Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

This week's book guest is Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott.Sara and Cariad discuss Highballs, Carrie Bradshaw, hot dates, feminism, marriage, divorce and losing it all.Trigger warning: This episode contains references to baby loss, abortion, sexual assault, anti-Semitism and racism.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Ex-Wife is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.Tickets for the live show at the Southbank Centre with special guest Harriet Walter are available to buy here!Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Cariad’s children's book The Christmas Wish-tastrophe is available to pre-order now.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Ex-wife by Ursula Parrott. What's it about? A young woman becomes a divorcee in 1920s, New York, and the adventures she gets into is she rejoins the dating chain. What qualifies it for the weirdos book club?

Well, so much liquor is imbibed in its pages that even reading it will make you tipsy. I'm not drunk. In this episode we discuss. Highballs. Highballs. Carrie Bradshaw. Hot dates. Feminism.

Feminism. No, thank you. Dramatic lives. Dramatic lives. Sure. Marriage. Marriage. Divorce.

Divorce. Divorce. And Loaning. This book and chat contain references to baby loss, abortion, sexual assault, anti-semitismat and racism. Hello, Sarah. Oh, hi there, Carriad. Oh, I see you reading a book.

What are you reading? It sounds like an advert. Sounds like we're skipping that. Oh no. It'll be an advert. It'll be advert for cystitis powder, canistern extra. Do you know what? Why don't societis powder sponsor us?

Because we're ideal. Because people have to buy it when they've got cystitis. Yeah, but they're just sponsored us. We're ideal like ambassadors for that kind of product. Oh, do you think so? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. Look at us.

Middle-aged women. Too busy reading to go to the toilet. Cicitis powders, if you're listening, me and Zer are willing to be ambassadors. I am. Put a face on a box. Put my face surrounded by cranberries. Just me? I'll take it.

Yeah, you do it as a solo ad. What are you reading, sir? I'm reading ex-wife. Who's that by? Ursula Parrot. Let me tell you, this is a re-publication. Yes. It was a sensational bestseller in 1929, according to the blurb.

That's not my opinion. Yet utterly timeless. We'll talk about that in a second. Yeah, we should say this was a huge, massive book in 1929. It's sold in its... Landl that is crazy. That's 100 years ago. Yeah.

I hadn't quite taken it in. I was like 30 years old. No, 100 years ago. Nearly 100 years. Queen Victoria had just basically died. Yeah. 30 years ago. Jazz Age.

New York is written by a woman. First, Ursula Parrot. It was originally published anonymously because it was considered so scandalous. The covers were covered in brown paper. Were they? Yeah. Because it was like, this is so scandalous.

You can't even see it. And you can't even know who the woman is. It was turned into the film The Dvorseille with Norma Shearer. She won the Oscar for it. And it created a huge scandal at the time for its frank depiction of young working women in New York City, drenched in cocktails and scotch. And Ursula Parrott was one of the most successful female writers of her time. There was about five or six women that were writing books, films, short stories for female magazines. And they were, you know.

And she wrote 20 novels. She was rich. She was absolutely rich. Like she made her fortune and lost the whole lot. But at that point, and we should say it came out just before the New York crash. So this is the ultimate, like jazz age book, women in New York. And it has been republished in 1988, I think. And then this has just come out as a Faber, brand new edition.

A foreword by Monica Heise, friend of the show. And they sent me a hat. Did they? An ex-wife hat that keeps my husband on his toes. Does it just say ex-wife on it? that's the merch. Okay. It's quite,

I think maybe that's why Faber brought it out again. It's so me and some of the ladies from the office can wear that hat. Good work. It's been compared to like the Great Gatsby, but like the female version, Tender is the Night. Yeah, it's considered, it's got a lot of attention with this republishing of lots of people being like, this is a forgotten book. Why was this one forgotten?

This was hugely, huge, important. And in terms of where feminism is. Yeah, where is it, sir? It is very interesting to reflect on what's similar. Yep. What is dissimilar. Yeah. And as it says, the struggles for sexual freedom, that is not a one battle.

No, and we should say, you might think, oh, set in 1929, jazz age, flappers, you might think, oh, I kind of know what this is about. You are wrong. This is so modern. The things that happen in this book are very explicit and I was shocked by what they were talking about. I was shocked, yeah. It is basically sex in the city 1929, like in terms of what they're talking about. They're talking about birth control. They're talking about sexual assault. Yes. They're talking about divorce. They're talking about power dynamics. Who has money? Youth, beauty, attractiveness. What happens if you don't have those things? Women compromising work for family. Yeah, working women.

