Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Book Club - Eight Months on Ghazzah Street

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Jane and Fi are back with their eighth book club, and this one's gone internationale - get the nibbles ready... Plus, Nicholas Pearson, Hilary Mantel's editor and publisher of 20 years, joins Jane and Fi to discuss her life and work. Thank you so much for your engagement and interaction. We hope you'll join us for the next one.Get your suggestions in at: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if everything you thought you knew about your own child was a lie? Ellen Pompeo and Mark DuPlace star in Good American Family. In this all-new limited series, a couple adopt what they believe is an 8-year-old girl, but when concerns soon arise, it forces them to question her actual identity. Told from multiple perspectives, Good American Family is inspired by the true events behind the disturbing story of Natalia Grace, and unpacks the case that spiraled from private suspicion to public spectacle. Now streaming only on Disney+. With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan.

You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Welcome to book club number eight. Is it really? And it all started so long ago with Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perra. Not my favourite. So what have we moved on to? So we have moved on to Eight Months on Gaza Street by Hilary Mantel.

It was recommended to us off the back of a conversation that we had about neither of us being able to really get to grips with her amazing, multi award winning historical novels, Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and the other one. So somebody recommended that we go back and read some of her other stuff and Eight Months on Gaza Street she wrote before she published the amazing trilogy and we have found it I, a very interesting book to read. It's got mixed reviews from all of you out there. We are grateful to all of you who have taken the time to read the book and to join in with your thoughts.

Do you want to start with a really positive one? Actually, I'll tell you what. What did you think? Well, I think or thought what a lot of our correspondents have thought. First of all, I want to say I'm really glad I've now read a book by Hilary Mantel and I, in the past I just thought I... You can walk tall can't you? I've walked slightly taller. She clearly was a truly brilliant writer and as we're about to

discover in the interview that we did with Nicholas Pearson who was her editor, a really interesting woman who I think he feels, he really humanizes her in the conversation we have with him and she really wanted success and she got it, mercifully, thank God. Before her really pretty early death, she was only 70, she'd also battled poor health for much of her life. So how fantastic that she was able to achieve it with her Tudor books. But if I'm honest, although I admired her writing, I think she herself would say this is not her greatest, well it clearly wasn't her greatest work. But what a fantastic attempt to describe a particular form of expat life at a very particular time. And that's what a lot of the emails have reflected. People have been thinking about their childhood

memories of growing up in these communities or working in Saudi Arabia themselves, and it's really got people thinking and talking, which is the whole point of the thing, so brilliant. Did you like it? So I really loved some of her prose in it. I think her ability to describe the frustration of a clever, independent woman being trapped in a society that doesn't really

want women to be either of those two things. I thought all of that was brilliant. I had to keep checking in with myself that it was referring to a time 40 years ago. So actually some of the enormous frustrations where you want Francis, the protagonist, to just break away from it all and actually just go online and book a ticket home and just say goodbye to the whole thing. I can't live here. But it was, you know, 40 years ago is a long time and I really, really liked her descriptions of just the dust, the fact that she couldn't find, Frances just couldn't find anywhere to go where she could be herself apart from actually up on the roof. And I think, you know, but in my own life I have a wee bit of experience of that expat community

because my father lived and worked in Hong Kong for a long time. My mother is a fiercely intelligent and independent thinking woman and she quite often could be found on the roof of the block of flats just looking at a view. And it really, really made me think about what it would have been like. I mean in my mother's case to be raising kids for a while in a community where you didn't have those familiar kind of tentacles tethering you to the stuff that you enjoyed doing. So I loved it for that Jane. You really were. It sounds like your mum was the trailing spouse who went with. She was a troll. We were a trailing family for a while. And you know, there was very little for you to do. Well, I mean, suffocating. Yes, I mean, it wasn't even that there wasn't very much for you to do.

