Ilona joins me today to chat about her incredible new novel Five. I couldn’t wait to chat to Ilona about it; I mean check this hook out: Five passengers, five, stories, five minutes until someone dies. Who do you want it to be? Brilliant isn't it and I can tell you it is a fantastic read one that should be read in a group!

This is a story about judgment. About empathy. About the hidden lives we never see and in this episode Ilona share what drew her to this premise as we discuss the themes of how we view strangers and the assumptions we make.

This conversation dives into:

• Moral decision-making under extreme pressure
• The psychology of judgment and bias
• The importance of empathy in everyday interactions
• The lived experiences of mothers and individuals navigating neurodiversity
• How real-world moments can inspire compelling fiction

Books that shaped Ilona

Of course, no episode of Best Book Forward is complete without book recommendations. Here are the books that have shaped Heidi, you’ll find links to buy below:

• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden
• Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
• Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith

Also recommended by Ilona:

Unschooled by Caro Giles

I’ll be back next week with another author conversation, and I’d love for you to join me for that too.

In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review Best Book Forward, and don’t forget to tell your friends... it really helps new listeners discover the show.

See you tomorrow, and happy listening.

Listen & Subscribe Now:

https://best-book-forward.captivate.fm/listen

To stay in touch with Best Book Forward news please follow me on Instagram @bestbookforward or visit my website: https://bestbookforward.org/

Welcome back to Best Book Forward.

I'm your host, Helen, and this is the podcast where I chat to authors about the books that have shaped their lives.

Think of it as your bookish version of Desert Island Discs.

I have a quick question to ask.

Have you subscribed to Best Book Forward yet?

I know everyone asks this, but it really does make a huge difference.

It helps more book lovers discover the show and means you'll never miss an episode.

Episode.

It's completely free and you just need to tap wherever you're listening.

Right on to today's guest.

Today I'm delighted to be joined by Ilona Bannister.

Ilona was previously a dual qualified U.S. attorney and UK immigration solicitor before turning to fiction.

And in this episode she shares why that Perth turned out to be the perfect training for her writing career.

Today we're talking about her latest novel, Five, which is out on the 5th of May, so you've still got time to pre order.

It's a brilliant, high concept read with a gripping hook.

Five passengers, five stories and five minutes until someone dies.

The question is, who do you want it to be?

You intrigued?

You should be.

Okay, let's do it.

Let's jump straight in and give Ilona a warm welcome to the show.

Ilona, thank you so much for joining me today.

I'm sorry.

So excited to have you here.

Thank you so much for having me.

I am really excited too.

I can't wait to chat.

Well, I was just saying to you, I am so excited to talk to you about your brilliant new novel 5, which comes out on the 5th of May.

It is an incredible read.

I'm going to be forcing everyone to pick this one up because it is brilliant.

So do you want to start by giving listeners an idea of what they can expect when they pick up Five?

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Helen.

That means a lot coming from you because I know how much you read.

So I really appreciate you saying that.

So Five, it's.

It's a pretty simple story.

We have five passengers waiting for a train to Victoria and in five minutes one of them will die.

It is five chapters, five characters, five lives and we have five minutes to decide who you feel based on what you know about their lives, deserves to die.

That's really the premise of the story.

And I just said to you, it is so clever.

It is such a clever.

I mean, I think even if this book isn't recommended to you and you see it and see this premise, people are going to just have to pick it up.

It just demands to Be read.

So let's talk about that premise and the inspiration.

So, as you said, we've got five passengers, five stories, five minutes until somebody asks, who do you want it to be?

So, yeah.

Where did the idea come from?

Was it hook versus trains?

Where did it all start to fall into place for you?

Well, I was sitting on a London bus on the upper deck, and it just sort of occurred to me.

I was trying to think of my next story idea, and I just was looking around and I thought, well, if we tipped this bus out and we made everybody stand in a line and then you started asking for everyone's life story, you wouldn't believe what people would tell you.

There would be extraordinary tragedy, There would be incredible triumph, there would be separation, there would be loss, there would be joy, there would be birth, there would be death, There would be.

I mean, it would be so much more fantastic than any book that you could ever write.

Just the life stories of the people sitting around you, which you'll never hear.

That same week, there was a very tragic cycling accident near where I lived.

So I used to live in South London, and there were a lot of people who cycled along a very big intersection on their way to central London to work.

And it was in rush hour and a cyclist was killed on impact.

And it happened in a place that I walked every day.

And the neighborhood I lived in was very much one of young families, lots of moms who you would see around because they were at home with children, lots of dads who were cycling to work.

And I had a moment of shock when I heard about it because I thought, hang on, that could be anyone.

I know that could be my own husband.

And I just was thinking about the street that that person had been on.

And they had said goodbye that morning, not knowing that was the last time.

And they were cycling down this road.

The things they were looking at, the things they were thinking about, not knowing that that was the last five minutes of their life.

And those two ideas just suddenly came together.

When I was sitting on the bus, I just thought, wow, what if it's the last five minutes?

What if you're in public?

What if you don't know it's coming?

What if you do know it's coming because you can see it?

What would you do?

What would you think?

What would you say?

So that's.

That's where the idea came from.

That's really moving, actually, because it is.

Those moments, you know, we don't know.

I mean, I often say, you don't know what Tomorrow will bring.

But you don't know, like it can.

It can turn like that cyclist.

So really tragic story, but interesting then that you would take that and sort of start to sort of build it into this incredible story.

So.

And I love that you just said that about the bus because it's what sort of made me think about this.

So Five sort of plays with the idea of how we have these people around us all the time.

And as uncomfortable as it can be to admit, sometimes we're making judgments on who they.

