Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Land by Maggie O'Farrell with Maggie O'Farrell

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

This week's book guest is Land by Maggie O'FarrellSara and Cariad are joined by the multi-award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell.In this episode they discuss Ireland, inappropriate sitcoms, writing, desks, geography, and Moomins.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclubProduced, recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. And I'm Carriead Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we created the weirdos book club. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. Each week we're joined by amazing comedian guests and writer guests to discuss some wonderfully and wonderfully and grudely weird books, writing, and just generally being a weirdo. You don't even need to have read the books to join in. It will be a really interesting, wide-ranging conversation and maybe you'll want to read the book afterwards. We will share all the up coming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram, Sarah and Carriads, Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Land by Maggie O'Farrell. What's it about? Said after the Great Famine, Thomas is a mapmaker working with his son on a revised ordnance survey project. Something happens when he's in the forest, which leads to life-changing consequences. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, there's more than a bushelful of magic. In this episode we discuss. Ireland. Inappropriate sitcoms. Writing. Desks. Geography. And Moomans. And joining us this week is

Maggie O'Farrell herself. Maggie O'Farrell is, of course, the author of Hamlet, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020. She's also the author of an incredible memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am, which was a Sunday Times bestseller. She's written amazing novels after you've gone. The Distance Between Us, The Hand That First Held Mine, which won the 2020-Cost-a-Novel Award. She's an incredible writer. Her work has been translated into 43 languages around the world. And she also, of course, very recently co-wrote and co-produce the incredible Oscar-winning film version of her own book, Hamlet. But she's here today to talk to us about her new book, Land. Farrell. We're very excited. We're so excited. Thank you so much for coming into our podcast.

Thank you for having me. It's nice to be here. Look at us both gripping. We've read all of your books. We've read all of your books. Okay, it's getting a bit spooky now. Spooky. Spooky is our. This is a little. This is a little. This is a great. It's great. It's a is spooky to meet you, having loved your writing for so long, and having been now an early reader of your new book. Of land. Land. It's such true.

I haven't even told, I've been so well behaved. It's like, I haven't even said, I love this book. Because I've been saving it for now to say how amazing this book is. I always think you should, the first thing you should say, so that all there isn't sitting worrying. Keep on their toes. I'm not going to say anything. Maybe she doesn't like it.

It's just embarrassing. Maybe, maybe I'm going to, it's going to be a hard hitting interview where I say things I don't like about it. What? But there aren't any, so I can't. I'm sack you from the podcast. I would choose Maggie over year and I've been only for 25 years.

Well, Maggie, how do you feel about podcasting? I'm a bit more nervous now. I was quite relaxing now. No, that's it. You've got to tell me terrible things. It's such an amazing book. It's brilliant. It's so exciting.

And, yeah, we felt very excited to even get hold of the proof. Advanced copies, yeah. It's made all of this worthwhile our entire lives. We know we've heard a thing about you. Oh, okay. I listen to you saying it on a podcast, which was that you write your different books on different desks. So sometimes you have more than one project on the go.

Yeah. We talk about that a lot. We want to get to the point where we have room for two different desks. But I love it. I love it. It's compartmentalisation. And actually for a brain that's having to think about more than one thing. So I wanted to ask about the desk of land.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So, yes. Actually, now I'm going to really blame mine's because I've actually got three desks because I'm really honest. Yeah. So I've got a rooming house, which is not big. Yeah. I mean, the desks are not big, either.

They're quite small. And they're kind of, they're sort of, you know. A chair that can swivel between. Yeah, I've got a wheelie chair. Okay. So I can scoot. I can scoot across. Actually, it's not really scoot because it's quite a thick carpet.

So it's a cut. Yeah, yeah. I've got to punt myself across. So I have a desk where, yeah, I do my writing inside. Then I've got one where I do all my, I don't know, admin. I've got to send emails about my kids' school trips, that kind of thing. That all happens there. But then I also now have a studio in the garden.

Lovely. Wow. Which is really nice. It was at one point a greenhouse, but it blew down in a gale. because I live in Edinburgh, a lot of gales. And then, so I was going to say, I rebuilt it, which is really misleading. I got some people to rebuild it for me, some builders, to be specific. And so that's where I work now.

So it's down, right the bottom of garden. Spiders? Yeah, I don't mind spiders. I'm fine with that. Also, I have three cats and they just eat spiders. Oh, great. So that's fine. That's their little job.

And so it's got no Wi-Fi connection at all. Wow. I go down there and I'm completely, yeah, it's like going back in time. Yeah, that must be, do you get that sort of strange calm? Like, when my phone is actually switched off, I feel like, like, oh, actually a lot, like 15% calmer than I am with the phone on. Yeah, but I have my phone on because, you know, I never know when my kids are going to call me and say, can you come pick me up. So, but I put it outside, so I can't, I don't kind of fiddle with it. And also I can't even because there's no Wi-Fi.

