In this bonus episode of Best Book Forward I was delighted to be joined again by Alice Winn author of In Memoriam.   Alice talks about her journey to writing her bestselling debut and shares her experiences as dyslexic child learning to read as well as sharing a fabulous bookish secret with us.

Other books mentioned:

Barrington Stokes 

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode as much as I have. I would be so grateful if you could take the time to like, subscribe and share with your friends. 

For more content from me you follow me on Instagram or visit my website www.bestbookforward.org.

This episode of Best Book Forward was produced by Decibelle Creative / @decibelle_creative

Welcome back to Best Book Forward, the podcast where I talk to authors about the books that have shaped their lives.

It's kind of like the bookish version of Desert Island Discs.

In this bonus episode, I'm joined again by Alice Wynne.

In the last episode, we talked about her incredible debut novel, In Memoriam, as well as discussing the five books that have shaped her life.

Today we'll talk more about Alice's life as a writer and a reader and find out one of her bookish secrets.

Alice, welcome back and thank you so much for joining me again.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's a delight.

So in the last episode, we talked about In Memoriam and the five books that have shaped your life.

And you very kindly agreed to give us a little reading from In Memoriam to give listeners a taste of what they've got to enjoy.

You can't stop me from reading from In Memoriam.

It's all I do.

I thought I'd pick something a bit short, and this is from a kind of flashbacky scene.

But in case you aren't, that is for when you're like, what, 17ish?

It's your penultimate year in school and it is a little passage about Elwood's feelings for Gaunt.

At this juncture, it was spring of Lower Sixth, and Elwood was so in love with Gaunt that his thoughts ran wild with anger.

Gaunt was woven into everything he read, saw, wrote, did, dreamt.

Every poem had been written about him, every song composed for him, and Elwood could not scrape his mind clean of him, no matter how he tried.

He thought perhaps all the pain would sour the love, but instead it drew him further in, as if he were Mark Antony falling on his own sword.

And it was a magical thing to love someone so much.

It was a feeling so strange and slippery, like a sheath of fabric cut from the sky.

Sometimes he imagined what Gaunt would look like when he was old and knew with dizzying certainty that he would love him.

Even when Gaunt was balding and wizened and spent, he took up with Macready to distract himself, but it only made things worse.

Like one iron sleeve of a wrinkled shirt, Macready's inadequacies made Elwood's teeth ache.

Macready wasn't clever like Gaunt.

He smiled too easily.

His laughter did not feel like a victory.

After a few weeks, Elwood forgot about him.

Gosh, we said just that in the last episode, I could imagine myself reading it again at one point.

And just listening to that little snippet just now just made me wish that I could pick it up and dive back in.

So if you haven't read it yet, it is just about to come out in paperback, so do pick it up.

So for this episode, I've got some questions for you about your writing life and your reading life, and then we've got a little bookish secret as well.

Okay, so In Memoriam is your first published novel, but we spoke briefly before about how you'd written others that had not been picked up.

What lessons do you think you've learned from those first books and also from having In Memoriam being published and becoming such a hit?

Oh, I've never had that question before.

What a good question.

Oh, I don't know.

Well, I certainly think I remember feeling with every book that I wrote that I was getting closer to writing the book that I sort of had.

You know, I think.

But when you're starting to write a book, you often have this kind of Platonic ideal of the book that's in your head.

The book where you can kind of imagine.

You can't imagine necessarily the book itself, but you can really clearly visualize the feelings that the book would make people feel if it was executed correctly.

And with the first three books I wrote, like, each one I felt like was getting closer to being a book that wasn't just.

There wasn't just, like, kind of funny or neatly executed or, you know, sort of fine, you know.

And to begin with the first book, like, I remember when friends would read it and be like, yeah, this feels like a book, I was very flattered.

I was like, that's.

That's good.

I wasn't sure if it felt like a book or whether it felt like just like a word document.

So the fact that it felt like a book was a huge, you know, victory.

And then the next book, I started to be like, no, I want this one to be a good book.

And it.

I think some people who read it thought it was good, and a lot of people didn't.

And.

And I wanted it to be, like, sort of undeniable.

