshire. Yeah, I would, I guess so, a small town in Yorkshire, but it was very suburban. So you're nothing like Karukuruk. Yeah, and I've spent a lot of time in Australia, but all in cities. Right. I thought it captured the flavour of what it's like to be in a small town quite well. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah. And like the really kind of that particular.

particular, like the heat and how dusty everything is and the flies. There's more flies in this novel than in any other novel I've ever read. I think how self-conscious you are as an outsider when you go to a small village like that and that you know that everyone sees you and you feel quite conspicuous, that feeling was like really portrayed well. Yeah. I thought the small town was incredibly well realised, the tiny little details and from the way they describe the shops and the dogs and the,

horses and just it was I really really although I've never been to outback Australia I kind of feel a little bit like I have having just spent time in that book yeah I wrote down a quote from it that I thought was like described the village really well um you could not window shop convincingly in Karakuruk unless you were in the market for dead flies I mean and also having said that we're recording this on a day where it is what it feels like 29 degrees so I feel like that sense of oppressive heat, I can very much feel that coming from the book. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And because both the main characters as well, and I mean, they're not, like, I always feel this about myself, like, I'm not elegant. And like, the characters and it aren't either in that heat, like, that feeling not only of being an outsider, also like, never, not quite knowing what to do with yourself and always being a bit sticky and, like, it's another way that they feel like outsiders, right, that they're always a bit flustered and uncomfortable and their clothes are, like, sweaty and it's really evocative. Like that horrible moment when you're, I don't know,

like on a holiday somewhere and you go into a pub and all the locals turn around and stare at you. Yeah, exactly. And you're all crumpled and sticky and you just feel really kind of, yeah, mucky. And what about the relationship between Douglas and Harley? Do you think it was kind of portrayed convincingly? Yes. Yeah. I think awkward is the word I would use to describe the pair of them. I mean, they are hopeless as someone who vaguely prides themselves on having social skills. It was sometimes quite excruciating to watch these two characters who are socially inept as each other. But that just kind of makes you root for them more, I guess. I found it really frustrating that they didn't even meet until halfway through the book.

It's just like, come on, when are they going to meet? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were so, it was the tentativeness of it as well, that it wasn't just awkward, but it was like it was so slow it's such a slow very slow paste like which is brilliant i really loved it but like it's so claustrophobic and it's so slow paced yeah very awkward and like cringe worthy almost yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's such it's it's really good i really loved it this book i think my favorite thing actually about this book and it's probably my favorite thing out of all of them is just um you know most love stories are about like young, gorgeous, perfect people pulling up. And this was about like, too like socially awkward, shy, kind of, you know, the way that they're like described physically

and stuff, just like normal people. It's really refreshing to read about like middle aged characters who aren't good looking, stereotypical good looking. Nothing in this book is particularly aspirational. And certainly when I've been dealing with editors writing for the YA market, aspiration is still very much on everyone's mind. So it's incredibly refreshing to read a book where precisely no one is aspirational. You know, Margot Robbie is not going to be playing any of these characters. And that's a good thing. Yeah.

What did you make of the kind of secondary love affair in the book with Felicity, the banker's wife, she's obsessed with her image and being perfect and looking gorgeous? To begin with, I was completely confused why Felicity Porcelain was in the story. I didn't really understand what role she had. And then when I finished the book, I realized she's kind of representing, you know, the title is the idea of perfection. And her character represents what happens if you're just striving for perfection. And that's all you're focused on.

Whereas the other characters kind of realized that perfection is not needed or different. Yeah. It was an interesting like side story going on. Yeah. And I think my favorite part of the book as well, because I didn't know it was going to happen. So obviously, having read the description in the blur, I kind of thought I knew what I was signing up for.

And that first scene where this wild racist goes into the butcher shop, and you're kind of like, who the hell is this? And I was so taken aback. But immediately, that's almost when I got on board because I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleepwalk my way through the novel. It was going to challenge me to follow this character because she's really quite loathsome, but also so intriguing. She's very unlikable character.

