Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh with Jodie Harsh

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

This week's book guest is My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh.Sara and Cariad are joined by legendary DJ and music producer Jodie Harsh who recently published her own memoir, You Had To Be There: An Odyssey Through Noughties London, One Night at a Time.In this episode they discuss Crossrail, nostalgia, Amy Winehouse, the twelve steps, Soho and the National Lottery.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh is available here.You Had To Be There by Jodie Harsh is available here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclubTickets for Sara's tour show I Am A Strange Gloop are available to buy from sarapascoe.co.ukCariad's children's book Lydia Marmalade and the Christmas Wish is out in paperback here now. Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sarah Pasco. And I'm Carriead Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we created the weirdos book club.

A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. Each week we're joined by amazing comedian guests and writer guests to discuss some wonderfully and crudely weird books, writing, reading and just generally being a weirdo. You don't even need to have read the books to join in. It will be a really interesting, wide-ranging. conversation and maybe you'll want to read the book afterwards. We will share all the upcoming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram, Sarah and Carriads, Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Our Tessa Mostra. What's it about? A nameless narrator takes a huge amount

of sleeping aids to escape her life. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, she's drugged and asleep. In this episode, we discuss Crossrail. Hinehouse, 12 steps, nostalgia, Soho and the National Lottery. And joining us this week is Jodie Harsh. Jody Harsh is a legend, famous for being an amazing DJ, having taken from London's underground to the global stage. She is also a party starter who reigns at the centre of London Nightlife, and she is a remixer who's worked her magic on everyone from Beyonce to Charlie XX. You Have to Be there is her first book. Trigger warning, in this episode we do discuss the abuse of narcotics. Hello. Hello. We're so excited to be here with Jody Harsh.

Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Jody Hush. Hello. Thank you. Nice to be here. You look amazing and it's early. I just want to feel like I want to signify why I look like this. This is early. And you look incredible. Oh, well, thank you very much. It's just, it's clockwork. It's like if I have to be somewhere, then I'll show up and show face no matter the time. Do you find it relaxing, getting ready?

I find it therapeutic. And I tend to listen to a pod or listen to an audio book or something in the background. Don't listen to music while I'm getting ready. I think, I don't really know why that is. I think it puts me in a... Is it work? It feels like work. And I like to be in quite a relaxed headspace while I'm getting ready.

But I do the same makeup every time, same hair every time. It is uniform. So it's sort of, I go into a bit of a trance, I think, when I'm getting ready. I think that's probably a nice sort of meditative place to be before. And as you say, like, uniform, mask, and then leave the house. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But yeah, I mean, it's what, nine, what time is it?

It's 10 a 10 a. It's gone 10. That's a 6 a.m. shave, but I was happy to make it happen. Well, we're very grateful. Very grateful. Jody, your brand new book, you had to be there, has just come out. Which is what we're talking about partly today, but we're also talking about another book. Well, we're so perfect about this.

Yes, this is a good, um, book episode. It's a double day. I feel like we've got a good double day. line of Jodie Harsh's brand new book. Look at this. For a decade, I barely slept. I didn't even think of the parallels. Yeah.

This is not on purpose at all. I thought the parallels the whole time I was reading this and this. I was like, God, there's so many parallels. And the book guest is My Year of Rest and Relaxation. By Otis and Mosheg. Yes. And which is all about having a sort of chemical

induced sleep. Yeah. It's sort of healing. Yeah. Yeah. How great is that? Yeah. Two ends of the spectrum. I did not.

A decade of partying and chemical not sleeping. Yeah, exactly. A lot of chemicals in my book as well. Yeah, I felt like as I was reading the both, I was like there's definitely like meeting points of like being young and trying to figure stuff out. And obviously the character in my year of rest of relaxation does it very differently. It's very differently.

Chooses to like not be present. Whereas I felt like this is your book. It's like someone who was present. Very present. But the same kind of like, yeah, feelings of being young and not sure and kind of trying to figure stuff out. And still escapism. Because London for you is escaping from, you know, is it Canterbury, you grew up in Canterbury, yeah.

And I was just determined to get to the city and it could have been any city for me. Like I would hope that a reader could read this and think, oh, this is like what I did when I moved from, you know, rural Spain to Madrid or whatever. But for me, I just had to get to London. I had to be in the middle of everything. I had to be in the middle of culture and people and queer people and music and late nights and just action. everything that I felt I didn't have growing up in a smaller city. Yeah. And you were so social.

You wanted to meet people, chase adventures, go on to the next house party, make new friends. Yes. And in my... Shut the door. She's got this one friend coming, Riva, and she doesn't want friends. And she doesn't have to socialized. She's so mean to Riva. She's so mean to Riva.

I do have a fan theory about Riva, but maybe I should wait before I drop that. Let's talk a little bit about the setup of the book, but I'm so desperate to hear this fan theory. Fan theory about Reva. So the beginning of the book, I mean, I think it's really sort of well constructed and that we learn more and more about the narrator as we go. But at the beginning of the book, we do know that what she wants to do is go to sleep for a year. And her theory is, the more she sleeps, the less pain she will be in. Yeah, the less trauma will exist, isn't it?

It's like life is too hard. So if I'm just blank asleep, like, I guess someone else would be like, oh, I get absolutely fucking wasted. It doesn't exist. But for her, it's like, that's just power down. Yeah, laptop off. Her parents, both parents have died. Yes.

She's been left a lot of money. So she's in this privileged position. Yes. Whilst suffering with depression clearly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's in a very depressive state in this book. It's in New York in the year 2000. Yes.

Yeah. She's got, on paper, she kind of has everything. Yeah, we keep finding out she's so skinny. She's so blonde. She's beautiful. Even when she's got like what she describes as eye-buggers. Yeah. And, you know, she's sort of like going to this coffee, I guess a news agent.

Well, it was in England, a badega, but a newsagetian in English. And she's sort of getting these two coffees and she's got toothpaste down her front and she's not eating properly. She hasn't brushed her teeth. And she's still just like super hot. Yeah. She's just one of those women.

Totally. She has this boyfriend, doesn't she? Trevor. Who's, he reminded me of like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's kind of mean to her and they're just kind of, he's like this city boy in New York.

It feels very New York, doesn't it? It feels like quite harsh and like that's city life where it's like, yeah, You can hold yourself up and you can do what you like. And no one really knows. Totally. No one really cares. In a city of 10 million people or whatever.

