Conversations with Tyler - Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Donate to Conversations with Tyler Give Crypto Other Ways to Give What can Thomas Hardy's tortured marriages teach us about love, obsession, and second chances? In this episode, biographer, novelist, and therapist Paula Byrne examines the intimate connections between life and literature, revealing how Hardy's relationships with women shaped his portrayals of love and tragedy. Byrne, celebrated for her bestselling biographies of Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, and Barbara Pym, brings her unique perspective to explore the profound ways personal relationships, cultural history, and creative ambition intersect to shape some of the most enduring works in literary history. Tyler and Paula discuss Virginia Woolf's surprising impressions of Hardy, why Wessex has lost a sense of its past, what Jude the Obscure reveals about Hardy's ideas about marriage, why so many Hardy tragedies come in doubles, the best least-read Hardy novels, why Mary Robinson was the most interesting woman of her day, how Georgian theater shaped Jane Austen's writing, British fastidiousness, Evelyn Waugh's hidden warmth, Paula's strange experience with poison pen letters, how American and British couples are different, the mental health crisis among teenagers, the most underrated Beatles songs, the weirdest thing about living in Arizona, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded November 14th, 2024. Other ways to connect Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Paula on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [e-mail] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.

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visit Conversationswithtyler.com. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Today I'm talking with Paula Byrne. She has a new book out here, which I found, in Daunt Bookstore in London. It is called Hardy Women, Mother's Sisters, Wives, Muses. It's about the women in the life of Thomas Hardy

and in the novels of Thomas Hardy. Paula is a very well-known and best-selling biographer. She has, among other things, books on Jane Austen, which are wonderful, Evelyn Waugh, a best-selling book about JFK's sister, based on new archival research, a best-selling biography of Barbara Pym. She has done work on 18th century

slavery, images of Jane Austen. She has written two novels, and she leads a group called Relit devoted to the notion of bibliotherapy. Paula, welcome. Thank you for having me. Simple opening question. What did Virginia Woolf think when she went to visit Thomas Hardy? I loved what she said when she says his face looked like a round apple, because I always think of him with apples, partly because they made cider a home. when he was a young boy. And I think it's just such a brilliant description of that sort of little apple,

sort of slightly like an old, withered apple, but still retaining some sort of juicy flesh. I think she did really like him. I think she liked him more than she expected to like him, which I think often happened with Hardy. People expected him to be really dour and pessimistic because obviously of the books.

And then when they met him, they were quite charmed. he had a very soft and gentle voice. And it was quite bewitching. It was quite mesmerizing. So, and I think she was very moved, obviously, because of her father and her Leslie Stephen's relationship with Hardy. So she wasn't as a sir because she was with quite a few people.

I think she gave him quite an easy time on the hole. And this would have been in the teens, right, of the 20th century that she saw him? Yeah, I was just a, he was quite sort of caustic about the, sorts of novels that she wrote and that don't have a beginning, middle, and an end. And she took it, you know, in good humour, but he, he was definitely sort of feeling that the world of the novel had changed beyond recognition, which it had, and that she was a pioneer of some of that. But he was still very sort of old-fashioned about a story must have that trajectory, beginning, middle, end. But I think they got on very well. If one visits Wessex today, are there still traces of Hardy's

world, or is it just simply homogenized? And that's quite gone. Yeah, I mean, I think it is quite homogenized. The house, Max Gate, which is where I got the idea for writing the book, obviously retains that original sort of charm. It's very dark. And it's an ugly house. But it's still, I think the spirit is there. And I'm vividly really. remember two things. One was his study at the top of the house where he wrote Tess and just feeling just the power of that room. And then the other room that really inspired the book was Emma's attic room where she disappeared for sort of 15 years. So I think you get a little feel of that in the house and Max Gate and certainly in the cottage because that is so beautiful. I've made many

pilgrimages to Hardy's birthplace over the years. And that feels so unspoiled. But But, I mean, Dorchester, for example, is grim. It's shut down. It's just a horrible place. So you don't really get much of the sense of, like, the real rustic flavor. But the cottage is charming still. But say if one goes to Cornwall or Northumbria, you do feel traces of the past. Liverpool, for that matter.

Why not Wessex? What went wrong there? It's a really good question. Liverpool, I don't know. Maybe Liverpool, you know, it's a port. and I think that's really important that the thing about a port I'm in Manhattan now

and I'm by the river and it really feels like Liverpool I feel like I'm back in Liverpool I think there's something about a port because it's always changing people are coming and going and there's musical influences so you'd almost think that

somewhere like Wessex it would be easier to retain some of that and yet it just has I felt it looks very run down I mean I'm thinking really here at Dorchester but obviously places like you know the sea

side, Lulworth of Cove and all these beautiful places are still incredibly gorgeous. And I think that's where you do really get a feel. And to some extent, Dorchester, you know, where the prison was and you look at Winchester where Tess was hanged. I mean, there are places in England where I think you can get a feel for that. But I think if you live in the life of the imagination, like I do, I can really see it. But I took my son with me and he was like, this is a dump. This is horrible. There's no hardy here. So I think from the young guys, he was just like, This world has gone. This world has evaporated. It can never come back. If we ponder say Jude the obscure, what's your implicit model of why it is for Hardy, first marriages are so hard to break from?