I'm a real people watcher.

Like, I love to watch.

And I do like to make up stories of who I think is who.

Where they're going, what their lives like in my head.

But Five looks at it and sort of looks at these assumptions.

And I would love to know other than that.

So what was that then?

When did you start to want to draw deeper into these strangers?

Because with Five we sort of see them on the platform and then we see their backstories.

What made you want to sort of dive more into strangers and the way we perceive them?

Well, I'm a big people watcher too.

Yes.

And my sort of.

The places I always draw characters from are public transport.

That's always been a big one for me.

My entire life, I have always been on some kind of public transport.

Supermarkets became very important to me when I became a mother.

Right.

You see all kinds of things in stores, supermarket.

And you can tell so many things about people by what is in the cart.

So I always find those public spaces to be a real source of drawing on human life and human portraits.

The characters.

I think what came to me first was the voice, the narrator's voice, talking to us about this very thing, challenging us about how we judge other people just from how they appear to be behaving, what they're wearing, how they're speaking when they're around us.

I thought the idea of the social contract that we have in public spaces, that we all behave a certain way on a train platform and when someone's not behaving that way, the assumptions we jump to and what it might mean, the characters.

Though I'm not an outliner, you know, we always have the two camps of writers.

I'm very organic and I sort of wait to hear the characters come to me and tell me what they want to do.

So I didn't even realize that I was also writing about mothers.

I had set out to write a book that was different to my previous two books, but the mother characters, because there's a mother and son story.

In each of the five stories, I sort of.

I was doing it subconsciously.

So I think for me, motherhood will always be a thread somewhere in my characters.

But otherwise they started coming to me.

As I wrote one, the others started appearing.

That's amazing.

I love everything you've just said there.

And I got all excited and sort of threw my brain off.

So when you're saying it's different from your other books, I've read your debut, When I Ran Away, which I love, and I've got little prisons to enjoy as well.

I'd hope to read it before we chatted, but I ran out of time, unfortunately.

But I think five is also different to many things I've read.

It feels very fresh and it's such an interesting.

And it's.

I just think this book has to be a book club choice because the more people are talking about it.

When you were saying like the mothers, I was like, oh, I just would love to sit in a group of people and sort of hear what everyone's picking out about it all.

And you mentioned the narrator as well, so.

So which sort of brings me on to talk about the structure of the book.

So we have this narrator who sort of challenges us to sort of think about what we're seeing, who we think is going to die.

And then the seeds are on the platform so we know something's about to happen.

There's a bit of chaos.

Everyone's sort of reacting different ways.

And then we go back into the backstory of one of the characters to sort of discover who they are.

And that sort of challenges what we originally perceived about them.

How was.

Was that always your plan to write it in that sort of format?

And did it sort of give you any challenges to sort of go backwards and forwards?

Because you actually give us quite a deep dive into each character.

And it's not a huge book, but you learn an awful lot about them all.

So was it a challenge for you?

Well, the idea of the five minutes, once I started doing it, I saw, oh, this is.

This is actually really difficult because.

So like you said, the book is divided into scenes on the platform which last about a minute, and then we go into a backstory to find out more about whoever it is we're focused on.

And the platform scenes were very challenging because I thought, okay, I can do this, but I have to make it plausible.

It's a stretch for us to think all of this could happen in five minutes.

But I will tell you that I timed.

I timed dialogue.

I timed number of steps.

I did as much research about trains and platforms and how they work as I could to make it plausible.

I also played with the idea of five minutes can be a very short time or it can feel like an eternity, especially when we are faced with a crisis like we are on the platform.

So definitely the timing was a.

Was a big challenge.

But I did my very, very best.

I'm sure there's some reader out there who will time it and say that I didn't do it right, but I think an extraordinary amount can actually happen in a very short period of time.

So that part of the structure was very challenging.

It was almost a relief for me to then do a deep dive into a character where I could take my time and explore their life.

But I tried to make the scenes on the platform as chaotic, intense and quick as possible.

But that, yeah, it certainly was.

It certainly was a challenge.

And that's really interesting.

You say about the platform, I just had a vision of you then sort of doing like a one woman show, reenacting it all at your local train station, running around.

But the platform scenes are brilliant because there is this sort of tension, like, and to me, they felt sort of very believable.

And you sort of seeing what everyone's doing, there's chaos and, you know, people.

Oh, it's just brilliant.

It's so, so clever.

Did you write it in order then?

So did you do sort of platform scene, backstory.

Platform scene, or did you do backstories or the whole platform scene first?

How did you sort of actually start?

No, I alternated.

You did?

Yeah, I did the platform and then I would sort of see.

So what I would do is I would see what happened on the platform and who was standing out.

And then if they were standing out, I was like, okay, then it's your turn.

So then we would do the deep dive into them and then we'd go to the next platform and then I would have to go back and see like, okay, what happened.

Okay, good.

So now we're going to make them do some other stuff and see who wants to come out.

So interesting.

Yeah, it is so, so interesting.

I love that.

I love the way you're thinking through that.

Okay, let's talk about the characters and we've spoken about this.

We're going to keep it completely spoiler free.

But what I'm about to tell you is in the blurb, so it's not a spoiler.

So we have five very different characters.

So we have got beautiful Sunny, who is on the verge of Gambling his life away.

We've got successful but damaged businessman liam, furious old Mrs. Worth, the demonic child Gideon and his mother Emma.

All really brilliant characters who will challenge readers in different ways.

So where did the characters come from and how did you give them such distinct voices and backstories?

Because I think that's something that really struck me with the book.

I mean, I just said it.

