Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S5 Ep12: Bookshelfie: Maggie O'Farrell

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

2020 Women’s Prize winner Maggie O’Farrell joins Vick Hope and reveals what it was like to win the prize over a zoom call and what level of research is really required to write a masterpiece like Hamnet. Maggie O’Farrell won the Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel Hamnet - a moving exploration of death and grief in Elizabethan England told through the story of William Shakespeare’s real life son Hamnet. Maggie is the author of nine novels, the memoir I Am I Am I Am, and two children’s books, including The Boy Who Lost His Spark, out this October. Her latest novel The Marriage Portrait, set in Renaissance Italy is out now. Maggie’s book choices are:  ** Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom ** Flesh and Blood by Michele Roberts ** The Green Road by Anne Enright ** The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman ** Gawain and the Green Knight by Anonymous Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season five of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Five? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

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the winner of the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction for her novel Hamlet, a moving exploration of death and grief in Elizabethan England told through the story of William Shakespeare's real-life son, Hamnet. Maggie is the author of nine novels, the memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am, and two children's books, including The Boy Who Lost His Spark out this October. Her latest novel, The Marriage Portrait, set in Renaissance Italy, is out now. Welcome, Maggie.

Thank you so much. It's very nice to be here. Well, you're a friend of the Women's Prize, so it feels very comfortable. It feels like you're right at home. Oh, that's very nice. I feel that too. What was it like when you went? Because obviously it was a weird year, and it wasn't how it's supposed to be. It was 2020. In some ways, it felt wider reaching.

I felt like more people than ever knew about the Women's Prize because they were sat at home learning about it. about it and reading about it. How was that experience? Well, it was very, I mean, I think it must be always very strange to be awarded the prize. And I found that on a Zoom call, not at a big party, you know, I was there when, when Piranasi won. And I saw her shock and I felt her shock because she got really shocked. And I was really shocked.

But actually, in a way, it was quite lucky because, I mean, I had absolutely no expectation to win at all, you know, It felt like a win just to be on the shortlist, it felt extraordinary. And to be on a shortlist with Mantell and Everisto literary goddesses, it never occurred to me that I would win. And so, you know, I think I'd done an online event with Natalie Haynes and we done one together. And then I had a text from the Women's Prize saying, can you just jump back onto a Zoom call because we need to ask you something?

And I thought, oh, I don't really want to do it. I might just pretend I didn't get the text because it was quite late at night. Classic Zoom avoidance. And then they said, no, we really need you to come back. So I thought, oh, fine, I'll do it then. And then they told me I'd run. And I was so blindsided. Honestly, I was pretty speechless.

So actually, it was lucky because then I had two days to keep it secret. And then I had two days to think about what I would say in my exception speech. Because if I'd been at a party and I'd been told that, I would have had literally nothing to say because I was so shocked. That's a good point, actually. Because it is literally sprung on you in that moment. Yeah. But yeah, congratulations.

I'm saying it two years later, but it's still as potent and pertinent as ever. And what an amazing, amazing accolade. And so I know that books play a big part in your life, obviously, as a writer, but do you find the time to read as well? I do. I have to be reading. I can't not be.

I can't imagine under what circumstances I wouldn't ever be reading. And I do actually, I haven't a really bad insomnia. I've always been a terrible sleeper. and that of course has its downsides but its upsides is you get quite a lot of reading time so I do I try not to get too annoyed by being awake in the night and I just I just use it to read a book And what sort of books do you gravitate towards

for your insomnia specifically? Well I mean I do tend to read fiction mostly fiction is my big love but I do read some nonfiction and I read short stories and sometimes poetry and it really varies actually and sometimes I will read classics or I'll read classics or reread classics or reread books that I've loved

And I also really like to read lots of new books. I like to see what other writers are coming up with. Well, you've got quite an eclectic mix of fiction that you sent us today for your book, shelby books. So let's dive straight into them with your first, which is Where the God of Love hangs out by Amy Bloom. In this heartbreaking book, Amy Bloom explores the unexpected patterns that love and its absence weave into our lives. a young woman struggles to come to terms with her friend's murder, a daughter returns to her problematic father's house to care for him in its final days,

and two middle-aged friends, married to other people, find themselves irresistibly drawn to one another. I mean, I'm obsessed with any exploration of love, but what did you love about this book? I find Amy Bloom, a really forensic writer, and I think it's no coincidence that she's a psychopathic. therapist as well as being a writer. And that gives her several added layers of perspicuity, I think, and understanding into human nature. And she writes so beautifully and she puts so much

into her short stories. You know, she puts the amount of material in a short story that other writers might spin out over a whole novel or even possibly two novels. She's just incredibly generous, I think, with her material and with her insight. And I particularly love the way she often returns to characters later in life. So often she'll write a short story in one collection and then in a second collection or a third collection, she will return to those characters maybe several years down the line. And that's fascinating because it feels, I mean, obviously it isn't like a novel because the short story is a completely different medium. But the way she weaves back and you get these snapshots of these characters. And you also see how

