Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Frankie by Graham Norton with Graham Norton

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

This week's book guest is Frankie by Graham Norton.Sara and Cariad are joined by author, comedian, presenter and National Treasure Graham Norton.In this episode they discuss cakes, art, London in the 50s, buses, restaurants and pen pals called David.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Frankie by Graham Norton is available to buy here.You can find Graham on Instagram @grahnortTickets for Sara's tour show I Am A Strange Gloop are available to buy from sarapascoe.co.ukCariad’s children's book Where Did She Go? is available to buy now.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.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. 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 crucially 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 Carriard's Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Frankie by Graham Norton. What's it about? It's the funny and bittersweet reflection on Frankie's long and incredible life. What qualifies it for the weirdos book? Well, it's the only book we've read where a character puts peach oil on light bulbs. In this episode, we discuss cakes, art, London in the 50s, buses, restaurants, and pen pals called David.

And joining us this week is Graham Norton. Graham is the author of five novels and a National Bloody Treasure. We're so excited. I'm very excited that he's here. Welcome to the podcast. Graham Norton! Oh, thank you very much.

I wanted to drum more, but I thought that's not good of a podcast, is it? For the microphones. That would be bad. Yeah. Let's go with a few wet dish falling out of my bucket. We're so excited, Dr. Really excited.

It's so exciting. No, because I often listen to you. So thank you very. It's a lovely to be here. Oh, no. Don't say that. Don't say that. We'll get shy.

We'll get shy. I'm in the heart of the part now. Thank you so much. This is your, am I right? This is Frankie. It's your fifth novel? Unbelievably, yes, it is. It's, I don't feel like someone who's written five novels, but I know I have.

I think five novels is like, you are an author now. You're not someone who's like, oh, I dip my toe. You're like, you're an author. But also, I see people who, you know, I so respect and who are amazing writers. And I'm going, only three. Yeah, exactly. Half. He only wrote two or one and a half, really.

One, really. One that they wanted scene. Yes, it's true. So you said unbelievably, so this wasn't part of a master plan? Yeah, did it? No. I think what happened was, I think I was kind of, you know, I was 50 or just approaching 50. And I was looking for sort of something creative to kind of, you know, just scratch that itch.

And I thought that I'd adapt a book. So there was a book I really liked. Which I probably shouldn't say what it is. Do you think you still might? Yeah, you might do it. No. In that I asked for the rights. I tried to buy the rights and they wouldn't sell them to me.

Was it happily? It was happily. It was happily. I wanted to remake. But anyway, they turned me down. So I thought, Shag you, I'll write my own book. Yes. Good for you.

That's how I ended up writing a novel. Wow. And so does it feel a little bit like a confidence trick? Because you didn't set out to be a novelist and now you've done five? It feels like what's nice, you know, if you write one novel, you know, because before you write that, you don't know if you can do it at all. And once you've done that, you're going to think, okay, I can. And then, you know, you want to get better and you want to push yourself. And I think that's the hard bit.

Did you interview Gabrielle Zeffin, you know, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I know you did that book. We did it. We didn't interview her. Do you know her? I did a thing with her on the radio and she said a really good thing about that that was the first book she'd written where her taste matched her talent

or her ambition matched her talents. And I think Frankie, this new book, is the closest I've got to that where it's the closest to the picture in the recipe book. Yes. You know, when I took it out of the oven, it was like, oh, that's kind of what I wanted it, right? That is, that is recognizable as the thing.

that I was attempting to do. You're not like tasting icing on the side. It'd be alright. I often think that with actual paintings, because I do think it's similar with stand-up, you have this ambition, what you intend to say, and you get nowhere near it, but no one in the audience knows that,

and they think what you've produced is fine, and you think, if you could see what I was trying to do and have failed to do. And I often think that when I think, look at paintings, I go, is that how you meant it to look? Or just how it came out. Is that it, Mark Rothko?

Was that it? You just wanted that? Okay. Well, the colours are meant to join me. But I think, yeah, stand-up is that funny thing where you imagine how a story will land or what bit will get the laugh. And in the end, you don't care.

So long as that says, I'll laugh, you don't care. But often in your head, it was somewhere else. Yeah, I keep thinking how to solve climate change. That people walk out and go, she's changed my mind. And then I always cut that bit. It's far too dry. We should talk about Frankie, which is out now, out today. In paperback.

In paperback. It's such a beautiful book, Graham. Oh, thank you. It's so lovely. It's such a warm. Warm is the main word I would use. One of those books, I was like, can't wait to get, like, you know, and you'll get on the tube.

You're like, oh, good, bit more time with these guys. Like, so nice to visit them and hang out with them. Oh, thank you. And it's gorgeous story telling. Yes. Being told a story, in the way, Tomlake, our favorite recent book. And Patrick. We're obsessed.

