Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S7 Ep4: Bookshelfie: Kristin Hannah

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

A New York Times bestselling author, Kristin Hannah’s books are beloved the world over and read by millions. Listen as she discusses the art of creating empathy with readers and the importance of putting women at the centre of stories.  Kristin is the author of 25 novels, including historical fiction masterpiece The Nightingale, which has now sold millions of copies worldwide and has been translated into 45 languages.  Kristin started her working life as a lawyer but decided to take writing seriously when she was bedridden in pregnancy and needed something to do. The decision totally changed her life.  Her books often focus on the stories of women in history and her new title The Women - is no different. It  follows a young Army nurse during the Vietnam War whose world is turned upside down by the conflict and its legacy, and is out now. Kristin’s book choices are: ** Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder ** To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee ** The Witching Hour by Anne Rice ** Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver ** Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke  Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season seven 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 seven? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

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Motherhood, sisterhood and friendship, those three pieces are what in form and color my vision almost in its entirety. With thanks to Bailey's

this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices, and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction

written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I am your host for Season 7 of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you'll be adding to your 2024 reading. Today I am joined by best-selling American novelist Kristen Hannah.

Kristen is the author of 25 novels, including historical fiction masterpiece, The Nightingale, which has now sold millions of copies worldwide and has been translated into 40. She said her working life as a lawyer, but decided to take writing seriously when she was bedridden in pregnancy and needed something to do. The decision totally changed her life. She is now a multi-award winning writer, his new releases raised to the top of the bestseller charts. Her books often focus on the stories of women in history and her new title, The Women, is No Different. It follows a young army nurse during the Vietnam War whose world is turned upside down. by the conflict and its legacy and it's out now. Welcome, Kristen, to the podcast. Thank you. It is wonderful to be here. Can I just ask, where are you right now? Because at the time of

recording, it is dark, it is cold, it is windy, it is rainy in London where I am. It's getting towards nighttime. It's getting towards dinner time, but you look, absolutely bathed in sunlight. I am actually bathed in sunlight. It's about 11 in the morning in Los Angeles. And there is one thing about Los Angeles. The sunshine is beautiful. Do you find that your surroundings, the environment you're in influences the way you write? Oh, what an interesting question. I've never had that one before. Well, I don't think so. I mean, I write in all weather, all days, all places. I live in Seattle, and so I'm used to a little gloomier weather. And I think that does in some ways make it easier to write because in places like Los Angeles, you feel like you should get

out and enjoy the sunshine, which I'm sure you guys do in London, because when you see it, you just have to get out into it. Yeah, it's a massive distraction because you don't know when you're going to see it again. Exactly. I do feel like there's something about the seasons that are quite inspiring. I don't know if it's because it helps me with memory, like I can assign different memories to different seasons. And I guess that's sort of a storytelling tool in a way. And if there was just sunshine all the time, it might make it a little harder. I don't know. I have never lived any place really with sunshine all the time. So I can't really speak to that. But you're right in the sense that the sunshine does kind of automatically

elevate your mood a little bit. And especially for those of us who spend most of our lives in gloomier weather when, you know, where sunshine just makes a huge difference. And what about your reading? When do you find the time to get lost in a good book? You know, it depends. There are periods during the writing process where I don't read fiction as much. You know, I'm doing a bunch of research, or I am writing and editing all day. And, you know, when I get done, all I want is a glass of wine and, you know, to think about nothing. And then I have months at a time where I read a lot. I read a lot on vacation. I read a lot on my downtime. Actually, I'm now doing publicity. And so I'm just starting to get a little more time to read again.

And that's so helpful because reading, you know, has always been throughout my whole life the thing that that fills me back up and centers me and sort of keeps me grounded in the world. And when you want to be filled back up and centered and kept grounded in the world, what sort of books do you gravitate towards? Well, you know, like many people, I think, compulsive book purchasers, I buy all year and have this huge, you know, to be read. stack. And I go through, I mean, there are times that I want to read, you know, the bestsellers, thrillers, where I want to just be taken away and sort of escape. And there are times when I want to read something more literary, maybe award-winning type fiction that really teaches me something as a writer and maybe opens me up just a little bit to a world that I didn't know anything about. Well, let's get into the books that have opened up those worlds for you.