the events from maybe the first or the second story play out later in life. I think she's an absolute genius and I always feel like not enough people know about her and this is one of those books that I eagerly press into other people's hands and it is one of the ones I return to a lot. I reread it and I reread it. There's an incredible economy about her writing and there's an awful lot which is left unsaid. So I think she's very, she's a real mistress of the white space on the page, the silences in a story. When you read and reread, do you see things, find things, learn things that you hadn't seen before? Yes, absolutely. And also I think. think what's interesting is that you can really be books at different stages in your own life and

somehow the emphases which you see are often different. Yeah, it depends on your experience, doesn't it? I mean, you might have no prism through which to understand these concepts. And then all of a sudden, it all changes. And I think that happens especially with love, especially with love, because those chemicals in our brains are so powerful. And they cause us to read in such different ways, on how we're feeling. Are there any characters in your novels that you would like to return to in the way that Amy Balloon does? I don't know. I mean, I never have, but you never know. You mean, you never quite know what's coming. I doubt it because obviously I don't write short stories. I can't write short stories. You know, I don't think just because you can write a novel necessarily

means you can write a short story, I think it's a whole other skill. And sometimes I've tried to begin writing a short story, and then two years later, there I am putting the full stop. full-end novel. I don't know why my imagination. Yeah, exactly. A very long story. For whatever reason, my imagination doesn't work within that form. So I don't think so, but then again, you never know. But I think she pulls it off so brilliant. I think I think she can do it, and I think obviously Elizabeth Stratt can do it,

but she does it in a novel form, the Catholic Chronicles, they return to the same chronicles. Someone like Jane Gardham, she's written about the same group of characters and something about the old Philth trilogy. I think when it's done well, it works brilliantly. but I've no plans at the moment, but you never know. You never know what's ahead. It's just different for different writers.

That's why writing is so rich and brilliant, is that we have all of this variety. I mean, do you ever find yourself writing like other writers that you and Maya, like Amy Blune? I know a lot of writers can't read fiction at the same time as writing because they find some of those techniques or stylistic elements creeping in, seeping in? No, I don't. I mean, I think I wouldn't, you know,

because Amy Bloom's stories come from the mind of Amy Bloom. or whatever. So no, I don't worry about that, actually. It isn't something that I think, it's not something that I fear. And also, I would never not read. Like I said, you know, I'd feel like a musician who never listens to music. It would just be, it would be really wrong. And actually, you know, it's such a, especially when you are at a certain stage in your book, it's such a relief just to sink into somebody else's world and you're just receiving their wisdom and receiving their words and words in their artistry. The only time I find it difficult to read an actual novel is when I are just about to finish one of my own books,

just, just about when you're putting the final edits in. And you're almost, I think it's almost because you're holding the whole length of this work inside your head. And it's like balancing a huge and very full plate of food on one finger. You can't, you can't let it tip. And at that point, I always read poetry or even a short story. But that's the only time and at every other stage. And that's only, you know, for a month or two probably in the whole process.

process. Every other stage I'm reading novels. The whole length of it, the whole, the whole weight of it. precariously balanced inside of you. How did you first start in writing? Can you remember the first thing that you wrote? I can't really remember a time without the urge to write. Even when I was really quite small, when I was probably five or six, I've got notes. I've got one notebook that I wrote when I was probably five or six. I mean, it's full of absolute dribble, mostly about cats. But it's clear that I had that urge, you know, it's called Graphomania, the urge to record things to write it down. And I used to spend all my pocket money on stationery.

I still do, actually. Yeah, I found this beautiful. In fact, I can show you this beautiful vintage fountain pen in the charity shop, which I'm so excited. I know, and it's got a gold near, but I realised when I got home, I bought it. Oh, Maggie! So beautiful, isn't it? I'm so excited.

That's gorgeous. It doesn't work yet, but I'm going to see if I can get it working. Anyway, so no, I do, I just always, when I was like I spent all whatever pocket money I had, which wasn't much on paper and pens and crayons and everything, just because I just had that, I don't know where it came from or why, but I think I just, I don't remember a time when I didn't have that oath to write things down. So I wrote a lot of really, really quite horrific poetry in my teens. Let's just say I'm not going to be publishing my juvenilia anytime soon. And then I, I think I probably started writing with quite serious intent. when I was in my early to mid-20s. Just seeing that fountain pen

has brought back so many memories. The first day of school, we had to have a fountain pen since, but seeing that has made me want one again. They are great. Because I had them at school. Yeah, we had to use them at school. And then I haven't used them for years,

but I've started using them again recently. Just because I started, I suddenly realized it's throwing out plastic pens and throwing up, I just hated, I got sick of it. So now I have refilable biros and fountain pens everywhere. I mean, it causes a massive mess. and you get ink on over your fingers, but I quite like that.

