Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S5 Ep16: Bookshelfie: Dawn O’Porter

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Author and journalist, Dawn O’Porter joins Vick Hope to discuss everything from old Hollywood to Spice Girl Mania and reveals why she’s no longer hungry for fame. Dawn is a renowned broadcaster, novelist and journalist. She has made documentaries about everything from free love to childbirth, is the co-founder and director of refugee charity Choose Love and designs dresses for Joanie Clothing. Dawn is the bestselling author of eight books, including The Cows, So Lucky and her newest novel Cat Lady - which is out now. Madeline’s book choices are:  ** Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson **  Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus ** Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid ** Who I Am by Mel C ** We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson 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.

At Harrison Healthcare, we know that lasting health starts with personalized care. We're not just a clinic. We're your partner in prevention, helping you achieve your health and longevity goals. Our expert team combines evidence-based medicine with the compassionate, unhurried care you and your family deserve today and for many years to come. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't settle for anything less than exceptional. Visit harrisonhealthcare.ca.ca.com.com. I, you know, used to handwrite things and send off to magazines, hoping that they would publish them. And I remember when I was about 16, I wrote to Moore Magazine.

I can't remember what it was. More. I know, but I wrote like a kind of a little tiny, probably 50 to 75 word little thing. And that was back in the day, you know, an envelope with a stamp, send it off. And then one day I read more magazine and it was in it. And it just gave me that bug of like, right, that's. it, that's what I'm going to spend my time doing as just trying to be a published writer. With thanks to Bayleys, 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 Vic Hope and I'm your host for season five of the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. The podcasts that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women. that have shaped them. We have a phenomenal lineup of guests for 2022 and I guarantee you'll be taken away plenty of reading recommendations. Our fantastic guest this week is Dawn O'Porter, renowned broadcaster, novelist and journalist. She's made documentaries about everything from free love to childbirth. She's the co-founder and director of refugee charity Choose Love

and designs dresses as well for Joni Clothing. Dawn is the best-selling author of eight books, including the cows, so lucky, and the upcoming Cat Lady, which publishers today. It's so great to have you here. Thank you for joining me. Welcome, Dawn. Thank you. I know so much of your life revolves around writing, but how big a reader are you? I wish I was more so, but I am a pretty good reader.

I found that having children really got in the way of my reading. It was a good few years where it was just the last thing I had time to do, and I would go to bed and think, right, this is the moment I'm going to read, and I would just find myself a few hours later sitting up right fast asleep, and I just got through about a few pages. But in the last year and a half, I've really got it back. I find that being part of a book club really helps. Right.

Because when you are part of a book club, you are accountable for that book every month. And I find that when I've got one book a month to read, I always read it, or generally, in less time that I've got. And so then I'm in this kind of reading mood, and so I read something else. that really speeds me up and makes me get through a lot more books. Sometimes you just need to break the back of it

and we're so disinclined to because everything else gets in the way. I remember with it was Piranesi that won the Women's Prize of Fiction in 2021. For about 50 pages, I was like, no, not for me, not for me. But I had to read it because I was judging. And as soon as I got to about page 50, it was like, bam, you're in. And once you're in, I couldn't stop and it was done in a day. I love that feeling. Yeah.

I love it. And I've also, I've been trying, because I'm a writer for a living, I've been trying to make sure that I see reading as part of my job as much as it is something that's lovely to do. Yeah. And once I kind of established that in my mind that I didn't feel guilty for taking up an afternoon or two a week of actually reading, I'm obviously so much better at writing and write so much more productively when I'm also consuming words. So I've made that part of my week as well. It's not just this luxurious thing I do when I go to bed.

It is, it's part of my day. Yeah, putting that time aside and I think especially when you've got kids and when you're busy, do you ever read to your children? Loads. That's a part of... Yeah. Although, you know, again, the pandemic,

when I had them home all day and you get to that bedtime moment, it became a lot less indulgent that it used to be. It would be a case of a kiss and stick an audio book on and just needed the day to end. But now they're back at school and we're all living, you know, more life. I'm really enjoying reading to them at night. Do you find books to be an escape or a grounding?

I often wonder when people move from the UK to America, which is a very different society and world, whether it's something that might bring you back home or something that still kind of helps you get lost. I do love getting lost in a book. And I'm also one of those terrible people that I do give up on books, which always makes me feel really guilty because I think, you know, I would never walk out of a theatre because I wasn't enjoying the play. But because my time is quite precious, I do, if I'm not into something and around, you know, 20 pages, I do tend to just give up on it. But I do, there's nothing I love more than being totally lost and can't wait to get to it.

And I don't, I don't know if I use it as an escape, but I definitely, and I've been reading quite a lot of American authors lately as well. but I do, I just love being sucked in. I love being sucked in because like so many people, life is so busy, so many things to think about when a book can have you so engrossed that you're not actually thinking about all of those things. It does put you into a kind of meditative state. And the whole idea of meditation, isn't it, that you clear your mind. I'm not very good at that.

And also, I don't know if I've ever kind of reap the benefits of a clear mind. I've not quite got there, but I can after I've been engrossed in a book feel refreshed. It is. It's the best feeling and you're right. I've never really thought of it as meditation because there's so much to consider if you're engrossed in a plot. But that feeling that you get when you're doing guided meditation of completely clearing

your mind and focusing, or be it on this one thing, but therefore nothing else is so special and it's so good for you. It's so good for you. It's so good for you to be taken away from yourself. However that works, you know, for some people it might be a bungee jump and doing something for this sheer thrill of it, I will never be that person. But I'm very difficult to distract. I get really, I'm very kind of locked into daily life.

You know, I think I'm kind of sitting there not thinking about anything and I'm planning what's going in my kids' lunchbox the next day. Like it's very difficult for me to clear my mind. So really the only thing that stops me doing that is a great film or a good book. Well, let's talk about some good books that you have loved throughout your life. Your first book, Shelfy book, is oranges are not the only fruit by Jeanette Winterson. Jeanette Winterson's beautiful, nuanced and funny autobiographical novel charts the author's own decision at 16 years old to leave her missionary church, her home and her overbearing mother for the woman she loves. When did you read this? Around when I was that age.