Yeah. And parents dead. So she's an orphan. So there's nobody who's going to come and rescue you and be like, hey, I'm going to look after you. And she worked in an art gallery. And I think that's the thing. I've never been to New York, but that's what people say.

It's sort of a cold, busy place. It's sort of like fend for yourself. Totally. And the art world is dog eat dog and really extreme. And she's sort of going for these naps in a cupboard. Yeah. And there is no one apart from Riva, this friend. who actively cares for her, is looking out for her.

And Viva's an old college friend, did she? Yeah, so she's like known before. You get the sense like she knew her before, perhaps she'd become this cold and broken. Reva almost acts as her conscience as well, I think. She's almost like a Jiminy cricket or something on the shoulder where she's sort of caring for her saying, oh, you shouldn't act like that.

Yeah, she parrots a lot of self-help, which is what I... I think Reva's drawn really beautifully, and I appreciated it more on this read, that it makes you like her so much even while the narrator despises her like the sort of parroting of self-help or Oprah for instance which is a person desperately just trying to live well

trying to go what are the clues what should I be doing while she's absorbed all of this like female self-hatred from the 90s so she's bulimic and she's slim I think she describes it as a size 4 which is a size 8 in the UK so she's a small woman

who thinks she's fat because her friend is skinnier and jealous of, you know, someone not eating because they're miserable. So I really felt for Riva this time wrong. And she's so horrible to her. She's like really, really verbally mean to Riva. And didn't she have a Polaroid of her and she keeps it there just to remind her how much she hates her friend, her best friend? She's got Polaroid on the fridge, which Riva thinks is an act of love. But it's to remind her when she's really sort of like, you know, addled with these uppers and down as she's taken, not to ring.

Because she's annoying. It's so bizarre. Yeah. So like Reva is the like the worst. Like that's the kind of what art, because our character doesn't have a name. Yeah. And I watched a really good interview with Otessa Moshvig. And she was talking and they asked her, you know, about names.

And she said, oh, it's very deliberate that. She said, she said, I'm really into names and I really care. And she said, Reva has this like recycling, reused. Like there's this sense of like she grabs everything and churns it. and she was talking about the Dr. Tuttle. And then she was saying, but she said, I couldn't give this character a name

because she was trying to disappear. So, like, the moment I couldn't name her, she didn't want to be named. So it's a very deliberate. I was like, oh, do you see your tessa? She literally just wants to go to sleep for a year. That's kind of the premise, I guess. And she wants to be left alone.

The thing of being alive is you are visible. And every interaction. You still have to eat and drink and shit, right? And so she's trying to work out how she can be drugged enough to wake up every few days, I guess. Yeah, yeah. And ironically as well, she lives in New York City, as you said, so it's one of the busiest cities in the world. She doesn't at any point think, oh, I could just move out to, you know, I don't know, Iowa or so on, you know, you know, somewhere. You're a tropical island somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. She stays in the middle

of New York City. Yeah, it's something about cheating to be silent in a very, very busy place. Because you're right. She could absolutely have just gone, well, I don't like this. I don't like people bothering me and just move to a farm and no one would bother her. again, they would forget about her. And I guess in the year 2000, this is sort of sex in the city, New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a different, it's a different, it's pre-9-11. Yeah, so, yes, isn't it?

Which will obviously get to, spoiler-a-la-up. Yeah, spoiler all that. I think, what, I can't remember where I saw it this time, but one of the quotes, or maybe the introduction mentions that, oh, it, no, it's right at the front of the book, it says, Black Be Funny, both merciless and compassionate, dangling its legs over the ledge of 9-11, And so because I read that before I started, I was like, hang on, where are we? I don't know what's coming. And some of the characters work in the world trade centre.

Trevor works there. So this ex-boyfriend, I thought he was very well drawn because it felt very realistic to me that this is what happens when someone's sexually inexperienced and good looking. This is, you know, that's a very vulnerable place to be because you can attract people to you who like where you look like and you're not capable of sort of coping with them. Because Trevor doesn't genuinely like her, there's no real intimacy, doesn't. want to get to know her. His favorite sexual thing is when she pretends to be asleep

and he puts his dick in her mouth. And that's the thing with lots of things this book, it's like shocking and horrible, but it is funny. Yeah. She's a very funny writer. It's dropped in a really funny way. And you go,

this is so bad, but it feels so truthful and I'm laughing. Yeah. She got, like, again, I was reading, like, Jimmy, my Googling. And there's a real split of people saying, it's really funny. And other people saying, this book, nothing happens.

It's not funny. And it, like, the dark, I think you have to have a certain mindset to appreciate this humour. I think you have to have been an actual human being. For sure, for sure. And it's got some sad girl lit, isn't it? It falls into like that category. I think you have to, yeah, you have to be someone who appreciates that life is exquisitely painful

and sometimes art wants to look at that rather than escape it. So with Eileen, which was the most of her, which she got nominated for the bookers. Which is why I interviewed her. So I interviewed her for, but the BBC did a show where lots of. different people interviewed the different finalists and then I interviewed them all live that one. That awful thing they never re-booked before.

Mariela Frostrop's very good. So with Eileen and I'd say it's even grosser than this and I don't say gross as a criticism. More vulgar. Yes. And this book has a and I love that in reading because human beings do

have anuses. They do vomit. They do use the Humans are gross. They do feel a certain way when they've eaten too much food or not enough food. And I think that's what she's always going for is what was the sensation. And I think that when James Joyce did it and, you know, Beckett in their novels, because they were the first people to have people urinate and defecate. Then it was like, brilliant.

