Off Air... with Jane and Fi - The Archers is to you what Succession is to me (with Diana Evans)

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Jane and Fi chat male contraception, London's transportation system and syphilis... as you do. They’re joined by novelist Diana Evans to discuss her most recent novel 'A House for Alice'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producers: Catherine FusilloTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're on. We're on. Okay. Can I just say hello to Charlie? Yes. Who's started the email saying lovely fee and that's not going to get round me. Do you want to hear a bit more of it? Okay. I'm not someone who ever writes into anything, ever, but I just have to write to you on this occasion to implore you to listen to Jane, two words though, I'm not reading those out, about The Archers.

I'm 38 years old and began listening to The Archers at 31 when my mum told me about the Rob Titchener storyline and the fact that The Archers was one of the first soaps, if not the first, to cover coercive control. I didn't know any... Oh, I'm bothered. So I know about the Rob storyline.

And it's very important that they did it. Very important. And it's come back again, you see, as well. Absolutely brilliant, and all that kind of stuff. But it's like being vegan or doing lots of running. You know, that's great if you're vegan. And it's great if you really love running and you find yourself in the zone and you've got the sweet spot and your thighs never chafe. And it's absolutely wonderful.

That's great. I just don't want to do it. No, I think the Arches is to you what Succession is to me. Well, there you go. Yeah. We both have our little just little things that things that we just won't go there. I just, and I think I did say this ages ago. I'm sorry, Charlie, it's not your fault at all.

No. But I also feel with the archers, it's been going on for such a long time. It's just like trying to, you know, climb Everest and expecting you can arrive, you know, at whatever it is. Not base camp, but three bases up. Is it just that you can't catch up? You don't know who anybody is? No, there are still people in the archers

and I can't work out what their relation is to somebody else. And often the characters do use Christian names quite a lot just so that new joiners can work out who's talking to who. OK, so there's always a paragraph, isn't there, in crime fiction books, isn't there, which attempts to explain the whole of the crime fighting person or duo's history in one paragraph in order to welcome a new reader

who doesn't understand all of it. And as an old reader, you're just like, oh God, that's really annoying. But you've got to think of people joining at book 12. So for example, you know, the Ellie Griffiths books that I've mentioned, the ones about Dr. Ruth Galloway,

the archaeologist. There are, I example, you know, the Ellie Griffiths books that I've mentioned, the ones about Dr. Ruth Galloway, the archaeologist. There are, I think, 15 books in that series. And I do love the books. I genuinely find them a real source of comfort. But yeah, there's a bit of that going on because I haven't read all of them. So I sort of actually benefit from those paragraphs that explain the significance of the druid and what he meant by it. So if everybody loves the archers that's just fantastic but if

it's alright with everybody I'm just not going to do it. Alright okay but can we just go on because I got the impression that perhaps Charlie was going to mention that she'd been the victim of coercive control Oh my gosh This is Fi reading everybody, a bit of a slow reader but she gets there Oh, my gosh. This is Fee reading everybody.

A bit of a slow reader, but she gets there. No. No, she doesn't. OK. In that case, that's good. No. OK. Right, well, actually, let's... Do you want to say anything else about that email?

No. No, but, Charlotte, it's lovely for you to get in touch and it's delightful that you care, but I'm just, you know, you're just making me feel really bad. I wanted to talk about a contraception because it came up on the programme today, because on the Times Radio show, which by the way

you can hear if you're a listener to Off Air, you can just get the Times Radio app, it doesn't cost you anything and then you can hear the live show, three till five Monday to Thursday. But this afternoon, we had a really interesting conversation with Ellie Cannon, the GP, our doctor doctor, about this Davina McCall documentary, which I appreciate neither of us have seen. But it's coming up later on this week, isn't it? It is. And we think from all of the preview stuff that we've read that it will be quite headline grabbing. And it's just hugely critical of where the contraceptive pill has been lying in female fertility health for a very long time. So not an enormous amount of research into the side effects it can cause in some women,