Yeah. So that's mostly where I wrote Land down there. And when you say it's like going back in time with Land you are. literally going back in time. Yeah, would you might tell us what the book is about? It's only just coming out. Well, set in Ireland in the mid-19th century in the aftermath of the Great Famine. And it's about a father and son mapping team to Mass and Liam.

And they are working for the British Ordnance Survey, making revisions to the maps of Ireland after the famine. And it's based on my great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather. Are they the same names as your family? Have you taken the name? Yes. Yeah, those are their first names. I decided not to talk about their surname just because I feel that they...

Yeah, I didn't want to completely identify them because it is a novel. So I've taken what I was able to find out about them, which isn't much. Does this mean that growing up you knew a certain amount of this period of history? Well, not really. I mean, when I was growing up, there's a kind of myth in our family that we were told as kids that one of our ancestors drew the first ever maps of Ireland. Wow. Yeah.

You know, and like all myths, I always wondered if there was a grain of truth in it. And so I kind of went searching for the truth I wanted to know if this was true. And also one of my dad's siblings passed away, and we got sent by his widow, a lot of stuff that was from our family. And so in all that stuff, I mean, lots of different things, but there was a photograph of him, the mapper, with his son on his knee, which just seems astonishing from that

I mean it's from I think it's from the 1850s Wow Yeah and they were not rich people You know you can tell by the way What they're wearing Because what they were doing was important That's why the picture was taken Was someone that told me a friend

A cousin of mine said that they were often Photographers who kind of wandered around Royal Island If you had the cash you could pay for someone to take a photo of you So who knows I don't know where it came from But also there's a hand drawn map In the style of the Ordnance Survey

done by Liam for his father and I'd never seen it before and that's been that was a real inspiration for the book Oh my God that's fascinating And so you've got this really personal connection to a really like heartbreakingly

sad period of history As I started reading I thought God Maggie can really go deep into the sad stuff Can't you? But I think it's really brave That history as well is like, it's so grim for Irish history. And I talk about this not with my Irish friends.

It's not really taught in English schools particularly. Something I thought of, and I don't know if you remember this, and Maggie you might not be aware of it, but someone tried to make a sitcom about the potato famine about 15 years ago and there was outcry. So it got commissioned. Is it Irish writers? It was.

Who is that? I don't remember it. Nothing about it was thought out properly. It's a little bit like, in, 2012, someone opened a theme park of the Titanic. You mean in the show 2012? No, no. In the year, 2012.

I'm always referring to the show, 2012. Yeah, yeah, because you're in it. That's what I'm glad. I remember that's of that show. Well, that's a bit of a leap. No, so a year after the, like 100 years after the Titanic, they opened a theme park. And it's odd because you go, well, this is this big tragedy. But actually, there comes a point where the empathy sort of evaporates.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so this sitcom, they had thought, oh, it'll be a, you know, it's a historical period. we know a little bit about, you know, like in a black addery kind of like. And it was so without thought of... And that's interesting you mentioned black add as well because the way they treated World War I in black out is like it's very sensitive and very thoughtful and very critical of the things. Whereas like... Anyway, it got cancelled.

Really? You shock me. Because the response was so like you could only even think about something like that if you know nothing about it and that was essentially the point. Is this a British or an Irish? Yeah, it must have been. I remember so few details, which was just. why I can't remember the channel. But I assume that part of the reason was that it was British people.

Okay. That there was such, at quite the insensitivity of it. Yeah, because it's a really horrific time period in Irish history. It's not particularly taught in English history. It's also so linked, you know, England is so culpable in that situation. And when you look into the, you know, it relates to what was happening in India, with the East India Company as well, the famine that happened over there, that we also did. If you ignored, we ignored what was.

happening here we made it worse. So these characters and the tension of working for the English as our mapper is doing because he doesn't have any other option. It's a really, yeah, it's a really sad period, which is very recent. Even I would say like, so you have an individual person's life and Thomas and what he has been through and experienced and living through the famine, losing his family, going to workhouse. Yeah. The, I, I, I, I, I, The scene with the pig, and I'm not going to say anything more than that, or the pigs, which must be based on true details. Yes. Yeah.

So when you were researching and discovering things like that, it must have a huge effect on you as well as being creatively stimulating and you thinking, oh, okay, we should know these things. Our readers need to know it. Yeah, I mean, it was a hard thing to research. But like you say, when I was, I mean, I was at comprehensive school in Scotland. Scotland and we were taught two things about the Great Femin in Ireland, one of which was that it was caused, the cause of it entirely and all the disaster was caused by a bacterium. Yeah, potato blight, nothing to do with anyone else. Yeah, no, there's no political or social, yeah, there's no political, social historic background to it at all. And then we were also taught that Queen Victoria gave some of her own personal money.

