Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel with Nish Kumar

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Welcome to the very first episode of the Weirdos Book Club!This week's book guest is I'm a Fan by Sheena Patel.Sara and Cariad are joined by all-round-good-guy-of-comedy Nish Kumar to discuss the internet, vegetables, wet boyfriends and so much more! Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you! I'm a Fan by Sheena Patel is available to buy here or on Apple Books here. Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to pre-order here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Ticket's for the live show on Wed 6 Sep at 21Soho are available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclubFollow Nish Kumar on Instagram and Twitter @MrNishKumar Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

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

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is, I'm a fan by Sheena Patel. Why does it belong in the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, it's about romantic and sexual infatuation. And it's impossible not to act weird when you're obsessed with someone.

We are joined today by a critically acclaimed comedian. He's toured the world, hosted the Mass Report, become a vigorous political commentator and now host the one, wildly successful Pod Save the UK. More importantly, he's one of the good guys of comedy. It's Nish Kumar. On this episode, we discuss the internet, vegetables, power dynamics, dogs, wet boyfriends, and Nish's sex life.

You won all men comedians. Congratulations. How does it feel to represent male comedians? Come on, guys, let's not set the bar that low. Compared to a gang of sex pests and tax evaders, you measure up well. Which is very apt for this week's book. I'm a fan by Sheena Fattel. It was the Observer, best debut novel of the year. It was also long-listed for the women's prize.

It is an incredible book written in short vignettes, I suppose you'd say, although she describes them as scenes, I should say, but they're very short chapters. They're very incredibly named scenes. Incredibly. Each one is named incredibly. There is one. The Vianetta really is the epitome of luxury.

That's amazing, that was a good one. Can I immediately lower the bar for the conversation? The first thing it reminded me of was Frasier chapter headings. It sort of reminded me of Frasier chapter. Because sometimes it's something verbatim that's in there. But other times it's like... It just gives you a flavour. Yes.

I haven't thought about those for such a long time. One of them is the like flat mouth emoji where it's the colon and the L. And it just gives you a sense of what's coming. And then other times it is verbatim. Yeah. That is a very good example of what she's doing. She's giving you a little soupsson of taste of what this time. I want to stress it's an incredibly original piece of work.

I'm not. A Frasier, pastiche. It's about a psychiatrist in Seattle. So it's about a woman who is having, is involved with an older man who is very culturally successful, artist sort of person. I don't think she never says he's an artist. It's a culturally important person that people would like to spend time with.

He's very important. He's older. He's white. and she has having a sort of relationship with him she's connected to him and this is her inner thoughts about that relationship and how he treats her, his wife and the other women he's also having affairs with

that's like the top line yeah so she has an infatuation with this man who she was having an affair with but also another woman that he was having an affair with she has an equally powerful obsession with her and her online representation yeah so that's what it's about

which sounds like again but I think the signal of a good book is like that isn't enough. What I've just said isn't enough because this book is so much more than that. I loved it. I loved it. And that's it. If someone came in a minute, all what you're reading, you'd be annoyed. Like, I can't describe this to you. Yeah. Oh, she's a bit obsessed with a man. Oh, she's really obsessed with a man. That's so reductive. It's so reductive. It's sort of hyper-specific, but also no one is ever named. No, I love it. She calls it the man I want to be with and the woman I'm obsessed with.

Yeah. And it's, that's not true. There are. a couple of named characters. Her sister, the half sister of the woman she's obsessed with is named. That's right, yeah. The dog she uses for semi-nafairious purposes. She sort of uses, yeah, manufactures an environment where she's able to stalk the half-sister of the woman she's obsessed with via a dog. The dog is named.

Via borrow my doggy. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible work. The, the, all of the WhatsApp stuff, the Instagram stuff, the app stuff, I kept thinking you could not write this in any other year. No, we've just been talking, well, yeah, we've mentioned other books on the show which are older,

set in the 50s, and this is such a book now. I lent this book to my mum, after I read it. I was like, so good, she went, I read that book. I was like, oh, it's good, she went, oh, it's a bit millennial. All of you lot talking about, oh, bloody hell. She said, I did laugh at that line about Jixor because, yeah, I can see white women would shop there. I said, scathing about Jigsaw.

Saving about Jigsaw. That Jigsaw must be quaking their boots. I was only lightly aware of Jigsaw. I googled them. And it's nice to have a joke where you have to Google it. And then I'll just go, very good. Very good observation. That's how women feel with most other things.

We're like, I don't tell what the men are all talking about. Google. Oh, I see. Rachel Fairburn, when they did Fleabag in the West End again, the reprisal, she went, so there'll be a free run in Oliver Bowman. bonus if anyone wants to go. And again, it was just such a cutting put out of a shop.

Every time I walk past Oliver Bonus, I go, that was so on the money. But that's probably better for Oliver Bonus because I know Oliver Bonus as being the business run by the husband of the woman who had Matt Hancock is now living in sin with. That's all I associate.