And, I don't know, I just felt like with every book, I got closer to achieving what I had wanted to achieve at the start.

And then In Memoriam was the first book I ever wrote where I felt like the reaction I was getting from people matched the reaction I had aimed to make people have.

So that was really, really satisfying and rewarding and it's sort of terrifying to think about managing to do that again because I doubt, I don't know, right.

I don't know if the pattern is, is the pattern every fourth book I write is good, or is the pattern each book is better than the last?

Because those are really different patterns.

So we'll see, I guess, I don't know, maybe, maybe the fourth book from now will be a real, a real stunner.

That's the hope, I guess.

But you know, if you have two good books, that's good.

But anyway, no, I, I, I definitely learned a huge amount from writing novels and I, I definitely think if, you know, if anyone listening is a writer, I think it's really, really, really tempting to procrastinate on writing by doing other things.

My mother, for instance, is an excellent writer and has been working on novels for ages.

And I don't think she'd mind me saying this.

She definitely, she has ADHD and she goes to a lot of writing conferences.

And recently she was like, you know, I think I need to stop going to writing conferences because I actually just need to write really.

And you know, just writing three novels, the best is the best thing you can possibly do.

Which I think that's much harder to do if you have very little time to write them in because then it takes longer.

Right.

And I was able to write each novel in about a year each and that kind of made it more manageable because you kind of, then you feel on top of it and there's a kind of, you know, a reward cycle where you feel motivated because you're achieving things.

And if you're having to go much more slowly because you have a lot of responsibility, responsibilities and commitments and, and, and you know, difficulties you have to work out in your day to day life, I think that's harder.

I'm really getting embroiled here.

I'm trying to remember what the part of the equivalent, what even was the question.

And then what did I learn from A Memoriam being published?

I, I think it's made me feel much more insecure about writing.

Bizarrely, I, I think when I was writing in obscurity, I had this sort of fire in me where, you know, I was writing to prove myself to the world, which is quite a powerful place to be writing from, I think.

Even though obviously it's incredibly hard and I would, I would never pick those difficulties over the difficulties I now have, which are the difficulties of exposure where you feel instead of writing to prove yourself, you're writing to not Disappoint, which is, I think, quite a weak place to be writing from, quite a capitulating place.

So I'm trying to get out of that, but it's.

It's tricky, isn't it?

You kind of get voices in your head a little bit.

But, yeah, no, I would.

I would definitely take these problems any day over the problems of not being published because it's really.

Is really, really, really hard and demoralizing.

And if anyone's listening and going through that, like, you have my utmost sympathies and so much is.

Is down to luck, you know.

So I think I remember when I wasn't published, I would look at people who were and just think, like, what are they doing that I'm not doing?

And it's like, yeah, they're probably just lucky, honestly.

So I do think, don't beat yourself up if you are in that position.

I don't know if anyone listening is the thing.

As you were just talking then, and I know something you said in the main episode when you were talking about In Memoriam, how it came to.

And you wrote that first draft quite quickly.

It sounds like the right book found you at the right time when you were ready to sort of put it down as well.

So.

Absolutely, yeah.

It kind of hit me over the head.

Something that's very obvious from looking at reader reviews for In Memoriam is how much people loved it over on Instagram.

At the end of last year, I hosted the book awards and In Memoriam was Best Fiction and Best Historical Fiction.

And people were very, very keen to.

Tell me how much they loved In Memoriam, which I totally agreed with as well.

What do you think it is about In Memoriam that readers connected with so strongly?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I was really.

The awards thing was so incredibly special and hearten and.

And just.

Yeah, I was.

I was really, really moved by it because, you know, I think there's something really honest and real about these awards because they are redevoted as opposed to kind of like, well, we've got a panel and the panel has to consider, you know, what.

What is the.

What is the character of this prize or whatever, you know, So I think.

I think that felt really, really validating and.

And touching.

I. I don't know.

I really don't.

I.

You know, I. I think the book is good, but I also think lots of books are good, so it's not really for me to say.

I don't.

I don't know.

I mean, I think maybe a Lot.

I think I was surprised at how many people, especially in the UK, have a prior interest in World War I, you know, and you often encounter people who are like, oh, yeah, you know, like, I've been obsessed with Wilfred Owens since I was a little girl or whatever.