I mean, that is a massive question. And Jude, I think so much of Hardy's life is poured into Jude. It was such a personal book for him. It would take a very, very long time to answer that question. But it was also around the time when he was writing Jude. that his marriage had by then completely ended. There was no going back. And really interesting, it was the first book that Emma did not like, didn't want anything to do with, because there is this idea running through it is why can't you end a unsatisfactory marriage?

Why can't you just live with somebody? Why can't you just divorce somebody? And this is a refrain. What do you do if you can't afford divorce or it's still frowned upon? Well, you could sell your wife like in the Maricaston Bridge. or you know you can do what you does which is you live with the object of your desire for the second time around but it's it's a question the second marriage question was so huge for Hardy because he was so miserable

he was so miserable in his first marriage and he just couldn't see a way out but he did also come from that background that working class background where it's still really frowned upon to divorce or to leave your marriage and it was so so comprehensively. complicated with him because when she does die, he sort of fell back in love with her, which is so typical Hardy. But why write the 1913, 1914 poemster? He's in what? The first year of his marriage to Florence, she can't be crazy about that.

Why is he self-destructive? Or is it what he needs to do to make a second marriage work? I don't know. I mean, there was a cruel streak in him, I think. I think you have to be quite cold-hearted to do what he did to Florence. because having sort of moaned and complained about Emma and pretty much moved Florence in then to fall back in love with his wife is a little perverse

and of course it made Florence feel completely awful and then she couldn't live with, it was like Theresa Rakan she couldn't live with the dead ghost but I do also think this is when my sympathy swings for Hardy that when somebody does die you tend not to think of the bad things they've done you tend just to remember the good things they've done I've noticed this over and over again people tend to

just really linger on the positives. And there was a, there was so much remorse. And he just did remember that beautiful young Emma. So he did want to pay tribute to that. But you've just got to remember Tanner as well. He's a writer. Like he's going to use that for copy. And he knew those poems were good. And it did unleash something so emotional in him that, and he wanted to be a poet. He didn't want to be a novelist. And I think that's really important to remember. He did not want to be a novelist. He felt almost pushed into it. He wanted to be a poet. And I think then when he starts writing this amazing poetry, he knows this is good, and that's how he wanted to be remembered. And I think in that sense, he didn't really care that it hurt Florence.

You're also a couples, counsellor. Do you still see this in couples today with first and second marriages? Yeah, it's a short answer. Good answer. Why do so many hearty tragedies come in doubles? Can you say more about that? Well, the story in, say, Jude the Obscure, right? There's two women, there's two men, there's a total of, there's multiple marriages, mayor of Castor Bridge, there's, the doubling is a theme. It seems very Shakespearean, right? That there's a kind of ensemble of tragedy and different stories mirror each other or they show different facets of each other. I mean, I've never thought about it, but I think it's a really lovely point.

And I think that it's a great plot technique as well, that's sort of shadowing and that mirroring. I think, I mean, he's a great, I love his plots. You know, I think it's really, it's just so hard to get a plot right. And he does that really, really well. So I think again, but again, for me, for me writing the book, I was always conscious of this is a man that between those later novels, wants to get out of his marriage. So he's always looking at the alternative relationship, like what would happen if this happens or what, happens if that wife dies. So he's always got that refrain going through in those later novels, but not on the first ones when he's still so madly in love. But also with Hardy, he's always in

love with the unattainable. Like that's the whole thing with him. That's why I think the well-beloved is so interesting because it's the pursuit of the well-beloved, that you, once you get it, you don't want it. And I see that in couples cast, like a lot, is that, you know, when you get it, you know, and you know, you might have an affair and then you've got what you want. And then suddenly all those small horrible things that you haven't seen because it's all been so romantic, like, oh God, he doesn't brush his teeth before breakfast or those sort of tiny things and the illusion is broken. And then you're just back in the same place. So I think for me, for Hardy, he, almost as soon as he married Florence, he was falling in love with somebody else. And that's just what he seems to do all throughout his life.

attainable beauty because he's so susceptible to female beauty. In your readings, what do you take to be the primary Shakespearean element in Hardy? Just subjectively. I think there's a divinity that rough hues or ends, shaped them as you will, that sort of sense of, I'm thinking again of Tess here as well, of the idea that the gods are peevish. And they've got a plan and they don't really care and that they're just going to move the pieces of chess on the board. And I think of King Lear as well on that and the Heath. So I think that that sense of, yeah, that sort of fatalism, that sense that almost is no free will.

Like, what could tests do? There's nothing she could do because the gods have got a plan and that sense of providence. That is really deeply Shakespeare. In Shakespeare's very dark period, I have to say. As you point out, Hardy never really stopped working until he had to. How good is the unknown Hardy? It seems to me everyone reads the same few novels. What do you recommend from the rest? I really like the minor works. And I am going to confess like everybody else. I'd only read before I undertook the biography. I read all the big ones. So obviously the first thing I did was set myself to read everything. And I did it in chronological order because I think that's really important. I always do that. I do that with Evelyn Moore.

