Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - This Motherless Land by Nikki May with Nikki May

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

This week's book guest is This Motherless Land by Nikki May.Sara and Cariad are joined by the award-winning writer Nikki May herself to discuss beige food, Jane Austen, the mixed race experience, baked beans and Mick Hucknell.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss racism.This Motherless Land is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.You can find Nikki on Instagram @nikkimaywriter and Twitter @NikkiOMayTickets for the live show at the Southbank Centre with special guest Harriet Walter are available to buy here!Cariad’s children's book The Christmas Wish-tastrophe is available to pre-order now.Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is This Motherless Land by Nikki May. What's it about? When her mother dies in a tragic accident in Lagos, Funkei is sent to live with her maternal family in England. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club?

Well, Funkei loves reading, swimming and crosswords. She's a little dweeb just like us. In this episode, we discuss. Bage Food, Jane Austen. The mixed race experience. Bait beans. The writer's process. And Mick Hucknell.

And joining us this week is Nikki May herself. This is Nikki's second book. Her first book, Wahala, won the Comedy Women in Print Prize and is shortly to be turned into a BBC series. Trigger warning. In this episode, we do discuss racism. Welcome, Nikki May. Welcome, Nikki May.

We're so excited to have you. Thank you so much for being here. Nikki, I first met you at the... I'm going to get this wrong. The Comedy Women in Print Prize. Yes, you won that with your Wah, Oh, Hala. Yes.

Yeah. With a lovely Helen Leddera. Yeah. And I met you at sort of, it wasn't the announcement of it. It was before. It was a thing at the London Library, which is a beautiful, beautiful space. And you guys were amazing. And we had to come and pretend to be funny for a minute, which was really hard.

You were very funny. So it's like, oh, you've won for writing a book. No, it was me and Desiree. Oh, wow. And we were just, but we were talking about comedy and women and writing. And then they had the nominees read an extract. Oh, okay. And Nikki's extract was extremely funny.

extremely funny and very and I was like oh wow because it's hard to stand up and do you know like nearly a minute's worth especially when you're following proper comedians yeah Desire was there and you were so good and then you got the news that were halla this is your first book as being optioned by the BBC greenlit green lit so turning into a TV series and I was like oh my god Nick is doing so well and now this is your second book this motherless land congratulations thank you how's the first week been It's being published It's always a bit of a headfark So you have that sort of

Is this really happening? Is everybody going to hate it thing? But I had a launch party in Yoval Which is my local And it was just lovely Because it was family and friends and neighbours And people who will say How proud they are of you

Even if they don't mean it So it was just a pure joy People don't say that unless they do mean it Oh I don't know It was 70 of us It was a lovely summer day We spilled out It was just lovely

And I've had some nice reviews So currently I'm in this cloud Of everything's wonderful Oh brilliant I should say for listeners that we are talking in July. Yes. But you'll be listening in the autumn time. Yes.

So you moved down, you moved right out of London. And I read somewhere that you moved because you wanted to write. I did 20 years ago. 20 years ago. And then it took 17 years to actually start writing. Because life gets in the way and a blank page is scary. But I think in some ways it was really good because the ideas were percolating and the characters were developing in my head.

So the time I actually sat down, I actually knew what I wanted to write. After Wahala, did you feel like you had more confidence with this second book? No. God, no. Much harder. I think there's expectation. And I had people saying really unhelpful things like, Well, Hala was really funny.

Make this one funny. It was a lot harder because also when you write your first book, you're writing for yourself. I mean, you want it to be published. You hope it will be published. But you know chances are it won't be. So you're very free and you just write whatever you want to write. But with your second book, I had a two-book deal. So there's a ticking clock.

and expectation. And I really didn't want to write the same book over again. So it took a lot for me to get that confidence to just write what I want to write. Yeah, because this is very different to O'Hara. Very. Yeah, really different. Can I ask about Mansfield Park? Yes.

