Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S8 Ep10: Bookshelfie: Kit de Waal

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Accomplished writer and this year’s Chair of Judges for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction Kit de Waal talks to Vick about her memoir, the value of audiobooks and why we need to see more writing about women in mid life.  Kit de Waal has written novels for adults and young adults, short stories and her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes was published in 2022. Her debut novel My Name is Leon was an international bestseller; in 2022 it was adapted for television by the BBC and it is now on the GCSE curriculum. She is founder of the TV production company Portopia Productions and The Big Book Weekend, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds many roles in book and arts organisations. She is Chair of Judges for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her new novel The Best of Everything, a story about the meaning of kindness and the love that can alter one's life, is published next week. Kit’s book choices are: ** Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan ** The Outrun by Amy Liptrot ** This Is Not A Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan ** Every Light in the House Burnin’ by Andrea Levy ** Old Filth by Jane Gardam Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season eight 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 eight? Listen and subscribe now! You can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org - every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops.  This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

Less than an hour from downtown Toronto, you'll feel a world away with Durham Tourism's new discovery guide, open skies. Explore day trip destinations, overnight getaways, and 129 must-try experiences in Durham region. From historic sites to starry nights and delicious days to downtown dates. Want to keep your luggage light and your dollars in Canada? Discover Durham region's open skies. To get your guide, visit Durhamtourism.ca.ca. 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 think the world's open to us and all the better for it because we don't feel constrained by society, by old-fashioned morals, by the should, wood, could of life. But we're forging our own paths and saying, this is who I am and it's about time. I celebrated it. And I think there should be more books about that. This is the Women's Prize for Fiction bookshelfy podcast supported by Bayleys.

Join us in celebrating women's writing from around the world in the 30th anniversary year of the Women's Prize for Fiction, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives. I'm Vic Hope and I am your host for Season 8 of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks inspiring and brilliant women to share the five books by women that have shaped them and their lives. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you should be adding to your reading list.

Today I'm joined by Kit Deval. Kit has written novels for adults and young adults, short stories and her memoir, without warning and only sometimes, was published in 2022. Her debut novel, my name is Leon, was an international bestseller. In 2022, it was adapted for television by the BBC, and it's now on the GCSE curriculum. She's founder of the TV production company Portopia Productions and The Big Book Weekend, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds many roles in book and arts organisations. She's chair of judges for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction. A new novel, The Best of Everything.

A story about the meaning of kindness and the love that can alter one's life is published this week. Kit, welcome. It's such a pleasure to have you to discuss your favourite books. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's a great pleasure to be here. And to be back together again because in 2018, you may remember we did a workshop at a youth centre in Birmingham together for the women's prize. It's my first job with the women's prize where we were talking to teenage girls about what they could do,

their potential in the world of books and literature and writing. I remember and it was so inspirational to see the energy of those girls. You know, those young women who very unapologetic about what they wanted, even if they didn't know the route, they really knew they wanted to make a difference in the world. It was one of those days where I felt like I came away and I'd learnt more. Yes. And I was supposed to be imparting some sort of wisdom or knowledge or advice and I felt like I'd learnt from them. Absolutely. No, they're very impressive.

And we can't kick off this episode without talking about your role this year as chair of judges for the Women's Prize for Fiction. What's the process been like for you? So interesting. And I'm working with and judging with the most fabulous women who I never knew before. I think I'd met Brian once, but the other women are just so interesting. Our conversations are so far, most of them have been on WhatsApp, but they're wide-ranging and interesting, and we haven't even got into the long-listing procedure yet.

The reading is unbelievable, you know, the quantity and the depth and just what women are writing about. Every single subject under the sun and some that are beyond the sun. It's just, it's such a privilege to be, for some books, the first reader, you know, that they haven't even been published yet and we're reading them. It's great. It's wonderful. It is an amazing panel. It's the 30th prize, but it's a historic year for us. You've got Diana Evans, Brianie Gordon, you mentioned there, Deborah Joseph and Amelia Warner. And with it being this 30th anniversary, we've grown and grown and grown and become more and more important.

What do you think makes the women's prize so different and so special? It's really because it's about us. It's about celebrating what women write about, what very often we have to overcome, even to be a writer and to be in that space. It's championing diverse voices, and it has done since the beginning. I mean, now there is much more of a concentration on diverse voices,

and there's different, like the Discovery's Prize. and all that kind of stuff, but it always has been championing women from all walks of life of many different ages and different places in their career. And for me, that's what makes it special. It's open and it's celebratory. It's not apologetic about, oh, you know, just the women's prize. It celebrates who we are in every form. I always feel like it paves the way and it takes me back to that evening that we spent in that youth centre

and saying to these girls, you may not have considered that this was a career for you, but you've got a story to tell. Yes. Your words are valid. Your experiences are valid. You can put pen to paper. You can do whatever you want.

Yes, and I think that's important. We've got a prize here that is for us and about us. And it's saying that we need to have our voice out there in whatever we're writing, whatever genre we're writing in. And I think that celebratory aspect is the best. best thing about it from my perspective. It just keeps opening doors. Yes.