perhaps not enough done to allay the fears of any connection to increased risks of heart disease, blood clots or cancers in women. You know, all of those things that I think probably, if you've been around as long as we have, you've grazed across before. But there's a punch that is packed by Davila McCall documentary. And I know you're a bit concerned about that. Well, I mean, I didn't know what I thought, but Ellie Cannon, who is a doctor, is concerned that in some cases too much, just too much headline-grabbing airtime

is given to, with the greatest respect to Davina, television presenters to make a case. In this example, she's going to, I think, quite possibly discourage quite a chunk of the viewing public from taking the contraceptive pill which may or may not be the right decision for them we would do better to uh alert all of our listeners to the possibility of watching the program i think that's a good idea afterwards yeah so it afterwards. But then you mentioned on the programme about the male pill. And in fact, I'd totally forgotten again about the male pill

because on Woman's Hour, we would do that at least a couple of times a year, quite legitimately, by the way, discuss, has there been any progress on the male pill? No. And we're still at that position. Apparently, you say that there has been a male contraceptive pill developed. Well, I've been listening to a podcast, which is really interesting about the male contraceptive pill. And the point being that it's all systems go on the male contraceptive pill, but the stumbling block has been in clinical trials, a lot of the men taking it have complained about side effects.

Oh, bless them. Right. You see, instantly I go to that reaction and I shouldn't because we do need to just have a sensible, grown-up debate about this. So that's what we were talking about on the programme and we would really, really like to talk about here. It is how to be encouraging about taking a pill that gives you side effects so that men can join in and, you know, share the responsibility of contraception without feeling, you know, we've had to put up with this for years and years and years,

just get over yourselves, you know, it's just a headache. You'll just put on weight. You'll just feel bloated. You'll just feel anxious. You'll just get depressed. But you won't get pregnant. Just give all burst out. But you won't get pregnant you know so if so it's hard not to go into that kind of tone and of course i feel deeply sympathetic towards men who've been on a trial for

a pill that's made them feel unwell yeah i completely do so i don't know what to say to them uh you know to lessen their experience and and them think, well, you know, we'll be absolutely fine. We'll just, you know, we'll get over the migraines. I wonder whether, I mean, obviously women have more to lose or gain if they get pregnant. Let's be clear about that. There's more skin in the game for the female of the species, end of. If you get pregnant when you don't want to be, then you have to make a decision about that. If you get pregnant and you're delighted to be, how wonderful. But I have to tell you, there's a lifelong impact. There really is, both positive and negative, of course.

And it's just, we can't expect men to fully understand that, can we? No, but I think we can expect decent men to feel the responsibility of an unplanned pregnancy. Yeah, yeah. You know, maybe not as much as us physically, maybe not as much as us mentally, but possibly emotionally as well. So we should just we shouldn't automatically assume that that's not how men are going to feel, because I think that's unfair on really decent men. And also gets not very decent men off the hook, actually, Jane. And that. I don't like that.

No, I don't like that. But also, I think... But also, couldn't you... If the alternative is going to be condoms, then, you know, surely you could actually try and enhance that argument about you don't have to faff around putting condoms on you know take responsibility for your own fertility and wahey off you go i genuinely don't know because i do not hear as

many conversations about the male pill as i do about the female pill no there obviously are trust issues um do you believe the man who says he's on the pill and also then but that's been there for women yes uh then uh we were talking on the programme too about the rise in gonorrhoea and syphilis cases. So you still need to wear a condom if you want to protect against VD with a new partner. And I wonder whether the discomfort level is sort of built into women and girls

because we've had periods. So you've always got that three or four days out of every 28 for 40 odd years of your life where you're feeling a bit shit and you just factor it in and you're sort of 25 years in you're kind of you don't even question it anymore do you I mean there are days when you feel livid about the whole thing but it's just part of your experience and men are not used to that level of faint or sometimes rather more than faint discomfort. I completely agree.