It's just you weren't really allowed to. You were there on company time and the company was employing the bloke. It wasn't employing you. You were being employed via the bloke to keep the family going and all of that. So, you know, it's a tough ask, it's a tough call and I think it always has been for the partner of somebody appointed to that kind of position. I blamed myself in the book when reading the book for not really understanding the ending because increasingly Jane I just I read books and I don't grasp enough of the detail at the beginning of the book for the rest of the book to make sense and I don't know anyone

else shares that with the aging mind. Can I just say I've got a terrible confession to make? Why? Well, it's only when I read the emails we've had about this that I fully understood the book. So thank you for emailing on this subject. It's an important bit at the beginning. Well, there is. There's a memo at the very beginning of the novel which is written after the novel concludes and which hints at, though doesn't actually directly say that the main protagonists have been involved in something. And you do

need to keep that in mind as you read the book. And I'm not sure that I did fully. So Mea Culpa are cocked up there. But that doesn't mean I didn't get something out of the book because I absolutely did. And I loved the kind of the brilliant description of the, the snooty claustrophobia of the so-called ex-pat community. I'm really intrigued by that expression, ex-pat. As we talk a lot in this country, as in much of Western Europe, about immigrants and immigration. And as far as I'm concerned, if you go abroad to make a living somewhere else, you're an immigrant, aren't you? But the ex-pat status is a very particular one, and it's often something that white British people apply to themselves.

Well, I mean, it's born out of colonialism, isn't it? Yeah, but it's a bit... We still use it though. Yes, it's a belief that actually we're going to our other home. Yes. But we've left the original home. We're here to civilise you. I mean, it's just absurd. But I love the kind of the very beginning of the book on the plane, where Frances is flying out and she's basically eavesdropping on some business people,

men who are going out there to work. She of course isn't because she can't. And it's all just very sort of judgeal and they're talking about way bridge and how you know, someone's just a little bit suburban. And you just really get the measure of these people, these men and how they see themselves and how they judge other people. And I think that definitely comes through in the novel. It's also, if anyone's not read it but is thinking of doing so, it's very short isn't it? It's not something you need to give six months to. No, but I think lower your expectations to a tidy, thriller-esque ending because for the most part of the book it did read to me like a thriller and I was expecting that ending that ties everything up that reveals the real baddie you know

that's the imprint of the thriller that you are really these days very very familiar with if you read crime fiction so the very ending of it I thought I got it a bit wrong just because I hadn't properly identified the difference in the two other families that were living in the apartment building. So that's the bit that I felt I hadn't concentrated on enough at the beginning to make sense at the end. So I was expecting one of them to suddenly be, you know, revealed and they weren't. But I tell you what, our interview with Nicholas is really telling in that regard because I think if you feel bad about the ending not being as delicious as you want it to be, Hillary probably didn't too. Well let's just briefly bring in a couple of your messages before we get to the conversation

with the man who was, and very happy to be, very proud to have been, Hillary Mantell's editor and publisher. Melanie says, I thought this was a fabulous book. Hilary Mantel is so good at building tension and menace. It's a claustrophobic read. You feel trapped with her. Yeah, I agree with that. Another book of Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black. That's my favourite. Very different subject matter, but same themes of freedom and control. There is not a word wasted. She was a genius. Another one comes in from Fiona who says, having spent time in Africa, I love the background with descriptions of living in Africa as elsewhere with all of its vagaries

going back to England and then transplanting herself in a totally different culture. Again, with all of the comparisons was so true. The inability to express the environment in letters to those back in Blighty was brilliantly observed. Frances is a great character, educated and independent with curiosity, strong views and a simmering rage against the country's misogyny that ends up seeping into her own marriage at times. The underlying fear and unpredictability of her environment along with the paralyzing boredom and retreat into her own head was evident. Do you know what, I did love those descriptions

of the days spent just in the morning, taking something out of a suitcase in the afternoon, sitting in a room. I mean, it's astonishing, isn't it? The strangeness of shopping at night and the necessity of being appropriately accompanied, punctuated by the interruptions for prayers and the inexplicable postage arrangements really emphasised that lifestyle that nobody was prepared for.

