Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Father Figure by Emma Forrest with Emma Forrest

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

This week's book guest is Father Figure by Emma Forrest.Sara and Cariad are joined by writer and director Emma Forrest. Emma has published five novels and two critically acclaimed memoirs and was named as one of Variety's 'Top 10 Screenwriters to Watch’.In this episode they discuss Watching people from busses, fantasies, ear-worms, obsession and George Michael.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Father Figure by Emma Forrest is available here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclubTickets for Sara's tour show I Am A Strange Gloop are available to buy from sarapascoe.co.ukCariad's children's book Lydia Marmalade and the Christmas Wish is out in paperback here now. Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sarah Pasco. And I'm Carriead 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 created the Weirdo's Book Club.

A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. Each week we're joined by amazing comedian guests and writer guests to discuss some wonderfully and crudely weird books, writing, reading and just generally being a weirdo. You don't even need to have read the books to join in. It will be a really interesting, wide-ranging. conversation and maybe you'll want to read the book afterwards. We will share all the upcoming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram, Sarah and Carriads, Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Father Figger by Emma Forrest. What's it about? It's about teenage girls' obsession with a rich

and powerful man. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, teenage girls' brains will always be fascinating, weird and powerful. In this episode, we discuss. Watching people from buses, fantasies, earworms, obsession, and George Michael. And joining us this week is Emma Forrest. Emma is a writer and director. She has published five novels and two critically acclaimed memoirs and was named as one of Variety's top ten screenwriters to watch and we're incredibly excited to have her here.

Welcome to the podcast, Emma Forrest. Thank you. Hello. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. It's very exciting. It's a pleasure and not a chore. Especially as we've all travelled from the same square mile of North London.

North London. The only place where I get that writer's sensation of being like a godlike figure looking down on my characters is when I'm on the top deck of the bus and I see Sarah Pascoe or any of her family in the street and I then immediately text her. I'm like, your husband is on the way to you holding pamper as well, listening to music, bopping his head. I get the writer's rush of eye.

But sometimes it's like, you look stressed, you're taking out of recycling. The big one won't hold your hand. Oh, wow, that's nice. So now I have to be aware that I can be seen. I told you what, the God-like narrator maybe. I told you the worst DM I ever got from a stranger was from a woman who saw me doing the school run and just checking I was okay. Oh. Just after I'd have my second.

Brutal. Oppressing you with their concern. Yeah, yeah, there's God-like concern. and then there's, you didn't need to say anything. But you're an author, so you're just observing. I can't help it. Yeah. But it brings me a rush of pleasure.

You're an author original, yeah? Like you were born in North London. No, not at all. I'm there as a tourist. Oh, you're doing such original North London vibes. No, so I grew up a street away from the Tate Gallery. Wow. I thought I grew up in a mansion.

Yeah. That was the Tate. No. It turned out it was a Peabody house, which actually are worth quite a lot. Now, but in my head it was a mansion. That's where I grew up a street from the Tate and I would go hang out at the Tate when my mom was still on her way back from work because both my parents were working. And that is how I got very connected to Ophelia, which has a big place in my first memoir. But yeah, that was like my little hangout.

So London? London. And you have chosen wisely North London. Yes, where I do now live. Yeah. This is the best. It's just the greatest. Yeah.

Yeah. Give me OG London vibes. And Father Figger is very North London. Yes. And this is your first book of Emma's carry out to that you've written. Yes, it's the first one of it. I loved it. We love it.

Amazing. I love the quote about you that your favourite author's favorite author. Yeah. Like Chapparelne. Yeah. Because during beginning of COVID lockdowns, Dolly Alderton sent me a copy of your voice in my head. Which is, and that is your first memoir. Yeah.

of Emma's like, oh, I think we'd been up drinking and smoking and she'd asked if I'd read it and I hadn't. She had that insistence of like, you must, you must, I cannot wait, I'm buying it now, I'm sending it to your house. And I got this sort of delicious note card with it, like, from the desk of Dolly ordered him. She's got one of those note cards. Yeah. I always want to buy them, but I think, who are you sending them to? I've got them, because I asked where Dolly got them and I got some, but I have no one to send them to. Well, that's what I thought.

We'll have to send them to each other. Send them to me, I'd like one from the desk of Sarah. See you, let's see you next week. Anyway, she sent me Emma's book. I read it and I was reading it having such an experience of enjoyment and being moved and laughing and just being in awe of Emma. And Dolly had said to me, Emma might be friends with you. That's what she dropped. She said, oh, guess what?

Emma might be friends with you. And then Steen read your book as well. We both messaged Emma and Emma replied to both of us on, I think it was Facebook actually at the time. Facebook messaging. And I remember Steen's excitement, Emma replied to me. She replied to me too. Oh, my. And did you choose Steen or Sarah?

You were very civil to both of us. But I see more of Emma than Steen. And she sees more of me from the bus, I think. And I do report on Steen's street actions. He's easier to see as well. Yes. So maybe it's easy to be friends with you and report on him. Also, anyone listening, you've ever seen my husband doing anything you shouldn't be.

Please, hit me up. I'd love to have some eyes and ears on the street. You've written lots of nonfiction and fiction. But remember you have talked about the non-fiction, busy being free. Yes, the most recent one. A lot, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot too much. Just because it, again, of its time, of its time of, you know, Trump being elected and lockdowns and those kind of things.

