This Writing Life

The final part of our epic chat with Richard Russo asks an epic question: what has it been like to write novels for 30 years? Having chewed over that question we move onto some other big topics, including posterity, death and what comes next (not the afterlife, just what is Russo's next project). 
Finally, we ask: will there be another chapter to Donald Sullivan's adventures? Everybody's Fool is available everywhere right now. We urge you to read it at once.

'This is not an attempt on my part to portray myself as anything like a prophet. I simply was born somewhere...I got to bear witness to something that was tremendously important to me and my family.'
In this fourth and penultimate This Writing Life interview with Richard Russo, we begin with the fictional small-town of Bath that is found in both Nobody's Fool and its sequel Everybody's Fool. Russo discusses his own personal and artistic relationship with small-town life, taking in his childhood in Gloversville and how it has informed much of his work. From here we meander towards death, in fiction and life, with a cheerier side-track marked: how to begin a novel?

'I have always been a meanderer. I have always loved digression.'
So says Richard Russo in part three of This Writing Life's conversation with the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. We approach the subject of comic meandering, initially as a way to explore through narrative ideas of luck, fate and free will. We digress through a peroration about self-made men, including President Donald Trump, and Brexit towards a deeper consideration of digression in Russo's new novel, Everybody's Fool, and his work as a whole. (A small warning: the final four minutes of this interview contain a spoiler alert about the end of Everybody's Fool).

Part two of This Writing Life's conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo begins with the idea of sequels: his new novel, Everybody's Fool is a follow-up to Russo's masterpiece, Nobody's Fool. What are the risks of continuing a story that is not just admired but loved? Did Russo intend to write a sequel to Donald 'Sully' Sullivan's adventures. What made him return in the first place? What was it like to revisit characters who were created over 20 years before?

Part 1 of This Writing Life's interview with the great American comic writer begins in media res. Russo is telling me about signing 9000 copies of his new novel, Everybody's Fool, in a warehouse in Maryland. Russo has recovered enough to discuss the idea of signed copies and what to do with his own personal archive.

For the 100th episode of This Writing Life, we celebrate with a very special instalment. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Richard Russo reads from his wonderful, warm, funny and mordant new book Everybody's Fool. A sequel to one of our favourite novels - 1993's Nobody's Fool - it returns the reader to the life, opinions and travails of Donald 'Sully' Sullivan in the small upstate New York town of North Bath.
In this scene from the distant past (the character Wirf Saks has died by Everybody's Fool), Sully and Wirf settle down in the local bar to discuss the sex addiction of the irrepressible Carl Roebuck.
Enjoy.

The final part of This Writing Life's interview with Matt Haig (about Christmas, mental health, the internet) begins with Magic Tweets (about Rupert Murdoch), Tweeting addiction and the inveterate competitiveness of writers.

Part 3 of This Writing Life's interview with Matt Haig changes tack from memories of Christmas past to consider Matt's experience of depression that inspired his non-fiction memoir Reasons to Stay Alive. We begin by discussing general attitudes towards mental health, not least among politicians, before exploring the effect that Reasons to Stay Alive has had on Matt and his readers.

A very happy new year to all! We open 2017 by returning back to 2016. This Writing Life's interview with Matt Haig was a game of two halves. For the first 45 minutes, we discussed Christmas, inspired by his excellent festive children's story, A Boy Called Christmas. In the second half, we turned our attention to depression inspired by Matt's excellent memoir about depression, anxiety and his own experience of mental illness, Reasons to Stay Alive. In this short taster, Matt recalls how reading helped him in the early days of recovery: what he read and what he found he could not read.
Part 3 and 4 will follow.

Part two of This Writing Life’s special Christmas interview with Matt Haig (for his Christmas fable A Boy Called Christmas) starts with the magic of stockings at the end of the bed, continues as a litmus test of Haig’s childhood happiness and heads towards the Haig family rituals. There are memories of teenage bad behavior before a return to Christmas as seen through the eyes of Haig’s own children. Haig talks films (above all, It’s a Wonderful Life) and books, before we explore the ‘Father’ of ‘Father Christmas’. There are discussions about festivity and feeling good, commerce at Christmas and what presents mean. Matt talks about balancing light and dark in A Boy Called Christmas for American audiences, before we end with how to survive the most wonderful time of the year.
A new year part 3 to follow in 2017.

Matt Haig has many and diverse talents. Children's author, Young Adult novelist, non-fiction bestseller, for his extraordinary book on depression, Reasons to Stay Alive. Over the past two years, he has added Christmas storyteller to his CV. First with A Boy Called Christmas (2015), and now a sequel: The Girl Who Saved Christmas. 

In a postscript to This Writing Life's interview chat with Rebecca Thornton, about her debut novel The Exclusives, we talk about her writing life: loneliness, drawing the curtains during the day, chatting at the school dates, disconnecting from Facebook, procrastination, Massive Attack, writing with two young sons desperate to bthe laptop. Most importantly she answers the question: do you like writing?

Part 3 of Rebecca Thornton's interview with This Writing Life begins with a discussion of the Faber Academy writing course, which kickstarted the composition of her debut novel, The Exclusives. After some kind words about Esther Freud and Tim Lott (see part one for more about Tim), Rebecca talks about how the course works, including the terror of reading her romantic comedy in front of her class.

Part two of This Writing Life's conversation with Rebecca Thornton, about her debut novel The Exclusives, begins with a discussion of what perfection means to her characters. This is not something we know much about at This Writing Life. But anyway. Rebecca compares her feelings as a teenager to what perfection means to her today as a writer and mother.

Rebecca Thornton's The Exclusives is a debut novel: a thriller about friendship, paranoia, success and secrets set in an all-girls boarding school. This Writing Life didn't need a second invitation to talk to Rebecca at her publishers in central London.