Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Switzy by Emma Cline

Episode Date: October 22, 2026

This week Sara and Cariad discuss the Booker Prize 2026 shortlisted Switzy by Emma Cline.In this episode we discuss sickness, mortality and Keanu Reeves.Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss assisted dying and dementia.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Support the podcast, enjoy ad-free listening and more weird and wonderful bonus content by signing up to our Patreon at patreon.com/c/weirdosbookclubFollow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclubProduced, recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Assistant Producer is Amy Townsend-Lowcock for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco And I'm Carriead Lloyd And we're weird about books We love to read We read too much We talk too much About the too much That we've read

Which is why we created The Weirdo's 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 crucially weird books Writing, reading and just generally being a weirdo You don't even need to have read the books to join in It'll be a really interesting Wide Raging conversation And maybe you'll want to read the book

afterwards. Thank you for reading with us, we like reading with you. This week's book guest is Switzie by Emma Klein. What's it about? Well, it's about very old, sick man who's heading towards Switzerland. What qualifies it for the weirdos book club? Well, it is unnerving trying to grasp onto the narrative of someone who is losing their memories. In this episode, we discuss sickness, badness, privilege, mortality, and Keanu Reeves.

Huber, Huber. Trigger warning, in this episode, we discuss assisted dying and dementia. Hi, Sarah Fascoe. Welcome to the podcast. Cast Carriad. You don't have a guest today. Just me and you chatting. No, we've got a book guest.

You've got a book guest. Always have a book guest. You've got a lovely jumper on with a ferris wheel. I can't believe anyone ever gives away a hand-knitted jumper. It's like, my auntie made this for me. I never wear it. It's like, well, then you're stupid. Oh, you're just typing in hand-knitted.

My algorithm knows. Oh, and then it says you. It comes like it shows me. The minute someone puts on something hand-knitted. Wow. From nan-a-mother. We've got a book. We are reading.

We're reading Switzie by Emma Klein, which I think I mentioned already when we did our sort of round up what we did reading um beginning of the series and you got straight on it and then it was long listed for the booker yeah so i'm excited to read it just hearing what it was about being a fan of emma klein now you've read the girls i have read the girls which came out in 2016 which was her debut also i like true crime and the girls is sort of inspired by um charles manson the mansons yeah and the cults and murder and basically a young woman who gets drawn into that group sort of um Right. A disenfranchised young woman.

Yeah. And Switzy is a completely different style of a couple. You were saying this to me. Completely different style. So I haven't read and I would now really love to read the one. Daddy. The visitor. Oh, the guest.

The guest. Yes. Daddy is essays, I think. And then the guest is one that came out before Switzy. And that one looked more thrilling. No, Daddy short story, sorry. Yeah, the guest I think is based on another story that's kind of thrillery kind of. Like a ghost story kind of thing.

Tense. Yes. You know. Unnerving. being kind of like, oh, what's true to trust type thing. Whereas the style of Switzy, so immediately you start reading it, and the form is part of it, isn't it? Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fragmented. It moves through time. Well, shall we say, it's about a, and it's a spoiler, it's about a man who's going, who's not well. He's not well. And you find these things out in increments. You're piecing it together like some kind of literary detective.

This is a person, they're on this quest. Yeah. You don't know why. you don't know who this boy from their past is and then it becomes clear that they are on their way to Switzerland which is where it's called Switzy to Dignitas. They never say Dignitas

but they say a clinic in Switzerland. Maybe not allowed to do branding. Yeah, which is obviously doing product placement. He's going to choose to die in Switzerland and he has a... Form of dementia. Yeah, dementia. It reads like dementia, definitely

but he never quite tells us what's happening. He knows he's dying. He's a businessman. He's tidying up his affairs and he's flying to Switzerland from America to make those final to die. And before he does that, he's stopping off somewhere to see an old friend. And he also visits a daughter. Yes, he's visiting daughter in London and then heads to Switzerland.

Things throughout the book get filled in. We find out that there was an ex-wife, there was a daughter. We find out sort of what kind of father he was. Yeah, terrible. Yeah. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Dad. Yeah, he's much older.