Brilliant. Well, your second book-shelphie book is Flesh and Blood by Michelle Roberts. In this wildly inventive exploration of the mother-daughter relationship, the androgynous narrator Freddie may have committed matricide. A lost daughter is found in a freak show, and another is saved from the Spanish Inquisition. The narrative spirals from the present day to the 16th century and back again. Maggie, why did you pick this? book? I absolutely love this book and I can't really understand why it's not better known than it is

and why it's not hailed as this incredible modern classic because I think it really is. I think it's, I think she is with this book in particular and I think she often does. She's often pushing the boundaries of what narrative is capable of. But this book in particular I think is probably her most exciting and she's invented this completely new structure which is a bit like a, it's actually kind of mirrored. You get these sort of Chinese boxes of narratives, inside narratives, inside other narratives. And right at the middle, it starts going back out again. So you greet that you meet the other characters for the second time, in a sense, a bit like, I suppose, a bit like Amy Bloom in a way. And it ranges all over geography and all over history.

And the characters, they almost sort of hear each other's echoes through time. And it, like you say, it examines lots of questions about gender and women's bodies. I mean, it's just, an absolutely incredible read. I mean, I read it. It came out, I think probably in the 80s or early 90s. I'm not quite sure. And I read it straight away. And it is one of the books that I return to again and again. It's just so exciting, even though it's 20 years old, 30 years old. It feels like something that could have been written yesterday at the same time as feeling that something could have been written 100 years ago. It's got an incredible timeless quality to it. Style and structure aside, thematically, were you drawn to the mother-daughter relationship?

it, is that something that you found interesting because it's so beautifully explored? Yes. I mean, I think Roberts writes mothers and daughters and sisters extremely well. So yeah, I mean, I think it's an absolutely flawless and brilliant and invented book. Originally published in 1977. Oh, there we go. Wow. Yeah. Ages ago. Yeah. I was five. But isn't that an amazing thing for her writing to be so timeless?

And you write books set in both, my. modern and historical settings, although obviously usually not within the same book. Do you find either more compelling? Do you get more lost in a historical setting, for example? I don't, I mean, I wouldn't say I prefer one over the other. I think, I mean, the last two books I've written have been historical novels, certainly. But in a sense, when I sat down to write both my recent book, The Marys Portrait and also Hamlet, I steered myself away from thinking I am writing a historical cover.

I think just because it would have given me quite a lot of vertigo, but also I just wanted to approach it as I would any other novel. I wanted it not to be to self-consciously write in any kind of particular different way because I was writing about the past. You know, I do believe that obviously the world changes and the world changes rapidly and all the time. But at the same time, I don't think that human hearts and human spirits change at all. So I wanted to approach the people in the characters in these books,

even though they're set 400, 500 years ago, just as I would any other character. Yeah, I mean, in your last two novels, you picked out female figures from history, which we know little about, Shakespeare's wife, Agnes Hathaway, Lucrezia, third daughter of Cosimo de Medici. How do you weave together such real seeming characters

from the tiny fragments that we know? How much world building is there? Both Agnes or Anne Hathaway, and Lucrezia, there's not an awful lot known about them. I mean, Lucretia, we know when she was born, and we know that she at 13 was betrothed to the man who was supposed to marry her older sister, but her older sister sadly died,

so Lucretzia was ushered in as this kind of stand-in bride. And we know she went to live with him in Ferrara at 15, and we know that she died a year later. There are, in her parents' letters, her other siblings are mentioned quite a lot, but she doesn't really get much of a looking, unfortunately. So I always came away with this impression of her, as slightly overlooked and underloved.

But in a sense, you know, I think that kind of, and it's in a similar way with Hathaway, actually, because her birth isn't even recorded. She was born before parish records began. And we know that she married William, and we know when she had her children, and we know when she died. And that's not a huge amount, really,

else about her. She's quite a shadowy figure. But that hadn't stopped a lot of biographism historians and literary scholars from vilifying and criticizing her and forming this one single, very frustrating narrative about her that she was this older, illiterate peasant who had lured this boy genius into marriage. And, you know, he hated her and he had to run away from London to get away from her and he only left her a second best bed, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just

was really sick of that narrative. And I thought, there's no evidence for any of this at all. There's no evidence that he hated her. You know, at the end of his career, he went back to Stratford to live with her. He sent every single penny he earned in London back to Stratford. You know, those are not the acts of a man who loathes his wife. So I just, in a sense, you know, that those kind of gaps, I think, are frustrating for a biographer or a historian. But for a novelist, actually, those gaps are quite enticing. They form this kind of vacuum that you're able to step forward and fill with whatever story you yourself want to tell. Because obviously, my Agnes and my Lycrazy are fictional characters. They have the names and the framework of real

people. But other than that, I just made it all up. Yeah. We talked very briefly there about the mother-daughter relationship in flesh and blood. your first children's book where Snow Angels Go was also born of a real life experience during a medical emergency with your own daughter. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes, so one of my children suffers with very severe allergies and she has suffered anaphylactic shock more times than I care to even think about now. So one of the symptoms, one of the less known symptoms of anaphylaxis is that you get very, very cold and you can get very disorientated. and that's a sign that your blood pressure is dropping that you're in danger of having a cardiac arrest.

