Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

This week's book guest is Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls.In this episode Sara and Cariad discuss grief, trauma, love, friendship, infidelity and avocados. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss pregnancy loss, child loss, car accidents and domestic violence. Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.Tickets for the live show on Thu 25 Jan at Foyles, Tottenham Court Road 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.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdos 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 Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls. What's it about? It's about an unsatisfied housewife who falls in love with a big green fish man. What qualifies it for the weirdos book club? Well, did you hear what we said about the big green fish man?

In this episode we discuss grief, trauma, love, friendship, infidelity and avocados. Trigger warning. In this episode, we also discuss pregnancy loss, child loss, car accidents and domestic violence. Hello to you. Camry, I'd. You'll be very pleased with this book. It's a grief book. Do you know what? It isn't, it isn't. Oh. Lots of books use grief as a narrative device. Okay. Not all books go into grief.

Sure. And I don't think this book is going into grief in the way that you expect, considering the character. So what's happened to our main lady, Dorothy, is her son. dies of an allergic reaction to anaesthetic, but it's dealt with, as in that's not really what the plot is about. No. And you're meeting her not at a point of crisis, but in the years afterwards. Yeah. So the continued grief. Yeah. This book, I should say, so the reason I think it's a grief book is I mentioned to someone that I just had a miscarriage and they sent me this book. Oh, you are fucking joking. Well. Oh my God. No, but the reason. Oh my God. All of us, you know, when we're going through personal

tragedies and emotional events, press books on other people and go, you know what, help me. You were not alone by Carad Lloyd. You were not alone, but Carad Lloyd covers every grief. Aether said. It doesn't. No matter how old, the griever. How old? I don't cover all grease.

I talk about all Greece. Yes. It was right what they did. Because they were saying, sometimes it just needs to be mentioned as part of a character's narrative. Oh, yeah, sure. Because there's something that's really hugely common. Yeah. And it's all you want to think about actually when you're going through it.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is a sad book that doesn't make you sad. Agreed. So they did do a nice thing. I'm just, yeah, I'm surprised because for me, like I said, grief is the narrative background to a bigger narrative. So it's not a grief book, having read a lot of grief books, where it's like it's really investigating what grief is.

I think it's actually. Oh, it's not doing that. Yeah, that's what I mean. For me, a grief book has to be like, we're going into what is grief and how we feel it, whereas this is a character that's grieving. And then the story happens to her. But the character would not behave this way.

I sincerely believe. Yes, yes. Unless she had been through the traumatic events she had been through. And the same with her husband. I think her husband's behaviour is grief-related. And then later on, her friend Estelle, you have another person reacting from huge trauma. Yeah, true. I suppose it's like, you know, where in the recipe does it contain egg?

It's like I would put the egg lower. You would put the egg higher, but someone allergic to eggs would still be aware of the egg in this book. I just want to say there's no egg in this book If you are allergic, you can still read this book. I think what I wanted to say at the beginning was that it's a sad, but we're going to talk about some very sad things.

Yes, definitely. Could be classed as a comedy and its frequency or just matter of fact. And it's also magical and fairy tale. And I mean, that doesn't mean it can't be a grief book, but it's not just about grief. And as you said, no, you said it's not trying to investigate grief. It's trying to investigate.

What would you do if you started here? You started hearing voices through the radio and then Aquarius turns up. And then a frogman turned up who? A seven, seven foot? Six foot seven. He's pretty hot. All right. Yeah.

Oh, let me describe him to you. Did it remind you of anyone? Muscular, vegetarian, sexually magnetic and excellent at housework, it me. Larry the Frogman is a revelation and their passionate affair takes them on a journey beyond their wildest dreams. I want to say, this book is light. It's a short novella. That's what some people would say. How many pages is it? Like 100?

All books are like to me because I'm so muscular. Vegetarian. And good at housework. I had never heard of this book. It was published in 1982. Yeah. Well, the sad thing about the introduction to this book actually, and I want to tell you about this is that the author is described as obscure.

Well, she isn't. She's interesting. So she was obscure in her lifetime. Apart from, so this is written 1982, didn't do particularly amazingly. In 1986, it was listed on by the British book marketing. Council as one of the top 20 American novels of the post-World War II period. Yeah, it was huge. So no one had heard of it.

And it went from that to being massive. But then that success kind of petered away again until 2017 when it was reissued. The film, The Shape of Water came out. And is very similar plot line. And lots of people said, as actually lots of different authors did, said you've nicked my work. She didn't. Rachel didn't. She said, I don't care.

It's about a sea monster. and Del Toro was taken to court by other people. Who is it? Other writers said you've... Have you read the Pisces? I have read the Pisces. Yeah. Did she take him to court?

