hello everyone and welcome back to conversations with Tyler today I'm talking with Paula burn she has a new book out here which I found in da bookstore in London it is called Hardy women mothers Sisters Wives Muses it's about the women in the life of Thomas Hardy and in the novels of Thomas Hardy Paula is a very well-known and best-selling biographer she has among other things books on Jane Austin which
are wonderful Evelyn w a bestselling book about JFK's sister based on new archival research a bestselling biography of Barbara Pim she has done work on 18th century slavery images of Jane Austin she has written two novels and she leads a group called relit devoted to the notion of bibliotherapy Paula welcome thank you for having me simple opening question what is did Virginia wolf think when she went to visit Thomas
Hardy um I loved what she said when she says he his face looked like a round Apple um because I always think of him with apples partly because they made Cider at home when he was a young boy and I think it's just such a brilliant description of that sort of little apple hot sort of slightly like an old a withered Apple but still retaining some sort of Juicy flesh um and I I think she did really like him I think she liked
him more than she expected to like him which I think often happened with hardy people expected him to be really D be and pessimistic because obviously of the books and then when they met him they were quite Charmed he had a very soft and gentle voice and it was quite it was quite bewitching it was quite mesmerizing so and I think she was very moved obviously because of her father and her Leslie Steven's relationship
with Hardy um so she she wasn't as as a seric as she was with quite a few people I think she gave him quite an easy time on the whole and this would have been in the the teens right of the 20th century that she saw him he was quite sort costic about the sorts of novels that she wrote um that don't have a beginning middle and an end um so and I I really and she took it in you know in Good Humor but he he he was definitely sort
of feeling that the world of the novel had changed beyond recognition which it had and that she was a pioneer of some of that um but he was still very sort of oldfashioned about a story must have that trajectory beginning middle end but I think they got on very well if one visits Wessex today are there still traces of Hardy's world or is it just simply homogenized and that's quite gone yeah I mean I think it is quite
homogenized um um the house Max gate which is where I got the idea for writing the book obviously retains that original sort of charm it's very dark um and it's an ugly house but it's still I think the spirit is there and I I I vividly remember two things one was the his study at the top of the house where he wrote Tess and just feeling just just the power of that room and then the other room that really inspired the book was
Emma's attic room where she um you disappeared for sort of 15 years um so I think you get a little feel of that in the house in Max gate and certainly in the cottage because that is so beautiful I've been I've made many pilgrimages to Hardy's birthplace over the years and that feels so unspoiled um but I mean daa for example is grim um it's it's shut down it's this it's just a horrible place so you don't
really get much of the sense of like the real rustic flavor but but the the cottage is charming still but say if one goes to Cornwall or North umbrea you do feel traces of the past Liverpool for that matter uh why not Wessex what went wrong there um it's a really good question Liverpool I I I don't know maybe Liverpool you know it's a port and I think that's really important that the thing about a PO I'm in Manhattan now
and I'm by the river and it really feels like Liverpool I feel like I'm back in Liverpool I think there's something about a port because it's always changing people are coming and going there's musical influences so you'd always think that somewhere like wessix it would be easier to retain some of that and yet it does it just has I felt it looks very run down I mean I'm I'm thinking really here at dester but
obviously places like you know the the seaside L worth and Cove and all these beautiful places are still incredibly gorgeous and I think that's where you do really get a feel and and to some extent dorer you know where the prison was and you look and Winchester where Tess was hanged I mean there are M there are places in England where I think you can get a feel for that but I think if you
live in the life of the imagination like I do I can really see it but I took my son with me and he was like this is a dump this is horrible there's no Hardy here so I think from the young guys he was just like this world has gone this world has evaporated it can never come back if we Ponder say Jude the Obscure what's your implicit model of why it is for Hardy first marriages are so hard to break from I mean that is a massive
question um and Jude I think so much of Hardy's life is poured into Jude it was such a personal book for him it would take a very very long time to answer that question but it was also around the time when he was writing Jude that his marriage had by then completely ended in there was no going back and really interesting it was the first book that Emma did not like didn't want anything to do with because there is this idea
running through it is why can't you end a unsatisfactory marriage why can't you just live with somebody why can't you just divorce somebody and this is a refrain like what do you do if you can't afford divorce or it's still frowned upon well you could sell your wife like in the amast bridge or you know you can you can do what Jud does which is you live with the object of your desire for the
second time around but it's it's a question the second marriage question was so huge for Hardy because he was so miserable he was so miserable in his first marriage and he just couldn't see a way out but he did also come from that background that workingclass background where it's still really frowned upon to divorce or to leave your marriage and it was so comp so so complicated with him because when she does die he sort of
fell back in love with her which is so typical Hardy but why why write the 1913 1914 poems to her he's he's in what the first year of his marriage to Florence she can't be crazy about that why is he self-destructive or is it what he needs to do to make a second marriage work I don't know I mean there was a cruel streak in him I think I think you have to be quite cold heart Ed to do what he did to Florence because having