Do you try to alternate fiction and non-fiction in terms of what you're giving from yourself? I don't try to, but it feels like a good palate cleanser, and it's also worked out that I've written a memoir every decade, which feels right to me. Definitely about someone who has had the life you've had of like, you know what I mean, like, start leaving schools, starting working as a teenager, as a journalist. I think some people, they were like a memoir every decade, I'd be like, you're right. I was thinking about that this week because I guess GCSE results came in

and I had several mom friends who were like, oh no, what am I going to do? I'm like, oh, you just leave school and go write books. And I'm like, no, I think that's just you. Because I failed all of my GCASC. Did you? I don't have any. Don't you? No.

I may have like a D. history or something. I think that's so cool. Now I want to fail my GCSEs. I don't know if you could today then just go get a job at a newspaper because I don't think newspapers exist in the same I don't think you can survive on newspaper money. You could be an influencer. That's the modern work for the newspapers. You could probably like get a cool substack or a podcast or something. That would be the alternative these days. You could create content. That's probably what I mean. So yeah, you literally at 17 dropped out. Was it 17? Younger. I mean I was done by 50. I think I sat my GCSEs without having actually gone in for a really long time.

So definitely out of there by 16. And got a job as a columnist. At the Sunday Times. I mean, wow. Yeah, which I don't think they should do. Like when they've asked me to look back on that. I'm like, should you have teenage columnist? Should you have very young people around like hard drinking middle-aged journals?

I don't know that that's the smartest idea. So it happened. But I also don't know how good that. writing was and I'm very grateful that it's right before the internet. So that isn't even, I do get letters from people who go, I cut and saved your columns, but it's a huge relief to me that there isn't an internet archive of those columns because I was learning how to write by writing. I didn't go do a postgraduate degree in journalism. And you get better at anything by doing it a lot. So I don't know how good those columns are. Also, before the internet, there was, people said things like,

you know, is tomorrow's chip paper about newspapers because the point was it was dashed off and then it was gone because that's how the news used to be. It was replaced and now that doesn't happen anymore. I mean, it kind of, it pertains to novel writing in that the reason I walked away from it and stopped doing journalism, I was really quite good at interviewing people, I think,

so if you think about almost famous and then swapping a girl, it's a very different story. And I think when a 16 or 17-year-old girl would show up to interview someone who's been interviewed a billion times it was so disarming for the person that I would always get a really interesting interview but what I came to feel uncomfortable with was judging someone in the space of a couple you know if you got lucky it's a couple of hours but usually it's like an hour probably not that much today judging them well or judging them hot either way I don't want to do that and I need

to sit with a character for a year which is what I get to do with novels there was also a psychological disconnect or kind of like an emotional jet lag about intensely connecting with someone, especially when you're really young and then, but they're not really your friend. But that's very hard as a teenager to judge that. I think that takes years. I still feel like I'm a bit where I'm like, oh, that person isn't your friend. But an interview. You just did a gig with them once. An interviewee, and you've both been in this position as well, is putting on a show and that show involves charm and connection. Yeah. I also think the show involves Van So like you actually...

A performance of vulnerability. Yeah, no, I think you have to be vulnerable to get good issue. Yeah, it's you can't perform it. That's what they can smell. Like a good interview is like, I'm in the opposite. I mean, the person being interviewed, there's a performance of vulnerability. But as an interview were, you have to be vulnerable. And I think that's what makes it like tiring and emotional jet lag.

It's like, you have to kind of rip out a piece of yourself and be like, well, here's my piece. Will you give me some of your piece so that we have a good interview? I think I also cared too much because I, a big impact was the Truman Capote essay, the Duke in his domain, which is his interview with Marlon Brando. And then he also has a really beautiful essay called A Beautiful Child, which is his piece about his friend Marilyn Monroe. And he spends as much care and precision on a celebrity interview as a war reporter would,

basically like, tell us what you've seen. And that doesn't, if you try to replicate that, that doesn't make public as happy. But if you care about good writing, that's what you do. So that is another big reason. I was just like, this isn't for me because I care too much about it being beautiful writing. Yeah. Oh, wonderful. So let's talk about Gail.

Yeah. He's talking teenagers. Have you explained to anyone why even finding your way into the book was? Well, yes. I actually wasn't going to say, let's talk about your book. But first, more about me. So my mother's called Gail. And I had to realise your central character was Gail until we started.

And then Gail is in love with, infatuated with having an imagination of relationship with George Michael. When my dad left, he was replaced with a poster of George Michael. But it was very, very big and it was on my mum's door. And we were told as, you know, so I would have been seven, very impressionable. This was mum's next husband. So like, get ready for mummy to marry George. And we were very used to him. And then when George Michael came out, which actually is a really glorious moment of someone being able.

to live their truth and say who they really are and still be beloved by everyone apart from my mother who was so let down that the marriage was off and a happy ending and then she'd never be married so at the beginning's book I was like ah so many personal feelings that I have to put aside well and then of course I got to know the gale in this book and she's nothing like my mum they're very very different so father figure is about this teenage girl gale who lives in north London she's going to a posh north London school and at some point she becomes aware someone says to, oh, do you know that's the house George Michael lives in? It's true. He lived there.