Okay, this is genius. Don't get me started with Henry James, you know, I feel about Henry James. But people will say this is genius level when a man does it. But Tessa Moshevah, what she did with Eileen, which just had a character taking laxatives to empty her bowels. It's written about so viscerally. and so brilliantly but obviously it was seen a little bit

as people were shocked confronted by it she's definitely a very polarising yeah which is I was a bit surprised after reading it because I know it

I know it has like a slight like nothing quite happens vibe but I was surprised at how polarised because it doesn't I don't know

like it like I thought it's a good book so I surprised some people were like angry page time I do too I disagree that it

that it's a nothing happen. Look, there's not a twist at the end of every chapter, but there is, there is a through line, although a girl wants to, there is a journey, absolutely. It's sort of, she's almost like going into a crystallis and wants to catch as some new, new person that she wants a transformation. But some people are like, angry of like, well, nothing happens. And I agree, I felt the same. I was like, stuff is happening. It's just not like, and then, like, a policeman turned up, but a body falls out. There just isn't that. And also, it's going back because as well as forward. There are things that happen. She's, she is trying to get into a sort of a coma state, but there are

events on that journey. But also we are finding out more and more about her dad's death, her dad's funeral, then her mother's death, her relationship with her mother, her relationship with, you know, the bits where she's talking about sleeping in her mother's bed and not going to school and just feeling like she was on a boat set off on the rest of the world. Yeah. Maybe half the book or something is or a third of the book is looking back. So it's stories in two directions. So I was, I find it very page turning, but you know, some things just aren't for everybody. It's just a subjective. taste thing.

And I think the way she does it is really clever. Like that's what I mean. It's not because it's not like bum, bum, bum, bum. I think the way that she sells you, oh, this is just about someone going to sleep and then kind of hints at all this other stuff is, yeah, I think it's good writing. Well, she's very stylistically different in a lot of her books, which is why, having written, I think, five or six now, now at this point people are hailing her as, oh, it's that level of genius, you know, best living American writing kind of thing. She is amazing.

She's probably my favourite. I love her. Tell us your fan theory, Jody. I don't think Reva exists. Oh, I think it's Fight Club. I think it's Fight Club. Yeah. Oh, this would be great for a third read

because sometimes when she wakes up, Reva isn't there anymore. And there's no evidence of her. Absolutely. So I only got that from this second read that I did this week. That's really good. I was reading it and I was thinking,

this girl's not there, she's a figment of her imagination, she's her conscious, she's her conscious, she says at some point, she says Riva, or Riever tells her, I'm your conscience, Riva tells her, I'm your conscience. And also she's kind of like perfect woman, Reva's like what you think you should be, right? Like, absolutely. I'm doing the right things, I'm sex in the city, New York, I'm doing it. Exactly. And she's this like dead soul watching this other version of herself. And of course, the unnamed narrator is on a lot of drugs. Yeah. So that would make sense. So I think she's, I don't even know if she's imagining her.

I think she's an imaginary friend. At least that's what she's, she's, the way she's describing, the way that she's telling the reader about her, I just think, I don't know, I just think she's not. Jodi, I'm with you. I think that's really, that's really, because also she hates her. She hates her. Which is like you hate yourself, like the viciousness of hating her. And that part of yourself, the naive part, the hopeful part, the part of you that does sort of underline a quote in a book going, I just have to... Wanted you to show you there?

Yes. Yeah, that part of you go, you're so pathetic. Yeah. Like the sort of childish bit, which obviously because of what's happened to her, she's kind of destroyed the innocence of herself. Yeah. And she always wants Reaver to go so she can fall asleep. Yes.

So that's the ego, isn't it? Exactly. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Can we do spoiler alert with what happens on the last page? Well, I was going to say, so let's do a proper spoiler alert because I would recommend anyone read this book. So we are now going to...

We're now going to talk about the ending. Because the ending is a punch in the... Yeah. It's basically just the last page. Yes. It's not even like a big bulky bit. So stop listening now. Yeah.

If you haven't read it, stop listening now. However, we thoroughly, thoroughly recommend it. So you can get to this point. Have lodged as a listen for our advertising sales. Yeah. Because we really fucking need that, guys. Maybe just turn the sound down and listen to the end. Yeah.

Great. Okay. Now we're ready. Okay. Yeah. So we'll go to the end. So Riva dies in 9-11. Yeah.

essentially. Yes. That's what the narrator tells us. She goes to a store so that she can buy a VCR to record the news reports on 9-11 as it's happening live. She's re-watching the video footage and she sees a person jumping from... The woman jumping from the window, yeah, who she thinks is Reaver. But she's determined that it is Reva, right? Yeah.

Yes. It's written so brilliantly because the way she says it is it doesn't not look like Reva. And then it's described as if she's sort of sitting on a sofa, one shoe on, one shoe off. I found it and I remember, I don't know what I remember from my first read. I remember really enjoying it, but I did not remember this scene. And it being an end and I felt the wind left me. I was so emotional. And I thought it was so incredibly constructed because it's someone falling to their death

and she describes them as being very awake. Yeah, exactly. That's the last line. And the choice of the wording. I was like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Dying in an extremely tragic circumstance, for other people not. And also, a real world.

Yeah. Real tragic circumstance. Yeah. Something that really did happen. We all experienced it. We've all seen those people jumping. And someone in New York choosing to watch it on video. Rather than experiencing it in real life, experiencing it like fiction,

like the films she's been watching over and over again, rewinding it and watching over and over again, someone who's chosen to be asleep because they don't want to be alive. And I think that's what I got from this read, that it was about suicide. Yes. It was about not being alive. but not actually killing yourself. Suicide under a tragic circumstance beyond your control.

Yes. And this death at the end, the people who chose to jump from the towers, and it's not really a choice, was it? Yeah. It was a form of suicide. Yeah. It was either essentially perished. And this is sort of semantics, but I realised this time in the read,

so much of it is someone who doesn't want to be alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. The narrator has just woken up, from her sort of three or four month induced coma, I guess, yeah, her slumber. And she's feeling more positive. It worked, right? Yeah, she's feeling like, oh, that I got my rest.

Yeah, she goes from walking the park, she reads a book, and she sort of goes to an art gallery, I think, and she's like, oh, I love New York. And it's a spring day. She can feel again. She describes herself being able to see nice things and appreciate that they're nice. Yeah, and not feel that like vile hatred of things that are awake and alive. So it was healing. And again, I don't know if this is part of her imaginings or real, but there's an artist who she's worked within the gallery

and he'd done this horrible exhibition with stuffed dogs where the rumour is that he grew them from puppies to the correct sizes before locking them in a freezer to execute them. And so she doesn't seem to be enamoured with this artist, but then she, this is the deal that he comes into her flat, he leaves a pizza and, you know, emptied, takes the trash out for her and then he's doing art with her while she's asleep. Which is really disturbing.