Fiona goes on to say, I really enjoyed the interactions with the neighbours and their rather clumsy need to educate Francis whilst nefarious happenings were taking place under their own roof. The death of Fairfax seemed to snap Andrew back to himself and he started supporting Francis again or at least not exhaustedly battling her away. I felt I was there with them. I had to ration myself so I could absorb and empathize with the situation. Right I also just want to mention that the fear that the British people, the other expats who are out there, seem to have about leaving. As much as they hated it, their status was absolutely bound to their working life there, wasn't it? And they knew that they would probably have, in many ways, a poorer quality of life if they were to go home.

And they seemed very frightened of that too. So anyway, I mean, I don't know, I've never worked in a place like that. Not sure I'd ever want to. This is from Philippa who says, I'm looking forward to this month's discussion. I found it an interesting read, although I can't say I enjoyed it.

And I think that if I were to, you basically, that's my thinking, Philippa. I absolutely get that. I certainly felt the frustration and isolation that an expat in such a strange country would have felt. And at times Mantel's slow pace in the book mirrored the slow pace of life there. Absolutely true, that's quite right. I found the ending confusing and I'm not sure I totally understood what happened. If someone had really died or how much of what was going on was actually in

Frances's mind. Thought-provoking though and as always I'm happy to read a book I didn't quite get as it always makes me question what I want from a book and how a good book is structured. Thank you very much for that, Philippa. This one comes from Anne and I think it will deliciously lead into our interview with Nicholas Pearson. So here we go. Hello both, I'm a bit confused by this book. The events of the previous week in Shawwal in the Saudi calendar is sent after the final chapter ends, according to the author's note explaining how the calendar is structured. Parsons mentions tragic events involving Turodak employees which I assume means Fairfax, Andrew and

Francis. I was expecting a huge calamity to before Francis and Andrew following the death of Fairfax and the arrest of Jasmine as I was following the timeline of the alternative calendar and you're brilliant. Instead the memo seems to have been sent after Frances and Andrew had settled into their new accommodation and at least a few weeks have passed. I'm not sure I've fully grasped who was involved with what and who were working together. You and me both Anne. Was Jasmine helping Abdul Nazir in some kind of government backed torture force? Was Rajee involved in illegal deals and being

monitored by this group, hence the assassination attempt? Am I over-analyzing things? I've read the last 60 plus pages twice, trying to grasp everything." Anne goes on to say, having said all of that, I absolutely loved the descriptive nature of the book. I felt immersed in Frances's oppressive, closeted world. The tension mounted beautifully as the book progressed. The characters were all flawed in their different ways, but I was able to get a sense of what made them all tick for better or for worse. And thank you for that.

I think you asked all of the right questions and I'm glad that you enjoyed the book and thank you for reading it so diligently. And I suppose that's the key point, isn't it? That the memo at the beginning tells you what has happened at the end. And I mean, it's so sad we can't ask Hillary Mantel this question. But does she want us to assume that terrible things then happen to Andrew and Francis, courtesy of the company they're working for that are

given to you at the beginning so you can just know at the end you know somebody's got rid of them too. Because the book ends with Frances in a new property where she's got a view from every window of the freeway and that's it. There are four windows all looking over the freeway. Yeah. But then does that not last? And actually it's goodbye. Doesn't sound like it, Francis. Shall we bring Nicholas in? Let's do that.

This is Nicholas Pearson, who was Hilary Mantel's publisher and editor. She lived for four years. She'd been in Botswana for three or four years. I can't quite remember. A period of her life when she was always on the move and then she was there for four years. And it was while she was there, she wrote her first two novels.

And perhaps you know the story, the first novel she ever wrote was A Place of Greater Safety. And she couldn't find a publisher for it, this huge novel about the French Revolution. And she thought she thought oh my god what am I going to do I better write a contemporary novel. So she sat down and wrote Every Day is Mother's Day and then the next one Vacant Recession which is a follow-up to that in Saudi Arabia and when she got back to England she kept diaries and everything that's when she wrote her eight months on Gaza Street which was the third novel she published.

And when did you meet her? I met her in about 1990. She was a great supporter of other writers and it was very early in my career I'd taken on a writer of first novel. I said how how does novel come about and this man said well I went to a writing class in Reading Library on a Saturday morning run by Hilary Mantel and at the end of the morning she said she got everyone to write a paragraph and she really liked the paragraph he wrote and encouraged him and she was a great encourager of other writers that's one of the things that came pouring out after she died two and a half years ago.