That's what it feels like it's all about. How have you balanced the reading and the writing as well? Was your new novel in a good place when you started reading? Oh yes, it was. No, it was done. Thank goodness it was done. So I've been reading for quite a few months now and I am a great reader. I'm the sort of person that if I go on a seven day holiday, I have to have seven books. Oh, yes.

Probably eight books just in case I don't like one. So I'm lazy and that happens. helps that I'm not pulled out into the garden or exercising or anything like that. There's nothing better than starting a book in the daylight and then you look up and it's suddenly gone dark and you didn't realize because you were in Venice or wherever you've been in your book. So the reading has been fabulous. I am writing another novel at the moment and I'm making sure that I don't do both of them in the same day.

So I will read all right. I don't try and do reading and writing in one 24-hour period. could flip so the next day you could see that's okay yes yes i can do that quite easily and the world that i'm writing about in my novel is so particular to me i don't think i've read anything like it in in the books that i'm reading nothing's going to leak in nothing's going to leak in i hope i hope well you're a woman after my own heart if you have seven novels in your case for a seven-day holiday my friends and family cannot believe it and it's very very heavy always over the baggage limit.

But let's talk about those books that you do get engrossed in. The books that have shaped you that you love. Your first bookshelfy book is Revenge of the Middle Age woman by Elizabeth Buckham. Rose Lloyd was the last to suspect that Nathan, her husband of over 20 years, was having an affair and planning to leave her. But the greatest shock was yet to come. His mistress was Rose's colleague and friend Minty. 20 years ago, she'd made the choice between two very different lives,

So can she recapture what she nearly chose back then, a life where she puts herself first. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I read that book when I was in my 40s. And it's just a book. I read it and I loved it. And I thought, oh, my goodness, that's really great. What a great story about this woman who discovers her husband's having an affair and how it devastates her and how she recovers.

And it's a long and painful road. But it's ultimately quite a joyous book. And fast forward, I'm 50. and I discover my husband's having an affair and I'm devastated. And literally, within two or three days of finding this out, I was like, where is that goddamn book? I need to read it because I knew even then that there was a truth and authenticity about that experience that I had believed.

And I read it maybe a year after finding out my husband had an affair. And I was very devastated by it and we got divorced. and rereading it at 55 was tremendous. You know, I was like, oh, yes. I read it with much more knowledge, understanding, appreciation and hope. This woman is ultimately, she doesn't just recover. She blossoms, and I feel I have blossomed. And so this was a book really about not making do

and not saying, okay, well, I got divorced and I've got the rest of my life ahead of me. It was like, okay, let's go. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it. So it made a big difference to me. And it was a real book of solace as well as encouragement. The first time that you read the book,

did you feel like you were, as you just said, making do? No, but the first time I read the book, I felt that, well, it never happened to me. So I just thought, well, this is an interesting book about someone that got divorced later in life. Never thought it had happened to me. Then when I read it the second time, I was definitely in the mode of, okay, I've got divorced.

I will never be the same. I'll never meet anyone else. I've just got to get on with it. You know, I was devastated, shocked and did not really believe I would recover from it. I certainly never thought I'd have the best years of my life. And I am having the best years of my life. life there is no doubt about that I'm happier than I've ever been I would never

have said I made do in my marriage was very committed to my marriage but I'm happier yeah I'm definitely happier now and I I don't feel I've got my second wind I feel like I've got the wind the wind the wind this isn't my first wind this is like okay this is what it's about well the wind it's is it's a huge change you know it's a coming of age narrative in a way yes But it's an older female protagonist. And so often we think of coming of age narratives to being women in their teens or their 20s, seldom their 30s. Is there a need for more stories of older women, I say older, older than in your 20s, experiencing change and renewal and that wind?

Yes. And I think we live in a society now where you can have two or three careers. You can have a life beyond the menopause. you can start writing 65 at 75 at 80. You can start a different world. And it's interesting that, so in the town that I live in, which is a very beautiful town, there's a building that they're converting into flats.

And years ago, I remember speaking to this building, and he said, oh, we're going to convert that building and it will be something like 75-1-bedroom flats, but they're going to be really expensive. And I thought, well, who's going to buy them? He said the biggest explosion in single people living are divorces after 50. And I just, you know, I mean, I wasn't that age at the time. And I remember thinking, really.

And of course, it is now demonstrated that people are leaving unhappy or unsatisfactory marriages the way my mother never, never would. And there is now no shame about being a single woman, about being a childless woman. about being a woman who wants to have an alternative lifestyle, alternative partner, maybe being a polygamous, if that's the right word, relationship. I think the world's open to us and all the better for it because we don't feel constrained by society, by old-fashioned morals, by the should, wood, could of life.

But we're forging our own paths and saying, this is who I am, and it's about time I celebrated it. And I think there should be more books about that chutzpah, that spirit of adventure that we have. And the adventures might look small. They might not be, I'm going to trek the Andes or whatever. The adventure might be, I'm going to leave my marriage or I'm going to leave my relationship. Or the adventure might be, I'm going to become a jewelry maker. It doesn't have to be expensive or mind-blowing.

