Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney with Jessie Cave (Live from the Edinburgh International Book Festival)

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

This week's book guest is Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney.In a special live recording at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Sara and Cariad are joined by actor, comedian, cartoonist and author Jessie Cave to discuss the Edinburgh Fringe, reviews, puppets, walk-outs, sex dolls and Nancy Dell'Olio.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss grief and death and some explicit sexual scenes.Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney is available to buy here.Jessie's novel Sunset is available to buy here.You can find Jessie on Instagram and Twitter @jessiecaveTickets for the live show at the Southbank Centre with special guest Harriet Walter are available to buy here!Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Cariad’s children's book The Christmas Wish-tastrophe is available to pre-order now.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded by Edinburgh International Book Festival and edited by Aniya Das for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but 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 Modern Times by Kathy Sweeney. And this episode was recorded live at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. What's it about? It's a book of very odd short stories, just how we like them. The first story starts with a cock in a lunchbox.

Need we say more? In this episode, we discuss the Edinburgh Fringe. Reviews. Poppets, walkouts, sex dolls, and Nancy Delo. And joining us this week is Jessie Cave. Jessie is an actress, comedian, novelist, cartoonist. She starred as Lavender Brown in Harry Potter and has written several award-winning comedy shows, and her first book, Sunset, was published in 2021.

Trigger warning, in this episode we discuss grief and death and some explicit sexual scenes. Thank you so much for coming, everybody. I'm Carriad. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for coming. The last time I was in a Spiegel tent was in Henley-on-Thames and they booed me. And tonight, the crowd from Henley, Hemp, and we are so excited to have our special guest join us today. Please give a round of applause for Jesse Cave, everybody. Thank you.

That's so nice. How excited. Jessie's performing a show at the festival. And what's your show called, Jesse? My show is called an ecstatic display. Beautiful title. Thank you. Sounds like a book.

Thanks. Maybe one day in about 20 years' time. What time is your show? It's apparently too early. It's at 1245 every day. That's a lovely time. For only for who? For most of the audience, I think, from what I'm gathering.

But no, I like that time. I like that time. Carrie Adon and I used to do a show at the sea venues called Shakespeare for breakfast, which was at 10 in the morning. 10 in the morning. Which meant that you had to give the audience coffee and croissants as a bribe. Have you tried bribing them? No, not yet.

I will probably get there, though. You don't know show business if you're dragging a sack of croissons around Cuis. venues. As we've been discussing backstage, this is a very stressful festival. Also for the audience, like there's a thing, and this isn't me attacking you. If there was an art gallery, no one would brag about running through it. Whereas with Edinburgh, people would be like, you're the 15th show I've seen today. Well, how are you absorbing anything? People do talk about going to the gift shop quite quickly. Yeah. I think it should be illegal for it to be this long. One thing I do think should be made illegal is, and this is controversial, but I don't think people should

should be allowed to leave shows. Only because it just, I know that if it's a bad show and everything and the performer isn't trying, it can be really upsetting. But very often the performer is trying quite hard. So, like, trying really hard. And, like, to be in a show and to see how it feels as an audience member when people leave. Oh, it's awful. I'm going to pitch something to you.

Bouncers. Yeah. wrestling people to the floor, dragging them back to their chair, whispering in their ear, she worked really hard on this. Bounces to keep you in. It's really, I know it's controversial,

but I just think it would, I know people have to go to the toilet and that's a big thing, but there should be, you very often you don't know if they're going to the toilet, you think they're leaving. You can ask, you can ask,

just say, I've got diarrhea. Don't break anyone's heart. People's skins are too thin. Everyone just is, as you say, He's trying everyone, everyone means so well. I was saying to Steen, it's my husband, it's like a chef. Like, you made the best thing you can make and you send it out. And some people's taste bottles just go, yeah, it's not for me.

I don't like that kind of taste. And they're spitting it out. And shadow puppets, and shadow puppets I've worked out aren't for everyone. They're just not. They're just not. So it's actually quite convenient because when I do my shadow puppets, it is quite a good exit for some people. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'm hiding behind a screen.

Great. Sometimes they create a shadow, which is quite nice and. could you pretend they were part of the shadow puppetry? Grow a shallow part of them. It's just so, it's so upsetting, and you can't move on from it once it happens, and I know how I feel in the audience when I've seen people leave,

and I just feel so sorry for the performer, and that's not what you want. You thought this was weirdo's book fest. It's a performance therapy session. Sorry, sorry, sorry. We are very involved. No, no, I just want you, like, this is what, I think the audiences don't know.

The audiences think, you're up there, you're so confident, your life is amazing. Like, you're the one talking, they don't realize that we are, broken shells behind. We are. If we could link this to writing. Yes.