And also, I think we talk about things more. And, you know, sometimes just sharing your symptoms can take away the fear about them. So you think, oh, OK, well, everybody's feeling a bit unwell taking the pill. So I shouldn't worry about it so much and I'll just crack on. And I'm not sure that men have as many conversations about contraception. But we would really, really like to hear from men about this. And if you are adjacent to a man,

we'd love your thoughts as well. It would be fantastic if you know any of the men who took part in the trials, or indeed you are one of them. That would be brilliant. Because you never know, because we do have a strange reach so you just don't know. Anyway, that's sort of a topic we want to get on to over the next couple of days

so make sure, and we will watch it, both of us will watch the programme on Channel 4 I think it's Thursday night actually so we'll see what impact that has. Yep. It's rather professionally done. I think that was very, very, very good. And I did love it when you said VD

because that just took me straight back to a previous era because nobody says VD anymore. Well, you see, the reason I think I do is because I was, as a teenager, almost too knowledgeable about this subject because my mother was a clerk in the VD clinic. So I've mentioned this before,

but she would. I knew too much. Let's put it that way. Okay. Well, let's stick with VD. Maybe let's not stick with VD. What a silly thing to say. Right.

This one comes from. Oh, no, there was a very, very, there was a funny one that I wanted to go to. Well, can I just do this from Pauline? Hello, Pauline. I've just come back from a month in Japan, says Pauline. And it's such a shock to be home because we've got builders on our street, as I have next door. And our days have been filled with unnecessary vocal decibels, says Pauline. After Japan, after that beautiful month, it's just a shock and it's so grating. The Japanese are so quiet. Trains are silent. Cafes are quiet.

And even the non-tourist streets of Tokyo are soothing and gentle. Being perimenopausal, my tolerance for noise, especially noise that's just pollution, is zero. It was heaven being in Japan. I loved it. There we are. Well, I'm glad you're home safe and sound, Pauline, and I'm sorry about the racket.

This one is from Patricia, who's listening to us in Kendall. Childhood memories just surfaced listening to you. I was very keen for my Cindy doll to have a boyfriend, but I didn't like Paul. Was that his name? I don't know. I don't remember him. I was too young to explain why or to have learnt any words like effeminate, if you know what I mean. or to have learnt any words like effeminate, if you know what I mean. Having seen the ads, I persuaded Mum to get me Action Man for his hunky, rugged facial looks.

However, as soon as he revealed what lay beneath those combats, I was revolted. All of those horrible joints, and wait for it, as for those feet, that's not what you were expecting, was it? No, because I thought we were going straight to the, you know, pull his trousers off. And we all did that, didn't we? We all did that mentally.

Yeah, well, no, really, I did. And physically. Yeah. No, so his feet. I don't know anything about Action Man's feet at all. But maybe if someone's still got an Action Man, they could send us a picture. Maybe he just had kind of moulded feet.

Maybe he didn't have individual toes. Oh, my goodness. So I was going home on the tube last night, Jane, and there was a guy... Very much so, very much so. Look at my Oyster card. I'll be going for free travel soon. You will get your freedom pass, won't you? Anyway, can I just get to the end of the story?

Yes, sorry. Then it'll be back to you, don't worry. There was a guy wearing those really, really weird kind of trainer socks, you know, where they have individual toes and then a kind of, you know, a plastic surface underneath. It just made me feel physically repulsed. No, that's disgusting. And at this time of year as well.

Yes. And no shoes. No, so those are shoes. So I've seen the kind of cloven hoof ones, you know, where you have a separated big toe and then the rest of your toes are encased in one great big toe. But this was individual toes in a sneaker sock. Didn't work here, did he? Well, he may well have been actually in front of me

leaving the News UK building. Oh, no. And I'll tell you what, that is the ultimate form of contraception. I don't think anybody would go near that. Anyway, sorry, back to you. When does the Freedom Pass kick in and will you use it proudly? Oh, yeah. God, for free? Travel? Be brilliant, actually. Well, not for another year, it's just one of the many

benefits and I think we've said it before but London public transport it doesn't apply in the rest of the UK it's just brilliant. I mean it's so well it works together it's quite slick obviously there's engineering work most weekends but it's amazingly

easy to get across a huge metropolis. It is. In quite short order. So I don't want to show off here, but I got off a plane last weekend when I was on my magical mini break. A plane, everybody. Yep. All right, Judith Chalmers, get on with it. Went to Barcelona.