Yeah, that bit I found really hard to read. But this is where the whole privilege and her beauty and the fact that she's just this sort of Barbie doll for an artist to play with. But also that she's very, she's so like cognizant or whatever the word is at that point. Like she is saying, I want you to do this because I want so desperately someone to come in, like sort my house out, give me drugs. She doesn't want to die. So you can do whatever you want with me. So you've got this narrator's voice being like, no, no, I agree to this.

But as a reader, you're like, I don't want you to agree to it. And she's locked in. Yeah, he looks her. Because when she was taking these really strong drugs, she was going out and doing things in a blackout. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, she went out, didn't she?

Yeah. She went out to clubs and something. Yeah, she was fine polaroids. And she went to another one of this artist's openings. Oh, yeah. And she doesn't remember the, what's been up to. And she has this big white fur coat that she has no credit card.

Oh, yes. So she must have stolen things like that. She doesn't know what she's done. She's so wild. Yeah. Or even like, so before she goes to Reva's mom's funeral, she has like the white roses and the prep.

The whole thing of preparing to go to the funeral she doesn't remember. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about my theory? Do you think that could be? I think it's good. I like it. And I just wonder about the ending though because it's like,

but then it's like, we don't know if that's Reaver. Well, we don't know if it's really careful. I don't think it is Reaver. On my read, I never thought it was Reaver. I thought she was projecting the hope that she could see this person. And also, it was a woman like Reaver, whether it was Reva or not.

I really felt like the narrator was claiming it because it gave her some control over the grief of like, I got to see you. And somehow I honour your death, when I didn't honour you as a person. And that's what made me think, did she exist at all anyway? I only really thought that when I finished the book the second time, I thought, hold on, what if Reaver didn't exist? So this is during the plummet. This is the exact wording. So blouse untucked, hair flailing, limbs stiff as she plummet's down, one arm raised like a dive into a summer lake. I'm overcome by all, not because she looks like Reva and I think it's her, almost exactly her.

And not because Reva and I'd been friends or because I'll never see her again, but because she is beautiful. So I think that's so carefully wording. We then get to decide is that Reaver or not. But she doesn't even tell you whether she thinks it's Reaver or not. It's the beauty of a human being in that position. There she is a human being, diving into the unknown and she is wide awake. Yeah. So good, isn't that?

I'm convinced Riva did not exist. Yeah. I think it's absolutely fine. I think it's absolutely fine. My, and this isn't disagreeing with you, would be then what was the, when she did go to the funeral and she was in a car and she met bald men and she sat there in the service. And I think that scene was so important for her to see, you know, just this. How to grieve properly? I guess people grieving properly, but also I think that's the only instance where she is a little bit of a good friend to Riva.

Riva gets a friend who comes, who's hers, and then they get to drive back to New York together. That's the only instance where, and Riva was there for her when her mom died. So if it is a hallucination, I guess she has to invert something because Riva, their friendship began because she did check in on her at college. when she was grieving hugely and the sort of sorority girls I think she describes that having notes under her door but they sort of blanked her which I can imagine happens all the time

if you're that age having huge grief it can be left open I think that's a great thing about her writing about this type of literary fiction it's like we don't really need to know I like it though I like it and also because of this drugs thing like we don't know

Like, maybe Reaver is real, but that is also not a real Reaver, who she's too, comes to visit her. Totally. So there's like, oh yeah, there's a real river at university. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. But that's the real university at college. The funeral's real, but it's this Reaver who turns out real. Totally. It's unreliable narrator and the amount of drugs that she takes, like, I found that there

was so many points in the book where I was just like, you're okay. Like this, you're just so worried. I was desperate for some whatever she was having. Were you? I was like, I had like some, what, in NEM buttles, that sounds nice. I was so worried about her. Dr. Tuttle.

Dr. Tattle. So her sort of psychiatrists. Yeah, he just keeps prescribing. Yeah. And so I've got a quick support of your theory. Yeah. I've just remembered that when they go to the bodega together, the only time,

what Riva does is what the narrator does, which is she tries to dig out the things that in the ice and the bottom of the freezer. Do you remember that? She looks round and Riva is trying to dig things out of the freezer. So if it's a split, herself, she's watching herself do a thing, which is what she did. She has all the hug and dust in her freezer she saw in case in the, so anyway,

so supporting a theory. Dr. Tuttle with her cats, her cats, you're not allowed to move. Oh, yeah, yeah. And she always forgets everything she's told her. She goes, how do you get on with your parents? My parents are dead. She's like three times or something. She has to tell this.

Oh, my God. I found that's so funny. And she just says to her, she keeps saying, I can't sleep and I'm having bad dreams. And then Dr. Tuttle asks these. It's really strange questions like, is there any Japanese blood in your family? These dreams are very common with Japanese. Or in rats. Do you know rats meditate and the mother, but I was like, what are you talking about?

She's a cowboy psychotherapist and she's there. She's Reva's drug dealer. Yeah, and she really believes in pharmaceuticals. And that every pharmaceutical consulvent, the side effect of another pharmaceuticals. So it's nevertheless, it's always more. Yeah, it's a commentary on the. on the ease that you can really get drugged up, medicated, in America especially. It's a very American novel.

Yeah, I can't imagine going to boots with all those... No, exactly. I'll have two packets of paracetamots, but you've got any ID. Yeah, they take you into the room for everything. One at a time, actually. Yeah, packets of paracetamor. How much cowpole you buy? Yeah.

Can't have a lempsip at the same time. You're on a neurophain, absolutely not, no. Whereas she's giving her five different drugs at the same time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love Dr. Tuttle. Yeah, it's a brilliant character. It's a brilliant character. And again, it's a really funny book, but it's dealing with huge, huge, not funny topics.

And even, like, yeah, when I sort of had a hint that 9-11 was heading towards us, I was like, a test. Yeah. What? Yeah, you're crazy. But she is such a good writer. Like, yeah, I just found the divisiveness of it quite odd because it just made it such a good book. Like, it's really... But yeah, I guess it is facing a lot of stuff, isn't it?

Maybe people don't want to face. So even without reading anyone who didn't enjoy it, I can picture them. They are white men who are middle-aged. And they think Will Self is the only writer, anyone should be reading. You can talk about this, drugs. And I think sometimes the distaste is that. Yeah, there was a lot of stuff that was saying about, yeah, this female distaste of what she, of how she describes people.

And they were saying this was almost. felt like a reaction to Eileen, like, oh, you didn't like that? Well, what? Yeah, wait for this. Yeah, yeah, totally. I'm not going to be disgusting. Yeah, yeah. Have you read Lapvona?