So you wrote a novel and then he came back to live performing. Do you think it changed your writing? Yeah, I have to admit, though, I only... The truth of it is that my brother died five years ago and that was at the peak of my... I was doing a show here, which did really well. Were you up here when he died? So the show that I did up here in 2018 was repeated in 2019.

he died between when I was on tour of that show peak everything as you know life as the way life works so I associate live performing now with death welcome Jesse to my car let me just tell you Jesse you were not alone I know I know I'm not I'm really sorry so I do have I think slight PTSD from performing live

and this my what I really wanted to do this year was to try to and prove something to myself by coming back and having fun on stage. Unfortunately, it's not being that fun. But it's really good for me and it's really cathartic to be trying. So with Sunset, your first novel, having... Which is amazing. Which is amazing on every level.

And hugely original, like everything else that you do. No one else could have written it. And it's a really wonderful novel to spend time with and be... Although it's not about you in your life, but be, I think, in your world. having performed live, were you worried about audience responses? Did you hide yourself from online reviews? Or do you love meeting readers? I think it's a lot kinder readers than people who watch live comedy and stuff.

I think they're a lot kinder. One thing that I think has been, I know social media gets a lot of flack, but I think actually social media has been really helpful for me with the book because there's such an immediate way of sharing things. If you like them, I really, I think some. book Instagramers are just artists. The way they, you know, show how they like to read and they put it all together. I think it's so artistic and beautiful and that takes so much work. So that's been really nice to see that side of things on social media and just to read things that people have said

about it. You've had lots of people take her on holiday. Yeah. So your book next to actual sunsets around the world must be pretty amazing. That's so cool. Yeah. It's just, it's been a really beautiful experience and I'm just so glad I did it and I don't know if I can do it again. I wrote it in the eight months after my brother died very traumatically. He was electrocuted by a train. Awful death. Awful death. And I'm only saying that because that happens. Like people die in really brutal ways. Accidents do happen. You don't think they will and they really do. So you wrote a different version of that story. Yeah, I wrote a story about a two sisters, going on holiday, one does a jump off a cliff.

Like, loads of people do one holiday. Like, and it was triggered by seeing a photo shortly after Ben died of a friend jumping off a cliff, mid-air, beautiful photo. Like, she had managed to get her boyfriend to stand at the right spot and got the great photo. But I saw that photo weeks after he died and I was livid. I was just so angry. That someone would be so frivolous with their life.

Exactly. So reckless and just showcasing that. Yeah. And I just got so angry, but also just, it was also so beautiful, what she had to do something about that and just, you know, your first one, you're so lucky, aren't you? Because you just, you have an idea and you just roll with it and it just goes. And now that I am, you know, I'm trying to write another one, it's just so hard. Well, actually, I think Carriad had a different experience with her first one because she went straight into, you know, the depths of grief and your own personal grief. Yeah.

Not in the manic, it's just happened phase. Well, I think it's different with nonfiction and fiction. and I think I love your book so much and I think it deals with grief in such a beautiful way and also knowing you and knowing Ben's story I kind of knew what had inspired it but the book like moves through that to a different place and is a good book you know

despite what you were experiencing as a family and then nonfiction is like you're having to like talk so you know truthfully about your experiences and you can't hide from anything and then I found writing fiction after it where you can put that like extra war between you and the actual thing that you're saying we're not kind of well I was 14 this happened you're like well she was 14 and she did this and it just as a writer gives you like an

extra layer of skin but also because you've had so much time now since I think it actually becomes it's so depressing to talk about because the reality is it it doesn't get better it grief is awful and remains awful obviously lots of things get easier it changes it changes so it's quite exhausting to go back and to tap into the time when, you know, it's entirely exhausting. Jessie, your new book that you're writing at the moment, is it less connected to a personal emotion? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's just so hard to say, isn't it? Because then you just go through so many different variations, but I would like to try and write something not about grief. Oh, tell me about it. But it also, it's a pretty huge part of life. I think also there's

much, there's so much grief and non, like in other ways. So like love. I mean, you can have so much grief from just, you know, failed relationships and failures. And so I'm, it is essentially what I'm trying to write as a story about breakup. But it's, yeah, it's been quite, it's, it's been, it's been depressing in different ways. The book we're covering on this episode is Modern Times by Kathy Sweeney. This is the cover guy. And Carly had kept texting Claire Sweeney. No, I kept Googling Claire Sweeney Because I couldn't remember the name I was trying to tell someone who's buying

I was like oh Claire and I Then all the pictures of Claire Sweeney came up on Google And I was like wow did she write this as well That's God, she's impressive So Carrie Ad Selle on this book Which is a short story book About Cathy Sweeney was The first story is about a woman

Who takes her husband's penis to work with her in her lunchbox It says on a back There once was a woman who loved her husband's cock So much she began taking it to work in her lunchbox And we were sold. Yes, please. This was actually, which is a friend of the show, Susan, who is my friend Susan. She's always talking about Susan, Jessie.

I've never met Susan. I don't know how you've got time to have other friends, but okay. Susan are here. Susan's amazing. She's amazing, yeah, she loves reading. She's amazing Irish writer. She's got a kid's book coming out in October as well. I don't know.

