Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S2 Ep17: #ReadingWomen: Girlhood

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Zing Tsjeng is joined by Poorna Bell, an award winning journalist and the author of Chasing the Rainbow and In Search of Silence, Salma El-Wardany, a writer, spoken word artist and public speaker and JJ Bola, a writer and poet, who has released three collections of poetry as well as a novel and a non-fiction book about masculinity and patriarchy for young people. The theme of today's #ReadingWomen book club is girlhood. The reading list: A Crime in the Neighbourhood by Suzanne Berne, 1999 A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride, 2014 The Power by Naomi Alderman, 2017 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. The Women's Prize for Fiction podcast is produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Ben Bailey Smith, and this is a prison's guide too, a new podcast series from ACAS creative, along with HM Prison and Probation Service, a guide not from CEOs, entrepreneurs or celebrities, but from some more overlooked sources of inspiration, the people who work for the prison service across England and Wales. A prison's guide too. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Weminespriceforfiction.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, our fortnightly reminder that we are still practicing social distancing. So this recording is being done remotely. So please bear with us when it comes to any minor sound issues. I am joined today by some great guests.

Poinabal is an award-winning journalist and the author of Chasing the Rainbow and in Search of Silence. Salma Al-Woderni is a writer, spoken word artist and public speaker, and J.J. Bola is a writer and poet. He's released three collections of poetry as well as a novel and a non-fiction book about masculinity and patriarchy for young people. Welcome to the podcast, everyone.

Hi. So today's book club theme is Girlhood, and we have three excellent past winners to explore it. They are A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Byrne from 99, The Girl is a Half-Wled thing by Emma McBride from 2014, and The Power by Naomi Alderman from 2017. So three very different books, but all related to girlhood and girls.

How did you find reading all these three books? I actually started with the power. Then I went on to crime in the neighbourhood and finally a girl is a half-formed thing. It's kind of like, you know, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Like I absolutely love the power. I thought that it was an incredible book.

Liked Crime in the Neighborhood. And unfortunately, I just couldn't, I couldn't start. or get into a girl as a half-formed thing. And I had quite a, like quite a visceral reaction to it, actually, which I've never had before while reading a book. So I'm really interested to talk more about that and just to find out why I had that reaction to it

and what everyone else thinks. Interesting. Well, this episode is definitely one way we can start unpacking that because it is a very, it's a very different book to the other two that we're discussing today. JJ, how did you find? reading these three books? It was really, really interesting. It was quite, for some of the books, a transcendental experience, I think. I just kind of forced me to come out of my own kind of experience

and identity as well. But for me, a girl is a half-formed thing and the power were my favourite. And yeah, they're especially half-formed, like that really kind of like blew my mind in many ways. Wow. So I think you'll have a lot to discuss with Poena on this episode. Samma, how did you enjoy them together as a trio? It was honestly an emotional roller coaster. I think what Poena said just there was so spot on. It had highs and it had lows. And I adored the power. I love it. I just love everything about it. And a girl is a half-bom thing made me want to throw it across the room at whatever I possibly could that would make a smashing sound. and then a crime in the neighbourhood

was just a really interesting exploration to a very specific time in history that I really got a feel for. So it was honestly, it was tumultuous, I'm not going to lie. And what about your experience of reading all three of these books together? I don't know if you mentioned

the order you read them in. I think it's interesting that Poena picked up on the order she read them in because I feel like sometimes that colours your experience of the whole kind of trio of books. Yeah, that's true. So for me I started with a girl as a half-form

thing and then the power and I finished with a crime in the neighbourhood. I always, I did that intentionally because I feel like I wanted to read the biggest book second because that was like the uphill struggle. So once you're over that, then the last book is going to seem easier. But yeah, I didn't really have a strategy beyond that. And I'm not sure whether or not that differentiated my experiences from the others. all, but they were all really interesting anyway. Salma, what about you?

Did you feel like the order you read them and kind of coloured your experience? So I started with the power, went to a girl as a half-on thing, and then a crime in the neighbourhood. And I want to say it didn't. I think for me, I very much took them just as they were not informed by each other or book-ended by each other. It was just a really nice way. And I kind of just went with what I would, kind of what I was drawn to.

So I went, oh my God, the power absolutely. And a girl is a half-formed thing. I think that entire title is amazing, as incredible, is a poem in itself. And it made me want to pick it up and read it. And a crime in the neighbourhood was like the least exciting title for me, which is why I read it last. Oh, interesting. Well, we're going to start with a crime in the neighbourhood first because it's the earliest winner.

So it was written by Suzanne Byrne in 1999. nine and it explores the theme of girlhood from a really interesting, almost true crime perspective, I'd say. Pona, can you give us a quick summary of the plot? Yeah, sure. So it's set in the summer, which is something that comes throughout in all of the descriptions that you read in this book. And it's about three things that have happened in this young girl's life. She's 10 years old. So, you know, her father has run away with her aunt. There's a young boy who went to the same school as her. and a siblings who's found molested and murdered. And at the same time, in the background of all of this,

you've also got Watergate, which is happening at the same time, and it's in the news. What you see is, without obviously giving any spoilers, is that you see these three things happen all at the same time. The murder is kind of front and center to that, but he's also got this neighbor who's moved in who there's a sort of suspicion cast upon him and whether or not he was actually involved. And you see the entire thing through Marsha's eyes.