Wow. Bullshit. I smell bullshit. I mean, she did, but it was not. very much. Let's just say the Sultan of Turkey gave more. The Trotaur Nation in America, who obviously were not a very wealthy people, they gave, they had a wit around and had a huge, gave some money. So, but that's, I mean, it's, those two details are such a tiny and irrelevant details to the whole disaster. So, and obviously I knew a bit more, obviously,

because of my background. But yeah, so actually when you really look into it, it's so horrifying and so it was so avoidable and so unnecessary. And the thing that really still really gets my go is that John Trevelyan was appointed famine minister, he was in the British government. So he was famine relief minister and under his auspices, a million people died of salvation and upwards, probably more. And another further million emigrated, he described it as an act of God for it was punishing and idle and ungrateful people. And he was given the highest order of, I mean, I think he's a knight or he was knighted after. So I still find that amazing. I can't believe the British government hasn't revoked

that knighthood because they should. Yeah. And I think when you look into anything British Empire, you know, at that, especially at that time period, I find it staggering that people walk around being proud to be British when there are, obviously there's amazing, and I know that's a controversial statement, but like, there's so many things in history where you're like, that's so terrible what you just said, but it's just sort of known of like, well, yeah, a million people died in Ireland, but then they all moved to America and I had a great time, right? Like, it's just, this narrative is not owned properly of what the government did. It's so disgraceful. That's the importance of story, isn't it? The story you get told, especially if you're

told it at a young age, takes a really strong lodging. Yeah. So if you're told a story about, you know, victors and, you know, God's people coming out on top and, you know, written by... You can draw a line from there to the problems we have now. It's like you have to acknowledge the history of a country of what's happened and all of that thing. And I think to bring it back to the book and not getting started on the empire. You're telling a story of individuals.

That's what I think this book does so well, that you bring it down to... That's a real man who had to go and go. A real mother, the widow. The widow, when she goes to the chest, this is quite early in the book, so it's not a spoiler for anyone who hasn't read yet, but there's a character. And in such a deft way, you like broke my heart on a train because she's going through these incredibly made trousers for, you know, her children that were going to be passed down. Yeah.

And so you're telling us a really small, a microcosm of the story, which makes it so real and so harrowing because of the very, very real human. pain of a parent not being able to feed their children. Yeah. Were you in pieces writing a lot? I was a bit, I mean, I think I just, you know, when I was looking at the dates, when I went back and I found in the records my great-great-grandfather, Tomas, and I realised that he'd been employed by the Ordon Survey in 1848,

and he'd been doing the revisions of Maps of Ireland in the 1850s. And I thought, hang on a second, what must that have been like, you know, revising the map? Because it wasn't said in the notes that I could find why they needed to revise it, but obviously, you know, the country had undergone this huge horrible change. You know, it lost a fifth of its population through starvation and a further million had left. And, you know, whole towns were wiped out, whole villages. And, you know, all these estates had been redrawn and tenants had been thrown off and sent away to America. And I just thought, you know, obviously that's why they had to revise the maps.

And what must that have been like to have lived through that? terrible disaster and then have to, you know, would he have, would it have been up, you know, it must have been upsetting to do it, but also it must have felt necessary to him, I imagine, to get it right, set it down. You have this beautiful scene with this widow who I was just mentioning with her, who's lost her children. When she's, she's telling Thomas, you know, oh, this family was there and this was a family of 12 and then so, and so you do have someone, well, you do have, and it, because it's not

spoken, is it? They don't commute. She doesn't say out loud how she feels about it and he sort of pats her on the hand sort of once and that's the sort of, but so much emotion within that she's telling him the facts and they both know what's unspoken around those facts in terms of the huge amount of lost. Yeah. I think it was just interesting, you know, I think there's been so many novels and films about emigrants, you know, people going to America and arriving and I think those novels and films are brilliant but and also about, you know, we often, we know about the story about the people who died, but I think the story I was interested in and what it was like to still be there.

Yeah, to still be and to live and to kind of try and recover from it. I haven't really seen that. I think that's, I think you often write the books you would want to read. So I think I wanted to tell that story to try and understand what it was like to try and recover from this enormous collective trauma. Yeah, it really is, isn't it? You feel that the trauma. You also go back, I don't quite know what time period is.

So you think of Stain it, Stone Age or very early peoples, but you don't pin it down necessarily. Yeah, unless we're getting it really wrong. Yeah, I was like, do you know what time period is? I thought, I mean, I was tempted to kind of put late, but I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to make it into history lesson. And if you want to go in, yeah, one of my favorite places in the world is the archaeology museum in Dublin, which I love, which goes right back to the earliest people who inhabited Ireland. And that was a big inspiration for that part of the book. So I wasn't sure

When I was writing that whole chapter I was thinking Maybe my editor's going to put a massive red pen to say This is your non-fiction, Maggie. What is all this about? Maggie O'Farrell's prehistoric Ireland For kids. Exactly.

That's the next one. Although she may well, you know, just say I'm sorry that all has to go. But it seemed really important to me. You know, I You know, Irish myth is something that I was read to me as a child a lot. My dad, when we asked him to read us

a bedtime story he would only ever read us Irish myths and we used to beg him you know I used to say please can you read pippie long stuff or the mumins but he'd always say no I'm going to read this so actually it was annoying at the time but I'm really glad in a way it does because I think it kind of forms my sort of bedrock or my DNA for storytelling it's all kind of in my head those strange stories that are all all sort of rooted in a truth I mean they've obviously been embroidered and changed and mythologised and fictionalised in the time since. But it's still all there.