We're obsessed. We're obsessed. But being told a story knowing that the narrator knows that they are telling you a story. And you can relax because you're like, they're just. just going to tell me this story. They know what they're doing. You're not like, is everybody all right? And there's still tension in it, but it's just, it is, yeah, beautiful story telling. Yeah, it's a page turning. So we should say it's about Frankie is, we meet her as a much older lady. Yes. With her sort of, sort of a carer, this guy, Damien, it's Damien, who comes in because

she's had an accident, she just needs a bit of extra help. She doesn't want him there. So their relationship grows over time because actually initially, we know she's a really independent person. Very independent. So frustrating to have. someone saying, do you need a cup of tea and you can make your own tea? But they're from the same sort of little bit of Ireland. So there's this connection that grows from that. And then she starts telling him about how this amazing life she's had. Yeah.

I mean, it kind of unlock something. That connection between the two of them unlock something. And that is, I find that as an Irish person in the world, like when you meet another Irish person. When I was younger, when I was in my 20s and came to London first and I would hear an Irish voice at a party, I think, oh, dear God, I don't want to talk to them. Because they'll know me. They'll see through me in my funny secondhand shop clothes and, you know, and my dyed hair. But now I love that. I love meeting an Irish person out and about because there is that connection.

Yesterday a guy came up to go, abandoned man. But he only come up to tell me that so that he can tell me where he was from. And I can go, oh, yes, I know where that is. And he was delighted. But yeah, there is that funny thing of connection. and I suppose both of those characters are now not in living in Ireland. So that's the other thing, isn't it? You're less likely to be so intrigued.

Oh, yeah, people in Ireland probably aren't doing that. Yeah, that's why less so. In the supermarket, everybody. Were you from? Are you from? Are you from? You're on the road as well. We've been to call my mum.

She's also Irish. She's going to love this. They find ourselves in both in London in this kind of like, but very different times, in his historical times, you know, Damien is now. and we're learning that she came, you know, over to London a very different time, very different morals and politics and all of that. So you're getting these two characters comparing their existence, I guess, of being the outsider.

Yeah, the thing that I like about having the young person and the old person and her telling her life is how differently they view it. I think Damien a lot of the time sees her recounting these past glories a sort of tragic that here she is in this apartment in whopping and it's all behind her and I think a young person

is bound to see that as sad what you've got nothing to afford to all your best years are back there but of course for her it's kind of lovely kind of reliving and re-experiencing those things and knowing and appreciating that she had them

and she can only do that by telling them out loud and sharing them with Damien I think that I found out very Very striking, you know, what you're saying, because a broken heart, let's say, without giving too much away, a broken heart after decades of past is a story that is mostly about love. Yeah. And so for Frankie, she's talking about the love of her life. And there is an ending to it, which is, you know, very sad to her.

And it ends very sad. But she's concentrating on the love part. We loved each other so much. He was so important to me. This was my relationship. and Damien is really young before that relationship going, oh, and then she ended up alone. Yeah.

And I think also it isn't that thing that if you get through life with no kind of heartbreak or scars on your heart, what sort of life was that? Like that was a pretty dull one. So much better to end up that end, kind of all battle weary. And, you know, oh, that's the scar I got when I fell off the gate and that's the score I got when the two dogs attacked me. Also, which doesn't happen in the book, we should say.

Frank is not adapted by dog. Also, the adventures, I mean, this is the kind of life. Frank has lived the kind of life that I would say is very aspirational. I'm sure it wasn't fun at all times. But, you know, the travelling, the going to New York, they're suddenly living in a brand new place. Her travel to both London and New York, these massive cities starting all over again.

Yeah. And what's interesting about it is she's actually a very passive character. She makes so few decisions in this. book, nearly everything just happens to her. Yeah, like, so London happens, an incident happens, her aunt and uncle decide they don't want to do it. So she finds as I plonked in London, the opposite of her friend character, Nor who's searching for adventure. Yes. Frankie is always sort of shoved, like, well, we don't want you.

So now you must go here. But she still manages to have an adventure despite that passivity. And, you know, and this is, what I wanted to do was tell this story of a life. That was kind of what drove this. And I think it's kind of the OG plot, isn't it? Because that's what we all live. And there is an arc to everyone's life. And somehow, even if it seems dull, there has been a plot. Yeah, yeah.

Something has happened. What I found, though, what's difficult about writing a novel telling the story of a life is that it doesn't quite fit lives. Don't quite fit a narrative arc. Because actually, lives do peak. probably late 40s, early 50s. And then, you know, that's kind of, you know, but then you've got quite a lot of life left.

You don't know yet. You don't know what it's like to be in your, I don't even know how old you are. I'm in my 60s. Okay, so you don't know what happens in your 70s and 80s. It might get really good. It might. Yeah, but it didn't for Frankie.

Oh, I mean, maybe it gets more peaceful. I think actually you might find, or I would believe if someone told me I had so much more contentment. Yes, I didn't have the highs, but I didn't have the lows. Yes. And also I think there's a thing where when you're younger, there's a lot of seeking and searching.

You know, in terms of relationships, in terms of career, in terms of where you want to live, all those things. You're looking for something. There's kind of a forward momentum to your life that's bound to go away. Yeah. You know, you'd be kind of crazy or very unhappy if you still had that in your 70s. Yes. Well, we see that, don't we?