And Marsha's the 10-year-old narrator. She is. So, yeah, and in this family, Marcia's the youngest child. She's got two older siblings who are twins who make her life for terror. And, you know, she's in the house with her mother and her father has left them to run away with her mother's sister. Oh, very, very Edipal Greek myth level tragedy. So what did you make of this book? I mean, the thing is, the style of it is a style of American literature that I actually really love and that I made a point of studying when I was at university because,

there's a certain tone to it, there's a certain readability about it. And there's a style in which, you know, just very everyday things, whether that's the kind of food that you're eating, what the weather is like and so on is described, that I actually find, it sounds strange to say this, given, you know, what the storyline is and the fact that it does open with the murder, which is just the thing that instantly just grabs your attention.

but there's a way in certain types of American literature where they're able to describe everyday things in a way that's actually just quite soothing and quite kind of, I think, quite calming and done in a way that isn't particularly boring or banal. In terms of how I found the book, I found that it started with a really, really good pace. So, you know, from the moment,

I kind of turned the first page, I was really invested in it and I just wanted to keep reading. What I found is that although I think the author manages those three storylines that weave into each other really well, I found that it kind of lost a bit of pace, to be honest, in the middle of it, but then it picks up actually, I would say about three quarters away from the end when you've kind of got the suspicion that's on Mr. Green, who's the single, the bachelor neighbor who has moved into this,

affluent neighbourhood. On balance, I would say that I enjoyed reading it. Would I say that I loved it as a book? Probably not. Interesting. So JJ, I could hear you kind of agreeing in the background there about the pace of the novel. Yeah, I really felt the same, especially at the beginning. I mean, I was pulled right in instantly. It almost had a kind of friller type of vibe. And, um, and especially with that crime background, but I feel like it lost momentum and probably got set a bit too much in the ordinary and the mundane at the time.

And I guess because it was set in such a long time ago that it probably, I don't know, wasn't as interesting for my millennial overactive brain that needs some gratification every two seconds. So, yeah, I only found it picking back up a little bit later on near at the end. And especially the ending was quite poignant, I think, too. No spoilers or anything.

We try and avoid them. But, Samo, what did you make of it? Do you agree with JJ and Puno about the pacing of the novel? I'm so glad you just said no spoilers, because I was definitely about to release a lot of spoilers. Right. We try not to as much as possible. Okay, good to know.

I agree with both JJ and Pud. You're actually right. the beginning of this book, I think it has one of the best opening chapters. That first chapter one is incredible and you're straight in it. Even the way chapter one ends, I was like, oh, this is thrilling.

I get what you're saying about the pace. It didn't bother me that much. I think, again, and you know, you just said this earlier, Buena, is that there is something about American literature and certain American novels that describe the everyday so well. And it really, like, pulled me back

to, like, Catcher in the Ride, to the Belcher. It pulled me back to those kind of novels. And there is something about the heat off the pavement in America that always comes through in these novels. And you really feel it. And as I was going through this, I felt like I was just being pulled into this really hot summer. And it did get a little bit slower. But it was just like the heat of the summer and what was going on and has speculations of what had or who had caused this crime in the neighborhood, right? Just kind of wade down as I waded through the book. So it didn't bother me that it slowed down at all. But in a similar vein, I thought it was a nice read.

I was wondering what you guys made of the setting. So it's really specific. It's in the 70s during Watergate. And I kind of feel like that was almost a deliberate choice to kind of set it in this real time when Americans sort of lost their innocence about how corrupt their government could be. I mean, I've found that actually what the backdrop of Watergate

what it gave to the novel was actually for me, I felt that it was a lesson in that it's kind of, like if you're looking at girlhood as a theme, you know, it's that cusp between things that are very innocent and that, you know, are caught in this bubble of, most of us know what a long summer feels like as a school child, right? And I felt like there was the sort of bubble of what a summer feels like, but then you've got Watergate, which is this huge thing that's

happening, you know, in the kind of wider sense of the world, that's this allusion to what actually is happening in the real world. And that kind of, I guess, that juxtaposition of just, sorry, I can't believe I use the word juxtaposition, but yeah, that sort of contrast between, you know, the sort of the really small, safe world of Marcia, which is, you know, isn't safe at all because obviously, you know, this horrendous murder has happened with what's actually going out in the real, going on in the real world where horrible things happen all the time. That's, that's, I think, what my interpretation of it was. What about you, JJ? To be honest, Watergate didn't really feature so much in the front of my kind of conscience when I was

reading it. It definitely set the tone or the backdrop of the story. But I think as a story, as a story went on. I was more concerned about the environment that it was set in and what was happening for the girls and particularly the relationship between them and their father was something that was really more invested in. And oh, I was always going to give away a spoiler there. I had to check myself a minute. Wow. And I guess for me, and this is also how perhaps more so how I read novels. I like to look up more the relationships between people rather than the political commentary, although that is obviously an undertone. Samma, how big was Watergate in your reading of the novel? How much did it feature? Yeah, it was always there at the back of my mind, to be honest. And then maybe I've