She is. And you get like that idea of her being the idea of perfection, but it's also really interesting. It's interesting what her idea of femininity does to thinking about Harley. Like she's so obsessed with her image that she rations her smiles. Yeah. Like at her son, right? She doesn't smile at her son because she doesn't want to get wrinkles on her face. And often when Douglas is talking about Harley,

when he's kind of thinking about how she looks he thinks about how like his ex-wife always wanted clothes to do something for her and how she like dressed in a certain way and would buy him neutral clothes and things so that he didn't stand out and he kind of looks at Harley and things like she's not like a woman that he understands as feminine like she's this quite

so I thought it was really interesting having that other like and how unhappy how deeply unhappy yeah it's like very destructive obsession with perfection I know it kind of reminds reminded me, you know, if this novel was set, I don't know, like in present day, Felicity would be some kind of like influencer or something. Yeah. Oh, God, totally. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Kind of face tuning her Instagram pictures before and forgetting to pick her son up from school.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. I think what Charlotte just said is true in that when you compared them Felicity to Harley, it almost like it made Harley more beautiful in her, even though she's not like a, she's not fitting any of the cultural beauty ideals. the fact that she was more like just wild and rugged was more attractive than this kind of controlled perfect woman. The head dangerous streak, the dangerous streak that she has that she introduced herself with. And I think that's kind of the beautiful thing about this novel. It kind of shows you this alternate vision of what womanhood can be about. You know, that's so lovable as well because, you know, Douglas is obviously enamored with her. Yeah.

And what did you make about, well, I know we can't talk about the ending, but, you know, What did you make of the way their relationship kind of unfolded between Douglas and Harley? Did you think it was really believable? Yeah. Well, I thought it was really believable because they're so awkward. And there were so many moments where it could have not happened. And there's so many moments where you don't quite know what's going on. And I just thought the way they both have so much like baggage, but I don't mean,

I don't mean baggage in like a flippant way. Like they've both had these horrible things happen to them. And like, it's not just that they're in middle age when they go into this relationship. It's always they have this weight of all of this experience behind them. And that kind of sense of finding each other. I just, yeah, I thought it was really romantic. Yeah. Yeah, hopeful and optimistic.

And it felt honest as well. I think, yeah, that's sort of the trauma they've had and the fact they've both been so burned in the past as well. So you kind of know why they're so, what's the word I'm looking for, they kind of really, they've constrained themselves, kind of. So it's about that of them taking a risk. And I think sometimes as you get older, you do become more and more risk averse. And I think at the start of the novel, both Harley and Douglas have become incredibly set in their ways,

an incredibly risk averse. And obviously we can see this with Harley and the dog, like the way there is just this lovely, dog but she will not let this dog love her you know and I think that really sets up the whole part which is really will these characters allow themselves to be loved yeah yeah and I think that's such a powerful question especially if the people you're talking about are you know not the archetypal gorgeous young things who have everything to live for yeah and it imagine it ends with her imagining a very quiet sort of like she's she's sort of looking into the few but in this really, not limited, because that sounds negative, but in this very kind of

restrained way, like she's not imagining some sort of wonderful romantic, like a huge white wedding or something, right? She imagines the idea that, like, oh, he might come to visit me in Sydney. And it's such a nice, like, I don't know, I just feel like it's such a, such a hopeful ending. And you know what? It's so relatable, because personally speaking, as I get older, the less I think about of love as someone, I don't know, sweeping me off my feet and taking me on an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris, I just want someone who's going to take the bins out without me asking them to do it. Okay, so before we move on to the next book, let's hear from Rosie Boycott, the chair of the

judging panel from 2001. She tells us why the idea of perfection was picked that year. This is a strange little story about two. middle-aged, rather awkward people, the man who's called Douglas's ears stick out, and the woman who's called Harley, she's big, she's raw bones, she's rough, and she's very, very damaged. And they both see their lives as going to be single forever, and they're making the kind of necessary clampdowns and emotional adjustments, and they're scared.

What you care about in the book, and it is the politics of sexuality, actually, and it's the politics of humaneness. and about people being afraid, people being scared, people being very, very ginger about taking a small leap into the dark and the terror that you have about rejection. And I think that's really very fascinating in the book and very beautifully written. And I think that it's hard to imagine quite well if you read this book when you were 20,

but I certainly know when I was 20, I thought, well, gosh, by the time I'm 25, I won't feel things like rejection anymore. I won't have all these sleepless nights about men. But of course, it's absolutely rubbish. You'd actually have sleepless weeks. things get worse. And I think this book is very, very good because it does open up emotional vulnerability of people that aren't classically. You know, these aren't, these aren't glam heroines.