She wasn't much about, she was sort of squirreled away down in Devon towards the end of her life but she was in contact with a lot of writers that she cared about and supported. So that's how I met her then through this writer that I was publishing then. I think one of the points that many of our listeners have raised about eight months on Gaza Street is just the way that she portrays the claustrophobia of being a clever woman in a society that didn't value clever women and certainly didn't want women to have their independence. So how much of that always shone through in her as a person? She was an outsider. She was an intellectual in a working class, Irish Catholic family. She wasn't really part of any literary scene once she got going. She was sort of unique in that way in many respects. She was an outsider in her own body. She had terrible health problems throughout her life and that's a sort of constant theme and she was certainly an outsider in Saudi Arabia. She wrote an essay which won a competition, the Shiva-Nai

Paul competition, which the spectator ran, about her experiences in Saudi Arabia. And she talks about the thing you just mentioned, she talks about being an outsider in that society. No, that was very important. And the claustrophobia too. There's a lot of frosted glass I seem to remember in that, certainly in that essay. A lot of doors, behind doors. And she talked, there's quite, a lot of her novels have a slight claustrophobic feel to them. Yeah but she does say the British ex-pats, they didn't like it but they didn't want to leave either. She describes that very peculiar, quite toxic relationship, I'm not even sure about the expression ex-pats either, that's a funny one isn't it, but they

really did seem to struggle with life there whilst also being more terrified by the prospect of going home. Yeah I don't think she was terrified about the prospect of going home, but you're absolutely right, no, I mean that was very much the society she found herself in, coffee mornings and the men playing cricket and that sort of thing. But also really interesting to hear that she had also made that move from Africa to Saudi Arabia because that's what Frances in the book does. She's been employed as a cartographer in Africa and then they moved to Saudi Arabia and she's had more freedom before in Africa but it's also it's quite telling that that Frances is a woman who really hasn't been home to the UK for a very, very long time.

And presumably that was Hilary Mantel's experience too. Yes it was. After Saudi Arabia then she was here for the rest of her life. Although, I mean sadly she died six days before she was about to move to Ireland. She was about... The flat was packed and she was on her way to living Kinsell and that was a sort of coming, another type of coming home for her I think. It would have been another type of coming home for her because her Irish Catholic past, even though she's kind of abandoned Catholicism, it was still important to her. When she got success, did she enjoy it? her. When she got success did she enjoy it? She did. When it had been, she knew she was a good writer. She wasn't a show off but she knew she was a good writer and when things came together

really with with Wolf Hall, she did, she loved it. She loved winning the Booker Prize, you know, I don't mind saying that. Well, no, I mean good for her. But there's an image I've seen of the first, she won the Booker Prize twice, didn't she? The first time she won it. There's a photograph taken I think just before the announcement as she's waiting for it and you can see in her body language that there's proper tension there. She did want it, didn't she? She did. I was sitting next to her that night and she did want it. She was quite nervous because she knew that book had had such a great reception.

She knew it was... I think a lot of the themes in her writing have somehow come together in that book. Ghosts, the female body, revolution, power structures, all of them being explored in various ways in some of the contemporary novels she was writing but I think it sort of came came together there so she knew it was, or she hoped it would be her moment. And what did that success make her then think about her earlier works? She did think of herself primarily as historical novelist and she did write those first two novels because she couldn't get that historical novel published. It was published

11 years after it was finished finally but she didn't care about her contemporary novels. Oh she she cared very, very deeply about them and she put everything into them. She used to, the slightly self-deprecating things she used to say in interviews a couple of times, I'm not very good at plot, she would say, which isn't true, but her point being she liked, with the historical novel, to a certain extent,

the plot is laid out for you and you're writing about the difference between what people do and how they feel about what they do. So in some ways the challenges of the contemporary novel were very different to her. God I'm fascinated to hear you say that because actually my only, and it's not even a criticism because I really loved this book, but my only kind of thought about it wish for it was that it had had more plot especially towards the end because at the end it was you know I was left with a bit of a kind of slightly you know hand on chin pose what's happened here what was all that for so that's intriguing that she was obviously aware of that.