We definitely see people who are still chasing and still, you know. Probably that is good. Maybe that's what keeps them young. That's not what keeps them young. A very good surgeon keeps them young. That's what keeping them young. I think that's what's nice about this book as well is that Frankie is ordinary. And the experiences she has are extraordinary, but she is quite an ordinary, kind person.

And that's nice as a reader to kind of see, oh, yeah, that can happen in a life. You know, you don't have to be like, oh, I was this mad. ballerina from age five. And my pet is like, she's just an ordinary gal. I do think she has extraordinary qualities. Yes, that's true. Right from, and this is not a spoil of it, but right at the very beginning, she's on the way back from a children's party,

and she's thinking I was a good girl today. I think her empathy for other people, wanting to be a good person, her acceptance of the gay scene, when she comes from a very un-evolved part of Ireland, quite often naivety does lead people to be closed off or fearful because they haven't experienced something. And I actually felt she was a little bit Alice in Wonderland. Yeah. But wherever she went, she sort of went, okay, that's strange.

But that's what you're doing. Yes. Yes. And I think when you're young, I don't know you guys, but when I was young, I was very conservative with a small sea. You know, anything that was slightly odd, you just got stupid. You know, why would you do that? And I ended up living in a hippie commune in San Francisco when I was 20. And it was so good for me.

It kind of really opened my eyes to difference. I had a J-1 visa, these working visas you can get from Irish universities. And I went to New York and New York was terrifying. I mean, I was there for half a day. No, thanks. I will get killed. So I had a pen pal called David Filipando. Oh, such a good name.

And I've so looked for him. I think he maybe is no longer in the world. But Dave Villapando, he lived in Los Angeles, maybe, or somewhere around Los Angeles. I never really found out. And I had this one week Rambler ticket for Trailways buses, which is like... Greyhound bus? Yeah, like the Greyhound Bus. It was kind of the other one.

It was Greyhound Bus. Anyway, I had Trailways. And because I was just a dick. I didn't even have a map of America. So, because that'd be so boring. So I would just go into bus stations and look for the leaflets with the roots that went like side to side rather than up and down because I knew I was heading west. Like a pioneer. Yeah.

That meant, it took me quite a long time. So my bus ticket ran out as we pulled into San Francisco. So I never got to meet David Villapando. I never got there. But I ended up in San Francisco And I can't remember Somebody gave me some phone numbers And you know

I rang them And they were really lovely These people And one person introduced me To the people in the hippie commune And that's why I ended up there Wow So you said you don't think

David, is David Philipando You don't think he's around anymore I've read I have emailed a lot of David Philipandos I feel like this would be an incredible documentary You're doing this journey again I mean imagine you now with your glamorous lifestyle on a coach

on a coach. Yeah, maybe Graham doesn't want to do that. Yeah, yeah. I was too in for about 30 seconds. The producer's like, so Graham, it's like that but no luxury. Graham, yeah. We're going to see if these phone numbers still work. Yeah, yes. That's amazing. I love stories like that where you go

that is so of its time. Yeah. Like you could now, you would have you'd have tweeted him. You would have Googled him. But the hippie commune, I'll have, you know, is still there. And I went back to their anniversary a few years ago. and it was so weird. And it was kind of lovely

because some of the hippies are very old now. And they've had to move out into an old people's hippie home where there are carers who bring them onto demonstrations. Like they give them placards and then wheel them.

So they can still be protesting. So they can still be protesting. That's amazing. I just thought it was lovely. Do they have a picture of you up on the wall like in a dry cleaners going people who are in this hippie commune. Like at a comedy store.

Yeah. Great golden was here. No. I feel I've betrayed the cause quite badly over the years. Damien, who is a young gay man living in modern London, which is so different to the London that Nora and Frankie arrived at. It's the very late 50s. There's a scene and I wonder as women what you thought of it,

because she ends up to kind of a lesbian party. They probably would never use that word, but that's what it was. And I just thought, oh, wow. Like, as a young woman at that time, it must have been amazing to be in a space where there was no male gays. And to wear clothes that you love wearing that don't tip you in at the waist. Yeah, yeah. They aren't feminine in inverted commas.

Did you research, like, late 50s, London, in terms of female queer? Because I was wondering what the scene was like. There was a few, there were a few bars then. There was one over just off the King's Road. I referenced it in the book. It's called The Lantern or something I can't remember now. And that was a kind of a female queer space. And always, I think there's a weird thing with lesbian scene

is that it can hide in plain sight far more easily. Not written about it in the same way that male queer spaces have been in literature or have been like sort of eulogized in a way. They were as known. illegal in the same way. So there wasn't the same dangers. They weren't police raids. Those kind of things.

Yeah, yeah. And women could live together. Yeah, yeah. But no one batted an eyelid of women lived together. We were just talking, one of our last episodes, I reread ballet shoes by Noel Streetfield. Oh, yeah. Beautiful, beautiful book, written in 30s, children's book. And these two female doctors come to live in the house.