sort of moaned and complained about Emma and pretty much moved Florence in then to fall back in love with his wife is a little perverse and of course it made Florence feel completely awful and then she couldn't live with it was like teres ran she couldn't live with the dead ghost um but I do also think this is where my sympathy swings for Hardy that when somebody does die you tend not to think of the bad things they've done you
tend just to remember the good things they've done I've noticed this over and over again people tend to just just really Linger on the positives and there was a there was so much remorse um and he just did remember that beautiful young Emma so he did want to pay tribute to that but you've just got to remember Tyler as well he's a writer like he's going to use that for copy and and he knew those poems were good and it
did unleash something so emotional in him that and I he wanted to be a poet he didn't want to be a novelist I think that's really important to remember he did not want to be a novelist he felt almost pushed into it he wanted to be a poet and I think then when he starts writing this amazing poetry he knows this is good and that's how he wanted to be remembered and I think in that in that sense he didn't really care that it
hurt Florence now you're also a couple's counselor do you still see this in couples today with first and second marriages yeah a short answer good answer why do so many hardat tragedies come in doubles can you say more about that well the story in say Jude the Obscure right there's there's two women there's two men there's a total of there's multiple marriages mayor of casterbridge there's the doubling is a
theme it seems very Shakespearean right that there's a kind of Ensemble of tragedy and different stories mirror each other or they they they showed different facets of each other I mean I've never thought about it but I think it's a really lovely Point um and I think that it's it's it's a great plot technique as well that sort of shadowing and that mirroring um I think I mean he's a great I love his plots you know I
think it's really it's just so hard to get a plot right and he does that really really well so I think again but again for me for me writing the book I was always conscious of this is a man that those later novels want to get out of his marriage so he's always looking at the alternative relationship like what would happen if this happens or what happens if that wife dies so he's always got that refrain going through in those
later novels but not in the first ones when he's still so madly in love but also with Hardy he's always in love with the unattainable like that's what that's the whole thing with him that's why I think the well-beloved is so interesting because it's the pursuit of the well-beloved that you once you get it you don't want it and I see that in couples cing a lot it's that you know once you get it you know know and and
you know you you might have an affair and then you've got what you want and then suddenly all those small horrible things that you haven't seen because it's all been so romantic like oh God he doesn't brush his teeth before breakfast or or those sort of tiny things and the illusion is broken and then you're just back in the same place um so I think for me for Hardy he almost as soon as he
married Florence he was falling in love with somebody else and that's just what he seems to do all throughout his life unattainable Beauty because he's so susceptible to female Beauty in your readings what do you take to be the primary Shakespearean element in Hardy just subjectively I think there's a Divinity that refus our ends shape them as you will that sort of sense of I'm thinking again of Tess here as well the idea that
the gods um are peevish and they've got a plan and they don't really care and that they're just going to move the pieces of Chess on the board and I think of King Leah as well on that in the heath so I think that sense of um yeah that sort of fatalism that sense that almost there's no free will like what could Tess do there's nothing she could do because the gods have got a plan and and that that sense
of Providence that is really deeply Shakespeare in Shakespeare's very dark period have to say as you point point out Hardy never really stopped working until he had to uh how good is the unknown Hardy it seems to me everyone reads the same few novels uh what do you recommend from the rest I really like the minor works and I'm going to I am going to confess like everybody else I'd only read the before
I undertook the biography I read all the big ones so obviously the first thing I did was set myself to read everything and I did it in chronological order because I think that's really important I always do that I do that with e more um just read everything cuz I think you can really see the growth um and I do think some of those minor novels are really really fascinating and sort of not hardes you know two on a tower it's
just so fascinating it's so brilliant the Telegraph and all the the the sense of the new world and Innovations um so I do I really like the minor works I find them interesting but above all I really love the poetry and that I really really fell in love with the early poetry written when he was sort of 25 because it's so modern it was so shocking like I when I read some of his early sonnets and I I just thought
this sounds like somebody is writing it today it has the most fresh feel and voice um and I I would urge anybody who thinks they know harde to go back and read those early poems because they they're really quite astonishing but I do I do really like the minor works as well now in another book book you argued that Mary Robinson was arguably the most interesting woman of her day in 18th century England why
um I think because she really understood celebrity even before celebrity had been invented she really understood how to Market herself how to Fashion herself how to reinvent herself um and how to support herself and she was really I think a very very interesting writer um she but she understood the importance of image really before before many many many people did and and used it to her her Advantage so I think she is for many
many reasons so fascinating um and you know the PO poit of the morning post I mean she was a prolific writer and poet she didn't let her disability impede her um and just more than anything she just really I was really frightened of her when I was writing vers I was like I don't ever want to meet this woman she's she's really scary but I couldn't wait to get out of my house when I'd finished writing about it but I still I think