Your bookshelfy books and your first one is Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Now, this is the first in the Little House in the Prairie series, which tells tales about life on the frontier with America's best loved pioneer family. Inside the little house in the big woods live the Ingle's family. Ma, Parr, Mary, Laura and Baby Carrie. Outside the little house are the wild animals, the bears and the bees, the deer and the wolves. This is the story of how they live together in harmony, mostly, but sometimes in fear. Now, I understand this book series captivated you as a young girl. Tell me what you liked about them so

much. Well, as a child, I moved around a lot. My dad and mom were kind of adventurers, and we were on the move a lot. So I went to a lot of junior highs, a lot of elementary schools, a lot of high schools, which meant that I was always sort of, you know, the new kid on the block. And you never, or at least in my experience, you never come to a new school wearing the right clothes with the right hairdo. So you're always kind of feeling like an outsider and feeling, I think, distanced from people. And so in those like early formative years, for me, my books and the characters in my favorite books were the friends that I brought with me from 10. town to town. And I think particularly with the Laura Ingalls' Wilder books, you know, there was this

sense of this family and they were settled and they lived in a community. And Laura, I mean, you know, she was self-reliant and confident and bold. And, you know, she was sort of everything I wanted to be. And she lived in this world that seemed incredibly romantic to me because it was so. settled and she could always sort of rely on, you know, the people around her. And so for a little girl who felt like an outsider who felt displaced a lot of the time, I think it was just a really kind of a sense of safety for me to read those books. And in many of our homes, we had animals, horses, cattle, dogs, cats, fish, everything. And so I really identified with that pioneer spirit. which I think my parents really exemplified even though it was the 60s.

Yeah. You know what I read that your father took you on a family adventure, age eight, leaving California to find a new place to live. Speaking of this pioneer spirit, talk to us a bit about that experience and how it shaped you. Yeah, I mean, you know, at the time I didn't realize how unusual it was. but we were living in Southern California, 1968. I was eight. My brother was six.

My sister was four and a half. And my dad and mom decided that California was just too busy. There was too much traffic. There were too many people. And I think it is. It's the classic pioneer spirit that brought people west. And so he said, let's go. We're going on a vacation.

So we piled the three of us and the family dog, and I got to bring a friend, and my brother got to bring a friend. So we piled in the Volkswagen bus with the flower decals on the side and the curtains my mom had made. And off we went, and he said, raise your hand when we're home. And that was really what our search was about. We went through, I think, 16 states from place to place through the southwest, the Midwest, the Midwest. you know, up the coast. And we all, without exception, raised our hand in the Pacific Northwest. And I think it was just something about the green trees, the snow-kept mountains, the water everywhere.

It felt empty after California. And so that's where we moved to. And my dad started, you know, the family started building what was the beginning of this new family. business, which was campgrounds. And so we were all out there, you know, hacking this campground out of the forest and creating an version of our lives. So you can see how it really, it does sort of intersect with Laura Ingalls Wilder and those books. I mean, you identify with Laura Wilder, despite having essentially such different circumstances. What was it about this character that you feel spoke to you? Honestly, I think it was the combination of, like I said,

a settled community. You know, years later, years, many years later, I wrote a book called Firefly Lane. And that was a book about two girls who had been best friends since the age of like 12 through their whole lives. And I wrote that because that was always my dream to have like the same friends, the same community, the same school. And that was just something that I didn't have. And so I think it was that, you know, and her parents were so traditional, obviously, and mine were so unconventional. And so I think she just, you know, those books represented a life that I dreamed of, the kind of life that you see on television, you know, the nuclear family where everybody's, you know, perfect and happy and safe and contained.