And she becomes sort of obsessive writing letters to him, whilst at the same time having kind of wild teenage girl adventures. And she's Jewish, which is a really important thing, because she's also grappling with religion, culture, understanding that from a London perspective. Well, can you pass and what can you get away with? Because all teenage girls, right, are kind of shapeshifters. And if you look at the core of what anti-Semitism is,

it's like, oh, they're tricking us. Like with each generation, it was projected onto Jews, what is the worst thing you could be in society? So if the worst thing you can be as a communist or communists are Jews, if the worst thing you can be as a capitalist, or capitalists are Jews. If the worst thing you can be is not white, then they're non-white and they've somehow infiltrated the white race. And then if the worst thing you can be as white,

then they're white people who are colonized, on and on and on and on. But that, for me, is a replica of what happens in secondary school, teenage girls is like how do you shape shift how do you become accepted what's the what's the right thing to say and the right way to behave to not be seen to be trying to get away with things and she's in particularly an all-girls yeah and she's a scholarship which i was as well so she's on academic which is weird to end up with no GCSEs when you're on academic I was very rebellious of you like come on uh but yeah so she's already a fish out of water yeah and as you get deeper into the boat, you see this isn't

the first school she's been in, she's moved from school to school. She's incredibly intelligent. Yes. A lot of the humour of the book, things I found so funny were things that absolutely have a 16 year old or a 15 year old brain

creates a narrative from things. I found it so funny. I've got an example of this actually because I, especially when it's something that I've sort of forgotten about being a teenage girl. And that's exactly what a teenage brain does. Okay, so she's given a lemon by a grocer, and he specifies that it's an Iranian lemon.

So she's already got something to think about, but because one of her friends has recently been fingered, so I'll just read the passage. So she couldn't quite understand in what way he'd connected her to an Iranian lemon. So she focused on completely different. A special lemon, tart and bright, that's what it meant. The lemon meant he wanted to put a finger inside her body as the boy had to faith, which is her sort of not really a friend but a girl from school

who she's tried to be a friend it was a kind of tacit agreement and she weighed whether the finger having touched so many having touched so much citrus might disrupt her vaginal pH loved it so much because this is how the brain leaps

of everyone that's how brains leap but a teenage girl's sphere of interest the things that she focuses on which is does he like me what does that mean what might he do to me Is that going to disrupt my vagina?

Who's looking at me and why? Do I want to be looked at? And then the thing that is part of growing up is, what do I want to look at? It's that moment of not thinking, as most teenage girls do, that you have to be on view to everyone who wants to see you, and getting to the place of,

well, what am I interested in? Because that's really tricky. I think that's a huge life journey. Yeah, we don't all get that. I mean, we could talk about, for absolutely forever, because you have the visibility, and this isn't just for teenage girls, and I know it can be also exacerbated by certain factors like, you know, your skin colour, your hair colour, your body shape, your boob sides, there are things that make you visible

that you don't feel in control of, and then you have, at the other end of ageing, invisibility. Right. And another thing you're not in control of, I want to be seen, I was here first, actually. I was in the queue. You get gifted this currency that you're not told is going to be taken away I guess that's thing and I think you deal with Gail

so well that she she's at that bit where she realizes people are looking She's rich Yeah But like she's unusual looking But she's very pretty But not in a kind of

You know blonde hair blue eyes way She's got something And she's smart And that men do start noticing her And that's that weird teenage thing Where you're like

This is a power But I don't know how to use it having absolutely no volume control whatsoever. I mean, a very key moment in my life, and I'd say, this is an easy Google, but is it around 1998 that the Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton scandal happened? Because the moment that happened, I was like, you know, the part about how it began because she showed her thong to the president. I'm like, well, I would have done that. Of course. Of course you show your thong to the president.

I think Wilclinton and you were both lucky you weren't interning. Absolutely. I understood where she came from, you know, that lack of volume control. Yeah. And that it can, in her case, essentially cause the downfall of the Western world, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gail is at a party of Agatha? Is that how you'd pronounce it? So Agatha has had a birthday party that she was... Agatha is a friend from school who is rich.

Yes. Very, very rich. And very troubled in your own. officially invited and that whole storyline I love with the mum going to the school but she's gone up to Agatha's dad's office

that conversation and it's interesting That made me so nervous So I'm like Get out now As a 44 year old I had to reread it a couple of times because my response to it at 44

is so different to what it would have been at 30 And so different to what it would have been at 20 Because actually I read it going What chance do they have And I never would have thought that at 30 At 30 I thought all responsibility was of the adults in any situation, anyone with a power gap,

anyone who's in a position. Oh, I see you thought the dad, what chance did he have? But I was reading the scene going, what is so brilliant is as someone who is the age of the dad, not of the child now, and it is a child, about how intelligent and matter how beautiful, a 16-year-old is a child, what chance do they have?

And that doesn't mean that I'm excusing anything. I just have more of these flowers. vulnerable, egomaniacs who want to be loved, who want to be answered, who want to be fixed. I just,

I guess it breaks my heart actually because of... Yeah, so she got... The pain on both sides. And her, the... Ezra, who is Agatha's dad, is the man, she goes into Ezra's office,

who is an extremely wealthy but also dodgy. Controversial tabloid figure. Yeah, he's been disliked. He wants to be seen a certain way. He's incredibly powerful and you've got a 16 year old girl and she's there saying I get you. I mean, she's saying I understand you. Who is powerless to that? To someone saying, I care, I see you, I'm like you. But it's so interesting because you're seeing, like reading it,

you're like, she doesn't know what she's talking about, but also she does. Like the flawed, I think you capture that, the flawedness of humans. So that's where it's all set up is the idea for the entire book that the audience should be on the back foot. about who is more dangerous to who. Who is going to be the last one standing? Yeah. Who should be frightened. And a big inspiration for that.

