The Life Of Bryony - Author Abigail Dean: ‘Fiction Lets Me Test How People Survive the Unthinkable’

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

QUICK SURVEY – TELL US WHAT YOU'RE LOVING: We’re running a short survey to get to know you better—so we can keep making the kind of episodes you actually want to hear. Takes 2 mins, promise: https://ex-plorsurvey.com/survey/selfserve/550/g517/250305?list=3 MY GUEST THIS WEEK: ABIGAIL DEAN This week, I’m joined by Abigail Dean—bestselling author of Girl A, Day One, and now The Death of Us, a gripping psychological thriller that explores trauma, trust and romantic fear. But this conversation goes far beyond fiction. Abigail opens up about her teenage battle with anorexia and her time in the Priory. We talk about the long road to recovery, the decision to leave a high-flying legal career at Google, and how motherhood helped her finally make space to write. We also explore what it means to live with the threat of relapse, the emotional weight of writing dark stories, and the power of teenage friendship to save a life. If you’ve ever wondered how to rewrite your own story—or if it’s too late to do so—Abigail’s honesty and insight might be the answer you’re looking for. LET’S STAY IN TOUCH 🗣 Got something to share? Text or send a voice note on 07796657512—just start your message with LOB. 💬 Use the WhatsApp shortcut: https://wa.me/447796657512?text=LOB 📧 Prefer email? Drop me a line at [e-mail] If you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who might be looking for inspiration—it really helps. Bryony xx BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE 📚 The Death of Us by Abigail Dean - Out Now! A chilling but tender psychological thriller about trauma, love, and what it means to trust someone—including yourself. 📚 Girl A by Abigail Dean A bestseller about the long shadows of childhood trauma and the complicated bonds between siblings. 📚 Day One by Abigail Dean An exploration of collective grief, conspiracy theories, and community resilience in the aftermath of tragedy. CREDITS 🎙 Presenter: Bryony Gordon 🎙 Guest: Abigail Dean 🎧 Content Producer: Jonathan O’Sullivan 🎥 Audio & Video Editor: Luke Shelley 📢 Executive Producer: Mike Wooller A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Life of Bryony, the podcast where we navigate life's messier moments. Today I'm joined by Abigail Dean, former lawyer turned bestselling author, writing novels that are completely unput downable. book. Her debut Girl A became an international bestseller selling over 350,000 copies, topping charts around the world and earning praise for its emotional power and psychological depth. Her new novel The Death of Us is part love story, part thriller, it's about trauma, intimacy and what it means to trust someone, including yourself. Maybe I'm unusual in this, but I guess whenever I see a particular story in the news, my brain always just wonders what next? How do people live after that? Not just in the headlines,

but how do they live six months later and then five years later and in all of those times that we don't see. My chat with Abigail Dean coming up right after this. ["The Daily Show Theme"] Hello, presenter Bryony. Hello, producer Jonathan. I wanted to ask you something actually very quickly. So on my social media feed, I'm getting a lot of people parroting people's morning routines.

I don't know if you've seen it on yours, but I wanted to ask you about your actual nighttime routine. Okay, I think the morning routine thing, what like getting up at three in the morning, The tape on the mouth. Removing the tape from the mouth. Coconut oil pulling, I don't do any of that. My morning routine is get up, go downstairs,

make myself a cup of coffee, look at my phone. You in 100% of the UK, I'd imagine. Yeah. So anyway, but my nighttime routine is really important to me because I think it's a throwback to the fact that I never had one before when I was drinking and I would just black out and fall into bed. And so now I just love my, I just love going to bed early, I get into bed, I have my LED

mask, you know, the one that makes me look like Jason from Halloween. And I put that on and I read for like two hours. Hang on, what time does the arse hit the mattress? About 8.30. Are you going to bed before your daughter? Sometimes, yeah. Incredible scenes. But I don't like go to sleep.

Yeah. I just, I like to be in my bedroom, just like pootling around, doing my things, putting my, you know, rubbing my magnesium butter on my legs. Oh my God, I hate even myself. I tell you this. But I like, I don't know, I like to be safely in my bedroom.

It makes me feel, yeah, like cocooned because, I don't know, it makes me feel safe. But reading, okay, reading is really one of my most favorite things. And it was definitely something that I did a lot of, and I started to do a lot more of when I got sober. It's a way for me to fill the evening that isn't just like mindlessly squirreling or watching television. So I read a lot of books, which is why I, and I also, I don't know if I've told you, I write books. No way. Yeah.