about her all the time in fact I'm writing a novel about her in the minute that's great who is arguably the most interesting woman in England today hm that was such a good question I really find anybody interesting in England really Catherine Rondell am reason I would think Katherine Rondell whether or not one agrees she would be the obvious first pick I just my mind just goes like I
instantly go to people like Sally Rooney but I don't really like her like I just I'm I'm sort of I just that's not England yeah and that's Island yeah not Great Britain well you are from Liverpool right I am from Liverpool yeah by the other side of the water Mercy side so yeah but they have a lot in common culturally yeah no they do they do but I I yeah I've been living in America for far too long I I've been I've been in
America for six years so I'm like I I'm really not sort of aware of interesting women much to my shame n you've had a long-standing interest in Jane Austin what's your sense if you think of late Georgian theater in England which was a big influence on aus but just how how good was it if you or I went to one of those plays would we be bored would we think it's stupid would we be amazed and wonder why the theater
had declined what do you think obviously it's guesswork but you must have a sense I think they did it quite interestingly because you know they would do like a five-act serious play and then there would be like a fce and then there would be or at a dance and so there was little bit of something for everybody so you could go and see your Shakespeare and I think particularly in the Georgia ERA this is the time when
those really great actors you know Sarah siddens and you know obviously gar coming to the end of Gary but um Kem Keane Edmund Keane George cook you these dor Jordan these absolutely brilliant actors and it's so hard because we don't know how why they were so great like we've I mean Jan Austin talks about edman Keen in her letters and says it's he's so natural but we don't know what that means like to us it's like we think
of method acting don't we we instant or we might go to Shawn Penn or we might go to the great method actors and so when they say oh he's so natural what does that actually mean it can't mean the same thing that it can mean to us but what I I do know is it wasn't like declamation and you know throwing your hands and being let over the top it was it was tempered down I think when J auson calls it real
hardened acting good acting is real hardened acting so I think there was definitely you could you could see some of that but a lot of people just sometimes went for the fce and the farces I think were great like she Stoops to conquer it's hilarious the rivals Sheridan people would just go and you know spend they go halfway in and see the last bit of the the main play and then they'd see some great F and I
think often people went to see each other you know they went to look at each other so there was a lot of gazing around the room and who's there what are they wearing what are they doing and also it's very noisy so people didn't sit there in deference like they do now they' be chatting and jostling and talking and it was much more sociable and it's a it's a place where the classes intermingle and there aren't many places like that in Georgian
Society because it's so stratified so I think it's really fascinating as a as a sort of social space where you might you might mistake a prostitute with a fine lady because she's wearing the clothes of a fine lady because she's bought them secondhand you've got all these interesting things going on but I think it would be really good fun and how is the forest related to Austin well she Lov F you know she in
her letters she talks about um going to see donjuan and she and it's it's a fast and she's like a compound of Cruelty and lust she calls it but she and there's other fces that she the wonder that a woman keeps a secret not very feminist and by Susan s Lea and she's laughing she says oh the F really pleased me and I think she had quite low taste I think she was hard to please so she really liked the F and also she used to take
the children of the family so they' like a good F so I think she was quite eclectic in her taste but it and you know these clowns were really funny they were really good and I think I say she wasn't a snob she wasn't an intellectual snob she didn't just she did want to see Mrs siddens in in the great Shakespearean roles but she also loved comedy and she is a comic writer which we all forget about which is the most
important thing to remember about Jan is how funny she is so and I would I argued in my very first book that she could never have been such a good comic writer if she hadn't watched all those FES if they hadn't performed them at home if she hadn't read them because her sense of comic timing is derived from 18th Century Theater pride and pre is so much dialogue so it's it is like being at a play and then she used to read her
novels aloud and that is like being at a play as well so I for me that was such a a big and undervalued influence how is Mansfield Park set against a background of war total war you could say by the standards of the time well she's a novelist cuz you know many of her novels are written in the background of the French Wars and the nepoleon Napoleonic Wars and Mansville park I think is particularly 1814 is a
really interesting year there's some very interesting books being written in that year it's it happens to be my favorite joural novel Mansville Park I know everybody hates but I I really love it I find it so different to the others and so much more serious and so much more interesting um so although she doesn't set out to deal with she's not a war novelist but it it infiltrates you know it's so turbulent you know that
something is always happening in the shadow Hinterlands you know you will get that feeling with Manu par of great unease I think that the house itself's corrupt um I've always felt that the Crawford's coming in and corrupting the house isn't isn't what's really going on it's the house that's corrupt and the houses built on the spores of the slave trade so I think it's much more interestingly politically the Trip's too
Antigua they slave plantations yeah very clearly and she says so and so Thomas um the house is built it's a new house man it's built on The Spoils of the slave trade and he goes out because there's unrest and we don't know what that is but there were um enslaved riots happening at the time that especially in antika um and he takes his wild son with him in the hope to get him away from Wild company which doesn't work um but I