She was Mrs. Bonus. She went and got her own bonus somewhere else. Oh no. That's really sad. I think an association with fleabang is very positive for bonus. So, yeah, this book, she's entirely using the internet, WhatsApp and Instagram to obsess over someone, stalk this woman. She completely goes back through her Instagram.

She watches her story. She completely uses the internet as a powerful tool to find the man's address, track him down in different places. Like, this could not exist without the internet at her fingertips. There's a line she has, which I found so sad and so true, but it was about going onto his WhatsApp and seeing what time he had most recently used it. And it was that thing about how they're still communicating, but just not with you. They're still alive to the world, but you're dead to them. The hope you have before you check and go, no, they have looked at their phone.

They've looked at their phone many times. That's not why they've not replied. I want to read what she describes about the woman she's obsessive. with which for us and because I just think this is so damning. And to say the writing this is visceral. Someone described it saying violence in every word, which I think is fair. The women I am obsessed with comes across as well put together on Instagram. She has a carefully created grid.

She perceives herself to be vastly talented in that Victorian sense of being well accomplished, able to cook, draw, paint, host, write. She speaks a number of languages and has an impressive cachet of artistic and cultural historical knowledge. Her feed is her primary way to express herself and as a byproduct a way of nourishing her fans, it becomes a morale booster. She performs a necessarily charitable act like a princess opening the doors of her home. She edits herself in such a way she could be perfect. She is sugar-free, meat-free, gluten-free, generous towards her friends, cherished by them in return, animals are drawn to her adoring me. I can carry on. I come and stop. It's so good. It's so good and it may be so

glad that I don't use the internet in that way. Because if you even tried to, you would see yourself reflected and how pathetic it is. If you have ever created your grid, like she is ready, knives out, males drawn to, like to say. And also, there is this weird sense if we're living in this

feminist world, where everything, but we all know women who are so proud that they can cook, draw, paint, host and right. And then the way she describes it, it's like the Victorian, like, it's like what women used to do before they had fucking education. And they're all like, look at my tablecloth. But that's her point is the woman doesn't have any value. She was born to a famous, talented father, and she is congratulated every day on Instagram

for shopping, for going to organic markets. It did, the first thing it made me want to do was delete Instagram for my time. But you're not really on the internet, so I thought that would be interesting, because have you made a conscious decision not to create your life for other people? No, I just didn't. I came to... It's not worth it. We're going to be nice to niche. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Don't be mean. Listen, I know what's happened here. I've come on here to have my lunch money taken from it. I was very, I got on board with Twitter very early.

Oh, yes, you're much more on that one. And Facebook as well, like, like whatever it was, 2000. There's a scene in the social network where this Facebook arrives in the UK, and I sort of remember that time happening. And so I think by the time Instagram came along, I think there's a bit in the second Jurassic Park movie where there's, They're all excited about the dinosaurs. And Jeff Goldblum's character says something like,

oh, it all starts like this, ooh-ah, but then there's a screaming and the running. And so I was wary about joining another thing. So now I am a bit more active on Instagram, because my girlfriend started an Instagram for me and used to post pictures because she thought it would be useful for me. Now I am more active because I've got a podcast and so I'm obliged to do a certain level of promotion.

And I think maybe the second video I did, somebody sent me a message and said, this has been picked up on a Nazi forum. But to me, I was just like, vindication. Yeah, this is why I wasn't at this party, though. I knew that somehow, at some point, a bunch of Nazis arrived. Yeah. Which is how dressed it parked to.

Second video is early. Oh, yeah, that is early. They shouldn't turn up. They are right about their organisation. Oh, they are quick. Oh, they're across the admin. Yeah. Say what you will about the Nazis, but they're buried.

Oh, God. I'm so sorry. It's so horrible. But it just, so. to me, it sort of vindicated what it felt, but the other side of it was I thought, I think the only good thing about Instagram is when Twitter started, you were just like, oh, this is just people just writing silly things and opinions and stuff,

and it seems harmless. But I felt from the beginning, Instagram was very clearly being clear, like the harm was very evident very early on. Like, I think that thing of sort of prioritising the visual image, like especially at time we were supposed to be more aware about like teenagers being aware of, you know, own body image and how difficult that can be. It felt like Instagram was telegraphing why it was such

an issue. But what I think is so great about this book is it kind of, it sort of dramatizes the extent to which we are all aware of what's happening to us. Yes. And yet still partaking in it. The whole time, the narrator is completely aware that this is like an algorithm. And also, you know, as a woman of colour, it's an algorithm that's stacked against her coming through a kind of, you know, white patriarchal society. Like the algorithm is not immune to inherent societal prejudice, but she still keeps falling down the heart. Well, I would say the other half to the description you've just read is the one where she sort of

imagines what she would have on Instagram. Yes, how much she wants that. She wants it. Instagram status. So this is sort of about halfway through and it's gimmee. Oh yeah. I want power and connections and money and status and access and influence. and I want to turn down invitations to events to event so elite they are called cultural moments.

