Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Coco Mellors (Part Two)

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Join Emily and Raymond in Clissold Park with the New York Times bestselling author Coco Mellors! Coco tells us her incredibly inspiring literary story, her experience of being taught at NYU by Martin Amis, and the hard work it took to publish her first novel, Cleopatra and Frankenstein. Blue Sisters is the moving, funny, story of three sisters dealing with grief and addiction in the wake of the deal of their beloved fourth sister Nicky. Emily and Coco discuss sibling grief and the process of writing such an emotional topic. You can buy your copy of Blue Sisters here!The Sunday Times Bestseller Cleopatra and Frankenstein is an addictive, humorous, and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by a couple’s impulsive marriage. You can get your copy here! Follow @cocomellors on InstagramFollow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Part 2 of Walking the Dog with Cocoa Mellas. Do go back and listen to Part 1 if you haven't already and do, by the way, read Coco's brilliant book Blue Sisters, now out in paperback because you won't put it down. I'd also love it if you gave us a like and a follow so you can catch us every week. Here's Coco and Ray Ray. Your literary story I love,

and I think a lot of people probably love, because partly because it took you bloody ages. Yeah. It did, yeah. It took a long time and a lot of nose. You started, if I'm right, it was, did you start writing it when you were 25? Yeah. And then it was 30, you were 30 when you sold it, 32 when it was published. Yeah. So that's seven years. And what's so interesting about that is, is, The reason I love that, this is when you wrote Cleopatra and Frankenstein, your debut novel, which was a huge success, wasn't it? I mean, you'll be modest and you won't tell me how many copies it's sold, but it's a lot, isn't it?

She's being coy, even your publicist is coy. Yeah, but it wasn't a bestseller when it came out. It was a slow grower. It was like, it built momentum over time. So it definitely wasn't an overnight success. But what's interesting, because it's a phenomenal book, and it's a phenomenal book, and it's a, phenomenal book in itself, let alone a debut novel. But I think I love this story and I think a lot of people will because a lot of people look at publishing now and you think it's so much about

brand and promotion and name and PR and TikTok and viral. And then I look at your story and it's like oh she just spent years writing something good. Like you just put the effort in to make the work good And I just think, and it was, and people found it. I mean, thank you so much for saying that. There were so many times, I mean, working on that book for the whole second half of my 20s, I did feel like, I felt very out of step, to be honest, with what everyone else was doing. So I remember thinking, like, oh God, should I be writing, like, I had no online presence, you know, like I didn't write online, I didn't have any bylines.

I wasn't like a journalist. I worked as a copywriter to make a living. which is, you know, it was a great job, but no one knows your work. And where I was? That was in fashion you were saying. Was it for a magazine or something? Or were you writing for it? And then a bunch of other brands, but Jay Crew is where I was for the longest time.

I know. It was fun. I mean, it was a great job. So what sort of thing you were writing? To be honest, I was mostly writing like 25% off sale in just various iterations. That was ultimately what a lot of the job boiled down to. And you do realize when you're doing it that those emails that you painstakingly write to try to make so funny and quippy, people just delete them before you've been opening them

because they don't realize they've been added to the mailing list by buying like a shirt from J-Crew. So in that sense, it could be sometimes, I think, a little. It definitely, I was really happy to have that job because I could earn a living and I could live in New York. It was a full-time job, so it was, you know, like a real office job. Like, we had a meeting every morning at 9 a.m. Just remember it was like brutal for me. That seems so, I like, I found that really difficult.

I'm not a warning person. So, like, getting up and I would arrive every day at, like, 9.03 or 902. And my boss would be like, you have to be here before nine to be ready for the nine o'clock meeting. And I was like, oh. And so I started writing Cleopatra and Frankenstein in my evenings and on my weekends while doing that job. And then I applied for an MFA. And that, just in case anyone doesn't know, that's... It's a master's program.

It's two years. Yeah. And it's kind of like a novel writing course. Like, you don't have to work on a novel. You can do short stories, but I studied fiction. You can do poetry, nonfiction or creative nonfiction is becoming more popular. Did you have to pay for that in New York? Or did you fund it?