Like, I'm really surprised by.

And I. I come across people who.

Who, like, have been nursing this.

This sort of passion for World War I poetry without really having an opportunity to speak about it for years.

So maybe that's part of it.

But I. I don't know, I think maybe there's a sort of fluky element to this because I think a lot of really good books don't get the.

The readership that they deserve.

But I feel really.

I mean, a huge part of it, honestly, is just that I. I had a really great publishing team who just got it in front of lots of people's, you know, eyes.

So that's.

I'm very grateful to Viking.

But no, it's been really, really gratifying to see that people like it because I felt very alone with the.

You know, in the.

In the main episode, I talked to you about how I was reading these newspaper articles from World War I, and I felt like I was just kind of going crazy reading about this, you know, this overwhelming sense of grief that a whole generation, you know, felt in the war.

And, you know, I read Vera Britten and I.

It was just so.

It was so.

I was so in it and I was so alone in it, because whenever I spoke to anyone about it, they were just like, alice, can you stop banging on about the war like it happened 100 years ago?

And my husband is like.

He's very.

He's very optimistic and he doesn't like thinking about sad things.

And he just, like.

I would be like, can I tell you about something that happened in the trenches?

And he'd be like, no.

And so I would just sort of sit with it by myself, all alone.

And so, I don't know, I. I think.

That sort of sorrow that I was feeling kind of alone.

And it makes me feel less alone, I guess.

What a long winded answer.

I'm sorry.

No, it's not at all.

You say it's a good book, Alice.

It's an incredible book.

People would like.

When I asked for nominations, people would be like, hands down, hands down, it was a big year.

All of the books nominated were really, really exciting.

So I think you've got a good collection of things, to be fair.

Yeah, no, it was.

It was brilliant.

So, as we said, In Memoriam has done incredibly well for a debut.

It's deservedly winning awards, making bestseller lists.

When I remember when I first picked it up and seeing Maggie o' Farrell on the front and the back, no less, I was like, wow, that's pretty impressive for a debut.

What have been your favorite moments about seeing In Memoriam go out into the world?

The Maggie o' Farrell moment was a pretty big one.

I actually sort of didn't really believe.

I don't know.

I don't.

This is sort of weird, but I got it in my head that she had just given me a blurb to be polite, which makes.

That's not a thing.

Like, that's is.

That makes zero sense.

Like, Maggie o' Farrell has.

Is very important and has lots to do and is not going around like giving polite blurbs to people out of politeness.

That's just not a thing.

But somehow I really was convinced of it.

I was like, wow, that is very.

You know, she's really observing etiquette.

And then finally my publicist was like, you know, that's like kind of insulting to Maggie.

Like, she's not gonna just do that.

She liked your work.

And I was like, oh, right.

Good point.

Anyway, so that was kind of magical.

I have a friend who talks about.

He calls certain kinds of pleasures vile pleasures.

There are vile pleasures, pleasures that are sort of a bit bad.

Like, you know, schadenfreude, like, like discovering that, like someone you didn't like in school, like now is having a bad time and you're having a really good time, like, that's a vile pleasure.

You shouldn't really kind of engage with that too much.

And I, I do think publishing a book and having success with it to some degree, there are a few vile pleasures, but something that has been surprised.

Like, you know, anytime you'.

Anytime.

Some.

There are some days where something happens and I'm spending a lot of my day on my phone, like looking at, you know, notifications and like, you can kind of become.

You can lose perspective of how important you are and it's.

That's really bad, I think, for the sort of soul, and I think I've been on the whole pleasantly surprised by how many sort of true good pleasures there have been that are not quite so ego driven, that are really much more just sort of.

They feel like healthy and good and rewarding and it's Things like authors you admire reading your book and saying, I liked this book.

That feels, it just feels like you've been seen.

And I think the biggest one really is meeting readers and hearing from readers and those kinds of like, I don't know, it's a moment of connection.

It feels, it feels really real and authentic and meaningful in a way that is, it's sort of surprising how, how authentic it can feel like even though, you know, sometimes I've, I've done events and then afterwards, you know, I'm sitting at a table and people are coming up and getting their book signed and there's a queue and they want to also get their book signed by the other author.