It's how much we get from each character in, you know, in their chapters.

Because I really felt like I completely understood all of them.

So how was that for you?

One thing I wanted to do was I wanted to make sure that the people on the platform were extremely different from one another.

I wanted to reflect as much as possible the diversity of humanity that you have in a public space, how radically different people are from one another, how similar they are, because they certainly do have things that bind them together.

But I really thought about, okay, if I was really standing on a train platform, how different would each life be that is around me?

So that was my first consideration.

I was also thinking about the balance of men and women.

This is the first time that I've actually really written male characters.

I tended to.

I tend to always really focus on female stories and then within the male stories, they are very female driven stories when you get into them.

But I tried to really.

That was a challenge for me, thinking about different types of men and male characters and how they would behave in this scenario.

So in terms of the.

The voices, I knew I wanted someone old.

I knew that that was important to have an older person, particularly an older woman who's regarded as invisible, which is Mrs. Worth.

I knew that we had to have Emma and Gideon.

So a mother struggling with a difficult child, because that's your typical, very universal among mothers experience of being in public, dealing with a difficult kid.

And then we have Liam, who is a businessman.

We needed.

We needed sort of our corporate commuter type, which we also have among the witnesses who are there and who's left, who have I skipped?

So I've just skipped over.

So we have his mother, Emma, Gideon, Sunny.

Lovely Sunny.

Yes.

And the story of Sunny, that, that.

That's the story that's sort of closest to my heart.

And.

But at the same time, I wanted to make him engaging and interesting.

And.

Yeah, so that's, that's really.

That's really how it came about.

Sort of thinking about a balance of people, a balance of personalities, but also what are some things that we.

Some things that have to be there.

So you have to have the commuter, you have to have A mother and a kid, and you have to have an older woman who maybe we don't see.

It's such a.

You know, I was just thinking.

And you're talking about the balance of them, and I was sort of thinking about you talking about the platform scenes.

And I could see this as a play actually, as well, on stage.

I think it'd be so brilliant with the backstories.

I just want to sort of talk about that a little bit more because it's so interesting to me how they could almost have been their own stories because they're such interesting characters.

How difficult was it for you then?

Because, I mean, we go from sort of childhood to where they are in relatively sort of short amount of time.

How difficult was it for you to sort of condense their life into enough that sort of readers will question the impressions they've made of them and sort of maybe find a sympathy or not for them?

How difficult was that for you?

Well, once I started researching the various sorts of things that were being reflected.

So, for example, like psychopathy, I did a lot of research on psychopaths once I.

Once I started getting into it and understanding where.

Where.

Where those issues originate, where they come from in a person's life.

Once I had that information, the backstories became about explaining why you are seeing what you're seeing on the platform.

Because no one is all good or all bad.

Everyone is layered.

Sometimes people make good decisions and sometimes they make terrible decisions.

And there are reasons for that.

But when we're in public and we don't know them and they're strangers and we happen to see them making a bad decision or having a bad time, is it because they're a bad person?

Maybe.

Or is it because there is a number of events that have happened in their life that have caused them to come to this very situation and be here at this very moment.

And that's the thing that I think is really interesting to write about.

So once I started to understand from researching lots of different psychological profiles that, yes, some we might be born with certain things, certain issues that are difficult to overcome, but there's so much more that goes along with that, that makes us into the people we eventually are.

Once I had a handle on that, I thought, okay, then we're telling this story.

Because how they behave on the platform is one thing, but I want you to know what is making them do that?

And does that change how you feel about them?

Maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't.

And that's kind of the point of the Whole story.

I don't feel that we can dive too much into sort of some of the things that the characters sort of reveal in their past lives because it takes you into spoiler territory.

But you do cover so much and it's so, so interesting.

And you just said how much you did sort of research into different sort of personality types.

How long did you actually have to spend researching the five to sort of get it feels like if you're doing all that sort of reading to psychopaths and everything, was it a long time to sort of pull it all together?

Yes.

I'm a very research heavy writer.

Right.

I don't mean to be, but you know, I used to be a lawyer and I actually think that law school is like the best training ever to be a novelist because I think it's very important to get detail right because that's how you get readers to trust you.

So if you're asking people to suspend disbelief, they have to trust that you do know, you do know what you're talking about, that you are going to take them someplace that is real and that is plausible.

It might be fantastical and we might need to stretch things a little bit.

But for readers to trust you, you have to have done the research or have at least attempted to do it and have tried your very best to get it right.

So what happens with me very often is I'll get an idea and I'll be like, oh, that's a great idea.

But then my lawyer brain takes over and it's like, okay, could that happen?

Is that realistic?

Would that stand up in a court of law?

Where is my evidence that that can happen?

Or that people do act that way, or that that's how that system works.

Because, because I've been in, you know, I've read books or been in situations, or it's happened to all of us where you know a lot about the topic and then you're reading it and you can tell that the writer did not pick up on a specific detail.

And as soon as that happens, you sort of lose interest and you lose trust.

So I want to be sure that I've done my very best for readers in that I have really tried very hard to get it right.

Now I'm not going to get it right all the time, but I want them to at least know that I have tried.

And once that happens, you start going down crazy rabbit holes of all kinds.

I mean, just the most random, random things.

But it's because you have to get that detail right or the reader is going to know and they will go ahead and tell you if you got it wrong.

So the research does.

I do get bogged down in it sometimes, but it's always worth it to me because I think if you get the more of it that you get right, the more trust readers have.

And it's a better book.

It's always better if you have really done the deep dive.

I don't know what this says about me, but I now want to go and Google why pigeons lose their feet.

Tragic.

It's so funny.

Is it?