It has to be mind-blown to you. And that sometimes is a small act to everyone else. mind-blowing to you. It could be writing a book. It could be writing a book. You published your first novel. My name is Leon at the age of 56. Yes.

Was writing always part of the plan? What was it like to achieve success with your writing at this point? So I never wanted to be a writer. I never considered writing as a job. I never even thought about it. It wasn't a writer. I know for so many people, they grew up thinking I want to be a writer. it never occurred to me until I was in my 40s

and only then really sort of half-hearted until I started doing it and realised just how shit I was at it and I thought oh my God it's so hard why is it so hard and I wanted to get better and the more I wanted to get better the more I loved it

it's like I did a deep dive into the craft of writing and I was like oh wow it's beautiful it's everything to me and so I got better So it never felt like a dream come true. It's certainly not a dream I had as a child or even as a young woman. It was a dream that came to me around 45. And then I was like, okay, now I'm going to do this thing.

You mentioned the word authenticity. Yes. In the way that Elizabeth Buchan portrays Rose Lloyd in this novel and how important that was in you connecting with this character. What do you think is key to conveying authenticity and words affection? How can we breathe life into characters so they feel so believable? So very often you hear that when you talk about writing, write what you know. And that's advice that's given to a lot of young writers full stop, write what you know.

That would make for very boring books if we only wrote what we know. I would write about a woman from Birmingham who did a lot of knitting. went to Tesco. So that's not a story. I'm not going to write about what I know because that's what I know. There's a better explanation of that which is write what you know to be true. And so if you know it to be true that this could happen to you and I would be devastated and you can in your imaginings know the truth about heartbreak. That might not be heartbreak that's happened to you in that particular way. But you can transfer your knowledge of heartbreak like a Romance heartbreak into the heartbreak of losing a child, say.

And so you can talk about the truth of pain, you can talk about the truth of love, you can talk about the truth of adventure or loneliness or betrayal or breaking the law. So you know that there's a truth there and that's what you're right about and that's what makes you writing authentic. By going deep into character and thinking what experience have I had, say, heartbreak, that I can transfer into this experience. And I think if you haven't had a heartbreak or if you've had nothing happened to you that's been bad or challenging, I think it would be very, very difficult

to write authentic characters. I think you need to know some kind of pain, trauma, difficulty, challenge to properly write about someone that's having that experience. Which means you need to live. You need to live. And you need to engage with your senses, engage with difference, so that you can imagine what it is to be maybe living in India or living on the moon or be a vampire or whatever it is. Have an imagination that allows you to transfer beyond yourself. Otherwise, we will all be writing what we know and most of our lives are boring.

So to have an exciting book, all books are built around conflict of some kind. you need to have had some conflict in your life. It's really good advice. It's like we're doing that workshop again. It's great. Your second book-chubby book kit today is The Outrun by Amy Liptrop. After spending her 20s in London, Amy Liptrot returns to her home in Orkney,

where she comes to terms with the addiction that has consumed the past decade of her life. On the remote island, Amy spends her mornings, swimming in the cold sea, her days, observing wildlife, and her nights searching the sky for any signs of the day. the Northern Lights. She soon discovers how the natural world can restore life, heal old wounds, and renew hope. That word again, hope. What about Amy's writing and her story in particular

stood out to you? So it could not be more different to my own experience of life. And I am the least country-minded and wildlife-minded person in the world, not into wildlife, not into the countryside. and I can't remember why I chose to read this book, but I did. And I just thought that looks quite interesting. I loved it. The rawness and the honesty of what she was going through. And something about her brokenness when she embarked on this journey of discovery. It's a non-fiction book.

And she doesn't hold back. She writes so beautifully. I mean, it's the first time in my life I've ever wanted to go birdwatching. I can tell you. Because she makes it sound both exciting and peaceful, both restorative yet expansive. You know, she's having these experiences she never expected to have. And she's coming from a very damaged environment where she's sort of running away to this place. And there's not much there.

And she heals. And I think that's what it was for me. her very slow movement from brokenness to wholeness, from I don't know what to do with my life to this is my life. And it was so beautifully written, so raw, so honest. And above all, yes, a book about hope and a book about healing. You told us that you read this when you were discovering biographies and memoir. Do you find yourself reaching for memoirs more now?

