Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Book Club - Interpreter of Maladies
Episode Date: August 6, 2026We've made it to our eleventh book club edition (we think)! This time, we've been reading 'Interpreter of Maladies' by Jhumpa Lahiri. Was Jane won over by the short story form? (We're fairly confident... you already know the answer to that!) Plus, the wonderful Laura Hackett, deputy literary editor and fiction editor across The Sunday Times and The Times, joins Jane and Fi to share her thoughts and expertise. Fi is back on Monday, but Jane is off on holiday for a week, meaning Eve is back in the hot seat. Thank you so much for all your enthusiasm, engagement and interaction. We hope you'll join us for the next one. Get your suggestions in at: janeandfi@times.radioFollow us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome to Book Club number something.
I think maybe 11, maybe 12.
Let's big up our intellectual reading capacity.
Welcome to Book Club number 264.
We do one a week.
We are discussing the interpreter of maladies by Jumper Lahiri,
winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
In our company, in our studio, we have Laura Hackett.
If anybody knows anything about books, it's Laura.
Hello. That's a big claim.
Yeah, take it. No, you really do. You really do.
And you've got a new title, haven't you? So just tell everybody. I mean, no, I'm serious.
Because we're quite new to the newspaper world environment. We don't fully understand the importance of titles, do we?
I know, but they're very specific, they are, yes. And I know they mean a lot. So what are your titles?
My titles, I am deputy literary editor and fiction editor of The Times and Sunday Times.
Your editor of fiction.
Yes, in a way.
I mean, you say they mean a lot.
I think the titles, as you say, are very specific,
but I often think they don't really, really get that much to what people do.
Is there a non-fiction editor?
No, exactly.
This is the point.
Already, we fit something here.
So at what point does fiction editor become meaningless?
Maybe at this point.
Let's not talk it down.
It sounds like the most fantastic title.
Thank you.
I mean, people just say Jane and Fee, they're on between two and four.
I mean, there's no title at all.
So I think just don't all of your titles.
That's even better.
That's like Madonna.
It's just a name.
No, you know what?
It's lovely of you to say that.
It's so not like that.
But bless you.
Bless you, bless you.
But I bet, in all seriousness, if 10 years ago someone had told the young Laura that these
would be your titles, you'd be pretty pleased, wouldn't you?
I would.
That is true.
I would be absolutely delighted.
We are so chuffed that you're here.
And interpret it of maladies was, I already said it was going to be a challenge for me
because I'm not keen on the short story.
I can't remember what you said about short stories.
Do you like them normally?
Yes.
And would you seek them out?
So I do seek them out,
but I'd be interested to know, Laura,
whether you do the same thing,
that I choose a short story book
for a very different type of reading to a novel.
So I'm not looking for it
to fulfil the space in my head and my heart
that novels do.
I go to short stories when I know
that my bandwidth is tiny
because there's loads of other stuff going on in the world,
or if it fits particular journeys,
or sometimes when I've read too much and I just need a pin-prick,
I just can't take another great big book on board.
What do you read short stories for?
I've been on a little bit of a journey with short stories
in that a few years ago, I would say,
I would kind of never pick up a collection of short stories.
I think I got quite frustrated that you would, you know,
you'd really get involved in this character, in their life,
and then they'd kind of disappear,
and you'd be on to someone else.
And it's quite, I think it is quite tiring, actually,
for your brain to constantly figure out the new situation you've been put in.
So I don't necessarily go to it for relaxing,
but over the past kind of year,
I've been reading more and more short stories,
and I just, I've been really, really enjoying them.
And I think part of what I enjoy about them so much
is their intensity,
the fact that every single word has to count in a short story,
if it's a good short story.
And there are kind of levels of poignancy
that I think you do get in a novel,
but maybe right at the end after you've spent weeks reading it.
Whereas here, you can sit down in a morning
and half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour later,
you still get that same sense of conclusion, of satisfaction.
So yeah, I really enjoyed these ones.
but I've become, I think, a short story fan.
And do quite a lot of writers of very good novels
also write short stories?
Because this is Jimper Lahiri's place in the world, isn't it?
And I know that Claire Keegan has amazing short stories as well at the moment.
But is it the norm that a writer can and will do both?
I think it's fairly normal.
It's often a way for writers to kind of cut their teeth,
especially in terms of getting them public,
if you're a kind of would-be writer,
if you get a short story published,
I mean, in the New Yorker, that's amazing.