Don't tell me I'll be sitting here crying over pigeon feet.

It's sweet.

It's sad.

You should pick it up.

Okay, I will do.

On a day I feel strong.

I think that's such an interesting point because you're right.

I think sometimes if you're reading a book and something's missed, it's.

It throws you out because, you know, you want to stay in, in the novel and believe it.

I, I think I am actually probably an author's dream because I'm not particularly a critical reader.

So, you know, you were just saying like if it's on the platform, that conversation, I would.

Unless it's something really jarring, you know, like they have like a 10 minute conversation or something, I wouldn't pick it up.

But what I thought was really interesting then is the sort of balance between the sort of creativity and your legal background of how it's so interesting, isn't it?

Because I do find that quite interesting when I hear authors talking about, you know, what they've done in previous lives or what other work they do.

And quite often there is that sort of balance between the two.

Yeah, yeah.

It's really, it's really informed my writing.

I'm, you know, my career turned and things shifted and life changes.

But I really do feel like that background was the best thing I could have ever done to be a writer.

And that I think that's why you find so many writers were lawyers.

There's something about the two that is

really connects that's amazing.

So your tip to new writers would go and do a law degree.

Go to law school.

Yeah, on it.

So in the book, you are challenging readers to examine their thoughts and perceptions.

That I thought was really clever, uncomfortable, like it wasn't a comfortable sort of feeling to get my moral Dilemmas looked at and sort of think about what I had perceived and about people.

Could you talk to us more about how that was to write?

Because you've done it.

I think the narrator is so clever in this, because without that narrator, you could sort of read it like, oh, well, this one died, whatever.

But that narrator sort of really forces you to examine what you thought.

And for me, it was quite uncomfortable.

Brilliant, but uncomfortable.

It was really fun.

I know it's uncomfortable for everyone because it's really pushing us to admit what we think about other people.

But it was a lot of fun writing that narrator and getting to be the snarky person who is outwardly judging what is happening.

Because in many, you know, in many, many years of commuting to and from work, I've had those thoughts.

Everyone's had those thoughts.

Everyone has seen all sorts of things in public.

I grew up in New York City.

I worked in New York City.

I mean, it just.

It just.

The carnival of life that is New York City.

I mean, there's just so much there that I witnessed throughout a lifetime of subways and buses and ferries and the like.

So it was very fun for once to get to outwardly say the things that we might perhaps be thinking as uncharitable and terrible and judgmental as they are.

But that is human.

It's a very human response.

But to actually be able to say it was fun and then to.

To.

To push readers into.

I. I would, you know, in my real life, I. I would never want to make anyone uncomfortable.

Like, that's.

I'm not that kind of person who asks difficult questions on purpose.

But the narrator does that with the reader.

And I think.

I think that's what will make it good for conversations and good for book clubs.

And it's what makes you think.

And it also makes you pay attention.

You know, making people uncomfortable.

Sometimes we can get very complacent.

Making people uncomfortable, making them think, I think is important.

And it's okay to do that sometimes in fiction.

So I had a great time with the narrator.

I know if it makes you uncomfortable, that's on purpose.

So that's.

That's okay, too.

And it's.

I was thinking about this a lot because we all will make an assumption of somebody we see, particularly if the behavior is not what we're expecting in public.

But what we don't often do is come away and then think about what we thought about that person.

You know, we might in a second think, oh, they must be having a really bad day, poor them.

But.

But to actually sort of sit at the end of this book and the way it's.

I don't want to read it, but the way the narrator sort of talks about at the end of the book doesn't make you feel guilty as such, but it is that it's uncomfortable.

And I think it does sort of help you remember that we need to be a little bit more empathetic.

And as you said at the beginning, or if you took everyone around you, the things they're carrying or they've been through or they're worried about, it just makes us sort of give a little bit more grace to people around us, which at the moment, I think is really what we need.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if we want that to be afforded to us, I think it's important to remember we need to give that back.

And we forget that.

We forget that because, you know, we're rushing around and we're doing the things that we need to do in life, and we're very focused and centered on ourselves or our kids or what is in our immediate universe.

And, you know, we need.

We need some compassion, we need some grace.

Sometimes we're not perfect, but if we want that from people, if we want people to understand us, to be kind to us or a stranger, to help us out in a moment of need, then it's really important to ask ourselves, like, are we doing that?

Am I doing that?

Am I being nice to strangers?

Am I being terrible?

Like, what.

How am I acting today?

Yeah, I think it's important to.

To remind ourselves and to maybe be jarred into it a little bit.

Yeah.

It's so clever how you've done it.

It's so.

I love.

Because I think you could pick this book up and think, oh, it's a thriller.

Or, you know, and I guess there is that sort of element of, you know, that sort of tension, but it's one that I know will stay with me because I think just having to sort of judge myself of what I thought I wanted to happen was very, very uncomfortable, sort of to sort of examine what was going on.

So it's.

It's so clever.

I can't wait for people to pick it up.

I think it should definitely be read in book clubs.

The conversation that's going to be had around this book is just brilliant.

So let's just talk a little bit more about your research, because something you said again in the author's note is that you spent a lot of time on platforms and trains.

You love people watching.

So was there any Sort of moments that stick out that you saw and you thought that has to go in to the book or something that you thought maybe for another book in the future.

Did you see anything sort of really strikes out to you?

So I think one thing that was so one thing that I knew because it was from my own experience.

And I've noticed that as my children have gotten older and we are out of the toddler and baby years, and I am an older person now, in the past years, my patience perhaps has gotten shorter as it does, which is natural with the behavior of other children, young children, babies in sort of the difficult, crowded public transport space.