Just read everything because I think you can really see the growth. And I do think some of those minor novels are really, really fascinating and sort of not hardy-esque, you know, two on a tower. It's just so fascinating. It's so brilliant, the telegraph and all the sense of the new world and innovations. So I do, I really like the minor works. I find them interesting, but above all, I really love the poetry. And that, I really, really fell in love with the early poetry written when he was sort of 25 because it's so modern. It was so shocking. Like, when I read some of those early sonnets. I just thought this sounds like somebody is writing it today. It has the most fresh feel and voice. I would urge anybody who thinks they know hardy to go back and read those early

poems because they're really quite astonishing, but I do really like the minor works as well. Now, in another book, you argued that Mary Robinson was arguably the most interesting woman of her day in 18th century England. Why? I think. because she really understood celebrity, even before celebrity had been invented, she really understood how to market herself, how to fashion herself, how to reinvent herself, and how to support herself. And she was really, I think a very, very interesting writer. She understood the importance of image really before many, many, many people did

and used it to her advantage. So I think she is, for many, many reasons so fascinating. And, you know, the poetry of the Morning Post, I mean, she was a prolific writer and poet. She didn't let her her disability impede her. Just more than I think she just really, I was really frightened of her when I was writing about it. I was like, I don't ever want to meet this woman. She's really scary. And I couldn't wait to get out of my house when I'd finish writing about it.

But I still, I think about it all the time. In fact, I'm writing a novel about it at the minute. That's great. Who is arguably the most interesting woman in England today? Hmm. That was such a good question. I don't really find anybody interesting in England, really. Catherine Rundell?

Amia Serena Vasson? I would think Catherine Rundell, whether or not one agrees, she would be the obvious first pick. I just, my mind just goes, like, I instantly go to people like Sally Rooney, but I don't really like her. It's like, I'm so... And that's not England.

Yeah. And that's Ireland, yeah, not Great Britain. Well, you are from Liverpool, right? I am from Liverpool, yeah. But the other side of the border, mercy side, so yeah. But they have a lot in common culturally. Yeah, no, they do, they do. But I, yeah, I've been living in America for far too long.

I've been in America of six years, so I'm like, I'm really not sort of aware of interesting women much to my shame. Now, you've had a longstanding interest in Jane Austen. what's your sense if you think of late George in theatre in England, which was a big influence on Austin? But just how good was it? If you or I went to one of those plays, would we be bored?

Would we think it's stupid? Would we be amazed and wonder why the theatre had declined? What do you think? Obviously it's guesswork, but you must have a sense. I think they did it quite interestingly because they would do like a five-act serious play and then there would be like a farce and then there would be like at a dance.

And so there was a little bit of something for everyone. So you could go and see your Shakespeare. And I think particularly in the Georgian area, this is the time when those really great actors, Sarah Siddens and, you know, obviously, Garry, coming to the end of Gary, but Kemp Keene, Edmund Keene, George Cook, you know, he's Dora Jordan, these absolutely brilliant actors. And it's so hard because we don't know why they were so great. I mean, Jane Austen talks about Edmund Keen in her letters and says, he's so natural. But we don't know what that means.

To us, it's like we think of method acting, don't we? We might go to Sean Penn or we might go to the great method actors. And so when they say, oh, he's so natural, what does that actually mean? It can't mean the same thing that it can mean to us. But what I do know is it wasn't like declamation and, you know, throwing your hands and being like over the top. It was tempered down. I think when Joan Austin calls it real hardened acting, good acting is real. hardened acting. So I think there was definitely, you could see some of that. But a lot of people just

sometimes went for the farce. And the farces, I think, were great. Like, she stoops to conquest. It's hilarious. So the rivals, Sheridan. People would just go and, you know, spend, they go halfway in and see the last bit of the main play and then they'd see some great farce. And I think often people went to see each other. You know, they went to look at each other. So there was a lot of gazing around the room and who's there. What are they wearing? What are they doing? And also, it's very noisy. So people didn't sit there in deference like they do now. They'll be chatting and jostling and talking and it was much more sociable and it's a place where the classes intermingle and there aren't many places like that in Georgian society because it's so stratified. So I think it's really

fascinating as a sort of social space where you might mistake a prostitute with a fine lady because she's wearing the clothes of a fine lady because she's bought them secondhand. You've got all these interesting things going on but I think it would be really good fun. And how is the forest related to Austin. Well, she loved farce. You know, she, in her letters, she talks about going to see Don Dewin. And she, and it's a farce. And she's like, a compound of cruelty and lust, she calls it. But she, and there's other farces that she, the wonder, a woman keeps a secret, not very feminist by Susan Suntleva. And she's laughing. And she says, oh, the farce really pleased me. And I think she had quite low taste. I think she was hard to please. So she really liked the farce. And also, she used to take the children of the family, so they'd like a good farce. So I think she was quite eclectic in her taste. But, you know, these clowns were really funny. They were really good. And I think I say she wasn't a snob.

She wasn't an intellectual snob. She didn't just, she did want to see Mrs. Siddens in the great Shakespearean roles. But she also loved comedy. And she is a comic writer, which we all forget about, which is the most important thing to remember about Jane Austen is how funny she is. So, and I would, I argued in my very first book that she can never have been such a good comic writer if she hadn't watched all those passes. if they hadn't performed them at home if she hadn't read them

because her sense of comic timing is derived from 18th century theatre. Pride and Prejudice is so much dialogue. So it is like being at a play. And then she used to read her novels aloud. And that is like being at a play as well. So for me that was such a big and undervalued influence. How is Mansfield Park set against a background of war? Total war, you could say.

the standards of the time. Well, she's a war novelist because, you know, many of her novels are written in the background of the French Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. And Manseville Park, I think, is particularly 1814 is a really interesting year. There's some very interesting books being written in that year. It happens to be my favourite Joan Austin novel, Mansfield Park. I know everybody hates it, but I really love it. I find it so different to the others and so much more serious and so much more interesting.