So it was really important to me. I wanted to go right back to the first people who inhabited Ireland. There's actually one. There's half a clause later in the book which takes you back to the Ice Age. I was so happy. So I wanted to say, yeah, it goes right back to the Ice Age as well.

That's really going to put people off, isn't it? I wonder if you'd read Helm by Sarah Hall. No, I haven't. Oh yeah, it's similar. I thought the same thing. It's like it's in the same energy world. I think you might love it. It's about a wind.

About a wind up north. Through time in the penines, I think. Yeah, I think it's somewhat. And yeah, there's lots of pre-civilisation people in it. Oh, I'll have to read it. Yeah. I love her books. She's really, it's a wonderful.

I wasn't saying that your book was comparable. No, but it's the same vibe. Same energy. There's something. When we went back. I thought of it as well. And strong, really strong women having to survive. elements and nature.

And the relationship between a mother and their children there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also there's something so beautiful about people when someone's describing nature to you, even though actually the reality of it would be very chilly. Very windy. Very harsh. I loved about that pathway that you took with these ancient people is I think it gave a real respect

to Ireland. And again, sort of painting in a history that isn't always there of like there have been people here for a long time. Like they are humans, they are real to take away from like, you said this narrative of like, oh, there's just a great famine, there's emigration, there you go. The end.

Yeah, the end. There's a really shocking idea. Sorry if I've just jumped in on you because I wanted to ask about the sending of girls from the workhouse to Australia to the sort of the newly set up penal colonies there. History is so grim.

And I assumed, I didn't look it up because I wanted to ask you, but I assumed that that was a real deal. that you discovered already knew. Yes. Yeah, I've read about that in records, the workhouse records. And it's really, it was a detail that really stuck out to me because it was kind of, and I've read about it in history books as well.

And it's always been kind of presented, or it's often presented as a kind of positive. It's so great these girls were given a new start. And they went to Australia. But I was thinking, hang on a second. What? These girls were young. I mean, they were 13, 14. And, you know.

And they had no choice. They didn't really happen. No, no choice. That's where they were sent. And what, so you think, well, what happened to them? And it can't be, I mean, you know, it can't even need to. It can't be a good story in every country. I mean, maybe some of them had a great time. Maybe they found really nice husbands who treated them well. And yeah. I mean, that's how history always works. Yeah. But then also you think they were paid. It was a kind of as a form of enslavement. I mean, it is. It's a really, really shocking detail that your character, Seraphina, Fina is saved from. But we're at the boat. We see the others that aren't. And then there's this black sort of space in history where we can all imagine. We can all imagine. How well they were treated when they got there.

Yeah, it was a punishment. It was people were sent there as a punishment. Australia wasn't a civilized, I mean, it was barbaric. Well, I think the key thing was that there weren't enough women. Yeah, criminals. So they sent them out and you think, well, yeah, what happened to them then? Yeah. I didn't really, made me very worried.

And these are the same age as my daughters. Yeah. Imagine, I mean, yeah, it's unthinkable. And because, yeah, children without parents throughout history have been so incredibly vulnerable. Yes, exactly. So one of the rules was to go into the county workhouse, you had to be separated.

So children, adults were separated. So often, there were children, if they were young enough, didn't know who their parents were. I didn't know where they were from. I had no idea where it was they'd come from or where they could possibly go back to or what happened to them. So some of them were kind of,

hired out as farmhands and treated little better than slaves. Some of them were given trades and a lot of them were sent to factories to be in service in Britain. And also imagining what it must be like for a parent because, I mean, if your situation, you're so desperate, you've been thrown out of where you live, you've got no way of feeding your family, the workhouse is the only chance of surviving.

And you have to give up your land. Yeah, and then you can never find your children again. You never know what's happened to them. Or it's just, you know, you are. You hear words, you can't ever get them back, and how that must feel. Yeah. I mean, reading the workhouse, the sort of famine workhouse documents, was awful because it just gave a glimpse into the kind of horrific political, social upheaval. These families got taken from their land that they'd farmed for generations.

They got separated from the rest of the family. So often they had no idea who they were. And there was one story that I read about a father who came back from America looking for any survivors of his family and he went to the workhouse because someone must have told him that your family were taken there and there was one child that survived

but the workhouse had written down that she was from Kalani and she was from Kilari and so the father couldn't find her and he went back and it was only after he'd gone that they realised the mistake so he never knew that you have that detail

so there's a detail of that in the book because I couldn't believe That story, it just, I mean, it's so, even now I'm slowly tearing out. I know, it's too heartbreaking. It's so awful. When I saw that in the book, I was like, I knew it was true, but I really hoped it wasn't. Because I was like, I'm just a novelist making something sad. I'm afraid not.