So it's not a retelling of Mansfield Park, but there was an inspiration there. So I wanted to ask why Mansfield Park. I love Austin. All right-minded people do. And Mantle Park is probably not everyone's favourite. No, it's not my favourite. But the idea of a young girl who's taken away from everything she knows and loves and is thrust into this really alien environment where she has to prove herself over and over again,

I just think it's genius. And that was my jumping off point. I just saw this young girl, Fonker, who is growing up in my house in Lagos. Yeah. And taking her away from everything and moving her across the ocean just seemed like such good fun. Yeah. I also wanted to decolonialize it, if you like, because Mansfield Park, the Bertrand's wealth is all built on slavery.

but no black people get to the page. I think the word slave is mentioned only once. It's the only time in the whole of Austin as well. Exactly. Although I'm convinced she was actually very anti-slavery. People have sort of construed that, haven't they? We're sort of lucky with Austin that we get to keep her. Exactly.

Because she's not cancelled. She actually say the words, because I was always taught that the only reference was Mansford Park, but she references sugar plantation. She does say the word slave once and it's almost shut down in the book quite the other people in the room. There's a negative enough sentiment for us to construe. Exactly. Didn't think it was a good way.

Yeah, yeah. But I know, like, this is the only one that even references where the money is coming from. So you say Bircham in Mansfield Park owns a sugar plantation in the West Indies and that's what... And that's where the whole house and all their wealth is built from. And they actually go out to Antigua quite a lot in the book, but... Not Jane, because obviously women don't travel. She never wrote anything that she hadn't done. She's why she has no scenes with men talking to each other without a way.

woman present? Because it wouldn't have happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I sort of like that about her. She's like, yeah, drawing rooms. I also think she's great on human nature. Yeah. I mean, she really does understand what human beings are like, which is why I think she still works so well today, because human beings haven't changed. And the

way she uses humour to poke at prejudice and privilege is just so clever and so disarming. But what you have in common with her, Nikki, and I want to give you a huge compliment out because I love Austin so much, is Jane Austen, the tightness of her plotting in terms of characters not knowing things that you, the reader, know, and you know at some point they're going to find out, that's exactly what you've taken

and put into the motherless land. That sort of the frustration, that page turning, like, I want this character to know what I know. And that person, don't trust them. Thank you. That's such a huge compliment, because although I wanted to touch on issues and although there are lots of meaty things, all I want to do is entertain. I want people to turn the page and think, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? Is she dead? Is she alive? Yeah. Well, well, well, well, well, done. So let's talk about this motherless land, which, as she said, it's inspired by Mansfield Park, although you've jumped forward to the, starts in the 1978, yeah.

What did you put, what did you put? We have lovely cultural sort of flinchpins for us. In case you're thinking, what happened in 1992? Greece. Yeah. There's so many touchdows. I couldn't believe that Greece was 78. My brother was born in 78. So I was like, then. Why was I forced to watch? It seems like Greece should be, don't we were forced to watch that so much as children. It came out in 1978.

Margaret That's elected as well. She was forced upon us as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you start in 1978 in Nigeria, in Lagos. In my house. My sister's parrot, Billy. Oh, so. Oh, my goodness.

And we meet Funke and her family, and we get this kind of very comfortable, you know, life that we have, which obviously because it's a book, some wahala, some trouble, comes in. and then changes that in a way that we don't have in a way of Mansfield Park. We never do see where Fanny comes from and her, you know, her slightly impoverished life is hidden. Was that a conscious choice you wanted to show? It was.

And for me, Manseville Park was purely scaffolding. It was just the structure to build a very different story on. And I also wanted to play with expectation. A lot of people see Africa as this place of corruption and poverty and starvation. And talking about it, like it's, as you say several times, as like it's a country rather than a country. And it's one. It's very reductive.

We're all the same. And Africa is very different. You know, even in Nigeria, which is a huge country. Lagos is so different from other places. And I lived a very middle class, very happy childhood in a,

and very privileged. You know, we went to the club, we swam. And to be honest, when I came to England to see my English family, I always thought, gosh, what's so good about it?

They don't go on holiday. They don't have a swimming pool. So it was kind of trying to put that on the page and show that, life is not quite as black and white as it might seem. And also an interracial parents. And while it is a very loving, I mean, she's growing up in a very loving family,

she's still aware her mother was disowned for marrying a black man. Exactly, very much as Fannie's mother was. And her Nigerian grandmother doesn't like her mother. And, you know, she's suspicious of these, you know, biracial children. See myself on the page was one of the reasons I wanted to write. And I do think a mixed race experience, is unique. I do think, especially if you actually have had feet in both countries, I do think that always being an outsider is quite a tricky thing. Can be brilliant,

but your sense of belonging can be really compromised. I mean, sometimes it's concrete, other times it's elusive. And I just think that's such a interesting theme to mine, and I think there's still more to do. So I honestly think it'd be really difficult for me to have a book that doesn't have a mixed-raised person at the centre of it. When I was growing up, In Nigeria, I stood out like a sore thumb. I was called Ongibu, wherever I went. Not in a bad way, but just in a... But it makes you feel visible, though.