So although she doesn't set out to deal with, she's not a war novelist, but it infiltrates, you know, it's so turbulent, you know, that something is always happening in the shadow hinterlands. You know, you would get that feeling with Mansu, a part of great unease, I think, that the house itself's corrupt. I've always felt that the Crawford's coming in and corrupting the house isn't what's really going on. It's the house that's corrupt and the house is built on the spores of the slave trade. So I think it's much more interesting. interestingly, politically. The trips to Antigua, there to slave plantations? Yeah. Very clearly, and she says so. And Sir Thomas, the house is built. It's a new house, Mansefog, it's built on the spoils of the slave trade. And he goes out because there's unrest.

And we don't know what that is, but there were enslaved riots happening at that time, especially in Antigua. And he takes his wild son with him in the hope to get him away from wild company, which doesn't work. but I think you always get that sense of the spoils of the slave trade and then of course Fanny's the only one brave enough to ask Sir Thomas when he comes back and she asks the question about the slave trade and nobody else is really interested or they don't want to talk more about it

but she does so it's and you know it's a very important moment in the novel that this shy, timid, diffident little girl is the one who says what you know tell me more about what's happening with the slave trade so and again the Lord Mansfield connection anybody reading Mansfield Park is going to think of Lord Mansfield and his role in the abolition of the slave trade. So that's about the nearest. I think she does come to politics.

She stays away from it, a bit like me, but it's there. It all seems political to me, just the relationships between the sexes and class and who does what to get ahead. I'm not sure she sees a relevant alternative, but it's mostly an indictment as I read those novels. Yeah, I would agree. She was an abolitionist, right?

Absolutely. She was obsessed with this really interesting man called Thomas Clarkson, who wrote the first history of the slave trade, also from Liverpool. Or he went around Liverpool. I know he might have been from Liverpool, I can't remember. But she was obsessed with Thomas Clarkson, who was the first person to argue that instead of slave in human traffic, if you want to trade with Africa, you could do this with goods, with beads, with clothes, with all sorts of different things. And she really, really, so she absolutely, I think, a boy. the slave trade and everything gets stood for. And when does the opium trade pop up in her novels?

Does it? Persuasion? Maybe I'm misremembering. Anyway, we will ask Chad CTPT in our spare time when we're done. Definitely. You recommend a movie, Patricia Rosemez's version of Mansfield Park, which is now in my to watch list. But why is that more interesting and vital than most other Austin adaptations? I think at the time, it was quite a while ago, I saw it, and it did feel

very refreshing because it was it really engaged with the politics that engaged with the slave trade I think it revealed Fannie as more spirited, it's not a faithful adaptation put it that way and I know it really did divide people but I thought at the time I was like it's really fun it's really risque and it's fresh

but then I saw it again recently and I was a little disappointed I was like oh it's not as brilliant you know how you go back to the film that you love and you think oh that's so great and you go back and you're like I don't think anybody's really got Mansfield Park right, but there was something very new and fresh and vivid about the way that she filmed it as well.

And filmically, it's really interesting. And I really liked her depiction of Tom Bertram, the wayward's son and his engagement with the slave trod. And I really like the way Harold Pinter played Sir Thomas. And he was really a bully, which I've always felt that Sir Thomas is a bully. So she took lots of risks. I mean, ultimately she doesn't get Fannie,

right, but I just felt at the time, yeah, keep it fresh, keep it relevant. We don't have to be so faithful and we don't have to be like all frocks and smocks and big houses. Like every Jane Austen adaptation, the house is way bigger than what it would have been. She's not interested in aristocrat. She's interested in gentility. So she is, they've always kind of got it wrong. And the ones that films I like, I love Clueless. Clueless is the best adaptation.

Because it's so funny. Like, she just gets the funniness, and that's the really important thing. Clueless is so great. And that has never lost its charm for me. Your book on Yvile noir, the phrase pops up, and I quote, Naturally Festidious. Why can it be said that so many British people are naturally fastidious? Your questions are so crazy.

I love it. Did I say that? I think Yvillin-Wa said it, not you, but it's in the book. Do you know, give me the context of that? Oh, I'd have to go back and look. It's just in my memory. But it's a claim. It's a great phrase.

We can evaluate the claim on its own terms, right? I'm not sure they are anymore. It seems maybe they once were. But the stiff upper lip tradition seems much weaker with time. Yeah. I think Evelyn War would be appalled with the way England has gone. Not true, fastidia. So, yeah, I think, yes, it's different to reticent, isn't it?

It's the fastidious. It's hard to please, it means, doesn't it? naturally hard to please. I kind of think that's quite true of even was generous, certainly of even war, because he was naturally fastidious, that literally sums him up in a phrase. If I go to Britain as an American,

I very much have the feeling that people derive status from having negative opinions more than positive. And that's quite different from this country. Would you agree with that? I would. And I would agree. And I think one of the things I have always, loved about America was that I know it's such a cliche about, you know, Americans have this

sense of positivity and you can do anything, but it's true. And, you know, and I do find in England there is a sort of real, eaw, sort of dower, sort of putting you down or putting you in your place, but I kind of like that as well. So like with scouse humour, it's very much keep you in your place. Don't get too big for your boots. And I kind of like it, because because I think the corollary, the, you know, the opposite of that is what the phoniness of Americans, like, you know, when you go to L.A. And everyone's like, oh, my God, just so beautiful. That's amazing. And, like, oh, my God.

