Thank you so much! I am so excited to have it come out in Australia and can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks. X
Please find some questions below for the Better Reading Feature on Adults:
Adults is a satire on our age of self-promotion, a tender look at the impossibility of womanhood, a love story, and a riot. Can you tell us a bit more about the book?
It’s about a woman in her mid-thirties whose life is falling apart hut she is trying desperately to make it look like she’s holding it together. She doesn’t feel she is very good at being an adult. It’s a comedy, with dark bits. I hope it makes you laugh more than it makes you cry!
What inspired this novel?
Being a woman in my mid-thirties whose life was falling apart… No, not entirely. Well, a bit. I wanted to write a fast-paced comedy about mothers and daughters, female bodies, friendship in your thirties (and how it often changes dramatically), and how tricky it can be to be comfortable on social media.
What do you hope the reader will take away from this book?
I hope they’ll laugh, and feel a little less lonely. I hope they’ll enjoy an alternative ending for a female character than what a romcom usually offers. I hope if they find social media tricky then it will help them laugh at the ridiculousness of it sometimes.
Both your previous novels have won awards, and of course Animals is now a film. Did you feel any pressure writing this book?
Yes, of course I wanted to write something that fans would like. A novelist is nothing without her readers. I also wanted to write something that felt fresh, and that challenged me as writer. I’m so grateful for how well Animals did and that it got made into a film – it was such a dream come true – and I’m grateful that has brought new readers to me! I hope people enjoy Adults.
You wrote the screenplay for Animals. Did that process have an impact on the process of writing this novel?
I think learning how to write screenplays has made me a better plotter. Structure has never been my strongest point, but scripts are so strict when it comes to turning points and beats, I now pay so much more attention to those things when I’m writing anything. I also included some little sections in script form, as a nod to my new line of work, but also because Jenny mum Carmen is a failed actress, and in a way the whole book is about performing, and how we all perform to the people around us. What happens when we stop? What happens when we forget how to stop?
What’s your daily writing routine like, and what are you working on at the moment?
I write three days a week full time at home while my son is at nursery. I also love writing on trains, but my favourite place to write is in a motorhome going round the countryside – or ideally the Scottish Highlands. No internet, no distractions, just mountains. Bliss!
At the moment I’m working on the TV adaptation of Adults and a memoir about post-natal depression because I had that quite badly after the birth of my son and I couldn’t find anything to read about it, so I want to put something out there that’s honest and helpful and hopefully even a bit funny.
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