Totally visible. And when I first came to England, I was called black. And both of them were shocked to me because I'm not white and I'm not black. It was kind of, as a young girl, it was kind of, what are they talking about? I also found, when I came to England, I saw, I was, I experienced racism for the very first time when I moved here at 19. And it honestly was a shock. It was a huge, oh my God, these people. people think they're better than me.

Was it a real sort of, my children's are arrogant. We are just so big-headed. So there are all these things I wanted to play with. And by giving these issues to a nine-year-old who recently lost her mother and been uprooted, it was great. It was, you know, how can you wreck more havoc? You can't. There's a moment where Funke goes to school and they're calling her a brown nose in a British school.

And she's like, what does that mean? My nose is brown. For her, it's such a literal thing. Exactly, exactly. And she can't understand why they'd want to win. insult her for having the brown nose or understand that other brown nose connotations. I thought you really captured that sense with Funkei that that horrible sense that I think, you know, regardless of your own experience you can relate to you that when she's dropped

into this new family in England where the love is not, the love is not particularly present. And I thought, you know, you just felt for the child to go from, and like you said, that kind of perception of like all the British family assumed she's had nothing. Nothing. Exactly. It's actually she's had this like, not just the club and that she's had family who love her and fun. Exactly. A mother who dances and smiles.

Yeah. Like full of like this like just real love. And then to come to this cold, literally cold country, cold family. You describe things that are so, the kind of things that, you know, people with an estate or a nice English, Victorian house would be so proud of. Yeah, yeah. And she's thinking there's holes in the, in the floorballs. That's where the cockroaches will come out at night. But I remember the first time I saw a stair runner.

And I honestly thought, gosh, they must have run out of the funny. But they have not comforted the whole stare. You're dropping her in 1970s, England. So even though she's diligent and hardworking and clever compared to live her cousin, who is lovely but, you know, distracted, she still can't succeed in the way Liv can. And so as a reader, you know that even though this character is good and doing everything, every block possible, it is thrown.

her way. And that's what privilege does. Yeah. And the worst thing is we never accept our own privilege and we never accept that we're prejudiced. So it's happening and nobody's recognising it. Even Funca, I'm not sure, recognises it all the time going through. Well, she, later on in the book actually, and I thought it was really amazing when another character,

I think it's blessing, when she's at university studying, teaches her about gratitude. Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, you can go through huge, you know, traumas or have difficult obstacles in your life and still be a lucky person. Absolutely. And it was such a, obviously you wouldn't say to someone who was nudity grieving, but years and years after losing her mother, to have another character say you were lucky she was your

mum, to have that love, to have that inheritance, to have that teaching, guiding you throughout your life. It's such a wonderful thing to sort of reframe, isn't it? And that was to me at the heart of the book, obviously it's about mothers, but it was what's worse, a wonderful mother who's dead or an absolutely terrible mother who's alive. And I think I come down on the former. I really think I got the long straw in this.

Well, actually, I think what you would always hope if you did have a dysfunctional relationship with a mother, at least if they're still alive, you might be able to... Sort it out. Yeah. And prove it, say something, get through to each other. Also, people don't change. No, and I think that's really interesting.

And when I was doing Griefcast, like when people were asking me about grief, the thing, this is a hard thing to say, but the strongest thing for like your mental health afterwards is did you have a good relationship with that person? And because there's grief, someone's died, and then there's the relationship. And if they have an uncomplicated relationship, they can just grieve.

But if they have complicated, they have to wade through all that shit first before they can even get to grieve. Whereas if they know she loved me, I loved her, she knew I loved her, I knew that I was loved. That is such a strong, like, guide roe. to pull you through all the other rubbish.