Like, you know, and you just think, you don't mean a word of what's coming out of your lips. So I think, like, the balance. New York feels like the balance is pretty right. But when did that start in Britain? Does it exist at the peak of Victorian Britain? One doesn't feel it in John Stewart Mill or many other writers. What's the evolution of that? because you've written British biographies about a number of different errors.

You mean the stiff upper lip? Well, the negativity as a means of conferring status upon yourself. Yeah, I mean, I think it's slightly tall poppy syndrome that you don't want to big someone up too much because it makes you feel small and it takes your light away from you if you're a tall poppy. But I think it is tied in with something that I've really come to value, the older I've got, which is English reticence and English diffidence. And I actually, the older I get, the more I'm like, I really like that because it does feel very intrinsic to who I am as a British person, which is, it may not be, you might say negative, I might say realistic, you might say pessimistic, I might say honest. You know, it just sort of depends how we define these things.

But I think when someone gives you a compliment, or to me, they mean it in England. They mean it because they very rarely give you one. And I'm like, oh, you must really mean that. And that comes, that has value. And I think that stiff upper lip has value. And as a therapist, it also does not have value. As a therapist, family secrets are the worst thing that you can ever do. So I see both sides of it, if that makes sense. But in terms of the novel and in terms of the great writers, I think you're on to, I think, I think, I think you're right about that. There is a such of deep pessimism that runs, like a strain that runs through. However, as with,

Evelyn Waugh and Jane Austen, you always get that leavened with satire, with humour, with don't take yourself too seriously. I think that's the great British sin. Don't take yourself too seriously. Like if you take yourself too serious, you're doomed. And do you read Waugh as actually a snob and a misanthrope? Or is that a kind of put on? And that actually he's very good natured about humanity.

The latter, I completely think it's put on. And I argued this really strongly in my book that he, everything was a joke, everything was up for a joke. and he played the part of the sort of grumpy colonel, which he talked about himself. Deep down, he was incredibly kind to his friends. He was deeply sensitive. He wasn't a snob. And again, he makes fun of the aristocracy and bride said, even though people don't always see that. I don't think he was any of those things.

I think he was a snob about cleverness. I think he was a bit of an intellectual snob. I think if you were really stupid, he wouldn't have much time for you. And maybe that's a British thing too. but he really valued wit and good conversation. But it didn't matter whether you were, when he was during the war, his bagman adored him. And there's an interview where they're trying to get this bagman to sort of say,

oh, he's a horrible snob, wasn't he? He said, no, he's absolutely lovely. Did he shout at you? Was he horrible to you during the war? No, no, no, he couldn't have been kinder. And he just, he was somebody who knew him intimately during the war. And he just did not have a bad word to say about him. So it's become a bit of a parody.

And he became a bit of a parody of it himself. Harri-D himself. But I think he played that part and for me he certainly was not a snob. If I understand your life history correctly, you and your husband come from very different status bands in British society. How do you think that shapes the books and biographies you write? I think we're both interested in social class, but I think if you live in England, you are, because it permeates everything. That another thing I really love about America is, and I know there is an American class system, I know that. But I've always felt very free in America because people don't judge me by my accent, whereas in England you're instantly judged by, oh, you're a northerner, that means that you steal things, or you're a northern and that means that you're stupid or.

And I've never got that in America. So I think my husband and I have always been really fascinated and we come from different class, different backgrounds. But the great unifying thing for us always was books and literature and art and music and all the things that we have. in common. So I think it's, yeah, I mean, it does shape, it does shape the writing because I'm interested in people who write about social class, Jane Austen, even more. Now, obviously, I'm drawn to those writers. And same with him. But do you have the sense that in your books, you're working through something about your own life and your own history, and that's what you have to get out. And that by doing it indirectly, there's some way you can psychologically resolve that,

where it won't quite work so directly. Because I feel that way about my books, that I'm always writing about myself in some ways. 100%. And I've said it many, many times that all biographers are writing autobiographies, even the fact that you choose to write about these certain people, I mean, it's something that appeals to you or you may have been shaped by. So I was really fascinating.

But going back to the Hardy book for a moment, I was really interested in working class women's stories because I come from that background. and the background I come from, it's very matriarchal, it's Catholic, it's women had a lot of power. I could never understand middle class women saying women have no power because I was like, oh my God, you'd never been in my family because they were always the storytellers. They were really part.

The men were like really not as strong as the women. So I was really fascinated by female law in Thomas Hoddey. What are these stories that go through the generations? Do we believe them, these illegitimate children? I was always interesting giving people a voice. And I wouldn't be drawn to that if I hadn't had that background because I know that's how women talk and speak. And I think Hardy was really fascinated by working class women and their strength of character and their stories and all those things. So I think you're completely right.

I don't think the single book I've written where I feel cold, where I feel like I don't know this world or I don't share something of myself. And I think it's just a fallacy to say, oh, I'm really objective. I wrote that book and I'm so objective. I just don't think it works like that. I think you see things that you think, are, okay, that's really fascinating. Somebody else might say something completely different and not see it. So I think, yeah, for me, there's always my own autobiography. And I hope it doesn't distort it too much.

No, that's great. I love that in the books. I feel a bit, I mean, I don't know you at all, but I feel a bit I know you just reading the biographies. Oh, that's a lovely thing to say. A related question. Does Paul McCartney still have a liver. Puddleian accent because he pretends not to. If you listen to 1963 Paul McCartney or a more recent Paul McCartney, it's a very

different way of speaking. But underneath, do you still hear that he's from Liverpool? Oh, 100%. See, the thing is, I just think he sounds so scouse to this day. I think, I know, and it's softened because a bit like me. I haven't lived in Merseyside since I was 18, really. I came back for a bit and then moved away again. So I really hear his accent.