But I, you know, I had two very rambunctious boys and I saw it all the time when I would watch people on the trains when I was writing this book.

That situation, the mother with the baby situation, or the mother with the child who is kicking off situation, watching, you can see it.

You can actually see it physically happening in the car.

You can see the people who are annoyed and cannot bear it and why are you here and why have you done this?

And then you can see the people who also remember, like, my God, I remember that.

That is really hard.

Try to have some patience and try to give some grace.

So for me, like, it was really important that we have that mother and child situation, particularly because the judgment around that is so intense, the judgment around how children behave in public.

And my own children are neurodiverse.

People do not know what a family is dealing with.

So I thought that that was vitally important.

I also spent a lot of time sort of observing the functioning of train plop.

I mean, I must be on CCTV everywhere, just like walking around taking pictures.

London's most wanted behaving very strangely on trade platforms.

But I.

Another thing that was very important to me was signage.

What does the platform look like?

What do the signs actually say?

How do people regard them?

What are the announcements?

What do they sound like?

What do.

What did the boards actually look?

You know, we take these things for granted because you see them all the time.

Yeah.

But when you actually have to write down like, this is what the, you know, what the board looks like, you really have to think about that language.

Like, what is the language that is used in a train station?

So.

So those were.

That was that I had to get the language of how announcements and things are made.

I had to get that right.

So those were two things for me that were really important.

So interesting.

You say when you.

As you were saying that about being on the platforms, I was thinking whenever I go on the train, I always think, oh, that's gonna be stuck in my head all day.

And I was just like.

When it's like, say it.

See it, say.

And I'm like, I have to go back.

Yeah, actually, I think I know it, but I would have to go back.

I wanted to go back then and talk about the neurodiversity and the sort of judgment.

I think, you know, it's also the judgment.

So my child is.

Has ASD as well, and adhd.

And it's also the judgment that the mother's going through of like, oh, people are going to be thinking this, they're going to terrible mother.

And in your author's note, you wrote something and it really moved me, actually.

It sort of stopped me and moved me.

And that was.

It is kindness without judgment that mothers always remember.

And I'm somebody who has had that sort of kindness.

I remember when they were very little, so I have twins, and one had an epic meltdown in the supermarket because that's where they like to do it.

And I was, like, aware that people were looking, some were tutting, but this one woman came up and she said, do you have a car in the car park?

And she picked my son up.

I got my daughter, like, come on, let's go.

And she helped me to my car and said, do you need anything urgently from the shop?

And I was like, no, go home, Write it off.

Tomorrow would be better.

And it was just the most.

And I will always remember it because it was just so she could have walked past and left me to deal with them.

And I think it's something that people do need to be aware.

Like, you know, sometimes when children are screaming and kicking off, it's not that they're being naughty or it's that they're overwhelmed, they're really struggling.

And that's really hard as a parent, because quite often when they're little, you might not have worked out that that's what's happening.

You might think that they are just sort of being difficult.

Difficult.

So as a mum yourself, you said your children are neurodiverse.

I wondered what that was like for you to write.

Was it that you want people to be more aware?

Was it quite difficult or emotional for you to write it as well?

Yeah.

So my kids both have ADHD and dyslexia.

They are fantastic, energetic, amazing athletes.

My younger son is also a musician.

I mean, they are really, you know, they're super social.

Like, they've big characters.

But we have certainly had Our struggles in school, I just thought it.

And.

And also along this journey where I was learning about them and their educational needs and how best to support them and how to get them through this system.

I have just met many parents with children with all kinds of neurodiversity, and I have heard about their struggles and listened to them.

And I have also had to, as many parents have, deal with getting the right care for them, deal with nhs, deal with the school system.

And I will say, you know, in our case, like, my children are rather mildly affected.

I can advocate for myself.

I speak English.

There are many ways in which I fight and can I have the resources to obtain for them what they have needed.

And it has still been an extraordinary battle.

And when I think about, you know, some of the greater needs that other families have and that if this.

If they're fighting the battle, I have fought times 100.

It is infuriating.

Is infuriating, it is upsetting and it is wrong and it is unjust.

And I wanted to give acknowledgment to that.

I wanted to give space to that.

And I write in the acknowledgments that the story of Sonny and his mother, Luna, is not for the parents of neurodiverse children, because we know that story and we have those worries and we have those concerns.

That story is for the people who judge.

It is for the people who make the decisions.

It's for the people who create the obstacles.

It is for the people who get in the way.

I want them to understand the consequences because our families know that and our families have those concerns.

So I very much didn't want to say, like, oh, you know, this is to speak for all the parents who deal with this.

It's not.

It's to send a message that says, if you don't deal with our children compassionately, this is what can happen.

So, sorry I got like that, but I am just.

So.

Fiction can be a great way to express things that you maybe aren't able to say.

Yeah, every day, or aren't able to do because you have to work within a system.

Yeah.

So that's.

That's how I wanted to get that message across.

And this book behind me, actually, I should mention it unschooled.

This just came out recently.

And that's exactly what this book is about.

This is by Carol.

This is by Carol Giles.

She is a beautiful, beautiful memoir writer.

And this is the memoir of.

She has four daughters.

And this is a story about.

It's not a story.

I mean, it's a memoir.

It's her life story about obtaining the educational.

What am I trying to say?

I'm losing my words.

Obtaining the support that she needs for her daughters as a single mother.

And it's a really.

It's really important.

And again, books like this are important because they support mothers and parents dealing with this, but they are important for people who are not dealing with it.

Yeah.

To understand what that judgment does to the children and to their families.

Yeah.

So I think I felt really moved by that because, you know, I've been through that experience as well.