cursed by being a lifetime literary student is that I look too much into things. But for me, me, you know, because the Watergate scandal builds throughout the novel, you know, it's first mentioned, and then it's her mother reading it out and reading out from the paper what's been happening at the breakfast table and the latest headlines from it. And it just, and it, for me, it builds. And it was really about things spiraling out of control. And, you know, the Watergate scandal is building at the same time as she's building and writing in her notebook and she's observing everything and she's marking the time Mr. Green goes, gets home from work. And she's marking who passed by the house. And this like,

deeply analytical behavior that she's suddenly taken, and that starts to escalate, and it feels like it escalates at the same time as Watergate scandal is escalating across the country. And it's as if the two are kind of informed by each other and feeding into each other, and she feeds off that, especially when her mother's reading it out at the breakfast table, and then it feeds into her idea that she is about to uncover something absolutely huge that will be a similar scandal, and she'll hold all the answers. So for me, it very much tied all in with her mentality and where our protagonist was at? Is that I'm not being overly analytical about this?

No, I think that's a really astute reading. I mean, it's sort of like a very depressing Harriet the Spy kind of novel in one sense where terrible things happen because, you know, it turns out Harriet the Spy, Marsha isn't that great a spy after all. Oh, I came very close to releasing a spoiler there. I was wondering, you know, what did you guys make of the way it portrayed Marsha? because I always think writing children, especially, you know, Marsha's 10 years old in the novel,

it's always quite tricky because you don't want to make them too worldly and too adult because then it kind of strains credulity. Did you think that she made for a believable 10 year old? I actually, I did. I thought that she was really believable as a 10 year old. I think that, you know, her mannerisms to me, because sometimes I feel like,

especially, you know, if you're kind of looking at, that it does cut away to her being, which I don't feel as a spoiler. You know, it does cut away to her being an adult at the end of the book. Yeah. I definitely did feel that there was a distinction of how she views things as a child

and was written, for me anyway, from the viewpoint of being a child rather than what you usually get, which is, you know, this sense of worldliness and this insight which a 10-year-old is just never going to have. And I just even feel like how she, interacts and responds and the dialogue between adults when Marsha's 10, I found that, you know, that kind of, that sort of slight intangible gap between when a child is talking,

what they perceive the communication is from the adult and what the adult actually is thinking or doing and so on. And I felt like that was actually captured really well. And I also, I think that, I don't know if this is connected to what you just asked me, but I really like the fact that so Boyd Ellison, who is the name of the child who you find out at the very beginning of the book is the one that has been murdered

isn't sort of you know kind of turned into this saintly character like you actually get this very accurate picture of who he is as a child and why he wasn't actually a very nice child at all and I felt that while sometimes that did flicker

into the observation of Boyd Ellison and as a child, I felt was possibly a little bit adult, you know, like as in the actual analysis of his behaviour and the thought process behind it, you didn't get a lot of that. So I felt like that wasn't in danger of falling down that pit of, you know, is it a 10-year-old or is it actually an adult person, you know, writing a 10-year-old? JJ, what do you think?

I think especially as well, writing as a writing from an adult's perspective, trying to put yourself in the mindset of a 10-year-old girl is not very easy, is it? No. To be honest, for me, I really kind of like struggle to relate to or even believe that it was a 10 year old girl, the rating. I think she kind of showed a bit too much self-awareness and awareness of people and relationship dynamics, particularly if you look at trying to avoid spoilers here also, but the relationship with her father and her mother. and their siblings, her aunties and so forth as well. But one of the things that I guess, I could say that was positive about the narration was that it was consistent. And although it wasn't necessarily believable for me

that it was a child of that age, but throughout that remained a child's character. And so you could kind of grow on the journey with the protagonist as well, as opposed to them being a kind of like unreliable narrator. Samar, what did you think of Marsha as a character? I thought she was so interesting. And she has these really like devious, terrible thoughts that I thought were pretty on the money,

to be honest. Like when you're a 10 year old girl and you're watching things happen, I've been the 10 year old girl who's like sat at the top of the banisters because I want to hear what the adults are saying downstairs or I sneak into. somewhere to find out what conversations were going on, not really understanding the wider context of what those conversations might mean, but knowing that something was being said in hushed whispers and somehow you wanted to do whatever you could to find out what that was. So I get those bits of her. I think actually, as a young girl, you're so often excluded from the conversation.