But yeah, like, as you said, this deeply complicated mother that her cousin, Liv has, her aunt, who prefers the brother is racist, is horrible, doesn't even care really. She's very, very jealous of her sister who is now past. Yeah, yeah. I mean, she's almost a caricature,

but I've allowed myself to get away with it because Mrs. Norris is... Yes! She's probably Jane's only truly evil character, which has no redeeming. factors. And I just love writing baddies. I mean, I did it in Mahala with Isabel, who is also a bit caricature. And I'm sure my editors would rather, I toned it down and gave them more nuance. But some people are just bad. And they're also fun to read about it. I think you get away with

it because she, you're not asking her to change. I think what's hard is when you have a, like a strong character and then we're expected to believe they suddenly grow conscious. Whereas with Liv's mum, you know what she, every time we, there's a moment where, oh, we need her. to do something kind so that Liv and Kate slash Fonke can survive she doesn't and so she always lets us down so as a reader you know when she has power

it's like oh no she's always going to do the wrong thing she's always going to do the wrong thing but she well I think when bad in inverted commas characters become caricatures is when they're being bad for bad sake whereas if you if you were to ask

outlip's mum she would say I'm doing the right thing and I've got really good reason thing for my children. I'm looking after my own. You know, people do really awful things, including racists, actually, out of love. Absolutely. I went to school in Barking originally. And not originally, I'm not still there. And the BNP, their first elected MP they had was embarking.

And Billy Bragg did a play where, you know, with a theatre company called On Theatre, where they interviewed racist because people couldn't understand how it had happened. So it was like, well, what is their reasoning? And their reasoning was always, I mean, and again, in Versa Commons, protecting my family. So they thought they were doing something for good reasons. It's also very human. I also wanted to play within the book how prejudice is not a white thing. Yeah.

We have it. Or we have all theisms. We have in Nigeria. We have homophobia. We have sexism. We have elitism. You know, we have all of them. And our version of racism is tribalism.

But it's still there and it's still terrible. and I think it's, I just think it's human. I think, you know, sometimes they will never get rid of these things because it's just in our nature to be afraid of other. But you managed to put so many things of those in your book, and I'm only realising actually now hearing you say it, without it weighing your book down, you have a character who can't come out to his parents,

who has a sort of fake fiancé and girlfriend. His beard. Yeah, his beard. You show that in some family, someone marrying outside of tribe has been as much as a problem as an interracial marriage. you do manage to do that where they're all just feeling like plot and again feeling very ostony because there's status. I was going to say it's so ostony

because there's just so much going on that's happening because you're dealing with it so lightly it's just in the background in the same way it is with Manseville Park sense sensibility but what we get what we're following is characters so we take in a lot of information of like oh right they're prejudiced they're this their elitist but the character is what I'm

faced with as a reader so yeah it's not till afterwards you're like oh right yeah Like, because at that time, it's Margo, isn't it? Yeah. Maggot. Yeah. You're just, you're just enraged with her or you just want her to just like give Kate something, you know. You are just saying the nicest things.

I might not be able to get out of that door. Because one of the things that I set out to do is write the book club book that people actually enjoy reading. Because you know I've got a pile this high of books, I know I should read and I know I must have. But actually I don't fancy reading them because I think I'm going to be way down. and I just wanted to write really lightly, really fun. But if it makes you think, if it makes you reconsider, then that's like bonus. And it ends with a wedding.

Every single one does. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you've got to, as you know, I do a show called ostentatious. I know. We do improvise Jane Austen. And occasionally back in the beginning, we had a member, one of the lads was like, I don't have to always be romantic.

And we were like, I mean, it literally does. Like, that is the genre. Like, one time he tried to end it on him going off to war. He tried to end the whole show That was him, he went to war And then the girls were like, No, but they came back and he married Tom. Like, we can't leave it there.

Like you can see the audience, it's like, oh, we can't clap that. Is he going to come back and kiss someone? Exactly. And a double wedding would be even better. But I do think if Jane was writing now, she wouldn't, marriage wouldn't be the goal for every woman. But in Georgian times, it truly was.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it was the only way for financial security. It's the only way to make sure you had a home. So she had to marry them. I was reading an article this morning actually about Jane Austen ending. Someone's written a book. I think it's Jane Austen and the Art of Happiness. Because Jane Austen endings have been really, not tainted as a wrong word,

by how we interpret them, has been really swayed, coloured by the adaptations, which have to make it happy. Jane Austen was always snide. It was always a snide wedding. She had even, you know, Elizabeth Bennett had to be aware that, you know, this is probably the happiest we're going to be. Yes. but we're going to be the happiest couple.