I want to be ambivalent. I want brands to send me their limited edition drops with a pleading note to wear the swag. Again, this does, I've highlighted the whole page. Because isn't that the point? Isn't that the point is it's the most that you're offered? Yeah. Even if the narrator in this book, the reason I think it's so incredibly written, especially in terms of the relationship, is she tells you,

so she knows, she tells you this person doesn't care about me, and this is how I persuade myself that they care of. about me. She constantly says that and she should be like, oh so, you know, I absolutely thought red flag, clearly he's never going to change. And then I thought, oh well, never mind. I'll call him again. Yeah. Yeah. And you're just like, and you want to, what I find interesting, often with women like that in stories, you're like, no, don't do it. But it was something about her relentless determination. I was like, go on. Let's see what happens. I kind of, because she was so determined with you. So she's saying to you, oh no, I am going to do this till I'm like, they, like,

ripped my nails out of his body. Like I, so I felt like there wasn't any turning back. So I didn't want the character to turn it back, because I was like, I don't think it's in her vocabulary to turn back from this option. Well, she talks about it in terms of capitalism and colonialism separately, both very, very brilliantly. But the capitalism thing of, I have lost so much money, I have invested, I am owed back. This is it. She says, I see my relationship with him in capitalist terms,

like I'm playing the stock market. I throw good money after bad because I've thrown so much already, what's a little more. I know. And she's just talking about a man who is married, is having long-term affairs with two other women, beside her and isn't having sex with her.

Won't have sex with her. Because she's too intense. It was too intense. That made me laugh out loud that he said it was too intense so we have to stop having it but I'm still going to see you and rub my penis on you

but I'm not going to have sex with you. And also these little tiny clues she never had an orgasm with him. She didn't enjoy it till the third time. It wasn't intense sex. It wasn't good sex. She didn't enjoy it. Him using manipulation

withholding. He's an incredible character and what I love is the way she describes him and she enjoys belittling him. She starts enjoying taking the piss out of him, being horrible to him. But then when he's stopped in the street and people are so excited because he's this culturally important figure. And you can see, like she said, people want to be seen next to him.

And I was like, oh, God, like, you didn't have to think very far to imagine that kind of man. We all kind of know who she's talking about. She also has that incredible awareness where she says, when he says he likes to be seen with me. And I know what he means is the colour of my skin, what that says about him. He says it at one point, doesn't he? He says he doesn't like white girls. Yes. He actually says that when they have the fight,

also I enjoyed it because it's large, lots of it set in South London and they have a fight outside the half moon in Herne Hill, which is like such a specific piece. But it's, I think in that, around that point or something, he says, but the bit about him as a character, there's a lot about this book that made me feel personally attacked. If it didn't keep saying he was white, I was going to check with you. Niche, niche.

Is this you? There's such an amazing bit. in it. The man I want to be with his daddy in his working life, which he populates with men, but his baby in his intimate relationships with women. I think that is like, that is such a brilliant, brilliant observation. But the difficult thing for me with this book is I felt both attacked by the character of the man and the narrator. Without wishing to basically complete between the three of us reading out of Gimmie, the last line in Gimmy is one that I felt most personally attacked by in the whole book. I want them to be a gastrolet.

at the destruction, this will wreak on the cultural landscape. This is referencing her announcement that she's retiring from writing. I want a hungry for it's hungry for me. Rather than jumping for scraps of attention, like some rabid dog, scrabbling around in the pit of my stomach, desperate for someone to listen to what I have to say. At that point, I was like, I actually,

I read this, like, pretty much in, like, three things. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's incredibly readable. I don't know whether that's because of the specific, like the actual turns of phrase or the, It's kind of short vignetti nature of it, but it's incredibly... But after that, I had to put the book down for 20 minutes and sit and reflect on it. She was writing about producing creativity.

Yes. And it felt so true to stand up in terms of the vulnerability, essentially flogging yourself for other people's entertainment. And that bit about Marina Abramovich and how the audience can kill you. And obviously... The audience are dangerous. Literally not. But when you go on stage and say, this is me and this is my joke, the fear that is there

she says of the performance it was six hours of horror and if you leave it up to the audience they can kill you Edinburgh Festival Yes I read that was like fuck yeah that is what it feels like That is what it feels like

