Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Kindred by Octavia E. Butler with Andi Osho

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

This week's book guest is Kindred by Octavia E. Butler.Sara and Cariad are joined by actor and author Andi Osho to discuss slavery, Antebellum, Nazi's and human nature. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss racism, slavery and racial violence.Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.Andi's books Tough Crowd and Asking For A Friend are available to buy here.You can find Andi on Instagram: @theandioshowSara’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 Aniya Das for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm 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 it doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads 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 Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. What's it about? Dana is a writer in 1976 who suddenly falls back in time to 1815 on a Maryland plantation every time one of her ancestors, Rufus, is in trouble. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club?

Well, there's a hole in time, so that's weird enough for me. In this episode, we discuss the word antebellum. Racism. Sci-fi. Slavery. Nazis. And human nature. And joining us this week is Andy Oshow.

Andy is an actor and novelist. She's published two brilliant books asking for a friend and tough crowd. She's currently working on her third. And she's also the host of the Creative Source podcast. Trigger warning in this episode, we discuss racism, slavery and racial violence. Andy, thank you so much for coming. Oh. Thank you.

much for reading. That was really sweet. That was like you guys were on a play date. We are, it's a bit, because also Andy's so busy with her acting. I know, her brilliant acting.

You are, you're in all my favourite programmes. We were talking to three got there. I deliberately, I was like, what to say we're like? And then I'm only auditioning for that. And I went hard at it.

Like I wouldn't. You've done it. It's off everyone. There's so many things. We go, oh, look, it's Andy. Oh, yeah. Bless you.

It's exciting. Amazing things. Thanks. Do you find time for reading? I was thinking about this on the way here. hear like how for someone who like writes books, I don't read very much. It's hard.

It's hard to write them and read them. Do you find time? I mean, you guys got to find time, right? I probably read about, I'd say, six books a year. That might be being mean to myself, maybe seven. But that's a book every couple of months. Yeah. Which most people would think, you know, you're a reader then.

Especially as you say, you're writing your third novel right now. Yeah. So that's a lot of writing and reading. Yeah. And I think I realized relatively recently that actually reading can support my writing because I thought it would distract. But I don't know how you guys find it. But I actually like take inspiration, obviously being mindful of not just like verbatim

pastes. Yeah. I don't know where I got this amazing poetic turn of phrase from. Yeah. So finding a balance. But yeah, about seven books I would say. I think before this podcast, I was probably on that. It's like now I have a job that I have to read.

way more than I really want to. It's very stressful. But before that, I was similar of like, yeah, you know, picking them up. But not as much as I did when I was like in my 20s and I had way more time and it was like, reading was fun. When reading was fun. Andy, you're working on your third novel. Can you tell us what it's about or is it a secret? It's a secret, but I'm a big blabbergob.

So here we go. It's about a couple who basically can't get on the housing ladder and so they start a crime wave. To bring the house prices down. Not too, I've only finished the first draft, but I'm a little, I'm becoming more and more sort of precious about it

because I'm really enjoying these two idiots, the sort of middle-class idiots thinking, they're getting into a world that they, they don't realize, they don't know what they're doing. That's so funny. And I take it it, it is funny. Yeah, but also, as I'm writing it,

because I've been looking for a property for, you know, it's coming up for three and a half years or something like that. And so I'm always reading articles about the housing market and just seeing the state of play and seeing the prices go up and the prices come down and the interest rates and stuff like that and seeing how people seem to not be able to get on the ladder and, you know, going to open houses where there's like 30 people. And people are over and you think, where do they get that money from? Well, that's what I do. I mean, I know where my money came.

Yeah. But have they got like more money than the house costs than the house is already overpriced? Well, that's it. And also. That's what I'm like, what? Yeah, they should be banned. But, like, you know, people talk about we're in a cost of living crisis, but some of these people... They're not in that cost of living crisis.

No, exactly. So then I think what's happening in society. Do you know what I mean? So, like, being... The housing market is a really interesting thing to observe. Yeah. I'm emotionally involved because I'm still trying to... And sort of, you know, have moments of real frustration that I can't find what I'm looking for.