No, I've got that one. It's amazing. Is it? Yeah. It's almost medieval game of croncy. Yeah, it's a witch. But it's even more disgusting. Oh, wow.

And it's, you know, it's like, well, if you didn't like my year of rest of relaxation, you wait to see what's happening next. I also didn't read this, but I didn't read this when it came out in paperback. And I just did that thing that I, um, I kept seeing it everywhere, ever kept talking about it. But I very deliberately didn't read anything about it. Like I was very careful. I was like, I know I'm going to read that. So I really did think it was about woman taking a year off in the countryside.

Yeah. I thought it was about like Jane Austen. Yeah, yeah. For the covers. Yeah, yeah. I've done that really well, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I was so shocked when I started reading it. I was like, oh. It's in New York. Oh, this is a lot of drugs. It's like this hot baby in New York on, like, loads of drugs, like being really, yeah. Not what I thought at all.

I tell you what I do enjoy about it. And I think this is sometimes what, I guess you can, people can struggle with this because when people are privileged, we're not allowed to, it feels like sometimes we're not allowed to talk about that they also have pain, misery, depression, that they aren't enjoying life. Yeah. And grief, she's got plenty of, like, fairly deserve grief. But, you know, human beings can be absolutely miserable in every, you know,

social position. Oh, some of the richest people I know are the most miserable people I know. And I think I enjoy reading about that because that is not a way to live. Yeah. That's not the answer that you think it might be. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's almost a bit of like Sylvia Plath or something as well, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bell jar is sort of. Yeah, if Sylvia had gone to New York and been able to get that much pharmaceuticals. Totally. I feel like, yeah, she might have done, I'm going to go to sleep for a year. Do you think Ted Hughes liked Sylvia to pretend to be asleep? Yeah, I do. Yeah, probably.

Yeah. That would not surprise me. At all. If the old came back as a ghost was like, guess what he wants to do? I'd be like, oh, get out. I'd recommend you it to a lot of friends. Some people completely love it.

And other people were a bit like, oh, I didn't really know what to make with that book. It's a polarised book. It's a difficult recommend, I think. Yeah, it is. If someone had recommended it to me, I would be impatient going, why? Yeah.

You know how you have this bleak sense of life and you work too hard? I just thought of you. I thought, she should do this. She's never there. And it blew up in the book. pandemic I think didn't it really because we were all yeah self in

we're all in goblin mode yeah lockdown was a year of rest and relaxation that we didn't want or enjoy and you couldn't be drugged through it like you had to just live it you had to be alive and like facing all the things that you did go and queue up for a vaccine yeah yeah

I'm so tired and so I think I read this the first time before I had children and now I just I just quite jealous of the idea of sort of going to sleep for 48 hours. Yeah, just in a nice bed, white sheets, having a slice of pizza, her going back to bed. With this book, I think, like, why, it procloses people,

because I think if you are, if you have a sadness in you or you are that tired, what she's proposing, you're not disgusted by. You're like, okay, talk me through it. But I think some people are like, why would you do that? But others are like, okay, so how, what, 48 hours? Yeah, okay. Yeah. I can see why I might do that.

Also, I love being in bed. I love, like, with the juvenile. Actually, now that we're in the autumn, it's quite an autumn book. But you're such a party gal. Well, I know. But, yeah, but you have to kind of find the extreme sides, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because you write about that.

Let's talk a little bit about you. Okay. Well, I'll talk a lot about it. That's all about it, yeah. You write about, like, obviously, the book starts with you. We're about 15. Yeah, hitting London and clubbing. But we go through a bit like this, you know, this like we're talking about year of rest relaxation

where you get to the point where you're like, oh, a bit too much, bit too much clubbing. definitely yeah but like you make you make it sound so fun and i did have fun i had a lot of fun i got sober when i when i towards the end of the book yeah towards end bullet i guess i get sober um but i did have a lot of fun there was there was lots of lows and there were lots of highs as well and so i didn't want i didn't want it to be all doom and gloom and i did i you know i never say like don't go out and take drugs don't experiment don't have fun um but for sure it got to i i hit a point where i i woke up one morning and i said i can't go on like this something hasn't something has to change here.

Well, in the bit where you're talking about being friends with Amy Winehouse as well, which I think I found really, again, talking about rest of realisation, which is like this amazing fiction, but then reading yours of like the reality of it, the reality of being like, I grew up in North London, so I spent a lot of time in Camden, and I don't remember those years partying because I was never doing that because I'm not that cool, but I remember how present a force Amy was. And the way that you're talking about the reality of being friends with,

with that person I found really fascinating. Behind the closed doors. Yeah, because she was such a picture. You know, she was just like, and if you were in Camden, you would see her. She was just a joke on the television. The trouble with icons, iconic people, is that they are seen as 2D?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we think we're giving them a compliment. But actually, it's not emphasising with the fact that as a real person or have washing up and emotions. Totally. Family. Totally. She came to our university when...

This is our claim to fame. When, before... You know, one of those PR, performance. So before back to back, the first album, and they were posters up in the uni bar, and I literally were saying to people, I'm going to go into, no one would come with me, no one. I didn't go. They wouldn't come with me. Anybody else, and she was not what she was.

And then whenever Amy was on anything, Carrie out would go, oh, I saw her. Just me and 30 other people would come with me. And then when you're talking about this 2D thing, it's weird when you've seen, like, I do remember her not, you know, she didn't have the big hair then. Like she had long, the long black hair, but it wasn't like the 60s look wasn't there. And then seeing someone become that. And then seeing them what, like, you know, the horrific, you know, fairy tale nightmare story that we saw happen. But it's see what you write about as well, just like that. The closeness, as we're saying this book, the closeness between joy and pain and too much fun and addiction and all of this stuff.

Absolutely. And it's funny what you say about the hair as well because that would obviously come, the beehive would come off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it's sort of like, it was almost drag. Yeah, it was. It was a, she played up to the character. Wasn't it? You say in the book, is it her who tells you,

stick to a hairstyle. Get one, have a look that you can draw in five seconds. Someone can draw you in five seconds an outline of you and you can go, oh, that's that person. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. That's how to become this sort of iconic. Oh, well, they say that about fame in general. They say that you have to be a cartoon of yourself, that people have to be able to describe you in three words.