Is Susan real? No, she's real. Sarah thought I was making her up. Wasn't she sound made up? And Sarah was like, you're making up and I was like, I think this is like Fight Club where you're both Susan and Carrie at. My name is Susan Hale and she is a brilliant writer. And her kid's book is called The World Between the Rain.

Susan messages me lots about books because she's an amazing reader. Does it come from your own phone number? You know what? I'm going to get Susan on as a guest. That's what we need to do. And Kathy Sweeney's written a book called Breakdown, right? Breakdown. And I went to the bookshop. to get breakdown.

Because she's about a mother walking out and her family. Oh, lovely. Lovely. Yeah. I mean the dream. And that's her first novel. This is the first book

that she had published. And I couldn't get hold of breakdown. The bookshop didn't have it. And I got this and I read that back and I was like, yes, please. And it's a series of short stories. By that we mean some of them are like a page long. So the first story about the lunchbox is very short.

Very short. Indeed. And she does. Yeah, she really likes that penis. And she takes a turn. Do you know what it reminded me of? An old Wonder Sykes routine, which anyone can watch on YouTube,

but it's about how women would be safe if they could leave their vaginas at home. Oh, that's a great repeat. So it's about how just before you go out, you pop your vagina in a box. So if anyone tries to assault you, you're like, I'm sorry. It's a home, it's at home.

Yeah, and they'd like, ah, okay. They walk away. That's sadly funny. It's lots of different short stories. They cover a complete array of things, but the style is very consistent. And it's kind of, I've had it quite, the way she writes is very surreal and very, like, ancient.

It felt like reading translations of, like, Russian fairy tales. Yeah, I mean, I want to compare it to a painter, but I think I'm thinking of the wrong paper. Is it Suzanne who only does... Clare Sweeney. Clare Sweeney. But who does only sparse details, because she does leave these massive gaps in her storytelling.

I can't think about the shop, Suzanne. That was my favourite thing about it is the gaps. The gaps. I thought it was just glorious because it made me. so greedy for details. Yeah, but it also made us use our brain and think like what's happening in between here and there. It was great. And there's no,

she's not keen on like satisfying endings. She just leaves characters and there's like, well, maybe they're sad for them. She leaves you with the emotion of them because it's not wrapped up. There isn't any applause and like, oh, well done, thank you. And I loved it when she sort of almost, it felt like the narrator would get bored and go, anyway, we're not going to talk about that. Yes. It felt like talking, it felt like I was reading a collection of Russian short story very day.

I love it. She's a genius. Do you guys like short stories? I don't all love them. Yeah, normally, if you'd asked me, and this is awful, because I'd say, no, it's like a sketch show, I can't bear it. She hates sketchy character. But then when I see a good sketch show or a good short story, then I just am in love with it so much.

I love this so much. Yeah, I know, I really surprised. I didn't, I liked it, but you really loved it, didn't you? Because I want a full story. I want the full story for ages. So short stories, they get me into it, And then they go, bye-bye, you're never going to hear anything else about this person ever again. But I think that's why it kind of worked because I find if a short story is very detailed

and then they just go the end and you think, I love those people. But because this was kind of almost fantastical, they didn't feel quite as real. So when she just cut them off and left you with them, you didn't feel so bereft, I didn't. Yeah, I felt that they were almost more like paintings each one. Yes, yes. It was up to us to decide where it went and how you felt about the characters. and it was just more kind of splashes of stories. So how do you feel about short stories?

I really dislike them. How did you feel when I sent you this book? No, I was just, well, that's why I'm really glad because it's probably changed my mind on them. And I would definitely read anything she writes. Also, it just suits a short story, this surreal thing, doesn't it? I mean, I loved even the short, like, paragraph, long one, the cheerleader. Yeah, the cheerleader one was great.

Like stuff like that. She's obviously incredible and her mind is mad in, in a beautiful way. She's only recently become a writer. Really? Yeah, she was a teacher for a very, very long time. They're all teachers, aren't they, the writers? All teachers.

Did she get sacked because she had genitals in their lunchbox? They don't mind that. They don't mind that in where she is. Yeah, no, she was a teacher, and then her late 30s, and her daughter is also a writer, and they sort of became writers at the same time. Oh, the daughter must be so angry about that. No, she said it, well, I didn't get the daughter's interview,

to be fair, but she said she feels it's good because the daughter didn't grow up with her mum being a writer. Let's talk about this one. This is the woman whose child was a very old man. There's a female character. She has to work and she's got a baby. And she sort of accidentally discovers that if she puts her baby in the freezer,

he gets frozen and no harm is done. He just grows very, very quickly when he's then taken out later. So like he learns to crawl in an hour. But she's working in a post office and she's reading magazines and then she becomes a writer, falls in love with writing.

forgets her baby is in the freezer. Oh, we've all been there. Months and years later, remembers... Oh my God. She was having all these weird dreams. Remember that baby goes back to her old apartment, has to go back to the freezer. There he is.