And I guess the thing that's really interesting, about this book or that I found quite hard to read. And when I say hard, I mean just like, it's not an easy reading experience. Like, I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. I found it tent, like, you know, a book's quite stressful is what I mean. The example I would use of this is the scene where there's a sex worker that he doesn't realize he's a sex worker. Yes. Yes. Because the sex worker, of course, she doesn't know anything about him that we know. And we are watching this scene unfold going, oh my God, watching. is going to happen. What is she going to do to this vulnerable man? She doesn't know it's vulnerable

at this point. He's really vulnerable and it's told as you said like incrementally so piece by piece. So he will often give us tiny pieces of information which he then forgets three paragraphs later. So as you're reading it, you start thinking, oh, have I forgot? Well, who is that? Do I know that? So she makes you feel as unnerved as he does, which I think is extraordinary, right? I think she makes you grasp really. I think she made me really. really grip onto the things that I was told. But I had to remember it because he couldn't. So I need to, and he's that connected to that.

And that's like, okay, I've got this piece of information now. Let's build something around this. It's stressful. I found that quite stressful because I was like, because, again, I was worried about him. I was worried about what happened to him because he has like this notebook. And if he forgets he, one time he's like, I don't have my notebook. And you're like, oh, God, you don't have your notebook. Or going for a walk.

Like, where his hotel is. Oh, my God. Doesn't I have to get back to the hotel room? He's relying on the kindness of strangers. Yes. And he does sort of have staff, doesn't he? Driver and an assistant. Driver and this very young male assistant who, again, you're like, do we trust this person?

We're not quite sure. At the beginning you think, oh yeah, he's just an assistant. He's paid really well. And then you start thinking, oh, he's in charge of everything. He's rude to him. Yeah. And so that's what's weird is this man is vulnerable, but he's an asshole. Yeah.

So I thought that was so interesting that you are worried about him. But also you're like, oh, you've done this all to yourself. I think that is what's interesting is that this character, if you told him linearly from school days to now, we would hate him. Oh my God, you'd hate him. Like he said, he's a bad husband. He's a bad dad. He's not a nice employer. This thing happened back in his school days. We won't say this because it's so important to the story, but he was very much the bad, it wasn't a great school pupil either, wasn't a good friend. No, he was a bad friend and he's lived his life kind of reprehensibly. He's just been about money. He's just been about making other people money.

It doesn't seem to have particularly cared about how he affected all people. And now he's suffering the consequences of that, which is he's dying basically alone with someone he's paid to be with him. Yeah. But you feel sorry for him because you're like, that's so sad. No one should have to go to Switzerland by themselves with someone they paid. And also that's the vulnerability of you not having a sound mind. It's impossible to not feel protective of him. Yeah, and the daughter doesn't know he's doing this either. Yeah, he hasn't told his daughter that he's off to do this.

She knows that he's sick. Yeah. Probably not how sick maybe because when she has conversations with him and he is confused she seems to be so surprised. Well, there's a lot of description of him mimicking, isn't it? He says like he works out a smile to put on a nod so that people just change the conversation

and he knows if he pauses long enough, he's learned like pause and then they'll say something else because he doesn't know what they're talking about. And he has these time slips. And that's one of the things that's very scary when you're reading it. It is quite scary because you'll be in a restaurant with somebody and then, you know, they'll be paying the bill, and he'll think, oh, what's just happened?

I know. I found it really disorientating to read. Like, I felt a bit sick. And I have to say, I didn't enjoy that part of it. And it wasn't a book that I was like, I really enjoyed the beginning. And then I found myself, you know, and you're slightly slipping, picking it up a bit.

Right. Because I was like, oh, I don't want to go back into his head. So I found it really compelling because I felt like I was piecing together a mystery. Yes, I didn't feel like a detective at all. I felt like, oh, God, I just want you to tell me it. Right from the beginning, I just wanted to know what this thing was with this guy Tom, the guy from school,

I needed to know that I thought that story was weaved in so well at the beginning that I was like, oh, you're not going to tell me to the end and I know that which means I have to get to the end of this. And also I wanted to know if he was going to actually go through a Dignitas because that's also a question mark. Yeah.