I got off the plane from Barcelona at quarter to 12 and I was back home in Dalston, East London, at one o'clock. Good grief. Well, for people who don't know that distance... Was that the Elizabeth Line? It's the Lizzie Line. So that is crossing the whole of London, right the way from very, very far in the west to very, very far in the east.

No, it's a real... It's just... And I thought exactly that. I thought, what a brilliant, brilliant city. This is moving and working and the cogs are all whirring together. It was astonishing. So I was thinking, you know, when you're on the Underground and you're sort of, idiotically, you look at the stations,

even though you must know them almost all by heart. Oh, I love doing that. Just follow it. It's so horrific. It's quite pleasant. But when you look at the lines, only two are named after people. So the Elizabeth line and... Come on, it's not difficult. And sometimes I can have endless blanks. Another monarch?

Victorian. There we are. And there aren't any more named after people, are there? Oh, let me just run through this in my head. We haven't got a George or an Alfred the Great. No, and there was no Dr District, was there? Well, there was, actually. There was.

No, Pick a Dilly? No. He wasn't a real fellow. Jubilly? No, OK, right. So, there aren't any. No. No, it's weird.

It's an interesting trivia question. Very interesting. I don't think it's an interesting trivia question very interesting i love the map that you can buy that shows you where the tube tunnels actually go it's really really brilliant i will try and buy you one actually for one of your many many birthdays would you like it for your actual birthday or your official birthday you choose official please so it's got the tube stations on top and the way that we see the tube map, as it's always been drawn, but then it actually does

where the tunnels are underneath. So between some of the stations that are only a quarter of a mile overground, the actual tube tunnel is about three quarters of a mile long. It's fascinating. You'll love it. Okay, thank you. An appalling joke from Stuart.

When it saw the penicillin approaching... You've got to read the title of the email. What did the bug say when it saw the penicillin approaching? I don't know. What did the bug say when it saw the penicillin approaching? Sorry, Stuart, I've ruined your go. I'm a goner here. Very good.

That's part of our many, many, many VD jokes that we're storing up for later. And I'd just like to commiserate with... I think you're... What do you think that is? You're either Elle Ivy or Livvy. Elle Ivy, I think. Elle Ivy.

Blue Ivy is Beyonce's daughter, isn't she? Oh, might be a relative. Dear Joan Fee, listening during the night to the lady who ordered wrong-size underwear, recently noticed some small bits of plastic missing from my old baking spatula. So I thought I should buy a replacement. Found the perfect one on eBay.

This is it. It raised a laugh. So Elle Ivy has included a little picture of a tiny teaspoon. And the spatula is about the same size as the tiny teaspoon. It's probably a doll's one. But she said it's very, very good for getting the last dregs out of a pot of yoghurt. Really? Yeah.

Because you do sometimes have to really delve in those crevices, don't you? You do. I can't stand waste. Actually, one of my questions at home last night was, and I really can't believe I'm asking this. Navels. Oh, no. No, not... Yeah, well, I am going to go there.

OK. Why can they be so smelly? Oh, Jane. Well, I'm just... I know, sorry. But we do have medical people who are listening, so if you haven't got anything to say about the future of contraception, you can weigh in on this one.

I suppose it's just... Well... It's a place where sweat and fluff can gather yes and I don't think do horrible things I don't think most people really give it a good clean out do they? one day to the next

I don't think so because we know that you can't use ear buds in your ears do you think you can use an ear bud in your well if you've got an innie, I suppose you can. Do you still get smelly navels if you've got an outie? Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. Right, this is from Sophia. Writing to you from a tiny island in the Caribbean.