There's two of them staring at me from the shelf behind you. I'm a writer. That is actually my like day job. That is my day job. It's not like sitting around talking about myself on podcasts. I thought you just did this. It's sitting around writing about myself, right, in books. But anyway, I love books.

I love writing. So I thought, why don't we have a book club? Why doesn't the Life of Brighton have a book club? Because, you know, I get a lot of, you know, the messages I get on my Instagram are like, can you share what you're reading at the moment? I have a Goodreads, but I, you know, at the end of every year, I like to do a post of all the books I've read. And I often get loads of people messaging me like, where's, I didn't do one this last year. Yeah, it's probably nicer to do throughout the year as well.

Yeah. So I thought, why don't we do a book club and start talking to authors that I like and about the process of writing, but also about what they like writing, what they get out of writing, what their inspiration for writing is. You've started an absolute crackerer I must say as well. Abigail Dean. Abigail. I met Abigail a couple of months ago. We were both doing an event and I followed her for ages and I read Girl A when it first

came out. I just heard her talking about her own personal story, which she touches on in the episode today, which was her experience as a teenager of anorexia and being in hospital suffering from that. And I start to read her new book and the main female character in that, Isabelle has spent some time as a teenager in a hospital with mental illness.

And I thought, ooh, and so I got in touch and asked if she'd come on and talk about the book because I love a book that is, you know, it looks on the bookshelf, it looks like a sort of crime thriller, but as she says, it's much more thoughtful than that, you know, but it has the pace of a thriller. So you're kind of getting through it. But I felt like I also learned a lot about humans. Yeah, I also think if there are any parents listening who have teens who are in trouble or who are suffering and they're struggling

and they're thinking, oh my god, what does my child's future hold? You know, I think this conversation will really give you hope because Abigail had a really difficult start to her life and a really difficult dark experience and my my, look how she has flourished and And, you know, just, it was lovely to chat to her. ["Sailor Moon"] Ooh, nice, Air Canada has a worldwide sale. Wow, look at this deal to the Philippines. Nice, let's book it. But wait, Naples is also a steal,

saving seafood and sun? You want sun? There's a hot deal to Mexico. And even hotter to Yellowknife. Nice, but I thought you wanted tropical hot. You're all over the map. Well, yeah, we've got over 180 destinations to choose from. Saving on every single destination. Nice. Hurry, book at AirCanada.com or contact your travel agent.

Conditions apply. Air Canada. Nice travels. How do you turn trauma into triumph? When Life Gives You Lemons is the podcast which seeks to explore this concept. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of only 36 in the midst of the global pandemic, my world was shaken. Sat in the chemo chair, I set myself a goal of starting a podcast to explore resilience and the power of mindset. And so When Life Gives You Lemons was born, where I speak to high performing individuals who have been through adversity but come back stronger. Come and join us on this journey of human resilience and discover how my guests are able to turn their lemons into lemonade. If you're loving these chats as much as I love

doing them, why don't we make it official? Hit follow so you never miss an episode. We'd also love to know what you're enjoying about the show. Click the survey link in the show's description. Shall we just get going? Sure. To this inaugural Life of Briony book club. Yes, let's do it. Which I've just sprung on Abigail Dean. And I'm delighted. You have said, Abigail, that growing up, you preferred books to people.

Yes. Tell me, tell me about that. What did books give you that humans didn't? Because I totally get it. So I grew up in a very, very small village in Derbyshire, in the hills of Derbyshire. And I feel it was quite an isolated, quite an isolated way to grow up as an only child as well. I was quite a shy, introverted teenager. I think I'm still an introverted person, but I'm probably not a shy person anymore.

And I just found such adventure and escapism in books. I think that they just kind of expanded the world in a way that at that time I felt kind of quite frustrated by living in this relatively kind of small enclosed place and I think books opened everything up and I think also, because I was quite shy, you know, things like the experiences that I could have through books, whether it was about, you know, love or travelling or friendship, I found easier to access in fiction than in real life, I think, at that time for sure. Yeah.

I mean, that's the wonderful thing about reading, isn't it? It takes you to worlds that you can't otherwise get to. Even better, I think, is something I still find, that it puts you in people's shoes, which otherwise might be harder to imagine. And I think that's still kind of such a vital part of reading and something that I still love. But I don't need the kind of,

I fortunately don't need to entirely live through books anymore, I like people as well. The new book, let's talk about The Death of Us because it is about a couple. It's a kind of a love story, weirdly, but set alongside some pretty traumatic criminal behaviour. Yes. Oh, it gives me little shudders, like reading it at home. There was one night I read it and I felt like I was alone in the house. I wasn't, but my husband was away and my daughter was asleep

next door. And because it centres on a sort of night crawler. Yeah, kind of home invader. A home invader. And I, in South London, which is where I live, my skin was on fire reading it. So tell us about the book. No, a few people have said that they, for the first time in a decade, they've started using their alarm systems, having read the book. Which is that a good thing?