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Our second book is The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. This novel won the prize back in 2012. Gino, do you mind giving our audience a quick rundown of the story? Sure. So it is a retelling of a chunk of Greek mythology, which I was always a huge fan of as a child. If we were doing the Greeks or the Egyptians, I was fully on board. We look at a particular slice in the, I guess,

immediate 20 years in the run-up to the Trojan War, where from a distance we regard beautiful warrior Achilles as through the eyes of his young sidekick whose name, I'm probably going to say Lebrong Patrol class. And they start what is at first quite tentative, but then quite a hot and horny love affair, which is massively frowned upon by Achilles' mother, who is the amazing and demonic C-nymph Thetus,

who I think is my favorite character. And the novel takes us from the birth of Trollcus and, well, his disgracing of his family, basically, right the way through to the Trojan War. And of course, we all know how that plays out. I don't think you can't really spoil a Greek myth. But it's, I love it. I mean, maybe this, I think this book was,

massively helped by me reading it in Greece. Right. So I was like right there with them kind of in the baking heat and just wearing a shami leather. You know, I wasn't wearing a shami leather. But no, I just, I loved it. I mean, it's like the Avengers, but like the Greek myth remix. It's kind of it's action filled. And yeah, I guess at its heart, it's, it's a gay love story or at least a bisexual

love story and we don't have nearly enough of them. How familiar were you before you read the book with the myth herself? So do you know, I know you said you'd known it. What about the rest of you? I know nothing about Greek myths at all. Like this is probably the first thing I've ever read about anything to do with Greek myths. I'm so glad that you said that I also know absolutely nothing about group mythology. Like I didn't have a clue that I mean the books about Achilles. The only thing I know is Achilles Hill, so I assume it's a point of weakness. And then I don't even think that happened in the story. No, it doesn't. So I think I was in a, I was in a play in six form about Antigone, who I think is a Greek, is something to do with Greeks. But that was, that was

it. But yeah, yeah, the only thing I knew was the heel. And then. Same. We were reading it from the same place, Charlotte. See, I don't know. I mean, have you not seen Troy with Orlando Bloom and Brad Pitt. I mean, I feel this is such a scandal Clash of the Titans. I have not seen either of those. Yeah, gosh. Treat yourself. I have seen

300, but something tells me that's not very historically. They're all based on a Greek myth. No, no, it is that they're all, I mean, I, what I love about Greek mythology, and I think it was the amazing poet, Nikita Gill, who said there is no set canon for Greek mythology.

It's not like Star Wars or Harry Potter, Greek mythology were oral traditions as told from the times of Homer and Euripides. And so there isn't one agreed version. So whether you are literally reading Madeline Miller or Percy Jackson or 300, it's all fan fiction. And that's what I love about Greek and Egyptian mythology. It really is a gazillion different writers bringing their personality to the table. And I think that the song of Achilles is Madeleine Miller's retelling and you could read Natalie Haynes or you could read, you know, any number of people who are remixing these very old stories. I love the description of this as kind of fan fiction because I think fan fiction gets a really

bad rep sometimes, but I love this idea that there's no set canon and everyone's just bringing their own take to it. That's Nikita Gill. I stole Nikita Gill's tweet. Thanks, Nikita. full credit to the key to go. But I have to say, even though I don't know anything about Greek mythology, I mean, really this is just a story about two people falling in love and growing up together.

And it was very like, there was a real sense of humanity about it. And it wasn't as much, you know, war and myth as I thought it was going to be. And that was, some people criticised that. I think at the time, again, not naming names, but some men. didn't like that this wasn't 300 or it wasn't Jason and the Argonauts. And actually the battles and the fall of Troy is happening really, really far in the background. And Madeline Miller was clearly way more invested in telling the love story. And that's why I think this is a really important addition to the mythos.