Hello. And they share a room together. And it's like, it's so obvious and it's so like hiding in plain sight. Like, it's never, obviously, it's never discussed nothing. they haven't raised about it, but it's so obvious that they are sharing a bedroom, so obviously they're together. It's like George in the Famous Five. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's your archetypal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also because I think a lot of people knew women who did that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, in my family circle, there were women who lived together, and no one, I mean, actually, I don't think the two I'm thinking of, I don't think they were lesbians, but women did live together. If you didn't find a husband, then it was your way of doing that, economic sharing of all the expenses that got you through.

But it must be, like you said, it must have been amazing to have that space, especially in late 50s London, where there were not men. That must have been such a rare thing to happen. And that scene when they go, it does feel very, like, exciting of like, wow, God, that was, when would that have happened to those two characters? And there are also women who are at the forefront of having independence, earning their own money, having powerful careers. I felt for Frankie, like, where she's come from, this, like, rural, Irish, like, so moral

and so contained to be dropped into there. I was like, oh gosh, you're right. Also, but what she's experienced of morality is prison. It's like a prison. It's like, oh, her uncle loved God, but not her and didn't accept her. And chose her husband, basically. It was horrible. So that's what freedom offers you.

If the church is at one side and then the opposite is this. Yeah. If traditional values have not served you well and they really haven't served her well, I can imagine her kind of think, oh, maybe this is. where I belong. Even though at the same time it still kind of freaks her out. And I think it's that I can remember when I was out in London, but I'm not out at home. And I remember my sister coming to visit me.

And like I was not having a conversation, but me taking her to a gay club. Right, yes. These are my friends. Oh, okay. Yeah. These ones. These are your friends. Yeah, and I think that's what Norr is doing.

Yeah. This is easier than, yeah. Was that nerve-wracking? No, I think what I wanted, I wanted to share my life with her. I wanted her to see what my life looked like in London. I think that's what I was doing. I wasn't trying to shock her or anything or anything like that. I think I was trying to be open, but without using my words. Yes, yes.

Yeah, show don't tell. Which is what, Nort, like you said, that's very sweet that Nore takes her to this party. this queer female party and can't quite say it and like you said it's like she's the friend from Ireland and she's Nora in Ireland now she's Nor she speaks with an English accent like she's changed

she's had to change obviously but chose to change I know she had to I think she chose yeah she wanted a new life she wanted a new life and she wanted to kind of move in these circles and and that was her way of fitting in yeah and when we're reflecting on

Nora and Frankie's relationship we know that Nora is in fact still in Frankie's life. So we're not thinking, oh, what happened to those two? We know that she's caring for her, looking after her. So we have the ending coexisting with their early relationship. One of the things I found is a writer useful about that, the fact that Nora still exists. So you come back to the flat and whopping,

and Nora's there talking to Frankie about what had gone on, is that actually they can, in old age, reflect on some of the things that happened to them, the people, and be more forgiving. Yeah, yeah. You kind of, it can explain, you know, the people who in narrative terms are the baddies, they can actually kind of smooth the edges a bit in old age,

looking back and kind of go, oh, look, they did that because, or now, as an old person, I can see what was going on there. You know, when a relationship ends, and you can't sleep and you're lying in bed and you're going crazy. And being old, one of the nice things is knowing that I won't feel like this,

in a year, I won't feel like this. Or in five years, I'll find a photograph of them and go, gee, what was I? Really? I didn't sleep over that. And I think that's a nice thing that comes with old age. Yeah, that's a relief. Yeah. I'll never cry on the kitchen floor ever again.

But I think what's good is you will cry on the kitchen floor again, but you know it you won't be there forever. You won't be glued to the lino until you die. 9pm, type of bed. There are lots and lots of delicious things in this book. Yes. Starting with baking. And I wondered, so Carriad sitting to my left,

is a real connoisseur of baking. I know. I've already seen her eat something. She will take detour, she has favourite bakeries. Carriad cries on the kitchen floor about dry. Yeah, that's true. That's next year, it'll be okay. So Frankie does a baking course, a French bakery course, and she does cook for a lot of the book.

Did you find that too delicious to read, Carriott? No, I loved it. You know how I feel we both read butter. I'm all for good descriptions. I read butter. Yeah, we talked about it. Oh, we did, yes. On that between the covers.

And I loved. the descriptions in butter of noodles, like obsess. And I, yeah, this baking level. And even when the restaurant, when she was deciding the menu and talking about that, and I thought you must have had to, again, do some deep research of what people were eating at that time. Because things that would have been exotic then obviously seemed very pedestrian now. Yes. And I think as she moved, well, her life in restaurants kind of caught up to my life in restaurants

because I started working in restaurants in the 80s. So, you know, things like chicken liverers with brown. We serve that. Yeah, yeah. That's very 80s. Was this in London or America? In America and London. So I worked in a restaurant in San Francisco.

And then when I came to London, I worked in restaurants. I mean, some of the restaurants I worked in London were terrible. One, I worked in and they had this Irish chef called Chef O'Shea. And honestly God, the specials, the specials, chef O'Shea specials were something to behold. I remember one lunchtime, the specials. was a bit of white fish, I don't know what it was, with a white sauce on the white fish. This was all on a white plate, by the way.