Well she was quite tough on that book I mean she says what did she say in an interview once she felt it was a bit there was something fuzzy about it and looking back at it she felt as if she was she views it through a dust storm I think I think was the phrase she used. Yeah no fair. But I also felt reading it, it was something that she needed to get off her chest. Just that feeling of being transported as a wife to a place where your values are not valued. And that's difficult. That's really difficult for, you know, for many women in the Middle East now. She definitely put her finger on something. Yes, I think she did. And actually she'd probably be horrified at how Saudi Arabia has now emerged as this incredible international presence.

For all the dreadful things that still go on there, it's now, I mean, you know, it's a place people go to Jeddah to negotiate peace agreements between war and countries. She'd have been absolutely furious about that, presumably. I think she would, yeah. Absolutely think she would. She was, I mean, she was a feminist, she was very determined about women's rights and she felt with Eight Months on Gaza Street, she was sort of slightly getting in there first and telling us about what that society is like

and the problems of that society. How would you actually place her in terms of status? Is she in 200 years still going to be read and will people talk of Hilary Mantel, you know, let's start without going too over the top, in the same breath as Jane Austen? I think there's every chance and I think these books are here to stay, I really do believe that and I think she's changed, certainly changed how we think of the historical novel. That's moved on a job with what she's achieved with the trilogy. Now I think she's going to be around for the long haul. Would you have found it funny that Jane and I have both confessed that we just couldn't really, we couldn't do Wolf Hall and we've really really enjoyed reading her other books.

She would have loved it! Makes us both feel a lot better. Oh thank god we've been blessed. She cared about all her novels. Okay, wh-ee. Well that was why we chose it for the book club actually. It was recommended to us because our USP is books that might have gone slightly under the radar and not always be your first point of call.

Really lovely to chat to you. Thank you very much indeed for coming in today. Really appreciate it, thank you. Oh, it's a pleasure. Nicholas Pearson, and obviously it would have been lovely to talk to Hilary, but I thought he was a really fantastic contributor, and obviously really fond of her, and delighted when she became a success. I do love that.

And also, just a reminder that it's such a shame that she died really for an author. 70 years, she probably had another couple of epic works in her, from The Sound of Things, she definitely did. Well, Nicholas told us that she was working on a novel, the working title was Provocation, which was going to be The Life of Mary Bennet, who was one of the Bennet daughters in Pride and Prejudice. Yeah, she was the one who played the piano and the father said, you've delighted us long

enough. Was that her? You know your Austin better than I do. Thank you, Eve. Yes, I do know my Austin well. Or not quite well enough to do better than a tutu, but I'm over it. What if everything you thought you knew about your own child was a lie? Ellen Pompeo and Mark DuPlace star in Good American Family. In this all-new limited series, a couple adopt what they believe is an eight-year-old girl, but when concerns soon arise, it forces them to question her actual identity. Told

from multiple perspectives, Good American Family is inspired by the true events behind the disturbing story of Natalia Grace and unpacks the case that spiraled from private suspicion to public spectacle. Now streaming only on Disney Plus. With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz.

Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at phys.ca. So how funny that Hilary Mantel was worried about plots, because that's the problem here, isn't it? I think it's a really brilliant book and I really, I found it really easy to read and I looked forward to reading more and more but that sense of the ending not quite having done it it would have been easier wouldn't it for Hilary Mantel if she was weaving all of that around an already existing real life story that had a very certain ending. Yeah I can't do better than the emails from the listeners, to be honest. I feel as though, because I only really re-read the memo...

Because you didn't understand the book at all. No, I just... I admired what I read, Fee, but I will just be honest and say I'd forgotten about the memo. Maureen, no. But did you not read the memo at the beginning? Yes, but I did read it. But for whatever reason, I didn't keep it in mind as I went on to read the memo at the beginning? Yes, but I did read it. But for whatever reason, I didn't keep it in mind as I went on to read the rest of the book. Guilty.