The other series that really spoke to me at this time period was the Wizard of Oz. And, you know, Dorothy going into Oz, leaving her safe and, you know, and venturing out into this impossible to believe world and trying to find her way home. And I think that sort of is the opposite sense that I got from the little house in the big woods. Did you ever fulfill that dream that you had as a young girl? Or is it still the dream? Do you still see it through such, rose-tinted spectacles, I guess? Let's put it this way.

I made a very different choice with my life than my parents had. And when I got pregnant with my son, that's when I said to my husband, okay, we're going to find a town, we're going to find a community. And we are going to live there. And we are going to raise him, you know, in this community. and we are going to be part of it and he's going to be part of it and he's going to have friends that, you know, he has known since childhood. And it's interesting, we did that.

And now having lived like both versions of this life, I honestly feel like the life that my parents gave me was in many ways a better basis for life in the sense that I can go anywhere, I can do anything when I was. I was 19, I went to live in London by myself, and I traveled through Europe by myself. And it never occurred to me that that was an unusual choice. And so now I got to see both sides, I guess. You can have a bit of both. I always think that travel is the best education you can get as a

child and feel so lucky to get to see different places, meet different people. Let's talk about your second book, Shelfy book now, which is To Kill a Mock and by Harper Lee. Told through the young eyes of Scout and Gem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour, the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the deep south of the 1930s. DeKillamockingbird is a coming of age story,

an anti-racist novel, a historical drama of the Great Depression and a sublime example of the Southern writing tradition. Now, this is a classic. It would 100% be on my list. whenever anyone asked me, it's there. But it's weirdly one that's not frequently picked on this podcast. I don't know why, but what makes it so special to you, Kristen?

Really? It's crazy, right? Oh, I'm shocked. You know, I actually considered not putting it on there because it was, you know, I figured that it would be a choice that you talked about every single week. Unbelievable scenes. I'm really surprised. Yeah, I mean, I think it is probably, I mean, this is a tough call, of course,

but it's probably my favorite novel of all time. And everything you point out about it is what I loved about it. And I loved how it's one of those books that opened my eyes to so many things and introduced me to a kind of character that prior to that book, I hadn't experienced. And of course, there's always, you know, the Atticus and Scout father-daughter relationship, which impacts me a lot. and just the writing and the story. And like you said, this is a novel that is so many things at once.

And yet with all of that, it is also a page-turning story that you simply can't put down. This story is still deeply relevant. Tell me a little bit more about that. Well, okay, so going back to my previous story where we moved around a lot and we ended up in the Pacific Northwest, and we ended up in a very small town in the Pacific Northwest. And, you know, so that's where I grew up in various towns that were all very similar, I think, in some ways. And one of the things that was true was there were very few people of color in the towns that I grew up in. And so I wasn't exposed to a lot of race.

I mean, we didn't see it. And so I think to kill a mockingbird was when I read that as a girl, it was really eye-opening to me to sort of look back at that part of American history and try to understand it and learn from it. And sadly, it is still deeply relevant. I remember reading this, really young actually the first time. I'd been given a copy by my mum, and it was the copy that she used for her O levels,

which then became GCSE, so when she was, I guess, 16, and it still had all of her markings in the margins, all of her pencil markings. And I remember because I was so young, and my moral compass is still so pure at that age, and I haven't had to compromise my integrity for comfort and for getting by.

I remember just being so outraged. It was like I was mobilized, like I was triggered at the age of whatever it was, eight, nine, ten, triggered and mobilized and ready to like spark an activism. That's why this book feels so special, so important. And I completely see where you're coming from. And at the heart of this story as well is Atticus Finch, a father and a lawyer. And maybe not many people will know that you too are a lawyer.