And it was served with potatoes and rice. That's amazing. Because it's not dinner unless there's potatoes, rice is something else. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Isn't that unbelievable? But in my lifetime, I was charging.

I was serving that to people who'd paid for it. Did you cook yourself? I do. my husband's vegan so we kind of now I cook vegan oh you vegan oh you vegan at that

alright so vegan baking yeah I disagree with it I disagree with it there's a couple of things I've got a couple of things that I do Nigella's flowerless chocolate cake

I don't we know because that's not popular in our house but she does do another one that is the orange one it's got blueberry compot on top of it and some sort of like yogurty thing

Yes. And it's delicious. I've cooked that. I've made, I have made a Maltiser. Was it a Maltese? It was a cheesecake, a vegan cheesecake, which looked so amazing. They often look amazing in the vegan things. They look good, but that's never a sign of a good cake.

But I think the key with these things is you can't recently have had a non-vegan version of it. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Vegan chicken is great if you haven't tasted actual chicken for 15 years. But if you've just had Nando's, don't then have, you know, some corn. We had this with ice cream. Sarah gave me, she was like, genuine, this is good vegan ice cream. So she was like, try it, try it. And I was like, I've had ice cream recently.

So I know this is not good. Oh, no, no. I would say then that wasn't a good vegan ice cream. Because I think ice cream is one of the things. Like, if you eat a vegan magnum, you realize actually a real magnum is probably vegan. They're just not telling you. Okay. They're so little dairy in a real magnum.

Hackney-Gilato do a very good chocolate vegan one. Yeah. Ice cream was the thing that was actually, and I guess in terms of order of importance, vegans got that sorted first. It was ice cream first. I think vegan ice cream are excellent. So keeping in line with fancy things, I had never heard about peach oil on a light bulb. Yeah, that was very fancy.

That was, she's kind of a, anyway, she was the girlfriend of a friend of mine years ago, and she was very posh. and she did it back in the late 80s, I think. And it was, I just thought it was so posh. I've never done it. Yeah. But it does actually make your house smell lovely. So when you would walk into where she lived, you'd be hit while they're like, oh, that's nice.

Yeah. I guess that is what an air glade plug-in. Yeah. She was like the precursor to the glade plug in. But real oil rather than the chemicals that make those things hit you in a different way. Like spray you every 15 minutes. And also it's not on all the time. Yes.

It's there. We turn a light on. It's there. So you can put it on a lamp if you wanted to. And then you just get it then. You talk a lot as well in the book about a sort of like New York art scene. And so Frankie... You obviously know your stuff about that.

Well, I did do a lot of research. I was going to say. Did you have to... Because he, Frankie falls in love, again, not really a spoiler with someone who is involved in the art scene. Who's not real. But you mention a lot of the real artists. And he is very jealous of like the Andy Warholz, which is very funny. Like, be that annoying.

I got hope to hit that little hopeful reaction when he heard that Andy Warhol had been shot. So annoyed that he wasn't dead. No, he's not dead. But yeah, did you have to do a lot of research and did you have someone in mind that he was being? Not so much that he was being. His art, I think. How did you just, because I thought you described the art. Almost as if he was real artist.

I felt like I knew his work. His art is slightly based on Klimt Hilma. Hilma, yes. I know who you mean. Yeah, yeah. It's slightly based on. on her stuff. And I knew of Leo Costelli

because there was kind of a weird bit in the story of contemporary art where suddenly, Leo Castelli and a couple of others were able to make people stars overnight. And there was a couple and they're mentioned in the book and they were,

really early buyers. They were going and buy the stuff and they ran a kind of like a, they wouldn't call it a mini cab, a car service in New York. And they were the ones who kind of created the secondary market because about

10 years in, they had this huge sale of all the stuff they bought. And it went just gangbusters. And so suddenly these artists overnight were because, huge stars and their stuff was going for, you know, hundreds of thousands.

And I don't think that had ever happened before. Well, no, artists had always died in poverty and been appreciated posthumously. Yes. And collectors changed all that by ascribing in their lifetime, this is what this is worth now. I've paid this for it, which means that I will, it will accrue in value. Yeah. Because if you're a tastemaker and everyone trusts you, it's amazing, isn't it? Well, it was like the Sachi effect on young British artists, you know, the Damien Hirst and Tracy Emerson's

where suddenly, because he said, Yeah. I've anointed you, suddenly their stuff went through the roof. And I, you know, and that, I found it, I wish I'd been around for that time because it was exciting. And it sort of crept up. There was kind of little artist circles and stuff,

and then these people came in and then just monetized it all. And it's also, I mean, I understand what you mean about wanting to be there because their presence in your book, but in real life as well, artists are so wanky. Like it's so pretentious in a way that's so... Yeah, you capture Frankie's reaction to them of like when our husband first starts hanging out with them. She's a bit jealous and sad.

And then she starts hanging out with them, she's like, oh, they're just the same. The ego involved with it. Being told you're a genius in your lifetime and then made very rich and believing it because artists believe it to be true about themselves. There's no... Oh, no.