think you've always get that of The Spoils of the slave tra and and then of course Fanny's the only one brave enough to ask S Thomas when he comes back and she asks the question about the slave trade and nobody else is really interested they don't want to talk more about it but she does so it's and you know it's a very important moment in the novel that this shy timid diffident little girl is the one who
says what you know tell me more about what's happening with the slave trade so and again the Lord Mansfield connection anybody reading Mansfield Park is going to think of Lord Mansfield and his his role in the abolition of the slave trade so it's that's about the nearest I think she does come to to politics she stays away from it bit like me but it's it's there it all seems political to me just the relationships between the Sexes and
class and who does what to get ahead uh I'm not sure if she sees a relevant alternative but it's mostly an indictment as I read those novels yeah I would agree she she was an abolitionist right absolutely she was obsessed with this really interesting man called Thomas Clarkson who wrote the first history of the slave trade also from Liverpool um or he went around Liverpool I know he he might have been from liverp I can't
remember um but she was obsessed with Thomas Clarkson who was the first person to argue that instead of slaving human traffic if you want to trade with Africa you could do this with Goods with beads with clothes with all sorts of different things um and she really really so she she absolutely um I think the slave trade and everything get stood for and when does the opium trade pop up in her
novels does it persuasion maybe I'm misremembering anyway we will ask Chad GPT in our spare time when we're done definitely you recommend a movie Patricia Rosa's version of Mansfield Park which is now in my to watch list but why is that more interesting and vital than most other Austin adaptations I think at the time it was quite a while ago I saw it and I it did feel very refreshing because it was it
really engaged with the politics engaged with the slave trade um it engage it I think it revealed Fanny as as more spirited it's not a faithful adaptation put it that way and it I know it really did divide people but I thought at the time I was like it's really fun it's really risky and it's fresh but then I saw it again recently and I was a little disappointed I was like oh it's not as BR you know how you go back to a film
that you love and you think oh that's so great and you go back and you're like um I don't think anybody's really got Mansfield park right but there was something very new and fresh and Vivid about the way that she filmed it as well and filmic it's really interesting and I really liked her depiction of Tom Bertram the Wayward Son um and and his engagement the with the slave trade and I really like the way Harold P because
Harold Pinter played sat Thomas and he was really a bu he was he was a bully which I've always felt that sat Thomas is a bully so she took she took lots of lots of risks I mean ultimately she doesn't get Fanny right but I just felt at the time yeah keep it fresh keep it relevant we don't have to be so faithful and we don't have to be like all frocks and smoks and big houses like every J adaptation the house is way bigger than
it what what it would have been she's not interested in Aristocrats she's interested in gentility um so she's they've always kind of got it wrong and the ones the films I like I love clueless clueless is the best adaptation because it's so funny like she just gets the funniness and that's the really important thing clueless is so great and that that has never lost its charm for me your book on evilin nois uh the
phrase pops up and I quote naturally fastidious why can it be said that so many British people are naturally fastidious your questions are so crazy um I love it um did I say that I think evil and War said it not you but it's in the book you know give me the context of that oh I I'd have to go back and look uh it's just in my memory that's really funny it's a great it's a great phrase we can evaluate the claim on its own
terms right yes I'm not sure they are anymore uh it seems maybe they once were but the stiff upper lip tradition much weaker with time yeah I think evand War would be appalled with the way England has gone um naturally fous yeah I think yes it's different to reticent isn't it it's it's uh the fous hard to please it means doesn't it f naturally hard to please I kind of think that's quite true of even War's gener certainly if even War
because he was naturally is that literally sums him up in a phrase if I go to Britain as an American I very much have the feeling that people derive status from having negative opinions more than positive and that's quite different from this country would you agree with that I would and I I I would agree and I think one of the things I have always loved about America was that I know it's such a cliche about
you know Americans have the sense of positivity and you can do anything but but it's true and you know I and I do find in England there is a sort of real eel sort of Dow sort of putting putting you down or putting you in your place but I kind of like that as well so like with scouse humor it's very much keep you in your place don't get too big for your boots and I kind of like it because I think the corally the you know the
opposite of that is what the phoniness of Americans like you know when you go to La and everyone's like oh my God just so beautiful it's amazing and like oh my God like you know and you just think it you don't mean a word what's coming out your lips so I think like the the balance new yor New York feels like the balance is pretty right but when did when did that start in Britain does it exist at the peak of
Victorian Britain one doesn't feel it in John Stewart Mill or many other writers what's the evolution of that because you've written British biographies about a number of different errors you mean the stiff upper lip well the Nega the negativity as as a means of conferring status upon yourself yeah I mean I think it it's it's slightly TS poppy syndrome that you don't want to Big someone up too much
because it makes you feel small and it takes your light away from you if you you you're a all poppy um but I think it it is tied in with something that I've really come to Value the older I've got which is English reticence and English diffidence and I actually the older I get the more I'm like I really like that because it it does feel very intrinsic to who I am as a British person which is it it may not be you might say negative