It's, you know.

But equally, I'm somebody who is able to sort of take on that fight, as difficult as it was.

I think it's really important that you see yourself in fiction, in whatever way, but it is also really important that you see others and understand them.

So for those other families who, you know, might be like, oh, child, you know, just to understand in that moment of what's going on, again, it comes down to sort of just bringing more compassion into the world if we just understand what somebody is struggling with.

It's small steps, but I do think it can make a huge difference if, you know, since we.

My son's growing up now, he's a teenager.

I've seen a difference in the world.

It's more sort of acceptance.

Things are slightly easier in some ways, and I think it can only get better.

And, you know, sharing stories like this is really important.

And I'm going to go and get unschooled as well, because that sounds amazing.

So, Iona, before we finish talking about five, we've talked about how, you know, the book does force you to sort of weigh up what you're thinking.

There's lots of things that you cover, things that characters are going through.

What discussions do you think.

Sorry?

What discussions do you hope it will generate between readers?

What do you want them to sit down and talk about?

That's a good question.

It's a hard one.

Sorry.

Big one.

Yeah.

Because there.

There are so many things to talk about.

So one, I hope that.

I think a big one, particularly surrounding Mrs. Worth, who is our older female.

I think discussions around how we look at older women in society.

I hope people will look at older women differently when they read Mrs. Worth.

I think that's an important discussion because that's often a population that they themselves feel invisible and that are made invisible and sort of pushed to the periphery.

I think there's a.

There's a lot like we talked about with motherhood.

There's a lot around neurodiversity.

There's a lot we can talk about with judgment of other people.

I think talking about discomfort.

Why are we uncomfortable?

Why is.

Why is this story making us uncomfortable?

Think that's a great thing to talk about.

Because it's real.

It's real.

And I think also discussions around.

I think discussions about moments of crisis are also very interesting.

How we behave in a crisis.

I think we might think that we'll do one thing, but we may end up doing something very different, because you don't ever know until you're actually pushed to it who you're going to be in an emergency.

And maybe you hope you're the hero, but what if you're not?

I've certainly, like, you know, been through all kinds of different crises over time, and I think sometimes we can surprise ourselves with how we actually react.

It is.

It is.

Oh, it's so interesting.

I've just changed my mind.

I'm saying it is a really.

It's a book club read.

But I'm thinking to read it as a buddy read and talk about it as you go through would be the way to do it.

Really?

Because by the time you get to the end, like those sort of moments.

Yeah.

Read it as a buddy read.

That's.

That's the way to do it.

I might even do a buddy reader myself, actually.

Yeah.

So it is an absolutely brilliant read.

It's out on the 5th of May.

I insist you go and get a copy because it is absolutely brilliant and I will be raving about it.

So we're going to talk about the five books that you've picked, but just to remind listeners that all of the books that we talk about will be linked in the show notes with links to buy as well.

So how did you find picking your five?

Was it easy for you or horrible?

No, sorry.

You know, I'm one of those people who, like, I read like, four or five books at a time, and then I put them down and I pick them up.

And then I also listen to, like, three audiobooks on the go and, like, I dip in and out and sort of at any given point in time, I sort of have a different five favorite, like, really important books.

Yeah.

But when I.

But this was good because I really thought about, like, well, what are the ones that really have affected me?

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

So I think I can do it.

I think I did it.

Okay, so I feel like you're taking us into slightly dangerous territory.

People often tell me that this podcast is dangerous because they end up buying Books that they said they weren't going to buy.

When your list came through, I was like, there's one that I haven't read, but I really feel I should have read.

And I haven't read the others.

And I was this close to putting three straight into my basket, so.

Oh, wow.

Really?

Yes.

So let's watch my TBR grow.

Do you want to start off by telling us about your first book then?

Yeah.

So the first one, I have it here.

So this is the Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck.

It is just among the most classic of classic American novels.

It's a family saga.

It's the Joad family.

They are homesteaders in Oklahoma.

So they were among the many people who were forced off their homesteads and went on this great migration to California.

It's a book about extreme poverty.

It's about sort of the myth of the American dream.

It's about capitalism.

But it's also a great epic family drama and a road book.

It takes place, traveling.

I love John Steinbeck because the writing is very specific.

He's really very masterful at using few words to make you feel.

Very big feelings.

I read the Grapes of Wrath when I was 15 and maybe I didn't understand it all then, so I reread it since and I'm very struck.

Chapter three in particular, I always turn to in my writing life because the entire chapter, it's only like three or four pages.

The entire chapter is about a turtle that is trying to cross a road.

Just nothing else happened.

Nothing else happens.

But the turtle is a metaphor for human drama and tragedy and perseverance.

But it's also written with such precise and specific detail.

And that is always a reminder to me.

So, like when I talked about detail before, like, the reason that we're going to trust him to tell us this story is because I know he sat there and he watched a turtle in the desert somewhere try to cross a road.

So that to me is always a reminder, like, whittle down your words and use fewer words and.

And get your details right.

So I've learned a lot from Steinbeck and it's also a beautiful story.

So this is the one that I feel I should have read, but I haven't.

Everyone will know I'm not great with classics, but when it Came up.

I was like, oh, I was not expecting about that.

Chapter three.

I was like, oh, what you going to say?

I'm not expecting it?

And the immature part of my brain was like, why did the turtle cross the road joke?

And I think it's so interesting because quite often I love that you've revisited it and you say when you read it when you're 15, you might not have understood it all.

It's so great, isn't it, to revisit something that you read when you were younger and sort of.

I think you do sort of take away different things and see different things.

So I've missed the chance to read it when I was younger, but I will hopefully pick it up one day soon.