Right. And it was oddly a school textbook, which I look back on and I'm just surprised by because it's quite progressive for, you know, small town, Guernsey Girl. And I remember reading it. It was the first book that really... engaged me. I used to find most of the school textbooks quite boring and pretend that I'd always like read the study guide and not actually read them properly. This was the first book that I read, read again, read again. I've still got my school copy. Has it got annotations? Yes, so many. Bent down corners, loads of pencil, like just, and you can see where I've scribbled

out and gone back to it and changed my mind, know this is how it was and that's how she felt. It was, it really spoke to me as well on a personal level. There's a line, I think it's the first line of the book, or it's definitely on the first page where she says there's never been a time when I haven't known that I was special. Now, I, when I was, and she doesn't mean specializing fantastic. She means different. I really resonated me as a teenager. My mom had died. I was living with my aunt and uncle and I just felt different from everybody else. And just reading a story about a little girl who felt awkward in her home environment, was looking for kind of stability in other places are in herself.

I just really latched on to it. And I mean, I love, I just love, well, it was so funny when Jeanette brought out her autobiography, not that long ago, and it was basically the same story. When I found that out and how autobiographical, can you say it for me, autobiographical, that book was, it made me love it all the more because she felt so real, that character. And when you've lost your mom, I think you really, cling on to stories where people don't depend on their mothers, whether that, you know, in that case,

was not a very nice, loving, nurturing mother who just didn't support her at all in her life. And I was like, oh, it's just lovely to read about young women who don't have that relationship to rely on. So, yeah, it spoke to me on a hugely personal level. I thought the writing was fantastic. And it was when I read that book that I was like, I'm going to be a writer one day.

That was the one that started it all off. What do you think triggered that? Why do you think it was, was the autobiographical nature of it, the fact that it resonated with you and you had a story to tell? I think all of it. I also, I think there was just something very powerful about the first book that you read, that you can't stop reading and that didn't feel like a chore. You know, I think with me, I read a lot as a young kid and then in my early teens wasn't bothered about reading. This was the book that got me back into it again. Fell back in love.

And got me passionate about books. It's a shame because there were a lot of kind of important texts that I missed out on before. for this point that I kind of a lot of classics that people were reading for GCSEs that I didn't really read at the time but this was the one that is this is the one I remember I remember thinking this is what I'm going to do and when did you start when did you start experimenting with the fact that maybe you had these stories in you and that you wanted to put them on the page well I was pretty useless at school failed everything all the time and the only thing that I ever got good marks in was English literature and when I would write little when our assignments were to write stories

I was always so, so proud. And it was all, you know, handwritten on a couple of pages of A4, but I would always give them to my uncle who loves books and loves writing. And he would mark them for me before I'd hand them in. And he wasn't the kind of person that would tell me something was good if it wasn't, but his notes were always really positive. And I was always so, so proud of these stories that I would write. And I was, you know, back in the day,

the whole idea of writing was kind of mixed up in all sorts of different writing, journalism, fiction, all sorts. And I, you know, used to write. handwrite things and send off to magazines, hoping that they would publish them. And I remember when I was about 16, I wrote to Moore magazine. I can't remember what it was.

More. I know, but I wrote like a kind of a little tiny, probably 50 to 75 word little thing. And that was back in the day, you know, an envelope with a stamp, send it off. And then one day I read more magazine and it was in it. And I remember getting a check about a month later for like 25 pounds or whatever it was

and it just gave me that bug of like right that's it that's what I'm going to spend my time doing is just trying to be a published writer I mean it was so thrilling yeah this is a job I know do you remember what it was about

I don't annoyingly I'm sure it was very trivial but it was more magazine I remember when we I used to collect sugar was the first well there was Mizz and then there was more and then there was sugar

but I remember Moore had like a little bit of a race side to it sometimes. Yeah, I can't remember. I wish I could remember. Do you know what? It's probably in a box somewhere. Yeah. I can't imagine I would ever have thrown that away. That's the kind of thing that I'll find in the depths of my aunt and uncle's house one day. But yeah, no, I don't remember what it was about. And it's tiny. It was, you know, I think probably around 25 words that ended up getting printed. But I was so flattered. I just thought I'd made it. Amazing thing. I know. We tried so hard to get our agony aunt letters published me and my friend Ebony in, um, in Sugar

magazine. We just made up stories. I remember making up a story about farting in a swimming pool and sending it in as one of my embarrassing moments in the hope that it would get published because you'd get some free clothes from Tammy. But we didn't. We didn't. I'm very jealous of Tammy. Tami though. As soon as you said Tami and I just got such a flash of Gansy High Street and what we were all wearing. We just love it. It's like a Russian estalager. First crop top bras. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A cargo pants and a body warmer to match. So good. It sounds like you were in a very supportive household if your uncle was

looking at your stories and giving you productive criticism for them what was it like growing up and having quite a few big shifts moving to Guernsey

for a start after your mother passed away I mean well I already lived there when she passed away so I was born in Scotland then when I was one my mum and dad got divorced and so she moved with my sister

and I down to Guernsey where her family were so that's that was you know I can't remember that so that was kind of I was already in Guernsey and then she died just before I was seven. I lived with my grandparents and then when I was around 10 my aunt and uncle took us in just because my grandparents were getting so old. It's such a strange thing when you're a kid. I knew I was different like I said. I knew that I wasn't

living in an ordinary life but you also just kind of flow with the punches a bit when you're that age but I think in terms of the supportive household I think he was just so happy that I was showing promise in something. Because I really, really academically was a complete disaster. And I was in quite an academic school that didn't, when I said I want to be an actress or I want to be on the stage, it was like, well, that's not going to happen. And also anyone in the plays is going to be our, you know, A plus students so that we can show them off.