Being in the workplace at all. Coerciveness in sex. And I wasn't prepared. I wasn't prepared. I wasn't prepared for this. I was not prepared because I'd been told, oh, this is really, good and it's really relevant and modern. I hadn't, I hadn't gear shifted into, no. And it starts in a very, and I would describe it, you're someone who likes kind of screwball comedies and, you know, you've watched His Girl Friday or you like, you know, 90-20s, if you think, oh, it's going to be some ladies, it's like having drinks and talking and smile getting, oh, well, I thought, yeah, this would be fun. The original discussion, which is that some people after they get divorced are always, you know, a divorced woman. Can I read the bit that's very, that says it. So she's

talking to her friend Lucia. Lucia, who is also an ex-wife. She's just become an ex-wife. Not every woman who used to be married is one. There are women about whom it is more significant to know that they work at this or that, or like to travel, or go to symphony concerts, than to know they were once married to someone another. She looked at me reflectively.

You're an ex-wife, Pat, because it's the most important thing to know about you. Explains everything else that once you were married to a man who left you. That's how her best friend, Lucia describes being an ex-wife. and that's what they are very they move in together and they become ex-wives about town yeah so so so so so that was so interesting so that was a setup and so i thought i um i i thought i thought i expected a certain tone to continue like that yes sort of like some relayed wisdoms female friendships who are women when they're not with men and then like carrie bradshaw it got me thinking what is an ex-wife like that's what you're expecting and so i drank another coffee

cocktail because all they do is constantly drink. So there is a level of shallowness that I did not enjoy. I don't care what people are wearing. I know some people do and again that's probably well there we go. Some people enjoy it. Some people over there called Carriad. And I know that sex in the city, another huge thing that's yeah that's another that's a level of pleasure and enjoyment is that there's an art form called fashion and it's being celebrated. It's an art form I don't understand and have no interest in. If the character kept doing ballet and telling me our ballet moves, I'd be equally like, all right, I don't care.

I would like to tell you that on page 16 is where this book decides to take a violent right hand turn you were not expecting. It's a detail that's dropped in. And again, it's incredible writing. Whenever, you know, we don't enjoy something, it is to the testament of the writer. Oh, yeah, it's brilliant writing. That, you know, we are supposed to feel things. and so there is a tone is set and then well page 16 page 16 and I don't know how I want to

I think we can say it I think we say it I know but I don't want to say it in the same kind of way the book does so the book is very flippant about everything about the central character having a baby with her husband and then the baby dies and the son dies when she goes away for a week with the husband to look for somewhere to live and the husband is jealous of the baby. And the baby's name is... The husband didn't want the baby. She had to go back to Boston to hide the baby and had to lie to him to say,

oh, I'm pregnant because he never wanted a child. She comes back for a week to find a new apartment. I didn't think it was with the husband. It's by herself because they need a bigger apartment now, even though he's not that. And she uses the phrase, on day two of my time in New York, the baby died.

Yeah. And then she's like, and then we found our apartment. It's very shocking the way it's dealt with in the book. And it does come. back up, but it's not. Very briefly. But a couple of times, and really, really,

with the absence of talking about it, the other thing is it's just so heartbreaking and sad. Yeah. It's this beginning and then this sadness and more she doesn't talk about it, the sadder I was. And I was angry that I was reading a book that essentially, once you've told me your baby's died, well, that's what I'm thinking about now. Yeah. I think as well, because it starts,

she's, like her husband wants to divorce her. She doesn't want him to do that. It's been infidelity. There's been infidelity on both sides, which again is talked about in a very modern way. But I was like, oh, I see it's going to be funny kind of sex in the city dating. And it's as if there's an episode where Carrie like got pregnant with Big and the baby died. And the next week they're like, so, so mad they've got new shoes. It's like.

Yeah. That would imagine all of the series after that. You're going, she's the woman who lost a three-month-old baby. Because, you know, she's gone with her husband to look at apartments in the baby. And it's never, it's never properly dealt with, but we should say what I found really interesting about this book is it's such a time capsule because basically every single person this book is not okay.