So it's always very serious when you realise that your child has got cold. And so we were in an ambulance and she was feeling very cold and I said to her just and she was panicking because obviously she was feeling awful and everybody was rushing around her

and she was really scared. And so I said to her, I just made up on the spur of the moment. I just said, don't worry about being cold. It's just a snow angel who's here and he's your garden angel and he's wrapping his wings around you, and that's why you're cold. And he became a character that we would talk about quite a lot

because she wanted to know more. She said, well, where's he come from? You know, why is he here? What's he doing here? You know, I've discovered a lot if you're, as a parent of somebody, particularly with somebody who has additional or high level of need. There are so many, obviously, that, you know, the additional needs label is a very important because there are so much,

there's so much addition, so much further that you have to go in the sense as a parent. And of course, you know, I'm perfectly happy to do that. if that's the price for having her, I'm more than happy to pay it, of course. But one of the things I realise is that actually making up a story or making up a narrative so young children is a very good way of explaining something which is really hard for a young child to grasp, you know, why they might be in pain or why they might be suffering or why they're in danger. So telling a story in which is sort of metaphorical about what's happening to them is a really good way for them also, you know, to understand and also distract and

soothe them. So I made up the Snow Angel for her. And then actually, not long and afterwards, I was off on a book tour and she wanted to know more about it. So I was writing, I wrote chapters for her and posted them to her. And then when I got back, she said, I really want to see what he looks like. Can you draw a picture of him? And I said, and I'm absolutely rubbish at drawing if my life depended upon it. I couldn't do it. And I'm not sure under what circumstances it would depend on it. But anyway, I would have no luck. And so I thought, well, actually, maybe I'll, you know, send it to a publisher and see if they can find the right illustrator, which is what happened. And I was paired with the absolute living genius, Daniela Yaglenka Terratzini,

who brought into being who manifested this incredible snow angel for us. And so now it was a really lovely experience of bringing it into being that whole book. What a beautiful way to bring a character into the world. Bayleys is proudly supporting the Women's Prize for Fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women. celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Looking for a treat to pair with your favourite book, Bailey's is the perfect accompaniment to enjoy either over ice or over coffee. There are no better friendships than those formed around brilliant books.

And since you're listening, we're guessing you love books as much as we do. The Women's Prize has created an exclusive community that gives you a bookish backstage pass, offering surprises and freebies plus unmissable reading. recommendations and book chat from my founder friends, including me, Vic Hope. Search for Women's Prize friend to become a friend today. We cannot wait to meet you. We move on now, Maggie, to your third book, which is Good Behaviour by Molly Keane, a tragedy comedy set in Ireland after the First World War. This book is the story of Arun St Charles, a large and unlovely young woman, who is part of an aristocratic Irish family and is locked out

of real life by ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires. Tell us a bit about this book. When did you first read it? I first read this when I was quite young, probably a teenager. My parents had quite a lot of moly keen in the house. And I've since gone on to read all her books, actually, or everything that's available. And this one is my absolute favourite. It was written, published when she was 80 and she'd had a gap in her career of about, I think about 20 years. And she used to publish under the name M.J. Farrell, because it was considered quite shameful for a woman of her class, the Anglo-Irish class, to be a writer of all things. But this is the first

one she published under her own name and it was shortlisted for the book of Ries. But there is a story, actually, that she had pushed it in a drawer. I don't know if this is true. I would love it if it is true, that she'd written it and shoved it in a drawer. And the actress Peggy Ashcroft was staying with her and happened to be sleeping in that. room discovered it, read it overnight and came down in the morning and said, Molly, you have to publish this. I hope it's true too. I love the idea that she was kind of, you know, maybe not being able to sleep and she thought, I wonder what's in the drawer. And then coming across this manuscript, and it opens with this most astonishing scene of matricide and Arun is serving

her mother, who's unwell in bed and elderly, rabbit moose. And I have to say, of all the fictional dishes. That's one of the most revolting. There's just two words that should never go together. That's not right, does it? No. And it's such an awful dish that the mother dies. But it's just an absolutely brilliant novel. I mean, Molly Keane is

an astonishingly gifted writer at, like you say, at Tragedy and also comedy and the fusion of the two. There's something incredible about the dialogue in this novel and how much, how little is said between these people because they're all obsessed with good behaviour and front and appearance.

and what's actually going on in the room, the sort of disconnect between what's being said and what's happening is so enormous because this is a world in which boys are whipped for reading poetry and children are forced to go horse riding and hunting at a really young age. They go to boarding school. They're so distant.