I don't think so. Okay. But he said it's based on like 1950s creatures of the Black Lagoon. Because it's a common trope, sea monster thing. Yeah, you can't invent. Exactly. So Rachel said, I have no problem with this film. I'm very, like, happy.

But it kind of brought this book back because everyone was like, oh, this is Mrs. Caliban. And then it got reissued in America. And she got all these amazing reviews. from the New Yorker and became very successful in America. And she died in 2019. So just before she died, she was aware that she'd had success. And her sister said, or was maybe a friend, said,

she seemed to be not merely happy, but like Violetta in the final scene of her favorite opera, La Traviata, reborn. Oh my gosh. That's so lovely. Isn't that lovely? I was astounded, she told the Globe. The main thing to me is just being published. And really after that, I don't care.

Oh, Rachel. She's a writer's writer. is what I think. So it's a really interesting book in that it's kind of had its moment twice. Yeah. But I don't know about you.

This book is incredible to me. Yeah, it's incredible. I fucking loved it. Yeah. Grief book or not Greek book? I can't believe more people. Like, this book should be everywhere. Why is this not an absolute classic?

It's really original. It's incredibly original. It's really special. There's social commentary. There's jokes. It's funny. It's weird. It's magical.

The plot? Yeah. It's got some absolute twist in there. It's a page turn now. For such a tiny book, a lot happens. It's like a poet. Like, it's so, she's so deft with her text in such. And really good dialogue between characters.

Oh, amazing time. But she bumps into Estelle at the supermarket for the first time. So good. To set up a friendship and a friend character and how funny that character is so quickly. And then the marionettes keep coming forward with cheese. They're all just brilliant scenes. So brilliant. Yeah.

And she's so, I was saying this to, I was trying to describe it to someone else of like why it's good. And just saying to have the confidence to move plans. along the way she does. Like some books would spend 200 pages on that. I'm going to the supermarket. She goes, she does it. She meets Frogman. They're having a relationship.

She just, they lie down on the bed. She says, this is embarrassing. And it's like, then they get up and you're like, we've had sex. Even the decision, so she knows from the radio, and I know you listen to the radio. I don't know how you'd react if Radio 4 started sort of interfering with your life. But she sort of is... Let me tell you about a pilot that went very wrong a long time ago.

Titoring on the edge of... She's hearing. voices so she's maybe not mentally very well. But reassuring voices, telling her it's all going to be okay. Yes. And then she hears a news report which she thinks could be, you know, her voices again about a big Aquarius sea monster who's murdered two men, two captors and escaped. And then later on, when she's cooking, we have to be all the nose for her husband and a work friend, the guy turns up in her kitchen, she hands him some celery. There's this split second. What do I do? Well, she's reaching for a knife and she reaches celery and this is the first time someone has sort of been kind to him so he takes

a celery and eats it because he's starving so it's an act that she meant to be protective that he took as peaceful and then he moves in with her and her at this point because so they have had the loss of their child and she's had a miscarriage and since that point they've been in single beds not really communicating he doesn't want to talk about any of the grief or the loss there's a really heartbreaking line so there's lots of it's really hard about oh is this about the grief no matter how much you loved someone. There was a limit to the amount of crying you could stand hearing. Just before that sentence, she's crying about the dog dies.

Yeah, which is the third. The third one. And she says, everything near her died, she had said, everything. It was a wonder the grass on the front lawn didn't turn around and sink back into the earth. She cried for days, weeks, and Fred began to explain less and even to talk less. No matter how much you love someone, there was a limit to the amount of crying you could stand hearing. Now, that is incredible because it describes how it feels to be grieving and how it feels to watch someone grieve. in like five sentences.

Yeah. That it's awful and it's awful. Yeah. And no one can bear it. Yeah. And nobody wins. Yeah. I found it,

even though it's dealt with so deftly, the separate beds, the lack of conversation about trying for other children. Because how would a relationship flourish under the weight of so much sadness? And she says to Estelle, we can't get divorced. We're too unhappy. Yes.

That's right. We're too happy people get divorced. People who expect happiness. at the end of it or to be happier. And it's like it's another grief, isn't it? If they divorced, they have to move out that house where the child lived. And so they're frozen and that room has become the room of not Scotty's stuff. And which is also, weirdly, as she says, how she's able to have an affair and have Larry the Frogman

live in her house without her husband knowing because he avoids that room as he thinks the toys are in there. He's avoiding the room and he's having affairs not working late. She never knows where he is. They don't talk. They holiday separately. So it's a very, very, very Dorothy is so low. lonely, so, so lonely. I revoke my opinion.

It is about grief. But you know, it's more, it feels like it can capture so much more. It's like she's not just focusing on that. Like if it was just, oh, my husband's having an affair and I have a fair with a frogman. But it's not just that, is it? So much more. So the radio makes voices. The guy turns out, we meet Estelle and all of a sudden I'm excited about this.