They are all traumatized by massive things. There are World War I injuries all over the place. There was a friend who is dying of gas poisoning, who is being told to go out west to breathe better, and everyone's like, who's going to stay in New York? Well, of course, why would you leave New York? And people are left, right and centre, covered in scars that nobody talks about. And I think it's very interesting to read that now because you're like, as a modern reader, you're like, well, there's all this trauma and this pain.

But because not a single character deals with their trauma, they are all consistently pissed. I have never read so much drinking in a book in my life. But again, that's the very madman detail, isn't it? Oh, my God. But more than Madmen, they're having it for breakfast for lunch. They're like. They're doing Madmen as well. Yeah, but Mad Men, I feel like they were.

breaks when they weren't, this, every opportunity. Johnham had a whiskey and a fag in his hand constantly. But I feel like occasionally he went to bed. Like these guys aren't going to bed. With women while smoking, well, I found it more alcohol than madmen to me. Did you? They are, also, in a book, with Mad Men, you're watching visually someone having whiskey. In a book, they don't constantly tell you, oh, I had another highball, had another highball.

She prepared to be a cocktail while I was in a shower. Yeah, yeah. So they're drunk. They're absolutely drunk. Yeah. These people are drunk and they're not talking about. These huge things are happening. But I think it's a real, for me, it was like lying and watching which normal, it's like you peeking behind this completely frozen world where you're like, my God,

that's how they were living then. That's so painful. It looks so painful to live like this. Very painful. Number one, it doesn't make being an ex-wife look fun or being divorced and also the difficult position of women, aging women, women who use their beauty as a currency because obviously it's a currency you have less and less of as you age. Her friendly to you is 30 and is about to get remarried because that is like the oldest

you could leave it to get remarried. It's almost Jane Austen in terms of marriage problems. The central character is much younger. She's got married very young. I think she's like 24 when we meet her. Yeah. It's one of the books where I was reading the whole thing and I couldn't wait to finish it and find out about the author herself.

Oh my God. Because I guess what I sort of knew is that it was sort of based on her life. So still clinging to this detail of the baby, you know, the baby, I, I, um, I thought she had really lost a son. Yes. And in fact, I didn't. You knew. Did you know already? I didn't know, but just the way she wrote about it.

I thought, I don't think of me possibly. So actually what happened was that she, a lot of the book is biographical and it's inspiration. And what happened was that she, she did have the situation where she was married to someone who didn't want the son that they were, you know, having. And then she hit him away. She left her real son in Boston with her sister and her dad because her husband at the time, this is Ursula Parrott, had said the deal was, if I marry you, no kids. And then he divorced her, so she had no money.

And she needed to go back and get the son. And then she raised him as a single mother and breadwinner on her writing money. And he's spoken out about his mum, and especially when the book has been republished and there's been sort of excitement for her again. There's an afterword from him at the back of this one. But that's why he's absent from the book. She's made a decision to kill the baby off. So she doesn't have to deal with the fact that this woman is a mother in the book.

Yes. But actually, Ursula Parrot herself isn't. Well, she was a mother. Yes, she was. And she paid for his boarding school. And, you know, he knew her. Like, she raised him, I think, from, like, the age of six or seven. He'd been raised by his aunt and by his grandfather.

So what I'm trying to say is, if you're reading it after us, the baby didn't die. Yes. She just didn't want to put him in the book, okay? So don't get too upset about the dead baby. He's alive. You found that really hard then. Yeah, really hard. And I'm just too close.

I mean, I've got a baby in my house. And I'm too close to, I can't even read the news. I'm too close to what a three-month-old baby is and what they do and how much of a person there is. They're not just this thing in a cot in a blanket. A plot device, yeah. What it was like this book is a bit like when someone shares something on Instagram, which is the real world in the news. And it's a picture, it's a story about this has happened in a wartone area.

And like the sucker punch of that being what someone's, experiences and that's happening, you're so powerless to do anything about it and how it must feel. And then they go, do you like my new trousers? Yeah, like the next stories. I've got green trousers and you're like, but you just told me this. Yeah. Why are we already talking about your trousers? But that is exactly what this book does.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's funny, isn't it? Because we're at, we're saying, oh, it's 1929 and they just flippantly talk about things and move on. But yeah, social media does exactly the same thing because humans can't process that much trauma immediately. We can't sit with it. We need to move on because our brains get like upset. But also the format of social media, the way you're told it in a splurge,

makes it feel like that. For the person posting or the group of people posting, it doesn't seem like that. I also think, do you remember when you were like a kid and you'd flick through the channels and it was awful? You'd be like, oh, no, not this, not this, not this. And the game was find something to stay because it's awful to flick through channels. Like it's annoying. And that is basically what social media is, it's flicking through channels and never finding

a program you want. But when we were kids, that was like, oh, finally I found friends. I can watch. My favorite joke when I was a child was about flicking through the channel. So, you know, it's Sunday afternoon. Yeah. There's nothing to watch. It's either horse racing, the news, a sewing program, or, um...