So I was kind of just under the radar a bit at school. And I think when it came to the writing thing, they were just so happy to see a passion. And they were very creative people. the rest of my family aren't necessarily very creative my aunt and uncle were so when I moved in with them that kind of passion to write was really encouraged you've said in interviews that you have

a rebellious attitude to life where do you think that comes from oh god I don't know I mean I guess we could look at it in terms of when you're not living a normal life you don't try to there's I always kind of joke that there's a certain kind of life that you can live when you don't have to worry what your mother would say.

And I do think it's very true. I think a lot of people, oh, what would mum say if she saw me do that? I don't have that person in my life where I'm worried about what they would think. So, you know, I've written sexy books and embarrassing articles and I've done things on TV that maybe I wouldn't have done if I had a mother figure. My auntie is a mother figure, but it's once removed. You know, she doesn't say, well, you can't do that and she doesn't judge me for anything. So it's very kind of, it's not an overbearing mother figure that a lot of people would have when it's, your actual mother who would be kind of commenting.

I see that as incredibly liberating and quite free. Obviously it's kind of rooted with sadness, but I'm not sad anymore. But I do definitely see the difference to myself when I was a teenager and in my 20s compared to my friends who were worried about what their mother would say. I'm now thinking back at all the things I may or may not have done on account of being worried about my mum seeing.

And I think there's a lot. Well, there's a lot. And look, sometimes it goes the wrong way. Sometimes you think, God, I could have done with someone over my shoulder at that time, pulling me back a little. Because it's almost a bit like free falling. Definitely some things that I did and said in my early 20s when my career started. I'm like, oh, probably would have been quite good if I was a bit more conscious of that. No regrets now.

But, you know, I just think it's a good steer to have guidance in that way. But when you don't have it, you're very, I mean, you're very free in the world. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. But it's fun. I was just saying to my friend the other day I was like, if I get pregnant, mum will know I had sex. Yeah, well, exactly.

Everything is loaded, but they know what you did. Let's move on to your second book, Shelby book. It's Lessons and Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. This was Garmus's debut novel, set in the early 60s and narrated by the trailblazing and uncompromising Elizabeth Sott. In an unexpected turn of fate, Elizabeth goes from pioneering chemist

to becoming a single mother. and reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show, supper at six. But as her following grows, her unconventional style begins to ruffle more than a few feathers. Tell us a bit about this book. Why did you pick it? I picked it because, funnily enough, my literary agent, Adrian, is one of those people who will just read a book in 24 hours. And he writes down every single book that he's read in his notes in his iPhone. And he always gives me the best recommendations. And this was one that he gave me.

Can I am put in touch with him as well? Yeah, I know. I know. He's brilliant. And I always trust his recommendations. And he was absolutely right. I love, there's so much about this book that I love. Firstly, I love food and she does a cookery show.

So there's that, which I really enjoy. There's a talking, well, not a talking dog. There's a dog in it who can learn words. And because she's a scientist, Elizabeth, she is trying to teach the dog more and more words. And it's so silly and so ridiculous. and reminds you as a writer that you can do whatever the hell you want. And that's how this book felt.

I read it just before I wrote my last book. You can do what the hell you want. If you want to have a dog that can understand words and becomes like a full character in the book, then that's exactly what you should do. And because my latest book, Cat Lady, one of the characters is a cat. And so I was like, this is ridiculous.

And I remember saying to my editor, the first time I said to, I want to write a book about a woman and her cat. And I see her kind of going slightly cross-eyed thinking, oh God, what are you saying? And I was like, no, because there's this book, less than the dog's a feature in it. It's not like it's about the dog, but you can make the cat a feature, you know, a character in the book and it can work for adults. It doesn't have to be like a child's book. And so I just loved all the kind of kooky, bizarreness of this book.

It's also, you know, there's grief. There's motherhood, single mother, that hard bit when you've just had a baby and the support of. of other women, women, what it means when there's a neighbour who, Elizabeth's really struggling with her baby, and then female neighbour just kind of walks in, picks baby up and, you know, gets on with it and goes almost like, go and have a shower, you stink type relationship, which is just what you need when you've just had a baby. You need someone to come in and just get on with it. So she covers so much over the course of the book, whilst it always being really entertaining as well and quite silly.

There is this feminist voice essentially battling the patriarchs said in the blurb. And you know, you spent much of your childhood in a house with three generations of women living together. Yeah. Do you think this laid the ground for you to grow up as a feminist? Were you reading it in books like this? No. I don't think I had a particularly feminist childhood. I think the men in my family are very dominant. So maybe that's why I find myself as, you know, being feminist now.

But I mean, I just, you know, it's just great to read strong female characters who go on a proper journey and kind of fight against the patriarchy. It does put a bit of a pep in your step after you finished a book like that and makes you kind of, I think most women could look at their lives and see there's some area of their life where men are just taking, too much of the upper hand, whether that's in the relationship at work or wherever it is. And it's just nice to be reminded that it actually, all you have to do is stick up for yourself a bit and you don't have to put up with it and that book does that really well. Those little reminders can come at any time and often they come when you most need them,

but you didn't even realise. So when did you read this? It can't be that long ago. No, it wasn't. It was definitely around the time that I was writing Cat Lady. I remember thinking it's okay to write about Cat. but it was this year and it was my I picked it for my book club

for my blog and everyone loved it and it was my favourite sometimes we do these book clubs and everyone gets on Zoom and it's just a bit stilted and no one really knows what to say this one was like I just unmuted everybody because we were just all chipping in

and it was so lively and there was so much to talk about and everyone loved the book and you mentioned Cat Lady which you were writing around the same time as reading this. So just tell us a little bit about what is it all about? Why did you want to write it?