You're excluded from playing with your big brother. I had a big brother, right? You're excluded with your big brother and his friends, and you're excluded from when the adults sit down to talk about things and then you're you're just excluded from things a lot so you do get this like undercurrent of like furrowing around trying to find stuff that just captures your attention and that really came out for me with her and I really got that and there's these moments when you know you're in that age where you haven't got your entire morality and your framework settled you're learning you're exploring you push at things you're pushing further than when you were younger because things are starting to mean something but you don't know what they mean and I think it's a really incredible

point in the book. The bit where she is with Boyd, and she has this flashback, and she's with Boyd and a friend, and they are looking at this bug, and they kill this bug, and then her brother comes up and, like, shout to all of them

for killing this bug for no reason. They're all staring at this bug with this, like, curiosity, this morbid curiosity. And it says in the book, and this is her narrating it, and she says, at that moment,

in the face of my brother's gleaming outrage, and faced with the prospect of my mother's contempt and fury once she heard about this, episode, I hated Boyd Ellison more than I have ever hated anyone in my life. And she goes on to say, I wish I had something to throw at him. And then it goes, I wanted to kick him, smash him square in the face and knock him down. I wanted to make him pay for showing me what I had wanted so much to see. And that for me really like hit on a young age where you want to see things, but you kind of know they're not right, but you're not sure why they're not right. But you're also afraid of

getting caught out, but you don't know why. And you kind of play with this morality as you're learning about yourself and growing up. And so I don't know. I thought it was really interesting where she came from. And I believed her. I never found her age to be a problem. I never thought this is unrealistic. I just thought, yeah, that really confusing, morbid curiosity that you have about everything and you don't have the answers or anyone to guide you there, but there's these weird questions floating around. Oh, I think definitely that comes across in the books. And also it's that idea of, you know, young girls having this kind of incredible kind of passions and feelings and emotions and sudden rages and hatreds. You know, in the power, which we'll talk about later on, it manifests itself as literal electrical charges.

So I think it's a really interesting thing to pick up on. Right. And like that bit that she says where she's like, I felt disgusted with myself, but I knew I wanted it. Like that is, God, that is just so on the money for me about, like you said, those rages and those emotions. we feel. And she's a young girl. She's coming into desire, into her body, into what that means, into how she processes the world. And at the time, that is just a, that is just a cacophony of terrible emotions. Oh, yeah. I think terrible emotions pretty much sums up most of my teenage life. So before we move on to the next book, let's hear from Lola Young. She was the chair of the judging panel in 1999. And she tells us why a crime in the neighborhood was picked that year as

the winner. The opening passage where the woman has parked her car and she hears this sound, she thinks it's a cat mewing, I think. And in fact, it's the last kind of sounds that the child is making. So it's that moment where you see the woman and you kind of, I'm sort of willing her to, you know, find the child whilst he's still alive. I mean, it sounds quite heartless to say that the murder of a child, a boy, is almost incidental. It's not incidental in terms of it. It's impact on everybody concerned, but it's incidental in terms of the plot. As I say, we're not looking, or she doesn't try and say, you know, we're going to find the murderer who done it and how it was done. And I think it's a real achievement to kind of hold that, have that at the centre of the

text without it kind of dominating everything in an unsubtle way. This podcast is made in partnership with Bailey's Irish cream. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize of fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bailey's is the perfect adult treat whether in coffee or ice cream or paired with your favorite book.

Look no further for the dreamiest summer treat. Strawberries and cream combines ripe strawberry flavor with the creamy delicious taste of Baileys so don't forget to treat yourself by pouring the ultimate dessert over your eaten mess air. a picnic in the park, or maybe just in your back garden over ice with your most adored book. Now that's our idea of living summer best. I'm Ben Bailey Smith, and this is a prison's guide too.

A new podcast series from ACAS Creative, along with HM Prison and Probation Service. A guide not from CEOs, entrepreneurs or celebrities, but from some more overlooked sources of inspiration, the people who work for the prison service across England and Wales. A Prison's Guide 2. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. Remember, you can join in the discussion by using the hashtag Reading Women. And our second book is A Girl is a Half-Fformed Thing by Emma McBride. This novel won the prize back in 2014. JJ, do you mind giving our audience a quick rundown of the story?

Yeah, sure. So I really enjoyed reading this book. It's a story, well, about a young woman coming of age. and the relationship with her and her brother and her mother. And how that kind of transcends into her teenagers and the relationship that she has with the men around her. And especially on a physical level and a non-physical level as well. The thing is with this book, it's really difficult to talk about it without giving spoilers.

one of the beautiful things about it is that it's set in Ireland and it's written in essentially kind of like a local dialect which I found absolutely riveting to read. It was definitely challenging, but it kind of gave me a Zora, Neil Hurston type of feel to it, if anyone's read their eyes were watching God. So it kind of compelled you to live in a story

that you knew wasn't directly your own, but you found, you try to at least find yourself within the narratives and I would say that at every turn of the book there was something that surprised you about the narrator and the relationship that she has

with herself and as well with the people around her and if I'm to be frank it kind of made me hate men for a bit longer than I intended to so yeah I really really enjoyed reading this Interesting. What did you, what did you guys make of it, Puna and Salma? Oh, Salma, do you want to go for?

We're on a similar sentence. I, I hated it, honestly. Am I allowed to say that on a little podcast? You can, you know, you can completely say it. I mean, and I'm saying this, I hate it's a cool word. That's not an actual attack on the author. But I'm no doubt she's remarkable. She's remarkable to have elicited such emotion in me.

And I think it's the job of a writer. And certainly what I think about my writing, my job as a writer is to make people feel something. That is it. Whether that emotion is positive or negative is not for me to say. She has absolutely filled her role as a writer. She made me feel so much. She made me question.