I'm so confused as to what's happening. I literally don't know where you go. And so the person flicking critics goes, and they're off and they're on the run. In out, in out. And the baby was born. Oh, I do remember that joke. Yes, I do remember that joke. It's a sex joke, but made with all the videos.

Yes. So for a child, that was funny. And this isn't your new Edinburgh hours? In Out, In Out, and the baby was born. It's a title. Sarah's new book, nonfiction. Yes. But that's, that's it.

It was a joke of like, oh, how could, you couldn't flick through things. It'd be confusing. And that's, that's all we do. Yeah, I found the baby stuff of, obviously, hideous. I found the, I found the sexual assault that happens worse. Well, it was denied in an equal measure, not because of not talking about it, but because of absolutely authentic, you know, lived experience, victim behaviour. of making it all right that they've been assaulted.

But also victim and the time. Like there's nothing she can do about this situation. And it's not just, it's a really creepy fucking, it's not, this man wants her and sort of like stalks her for a bit and then gets his friend to pretend that he likes her, taking him back to a flat. She wakes up and it's not the friend that she went to bed with. There's a different man who basically puts his hand

and says, don't worry about it. I'm sorry, I don't even. we can even say that because it's so awful. It's barbaric. It's barbaric. And what the story does in the book is showing the vulnerability of a woman, the danger that women put themselves in, or potentially dangerous situation by just being alone with a man.

This story demonstrates that as well. Yeah. Trusting a man, trusting men, at what point do you trust a man and how there is always an element of danger there? Because, yeah, there's this element of danger. and because she's kind of dating around town in that Carrie Bradshaw way she writes about it as if well, that's what happens.

Which is why. He did warn me, he was going to get me. So often women of an older generation and I'm sure, you know, even women of our generation, when you're trying to protect women, it is that thing of, unfortunately, always limiting their behaviour. Rather than, you know, the aggressors, the people who are criminal,

being the people that we try and police, we go, don't get too drunk, don't wear this, always have your phone, never leave your friend. Don't go home and, like, you know, don't... Well, this is it. Always get a taxi, don't walk, never hitchhike, all of these things. But she's, you know, a 24-year-old girl, ex-wife, like, she's got, you know, she's been married.

She's got an apartment, like, she's a grown-up, so why shouldn't she go on these dates? But she's sort of known about town for being, like, a date. Yeah. And so, I mean, this sexual assault comes, like, sort of three-quarters of the way into the book. And I, I mean, I was shocked by the baby, but I found this one really... Because it was dealt with so, like she says, oh, I got dressed and a kind Irish policeman walked me back to my apartment and his accent cheered me up. And then it's not mentioned.

Well, so there's, look, if we're going to talk about all the horrible things, there is that. There is a horrible, you know, it's an assault which also involves trickery and force, and it's horrific. There is a termination with the doctor. Oh, my God, yeah. Which is traumatic. And there is a situation where she's about, she's almost about to sleep with someone. And again, it's a coercive sexual interaction for a piece of furniture,

like essentially transactional sex that she's sort of saved from by a friend who's like, is this really where we are? But she's taking such bad care of herself. And I hate saying that, because it's not like I think women can enjoy sex that they want a lot. And that isn't what we're reading in this book. It's not a woman who is going on her own sexual journey. A lot of the time it's someone who is going on with what men want

and who isn't very in touch with what she wants. But then also, like, just to go. back to what I was saying earlier, like the men are in pieces. Like everyone is, like, she gets these sort of three male friends who are sort of men who are happy to go out for drinks with her and not. They enjoy each other's company. And they are like in these awful, like really desperate situations where like one of them, the father lost the favourite son and now he's making the other son like run a business and