What does that do for you then?
Is it particularly the New Yorker?
That's the kind of the ultimate prestige slot.
If you get a short story published in the New Yorker,
publishers really pay attention.
And oftentimes it's a way for writers who are very well-known
to kind of work on ideas.
I mean, writers like Anne Enright, Tessa Hadley,
they've had lots of stories published in The New Yorker
and those stories then often turn into full-length novels.
But I do think it's a different craft.
And I think I was reading some interviews that Jimber Lehery had done,
and she was talking about how it's a different way of writing altogether.
So you're not necessarily, if you're a good novelist,
also going to be a good short story writer, I don't think.
No, but I think you've already explained why it is that I'm reluctant to get involved with short stories.
it's because I'm intellectually incredibly lazy
and I think you've spoken so powerfully actually
and you've illustrated why you're occupying the roles that you occupy
because you really get this stuff
and I suppose I'm just selfish
I think if I do like the characters
then I want to know more about them
and I feel as though they're being snatched away from me
but anyway shall we just talk a bit about Jumper Lahiri
she is, well she was born in London
from an Indian family
and now she lives like I gather in Rome
What else do you know about her?
So yeah, she was born in London,
but her family moved to the US when she was only three years old,
and she grew up in Rhode Island.
Her father worked as a university librarian,
and in fact one of the short stories in this book,
the final one called The Third and Final Continent,
is actually kind of based on his life and in his arrival in the West.
And yeah, she's got a really interesting relationship with language
because growing up her family would have spoken Bengali
and so she can understand it and can speak it,
but she can't read it because it was never written down.
It was always just family conversations.
She obviously grew up reading and writing English.
And as you say, she quite recently, I think sort of 2012 time,
she moved with her husband and children to Rome
and has since learned Italian to the extent that she now writes her books in Italian.
Wow.
So, and she had did this really interesting interview
where she talked about how English was something
that was kind of forced upon her, I guess, in a way.
Bengali was something that she never felt that she fully owned
because she couldn't read her right, Bengali,
but Italian was the language that she kind of chose.
And so in a way, she says she feels more at home in Italian
than any other language.
That's quite something, isn't it?
That's incredible.
And I bet that when she writes in Italian,
and it's every bit as lyrical and wonderful as the other languages
that she has undoubtedly mastered in her time.
When we say winner of the Pulitzer Prize for the short stories, is that rare?
It is quite rare.
I think it was only the seventh collection of short stories to ever win the Pulitzer.
And she was at that point and still remains the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
I think she was only 32 when it won.
So that's a real, real achievement.
Yeah, which makes me wonder why she's not better know.
because I don't...
I mean, I know a bit about when I read a lot,
but I'd never heard of her.
That's my bad, I guess.
No, she's not particularly prolific.
She went on to write another two novels in English,
one of which did well.
It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize
made into a film.
The other one, it did reasonably well,
but again, as you say, she hasn't broken through.
And the weird thing is that in Italian,
she's become much more prolific.
but because she's writing an Italian
it maybe doesn't break through to the English
speaking and reading the world.
Lucky Italians.
So if we were to ask you
what has stayed with you from the short stories,
are there any in particular that really cut through?
Yeah, I think that's kind of the test in a way
of a short story collection
because some short story collections I read
and you close them, it's all a bit of a mush.
It's sort of like, oh, I got a vibe from those
but nothing really stood out.
Whereas here there really were a few that stood out for me.
So the first one, a temporary matter,
which is a story of a husband and wife
who are living in the States,
but they're, as with many of the characters,
in fact, perhaps all of the characters,
they're Indian immigrants.
It's all really about the relationship
between your homeland and America.
But they're living in the States
and they get this letter in the post
that every night that week
that electricity is going to go off
because they're doing works on it or whatever.
So they're going to have no lights in the house
from 8pm onwards.
And they end up developing this little ritual
where they light candles
and they have these conversations
and they confess things to each other
and over the course of those confessions
we, the reader,
discover that they actually suffered from a stillbirth
not very long ago.
and that that has completely changed how their relationship works.
And it looks as though this week of not having electricity in the evenings
and these little chats that they have
are going to maybe be a breakthrough in the relationship
and help them to heal.
And actually, I was really shocked by the ending
because the ending is completely different to that
and not what I expected.
And I think she just did that so well
because it was a genuine surprise to me.
I don't know what the two of you felt about it.
Bleak though, isn't it?