I say in the acknowledgments of the book, my mum, I'm a real old Hollywood buff, and I get that from my mum. And there's a film she showed me when I was quite young called Pretty Poison, which was the first film that after Psycho, Anthony Perkins, did. So, you know, have become a massive horror icon,

everyone terrified of him. And then in this, he's with an ingenue teenage girl Tuesday Weld who's very wholesome looking and because of that casting you assume that she's in danger and it takes you a little while to go oh he should be worried so that was quite a big influence yeah yeah is that dance all the way through dance is such a lovely word because in that scene he tells her to go away yeah almost every sentence including fuck off yeah fuck off out of here, you're in the wrong place. He doesn't leave. He does like, that's the thing. He doesn't do the thing of like, you're a child, get out, I'm walking you down

and save to a room for the people. This girl just came up here in front of it. You know what I mean? He doesn't make the situation safe. He doesn't diffuse the bomb. He doesn't do, yeah. He keeps that energy because that energy's interesting and exciting. It is.

It's the bobbing up. It's the fact that a teenage girl is used to being told, a child is used to being told to go away. Yeah. And so whereas you or I at this stage might be crushed, like, oh, they don't want to speak to me, a teenage girl goes, and then this, and then this, and then what about this angle then? Oh, what's that behind you?

A dance is a perfect. I think for all of us, we would say at this point, and this to me is the heartbreaking thing, is that little people should be protected by adults from their fantasies and obsessions, right? You know, and that doesn't, we all have memories, probably unfortunately of that not happening when someone reacted to our projecting fantasy

onto them instead of saying I'm going to protect you from this. Yeah, I'm going to stop. I'm going to pull the plug on this fantasy immediately. What you're seeing, this power plate doesn't exist. And I'm going to go downstairs and tell my wife in front of you, and I'm going to call your mum. And when your mum comes to pick you up, and I go, this is what happened.

You're a lovely girl, but obviously you can't come around in you. There are so many ways to be like, I remove this. And I think as teenage girls, yeah, that's what you're doing is you're like, please pull the plug on this video and I think or just let me leave with it intact no no no no no no the fancy do you think that because I feel like it's about the safe space

I was very lucky that as a teenager I had these I had all these fantasies and imaginations I was thinking about it yesterday because it's so weird to remember I had just such an imagined life of what it would be like if my favourite people from fame were my friends in inverted commas But I didn't meet any of them None of them came near me Couldn't even afford to go to a concert

So it was just intact It's just left Yeah but that's a different fantasy To like going to a man's office That's what I mean It's like Oh I thought you You said your favourite people from Fame

I thought you meant The developer television show And I could have talked for hours About Bruno Martelli Who had two synthesizers Not just one Oh no I never got over

Then the guy from Fame Then turns up in ER But in the film He's got hair Oh yes of course Anthony Edwards Yeah yeah And then yeah that's

That blew my mind watching that later being like, how, because he's like cool in fame and he's got all his hair and he's like, and then in the R, he's not, anyway. Yeah, I feel about like a sexual exchange. But I think that's the difficulties. If you are a teenager and it's real people in your real community that you fixated on, I still think there is like this buffer.

I do believe there's a buffer. And actually, we mentioned, so Emma Jane, who was on the podcast talking about her book slags. Very similarly, I think there's this phase between childhood where you have a fantasy of what your adult romantic relationships will be like and then you have your first actual forays. But that's the thing. The ideal is that you are romantic fraying with someone your own age

who also is confused and also doesn't understand. And that's what we're seeing here when it is someone in their 40s. That's where the power play comes into. Whereas it was two teenagers, obviously not ideal. But there's a safety in that of the idealised ideal would be that that teenager also is coming to you going, oh, I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm playing at this too. Whereas when she goes to a 44-year-old man, he's like, well, okay.

But you could have a safe fantasy of that. Because if it's imagined, what's imagined is he has all this passion towards you. So you have this ego boost. If I am attractive, da-da-da-da, and he will know what he's doing. Yeah. But so you can live out that fantasy safely and then begin, as in no one interferes with it. There are no real adults in the room. Yeah.

Well, it's also to with Gayle because she sort of loves him, but she sort of also is like love bombing his daughter. Yeah, yeah. It's like the whole, the whole family. She is, oh God, this is one of the worst things I'll ever admit out loud. But I once read, in another lifetime, I read a then-boyfriend's mother's diary. And it was about me and about how great I made her feel and how important my presence in her life was. And that, clearly I shouldn't have done that.

But that had a really big... So she didn't give it to you to read. Oh, obviously not. She might do. Someone might say, you know, have loved meeting you. No. Here's how I wrote you up. Because that would still be a little bit...

I thought what you were saying was I shouldn't have known that side of the things that influence my boyfriend. She found it. She shouldn't have read it. Yeah, so that had a big impact. So I am fascinated by the idea. And I do think this happens of being attracted to an entire family. Yeah. Like, literally the child, the mother, the...