He's now a very, very old man. Yeah, and she then starts looking after him. She's then his carer, yeah. So there's the beginning bit, which the first paragraph, I absolutely loved, the woman whose child was a very old man. This story is set back. in the days where women who painted pictures or wrote books or danced on stage

weren't expected to be pleasant. In fact, it was wildly understood that women who did such things were likely to be very unpleasant indeed. Which I loved so much just this, I'm setting up this idea of femininity and pleasantness and creativeness and

again, she's not telling you what she thinks. She's just presenting this kind of fantastical way where it's fine for this woman to be unpleasant because she's a writer. What do we expect from women? the next book where she's, when she realizes he's an old man, so she's got him out of the freezer. Did this make any difference to the woman's career as a writer?

Certainly not. In fact, it only added to her reputation. She wrote four more novels, all well received, and an oddball cookery book in which eggplant was the main ingredient of all the recipes. I told you, back then, there was no need for women who wrote books to also be pleasant. Wow, what a time.

What really moved me was the early bit where she's working at the shop and the baby is in the freezer and she's all the time she's never thinking of anything but the baby. So even when she's at work, she's consumer thoughts of her baby. Then when she does get successful and she is kind of preoccupied

and is doing something for her, you know, just writing for the love of it and for herself, something kind of... Writing is quite selfish. Yeah. It's so perfect about the unwinnableness because either you guys, go out to work because you need money to support your family and that is one set of hardships or you have something that you love and that means that mentally you are dragging your thoughts

away and we're not happy with either of those. So, I mean, we're talking about the festival. You were both up here with your children. We went to the park today with all the children. They held hands. I know. I know. You're up with two children.

Jesse, you're up with four children whilst, yes, guys, four children who are all under under the age of 10. Yeah. But you were always going to, we met you when you were really young, Jessie. I remember you're telling me in Soho Theatre, you were going to have seven children by seven different men. Also, she's bang on, she's bang on. Look, some people just know what they want with their lives. And they're going to be fascinating people. No, yeah, I find this really moving because I really, my main struggle on the last year has been this separation between doing things for myself and my career. and just completely unable to switch off

and as a result have failed in lots of ways in my career and I've had to kind of accept that. It's not failure, it's just really, really hard. Before I had a baby and my friends had had children and I hadn't paid much attention very selfishly. I'd agree. I used to have a switch that went off when I went on stage where all that existed was dealing with whatever was happening

and that switch won't go off for me anymore because that isn't the most important thing in the world. and it's a whole different, it's a whole different mindset when it's not just you you're thinking about and it's becoming a very different kind of performer. And I think writing as well, because when we talk about performing, we leave the houses, mothers and writers,

and we go somewhere and it's a very timed job. You know, you have your show, you leave. Writing, as you said, is so inherently selfish. You have to be by yourself at the computer. You need everything else to shush. and there's nothing, you know, like, the old phrase was like the pram in the hallway, which is...

On the fire escape. Yeah, which is written by a man and is a bullshit sentence. There was an artist who did it, apparently. Said, oh, like, the worst thing that could happen to a woman is to have a baby and, like, the death of creativity is the pram in the hallway, which...

It's so interesting for a man to notice that and not think he could be the solution to a lot of... That's why... A lot of those problems. And it's often used at women of like, go it's hard, the pram and hallway thing. And it's like, well, that's written by my mind. Because actually, that's not the problem.

The problem is children coming up to you and pulling at you while you're trying to type. And you having not to say to a pram, not be like, oh, it's having to turn to a person and be like, not you right now, even though I'm your mother and that's my job. Like, watch fucking octanorts because I have to do this. Guys, just a tip, octanauts will help you write books. I'm sure we can all. It really well. It really well.

I'll go back to that a second. But also what the sentence that I think, what felt. like 10 minutes turned out to be 10 hours. Oh yes. So initially when she's working in the shop, she's able to think about her baby constantly and to kind of be, probably be a better mother because she's consumed with her baby still and working and then coming home and working and coming. When she's writing, she gets so carried away in something for herself for the first time that it goes, time just is a completely different thing. That's what I found so frustrating about writing is that you do really need to have so many hours. Yeah. Yeah. And that.

You just don't. Even the school day is nine to three. Nine till three. It's not a long time. So I've just, I've basically, in short, I've given up temporarily at least until I can. Look, if Hemingway was drinking cocktails by 11 a.m. He wasn't putting in a full working day. No, that's true.

That's true. That's true. I think it's, I think, because I think the issue I've got, and it is because of my children are very young as well, is that I, I would only ever have a very short burst. So I won't have long chunks of time while they're small because I don't want. it. My body doesn't let me everything I thought was a choice when I before I had children, it's not voluntary. It's

I want to be with them now even though I have this workload and so I just have to be content with very very short windows which is nap time. You say about Hemingway it's like he wanted to get pissed so he got pissed and then he wrote he waited until 11 I respect

that. That's what I'm saying like it's the being torn that's hard because it's not like oh I want to run and I want to, oh, I don't want to be with them. It's like, no, I want to be with them and I want to do both things. And I want my attention to be on both those things at exactly the same time. Yeah, when I was editing that book, I obviously was delayed. The baby came early, so I thought I'd finish it and I didn't.