doesn't speak to him. The other one's got like these war injuries and it's like, I just, I found it really odd that it's, again, sold to you as like, 9 or 29. this girl about town and the things that happen if it wasn't surrounded by like dancing and highballs you'd be like this is grim this is really grim also it is that thing of are we supposed to be reading more flippantly and not just taking everything very very seriously like yeah my friend just told me this happened to her yeah complete denial like that's how it feels you spend time with a book you spend time with her and i did like the character a lot and i wanted her to be okay yeah she's a great

character. Lucia's amazing character. They're really fun. Yeah. Fun women. Good women. You know, good good people. No one deserves these things to happen to them and that's it. If an author tells you something happens, you go and you just accept it as truth. It is nearly 100 years old. And I was thinking about that of like, it's like reading Jane Austen in 1912. Like it's like, oh gosh, that's near, but not near enough to, like the world has changed so much from what she's talking about. And, you know, we've had this, you know, there's wars that work on industrial scale,

there's cars, there's truck, there's all this other stuff. And I think, is it hard for us as 2024 readers to just, like I think if we'd read this in the 70s, maybe you'd be more like,

oh yeah, that was the 20s and we're still living in this. I don't know, I don't know, like, is it the time. But the human pain is the universal thing. That hasn't changed. No, no, but like that idea of like, that world we're looking at is so near but not near.

So it's kind of like, we can relate to them as women, work, she's got a job, she wasn't advertising agency. I didn't even read it as a historical document. I mean, I don't know one was texting, but I didn't miss any modernity in it. I guess that's what I mean, what I'm trying to say is like, it's near enough to be absolutely recognizable. Like that's why I can see they're republishing it because it's not like, oh, forso, the man has

has come out. It's like, no, no, these women sound like women that we can relate to, but the way it's being treated and talked about is so, we're so not living there. It's the repression. Yeah, yeah. So it's like they look like us, but they're so repressed. Yeah. Is that what we mean?

There's a great quote from Lucia, which is a bit more jolly, where she says, what do you really think about ex-wives, Lucia? And she says, we are free, Apple sauce, free to pay our own rent

and buy our own clothes and put up with the eccentricities of three to eight men who have authority over us in business instead of having to please just one husband. And I was like, there's also that side to it

where Lucia and her is like celebrating like they've got their own money. She's constantly talking about the clothes she's buying. They are having fun. But yeah, much like modern. women. It's fun and it comes with all these other

which is what's great about it as a book actually because it isn't saying women are at a point where we are in charge. We don't have to please husbands anymore. Divorce can be freeing. It's showing that actually it's still a really patriarchal world and those freedoms are really hard one and if you're a young

attractive or if you're a young woman I shouldn't bring attractiveness into it there's a vulnerability alongside it. The freedom they want, the world can't give them yet. Which is kind of similar to now, right? Exactly. Yeah.

Maybe that's why I found it upsetting. You're like, you want to compare it to your time and go, oh, well, it was terrible then. You want to slap it shut and go, that's really fun. Yeah, isn't it amazing? Like, you read Jane Austen. Our daughters will be fine. Oh, I don't have, like, you know, my marriage can be my choice. Yeah, I can have a bank account.

Yeah. And Jane Austen is far enough away for it to be history, where you read this and you're like, I want this to be history, but it feels like you're talking about now. Yes. And that's so uncomfortable. Yeah. Or this is the germination of something. that we are still really struggling with.

There's an amazing conversation where she's talking about divorce with Lucia. I mean, the friendship with Lucia is brilliant. And she's saying they're kind of slagging off feminists. And they're saying like, in the old days, your husband would have had an affair and he would have kept it secret out of shame because divorce was shameful. And you would never have found out about it and he would have had this affair come back to you.

Or you would have had your affair and you kept it secret because it would be the worst thing would be for your village to find out and you'd get divorce. And now they're saying, well he's got the power to tell you, he's got the power to divorce you, and then what do you do? You're stuck. And they're sort of like glamourising the Victorian times.

We're like, oh, I missed those days where he'd go off on cheat me and I would be protected because I had got married. I'd made that deal with society, which meant he wouldn't leave me and he would look after me. Yeah. And I thought that was really interesting hearing that from like a 1920s point of view of like, this modernism is screwing us over. I have the thing that I struggle with, which I shouldn't struggle with, because hearing you say it like that,

I find it really odd that when people divorce, you have to give them half your money. That's probably why I would think the expectation the other way around. I wouldn't want someone else's money, but that's because I consider myself able to earn my own money. Whereas they are jobs that can't earn certain amount of money. If you're getting paid,

and I know that there's still a wage gap, but if you are earning substantially less than men, if the jobs that you can get are men, if you're not educated to the same position, like all of these things we do, and also that happen in the world to absolutely bind women in terms of what they can.

can do, what can they can achieve and how they can make their own decisions look after themselves. That's why that still exists. Yeah. It's because if you divorced your wife, it was your responsibility to make sure she was supported and wasn't going to be homeless, starving, in danger. Although that happens here because the husbands have no money. Yeah. So like her ex-husbands is a journalist starting out, same as her, he's got no money.