So I want to have an element of social commentary about it because it's just like, this doesn't seem fair. Like my mum bought our house Like when you know The Conservative government brought in this you know Right to buy Yeah And that changed her life

So in many ways we've benefited as a family From that But a lot of stock was taken out of the pool My family similarly had that council flat Where people could buy them And it was an incredible initiative Because suddenly there's you know Money in a family

There's legacy and then you end up with like The first generations going to university And it's huge social non-con effect Yeah But the They didn't build any more housing. Basically. So, you know, we've got this real issue now with like,

and they try and sort of placate people with like affordable housing. But that's not the same as social housing, is it? No, no, completely not. So, yeah, so stuff like that, I want to, I want to try and I don't want to make any promises this early on. But I really want that to be part of the story and just wrap it up in a kind of caper, really. Yeah. I saw you did a call out on Instagram. You need X.

And that's why I was so fascinated What you're writing about It's like, she's a criminal lawyer Yeah She's someone who's driven a lorry It wasn't real I feel like I need to take that down Because it's such a bizarre

Did you get help though? I did, yeah It was almost like research bingo It's like oh criminal liar got And then you know Or whatever Trump cards But yeah so yeah Found lots of really interesting people

The gang activity one was the thing I wasn't sure Oh yeah Because you know Without saying too much Like that's basically, you know, they sort of touch on the fringes of that as well. So I just wanted to get that as accurate as I could. Andy, Octavia E. Butler.

Had you read any of her before? I hadn't, no. Did you know of her? No. No. No. It was a whole new world. Ah.

Yeah. Same. I didn't until you said. I had never heard of her and I felt very shameful about that. Because I was like, she's amazing. Why have I never heard of this? Amazing. And her ideas are all massive.

So when you go, it's a book about what? Yeah. And she does what? And so I came across her because I was researching dystopian novels during COVID. And her name was... Fun thing to do. It felt like the end of the world. And she kept being mentioned as in like this person.

And her ideas, I mean, especially this one, but most of them are also commenting a lot on the present day, which I guess does happen in sci-fi where, you know, it's not really about what's happening. It's about now. Yeah. And if people don't know, so she is class as a science fiction writer, but it's, you know, it's not. Well, she class herself. She wanted to write science fiction. She wanted to write science fiction.

And a lot of it is, you know, future world or time travel and stuff like that. Yeah, and set in space and those kind of things. But I said to, I was telling a friend, I was reading it, and I was like, but it's, it's science fiction by a woman. So it's not so focused on how something's happening. It's focused on how it affects the people. Oh, that's a really good distinction. Because so much science fiction, I find very, like, so detailed of how time travel would work and what the machine is doing, whereas this is like time travel and how it affects those

people who are time travelling. And it's very gendered, but I found it much more easy than I have other science fiction. I'm like, oh, God, this is so unemotional and technical and I don't feel connected to see what's happening. Yeah, because it's trying too hard to convince you. But she does a good job of like working through the logic. Yes. So she sort of short circuits all those questions that you, but how come?

But why don't, and what if? And she just, but she has the character sort of go through all that. so that you feel satisfied with the device so that you don't feel the need to ask any more questions about it and just be in the story. That's why I love like, from the beginning, she was very quick of like, this woman time travels,

this is how it happens, when she comes back, it's been like three hours, but she's been away for three months. That's the rules. Yeah, yeah. And I felt like she got them out really quick. Yeah.

So then you could have, and how does it affect her doing this? Yeah. Like, rather than like, oh, trying to establish the world. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's when a lot of like high concept stuff

goes off the rails is because they haven't like, you know, just put roadblocks on, all those questions and just like had like solid answers for them. So yeah, she dealt with it. She dealt with it. She knew there'd be questions. And she was extremely, she died, I think I was like, 2006.

2006, yeah. But she was extremely popular in her day. She was successful, award winning, won loads of those of awards. It's just impossible not to admire people. Yeah. Who approached their work like this. So she was, her mom wanted her to get herself a secretarial job, you know, as every parent does, you know. You know, get a trade, something safe.

Yeah. about you. And she didn't want that. She wanted temporary work. So she could get up at two or three and start her writing. And this is well before she was published. She was writing short stories, getting rejections, like, you know, not getting onto courses or starting a course and it not being right for her. And you think that dedication. Oh, incredible. And it's just so, and came from, you know, and she's a black, female, American writer and her family were not particularly rich either. So like to come from that background and believe in yourself so seriously and not go, oh, I have to get the backup job,

which is what this main character of Dana, obviously, to me, felt quite connected because Dana has a family who are telling her, you should get a proper job, and she wants to be a writer. Yeah, and all of the characters are a little bit dismissive. Yeah. Of her writing.