And so there's a little bit of a sense of rush.

But even so, it still feels so, so special just to have even like a, you know, 30 second interaction with a person who's read the book.

Like it, it just is, it is kind of a form of magic, especially for me because I've usually have, for most of my life I've really prioritised reading dead authors, I think because I like the filter of time kind of weeding out some of the books for me.

So I'm, you know, I, I'm never gonna get to meet authors that I really admire.

And so I kind of, it never really occurred to me that the relationship between a reader and a writer could like happen in, on, on planet Earth in real time.

I never really imagined it.

And so it's been, it's really taken me by surprise.

It's been, it's been really, really wonderful.

It's one of the brilliant things about social media, isn't it?

Particularly, I think during the pandemic is like how readers could connect with us, are so generous with their time online as well and you know, doing things like this.

I think it's so, so lovely.

We just touched on briefly that sort of difficult place now of, you know, following the success of In Memoriam.

Are you, are you working on a thing?

Do you feel comfortable talking about a little bit about what you're working on?

Yeah, no, I, I'm working on something.

I feel horribly anxious about it as I imagine is, is apparent from the sort of little things I, I say.

Yeah, I'm working on a book about sort of minor nights of the round table and it's been, it's been quite hard going writing.

I thought I would avoid the second novel syndrome because I was like, it's my fifth novel.

But it turns out that the real kicker is not like it's the second novel, like kind of chronologically.

It's the difference between writing in obscurity and writing with exposure.

And that shift in pressure, it just means you have a new set of challenges that, you know, for the last few books, I sort of, with every book I got better at learning how to deal with the challenges of writing in obscurity.

And so like, you know, I got quite good at it.

Although of course, as I said before, I think, you know, it is harder.

I, I think it's really, really hard to be writing books and not knowing if anyone's ever going to read them, that's just so difficult.

But yeah, I don't know how to deal with the challenges of writing knowing that.

Knowing, for instance, you know, who my editors will probably be and like having a vision, like a face of knowing, like, okay, they're gonna read this and I know what they like and I know what they don't like.

But you shouldn't be writing to them, you know, you should be writing sort of for yourself.

So, yeah, it's been challenging, but we'll, we'll see.

I mean, I've just got to work at it until it's good, I guess.

I'm sure it will be brilliant.

I do feel for you though, often think.

No, I do.

I think it's hard because you've got greedy readers like me who are like, what's next?

What's next?

More, More, more, more, more.

Yeah, but they only want more if it's good, you know, I don't know.

I, I do feel like there's no guarantee that you, that people will like the second book as much as the first.

There's plenty of precedent for when that's not been the case.

But I'm trying to, I'm trying to just really enjoy.

I mean, you know, even if I only have, have one book that's as a curseful as a Memoriam has been, I think that's, that's a real like life changing gift and I, I really appreciate it.

So I'm, I'm, I'm sort of, I'm, I'm expecting for that to be my one book that was big.

And if anything else happens, I'll be, I will be pleasantly surprised and it will be very nice.

But I'm not, I'm not banking on it, you know.

Well, we will be watching with interest and a lot of love and support for you, so thank you.

Keep going.

Shall we talk a little bit about your life as a reader then?

So in the main episode, we talked about the five books that have shaped your life.

And one of the things that I was wondering is, were you a bookish child or did that sort of come later on for you?

So, yes and no.

I'm very, very dyslexic, so I couldn't read till I was nine, but then I made up for lost time.

So from sort of 9 to 13, like, books were my friend.

You know, I didn't really have very many actual friends, but I had a lot of book friends, and I read a huge amount from 9 to 13.

And, yeah, I just loved it.

Gobbled them up.

That's so interesting that you say that.

Like, I think it's so different now.

I'm like, I have a family member who's dyslexic.

And it was treated very badly at school.

I think it wasn't.

People didn't understand.

They were quite unkind about it, actually, back in our day.

Well, I was very lucky.

So I was in France initially.

And in France in the 90s, dyslexia was seen as something that, like, you got.

If your parents were being bad parents, you know, like, it was almost, you know, it was caused by sort of parental neglect vibes.