So she's not got any money and they split the apartment. She gets some furniture, but she has to live with her friend who takes in divorced women. and shows them about town and introduces them to men and it's like this is what you do. Because I guess we're talking about this thing. So you got this jump from Austin to ex-wife to now. Yeah. In Austin's time, you know, people were virgins when they got married.

And if you were widowed, you stayed that way and there wasn't divorced because this whole like sort of virginity thing. But you'd remarry. They would remarry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But ex-wife is risen to a point where it isn't that you're sort of damaged goods that everyone was expected to be a virgin. Yeah.

But it's moralistically not completely outgrown that. Maybe we still haven't outgrown that. No, I don't think we haven't. I think that, I really did enjoy this book. And I think it's really interesting to read something that's so modern. Like, is it what it's talking about? This book made me deeply sad. Yes.

So I think that's... Oh, it didn't make me deeply sad. And I kept snapping at people sometimes when I'm reading something. Oh, wow. Also, I'm just very angry. But I kept snapping. I kept snapping. I had really sort of low temper and I realized every time I was reading I was like, I just hate what's happening so much. I hate what's happening so much. I think I just found it really interesting. Yes, it is really, really interesting. Ursula Parrot is obviously this incredible woman. Just made me so sad. Maybe I'm more numb. No, you know what I mean I think I was able to historicize it slightly and be like, this is fascinating because if you'd ask me what women in 1920s were talking about, I wouldn't have said her birth control, divorce, dealing with.

creepy men. I would have expected them to be much more towards an Austin woman, much as powerless. And I found the freshness of it, very invigorating that they sound like us. They sound like our friends. They sound like Harry Brad.

The way they speak of things is so authentic and normal in Verticom as modern. But I thought it was really upsetting to realize not much. What has changed? I thought she's miscelled because everyone's selling her as this like, oh, this funny jazz age girl about town but it's so well dressed so so yeah it's a thing that there's this very attractive woman who's

very well dressed with lovely complexion and she does talk a little bit about like routines and sort of like keeping there's a lot about makeup and dressing and creams and you know getting herself ready and she obviously like smells amazing looks amazing very very fashionable women and men notice that but then also you're seen as a shallow person you're not not a not a serious person whereas i know her baby died yeah so i'm thinking who cares about her hat who cares about her lovely skin Well, she does. That's what's interesting. She absolutely is focusing on those things that she has control over, which is like the furniture in her apartment, her cold cream,

and her amazing outfits that she has, you know, because she might see her ex. So she's like curating the outfit from hat down to the shoes, sending out her secretary to make sure her shoes are perfect because she might bump in. It's like a fucking Sex and the City episode. I didn't find it as sad as I think you did, but I found it. Because my worst nightmare.

So when you go into a book, you're escaping where you are and I kept having to escape to somewhere I was like it was like a bad dream it was like a nightmare the idea of having to go on date wash my face put a hat on be three stone slimmer than I am

be 20 years younger all of that it's like and it's probably a sign actually of how I prefer to be a middle age woman who hasn't brushed her teeth than the idea of being on a dating market trying to prove that you're lovable to sort of

to find happiness or to heal the unhappiness that you've been through. Or maybe that's it. It was like just because you don't want to die alone is what Lucia says. Well, that's it. This is it, isn't it? Because people aren't talking and communicating about things, people are being hurt. And then rather than trying to deal with it,

they're trying to solve it through meeting someone else. That's actually, that's my life. Yeah, there's absolutely no individual work. No one is like, what can I do to heal myself? Everyone is like, keep drinking, meet someone else. Yeah. Distract yourself. His fun, there's a horse ride around the central.

Yeah, like people now would still say that. I went on a deep dive of Ursula Parra. Oh good. Tell us about that. Fucking hell. She, firstly, she has a half-sister who was an incredibly famous silent film actress and also a writer and an editor. Like as a woman at that time in the silent film is, she was an editor. I was like, well, that's fascinating.