It's good in audio.

You should try it in audio, maybe.

That's nice.

Yeah, audio is great for books that I find intimidating.

Something that sort of sweeps me along in the story.

That's a really good idea actually.

I'm going to put that on my audio list.

Okay.

Okay, perfect.

That's one I've added.

Okay, let's hear about book number two, then.

I have that one here, too.

So this is Mrs. Death.

Mrs. Death, great title.

Yeah, it's by Selena Godden.

She is a British poet, widely acclaimed, widely published.

This is a book.

So.

So Mrs. Death is a character.

Death is a shape shifter.

And in this iteration, Death is a working class black woman.

And she meets Wolf, who is a very troubled young person who is also a writer.

And they begin to share stories and Wolf begins to write Mrs. Death memoirs.

And it's quite surreal, it's very lyrical.

It paints incredible portraits of London, incredible portraits of different historical periods.

But what I love about it is this is not.

This is not your typical novel.

Like, this is, you know, like when you walk into a cathedral or a very big building and you're sort of like forced to look upward and then you.

You see the scale of it and you're like, oh, right, like art.

This is art.

Like, this is.

This is asking me to elevate myself and how I think and how I write.

Like, this is elevation.

And, you know, we don't.

You don't come across that very often where a writer has sort of subverted what a novel can be and shows you a whole different.

A whole different way of writing.

It's absolutely beautiful.

It's like it.

I think poets have a very different way of using language, so I always recommend this Book.

Because I just think it's.

It's more than a book.

Like, it's artwork.

It's like a reminder to like, you know, elevate yourself.

You can, you can write more.

When I get bogged down in dialogue and my little stories, I'm like, no, wait.

Like there are people like, like Selena Godden who are taking us forward into the future.

So I need to.

It's inspirational.

I mean, I'm definitely going to get that one.

What I love about doing the show sometimes is how great books can sometimes just pass us by.

Yeah.

And obviously it's Covid years, but I was like, oh, that's slipped under my radar.

But I know it now.

So I love, I love the sound of that one.

And also the COVID is gorgeous.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

And I think.

I think they gave her some other covers too.

Like, there's one that's blue with this gold.

Like, it's really beautiful.

It really reflects like it is.

It's.

It's beautiful.

It's such a great title as well.

I love that title.

That's the thing about poets.

It's like she's just doing things with language that are really inspiring.

Yeah.

Okay, two in the basket.

Let's talk about book number three then.

Right, that's this.

That's.

This is.

Wow.

No, thank you.

By Samantha Irby.

She has several of these collections of essays.

She is an American writer.

She writes for TV as well.

These books, these are the most hilariously funny, hysterical.

I mean, I have just.

I have never written read anything like this.

These are essays about her life.

Like, she's so self deprecating and she's excruciatingly honest and she is writing about things that are really hard.

Like she's writing about her body, she's writing about her identity.

She is a queer black woman.

She is writing about her difficult things in her childhood.

But it is so funny.

Like, I can't.

I mean, you.

It's laugh out loud funny.

And for you to make people laugh from the page, that is so hard.

Yeah.

That is like a superhuman skill is so rare.

There are so few people who can do that.

She's also middle aged and I think we're around the same age.

So her references, her pop culture references are all very familiar and very.

She's just very, very funny.

And I think she's.

She's.

This is Very unique.

Like someone who can write this way, writing these stories is really unique.

So she has a whole series of these.

There's.

Wow.

No, thank you.

There's.

We are never meeting in real life.

She just.

She.

They're just.

They're brilliant.

And I think they reflect a certain time of life as well, which I really appreciate.

Oh, this is not good.

Do you know, I think you're so right.

I think.

I mean, I'm quite an emotional person, so I think it's.

I don't say it's easy to make me cry, but I often cry when I'm reading, or I'll often feel sort of angry, but to actually make.

I mean, I'll.

I'll giggle or I might smile, but actually to make me laugh out loud is, I think, really, really difficult to do.

And I think, yeah, I'm gonna have to get that one now.

So I'm like, can you make me laugh?

Yeah, it sounds brilliant.

Yeah, I'll have to add that one as well.

That's another one I missed.

I think that was around the same time.

Was it like, only a couple of years?

I think so, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, go on, then.

Let's hear number four.

My.

My next one I'll be buying.

Okay.

This one's short, though.

This one's short.

So this is Shirley Jackson.

We have always lived in the castle.

So Shirley Jackson is also an American writer.

She writes sort of gossip, horror, mystery, suspense.

Her very famous short story is the Lottery.

You can find that online for free.

It's quite amazing.

She's very, very unsettling.

Now, she.

This book is about two sisters, and they're called Mary, Cat and Constance, which right there is just, like, very creepy.

And they.

They live in this big house, and they're shunned from their town because they were suspected of poisoning their whole family.

And they're acquitted of the crime, but everyone shuns them and is afraid of them.

So they live this very agoraphobic, weird, insular life.

And then a cousin appears and threatens to sort of upend this way that they live.

And then sort of very drastic, extreme psychological unraveling happens.

It's really amazing.

And given the time she was writing, it's so interesting that she was thinking this way.

But what I appreciate about Shirley Jackson is that she had four children, and she, you know, in the time that she lived, she was expected to not have a big literary career.

Which she did.

I mean, she wrote lots of novels, lots of short stories.

She was famous, but she was expected to be taking care of her kids, and she did.

But she was doing the housework, and she.

Her kids have said, you know, she had dinner on the table every night.

And I've heard in interviews about her that, like, she was thinking of these gothic horror novels when she was folding the laundry and, like, doing the.