Yeah, her ambition. And also to go, for the writer to go into a genre where I'm guessing she wouldn't necessarily be welcomed with open arms. Yeah, yeah. I'm imagining that at that time would be the preserve of white men, basically. would feel like this is our domain. And I bet there was pushback of her even trying to categorise what she was writing, especially if it was more of this, you know, this type of material, like, you know,

that they wouldn't want to accept it as sci-fi. Yeah. They'd rather categorise it as black literature or slavery story or something like that rather than that. They call it, they call it neo-slavery. And I'd never heard that phrase. That's why she was very clear of, like, she read science fiction as a child. She loved science fiction. wanted to write science fiction.

And also, that's it. People who, at the frontier of genres are always the people who go, and this is how I'm going to do it. Doesn't matter how you've done it before. Yeah. She was helped by one, that's what I read, that she... One lecturer. Yeah, she wrote a short story and this, a man, well done.

Was like, I've got a shout out to the ones. It could have been a woman with a man's name. It definitely looked manly. Bacy said this is so brilliant, you need to carry on writing, come on to this workshop. And that's what got her to give up the day job and be able to do it. But it's, I mean, maybe. she's better known in America, I wondered as well, because it is a very American story.

I think probably people who read sci-fi more than us would definitely know who she was. She's on all of the list for like 10 best sci-fi books. Yeah. If you put that into it, really? Yeah. Oh, amazing. If you put in 10 best sci-fi or 10 best dystopian future novels, you'll find. Because the first one I read was the parable of the soar.

This is hers as well, right? Yeah. Yeah. And which is about a young woman who starts writing her own Bible. Oh, wow. And it's amazing. Oh, incredible. Like when I was saying,

telling my husband what is, you know, and you have to give like the one-line pitch. And when I literally said, so she's a black woman in 1976 and suddenly she falls through a gap and she's in antebellum America, slavery land. Yeah. And she keeps time travelling back and forth. And he was like, whoa. And instantly. Meeting her relatives.

Meeting her relatives. She's descended from one is a white man. One is a black woman. And she is also married at that point to a white man in the 70s. And I was just like, as soon as you say that. And I did think why has has not been a television show, but it was turned into a TV show. Was it? Last year, but it got cancelled.

It only got one season. But I think this book was rediscovered. Yes, I think it's recently had a lot. And all of her books are like there's loads, all the ones you met are all being turned into like films or television. Because there's such like high concept. High concept visual ideas. But with really, really modern. And I know, because this was written in 1979, but this could have been written last year.

So we should talk about it. This is Kindred, the book that we're talking about, which as we said, is about Dana, who's a writer. She's just a normal woman living in California, and then she kind of gets dizzy, falls through a gap, and she finds herself back in Maryland. They use the phrase antebellum, which I had to Google, which means pre-Civil War America. She uses it quite a lot at the beginning, doesn't she? Really, she keeps saying, in Antebellum, America, I'm going to need to Google that. So, sort of 1800s?

It's, yeah, 1800s, pre-Civil War. When was the Civil War though? Now you're asking, I think it's 18 something. 17th century? Oh no, so, okay, American Civil War is 1861. Apologies to all Americans to 1865. So Antebellum is much earlier than that. I thought it was early 1800s.

Yeah, this is 1800s, this is 1800s. But that phrase means before the war. Oh, okay. I didn't even know that. Yeah, basically. I don't think that's a commonly used word, but let's say everyone try to put it into a sentence today. I have heard it, but more like to describe, as an aesthetic, you know, like to describe the houses and stuff.

I think it means all of that, like, in the southern states, from 1812 through the Civil War. So it's like how we probably imagine the South, when people do. The South, that's what Antebellum is referring to. Yeah, so she's time travel, she falls through a hole, basically, and then discovers one of her ancestors. And as she sort of repeatedly goes back, she discovers, you know, who her grandparents,

grandfather is who her grandmother is, how her... Her great-grandmother. So how the conception takes place. Yeah. But she has to keep him safe and alive. Oh yeah, so we should say she only comes back when this white man called Rufus is in trouble. Red-headed... Ginger.