And I ended up spending three months editing it within like two hour windows. And actually, it was amazing. I really, I mean, but so whenever I hear someone sat at a desk the entire day, I'm in all, but I'm also like, I don't think that's that. I think they're on Facebook. I think nowadays That's what they're doing Facebook is what the kids are using

But I also like I also like How that big new website Oh yeah I saw a film about it It's replaced my space Can't believe it I liked how cyclical

I never say it right cyclical cyclical it was as well With when the baby When she is successful And she's had She's earned all the money And she's found success

And then she remembers her baby And goes back to him And he's now very old And so it's taking care of him she becomes re-obsessed with her child and that love. And the love never, love is always there.

It's interesting that she doesn't, there's no judgment in the story. So the baby never says, you left me. The old man is not like, where have you been? She just wipes his mouth and he's in the back of pictures

next to her typewriter. But caring for a very, very old person is very similar to caring for a baby. It's just, but it feels completely different. But she never puts, a woman caring for her own child

in a wheelchair. She doesn't put the judgment on her. That's up why I appreciate. from the story it's not like oh and she felt terrible and the mat and the baby said you let me down so that's what i'm hoping guys our children will never say i also found very very they will say it oh yeah they also found very very funny the money money money paid for short story submissions and then there's a series of bullet points and i think this series of bullet points is almost exactly what constitutes a successful edinburgh show for a comedian like a like a mainstream success right it's

aim for something lighthearted, perhaps centered around family life or a recognizable situation. A positive outcome is favoured, but this can be reached by a good bit of double crossing or the comeuppance of the baddie. Be playful, have some fun with your characters at their expense,

example in embarrassing social situations. Stories may involve death, an illness, a fear, etc. So long as the situation doesn't come across as too dark and depressing, that's where I went wrong, has an uplifting end. work within reality, this is a fiction,

but it does have to be believable. You're right, they should send that out to every fringe performer and be like, we advise you, follow these three points. Yeah, your reviews will be four stars. So there's lots of stories. There was another one that I loved, which is called Flowers and Water. And again, this is just a story about a man who takes pictures, but he doesn't have any film in his camera.

There's not what I mean? They're all, like, very unusual. There's a story called The Palace, which is about a palace that literally becomes sick, building becomes sick, which again is amazing. There's a story, the chair, where a couple discuss that they sort of take it in turns to beat each other up in a chair. I love this one. I love it. It's just like, she acts like it's very normal. Like everybody does this with a chair. Every married couple have a chair and they take it in turns to sit in the chair and give each other electric shocks. And they do this because that's how you deal with being angry with your partner. And so like it's,

it makes it much more like bearable because if they're annoying you, you think, well, next week I'm going to put you in the chair. Well, she uses a really good example of sort of how sometimes one of them's in it more than the other. So, like, after she had a baby, he was in it a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the early years, it was mostly me sitting in the chair and my husband administering the shocks. And then after the babies were born, it was mostly my husband in the chair and me administering the shocks. It takes time to establish a pattern that works for both people in a relationship.

And it ends beautifully. Yeah. I thought that ending was like, oh, my God. I don't want to root you. but there's, yeah, some of her language is... She almost finds beauty in the pain that the chair inflicted. Yeah. And her understanding of human psychology,

while she's talking about something that seems so separate, I really love the story of the wife who buys her husband a sex doll. I think a little bit like the frozen baby. So it sounds ridiculous. She buys her husband a sex doll for his birthday. She tells him in advance, you know, it gets delivered on his birthday. But what I loved was how she cleaned it so much.

methodically. Because it was to such an act of duty of loving someone. She doesn't want to do stuff with him anymore, but the fact that he still needs to do so. It felt like the epitome of love, which is that mostly it's cleaning. Yeah. But then she does so make, she gives it, she gives the doll her own bedroom and she puts on nice pants for the doll and she, she takes care of this woman. And then when the husband dies and the daughter, their daughter wants to stay, but she's locked the sex doll and the bedroom and they're like

no no no you can't stay here anymore you can't stay here anymore I just thought it was actually really interesting because it's again it's a female character showing she's prioritising herself over her children which is not done very much

and at that point you think oh does she want to have sex with the sex doll and actually when she goes and gets she washes the sex doll she puts her in sweatshirt and a hoodie and just lies with her on a bed and it's so good But there is a point where mothers have given so much.

Yeah. They are allowed to find calmness and serenity and her and this sex doll have done their work. And also the fact that the husband was so happy, she gave him that happiness. Like he used to come down and be very jolly with her after he had had his time with a sex doll and gives her a kiss on the cheek.

And then so they had a beautiful kind of ending to their relationship. And then the sex doll is how the woman's going to, carry out the rest of her years. And it's whether a partner, what is a partner for? Like, is it somebody that all you really want from a partnership is someone in bed with you, another being near your body? Which is what I got from it. She just wants to be close with anyone,

even if it's a fake sex doll that her husband used. That's why I think so good, because you could take so many things because she doesn't do a judgment. I took that she was so tired from being a wife, that it was like the sex doll, she'd sublet her sexual. So then when she lay next his sex doll, she was a whole person again. It was like, we are the women. We are the widows.