And it's interesting because Madeline Miller was also nominated for Circe last year, which is a retelling of the myth of Circe, the Witch. And that book has really, really good reviews. Yes, a lot of people think it's better. And I am going back to Greece in September, COVID-allowing. And for what was meant to be my honeymoon. So the wedding hasn't happened. But I'm going to take Circe to Santorini in September, hopefully.

So I'll get back to you. You're going to love it. I loved Circe. It's such a fun read. But you also feel, because I don't know very much, much about Greek myth either, that you're learning stuff, which is what I love about Madeline Miller. Every time I read one of her books, I'm like, oh, I've learned so much about Greek mythology. I don't even know Latin.

What did you make of the love story? Did you find it convincing? Did you find it romantic? I really liked how teenage it was to start with. Like how, how can, because again, I really liked how Patrickus is, is like, he's incredibly awkward, right? he's massively awkward and there's lots of things going on there with like the difference in status between him and Achilles but also their different kind of physical prowess

and like he's I think he hits puberty quite late and you know he's like this kind of like little you know small boy who's kind of in the core and I really I just thought it was really well written in a kind of it felt realistic to me as a kind of teenage romance

and again how kind of tends to it is at the beginning and then there were a little bit lot of sex seats. It figures that me as a YA author would really, really love those early. And when they go off and spend some time in a cave with a centaur. And it's just, yeah,

it's super YA in a lot of ways, actually. I hadn't thought of that. That clears up a lot of things. Well, it's also like friends to lovers, right? And like there's a load of tropes in here, which you can see,

you can see how those tropes work in other romances, because this is some of the original. I guess not the original romance writing, the original story writing. You kind of see where those things come from. I thought this was also definitely the sexiest book of the three. Yes. I found it quite fascinating. I mean, I mostly read books written by women,

and most of the books I therefore read seem to be about women's stories. And I found it really fascinating to read a book that was written about two men written by a woman. It doesn't happen very often. So, yeah, it's quite fascinating. to read about a relationship between men for once or boys, I guess. I was just going to say, I thought that came across in the kind of female, the sort of female gazingness of it, in how much there is about, about their physical bodies.

Like, Achilles is really hot, right? Like, canonical. Oh, 100%. And she really leans into that. And she really writes, you know, she writes his hotness through his, through his, like, young male lover. So she writes this like appreciation of Achilles' body in a way that I thought was really interesting because it also comes across to me as being very like female or gazing like if you when when men write about women's bodies and you know they write about their bouncing breasts and whatever. Whereas it was all about his like rock hard abs and his like huge thigh muscles and things.

It's interesting. There is a bit of debate going on at the moment about the huge amount of amount of men. male, male love stories there are being written by women, particularly in a fan forum place. So this is, you know, charting back to Harry and Draco slash in Harry Potterland. There's an awful lot of it. And I think actually Patrick Ness made a very good point on his social media about how he can always tell when it's a cisgender straight woman writing gay sex versus an author like Garth Grenwell or David Leatherton or somebody like that. And I wonder if there's something to that. I wonder if there is something about the lived experience of gay men versus the slightly, I guess, pornographic nature of it sometimes.

But of course, that hasn't stopped male writers writing about all kinds of sex for a gazillion years. So maybe it's just payback. Yeah, maybe. I mean, it's interesting because one of the books that we've discussed here on the podcast was The Road Home by Rose Tremaine, which won the women's prize as well. and the lead character Lev is a Polish immigrant and he is canonically described in the book as being incredibly handsome and very sexy

and women throw themselves at him even though he feels quite awkward and out of place having moved to the UK and not really speaking much English and it's interesting how the author communicates that not through descriptions of how hot he is but in the responses that other characters have to him when you think oh oh they're talking about him they're talking about how handsome he is

and I'm wondering if you know it's interesting to see the different ways where an author might establish that someone is really, really hot or sexy. It's also, I mean, Achilles knows he's hot as well. Yeah. And it's interesting the way she writes that as well. Like, because she writes, she writes, like, Petrochus, like, she writes his, his, like, appreciation of Achilles' looks, but she also, you know, I think Achilles is quite an ambivalent. He was, I was quite ambivalent about him in this book. And he has, I mean, Pacholkhas doesn't have a word to describe himself or what he's feeling. So what comes across mostly is his preoccupation, I guess, with Achilles.