But I know what you're saying, like those early, like the accent's really thick. And it's very guttural that. It's right back from the throat. It's softened. But to me, I so hear that accent. I'm like, oh, my God, he's so scouse. Could you explain to me as an American what you've called the Poison Pen episode? So your husband has a governance post at Oxford and you're there with him.

and someone starts writing these nasty letters about you. Now, people write nasty comments on the internet about me every day, basically. And no one cares, but in the society you're in, this is somehow an event. There's multiple newspaper stories about it. You end up writing a novel, partly based on these events. Like, how is it that the poison pen letters have force? It's very puzzling to me. Again, I really like this line of questioning.

And I think there's something powerful about somebody who takes the trouble to go and buy a nice sheet of paper and a first class stamp. Or in this, I'll tell you a really funny story about that in a minute, and write this beautiful letter about as care and precision as I've been thought about. And then you go and you take it to the post box and you post it. And that's not like, come on, Tyler, that is not like writing, Talley, you suck on a tweet. Like, it's really not the same thing. you know and I'm like I and then I remember I when it first happened the same thing had happened to my best friend who's a Claire Jim in London and I called him up and I was like oh my God I've got a poison pen letter and we were talking about the power of this

the question you just made and he said he said darling you know there's there's one question I have to ask you and he said is did they send a first class it's so British this response by the way a first class stamp or a second class stamp and I said well it actually was a second class stamp and he said oh yes cheap as well is vicious And how good was the penmanship? Oh, it was superb. And I knew straight away it was an academic because it was so clever.

And I knew it was a woman because it was so clever and bitchy. And did you ever find out who it was? I did. And you found out factually or you just inferred in a Bayesian sense, who it must be?

No, I flushed this person out via Twitter. So I, she eventually made a mistake. She hosted a letter where there was a camera and I and it was by registered pose. So she made a mistake. So I pretended that I had camera footage, which I didn't.

And I tweeted it and said, sorry, you've been caught. I know who you are. We've got CCTV camera. You better fess up and she fessed up. And there was, I mean, I sued her as well. There was, I mean, I didn't want it to go to court because she was clearly unwell. And I didn't want to do that.

But I, you know, it got very far. And, you know, it did get very far. And full apology. And what do you take to be the true motive behind it? Just viciousness or mental illness or? A little bit of vicious, a lot of mental illness. I think it was someone whose life hadn't really, really turned out the way she'd expected.

And I think she sort of, there was a little bit of envy. I don't know why, but felt like there was, like, it should have been me sort of thing. And like really wanting to put me down. Again, that class, that British class thing, that who were you to be parading around Oxford as a provost wife? Who knows? Because I never had met this person. I did not know this person. I'd never ever. It was just like, why would you even do that? And everything was from Twitter. Like she'd talking about Twitter. It was my Twitter novel because I figured out earlier

I was like, oh my God, this person doesn't know me. I was like, everything in these letters are things that I've tweeted. So I, and that was the case as it happened. So little link there with our Twitter experiences, Tyler. How many letters were there? I think there were about, maybe about 20th or a five-year period. That's a lot of letters. There's a lot of penmanship. And they were very long. That's how I knew it was a boring academic

because they were so long and convoluted. And I was like, oh, for God's sake, like, academic, like typical academics never write any books and whinge and take all their long holidays. Sorry, everyone's going to absolutely kill me for this. No, they'll love it. They'll love it. Keep on going. And then don't even do anything.

And then I was like, you're writing me these 30-page left. Why didn't you write a book love? Like, just do something with you. I knew it was a, it was a female academic and it was. And it was just, it took, it just took so much of her time. She basically, she later said alcohol had played a part. So I think she would just get completely smashed and then decide to take me down and write these letters.

But honestly, they were hilarious. Like, they were so funny that I was like, I have to use these letters in a book. This is a waste. This is so, so funny. Like, this stalking of me. I was like, it's hilarious. It was just so bonkers. It was like baby reindeer before baby reindeer.

Now, if I had known of this at the time, I would have inferred that you were a nonconformist and in some mix of quite interesting and ambitious and wanted to meet you. Did other people in England react that way? Like, did you become a heroine? Or did they just assume the letters were somehow some correct critique of you?

I don't think I was a heroine at all. I was absolutely villain. I think so many people were just really not happy that I went public. And when I wrote the novel, I was a little bit critical of Oxford as an institution and that really didn't do me any favours. So, no, I did not get many admirers. That was the greatest career. It wasn't my greatest career move. However, I wanted to flush her out and I wanted her to stop. So I, you know, I was, and I was absolutely determined that something positive would come out at the. this horrible, because it is distressing, and I know I make light of it, but it is really,

really horrible. It was so nasty and vicious and cruel. And then you just think, who is it? And then you start thinking, is it my friend? Or is it so and so? And so you do become quite paranoid. So I really feel sorry for famous people because I'm like, they must get this all the time. And then who do you trust? And it's hard enough in Oxford College to trust anybody because they're all such backstabbers. So like, I was like, oh my God, what if it's somebody like who sees me every day. So you do become a little bit paranoid. But so I think writing the novel was cathartic and it did enable me to sort of step back from it and say, come on, this is actually quite funny. But I didn't get any people saying good. Just a couple of people went good on you,

good on you for doing that, but not many. And do you think there's some element of jealousy that you are lady bait and that some sense someone feels that's not deserved and that that's a sort of protest. 100%. 100%. I think I'm Lady Docker from Liverpool and I think they think who the hell does she think she is. And those,

none of the, those things don't matter anything. To me that was Jonathan's accolade and he deserved it. So like anything that I, you know, getting a title from that is not my title. Like it's lovely for him and I support him and I think he deserved it.