Yes, although I always have There's another book called The Road to Nab End Which is, I don't know when I discovered this book And it's a book about nothing Sometimes people say memoir You've got to have something remarkable about your life To write about memoir or else why would people read it Well this is a book I think it's set

I don't know in the 30s or something And it's about this man Who comes from a very working class environment Somewhere in Lancashire I think and just goes to grammar school, that's the book. That's it. That's it. There's nothing else. But the way he's written it. And he takes these little incidents in his life

just the way Amy does and makes them into extraordinary moments. You know, like I said before, these little moments that are enormous in somebody's life. And it looks like nothing. But it's a big moment, a big moment of change. And I love biographies about ordinary people. You know, I know, Shackleton, yeah,

Where did he go? Antarctic or Arctic? I don't know. Whatever. All those adventure books, that's great. They're the big stories. They're the big people. They're the wise people or the people with the camera on them. I love the biography and the autobiography of the nobody. They haven't got the camera on them. They haven't done anything extraordinary. They didn't rob a bank. They didn't run the four minute mile. Nevertheless, look at them and listen to them. It's fantastic. Finding the extraordinary and the mundane is such an amazing thing and such a great mantra, just a way to live your life. Yes. In her homecoming, Amy talks about connecting with a wide community in Orkney. How important is that sense of community for you? And was it for you growing up? I was part of the Irish community because my mother's Irish. And so I felt very, I really have a very strong Irish identity.

entity and considered myself Irish and of course don't look Irish. So people would always be surprised that I identified as an Irish person. I was also part of the African Caribbean community. My dad's from St. Kitts. And so I always felt part of that and was accepted in that. And then of course I'm a Brumme, as you can hear from my accent. And I'm 100% Brummey. So I have these three competing and complementary

identities and always felt 100% at home in whatever one I was in and still do. I describe it a bit like a diamond that has different facets. So sometimes this facet is shining and this one seems to be in the shadow or this one of this one. I have no issue with doing the switch shop, as you must know yourself. Oh yes. Code switching. Code switching.

So I go and see my Irish. You used to go and see. my Irish grandmother and I know I had a different voice. Yeah. Because I'm not talking Irish obviously but I've got a different lilt and I've got a different vocabulary and then I'd be with my who we call black nun and my black grandmother and different voice, different vocabulary, maybe a lower register. And then when I'm a brummy, so I've got this brummy voice which is quite brummy but oh my God

you want to hear me talk to my brother. And sometimes people turn down and go, my God, that's... accent's terrible, but that's me. You know, I'm Brumme in. I'd switch absolutely seamlessly. I don't know I'm doing it. I'm not doing it on purpose. It happens depending on the environment I mean. And that sense of community and belonging is vital, I think, not just as a woman, but as a black woman, as an Irish woman, as a Brummey and lots of other communities. I'm part of working class communities. Knitting community. Do you know what to me? There's loads and everyone has those different facets to their personality.

My ex used to say, because I don't have a Jordy accent at all, especially when I'm doing this podcast, I've moved to London, I work in the media. But my ex used to say when I was back home in Newcastle, especially if I had a few drinks, five times more Jordy. But equally, if I'm going back to Nigeria, it's a completely different community. And I've had friends ask about code switching and say,

are you not kind of doing an injustice to the parts of yourself that you're downplaying? And I say no, because it's a community, like you just said. It's a community that I'm a part of and I'm happy and joyful to be a part of. And this is how we move together. Yes, yes. I do want to talk about your own memoir, without warning and only sometimes it was published in 2022. What was that process? Like, I assume there's a different level of vulnerability, you know, that's needed to write a memoir versus a novel.

Yes. So I had no intention of writing a memoir ever. I was flattered into it. People kept telling me I was interesting. And I thought, okay, yeah, I am interesting. But I knew I was only interesting up to 21, basically. After that, I got into gardening and nitty. So I thought, okay, I'll write about my child's which is why it stops at 21

because I really became very happily boring after that. So when I was writing it and I didn't, for a start, it's the first book I've ever written without a plot because I am the plot. So I didn't have to make any. anything up. I didn't have to make up a character, didn't have to make up a scene. And I didn't have any through narrative. I didn't, you know, what's the through narrative of getting to 21? I survived. That was it. So all I did, it's got a piece of paper and I wrote down scenes. Now, everyone's got these scenes. You know, if I said to you, tell me about your childhood,

you're going to pick something that epitomizes your childhood. That you say, oh, I remember, once we went to the park, and then you've got a story and you've told the story a hundred times everyone's got them as a way when we meet people of explaining who we are. And so obviously, I had 30 or 40 scenes that was going to epitomize being Irish, epitomize being black, whatever, poor. And I wrote them all down. And over the years, those stories have become funny and embellished and shortened and highlighted and just call to tell. And then when I came to write the memoir, I actually had to work out the truth of them. What's the truth of that story that I tell about? So, for example, I'd bit my tongue off when I was six. What's the truth of that story?

Because I've bottled it down into two or three funny sentences. I had to actually go back and unpick, where was I? How old was I? What about the pain? What about having your tongue switched sewn back on. What about the lease? What about... And I had to actually go there and be there. That was fascinating.

Both much more painful than I remember and much more joyous. I mean, really, I was weeping with laughter when I was writing some of it. And of course, then I finished this book,

which is about 70,000 words long. And I had sought the permission of my brothers and sisters before I even started it. I said, they've asked me to write my memoir, how do you all feel? They said, okay, fine. So then I finished it and I sent it to them all. And I said, okay, it's on the Friday.

And I said, here's the manuscript. You each have para veto over any sentence, word, chapter. You don't have to say to me, can you take it out? Because you just tell me the page number and what you don't like and it comes out. No negotiation. I will not persuade you that this should be in the book because it's their mom and dad, it's their granny, it's their life.