It just doesn't be... I was just some squiggles. Stop it. They never would do that. No. And actually a lot of it, and a lot of it hasn't aged that well. Like when I went back and researched, you know, some of the big exhibitions at the time, there were by people actually we've never heard of.

Oh, wow. And their stuff, you know, their twig thing has not stood the test of time. People are not talking about it. There's about, you know, there's about 10 from back then who are still big marquee names. and you would go to see a retrospective. But there are dozens who have disappeared. That's like, if you ever come across when you were sorting stuff out and you're like, now that's what I call music.

CDs. And then you're like, oh, that band, that band. Who? Like, they made it onto now that's what. Like that music was massive. Even if you go back and look at the Oscars. Yeah, true. There's so many movies.

I've never heard of it. Yeah. That one best picture of the year and they beat the thing that you have heard of. Hello. I give you E.T. and Gandhi. It's still, it still grinds my gears. Gandhi won best costume design. I think they did all right out of it though.

I think the people in it, they did all right. Yeah, it didn't hold them back too much. Do you have a soft spot for Sight Twombly? Oh, I do. Yeah. I do a bit. I'm kind of friendly with John Waters and he's a few. He introduced me to Sightwantley.

And that is an interesting one because it is just squiggles for me. But it's just the scale of them is kind of amazing. And, yeah, and plays a kind of pivotal role in the book. I had one more question about fancy things because I don't know you hugely well, but I know that you make delicious wine. And there were lots of scenes where there were delicious glasses of wine. This is what I was wondering. I thought, Carriad, did it make you want a cake?

Because it made you want to drink. It makes you like someone more if they can feed you. Yeah, yeah. You know, we all know people who like, I'm a bit more. But when you go to their house, ooh, hello. you know, I'm taking a bit more seriously now because you've fed me. Yeah, and I feel that way about a glass of wine.

Yeah, I didn't feel like that way. If you turn up at someone's house at sort of three, and they go, should we have a wine? And you think, oh, can I move in? And I'm going to live with you and sort of my family. This would be lovely. I remember when I stood in for BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show, I knew it wasn't for me when one morning I, you know,

it's stupid o'clock, it's 5 o'clock in the morning or something. and you're downstairs, stumbling around trying to make yourself a cup of tea before you go to work. And I went to the fridge to get milk for the tea. And I came back and I was holding a bottle of wine. I was like, oh. Just muscle memory. Yeah, I'm not the breakfast. Wrong job.

That's so funny. Your body betrayed you. Do you have any plans for this to be adapted at all? Do you ever think of that when you're writing or do you just try and write the book? I just write the book. And I'm so, but I don't even think about the audiobook, which is so terrifying. Do you read it yourself? I read it myself.

And part of the failed actor in me loves reading this. Yes, I love doing the audiobook. I love it. But equally, I'm reading this and you come across someone from Denmark and you go, oh, and then you turn a page, you're talking. Who wrote this? Yeah. What moron wrote this? Do you do the accent?

I do. That's good. But as you say, you are an actor. I'm so, well. Yes, what's an actor? Get the audiobook, you decide. And so it's similar when it comes to the adaptations. My first book holding was adapted.

Another one I think they're about to announce that it's going in production. But they're so far, because they asked me if I was interested in adapting. And I just think, no, I, you know, I was. but now I write this is what I do. I write these stories. And so I think it's someone else's skill. So I steer clear and I'm fascinated at what people do with the book because I'm not precious about it at all.

I've had my fun with these characters. Now, you know, fly were free by pretties have at it. So I think the one they're about to announce is so far from the book because I had a meeting with them and I said, you know, don't feel you have to set it in Ireland. and don't feel you have to do it. So they didn't. Wow.

So it's totally, totally different from the book. And I think people are sniffing around this one. I must say, I think this one would quite a good, like, sort of six part or something. Yeah, that's what I felt weirding it. I was like, I can see it. I can see the flat in New York and I can see, you know, the London life. That little bathtub. Yeah, that bathtub.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In a New York apartment. And also because of the art, because of Joe's art, which covers. walls and becomes a restaurant and then, no spoilers but there is a visual ending. So you do as a reader think, oh this will be wonderful.

But as a reader I like that it lives in your mind. Yeah, that's true. And that is the you know that we all know that's the lovely thing about reading books is that you do so much work yourself as a reader. You don't just, it's not it's oddly not a passive thing.

Tony Law used to have a bit about how reading isn't good if the acting in your head is shit. Well, I mean, you do I do sometimes think that. Yeah. That actually, because I do like doing it all in my head. Yeah, if you can't do that. The people who just aren't into

reading, that might be why. Some people have no visual imagination, do they? Like if you say beach, they just see the word beach. They don't see sound and see. But also, I think, it explains the huge success of some very bad books. Yes. Which are? I've got a note on my

phone, but you know those books, Like my sister, she was a librarian, she just retired. But she says for a book to be really successful, it has to be read by people who don't read books. And it's a bit like a successful film. For a film to become Titanic, lots of people have to go to the movies who don't go to the movies. Yeah, who have no movie references or understand.