And he was, I think he's the only second person to be knighted for services to literature. I was so proud of him. But it wasn't mine. But I definitely. definitely think there were some people, particularly in Oxford and Cambridge, who were really, really angry about shit and really thought who. Because I am outspoken, Tyler. I do say it as it is. And it is the sort of scouser in me. And I don't really put up with bullshit. And I don't think people like that. They thought that I should just shut up and pot up. And so I think there was a lot of viciousness that came as a result of the title. And really interestingly, I don't think you can't know this, but it's absolutely true. The first letter came a week after the night. was announced. So I think that was the trigger. I was like

somebody's seen this in the papers and this is the trigger. So whether there was, I don't know, I can't say whether there was some sort of, not even envy, but just like who does she think she is? Do you think you're an outspoken Liverpoolian as a therapist? Yes. So you'll just call BS

when you hear it? Completely. And you have to be couples. I love couples. I do all therapy. I do family therapy, but I love couples because you have to call it out. Like you've got to call people's bullshit out. And of course, you'd only do that when you've created that bond and and you know but I absolutely will because I will not waste people's time or money and I will say you are wasting your time you're wasting your money you don't want you don't want this enough I will absolutely

call it out because I can't bear people who just go into therapy for therapy's sake and waste their money and their time in America it's expensive it's a lot of money to speak to me I've got to be worth it I've got to be worth it I've got to be worth it You know, I want them to feel good about this. So I am outspoken, but I'm gentle too. And I think I've always been a good listener, so I've not had any complaints. Now, I know it's hard to generalise, but if you think about how American couples are different from British couples, I mean, what ideas come to mind? I really think American couples are incredibly, I know this makes me sound a bit of a tosser, but they're so sweet.

Like, I feel like, well, I lived in Arizona for so long, and I was just like, oh, the relationships are so lovely. they're so kind to each other. They're so warm. And I was like British people are just so horrible to each other. I feel like we're always in an Ivy Compton Burnett novel where everyone's like whispering horrible things under their breath to their husbands and their wives. I feel like the family values in America and is huge for me. But it may be the West Coast thing as well. I was like, wow, so much family and support. And of course, not everybody, but just generalising, I'm like, wow, there's a real support within the family that I do. don't, haven't seen quite so much in England. I think it seems a little bit more fraught. And so many people who marry their college sweethearts, I'm like, how does that even work? Like, how can you still be married to someone you knew when you were 14? I was like, seriously, do you really want to

stay together? You can leave. Do you think there's evidence of any kind of mental health crisis in the US today, and maybe only with people's children? But I see some of this, parents with teenagers or children say in their 20s, I hear of many more issues than I would have, say, 15 years ago. Maybe people just talk about it more, but this to me is notable. Do you agree or find the same? I do agree. And my favorite group, apart from couples, are teenagers. They're the population I always wanted to work with in therapy. And I'm fascinated by teenagers. I love them. They're hilarious and, you know, they are just great. And I'm shocked by how many teenagers are seriously depressed. Like, I'm seeing 11 year olds of depression, 12 year olds of depression,

13 years old's depression. And that's something that I think is new. And just the sense in which, and I'm not going to blame social media, because I think social media is fantastic, but the pressure young women, particularly I noticed in therapy, are under that sort of cult perfection and also when you're bullied, there's no escape. You know, I can remember being bullied and I was like, least you'd go home and then your parents would be nice to you and it'd be fine. Your siblings would just, like, you'd laugh it off, but there's no escape. There is no escape at all. I love that population and I think there is a huge amount of health prices, no matter however where you cut it, there really, really is. And the sad thing is, is that I'm a family

therapist, so I really love families. I love getting families in a room because you can't just take one person's perspective. Everyone has a different perspective. and making families stronger. I think therapy is just so brilliant and important for all families in order to connect. That's the EM-forster thing, isn't it? Only connect. But I've been really scared by the mental health crisis amongst young people, particularly in America. I've seen some pretty shocking stuff, I can tell you.

Why do you think it's gotten worse? Because I don't know. Again, people will blame social media. And to some extent, it's that I think a lot of children are really low. both parents work and they often go home to an empty house. I mean, I've just heard such horrific stories about there's no community. Like America's great for community, but I'm like, we don't really have that sense of community anymore, which I think is so important.

Like, I don't know, churches or whatever. Like having a sense of community is really important and we just don't have that anymore. And I think that's a problem. I think there's all sorts of things that I do think social media plays a part. I mean, honestly, it's fascinating. I think about it all the time. I'm like, why have we got, why we got this bad? Like, what's happened? Why are we in this state that we're in? And I think it is lack of connection, a real meaningful connection. Now, one year is often of a human capital crisis in northern England in particular, which of course is where you're from. How would you diagnose that? Because it did not exist in earlier times. What has happened there? Is it just deindustrialization? Or there's something else in the story? Again, it's complicated, isn't it? Definitely, I mean, I was just thinking of the Fulmonte when you said that, that brilliant film.