And I've never had anyone say something so succinctly That if someone said also Do you get nervous for four gigs? I've just like read that sentence The audience can kill you Yeah I mean feeling attacked I also felt that from every status as being a white woman reading it

in terms of what she's saying about white capitalism and Instagram and also white as an insult which I know that white people do ourselves now as well as in white women at Jigsaw or white women individual when she says about white women in the comments of the woman that she's obsessed with we know that that's not just a descriptor

yeah yeah it has connotations oh and there's an amazing but there's an amazing bit about that specific idea where the the man has assimilated the use of the word patriarchy and is using that to gather cultural cachet. And there's a whole incredible section where she describes him sat on panels where he's the only man on there sort of nodding sagely. And it's that idea where I can't watch another white male stand up talk about a straight

white man use the phrase straight white men. And I know in a way sometimes when you say that even as I say again, I'm like, oh, so in a way they can't win because if they don't get to it, I'm like, fuck you. But as soon as they tell, I'm like, oh, so you get to make jokes about it and benefit from all its privileges. But there is something happening, and it's like you can do both things. We give each other a language and that's improved, but nothing else has improved. And so white people now will do a thing going, oh, it's so white of me or I'm so white to do this. I find that really irritating.

I do it all the time. I'm just admitting it. But I also, again, like feeling attacked by the character, I also am a man who sort of not, even at the start of this podcast, who sort of nodded and participated and sort of accrued cultural brownie points by sagely nodding through two women talking about male comedians' awful behaviour. Oh, I see, and not interrupting us.

Actually, give him his well done this. You didn't. Well done. That was really brave of you. The Nazis won't like that. They'll be very anti-known. There's a joke in 30 Rock where Tracy Morgan

is doing a screening of a drama he's put And just the opening line of the scene is him saying, Ladies of the Bat and Women Shelter, please, quiet, a man, a man is speaking. And I think about that almost every time I'm just sitting up. Just don't say, ladies of the bad, women shelter, quiet, a man is speaking. That's so funny. But I do think that's what I like. I think Sheena Patel is a genius because she's no one's safe.

She's not safe. Like she attacks herself, she attacks him, she's so in control of what she's saying and what she means, that's why she's a genius. It's not someone just going, like, all these things are happening, everyone's a mess. It's like, no, no. She really, really understands. And the one thing, I sometimes, it was slightly, there was sometimes when she'd, one of the vignettes,

we go onto a deep capitalist Instagram essay, and I would sometimes think, oh, that seems like we've gone off the story, but I was still enjoying it so much that I was like, oh, but I'm really, like, happy to hear this opinion. There's a couple of really neat put downs of Black Lives Matter and the way it was used by corporations and companies. Yes, yeah, that's incredible. So she's looking at sort of a flancy blouse site via looking at where the woman she's obsessed with.

And going back 16 squares from all the models going from being white, happy women, one black square. So now black happy women in flouncy blouses. And what she talks about in terms of the woman she's obsessed with, this kind of vegetable fascism happens on Instagram, of this kind of organic life, which... Spending $100 on eight apples. Yeah. I'm not realising, and no one thinking that was problematic. And she says, like, she says, like, there's a, I just so interesting, the tension between,

there's an outrage in her body that, that shop, you know, look, everything looks just plastered and the boots that, like, you know, someone just found them in a historical dig, but we all know they're expensive. And she says, I'm more at home in a, you know, really brightly lit corner shop. How is this fair? But also I want this.

But also it shows shit that this is, that you've set the cultural tone for everything. And how did, And how did you know that? How come you got to know that that was what was called? I think her fury, we do all feel attacked because we are all part of the system. But in terms of inequalities, so she's got this main inequality with the man that she wants to be with, which is power, status, the financial inequality she has with the woman she's obsessed with

and other female competitors, and then the world in general. Yeah. I thought it was so interesting that there was so, and then the inequality of information, the man she wants to be with, and then. first night together in the hotel doesn't give her, she doesn't have information, she doesn't know if he's in a relationship or not. How can you have, I kept trying to work out, because this is my second read of it, is he actually out and out in the wrong?

And I think he is. He definitely didn't expect what was he. But the difficulty is sometimes people can be in the wrong and not realize they're in the wrong. Sometimes they do know they're in the wrong, which is simpler. I think he's definitely, yeah, they're manipulative. He's definitely in the wrong because his behaviour is totally fucking immature and cowardly and pathetic.

and the text of not having sex with her and not communicating, but then going back to other women and telling her about it, it's completely bullshit. Even like the original offer he sends her, which is I think it would be really great for us to have sex, that's all I'm offering you. And to offer that to a much younger person who has none of the things that you have.

And I know she has autonomy. It's not me saying she's powerless. No, but he knows what he's doing. Like, again, it's that power status thing. Yeah. He wasn't expecting her to become obsessed with him. I do love the timeline on it as well, that you're constantly not sure.

hops around constantly. She'll say this terrible thing, like, or, you know, trying to track his mum down so she can send a letter. And then, like, and then the next chapter is like, so we're walking and it's wonderful.

And I'm imagining. And so you're constantly thinking, oh God, where is she and what she done? We should say, she has a boyfriend. Yeah. I love that the most.