Well, because I love cats. And I just, I couldn't believe, genuinely, I know this is quite trivial, but that I managed to get the title Cat Lady because the merchandise that I'm like buying for myself is very exciting. Like I've got sitting here with the cat heads. I've just now got dresses, shoes, everything's covered in cats. I love cats. They bring me so much comfort, so much happiness.

My cat died in 2020, 16 years, and I was absolutely heartbroken. I'm sorry. Thank you. But I just, I wanted to write a book that addressed pet grief because it's just very real grief. I've, you know, grieved a lot in my life, and it's the same feeling. And I think it doesn't get the attention that it needs. And I think there's some people who, when they lose their animals, it's a really a huge, hugely devastating moment that people need to rally around them and help them.

And so I wanted to address that. But it's not just a sad book about cats dying. It's also about a woman who is called Mia, who is living the life that on paper a woman should be living. She's got a house, a husband, a stepchild, a great job. And she's escaping a life of chaos that all of these things that she now has are keeping her in check. And bit by bit, she loses them all, returns to chaos.

And bit by bit she pieces herself back together again. and starts living the life that she wants to be living. It's embracing stereotypes, really. It challenges them and then embraces them. It's okay if you're a stereotype. They exist because it's a comfortable space. And she's a cat lady. That's it.

She's not crazy. She's definitely a cat lady, which is what I am. But I think we can probably argue the crazy bit. But I just, I love animals. I think it was really, it was a really fun book to write, to really indulge in that relationship. I've had with my cat. What was your cat called?

Lilu. And do you have any other animals since? You can't replace, but have you? Well, you can't replace, but what you can do. So when your pet dies and you're really sad, you don't get over it, but you can bring joy into your house by getting other ones, which is something you can't necessarily do when humans die. So around a month after Liliu died, I rescued two cats called Mertl and Boo.

And then about a month ago, Chris and I rescued two dogs called Meatloaf and Puffin. And they're two kids, two dogs, two cats and a husband. It's like Noah's Ark. It's really something. So I'm aware at the moment and Chris is at home with the mall. And I'm like, as I was leaving, I was like, Chris, I'm leaving you with six of them. This is a lot. And he's like, yeah, it's a lot.

But, you know, you just get into your household runs smoothly because you, everyone has like their dedicated time for feeding. Yeah. But it is a bit of a zoo. Oh, you say this, there's equilibrium. I had my mum and dad down from Newcastle over the weekend and we were discussing how At one point, my mum went through a phase where she got really into just buying animals out of the blue that we were not qualified to look after. So there was two geese, there was two, there was lots of chickens, there was two lambs at one point. And it was around the same time she had my youngest brother.

And she always jokes that she would get mixed up in the mornings and she was breastfeeding and preparing a bottle for these lambs. She's like, sometimes just got confused. I don't know which one was at my breast and which one I was pumping the milk for. I just wish there was a photo somewhere of your one breastfeeding a lamb. That would be amazing. The other thing was being a direction that this podcast has ever taken. Breastfeeding a lamb. It can't be done, by the way, don't try.

Do you know that? I don't know for sure, Dawn. But I'm going to guess and I'm not going to be one to advocate. Let's look back to your debut novel, Paper Aeroplanes. You channeled your childhood in Guernsey. Are there other elements of your real life in your fiction? Is that something that you like to do? I think there will always be an element of me in all the books,

but the more that I write, the less of me is going into them. It's, I think when, well, for me anyway, I channeled so much. It was very therapeutic. And I would notice, like, the further the book, the more books I wrote, the less of me that would go into them and realizing, oh, I've got so much out through this process of writing fiction. In my last book, so lucky, there was a lot of me in it, but very scattered around and kind of mixed between three characters, almost unidentifiably me. but I knew that there was some in there with Cat Lady, my love of cats is in there, but also Mia has one sister

and they lost their mum when they were a kid. They had a terrible relationship with their dad. There's so much of that that isn't me, but there's just a little bit of me. I haven't written about my mum dying in a book since paper airplanes or kind of hidden it within fiction. It's quite nice to just drop that in. I think you definitely get stuff off your chest

when you write fiction. You can hide things that you're just desperate to talk about, but don't know how to talk about in a character. And I love doing that, but I'm also really enjoying just my imagination now. Paper airplanes were so close to my life. It was set in Guernsey. She's a 16-year-old girl. The names René and Flo are inspired by my gran.

It's just a little, I love this story. So my ground was called Flo, and during the war, apparently she had a love affair with a pilot. and they used to write each other these lovely letters, which we found, and she always signed them off as René. That was her secret name, which I just, I mean, it was not the woman that I knew. So I called them René and Flo, because that felt like, you know, very, very much who my grand was, and very two different, very different girls, who were these two sides to her personality. Yeah, set in Guernsey, the mum had died, desperate for a best friend, so lived with her grandparents, so much of it was me. I got so much out.

I used to be the kind of person who was absolutely clambering for attention, clambering for people to listen to me. And something really dramatically changed after I wrote paper airplanes where I was just like, oh, God, needed to get that. I never had any therapy or anything like that about my mum. And so I feel like I just, a huge thing shifted in my brain after I wrote that book. I relaxed. It was like a massive exhalation.

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We cannot wait to meet you. Well, it's time to talk about your third book, The Third Book, Dawn, which is Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins reads. This book catapults you headlong into the hedonistic world of the 70s music scene,

charting the story stratospheric rise and fall of fictional band Daisy Jones and the six. This is their story of the early days and the wild nights, but everyone remembers the truth differently. What did you love about this book? This was hands down my favourite book of the year. I was late to the party. I think everyone had read it long before I had.

But I live in L.A. Sunset Strip is just up the road. I'm very, very excited, nostalgic about 60s, 70s. LA scene. It's something I just wish I'd been there. I feel like I was born way too late in life and that I should have been born in, you know, the 50s and being old enough to enjoy the 60s and 70s.

This book is so sexy. It's rock and roll. There's drug sex and rock and roll. There's affairs. I listen to the audio book of it, which can be hit and miss sometimes. It's the best audio book I've ever listened to because it's fully cast.