But at the same time, it's all about appearance and these servants in these large houses are so hungry they are forced to eat laundry starch to survive. Whereas the dogs are indulged in. said chicken. I mean, it's such a strange and peculiar world, but she leads the read into it by the hand. And it's a world of massive hypocrisy and also just emotional suppression, emotional illiteracy. You said that you've read and re-read Molly Keane and not just this. As you said, you think you've probably read every single one of her books. At a young age as well,

what do you think resonated so much with you as a teenager? What do you think really great? ripped Maggie at that time. I think it was partly the world, you know, because I mean, obviously I know I learned quite well, you know, I was born there and we used to visit it all the time, although I was brought up mostly in Britain. But this was an island I did not know at all. And it's such a fascinating example of world building, just as I was saying, these old crumbling houses which were falling apart and, of course, being ridden and destroyed by political discontent. And this idea that they were a kind of class of people or a breed of people who were dying out,

you know, this kind of very, very privileged Anglo-Irish families. They sort of outlived their tenure in a way. And I think that really fascinated me, just the whole houses and the weirdness of it all and the hunt bulls. And, you know, this was all so completely alien to me and not on island that I recognised. But so in a sense, it was a kind of location not I understood, but a world that I knew nothing about at all. And also the way they speak to each other,

It's so horrifying. There's a moment at which one of the family members without giving too much away dies, a young person dies. And after the funeral, they're all absolutely devastated. And there's an incredible line, probably misquoting it badly. She says something like, they gave each other, we all gave each other quick warning glances, who would behave the best? And the idea that these grieving, absolutely heartbroken people couldn't even express to each other, their sadness and their grief and their devastation. They had to, you know, the ideal thing to do in that scenario in their world is to not talk about it at all. Be brisk and moulon.

It's an astonishing scene. And you live in a world of writing. Your husband, William Sutcliffe, also writes novels. What's it like having a fellow writer in the house with you? I mean, the thing is we're just so used to it. You know, it just feels normal to us. And actually, in a sense, you know, I'm sure it's like any other couple who work in the same. same area. There's just a lot less to explain somehow. And we're both each other's first reader.

He always reads probably my second or my third draft. And he can be pretty mean, actually. Oh, really? I mean, you need it. It would be really nice if you wrote a first or second draft and you gave it someone. They said it's absolutely perfect. Don't change your word. But of course, that's never going to happen. And actually, it's good if it doesn't happen because your work is very far from done at those early drafts. So it's good. There was one time when, I think it was when I wrote my book. a book called The Vanishing Act of Ezby Lennox, he read it. And he said, it's okay that you have to rewrite half of it, which was a bit of a blow. We did have a couple of slightly silent, frosty dinners.

But he was right, annoyingly, and I didn't even write half of it. So your kids gravitate towards writing? I don't know. It's a bit early to say. My son's about to go off to university, but he's going to study politics. That's his passion. And, I mean, they're all big readers, actually, which I think is I'm just very happy about. You know, they all like to read.

I mean, you know, it comes and goes. I think there are times. particularly in the teens, I think, where sometimes people might veer away from books. But I think the key, I don't know, the key as a parent is not to panic too much and just think they'll come back to it. And also just to accept, I think, that any reading is reading. So if your teen is choosing to read a magazine or, you know, an online, whatever, that's okay. Just let them do it. And, you know, don't force it on them, I think.

And you can, one of the things I found quite handy with my son is occasionally I would select a book and I'd leave it really casually on the coffee table and I'd say to him, Whatever you do, don't read that book because it's too growing up for you. Yes. Yeah, sure enough, within a day or two, I find him do it. So I did do it. It's a bit dastardly, but I did do that a couple of times. Works a treat. And I tell you what, you do always come back to reading.

I think so. If it's not forced on you, if you're not put off it, I think. Yeah. Well, let's come back to your reading. Your fourth book, shelfy book is the yellow wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Constructed with masterful psychological precision. This book is a depiction. of a woman's mental breakdown in enforced confinement after the birth of her child.

The mother craves intellectual stimulation, love, understanding. Instead, she's isolated in an attic room in a mansion in the middle of nowhere and told to rest and pull herself together. Here, slowly but surely, the torturous pattern of the wallpaper winds its way into the darkest corners of her mind. I mean, just the description. I haven't read this book and I'm definitely going to. Like I really want to. Why is it so brilliant to you? Well, I first read it when I was a teenager, actually,

and I had asked for, I think it was called the Oxford Book of Gothic Tales or something like that for my Christmas present because I'd seen it in a bookshop and wanted it, and I had got it. And I really remember being awake at night, and my sister was asleep in the room with me, and she was fast as see it, and I was staying awake. And I started reading the yellow wallpaper.