Oh, this poor boyfriend. Because we get told simplified stories and actually this is a layered thing. Her description of the fact that her boyfriend won't fuck her in the way that she wants to be fucked. is so fantastic

and that he says to her I don't think you want the thing you want she wants to be shouted at it was debased a little bit you know he's like I don't think you very well to be quiet he's like not saying it

I know that this is what past goes because when when I saw Sarah we were discussing me coming on this podcast she said we've picked this book it's got a ton of sex in it and just sort of like it's uncomfortable it's so uncomfortable it's so uncomfortable

when I said to my mum oh yeah yeah I enjoyed it And as she walked off, I thought, oh, no, I shouldn't have given that book to my mum. Yeah. Why have I done that? It's like, it's got a lot of sex in it. And at points it feels sexy, but at most of the points, the sex feels quite uncomfortable. Yeah.

And also it's sort of yearning. There's not happening because he won't sleep with her. So she's often describing the feeling of just being around someone who won't fucking sleep with. Yeah, yeah. And even a lot of the sex, her mind is often elsewhere. Yeah, yeah. During a lot of the, during a lot of the sex. Because it's about power.

Yeah. To look back, we're not going off the boyfriend. Yeah. The boyfriend is so pathetic. Yeah. Another character I feel personally is half-bye. Let's try not to dwell on my autobiography too much. But here's the thing.

If that boyfriend were to talk if he were to have his own angle, we're bringing up men in a certain way to think a certain way about women, and the confusion you would have in a long-term relationship of a woman then said, forget everything you've learned, this is not a trick. I will find sexy the thing that you've. been told is the worst thing you could do to a woman. Yeah, not the worst thing. One of the worst things.

It's on the no-no list. It's on the no-no list. When do you get that? It's that when we're having a period talk. Because I tell you what, some guys are not getting the no-no list. They're not getting it. They need to re-photocopy some of that and hand that, make sure, it handed to the parents.

Because I have not marked this book or folded any pages down, I was shuffling through and trying to find the sentence. And just to double back just for one second, maybe my favourite sentence of the whole thing because in some ways it could have capsized the entire book but it didn't and I think whenever something is like whenever somebody does anything that like

almost like flies close to like making the whole thing feel mood but it is successful I'm always like how did you pull that off the sentence in terms of talking about her exploring her own personal story there's just that one chapter that's jacques and it's just this sentence I'll probably get accused of leveraging

this relationship to get the status I want but if I can't get it from having him I'll get it from telling you how I couldn't, bang. And suddenly it's acknowledging the whole artifice of the book. You sit there and thinking, is this supposed to be a novel? Is this autobiographical? And it could sort of capsize the whole thing, but it makes you think about is somebody exploiting trauma if it's their own trauma? And to what extent is that? But she says another point about making yourself vulnerable because people respond to the vulnerability, but what are you actually doing to yourself? Yeah. But you don't fold

books or mark them? No. And you won't ever. No. Oh, is that a thing? Even at university. Even if you're coming onto a book podcast and you need to find the quotes. Yes.

Yes. That's where we're finding the system. What about post-it notes? I know. That's what I should have done. What I will normally do is write down a page number. When I was at university, I would write down the page number. I just have long notes with a page notes.

How do you write stand up? Long hand or short hand? Long hand. On a pad or a computer? On a pad. On a pad. I can't write stand up on a computer. No.

I don't know why. No, I can't either. Most people can't. And also, on the occasions where sometimes for like TV stuff, you have to transcribe something, the worst thing in the world. Yeah. Having to see your own thought processes written out verbatim, is abysmal. With some punctuation in there. Appalling.

And in brackets, do the voice. Does a mime. I remember once reading a description of Madonna and how a journalist was in her house. And this is a bitchy thing to do, but he ran his hand down all the spines of the book in her library and not a single one had been opened. And then I read some words Only he knows She could be very careful with them Some people pay people to open their books

And flick through So that if anyone does that they look red Really? But my thing is I just love them looking battered I love them looking like They took them in the bath You took them on the bus Yeah

And that sometimes you were just like Yes I need to write down my thoughts But my brother reads books Like not opening them properly So they look perfect So you would run your thing down And think he hadn't read them But he has

Poor him on his interview I'm also quite happy to tell people When they come to my house How few of the books I've read I'll be very open about that stuff. You put them all together? We have read and read together. All the ones I haven't read.

I normally take such good care of my books. And then I once, I think I tweeted Candice, Catee Williams, to say how much I liked Queenie. And for some reason I included a picture of the book, as if people didn't know the cover of the book. But anyway. It's approved to her. No, I definitely have it.

But she replied to it. It's like, I'm a big fan of how you've managed to make it look like you kicked it across a bathroom floor because I'd taken it on a plane and it had like, I don't know, it just got smacked. So your reputation is a. Yeah, I'm normally a keeper of impeccable, but I definitely get that from my parents. Because if you look at my parents' books, they look like they've been unread, even ones that I know. The only thing sign that my dad writes his name and the date and city you bought a book in the front page of every book.