They don't know that this plot is really not very good. Your readers probably won't be used to playing it all out in their minds. So it can exist in quite a flat way on the page. and be kind of, you know, quite a lumpy plot because people aren't doing the work. Happily, there are books that cross that divide. There are books that are so good that they do both. Yeah. What's your writing routine like? Are you very ordered and strict or are you just write whenever you feel like it?

I kind of write whenever I feel like it just because, you know, I'm not a writer. It's my hobby. It's a thing that I enjoy doing. So I've just started another book. Exciting. I can hear the fireworks. Does it then feel like you've given yourself homework? Because you're already busy working and then suddenly you're going to have to go home and do more work after work? I know. I don't work after work.

Okay. Come on. That way maddenic. Towards the end of the process, I might have to do work after work because at some point this thing needs to be finished. But right now, it's the lovely bit where it's really flowing and it's all the beginnings. It's introducing characters. It's building worlds. It's lovely. And then, you know, in about, you know, I don't know, a couple of months, suddenly you go, why did these people exist?

Why have I brought them to life? Kill them. Kill them now. Oh, I sense a meteoros heading towards Earth. Do you plan your plot very assiduously? I've done a bit of both. When I was planning my first book, writers, I mean, it's so weird. Writers are so kind, well, certainly to my face.

They're kind and encouraging. You know, I often think if a writer came to me and said, I'm planning to do a celebrity chat show. I probably would not be that helpful. But maybe they're trying to get on your celebrity chat show. So I was thinking that would be a massive, massive booking for a writer, wouldn't it? Huge, yeah.

I've got a Waterstone signing in Cheltenham. And then I'm on the Great Martin show sitting next to... No, it's weird. I thought in lockdown, or during the writer's strike and stuff, that we would, we'd do it. We'd have writers. But actually, it's very hard to... I mean, autobiographies are fine and biographies,

and even a history book or something, they're okay, because there's a story. talk about, you can, you know, investigate and da-da-da-da. But a novel, really hard to sit on that sofa and talk about a novel. There were very few people who can do it. I was sort of disappointed because I really thought, oh, this is our opportunity, this is going to happen. And then it just didn't. And we did ask a couple, and they turned us down. Oh. I think because they didn't shy writers. But also, I think they didn't want to be in that world. You were placing yourself in, in a kind of different arena.

You're kind of repositioning yourself. You're saying, I'm not just a novelist. I'm a celebrity novice or I'm a personality. And suddenly... And then you have to go back into the room full of writers going, oh, you went on Graham Norton? Oh, did you? Well, maybe you can't do Waterstones and Cheltenham.

Like, I find, like, it's interesting. Ian McHellon, who comes under him, he's amazing. But he doesn't want to come on too often because he wants to remain an actor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas, you know, someone like Miriam Margulies, I feel bad because we gave her this extraordinary third act, where she's now famous for being Miriam Margulies,

but everyone's forgotten that she was a great actor. She was amazing. But no one asks her to do it anymore because they just want her to show up and be... Save the C-bomb. Yeah. You were saying that with your first book, lots of writers were very kind.

Oh, yes. Aren't you good? Mine like a steel trap. I was talking to David Nichols, you know, one day and everything. Friend of the pod. Yeah. And he's so lovely. And he's a guy who's, he's so good at talking about his own work.

Yeah, yeah. And not in a kind of poe-face, boring way. But he was an actor. Yes. And I think that is a different, you're starting from a different vibe. And also I think you can tell in his dialogue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's funny.

Rather than some writers who start as writers, like, I can only do it here. Yeah. And then their publishers are hitting them with a stick and saying, no, you must go blinking into the light and tell people, no. How, no. But anyway, he was very good, and he said, look, it sounds so uncreative, but planned. Give yourself scaffolding. You can change it, but you will thank me. So the first book, that's what I did.

And it was very much a basic murder mystery, you know, bodies found, halfway through another body's found, the end, the protagonist is in danger. It's all tied up. And I knew what I was doing. And since then, I've never done it. it quite as prescriptively as that. Frankie was more so. Frankie, I did have, I kind of knew everything.

Not quite the ending. The ending changed. And there were some big sections that I cut out. There was a bit where Nor, Damien and Frankie went back to Ireland. Oh, wow. And actually... Book two, Frankie. This time she's back.

I like to. There were things in it. It tied up some things. need it. It tied, but it gave the book too many endings. Yes. And so you have just go, it can only be one. Do you have a good editor?

Do you have a good relationship? Does anyone dare give you notes, I guess? Yes. No, absolutely. And that's, you know, you want to be pushed to an extent. Remember who you're talking to. Well, no, it's that they, you know, whenever I join a new gym and I get a personal trainer, I go, okay, if you ever asked me to push you or carry you or you make me

cry, I'm leaving. Does some of them ask you to push them and carry them? Yeah, you know, there's a thing that what's that called? Oh, okay. The sled or the prowler or something. And they stand on it and I go, no, no, no. You are not charging me to push you down this room. So you're writing the next one?