What made you want to follow that profession? Well, that could definitely be part of it. And I think, too, that the choice of, you know, when I look at this book as a novelist, there are so many ways to have told this story, right? So many ways into the story and so many important avenues within it. And yet Harper Lee chooses, you know, 13-year-old scout. I think she's 13. And through that, she is able to give us both the, the away.

that she wants to and the innocence in the entry point of the story, which I think is so important because it's that the slow realization of what is happening and what is going on around you, which I think is so much a part of coming of age and sort of learning where you want to be in the world, who you want to be. And I think this novel gives young people a moral compass that will stay with you and ideas of what the world should be and what the world is, unfortunately, that you can carry with you as you grow older. You see the injustice in the world and you see the futility of that, the futility of the prejudice of conflict. Did those things impact your career path in becoming a lawyer? You know, it's interesting because right as you were saying that,

I was thinking to myself, so I probably read this book at like 14, I think, for the first time. And so we're also talking about the time period where the Vietnam War is, you know, going on in America. So I think my whole youth was like this sudden thrust as a preteen. was this sudden thrust into world politics and morality and, you know, trying to understand what's right, what's wrong. And, you know, I don't know. It seems interesting to me that these two come together. I had never really thought about that before.

And maybe a part of that is why I, you know, decided to become a lawyer. I'm not exactly sure, but I know that, you know, my, my early teen years were definitely touched by a lot of political chaos and anger and division and injustice. I mean, you're talking about the civil rights movement in America. I mean, there was just a lot going on when I was an impressionable young girl. And talk to me about the change of direction. I understand your mother helped in the new direction you took towards becoming a writer. Yeah, I mean, I was a lawyer, obviously. Actually, I was in law school. And my mother was dying of breast cancer. You know, I was visiting her in the hospital a lot towards the end. And at one point, I was complaining about my class load or whatever. And she said, don't worry, honey, you're going to be a writer anyway. And it was such a stunning moment because I had never expressed even the smallest interest. I had.

I had never written a short story. I would have said, I think, prior to that, that if you were the kind of person who was to be a writer, you would know that from your earliest days, that there would be some kind of magic component that you would have dialed into, some kind of talent that would be inescapable, you know. And so, you know, we kind of started talking about it. And ultimately my mom said, let's write a book together. And so in the final months of her life, we started like talking about this book. She chose historical romance to write because that's what she read. And so every day after law school, I would go to the library, stand in the stacks. We picked 18th century Scotland.

And so I would just do all of this research and then bring it back to her hospital. and we would talk about it and sort of we designed and plotted and, you know, had a lot of fun with this book. And I wrote actually the first page the day she died. So unfortunately, she was not able to read it. But I did get to tell her I started our book. And, you know, after she passed away, I just put everything in a box and threw it in my closet because I didn't want to be a writer. I wanted to be a lawyer. And so, you know, I went on and finished law school and took the bar and started practicing.

And it wasn't until a few years later when I got pregnant with my son. And as you pointed out in the intro, I had a difficult pregnancy. I went into labor at 14 weeks. And so I was in bed for the duration. And, you know, that's when I guess I just thought, well, you know, what about that book? I knew by the end of my pregnancy, I knew that I probably would not be able to have any more kids and I would be so lucky to have him. And I made the decision to be an at-home mom at that point. I really wanted to be home with my son. And so I just thought I'll be a writer. And that was really the beginning. And it was really my love of books and my reading life that made that possible. And of course, a huge dash. of youthful optimism. And the rest is history.

Your mom had wanted to write historical. It ends now, yes. Bailey's 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. Bayleys is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream,

or paired with your favorite book. Check out Bailey. for our favorite Bailey's recipes. Let's talk about your third book now. Anne Rice, this is the witching hour. On the veranda of a great New Orleans house now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking, and the witching hour begins.

Demonstrating once again her gift for spellbinding, storytelling and the creation of legend, Anne Rice makes for real, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of witches, a family given to poetry and incest, to murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous and seductive being. Now, apparently you thought this might be an odd choice, Kristen, why is that? Has anyone ever chosen this book on this show before?

No, they haven't. That's what I thought. You know, Anna was so, I didn't read Anne Rice until. I was actively a writer. And so it was in sort of the early days of beginning my career. And this was, of course, the era of interview with a vampire and her sort of colossal success. And I've always really liked horror and fantasy, both of them. I mean, I could easily have put Lord of the Rings on this list, but I decided that I

talk about that book enough. so I let it go for this one. But what the witchy now, or I mean, when I read that, so that's one of the first books that I read as a reader and as a writer sort of at the same time. And, I mean, obviously, I was swept away. Anne is, was just a beautiful word smith. And she was philosophically really interesting.