Also, it's just really, really fucking important to hear about women's lives. Yeah. Because they weren't just wives. Yeah, and she absolutely wasn't. So she marries this guy, the real guy. Lindsay Parrott is who it's based on, who was a journalist and became quite a well-known journalist and did go off into the, like to be a foreign correspondent.

She made like $7 million and she lost a lot. Like she lost everything. She died in poverty. She was friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald. So she was very popular in 1920, 9, 1930s, and then it all kind of crashed. In 1942, she made the headlines when she was brought up on federal charges of helping to help jazz guitarist Michael Brian escape from the army. She was found innocent and then she was arrested again

for stealing a thousand dollars worth of silverware from a friend's house because she had no money. Famous for reckless spending, especially on fashionable clothes and played by the heavy drinking and smoking typical of the jazz age. Parrot died of cancer in the charity ward of hospital age 58 and she was basically left like but died by herself. Jesus Christ.

And you know she was gone from like her film, her book became a film like the woman won an Oscar. Like she was the most successful, one of the most successful female Hollywood screenwriters, novelists of the time. Like, oh yeah, it was estimated she earned over $700,000, which is equivalent of 15.2 million. Bloody hell. During that period, and she lost everything.

Yeah. So she, I think, I after reading it, I think she's more interesting than this book. Or the book is interesting because she's interesting. Yeah, like she's one of those people, like, the midfords, like when you read them. Has anyone written an autobiography of her? Yes, there is a biography about. like what it's mentioned here somewhere. A biography of course, not an autobiography.

Remembering that, oh, no, remember the original ex-wife? No, there's another book about her writing and how she's kind of been forgotten. She sounds absolutely fascinating and I guess it is interesting that we absolutely know who F Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald are, but I'd never heard of Ursula Parrot.

She was clearly, this is an odd thing to say, but she sounds like she was almost like the Dolly Alderton of her day. Like, everybody knew who she was. I just mean like, the level of success. Level of success. The fascination with, interesting character, but selling lots and lots of... Girl about town, writing about love.

Getting movies made of your books. Getting movies made a book. People being like, wow, this is fascinating. And then like... But they want to do gossip about that person as well, I guess. Yeah, she became the star of the gossip magazines rather than like her writing, which again feels very patriarchal, doesn't it? It's like, well, she had all the success and then anything she did wrong,

or if she was married three times, if she was being arrested. That was the story they were running on her, rather than... If she'd been a man, she'd been a writer, it would be fine for her to get divorced and married again. So I feel like she was... Nick Hornby's never in the gossip pages. No one's ever like, what's David Nichols wearing this week? He's wearing that nice suit he wears. Yeah.

It's kind of interesting that her life is so over the top. And almost this book doesn't do justice to quite the rest of her life. It's really fascinating because it gives you a taste of something and little elements of something that happened to a really interesting writer. but just so much of it is pain, isn't it? And then when you talk about this ending, like 58 years old dying in a... And not even the fact that there's no money, actually,

because it's not just having no money. It's the loss. It's not being surrounded by people who love you. Yeah, she clearly, again, was obviously, you know, that's what I mean, everybody in the book feels like they're in desperate pain. Yes. And it's like if sex in the city was a lot more painful. I mean, there was an episode where she wet herself.

That's why I like the new ones. New ones are not as painful. But like these people are, that's the thing I really took away from it was just how damaged everybody's scenes. And what I found interesting is if you ever study that time period, it's always sold to you as like, what a laugh, right? Yeah. Like there's flappers, there's jazz, there's dancing.

And nobody ever really acknowledges, oh, imagine living through the most, like, hideous industrialized war that's ever happened of your generation. Everyone is physically damaged by it. What are you going to do? You're going to get pissed. None of you were hugs were your parents. None of you ever heard your dad say, I love you. And you've been gassed.

All your friends have their legs bone. off in front of you, you're having another highball, because therapy doesn't exist. Yeah, it's hugely difficult for homosexual people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we don't even get into, there's some, there are, we should say, some offensive, anti-Semitic comments, and also, she talks about sort of popping down to Harlem to see like these funny little jazz fans.

Yes, and that she's fine. And yeah, there's really, really, really good music, but not many white people. Yeah, and it actually, credit to favour, there is a bit at the beginning, which we've talked about in other books where it says this book contains some... Yeah. The language in these pages is a reflection of the hysterical period in which the book was originally written. It's added at the front, which I appreciate.