It's like listening to a radio play. and the book is written in interview form of this band in modern day all looking back with slightly gruff voices like they smoked a thousand fags and um and i was so gripped by it i tried to go i would occasionally go look at the book because i thought damn it i should also know what this looks like on the page because it's such an interesting format but i just obviously the audiobook i just i couldn't give up but um it's clearly inspired by fleetwood mac and the dynamic within the band. But it's not them. It is fictional, but it's so real that you find yourself

Googling this band to try and find them and listen to the music. So there's a TV adaptation coming out and it's going to be great. I just know it is because the music is what's going to bring it truly alive. Daisy Jones is this kind of sultry, sexy, super skinny, you know, singer who is just a mess but also hot and gorgeous. And you just like everything you want from a 70s icon. And then the old guy, I think so name's Bernie. And I think it's Bernie. Sorry, if I got that wrong.

He was like the kind of head of the band and just a miserable old git, really, but just also kind of soppy in his heart and just like a true, you know, romantic and music band guy. But I love her writing, Taylor Jenkins read. I quickly went on and read another one of her books, which is also written in interview style, the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo. But just she's got that kind of Jackie Collinsness about her where she's got her intel from somewhere. Like it's fictional, but like she's got it from somewhere.

She's done the interviews, which has set the scene of what being in a band back then was like. And when this kind of interloper hot singer joins the band that they kind of realize it's going to be the making of them, but it just causes all sorts of trouble within the group. It was just like perfectly paste and perfectly drawn. I saw the character so clearly and it just, I mean, it really made me want to smoke, which I gave up years ago. And I'm not promoting smoking, but it just made me want to be in some dirty club back in the 70s that is thick.

The air is thick with smoke. Everyone just smells of liquor and the music's fab. Well, you know when they banned smoking in clubs, all we could smell was vomit and, and urine. So actually it was quite good. It masks a lot. It masks a lot. I just can't believe, because I did smoke back then,

but a lot of my friends didn't. I can't believe what they were putting up with. And I just think, God, it was, you'll close the next morning, but almost when you're listening to Daisy Jones, you can smell all that. You can feel it all. Your feet are sticking.

Your feet are sticking to the ground of the nightclub. And it just, oh, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. And I like really terrible thing to say. There are some books that you read as a writer that you're just jealous of. I was really, really jealous of that book. Well, she's created this world that you already knew you were obsessed with. You knew you loved that, 60s, 70s, L.A. And, you know, you did move there.

Obviously, not at the time that we're talking about. But how does the reality compare to the glamour that is so often evoked? Well, it doesn't really. Like my life in LA is it's lovely and the sun shines a lot and that's all great. But it's not how it, you know, it's not how you would imagine it. It's not constant. Everyone hasn't got loads of Botox and fillers that I know. There's not constant like part the parties are kind of bleak.

And now everyone is just, you know, that kind of the new celebrity. So I just, when I feel. first got there it was much more exciting than it is now and I felt got you got that I got that last little bit of how Hollywood used to feel and you'd go out and you'd I remember like just being out with a friend and we just end up having this wild night with Sean Penn and John Hamm and because we met up with them in like this late night diner that just doesn't happen anymore I just don't feel like people are out in that way everyone's much more protective of themselves but back then I felt like I just got that last little bit of how Hollywood would have felt

But it's been a long time. Now, I mean, I'm in bed by nine. When was it that you moved? 15 years ago. Yeah, so a long time ago. And the first year was tough. I didn't really know anybody. But I met my husband, Chris, about a year in.

And he'd just done the movie Bridesmaids. And that puts us into the world that was very exciting. And that put us into the world of, you know, kind of getting invited to the fun parties and not being, not feeling so much like, you know, tag alongs, but actually being in it. And that was a really fun time. You mentioned that the soundtrack when this adaptation comes out is going to be fantastic. And that's so often what makes an adaptation. And I love books where music is so woven into them.

Does music play a big part in yours and your family's life and especially living in the heart of so much of it? Yeah, I mean, Chris, I'm a bit rubbish at music, to be honest with you. Chris always puts playlist together. I stand in the kitchen We have an Alexa And I've got friends over And I think what can I put on That will impress them

And be quite cool And I always end up just putting Nora Jones on Oh but fair enough I love Nora Jones I absolutely love Nora Jones My friends always kind of joke about it We're going to go around to dawn And just going to cook us an amazing meal

We're going to get drunk And we're going to listen to Nora Jones And that's just what's going to happen That's what you do But I go between Nora Jones and Van Morrison That's like my two Alexa play But Chris puts together Brilliant playlists

I don't know what I'm listening to who the artists are, but he, um, some songs have become like just, I feel like iconic to our family life. And I can't tell you what they are because I've got no idea, but he's, he's kind of done the playlist to my life. Him and my best friend who lives in Melbourne always send me playlists. I love that. You've got a thing for silky vocalists. I do. Well, because I can sing that. So I like, I'm a, I'm a sing-along person. And so anything that's in my range, I love, and I'm right there with Nora Jones. I sound just like Nora Jones. I say that when I go to karaoke, I always do Jennifer Lopez.

And this is no shade to DeJalo, but she hasn't got great range. So it's really easy to sing because it never goes too high or too low. Exactly, but all like Madonna's songs. There's some real bangers that you can do where they really don't go out of a normal person's range. As well as the music, Hollywood is fashion, you know. And you have a very trademark style. You love vintage clothing. I've followed you for a long time.