She made me look at the literary form. She made me analyze it. She made me ask myself, is this what you like in literature? And should you be evolving more? So as an author, she absolutely did everything and she did it magnificently. As a novel and a body of work, I did. I really hated it.

It felt like I couldn't get access to the heart of the character. And that's difficult. It's hard to write an entire novel and be disconnected from the character and the protagonist. But because of the disjointed style that she has written this book in, And because it is, and it starts off, it's a train of thought. It's this endless train of thought that is dislocated and disjointed. So I found it so difficult to emotionally connect. And that for me is such a barrier to loving and adorering and getting into a book.

But, you know, yeah, I don't like it. And then I did lots of research around it, and I know it won lots of awards. And it made me question, okay, why is it winning this award? What's it being lauded for? Am I not evolving in my ideas of what literature? is. I mean, I love that there are very, very different opinions about this book because it definitely is a very challenging book. And I think Emma McBride famously was sort of like had this kind of enlightening moment she talks about where she encountered James Joyce Ulysses in her 20s and then

it completely changed the way she wrote as an author. And I think you can tell that from this book, definitely. It is her first novel and it took, I think, seven to nine years to get it published. Pona, what do you make of this book? Yeah, I mean, the thing is I'm conscious this is a body of work that an author has put together. And so I am, you know, careful about how I talk about it. Because I know as an author how, you know, sometimes it can feel listening to reviews. However, when I sort of said that my reaction to this book was visceral, I was thinking about how I was going to communicate that. to you and I think that, you know, JJ, I feel like, I know what you're saying about dialect and,

and, you know, and Zora Newell Hurston is a, like, Their Eyes Are Watching God is a really good example. And admittedly, I haven't read that book, you know, it was about 20 years ago that I read their eyes were watching God. And I loved that book. Like, that book was something that it was very dear to my heart at the time. But I agree with Salma that this isn't, I feel like the dialect aspect of it to me is an is an excuse to kind of um to sort of make up for what I perceived was a gap in terms of what a book should actually do which is to communicate something to you and to kind of Salma's point I could not engage with this book at all and I've never ever had this in the entire 39 years of being on this earth of opening up a book and and

screaming on the first page because I basically opened. opened it. And then I actually genuinely was like, has my brain broken? Like, have I had some kind of, like, episode in the last, like, 30 minutes where I did it, I've lost my ability to read? And then I came back to it and I realized, no, it's the same thing. And I felt the only way I can describe it was it made me feel as if I had all of a sudden had some kind of, like, my ability to read and process information had just been diminishing. or switched off. Like, that's how the words on this page made me feel. And I think that's why I had such a strong, strong reaction to it. And I think when I then, you know, did the, because I wanted to find out more about the book and I just needed to know about the author and so on. And I do understand that. And what I tried to do was draw parallels, for example, with art. So, you know, art is like hugely divisive, you know, something that I might think is a beautiful sculptor or painting, another person might not.

But even if it's something that you consider to be, let's say, an ugly painting, it still communicates something to you. And it still makes you have a reaction that you can more or less articulate and do so in a relatively coherent way. And I could not do that with this book at all. And I feel incredibly awful saying that because this is someone's work. But at the same time, I've just never had a response to a book like this before. that's so interesting because and this is this is where the spoiler well it's not a spoiler I loved this book I really liked it so I'm on JJ's side with this one I thought thank you and I don't know if that's so you were feeling quite yeah you're feeling quite isolated there for a second when you yeah I feel like I feel like this book for me was so hard and yeah it did make me question my reading ability in the end I had to read it and this is

probably, you know, going to be very insulting to Ima. Mepra. I had to read it in different voices in my head. So I was putting on like cod Irish accents that I just picked up from TV, like Derry Girls, which is absolutely not the right bit of Ireland. This is probably set in. And in order to like understand it. And it's almost like I had to dramatize the reading of the novel in my head to kind of unlock all the different bits that were in it. So it's a really kind of stream of consciousness and people's voices cut in and out of it. And at first I really struggled with that and I thought to myself, you know, oh, this is going to be really hard. But then having read, having kind of separated them into different voices and different kind of

ways of reading it in my head, I could kind of understand it. And what I find interesting about Emma McBride is that in her follow-up novel, The Lesser Bohemians, which I actually read after this, there are passages that are just written quite simply and plainly in English. So I almost feel like she might have received criticism around the way that this was quite dense in her first novel and tried to kind of find ways to work around it in her second novel. But I, I kind of loved this book. I thought it was really gratifying to read. Like, it really made you work hard for it. But I also think that if you're in a kind of mood where you do not want to read an incredibly dense Ulysses-inspired novel, it's just not going to work out.

But then doesn't it kind of raise the question, who essentially is responsible here, you know, for the piece of work that a writer might produce or an artist might produce? If it's not being understood, is that the problem of the artist, or is that the problem of the society or whoever's consuming their art? Interesting. What do you think, Poena? I mean, I'm relatively pragmatist when it comes to literature, just mainly because, you know, it's, I'm sure that this would be great to study and to pick a part in university and academia, but I don't really think that's the function of a book.