It is funny. There was a few funny bits. Sarah didn't think so. I like this bit that Lucia said... Of course I thought there were funny bits. Oh, what about this mad bit where all the music is from... The Gershwin music pops up. It's really weird.

Okay, tell me. That whole chapter where she's talking about the famous Gershwin's rap. Rhapsody in Blue, and she has all the musical notation on it. And it's as if the song is playing during the edit. Oh, I see. Which I was like, that's an incredibly modern, like, television thing that's happening. Yeah. But written down.

I was like, and you know that it's that, I can't. No, I don't know what song. Oh, it's a very famous New York song. Yeah. Rhapsody and Blue. So, yeah, it's very mad. But yeah, this is a bit Lucia is deciding that she,

she is going to marry again. And she says, this is what her hairdresser told her. Every attractive woman has 50. gold pieces to spend. One for each year between the time she is 20 or the time she is 35. She may squander the first 10 or 12 if she likes, but she damn well should invest the rest of them in something safe for her middle ages. So that's her answer of like, I need to get married. I am 30 years old. I spent five years listening to discourses on new books and new plays and new clothes and wisecracks. I never want to hear another wisecrack until I die. Yeah, I'm off to

marry this guy going to South America, happy and settled and protected as my grandmother. That's the cheer's choice to stop being an ex-wife. Well, it reminds me of what Stephanie Beecham said to me when I worked with her on free agents. What did she say? We were both in makeup at the same time. She said to me, I was lucky I wasn't a great beauty because she had been a great beauty and there was nothing sadder than a great beauty losing her currency. Wow.

That's so offensive and sad at the same time. But I knew what she meant. Yeah. And actually, it's right. I know it's not great and not have confidence. And I actually think you can have confidence without being a great beauty, but it can't be taken away from you. The guarantee, if you're a very beautiful young woman,

is you are going to have less and less of it as you get older. Because society will deem you unattractive. But the world will have told you had something that was worth something first, and then you watch it trickle away. So actually it's a sort of like, it's a trick other people do to you. They find you beautiful and worthwhile and then find you less and less worthwhile. Can I tell your story? Yeah.

then when I was a child I had white blonde curly hair and people used to come over and call me Goldilocks and I remember turning my hair turning brown and realizing that that meant I was not as interesting at like nine or ten discovering oh I see like it was the blonde hair and I think I'm really glad I learned that early because it was like oh see these are bastards

like have other traits you value yourself for and then of the world thank you humour I really enjoyed it as a historical thing, I did find it. It's really worth reading. Yeah, I do. It's really worth reading. I would definitely say, if you are into books,

yes. And you've never heard of her, and you do like that time period as well. Or if you're getting divorced or you're dating, I think there's lots of periods in your life where you'll find an affinity with this character. And also, it's good to be angry. It's good to be angry with history. And it's good to be glad that we communicate better now, not all of us. This would be a great book club book for, like, a group of young gals.

Lots of talk about. a lot to think about. But I would be, I feel like, yeah, be prepared for those like handbrake turns because I was not prepared for them and that made it really hard to read. I think sometimes I get tricked. I've made up a whole expectation of what a book is going to be. Based on almost nothing. But it's hard.

Someone says, oh, it was this huge best sell in 1929. Monarchy's done the foreword. I guess I'm thinking more of a Marianne Keyes. Yes. That's the kind of book I was expecting. That's what I was expecting. A 1920's Mary Ann Keys. Yeah.

But also, to be fair to Marian Keys, she also does those handbreak turns. as well of like having sadness. But this, it seemed to swing so wildly from like, I'm drunk, isn't it fun, to, oh, I'm having an abortion. And it would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. But maybe that's us being. And now the doctor wants to date me. I mean, why you make an abortion worse?

Oh my God, the doctor's going. But I wonder if that's us judging the past. Like as a reader of being like, well, we don't expect 1920s women to be that complicated. I think we were expecting more fun from these gals. And then when they were real people, we were like, oh. But it sounds like it was hard and complicated. Another high ball, Sarah. Let's get drunk and enjoy ourselves.

Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. My novel Weirdo and Carriad's book, You and Us Alone, are available in shops, but guess what you can pre-order? Carriad's children's book, The Christmas Wish Tastrophe, is also available to pre-order in time for the festive season. Bing Dong, Merrily or No.

You can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's. Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.