And so the school was really unwilling to tell my parents because, like, they were like, this is really bad news, but you.

You messed up your child.

So it.

I have a.

It was.

It was hard.

And I definitely, you know, I had this kind of.

It was a cognitive dissonance in a way of, like, I. I just was being treated as if I was very, very stupid.

And I was failing at tasks that everyone else around me could do.

They could all, you know, write their own name and read, and I couldn't write my name, and I couldn't, you know, I just couldn't do it.

And that was really, really difficult.

And actually, weirdly, I've sort of blacked out moments.

Like, I have a very good memory for most of my young childhood, especially because I moved around a lot.

So it was very easy to, like, be like, okay, that was.

That must have been before I was seven, because it happened.

That must have been before, you know, so it.

But there's.

There's little blocks of it that I just don't remember that my mother has told me.

And I've been like, oh, I think I was just having a very hard time.

And then when I went to school in England, it was a lot easier.

My mother sort of tricked the school into taking me.

She knew they wouldn't take me if they knew I was dyslexic.

So she didn't tell them.

And so I got to the school and you know, within about a week, you know, I couldn't read.

Right.

And, and they, they like called my mother and they were like, we have some news, like your daughter is dyslexic.

And she was like, haha, you're a problem.

And luckily, you know, I think also, I think it didn't help that I was bilingual and bilingual children learn how to read more slowly anyway because they're learning two languages at once.

And it, so it was really, really helpful when I went to England and I was in an English school as opposed to a French school.

That made everything a lot easier.

But then also I had extra English classes, which, you know, I was so grateful for.

And I, I, I don't know, I am so lucky that I had the Reese, like my parents had the resources for me to have these extra English classes and, and you know, all these, I went to all these different therapists for different things that they would, you know, they do these things.

I don't even read, as I say, I don't remember what they did.

I just know that it worked and it really helped.

And then it was like a penny dropped and suddenly I could kind of read and I could kind of write and then it all got better much quicker and obviously I hadn't an interest and everyone in my family liked to read.

So I felt like there was a pressure to read.

It felt like something like a fun, a fun world I wasn't a part of.

But I don't know, I think it's, if you don't have those resources, I think it's really, really sad because you, you know, you need to pour money into a kid who can't read, basically.

And obviously a lot of kids who can't read do not have that money poured into them.

And that completely changes what doors are open for them for the rest of their life.

And it's, it's really, really sad.

Yeah, it really is.

I think I'm very grateful that things have changed.

I think now, you know, it's, it's not seen as a negative, I know, from a person in my family.

You know, I remember the teacher coming along and being like special readers.

Come on, out you come.

And it was the children who were struggling and they were mocked and it was, it's quite cruel, you think how, how they come back.

So I'm glad now.

But even like neither of my children are dyslexic, but I have one who has ADHD and A sensory processing disorder.

And we found the Barrington Stokes books, which are for dyslexic readers, which has been life changing because suddenly they're able to comprehend so much more.

So I think it's.

It's brilliant that there's more.

I've never heard of Barrington Stokes.

What are they?

They're books that are printed on a slightly yellowy tinted paper and the font is clearer.

So I would find that my children would read it and they'd be able to say, oh, well, this man did this at this time.

So their comprehension of what's happened, because they could read, but they weren't always understanding what they were reading because they were sort of rushing, particularly for my son.

He would just be able to pick up so much more details.

They're more relaxing on the eye.

Yeah.

As well.

So they are brilliant.

I mean, I'm always recommending them to people, even if their children aren't dyslexic.

They're just not keen on reading because I just think they're great little books to have.

Well, you know, there's a lot of.

A lot of the time things that are put in place for accessibility later turn out to be great for everyone.

Like, you know, ramps being put in initially for wheelchair users that eventually everyone's like, yeah, but it's like central London and people have suitcases and like, you know, people have all sorts of needs for ramps.

Like, you know, so I think things like that where, you know, you might develop this kind of paper for kids with dyslexia, but it turns out it actually just makes it easier for everyone, and that's brilliant.

You know, so there's a lot of innovations like that, I think.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I would love to do something with a dyslexia charity.

I have to look into it because obviously I have.

I have such a personal stake in it.