Red-headed boy. So the first time she comes back is to save this boy from kind of drowning. But she comes back at different points in his life. And we see him developing from a sort of, you know, an more innocent child to running the plantation that his father ran and the way he changes and the way their relationship also changes and manipulates and she is basically working as a slave on a plantation. Because she doesn't know how long she'll be back for.

She doesn't decide when she falls back and she only falls back into modern 1970s life when her life is in danger. Yes. What a setup? It is such a good set up. It is such a good set up, but it is really stressful. How did you feel reading it, Andy, when you started? Honestly, I was like, oh, yeah, a bit because you said pick a book from this author.

And so this was the one that was most lauded. And so I was like, all right. Yeah, it's her most famous. Yeah. And I, and I, we wouldn't have necessarily given this book to somebody. We really wanted to talk about her. Yeah. Ah, okay.

Yeah. So then, so I thought I will not read too much about, you know, what, what it is and just, just dive straight in. And then so as soon as, you know, she goes back that first. first time. And she's back in slavery times. I was like, oh, God, I wouldn't have chosen to read this because I don't necessarily read a lot of stuff that is like steeped in black trauma necessarily. In my work, I want to be about black joy because I think we've had plenty of black trauma and like, I think sometimes gatekeepers want to categorize black people by trauma by either a fight against racism or falling into drugs kind of thing.

The only time you ever see black people organise when they're drugged in. Do you know what I mean? So then it got very interesting when her husband falls through this kind of portal and the fact that he's white. And it took, I would say, two thirds of the book for me to be fully engaged. Because I was, you know, I'm talking about how slowly I read. I read really slowly with this because I'm really struggling to engage with it as a story. as opposed to I'm just reading more pain,

sort of thing, more sort of black pain. But she's such a good writer that like about two thirds of the way in, I was like, this is, this is good. Like, she is using this device. She's not just a sci-fi writer. She's a social commentator, really. And she's so brilliantly using this device to tell us a lot, not just about antebellum.

The self. That's how. But actually about how sort of social ills come to be, because I thought of Nazism actually by the end of it is we all think of those people as they were all awful people who had awful thoughts all the time. But actually, a lot of people are a product of their environment. And so she was demonstrating, not to excuse their behaviour, of course, but she was demonstrating that these relatives of hers were all products of their time and that they loved and they laughed and they felt, but they also believed

horrific things about the social strata and stuff. So, yeah, it took me a hot minute to get into it. I mean, some people, some black people really want to delve into the history and, like, absorb these pieces of work. And I think they're really valid. They're brilliant, actually, particularly this book. But, yeah, I'm about, like, yeah, I know that stuff already. I want to see.

I want to read something about, like, black people enjoying themselves. Yeah. And that their antagonist isn't white people. Yeah. You know what I mean? It might be that they just trying to get a movie made or they, you know, know, just want to fall in love or whatever. So there was that in the background for the first,

I would say, like two-thirds of the book. But like I say, she's so brilliant that that got parked, you know, to be able to really, I mean, I didn't choose to be engaged in the story. It's just so well done. And such a sort of clever bit of storytelling that, you know, I couldn't help. Yeah. There are some graphic descriptions of some violence that I found really hard to read. incredibly, I read an interview that she said

this was her watered down version. I actually, do you know what? I'm going to be honest, I thought that. Oh, yeah. I felt like I'm so glad she didn't go there because, you know, you watch something like 12 years a slave and you'll see, you know, the reality of what's possible. So she, I think she, I could sense that she was pulling her phone.

She said she knew her audience wouldn't be able to take it and she wanted the audience to read it. Yeah. So she, you know, wrote a story that you could absorb rather than like something, the truth, which is just make people go, oh, I'm not going to read that. Also, it's like, there's this really dubious thing about violence and entertainment anywhere, but especially this kind of violence, which is based on historical truth and real people's experiences, and then being read for entertainment.

There's something so uncomfortable about, would you want that reader? Yeah, but that's, I completely agree what you said on, because I started it and was really like, kept putting it down. Just not, okay. And then, just bit by bit, I was like, she's such a good writer, that this is not, it's, It's not entertainment. It is this social commentary. It is, and like you said, when her husband, who she loved so much in 976, starts slightly romanticising the world that he's in.