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, I think you're exactly right. The way I think of it is that it is a love story, and it's almost a love story that's interrupted by this one terrible night of violence. So it follows two characters, Edwin and Isabelle, and they have a pretty conventional love story in many ways. They meet as students, and they move to London in the 90s, and they get married, and everything

is going kind of pretty well for them. And one spring evening, they become victims of this serial home invader who will go on to become a serial killer. And he assaults Isabel and Edward feels that he is incapable of preventing it. And the book, I guess, is about how that one night affects the rest of their lives and particularly their relationship. And we meet them in the death of us when they're in their 50s and this invader has finally been caught and they're in London preparing to deliver their victim impact statements, which throws

them back together because they, you know, we found out very early they've since got divorced. So it's kind of it's a love story, but I guess also a thriller and also a manhunt as well. And I guess a bit of a will they won't they? I feel in the presence as well. People listening might be thinking, why Briny for your inaugural Life of Briny book club, have you chosen a dark crime thriller? Because the thing of the Life of Briny is like,

let's make people feel better about themselves, right? But the reason I chose it is because I think you write about humans in such a sort of empathetic, understanding understanding way and particularly humans who have been through difficult shit. So, Isabel, the main character, I really understood a lot of the darkness that she had experienced in her life. And that's what all of your books have come from a sort of very human perspective, human emotions, human feelings, human failings, you know.

Yes, yeah. Is it about exploring, you know, the extremes of human emotion and such like for you? I think so, in that I think it is almost a thought experiment if you are pretty happy. So if something like this kind of happens to you, how are you going to react? And it's always going to be more interesting, I think, in books, but it is something extreme. But what I care about most is probably that readers can put themselves in both characters' shoes. So, you know, most readers probably have, you know, had a relationship.

Most readers can't imagine how would you react if something like this happened. I think that's the case with all the books, like wanting people to sort of almost test how they would react in these extreme circumstances. And I think the way you do that is with characters that I hope people love and feel really, really deeply for. And I think certainly with Isabel in this book,

I mean, she, I think she's definitely the character who's most similar to me that I've kind of ever written. She totally has like, definitely has kind of some elements to my voice in a way that I've always been a little frightened I think to do before, but you become more confident as you're writing, I think, and more confident to sort of maybe put a little bit more of your heart on the line every time maybe. I really liked Isabel. Yes. So she's a northerner. Yes. And she's had her own troubles you know from her from childhood, from teenhood. Yes. I know you've sort

of written briefly about that and friendship and things. Yeah it was it was really important I think that when I was writing about Edward and Isabelle, they are not this kind of perfect couple. So they don't kind of come to this relationship. Everything is, you know, without a doubt, it's just wonderful, and then it's kind of interrupted, and everything is to blame on this one terrible, catastrophic crime.

I wanted it to be much more that they are kind of two people who have their own, they have their own baggage. The way that everyone, you come into a relationship and you bring your like rucksack of issues with you, don't you, in a way. I think that was key that they're not this ideal couple and I think there's a big kind of strand of the novel which is both of the kind of members of the couple, I think they both try to attribute at times too much of their individual failings to what happened to them. I certainly think to some degree.

And so Isabel, yeah, she's kind of suffered from terrible depression before she meets Edward at 19. She's been in hospital. She's kind of clambering out of that, I would say, when she meets Edward at 19, you know, she's been in hospital, she's kind of clambering out of that, I would say, when she meets him. And he, I think she also sees as being a much more kind of stable, steady influence out of her own, her mental health struggles and her own issues really, and sadness. And then when this kind of catastrophic evening takes place a decade later, you know, I that

Really brings those problems back to the forefront But there's a question as well you had she actually dealt with them in the first place and I'm not entirely sure Well, I'll leave readers to dance that I'm not gonna answer for them Well, I'll leave readers to answer that. I'm not gonna answer it for them. And certainly that's something that I've kind of had experiences with. Like I was, when I was 17, I spent time in hospital, in the Priory, good old Priory in Cheshire.

And I certainly felt kind of coming out of that, this real, real kind of, I guess, desire to entirely break free of those problems and to kind of become somebody shiny and new. Exactly and I think that Isabella is slightly guilty of that in the book that, you know, no wonder that later after this terrible kind of incident those are going to be like the first problems that return to you because I think if you don't deal with things often that is the case. But also do you mind if we talk a bit about that experience when you were 17?