And here was a book that, yes, it's about, witches and otherworldly beings and it has, you know, this kind of a supernatural cast to it. But at its core, it's about this woman, this neurosurgeon who is discovering her own family history and her own powers in a very, very unexpected way. It's about generations of women living in a house in Louisiana, which is like spooky, and strange and very otherworldly but also rooted in our world. And so I just loved the combination. There's a great love story in it. And it really, I think, was one of the first books that made me dream someday of writing a book like The Nightingale or The Women. You know, it was one of the

books that said to me, you can write big, emotional, dramatic, female-driven stories that are full of world-building and power and are also commercial novels that the reader will have a hard time putting down. And that was sort of the dream I had going in. I mean, similar to Anne Rice, you write a lot of historical fiction and you center women's stories. Why is it so important for you to ensure those stories in history are told? You know, I think that hit me when I was about 50. I've always written stories with powerful women at the center. And for the first 15, 20 years of my career as a young mother and then as a not so young mother, I wrote about the women I knew, the women that were like me, you know,

stay-at-home moms, working moms, the issue. that were driving our lives and sort of forming us and the questions that we were grappling with at the time. And then when my son, you know, didn't mean me anymore, said, Mom, you know, quit coming to school and leave me alone and went off to college. And I had more time. I started looking at women in history. And I realized, I think it was, the moment was when I was researching a book called Winter Garden about World War II Russia. I came across the story of a young woman named Andre Dujan, who was a Belgian 19-year-old girl who founded one of the escape routes for downed airmen out of Nazi-occupied France. And I read this story and I thought, wow, a 19-year-old

girl. And then I thought, I read so much. I have so much historical information in my brain. why don't I know this story? And that was the beginning. And then I became angry that I didn't know this story. And then I became angry that there were a lot of women's stories that weren't being taught in high school, that weren't being taught in college, that weren't being written about,

and were being lost all around me. And that's when I really sort of set on this course of, I want to make sure that the women coming in at behind me, my daughter-in-law, my granddaughter, that they know how amazingly resilient and powerful and courageous women have been throughout history. And I will say, as an aside, I think it's so great because we are living in a time now where publishers, where people are actually out looking for lost and marketing. and forgotten stories across the board. And that sort of is a new moment in all these years that I've been writing.

And it's really great to be a part of that. Well, your newest book, The Women, focuses on the Vietnam War. We know that story through books and films as a man's tale. But there are these 11,000 women who fought in the Vietnam War, who have you shone a light on. What was it about this historical moment, appeal to you that you wanted to write about? Well, you know, like I said, I came of age a little bit during the Vietnam War. So I was, it really cast a big shadow across my youth. You know, it was a time

of three television channels and all of us getting the same version of history at the same time from the same people and believing it. And it was a time of chaos in the United States. You know, there were protests, civil rights and women's rights. I mean, everything was. sort of changing. And at the time, my best girlfriend, her father was a pilot who served in Vietnam, and he was shot down. And so in those days, we wore what was called a prisoner war bracelet, a little silver bracelet that had the name of the serviceman and the date he was lost on the bracelet. And the idea was that you would wear this in remembrance until he came home. Well, my friend's dad never came home. So I wore this.

this bracelet for decades. And so his name and his loss was sort of in my consciousness for a very long time. And then I saw how the Vietnam vets were treated when they came home. And, you know, this was not a good period in American history because people did not welcome the soldiers home. They did not show gratitude. It was they hated the war and they, you know, blamed the soldiers to some extent. And so I just always wanted to write about it. But I waited, because there was a long period of time, at least in America, where nobody wanted to talk about the Vietnam War at all. It was just like, nobody wanted to read about it. Nobody wanted to talk about it. It was a bad period. We had had a lot of, I think, guilt and shame as a nation about this war.