I've just got to be honest. Oh dear, I've done an accident there. We'll get emails about that. Maureen says, I have been getting back into reading recently. I was a bit intimidated by Hilary Mantel. I wanted something a bit lighter, if I'm honest, but but I found this vividly written terrifying and unput downable. It resonated because it took me back to a time in the 50s and I was about five and my dad who was a pilot in the RAF had to spend a few weeks in Aden in Yemen with my mom, a

younger sister and me. Having spent the previous few years in the verdant hills outside Nairobi, Aidan was a shock. No greenery, very hot, dusty and a general background feeling, frankly, of menace. I felt a sense of fear the whole time. Memories of that time are still very vivid and have a light bulb quality despite the fact that it was over 70 years ago now. In the novel, Francis was deceived by the Omerta, a matter by which families arriving in very different cultures were not told what to expect and felt unprepared. If they were told the truth, they just wouldn't go. The misogyny and the serious ruthlessness

of the Saudi regime described in the novel foretells the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and increasingly terrible oppression of women. Reading it seemed very timely when we're finding out just how insecure we all really are in the New World situation. Maureen, brilliant, thank you very much and I'm really glad that it brought back those incredibly vivid memories you still have of life in Yemen back in the early 50s. And actually just by coincidence next week we are talking about Saudi Arabia again. We've got the author of a new book about sports washing coming on and honestly Saudi is reinventing itself at a pace that is almost quite beyond our wildest imaginings and would horrify Hilary Mantel I'm really quite sure. Just incredible the global influence they have at the moment

Sarah joins us from Auckland and Sarah it may even be Sarah is six foot tall Hello from New Zealand. Well, that was a throwback read I lived in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia for two years with my husband and kids back in 2000 Hilary absolutely captured the feel of what we call the magical kingdom, the contrast of rubble and dust building sites alongside magnificently opulent new builds, the heat, the light, the winds and once a year the rain. Life revolving around prayer times and the weekend being Thursday and Friday, I spent the first six months there fighting in my mind with the lewd comments from boys in expensive cars, the offers to come and fix my pipes by men in shops, all whilst I had my kids with me

and was dutifully wearing my abaya, even putting my headscarf on when the police from the committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice sidled into view. Sarah goes on to say, living in the kingdom is like backpacking with money. It's mostly short-lived, full of weird experiences, and often with some lifelong friends by the end of it. The women I got to know schooled me in letting go, not only of the indignity of being treated like a lesser human off compound, but letting go of hopes of getting to know some local women, and learning about their culture and ways.

This was not allowed lest we taught them our evil ways of independence and free thought. Here comes a little detail, Jane. They schooled me in stocking up on my choice of tampons whilst in Dubai for short breaks as the only kind available in Saudi was tampaks with applicators as designated by the authorities to prevent us from pleasuring ourselves whilst using them. Hillary also captured the fear and uncertainty that comes with living in a country that was simultaneously one of the most restrictive on earth yet completely lawless. The constant rumours about her had suddenly left the country in a hurry for drinking, infringements, unmarried pregnancies or getting involved in something they shouldn't. Who spent a few nights in jail like my husband's colleague for having his hair that was too long. Which nurse

or vet from the expat rugby team had stitched up the guy that had cut himself open whilst drunk because you couldn't take them to a medical facility. It's quite something isn't it. Sarah says thank you for the recommendation and thanks to Hilary for a great read. Jane is in British Columbia in Canada. Canada, gosh. Aren't we international? They are so international but Canada is, I'm just, it's never been more Canada as far as I'm concerned. Keep it Canada, that's what I say. I consider this to be powerful writing by Hilary Mantell but can you enjoy a book when you don't really like any of the characters? I tried to like Frances, but I found her to be prickly at best, and Jeddah is certainly

an uncomfortable place to be an expat. As a geologist from the UK, I spent my career working in the oil patch in Western Canada, but I moved to Canada, so I am an immigrant and not an expat. My impression has always been that the expat life was enviable with high salaries and an exciting lifestyle full of travel and well-heeled living. Obviously though not the case for Andrew and Francis. I thought it was a great choice of book, I'm looking forward to the next one and I might have to try more by Hilary Mantel. Frances wasn't very likeable but then she was going through an incredibly challenging experience so I don't know what she could have done to make herself more likeable really.