We know about Dignitas and we are told in the book if you are not seen as being fully cognizant when you're there, you can't make that decision anymore. So you might go all of that way and they then say, you're now not of a state of mind. We can let you do this. Yeah, and that's a big thing with Dignitas is that you, they have to be obviously,

clear that you're not being influence, you know you're choosing to do this. The Swiss Clinic. This is what I would say, it was a weird read for me personally. Because I know someone very well who went there and chose to die there. Very much wanted to do it. Very much wanted to do it. Literally, that was his dying wish was like, I don't want to die here. I want to go there. And it was extremely big process.

They went with a group of people. A huge group of people went with this person because they were very, very beloved and young. And the younger you are, the more people at your funeral, let me tell you. That's the one good thing. And so I felt very, yeah, I felt slightly uncomfortable with the way it was being used as a narrative for a book. Does that make sense? I think when things are too close, that's always how they feel. I was like, don't fictionalise something that's so true to me.

I mean, I know from the ones that went, you know, everyone said it was amazing and beautiful and incredible and exactly what he wanted. And everyone felt like they had done the right thing. and were very happy as much as you can be that your friend is doing that they had supported him in that and they described it as a very strange experience like it's in quite an industrial place it's quite corporatey which is what this book

shows. It's like a business lounge like in a hotel. Yeah, well it's like it is literally sort of an end up like it's outside of like it's not like near like historical part of the city or something. It's like just in, I remember they sent me a picture the morning it happened and it was like they could have been in.

Reading. You know, it's like, oh, is that what you're looking at? What a weird view. Whereas we're so used to hospitals and medical places that are quite historic in London. Yeah. And I'd been with him to some treatments at various hospitals. And I don't know, it's such a different experience. And obviously this was a young person who didn't have dementia.

It was very, very different. But I, yeah, I don't know. I felt like she was using that to kind of make an artistic point about him. and I felt, I don't know what I felt like, maybe I haven't thought about this enough. Like, I just felt like, oh, almost like, it's quite a big thing. And I didn't feel like it quite got dealt with enough. Does that make sense? It does.

I think this is. It comes at the end. And I feel like, oh, we're not quite tying up that bow for me. I think it's one of the mysteries because I really didn't believe it was going to happen. I didn't believe it was going to happen. And I think that's the, I thought, he's not going to do this. He's not well enough. He's not well enough at this point.

And I thought, the thing. they're going to realize as soon as they get there and then and then that will be the ending is actually that he's going to disintegrate in a different way yeah yeah that's what i thought and kind of almost get not his comeuppance but like he has been not a good person yeah but he is he but then i guess she is sort of saying nothing's like death is not easy there's no easy way out he's still trying to pay for an easy way out but the thing is you know i i have very little like a quote in terms of emmanuel cant but he has this um But something that was stuck with me was it.

So he had this point. He said, yeah. He said, you can't send a man to prison for a crime he can't remember. It was something to do with like the length of time. So you might commit something that might happen when you were a teenager. Yeah. And then you get caught in your 60s. And you're a completely different person in the way that philosophers argue that.

I mean, I think some people might argue with it. Well, I don't think the law works that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as a philosophy, it's interesting because, I thought that's what's going to happen. That's what I thought the book was. As his brain ceases to remember the things that he's been to, he forgets them and thus isn't the person that did those things anymore.

Yeah, that's true. It's being deleted, like scene by scene and memory by memory. And even with his daughter, the man that meets up with his daughter now would like a better relationship. He would like to hug her. There's points where he has his affectionate, but he never was affectionate before. I know. It's really sad.

But it's like, as if he forgets that bit, If he forgets the bit about him being a shit dad, he just wants to hug his daughter or make her proud or the grandson. Yeah, they have a grandson. He has a grandson. His sweetness with the grandson and then wanting to give him a present, a very expensive, inappropriate present. But the intention is there. And I thought that's what happens. It's like the old stuff disintegrates and you become someone who didn't do those things because you can't remember doing them.

I know, but then you still did do those things. Well, for the people who can remember it, it doesn't change it for them. for me reading a book who you didn't do it to. Yeah. I think that's interesting, especially because all the stuff I've done with grief, there's so much focus sometimes on the death of a person, obviously. And then I think the reason why I did the grief cast is to bring some, to shine a tiny bit more or bring more oxygen to the people left.