Doing the food shopping.

Like, there's a picture of her on the back.

You see what she like, you know.

You know, she's a lady of a certain time, and she is.

And she was doing all that.

She was a great mother and.

And having this incredible literary career and legacy.

I mean, these are very old books and that she's still talked about.

So I appreciate that about her because my boundary between family life and writing is very blurred, and I. I struggle with that a lot.

That balance of taking care of my family and trying to write.

But, you know, Shirley did it.

I think it must be.

I often think about this, the people who are sort of juggling family and writing, because I imagine, like, ideas might come at sort of times that are not always easy for you to write if you've got kids around and things, so.

Or if you're in the middle of something, to stop, if you've got children coming to sort of interrupt you as well.

So I, I, I mean, I don't know how anyone does that.

I barely got anything done when my kids.

I didn't know if I was coming or going.

How creepy.

And because I'm a real chicken here now, so I get nightmares really easily, like.

Okay, okay.

No, no, it's more.

It's not like a gothic horror you would read today.

It's not.

There's no blood or anything like that.

Okay.

It's psychological.

It's all.

It's more like psychological unraveling of two bizarre individuals.

It's more like that.

It's like a. Yeah.

Psychological suspense.

I don't know why they say gothic horror.

I think it's more in the suspense and, like, strange people kind of play.

See, gothic horror makes me want to run a mile.

Yeah.

No, no, because I'm so.

I am such a chicken, honestly.

No, it's just weird.

This is just weird.

Okay.

Weird I can do.

Okay, so I will have to give that one a try as well.

Are we gonna get a full house?

Are you gonna persuade me to read?

I don't know.

I don't know if you like Patricia Highsmith.

Do you?

No, I've never read her.

Have you not?

Okay, okay.

So Patricia Highsmith wrote the Talented Mr. Ripley.

Oh, I have, yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I hadn't connected the dots.

I love the talented Mr. Ripley.

Yeah, yeah.

She wrote loads of books like that.

Oh, okay.

That's her most famous one.

And that's endured, you know, the test of time, but she's another one.

She was writing in sort of the 50s and 60s also.

That's where all her books come from.

And she's written loads of them.

And they're all sort of the same kind of mystery, suspense, and they're very twisty and sweaty, and they're always about, like, people who desperately want to be normal and to fit in and who cannot figure out why they don't belong.

And I.

That I am so drawn to those kinds of stories.

I've read loads of them.

But the one that I really think about is Edith, called Edith's Diary.

Edith is a housewife, and she keeps this diary where she writes about how wonderful her marriage is and how amazing her child is and how incredible and lovely her life is.

And all the while, what we know is that it's all unraveling, that her son is an alcoholic and her husband is leaving her, and she has to take care of this elderly relative who's terrible, and her life is falling apart.

But whenever it's falling apart, she goes to this diary and writes a completely false account of it.

And it's just a fascinating portrait of.

Again, it's a.

It's another.

It's a psychological unraveling, and it's fascinating.

And I really drew on.

I read a lot of Patricia Highsmith when I was writing five because I really drew especially for Emma.

I, like, really drew on this idea of a person who wants to be loved and cannot understand why it's not.

It's not working, why they don't fit.

She's interesting, too, because Patricia Highsmith was very eccentric and she had a very harsh personality.

And she had a hard time fitting also.

And I think you can feel it through the characters.

That's why she writes them so well, because she did some strange things and she was often inappropriate and she.

She was hard to get along with, which is why she understands what it means to be on the outside.

So for all of her outsider stories, I think are just really I'm very drawn to them.

I have literally gone through this list.

I'm not.

I'm going to read that one.

I'm going to read.

This is like my ideal book chat where I get so excited about all the books.

These all sound amazing and I love, like, particularly like, the stories of the authors as well.

Like, yeah, it's so interesting.

I mean, I find authors lives absolutely fascinating and how you can create something that, you know, means so much to us readers and you have your own lives and own stories going on as well, so.

Oh, okay.

You have literally made me want to buy every single one.

Yes.

Good.

All right.

That's good.

So much for my, like, TBR growing.

Now, if I were to say that you could only read one of those again, which one would you go for?

You know, I think I have to.

I think I have to say the Grapes of Wrath.

Okay.

Because I have a very distinct memory of sitting in.

We.

My mom had a room that was full of plants in our house.

She was like a real house plant queen.

And I have a distinct memory of it being very hot.

You know, New York City humidity in the summer is like, terrible.

And I remember sitting.

It was really hot.

I was surrounded by all the plants and I remember having the Grapes of wrap on my lap.

I had like a hardcover old one that was falling apart and I just could not stop reading it.

And you know, I. I was a big reader as a kid, but I think that was the first time where I was like, oh, this is really like, this is writing.

This is like what writing is.

And I really feel these people.

And that is something I strive now.

I mean, I didn't know I was going to be a writer then when I was a kid, but that's something that I want to try to do now.

Like, I want you to feel my characters.

That's like, what my goal is.

So.

Wow.

Yeah.

I think you're doing very well.

Your characters are amazing, even if they've made me a little uncomfortable.

Oh, my gosh.

I have absolutely loved chatting to you, Iona.

It's been so much fun.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

I absolutely loved that conversation with Iona and I hope that you did as well.

5 is out next week.

It is an incredible read.

One I would highly recommend.

Do read it with friends because you are going to want to talk about it.

All of the other books that we've talked about today are linked to in the show notes.

They're super easy for you to find and have a little shopping spree.

I'll be back next Thursday chatting to another author, and I really hope that you'll join me for that episode too.

Thanks for listening.

Have a great week and I will see you next Thursday.

Take care.