But this is why I think the individual stories, especially the research you've done to base them in true historical fact are so important in understanding. It's not just figures and numbers and a fifth of the population. It's so hard to visualize them. You do need those day-by-day details. You need to humanise these things. And that's the thing when things are, like you said, far enough away that they've become a different narrative. Without the humanisation of it, it's very hard for us to really understand how that, why it matters. And I think what you do so well in this book is you start to understand the consequences of that.

Consequences of a famine are you have Thomas's, you know, can't talk about this to his children. He doesn't know how to express the trauma he's been. The consequence of that is his children don't understand. The deep repression of trauma, which is the only way you can. get out of bed in the morning. When that trauma surfaces, he can't get out of bed anymore. Yeah, but you see the ripples of that. Like, it's not just a fact, oh, this happened.

It's like, things don't exist in a vacuum. That's what I loved about this book. It's like you start seeing it going from Thomas to his son, Liam, who doesn't want to be a mapper because of the way his father was. His fear. His fear. And things weren't talked about. Sorry, sorry.

We're doing that thing when we talk about them. Like, I'm going to call Liam. I'm going to tell him. She just talked to him. It's not right. I was going to ask you about dogs. Oh, yes. Do you like dogs?

She's got three cats that's making you think. I do like dogs. Yeah, we would have dogs. One of my kids is allergic to dogs. That's the only reason we don't have dogs. So I grew up with dogs. My sister who lives just down the road from me, she is a shelter vet. So she has lots of dogs.

And she often has a lot of sight hounds, which I borrow, obviously. And she's always said to me, one day I'm going to get an Irish wool band. And I keep saying, okay. Yeah. I'm ready. Yeah. So you've got sort of got them in your book and sort of protect you. Yeah.

And that thing... I forgot about the dog in the book. I thought you just randomly asking you about dogs. I was like, hey. Oh, yeah. Okay. No, there's several dogs. Because they're generational as well.

I know. I thought that was lovely that this, the dog in this book is an Irish, like I didn't know that. Like he sort of comes from as much as the literal land as the people do. Yeah. And also sort of bred into them that kind of that's my person, especially like with young girls and that protective element. It was related. to the book. Not just a random question.

It's okay. I don't know I'm talking about dog. And what about your favourite comment? You've obviously had like a hell of a year. Oh yeah. We have to talk about it a little bit. The time we were recording, the Oscars were very recently. Jesse just won the Oscar for Hamlet.

Incredible, I mean, incredible performance. Like, I'm so glad she won. The first thing I thought as I left was that woman needs a fucking Oscar for that performance. But I mean, how has it been, you know, being a writer, living a very isolated world at the bottom of your garden, to then becoming part of the film industry and having to partake in that. How has that sort of split been for you? It's been very strange, I think, when that would be,

because it isn't, like you say, novelists are kind of lone wolves. Yeah. And I like my life as a novelist. But, yeah, and I found a whole collaboration actually while we were working on the script and on set, that was really fascinating. You know, partly because as a writer, it's always a total gift to see anybody doing, you know, because as you know you walk onto a film set and everybody who's working is kind of at the top of their game, no matter what it is, whether it's doing lighting rigs or makeup or costumes.

And it was just fascinating. All for your thoughts that you had thought years ago. Well, the weird thing is you'd think that and you'd think this is really interesting. Is that how you make these costumes and this is how it works? And then, you know, the costume department was enormous. And there were all these people sewing these tiny stitches and sewing, you know, lacy mob caps. and then at the end of it there was another room

where they just beat the shit out of the clothes with kind of chains and sticks to make them look kind of worn in and that was, I mean it was also fascinating but then, yeah,

but the whole, I mean, I had really no thought because they said to me you need to keep, you know, these months clear and I thought,

nobody's going to want to talk to me obviously. But it is, I mean, that part of it was really and the promotion of something. Yes, I had never really expected that.

Also, you're not just an adapted novelist, you're the, you're the, you know, you did the script. I co-wrote it. So you've become in a slightly different role to just the novelist who's had their ideas taken from them. You're like, oh, I'm sort of, I'm the one who ferried it along. So you become very important to the process.

Well, I'm not sure. I mean, in the kind of Hollywood food chain, I think I'm quite far down, which is fine with me. So, yeah, it was fascinating. Does it feel like a gamble agreeing to it? Was there any part of you that thought, you know, I've written this brilliant book. Everyone loves it. It's a book. I'll leave it there.

I think I knew that it was in really safe hands. And I think there were people that we discussed a director that I didn't feel would be right, or they might take it in a very different direction. Yeah. But I had a... The guy did Fast and Furious. Well, I'm not sure he'd love you to do that.

He wrote a sitcom for The Potato Famine. And look, he just... My kind of guy. My kind of guy. I was trying to get someone that wasn't actually insulting. Yeah. Yeah, so I had a Zoom call. Very early on, I had a Zoom call with Chloe Zhao.