Because the people left are the ones to do with everything. And so I think I felt a bit angry with him. So I was like, oh, you're just fucking off, are you? Yeah. Off you go. And all this mess, your daughter's just left with all this mess. Yes. So the people that we meet who knew him, what they would have as what you would term like,

or people would say, like, complex grief. Yeah, yeah. What a difficult man, he was a grief. And not telling them. He's not telling them he's going to Switzerland. Lying, emitting that huge detail. What, fuck you at the end. Oh, my God.

I mean, imagine being his daughter. Like, I think I felt really like, and I thought she did such a brilliant thing with the daughter character. So he goes to visit her and it's all sort of lovely and, you know, polite. And then he leaves the phone. So he has to suddenly go back when she didn't expect him to be there. And we just get this snapshot of like things aren't okay that we have been, she's hiding so much shit. Well, she's not showing who she even is.

And I thought that was absolutely brilliant writing that you're like, as a reader, you're like, oh, what's happening in her fucking life? She's not okay. Who's this woman? Why is she crying? Why is this wine? I was like, fuck. And look, the other details, so the narrator, the man who's head,

were in, he leaves a phone and then he blames it on his assistant who never went into the house. I know. And everyone has to lie. But the sister doesn't want to. She's saying, but he never came in the house. How could it have been him?

And he's sort of, that is a point where you realise that's what a horrible man he was. Shouting and the assistant, blaming him. Also, I think that I read, I read that as very much as dementia. Like there's no, you can't, no one can, everyone has to pretend the lie is real because the person's so distressed

because they're like, it wasn't me. I have no memory of that. And so it becomes that they say with dementia like you just have to go, you're right, it was my fault because you're upsetting them so much because they cannot remember anything that's happened. And it's not their fall, obviously. But yeah, I thought she gives such good glimpses into like what's happening to him. The bit that really stayed with me, which actually would upset me, he, there's this watch and he considers giving it to the grandson, but then sort of decides not to. And then later on he sees

his bare wrist and he thinks, oh, I'm so glad I did give it to him. And you're like, you didn't. You didn't. But then we, like you said, you reached this point of like, does it matter that he didn't? Does it matter? Like, because he thinks he did. Yeah. So that's his reality.

Yeah. But then like, whose reality is real? Like, I think I found it unnerving. I was like, oh God, whose reality does exist? Because if your grandpa never gives you the watch, then it doesn't matter because you never got the watch. But he thought it, but he never told you. He gets the good feelings of having done it. Yeah.

I think that must be what it's like loving someone going through dementia is that if the narrative they're telling themselves is very peaceful or the big chunks of time makes them feel peaceful and relaxed, that's much easier to deal with while it's still terribly sad as you lose them, but some people have dementia and are really scared or really upset. The places they go back to are very emotional. And there's nothing you can do.

And you can get people who get more violent, have complete personality changes. I would say if you're dealing with someone with dementia, I don't think this is the book that, you should be reading right now. But I think people are different. I think some people need to jump in who only want to spend their time on it

because that's what they're going through. I think it depends what stage you're dealing with. I would say if you're in a distress stage, I think this book is quite good because it's real. Do you know what I mean? I think I spoke to someone whose dad died of dementia but a year ago and she was like, oh, I'd love to read that. I feel like ready to read that.

David Badeel was posting about it and how much he loved it. And I think his dad died several years ago. Yeah, yeah, a long time ago. So yeah, I would just. I guess I just put a trigger warning up. Yes. Of like, if you're in the middle of it, yeah, this could be quite upsetting.

But sometimes when you're in the middle of it, like what you don't want to be in a world when no one ever talks about it, when this is your everything. No, I know what you mean. But you know what I mean? Yeah, of course. The way that she does it is so, it's so real.