I don't think she had to. No but I'm with Jane from British Columbia Canada because I think you do need to be able to hook into somebody to get you through the book. And sometimes it's the same with a film, isn't it, where everybody's a gang member, everybody's a shit. And you're kind of like, why am I with these people? It's human nature to want to feel something for the characters who you're learning about. So I get that. I didn't find Frances unlikable, I just I found her frustrating but I think I sympathize with her frustration. She was frustrated, yeah. Every reason to be.

Liz says as somebody who lived in Dubai, I really appreciated Hillary's detailed description. Is anyone joining us this week from Stevenage and Hertfordshire? No, I think we've lost Britain. But that's fine. Liz says, as someone who lived in Dubai for four years, I really appreciated Hillary's detailed descriptions of dust, desert and light. Hillary must surely have spent some time in Saudi for these to be so accurate and provocative. Well, she absolutely did. Liz says, I also felt a kinship with Francis. The role of a trailing spouse is often joked about as being a privileged life of shopping and sunbathing, but I strongly disagree. The person moving for the shiny new job falls immediately into a sense of place with a

ready-made purpose, community and instant social circle. The spouse, however, has to have the wits, energy and courage to make a life and a home for themselves and often children using the most tentative connections, for example, a mutual friend back home or kids the same ages. It can be incredibly lonely and exhausting and you find yourself adrift in the wild not knowing where home is. I was lucky enough to have access to a car and freedom, although it was new and exciting I did find it challenging and it sounds like expat wives in Saudi have a very hard time. Liz does say I raced through the book. It always felt like something… Are you playing footsie with me? Yeah, it was a very lame attempt, wasn't it? I always felt like something really dramatic

was about to happen on the next page, but it didn't. A most unsatisfactory ending. Are we meant to imagine what happens next? Francis must surely need professional therapy when and if they make it back to the UK. Yeah, I didn't think they'd stay married. No, I don't think they stay alive. I don't think they stay alive. Now I know that. I think I know that. Yeah, I think she's moved out to a better place to keep her quiet, but I don't think they let her stay quiet. I'm going to imagine that because I want it to have a satisfactory ending.

Alison has lived in Saudi as well. She was only eight, so my perspective will be from then. She lived in Yanbu as her dad was working in town planning for the new city there. We lived in a compound, mainly Americans, but there were some Saudi nationals. Our next door neighbour was a Saudi and my mum wasn't a fan of the halal method of making dinner, which consisted of wringing a chicken's neck outside our bungalow. The things in the book that resonated were the dust, the smell, and the dryness, the cockroaches, the home brewing, and the strange dinner parties, everything stopping for prayers.

The labour of building the city was done mainly by Thai men, and they lived in dormitories so they used to come to our bungalow to cook. They were such fun and loved looking at books on Yorkshire. They were especially fascinated by scenes of snow. They also went lobster fishing with the men in the Red Sea and often our bath was full of live lobster before we had a big community barbecue. The compound was arranged in a number of areas of house type. Each one had a family swimming pool and the men had a swimming pool. The Arab women used to get into the pool in their full black robes.

Do you think that still, I suppose that probably doesn't happen in, I don't know, it can't happen that they are expected to swim in. I mean they do wear, I don't know, I'm out of my depth here, I don't know whether they've slightly loosened the etiquette of how women are allowed to swim in Saudi. No, I don't think so, Jane. Do they wear the whole, the all-over black swimming costume? I would imagine so.

I mean, I think we're wrong to think that the world has moved with us as we have more and more taken our clothes off. Well, I'm just thinking that we've, what we'll talk about next week as well when we interview the author of this book is just that so many people in the West don't care about the restrictions and the terrible things that have gone on in Saudi Arabia and continue to happen because money and in the end that's all that matters. It's so bloody depressing it's just not true. We did,

back to Alison now, we're back to Alison now, we bought cassette tapes in Jeddah to listen to. They often started off as they were advertised by the title, but then switched to something else part way through. And I love this detail. We had television and it was censored, but it was censored live. So we would see the kissing, but then missed three minutes of the plot straight after. You'd see the bit you weren't supposed to see but then you'd lose all track of what was supposed to be going on. That's very funny. Alison, thank you. And I'm going to end on this one from Leslie because it also has a suggestion for the next book club and that seems like an almost it's almost like there's an air of production hanging over the end of this podcast.