Yeah that's fine. Because I also had sort of serious problems with mental illness in my teens, in childhood, I mean let's call it what it is. Childhood, yeah, exactly. And at the time you think you're like a grown up and you should be. I just wanted to ask you a bit about that because you wrote a really beautiful article, Abigail, about your time in the, as you said, it was a place that is known for footballers and celebrities. Yes. a place that is known for footballers and celebrities, but your experience was altogether different.

But you wrote about your defining memory of that time of being in the Priory was that your best friend came and visited you every day. Yes, yes she did. Yeah and actually doesn't that just show I think like the like heroism of teenage girls and how so much is written about criticizing the teenage girls and their friendships and how complicated it all is and how betrayal, bitchiness, devastation. I just feel, for me, it was the friendships that held me together, essentially.

That friendship in particular with my friend Ruth. And also, what I will say is, despite my statement about books, liking books more than people, people actually were remarkable. There was also a teacher who was the head of English at my school, and he would come every week and he would like teach me in the hospital. Yeah, he would teach me in the hospital

because obviously I kind of wasn't able to go to any lessons for two months or a little more than two months. And so he would come with his like notes and we'd go through, I still remember, it was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, the Tom Stoppard play. And what an act of just kindness. So I suppose that's the kind of flip side of these terrible things that might happen to you and that might befall you when you are a child. But there are also these incredible people and moments of light too.

I feel like this might give a lot, will give a lot of comfort to any mothers, you know, listening now who have children who are suffering that here you are Abigail Deem, Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author. You appear to me right now someone who has got her shit together, you know, you've got two kids, you're married, you know, your life is together. You've got the life you wanted, you're writing novels, and we can get into a bit of what, you know, you went into, you became a lawyer. But that I think gives great comfort to people who may have kids who are going through this stuff now.

I hope it does and I hope it can. I suppose I feel like there was a long sort of journey to get that. I think some of it was luck, you know, having people around me who were incredible and kind of did not give up on me. And I have to say a huge thing I think was having the mental health services and support, which came from a very practical perspective, from my dad's health insurance. There are those elements that I think now increasingly are not there. Not available to them.

And not available. When I tried to get to the bottom of how did you manage to drag me out of that place? I think it was that people supported me in a way that they were able to see past the illness as well. And I think with any mental health problems, it is so crucial to separate the person who you love from the illness. I think that is really, really important

and so difficult to do. And I'm very fortunate in terms of in a way I've not had to make that Distinction with other people with my friends and family who had to they did it for you to do that for me Which I think is very very tough because you know I was in the Priory with anorexia and it makes you as with a lot of mental health conditions. It does not make you a It makes you, as with a lot of mental health conditions, it does not make you a person who is easy to love, I would say. You know, you lie and you are, as with any kind of addictive behaviour, you are manipulative,

you shut people out, you will do kind of anything to feed the illness rather than all the things that actually matter in life. And so I think it's so difficult to hang on then to the person rather than be sent away by the illness, which is exactly obviously what the illness wants. So I'm so sorry you went through that. Thank you, Briarly. And I'm really grateful for you to opening up about it, because I think it is,

presumably that it had been going on for some time before you got to the stage of needing to go to the Priory. Yes, yeah, about six months, eight months or so. And it was sort of my AS level year. So yeah, like, was that the CA turn 17? Yeah, that's it. That's it. And so did you ask to go somewhere

or were you sort of forced against your will? It was time, I think was the general consensus of kind of medical professionals and everyone around me. I think it became very clear, very obvious that I kind of wasn't gonna get better on my own. Which is an assessment that I strongly agree with. And you were in for two months? Two months.

Yeah. What was it like? It was, you know, it was what I needed at the time. I mean, it was pretty grim, I would say. And I think that's one of the sort of, one of the things if you tell people you've been in the Priory, I think people imagine that there was a sort of glamour to the experience. And although there was sort of like, you know, I'm sure I could come up with some relatively funny anecdotes about people insisting on bringing their pets and you know there was those who the humor to it as there is with everything in life you know and often the darker things are

them the more humor there is actually but it was it was miserable yeah it was very lonely and it was difficult being on kind of an adult ward because I sort of, at 17, you fit between the two worlds, just between them. And yeah, it was tough. And I was also incredibly frightened because it did mean getting better. And I think from any mental illness, the idea of having to work at escaping it is frightening. It's very frightening. Well, it doesn't feel like getting better, does it? It feels like the opposite. Yeah, it feels like everything that your, you know, that your mind is telling you not to do. So no, it was, it was, it was grim. And I think actually the only sort of consolation