It's so bleak. I found that so sad.
But quite a few of the stories are quite bleak.
And I was thinking whether or not it would be better
if they have uplifting endings.
And actually the end of the book, spoiler alert,
but everyone's read it hopefully, is more uplifting
than I think the beginning.
I'm not sure.
I think if she had put a very lovely, comforting story right at the beginning,
it would have put me off reading more.
Yeah, I suppose that's probably true.
What that short story did illustrate was that their suffering was, they were both suffering,
but they were suffering individually. He certainly wasn't suffering any less than she was.
And you wanted to believe that the whole tragedy would have brought them together.
But as we all know, life's just not like that.
And so many couples are so changed by an experience as tough as that one,
that they don't ever get together and stay together again.
You see, it stayed with you.
Yeah, no, it has. I'm not...
Yes, it did, it did, but I suppose, yeah, what am I saying?
There were other stories that still, which are your favourite story?
Well, I'm going to bring in Jacob in Bristol because I share my favourite with Jacob,
who says, I made it to the end of the book club book.
I thought it was brilliant.
Some of these stories will really stay with me.
My favourite story was the one about the homeless lady dusting the stairs.
So this is, the story is called A Real Derwan, and it's about Bori Ma, Sweeper.
of the stairwell.
And do you know what, there's so much in that about prejudice, isn't that?
And the fact that she has her dream, and metaphorically, it's at the end of her sash, isn't it?
And she swirls it around, she's got a kind of pocket handkerchief.
When I read that description, I thought it's very much like Dick Whittington that we always see in the pantomime.
You know, the stick over the shoulder with all your worldly goods.
It's just not safe to carry your worldly goods in a hanky on a stick.
But, you know, she's being dutiful in a new life that's being enforced upon her.
And then she decides to just go and do something for herself.
And it comes back to really beyond Biter on the Bum.
And I thought so much was packed into that story.
I mean, it's one of the shorter ones in the book, I think.
But also for me, one of the more frustrating, again, back to the whole business of the short story.
I wanted to know how that woman had got there.
I wanted to know, did she have wealth in her past?
what was her backstory, why was she now so impoverished and so alone?
And we didn't know, did we?
Well, we don't, but it's so interesting, Jane,
because that's exactly what I didn't want to know.
I loved the fact that she was just portrayed in the moment that we're caught her in.
And it was up to us to determine whether or not she had made up her backstory,
you know, to give her comfort or to just make her look better in front of the new people
who are having their posh basins installed in their flats.
I mean, there's so much detail in that.
But it just comes back to your expectations, doesn't it?
Whether or not you're the type of person who wants a story to be brief
and leave an awful lot to the imagination
or whether you just want to read a long form book?
Should we do some quickies?
Shezell says, I really enjoyed interpreter of maladies,
so I look forward to hearing the thoughts of others on the subject.
I am loving the book club read, says Rosie in Sheffield.
And Wendy says, I've just finished the current book club choice.
I'm not really a great fan of a short story
and have now passed on this excellent collection
to a friend in the village for her upcoming trip to Provence.
I mean, I can't think it's exactly our type of listener.
I honestly can't think.
Who else loved it? Oh, Sonia. Sonia loved it too, she says.
Absolutely loved it.
What was your favourite of the stories, or have you already told us?
A temporary matter, I think.
think it was my favourite but i did also really love the the title story interpreter of maladies apparently i
listened to a very shorty i did a bit of research last night i listened to watch them youtube yes i did
and there was an interview with jump for and she said that she'd simply overheard somebody else saying
interpreter of maladies and wrote it in just using that phrase so she wrote it in a notebook and thought
i'll use it one day well good for her being honest about that yeah no i've so i thought yes that's very
clever. I sometimes hear things and think, I must write that down. Of course I don't, because I'm not a
Pulitzer Prize winner, and she is. My favourite, for what it's worth, was the last one. But I also
quite liked sexy. And one of the great things about this writer is her absolutely minute
observations about things that most of us would not even regard as significant enough to
think about ever again. And it was just one thing she said about a slinky dress.
woman had bought for her lover and how it would always fall off the coat hanger and lie around in the
bottom of the wardrobe and I just thought yeah I've got stuff like that I've got loads of I've got
various blouses that are never on a hanger for more than two minutes and you just find them don't you
at the bottom of the wardrobe but also I agree with you about that and it just painted the most
fantastic picture of a life locked into a cupboard you know where you you you know it's not really
who you are but you've got this stack of kind of
imagined longings that are just hidden away from view.