I'm excited about the portrayal of a female friendship. So it's divorced. It sells divorced. It has two kids. she thinks Dorothy should get divorced. She complains about her kids. She makes very, very strong coffee. She drinks.

She drinks too much. She's a bit judgmental about her drinking. Yeah, yes, definitely. But when it describes how they became friends, which was them, like she said, she sort describes them in her kitchen. Just all they could say was, the bastards. The bastards is while drinking. Over and over again.

Later on, she says, once or twice our lives were broken up so seriously that each of us was nearly ready to go under, really. so when something hits Estelle badly it hits me too I was like yeah that's yeah but then sort of the last third of the book we find out slightly more of the narrative and I almost normally on this show we're like of course there's spoilers how can we talk about a book

but I'm like if you want to read this book we don't need to spoil it but I would say if you any of this piqued your interest stop listening now and go and read it because one of the things I genuinely enjoyed so much was not knowing what was going to happen because the plot does twist all over the place from now on I feel like we might have to occasionally

me. Okay. But we'll try not to. No, it can do. You're right. You've said switch off. Switch off. I feel like this is bad business. It is bad business, but this book is so good and it's so light. Switch off, then come back. Yeah. Don't go away forever. God, you're expecting a lot of people. Yeah. The book's that good. If you like books, and like me, you handed this to me and I thought,

oh, what's this? What's this? I know, I saw. Oh, you saw my face. Oh, Mrs. Caliban. Because I thought it might be a bit Shakespearey. Oh, I see. I was expecting like some, like something about that. I thought it was going to be on an island with a storm. Yeah, and I don't, Tempice is not my favourite play. It's no one's favourite.

It's no one's favourite. And I've had to do so much stuff about Caliban at university. So I thought we were going to be all like that. And then when hot Larry turned up, the frog was wrong. I mean, I read it in two nights. Okay, so we're doing spoilers now. We've got rid of everyone. Entering the world of spoilers.

When we find out later on. Oh my God. That Estelle had had a relationship with Dorothy's husband, Fred. What the fuck? I couldn't believe it. And not only that, I couldn't Dorothy to be the person who stopped them being happy together. She's why, at the beginning of the book, she's saying, why don't you get divorced? Yeah. Saying to Dorothy, you should get divorced, where didn't you do it? You're so miserable. And she says at the end, that line, you are the reason I, we've been on, everyone's unhappy. Everyone does die around you.

And this person who you think has been a friend who you've been like so happy that she has, at least she's got a stelle. She drops everything for Estelle. She nearly tells Estelle about Larry the Frogman. And you're thinking, maybe. you should, maybe Estelle will help you, like you are in this mad situation. Estelle doesn't love her. Her husband doesn't love her. And then her daughter's then having an affair with Fred. Estelle's daughter.

Yeah. Estelle's a child. Yes. Has moved on. So Fred does not come out well of this. No. And he also hits her. Historically, we're told about a situation where she was hysterical.

The dog gets run over. She's desperately sad and her husband hits her to, in quotation marks, calm her down. Yeah. It's a self-set 50s, right? I was like, did I ever actually say you when it is, if I just missed that? It doesn't feel like it's set in the 80s. No, not at all. Because there's radio, not television.

Yes. And also when the incident happens that Estelle's son is killed. I know that is on the news, isn't it? But everything's very blurry. Like she can't see the picture properly. So I was like, oh, we're dealing with a time where you literally don't know who's been killed in like this accident because you can't see their face properly. And then people have to, everyone keeps ringing around going, oh, it looks like Joey, it looks like him.

and Estelle's not answering her door. But the feminist commentary within this book with moments like the way that that hit is put in or later on where Estelle's talking about why you can't trust doctors and take the drugs. Because if you keep crying, they'll just put you into an asylum. Because it's easier for them to handle you that way.

And the way Estelle says that, that was your problem, Dorothy. You took the drugs. They nearly took you away. And obviously her son has died because of this operation. It should have been a routine operation. He had a random allergy reaction.

it seems like it's being dealt with with the shrug of the shoulders of like, oh well these things happen off you go, your son is dead. So this mistrust of men and the medical world does have a very 50s vibe about it, doesn't it? Of like women not being believed

in any shape or form. And being very disenfranchised although she's not, she's able to have an affair with the Frogman who then goes on to murder more. Larry the Frogman's an amazing character. Yeah, amazing. He doesn't talk like a human.

Like she's, the way his dialogue is, he genuinely his questions the fact that he's sort of trying to learn that dance the Merce Cunningham he keeps like doing the dance at her and she doesn't even know what it is till they see an advert

and he's like what is this and he's basically trying to do contemporary dance yeah and then she says it's dancing he goes no it's not I've seen ballet that's not dance yeah and I mean I googled the Merce Cunningham last night was that a real person yes he's very famous choreographer okay he's in a relationship with John Cage for a long time

and they work together a lot and he's contemporary if you can imagine a man enticed and a vest. John Cage was obsessed with a dancer. My dad was talking about this the other day. So, Mers Canningham's style is exactly what the spoof of contemporary dancer.