So it's like I'm lying with my sex widow now, not a sex doll, and myself. And for me it was really griefy, ofs. That's what I do. And it felt really like, together we are going to grieve properly for this person. And that's why I thought it was interesting. Like the daughter's trying to like, oh, I'll move back and I'll do this. And it's like, no, this is about me and my husband and my love. And you're not allowed in this.

So I took from it. Well, I took, sometimes loving real people is very complex because people have needs. And because my mum replaced me and my sisters with five cats, the sex doll felt very similar to cat, which is, you know. You should not do that with cats. I'm just saying enough. No. But the weight of another, and I know the sex doll isn't living,

but the weight of another soul or something, but something that is not asking anything of you. Yeah, yeah. That it's freely given and simple and peaceful and nothing is going to rocket. That's where the peace is. Yeah, I thought it was actually a really nice thing. Like, she didn't want to have sex with him. This was something that she was doing for her husband to as a gift

because he still wanted to have sex. And that was just the evolution of their relationship. And this was the sex doll was just a new addition to their relationship. And I thought that was actually really cool. I thought so. I thought so because there's another world where there's like, oh, the man is bad for still wanting. sex or she's a bad wife and not wanting to give it to him.

It's like we have this solution which is sort of weirder masturbation. Yes. Yeah. Which might be a thing. We don't, we don't, it might already be a thing. I don't know. What did you think of the story with the woman and the wolf then? Is that the story that had so much judgment in it, not necessarily from the narrator

from other people. Is that the one? The story within a story. Yeah. I found that one really interesting because, so it's almost like a red riding hood. It starts with like the wood, the wood choppers version of the story. and then it's like oh my grandma was killed by a wolf and then we find out like the actual

the priest's version of the story and this version of the story and we realise that there is an ancient story that has been twisted to fit the narrative and obviously it's clearly red riding hood but she's talking about it as if something happened with a grandma and the wolf what was it? But I took this as thanks to being friends with my Irish friend Susan and Megan

I actually thought this was about Ireland because it was like there's an ancient narrative and it's being reworked and actually what perspective you take it from has a different perspective and that's like the history of Ireland and everything that's happened there

and actually it's still holding these people together and it's holding them back as much as it's driving them forward. So you really added some stuff in. I really did. But that was after reading lots of interviews with her that I was like, oh I think that's about Ireland. And I thought if I was writing essays still that would be a dream.

I would say it's the part. perfect kind of writing for that because that's the beauty of gaps is whoever is reading is filling those gaps in. Yeah. Can I read you a quote she said? Yes. I'd be helpful. She said the way I want to talk about the world is just to say what I say without evasion. I think there's more dignity than that. I feel the tenderness of how vulnerable and deeply pathetic we all are. I thought, plimey Cathy. Tell me the last bit again. I feel the tenderness of how vulnerable and deeply pathetic we all are. Yeah.

That's massive, isn't it? Because it's like she's kind to human. She sees our beauty, but she also sees how pathetic we are. It's someone lifting you up for a cuddle. We're going, oh, here, here, you little idiot. Yeah. You sniveling worm. Yeah, we're all worms.

But it's too late. You're already being cuddled. Yeah. Well, should we go back to the beginning then? Because that very first story, it made me think they were all going to be, cock in the lunchbox. I thought they were all going to be sort of surreal and silly. How do we feel about cock in a lunchbox? Well, can we, let's just say, she.

doesn't call it that she calls it a love story yeah in case you go buying this book looking for cock in a lunchbox in walterstones tomorrow what's that book have you got cock in a lunchbox by claire swiney they does have on the on the on the front it does have a cock in a lunchbox symbolically the irish version of this does not look like this by the way it's a much more like um graphical cover as in like just patterns and like colors and then i thought well they for the English paperback. They went for what they knew would sell. Plums and a baller. Again, I found this really, like, quite progressive about relationships and just the idea that she loved him so much that she wanted to carry his cock around all day. But then when they didn't end up together,

and he ended up with someone who didn't eat his cock in a lunchbox. In a lunchbox all day. And just the idea that you get such different things from relationships. Yes, yes. And sometimes that's really important. Sometimes that's not. Sometimes other things, like the woman he ends up with was young and modern, had no need of his or anyone else's cock, thank you very much. They're completely different. And you never know

what you need from somebody. And he's nostalgic. That's why. It's so wonderful. It's the idea of him sometimes finding his penis attached to him and going, oh, the good old dose. I remember when it was in your lunchbox. Yeah, and the oranges one as well.

that's like there's a new father and he's stressed and the mum takes the baby away and he starts... It's supposed to be working. It's supposed to be writing. It's supposed to be writing. So the mother takes the baby away to stay with her mother so he can write but instead he goes to the supermarket and starts getting obsessed with oranges.