I might say realistic you might say pessimistic I might say honest you know I it just sort of depends how we Define these things but I think when when someone gives you a compliment or to me they mean it in England they mean it because they very rarely give you one and I'm like oh you must really mean that and that comes that has value and I think that stiff upper lip has value and as a as a therapist it also does not
have value as a as a therapist family secrets are the worst thing that you can ever do so I I see both both sides of it if that makes sense but in terms of the novel and in terms of the great writers I think you're on to I think I think you're right about that there is a such of deep pessimism that runs a strain that runs through however as with Eveland W and Jane Austin you always get that leavened with
with humor with don't take yourself too seriously I think that's the Great British sin don't take yourself too seriously like if you take yourself too serious you're doomed and do you read War as actually a snob and a misope or is that a kind of put on and that actually he's very good-natured about Humanity the latter I completely think it's put on and I I argued this really strongly in my book that he everything was a joke everything
was up for a joke and he played the part of the sort of of grumpy konel which he talked about himself deep down he was incredibly kind to his friends he was deeply sensitive he wasn't a snob he made you know he he made and again he makes fun of of the aristocracy and brid said even though people don't always see that I don't think he was any of those things I think he was a snob about cleverness I think
he was a bit of an intellectual snob I think if you were really stupid he wouldn't have much time for you but I and maybe that's a British thing too but he really valued wit and good conversation but it didn't matter whether you were like his bagman you know his when he was during the war his um his bagman had daughter him and and there's an interview where they're trying to get this bagman to sort of say
oh he's horrible snob was and he said no he's absolutely lovely did he Shout At You is he horrible to you during the war no no no he couldn't have been Kinder and he just he he was somebody who knew him intimately during the war and he he just did not have a bad word to say about him so it's become a bit of a parody and he became a bit of a parody of himself he pared him parody himself but I think he played that part and for
me he certainly was was not a snob if I understand your life history correctly you and your husband come from very different status bands in British Society how do you think that shapes the books and biographies you write um I think we're both interested in social class but I think if you live in England you are because it permeates everything you another thing I really love about America is and I know there
is an American class system I know that but I've always felt very free in America because people don't judge me by my accent whereas in England you're instantly or you were instantly judged by oh you're a northerner that means that you steal things or you're a northerner that means that you're stupid all so and I I've never got that in America so I think my husband and I have always been really fascinated and we
come from different class different backgrounds but the great unifying thing for us always was books and literature and art and music and all the things that we have in common um so I think it's yeah I mean it it does shape it does shape the writing because I'm I'm interested in people who write about social class Jane Austin even more now obviously I'm drawn to him yeah I'm same with
him but do you have the sense that in your books you're working through something about your own life and your own history and that's what you have to get out and that by doing it indirectly there's some way you can psychologically resolve that where it won't quite work so directly because I feel that way about my books that I'm always writing about myself in some ways 100% and I and I've said it many many times that all
biographers or writing autobiographies that you even the fact that you choose to write about these certain people I mean it's something that appeals to you or you may even shaped by so I was really fascinated right going back to the Hardy Book for a moment I was really interested in working-class women's stories because I come from that background and the background I come from it's very matriarchal it's Catholic
it's women had a lot of power I could never understand middle- class women saying women have no power because I was like oh my God you've never been in my family because you know they were always the storytellers they were really power the men were like really not as strong as the women so I was really fascinated by female law in Thomas H what are these stories that go through the generations do we believe them these IL legitimate
children I was always always interested in giving people a voice and I wouldn't be drawn to that if I hadn't had that background because I know that's how women talk and speak and I think Hardy was really fascinated by workingclass women and their strength of character and their stories and their you know all those things so I think you're completely right I don't think the single book I've come I've written where
I feel cold where I feel like I don't know this world or I don't share something of myself and I think it's just a fallacy to say oh I'm really OB Ive I wrote that book and I'm so objective I just don't think it works like that I think you see things that you think ah okay that's that's really fascinating as somebody else might say something completely different and not see it um so I think yeah for me it's always there's always my own
autobiography and I hope it doesn't distort it too much but I kind of that's great I love that in the books I I feel a bit I mean I don't know you at all but I feel a bit I know you just reading the biographies oh that's a lovely thing to say thank you a related question does Paul McCartney still have a liverpudlian accent because he pretends not to if you listen to 1963 Paul McCartney or more recent Paul McCartney it's a very
different way of speaking but underneath do you still hear that he's from Liverpool oh 100% see the thing is I just think he sounds so scous to this day I think I think I know and it's softened because a bit like me I haven't lived in merys side since I was 18 really I came back for a bit and then moved away again so I really hear I really hear his accent but I know what you're saying like those early like the