father the grandfather you know there's a couple episodes of sex in the city where she um she gets on so well the it's a feminist lecturer mother who loves her articles so it's sort of like this sort of petulant yeah she's not very he's a pre-jaculator but she's like so into the family yeah so so there's something real there because she is attracted to all of them in a way but she is manipulating all of them as well well that's the thing with why gail's such an interesting character is she's not it's I don't think she always knows what she's doing and that's the kind of she thinks she does she thinks she does as well so you hear this voice which is like no no I'm manipulating this daughter who has an eating disorder but I'm also helping her and the dad's

going to love me for this and I'm sort of going to they're going to love me so much they'll absorb me into their family but also I don't want to leave my mum because I do love my mum even I hate my mum yeah and I think again you captured that teenage girl like there's just so much fucking going on There's also, like, there's a degree of ventriloquism and, what's it called, like, voistering because a big part of the book is that Gail lives alone in a small flat with her single mother. And I live alone in a small flat with my daughter who's on the cusp of adolescence. So I'm also was trying to work through what the worst possible case scenario of this setup would be, which is something I do. a lot, especially in my novels, as opposed to my non-fiction, is try and make things safe by writing about them, because if I put them on the page, they don't need to happen in real

life. So it catastrophes fictionally? Exactly. Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. Like, wouldn't it be bad if? Yeah. So you can say to your child in years later, like, this is so cliche, you're just living my book. So they wouldn't dare. They wouldn't dare do these things because, like, my mom's already written it. Yeah. How embarrassing. Yeah. We should talk about mothers and daughters. Sure. Because I think you capture that very well, that Gail, again, our main character, is so mean to her mum sometimes, which again, I read very differently now having an eight-year-old daughter who behaves very much like a teenager quite a lot.

And that realization of like the importance of that relationship, but also the repulsion of that relationship is just so painful. Well, because we're cruelest to the person who's our safe person. That's why they're safe, is that you can be horrible to them and they won't collapse and die. I really felt for Gail's mum. Yeah, me too. I was on Team Dar. Is it Dar? Dar, yeah. Yeah, me too.

I was like a poor woman. She's doing her fucking best. She's exhausted. Everything she does is wrong. She's brilliant. And it reminds me a little bit, only a little bit of, because we read. Swingtime recently by Zadie Smith

Oh yes, it reminded me of that and the character in that the mother who is so sort of judged and the daughter doesn't like but she's her head is in a book and she's educated and it's not 100% for the child

and a child will resent even 1% that isn't directed towards them Yeah, it also I mean you may have thoughts about it we've talked about so my mum had us in her 40s and I had my kid

I guess I want to say I was like 36, which already they label a geriatric pregnancy. And I remember my mum saying how physically tired she was a lot of the time compared to, like, sometimes moms will be nice and be like, do you want to play tennis? She's like, no, I do not want to play tennis. And so I pushed Dar's age up as far as I could about when she had, Gail, because I want to see where that exhaustion takes you because I know the moments in life where I'm on the cusp of thinking oh I might feel insane today it's just tiredness it really is yeah I often think like having had I think I was like 35 or something when I had my first yeah like late it's from you know

my mom had by that point had two kids who were at secondary school um and I think it's one of those things it's a hard lesson that our generation have learned of like oh it doesn't matter it doesn't matter when you have kids have when you're like oh there's a reason there's a reason they were having in their 20s you had a lot more fucking energy not that then you make different decisions

it's like there's no there's no perfect time to have a child but yeah the level of exhaustion you have past a certain age is rough the work element intersect so I had a single mum who worked full time and what that means is once your children have their own lives

I mean, so I would say for us, that was definitely from 11 because I got a train to school and my mum came home from work at 6 o'clock, half past 6. So you don't know what your children are doing. And then because my mum was tired, she went to bed at night. So from 13, Cheryl and I were climbing out of the window to go clubbing. We were feral like cats. She couldn't keep us in.

And I've probably said this before, but she hid the keys from the windows so that we couldn't unlock them. And so we broke a window in the bathroom. and we left a ladder in the garden so that there was no way she could stop us from getting back in and she would spin the lock she did everything she could

but the woman had to sleep because she had to go to work and we understood nothing of a mortgage or what it would happen if you didn't go into work one day or failing at work or why she was worried about you

why she was thinking you're a bit young to be going out and doing this and getting in cars with strangers to get home and all of that stuff yeah but So this is the thing about a mother who has to work. How much can she really know about your life? And then a gap, perhaps the person closest to you could confide in.

There just isn't the time for you to have the intimacy. I found that heartbreaking when she's a nurse and she has a doctor's bag. And her daughter judges her so harshly. Like, oh, she just thinks she's a doctor. It's like, it's just a bag. That thing that you do is, mum, you're like, I hadn't even put any thought into it. and your child comments on something. And you were like, I remember, really,

my mum trying on a dress and me saying, oh, that's a bit 80s, so I must have been like, it must have been the 90s, it must have been 10ish, something. And she just took it off. They were going out, she took the dress off and put saying else on. And was like, fine. And I remember thinking, what's her beef?

Like, why is she being so weird about a dress? And thinking, I'm a kid, no one cares what I think. Why does, like, and it just not realizing now, she just probably wasn't sure if it looked nice. anyway, then your child just ruined your evening. It's also a really important developmental stage for your child to be repulsed by your body, by your appearance, by your smell, so that they're able to separate and one day do things on their own.

But it's obviously a more intense thing to be living with when it's just you two in a flat. I remember so clearly that the morphine from, you know, you carry a sleeping five-year-old to their bed and they're still half asleep and in their sleep they open their lids and look at you and go I love you like that's the core of who they are yeah and then versus a you know 10 year old who's like I don't want to look like you ever you smell you smell bad um they have to be disgusted I read something you wrote which made me laugh so much was um you were trying to leave and your daughter was like, so your child was like, oh, I don't, I don't know what you're wearing. Something like, you look stupid. Also, no, none of my friends like you're writing.