And there's that great bit where she says something like, he said, oh, you know, it wouldn't be so bad to live here. Like, go out west, see how it was built. And she was like, but they're just doing to the Indians what they're doing to the blacks here. And she says that phrase, like, he looked at me in a strange way as he did these days. And you could see, because of the world they're in at that point, how they're still. starting to move away from each other because he's the world treats him differently. He's a white man in that situation. And one time we should say he time travel travels back with her to protect her

because they realize that that's the only way should be safe is this white man saying, oh, she's mine, basically, which obviously he would affect, that's what I loved again. How would that affect your relationship? Like he's there to protect you, but to protect you, he owns you. That's not how it is in 19-s. Like, I thought she dealt with that so well of how people. people, yeah, how people react to that. And using time travel, you can't really understand someone else's experience at all,

but especially not with certain really big experiences or backgrounds and things like that. And so she used it a really literal way of saying, this is what the white man will never understand. I think it's interesting as well on the book when she talks about when they, they're in the present in the 70s, about how their families reacted to them getting together. And that being a problem in 1976, and then she sort of then takes you back and being like, and that's why. That's why.

And she, another thing I read about how it was really interesting, she wrote this because she was at, I guess it was in the late 60s at a black rights rally and some black man spoke about how he was angry with the ancestors and he said, I feel like, you know, they were weak and they didn't stand up. Wow. And she said she sat there thinking, you don't understand the context.

And she wanted to write a book to explain. But Kanye said something like that more recently. that it's a choice. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what he meant by that. Yeah. I would say that technically he's right. It is a choice.

It's a choice between being flayed. Yeah. And do you know what I mean? So people, yes, you could argue that they were making choices. Self-preservation choices. And I would guess that any person in any person in that situation would make the choice of I will comply. Yes. Rather than, because they obviously, they would make examples of people.

So you see that. You're going to make a decision there and then I'm going to comply. So, yeah. Technically, Kanye, Bravo. Well done. Well observed. I think this book does so well to make you understand. And we were talking about that as that quote where she says, like, the ease of which we fall into slavery, the ease of which it has become this norm.

And like you said, that was the other thing I read that she said, she actually then read lots of Holocaust memorial stuff. That was what helped her rather than reading. slave narratives. Which is what you said. Yeah, she said that. She really went to that point in history to understand how do people do things. How do things happen? To us, oh, well, how would that happen?

Well, there's two things that come to mind about that is I remember Eddie Murphy in his delirious, I think that was his first, he talks about this. He says, he makes jokes about the fact that, you know, black people at that time, which have been like early 80s or whatever, like, yeah, if they'd ask me to pick cotton, I would have said, you know, he used to mind if we can swear on it. He's like, suck my dick. And he's like, yeah, the first time they tried that, you know. Yeah.

So there was an awareness. He brought awareness anyways. I don't know if that was the general consensus. But the other thing it made me think of is like, what time are we in that people in the future will look back and just go, damn. They did that. They thought that. They said that. Like, we don't even know because we're so steeped in the social construct that we don't even know it yet.

Yeah. Maybe never will. But how does a modern person deal with their history? That's what I think is so clever about, the literal device of putting them there. So it's not the inheritance, the learning, the fact that people have to carry that with them. Yeah. Some version of it. You're literally putting them there.

And then I guess she's surprised by her acquiescence. Yeah. And I also think the way she writes, it's lovely because it's not instant. She does stand up for herself and she shouts and she has a fight. but then the third time she comes back she again sees what happens to people and starts to think okay I can't do that or like how to behave and how not to get noticed

and the other slaves advised like don't look don't do this don't do that also if you've been living in you know California in the 70s and 80s it's safer yeah but not safe that's what I think is so interesting she's pointing out it's still not safe but what anti-bell himself is very clear everything's very clear it's more explicit it's more explicit the danger isn't it's like okay I know what will happen and it will happen in the street, but it still happens in the street.

It's still happening. And that's why this book still resonates so loudly. You're not reading a historical book that's finished, you know. Oh, that's done. We don't have that problem anymore. Well, the way, I'm not going to say how the book ends, but I think that what she is doing with that is showing the stamp of the past on the present. Yeah.

And that it's a wound that is never going to be, it's going to be there for you to see for always. And that's why it's got so much relevance nowadays because certainly African Americans still feel that stamp of the past. Well, it's so recent as well. We're not talking about thousands of years ago. It's several generations.