Her writing's extraordinary. She is extraordinary. Like I really, I found her writing like, oh, this, I want to read one bit that I said, he's sort of like staring at a hotel and he sort of doesn't know where he is sometimes. And he says, and he's describing like a beautiful chandelier

and a dining room and a black and white art deco floor, the last gasp of the old world though even that was fraying, you could tell by the way the staff didn't fully inhabit their uniforms, a new layer of irony that prevented complete embodiment but you could fill the blanks in a bit

still. I was like oh God the way he's describing how the 20th century is slipping away and how we are still pretending it exists is how his brain is slipping away. I was like she's so good. I was like, fuck, that's really, there's a lot of stuff like that that you're like, oh, Jesus, her writing is extraordinary. So with it being such an amazing, such an incredible book

and then it being just so received so well instantly and then longlisted, I can't help I think there must have been disappointment to not make it to the shortlist of the book of prize. Yeah, when these shortlists came out, I saw someone, what's his name? Is it Jack Edwards? Who's like bookman? And he wrote. underneath the book along list, we ride at dawn for Switzie. Yeah. It really made me laugh because I was like, I mean, I haven't read any of the other, so I don't know, but I do think this book is extraordinary.

So, yeah, I mean, I'll be interested to read the others. Well, I hope what happens, and I can't imagine what it's like for an author to go through that and that'd be so successful. And at the same time, if they do have, if Emma does have disappointment in her heart, it's such a shame. But what I hope happens is then the bubbling over is I can't believe that wasn't there, pushes it into lots of people's hands. Oh, I'm sure.

And then you go, in a way, it's equally. a boost of being on that shortlist. And it's definitely, I would say from one of the book along lists, it's one that I had already heard of, like there was already a buzz. This one on the Gwendolyn Riley, people love them already as authors. And I know it doesn't matter.

It's a fucking great cover. The cover is the reason I picked up. It's beautiful. It doesn't look like any other book I've ever seen. No. The bright red is so brilliant. I didn't know why it was called Switsy until I was like a third of the way through.

And then I was like, what an amazing title. And this little, yeah, just an incumbent figure. So that's the Nemo figure that he talks about in the book is that character that's like falling out of a sleepy bed character. I'm pretty sure it's like, so he's in the nightgown and he's describing his memory of that old cartoon. I think his Nemo says in the book. Like a sleepy boy in his nightgown and that's him.

That's him like, like, falling out. And it's very sweet image. It's almost like tintan-esque, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it is. It is. And yeah, it's fucking beautiful. And I'm saying when I when we both got sent it I was like ooh what's that he calls his disease he can't say the word for it so it gets um changing his head to amy lloyd which i found

annoying i was like don't call it Lloyd that's not okay get like kept swung my horror my amy lloyd brain i was like oh god sorry um oh just the way he now just sit there breathe in and out now learn that everything oh just everything disintegrates oh it's so painful I feel like I should reread it a bit as well. I feel like it's so good. Oh, in this bit, Sarah, he's talking about being afraid of the bath. And like the shower spooked him. Oh, Dave, he's called David.

I forgot his name. The shower spooked David these days. His centre of gravity had shifted. His balance wobbled. Sometimes the bath was no better. The dubious undertaking of hoisting himself over the edge, undertaking himself of like lowering himself into a coffin as a bath. Like, oh my gosh.

This is where some of the words selected are so brilliant. I love this observation as someone who tours a lot. He had often gone on trips and only on the plane ride home had he actually started to be interested in the place he had just left. It was only then that the place clicked into focus because now he understood it was real. And I feel like that, like the same way that reflecting on a life makes it make sense to you.

Yeah. Or suddenly moments going, why didn't I behave differently then? Now that matters to me, but at the time I was just sliding through it. Yeah. How do you exist properly? But this is it. It's like how do you exist?

And almost because he's got dementia, he's having to answer that question. But we all have to answer that question. Like she's, it's extraordinary writing. I feel like I've sounded more negative about it. I think I just... No, no, you've had a personal response. Yeah, but I would recommend it to anyone.

I would say you should read it. I just, I didn't... It's not a book, I guess. It's not an unpatch it. It's not all like the correspondent. You're like, oh, you'll have a lovely time. Which isn't a criticism. It's going, it can take you to those places.