accents really thick and it's very gutural that it's right from back from the throat and it's softened but to me I so hear that accent I'm like oh my God he's so scous could you explain to me as an American what you've called the poison Pen episode so your husband has a governance post at Oxford and you're the with him and someone starts writing these nasty letters about you now people write nasty comments on the internet
about me kind every day basically and and no one cares but in the society you're in this is somehow an event there's multiple newspaper stories about it you end up writing a novel partly based on these events like how is it that the pois and Pen letters have Force it's very puzzling to me again I really like this line of question and I think there's something powerful about somebody who takes the
trouble to go and buy a nice sheet of paper and a first class stamp or in this I'll tell you a really funny story about that in a minute and and write this beautiful letter about as care and precision has have been thought about and then you go and you take it to the post box and you post it and that's not like come on tler that is not like writing Tyler you suck on a tweet like it's really not the same thing you know
and I'm like I and then I remember I when it first happened I the same thing had happened to my best friend who's A clgi in London and I called him up and I was like oh my god I've got a poison pen letter and we were talking about the power of this the question you just made and he said he said darling you know there's there's one question I have to ask you and he said is did they send a first class it's so British this
response by the way a first class stamp or a second class stamp and I said well it actually was a step second class stamp and he said oh yes cheap as well as vicious how good was the penmanship oh it was superb and I knew straight away it was an academic because it was so clever and I knew it was a woman because it was so clever and sorry people did you ever find out who it was I did and you found out factually or you
just inferred in a in a basian sense who it must be no I flushed this person out via Twitter so I she she she eventually made a mistake she she um posted a letter um with a where where there was a camera um and I and it was by registered poser she made a mistake so I pretended that I had camera footage which I didn't and I tweeted it and said sorry you've been caught I know who you are that
we've got CCT TV Camera you better fess up and she fessed up so and there was I mean I I sued her as well there was a there was I mean I didn't wanted to go to court because she was clearly on well and I didn't want to do that but um I I you know it got very far and and you know it did get very far and full apology and and what do you take to be the true motive behind it just viciousness or mental illness
or little bit of vicious a lot of mental illness um I think it was someone whose life hadn't really really turned out the way she'd expected and I think she sort of there was a little bit of Envy I don't know why but there felt like there was like it should have been me sort of thing um and like really wanting to put me down um again that class that British class thing that who were you to be parading around Oxford as a Pro's wife um who
knows because I never had met this person I did not know this person I'd never ever this it was just like why would you even do that and everything was from Twitter like she'd talking about Twitter it's my Twitter novel because I figured out earlier I was like oh my God every this person doesn't know me I was like everything that in these letters are things that I've tweeted so I and and that was the case as it as it happened
so little link there with our Twitter experiences Tyler how many letters were there I think there were about maybe about 20 over a 5ye period that's a lot of letters a lot and they were very long that's how I knew it was a boring academic because they were so long and convoluted and I was like oh for God's sake like I adic but like typical academics never write any books and winge and take all their long holidays
sorry everyone's going to absolutely kill me for this um and don't they love it they love it keep and don't even do anything and then I was like you're writing me these 30 page letters why didn't you write a book love like just do something with your I knew it was a it was a female academic and it was um and it was just like so it was just it took it just took so much of her time she basic she later said alcohol had
played a part so I think she would just get completely smashed and then decide to take me down and write these letters but honestly they were hilarious like they were so funny that I was like I have to use these letters in a book I this is a waste this is so so funny like this stalking of me I was like it's hilarious it was it was just so but it was so Bonkers it was like baby reindeer before baby
reindeer now if I had known of this at the time I would have inferred that you were a non-conformist and in some way some mix of like quite interesting and ambitious and wanted to meet you did other people in England react that way like did you become a heroine or did they just assume the letters Were Somehow some correct you know critique of you oh I don't think I was a heroin at all I I was
absolutely vilified I think so many people were just really like not happy that I went public um and when I wrote the novel I was a little bit critical of Oxford as an institution and that really didn't do me any favors um so I no I I did not get many admiring that was not the greatest care it wasn't my greatest career move however I wanted a flush her out and I wanted her to stop so I you know I was and I was absolutely
determined that something positive would come out of this horrible because it is distressing and I I know I make light of it but it is really really horrible it was so nasty and vicious and cruel and then you just think who is it and then you start thinking is it my friend or is it so and so and it so you do become quite paranoid really feel sorry for famous people because I'm like they must get this all the time and then who do
you trust and it's hard enough in an Oxford College to trust anybody because they're all such backstabbers so like I was like oh my God what if it's somebody like who sees me every day so you do become a little bit paranoid but so I think writing the novel was cathartic and it did enable me to sort of step back from it and say come on this is actually quite funny but I I didn't get any people saying good just a couple of