And whilst I might be happy to have my business out in the world, they may not be. So I sent it to them and immediately regretted my generosity because I thought if each of them vetoes 10,000 words, I haven't got a book. But all weekend, it was, them ringing me and going, oh my God, can you remember that? It's so fantastic. Or why isn't that chapter where I do this in it?

I said, okay, so it's my memoir. You're not in it. You're the B player. I'm the main character here. And I had to make sure that because they all said, well, what about the bit where I lost my shoes? I said, that was you. It wasn't me. You're not in it. So I had to do a bit of negotiation about keeping them out. Because I said I wasn't even there. How can I write about it? But otherwise, they were so happy with it.

And in the end, one of my sisters objected to three words. That's it. That was it. You thought you were going to lose several thousand. I did. And it was three words. My sister said, I really don't like that word there, which was a derogatory word that I'd used. And she said, I don't think it should be in there.

That was it. Out of the five of us and 72,000 words. it was actually there were three words and so for me that was the best thing in the world i can honestly say that i knew i had been truthful i had been fair i'd been funny i'd been accurate and that i had accurately and authentically portrayed what is a very complex life and it was just wonderful to me what an amazing thing to go back through your life and it's true when you really think about it. There are these standout moments and you have these top lines of a life and you look into them and you think actually there's a lot more pain in the humor but there's also

a lot more humor in the pain. Yes. Which I think brings us really nicely onto your third book, shelfy book, which is this is not a pity memoir by Abby Morgan. One morning in June, Abby had her to do list. Drop the kids to school, get coffee, go to work. She returned home and found the man she loved and fought and laughed with for 20 years lying on the bathroom. floor and nothing would ever be the same again. But this is not a pity memoir. Poignant and heartbreaking, Morgan's memoir about a tragic change in her family circumstances is a profoundly powerful and perceptive read on love, grief. And here we go again, the eternal promise of hope. Now, we have had this book chosen a few times on the podcast, but Abby's a friend of yours.

Yes. Tell us why you chose this one. I was, so I met, I'm at, I'm a, I'm a Morgan through doing some screenwriting and she is one of the most helpful kind generous giving people and I just loved her she was so kind to me brand new screenwriter and she's probably the most accomplished screenwriter at the moment working in the UK and I just love her and I found out what had happened to her through a friend and I was so sure that shocked. I hadn't heard from. I'd sent her a couple of emails. I hadn't heard from. I thought, oh, she's busy. And to find out that she'd had two major, major tragedies. So after this, and this is not a surprise in the book, it's not a spoiler, after this terrible thing that happens

to her partner. And while she's going through the rehabilitation of her partner and the worst of it, she's diagnosed with breast cancer. So she's battling herself, her own body, the dissolution of her family life as she knew it, the complete stalling of her career, and she's got two children, and her partner fails to recognise her and sort of partially recovers, but thinks that Abby,

the real Abby, is the imposter of her, the real wife that he had, the real partner that he had. And so she's trying to persuade him that she is who she is, as well as looking after her traumatised children and having chemotherapy. I mean, you would not write, and I said to her, I said, Abby, if you wrote that, you'd say that's a ridiculous screenplay, can we just wind it back a bit?

But this is her reality and her truth. And the fact that she came through that with such resilience and humor in the book is hilarious and terrible. You know, terrible. And yet you're laughing on every page is such a tribute to her strength and her resilience. and resilience is not one of my most popular words but it really is in her case and she's come through it stronger than ever brighter than ever

it's a wonderful wonderful book and it's beautifully written and again so honest she does not hold back she doesn't make herself out to be one of these people oh I'll battle through it and I'll get to the other end and I always knew it would turn out no that's

not the case she has real moments of despair and yet she does come through it. I don't know if she's stronger than ever. Maybe she'd say she isn't stronger than ever, but she certainly has come through it. Abby talks about finding strength and solace in family, in writing during a difficult time. And as you know as well, this book is full of humor and wit and hope. What was it like to read such a vulnerable and raw account of the life of someone you know? I was really shocked. I was.

really shocked and of course when like I read Amy Lipprop and I I've met her since but you know I didn't know her when I read the I'm reading the life of a stranger I was thinking about the Abbey that I knew you know this very very funny bright witty person and I was thinking she must have been in such despair and I didn't see her at all during that time I heard about it I knew she was going through something but when I met her and I would say she was changed, but she was still so funny. And I just thought how hard it must have been to negotiate all of that stuff. She wasn't on her own.

She did have support, but ultimately you're on your own. You know, when you're going through something like breast cancer, this is happening to you. No one can take this away from you. Someone can sit with you and hold your hand and be there for you. But ultimately, it's down to you. And I was just thinking, well done, you know, well done for going through that thing. And it must have been so hard for her.

Kit, your new novel, The Best of Everything, explores how the kindness of strangers can be so completely transformative. What inspired you to write this story to us, what we can look forward to? I was really inspired to write this story because I was writing a different novel. and the main character, Paulette, was a B, C, character in this novel. And this has happened to me before. It happened to me with my name is Leon. I'm writing this book and one of the characters goes, actually it's about me. So can you...