was the schoolwork, you know, actually that was the kind of only normality was working on, you know, revising and in a way, you know, revising, learning. You'd be sat in a sort of break room post meal times where you kind of kept there for a certain amount of time as was needed. And, you know, I'm just there learning about, I don't know, population. Geography. Volcanoes. Yeah. Well, so just a strange mix of these of these kind of worlds of normality and of and also this kind of extreme, these extreme difficulties and sort of wondering how have I ended up here? Oh, things have really not gone as planned. But I think it also gave me a massive impetus to keep getting

better. I think it did. That if these are your lives, that one life will be lived, you know, in an institution with great scrutiny on your behavior and you know an inability to really read or write like I enjoyed very little by that point because all I could think about was food. If that is one life and your other life is to go to university and to work and to write and to be with your friends and to go on nights out and to fall in love. You know, that's your choice. And I think it really did come down to that. And being in hospital put that in very stark, quite brutal contrast,

that those are the kind of lives that you can choose between and you still now have the choice. between and you still now have the choice. This is a paid advertisement for better help. There's this myth that at a certain point in your life, you should just have everything figured out. Our careers, our relationships, our self-worth. But the truth? Nobody has it all together. Not really. And that's okay.

For me, therapy has always been the place where I can be myself and work through the things that hold me back. Perfectionism, people-pleasing, the fear of getting things wrong. It's a space where I don't have to pretend. And honestly, that's been life-changing. With over 5,000 therapists in the UK already, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a wide variety of expertise in mental health. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash bryony. That's b-r-y-o-n-y. To fall in love, to go to university, to live a life. Yeah, I think I was just about still able to make the choice. I do think that, you know, I think it becomes harder the longer you have been ill.

And so I don't want to sort of give the impression that everyone has that choice, but I felt like I did just about have enough ability to see, at least to see that these were the two kind of options. So I don't want to sort of sound as if like, yeah, does that make sense? Well, no, I do. I totally get it because I know this from an addiction point of view. Like we talk about rock bottoms or whatever, but there's always another rock bottom. Yeah, that's great. And like, I feel very lucky.

Addiction, and I think this is the same with eating disorders. There are lift going down, you know, and you can choose when, whatever floor you want to get off. But if you get back on, you will go lower, you know, and you never go up. If you see what I mean. Yes, the lift's going one direction, yeah.

Yeah, and so you're right. And the longer you're in the lift, the longer your choice starts to disappear. So yeah, I don't want to make it like, oh, Abigail, you're right and the longer you're in the lift the longer your choice starts to disappear. So yeah, I don't want to make it like, oh Abigail you're a better person than other people because I know that you know because you made the choice of life. What I meant more was there's a fork in the road you know where and I mean I guess and I guess the thing about life isn't it is that we think of it as there's a fork in the road and you can go that way or you can go that way but when you choose to go that way you might come to another fork

in the road and you did come to another fork in the road you know so you went to university you became a lawyer. Yes and I did become a lawyer I didn't really know what else I wanted to be at the end of university. As a lot of people who I think love words you know you're like well I'm not gonna be able to be an accountant. Yeah. I think this was sort of like the what was going on in my head. I tried journalism. I you know I was just I just wasn't very good at it. Me neither. Prioty. Wasn't great at that. Tried PR, not brilliant there either. I don't think I was sufficiently kind of enthusiastic. And then- You had to deal with a lot of people as well in PR.

Lots of people. Not that many books. Not that many books. And so I kind of did some work experience in law and I thought, you know, I quite like this. I think I could find a niche. I had a pretty, in terms of in my 20s, I worked as a lawyer from the age of about 24

until 2023, until yeah, 33. Oh my God, so really recently. Yeah, really recently. I worked for law firms for a while. Can you say? Yeah, and then I worked for Google for the last four years of my career. Let's not beat around the bush here.

You're a lawyer for big law firms for Google. That's going to take up a lot of your time, right? So when did you find the time to start writing? Like what, how did you, because I bet you there are people listening who think, I'd love to write a book. You know, how do you magic yourself from this job, this, you know, this full-time career to sitting here as a full-time writer.

I started writing Girl A between jobs. And so I've been at law firms for sort of, I'm trying to think how long now, maybe six, seven years. And I was definitely getting to the stage where it was no longer making me happy because the hours in law firms are remarkably. What are the hours? You'll see in the death of us, I mean Edward who is a lawyer. Yeah, he doesn't.