Did you manage to... I got a fellowship, actually. So part of the fellowship is that I taught poetry in a hospital. And then, yeah, it was incredible. And then I was given a stipend. There's a huge cluster of pigeons. Do you know what? The thing about pigeons.

I know they have a bad rep. They need a better PR. They really do. And they can be a bit pushy, but they've got a great sound to them. They do have a lovely cooing sound and they have this kind of peacock colouring on their necks. I feel for them because they get the voice of the dove but not the looks. I know, I know. Amos at one stage. Amos at one stage.

I was, yeah, who was my craft teacher and I could talk about Martin Amos all day. I love Martin Amos. Martin Amos so much. And actually, when I started taking his class, I did not love Martin Amos, because I thought his work was pretty sexist, to be honest. I loved his writing, but it's hard to love writing and also not, and feel like, oh God, like, why do you have to depict women so poorly? You know, why do you have to objectify them so much? Why do they always have to sort of appear this way? And he really reckoned with that. He talked to us about it in class. Yeah, he was, I thought he was just brilliant, like absolutely brilliant as a teacher. I really, really love. him. I'd never ever had a teacher who made me think about language the way that he did. He used to say that it was Promethean. It was like stealing fire from the gods to be able to tell stories and he was incredible because he was he wasn't like a know-it-all but he was just he did know it all so he just like he would say things like you can't say a dilapidated hedge because dilapidated comes from lapis which means stone so dilapidated has to talk about a building

or a structure and he was like even if on a conscious level you don't know why it doesn't sound right. On an unconscious level, something in your ear, it will chime wrong to you. And your job as the writer is to understand like unconsciously why something sounds good or bad and make it conscious.

And that's how you get in control of your craft. That's how you become a master of writing. I know. Pretty, I mean, like, doesn't that make you just want to go and take a lot? I was like, it was so inspiring. How inspiring? I know, and he was funny.

and he just, I don't know, he just, I really adored him. I loved the way he lived his life. He was completely besotted by his wife. He loved his children. He was evidently a really nice dad, which I think, he loved being a dad. I don't know, I just thought he was a wonderful teacher. I feel really, really lucky that I got to study with him. I always felt with him as well.

There was no cynicism behind it in the way that I don't feel there is with you that came from a passion. And when it comes from a genuine passion for words, wanting to tell a story, I think that's sort of when the magic happens. You're so right, because I think he's someone, I thought he was cynical based on his early novels. And maybe he was when he was younger, but he's someone who was very much,

from my limited, extremely limited interactions with him of being his student, I felt that he was someone who was tenderized by time as opposed to were braided by it. And so he was softer, I think, as an older man. And as a result, I think, of having a house. marriage and having his children. You know, he didn't, I was this, actually, I listened to lots of interviews with him

and I was listening to his early Desert Island discs. And he was pretty, people were pretty harsh to him. You know, there was quite a lot of vitriol and jealousy lobbied against him, which I hadn't realised. And I think he sort of had to harden a little bit to deal with that. Well, I think he was the original Nepo baby, of course. Yeah. And I remember there used to be a running joke in literary sense.

circles and my dad would always say this which is oh what are you reading my struggle by martin amos that was the joke but do you know something you think he didn't have to do that though he could have just spent kingsley's money or been a drunk or do you know what i mean actually they're probably one of the i think there's like three examples of children of writers becoming writers because actually like nepotism usually works best when it requires a little effort on behalf of the person receiving the nepotism which is why like DJ, model, actor, I would say are good examples of industries which allow for nepotism to kind of run Rife. Right seems a little bit tougher. The bar to entry is pretty low to become like a model.