And actually originally, as well as the documentaries, I was really into these vintage dresses and these pre-loved dresses that you were talking about on Instagram and on TV as well. Have you always loved clothes and fashion? Do you remember consciously cultivating a style or was it something that just happened very naturally? Well, my aunt and uncle, my uncle, they were furriers back in the 60s. And so they haven't done that since I've basically been alive. but he was a dressmaker. And so he would always talk about the way that clothes were made. Like he would, you know, show you something that he'd made and turn it inside out and say,

this is the seeming, this is kind of double stitch. And it's a rolled hem and it's, you know, and like, as a kid, I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. But it was ingrained in me to care about the way that clothes were made. And I think because my mum died so young and I remember what she was wearing is so part of the image that I've got of her in my head, these amazing 80s batwing jumpers and brilliant 80s dresses. I was always attracted to old things.

I kind of stuck there. Now growing up in Guernsey as a teenager, you had to be very brave to step out of trendy. It was really hard to have a sense of style that wasn't. I just followed what everyone else was doing. If there was a trend, I was right on it. And then it was when I went away and left the island and went up to Liverpool, that I started to think, how do I want to dress? And I hadn't quite discovered vintage yet,

but I knew that I didn't want to dress like everybody else. And if I went to just one of those, you know, very cheap high street shops, I was always trying to put together looks that were quite 60s. That just seemed to be where I was, where I was heading. And then I was in my early 20s. I was living in London. I just started making money for the first time. I was on my bike, cycling through Putney,

and I cycle past this little vintage shop. And I was like, oh, that looks nice. I went in and I bought my first vintage dress. And it was this kind of 70s sundress. and I went to a party the next day, a garden party. And I remember feeling this is it. And I'm so proud of this dress. I've got a story to tell about this old lady who was sitting at the back of the shop.

I never found the shop again. I went looking for it. I never found it. Did it really exist? I've got no idea. But I was so proud of that purchase and that just started off this kind of lifelong obsession with sourcing clothes. I'm like I shop a lot. I love shopping and I love small independent brands.

I'm not I wouldn't it wouldn't cross my mind to go and walk down a high street and buy clothes. It just doesn't cross my mind. It's not that's not. I can walk down Oxford Street and just I'm not looking. But if I walk past a little vintage shop, I could be in there for hours. Straight away. Yeah. And I love, you know, the I'm, oh God, I'm so targeted on Instagram with the ads.

But because I do hashtag small business all the time. I love supporting small businesses. And I think these tiny brands that are making the best clothes. For me, I really, I love wearing clothes more than once. I think that's really important. And I love turning up to something knowing that nobody else is going to be wearing that dress. And that's how I shop. So I'm deliberately trying to buy things that I know no one else will have.

And it makes it really exciting. Yeah, it does. I've got well into renting recently. Oh, great. Just renting. So I don't mind wearing things more than once, but sometimes I feel so special. It doesn't have to be new, just new to me. Yeah.

And it's so exciting. The rental process, it feels like how it used to feel to go to a life. library when I was little. I know I'm going to return it, but it's like it's endless. It's great. That's such a lovely way to look at it. It's really great. It's so much fun. Your fourth book, Shelby Book Dawn, is Who I Am by Mel C. One for all the Spice Girls fans out there, the artist formerly known as Sporty Spice, discusses her whirlwind career with all of the 90s nostalgia that you'd expect, but also offers a glimpse into the darker underbelly of fame, the music industry and media manipulation.

What was it about this book that made you pick it for the podcast? Well, I was right there, front of house, biggest spice girls fan imaginable. They meant so much to me when I was living on a tiny island and just dreaming of the mainland and what my life could be. And I remember so, so clearly that as I was leaving Guernsey to go and start my life, they were at their most prolific. And they put the fire in my belly to go and be brave. and nothing like them had ever happened to us before. We'd had Madonna, which kind of was, you know, I guess sexual liberation,

but I was too young to be sexually liberated by that. It was just very exciting. And also she was untouchable. She was like this kind of icon. The spice girls came along and they could have been us. And they were just these normal girls achieving the unthinkable. And it was so exciting and I loved them so much. And a few months ago, Melsie was in L.A.

And I interviewed her about her book. and I asked her she posted on Instagram that she was doing this event in LA but they hadn't named a host for the event so I wrote to her and I said Mel can I do it? She's like yes! So it was an amazing thing for me to be able to

I've met her before but to be able to like really talk to her about that fandom of mine but also the book I remember so clearly what I could see and the book tells you what you couldn't see which she's written it at just the right time because it is a bit sad her experience of her eating to

and the pressure she was under. But she wrote it at a time of life where she doesn't ruin the experience of the spice girls. We're still allowed to enjoy it. But she's saying, just so you know. And she's just so open and so honest in it. I just really appreciated the kind of the chance to see what was actually going on. It doesn't mean that all that we saw was fake.

It wasn't. They were really having that much fun. They were really doing what they were doing. But there was just this other side to fame and success and pressure. And suddenly having every newspaper. paper in the world talking about you and what that did her. And she wrote it in a very honest, but very kind of self-indulgent way,

almost a bit of a service to young women, just to say this is what it felt like and it's okay if you're not as happy as you're pretending to be. You don't have to lie about that. And I was just really impressed by the book. But it was in it, there's enough kind of juicy, spicy, joy, and there's also the other side of it. So she didn't kill the experience of loving the spice girls, which I thought was really good writing.

Knowing that those sides can coexist. Exactly. It's really important because we're so often shown this filtered highlights real of success that we aspire to. And as women, we push ourselves so hard. So hard. So, so hard. And actually, I do feel like now, if I look at any of my favorite pop stars, I probably know a little bit more about what's going on because there are means, social media, etc.

And we're also having these conversations around mental health more than we were. So I'm not saying it's perfect and I'm sure we're still not told everything. We don't know everything and maybe we don't need to know everything. But it does feel like at that time, that's not a conversation that we would have had at all. Not at all. I'm glad it's happening now. And I think also there would have been, there would have been some disrespect for her.

If she'd have come back then, if she'd have come out and say, I'm really struggling. People were really, well, what are you struggling about? You're making millions. You're selling out stadiums across the world. How dare you complain?