And lots and lots of the endings are still social commentary of like, what else are you going to do? Yeah. Can you ask you about music? Yes. Because so there's, right, first of all, let's start with Simply Red. Mick Hucknell. You wrote about, I'm not used to anyone saying anything positive about Simply Red.

I know, I love Simply Red. That's what really came off the page, is this is a genuine... I'm sorry, I do. Don't say sorry. That stars. album. I went to see them live at Wembley for that starst day and I was there fangirling and be a proper groupie and I loved them for money's too tight to mention back in the day. My mum had the stars album on tape and that's what we listened to go

like drive to the supermarket. I think that's why I'm a bit more reserved about it because we did as well. I know the entire lyrics but only from going to the yeah saying to be savour centre and back again. I think he does do really good lyrics though. I'm a real fan of the words when I'm writing I do listen to a lot of and there was a song You want to try to hurt you. Yes. Hold you back the ears. Oh, holding back the years. It's a great one.

And it is true. His mother left when he was very young and he was brought up by his father and he always missed it. And it does have hanging on to memories of mater. I mean, it is quite a beautiful song. You had no idea. I have to re-listen to that one. Yes, you know, with new eyes. They're all right.

I think it's just what McHucknell became in late to years. Night nurse is not great. That was when I thought, what's happening here. So I was like, this is an advert. But they're singing out on top of the pops. What's happening? And then what about Brown Girl in the Ring? Well, when I started writing the book and when I sold it as part of my two-book deal,

the book was called Brown Girl in the Ring. And the only reason the house is called The Ring is so it would fit my title and that song. That was what the book was called and that was what was in my head. And I wrote my first very, very shitty draft and read it back and realized it wasn't actually a story about Funcare in the Ring. It was a story about love and live and Funcare. and I had to go back and unpick lots of things.

In the first draft, Jojo was Funke's cousin and they get together. And my editor says, cousin sex, we're not in Jane Austen times anymore. We are not giving readers the ick. So there was a lot of unpicking and realising. I think you do that as a joke in this draft. She has a crush on him definitely. Yeah. And this was Jane Austen time.

Said it got married. It was my first draft too. But I think for me anyway, writing my first draft is just sort of getting the story out there. And then I realised what the story actually is. So there was a lot of pulling back and re-editing. And to me, it's all about love and whether love is the difference between surviving and thriving. And I actually truly think it is. I honestly think being loved is what lifts us up and makes us better people.

And it's true love. It's just not romantic. It's platonic love. And that's what's so nice I think about the book. as well. We should say Fonke is called Fonke in Nigeria but ends up being called Kate when she comes here thanks to her. Which happens a lot. Yeah, I'm not really Niki.

Oh, you know. No, I'm more a Nica. But when I came here at 20 and joined an ad agency, it was way too hard for people to get their heads around too many vowels. So I became Nikki quite gladly. Yeah. I was quite happy. I'm a conformist. I was quite happy to become Nikki. So it does happen. I had an aunt going up called Mary.

and it was, I mean, I was like late 20s before someone said, oh, her real name's Blossom. And I was like, what, she's from Myanmar, Burma. And my mum was like, oh, she came over really, you know, she was in her teenage years. And she worked at the post office and they immediately said, well, I can't call you Blossom. So they renamed her Mary. And I grew up thinking she was my auntie Mary. I thought, this is like, why in her own family? And that's just became.

Which is why I think there's huge progress now because now you've got Rerucho, is narrating this book and she hasn't changed her name. I do think things have changed a hell of a lot. Yes. There is such a drive in this story between Funkei-Sach-Kate and her cousin Live and the love between them, which actually isn't so Austin-y because she does have that intense relationship with women,

but like you said, the focus becomes slightly more on the romance. But this feels like, you said, a modern version. Yeah. Because it is that female connection between the two They love each other so much, but, you know, as friends do, like teenage years and then their 20s, things get harder to be around each other and they aren't of such different people. And female friendship is like that.

We have such high expectations of our friends, you know, ridiculously high loyalty, support, intimacy, and even the tiniest fracture can turn into this major violation. So female friendships are just, I think they're, I love writing about them. I love reading them. So it was another rich vein. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is it's almost, and this shouldn't be true, but you would expect a romantic partner and a heterosexual,

expect a man to let a woman down. Yes. When a woman lets a woman down. Yeah, it's not okay. The betrayal is so much more huge. And it also makes you question yourself. What have I done to allow her to do that to me? So it becomes almost torturous.