But some people would argue that's long enough. That's a mindset that a lot of people have. It's just like, what do you want? You've got affirmative action. You've got this, you've got that. You should be over it by now. Things are equal when, obviously we know that they're not. but how she ends the book, I think really cleverly is tying the past to the present.

The other thing that I think she does really well, and I'm sometimes just like blown away by how authors are able to get, not just the detail, but the mindset. So what feels accurate is the hierarchy within the enslaved people. Oh, God, yeah, yeah. Of what they think of her because she is too close to the wife. and what the dynamic is between all of them. That is fascinating.

And again, sort of demonstrates how those social constructs can, do you know what I mean, how they can take hold and what the impact is? Because you can imagine that same thing in Nazi Germany of people, you know, not necessarily in the same way because it wasn't about ownership of people. But there still was a situation where people were incredibly unsafe. Yeah. And that didn't mean that they collectively, you know, banded together against the enemy. Everyone had to do what they could to keep themselves.

safe to get an extra tiny bit of food, just to think of somebody else. Well, actually, I don't trust you. Yeah. And also, you know, what was one of the characters? She tells the master something that someone's done. She grasses them up, essentially. And I'm sure that sort of, you know, being an informant, essentially, will earn you something in the eyes of your oppressors kind of thing.

And you think that's worth more than being rejected by my fellow oppressors. And the character of, it's Margaret, isn't it? Margaret Waylon, the mother. So Rufus is the boy, she's constantly saving who grows up, and his mother is this sort of hysterical. I mean, they call her white trash, don't they? They all sort of think she's white trash, this woman who's married into this plantation family,

and is white. And I thought, again, that was so interesting of, like, at the beginning of the novel, she hates this woman, they have this awful relationship, and by later on, not much of spoilt. the woman is much, Margaret is much older and has less power and Dana ends up sort of looking after her at one point and says she found, I found myself smiling or like telling jokes with her. And like you said, it's that thing of, I thought she got the complexity of relationships,

that it isn't us versus them. And that's the problem I think that we often have now of like it's us versus like either what side do you want? It's actually like it's very hard to, that's not how people work in that, like you said, to survive. the subtleties of survival or getting on with people or what you find to talk about. Human nature. Like knowing someone, the majority of circumstances would create empathy and recognition of humanity. You know, like, you know, there'll be a racist person who likes their neighbours.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think they're a good example. Yeah. That's because you know that person. You know them. Yeah. And that's what happens when you know people. Like your bigotry just dissolves because it's based on nothing.

The caring, that's what I find. is like Margaret hates Dana. But when when Margaret is weak and vulnerable and Dana becomes her nurse essentially, then that relationship is acceptable to Margaret, that the black woman can care for her. So it's softened. So again, you're seeing like,

which obviously makes Dana's life easier that this woman isn't falling her around and shouting at her. So they do have this an easier relationship. But underneath it is this complete discord, you know, of status and power and all of it. But that doesn't mean like you said that day to day, other things, other interactions can happen.

And I just think she captures the way that, that it's, yeah, the complexity of what makes up, what made up plantation life. That's what I felt. I was really seeing that it wasn't, there was a master, literally flaying people. But then there was all these other people.

And like she says the community you affect. Like when they, you know, they're talking about like, we should just get rid of this master, we have the power. And it's like, but then what happens to all these people? Like, you don't just fix a problem by removing it. You have to,

live with it, unpick, deal with the stamp of what you've done, which is what obviously, you know, we still face to this day now. Well, I was going to say, the other book that we've been reading is Empire World by... Satnam Sangerra. And it's a book all about how, you know, the very naive, you know, British view is. Well, then we got rid of slavery. Yeah, abolition. Problem solved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry.

And now I'm sorry about that. It's not even a sorryness. Some people say sorry. And then it's like, okay, so what we're talking about now? Yeah. And so it's so interesting, you know, because he travels around to lots of places seeing, you know, there's huge, huge ramifications of doing what happened. Yeah, I mean, you can't, like, again, you can't move millions of people, kill them, enslave them, and they're not have consequences. Like that's, and I think that's what she's talking about here.