Oh, yeah, no, that all of the, yeah, she was like eight when she said that. All of the children laugh at your books. Like, they just know how to slam you. Which touched me, yeah, because she clearly knew that I care about my books. Yeah. I loved that. Yeah. Something I hadn't ever put together before, but I really took from Gail.

teenage girls and this need to fix and I think that's and to fix as a part of a heterosexual relationship and I can only say that because I'm straight so I don't know if it is also part of a homosexual relationship or a polyamorous relationship but part of the root of romantic love being bettering, soothing healing

but then also in pop star adoration seeing where someone's pain is so clearly and wanting to give them your fandom love as a way of it. So Gail has that with Michael and with Ezra. Yeah. Yeah. Why did you choose George Michael?

Oh, a really basic reason, which is that everyone in England knows, oh, I'm going to cry, that he was doing his best. And everyone in the book, especially Da, are doing their best. And it's so heartrending when you know someone's doing their best and it isn't enough to keep them afloat, you know. everyone I feel I don't know anyone who doesn't feel incredible warmth towards George Michael like that that was just a decent human who owned all of his errors and you know didn't allow anyone to say he was a tragic figure because he was caught in the toilet he was like yep that's where I wanted to be you know so he's the moral compass of the book and I feel to some degree he's the moral compass in the UK right now like there's a really palpable longing for George, I feel, in the air. Am I wrong? I don't know.

I think he is absolutely beloved and is it a sad story, George Michael? I mean, he drove his car through the front door of snappy snaps in Hampstead Heath. And then someone wrote on the thing, George Michael was here or something. No, they wrote, Wham! I knew it was really good. I remember the time where it's all we were like, that's good. It's so, it's not like subtextual that he was getting things

wrong. It's on the surface. And the outside video, that's one I'm remembering. When he got caught, and he got caught in the toilet and then he did a music video, set the toilet. And all the your arms turned down, they were all glittery and everything. Yeah, so when Wembley opened again for concerts, I bought, because my mum loved George Michael so much,

bought her tickets to go and see George Michael. And then when he did outside, he dressed up as a policeman. And my mum at that point was a magistrate, and she went, get up, we're going. And we left the concert. We left the concert. I remember this walk. George let her down a lot. I'm surprised. My mum was really judgmental of her previous loves.

I took her to see, as a present for her birthday in South End. No. Said I loved you, but I lied. What do I mean? Oh. Did she be in with me? Michael Bolton. Michael Bolton, another of her loves.

And he walked out. So I bought her front row. Michael Bolton, I remember this. I think maybe things aren't going as well for some of the pop stars doing their reunion. And so it was a theatre in South End and I got front row tickets for my mum's birthday and he walked out on stage and she went, he's cut his hair. And she whispered a way. She went, let's go, let's go.

I'm going. She said, I can't watch him. He makes me feel old. And I said, we're front row. I've played the theatre. We cannot leave. I know what it feels like to have people get up. I'm like the wrong thing.

And then leave and everyone looks at them and you want to cry but you can't till the end. I'm not doing that to Michael Bolton. So we sat there and she had her sort of arms folded, shaking her head in. She wouldn't look at the text. He was playing the crowd, looking into people. I mean, he was fantastic, I have to say. This is no way. And then there was a bit where he went out into the crowd.

And so everyone was turning around. She went, now can we go? And then we walked out of Michael Bolton. That's sort of 40 minutes in. So you have a key person in your life who is a endlessly fascinating novelistic figure. to unpick and diagnose and psychologise and understand, and it doesn't help. Well, it doesn't because she doesn't want me to talk about her.

I'm sorry. No, no, no, say, sorry, I brought her up. This is all fine. This is all in fine territory. But yes, I could just write about my mother. That's my point. Also, she's so bemused by me doing comedy because she doesn't find me funny. But it's like, I'm not funny.

You are funny. And I told people about you for a decade. and you've bought me a flat. Hey, that's mum's job. I feel like that about grief costs. I was like, I talked about my dead father and eventually I was able to sell a book from it. And I was like, yeah, that's, thank you.

Now the deal is done. Your ghost can go. Yeah, and then that's what we can say to our own children. They're like, you did this and that and like, now, go forth and make up. Let me know how it works out. A big, a lot of Gail comes from like a very specific. I really thought you're talking about Sarah's mum.

I was like, wow. A lot of Gail comes from a specific, unusual thing in my upbringing which is my self-esteem problem was that my self-esteem was too high because of my own. You even say that in the book, who, who, who, there's a bit what you said where I was like, I've given her too much self-esteem. Yeah, like because I remember really clearly that my mum, you're like, this is an Edinburgh fringe story, that my mum had told me I was like, not only brilliant, but I was like the most beautiful girl in the world. And when I was 12, I went and did, was in a player at the Edinburgh Fringe, at the same time.

as the 18 or 19-year-old Rachel Weiss was in a play at Edinburgh Fringe and I went, I might not be the most beautiful girl in the world and I was just overwhelmed, bewildered. And that's a lot of Gail. And meanwhile, a dad who absolutely adores and loves us according to strangers who he tells. He's never said it to us.

He bores everyone else with it. And we were the perfect example. Last week, I was at a funeral with them that was intended to be like a really upbeat, joyful funeral, culminating in a Buddy Holly covers band playing songs. And I was dancing to it. And my mom was going, go in the center of the room. Let people see you. I was like, I'm right here. She's like, no, you should be up in the center. And as she was saying that, my dad came up to me and whispered. you dance like Donald Trump. That makes Gail. They give, they take. You know? Wow. Yeah, I find that really interesting.

And it did make me... It's so brilliant, Emma. Makes for good character. And also the seesaw, the balance of arrogance and insecurity that a creative person does need. You do need to have days where you're flying and no one can touch you. It reminded me of you.