And I was kind of, you know, waiting on my computer. And I thought, you know, when you're having a Zoom call with an Oscar-winning film director, I'm probably going to see some amazing Beverly Hills Mansion there's going to be an infinity pool, definitely a butler. Yeah, in the background. And I was really kind of, okay, I'm ready. And then on screen came this woman who was wearing a hoodie right down to here

and she had it. All her hair was kind of wet. She said, I've just been surfing. And in the background with lots of dogs. Oh. And I thought, and it looked like she was in a kind of mobile home. And actually it was. She wasn't.

it turns out. And I thought, oh, okay, not what I was expecting. Yeah. And I thought, like, I think I can work with this person. Yeah. But you've said in interviews as well that initially you were like, I'm not writing this script. Like, I don't want to. But she basically convinced you to do it. Close very persuasive. So she was picked, she picked, well, a copy of the book. Because I said, I don't think, you know, I'm not really. And she just kind of leaned really close to the camera and said, I want to make this. And it's kind of slap the book. This, this, this. And she said, if you don't do it, I'm not going to do it. So I was kind of, oh, okay.

or I think, yes, yeah. So I went back in, my husband said to me, went back to the kitchen, my husband said, oh, how did you take it? And I said, actually, I changed my mind. Now I'm going to do it. Wow. And how was it like, like it was published a while ago

and then obviously won the women's prize and had the success. Did you have that moment as a novelist of, how did it feel coming back to your words to be like, oh, with their bits you were like, oh, I don't remember this or, that's quite good. Yeah, I mean, I've written another, you know, I wrote a book called The Marish Portrait in between.

And I mean, I think I was very lucky that I was collaborating with Chloe, because obviously it goes without saying Chloe's got a lot of experience in bringing stories to the screen. And she had a very clear idea right from the start about which elements of the books she wanted to keep

and which we needed to lose. Because obviously the first job is to kind of cut it down. I missed the flea. I missed the flea. Yeah. I was sad. Chloe said that if we had filmed that, I mean, we wanted to keep it.

If we had filmed it, that would have taken up the entire budget for the whole film. Oh yeah, totally. Just that short. I think you didn't need it, but yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, a large Elizabethan ship, yeah. You know, would have been quite costly.

Cartoon, guys, cut to the cartoon. The ship and the flea? Okay, why don't you make your version of Hamlet? Yeah, you do it. Oh, yeah, I think it's... Maybe a sitcom about the plague. Yeah, about that. Did you miss out writing time in doing all the promo and stuff?

Was that... Did you sometimes feel like, my diary is full of these things, my time's being eaten? A bit, but actually, you know, I know that it's really temporary, and it's only for a few months. And also, you know, I think, especially when you're in your 50s, you've just got to say yes to new things,

you've got to challenge yourself to do new things. And when someone says, will you come to the Oscars and we'll pay for you to come? You don't say, actually, no, I'm... I've got another draft to do. Another chapter to write. You just, I mean, you have to go along for the ride. I think that's where I'm wrong.

So that's why it's a wrong question. You wanted to do it. And I'm going to having this assumption that someone made you to do it. It's a brilliant thing to do it. It's not like an annoying thing to do it. I think I know that it's never going to happen again, you know. And so you just have to kind of...

I'm sorry, but there's a Jesse Buckley part in right here. She'd be amazing as the, as Fiener. Jesse Buckley? So it hasn't opened a door in your mind where you now think, oh, great, I'm going to be film writer and screenwriter, yeah, right, adapt more. Adapt more, I've got a back catalogue going. I don't know, we'll see. I mean, at the moment, I still feel novels are my thing that I always want to do.

I've always always wanted to do and always, I think, we'll want to do. So that's always been my first, first love in life. What were you into when you were younger? What were like the novels that made you think, oh my God, I love this, I want to do this. Well, I really loved the Moomin's. I loved Tolly Anson.

Yeah, I was totally obsessed with the Moomans. Carriad used to perform on stage as Moomin Mama. She used to dress up. Did you? She is my icon. She's my guide as a mother. I have a little statue of Moomin' mum. Mama in my kitchen.

I've got one by my desk. Yeah. And if I, you know, if I'm having a slightly challenging maternal moment, I look her and think, what would Moomin'amama do? Check her handbag.

Yeah. She's got the best handbag. I had a red and white straight piece of material up to here. And then I came out with a source of a black handbag. But the joke was, do you remember when the killing

was really famous, like Scandie Noir. So the joke was that like Moomin' Mama was dealing with Nau des Mourdes. In Mormon land, I got to solve them. Who killed them are the Mormon?

But yeah, Tovi Anson, the Moomins are this extraordinary book. And that doesn't surprise me you like them because the thing that I like about them is the deep melancholy that runs through them along with the joy. And I think you have that in your writing as well. There is this absolute thread of like the other side of life that it's not all perfect. There is this deep sadness. Like Moominland in winter.