It's like your siblings. Yeah, literally, can you put me back where I should be as the main character and not as the B.C. character? So I quickly changed the book from being this particular book to being a book about Paulette. and I really wanted first of all I want to be a storyteller so I don't set out ever with a message the message arrives with the story or certainly comes at the end of the story

I would say you I don't sort of think oh I'm going to write a book about kindness it transpires that it becomes a book about kindness I know from my own life that there are relationships that you have with people that matter at least as much as the relationships you have with members of your own family.

You can be related to somebody by blood and that's one kind of a relationship and it's warm and it's lovely. And you can have a deep or deeper relationship with someone that's not related to you, who you've come across in your life through whatever reason, through whatever circumstance and they get right in there. They live inside of you right alongside your brothers and sisters. or your parents or whoever. And so I wanted to write about that and certainly that's what happens to Paulette. She forms a very, very unlikely bond

with a young boy who changes her life profoundly. Oh, I'm excited. Looking forward to it. 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. hands of more people. Bayleys is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over

ice cream or paired with your favourite book. Check out Baileys.com for our favourite Bailey's recipes. Let's talk now about your fourth bookshelfy book today, which is Every Light in the House, Burnham, by Andrea Levy. In Andrea Levy's debut novel, Angela's dad sails to England from America in 1948 on the Empire Windrush, seeking better opportunity. Six months later, her mum joins him in his one room in Ill's Court. 20 years and four children later, Mr Jacob has become seriously ill and starts to move unsteadily through the care of the National Health Service. As Angela, his youngest, tries to help her mother through this ordeal,

she finds herself reliving her childhood years spent on a councillor state in Highbury. Tell us why this book spoke to you. the phrase every light in the house burning my dad would have said that every single day and it just means turn the light show the electricity bill and he would sometimes come in and my dad he had this sort of thing where you don't if you're a man you don't have a key to your own house because someone's always in it was sort of a thing with him that I don't need a key I'm the man of the house someone will be in to greet me so all he'd ever do for the front door is he'd do this

with his wedding ring against the glass and if you heard the wedding ring on the glass you would run around the house turning off the lights turning off a lamp turning off this because he would come in and if he caught you he'd go every light in the house burning and then you were like

sorry dad sorry he was very very money conscious so when I saw the title of that book many years ago I was like I have to read that because I know who said it and actually the protagonist in the book is very much like my dad sort of quite difficult to manage very funny very wise very miserable on occasion and wanted people around him didn't want people

around him he had to really know how to handle my dad's certainly as he got older and I loved the fact that Andrea had written about an experience that I had lived that my dad had lived some of the phrases some of the circumstances some of the foods some of the way she describes certain rooms in the house I'm like yes we had that front room yes we have that sofa yes we ate that dinner there's something really familiar and comforting about that and just the fact that she'd done it so well yeah she'd written it so well feeling represented in literature especially if you read it when you're when you're young it's so validating and it gives you the power you know to to know that your stories worth telling and

to feel that you can fulfil your potential. Andrea Levy, of course, author of Small Island, which won the Women's Prize Fiction in 2004. And her second book, Never Far from Nowhere, was long-listed for the inaugural prize in 1996. What did it mean to you to see a black, British woman getting that sort of recognition for her work? It's amazing.

And she has such a close affinity with my own identity as a Caribbean woman living in the UK. And of course the thing she writes about, she writes about a mixed-race relationship in Small Island, for example, very similar to my parents' relationship. And so it was so important to know that she's gone there before me.

She's done it. She's paved the way. She's opened the door. She has said, I can write about this experience and it's valid. I can be this person and it's valid. I can be a good writer. and it's a valid profession.

And there are lots and lots of women who are trailblazers for those that come after them. And people that may take the brunt of criticism and who are the first, they aren't following someone. They're opening the door, they're kicking the door down so that we can walk through peacefully. So it's very, very important. And there's no one I admire more for her ability

to translate her experience and make it, a universal one because it certainly wasn't only black people that were reading her book, or certainly not just people like me, mixed race of the same generation that were saying this was great. Her particular experience spoke to a universality of experience. Andrea sadly died at just 62 years old back in 2019. I want to ask, would your writing exist without her legacy, without writers like Andrea? Definitely not. I think, I like to think I would write come what may, but I've only had the freedom to write because there are things like the Women Prize celebrating women's writing, because there are women, Irish women that have gone before writing about the things that interest me, that there are black women that have gone before writing about the things that interest me, and women of a certain age, which I am, saying, oh no, I'm still here. and I've still got something to say

and I still matter and I still have a voice and although I'm 64 I can write about being 20 and being heartbroken or I can write about being 9 or I can write about being 80 so because there are all of those different women who have taken their experience

and put it on the page it allows me to say I matter too being part of both Irish and Caribbean communities this heritage is so rich with storytelling. Yes. How much did that influence right from the very beginning,

the way that you communicate, the way that you write? Yes. There's two phrases that epitomise the storytelling legacy of both the Irish and the Caribbean culture, and it's the greeting. So if you're Caribbean, the greeting that you will say to someone else is what's happening. Not how are you?