Right. And if it's any more complex than that, you're never going to be that kind of status. You have to be simplified by people. Yeah, you have to be true deed. Yeah, cartoonified.

Yeah. what I was saying about the year of rest of relaxation and privilege, fame is a kind of privilege where people then think you don't deserve kindness, softness, forgiveness, privacy. It's like, it's a,

well, you've got all that, yeah, yeah, I think so. I think we're so, and I don't think it's in a, I don't mean like,

oh, the papers, the media, I think even on a human level, if you hear people talking about Katie Price. Yeah, yeah, we just forget humanity.

Yeah. Yeah. Our opinions are so valid and they couldn't possibly be hurtful or, you know, clicking on a link or buying Heat magazine when they've written something that's not true. We don't see our own complicity in it. These people see all that. I write about this in the book, but Amy would look on, go on The Daily Mail. She'd have all the papers around.

Yeah. She'd go on Perez Hilton and see Dick's drawn on her face and that mess scrawled across pictures of her. You know, it would be taken on board that there were public opinions. Was that her sort of just wanting to know, what other people had seen or was it sort of like self-harming potentially self-barred

I mean who knows self-harm it you know obviously I mean like on a psychic level because the people I know in comedy who Google themselves it's always when they're at their lowest ebb and they go just have a look and then they think why

but literally they wanted to feel even worse or feel something yeah absolutely see an opinion coming in yeah yeah yeah it's double-edged sword isn't it the world of fame but you write so beautifully about those beginning

yeah that like those clubbing years which I really even as I grew up in London went a bit but not enough and you made me real I was like I should have gone to fabric more

yeah and you went a couple of times we never went to big clubs but after stand up it was bars in Soho yeah it was like you know bars on Dean Street or Greek Street

you don't even know the name of it like Lupo that's what I was remembering because we used to love Lupo is it there anymore no no no it's it there anymore no no it's So it's like sort of, I guess people who don't go to Groucho would go to Lupo because I know that there is a DJ at the Groucho, but you could actually just dance there and no one would recognize anyone. So if you were with someone who was on TV, if you were with Josh Widdickham or someone, yeah, no one cares.

They're all from Brazil. Right, right, right, right, right. I guess the theme of the book is losing these places as well as friends as well. Friends and places are kind of quite transient in the book. The bit of the back where you talk about the friends you've lost and then the clubs you've lost, it's like, It really, this is the thing I think both these books are talking about is loss. Lost, absolutely. And like how you talk about it so well in the book about, like, that is London.

The London you get the hang of at 18 doesn't last. It's gone when you're 19. It's gone when you're 19. My dad's a jazz musician. And so what I always used to find so boring as a child, I did a gig there when it was a blah, blah, blah. You know, now it's a sandwich shop. And now I'm that guy.

I know, I know, I know. What's happened? It's a press a bungee! And they're like, what? We used to be London tour guides. And I walked the other day, because I had time, so I walked from the Ned, so poultry to Covent Garden. Fleet Street's gone.

I know, fleets. We should tell people it is still there. It is still there. But it's, yeah. The physical building. The physical street exists, guys, in case they're like, the courts are there, twining. It's unrecognizable.

I know. I went down it the other day. Yeah. Yeah. Cheshire cheese is still there. Yeah. Cheshire cheese is that? The oldest pub in London. Oh, I think I've been there?

Yeah. I believe I've been there. It's like a 12th century basement. Incredible. Yeah, yeah. Incredible. It's 14th century. Okay, there we go.

But anyway, and it's got the list of kings and queens outside. It's a brilliant pub. But now you have to sort of, it's not like, oh, I'm in a whole area of olden days, which it used to be. Well, in the book when you were talking about the Astoria, and I feel very guilty about this, someone who grew up in London, I get there, can't, I know, I know, I remember walking past it, but I just couldn't think where it was. And I went on your Instagram and then J.D's amazing videos went, and you pointed at the fucking Starbucks. And I was like, oh, because they put the hoarding over. And I just forgot the Astoria was ever there. When you go on the, when you jump on the tube, when you go on the Elizabeth line, the escalator that goes, that cuts through, it cuts through the dance floor of the Astoria. Oh my God, that's so weird. You say in your book, say hello to the ghost. Yeah, yeah. So the club you don't mention, because it's probably before your time,

and this was my first experience of something closing was the limelight, which was on Charing Cross Road in the old church. I think it had turned to a walkabout park. Yeah, it did. Oh, God. So that was my first. When I was 16, I was dancing in Hollywood, no, Pulse in Rumpford, and a woman came up to me and asked me to be a backing dancer.

By the way, I cannot dance. So she must have been. Same. And then the gig we did, we did two gigs. One of them was in Soho Square for a Pink Festival. And the other one was at the Lime Light Club, because she was doing her PA launching her new dance song. And we were on with the Drag Spice Girls.

We shared dressing rooms. Fab, fun. So it's so exciting. So amazing. And that's when I was like, oh my God, this is adulthood. Like my life has started. And then she had a booking to be on the lottery live. Oh, yeah.

That would be such a big deal. I was in Saturday nights the lot of her song. Yes. Yeah. And that was the launch of her single. And then Princess Diana died, and they gave her slot to Elton John. Oh.

And that was the end of her music career. And now she's a lawyer. Oh. Do we know, was the song big? No. No. Okay. I thought you were going to say.

And then it's Shania Twain. And now she's Calvin Hanks. Oh, she must be so, every time she hears Elton John or anyone mentions Diana. Oh, triggers. Yeah. Like, I know you're sad, but, Mark, I was supposed to. I lost out of the lottery, that bastard.

Oh my God. And then it goes, and now whenever I walk past it, because the exterior is exactly the same, but I remember being on a balcony. Yes, it's exactly the same. It's an old church, isn't it? So there's probably somebody from the 1920s that was like, that used to be my church.

Now it's life. Everything's so transient, isn't it? Things do change and move on. You know, friends come and go, places come and go, and that's like, that's a city, isn't it? That's a city. And like, but it's that weirdness of like when it first happens to you, I guess, like your first breakup or your first grief, you're like,

oh my God, my youth, and that's the way that a city reflects your youth is a very sort of strange experience to live in the same, still live there and still see it. And also all times existing at the same time, it not being linear in your mind, because you go, I'm 16 at the same time as I'm 44. I'm 14 at the same time. There's stuff that's so real to me still.