Sam, what do you think? I think, you know, it's each to their own essentially. Like I said, it made me feel something. It made me feel an extraordinary amount. I always think a book has failed or is irrelevant or redundant if you read it and feel absolutely nothing. If I wrote something and people felt nothing, I would just be devastated. I'd be like, that's your fault. It's your job as the author to play with human emotion.

Like you hold the strings here. So I don't think it's necessarily failed. I think it made me feel lots of things and it made other people feel other things as well. So actually, your function has been completed. But I just, those feelings are wildly different across the floor. I'm not going to forget that book. I'm never going to forget that. That's always going to be a reference point.

It's going to come up in conversation around the dinner tables when we're talking about literature or what people are reading. I'm never going to forget it. So actually, she's remarkably successful in what she achieved. But also, there's a 50% success rate on this podcast alone of people that liked it and people who didn't, which is actually pretty good going. you know, if all of us had had the same opinion about it and didn't like it.

Yeah, I agree. I think that, you know, that that wouldn't definitely not be good. But, I mean, I don't know. Unfortunately, this probably won't be a book that I will be thinking about, talking about for a while. But having said that, I will probably give it to someone who will actually appreciate it. And thereon, you know, you kind of pass a baton onto someone else. I mean, this book has probably prompted the most extreme strongest reactions that we've had

and people disagreeing so far, which, you know, is probably a function of what she's done as an author. It's not very often that books manage to polarise people so clearly. Before we move on to our final book, here is Helen Fraser, the actor and the chair of judges in 2014. And she's going to explain why a girl is a half-formed thing won that year. It wasn't easy. We actually spent from 8 o'clock to midnight discussing two books. We quite quickly got down to two and one was Donna Tarts, the Goldfinch

and the other was Emoat Bride's Girl is a Half-Form thing. And one of the challenges was you couldn't think of two more different books. The goldfinch is like a sort of wonderful piece of highly carved, beautiful furniture. And the Eamot Bride is raw and intense and full of a sort of extraordinary original high energy. And it was really hard to compare them And at about 10 to midnight, we finally went round and we thought for sheer originality and energy and really being unlike any other book of the 158 that we'd read, Emma had to win it.

Remember, you can head to our website to find out more about the Reading Women Challenge. And you can vote for your favourite Women's Prize winning novel of the last 25 years and help us crown our winner of winners. Our final book for today's episode of Reading Women is The Power. by Naomi Olderman. Salma, do you mind giving our listeners a quick summary of the book? Absolutely. So the power is a science fiction novel that reimagines the gender dynamic that we currently play out today.

So girls find that they have this electrostatic voltage in their necks and they can tap into it and basically electrocute people. And when I say people, I mean men. And so they are suddenly physically stronger than their male counterparts. And it is told through the lens or our protagonist is Roxy. And the book starts with something happening in Roxy's home where she is absolutely powerless. And it is a reminder of the violence, I guess, pitted against women and girls. And then out of this frustration that she can't do anything, she discovers this power. that she has. And then what happens is women rally together. They then, you know, create organizations

about how women and girls can further, you know, hone their power. And the world is turned upside down in everything that we know about gender. So, for example, everything that we know is, reversed. So men are going out in groups to stay safe and they're not walking alone at night in case anything happens. They need chaperones. They need, you know, permits signed on. off by women to say that they can go out in streets alone. So everything is turned upside down. And it's just this incredibly thrilling story of what the world could be if it was the other way around, but also how terrible that would be as well. Because I think the very point of all of it is that when one group of people have too much power, everything goes a bit wrong. Samar, what did you make of

the book? Oh, I loved it so much. Okay, so selfishly and, you know, there is this vein going through me, when I see women control men in a way that they control us, I just, I'm delighted to my very toes. And I'm like, yes. And I'm just like, and it's, it's, these, these girls and these women, they're hungry and they're dirty and they're, and they are rough and raw and ready and it just it thrills me to see that imagining and even though these women do bad things and do wrong things it thrills me to see that as well because I'm so tired of seeing women in literature as good women right and I say that knowing that little women is my favorite book of all time right so that's nothing but good women right so I'm just I was

so thrilled to see women being so dirty and raw and terrible that it made me go oh well it's nice to know that you know we can imagine that even though that isn't how life should be but i just there's a sadistic part of me that loved seeing a world even only in literature and fantasy where men would have to bend the knee to us and they would have to seek our permission for many a thing an amazing summary in reaction to the book corner what did you think of the book i absolutely loved it and one thing i will say about this book for me anyway is that it is not easy to do multiple narratives, so to tell it from, you know, the points of view of different characters and to be able to keep that consistency and that pace.

But I feel like this book covered so much, did it really well, managed to keep me invested in every single one of those characters that are in it. And quite frankly, there were parts where I just, it completely turned my own thinking on its head in terms of things that I just took for granted as, you know, the backdrop of inequality that our world is in. But also actually what I really liked about it, and I think this is, this is a reflection of where we currently are in terms of, you know, when we discuss things like feminism, is that, you know, women aren't a monolith. We are, we, we, we hold the potential for good and bad. Just because we are women doesn't mean that we're automatically good to each other.