Like, you can't have a plantation, own people, whip them, they don't do what you want. And then that won't affect five generations down that that happened. And I think that's what, again, this book and why sadly still relevant now of like there are consequences that that lives within people, that that's where their family came from, that's where our history is. And also I think maybe this is where white people are having a different relationship with literature like this and with the history. Because I think first of all, it was seen as a black person's history.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And not ours? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because we were inflicting the trauma not doing, not having the trauma on us. Olden days people did a really bad thing. Rather than like our ancestors. Yeah. Not literally.

Well, it could be. That's why I just think the American version of who do you think you are. Have you heard like there's lots of do it? It's super awkward. Oh, so they do have one. They have one. Well, yeah, because yeah. And there's lots of them are.

Something else. Like. Anyway. But yeah, Ben Affleck was on it, I think, wasn't he? Oh, he was one. Slave. Plantation owner, yeah. of, yeah, ancestors and stuff.

In Sartman's book he talks about, I didn't realize that Benedict Cumberbatch. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, has. And he was in 12 years a slave and had to, you know, a surname like that as well. Like, yeah, it's his same surname. Yeah, it's like, it's a distinctive surname.

Oh, really? Yeah, it's a Cumberbatch. He was like, didn't even change it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, that's, that's, to me,

what's most interesting about the book is, yeah, giving people an experience of, like, how does the past still tie with the present? Because, you know, a lot of people do want to sort of put it behind us. Like it was a certain amount of time ago, therefore it should be sort of swept under the carpet kind of thing. And I think as well what you're saying about, you know, how to categorise this type of history. For a long time, this type of story has been black history. And it's almost like a sort of a gas-lighty thing because actually it's American history.

Yeah. It's British history. You know, black history would be a bunch of other things like maybe fantastic musicians and, you know, all the rest of. it, but it's not necessarily about things that were done to us. That, that I think is a miscategorisation of these events. And it's a denial. It's a little stepping out of like a... Well, yeah, because it's convenient because then you can have it in a little section

separate from the rest of... Because if we go to history sections in the library, you don't find necessarily... Not obviously this is fiction, but you don't find those books or they're separate. And actually, the more they start to get included and folded into British history, and American history, the more people will realize the ramifications and how they've impacted the present as well. I kept forgetting that it's 1970s. I totally forgot.

It doesn't feel 70s at all, does it? Which is why I think her stuff is so timeless, because it doesn't, not just because of how it felt, because some stuff is really of its time, isn't it? And you can really feel like, oh, I'm going into the past by reading this. But kind of like Shakespeare and how his stories persist, I think hers is the same is it's not really about the time. It's about humanity, really. That's really what she's sort of revealing.

And I love both her, Dana and is Kevin, isn't it, the husband? The husband, yeah. They go back one time and it's quite a long time. And then when they come back, they both have this weird, like this land isn't, modern life isn't enough. And he's sort of walked, you know, when he's like walking around and he's like, because in that world, I had to do something. I had to move all the time. I had to, or she says, like, I had to survive. It was so constant.

And now here, the bed's soft and the food is the fridge. Right, yeah. And then like he's saring at the oven for ages, isn't it? I love that idea of like, yeah, just again, like it didn't feel like it was offering the 70s as this great place to be as well either. And she didn't go into it in such detail that it was like, oh, well, here I am in 20, 24, I can't relate to this. It was like, they're just a couple living together trying to make their life as writers. And so it does have that timeless quality. But then that how hard life was had also enlivened them in some way.

Right. That I felt like she was, the character of Dana is saying that, one point of like when she says it's weird but I feel home. Do you remember she keeps saying she feels home? It's become normalized. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that would be like someone who maybe, would be comparable to someone who's been imprisoned,

who then comes out and go, and it's like, she's been institutionalised by all times, as it were. Adapted, yeah, that's the thing. That's the scary thing about it is like the writer takes us from the very first instance, you see the process of her adapting to her environment and you can completely empathise and you go, yep, I would, do the same, exactly the same thing. You know, I would do all of those things.

And you realize how easy it is to just like, just completely slip into that, not just that time, but that mindset as well and become also a product of that time. Which I think is such a good point that she's making because when you say, oh, it was ages, not you, when one says, oh, it was ages ago, what you're saying is we wouldn't do that now.