Yeah, that's one of my favour. That was the first one I ever read. And I was ill as a child and someone gave it to me. And I remember opening it at night when I couldn't sleep. And just, you know, instantly you're into the story where Moomin. wakes up in the middle of the night and everybody else is hibernating. And it's just the sun is so good. It's so good.

You were ill when you were a child. And so in your book, I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am, when you're in hospital. So this is a horrible thing to bring up. No. I think, you know what I'm going to say. I did write it. Yes. I know, but we still know that it's not nice when you write.

I just think for anyone listening who hasn't read the book you've written about many of your sort of your survivals, your near misses. So Jimmy Saville came to visit you When you were a little girl in hospital A nurse refused to leave him alone with you Yeah Wow Like don't just get shivers Yeah it was just very

Very straight I mean it's you know Looking back now it's astonishing That it was allowed to go on for so long Some random man was allowed to visit you Yeah But I was incredibly lucky And I had you know

Who knows what would happen But I had the nurse in the room Because I was under 24 hour watch at that point And yes you refused to leave even he asked her twice, but she didn't go. Oh, my God. Does it just make you just absolutely. But that book has lots and lots of moments like that that you, that I don't want to get too into it

because also it's things that are very serious from your life. But I really recommend it to anyone listening to read. Thank you. Yeah, spend the time with it. Are you working on a new book? Well, is it a horrible question? No, not all. I've started something.

I'm not sure what it is yet. And it's very, very early days. A rap? A live rap show? Yeah, you know, a Moomin' Mama. Yeah, you ever do. Just push yourself. When you want to collaborate on the Moomin' Mama film. That's very tempting.

Maggie, you seem really good at talking, and some authors really hate it. So is it something where you're good at faking it, and we won't be offended? Or is it actually you do, you know, you go out and have a chat and you talk to people about your books, and it is sort of not too far out of your comfort zone?

Well, I used to find talking very hard because I had a really bad stammer when I was a child. I used to write a picture book about it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So when I first wrote a book and they said they were going to publish it and I was, you know, ecstatic, of course. And then they said, okay, now you need to go and talk about it at this book, first of all. I was absolutely appalled because I thought I'd found a job that meant I didn't need to. But since then, I've had a lot of speech therapy, which has helped enormously. And it also does.

I mean, someone said to me, another writer said, you know, it gets easier. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Because it really, well, I was never the child at school who wanted to be on stage or be in the school play. Or that was being my actual worst nightmare. In fact, when we were filming Hamlet, they said, oh, we think you should do a cameo. And I was kind of just absolutely not.

There's no way I'm dressing up in a Tudor outfit, and you can put me on camera. It's like, absolutely horror. A little way of Jesse. Morning. Exactly. No, it wasn't. So it wasn't really my thing, but it does get a bit easier.

And it's, you know, talking to you guys, which is your most nice people. Yeah, I guess we're nice. But yeah, because your hay event's already sold out. I saw some people complaining about that online. Oh, sorry. They weren't quick enough. They weren't quick enough. Well, you know, it's a, you know, there's a lot of interest.

But that's because people know it will be a good event because sometimes people love an author. But it doesn't necessarily mean. And also, I say that with no. expectation that they should be. They're very different skills. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to give you a compliment that's great that you can do both things. Yeah. Well, I mean, book festivals are great, aren't they? What could be better, really, than going and talking about books? It's so adorable. Exactly. And it just, and a really sort of just a lovely, nice little, feels like a Richard Curtis film. Like, the world doesn't

really like this, but we're all going to sort of queue up for coffees and pretend it is. We're going to pretend just for a weekend. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's it with right, once you accept, like, you're talking normally to book people, You know, your audience isn't people who hate books and they want to hear from you But obviously, you know, we started as performers And then became moved into writing So it's very, I understand that like for us

It was never like, oh God, getting up in front of people Wasn't it? It was like, I'd rather do that and sit down to do the writing That's that bit that seems really painful But I think, yeah, it's an audience, people who are so And love your work, especially now you've got the back Maggie's back catalogue is just behind of this No lovely new editions

I read, this one. Oh, yeah, you were saying that. Yeah, this one. So my son's Theodore. While you were pregnant? Oh, my God. Because I had a really long infertility journey. So I was really like brittle about motherhood and anything to do with motherhood. And then I became like voracious when I was pregnant.

I needed to read everything. And so and then Ted is, so it's like Theodore. So I love this. So is this what you always wanted to be a novelist? Or was there another career that was sort of like you almost went down that road? Well, I think it's not that I ever want. wanted to be a writer. It's just that I wanted to write. It wasn't that I ever thought it was never thought it was possible. I never thought I could earn a living from writing. But I all,

you know, the writers in your family? No. Creatives don't know. No. My mom was a care assistant and my dad taught economics. So no. My mom's a big reader. There were lots of books in our household and we used to go, Carrey and I were just talking about because I lived in South Wales and Bredend. She's from where my gang are from? Yeah. So when I spent my son, I was born in Derry, and then we moved to Wales.