And it starts off as kind of like hero worship, but then very quickly takes on a more sexual tone. But, you know, these people don't have words like gay or bisexual. And there's only really Thetis' disapproval that that's not what she wants for her son. that even hints that anything is out of the ordinary. I think it's interesting because there is the moment where they're going out to the like base camp and they've been set up with one tent for the both of them. And they're quite surprised that these other gods know there's something going on between them and they don't seem to judge them particularly.

And they kind of say, oh, this is often something that young boys indulge in, but a lot of people have kind of outgrown it by this point. And it's as if what is unusual is that they're kind of still. And like at different points Petroplus talks about feeling kind of like they're in their 20s right by the end of the thing and they talk about but he talks about feeling still kind of like a teenager

and not quite feeling like an adult and not quite feeling like because he knows that he doesn't want to he knows that he thinks Achilles is going to die and he knows that he's not going to be able to kind of live the rest of his life with him so he's talking about the future and the end is all you know like the end of the book is always looming

because he kind of there's one's forecast what's happening at the end. So you just read the whole book waiting for that ending. Oh, those tricky, tricky prophecies. Before we move on to our final book, here's Joanna Trollope, the author and the chair of judges in 2012. And she tells us why the panel was captivated by the Song of Achilles. It's the story which is in the Iliad, in Homer's Iliad.

It's the story of Achilles, who was, of course, you know, the hero of all heroes in Greek mythology and Greek history. But it's his unspoken, it's not ever quite specified, his love affair with a young man called Petroclos. And neither Madeline Miller nor Homer spell it out that this is the case. But it plainly is. And what is so brilliant about it is it isn't just that you get an idea of the relationship and the history and the period and exactly what young men in that situation would have, what their daily life would have been like, how they were schooled, what they ate, what they wore. But also because Achilles' mother in the Iliad is a goddess. and after Protroclos' death

and Achilles refuses to have the body burnt he keeps it in his tent and weeps over it Protroclos' presence is still there at the end of this novel and Madeline Miller manages to weave in what is mythical, what is story, what is legend. So this book is intensely dramatic in its presentation and that makes it extremely gripping too. So yes, the love affair is there, but it's not dominant.

You get caught up in the entire world of ancient Greece. It's as powerful as the love affair in itself. And the love affair is not physically detailed. The sense of romance and intimacy is much stronger than the sex. Our final book for today's episode of Reading Women is an American Marriage by Tayari Jones. Out of our three books, this was today's most recent winner. It won the prize only last year.

So before we dive in, Sophie, do you mind giving our listeners a quick summary of the book? Yeah, so an American marriage tells the story of a young newlywed couple in America. And the guy Roy is wrongly convicted of a rape he didn't do and sentenced to five years in jail. and it tells the kind of dissects a relationship between Celestial and Roy. It's written with like a dual narrative, so it's in first person from one to the other. And it probes issues of race and injustice and explores what it means to be black in America. It looks at like the injustice of mass incarceration. Yeah.

What did you guys make of this book? It was my least favorite of the three, but that might have been because I was really, really excited and quite hyped up to read it. I loved lots of things about it. I loved the portrayal of their family life. I thought that was really well drawn. Celestial is more middle class than Roy, and I liked that comparison.

And in some ways, this is a novel about class as much as race, I thought in some ways, which I found really, really interesting. What I stuggled with a bit was what it chose to show and what it chose to conceal. And some of the most vital stuff in this novel, which basically I think it's fair to say that while Roy is incarcerated, Celestial gets together with her childhood friend, this all kind of happens off screen.

And so I must admit, I couldn't quite connect to the story because Celestial's betrayal, if it is a betrayal, kind of you don't get to see it. And I found that to be a really interesting choice. Discuss. I really liked it. But I think part of what I really liked about it was Celestial.