And I think that's how she felt. I think now there's a lot more sympathy. I look at an artist. I look at someone in the public eye. And just by very nature of the fact that you are in entertainment, we are the most sensitive among us. So let's stop. that people in the public eye or famous people are supposed to be really, really strong people.

They are sensitive, they're breakable, and they need to be handled with a bit more care. The majority of people that I know in the entertainment industry want to do their job, and fame is a byproduct of that. I do think that we need to be a little bit more sympathetic to the idea that fame isn't necessarily the best part of what they do. It's the hardest part. And we are the ones that are making them famous. We're the ones that are commenting on them constantly.

We're the ones that retweeting, the clickbait that we're clicking on. And I just think she was in a time where there was just no sympathy for it. And that was really hard. And she felt guilty about it. So she went through an awful lot and she's kind of risen victorious as, you know, this amazing strong woman. But God, I really, I really wanted to go back and hug her. You could hug her many years later. Well, I did hug her for quite a long time.

I was like, it's amazing they've let me close to you. you. I used to carry pictures of you in my handbag. I'm hugging sporty spies. I know. I love them so much. Which I'm sure that you did the same as we did at school. You all had to be a spy school. I was posh. Okay. Through and through. I was so proud to be posh. Yeah. I mean we did. I weirdly at the time that they kind of burst onto the scene. I was in a group of five. Right. Oh, perfect. And it was just made for us. And we all had one and we all were them and I just lived and breathed them. I was just absolutely obsessed. My first true experience of being a fan. Yeah. Same.

Yeah. I obviously had to always be scary. Yeah. I really wanted to be baby. And looking back, it's not necessarily the greatest thing. But I was told I definitely unequivocally had to be scary. I read in an interview actually just mentioning fame and success there. I read an interview that you once said that you wanted fame, but now you'd rather have success.

Two very different things. Very different things. But I think when you're young, especially when I was young in the 90s, where fame was a lot more. I mean, there was just famous people and non-famous people. There wasn't like this kind of massive gray area of the internet where there could be someone with a following of 40 million people that you've never even heard of.

There was who was on the telly and who wasn't on the telly. So they all just felt fame and success just felt like the same thing. And I think that was kind of true. But now I see it very differently. I have no interest in walking down the street and people recognizing my face. But I really want people to read and enjoy my books. So that to me is a difference between success and fame.

Notariety and success kind of go together in the world that you create and the fan base of use an old term that you need compared to my desire to be on every TV show, to be the most famous person on television. That's just gone. And I think that kind of went around my early 30s when I'd been on TV a lot and then the work just dried up. and at first it really depressed me. I was desperate to get back on TV and I felt if I'm not on TV I am nothing.

I'm not, if people don't see me that I'm working, I am just, I'm not in this industry at all. And it was within the kind of two and a half years where I wasn't working on TV that I got back into writing and I got offered a book deal and I just went, oh God, this is so much more rewarding and my relationship was trying to be famous really changed. Also I met and married someone who around the time that we met

became very famous and I was like oh no that's not what I want I'm very happy that it's him and I love being in this world but I don't need to be the one that is the famous one and I still stand by that now it's like you know if Chris is having been stopped and doing lots of selfies I just keep shopping which is great and I sometimes have to go back and rescue him but there's not a single part of me that wishes that was me in my late 20s that was all I wanted it's such a liberating feeling when you remember that actually the art, the craft, the thing that you're passionate about doing is the main thing because you can get sidetracked.

And when you come back to it, you're like, but no one can take this away from me. This bit is mine forever. And there's a real, I mean, it's liberating. There's also a real piece in that. Yeah. Also, but you do, the way, you know, the reality of it is, I'm sitting in room with my publicist.

So I have to, like, this is a fact. To be successful in what I do, you have to have a certain amount of public profile and you have to do lots of things. And I love doing all of that and it's great. But it's now with the purpose of me being able to keep doing the job that I love, which is very different from the purpose of just everyone's got to know my name. And what does success look like for you now?

I mean, it's something that will constantly change, but what's it look like right now? I'm in London for two weeks on my own without my kids. I got flown over here by my publisher and being put up in a hotel. and I'm going, got some lovely interviews like I'm doing right now, people are excited to talk to me about my books. And all of this that I'm doing this week is an achievement because I've written books and I've worked hard. This is a moment where I'm realizing that I have achieved success

in the thing that I wanted to do. And it's taken a long time to not feel like an imposter. And it's taken a long time to be really, this is the result of hard work. But right now, this week, I'm feeling, the, I'm feeling my success and it feels wonderful. Congratulations. Thank you.

We'll see if anyone reads my next book. I'm sure they will. And then it all fell apart. Actually, just before we move on to your final book, I do want to ask, you know, we've talked about the spice girls and how they ignited something in so many of us that we'd never seen before. But what do you think the lasting legacy of that girl power is? I think it lives in all of us.

I think about it all the time. One of the bits that I love in the book and what I remember at the time was how they would just burst into a publisher's office and just cause mayhem. And there's something in there, just go cause mayhem. That might not necessarily be loud and messy,

but your own version of it in your own life. Just go and stir things up and just do what you can to get what you need. Your fifth and final book this week, Dawn, is We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Often heralded as Jackson's masterpiece, This gothic tale follows Merri-Cat, who lives in her large, isolated family home with only her sister Constance and her uncle Julian for company. Mericat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life.

But since Constance was acquitted for murdering the rest of the family, the world refuses to leave them alone. Why did you pick this book? My friend Louis Theroux recommended it to me, another person whose books I always try to read, although some of them are way too clever for me. I love tiny stories. I love it when a book sometimes doesn't go beyond four walls and just keeps you grips in this world. He was absolutely right.

It is a masterpiece. It's a small book. And that description he just gave is kind of it. There's a few other characters from the local town that kind of pop up. But mostly it's this bizarre little relationship between these two sisters when they've,

obviously they're on the tail end of something very dramatic which you kind of, you know, learn that there was other people died and that someone was accused, but the townspeople aren't letting go with the fact that she was accused, which I think is quite a modern thing. You see people being accused of things, and whether they're let off or not, their life is, you know, ruled by that accusation. You can't really escape it. And that felt very kind of present.