And I was really lucky in that the town we lived in, Bregend, there was a Carnegie Library, which was just, you know, amazing. And I don't think I'd be a writer without that, you know, from the philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie. And so I used to go every week

and they had this amazing Dewey Decimal system and you had all these little kind of very soft card. I had three of them, and I'd go along and I'd get three books, and then I'd go back the next week and get three books. So there was a big emphasis on reading in our house. And then at school, did any teachers sort of draw attention to the fact that you were talented? Is there anything like that?

Bolly Ellen, Marl, this is good. I'm crying, but I love it. You don't know, I always really loved. English is my absolute favourite subject. I always was. And I had really brilliant English teachers. I was very lucky. My second favourite subject was geography.

Which I think That shows up! Yeah, well I thank my geography teacher in the back of this book because there's a lot of all his teaching has gone into it But yeah, so I always really like, I had great, particularly at most comprehensive school in Scotland I had a brilliant teacher called Mr. Henderson And he really changed my life.

He really changed the way I saw books and thought about what writers were trying to do. I think before then I just thought this is a book and this is what it is. But he was the first person who made me think about what actually was the writer trying to achieve by choosing this word or missing that word out or using this adjective. Oh yeah. So rather than books just being sort of a thing that exists by themselves, that someone else was intending. Yeah. Yeah. And there was all, yeah, that they chose

these words very specifically and why. What do they want to communicate? What was it when you, so you were writing for a while before you won the women's prize. Do you feel like that was a big turning point as well? Yeah. I mean, it was, really, it happened in lockdown. Oh, yeah, of... So it was very kind of... So I literally found out on a Zoom call. Wow. And then I went...

And I was doing that classic thing where I had my yoga trousers on and their kind of smart blouse. So then I kind of went back to the kitchen and one of the cats had been sick and I had to mop up the cat's sick. So it was low on glamour. Yeah, yeah.

But it is... I think it is... It was kind of life-changing in a way because, you know, it's a... I mean, the women's prize. It's one of my favorite prizes. It's always brilliant. And the short list is always...

always amazing and I always read it every single year because it always chooses really interesting and surprising books. And it's just, I don't know, it's always lovely when anyone responds to something you've written. I'm sure you both know, no matter who it is. Do you know that Carrie is judging it at the moment? Yes, we just go. I know she was telling we were talking about reading. I thought we didn't say it. No, no, we were talking about it. Yeah. And hopefully, what you want, especially I think the women's prize, their aim is to get brilliant books by women into lots of people's hands. It's that as well. And obviously Hamnet had already done really well. People were reading it. But then that's what we hope is that it's that little boost

that makes people go, God, everyone's keep talking to me about this book. I must read it. That's what I also, as book fans, it's the film for me was so great because, you know, you get that moment where people like, oh, Hamlet's good. You're like, wait, you read the book. Books really good, actually. To have like a celebrity that's all. This is why people don't speak to us. Literally is then doing where we go, oh, wow, you're not even read the book. Yeah. You've got a treat store. I love it when the book was already brilliant in itself.

It's not like sometimes there's adaptations of films and then no one's heard of the book and it kind of lifts the book. Do you know what I mean? Like the book was already a celebrity. Hamlet had already been like brilliant by itself. And then to have this amazing film made of it. And yeah, to have a book adaptation done well. Done well.

That's the way. That's the many have tried. Yeah, yeah. And then also again to like shine the light on like what you're doing next of like, yes, we should support writers. Guess what? Writers tell amazing stories. which become books, can become films,

can become amazing performances. Like, that's why stories are important. I just think, I mean, it's such a beautiful book. Yeah, I really love this. And I'm like, just keep doing what you're doing. Yeah, I will. Thank you. I thought it'd be an awful thing to say,

but I sort of would be quite funny. It was very funny. Oh, that's all going to end on this, patronising. We've decided you should carry off. I thought it was a terrible thing to say, but for the sake of the joke, I was like, but I was like, I hope Maggie understands that I know. I get it. I like it. And thank you. I will try.

I'll good luck with the rap. Yeah, I'll let you know. Yeah, so Edinburgh next year, comedy festival, Moomin Rap Show. Röman Rapp Show, perfect. I'm there. Do you know what? You'd get so much publicity if you did that. People would be like, you've got to see this show. You might also get people writing think pieces about whether you've had a break now.

Yeah, she's really lost it. How Hollywood can ruin a novelist. This is what happens when women get confident. This is why I must keep them in their place. Slap them down. No, it is such a beautiful book. I love it. And thank you for coming.

Thank you. It's nice to be here. Press and PR. Yeah. And it's so nice to have an author who so many people are like, yeah. Maggie O'Farrell. So I feel like you're going to keep everyone happy, but you do need to keep the next one. Keep good.

Step it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you for listening to the Weirdos Book Club. You can find out all about the upcoming books. We're going to be discussing this series on our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdo's Book Club. Please do message us. Let us know if you've got any suggestions for other brilliant weirdoes. books. And please join us on Patreon for lots more weird and wonderful stuff. We'd love to hear from you.

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