He doesn't, if he wants to be in the office every day, to work away, trauma, you can. Yeah. That option is there. I mean the hours are, I think it's the unpredictability. So it's, you know, you might have some days that are normal, nine to five, but you'll have other days that are nine to three, four a.m. And you'll also have, it's the cancellation of plans, I think, as well. I found it very, very hard to have to cancel from friends and cancel on my partner who is also a lawyer and is still a lawyer.

And I think if you have two people canceling, I mean, you're never gonna see each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just, I started to dislike the absolute inability to plan my life in any way. And I also knew that at some point I did want a family and I think it's very, very difficult to balance those two things, working in a law firm, having a family is

tough. So I resigned in, I still remember it was sort of in springtime. It was like the cliche of the sun coming out. And I spent the whole summer, so June to August, off work and writing and started writing Girl A. I had very, very big ambition. I was going to finish this novel over the summer. Give three months, I'll have a novel. And I obviously didn't. I mean, how ridiculous. I didn't. I don't know. Is that ridiculous? This is, okay, so Life of Briony Book Club. The question I'm asked most, having written like, I should remember how many books I've written now,

but eight non-fiction books, or seven non-fiction books, and then I've just written my first novel, right? But people often ask, how long does it take you to write a book? And it's sort of like, well, how long is a piece of string? Yes. Novel writing, let me tell you, Abigail, is a whole different ballgame to nonfiction writing. Because nonfiction, I'm just writing about myself. The editor can't go, I'm sorry, Brian, we don't like the ending, because you're like, well, that's my life. That's what happened to me. I can't change that. Whereas novel writing, they're like, I filed my first draft recently,

and my editor was like, thank you for handing me all the jigsaw puzzle pieces. Have you considered putting them in the right order? That's quite brutal. But that's kind of like, novel writing is like, the idea that we sit down and you just write, you write a book and then it comes out, that is, look, it's

a real process. Yeah, it's a full process. No, I agree. So there's three months of Girl A. And let's also talk about Girl A was unbelievably dark. Yeah, it's about a girl who survived her kind of family's cult. Right. I guess. Relatable. Fortunately not too relatable, in this instance. Fortunately not too relatable.

And her mother, who's been in prison since she was a child, since the girl, the main character was a child, has died in prison and she's left Lex, who is girl A, the girl who kind of escaped from the cult, freed her siblings. She has left her and the siblings the family home. And so Lex has to essentially decide what to do with this house, where she was abused, and it's a case of reconnecting with her siblings to get the consensus of what they do with their legacy really and the legacy of their parents' abuse.

So let me ask you, what, tell me, because I sit here, sit here, you're wearing a lovely pink top, you're joyous, you've got zebra skin shoes on, you know, like you've got this lovely energy to you. Where does the kind of, where does the darkness come from? I mean, obviously you were, you know, you obviously had dark experiences in your own life, you know, anorexia, being in hospital, but what draws you to this kind of stuff? I suppose for me, I don't find it that unusual to be drawn to the kind of darker parts of humanity. Because those are the kind of most extreme acts that people will go through that characters could possibly go through.

And so I guess it feels quite natural to me to wonder, you know, how does that happen? How could that possibly take place? And if it know, how does that happen? How could that possibly take place? And if it did, how would you survive that? I think that's always kind of the question that all three of my books have kind of, at the heart of them is really, how do you survive after that? How do your relationships survive? How do you survive, you know, with your head and your heart intact? And is that possible? So maybe I'm unusual in this, but I guess whenever I see a particular story in the news, my brain always just wonders what next? How do people live after that? Not just in the headlines, but how do they live

six months later and then five years later and all of those times that we don't see. I think that is always a really interesting question. It's always going to be attached to the most extreme behaviors because they are to me, I guess, because they are remarkable in their awfulness. They are not things that happen to people every day. It's a place to find inspiration and strength and hope, isn't it? I always remember that when I was in, like, the depths of addiction and depression and I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't get out of bed, I used to sometimes, this is gonna sound, I've never,

I don't think I've ever told anyone this before, I used to, like, spend days imagining that I was actually hiding in a basement in an apocalypse, like a nuclear apocalypse had happened, a nuclear apocalypse had happened, a zombie apocalypse had happened. And I imagined, and I think what it was, was it was like, I found almost some comfort in there being a worst thing. Yes. From what I was actually going through and that imagining, almost imagining that the world had just gone, you know, like, and I could just be safe and it sounds so weird.