Death, sadness. what is it to be alive. But also with this, there is a, there's a positivity imbued in those books. Yeah, or that you feel like the author wants you to be okay. Yeah. I don't feel like Emma Klein is bothered about us being okay. I think she wants us to confront some big fucking stuff. Yeah. She isn't like, oh, I hope you also have a lovely beach holiday.

Yeah, no. Enjoy your bath. Whereas I feel like Anne Patchett and Virginia Evans do both give you those things. Yeah. I can just read it here and cheer myself up. Yeah, and even though both those books contain like sad things, you, you like, yeah, when I was picking this up, I was always like, because I felt, again, I love characters

and I felt like, you were in his head. And it was sometimes hardgoing being in his head. Like, that's how I felt like, oh, I just want to break from being in your brain because it's not a fun plate. It's not safe. It's not fun. You're not okay.

I don't feel okay. I'm worried about you. I'm worried about every, like, are you going to, like, every single decision, I'm like, I don't think you're going to be all right. But that's the thing, being that deep inside a character, when they lose their wallet, you lose your wallet.

Yes, that's right. Oh my God. I felt too deep. I was like, I'm too sensitive for this. I was like, oh, fuck, I'm really, yeah, I'm really experiencing this. And it was, yeah, it was, I mean, it's such an interesting point of storytelling, isn't it? To tell it from that point of view. Like you said, if it was just a linear story about an awful, you'd be like, well, he's just an arseller.

But to take him to the edge of his consciousness almost. And but also to make you feel sympathetic for him before you find out what he's done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's gross. Yeah, isn't it? But good. Yeah, because she, very much, to the beginning, you really do feel like, oh, this person's not okay.

And you're worrying about it. And the beginning, the life seems quite normal. Yeah. And then... Just a man. Just a man who's a sweet old man. Yeah, sweet old man. And then...

Used to be successful. No, he isn't anymore. Yeah. But then I also thought it's interesting that she's dealing with someone who's so rich as well, that he can go and do that because it's extraordinarily expensive. And repressed and rich, though. But those things go, but you can't. be, is this true? This is a question then, can you be truly repressed if you aren't rich?

If you're poor, can you be repressed? Don't you? Aren't you forced to deal with stuff? Deal with other people. Co-exist, codependent. You don't have this thing of autonomy because you can pay for it. Well, he's in a private jet at the start of the book. Yeah. It's much easier to be lonely in a private jet than it is on a bus. South Eastern Railway. Number 38. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I also found that interesting that he lives such a rarefied life. And you're feeling sorry for him in his luxury hotel, you know, as he's drinking his... A lot of fiction is that, isn't it? It's a lot of succession.

Because it's funner to watch. And maybe because you get to have the human emotions without all of the mess that... Yeah. Well, you can't... It's purer. Take away all of the other stuff and it's still at its root. If you want loved and loving... Well, I guess it's interesting sort of voyeurism, isn't it?

Like, this man is incredibly rich and he is incredibly lonely. and dying alone. And there's a part of you that's like, well, there you go. Doesn't matter what you have. At the end, we all go out the same way. But also, he's not going out the same way. He is getting the privilege of dying by choice, of not having to suffer, of not having to be in agony,

which was a big thing for my friend that they felt very, very strongly that they did not want to, they're people who love them to see them in pain. But that's the difference, isn't it? Because your friend had people who were going to go through it with them. Yeah. Whereas this person has no one. is even going to tell, apart from his assistant, and his driver.

And it's almost like he's sort of booking it in like a meeting, isn't it? Like he's still treating life as, well, it's just the next thing I can just, then I don't have to deal with that. Great. And I can forget the town that I'm in. Like, he's still not, he's still choosing not to live even in death, which is sad. Is it sad? I don't know. It's a really good book, isn't it? Like, it's a really, I was thinking, great book club book. Yeah. I think you'd get a lot of chat out of this one because it's just so much. I mean, bit, bit bleak, obviously. Yeah, I think also what you'd get is half the book club going,

look, if I'm going to read one book a month, so I wanted to be this depressing. Yeah, but it's not depressing. It's just intense. As we've talked about it, I think I found it more depressing than I found it while reading it. Yeah. When you start taking it really seriously.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I didn't feel like a detective at all. I didn't feel like, oh, I just felt like, oh, fuck. It just became clear. So at the beginning, oh, she's going to leave these gossamer sweat clues and then not mention them again. Yeah. I'm trying really hard not to talk about.