And I remember it so clearly because it was like being plunged into an icy bath. It was so shocking and so thrilling. And I didn't know you were allowed to write about like this or that you were allowed to write about things like this. And I was just immediately struck about it and never forgot it. The voice is instantly compelling and instantly intimate in a way. You know, she lures you into this. I mean, I should say it's so slight. I mean, it's called a novel or a novella.

But, I mean, I don't know why it's never called a short story because it could be. It could be termed a short story, but I mean, I think it is in the other, and I don't quite know what the difference is, I suppose. I'm not sure, but it's just an incredible piece of work. And later on, I read more about it, and I realise that it's actually very autobiographical, that Charlotte Perkins-Gilman herself had very serious, I mean, probably now she'd be diagnosed with postnatal depression,

but she was put in the hands of this, shall we say, controversial doctor in the turn-of-the-century Boston, I think, he was called William Mitchell and he recommended that she not be allowed to write, that she lay down and rested, that she only saw her child every now and again that she had,

I think she had supposed to have a diet, high in dairy products. I don't know, just basically everything that kept her or helped her feel better and be sane, i.e. writing, working, was taken away from her. And she very quickly, I think,

spiraled into quite serious mental illness. And so I think the yellow wallpaper can be read. It is an astonishing book about a woman being given the wrong kind of care. You know, she needs stimulation. She needs to be with her baby. She needs to be able to go out and meet people.

But she's locked in a room, essentially, in an attic because people that care about her. And it's so terrifying. And, you know, it's in a book that is called Gothic fiction. And Gothic fiction can be vampires and ghouls and, you know, basements and chained up monsters. But it can also be, I mean, this book is as terrifying as books like that because it's somebody who is just slowly suffocating

by the wrong kind of love. Did it instill any terror in you or anything that you related to from your own experiences? I'm sure any woman reading it would feel fear. Yes, I mean, I think at the time what I felt was a huge sense of relief that we have moved on in the world, I suppose, and relief that there were several decades separating me from her at that point. But again, you know, it's something we all need to keep an eye on because, of course, women's bodies are, very politicised at the moment. You know, we look at what's happening in America and, you know, abortion is, the abortion laws are changing and, you know, even this week we have a new health secretary who is

quite happy to come out and say she's anti-abortion. And that's really concerning. It's really concerning that the state can interfere in women's bodies and women's lives. The main storyline of your novel, the hand that first held mine, is about a couple struggling to come to terms with the traumatic birth of their first child and is based on your own experience of nearly dying while giving birth to your son. What was the experience of writing this? Was it a form of therapy?

Was it cathartic? I don't know if it was cathartic or a form of therapy. I think it was important to me to tell that story because I suppose in a sense, I mean, maybe there is a link, I suppose, I mean, the yellow baller has always been a huge influence on lots of my work. And I had the experience in hospital

of not being listened to by an obstetrician and not being, I told him that I had suffered an illness as a child and I'd been told I wouldn't be able to have a natural birth and he basically told me that was nonsense and I was going to have one whether I liked it or not. And actually what happened is after three days of quite agonising labour, the predictions of the neurologists from my childhood became true that I wasn't able to give birth to him naturally.

So I had to kind of beg for a cesarian, which then again had major complications because my labour had been allowed to go on for two long. So in a sense, I suppose that doctor is my weir Mitchell in a way, certainly. And I think in writing the novel, I said, you know, I wanted to write a book about very early motherhood. I remember that. I remember finding fiction, particularly there were no, I couldn't find many instances of tiny, tiny babies, very new motherhood. I think things have changed actually since I wrote that book. I think there is a lot more now. But at the time, you know, there are children in novels and there

are a few toddlers, but not many really tiny babies, not novels about those very, very, very, very, early twilight weeks where you are awake night and day and, you know, your sort of nocturnal and diurnal or at the same time you're in this kind of milky haze. And I suppose I didn't, I wanted to write about how that felt and how it could really unseat everything for you. Because, you know, when your first child is born, life as you know it is over and a whole new life begins the minute they take their first breath. And I wanted to explore that idea, this young couple who are grappling with the sense that their life has been overturned, and for very, very good reasons, I should say.

But you've written about what it was like to write with a small baby. Was it a struggle to keep going? It wasn't. It wasn't. I mean, you know, in some ways, I've never really quite understood that school of thought that says you can't write and have young children. You know, I think it's a bit of a nonsense, really. And obviously, there are many women writers who had not had children and written books.

and there are plenty of examples of women who have and have written books. And I'm not saying you have to do one or the other. You know, everybody makes their choice. But I do, I've always found it quite compatible, being a mother. I've always found it quite compatible with being a writer. You know, I get to spend a lot of my time at home. I get to have I'm incredibly lucky to have had work that I really love and also got to spend a lot of time with them.