I mean, if genetically you are like gifted enough to have sort of had beautiful parents. Whereas to write a book, you can't really fake that. And to write a good one, a really good one, which Rotton Amos did. And then write two more, three more, five more, ten more. I mean... Arguably also in his case, and I know everyone, but arguably to even write better books than Amos Pear, you know, and who I think is also a brilliant writer, but I just think,

anyway, listen, I'm going to stop talking about Martin Amos, but I want to talk, we're here to talk about you, but I just think that's extraordinary that you had that experience, and it meant so much to you. And so we should go back to when the Cleopatra and Frankenstein book, I was also interested that you're very much a gardener rather than an architect when it comes to writing, because you, and again, I love this, because you hear about these writers where they're like,

normally people who write detective novels, to be honest, when I sit down and then I plot everything and I get to it and then I start writing it and you're like, oh no, I don't know what's going to happen to these people. No. No, always surprised. And it's quite a hard way of working. And I'm in the middle of my third book at the moment. My third book, I know the final scene. I wrote it fairly early on. But everything else, I know. just feeling around in the dark. And I forgot what it feels like to not know so much about a story. Because for years with Cleopatra and Frankenstein,

I didn't know how it ended. I didn't know Cleo's backstory for like, I think three and a half years. I just didn't know her and I couldn't find it. And so I had to just sort of write around it for a long time until I could finally get to the center of her. And it just took a long time. It really did. and I remember I never ever felt sure that I would even finish the book, you know, let alone be able to publish it.

Because it felt so sort of sprawling and I didn't feel in control of it ever. I never knew the shape it was going to be. I never knew what character I was going to write next. And I felt a bit like I thought writers were meant to be a bit more in control. This felt a little bit like the runaway horse that I was just holding onto the main trying to jump back on. but I mean one of the nice things I think is that once you've written one book even though every time I'm teaching myself from scratch

how to write the novel I'm working on and that is intimidating I do you know my third book right now I feel so kind of lost in the centre of it but I was like I've written two books you know I have done it and that first one was really hard and the second one was hard in a different way and so I'm sort of like I'll probably odds are I can do it again

I don't know it will be any good but I can probably finished another book. And that's comforting. You were getting feedback. You didn't have an agent, did you, originally? You were just sending that manuscript off and you were getting feedback, but did it get rejected a few times? It got rejected by agents first. I think I sent it to nine or 10 agents. And actually, I had an agent. Oh, I'd love to speak to those agents. I know that's wrong with me. But am I allowed? Do you know what, though? Just a little, look what you could have But do you know what I said? There's so many of them took the time to write such nice responses.

I will say like one of the things I learned in the MFA is the difference between a soft and a hard rejection. Oh, and a hard rejection. I need that for relationships. Yes, they're really useful. It's really because you have to like, because you get a lot of rejection. So you have to learn how to sort of categorize them rather than see them all as the same. So hard rejection is when either someone just doesn't even read the work or just categorically is like, this isn't for us. like it's not working.

What if they ghost you? I feel like that's a different kind of. I think actually that's one of the hardest things as a writer to deal with is just being ignored and that's a very real part sometimes of being a writer. Like I remember thinking like oh God getting a bad review

I'd give anything to just get a review. You tell me. Then I did get a bad review and I was like actually I'd rather have not been reviewed. Yeah. There we go. Well it's only when you write that you understand how you should never do that to someone. No.

And that's I think what I would say So I got passed over by quite a few agents. Many of them took the time to write very kind notes, knowing, I mean, there are lots of debut writers trying to get an agent, and I felt that they treated debuts with a lot of consideration and sensitivity, I felt. And so a lot of them were soft rejections, which was like, they were like, the characters are working.

You know, there's a lot I love, but, you know, I'm not really looking for a book in this genre right now, or whatever the reason is. or I have something somewhat similar that I'm trying to sell right now. And then I eventually did get an agent, and we worked on the book for a year together. So you worked on it with the agent? Yeah, we would go back and forth. She gave me feedback.