I'm still that person. And I think that's what's so odd, all the sort of like the Russian doll of selves. 100%. I'm the 15-year-old with fake ID, like hoping I get in 100%. And sometimes, yeah, we're on a corner and you're hit again.

I had to go to a book event at Fabric. Every single person who coming down the stairs was going, yeah, yeah. Oh, I just feel a bit. But we were all supposed to be like grown-ups at the book event, but everyone was like, sorry, I just, I can't, because once I was here and like, like, the content flashbacks. And then I used to live in Kings Cross as well,

and I used to, like, meet people for a cup of tea. And people would be like, sorry, I was, I was in this room and it was an orgy. And there used to be mirrors there. Totally. And now you're like, oh, right. It's just the way, I think the way that London keeps its shells. Yes. Because they're so beautiful.

Like, I think I wonder if other cities, maybe there's like, oh, well, it got knocked down. But I think that's why I'm going to Edinburgh every year. I have this because at the Edinburgh Festival, obviously, it's so important and really sort of stamps itself. It's the comedian soho. Yeah. It's the comedian Soho. and so you don't see it for 11 months and then you come back

and there's always a little change and like I spot the difference like, oh yeah they built that quick yeah yeah yeah there'd always be people that would come up to me in clubs when I was younger saying

oh it's not as good as it was like back in the day oh oh in the 90s like there was something around the corner this used to be properly seeding yeah exactly all of that kind of stuff and I used to just think

shut up old I remember Stephen Fry saying something about Soho and saying what a shame it was it was being dismantling And this would have been 20 years ago, him saying it used, the whole point was it used to be a dangerous, actually, seedy place. And it's sort of important, it's a heart to actually have that, even, you know, a criminal underbelly. Yeah, yeah.

And it's becoming sanitised. And I remember sort of like, you know, internally rolling my eyes like, all right, grandad. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's still, I know, it's still this great zone. And now I understand why people, that would matter to people change, the gentrification, pushing people at out. Yeah, how do you feel about performing in it now, like, with the changes? I'm not in Soho very much. I did walk through recently.

Obviously, when I was writing the book, as well, I walked through quite a lot to be reminded of these buildings that held so much love, you know, for me. But I kept reminding myself that things do just sort of, things move on and that just,

you know, I think in 20 years' time, we'll be, kids now will be looking back going, oh, do you remember the days of TikTok? Yeah, you know, things. Do you remember that Starbucks? Yeah. Oh, exactly. And it'll be some new thing.

Yeah, yeah. Things, time change and things do move on. I don't agree with clubs being brought back to life. Have you, you know, the reunion, 20 years after we shut our doors, we're back. I always think keep moving on, keep moving forwards. That's the point of clubbing is that it is about youth and freedom and feeling like nothing matters. Yeah. So when you bring it back, like there's, it's like bands, isn't it? There's a few that you want to come back together.

Totally. Not many. I was just spice girls love. Take that. Take that. They never went away. Never went away. Yeah, yeah. Do, where, I think, I've remembered another place that after gigs, we still,

always go to the Spanish bar off Oxford Street. So there's two bars that didn't really have names. The Spanish bar was never the one we actually went in, which has always said the Spanish bar. It was an unnamed bar, but it had a mirror to make it look bigger. It was about the size of this studio. And one of those little slip streets between

Oxford Street and top and poor roads. And it was just open. There wasn't a proper toilet. There wasn't a proper toilet. It didn't have a door. Yeah. A lot of these places in the book, didn't? There were some medieval toilet. Someone I wanted to ask you about was Pete Burns.

So my first TV job was with Pete Burns in Soho. And so he had a job as a show on MTV about trying to find a PA. And there was an episode where I had to play a super stalker. And all of his PAs one by one, you know, because they were sort of having coffee together outside, not bar, Italia, but a coffee shop in central Soho. And I had to cross the road. start harassing Pete Burns to see how they could cope with me.

And at the end of the day, he said, I scared him. Oh, you scared Pete Burns. Yeah, exactly. I know. Do I mention Pete Burns at the moment? Briefly. You mentioned him at the end as one of your friends that, you know, someone that's not here anymore should be. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. There were so many people that aren't around anymore. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And do you want to talk about a little bit about, like, moving into 12 steps? Yeah. Because I wondered reading it, like, how, well, when you're known as like party person and you're a drag queen.

And that's the point of drag queens. It's like they bring the vibe. Yeah. And then having to move into the like recovery space. Yeah. And you talk about that as well of like you sort of went quite monastic. But that you still needed to go out. Like it must have been such a hard move from your brand.

Yeah. Absolutely. When I got sober and I started going to meetings, I was the first thing that's crossing my mind was how am I going to work in this environment that I've been working in for the last eight years or whatever? But I had to go out and make money. So I had to get back to the clubs. Really, by that point, it was all I could do was get dressed up and go out and play music and make people dance.

That's where my income was from. So I had to put myself back out there. And then when I was back out there and I literally went back to the club, I got barred from G-A-Y. Oh, yeah, I love that. It moved venues. It moved to heaven. You're like, I'm assuming I'm not barred anymore. Totally.

I came back grumbling and played an opening DJ set every week so that I could pay my backdated rent payments that I hadn't been paying because I was. spending all the money on cocaine and booze. And so it was really out of necessity that I initially went back out there. And I was sort of feeling my way as a sober person within nightlife. But lots of my friends were also sober. Fact Tony being one of them. That Tony brought me to my first recovery meeting. And he was, you know, a couple of years sober and he was out there still DJ.

And so I did have some role models where I could go, oh, right, they're doing it. It's possible. It is possible to kind of stand on a stage, DJ, in a, you know, at 3 a.m. and make people dance without filling myself with powder and alcohol. And now I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't think I'd be able to do it drunk. And so many DJs are sober. Yeah. So many.