So Liv has a moment in her life and it's, you know, it's a horrible drama and it genuinely is the kind of thing. that you could absolutely understand someone would get themselves into and you can understand why, you know, she's scrambling around trying to solve it without we're finding out. All of it's completely, completely believable. And she's privileged but doesn't recognise it. So asking for, she asks for Funke's very, very hard-earned grant money.

She's about to go to medical school. She's worked so hard at a comprehensive, she didn't go to this fee-paying school. That was a point where I was like, I hate her. I hate, how could anyone walk into the, the room and ask someone else. You could see she was so desperate though. I know, of course. I had no understanding of what this meant because she's never been

in this. That's what I thought you did really well of like you don't, like, live is not like a callous character that's like, well, just give me your money. It's like she doesn't have a clue because she's never had to have a clue. And she's always wanted to break free. To her breaking free of this family was everything she wanted, which is, again, I love this, I love comparison. So it was setting these two people up to,

girls live and phone care and then comparing them on really simple binaries one's black one's white one's rich one's poor one wants to conform one wants to rebel one has a wonderful mother one has a terrible one and then seeing what they do with it and all the way through i'm trying to do that compare and contrast but for me the book is i love both of them equally i mean i adore live i actually felt really sorry for her when i made her do the things she did but there's this thing what's the worst thing you can do to your characters, do that. My agent always says that. And I was like, okay, speak it hell for them.

Is there any particular reason you chose these years? Like we said, so, 978? You're really simple one, Carriad. I was there. So I was 10 and I think I was 9 in 1978. So it's literally following. And I find that if I set books in places that have actually been in houses I've lived in,

instead of focusing on scenery, I can focus on the people and the plot. So Funke's house is my house. I lived there. I know what's out the window. I know what the quiet campus streets lead to. The university, she went to in Lagos, I went there. I studied medicine. I lived in that hall. And when we come to England, the ring is in Somerset, in a slight, my house isn't quite that grand, but a slightly version of where I live. And lives flat in London is the first flat I ever lived in with my now husband. So it's not autobiographical at all, but I put them in the right places. And also I love the cultural touch. points like that race at the Olympics in Barcelona. I remember watching that glued to my seat. So it's quite nice to put music, films, cultural touch points that meant a lot to me. And help, I think, ground you. You sort of know where you are because, you know, Titanic's just been on.

Well, you mentioned the bodyguard just come out. Kevin Costner being a white man defending Whitney Houston. And it'd never been mentioned. No, exactly. That was the wonderful thing about it. And it's like, as if. Because, for example, I'm mixed race, my mother's white, my father's black. When I was engaged to a black guy, I was in a relationship.

Now I'm married to a white man. I'm in an interracial relationship. How does that make sense? You know, so I think if you're, if you are black or brown, you notice that people aren't noticing and it really rings us, this wouldn't happen. Yeah. That was the only thing I thought of when I watched Bodyguard. And I remember my editor saying, I love that film, you're ruining it for me.

Sorry. So do you think that's because they probably wrote it before they cast Whitney Houston? Apparently it was intentional. And apparently Kevin Costner was actually very strong about it. And it was written before they cast Whitney. But he was determined that Whitney should be in it. And apparently it was intentional. Let's not talk about it.

And I actually think that's really good in some ways. It is in some ways. But you could also twist it to go because it's not relevant to the white man. Exactly. Why don't we talk about race? Right. And you're not really black, which I hear at least once a week. Oh, God.

And I think we still do that scrabbling around race and not being able to talk about it honestly and not be able to confront it. Maybe we always will, I don't know. Even me as a brown woman, I got a lot of stick for Wahala, which apparently, according to some people, was hugely racist. To have three mixed race people in a book is a racist thing, and one of them should have been black. And I just, I mean, is Sally Rooney racist for having only Irish people in her books? You know, I just find it huge. Thankfully, someone's finally said it. You heard it lie here.