It doesn't matter how you are. What's happening? And it means tell me a story. Tell me what's been happening to you. And it's an offering. It's an opening for you to go, well. And then you start and you tell the story. And that is in the genes.

It's in the actual DNA of being a Caribbean. That you will run a... It's called running jokes. And so you will run a joke. And it means, it didn't happen like that. It's been embellished. It's different. It's been...

attitude to make it into a good story. It doesn't matter if it's true. Tell me a good story. And so that becomes, that's so in my head from my childhood, from my dad, for my dad's friends, that I wouldn't know how to unpick that. And I would never know when it started. If you're Irish, there is a very, very similar phrase, which is the crack. Yeah.

And so it's, again, it's the offering, it's the opening for you. to tell me a story. Make me laugh, entertain me. And there's a tradition in Ireland of storytelling, which is absolutely respected. And the storytelling is about stringing the story out with detours. Don't just say, well, I went to the shop and crashed the car. That's not interesting. Tell me the whole story. And then it will be, I was going here and then there's a detour. Why was I going to the shop? Then there's a detour. Who did I crash into? Then there's detour. And this, three minute sentence becomes an hour long with many jokes and with a few drinks and we're having the crack and we're just embellishing. So I think I had no choice really but to become a writer with that heritage.

I mean, I'm just giving the crack. I'm just telling what's happened. I'm going to open every conversation with what's the crack, what's happening. It is just better. It is just better. Well, let's find out the crack with your fifth book, Shelfy book, which is Old Filth by Jane Gardin. Philth in his heyday was an international lawyer with a practice in the Far East. Now, only the oldest QCs can remember that his nickname stood for Failed in London, Try Hong Kong. Long ago, Old Filth was a Raj orphan, one of the many young children sent home from the east to be fostered and educated in England. Jane Gardham's novel tells his story from his birth in what was then Malaya to the extremities of his old age.

In doing so, she encapsulates a whole period from the glory days of the British by through the Second World War to the present and beyond. Now, this book was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2004. Can you tell us why you chose it? Oh, my goodness. So I am an audiobook freak. I absolutely adore audiobooks. And this is one of the first books I listened to on audiobook

that contributed to my insomnia because I could not turn it off. And I always listen to audio books. I get into bed and I listen to audio books. And this was like 2 o'clock in the morning, 3 o'clock, the morning but there's no point at which i think i'll turn it off now what a great feeling oh it was just beautifully narrated but what got me really was you've got this man old filth who is not very nice i mean you know he's you start listening to the to the book and you see the pomposity of this man you see the snobbery and the ego of this guy and the further into the book you go

these things are peeled away and you see the damaged boy that was sent to boarding school way too early. You see why he wants to succeed, his loneliness, his brokenness underneath it all, but it's so cleverly done. There's no point in this book where she says to you, oh, poor old filth, she's just saying what's happening, saying what's happening, you're just getting into the skin of this man. It's so accurate about the bar. I was married to a barrister for 25 years and know the bar very well, My God, whoever told her about what it's like to be at the bar, she has got it down. It's absolutely accurate.

And the snobbery and the hierarchies that go on. And then you've just got this lonely man who's trying to make sense of his life, he's trying not to lose face. It's very similar in the way it's written to notes on a scandal by Zoe Heller with this sort of unreliable narrator that you like, hate. love, want to have a slap, want to just understand, you start to understand him more. And I absolutely loved it and it really taught me how to write and how to reveal and conceal. What was it about the narration or was it the narrator that made this as an audiobook stand out so much?

The narrator was great. it was slow, it was deliberate and they had married the narrator so well to the tone of the book. I can't even remember who it was. It was heartbreaking. I mean, at the end, I loved that man. I mean, I certainly wouldn't like him if I met him

but I really understood him and you got, I suppose the message was under all these difficult people there is some trauma, there is some brokenness, there is some vulnerability and it's covered over with pomposity, with I don't need you, with I'm a somebody and yet underneath there's a sort of fragility, I suppose. It's so dexterous to be able to write an unlikable protagonist that you cannot help but empathise with. Are you drawn to characters who are a little bit morally grey?

Yes. Yeah. I completely believe in the greyness of life. I think there are very, very few issues in the world that aren't grey. I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness, which is a religion of certainty. There is no problem that you will come across in your life that Jehovah's Witness wouldn't point you to a scripture that will say, yes, no, right, wrong, good, bad. and I was brought up in a community of no doubt. When I stopped being a Jehovah's Witness,

I made it my business to embrace the grey. I don't want answers. I don't want to know this is good, this is bad, this is right, this is wrong because that level of certainty dismisses the human experience, which is one that we're all trying our best. I'm failing, obviously, all the time. and so I know from my work in criminal law and my work in social services that good people do bad things all the time and bad people are capable of good things and that's how I like to look on people and humanity

much more so than you're a bad person full stop and you'll be condemned it feels like that goes hand in hand with what you mentioned earlier about being in a interested in normal people in your everyday person. You edited a fantastic anthology called Common People, which celebrated the stories of both established and also emerging working class writers. Do you think that the tide is changing for working class writers? We're talking about people's perceptions here and about stereotypes.