But they always come first in my life. They know that if I'm writing and they're here, they can come into my study. There's never a sense that they're not allowed or anything. like that. I think as a writer, you know, you have to be living in the world. It's good for you. And I think children are amazing at dragging you out of your little ivory tower and saying you might be worrying about how to begin your novel or how to make a scene work. But they don't care. They just want you to make something with pipe cleaners or make a line out of clay. And that's very good for you, I think. It's time now, Maggie, for your fifth and final book this week, which is Gawain and The Green Knight by Anonymous. A slightly unusual choice. for your final book-shelty book. This is a late 14th century chivalric romance

written in the Middle English dialect. The author is unknown and the title was given to the text centuries later. It's one of the best-known Arthurian stories and describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Roundtable, accepts a challenge from a mysterious green knight. Now, presumably from its inclusion in this list, Maggie,

you think that the anonymous author was a woman. can you tell us why? Well, I read this at university and I absolutely loved it and I still do, I still reread it quite a lot. When I was at university, I had to read it in the original Middle English. Oh, wow.

It is quite hardgoing, I have to say. So I now have several versions of it and I do have one which has the Middle English on one page and it has an English translation on the other page. There's also an amazing, beautiful translation by Simon Armitage, which I would really recommend.

And obviously, it's anonymous. So nobody knows who has, has written it despite the best efforts of lots of literary scholars. But I have always had. I mean, it's just a kind of instinct or a basic, very basic cellular feeling that it's written by a woman, which could possibly explain why it's anonymous. I don't know. But there's something about it. There's a kind of sensibility about it, which makes me think it's by a woman. First of all, she clearly really fancies the Green Knight. There's a long description, a lingering description of his muscles and the narrowness of his waist and his chest is really white.

And obviously, I understand it could have been a man who was gay, clearly. But it's just, I don't know what it is. And there's a huge amount of detail about clothing and patterns and fabrics and the way things are laid out, rooms. But the most, the key thing for me is that among all the different Arthurian legends and iterations from this period, which I've read all of them, I have to say, I did write a distinction about it. I was going to do a PhD about going in the Green Night, but actually I did really badly in my final exams, and that was off the cards.

So I do have this kind of very deep love for this poem and slight deep obsession with it. And the key thing for me is that this Cheval Rook poem has at its centre a woman. And she is completely, in the whole narrative and the whole poem, she's completely sidelined. And Saga Wayne doesn't notice her at all. So basically, when he, after the big beginning,

where he chops off the green knight's head. A year later he goes to find a green knight and he arrives at this castle. There's a really old woman sitting by the fire, but he doesn't pay her a lot of attention because there's this really beautiful and sexy woman who's married to the Lord, and she didn't go away and have this big long flirtation.

Basically, the woman sitting by the fire is the key to the whole poem. She's the kind of marginal character who's in charge of everything. And she has set up this whole kind of supernatural quest for Sir Gawain. So in a sense, Gawain is caught in her net she is controlling everything

and she's Morgana Lafay obviously and she's in charge you know women are at the centre of it they are marginalised they're ignored particularly older women she's being ignored because she's not beautiful anymore but she's pulling everybody strings

like the puppet she's the puppet master she's the wizard and the whole scenario which makes me I just think that if it was written to women and I think it was it was the woman having a bit of a laugh at the expense of all the men who think they're really powerful

and in charge and off on quests and in charge of everything and ruling everything but actually they're not at all she's ruling. I like this theory or cellular feeling, as you call it. When you were reading this, did you know that you wanted to be a writer? Or was that something that came up when you decided not to do a PhD? Well, it's funny.

I don't know when or if at any point actually I thought I want to be a writer. I think there's an important distinction between wanting to write and wanting to be a writer. Even now, actually, when sometimes when people say to me, what do you do for a living? I often don't say I'm a writer, I say something else. I think it's a funny thing and I think feeling like a writer is something I haven't quite captured and I hope I never do in a way because I think maybe if I did feel I had arrived in that sense, I probably stopped writing. So I always wanted to write and I always did write, but I never had that urge to be a writer

if you see what I mean. I just never thought it would happen. It didn't seem possible or within my reach. When people ask you, what do you say you do? Well, I used to say I was a judge. list, which was half true. Yeah. And sometimes I say work in publishing.

So you know what? It's true. Which is a lie. Which is... I say I work with children because most of the TV shows and radio shows I do are for young people. So that's who we interact with the most. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, we can all bend the truth, can't we? Yes. This is obviously a text very much of its time, but, you know, so much of what you've just said is applicable and fascinating to anyone at any time. What kind of research did you do to enable you to write about these times that you immerse yourself in Renaissance Italy, for example, in the marriage portrait and Elizabeth in England and Hamnet?