people went good on you good on you for doing that but not many and do you think there's some element of jealousy that you are lady bit and that some sense someone feels that's not deserved and that 100 100% I think they think I'm lady Docker from Liverpool and like I think they think how who the hell does she think she is and those none of the those things don't matter anything to me that was Jonathan's Accolade and he deserved
it so like anything that I you know getting it title from that is not my title like I it it's lovely for him and I I support him and I think he deserved it and he he I think he's the only second person to be kned for services to L I was so proud of him but it wasn't mine but I definitely think there were some people particularly in Oxford and Cambridge who were really really angry about and really thought who
because I am outspoken Tyler I do say it as it is and it is the sort of scouser in me and I don't really put up with and I don't think people like that they thought that I should look just shut up and Putt up and so I think there was there was a lot of um viciousness that came as a result of the title and really interestingly I don't think you you can't know this but it's absolutely true the first letter came a
week after the Knighthood was announced so I think that was the trigger I was like ah somebody's seen this in the papers and this is the trigger so whe whether there was I don't know I can't say whether there was some sort of not even Envy but just like who does she think she is do you think you're an outspoken can liver pudan as a therapist yes so you'll just call BS when you hear it I completely and you
have to with couples I love couples I do all therapy I do family therapy but I love couples because you have to call it out like you've got to call people's out and of course you only do that when you've created that Bond and and you know but I absolutely will because I Will Not Waste people's time or money and I will say you are wasting your time you're wasting your money you don't want you don't want this enough I
will will absolutely call it out because I can't bear people who just go into therapy for therapy's sake and waste their money and their time and in America it's expensive it's it's a lot of money to to to to to speak to me like I've got to be worth it I've got to be worth it you know I want them to feel good about this so I am outspoken but I'm gentle too and I think I've always been a good listener so I've not had any
complaints now I know it's hard to generalize but if you think about how American couples are different from British couples I mean what ideas come to mind I really think American couples are incredibly I know this makes me sound a bit of a tosser but they're so sweet like I feel like well I lived in Arizona for so long and I was just like oh the relationships are so lovely they're so kind to each other they're so warm and I
was like British people are just so horrible to each other I feel like we're always in an ivy compt in burn it novel where everyone's like Whispering horrible things under their breath to their husbands and their wives um I I feel like this the family values in America and is huge for me but it maybe the West Coast thing as well I was like wow so much family and support and of course not everybody but my G just
generalizing I'm like wow there's there's a real support with within the the the family that I don't haven't seen quite so much in England I think it's seems a little bit more fraud and so many people who marri their college sweethearts I'm like how does that even work like how can you still be married to someone you knew when you 14 I like seriously do you really want to stay together you can
leave you think there's evidence of any kind of Mental Health crisis in the US today and maybe only with people's children but I see some of this parents with teenagers or children say in their 20s I hear of many more issues than I would have say 15 years ago maybe people just talk about it more but uh this to me is notable do you agree or find the same I do agree and my my favorite group apart from couples are teenagers I they
they're the population I always wanted to work with in therapy and I'm fascinated by teenagers I love them they're hilarious and you know I they are just great and and I'm shocked by how many teenagers are seriously depressed like I'm I'm seeing 11y olds with depression 12y olds of depression 13y olds with depression um and that's something that I think is is is is new and just the sense in which and I'm not going to blame social media
this because I think social media is fantastic um but the pressure young women particular I noticed in therapy are under to to that sort of cult of perfection and also when you're bullied There's No Escape you know I I can remember being bullied and I was like least youd go home and then your parents would be nice to you and it'd be fun your siblings would just like you'd laugh it off but you there's no Escape
There Is No Escape at all I love that population and I think what what we we we there is a huge Mount of Health crisis no matter what however way you cut it there really really is and and the sad thing is is that I'm a family therapist so I really love families I love getting families in a room because you can't just take one person's perspective everyone has a different perspective and and making families
stronger I think therapy is just so brilliant and important for All Families in order to connect that's that's the Ean forcer thing isn't it only connect um but I've been really scared by the mental Health crisis amongst young people in particularly in America I've seen some pretty shocking stuff I can tell you why do you think it's gotten worse cuz I don't know again I mean people will blame social media and to some extent it's
that um uh I think a lot of children are really lonely both parents work and they they often go home to an empty house I mean I've just heard such horrific stories about there's no Community like America's great for Community but I'm like what we don't really have that sense of community anymore um which I think is so important like you know I don't know churches or whatever like having a sense of community is really
important and we just don't have that anymore and I think that's a problem I think there's all sorts of things that I I do think social media plays A Part um but and I I mean honestly it's fascinating I think about it all the time I'm like why why have we got why we got this bad like what's happened why are we in this state that we're in and I think it is lack of connection a real meaningful