Get off the bestseller list. On the weirdos book, cloud. So, you know, I found it like, come on. And the truth is when I see another mixed-raced person, there often is a slight, there's not a handshake or anything, but there's a clocking because you know you've got something in common. And certainly in Nigeria, I had a group of friends who were mixed-race. I had lots and lots of other friends,

but there was a group of friends who I knew I had something in common with. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Up sides and downsides. I will never be black enough or white enough, unless, of course, I'm being too black or too white. you have people deciding what you should be like. It's a conform to something and it's a minefield. You captured that really well in this book of Franke's dilemma that she has to deal with.

And it's, you can't ignore that, that there is something she has to deal with. Like you said, because this life in Nigeria, which was privileged and happy and wonderful, but she still was told Nigeria that she wasn't black enough. And then coming to England and instantly, you know, getting this racism and from this family that have rejected her because of her father who has also, her father has also rejected her. And the fact that, I mean, what I loved is that we then go back the other way. So Flunke twice has to reaclymatize. Absolutely.

So twice, she's like, ugh, I don't like the food. Why eat these potatoes and mushroom? And then she has to go back, you know, all of this time later. Why can't they eat salad? To be honest, this bit was really easy. I was in Lagos two weeks ago. And before I went, I was there for four days. It was my dad's 90th birthday.

And I had a list of 20 restaurants. I had to go to in four days, very difficult. But by day four, I'm phoning Peter, and he's like, what do you want to eat when you come back? I'm like, beans on toast. It's really simple, really bland. So it's true. And I do love, one of the best things about having two homes is having two foods. You know, I've got Jolla fries and I've got roast dinner.

You know, it's that sort of two ways, two comfort foods, two go-tos. So food was definitely, my book's a bit food obsessive. Someone once said, well, Hala was like a really long recipe for Jollah fries. Yeah, why not? It's also quite fun was growing up in Lagos and being desperate to know more about England, which I was half from. You read Enid Blighton books to guess the idea. And to me, England was like Enid Blightenbox.

It really was. I didn't know what a tongue sandwich was, but I mean, it got to be delicious, surely. And coming to England and thinking, really? It's so grey and it rains all the time. And the shock of, and I just wanted to poke fun at it, you know, to poke fun at this green and pleasant land being seen through. the eyes of someone who was having such a good time. Yeah, because the Nigeria, she comes from, sounds great.

I was like, it was pretty great. Yeah, like the club and her bike and the beach and her friends. And I was like, holidays. God, this sounds amazing. So I really did, I think you did that nice setup, which again, we don't get in Mansfield Park of like, really, well, I suppose in Mansfield Park, she's coming from poverty. And we do see her go back when she's sort of sent away to reflect on her choices. Oh, yeah, yeah.

So, again, it's one of the things that you, I mean, it just all feel. feels relevant to the plot, but you do sort of, I guess, underline that there are very cultural implications from how black woman's hair is worn. I mean, there's a brilliant book called Don't Touch My Hair, which is brilliant. So I do think hair is, I mean, I've just come out from Lagos, so currently I've got braids, which I do whenever I go home. But normally I've got a big afro these days.

But when I first came here, I straightened my hair to conform. I had it permed, I had it, you know, as straight as it could get. and hair I think is people just Also there's this lack of understanding Like if you saw me two weeks ago with my afro You'd realise that this could not possibly be my hair And yet people I know and love my neighbours Like gosh it's really long when you straighten it out

Not this long honestly And there's that sort of I also think hair envy is such a thing You know a black if you're a black person There's good hair and there's bad hair I have bad hair I've got a friend with lovely long wavy hair And I hate her for it

So I do like that whole hair thing. I think, again, I think it's very difficult to write about black women without touching on hair. Well, it's really, I mean, it's the kind of thing that a white writer wouldn't do. They would have a black character. Yeah, probably shouldn't. Exactly. And they would have a scene with they're brushing their hair. You'd go, okay, they, and I say we just wouldn't know.

I love the details about how Fonke was wearing her hair at university. Yes. Yeah. Bantu knots, which are amazing. They're like little knots. your head. That's famously what Adele got in trouble for doing. See, it's a difficult thing as cultural appropriation because it's like, you know, I don't know where it stops or where it starts. I mean, am I allowed to write a man?