Yeah, yeah, that is me. Because when she said, when Dawn was like, she got too much, my self-esteem and we've talked about this long so I'm not that I do not come from that teenage life at all right yeah who was like you were digging coal mining to find self-esteem and I've and that's what I find gale sometimes I was like how how do where does that come from but actually knowing you and knowing you very yeah some people do have that yeah I'm amazing and it's like or just a big is it just from a mom that

tells you you're great I think I think it comes from young childhood I don't that you can get it no matter what happens in your life later on whatever kind of enforcement you've got, your fragility is set quite early in childhood. When I read Alan Davis's book, which I've mentioned a few times, and I love it so much, and it's about his mum's death, but he describes with stand-up the moment where you walk on stage. You've just said your name and a mic and you walk on stage, and the audience just clap that you're there. You have this, even from being quite new, it doesn't have to be that much more than 100 or 200 people. There's a feeling of, you've done nothing to deserve it. But apart from arrive,

and he said the only thing that's similar is as a toddler, your mum, with her arms outstretched, It's you as you walk towards her. And hopefully for most people, that is their experience of being a young child. And I know that actually in some ways, I don't want to say privilege, it's a great fortune to have someone who's like, you. Not only are you like, oh, you're enough, which is what we're looking for in adulthood. But like, you are so fantastic. That experience is why you make stuff.

But you're so lucky if something happened, you were given something in young childhood. I think it's almost like bull in a china shop, a robustness to go, Oh, it's not that you don't think, go, oh, I broke it. Or, oh, that person doesn't like me. I think it's more than that. I think it's more than, yeah, I think it's like an alchemical. Yeah. What's the word?

Alchem. Come on, fix it. We can say alchemy and know what you mean. Alchemical. A chemical? Yeah, let's go with that. Because I think you're right, it's that. But then it's also something within that person as well.

Because I felt like, chat, my mom was great. Yes. But it's like, it's something within that person. It's like that magic thing with children where, like, there's already something there. And then a mum. It's like, you're the most amazing thing. And then the school happens to not bash it out of them. And then, like, they grew up in a place where it's also, like, all comes together to be like, I'm amazing.

You're right, because with three-year-old, we went to a three-year-old's birthday party the other day, and so many of them are shy. And I'm like, oh, whereas my children, you know, one of them's nearly two. But they are, it was so amazing to watch the not all children are like my children. And then to go, oh, that was me. Yeah. The one standing in the middle. No one had to say going to middle of dance. But the poor lady was trying to make balloons.

and Theodore wouldn't leave because every time he had one and he was like, can you do this then? And I was trying to explain to him sort of other people who are at the party and he's like, she doesn't want to make them for them. She wants to make them for me. That's what I mean.

It's like there's like, you know, like good popcorn gets heated at the right temperature. It's an interesting point when the boldness it's like she realizes that boldness whereas I think when you're a pre-teenager you're just a kid, don't you don't really understand and you get to the point.

You're like, oh, this is interesting about me. Yeah. This is something that other people don't have. Like Theodore doesn't know yet there's other people But you get to a point where you're like Oh, I'm a bit special because I've got Because I'm this intelligent And I'm this disarming to people

Like you said like you as an interviewer When you were a teenager Yes That's the first time you were like Oh I see they're not used to me turning up I'm not looking down the road with like there's 20 of me I'm special Yeah

And this is where you leave the reader In a really I think very powerful voyeuristic position because I want teenagers to have that boldness and that space for boldness and no one, even slightly older, to be able to encroach on it or fuck it up. I think we should just be watching applauding.

I know. It doesn't happen. It makes me sad. How do we make sure that adult men, sorry to say that it's adult men, who just need to understand a bit more about teenage girls so that they can watch it happen like a show but still realise it's a not touching,

not getting involved show? It's like, be astonished and be glad that those people exist but also realise they are not for you. Yeah, just be bemused but be safe and keep your hands in your pockets. We print T-shirts that say that. Be amused but be safe. About footballers, sports people, I should say in general actually, who often are young men who have a lot of attention

and don't realise their own power. And also I've had a life where they haven't been mixing properly and probably not consuming. very much culture. How do we make sure they understand what their fans are coming to them with? He's in the book. The footballer. You have the footballer in the book who has the same experience. Did Nick Hornby say not call him Terry? Yeah. He, he, yes. Just want to acknowledge what I was very funny. We had to talk about the fact that it's been optioned. Yeah, totally. Oh, I don't think I knew that. Oh, yes. It's been optioned by seesaw. Oh, yes. It's been optioned by

I see-sore as a miniseries. Wow. I'm writing that right now. Because I did, this is the first book I've ever written that, if not directly a thriller, is thriller adjacent. Yeah, yeah. What, suspenseful then? Suspenseful, hopefully a page turner. Because I can, I mean, you said I was the writer's writer.

I can give you sentences to put in a sentence museum. But, which is my favorite thing when I'm reading. other people's books. I'm like, plot, I don't care. I'm not bothered. Are there great sentences? But this is very plotty. Was that a conscious choice to try to see like, oh, what would happen if I did do that? Yes, it was. And the truth is that if you're interested, it took a whole new lifestyle to get there. So I used to love, well, I do love working out. I would work out probably four or five times a week. And the concentration level it took me to maneuver. managed this very plotty book, I gave that up completely.