But I know what you mean, because the good thing about looking at that is like it looks like it's taken some life. You know, you've engaged with a book in some way. When you really love a book, I think quite egotistically, or maybe it's just you feel like you. you and the book have melded slightly, as in, yes, it's the book, but it's also a bit of me now. I just wanted to swing back to, is it difficult? Is this about Nish and books again? No, sex. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Because we slid past it without getting any. Nish was virtually not uncomfortable. I'm sorry, let's make Nish more uncomfortable. You don't have to talk on behalf of all men. Yeah. But would that be a precarious situation if you were in a relationship with someone? and they were saying this is my turn-ons, but actually everything you'd been taught up to that point

had taught you they were bad things. Yes, that would feel like a very precarious. And again, I think probably with the exception of the woman she's obsessed with and her sister, it felt like every character in this book, including a narrator, could be construed as a personal attack on me. And definitely like... The dog? The dog? The dog? The dog, desperately needing affection. Yeah.

The dog desperately needing affection, the boyfriend, the wet boyfriend. Whenever you see a wet boyfriend, you're like, come on, man, but you're not talking to the wet boyfriend. You're talking to your dry self. You're talking to your dry, dry. But I thought it was really interesting because the boyfriend is pathetic

and she writes him as, no, but she does write as like, but he has been talking. She's saying, like, hit me in sex and he's like, no, that's not what you want. But for me, what changed with that character is when he finds out absolutely what's going on. She, like, her heart's in the mouth. She's like, fuck, fuck, fuck.

She goes to see him. and he kind of acts like it hasn't happened and she says that sentence, I realized then I could do anything and he would never break up with me and then I thought, okay, this isn't a man not sure how to play feminism in, like in 2023,

this is a man who has such low self-esteem. He is the mirror of image of her relationship with the cultural figure and what we're seeing is how it can play out on a man as well. And I thought actually that was really, he's more than just a useless boyfriend. He's a man who cannot,

it doesn't have the strength to stand up to her. He loves her. Does he love her? I don't think he does. He wants her babies. He says you love your job, you go to work. I want to fill you with arms and legs. That's gross.

That's fucking gross. I'm not saying that they knew each other and they were meeting of minds. I'm not saying that it's a perfect love story. But then does he love her if he doesn't understand her? That's the question. That's why we've got a book part. That's why people write books. This is what we are.

I don't think it's love. Almost every book we've looked at. That is what that is the question. See, I didn't read it as he loved her. I read it. He had a picture of who he wanted her to be. she had repeatedly, like the man she's obsessed with, told him, I am not that person,

and he had just like she were not listened. But she's also done a thing, like the man that she's obsessed with, or the man she wants to be with, treated him horribly. So there's that description of like walking up a hill with, like, I think his father and stepmother, with their mouths tight as she's like having a go at him again.

About everything, yeah. But like, it reminded me of that, you know, that stupid old cartoon of like the man comes home and shouts at his wife and then the wife gets, kicks the cat and the cat tastes it's just like she's showing you that's capitalism that's it like that's the society we live in someone's always kicking down

I kick it's always aware that she's replicated with her boyfriend the dynamic that she has with you know the man she wants to be with but also I do think there's something in the boyfriend saying no that isn't what you want not saying I'm not going to do that because it makes me uncomfortable and I don't feel safe

and I don't want that he's not saying that he's not saying that He's saying you don't want that. And there's something something uncomfortably paternalistic in telling her that she doesn't want that. A reasonable position, I think, would be to say, that makes me feel uncomfortable. Do you really want that?

I'm not into that. I'm not into that. Are we going to have, we can't have sex then? Because I'm not into that's not what I want. I'm not into calling you a whore or whatever. And he does try that one time. And she like, grimaces so he does it so badly. I also wanted to talk very briefly about the psychics

because I found it so funny that she goes to a psychic with her mum and then they hassle the psychic so much. The psychic says, please leave me alone. You have to stop texting me. And I thought that was such a beautiful, like incredible, funny, like, observation of like that's how bad this is. Psychics are like, mate, leave it. Like, I don't want to.

I could take your money. I could keep taking £25 of you an hour and giving you taro, but even I think it's a bit much. Also, there's that hyper-specific. I thought also the dynamic between the mother and daughter was really interesting, just because, again, like, when it's a personal colour, and I think I sort of, I don't know if she ever explicitly says that she's Asian, but she references stuff like day raves and some kind of culturally specific stuff to being Asian,

but also that could just be because it's She says, she says second-generation immigrant explicitly, but not where from. But not where from. But there's a couple of things like references to day raves, which feels very Asian. But in any case, the openness in the conversation about sex between the mother and daughter is really interesting and something that I'm not really seen depicted in a lot of culture. A lot of the time when you're talking about second generation children, it's about how there isn't any conversation about it.