and so it wasn't until March of 2020 when we in Seattle were in lockdown for the pandemic and I was watching the news and I was seeing again the chaos, the political division, the anger. I mean, you know, it felt very much again like the Vietnam era and I was seeing our nurses and doctors on the front line of the pandemic sacrificing so much and putting themselves in harm's way for all of us. And I thought it all sort of came together and I thought

this is the moment. This Vietnam is relevant again. And then once I got into the research and started writing about these women and their amazing stories and met them, I realized that, you know, they're getting older, the Vietnam vets, the ones who are left. And I really wanted to tell this story while they could read it and talk about it. And for everyone listening, it is out now. So a story that we could all do with hearing, I think. Talking of giving voice to those who don't always manage to amplify, we move on to your fourth bookshelfy pick today, which we absolutely love here, obviously at the Women's Prize for Fiction. It's Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. The winner of the 2023 Prize, Demon Copperhead tells the story of a boy born to a teenage single

mother in a single wide trailer with no assets beyond his dead father's looks and copper-colored hair, bucket loads of charm, and a talent or two the world is yet to discover. Inspired by the unflinching truth-telling of David Copperfield, Kingsolver enlists, Dickens as anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. This book is unput downable. And that character, little demon, you just love him so, intensely. What is it about Barbara's writing and about Demon Copperheads, the character, the book that is so captivating to you? Well, I mean, I knew this would be a popular choice, you know, but I just couldn't leave it off the list because like you said, demon is so

memorable. And I remember even, you know, as a writer, reading the first like 15 pages of this novel and just being blown away at the way Barbara had crafted this particular boy's voice. I mean, he sounded so sort of deeply genuine, so a boy of his time, of his age, of his circumstance. And that's a really difficult thing to do. So I knew, like, going in, what amazingly competent and brilliant hands, you know, I was going to be in. And then, of course, you know, the overlay of David Copperfield, which sort of gives you this, I think, an additional sense of doom because you just know that these people who come into his life, that it's not going to go well. And so you keep, you know,

reading it, wanting him to succeed and to triumph and to overcome these horrible circumstances of his youth, even as you are booing by his resilience, even at the darkest of times. I've never found myself rooting for a character so hard. Well, he just went through so much. I was amazed to find out that she actually lived in that part of the country because she also, I think, really shown a light on Appalachia and the difficulties there, the poverty, the opioid, you know, everything that's going on there, and said to us, I dare you to look away, I dare you not to feel compassion and empathy and understanding for what's going on there right now.

And, you know, one of the things that I love about fiction the most is its ability to create empathy, you know, to put you in the shoes of a character like demon who is completely different from me. you who has a completely different life experience and who maybe you would think to yourself, I have nothing in common with and I don't care about what's going on here. And a great novel and a great novelist can put you right there and demand that you feel something and teach you that you do in fact have something in common with people that you don't know. And I think we are at a time in the world right now where we need more.

more compassion and empathy. And books like this, I think, give you that. You said a little earlier that when you became a mother, you became a writer. And I've read some really beautiful quotes about how motherhood changed you. You said that in dark times, motherhood can make a woman stronger. It's such a powerful force and one that you've spoken about. How did it change the way you?

you view the world and in turn the way you write about the world. Well, I mean, that's really insightful. I think motherhood, sisterhood and friendship, those three pieces are what in form and color my vision almost in its entirety. I mean, it doesn't matter which book I think you pick to discuss about this. But what you will see over and over is my belief

that in the power of women, you know, I don't want to say that motherhood alone creates this kind of strength or resilience in women because, you know, I think that our strength is within us anyway. But what for me, motherhood did was really expand my universe. And I think it makes you or made me care more about injustice, about what's coming, about protecting the planet, about caring for each other, because you're suddenly, through a child, you're looking at the future. And you really also want to be as a mother the very best version of yourself. And so it's kind of aspirational as well. By the way, you never succeed at any of this, but you, you know, you try the best that you can. Looking at the world, looking at the future, looking at the planet, perhaps also in a

different way, something that Barbara Kingsolver weave so beautifully into her work is the way that we look after this world that we're living on. This is actually the newest novel on your list. Do you read a lot of contemporary fiction? I do. You know, I mean, for for 10 years, I wrote nothing but contemporary fiction. So I didn't go. like full on historical fiction until probably 15 years ago. And I may well go back. I sort of, you know, it all depends on what I have to say at a given moment. And you've been writing for many, many years when the Nightingale was published.