Well, in a sense, a lot of the research was library-based, because obviously there's no shortage of books written about either Shakespeare and his world or Renaissance Florence or Ferrara. I suppose what interests me, the stories about history that interest me are the ones in a sense on the wrong side of history. It's the ones that don't necessarily appear in history books. So in order to get some kind of feel for the times and the scenario and the locations, you have to read an awful lot of history about that time. But in order to inhabit lives of people whose history is written in white or written in water in a sense, you have to go a bit further and do something a bit different.

So in order to kind of understand what Hathaway's life was like, I did sort of physical things as well as reading about the time. I planted and grew my own medicinal herb garden, Elizabethan medicinal herb garden. And I went on a course to learn how to make those plants into medicines and what they would be used for. I can see your smile. I think it's so brilliant. No, honestly, as a keen gardener, a newly keen gardener.

It's only in the last like, yeah, I'm into it. I'm massively interested. Well, welcome aboard. That's all I'm joining you. So I do, and also I learnt to fly a kestrel because in my book I gave Agnes a kestrel. She was a falconer. So I did learn, and that was actually the most fun thing I think I've ever done in the name of work. But you need to do it. It's funny because I'd already written a version of the scene in which she's flying a kestrel, and I had described a kestrel landing on her falconer's glove with a thud. And then when I actually went and flew a kestrel, I realized that a kestrel is about the weight of a tiny kittal. it's such a successful predator

that it's totally silent and you can be standing there waiting for it and one minute it's not there and the next minute's there and you haven't even noticed it land but the falconer I went to loan with she let me hold her golden eagle and wow that was heavy

terrifying also it was enormous and holding it that proximity it was terrifying yeah and so it was really but the kestrel is so stealthy and so silent so I had to go that's why you need to do it yourself and for Lucrezia I wrote most of it in lockdown

So obviously I couldn't go to Italy almost until the end of 2021 when I pretty much I was finishing the last drafts of the book but I did do. There's a lot about art and the marriage portrait and I make Lucrezia an artist. And so I did order raw pigment

and I ground it up and mixed it with linseed oil in oyster shells which is exactly how people would have painted then because I just wanted to understand the physicality of it. I made an unbelievable mess. You wouldn't believe it. It sounds like the best thing ever. But it was because I needed to know how hard it was to grind up lapis lazuli and grind up Madder root or opiment.

I mean, you don't always necessarily, it doesn't always end up, that kind of information doesn't always end up in the book. But you need to have that sort of knowledge in a sense to give yourself the confidence to create a scene in which it happens. Well, it doesn't necessarily end up in the book, but it ends up in you. And what a brilliant thing. I've never had anyone on the podcast say, she let me hold her golden eagle. or ever in life. And it's amazing because you immerse yourself in these worlds and then you've also given so much of your world.

You've written a memoir, I am, I am, I am. Is there anything that would be off limits that you would never write about or any part of yourself that you just want to keep for yourself which won't ever be seen on the page? Well, there will be, but you see, I can't say that because otherwise I'll be telling you, And certainly the way I wrote my memoir, you know, I came up with the structure, which is non-chrological.

It's organised by body part rather than by time in the sense. And having the chapters that don't come in a kind of chronological sequence does allow you to elide over things that you actually maybe don't want to share or things that actually, you know, several years that might just be a bit boring. And also you're able not to step on the toes of other people in your life, you know, because something I learned. when I was writing my memoir was that there is a sense of ownership of narrative. You know, there are stories which are mine, but they also overlap with other peoples. And you have to be very careful that you're not, you know, you're not writing a book that is putting attacks on your friends and family because they may not want to be written about and that's perfectly reasonable. Maggie, my final question to you is this.

If you had to choose one book from your list as your favourite and they're very different, which one would it be? I know. And why? Why would it be? I would probably be going in the green night because I think if I was going to be sent away or locked in the cupboard for whatever reason with one book for the rest of my life, that would be the one that would give me the most fodder, I think, I think, no, actually it would have to be Mr. Robbins. Oh, no, it would have to be Moniqueen. It'd be really hard. But I think if I had to choose one, I would probably take that one because it would probably keep me busy for the longest. Yeah. Well, you've provided us with so much fodder, as you put it today. It's been an absolute joy to chat to you. And we've not had any of those, I don't think, on the podcast so far. so a lot of books that I think will provide brilliant recommendations for our listeners, so thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Vic. It was a lovely to chat.

Oh, I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to The Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. Please rate and review this podcast. It is the easiest way to help spread the word about the female talent you've heard about today. The Women's Prize for Fiction podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Maggie, for joining me, and I'll see you next time.