Rebecca Perry. But Rebecca Perry is that we may feed the king. But there are things that are very different books. I'm not saying they're similar. But there are some things that are so similar. I think that's why they couldn't be on the short list together. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Sometimes that happens, as we know, from being book judges, that there's just like a tone or a smell that's similar. Yeah. And you're like, oh, if those two are next to each other, they suddenly look like. Or form or subject matter. And it's not fair because you go, you could read them in quick succession and not think they were similar.

Oh, yeah. But I also think, anyway, I should say this for the other episode, but Mary Beard is historical. Interesting. She is historical. She loves her history. She loves it, doesn't she? Chair of the judges.

But there was just something I was about to say about the leaving of clues, which is so similar to the Rebecca Perry. Interesting, interesting. I did think, like, I thought it's a lovely phrase you just used, the gossamer threads, that she does do that so well.

And as you're reading, you are walking blindly down a corridor the same as he is. And that's how I felt like I was putting my hands out, you know, that feeling of like, I'm going to hit something in a minute. And I find that feeling quite stressful. It is stressful. But she conjures it so well. And I definitely, there was like loads of stuff I underlined. I just thought, God, what amazing writing. And it doesn't really sort of has chapters,

but sort of endless paragraphs because he keeps jumping. But she still holds us plot through. We still managed to follow through what's happening. We're still like with him on all of these, you know, from the flight leaving America to get to Switzerland. We're still completely there. So there's this, it's an incredible feat that she's telling a linear plot whilst dancing around while our narrator is unreliable and I was talking about it on another thing and they were saying they were saying oh I'm reliable narrator and I was like oh he kind of is but he's sort of do you know what I mean

it's so different to what you normally have with like oh that person's lying to themselves because you're like that person has no reality something's eaten away at bits of the story rather than them not wanting to give it to your withholding yeah yeah or their personality being like they just can't see how they have caused of the problems they can't remember huge chunks of things

and that's to have your your protagonist not remember stuff I'm trying to think what other books have that but I don't feel I've read a book like this

no I was talking to a poet I know who has done a lot of work with people with dementia using poetry amazing Sarah Hesketh shout out to Sarah Hesketh

and she was saying that when she started working with dementia and people who carers I think she was working with there wasn't a lot of books about dementia maybe 10 years ago and now it seems like there are a lot more

fictionalized books about it as well so I was like oh that's interesting maybe a bit like grief in that I had in 2016 like there wasn't a lot of stuff and now suddenly it feels like it's a topic that's much more discussed and open

even though obviously there's still lots more work to do so yeah I was wondering about other books that cover dementia which I don't know and have thought of some that aren't memoirs obviously no so there's a fiction one by Emma Healy, another Emma, and it was amazing, and they made a TV show of it with Glenda Jackson.

Oh, yeah. Elizabeth was missing, and it was the first novel, and it was so successful because it felt like a crime novel, and it was an older woman looking for her sister, but she had dementia, and she was turning up, at the beginning she turns up in someone's neighbor's garden, or knocking on a door, where is she, and then sort of going through trying to work out what happened to her sister,

and she couldn't remember. Oh, God, and there's the Julian Moore film. Have you seen that? where she gets dementia. Yeah. Still Alice. So it's a Julian Moore film still Alice where she's a young person with dementia.

Have you ever seen it? No. Oh my God, it's heartbreaking. Yeah. It's really heartbreaking. Like she makes a video on her laptop to tell her when to try and kill herself.