You know, we can be hugely divisive in our approaches to things, in our, what we think our brand, of feminism, what our experience of girlhood is. And I felt like this book for me just nailed all of that, but it also told an incredible story with such breadth. And I just absolutely, oh, I loved it. JJ, as the token man on this panel. JJ's left. He's run away. Well, the thing is, I can't say that I didn't like it

because then next time when I see you, Samar or Porna, you might electrocute me. So, you know we're in the same circles. I am going to see you. So, fantastic. But no, I really enjoyed the book. Really enjoyed the book. And, I mean, I'm not sure what else I could be on Samma's wonderful summary and pornist enthusiasm as well. You know, I think for me, what I would have loved to have said,

scene. I think it was really, I mean, conceptually it was brilliant. You can almost see the influences of like the handmade to tell, which I remember reading when I was a teenager and just being like, whoa, you know, that kind of almost like alternative reality. I think for me, just in terms of like my personal literary taste, I would have liked to have sat with one character a bit longer or it perhaps being split between two characters rather than. having so many multiple narratives that kind of like wind together. Although I think to be fair, the author did manage to do that well and I think it was a disruption to the story.

But my own personal preference is again like kind of looking at relationships and to actually experience more on an emotional level. Like I totally get conceptually the dystopian world for men in that story. But I wanted to feel a bit more in terms of like the emotion. depth of what it means to go on that discovery beyond it just being this new almost kind of nominal power that's been discovered and that can do things like what is that journey of discovery about how does it influence the relationship that you have with yourself with each other and so forth and yeah I would really like to have seen that but I absolutely loved

it and you know what a big part of me wouldn't even mind if if that came true you know I'm going to say, like, how did it make you feel reading it as a man? Because I don't know, I've talked to some guys who they felt a bit defensive about the book. Well, you know, I think, to be fair, there was the perspective of Tinday, one of the journalists, is the male character. I really kind of related to him a lot. And I think he came from Nigeria, I had African background and traveled and so forth. So I kind of saw myself looking at the world through his eyes and seeing myself in more of an ally position which I guess relates to the kind of politics that I have now in regards to

the gender equality movement. I didn't necessarily feel threatened, but you know, I think personally I think there's a lot of men who need to see this world, the world in this way, in a way that it speaks to how we see power or disrupts the way that we see power and strength between the genders and I think that's something that like patriarchy is largely built on as well and then ultimately

the whole narrative of power corrupting absolutely like resonated throughout that but I in my own kind of masculinity and malhood I didn't feel threatened at all I just kind of like put on a good face mask and lit some candles whilst I was reading it and carried on

so why do you think some men feel defensive when they read this book? Well, because, you know, I always say every man knows that they're in a position of privilege. The difference is whether or not they admit to it. In private conversations, like every man knows that the world benefits them more so that more so than it benefits women. We are completely aware. We might not necessarily know the sociopolitical language of patriarchy or intersectionality or anything of that sort.

but we absolutely know. And so these kind of reimagining of the world that we live in, we realize as men that it threatened our power. And if you're invested in that power, then, you know, you do end up feeling a little bit nervous about whether or not this could inspire women

to renegotiate the power dynamics between men. Even if it's not, you know, an actual true thing that could happen, I think this would encourage many women and young girls as well to reconsider the power dynamics between the two genders and that's something that I think worries men a lot. Saman Puna do you think that, you know, if you were a young girl reading this book,

that's what you would take away from it? I mean, I think it's hard to say, but there were parts of me that felt incredibly sad at times when I was reading this because while you know yeah we were being shown the sort of almost like

looking into a crystal ball what could be if the power dynamics were flipped there's a lot of you know the initial groundwork right in the book which is sort of saying how things were that are still our reality you know that are still very much

are the sort of the case for for many girls and women without that balance being redressed. And I think that it made me really think about just equality in general and how we kind of redress that balance within that. The thing that it made me feel is this absolute horror that these women were going around doing such awful things to men. And I read it and I was like, oh, that's absolutely awful.

And then I went, oh, wait a second, that happens to us every day. And that's what I thought was so clever about it as well, is that you immediately had this reaction for the men and you immediately went, oh my God, how could they do that? And this is awful. And then I thought, but that's exactly what happens all the time. And no one else has that same reaction. So I thought it was so clever in the way that it did that.

And yes, we don't have that power. So there is a depressing element when you're reading it because you're like, oh, I wish I could just magic up an electric energy in my body that I could then use to my disposal, especially when walking home late at night. And I would never have to look over my shoulder again or plan out where the next. shop was in case I need to run into it and that would be bloody lovely. So there is a sadness in it, but at the same time, I was just so thrilled to see an imagining of a world where power could look very different because we don't see that enough and we don't have enough fantasy novels and story. And when we look about fantasy as a genre, fantasy is dominated by men. Look at Lord of the Rings,

especially the fantasy that is infiltrated into popular culture, you know, it's Lord. It's of the rings. It's Harry Potter. Yes, Harry Potter does it better than others, but it's still a guy, it's still a big evil man, it's still a male father figure in Dumbull. They're still very patriarchy-laden in fantasy. And I think it's important to be able to imagine world in which women have power and they yield it for good and evil. So if we can't imagine it in the realms of fantasy, how can we even begin to play it out in our realities? I think that's absolutely right. You know, it's funny you mention mainstream fantasy because if this novel is going to get adapted for TV and hopefully becomes a big success, I wonder how much you'll do to change that kind of canon of science fiction and fantasy being the realm of boys and patriarchal father figures and stories about male heroes going on adventures. Right.