He finds one dead orange or one orange rotting in the fruit bowl and the question of oh I don't really eat oranges. Do I even like oranges sets off a... And then he starts obsessively buying oranges. And not eating any of them. And filling bath tubs and sinks with oranges. But I found that one like, I felt like I could... You're stressed?

No, I could imagine this... He's describing, like, the smell of the oranges and how many they are and they're in the bath and they're coming, the parent, like the mum and the baby are coming home. And I was just, I could see it so much. And I thought, I was like, this is not a descriptive writing, really. Like, that's not her style, but she gets in your head, doesn't she? I found that one very stressful. Oh, did you?

Yeah, he kept going back and buying more. Yeah, your kids are, like... And it kept saying... I'm going to change his book tomorrow and it's like, what is he doing? I did feel like, how the fuck is he going out of this? Like, how's he going when they come home? And it's like, you're writing. They've got to join credit card.

But I thought it was quite like a nice, it gave me an insight into the man after the birth of a child. The birth of the first child is for the man. Like, it's, well, I can't imagine what it was like, but it changes your entire life. And from this story, it reads like this. man was just completely overwhelmed. Yes. And couldn't say that he felt overwhelmed and had to lie and pretend that he was going to work

and he was going to get everything done. Well, no, you go. You go away. I'll be fine. I'll get wet, but just went mad with oranges. And I think it's quite sweet. Like, if he had just been up front and be like, I'm finding it quite hard actually. It would be an entirely different situation.

But instead, with a new baby, you have so little time to think about anything. If that little baby is then taken away and you, you get to ask yourself a single question, which is, do I like oranges? And then that itself is so much of a separate, who am I, anymore anyway? Yeah, I guess. And again, she's a very, very skillful writer because it asks so many questions without really asking. Is it making everyone want to read it? Oh, good.

Yeah. I was going to put you to say, it's making you one orange. Who wants to get in the electrical chair now? Me too, me too. It's making me want orange juice. I'm glad that you, because I was a bit nervous. about when I fully started reading it I was like oh it is much weird than I thought

it was going to be and I was a bit worried having been present chosen. And also when you have something on the bat that says there are shades here of Angela Carter, Lydia Davies and Miranda July I mean I think she's a genius. When I read this I also thought oh this is this could be all ideas for films that never got made.

Yeah yeah. Serreal films they all were so visual. Oh that's something I would say she wrote this one she was saying this is like a 10 years 10 years worth of work of like writing in between the gaps sending off short stories she just used to send off short stories

and then very slowly an editor at one of the publications was like these are really good you should put them all together oh wow the sentence I kept rereading and it's a mother I think she's having a joint out of the window actually so she's living in a cottage she's sleeping with her landlord

her married landlord to get cheaper rent and every night she has a joint out the window the woman is not religious but in the expansion that comes with intoxication, she sometimes thinks she'd like to paint a picture or write something down, or maybe dance naked around a fire.

She stares up at the sky and is comforted by the black vastness of it. In the mornings when she steps outside to feed the hens, the world appears, even in rain, unbearably beautiful. And her desire in these moments is to take care of the girl.

She's got a six-year-old daughter. Her desire in these moments to take care of the girl is immense to get one damn thing right in her whole life. Yeah. The motherhood things... Claire Sweeney. In every...

The motherhood... And I think when you say 10 years, I then think, well, actually that makes me feel that is why the stories are so different and so similar. Yeah, yeah. Is this someone who's living a life and coming back to certain things, just as we were talking about.

Sometimes our workload, and it's amazing to be in demand for things, but it's also unrealistic to not let people have years fallow in between, absorbing before they make new things. That that struggle is your body or your body, or your brain or your mind going, I need longer to make this. You get how much she loves writing.

Yeah. From this. Like she's, it's obviously just, yeah, it was incredibly moving. And her brain, I mean, she must have, they are all so different. Yeah. And she obviously loves so many different types of story. That's why I just thought, oh, these are just different ideas for, this could be a surreal film. This could be a, this could be a harrowing documentary.

This could be, you know, they're all so different. lunchbox, kids TV show. Relationship counselling. There's no right or wrong for a piece of art. It shouldn't, it shouldn't, oh, you should take 10 years, you should take eight months. It takes the time it needs to take. And that's what's frustrating is you have no say on what time a piece of art should take sometimes. And then sometimes there's other constraints like the Edinburgh Festival is in August.

So it has to be ready now. When you say someone wrote something, you know, in a flash in eight months, they sound like an absolute genius. Yeah. Just full of inspiration and energy and it poured out of their. And then when you hear that someone laboured for 10 years, you go, well, that's very enviable, is it? That sounds like a proper artist, you know, really, really making sure every single word is correct. Although I think when you read her interviews, it's like that's, that was, like, she said,

writing in the margins of being a mother and a teacher. So it wasn't, like, sat at the desk for 10 years. And again, it's what we're saying. It's like you have to sort of remove the idea that there is a set time for what creativity can take. It's like it just either takes the time that you have or sometimes you're, given an arts council grant as she was for the second one and you have a bit more time. I think sometimes though if something takes too long, it's not right.