Oh, really? When it gets too bad and when it gets too bad, she doesn't know whether she doesn't remember making it. Yeah. So it's just like there's lots of stuff that's like very hard watch. Yeah. Because I think what this is doing is more, because it's about dementia,

it isn't about dementia. I also think it's interesting. Like it's not. I wouldn't want to like say, oh, it's a book about dementia. No, because I think it's about everyone. Yeah. And it's about the narrative of your life and how you choose to remember certain things and what the things you remember say about you. Yes. I would say everything can be extrapolated. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't be like, oh, you have to have experienced it's not one of those books. You could say it's a book about confronting your own death. It's a man confronting his own death. And that makes you confront what your life has been and who was in it and what they'll think about you afterwards. Yes. And how little control you have over those things and how little we know each other. I don't really know the people

you think you know. Yeah. This reminds me of smoking out the window at university now. We don't really know each other. Yeah. You don't really ever like, no, anyone. Oh my God, you're so right. Yeah. Big deep thoughts. Anyway, I'm like, my hands are starting to shake, because I had so much. There's so many cigarettes in cups of tea. Yeah. I don't know, I just, I found it really interesting, really interesting. I think that's why lots of people are talking about it. Yeah, I can see why. And also I think people, I think people, As someone who's written, you know, this is her third novel, people are realising, oh, okay, she's really seriously.

She's amazing, yeah. Like, I agree. I think she's, I haven't read the girls or the guests, but, or daddy. But I thought, oh, fucking hell you are a writer to, yeah, be reckoned with. Like, she's extraordinary. But that's what I guess on me. It's like, it's one of those books, which I think, if you do, if you're a reader, it's really nice because it's not like, oh, yeah, I read that.

Oh, you should read it. It's like, oh, what do I think? Yeah. What do I think about you? And I have thought about it since I've read it and I have recommended to people and it has sort of sat there bright red on the table with me thinking

hmm I still don't quite know how I feel about you testament to her writing that it's it's not like an easy puzzle to solve talking of which I had my first book recently that I couldn't finish DNF DNF yeah and it was recommended to me at a party by a woman who was so enthusiastic about it

are we allowed to say what one is? Yeah I think so because I'm sure he doesn't listen China Melville's city in the city Oh, I've had loads of people go on about that People go on about it Well, so maybe a different point in my life I have to try it again I haven't got rid of, it's not gone to a charity shop

Is it quite sci-fi though? Well, that's it. It's a set in a place that doesn't exist You don't love sci-fi? I don't know that I don't like sci-fi as a genre I'm trying to be so open to good stories But because it doesn't exist anywhere I just can't place it

And there's so little character stuff to go on It's all plot, but I say 30% of the words are made up, could be Russian, could be Serbian. Okay. And it's sort of set in this vague Eastern European place that borders with another city that definitely doesn't exist.

There's so many things that don't exist in it. That you're walking down a corridor with your hands out. Yeah. It's giving me dementia. Literary dementia. I feel like all I know about China Melbourne, which is I'm not entirely sure it's true. So I think that it's Keanu Reeves' favourite author.

Right. And I think it's one of those facts that you're like, you're like, oh. There's that from like smash hits back in the day. Like five things you didn't know about Keanu Reeves. I had to admit recently, I was on Miranda Sawyer's brilliant, taught 90s to me podcast. Okay. And she was asked me about who was your 90s heartthrobs?

Number one, Keanu Reeves for me. Great choice. And also, still around. It's good to have one that hasn't been disproved by time. And hasn't been cancelled. Yes. Lovely. I chose, I've got good taste.

But it made me realise quite how much I know about. You know, like you with Mark Owen, like gosh, I do know a lot about that person. Yeah. I mean, like I said in birthday cards. So that was Switzie by Emma Klein Which I think we yeah We thoroughly enjoyed Yeah she's a genius

Yeah I think she's a genius And sometimes works of genius Are really confronting Yeah yeah Yeah don't be put off by the confronting is what I mean Like I enjoyed your teeth into it And also we do need to be thinking about death more than we are Don't say that to me

I'm a fucking carry out She's thinking about it just enough I think I need to think about it About 30% less to be honest Which is why I found this book like Oh here we go Yeah But do have something like to pick up

afterwards maybe something frothy and silly i would give yourself a pepper pick magazine the week junior that's what my kids get and i really enjoy it oh that's good oh it's so good don't get me sorry thank you for listening to the weirdos book club my new kids book lydia marmalade and the christmas adventure exciting jane austin regency fun for ages nine plus is out now you can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing this series on our instagram at sarah and carriad's weirdos book club and please join us on patreon for lots more weird and wonderful stuff. Thank you for reading with us.

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