Celestrials kind of... Ambivalence is the wrong word, because I don't think she's ambivalent about her marriage or about love. But her way of thinking about love and relationships is something that you have to kind of control. or something that she doesn't want to be kind of consumed by. She has other aspects to her. Like there's a bit where like, I think both her dad and also her friends say to her husband,

you know, you might have been married to her, but she wasn't your wife. Like you didn't possess her. And I thought I really, I don't know, I really liked it as a book which thought about a women's agency. Yeah. In romantic relationships. Yeah, I absolutely loved it. I mean, the first hundred pages or so is basically written in kind of love letters between them while he's in his first five years of Jail and I just got completely invested in their relationship.

Yeah, I was so hoped. But I agree with what Juno said. It was kind of, although there were a few kind of narratives told by André, it was hard to understand that relationship as much because we're obviously hearing Celestial and Roy's perspective so often to not hear as much from Andre was like I didn't really connect with his character. I think I never ever say this. I'm the least likely person to say this in the world, but I could have done with it being longer.

That time, the five years he spends in jail is quite a small slither of the book. And the majority of the book is what happens on his release when he is released to discover Celestial has got together with someone else. And actually I could have done with that five years, being told in slightly more depth, I think, so that then we could have really seen basically Celestial fall in love, which is what I, that's the bit I missed, I think.

I think it's interesting because when I was reading it, what I didn't quite understand was, you know, this expectation that Celestia would wait, despite the fact that the, you know, the facts of the case and whether or not Roy would be able to leave early, we're all up in the air. And, you know, if I went to prison, falsely accused, I would kind of be like, well, I will handle this myself. And, you know, if I had a partner, my partner would, I would just be like, well, you don't have to wait for me because we don't know what's going to happen.

And I felt like if maybe those five years felt longer in the book, you might understand why Celestia was like, oh my God, I can't wait. I'm falling in love for someone else. I think it all very truthful. I think the letters, so the period when he's incarcerated is told as letters. And the way they switched from being, you know, deeply committed and very in love to actually becoming quite spiky with one another. And then Roy's like, never write me ever again. And then she doesn't.

So then he gets cross. It felt honest. I could have just maybe done with more time in that section of the novel. So what I really, what I really liked about it was the different kind of romantic relationship. So she has this like very, very long term friendship with Andre. They've kind of grown up together. And then that turns into a romantic relationship. She has this very kind of tumultuous, but not tumultuous, but this very fast kind of courtship with Roy.

Like they get engaged before she's even met his parents. Yeah. It's quite a precarious marriage, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. He's flirting with other women and. Yeah. Which is kind of glossed over, right? there's a few times where he's like, oh, like one time she found a receipt for two items of lingerie

and I'd only give him her one. And I was like, that's, that's really cheating. And I wonder, like, if you look at Roy and Celestiel's relationship even before he was incarcerated, like actually was it a bit of a toxic relationship or are those things just like, is that normal life? That's the thing. Like, I felt like she was meant to be with Andre. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Right. But then there's also the relationship between Roy's parents and how, like, like his kind of his parents and with his mother and her new husband and like Andre's dad's. And there's just so many different romantic relationships in here.

And I thought that was really beautiful. I thought the family scenes were phenomenal. I thought that the scene where Celestial takes Andre home to explain that he's proposed to her was electric. Yeah. I thought Big Roy was an amazing character as well. Yeah. And Roy's dad. I mean, explored kind of fatherhood and motherhood.

from many different angles because there's Roy, who's like Roy Jr. who's adopted, and then you meet his real dad, and then there's Celestio who's had two abortions, and, you know, there's all these different kind of themes of motherhood and fatherhood kind of throughout the book. Yeah, and the dolls that she makes is making for the babies, yeah. And just picking up on what I think, Juno, you said about class, and I think that really comes across to me quite strongly in the book, because they come from different classes, essentially. Roy's pretty much working class, and Celestio's middle class. And, and there's, you know, tensions over the expectations about over the role of a husband and wife. So Roy wants Celestio to stay and wait for him and he wants to get out and provide for her, but she's like,

no, I'm going to do this on my own two feet. Thank you. Yeah, I think that you can see that resentment creeping in from Roy as well. And I think I am in a relationship where I earn more than my partner. And it's something that, you know, I've had to negotiate as much as my partner. but I think if you are a woman who is out earning your male partner, it is still in the year of our lodge 2020, it is notable. And people will comment on it in a way that I don't think they would if my partner was earning more than me.