Yeah, but as they sort of should be. Yeah, yeah, totally. Because you're not supposed to be in the same state as the people you're entertaining. You're supposed to be watching them, knowing what they need next. Totally. But it's very much like stand-ups, isn't it? That's what I think. There's so many stand-ups who are like, well, I'm going to be.

as drunk as you are and that's how we make this fun because I'm the fun and you're the fun and then seeing stand-ups get older and have to be like well I can't maintain it it's an inexact science

because I think so with my experience with drinking with stand-up which is very different but it was like oh no have a glass of wine to be in like a party mood inverted commas or less nervous for a gig

and with the crowd but you go too far or you miss time it and then you walk on depressed because you're already you know in your hangover bit yeah yeah and you've done a bad job in your head

and actually you should be you should feel your nerves and you should be able to, you know, on a six-pence, on a, on a, you need to be sharp. Yeah. You need to be sharp to do your job well and then you need to feel it

and you need to know when it's not going well so you can change things. You're driving the shit. You're driving the shit. Otherwise is it a busman's holiday, they say? Yeah, you're kind of like, yeah. Otherwise, yeah, go and let someone else DJ against the party.

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting, I guess then, because this is such a specific, you know, you're talking about time where clubbing, clubbing was such a thing, wasn't it? So I guess like you said, these people that you met at that time when you were 15, maybe they were like 18, 90, 20, 20.

And so you've all moved up and then you have hit sober at the same time. And what's amazing is, although we've lost the clubs, we haven't lost the ability for a community to keep that sort of industry going. So that's interesting, isn't it? I've lost a lot of friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But the 12 steps definitely saved my life. I think I woke up one day, as I said, and I thought, that's it.

I now need to get sober if I'm going to keep going. And it's a really long process going through 12 steps. It's not just like switch your sober. It's a work on yourself and a reflection on yourself that's going to keep going for life, isn't it, basically. And also people meet different cyber versions of themselves. Totally. I think that's what's so important to say about that. That's why it does work for people.

What did you think as someone in the 12 sets of her state of rest of relaxation? She's certainly an addict, even if she doesn't realize it herself. That's what I think is. Yeah, she's, and Dr. Tuttle is her dealer. Yeah, yeah. And she's medicating and she's depressed and therefore medicating to feel something or feel nothing. Relatable. I find it interesting because she doesn't, it's one of those things why that book is good.

She doesn't say, oh, this person's an addict. At any point, right? At any point. But, like, when you say it, you're like, yes, this person is an addict and Dr. Tuttle is her dealer. but because they're a doctor and she wants to sleep and those are societally sort of acceptable rather than her being like, oh, I want to take heroin and this is my heroin dealer.

Or she judges Reva for her drinking. Yeah, yeah. And says, I think even Reva would admit she's an alcoholic. Right, right. So she does say that about Reva and drinking. But again, it's all about this thing, which I think you talk about in the book as well, like running away from things. You know, like you said, you're this childhood

and, you know, the relationship with your dad and drag and all of what that meant to you. and escaping into clubbing and that being amazing and brilliant or like I think we like escaped into comedy she's escaping into sleep but then coming to a point we're like oh you can't escape

you can't you have to sort of it's followed you because you are you my experience of show business which is different chills but was always the cocaine came up because people were bored they weren't having a nice time and I thought how interesting because rather than going home

because it's not fun we're now going to stay here for 20 hours Numbing out and the irony is being on Coke isn't really that fun. No, it's not, and it definitely isn't fun when you're the one not on it. You then see it so clearly like, oh, God, if there were hidden cameras, everyone would hate themselves so much. Everyone was just talking over each other and about themselves. And people who do not like each other, suddenly you see, then they're like,

hugging and loving, yeah, yeah. And you think, none of you people are actually going to open a restaurant. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. This isn't going to happen. The constant reminders of like, that I should not be on drinking drugs are by, plentiful and I appreciate that like still being in the environment yeah yeah yeah I'm glad I'm not touching anything because that

doesn't look too a feeling also the little relief you you get from intoxicants of any kind of self-hatred they really are waiting for you yeah that's what I mean it's like she escapes but there's something in that book isn't it because she kind of it's interesting she wakes up and it's like no I actually

feel better it's worked taking this has worked but then we sort of see like this the ending that we've talked about. Yeah. So it's like, I find she's doing something so much more later, isn't she? I think they ended so powerful because she's saying someone facing up to their death, which is what this person is one of the things this person is trying to escape from.

And maybe that's, you know, that's humanity, isn't it? It's how can you be alive painlessly when you know that you're going to die one day and everyone is going to die one day and people have died. And terrible things will happen. She watches someone facing their death awake. And that for me is like, bang, and now she's awake. Yeah. She's going to live her life.

I wonder where our narrator is now or what happened to her afterwards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think she'll be an artist. I think she'll be an artist. I think she has such derision for it, but she sees it for what it is. And she appreciates aesthetics the whole way through, beauty. And I think people with a lot of money, that's what she's already situated for it. That's what I could imagine.

I see her being sober. Sober. Sober artist. Yeah. Because it's so, you can't carry that on. for another 20 years. And she'll be one of those people it's just a switch.

And I think yeah, when Reva takes her drugs which is where it's interesting if Reva is another person of herself, it is an addict trying to get rid of her own stash

and then finding where she hid it. But there is a moment where I thought, oh, I think she could just go cold turkey. Yeah. And at the end, that's why I think the importance of the word awake.

Bang, she's awake now. She's going to be one of those people who never, you know, won't take a new offense. I don't take anything. I just have cramps and that's it. Awake is such a link to recovery, which is like I'm going to live life in its full colours.

Yeah. And one of those colours is pain. Yeah. And I'm going to, I'm choosing to accept that. And I think that's so much. Yeah, 12 sets of recovery is about,

isn't it? So I think it's so there's such a, yeah, there's such a bizarre link between these books, which I didn't expect. I didn't, I did not choose that book because of this. No,

I know. I know, but maybe it's why this, I'll tell us, Moschba's book spoke to you. Maybe, yeah. It's because I think there are parallels there. But a lovely little to-sad for people to read, a fiction and a non-fiction double.

Sister books. Sister books. You could do book events together maybe. Oh, I would love that. I'm a fan of a potential much. Yes. Yeah, you could. Next time she's over.

Jody, thank you so much. And your amazing book you had to be there. It's out now. Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Weirdo's Book Club. My new book, Lydia Marmalade, and The Christmas. Christmas Wish, a children's middle grade book, very Christmassy, very festive, all set in Jane Austen Times is available in paperback now.

And I'm on tour. Tickets for my show, I'm a Strange Glooper, on sale from sarah pascoe.com. You can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing if you head to Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club. And please join us on Patreon for lots more weird and wonderful stuff. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. Thank you.