When did she write these?
Do you know, Laura, if she wrote all of the stories at the same kind of time
or if there are a collection from her writings over several years?
As you mentioned, she's still pretty young.
Yeah, although she didn't start, she wasn't one of those writers you hear about
where they've been scribbling constantly since they could basically walk.
she did write
I think a short story at school
but then nothing really until she was 30
and that's when she wrote
one of the books
one of the stories in this
maybe interpreter of maladies
and then between 30 and 32
I think she pretty much wrote them all
she said that she wanted to have a normal job
and she decided she was going to be an English professor
and she did a load of degrees
and then as part of that she just realized
actually what I want to do is right
and I've been sort of stopping myself from doing that.
So she really started writing properly at 30.
So to start at 30 and win the Pulitzer at 32 is not bad going.
Yeah, it's not bad going.
It's a nice phrase.
It's a nice word putting it.
Liz from Coventry, also sometimes from Enfield,
says, once again, the book club has enabled me to read a book
which I would otherwise not have read and I feel better for it.
Like Jane, I was somewhat hesitant about the idea of a collection of short stories,
but I jumped into the first story with enthusiasm and realised I love being thrown quickly into a story and characters within a few paragraphs rather than the usual three chapters of scene setting, which often happens in novels.
At the end of the first story, I was left wanting more, wanting to know what happens to the characters in the years to come, but maybe that's the point.
They have stayed with me in a way that many characters in novels pass through and I don't give them a second thought.
having finished the first story I then realised that my usual motivation for continuing to pick up a novel
is to find out how the story ends and so the usual pull to pick the book up wasn't there however
as a diligent member of the book club well done lids from coventry sometimes from menfield
i did pick it up again and launched into the next story i then found rather than finding 20 minutes here and there to read the book
as would be my usual approach i wanted to set aside a full hour or so to read each story in one sitting
often staying awake, way past my bedtime, just to finish it.
I can honestly say each story has given me real food for thought.
I often find myself pausing to think about one of the characters or story.
Having finished the book, it now has pride of place in my guest room
as the perfect bedside read for visitors.
What a lovely idea.
It's a great idea, isn't it?
What a great idea.
And actually, lovely idea in hotels to pop a short story collection next to the bed.
You know, sometimes you go to hotels and they've bought old books by the yard.
and you know you'll find yourself awake with hotel insomnia at 2.30 in the morning
and you've got to reach for a John Buckin.
I think actually pop this by the best.
Sorry, I mean perhaps we should do the 39 steps.
Well, no, I mean, John Bucking's great, but a short story would be better, wouldn't it?
Yeah, it would.
You wouldn't have to get stuck in for hours.
It really would.
Anne says, Anne's in County Durham.
I thought the writing was so beautiful.
It reminded me very much of reading Anne Tyler,
where the simplest phrase can just convey such a lot.
A couple of examples I picked out are this one,
when the rain came slapping across the roof
like a boy in slippers too big for him.
It's brilliant, isn't it?
That's gorgeous that.
And the description of a woman with nostrils so slim
that they appear to have been pinched by a clothespin.
Okay, what would that entail?
By a clothespin?
A peg?
Oh, I said clothespin.
Yeah.
Well, that ruined it.
I'll do that one again for you, Anne, and indeed for jumper.
A woman with nostrils so slim that they appear to have been pinched by a clothespin.
Got it.
The problem I had was that so many of these stories just left me feeling sad.
And reading one after the other became rather difficult to handle.
If read in isolation, I don't think that would be such a problem.
The final story, the third and final continent, seemed to be heading the same way,
But then it had a lovely, uplifting ending, which made me heave a sigh of relief.
I will definitely try to read another novel by Jumper Lahiri,
and I've added her name to my ever-growing list of authors recommended by the podcast.
And very best wishes to you, and thank you for taking the time to read this and to email.
The third and final continent, is it the only story from a male perspective?
Well, the first one, a temporary matter.
The most of it is from the husband's perspective.
I think. So it's not the only one, but it does feel quite unusual because it feels very personal
in a way that the others maybe have slightly more distance between you and the character with this.
It's like you really are him, which I guess is interesting because it's the one that seems to be most based upon her own family history.
Yeah. I thought it was so important that final story at the moment with all the talk about immigration.