I always feel a bit awkward asking this question when authors come here and they tell me about books that I haven't read.

But are there any books that you feel you should have read, but you haven't got to yet?

Yes.

So.

Well, my immediate thought to this question is, I.

This is really stupid.

I have a pet superstition.

I can't explain this, that I cannot die until I have read Herman Melville's Moby Dick, which means that I can't read it because once I've read it, then I might die.

So I have this kind of fantasy about sort of reaching my 90s and finally reaching for the book on my shelf and saying, it is time.

And my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, they'll all know what it means.

Like, she's reading.

She's reading Moby Dick.

The time has come.

And they'll be like, no, no, you have so much life ahead.

And I'll say, no, it's the time.

And then I'll read the book.

I was really concerned at university that someone was going to make me read it.

And I was like, I can't read it, I'll die.

And I can't explain it.

And, you know, sometimes people describe bits of it and I go, that sounds good, but I can't read it.

Something to look forward to.

Yeah, exactly.

But I think that's a cracking answer.

So finally, Alice, do you have a little bookish secret that you would like to share with us today?

Absolutely, I do.

Again, I don't even really feel ashamed of this.

I think.

I don't, I don't know if I count this as a secret exactly, but I have only read Peace out of War and Peace.

I skipped war.

I just skipped through the war bits.

My mother told me to do this.

So my mother is, is a great sort of literary influence on me.

She's the most well read person in maybe the world.

And she, I, I really wanted to read it, but it was massive.

And I was like 18 and I was like, I just felt intimidated.

And she just said, well, just skip the war bits.

That's what I did the first time.

And I was like, really?

Are you, Is that like, legal?

Is will they find out?

And she was like, yeah, just do it.

And I am gonna go back and read the war bits because I, I skimmed a few of the war bits and then I watched about half of that nine hour Soviet production, you know what I mean?

So the, the Soviet Union did this incredibly long version of War and Peace where they used the actual Russian army and they actually shot horses in the war scenes, which is kind of incredible.

I feel like if you're going to shoot horses in your battle scenes, like, we all have a responsibility to go and watch those battle scenes because otherwise, what do they die?

I don't know if that's a hot take, but so I watched about half of it because it is nine hours long, which is quite a lot anyway, so I really absolutely adored the peace parts of War and Peace.

And, and I don't know about the war parts.

And what's funny about it is that there's this one character.

Is it Prince Andre or something?

Anyway, there's one character who, like, in the Peacetime, he really sucks.

Like, he's so annoying and everything.

He's like, he's so up himself and I just hate him.

And I said this to my mother and she was like, well, ye.

That's because you haven't read the War.

But it's like, in the war bits you get the full picture.

Because the whole point of this character is that, like, at war, when he's among men, he's like this, like, prince of mankind, and he's just like, he's a nobility itself and he's so brave and heroic.

And then when he's, like, at home with women, he just sucks.

And I was like, I guess I'm not getting the full picture.

I'm kind of getting only the women's version of that story, you know, in a way.

So, yeah, that's my.

That's my dirty, dirty secret.

Although I will say I. I encourage this because the thing is, you know, if you're feeling intimidated by War and Peace, let me tell you, you could just read the peace sections and then if you like it, you can go back and read the war sections another time.

But it makes it a little bit more approachable.

Well, I think that's a brilliant secret.

And it's obviously one I haven't read because, you know that big books have me running a mile.

But maybe I will give peace, Peace a chance.

That's very good.

That's very good.

Yeah.

Oh, Alice, thank you so much for join me again.

It's been an absolute pleasure.

I've loved chatting to you.

It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Thank you so much for having me and thank you, everyone who's listening.

That is the final episode for this first series of Best Book Forward the podcast.

I really hope that you have enjoyed it as much as I have, and I would love to give a huge thank you to my guests for series one, who have all been wonderful, and they are Helen Paris, Beth o', Leary, Nick Stibby, Matt Kane, Sophie Irwin, and of course, Alice Wynn.

To keep in touch with me for.

More podcast news and book chat, do go and follow me on Instagram or head over to my website.

And finally, I want to thank you for listening and supporting me.

I really do appreciate it and I.

Hope to see you all.