Like society's not like that now. We've changed. We're so much more modern. And what she's pointing is like, it just takes two, you know, one generation away. Humanity hasn't changed. And so that's why she's almost counterbalancing the argument of like,

you'd slip into it really easily. And with this character, with the way Dana does and the way her white husband does, you do get that sort of uncomfortable feeling reading it of like, oh yeah, I can see how that has just very, very slowly happened. And it does then stop you from being able to go,

oh, well, those were the past. You know, we're so much more educated and nice now. It's like, no, just different times. Yeah. And also, it's clever that, they were writers as well. So they're leading quite sort of, you know, middle class lives. And they're not, you know, they're not living hand to mouth.

Because that's probably a bit too close to the, they probably could adapt. Yeah. So there's a lot about this that was just brilliant, really. I'd read more of her. Yeah, I felt like that as well. I was like, I want to read so much more. And I started reading about all the other different series that she'd written. And this is unusual because it's a standalone.

The others are all kind of like part of series. And then I read as well like towards the end of her life, she had writer's block for like four years. She was trying to write this like absurd series. And she gave up and then went and wrote this vampire one, which is first. Yeah. As you do. Yeah.

About like a female vampire story and which apparently is amazing, which I was like, again, not someone who would pick up a vampire book. But I was like, that sounds incredible. But you always done the cinema watching Twilight Hall. Horn and Corden vampires. That's your favorite film. That's your reference. You're not Twilight.

Vampire killers or whatever. When you say female vampire, I don't even think of Buffy. I just thought of those guys. The low-hanging fruit for you is like, Horn and Corridon. We remember that, right? No, straight to Twilight.

Yeah. But yeah, I'm really glad I read it. And I'm really glad that I also pushed through that initial, oh, God, this is just so traumatic. Yeah. I felt like because it's the thing with good books. it's like, yeah, sometimes they are making you uncomfortable,

especially well, it's a very different perspective from me to you, but I was like, it is making you uncomfortable, but there's an incredible story and a lesson here to be told, and you need to give this time and you should read this. Yeah, and the quality of the writing sort of keeps you engaged, doesn't it? Because I actually, as I was reading it, I don't know where this is going to go. And even though, like, the territory felt really familiar,

you know, for the first few pages, actually, after a while, so then, okay, oh, there's this relative that she's got to look after. and he seems okay but he's still comfortable using the N-word, so not so okay, but he is five, so not all the way of age you were. And so it keeps unfolding and then the husband goes through the portal as well. And so at every turn, you're kind of kept on your toes with it, which I thought was really brilliant.

And yeah, that redeems it for me, not that it needs my redemption, as it were, but like, yeah. Yeah, the writing is stupendous. Yeah. Again, which made me like, sort of like, I found myself putting it down being like, why haven't I heard of this? Why isn't it a television series? Why isn't this like more massive?

But we didn't see the television series. Well yeah, they only came out last year. That's what I was surprised at. It was like, but maybe it'd been bubbling, you know, these things take time.

Yeah. But I, because how I did, as you said, it's so high concept and interesting. Like as soon as you pitch it to someone, you're like, that sounds like it should be a film.

It's so good. But it'd be interesting to see how they dealt with the subtleties without having, because the advantage in a book is the author gets to really sort of, well, make their point very clear.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the reviews were mixed and it just said that this book, you read it quite fast. You know, it's like, oh my God,

what's going to happen once you happen? And it's like eight, one hour episodes and it's a bit more slow and pace, which actually, the great thing about this book is you are, but oh my God,

how she's going to get back? Is she going to get back? Is she okay? I mean, it seems like a lot to get eight episodes out of one book. But then look at the Handmaid's Tale. I mean,

they're on season five. It's like, what are they? doing. Maybe that's what they said in the pitch. Yeah, yeah. Then it ended up like, oh, these owls.

Oh, no. And they said it ended on the cliffhanger on as well. And I was like, well, he must have ended like, like, it must have not ended this book. Will slavery end? Will it not? She'll be it next week. Give us another season if I'd have.

What? We wonder what happens. I have no idea. I've no idea what this character does or do. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really important book.

I would 100% recommend it. I loved it. It was really, brilliant. It's very brilliant. Yeah. Oh God. Andy, it's been so nice to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. All of your thoughts. Yeah. And input and hopefully lots of people will read this book now.

I hope so, actually. Yeah. Thank you for listening to The Weirdo's Book Club. Sarah's novel Weirdo and my book, You Are Not Alone, are both available to buy now. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriead's Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading. I like reading. With you.