Yes. About the sort of, you know, the emasculation of men, you know, when women could get jobs and it was the men sort of pushing the prams. And I can remember seeing that in the north, like the shipbuilding industry, Camelard's closing, and you suddenly see more men pushing babies in the prams. It really did make me think of the full Monty and you said that. But then I think tourism since Liverpool was capital of culture, it became really more prosperous again and people were getting jobs and the garden festivals. And so I've seen such big changes,

but I've been away from it from so long, Tyler. I've been away from the north. I know. I haven't really been back for a long time. My sense when I've gone back to Liverpool is it seems so thriving. It feels prosperous in a way it didn't in the 80s. No, it's great. When I was growing up.

I went there during pandemic. I loved it. It was fantastic. Have you ever bought anything on Penny Lane? No, but I've been down Penny Lane many of times. I love the people, the people are really warm. My children love going back, because I always took them home because my parents and my family mainly is still there. And my kids who were brought up in Oxford just said,

they just thought the North of England was the best places. They think that people are friendly and warm and kind and funny, and they found people in Oxford very snobby. So they've always really, I love seeing Liverpool through their eyes as well because they're like, they're so nice, everyone's so kind. And people say hello on the streets. I just, I really don't know really so much about the politics because I'm so out of touch, Tyler. I'm really out of touch.

And I'm so disillusioned. I'm disillusioned with Kea Starmer. I'm disillusioned with Labor. I'm disappointed and I'm saddened. You know, I think Britain's become, well, like America, a very divisive place. like families arguing over politics, it's become really vicious. You know, within, you know, within families, people not speaking to someone because you voted for Donald Trump or you, I'm like, wow, how did it get to this? Like, I don't, who cares?

What, who's somebody who votes differently to you? You still can love them. But it just becomes, it's become so divisive. And I think the pandemics, and the pandemic going back to mental health, huge, huge impact on adolescents. They really had a hard, many of them had a very hard time during the pandemic. So I think there's, you know, I think there's, you know, I think. I think there's lots of complimentary and complex issues around that, really. What's the most underrated Beatles song?

Hmm. I love the Beatles. I really like the B-sides a lot, and I like George a lot. I'm going to go with, yes, it is. It's a great song, yeah. Wonderful harmonies. I said you won't see me when someone discussed this with me recently. but Mr. Moonlight also. No one likes,

but it's an amazing vocal, one of John's best vocals. You won't see me. It's a great song. Yes. That is a great song. The melancholy in there is just incredible. The melancholy and the harmonies,

and I love this point. I love all, I think the harmonies of just, those early harmonies are so beautiful. But I really love the B-Sides. And yes, it is, yeah. Yes, it is so gorgeous. What's the weirdest thing

about living in Arizona? Like, truly weird. I don't know. The weirdest thing about living in Arizona Oh gosh, there's so many Oh my God, I'm really... And you're near Phoenix, right? You're near Phoenix?

Yeah, sort of Scottsdale. I love the landscape. It's incredibly beautiful. What's the weirdest thing? Do you know what I think it is? I know this makes me sound so incredibly shallow. It's that the restaurants are in malls, shopping malls. I'm like, where are the restaurants?

Like, where are there, like, cafes? Where are people sitting outside, like people watching, but you have to go to a mall to get a meal? You can't sit outside for five months of the year. And you can't sit outside. And that's the kind of obvious one. But it is incredibly beautiful. Northern Arizona, which I really loved and spent a lot of time, is so completely gorgeous and beautiful. And the landscape is so different to Phoenix.

I did a lot of, I really tried to explore the area when I was living there and I'd take the kids and we'd go and and all these pacing and all these like really weird places and just Prescott and just really get to know. And Bisbee, have you been to Bisbee? No, what's in Bisby? Bisby is the coolest place. It's a mining town. So you feel like you're in sort of the Alps of Switzerland

and it's full of music and bands and it's cool and it's the best place in the world and there's all these inns that are built on the mountainside where the mining used to take place. It's really, really cool, Bisbee. And I'm a big, big fan. Before my last question, let me just put in another plug for your books. I very much like all of them. The most recent is Hardy Women, Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses about Thomas Hardy and the women in his lives and in his work. Last question. What will you do next? Oh, I've just finished literally today before I spoke to you. I press send on another novel. It's my third novel. It's an historical novel and it's about Jane Austen's lost.

secret seaside romance. That's great. But after that, now that that's the word of done, what will you do next? I probably, I'm not sure I'm going to write because there's no, honestly, I can't afford to, there's no money in it. Nobody reads anymore. I'm really depressed about it. I read. So I'm probably going to practice therapy for a while and maybe, I always say this of Tyler, I'm like, this is it. Last book. No money. Can't do it. Nobody's buying books. And then I always like, oh my God, I've got this really good idea. So actually, I am writing. a novel about Mary Robinson, you mentioned her earlier.

I think the historical novel thing is just so much fun. I really like it and I don't have to worry about footnotes all the time. So it's quite freeing to be a creative fiction writer rather than nonfiction. So although I say this is the last one, I have been saying that for like 20 years. I say that too, you know.

And there's typically one more. But Paula Byrne, thank you very much. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you, Tyler. Thanks for listening to Conversations with Tyler. You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you like this podcast, please consider giving us a rating and leaving a review. This helps other listeners find the show.

On Twitter, I'm at Tyler Cowen, and the show is at Cowan Convo's. Until next time, please keep listening and learning.