And then we sent it out to 15 publishers in the UK and 15 in the US, and all 30 passed. Including my current publisher, Fourth of State, except what happened is it was an editor at the time called Helen Garnens Williams, who is an amazing editor, and she wrote this beautiful response saying, like, I loved this and I loved that. And she was like, Coco hasn't quite caught up to her own ambition yet. So she's sort of tried to write a book that's doing this, and I love that she took a big swing,

but the second half doesn't really work, you know? And she's the only editor that asked for my phone number, and she called me, which I think is amazing, given I now know what editors do and how busy they are and how many people they have to take care of who would you know their actual client let alone people submitting unsolicited yeah oh no it was it was through an agent at that stage but still she doesn't know me

she doesn't know me anything she's to have a relationship with you or met with you you know and editors are doing so much all the time you know like they're stretched in so many different directions they're all wearing a million hats and she called me up and we spoke on the phone and she was so sweet she just she's this lovely voice and she said I can't imagine how disappointed you must be feeling right now to have written such a beautiful book and to have not had anyone by it.

And I was like, I am feeling disappointed, Helen. I was trying not to cry on the phone. And then she said, you know, here's what I'm thinking and tell me if you agree and maybe if you want to try to make these changes and you can submit it again and I'll read it again. And that changed my life. And you submitted it and did she get back and say, okay?

She bought it. Yeah. And that's why I'm at fourth estate. Cleopatra and Frankenstein became one of those books. It was just like you said, it was a kind of genuine word of mouth, have you read this book? And one thing that can't have hurt you, and you know what I'm going to say, was when Carrie Bradshaw popped up with it as her reading matter on and just like that. Can't have hurt me as the reason I can die happy, please. Best thing that's ever happened to me. Who needs a Pulitzer?

Were you, did you know, did they, do they ring you beforehand and say, by the way, because they have to get the rights permission from you, did they? Their prop stylist called and said, oh, would you mind sending over one of the books? But then, early in the season, she was seen carrying a different author's book. Actually, another fourth estate author. Okay. Yeah, which I was happy for him, but I remember he posted about it. I'm not happy for him.

I'm furious. And he was like, he said, like, oh, wow, this is so cool. Like, I'm so flattered. Like, I've never really watched the show, but that's great. and I was like, fuck. And so I assumed they had chosen this other writer's book, which I was like, oh, you know. You got the bedroom.

And then, yes, and then later on, I had no idea then it was her reading it in bed. And, like, I have watched every single episode of Sex and the City. I don't even know how many times. I'm pretty much always watching it in my head. You're basically like someone in it at this point. I feel like, I am living in the show in my mind. I can close my eyes at any time and just watch an episode.

Like, you could give me any life. from any episode I could tell you what line comes back. That's such a Charlotte thing to say. But you did that genuinely affect sales a moment like that then? Do you know what? I don't know. I really don't because it was the

hardback cover in the US which is the less known cover. But I don't really, for me I'm like it's such a rebellious thing you know? It's like what makes a book there's something about being in the culture you know being feeling out in the world. Like

that ends up feeling that creates sales but who knows how it's not always a direct line between one thing and the other well it was an absolutely wonderful book and i i think what i loved about it was your just everything it's your skill at creating character the detail it was one of those books that i kept writing things down my dad used to do that with funny enough how weird with martin amos books a lot yeah he'd write them in pencil and i i would write down things that i lie and I think, oh, that's true. Things that make you think. You know, and there's always a sign of a great book

that I will stop reading it to make a note of that. I do that too. There were so many lovely observations you made. I think you write so beautifully, and I think your characters are so vivid and so real. And that relationship, I don't want to spoil it in case anyone hasn't read it, though. But how perfect that ending was as well.

And there's a point in it when it shifts perspective to someone else. And the whole tone changes. She's this kind of, very sort of New York, Jewish, funny, smart woman. And suddenly you feel like you're listening to sort of a SNL writer. And I loved how her character came through that, the writing tone, the tone shift. And I think, oh, I'm in her world now. Yeah. It was so, I think that book, like, because I felt like I wasn't sure I would ever write another novel, and it had taken me so long, it was a real experience of, like, throwing everything I had into it. So I was writing in third person for most of the book, and then I wanted to try these sections in first person, and I wanted them to feel like almost like standout comedy, like you said, where it's very, very punchliney, very bouncy, there's sort of a joke and there's all this humour.