Like tights, best, jerky, weird movements. Oh, lovely. Like, weird, and John Cage music. Like, exactly what you would find in a comedy sketch of contemporary dance. Oh, I see. That's why Larry was confused. He was revolutionary and he changed the way that dance happened

and he came from ballet background but he like used the body in a completely different way. So he's a legend of his form. So it's fascinating that Larry is watching like a new form of language and communication that even, and Dorothy struggles to say what it is because it's like, what is contemporary dance? Like it's not.

They have some really great conversations where he's asking her quite existentialist questions. And so she comes to even doubt where they're talking about why human beings mate's the way they do. Oh my God. She's having to describe, okay, well, women are looking for a man who are like this and are, is that true? Is that right?

When he says, this may be really laughed, she's talking about these people they don't like. The more Dorothy told him, the more he seemed fascinated, what struck him as most interesting was the fact that although Dorothy and Estelle talked about the Cranston's being friends, neither of them genuinely like the couple. Yeah. Is this usual, he asked.

After some thought, Dorothy said, she figured it probably was. Yeah, friends that you don't like, the couple friends that you don't like. You wouldn't believe that as a teenager. No. It's such an adult life. Yes. Well, I still used to, my mom used to, I say to her, like, or who was best man at your wedding?

And she was like, well, I don't know where he is now. And I was like, how can you wrong? He was best man. Yeah. And she's like, oh, I don't know what happened to him. And as a kid, I was like, you made a bad call. Didn't choose a friend that you trusted. And now I'm like, oh, I see. People can be at your wedding and you don't know where they are anymore. Because at that point in time, they were part of your life. And something happens and you, you know, now they're not. So yeah, I agree with you. It's a very. But I think that's preferable to the opposite, which is people who hate their friends that they're trapped with. Oh, yes. Yeah, my mum's not that.

She's a mover on. Yeah, it's healthy. So Larry, he describes where he comes from and he says everyone is the same. Yes. And that bit where she says to him, they're like talking and getting confused. And she's like, he says, oh, I don't think I meant that. She's like, oh, you didn't mean people the same. He's like, no, I did.

Everyone is the same. Because they all do the same thing. And this answer as well, she said, will they recognize? night's you and he was like yeah because I'm smell like I'm me yeah and you know and he has a bit of a fear but he doesn't seem to have any existential crisis about what's happening to him he just wants to get back home which is the Gulf of Mexico which is she's planning to drive him down there but and we should talk about he's captured so some scientific institute captures him finds him captures him he's human like but he's not human and they've been doing experiments

on him so they've taught him how to speak that's why you communicate they've played him music they've fed him foods, but also had orgies with him? Sexually abused him, it seems. But that's why he kills two of his, the scientists and has his gait, which is when, we should have said, when Dorothy meets him. That's right, he's on the run. We did say, we said that there was an announcement on the radio. I don't think we said why.

Yeah, I said he'd murdered two chapters. From the institute. So he, when you hear on the radio, you're like, oh, a scary sea monster is out and about, and then obviously we meet the person and we discover. And he's instantly sympathetic. Yes. We are very sympathetic to Larry, even though the one thing we know, not only is killed to scientists, but one of them, like, he'd beheaded and gutted.

Yeah. So it wasn't just... Yeah, no, he wasn't just self-defense. He was angry with them for what they had done to him. Yeah. And I felt like she does so amazingly, at the beginning, you're like, oh, Larry's a victim. And as it goes on, you're like, I'm a bit worried about her being with Larry. Like, there's loads of bits I felt wary of, like...

Oh, you were wary of Larry. Yeah, towards the end, I was like, what's happening? because he was saying such weird stuff. And she just implicitly was like, I trust you, he starts taking the car out by himself. And she's saying to him, we shouldn't go here,

it's not safe. And he's like, I don't care. And she says like, oh, she says that phrase like, oh, he's breached a new boundary now.

Like he's not worried about being safe anymore. And it felt like, yeah, it was like a dangerous boyfriend thing that of like, I don't quite trust you. Like,

really? Yeah, I didn't trust him. I did trust him. I think maybe it's because I like vegetarians. I loved his passion for lettuce and when he had an avocado for the first time

and he's like that vegetable is the best vegetable I've had. I'm allergic to avocados. What? Yes, do you want to know? Of course I didn't know. I knew about onions. I can eat onions now. What?

I know, big changes. How? I'm a really allergic to avocados. What? So did you find it triggering? I found it triggering. That he was eating 20 avocados a day. When she gets a bag of them, I thought, oh, makes me feel.