Now, I don't think I know how to pronounce this. I'm going to have a go. Cariocu? Cariocu. Cariocu. Have you any idea? Carakau. Karakau. It could be that. Sophia is much blessed. She has a very nearly four-year-old daughter. But when she was a baby, most people were extremely concerned about my lack of attention to her headgear or lack thereof. My mother-in-law was really concerned when we were out in the

dark with no hat to protect her sensitive head from the cool breeze. I should say at this point the temperature here rarely drops below 27 Celsius even at night. More than once I was told that her head was because I bring her out, I was told her cold was because I take her out at night with no hat and the cool breeze blows through the soft part of her head giving her the virus. Oh dear. Then in the daytime, somebody would shout,

where's her hat? The sun's hot. Normally, after I'd picked up a hat for the 10th time and given up trying to wrestle it onto a small child. By the way, here you can currently buy a multi-pack of twirls in the supermarket. It's a five-pack. So two for me and one each for three kids, as long as I get my share while they're at school so they don't realise I get double. She's absolutely sorted, isn't she?

She's really working that motherhood thing. Well, I think the secret, actually, of sane motherhood is sometimes to absolutely help yourself before you help your kids. And I don't say that in a kind of be really selfish way, but there's such a kind of trope of the martyrdom of motherhood. And actually, I think it just works a bit better if you keep eating 212s first.

I mean, there are massive benefits to motherhood generally. One is you can eat a load of crap that they don't know you've got because you bought it on the pretext of giving it to them. Yes, please don't finish your plate of food because I'm quite hungry, darling. Pass it over here. Shall we talk about Diana Evans being one of Britain's most acclaimed novelists?

Yes, she's our guest this afternoon. And I was saying, I mean, we do get a really interesting range of writers. I mean, Fee and I both love books, we love reading, and that's one of the reasons we want to talk to lots of different writers. And tomorrow, the author we're talking to is... Satnam Sanghera. Yeah, and he's written a non-fiction history book for young people.

It's called Stolen History. And it's about the British Empire. It certainly is. And then Thursday's big guest is Judy Murray, who's written a novel about tennis. You'll be amazed to hear it's called Wild Card. So I think that gives you some idea of the range we're getting at. And Diana Evans is...

Well, I suppose she's a literally... No, she's literally a literary novelist. She's a literary writer, isn't she? Yes. She writes... Although I think her novels are very readable. No, they are very readable. Because sometimes the term literary can mean...

I can put people off. But I suppose I'm trying not to say a proper writer, but that is what she is. Well, that's a bit rude to our other guests on this week, if that's what you're saying. Pretend you haven't heard that. Particularly you, Satnam and Judy. Right.

So Diana's books, often in the background to them, they sort of incorporate references to national events. And her book 26A talked about the marriage of Charles and Diana and then actually the death of Diana as well. Ordinary People started with a party marking the election of Barack Obama. And her most recent book is A House for Alice, which takes place in London in the summer of 2017 and starts on the night of the dreadful Grenfell fire.

Now, Alice, the central character, is an elderly Nigerian woman who basically wants to go home but her family are really split about whether she should do that. We asked Diana why she often references topical events. Well I write novels that are essentially about ordinary people living their lives, their everyday lives. And there is always a political backdrop to our everyday experiences, particularly now. Politics bears ever more heavily on our lives economically, socially, psychologically as well. So I feel that it's just important to reflect that in order to create an accurate picture. And then when there are certain events that happen that are particularly traumatic, such as the Grenfell fire, I feel a personal responsibility as a writer, as an artist, as a

writer who writes a lot about London and understands the London community, the Black British London community. I just feel that I have to, and I can't, it would be very remiss of me not to have paid some kind of homage to Grenfell. Well, we are approaching another anniversary of Grenfell actually, aren't we? And it struck me, I go past it every day on the Tube and it is still there, the tower. And I don't know, I looked up yesterday, what is the latest on what's going to happen? And nobody seems to know. Do you have a view on what should happen? Well, there are talks about dismantling the tower.

So there would be no reminder there. And I'm in two minds about that. I think there should be some kind of monument there. I agree, though, it is particularly traumatic for the community to be living with that big structure around just there all the time. That must be difficult. But I think there has to be some kind of reminder. As far as the inquiry goes, that is still not concluded. It's supposed to be being concluded later on this year. And that will give us some kind of clarity as to whether there's going to be any corporate accountability. that there hasn't been enough attention applied by the government to the reparative period after the fire, given the victims of the fire, people who lost family members, people who've been injured personally.