Well, to round things off, here is the final judge for today's reading women episode. This is Tessa Ross, the chair of judges from 2017, on why Naomi Oldermans the power was chosen. The power was deemed supremely worthy of the prize that year because I think all of the judges, through the reading and the long listing and the shortlisting, kept on coming back to this extraordinary, brilliantly imagined speculative storytelling about a world in which women were more powerful than men. And they could not get this story out of their heads for the way it was written for the energy of the storytelling,

for the brilliance of them and range of characters around the world, for the world building that Nirmie did. And at every point during every conversation about every other book, we kept on coming back to this powerful, seemingly instant classic of speculative fiction. We've gone and talked about everything under the sun from fantasy to Irish literature. But I was wondering, coming back to a theme of girlhood, how do you think the three books compared on that theme? I think that on balance, all three books offered a very good insight into girlhood. Did I relate it to my own girlhood?

Probably not. But it gave me a snapshot of how things can change and the chaos and that sort of whole period of transformation. actually is for girls. Samma, what about you? Did any of the books particularly resonate with your own girlhood? Yeah, especially, I think the power the most, because I was a very imaginative child and I have an overactive imagination. So I was always making up things and there's something about the power in the women being quite scrappy and our protagonist, Roxy, is really scrappy and tomboyish and she's always struggling and fighting and hiding in bushes and running about and admittedly because of her circumstances but that was very much a lot of my

girlhood like running around after my brother wanting more power than I ever had and hiding up trees and just being in a kind of a lot of trees with girl and so it did relate and again a crime in the neighbourhood as well I totally understood the the emotion that she feels that our protagonist feels when watching things happen to parents or you know there's a divorce happening there's mother whispering in the kitchen on the phone line or on the line to her sisters. You know, I really understood that, to me, it was that desire to know more than you're ever allowed access to. So those two things separately, they did resonate with me when it came to girlhood. And I empathised with the protagonists a lot.

A girl is a half-form thing. Can I plead the fifth? I'll throw that one over to JJ. How do you think a girl is a half-form thing? I'll happily talk about it. I thought it was brilliant. Obviously, I'm commenting from an outsider of the experience of girlhood. However, I think it captured it in a way that was very nuanced and complex,

especially in regards to the protagonist. Well, it's an unnamed protagonist as well, which I also find brilliant, and I've always wanted to write a book for an unnamed narrator. So I'm quite jealous of that fact. But I think it captured them in such a nuanced way and complex way. And did any of the books change your opinion or leave you thinking that you're going to remember this in the years to come? I feel like Jo-J, you're probably going to say a girl is a half-form thing here. I've given it gloriously kind of positive reviews.

But I did have that initial confrontation with it when I first started reading it. I remember opening the first page and then telling my friend, like, what is this? I just, I called my friend and said, I'm just going to read the first page of this book that I'm reading to you. And they said to me, what is that? And I was really confused, but then I sat with it. And then once I persevered, it just resonated a lot.

And I think even now, I'm pretty sure if my friend hears it, they're going to call me a hypocrite. But we're allowed to change our minds about art. And I think that's the beautiful thing about it. And so, yeah, it will be a girl as a half thing. What about you, Salma and Pona? which book will you remember in the years to come? I think I'll always remember the power

because it really resonated with me and I adored it so much. I think I'll remember a girl as a half-form thing. I don't think I'll ever, ever forget it. For me, it's definitely the power. It's something that I'm still thinking about in terms of, yeah, just the world that we currently live in and it serves, I think, as a reminder, you know,

of what we need to be doing and just generally as a world and as a society, but also that we should always hold ourselves to account. And I just loved it. I'm just still thinking about it, and I think that that's what a good book should do. And also if women started to magically develop supernatural electrical powers, that would also be really cool.

Oh my God, awesome. That would be very cool. Remember, I'm on your side, yeah? We know JJ. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining me on this episode, of Reading Women, you guys. You've been great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Zing Singh, and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast,

brought to you by Bayley's and produced by Birdline Media. Now, you definitely want to head over to our website to find out more about the Reading Women Challenge. Get exclusive video and audio content, and check out the hashtag Reading Women on Instagram and Twitter to join in the conversation around the 24 brilliant past winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction. Now you can get hold of all the books you've talked about in today's episode and all of the women's prize winning novels we've discussed so far on the podcast by going to Waterstones.com. We even have a very special discount for you.

You can enter the code WPF25 at checkout to get 25% off each of the winning books. Please subscribe and don't forget to rate and review this podcast. It really helps spread the word about all the female talent you've heard about today. Thank you very much for listening and see you next time. I'm Ben Bailey Smith, and this is a prison's guide too, a new podcast series from ACAS Creative, along with HM Prison and Probation Service, a guide not from CEOs, entrepreneurs or celebrities, but from some more overlooked sources of inspiration, the people who work for the prison service across England and Wales. A prison's guide too. Subscribe now, wherever you get your podcasts.