You previously said that you were thankful it wasn't your first novel. Why is that? Well, especially now in the social media era. But when a book comes out like that, and is so big and has such broad reach and is so successful, it's very easy to sort of get tangled up in all of that. And at some point, you have to write the next book. And even for me, having written a lot of books before Nightingale, it's still messed with my head a lot because you feel suddenly this obligation to your publishers, to your readers, you know, to do it again. And,

one of the things I had to very seriously let go of was this idea that I would ever do it again. I had to sort of embrace the idea that Nightingale was going to be a one-off and I was going to have gotten lucky and that I needed to go back to what it is I do. And fortunately for me, I had written enough books that I knew what I did and I knew who I was. I can't imagine what it's like for somebody who, you know, it's their first novel. and you don't even really have your feet underneath you. And some people have been working on the novel, say, 10, 15 years. And then they're expected to do it again, you know, in three or four years.

And that's just, it's just, it's a lot of stress. And, of course, now with social media, you're really front and center in a way that I didn't have when I started my career. It's that follow up. It's the same in music, all these artists who, you know, they've worked their whole. whole life at producing an album and then as soon as it's out it's like right on to the next one you're like well i don't have a whole life to live again that's exactly right exactly right it's time for your fifth and final bookshelfy pick today christin which is jonathan strange and mr narel by susanna clark the year is 1806 england is beleaguered by the long war with napoleon and centuries have passed

since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But one remains the reclusive Mr. Norrell, whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Yet Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician, a brilliant novice, Jonathan Strange. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men and their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.

Now, I love Susanna Clark. She won the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction with Pyrinaezy. I was a judge on the prize that year, and it's just an absolute masterpiece. But tell me, why do you love this book? Well, this is, I mean, this is another one. This sort of follows. I mean, I think maybe readers can't see that Witching Hour and Jonathan Strange and Demon Copperhead are kind of all of a piece. But to me, they are because these are epic.

imaginative, immersive, evocative pieces that are remarkably good at both characterization and world building. And what I particularly loved about, you know, Jonathan Strange was the world building. This world that was like almost our world, but just this little twist that, you know, changes everything. And so you get all the, I guess the joy of reading a dense, rich historical novel, but you also get something that you've never read before. And that to me, as a reader, you know, if I can stumble across a novel that both teaches me and gives me a view of either the real world or an imaginative world that I have not seen before, I mean, to me, that's like, that's the golden ticket.

I mean, it's the world that Susanna Clark built that appeal to so many, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Narell. It's the book that brought Susanna Clark to millions of readers' attention, weaving history and fantasy. This genre blend is something I guess we find ourselves escaping into, but also grounding in, if you know what I mean? It's like it teaches us about our world, levels are taking us out of it. Well, because it still is grounded in characters that we believe

completely, that we understand. I mean, you know, I mean, you could look at these two characters. They could be in tech. They could be in medicine. They could be in any kind of, you know, the past versus the future and something coming at a time of great change and what that does to the people around them. And so it doesn't feel like. this purely fantasy sci-fi, it still feels relevant and interesting. And I do find it so interesting, you know, having read Pyrannisi also, that she is capable as a novelist of doing things that are so completely different. I mean, there's still the fantasy element, but the scope was so different in that, you know, I don't know, I just find that really interesting,

a lot of people can't do that. It flexes and stretches your imagination in a way that we don't often get to exercise on a day-to-day basis. But I am really interested then in the way that you build a world that then people have to see in new ways. Your work has been already turned into a huge Netflix series, Firefly Lane, and the Great Alone as well has been optioned for a film. How does it feel to your work reimagined in this way and how involved?