There weren't enough hours in the day. I worked harder than I've ever worked. Usually when I'm writing a book, I'm also writing a screenplay for cash. And this, I couldn't, I couldn't, I knew that it was too big a task to do both at once. So instead, like, I literally like, I genuinely sold some of my grandmother's jewelry to have enough hours and time and space to write this. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, because it does have that plot driving it. Yeah. Like you said, it's beautifully written. It's a world. It's a world. I was talking to Carad

about this because I've read several books recently that I've been incredibly commercially successful, not that's a negative thing, but then I've been so disappointed by the fact I'm so aware

it's a book the whole time I'm reading it. And so you know, so you sort of go, oh, okay, I see what you've done there. Or, oh, like that thing about, oh, there's a sentence

or that simile doesn't make any sense. I'm so aware. And I, Gail felt. very real to me. This world is very real. And I think that's the immersion that you've done. The texture. Do you find it easy to write? Are you someone who's like, I just sit down and I can do it? I feel my best self. Definitely, you know what? I used to procrastinate

until I had my daughter. And I think I have, ever since I had, have been so grateful for any time and space to write that I don't waste any time. It's much clearer. and cleaner for me. And also, I'm quite, I'm a weird combination because I'm, it sounds like a weird thing to say, I'm fairly charismatic, but I'm also very introverted in social situations. So, I'll dance, but not in the middle. You're not in the middle. And I, but very well at the side. I'm very uncomfortable at parties. Like, at a party, you know how in South Park, when the characters leave, they walk sideways? Like, at a party, I feel like I'm always walking sideways like i'm eric hartman moving sideways and that i'm only fully fully dimensional

when i'm alone and writing so it feels like a nice pace to come back to rather than like a hellscape you have to chain yourself no speaking of someone we're always interested in people's writing yeah process yeah so that's what you're working on now is the screenplay for this yes yeah it's really exciting do you find yourself constantly thinking i will be your I know, I did really struggle with that. Every time I saw it. Like it was too much of an earworm. Yeah.

And then someone... Every time I saw the book. Someone told me that if you sing Karma Chameleon, it gets rid of earworms. So now I'm going between father figure, calm a chameleon. That's the bullshit because it just gives you karma chameleon. It doesn't work, yeah. It just gives you a different earworm.

It's like, oh yeah. Do you want calm comedian? Here's this medicine. It will get rid of your disease with this different disease. Yeah, exactly. Every time I saw it. No, no. No, also my child's, my daughter's obsession is Kay.

So that is a, from the moment she wakes up, to the moment she falls asleep, that is what she's talking about. And so, the way I work, I know that the next book or short story is going to have a K-pop figure in it because I have to make safe this thing that makes me feel like I may go insane. Yeah. Like, you know, when I've directly said to her, are you able to talk any less about K-pop? which like, no. So, okay, I'm going to have to write this into the next thing. But hey, it's very, it's on trend. Like, lots of people are interested in it.

Like, I think your kid is giving you a very relevant topic to write about. You know what it has to it as a creative, incredible precision? Like, I'm not that interested in the music, but when you're seeing eight people move in perfect precision, almost like Busby Berkeley dancers, that's fascinating. Because with writing, with writing a book, It can feel so muddy, you know, it's not like writing a screenplay where there's an act structure. The precision and clarity is something that you're reaching for with every sentence, or I am anyway.

So that's what I take from K-pop. If you're ever interested, there were lots and lots of rehearsal videos of Madonna dancing. Oh, I love that. Watching someone who's so physically perfect in terms of her musculature because she has trained for it. She's a dancer. She is a dancer, but looking for the perfection of her. the precision with dances. That's what's so nice about watching rehearsal of it.

Beyonce rehearsal one when she said a documentary and they were literally like again, again, again, and you were like, oh, that's how you get to do it like that. Also, why we're talking about Madonna? Yeah. You started it. Yeah, no, I don't know. I think that's, my algorithm is giving me lots of Madonna, which is fantastic.

She gave the Turner Prize Award. I saw that the speech. And it's about awards. Recently? No, no, no. No, right. I just popped up. I think the year

Martin Creed, I think it's the light switch. Oh, okay. I think, but it's about why she said yes to it, even though it's how dare anyone compare art. It's such a fantastic speech. That's another one of people are listening to go in.

Anyway, we've got off topic. We've got off topic. I just want to quickly mention the studio, the amazing episode with Zoe Gravitz, where she's pretending the whole time she doesn't care. Yes. She's like, you said you didn't care. She's like, of course, I care.

I have to pretend, not to get. This is an amazing speech about the fakeness. You're going to love the studio. It's so good. It's made for us. Yeah, you would love it. Emma, thank you so much. This has been so amazing.

We could talk to you all day. It's such a brilliant book and thank you for writing it. And it is my favourite thing, reading someone's writing and loving it so much and then being able to be seen by them from a bus. That they know who I am. You can't say she is not a weirdo. No, she's a weirdo. She is a wonderful, wonderful weirdo.

Welcome to the Weirdo's Book Club, Gail. I will be a palo. And singing us out. character channel. You want George back. Don't worry, guys. I'm here. I'm here to keep the flame alive. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. My book, Lydia Marmalade and the Christmas Wish, a middle grade book for 8 to 12s who like adventures, sausage dogs and silliness. It's available to buy for Christmas presents now. And I'm on tour. Tickets for my show. I am a strange glooper on sale from sarah pasco.com. You can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing this

series on our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club and please join us on Patreon please join us on Patreon she was determined to do the whole album I thought you were drinking your water I'd finished join us on Patreon to hear more of this absolute excellent BTS stuff thank you for reading with us we like reading with you