There's enough support, I think there has been enough support. And I think that lack of attention is almost like a double trauma it's an added trauma I think there needs to be some kind of corporate accountability for what happened because the Grenfell Tower had been refurbished but in a much cheaper way than it could have been, which led to the use of that combustible cladding. And I do think that somebody has to be held responsible. There's lots of kind of passing the block and somebody has to step up. I think the opening to this novel where you write about what happened at Grenfell that night

is one of the most arresting openings to a novel that I have read. I had to wait a little bit after I read all of those passages before going on with the book because it is so traumatic. And I wonder actually how you write that as a novelist. You know, at what point after the Grenfell night did think, I can actually put something on paper? It took a long time, actually, because I believe with events like this, a certain amount of time has to pass to let the dust settle, in this case, to let the ashes settle. It was about maybe three or four years later that I started trying to write about it. It was very, very difficult, I have to admit.

And I really battled with myself in terms of whether I have the right to try and depict what happened at Grenfell, whether it really belongs in a piece of fiction, whether that's even kind of possible for it to feature in a story without it completely taking over the narrative. So there were all those kinds of doubts that I was grappling with. But at the same time, I just felt this absolute compulsion

to that I had to at least try. I think a lot of the experience of writing is facing your own weakness and really testing yourself and taking risks. It did feel like a huge risk, but one that was worth taking. We should say that although Grenfell is part of the book, it is not the centre of the narrative. It's there in the background, but hugely important. There is a

fire, though, which kills an elderly man called Cornelius. And Alice, who is the character in A House for Alice, which is the central character, is his estranged wife. Now, tell me a bit about Alice, because I know you said that you really think it's important that women like her get their moment, are actually honoured in fiction. Yeah, Alice is an elderly Nigerian woman and she has this deep desire to return home to her homeland. And she's lived in London for 50 years. And she's the kind of character that we just never really see depicted in our contemporary British fiction. That felt important to give that kind of character a voice, you know, and to put her really centre stage. And so sometimes the prose, it kind of lapses into Alice's actual voice.

The voice, the prose becomes a little bit broken in the way that Alice's voice is spoken English, the way she speaks. That felt very satisfying to be able to do that. But it's also about her family and the wider context of what this wish, the impact of it on the rest of her family, her three daughters, who have differing opinions about this wish of hers to return home after Cornelius' death. So her yearning is really kind of, it's a fame for the book, really, and it's a fame for also other yearnings that the other characters have. And that marks a return, doesn't it, to some characters

that people who've read your early novel Ordinary People would recognise. I did read somewhere that you felt, so Michael and Melissa are really integral to Ordinary People, you felt that they never left you. And I'm always intrigued by that notion of a novelist who creates characters so strong in their mind that even after you finished writing their story, they call to you. And is that what happened with these two? It's more that they call to each other that they

continue talking their conversations carry on i don't really go in for that idea of um characters kind of pulling the author along and and um navigating the author through a story and telling them what to do it's more that that you're almost inside your your characters when you're writing them you kind of inhabit them so so deeply that they come you just become very intimate with them you can hear their voices and so after I'd finished writing Ordinary People which was a very difficult book to write it took me seven years and I thought that I never wanted to return to that world again I was just glad to see the back of it but But then after a couple of years, I could just hear Michael and Melissa's conversations and I could hear Michael's wife, Nicole, who is a new character in the story.