I'm really funny as well. She's hilarious. And then underneath that is this sadness that's being covered up, you know? And they don't cancel each other out. Like she is funny and she does have, I think, this character, Eleanor, this buoyancy about her that was, she's probably the closest to my own perspective when I was writing. So it was really pleasurable to include her in the book, even though she has many things that we don't, you know, we don't have in common at all. But I also, I wanted to have that tone shift in the book because I think I was trying to. to write a book that felt like it was sort of prismic and captured all the sort of tones that

exist inside of me, even though the book is not a reflection of me as a person in terms of my own biography. So I'm glad I did it, but I remember my teacher, my teacher called Rick Moody, who would say, don't put everything into your first book, save some of it for the later books. Because he was like, you realize as you get older, like, you know, it's not infinite. Like, you do have a finite amount of things that you want to work with as a writer? and I really felt like I put everything in the kitchen so that get to Cleopadger and Frankenstein. But luckily, I don't feel like I'm running out of material yet.

Oh, a little kid just fell over. Do you think we should help them? Oh. Oh, we just saw a little one fall over. Oh, sweet things. Please bounce back up. I want to talk about your next book, which focuses on the lives of, well, four sisters, I'm going to say.

And the three sisters. surviving sisters and how they navigate the loss of their sibling. And it's such a brilliant book. Again, these characters just absolutely live off the page. It really struck a chord with me this book because I lost my sister. Oh no, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that. How long ago? She died back in 2012, she died. So it was really... It was actually very cathartic reading it. I was. Yeah.

I'm glad to hear that. Was she your older or younger sister? She was my older sister. And there was 22 months between us and we were... That's the same as me and my sister. Well, I've read about your relationship with your sister. The way you write about sisters in this book, which you should introduce the book and then we'll talk formally. Well, yeah, Blue Sisters is the story of three remaining sisters, as you said, on the one-year anniversary of their fourth sister's death.

and they are extremely different sisters all in one family. So the youngest, lucky, is a model living in Paris. And the middle sister, Bonnie, is a boxer living in L.A. who sort of had this defeat and is now working as a bouncer. And Avery, the eldest, is a lawyer living in London. Yeah. And their third sister, Nikki, was a teacher living in New York who has died unexpectedly in a really tragic and just awful way.

And so the book is really about, it's about grief, I would say, and it's about, I think it's about falling back in love with life in the wake of loss. And sort of understanding of the thing that you fear most has happened, the person you love most has gone. How do you make meaning out of your life going forward? Yeah. You write very well about grief, I think. And you write everything that you wrote about, I personally had kind of, experienced in some way and I thought oh no have you had experience about yourself or was it just something that because you you feel there were so many things you wrote about where it was like

that idea of accepting that you'll never stop missing them is kind of the key to it all in a way was that something that you researched or you'd had some experience of and how did you get into our heads basically the ones who've lost a sibling I don't know how it I wish I could describe it better. I do think there's something kind of magic that happens in writing for me when I am writing the right story. Right. Which is like I don't speak any other languages, for example.

And I find learning other languages really hard. And I witness sometimes people who are easy with languages who can just pick them up and they have this facility. And they can't explain why it's easy for them, but it is. And I think for me, like, I speak like character fluently. Like if I am working with the right characters, I understand them. I can't explain it, even if they've had very, very different life experiences to me. I can feel them.