Did you? Yeah, because I find them disgusting. I want to make a salad. Oh, no. I've written slimy green avocados. When she was describing slicing the tops, I was like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Oh, God, disgusting. Yeah.

Yeah, the vegetable stuff was good. Also, didn't you love when he was describing the makeup? Oh, the, yeah. So his skin is dark green and then he put on different shades of makeup. Well, they tried to see about wearing a wig and getting sunglasses. She sews two wigs together for his big old head. And breaks sunglasses to make a bigger. But she can't put the nose on because he hasn't got a nose.

Yeah. And he says, I figured out the makeup. The secret is to wear a color that's different for most of the people who live in the area. Yeah. Which obviously ends up causing him trouble Because that's not the secret But he thinks that means people will leave you alone Yes

Rather than... Or that you're already visible But that's inherently funny That she's trying to like So these wigs together and out of love For this frog man Do you think... She feels so sorry for him

Yeah Do you think he's real? Yeah Do you not think he's real? I'm not sure I guess the ending The ending made me feel less That he's served a purpose

and she can't conjure him again. He doesn't come back. So where is he? It leaves doubt in the reader's mind. Yeah. But he's very real to me. Yeah. Yeah.

I said he was very real until the end when you have that... Spoiler. The car crash. Yeah. And he just disappears so quickly and is able to... It just runs out. Yeah. And no one sees him again.

That I suddenly was like, is this your grief? Is this what you needed? Did you manifest what the love and care that you needed because somewhere in you, you knew your best friend was sleeping with your husband? One of the things that's really wonderful about him is how much he enjoys helping her with housework. So if you were going to have an imaginary friend,

wouldn't it be someone who was into hoovering and kept you company in those drudgery tasks that you were expected to do? He says he loves it because you use your fingers so much, but your body is still. So when he's like cleaning her silver and dusting, it's a really great thing. He really enjoys it. And he's just wearing an apron around the house with her.

He doesn't have society's expectations of gender roles. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what I mean. He becomes this. He's vegetarian. He's musly. He's healthy.

He's good at sex. He's very good at sex. Yeah. But in a very like... They have sex loads of times the first sort of night. And she's like, do your creatures? Do you always have this much sex? And he's like, yeah, do you not?

Is this normal? And she's like, well, no. No. Depends on the person. and how do you feel about it? It was like, oh, no, it doesn't depend on how you feel about it. But what I love is it doesn't really matter if he's real. And also he is and he isn't.

That's why I think she's such a good writer. Because it's like, he very is, he's a really real character. He doesn't come across as a figment of imagination. It was only towards the end when I was like, oh, actually, have you been very unhappy? Because she hears the voices on the radio before he turns up. So you already know she's not in a good place. There's a very careful distinction that the radio voices that are in her head are soft and gentle

and that news thing is a very different tone so we do know that news is true but it could be that monster somewhere else and also that amazing bit when she says to Estelle so Larry's Frogman

ends up killing Estelle's son and she says to Estelle you know oh gosh he's still out there and Estelle does it's like oh don't be stupid there's no monster there's no monster

some kids and you think it was a gang and you think that does make more sense Estelle yeah why and she says like why why what she said

what, say like this huge strong monster, beat them all off. And you're like, not beat them off. Several times it is stressed. People see what they want to see. People see things in Times Square. Once they see them in an area, everyone will start seeing him. She has to explain that to Larry when he's saying, they keep saying on the news, I've been in these places and I know I haven't been there.

Maybe that's mad to think a frog man that Joey and Joey has been running around with bad kids and they do get into stealing stuff. So now I'm open to this. So if he is there because she needs him, so her mind is. so her mind has conjured him as survival, then that's why he starts doing independent things like taking the car out by himself. That's the beginning of him having freedom,

the beginning of him leaving. Yeah. She doesn't need him anymore. Because it's like, as Estelle says, you don't know what desire is. But she does now? But she does. I read, obviously, I read an interview with Rachel.

Did you? Ingle's saying, initially when people wanted to make a film in the 80s, she was very resistant because she was like, you'd have to make a decision. whether he's real or not. And then when the, obviously, many years later,

when she'd been popular and then lost it and then discovered, she said she didn't care. She was like, a film is a separate thing to a book, and it just has to be a good film. And if they want to make that choice, they make that choice. But initially she said. But also, she's probably seen by then Fight Club, one, you can be, two things will be true at the same time.

Someone can be both utterly real to the viewer, but not really there. Oh, my God. Rachel, you're right? I said you know what, I've just seen Fight Club and it's changed a lot of stuff feeling really different. I thought it was an interesting quote from her.