So I think, you know, as soon as Celestials, Puppets start doing well, and she becomes, I think she's in New York magazine or something. She's in Ebony. She's in Ebony magazine, that's right. As soon as she becomes this like celebrity, you can see there is, resentment starting within Ryan. And of course, that's kind of, I guess, like a totem for the fact that she was already from a higher class than he was growing up. And I think it's why it also speaks to slightly mass, maybe I'm generalising here, but masculine fear that, you know, your woman, you know, I'm going to like put your, in like inverted quotes here, can't be seen to be more successful

than you or like out-earning you or doing better than you because you are supposed to be the breadwinner of the family. The minute I saw that Celestia was in Ebony magazine, I was like this is the beginning of the end. And it also like it picks up on that thing again, right, that she wasn't his wife. Like she wants her agency, she wants to hold on to her independence and the money is like part of that. And I thought I thought the book was also really good on underlining how like money can't buy you out of the racism of the American system generally or the prison system. That like actually Roy gets arrested when he keeps saying right.

Like I got to a point where my job paid more than my. bills and I had a nice car and we were about to buy a new house and we were going to have kids and he'd like got to the most successful point in his life and that was the moment at which he gets wrongfully accused. Yeah, it's just like it kind of shows you if you're a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time in America then it doesn't really matter if you're successful. Yeah. Yeah, it reminded me a lot of something that happened. I think just this week where the editor of British Rogue Edward Ennifor was racially profiled when he got into his office and was asked to enter through the loading bay. I was so horrified by that. And then can you imagine when I saw Edward

tweet that I was like how can the editor of British Vogue what just I was aghast but again possibly maybe I shouldn't be. Yeah I think I think that what this book does really well like you said you know it really shows that money status class power you know sometimes there's no match against institutional racism. Yeah the kind of I was just just say the weight of history as well that's sitting on it. Like at different points where they talk about class, like Roy is like, oh, my great-grandpa, my grandparents pick cotton or something in that sense of kind of that particular like embedded history of oppression.

The week before I read this, I'd watched When They See Us, is that what it's called on Netflix? I've known on that. Which tells the story of like five kids in New York who are wrongly incarcerated for rape as well and it's similar themes. But yeah, it's, I don't think it's an unusual story. What happens here? Yeah, I can completely see why it won the prize last year

because the themes that it talks about is so current. Yeah, and so current, especially now. And I applaud her as well for the characters don't do what you would expect them to do. Like you would expect in a lot of novels, Celestial would have done a lot more hand-wringing. I think the choices particularly with Celestial were quite brave because, again, she's not warm. I didn't find her woman. I think there would have been a temptation of a lazier editor to say, well, let's, let's make her more relatable. Let's make her more sympathetic. And I think actually it's a better novel for not making her cuddly. Yeah. She's like focusing on her career and just kind of doing her own thing. I really agree. So what did you make of reading all these books together? Did you kind of feel like you preferred one of them or did you feel like one of them really communicated the theme of?

of love more. I think Song of Achilles was my favorite. I just whipped through it, sat by a pool while slightly daytime drunk. So, I mean, that one was probably always going to win. I think the real surprise for me was the idea of perfection, which I must admit, from the blurb, I was like, oh my gosh, this is not going to be my cup of tea. And I absolutely loved it.

Yeah. So I loved American marriage and flew through it and kind of read it first because I knew I'd love it. And then the surprise for me as well was an idea of perfection. because yeah, I just, I, I loved, I thought it was really, really refreshing compared to a lot of other books I've read. But I will be honest and say that I am still not a huge fan of Greek mythology. You're forgiven, don't worry. I appreciate the book, and I think I did really enjoy reading it, but it's just not my cup of tea.

I was surprised at how accessible I found it because I was quite intimidated by the idea of reading it. And I think I hadn't read it before, and I hadn't read, which I'm now definitely going to read, because I had just sort of assumed I wouldn't, I was like, I'm never going to be able to keep track of all of the characters. Like, it's going to be really complicated. And because, yeah, I don't really know the myth behind them. And I liked it.