But I thought the scene, the sort of sequence where she's talking to the mother and they talk about how they have the conversation on the stairs so they can see where the dad is. And he's desperately trying to listen. Yeah. And then when they go outside, you can be like, my boyfriend's not fucking me. I thought all of that was the real beauty of writing in such a hyper-specific way. And also it's showing that there are different types of relationships that exist between immigrant parents and their children.

And it isn't just, I want you to be a doctor and don't talk to me about sex. I thought that there was something interesting. Yeah, it made the mum's character feel really fleshed out. The mum was like, I married the young man. He's so boring. Like, you shouldn't do, your boyfriend's boring. The mum is like, dump him. And so vivid in such a short space of time.

When you consider how much time we, get with a lot of the other characters. But the mum was so vivid in such a late brief. I thought that was, that's really great writing to be able to convey. You could see them on the stairs gossiping completely, couldn't you? And it was one chapter. You just mentioned that you know the writer. I do know the writer.

I've met Sheena. I've met Sheena. I met Sheena. I met her years ago in Edinburgh. And then I saw her again more recently because her and the kind of poetry collective if she's part of, did a literary event with my friend, Musa O'Konga. She's very smart and very funny. They're all, like, the brown girls who write are all very smart.

That's not your nickname for them. That's actually what they're called. Just to clarify for listeners. This one goes out to all the brown girls who write. Shout out. This is keen on you carrying on doing this. Sheena Patel is an assistant director. Yeah.

She is an assistant director for television on horrible histories. Oh, wow. That's why she said she wrote it like this. they're in her head, they're scenes because she's worked in television so much. So she was like, they're scenes. But what I enjoyed so much was it wasn't like, I think we've read quite a few books recently where I feel like they've got an eye on the Netflix adaptation. And this one didn't feel like that.

It felt like, no, I'm using the medium of book to have these scenes that tell you a story, but completely through a written medium. It is like you're watching an interrupted television program. Like you're watching, you're like, what episode is this? What's happening? Also, the way that it ends, I think is astonishingly brave. Oh my God, that ending. I was like, wow.

Because you keep thinking something very redemptive is about to happen. Or did you think redemptive? Yeah. I did. Did you? Yeah. You know, she has that fantasy and I think it's so incredible that those fantasy scenes where she's like imagining, like bumping into him in bars or, and he's DJed and she's

got her back to him, but she looks really great because she's got enough money for facials and she's having regular sex. Yeah. And then she has one where she's like with the love of her life and her husband and her baby and he's stopped to talk to her and her husband takes the baby away. I just wasn't sure that she wasn't going to text him back is what I mean. Fantasy, fantasy, fantasy. But you trusted she wasn't going to text him back.

Not about the text in particular. Oh, I see. I thought even that last bit was redemptive. No, no, no. No, I was expect. Even the penultimate page, I thought she's going to email him. Yeah. She's going to reply to him and say,

and then literally the next page after. I mean, it's deliberately open-ended. She's going to realize she's bored of this. Like something, just. I see, I thought you were saying that Sheena left us with a redemptive moment. Oh, no, no. She definitely did. That's why I was like, guys, I did not get that.

No, I kept expecting it. Yes. I thought it was so brave to leave someone in something that's actually murkier than anything she said already. Yeah, it's the word. Strong agree. Strong agree. So murky. It's the darkest bit.

I could curl up like a score. I mean, this is the last one. I guess we're spoilers. The last line of the book, I could curl up like a scorpion, hold him hostage a piece of him all mine. She's a chipped-ticted. That's what I thought you were calling that redemptive. I was like, guys, I see that really... We see babies as saving anything.

Yeah, I thought the ending, what I loved about it is it felt true to that character. Like if she had suddenly, hey, you know, I realise I'm being an asshole and like I need to move on my life. Not assholes, wrong word. But I would have been soured of like, oh, whereas that was like, that is exactly this woman that we've met for the beginning. But it's also very un-TV narrative Netflix. That's why I jumped to it. It's because I thought, imagine if Eat, pray love, which is ended with a moment.

And then I didn't use a condom, tired of it was on the pill. Maybe it ruined both of our lives. Maybe it ruined both of our lives. I'm a scorpion, the end. It had that moment with a book, which again, sign of a good book, where you just sort of hold it for a bit and stare at it. Like, what the fuck have you just? Well, I wanted more about her.