She's like this ageing singer. She's a very alive character and I could hear her voice particularly strongly. And that's when I realised that there was a triangle to explore between Nicole, Michael and Melissa. And that that could somehow work alongside the story of Alice and her wishes. I think anybody with a sibling will be able to relate to, particularly to A House for Alice, because Alice's three daughters have different views about whether or not their very elderly mother should return to Nigeria.

different views about whether or not their very elderly mother should return to Nigeria. One is reasonably accepting, one is absolutely dead against it, and another one is all for it. And I've only got one sibling, but I can imagine that these things are very real. That seemed to me to be entirely plausible. Yeah, absolutely. And I think what happens in families sometimes is that there's this certain configuration. In the case of this family, there's a configuration that has kind of been set by Cornelius. The father. Yeah. And then once he's gone, there's this kind of flailing around of dynamics and relationships. Alice is kind of a, she is a site of home for her daughters, even though she herself feels adrift, that she's never really integrated or felt at home. At the same time, for her daughter, she is the place where they know exactly who they are.

they are. I asked Diana if she knows just how many people, very elderly people, do move back to countries like Nigeria, places which they still consider to be their real home. I don't know, but it is common for immigrants to come over to the UK with the intention of always going home and for that intention to then fall away because it's impractical or it's too difficult it definitely does happen but sometimes there's a situation where you know you go back and it's not the same as what you left um there's this idea of does it really exist that the fantasy Alice is yearning is it a fantasy does it actually exist if she did actually go back and live in Nigeria, would she get what she was looking for? How old are you now, if that's not too personal a question? Yes, I'm 51. 51. Do you enjoy trying to imagine a much older person's thought processes and desires, because it's very, very comforting to read, actually.

And I don't think that a much younger novelist would be able to convey those quite different ways of looking at the world and thinking about the world, if that makes sense. I mean, perhaps, you know, I'm wrong, and right from your late teens and early 20s, you could imagine yourself in much older heads. Well, I can imagine myself in heads of all ages, really. But it's easier to go back, isn't it? Because you can write about youth because you've been there, but you can't write about what happens ahead of us.

The job of writing fiction is being able to inhabit characters who are different from your own. There is a satisfaction in doing that departure from the self and being in somebody else's head and someone else's perspective. I did do research as to the kind of everyday lives and infrastructure of the elderly which was quite fascinating and you know I came across things like elderly communities who organize things like bench to bench walks sort of tea sessions in cafes where they can commune in cafes that are kind of along the walks so they're accessible and paving slabs trying to get the council to fix paving slabs that are uneven so

so they're not so easy to trip over and another good one is is traffic lights and trying to get the council to fix havens, labs that are uneven, so they're not so easy to trip over. Another good one is traffic lights and trying to get them to extend the walk across time set traffic lights. I found that research really interesting in the way it really just opens up your perspective of how somebody else lives. In Ordinary People, there are two couples at the centre of that book and they are at the, I think it's fair to say the gloss has just worn off a little bit. I mean, there are young kids in the mix and real life has got involved. Romance isn't all that central to their existence. And you do get to the stage in life where you do have to have conversations with people about sheets and it's boring.

It is really boring, but it's the stuff of life. You don't actually read it that often, but there is stuff like that in Ordinary People. Yeah, there is. There is a lot of stuff like that in A House for Alice as well. And I think there aren't as many books that focus on the aftermath of romance and the actuality of married life when the gloss kind of dissipates. But, you know, I think that is the real test of love,

whether you can get through that aftermath. And what is it that you have at the end of it when you get to the other side? You know, there was this metaphor of the river in Ordinary People. For me, that was a metaphor for love as well. You know, can a couple get to the other side of the river that has all this kind of murk and messiness and the messiness of everyday life and the ugliness of it, really.

Because you do see, you know, the ugliness of somebody when you live with them 24-7. You know, that kind of sheen of beauty, it dissipates and you have to kind of look that actual person in the face. And if you can get across the river, then that means that you've kind of survived and it is a true love. I do believe in true love. Do you? No, I'm glad to hear it.

I know you come from a family, I think you've got quite a number of siblings, haven't you? Yeah, five sisters. So you observe family life so astutely. Are your family now a bit wary about what they say to you? Do they think, oh, I'm not telling Diana about this because she's going to stick it in the next book? They probably are, actually. But have you been uninvited family gatherings recently?