But there's a cat. I'm obviously any story with a cat I'm in. But yeah, it just, it's really hard to talk about because it's so bizarre. but it was just a real little nugget. It felt very special. And in terms of that, what we were saying earlier, a book that can also become quite meditative and take you out of your life,

you have no choice with a book like this, but to just lose yourself in it. You have to just read it and put yourself into the pages and that really happened with this one. As soon as I opened it, I was like, I forgot I had children. But I was totally, totally engrossed. you seem to have this very acute interest in the lives of those who we may not always understand.

Yes. That's what this book is about. You mentioned the neighbours there. And so many of your documentaries are taking a little look, gaining some insight into worlds that seem strange to many. Where do you think that comes from? Well, I do. I find the word normal really interesting because there is. something where everyone presumes that there's this kind of base layer of how human beings live.

And it's just not the case. No, it's really not. There's just so many sub-genres of human beings and so many bizarre but wonderful people. Yet we still have this idea of what's normal and it's just such a strange thing that we've done as a society to think that most of us are weird. And so that's what fiction is so brilliant at because it reminds you. you that not everybody lives above the line of what is considered normal. There's all sorts out there. Somewhere there's a lady breastfeeding a lamb and it's my mum. Actually in your book, A Life in Pieces.

Yes. You documented your experiences of lockdown in LA with two small children. And there are lessons to be taken from every life that is lived. Were there any lessons that you took from that time that you've taken forward into your life now? I mean, gosh, what a time. Our lockdown in L.A. was so much worse than your lockdown here. It basically didn't stop for the entire 2020 and well into 2021, which didn't come out of lockdown.

And I had two small children and a marriage where we were used to, you know, a lot of travel being apart from each other. And in the nicest possible way, we've got, you know, very good at that. Like, Chris will go off and do a film and then he'll come back. And that's kind of been our love. we have a very, very fluid lifestyle. It's not, we don't have much routine. And there we were locked into a routine with two small kids for a really long time.

And it was a massive culture shock to us, as it was to everybody. But I've always been a working mum. And apart from the, like the bit where I wrote Life and Pieces, I wasn't. I think it made me way more engaged. I'm now not, you know, when people say, oh, it goes so fast. I don't think anyone feels like that after the pandemic, but you had to really indulge in parenting. You had to really get stuck in.

I've always been the kind of mom who will kind of buy the Lego and they say, you know, you do it. And there was me doing the Lego. You just kind of changed the way that you interacted as a family. It was so much more intimate and it was lovely. I mean, there was loads about the pandemic that I absolutely hated like everybody. But there's no doubt that as a little family,

we were, when you strip away, all the things that Mommy always has to go and do, or that daddy always has to go and do, there was just this kind of little nucleus that just kind of survived together. And it was actually looking back a really special time. And I feel very lucky that I can look back on it and feel that way. It was a time that put a lot of things in perspective as well, which I feel like your list of books that you've brought to the table today, that is a huge part of them, is that they give you so much perspective on so many different world. Books help us to walk a day in other people's shoes. I think we've always lived in

the castle as a great example of that. It teaches us empathy. Just sort of finally want to ask you about why that matters to you because I know about your work with help refugees choose love. It's something that's very close to my heart as well. I know thank you for all your support. It's so lovely. It's important to me. You know, my mom came to this country when she was 11 years old. So it's that that's the cause. It's always been the cause I wanted to lend my voice to where and when I can because it's a story. that I understand and I've been told and have seen firsthand. Why was it important to you?

Why did you want to first get involved? I mean, it was a Sunday lunch in Shortwich where my friend Josie and Leanna, and my baby was just a few months old, so it would have been around seven years ago. And we just like, why what's going on in Calais is just so horrific? Why isn't more being done? Why aren't we helping? And so we just decided that lunch to try and get a truckload of supplies to Calais. And we did it a month later.

Just through our Twitter feeds, we had thousands and thousands of packages turn up to this storage unit. And we managed to get this truckload of supplies to Calais. And you realize it didn't even touch the sides. And so then it was a case where we're in. Let's just carry on. I moved back to America and Josie and Leanna carried on. And now Josie is CEO of this amazing organisation. We've raised well over £30 million.

We are still the biggest source of aid to the refugee crisis across the world. And for me, it's important because everybody has individual causes. My mom died of breast cancer, so I'm passionate about breast cancer charities. You know, other people might have another illness that they support those charities. But I think what people need to understand is the refugee crisis is something we all are going to be affected by and are affected by. This is the one thing where if we all chipped in, whether it's awareness, which is just as important as donating money or giving what you can, it's, there's no. no way out of this unless we help the situation. It's not going away. It's only going to get worse. So anyone who thinks they can turn a blind eye to it is just, I'm really sorry, but that's

just not an option because it's not going to just go away. And that's why it's important to me. It's one of those global issues that we just need to step up. It's one of the proudest things I've ever done. I'm so, so honored to be a part of Choose Love. And yeah, it's just this kind of, I am, my job is fundraising. It's fun. There's fun ways. to do it. No celebrities answer their phone to me anymore

because I was like, will you do this? We do this. We do this. But saying that people are still so generous and lovely and they do it but it is a tireless mission

that never ends. But one that I'm really, really happy to be a part of. But once you're in, you can't stop. It's brilliant work and it's so important. So if anyone's listening,

check it out if you haven't heard of it. My final question to you, Dawn, is if you had to choose one book from your list as a favourite, which would it be in why? It would be oranges and not the only fruit because of what that meant to me as a teenager and how I'm due to read it again. It holds up over the course of time and I just think she's the most phenomenal writer.

Well, thank you so much. I've absolutely loved having a coffee and a chat about books with you. Dawn, you've been a brilliant guest on the podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.