I thought what was ironic, and I know that you know her niche, so you've got info. But I was looking at this tiny little bio of like, don't make me stalk you on Instagram. And this become life imitator. art. Well, can I just say, so for every book, I go and do some fact research. And obviously, sometimes there's a lot of stuff. It was severely hard to find information about her. She's an observer best debut of the year. Now, we have read other people, and I've read other people

recently, but you cannot move for this hot young thing. Is Sheena refusing to do it, or is it not getting coverage? Because I was like, is this we don't want a brown girl writing about the truth of millennials, so it's not easy to sell that in journalistic interviews? Because you can't move for pretty white women who've written their stories. looking beautiful in a coffee shop. Sorry. But how? Sarah, attacking Sarah.

That's literally my press photo in a coffee shop. But there's so many. I definitely think it's worth being skeptical about why there isn't more coverage of this. I have no sense of what books have sold. Like I've never had a sense of it. But this, I have a sense that everyone, but also I can't, I also can't work out if that's because I've only met her a couple of times, but I know people who know her well. And also, where.

something, it's a community hit. Again, I think of this as being very successful, but sometimes I say that, and that's just because the people that I follow on, to pick up on the theme of an algorithm, it looks very. And sometimes I say, oh, that must have done really well, especially with books and people go, no, no, it didn't. But I think my senses, so is it maybe that she's controlling what information she just out of it.

Maybe, maybe it is, because I definitely didn't get that. I was expecting what you find when someone has had a hit debut novel. and you just find endless interviews with them. Yeah. And I couldn't find anything. I guess it must be difficult to write a book about the internet and not succumb to the thing that you've been writing in quite a dyspeptic way about.

Yeah, that's true. She talks so clearly about performing otherness. Yeah. And fitting yourself into white spaces because that's all on offer. Yeah. And that in the context of Instagram in particular. She also talks about, like, I want to be, like you said, all this thing she does. I don't know.

I was frustrated for her. You couldn't write about it with so much insight unless you knew what it was to want it and then knew what it was, that what you were actually being offered. We didn't read the entire passage, but the thing about being the token person on prizes, the judge being allowed into the establishment to that extent. She sees it also clearly because of both things, wanting it and also knowing.

Oh, yeah. The section that Sarah referenced about, we second generation immigrants have the privilege of self-actualization. We make sculptures, direct films, write plays, novels, memoirs and poems about not having a home, of trying to find a home of being between two types of home. What is home of how we all feel ugly, of the mixed relationships we enter into with white people, losing our language from a culture we had a tenuous hold of in the first place. We tell the story of being acted upon.

We speak from the position of a victim. And that is one of those sort of sections that when I read it, I thought, wow, that is, are we allowing those conversations to get out? And that's a lot of the best stuff. Like I remember the first time I saw something like, goodness grace to me, there were some sketches in there where you're like, are we allowing that out? Because that is a conversation that I have with friends of mine

who are in a similar situation to me in terms of like being second generation immigrants. That whole thing about speaking from the position of a victim and losing our language from a culture we had a tenuous hold of in the first place. That is, that was the bit that I, between that and the wet boyfriend, this whole thing, I was like, oh, fine, Sheena Patel. So this whole thing, this book may as well just be called. Nish, you piece of shit. Dedicated to Nish Kumar.

That is... Bracket's had not in a good one. I only met him twice, but that was all I needed. Because the writing in this book is so incredible. I think we've said, there were many, many lines that were just so exquisite. I wanted to end on them, but I thought, let's end on this. It's about fans and bad men. Looking at you.

Look directly at me. If we turn people into symbols and then create a fandom around them, we don't have to take on those restrictions. responsibilities ourselves. They become our spokesperson nominated to do this for us so we can carry on living our lives unperturbed. These people are only human and when they commit acts of harm, we hold knowing and not knowing together, and it is called an open secret. Every single person is implicated when a small voice is hurt by a person we pedestalled and totemised, every single fan. Wow.

We didn't, yeah, very weird thumbs up from us. It's a 200-page book that you could do 10 of these about and have completely different, completely different conversations. It's one of my favourite books I've read in a long time, I just say. Rereading it, so I read it a couple months ago, and then reread it to talk to you guys, and I got even more out of it because I was so into the story the first time. I think I got more into the polemic and the cleverness. Are you saying that you got more than me and Nish?

I think that's what I said. Thank you for listening to The Weirdo's Book Club. If you want to find out more about Nish and where he might be gigging, head to nishkumar.coma.com.com. And you can still find him on Twitter and Instagram at Mr. Nish Kumar. That's K-U-M-A-R-Kuma. Sarah's new book, Weirdo, is available to pre-order now and is available to buy on September the 14th. Woo-hoo! Carrie ad's book, You Are Not Alone, is out now from all good bookshops. Tickets to our special live show at 21 Soho on the 6th of September are on sale now. Head to plosive.co.com.uk to get your tickets.

We'd love to see you in person. And if you'd like to get ahead with Neku'll be. next week's reading, like the good puppy you are, then we will be reading and talking about really good actually by Monica Heisey, who is going to be joining us to talk about her book. We'd love it if you subscribed in your podcast app. You can even give us a nice review. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.