you in that process. Well, the only one that's actually come to screen so far is Firefly Lane. And so the rest are all we're waiting to see. We've got scripts. We've got directors. We've got actors. But, you know, until I see it, until it begins to film, I can't really judge, you know, how it's going to compare. I will say that the interesting thing is, first of all, as a novelist, you understand going in that it's a different art form. that it's going to be different. And so what you're hopeful for is that it is different in a way that complements the book and expands it or contracts it but stays true to what the message and what the point of

the novel is. So there's that. And then the whole idea of watching it, you know, when I watched Firefly Lane on television, I didn't realize that I had so, I guess, recreated rooms and moments and pieces from my own life history. So it was really interesting. Like when I went up on set in Vancouver and watched them filming one day, I walked into a house that could have been the house we lived in in, you know, 1973. Oh, wow. Posters on the walls, the same wall.

it was like being suddenly swept back in time. And that was really fun. Well, speaking of collaboration and how others can see that work or impact on that work, you and a novelist, Megan Chance, your writing partners, you read and critique each other's manuscripts. How did this relationship come about? How has it impacted your writing? So, I mean, really, the bottom line is now we're best friends who read each other's work. But the way it started a long, long time ago, when my son was about six months old, I had written my first novel, of course, while I was pregnant and realized that I loved this, that this was something that I really wanted to do, and I needed to learn how to do it. And of course, as a young mother, a stay-at-home mom, I couldn't go to college. I couldn't go to,

you know, I couldn't do all the kinds of things that I would have been able to do had I figured this out when I was younger. So there was in Seattle one day, like a one-day writer's conference kind of thing. And so I got a babysitter for the first time and I went in. I was about 29, I guess. And I walked into the room and it was all of these women. And I immediately panicked because I thought, hi, you know, it's the old, I'm not really a writer, I don't know what I'm doing, I look like a kid compared to everybody else, you know, I've got no business being here. And so I did what any woman does in this situation. I ran into the bathroom to like hide from the conference. And Megan was in the bathroom potentially doing the same thing. And we still

wonder to this day, like, how we struck up a conversation. I have no idea. She has no idea. But somehow we just connected. And I like to give credit to my mom, who I think was watching over this. So Megan and I just kind of connected then, and we decided she was working full time in TV broadcasting. And I was a stay-at-home mom. So we just said, okay, we're going to do this together, we're going to learn how we're going to push each other as hard as possible, and we're not going to give up. And that's what we did. I love that it comes back to sisterhood and friendship. It does. And I've got a new book. I've got to figure out an idea. She needs a new idea,

so she's coming down to spend a weekend with me next week so that we can just be girlfriend writers together. Yes. Well, say hi from us. I will. Kristen, you've said, before that you write because it frees something in you. So where would you like your writing to take you next? Oh, that's a great question. You know, the thing I love most about writing is that there is a kind of magic in that once I've chosen an idea, which is not easy for me, but once I've nailed it down and begun, I really immerse myself.

in another world, you know, in another time, in another place, in another woman. I get to explore a lot of my own feelings and I get to explore what I think is important and what matters and just really world-build myself for a few years and then I go on to something else. And so I don't know. The short answer is I don't know. It's difficult because the women is proving to be really, at least in America, really important. I mean, it is sparking conversations from female veterans and male veterans, but particularly female vets, who have felt unheard and unseen, you know, for 45 years. And so I'm hearing from so many of them, and I'm hearing from their children, and I'm hearing from their

husbands and when you've done something that matters so much, it's proving a little difficult to figure out where you go from there. Well, where you go from here, we cannot wait to see. But I love that it frees you and that you can write whatever you want and I know that you will. Thank you for building so many worlds for today and taking us to so many worlds. If you had to choose, just one of those, one of the books from your list as a favourite, which one would it be and why? A second place would be witching hour, but I'm going to go with To Kill a Mockingbird. Absolutely perfect. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Kristen. All right. Take care. It was so nice to talk to you.

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.