And my mum lost her father when she was 10. And my grandmother before that lost her brother when she was young in the war. And I do think there's something about, you know, I was a seed inside of my mother, inside of my grandmother, you know? And I remember when my mum read the first draft of Bluesterstein. she said like how did you know like how did you know that that's what it feels like after someone died yeah because I had experienced loss but I wouldn't say I've experienced tragedy like tragic loss and that's what this book is about is loss that goes against the natural order of life that makes you think like how can I keep living life

if it's this random if it's this sort of wrong you know like how can I keep going if I can't have faith in the things will happen in the right way you know and I'm not sure I just I I'm not sure how I how I knew but when I was writing it I can't explain it I could just feel it I could just feel it in the sisters and then I've talked openly about the fact I had a miscarriage while working on the book in the kind of final stages of the draft and that's why I wrote the ending which I won't share what it is but I read the ending in the wake of that right and So my own experience of loss did seep in in this way

that was really unexpected when I had written the vast majority of the book. It's often difficult to write your second book because there's pressure, isn't there? But this book has been just as praised and just as successful. And how did that feel? Was there a sense of, did you have a sense of, I suppose, trepidation when you were approaching it? You know, I've got to say, I have it now with my third book,

but I sold Cleopatra and Frankenstein to one publisher in the US and one publisher in the UK for not a huge sum of money so I had to keep working as a copywriter so I didn't have this like big shiny book sale uh oh one of them cliss old ones

do you know dog drama that man said that man said stay away from them dogs it's one of them cliss old ones like a fancy what's a cliss old one do you think raise a club one of them pliss old ones

I hope not strange. I know. Doggy drama. Well, I've been talking to you for so long and I just could talk to you for ages. I know me too. You're such a fascinating, talented, extraordinary woman. Oh, you're a really lovely interviewer. Your questions are really thoughtful. So nice. I love walking as well. We love them. Well, it's been very cold today, but I wanted to congratulate you on two absolutely brilliant books and I also, feel I like you and everything I read about you and I like you and I've met you in person because I know this sounds weird but I sort of feel I love your approach the way I think there's like an old soul in you like the way you approach writing sort of feels quite traditional an old school I feel quite traditional yes in the ways to recognise you know what I mean it's like this writing thing has become a bit more of an assembly line where it's like get the brand, get the followers,

get the, hey guys, new book dropping. And I just don't get that energy at all for me. That it's almost, I see you as a bit more of a sort of F Scott Fitzgerald and you're, I've got to get this right. It might take seven years. He's one of my biggest inspirations. And actually, I think about that a lot

with my third book because it's due somewhat soon and my publicist from board the same is here. But I'm like, I don't know that I'm going to hand it on time. We'll see you. Yeah, she looks a little planet whenever we mention it. But let's cross over there. I'm working on it and I love it but I and it's in Paris isn't it? It's said in Paris and then there's actually a dual timeline I now realize so it's set in

Paris and also in New York and LA but I one of the things I feel is I'm trying to write books that will be read by people who haven't been born yet you know that's really the goal is to write books the same way that I'm reading Martin Amos and he's now dead so it's not a book that I want someone to read and then leave in the hotel room afterwards you know I want them to bring it home with them even though it's heavy and it's in their luggage because they love it and they want to reread it or they want to give it to someone and that for me it's if it takes it two years five years seven years like that's not that long in the scope of how long you want the book to last for they're permanent things books and you want it to stay in

someone's heart as well I think I want to feel you know no book is ever perfect Cleopatra and Frankenstein for me was such a book of my 20s like some parts of that book I'm like I'm so proud of that novel and some parts of it I'm like I would have done it really differently now you know like but I I can stand by that book because I was with it for so long yeah and I'm still talking about it you know 10 years after I started writing it so you have to feel pretty yeah I'm like there's no point rushing it because I have to be able to keep sort of standing with the work and and being with it for many years after I'm done so I try to really take my time with Well, people always say that when they talk about what you're creating.

And we do have much more of a tendency now to sort of mass-produce content, whether it's podcasts or books or social media posts. And I think it's so interesting. I always say whenever you're creating anything, you think there weren't many episodes of the office. Would you rather make the office or Love Island? Exactly. I love what you've written about sisters.

And it can be kind of weird when you've written about a subject like this. I was reluctant to tell you that I'd lost my sister because I think, oh, is that a weird space for you to be in hearing that? But do you know, I wanted you to know how lovely it was for me to read that? To be honest, that is the most meaningful interaction I ever have with any readers. I was walking down the street two days ago and a woman had my book. She had just picked it up from the library and she went, oh, I'm holding your book. And she had her baby with her.