And those of us who are quite rooted in one country and have been here for, you know, I don't know, a couple of three or
four generations, whatever it is.
I sometimes think we don't fully understand the courage required to upsticks and move,
as the narrator in that third and final story had done.
Born in India, came to London, then went to the States.
I mean, the guts required, whatever you think of immigration.
And I know people have very strong feelings, and I understand why, because lives are
lost and some very unscrupulous people make money.
but it's so important that we try and get our heads around
the real courage of people who've had to make lives somewhere else.
And I think what's so interesting about these stories
is that they're kind of like a history book
without the actual needing to read a history book.
So we were talking about that story,
a real Derwana about Burimah, the Stairkees Sweeper.
And I feel like you learn so much
about partition and its effects on people
by sort of being put in the shoes
of this one person and how it's affected her
whether or not she was wealthy beforehand
but the fact that she's talking over and over and over again
about it certainly applies there's been some sort of
great distressing thing that's happened to her with partition
it just made me understand it so much more
than I think just reading a textbook would.
I completely agree and in fact I think all of the stories
as you said, they are about what can be the distance between your old identity and your new identity.
They're all founded in that, aren't they?
Mrs. Sends as well, I really, really loved, which is about a mum not being able to drive.
I mean, it's just such a superb perspective on how difficult you must feel if you've come to a new country
or you have a status that feels different to everybody else.
else is that you're expected to be confident on the road as well.
And it's all about who's teaching her son and how uncomfortable or comfortable he feels.
There's so much blended into those 20 pages.
But yeah, I think the perspective about immigration is really, really revealing.
And also it's quite gentle, isn't it?
I mean, it is always told through emotion, not through great big political stamps, really.
And, you know, that often catches our heart and our head.
head, doesn't it? I really like the fact that there was a story
about a childminder because you don't, you just don't
it's such a common experience that almost all of us
I was just grateful there was one about being absolutely rubbish at driving.
And that as well, yes, but we don't drink.
It's been ages since either of us did any courses.
Yeah. Derek says,
thank you for guiding me once again to a book that I wouldn't
have sought out without the book club and of course
that's the point of the off-air book club.
Read in a couple of days during a week holiday
on the Greek island of Sikynthos.
It won't be my top list of books or even necessarily lingering in the memory,
but I am pleased I read it.
Of the stories, Mr. Posada and interpreter of maladies are the two that stood out for me,
both having the element of children stroke families illuminating wider issues
that I thought showed the writer at their very best.
The others I thought were a bit May, but maybe that's just me.
Carla.
But again, that's a lovely thing, isn't it?
Yeah.
Because if you read one that doesn't really chime with you,
you haven't wasted too much time.
And the next one might. I really like that pick and mix.
Yes, exactly.
Carla, she just said it was a beautiful book.
I'm not usually a short storyer.
But this book left me wanting to know more with every single story.
I've bought another of her books, thanks to the person who suggested, this collection.
And from Kirsty, we haven't done Kirsty, have we?
She's in Corfu.
And she's included a lovely image of a beach bag, a gorgeous sea view,
and her copy of this collection of short stories.
Never read short stories before but did love them.
You get to know the characters really quickly and really feel for them.
I didn't think that would be the case with short stories.
Also made me want to learn a lot more about Indian history in the last century.
I love a book that sparks an interest in something I just don't know anything about.
And as with all history, it's so much more interesting and memorable
when you think about the human experiences.
This book should be studied in schools.
I can imagine plenty of class discussions,
and it may lead to more understanding and tolerance
of other cultures and immigrants.
Well, it's a very good idea
because you're not asking too much of your students
to read 15, 20 pages
and you could have a great conversation,
especially about partition of the back of it.
Laura, who else's short stories have you liked recently
and would recommend for people who did
join the book club to read a short story thinking,
oh God, I'll kind of get through this
and ended up thinking, yeah, I really like this way of reading.
I think my number one recommendation,
to people who want to try and get into short stories is, this is an obvious one, but Dubliners by James Joyce. And people hear James Joyce and think, oh my God, I can't do that because they think Ulysses or Finnegan's way. That is relatively readable.
600 page long sentences. Dubliners is not like that. It's written in normal sentences with full stops and speech marks and everything that we like.
And I've read that. It's the only one I have read by James Joyce. It just means I can say, yes, I've read.
James Joyce, absolutely. So exactly, you can go around and say, you know, I'm a big fan of James Joyce.