And I guess also there's that thing of like, when you're watching, you know? Like, and I could just be safe and it sounds so weird. And I guess also there's that thing of like when you're watching, you know, because we know that crime thrillers, people love reading them, you know, maybe there is a kind of like, I'm going to watch this thing, I'm going to go to this place, and I'm going to see humans have to experience the most extraordinary extreme things and kind of and how they respond and how they come through it. Yes yeah and beyond it as well I think there's then space for the hope and for the humor and I've always been really really happy particularly in relation to the death of us when some people have said it's actually quite funny and people are kind of surprised at that and I guess I don't find it surprising because I think people are very very good at finding

the humor or love or hope in terrible situations. So it's a book where there's a lot of evil in there but there is also a huge amount of kind of love. I genuinely think that. So you write Girl A which came out in? 2021. Okay, so you're still working as a lawyer? Yes, yeah. I'm still working as a lawyer and I also, a week after Girl A came out, was published, I found out I was pregnant as well, with our first little boy. At that time, we was in lockdown,

in a way, I think I was just in this sort of very odd, like suspended space, where lockdown was so odd, it was so otherworldly. Girl A had come out, and the weird thing about anything, like a book being published, and Girl A came out and it was kind of in the charts, you know, feel very lucky that all that happened.

But life is unchanged, you're kind of, especially lockdown kind of pronounced that. We were still just at home, you know, me, Richard, my husband, and the cat. It was a very kind of odd time. It felt kind of natural to keep working at that time. So I did, I was trying to write Day One, my second novel, having real difficulties writing it.

And then after my son was born, I was still struggling to write Day One. And it was when I went back to work after maternity leave that within about three months, it became clear that there was no way I could possibly be the mum that I wanted to try to be and be a lawyer and be a writer. Does it become apparent through like burnout or…? It became apparent through this kind of dark, awful winter we had. So I went back to work in kind of September, October, when my son was just turning one,

and my husband couldn't have been busy at work. Like he was just sort of absent at that time, doing the best he could, but mostly absent. And it was just one of those like, you know, the litany of things like our bathroom ceiling collapsed, our cat got fleas which like invaded the house. I hate it when that happens. Yeah, it's just the worst. Just this endless and I was sort of trying to work and go to

the office and be presentable. There's a lot of women listening to this right now, nodding along going, yup, yup, kitchen, bathroom ceiling falling through, cat got fleas, trying to put, get my shit together to work. Yeah, exactly. Running between like the nursery and work. Yeah, and within about two months, I think I was sort of like, no, no, this is, this is not going to happen. I can't do these three things.

So the law kind of had to go. And that is also, I think some writers, they give up their job and they're like, yes, like screw you guys. I hated this job. You know, get a book deal, go. I did really like working at Google and you know have like a lot of friends still there and I really liked my job it was a very very like interesting role so I don't want to be that person who's you know it was a hard

decision to make it was just a bit of an inevitable one. Mm-hmm you're glad you made it. I'm glad I made it. You've now got two babies. Yes two babies yeah. I think it's really important to talk about this, how actually the people juggling it all are probably not doing so with any good, with any ease, you know? Yes. Like there will be a lot of balls being dropped, there will be a lot of stress. And I certainly found that when I, especially when I went back to work after maternity leave, I had very quickly, and also I was terrified during maternity leave, I had very quickly, and also

I was terrified during maternity leave. I kind of was like, I shouldn't be taking this time, you know, the pressure. And this was like 12 years ago, you know, I was like, oh, I need to kind of keep in, you know, keep in touch days. I need to, I need to show work that I'm still there that I haven't gone. You know, I remember like five weeks after my daughter was born doing a work job, which I probably shouldn't have done, but being like, oh, put it in the keeping in touch days. But then going back to work and very quickly being like, I can't do this. I can't. And

thinking, thinking I was somehow going to work the same way I had before, I was like, I can't be, I cannot work this, quite unquote, hard. Something is going to have to change. But really fundamentally realizing that the thing that was going to have to change was me. It was not going to be the work system. And so I was going to have to be briny big balls and put on my big girl pants and go in and say, sorry, I can't work Fridays or whatever. I'm going gonna have to go down to four days or we're gonna have to make this work. And I'm really lucky, Abigail,

that I have a job whereby now I have made it work around me. Do you know what I mean? Flexibility, which I know a lot of women don't have, but that means having to work. I always sometimes say this to my husband, I work six and a half days a week He's like that's seven days a week, Briny. Yes, you know and I couldn't and and the reality is I've only got one child I couldn't have the career I had if I'd had more than one child and that's and it and that is kind of depressing

I know I yeah, isn't it? It is. Yeah, and and I I agree that there are a lot of employers who do really talk the talk and words are very easy in this context, but the fact is that for them it is inconvenient if you can't make a big call at 6pm. And most kind of working mothers cannot make a call at 6pm unless there is another person kind of picking their child up from nursery or school. And I think that that is, there's a very, very, very quickly, there's a big kind of conflict between wanting to do the right thing, right, and the reality of just how inconvenient it is for them.