We just had very quick. I was like, that's amazing. Thanks for reading it. And then she messaged me to say she'd lost her sister. last year. And I felt like it's the, for me, I just, I mean, I'm going to cry because I love my sister so much, you know, and we're so incredibly close. I just, I can't imagine what you went through. And the idea that I could help someone feel that, like you said, catharsis, like this sense of being connected to something greater through writing. It's the most meaningful,

beautiful thing to do with my life. I want to show you a picture of my sister. Yeah, I love to see. And I loved when you when you talked about you wrote it you've spoken about your sister as well. Yeah. I love the sound of her because you've got that closeness. And you write about how sisters, it's not like friends. It's not. It's not. It's not as neat as friendship. It's so much messier, I think.

And it's complicated. And sometimes as you've said, they can drive you nuts, can't they? More than anyone else on earth. I always said about my sister she was the fellow witness to my life and it's not like any other relationship because I didn't know a world without her in it

and the same as me whereas I think well my parents did know a world without us in it but that's the thing you have in common that was us on her wedding day so she's a bit more like you oh my god she's so gorgeous I take that as a huge compliment but you know what's interesting

I think of that there's something you said the book which really touched me where you talk about thinking about those qualities that you have and how you shape your identity a bit to fit the edges of your sibling. Yeah. And I was really struck by that and I thought you're so, that's such an interesting point because I probably was a lot spikier and tougher when my sister was alive because she was so gentle and soft.

And since she's died, I think I've become a bit more vulnerable and softer. and you think, well, that's lovely. But it struck me. So much stuff you said resonated. So thank you. That really means a lot to me. And I really agree with that feeling of taking shape around, especially when you're younger.

I think when you're the younger sister, you kind of move around the bigger sister. And it's a wonderful thing, but it's also, sometimes it doesn't always bring out the version of you that you like the best. You know, like you saying being spiky with your sister, in a way that maybe you're not now that it's you. You're not spiky, are you? I think I can be with our families.

I think we're not always our best selves. You know, that's sort of the, I don't know if I'm spiky with my family. I think I probably can be, actually. I need to let you go now. Before I let you go, what's the thing you most hope people would say about you when you leave a room? And what do you most fear they would say about you? What I hope that they would say,

say is, oh, she made me feel so good. She made me feel so good about myself. That's something I think. Like, I really believe that sort of Tony Morrison quote, like people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they'll never forget the way you made them feel. And so I hope I leave people with a feeling of themselves being, you know, better as a result of their interaction. I guess what I would fear the most, if I was really honest, what is it that I fear the most that people would say about me. Maybe that, like, she's not, like, that I was inauthentic, I think, would be the thing I would feel, like, if someone thought I was like, but actually, I just really know I'm not.

But that would be my biggest fear is being perceived that way as, like, I think I try very hard. Actually, you know, what I think would be the realest thing is that you could probably see how hard I try to be liked. I don't fear it that much because it's true. So I think, like, all right, if you saw it, fine, you've seen the trick. I am trying hard to be liked. Most of us are.

Most is it if we're female. I know it's almost as if I'm a woman. Well, Coco, I can officially reveal that Ray absolutely does like you. Oh, I hope so, because he's all shivery. He was very cold, but it's really cheered him up seeing you today. I hope so. Oh, hopefully he goes and has a nice long nap because he had a scary time early. He had a scary time with a big dog, but then he had a lovely time with a good dog.

But then he had a lovely time with Coco. Then you got snuggled with us. And you got snuggled. And you got wrapped in Mummy's cashmere scarf. Can you say goodbye to Coco? And thank you for flying over from New York to see us, Coco. Just for you. And now I'm getting right back on the plane.

That's what I'm telling me. Shush. Bye-bye, Coco. Bye. Thank you. Thank you for walking with me. I really hope you enjoyed that episode of Walking the Dog. We'd love it if you subscribed.

And do join us next time on Walking the Dog wherever you get your podcasts.