connection now one hears often of a human capital crisis in northern England in particular which of course is where you're from all right how would you diagnose that because it did not exist in earlier times what has happened there is it just de-industrialization or there's something else in the story again it's complicated isn't it definitely the I mean I was just thinking of um the F Monte when you said
that that brilliant film about the sort you know the emasculation of men you know when women could get jobs and it was the men sort of pushing the prams and I can remember seeing that in the North like the ship building industry cads closing and you suddenly see more men pushing babies in the prams it really did make me think of the full Monto and you said that um and but then I look I I don't I I think then tourism has since live pool was a
capital of culture it it became really more Pro prosperous again and that people were getting jobs and the with the garden festivals and so I've seen such big changes but I've been away from it from so long Tyler I've been away from the north I bet I know I haven't really been back for a long time my sense when I've gone back to Liverpool is it seems so thriving it feels prosperous in a way it didn't in the 80s
when I was it was I went there during pandemic I loved it it's fantastic and people you ever bought anything yeah have you ever bought anything on Penny Lane no but I've been I've been down Penny Lane many of times I love the people the people are really warm my my children love going back because I always T them home because my parents and my family mainly still there and my kids who were brought up in Oxford just
said live they just thought the north England was the best placees they they think the people are friendly and warm and kind and funny and they found people in oxa very snobby so they've always really I love seeing Liverpool through their eyes as well because they're like oh they're so nice everyone's so kind and people say hello on the streets um but I don't I mean I I just I I really don't know really so much
about the politics because I'm I'm so out to touch Tyler I'm R out to touch and and I'm I'm so disillusioned I'm disillusioned with Kista I'm disillusioned with labor I'm disappointed and I'm saddened you know I'm I think Britain's become well like America very divisive place like families arguing over politics has become really vicious you know within you know within families people not speaking to someone because you voted
for Donald Trump or you I'm like wow how did it get to this like I don't who cares what you who somebody who votes differently to you you still can love them but it it just become it's becomes so divisive and I think the pandemics and the pandemic going back to mental health huge huge impact on adolescence they really had a hard many of them had a very hard time during the pandemic so I think this you know I think there's
lots of complimentary and complex issues around around that really what's the most underrated Beatles song H I love The Beetles um I really like the bides i l and I like George a lot um I'm going to go with yes it is it's a great song yeah wonderful harmonies I said you won't see me when someone discussed this with me recently but Mr Moonlight also no one likes but it's what an amazing vocal one of joh
you won't see me it's a great song yes that is a great song The Melancholy in there is just inred The Melancholy and the harmonies and I love this Bo I love all I think the harmonies of just those early harmonies are so beautiful but I I really love the besides and um yes it is yeah yes it is is so gorgeous excellent choice what's the weirdest thing about living in Arizona well I don't know truly
weird uh the weirdest thing about living in Arizona oh gosh there's so many um oh my God I'm really I love it Pho you're near Phoenix right yes sort of Scot style I love I love the landscape it's incredibly beautiful um what's the weirdest thing do you know what I think it is I know this makes me sound so incredibly shallow it's that the restaurants are in malls shopping malls I'm like where are the restaurants like where are there
like cafes where are where are people sitting outside like people watching but you have to go to a mall to get a meal you can't sit outside four or five months of the year and you can't sit outside and that's the kind of obvious one but it is incredibly beautiful Northern Arizona which I really loved and spend a lot of time is so completely gorgeous and beauti beautiful and the landscape is so different to um to
Phoenix that I did a lot of I really tried to explore the area when I was living there and I'd take the kids and we'd go to all these Pac and all these like really weird places and just presc it and just really get to know and Bisby have you been to Bisby no what's in Bisby Bisby is the coolest place it's it's a mining town so it look you feel like you're in sort of the Alps of Switzerland and it's full of music and
bands and it's cool and it it's the best place in the world and there's all these ins that are built on the mountain side where the mining the mining used to take place it is it's really really cool Bisby and I'm I'm a big big fan before my last question let me just put in another plug for your books I very much like all of them the most recent is Hardy women mother Sisters Wives Muses about Thomas Hardy and the
women in his lives and in his work last question what will you do next oh I've just finished literally today before I spoke to you I I pressed send on an an another novel it's my third novel it's a historical novel and it's about Jane Austin's lost secret Seaside romance that's great but after that now that that's sort of done what will you do next um I prob I'm not sure I'm going to write because there's no honestly I
can't afford to there's no money in it nobody reads anymore I'm really depressed about it um so I'm yay I'm probably going to practice therapy um um for a while um and maybe I always say this of Tyler I'm like this is it last book no money can't do it nobody's buying books and then I always like oh my God got this really good idea so actually I am writing a novel about Mary Robinson you mentioned her earlier
so I'm I think the historical novel thing is just so much fun I really like it and I don't have to worry about footnotes all the time um so it's quite freeing to be a creative no creative fiction writer rather than non-fiction so although I say this is the last one I have been saying that for like 20 years I say that too you know and there's typically one more but Paula burn thank you very much it's been a real pleasure thank you Tyler