Am I allowed to, you know, it is, I think it is very shaky ground. Also, if I can straighten my hair, why can't you have braids? When my mum lived in Lagos and my mom is blonde, blue-eyed, you know, she is properly white. She couldn't pass as anything except English. But she used to wear African fabrics all the time and people loved her for it. You know, it was adored by her. They used to call her Mama, did she, because that was my brother's name. And nobody

would ever have said to her, you know, you should be wearing English clothes. It just wouldn't have happened. I didn't know that Billy was a real parrot, but what I loved from reading your acknowledgement is so there's two characters where people, they're named after people who won competitions who donated money to charity. Oh yeah, two people won a competition to be named in your book. Yeah, one was authors for Ukraine, which is run by an agent at Madeline Milburn,

and the other was the Nigerian Leeds group. They both bid and raised quite a lot of money for charity. So I gave them characters. Mr. Owero is a teacher in Nigeria, and Wyndham is Windham & Sons, who gets a lot of mentions. Oh, yes. Very important character. Yeah, yeah.

That's nice, isn't it? Yeah. With future writing, like, do you think you come back to these characters? God, no. No, done, done. What's next? Is it now a Dickens' with even? Do you ever tick them all off?

No, I'm currently in that sort of plotting, thinking stage. It's a really good stage because it means you can watch lots of telly, calling it research, and you can read lots of books calling it research, and you can sit there doing absolutely nothing, calling it pondering. So I'm in that stage. I do know what I want to write. The characters are starting to form. It's quite an angry book.

It's about when women get to the state, the last straw that pushes you from just, oh, God, to, No, it's a rage. And I think we touched on it earlier about how so many things have changed and yet nothing has. Like sometimes you sit there and think, you know, women, look at us, four women here owning this studio, doing our thing. And then tomorrow you'll go and give blood and sit in a man's chair and think this. So I think it's kind of a story about how we think things have gone,

we think we're doing really well. And then you realize, actually, we're still in a box. So it's still being played around. It's also going to be set in an adage. because I worked in an agency and obviously I can't, I'm not creating enough to think of me. It's a great backdrop. It is. You say in your

acknowledgement, or in your author bio actually, that, you know, a big pile of reading when you should be writing, do you find reading distracting? I find it, well, I don't find it distracting. I find it really helpful because I honestly think reading is the best way to learn how to write. And I've got this trick, which you must steal,

which is to read some really shit books, you know, some terrible books, because you'll suddenly feel so much better about your writing. Nikki, list them. Let's make some book enemies. Let's list some book enemies. Well, that sounds amazing. I can't wait for the next one. And when is Wahala, do you know, when it's coming to our screens?

Well, it's in pre-prod. And apparently, I should have casting news in the next few months, shooting early next year on screens next year. Fingers crossed, I'm going to be an extra. Of course, sure. Yeah, that's massive. Yeah, but an extra waving, right? Waving in the background.

Definitely. And even better news, I signed the contract on This Motherlander TV on Friday. Hey, well done. It's perfect. It's absolutely perfect for TV. I was really the whole time thinking this, I'd love to watch this. That's what the guy who's buying it whose name I can't say yet, but it will be probably announced soon. He said it reads cinema.

It reads like a film. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking, oh, God, I can't wait to watch this. And then what's so wonderful is getting to show the difference between life in Nigeria and the color. and the colours and the food. I mean, because obviously you're a brilliant writer so much he's conjured, but I haven't been there. No.

So I'm imagining something I haven't. You've seen it. I haven't. Whereas on screen, there's none of that relying on the readers. There's a really good program on I play on Palin does Lagos. Oh. I think he actually does Nigeria. I think he does Abuja as well.

And it's really good. It's four episodes. And I'm not a huge Michael Palin fan. Not that I'm not a fan. I'm not in his universe. But he was fantastic. And he goes around and talks. talks to lots of people and he does sort of show Lagos as it is now. It's good fun.

Oh, great. Oh, I'm congratulations, Miggily. So brilliant. And thank you so much for coming to talk to us about it. It's brilliant. We loved it. Yeah, I hope he does so well. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. Tickets for our live show at the South Bank Centre are now on sale. We are going to be joined by the absolute mega star that is Dame Harriet Walter. You'll know her from Succession. Killing Eve, Ted Lasso, go to Southland Centre.com.com.uk or plosive.com.com to get your tickets. Sarah's novel Weirdo and my book, You're Not Loan, are also both out in paperback and available to buy. And I have a children's book coming out called The Christmas Wish Tastrophe, which is also available to pre-order now.

You can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing on the show at our Instagram, Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.