Maybe that's because it's short stories. Do you know what I mean? So the 10 years, yeah. I think, well, like with a novel, I think that when you hear people have written them for years and years and years, you know, they've had that one novel idea for a decade or whatever. I'm sometimes like, it's never going to happen. Do you say that? Do you say that, Jesse, are you that guy at parties?

I'm that person just because I'm like just Hey Rodger, nice to meet you, I heard you talking about your novel It's never going to happen, okay? Just let go of it She's so supportive She's so supportive If you've got one idea And it's taking you forever

Just like why don't you just put it down Put it to the side Try having another one Do something else, yes, yes agreed And then see how that goes Yeah yeah Because I feel like if it's just We try and we put so much pressure

On ourselves to complete things Yes because I was going to say to you Lincoln the Bardot that we talked about another episode. He was thinking about it for 20 years, but he did lots of other writing before he came back to that idea and was like, I've been thinking about this for so long.

I think you're completely right. If something's driving you crazy, you have to just, or like, if your situation is you've got kids and you cannot write that idea at the moment, it requires too much, then you have to shift and write something else. And so you have to do the best you can with it

and then let it go? This is what I think people, when they walk out shows, don't realize. This is how seriously we take it. I think people go, no, it's not for me. And you're like, you don't understand how much I've thought about this. I'm sorry, I just remembered Nancy Delolio walking out my show as well. And it was such a small audience.

It was honestly like 60 people. Also, when was the last time someone heard the name Nancy DeLoreo? She was doing a show at the fringe. She was a show at the fringe. An interview show. And there was like, she had two people there and three people there. And that was like a row. And she put on Strictly.

I'm a big fan of Strictly. So as soon as I started, I was like, oh my gosh, Nancy Dullo. Okay, fine. So I carry and do my show. I had costume. changes. I went off to do a cross-sham change, came back, and the entire row had gone. Yeah. And they chattarred out of there as well. It's very conspicuous. Nancy Delalio, where are you now? I just want to say to everyone who is here as part of the festival, obviously, like, I just think

that there are really massive things going on in the news. Everyone is processing a huge amount of things, and yet Edinburgh is this city full of people who leave the house, are interested in people, want to experience things. Yes, we've talked about that, you know, from our perspective, what it's like to do a show here for the month. But the fact that this, city opens up to everyone and wants to be part of it. You just want Edinburgh to love you. Look at this. No, I love Edinburgh and I'm so, what? Oh, sorry, everyone's pathetic.

Like Kathy Sweeney says, oh, let's be nice to you. You're all going to die. It just felt a bit like we'd be moaning about it and you were like, I just want to say before this date ends, I really love you. Like, as if you'd like neg them a bit and then after the date was ending, you were like, I just, I really think this has been well. Have you seen how much stuff he's on Netflix? The fact that anyone leaves the house

to come to a live book podcast. I know, we're very lucky. We should be kissing everyone on the mouth. Sarah's asked for that. Me and Jessie have not consented. We have not consented. We are coming to the end of this live episode. It's not the end.

We're doing a book signing. Yeah, all right. I was getting there. I love it. I can't wait to get off stage and to see if you guys are going to like have a little fight. I can't wait. No, no, this is not a fight.

This is not a fight. Do you think this is fighting? No, no, no. but it could, I wouldn't be like, I quite like it if we got on stage and you guys are like, I can't believe you said that. I know, I know, because I have, you know, I have a sister we fight all the time. But like, I can imagine that this is exactly what you do all the time and I have listened and I know that you do it. But I've never seen it in line action.

So I'm very excited to finish. Carrie doesn't have a sister. I don't. I've had to, well, I had do, but I didn't grow up with one. No, I'm a cuckoo sister who flew into her life. I've had to learn how sister are. arguments work because my brother would just punch me. Yes.

And I would scream and then my mum would shout at him. And then it would be never mentioned again. And this is new. Obviously not now, but when it first started, I was like, what's happening? It's a place of safety. Yeah. Yeah. Where the person's not going to leave.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good. Has it made your friendship stronger doing a podcast together? Yeah, I think because we've seen each other because we both have kids so then we don't see each other as much. And so now we like, I have to go. I've got podcasts with Sarah. And then we're like, how are you?

What's happening? Yeah. And also my husband. likes it because I don't try and talk to him about what I'm reading anymore. Thank you so much for coming to this event. We appreciate it so, so much. Thank you for listening to the podcast if you do. If you don't, it's called Weirdo's Book Club with Sarah and Carriad.

Feel to rate and review it and subscribe. And please give a huge round of applause to our amazing guest, Jesse Cave. Listen in to the Weirdos Book Club. Tickets for our live show with our very special guest, Harriet Water, as part of the London Literature Festival, are on sale now. From southbankcentre.com.com.com. or plosive.co.com. Jessie's novel Sunset is available to get in paperback.

My novel Weirdo and Carriads book, You Are Not Alone, are both also available in paperback out now. And my children's book, The Christmas Wish Tastrophe, is available to pre-order now. You can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us.

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