Do you feel like this publishing industry still has a long way to go? It has a way to go. Whether it's as long as it was, I don't know, but certainly it's not fixed. you know, just the same way was we haven't fixed racism, we haven't fixed discrimination at all. Is it better than the 70s?

Yes, it is. Is it better today than it was five years ago? Yes, it is. But there's work to be done. And the whole way that we stereotype working class writers, you know, working class, you've got to have a northern accent,

you live in a tower block, and you've probably got a whip it or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Whatever the stereotype of being working class is, that's what people think. And yet being working class is as diverse as anything. You can have working class people that have two holidays a year in a car, still working class. You can have, which I would include me, my background was sub-working class. We were not working class.

We were sub-class. My working-class friends, I thought were rich because they ate and they had holidays and they had clothes and they had heating. And we didn't. So I was a class below working class, yet still I would describe myself as being a working class person in the grand scheme of things. So I think we have to expand our notion of what it is to be working class, first of all, and then make sure that all of those strata of being working class are represented in literature. As you said before, it's important to be seen and have your experience validated by reading about it and going to. wow that's me or I know that's true or that's how it is to feel like that. Seen and also heard because you mentioned that you love audio books and there's been a lot

of discourse and I guess people turn in their nose up at audio boots not considering it proper reading come on. I mean it's access to books right what would you say to people who think like this is important that we broaden our perspective so literature can be accessible to everyone. I shouldn't even ask that question. The answer is yes. Well, what I always think is when someone comes up to me and says, oh, I loved your book, my name is Leon. What I don't say to them is, yeah, but did you read it? I don't care how you got that story. How do you, how you read that story? It's beside the point. You've got the story. Oral storytelling is the oldest form of

storytelling there is. We've only had universal education in this country since 1910. That's the time at which everyone learned to read and write, whoever you were. So before that, we would have stories, certainly, and many, many tribes and communities still have oral storytelling as their primary method of history telling and storytelling. So oral storytelling precedes written word by a long, long chalk. So let's not turn our nose off at learning stories through our ears and at our eyes. The other thing is for many people who may have had a broken education who have dyslexia, who have a disability,

who for whatever reason are vulnerable in their reading, they can now enjoy the same books that everyone else can. They can get the story. The story is the important thing, not the method of delivery. It's the story that's important. I got into audiobooks through my son who had severe dyslexia.

and he went to a school that was 25 minutes away. So he could not and really would not read and hated it. And so for 25 minutes, I'd get in the car and I'd put on Michael Morego. And we'd 25 minutes to school, then I'd pick him up from school, 25 minutes back. So 50 minutes a day of audiobooks, let me tell you, we got through some audio books. He thinks now he's 24. He thinks he read them. he doesn't remember the audio book experience he knows the story of war horse he knows treasure island

he knows the harry potter books why does he know because he heard them the method of delivery doesn't matter he can talk about that story as well as anyone that read it with their eyes and i say to him you read that book because he read it with his ears he didn't read it with his eyes his eyes and the snobbery around audio books is mind-blowing to me. I dislike it intensely. I think it's another way of reinforcing hierarchies of education, hierarchies of access, and hierarchy of disability. So, as I say, when someone says they love my story,

it matters not to me one jot how they got the story. Did they get the stories, the important thing? And just quickly on the subject of hierarchies of access, hierarchies of education, there are barriers to reading and there are barriers to writing as well. We keep coming back to these, whether they're internal or external. What advice would you give to any writers who are experiencing feelings of imposter syndrome or self-doubt? Yes. I would say do it. Do it anyway.

Write through the imposter syndrome, right through the doubts. We all write through the doubts. I'm writing a novel at the moment. and I can honestly say I have written some absolutely shit sentences. You never or you should never get to the point where you think cracked it, done it, I'm great, I can do it. A little bit of doubt is not bad. It's not a bad thing. It keeps your feet on the ground, keeps you humble, right through the imposter syndrome.

And be assured that your experience, your identity, your story, your background, the angle at which you look at the world matters and is valued. apologize for it. Don't water it down. Write it anyway. Thank you, Kit. I have one final question for you. Okay. And it is, if you had to choose one book from the list that you brought today as a favourite, which would it be in why? I'm going to go for old filth. I think it was beautifully rendered. They all are. But that one spoke to me, really spoke to me about compassion and love, as well as being such a great construction. Kit, the best of luck with judging the women's prize, with both new novels, the one you're writing, the one you're releasing.

And thank you so, so much for joining us today. It's been absolutely brilliant. I've loved it. Thank you. I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction Bootshellfy podcast, brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you for joining me for this episode. You'll find all the books discussed in our show notes. If you've enjoyed it, please leave us a rating or review

to help other readers discover even more brilliant books by women. See you next time.