Yes. Are you allowed, do you want to tell us anything or is it all? I can. It's a family saga and it's set again. It's actually more of it's in America than I've ever done. done before. But the root of the story is in Ireland. Do you think you'll always come back to that in some way? Yeah. I think it's, you know, it's a world I know very well and it's a great place for stories. You know, I always say when I'm going for a drive with my mother, she, as every house

we pass, she'll have some story that could be a novel. They died in Australia. They couldn't get the body back, you know, she's beaten cancer three times. You said a story, I would say what moms have, the snack for, is other people's misery. They collect it. They collect it, like, with spades. And it doesn't know how distantly this sort of relationship is, the sad of the story. The more they cannot wait to tell you. The more people they will tell.

Yeah. No, there's a real enjoyment in this. And that should be all kind of. Oh, I know. I sort of shake my head while going, and then what happened? Oh, yeah. That's terrible. That is awful.

We shouldn't be talking about it. But what is she going to do? about that. This is a bit of a jump from what we're talking about but it is in Frankie and it's a question I wanted to ask you

because there's a character of an older man who is a waiter in a restaurant and is gay. Wendell? Wendell. Wendell, yeah.

And he, it's not as simple as envy but there is a generational difference in the queer scene and it's not that he resents anyone their freedom.

It's just there's this tinge of sadness that he grew up in a different time or that it wasn't there and now he feels too old for the bars, the clubs, the things that they're doing, the drugs they're taking, the way that they're meeting each other. And there is, you know, I remember my 60s and with my friends, there is a sort of nostalgia for the gay scene that we had in the 80s, you know, the kind of knocking on doors and kind of,

you know, you know, it's gay club lads. And, you know, all of that. But we equally, we know that's ridiculous to be nostalgic for a time. when you had to kind of hide and be furtive, even though there was a kind of a, you know, there's a pleasure to being in a part of a secret society. And we know this special club we can go to and just stupid to be nostalgic for that.

And yet, you know, you're bound to be. Well, it's just the past, isn't it? It's your youth and it's what you experienced. So, yeah, you can't help but be, I think we all have that for anything, like life before the internet. And also I think there's that thing, and I talked about another book of mine at home stretch about kind of all the advances in gay rights in Ireland

where I think older people want young people to be appreciative. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they can't be. You know, you can't ask young people to be, you know, say, thank you so much for allowing us to... Thank you, granddad. But the point of rights when people are fighting for them is the idea that a generation will just be able to take it for granted.

That was the point. Yeah. And what's so scary now is you're asking people who took their rights for granted to fight for them again. And as I say what now? Yeah, exactly. And also much scary, I think, to fight to keep rights than to get rights. Because if you're finding to get rights, you at least know when you've won.

Yeah. You can't get married. It's very simple, yeah. You can't be fired for being gay. You know, all of those things. It's very cut and drop. And it seemed impossible that we'd get those rights, but we did. But to try and keep them, when do you know that fight's over?

This is why the Remain vote failed. Because they were offering people what they already had. Yes. And also, they've been told for so long that the country was absolutely in the toilet. We can't afford anything. We can't give you anything. And it's all these people's fault. It's their fault.

So do you want to stay with them? And also, it was honestly, it was the day after that vote that I'd have. discovered we were the fifth largest economy in the world. It was only when we stopped being a fifth largest economy. I read, what? How much would tell the news? Wow! So we were rich all along.

Thank you so much. No, seriously, thank you very much for reading, Frankie. We loved reading your book so much. We loved it. It was such a beautiful read. You're reaching so many people. I'm sure you're reaching an audience of people who don't normally pick up a book. And that's really a huge thing.

I don't know. One of the things that makes me feel okay about trying to write fiction and either succeeding or failing is I know when I go on to the chat show, I would say 90%, let's go with 95% of the people in that audience have no idea I write novels. I really don't think they do. Luckily, God, what do we have to do for book sales? Well, no, but I think what's interesting in this country, because it's got a huge population, a niche entertainment like reading, can. still be used. And I find when I'm in Ireland, I feel like writing is still a main, or reading is still a mainstream entertainment there. And I don't know why that is. I was in New Zealand just recently and I felt like reading was a mainstream entertainment there. People, regular people

read. We know our friends who read and we know lots of our friends who don't. I think something really goes wrong at school where people are made to dislike books or think they're not clever enough for books when books on Netflix, right? It's the same thing. There's nothing more superior. You're suspending disbelief. You're being told a great story. It's a pleasure.

But people, I think people mistakenly think, oh, I'm being, oh, I guess I should read. Also, is there a thing where people feel like their leisure time shouldn't be solitary? Like, I shouldn't be alone. That is the goal of leisure time. I am alone. Finally. Even me and Karen in the corner at parties. Yeah.

Oh my God, if it was acceptable to read a book, I would read a book at parties. Yeah. Calvin, stressfully talked to someone. We really, really loved reading Frankie. Oh, that's really kind. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. The paperback of Frankie is out today. And Sarah is currently on tour. Tickets for her show, I Am a Strange Gloop are on sale now from sarahsco.com. Carrie ad's new children's book,

where did she go? Is out now too? 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 sign up for our Patreon. If what you're getting is just not enough, come over and we'll give you secret content

behind the scenes and lots more. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.