She never sought the limelight. It rarely found her. She said, I'm really no good at meeting lots of strangers and I'd resent being set up as the new arrival in the zoo. And I thought, hmm, she's frogman. Like, that's the thing. She didn't, that feeling of like everybody clamouring for you

or wanting a piece of you and everyone being like, what's, like, something strange and weird, but how are you? What, like, how have you existed? Yeah. So I was like, oh, that's interesting. Is Frogman her grief or part of her or part of all of us or does it matter? Like, it's a better story that he's real.

Like, that makes the story way more interesting. It makes it a different world. Yes. You want the world to coexist. Yeah. You want it to be that he is literally, he's so matter of fact, there's something I thought so beautiful about accepting things as they are. So when she's describing women wanting men who seem, you know,

like they could get someone better or stronger, and he's saying, but surely surely we all just want what we actually have and this is actually I think in response to her describing unhappiness and he says you've got all this he spread his arms out away from the car

to take in the earth and sky all around and said you've got all this and you live here it's your home and that's so she's just said to him like oh you're all I've got as in I've got nothing he's like you've got everything and that's what I mean about like he's real and he's not real because she's at that point in grief where she's so alone and so isolated

with all her feelings and at a time when she's not having therapy, her husband's not talking to about it. Also letting go of the fact that she's probably not going to have another child now, because if that was the only solution, the only thing she could think that would rescue her life and her marriage. Well, it's interesting, then the husband keeps saying, doesn't he, as well, like there's a bit where it seems like the husband's decided, actually I'm going to make an effort with this marriage.

She's complained a lot about the fact that separate. birds and that he's just made this decision that they don't have a sexual relationship. We're told they don't have sex, haven't had sex for two years. And there's a tide change based on Scrabble. Scrabble can be very erotic. They play four rounds of Scrabble. And she beats him every time, so we know she's much clever. And she says, why do we stop playing this?

He says, because you always win. Yeah. And you're like, okay, he can't deal with her and all of her brilliance. And then she keeps using this phrase of he thinks we could go back to where it was. And again, that's a very, very grief thing in that you think you can go back to pre the death of their child and she at this point has accepted. You think that's what healing is, returning back to a place before the thing. And at this point in the novel, she's like, we can't go back.

Which at the start of the novel, that's all she wants is Fred to come back to her, to have her life, to have everything come back as normal. And Larry has showed her, you can't come back from having sex with a six-foot-seven program. You can't go, yeah, Fred, I constantly beat a Scrabble who wears a crap tie and thinks he's funny. Yeah, you. You'll do. Just another brilliant piece of writing when she says, oh, she's talking about the ocean

and him being down in the ocean, worrying about him, but she says, The ocean was a world and a world is not art. Dorothy thought about the living things that moved in that world, large, ruthless and hungry, like us up here.

So simply done. Really simply done. Yeah. Dorothy's not a philosopher. She's a housewife. I like that as well that she often can't answer his questions. She struggles with this alien being.

And doubts her and doubts her answers. Could we talk about the Pisces quickly? Yeah. Because I did think this would be, they'd be quite a good sort of double if you wanted. This book, the sex is very matter of fact. Yes. We know that, you know.

It's not even really described. You just know it's good. Whereas with the Pisces, the sex stuff is sort of quite a lot of the drive of the story. Yeah. And is really described. A creature comes out of... A merman?

A merman? A merman would you say? Yeah, a lonely person in... A lonely woman in California starts having very... deep sex with a moment. He's got a very sort of weird nubbing kind of penis. Yeah, I can't remember the details. I can't know.

The reason I remember it so much is because Dolly Alderton had read it and I'd read it and we were talking about it and Steen hadn't read it and she sent it to him and he never reads and he was really shocked. He was really shocked. It's quite graphic. You know when you read, you know, just reading for yourself, I didn't quite take in the graphicness until Steen get coming and going, he's got a nubbing. Yeah, it's odd.

He's very beautiful. and the sex is not like anything she's ever had. And the sex in the Pisces, I can't remember who it's by. Melissa Broda. Melissa Broda, thank you. It's, it's intricate to the plot. Like, it's part of that. It's about a sexual awakening.

Whereas for Mrs. Caliban, again, perhaps because of when it's written. Also, I guess the difference is the Pisces, the Merman is free, living in the sea, swims off, whereas at Larry's trapped in. Yeah, he didn't want to be here. He didn't want to learn this language. He didn't want to come out of the sea, whereas the Merman sees her and is like, oh, hello. And then they agree to sort of have sex. Yes.

Yeah, but let's talk about the Pisces. No, we have. All right. That was it. I prefer this to the Pisces, definitely. Although I do think it's a more dated, more classical take on that story, whereas I think Pisces is a very, like, a very modern take on that. But in both of them, I think I read the creature is real.