I'm a Joyceian. But I just think those stories are absolutely brilliant. They're set in Dublin,
as you might imagine. And they just followed ordinary people and ordinary lives, but they really,
really capture something with each one. There's one story in particular that I always remember
about a young woman who, I think her mother's dead, so she ends up doing a lot of the looking after
the other children, looking after her father, the household.
She's clearly not treated very well.
And she meets this man who, you know, is going to take her away to America.
They're going to go away to America together.
And it's this great escape for her.
And she gets to the docks.
And she just suddenly realizes, I can't do this.
I can't go.
I can't leave.
And she turns around and goes home.
And that's the end of the story.
And it's just that feeling of, did she make the right decision?
Would she have been really happy with this man?
and maybe she wouldn't have been.
Maybe she would have missed home the whole time.
But what happens when you go back home
and there's the dishes sitting waiting for you
and all the children that need fed
and the things that you thought that you'd escape,
that you're actually not escaping?
Wow.
Oh, God.
Sounds very powerful.
Anyway, I love Dublin.
So that's a big recommendation.
If you're looking for something a little bit more modern, more recent,
Lauren Groff, who's a brilliant American writer,
one of Obama's favorites,
she just released a selection of short stories this year.
the title of which has escaped me despite the fact that I reviewed it.
Well, it's all right.
Eve, we'll look it up.
So you've had an Eve check?
I have.
So the Lauren Groff short story collection is called Brawler,
and the story that gives it its title is about a teenage girl who's a competitive swimmer,
but she keeps getting into fights with people.
And we sort of discover why it is that she is in this terrible situation
and why she's so angry and what it is it's making her so angry.
and it's a really good story, as are all of them.
Brilliant, okay, and I would chuck in Curtis Sittenfeld's show Don't Tell.
And the opening story, I will never forget,
it's about a journalist interviewing Hillary Clinton and being sick on her.
And if you think, how can that possibly be a story
that you'd want to stay with you for a long time?
It's just magnificent.
So I'll pop that in your summer holiday tote bag too.
Right.
Which American president was sick at a banquet?
it. I think it was, was it George Bush
Senior? I think it was.
I don't know. But let's not include that
necessarily. Other
recommendations, Mary says, I just wanted to say
that I loved this book. I thought it was an interesting
and engaging collection of stories.
If your listeners like the short story
format, I would recommend Alice Monroe,
the Canadian author. Is that a good
recommendation? That's definitely a good recommendation.
She's one of the best. Right, okay.
And Mary says, she's currently
reading East of Eden, which
she describes as an epic saga. I haven't read
that have you? I have to admit
I haven't read it. I'm not good on big
American books. I don't know what
it is about them. It's the sprawlingness
of them, it's too much.
They're quite boisey. They are about boise.
It's quite a boisey. I would imagine I haven't read it myself.
Did he do a follow-up
west of Eden, north of Eden,
south of Eden? A franchise.
Right, somebody out there will know.
Laura, thank you. I mean the answer is no.
We know the answer.
Yes, we all know.
Laura, thank you very much.
And I've sort of...
Well, I'm still back where I started.
I think she's clearly an extremely clever woman.
I really like some of the characters,
but I just felt a bit let down when they left my life.
Maybe you'll have to read her novels, not like...
Yes, maybe that's exactly what I should do.
Yes, okay.
Thank you very much.
And we're now looking, I guess, for more recommendations
for the next book club pick.
I think so, but that won't be until September.
We won't pop it into people's minds.
because everyone's got a very, very, very busy summers.
I'd tell you what, I did get an email this morning
saying that William Boyd's third spy novel
is out on September the 3rd.
And I did think, God, you are such a successful author.
You don't have to put your book out
before the summer sun lands a rush.
You could just chill out.
Because it's a lovely thing to look forward to in September,
but I really wanted that on my holly bobs.
Well, you can probably get a good good, you're influential.
I might be able to organise you.
Influential enough.
Anyway, lots to look forward to.
Laura, it's always such a pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you for your emails about the interpreter of maladies.
And we should say that I'm away next week.
Fee is womaning the fort.
And I'll be womaning with Eve.
So return to the tugboat, the Goodship Even Fee.
Set sail once again from the harbour of dreams.
Right.
Steady yourselves.
But they're relatively good women, so I think you'll be in safe hands.
Do, though, wear a life jacket.
Yes, always. Always, always.
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 till 4 on Times Radio.
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app. Offair is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.