And I also thought it has quite a lot of quite short chapters, which I, which I liked. I loved all three of them. Although I must say, like, obviously the theme is love. Like, they're all love stories, but they're also all love stories where, like, terrible horrible things happen. Like Harley's kind of,

particularly her most recent marriage, how that ended and the kind of revelation about how that ended is so visceral and traumatic and upsetting. Song of Achilles obviously has the prophecy of Achilles death hanging over pretty much the whole thing. American marriage has this kind of, you know, this wrongful incarceration and these kind of, and the deep trauma of it.

Like I thought all three books were incredibly traumatic. Maybe love is traumatic. Yeah. I mean, fair. That's true. Did any of the books change your perspective on anything? I was actually, the one thing that got me on, I don't know if the stats are different in America,

but was that he actually went to jail for five years for a rape, whether he committed a rape or not, just because the stats on going to prison for rape and the UK are so low. So I was kind of, I don't know if maybe it's a higher stat or maybe it was just because a race thing. I don't know. I think I must admit up until maybe Orange is the New Black came along.

And I think Orange is the New Black started in like 2012. And I knew next to nothing about the American penal system. I think I'd maybe seen that Louis Theroux documentary. I think British prisons are a sham and we desperately need to reform the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom. But I think while we have it bad in this country, the United States of America is. It's a mess. And mass incarceration is an urgent, urgent problem with racism at its heart. And I think an American marriage is one more piece of really vital culture that is talking about something that radically needs changing in America.

I also, like, I realized at the end of the book, it never actually says the race of the woman who's accused of raping, but I had just assumed she was white. Yeah, same thing. Right, that that is what explains the fact that he's sentenced to 12 years and he gets out after five, right? She's a white woman and what he comes up against is the racism of the prison system rather than any kind of sense of justice for kind of sexual violence or anything. Yeah, I agree. I feel like until I'd read an American marriage,

I hadn't actually read that many books about the American incarceration system. So obviously I'd seen Orange and New Black and seen documentaries. But I feel like this was the first work of literature where I was like, I understand the emotional kind of fallout that someone being sent to prison wrongfully as well can enact on, you know, not just them, but their whole families and their whole lives. Which is why maybe I just wish that section had been longer. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I can have a bit longer too. I think if I was going to recommend one of these books to a friend, it would be an American marriage just because I think it was very easy to read and quite educational. But I think idea of perfection might be my secret favourite. So which book do you think you remember in years' time? Oh, I think, yeah, I think an idea of perfection, because had I not been doing this podcast,

I would not have picked up that book, whereas now I'm going to be recommending it's my friends. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think, can I say all of them? You can say all of them. I feel like it was like a really, I was surprised I hadn't read the two I hadn't read before. Like, when I read the blurbs, I was like, these books both sound like interesting and great.

and I, you know, I'm really excited to read them. The idea of perfection, because I read it a year ago, and I read it in Australia, it was funny coming back to it because I had actually completely forgotten about the Felicity storyline. And I was surprised when she appeared in the book and was like, oh yeah, this is actually quite an important part of the plot

that I had just eradicated. But yeah, I thought all of them were really brilliant. Yeah, if I was going to remember one, probably in American marriage, just because I think it was a really, powerful story and yeah I think I read it in two or three days so I remember at the time of reading it I was like oh it's probably like the best book I've read this year well I think that brings us to the end of the episode sadly thank you so much for joining me sophie charlotte and juno

thank you for having you i'm zing sing and you've been listening to the women's prize for fiction podcast brought to you by bailey's and produced by bird lime media you definitely want to head to our website to find out more about the Reading Women Challenge. You can now vote for your favourite Women's Prize winning novel of the last 25 years and help us crown our winner of winners this autumn. Plus, check out the hashtag Reading Women on Instagram and Twitter to join in on a conversation around the 24 brilliant past winners of the Women's Prize. Join us next time for a very special book club, which is all about reclaim her name, a 25 book collection, Bayleys, have reprinted with a twist.

Throughout history, female writers have had to write under male pen names for their work to be published or taken seriously. The Reclaim Her Name Collection aims to give these women the credit they deserve. We'll be exploring issues of gender equality in publishing, including challenges we faced while looking for BAME writers. Plus, we'll be shining a spotlight on some truly brilliant female authors. You don't want to miss it. See you next time.

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