That's maybe what I find is a double. I really, I want Larry to be real. And I do think, I think they serve something providing a heterosexual, a heterosexual male in a situation where the female character has no use for human men anymore. Yes. Maybe that's what it is.

I like that. Because Dorothy couldn't have just met a man. Like it couldn't have been Mr. Mendoza that she was having this process with. And there's also this relationship with men. She talks a lot about being a teenager and what she thought romance would be like and her and her and her friend would,

follow like college lovers together and see them walking off and there's certain you know cliff points they'd drive out to and she's been waiting her whole life for this type of romance and now she's got it because Fred has not lived up to it and this bit really broke my heart they went swimming together and made love on the beach that's the level of sexual contact you're getting in mr caliban thank you very much that's where I'm after um Dorothy still felt like a teenager at the time when her hope and youth and adventurousness had left her, she had believed herself cheated of those early years when nothing had happened to her, although it might have.

Later still, she realised if she had made an effort, she herself could have made things happen. I found that really heartbreaking. As a cautious teenager, I was like, oh God, but now it didn't matter. Here she was. So she's getting the teenage man of her dreams. Yes.

And she's very, very happy right from the beginning. Yeah. That glow of... Yeah, and people say you look so well, you're looking really good, because she's in love. Yeah. And that's why also you get the theme, that's why Fred decides, oh, maybe we could have a marriage again. She seems more attractive again. Because she's having an affair, technically, which, you know, he...

And Estelle assumes she's met someone as well. Yes, which is why Estelle gets obviously excited, because they're trying to break up this marriage the whole time. It's very renaissance tragedy, like her ending. Like her way of getting this character out, which, again, I liked and I think works in a, in a shorter book in a novella, like I think what you're expecting, or maybe in a modern novel is like, Larry disappears and then she figures out her life,

but actually everyone around her dies. Yeah, and she's told you that's what happens to her. Yeah, and you don't believe her. You think that's a grieving person. Yeah, I read that. It's like, oh, she's just in grief, and that's not true. And actually, Fred dies, the kids die. Yeah, it's just her and Estelle left.

In this, in, yes. And she replicates, Estelle becomes her. Estelle becomes, loses both of her children and says that she has lost both of her children and they both lose Fred. So they're in, the only person you understand her now is Estelle and Estelle obviously by this point wants nothing to do with her. But she's, but that's why I mean so interesting because you're sort of on her side. But by the end I was like, oh actually Dorothy. Well, that's the thing about the judgment calls is like Fred dies and we sort of feel like he deserves it. Well, he's kind of running her off the road.

Yeah, he's chasing her because he's. We've seen Larry the frogman in the car with her and everyone's looking for this scary, scary sea monster, but why is he, his reaction even then? But if Larry doesn't actually exist, then he just knows that he's caught. He knows that she's seen him. Have sex with a young girl.

Yeah. Yeah. Estelle's daughter. Enthusically or however, vigorously against a bench. Yeah. In the tie that she had tied earlier for him. Oh, that bit was so sad. Yeah. Yeah, I guess she really does cover the characters are so flawed. That's that same surfaceness of like so sad events.

We don't cry for Fred. We don't cry for Estelle's children. We don't cry for Estelle. All of those huge things are plot. Yeah. They don't feel we don't emote. That's kind of the fairy taleness of it, isn't it? Because it is, again, I read the thing that she's obsessed with the Grim Brothers Grim Fairy Tales.

And I was like, you can feel it with that ending of like horrific. People just die. That's the end. Yeah. And there's a moralism to it. So the son was part of a gang attacking the same. sea monster so the sea monster killed them. And Larry keeps saying that to her, doesn't it?

It's like, but why do you care if I, you didn't care about the science people? Oh yeah, he actually asks, why is it different if you know someone? Yeah. Why is it more sad if you know them? Yeah, because I killed the science guys and you were bothered, but then I killed your friend's son and not you're bothered. She's like, well, I knew him. She's like, yeah, but there's still people.

Yeah. I like the way she brings up these arguments without offering any explanation. Yeah, it's just social commentary. Yeah. We empathize with some people and not others. And Dorothy is left as, speaks us as we are as humans of like, as humans of like, well I also couldn't answer Larry in that situation. It's like, but we do.

And so yeah, it doesn't, yeah, I don't think it matters if he exists or not. I think it's just sort of at the end. I was like, is he real? Because I could really imagine, like, she's describing, oh, Fred's trying to run me off the road because he's seen Larry. And you're like, I can imagine you on your own screaming at him. I've seen you have sex with Sandra. And that's what he's trying to run off the own.

And Sandra is in the car trying to grab the wheel, which I mean, I did feel empathy for Estelle. Did you? I thought it was horrible. Like, what a horrible pile up at the end? Oh, for Estelle. So losing her children? Just the whole, like, renaissance, like, everybody's dead by the end.