I think it's a difficult thing to have a writer in the family. Well, it's actually of the kind that I am. Especially, yes, with a keen eye for detail. And I do tend to draw from life. But, you know, I use the reality to get into the realm of fiction and then I can bend it and twist it. But I'm very, very drawn by kind of real conversations and real moments. And I have a deep desire to get them, to depict them in some way

and make them alive in a story. Yeah, my family are actually very accepting of my work. They do see a separation between my books and real life. And are you a slightly different person when you are right in the kind of the sweet spot of writing? Does it really take over everything that you're doing? Yes, it does. It's a bit like being on drugs when I'm really deep into it.

It's absolutely thrilling. It's also very difficult to get to that point where you're completely immersed in it. There's a lot of will to procrastinate and put it off because writing's so difficult, novels are so hard. What's the strangest thing that you've done because you've been putting off sitting down to write the book? Have you cleaned the top of your skirting boards

instead of sitting down to write? I haven't, but I have framed pictures. That's sort of what I like to do. I've made like a postcard collage. I remember doing that once all day because I couldn't save for writing. I do kind of bits and bobs around the

house, bits of like DIY which I hate. I hate DIY but I find myself, you know, knocking nails into walls. It's a solid achievement, isn't it? It's quite satisfying. Just a brief word on the possibility of this being a trilogy, because you have hinted that you haven't actually

completely fallen out of love with some of the characters in this book. So are they all going to go into the third one? Is there going to be one? I feel like they might, but I don't want to say that for definite because that would be bad luck. But I feel like there is more exploring that I want to do with this set of characters. Okay and right until

the end I didn't know whether Alice was going to go or stay and for what it's worth Diana I think she's made the wrong move but anyway I do No spoilers No spoilers and I mean the fact that I read at university because I had to not because I wanted to John Updike's Rabbit trilogy, I thought it was bloody awful.

And now I discover that actually you rate John Updike. I'm afraid I do. Yes, I do. There's something about his writing that seems to speak to my own. This desire to, as he puts it, to give that every day is beautiful to you. I love the poetry in his writing and the attention to language. And so sometimes I do read it to kind of unlock something in my own writing or loosen me up.

Obviously I have problems with his politics. His writings are extremely misogynistic and chauvinist and racist. But apart from that, there's something, you know, there's something in, if there's something in a voice that speaks to me. And sometimes it's good to read stuff that provokes, isn't it?

And I know that you said that about Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates' novel, which I think you don't love it, but you enjoy the concepts and fighting a little bit against yeah I feel like sometimes I'm writing in retaliation against invisibilities that there's there's a lot of gaps in fiction that that I want to fill there's there's this huge gap of the everyday lives of that British people you know I think that's really important to the bit and to show the world from a different perspective

from the white mainstream. So, yeah, it's about answering back to writers where you found something in the work remiss or felt that you could do better. That was Diana Evans and her book is A House for Alice. So we'll be back tomorrow. Thank you very much indeed for listening. Do feel free to spread the word if you enjoy this.

I think you can rate and review it at the place of your choosing wherever you get your podcasts from and as Jane said you can download the Times app and then you can listen to the on-air radio programme and also some really fantastic programmes from our colleagues as well.

Let's not forget them, Jane, darling. Who? Colleagues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. No, it's all fabulous. Yes, do make sure you do all that and your other homework is to catch

that Davina McCall contraception programme and then pitch in. And actually it might very well be, because V and I were talking about the pill earlier, I think I took it for, I can't remember how many years years I don't remember having any problems with it but I might just have imagined that I don't know um but it isn't always true of every woman that's for sure and maybe it's just one of those medications that simply it doesn't suit

every type of individual and you've got to keep going back until you found the right one well I think that's many many people's experience of it. So we would welcome your individual thoughts. And if you've got a bloke that you want to shove this podcast in the ears of, who might be able to contribute to a conversation about the male contraceptive pill, that'd be great, actually. That'd be really good. And remember, if you want your kiddie to go to Harvard, you've got to keep breastfeeding until they're 15.

OK? Dr Garvey says so. Have a good evening. You did it. Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings. Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover.

We missed the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer. It's a man. It's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at three o'clock Monday until Thursday every week. And you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day, as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and entertaining guests on all sorts of subjects. Thank you for bearing with us. And we

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