And it is inconvenient. I think that's kind of like a fact that that has to be addressed. I think they have to embrace, they have to deal with that inconvenience and think of ways around it and be a slightly more creative than, as you said, it's you having to put on your big girl pants. That's maybe, you know, they could put on some different pants instead. Abigail, let me ask you how you look after yourself because you have two kids, you have a big work life, even getting rid of the lawyer bit, you still have a big work life.

And I just wondered how recovery, I guess, is what, I know anorexia was a long time ago for you, but I know as someone who has experienced eating disorders and addiction and things like that, that, you know, these are things that we have to work with on a daily basis to maintain wellness, you know, I guess? Like there's sort of a lot of mental illnesses are they're not things that you that you can necessarily cure Do you mean like flu? Yeah. Yeah, you live with the sort of potential for them to flare up again Would you say that's your experience or do you do you feel like you've put it behind you? I think that I've put it behind me

but I would say that kind of warily if that makes sense because I think that when warily if that makes sense because I think that when When things are going relatively well and are relatively stable it is much easier to believe that's the case and I'm I think that it's always worth being kind of like almost like Vigilant I guess is how I sort of feel about about my own kind of mental health is that you know I can often see I feel like I know what the first sort of signs are and I'm quite aware of that now I guess all it takes is kind of one event like one Catastrophe man, I don't even a catastrophe. It could be something completely completely removed from that to to be down in that lift

It's not hard to imagine being back there and so I think for me I exercise for the love of it and it is one of the things like running that makes me feel incredibly free without any of the terrible associations that used to be attached to it. I absolutely love feeling kind of like stronger and the liberty that comes with running on like a beautiful day. The free, well that's the thing, the freedom of, that is the word isn't it with running? Yeah. And as you say, the thing, as we both know, having done exercise to punish ourselves when we're younger, there's something even doubly rewarding about then realizing,

oh my God, I'm exercising to nourish myself. Yeah, yeah, because it's like a wonderful, beautiful day and I wanna be in the sunshine rather than, you know, because I ate XYZ yesterday. Like I feel like those two things are now kind of successfully totally detached, which is great because I really do love exercise. I feel like I was difficult with two small children in terms of finding time for yourself.

Coming out of the newborn days we're getting more than three hours sleep in a row. How old is your newborn? He's nine months now. Oh my god and you wrote this book when? So this book was written before he arrived, before pregnancy actually. Okay right. It was edited when I was pregnant but it was written the year after I resigned from Google. So it was written in that year of having a child at nursery, not being pregnant, feeling like I'd left kind of the legal world behind. So I had that thinking space. And it was weirdly, it was a book that I'd wanted to write

since I was in my twenties. Really? In London, that was when the idea first kind of cropped up. And obviously I just had no time and no real determination either. I don't wanna blame entirely on the time. No time and no kind determination either. I don't blame entirely on the time. No time and no kind of real drive to write it. But I was like, I kind of wanted to write about

the effect that an assault, a sexual assault would have on a couple. That was kind of the idea. And then I think all the characters and the details came. Came after, yeah. So also that's another thing to say to anyone listening or watching is that trust the timing. Things come to you but they may not actually reappear until a

decade or so later. Yes. Yeah. I mean literally kind of over a decade. I think it's about 13 years that I sort of had the idea initially. And that's a long time to be mulling. But I think that is it. If you have that one idea where you're like, oh, can't quite leave this alone, you know, that it keeps returning time and again, it might be a good one. The Death of Us is out now,

available to buy from all good bookstores and bad ones as well that are online. Also I would love you to go and read The Death of Us and then get in touch via all the contact details that are in the show notes or leave a comment on the Instagram or on our YouTube and let us know what you think of the book. It is a love story with chilling oomph. Yeah, it's like a love story. It's been interrupted by a thriller. Halfway through. I love it.

I love it. And I'm so grateful that you have come in and allowed The Death of Us to be Abigail Dean, our first Life of Briony book club pick. Thank you for coming on The Life of Briony and for writing your brilliant books. Thank you, Briony. Thank you for coming on The Life of Bryony and for writing your brilliant books. Thank you Bryony, thank you for having me. A huge thank you to Abigail for being so thoughtful,

so open and so generous with her story today. Her journey is proof that it's never too late to rewrite your own story, even if it's just one paragraph at a time. The Death of Us is out now and available from all good bookstores, but also in e-book and audiobook format. Don't forget to follow or subscribe, take care of yourself, and I'll see you next time.