Yeah. Oh, I definitely, definitely did. But I guess the author's decision to have Estelle not a moat. Yes, I see. Oh, yeah. I'm not completely numb. I'm going to be in control of this. She talks, I mean, which I found quite extreme,

but she talks about, like, getting over her son's death just after her sons died. Who Estelle? Yeah. I read that shock. Shock. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, she's in total shock. And I think Dorothy's reading it as shock as well.

Like there's nothing you can do. Yeah. Like it's just, you can see it hasn't hit her yet at all. And they're having to have this very public funeral because C wants to kill them. So the press are all involved. Yeah, it's going to be on TV. Yeah, it's on television and some of the other families have sold the story. And yeah, it's, I mean, that's, yeah, it's amazing that she can keep that much madness under control

that you completely believe it. you're not like, oh my God, hang on, what? You're like, yeah, there's a reality to this folk tale. I mean, it's such a good book. It is a good book, isn't it? It's a fucking great book. But for me, it's a proper weirdo book. Yes, because...

She's a weirdo, definitely. And at the end, she just keeps going back to the beach waiting for him. And he's a weirdo. It's about a weirdo arriving. The human emotions involved are very, every day, and feel very representative, very true. But as you say, like, within a story, which is impossible.

Yes, completely impossible. And it does have that Shakespearean feel, doesn't it? Even though I didn't want it to. In what way? Well, like the magicalness of it, like the tempest. There's a magical land. Oh, okay. Like the donkey. The donkey.

There's something like stream. Oh, I was like, yeah. I've forgotten that bit in the tempest. It was a donkey. Yeah, that's Shakespearean feel of like there's humans and there's reality and there's all this moralising and this great philosophising about how we are as people. And there's a storm.

brings other people and these two people and some twins. I'm mashing all the stories together. And that's fine and both of those co-exist because actually what I'm telling you is about human nature and I'm telling you in a magical folktale way. But I like that it's... Do you know, did she say in an interview of that's why she called her Mrs. Caliban? She's a massive Shakespeare fan.

Really? Huge, yes. That's why she lived in England. Like a groupie? She was from America, born in Boston. And she went to Germany for a while. and German. And then in the summer of 1964, she came to England.

And that's when I know this as well, because my mother-in-law was very involved with this. It was the quadri-centennial productions. So it was the 400 years. It's trapped from Haven. And the RSC did, like, a huge, huge thing. And it's like very, I can't remember any of the names, but like those actors, I want to say Lawrence Olivier,

let's double-check that. But it's like, so this is 64. 64. And she stayed and watched all of them. And it was like a huge thing. and also watched all of it. And it like changed a lot of people's world. Like they did every single play.

They did all the histories together. You could watch the whole thing. And it was like, oh, wow. This text was born for people. And the next year she moved here permanently. And she was very, yeah, into Europeaids and Shakespeare and the magicalness of that world. But I...

So it was an intentional... I think it's a reference, but it doesn't feel... What I like is it's not going, oh, you need to have read the tempest for your... Because I hate that when you're like... oh it's not just write a book that's good and I feel like you get the reference but it doesn't affect anything else

and also it's like well it could mean so many things hmm hmm it was a geniuses weren't there well I think she's a genius yeah and she's written loads of other books that are all kind of short novellas and I started reading about and they all sound as mad and brilliant as this of like frogs coming out of baths and yeah magical stuff happening and people sort of

but still living in this world where magical things happening love it I'd say a big thumbs up oh yes club. Yeah. I feel bad for all the other books we haven't given anything. Five weirdos out of five. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Really fantastic. Oh, I hope that people do go and find her. Yeah. And I also would recommend this new Faber editions with the lovely new introduction as well. You've been sponsored by Faber. I, no, you are. No, you are, but I liked the picture because the picture and all the other 80s book is like a creepy green. Yeah, I liked that one. Oh, I was like, oh, I'd be scared to pick that up. I did like that one. I had to get another copy. And I saw it when it was 40 quid, though.

Oh, gosh. I like the weird one. I like this one with a nice picture of a floaty green person and a floaty pink person. It made me less scared of Frogman. Do you have a quote to end on? There was a bit about speciesism and about how, and she explains to him that some people don't think women have souls. Yeah.

Historically. That's fun. Yeah. I like that they watch the Muppets. And she says, she's quizzing puppets. The puppets she liked best was the wild one with all the teeth. Animal.

His favourite was the saxophone player. That's all you need to know about. Thank you for reading with us. Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Weirdo's Book Club. Next week's book guest is Things I Don't Want to Know by Deborah Levy. But things you do want to know are that Sarah's novel, Weirdo, and my book, You Are Not Alone, are both available now.

And our next live show is on Thursday the 25th of January at Oils-Totn-Cock Road. Tickets are available now. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.