Frances, a cartographer, seemed to be struggling to navigate her way through this strange world and the changes that such a misogynistic society was creating in her husband. I always felt I felt her husband was a bit the same from the beginning through to the end. Did that ever properly resolve? I didn't feel it. What did I learn? asked Leslie. Well, on one level, I'm far too irritated by those who don't stand up for themselves. On another, that taking more account of the context of each story will enhance my understanding and enjoyment of the experience. And Leslie puts in a hard recommend for Summer Water

by Sarah Moss as a future choice for the book club. My mum pushed this into my hand. It's a thought-provoking and unusually constructed tale which has lived with me ever since. Leslie says thank you for creating this wonderful community. Leslie, thank you for being part of it. Oh what a wholesome little episode that was, lovely. But it's true, this is a community and I think we're both, I mean you know I didn't always get this book, I'll be honest, I think I've made that clear. Do I have to say it again? No I think we're across that. Thank you. I just I sympathise very much with Sue who says, this is the book that I

found a struggle. I hope I'm not the only one because I know many other listeners have been praising it. Yeah, they have Sue, but don't worry. There are plenty of people like you and me who were just a little bit befuddled whilst also admiring it in lots of ways. She says she's wondering what the next book choice might be. P.S. she then says, I'm reading Daphne de Moria's Rebecca at the moment. I've never read it before and I'm loving it. I don't think that's a bad suggestion. I don't think I've ever read Rebecca. I've seen the film, the old film and the not so very good remake

of a couple of years ago that I think was Netflix. But that's such a strange story. Oh, it's dark. It's really dark. I don't know whether that would what people would think of that now. Anyway, thank you all so much. It's honestly really brilliant to be able to do this. And it's just a fantastic way of connecting with people who have been through the same experience. Oh, it's just been wonderful to read all of your emails. Thank you. And gosh, I mean, how many people have had a similar experience as well? And it always amazes us that so many people are listening from different parts of the world so it's nice to feel connected to all of

you. Have you read Summer Water by Sarah Moss? I think I do you know what I think I've read something by Sarah Moss I think I might have interviewed Sarah Moss but I'm sorry I can't remember. Okay I think this is the one that starts off in a caravan park. Eve's just checking. Is Eve checking? I'd like to bring in Jean who says... I thought we'd ended. No, I know, because we had so many good emails. Jean just says...

Eve thinks we've ended. She's wrong. She's wrong. I know we don't have the pseudo for long, but Jean says... Her name is spelt Jean, but with an N-E on the end. And she says it's just pronounced just Jean. I hate my name. You'd think I was 80, but I'm only 50. Jean, there's nothing wrong with your name. And thank you for being part of this. She says, I found it dull, just like the Wolf Hall books. Controversially, Jean says, maybe Hillary is just a drab writer, but on very interesting topics. Oh, no, let's not end on that. I think you're an outlier there, Jean, but I totally get it. Well, we'll take more suggestions.

Very much so, and I tell you what Jane and I were saying in the office before we came into this professional setup of doing the podcast, that also given world events at the moment and solidarity to our sisters in Canada and in the Middle East and in Ukraine and pretty much everywhere. It might be nice to try and delight on something funny. Yes, are there any really funny books? Or maybe just something that's so far removed from where we all are, it can do that beautiful

thing that books do where you just lose yourself in a different world. I don't think I've read a funny book in ages. Anyway, tell us what you think. Jane and Fee at times.radio. That was Hilary Mantel's eight months on Gaza Street and there'll be another time. Thank you for all of your contributions. Goodbye. Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2-4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale and if you listen to this you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler. What if everything you thought you knew about your own child was a lie? Ellen Pompeo and Mark DuPlace star in Good American Family.

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