Nina Stibbe, WENT TO LONDON, TOOK THE DOG: The Diary of a 60-Year-Old Runaway
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[0:44]Nina Stibi is the author of Wind to London Took the Dog, the diary of a 60-year-old
[0:50]runaway.
[0:51]Nina is the author of six books, Love Nina, one nonfiction book of the year award
[0:56]at the 2014 National Book Awards, and was shortlisted for Waterstone's Book of the Year.
[1:01]The book was adapted by Nick Hornby for BBC Television.
[1:04]She is the author of four novels, all of which have been shortlisted, for the Bullinger
[1:08]Every Man Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.
[1:11]Her third novel, Reasons to Be Cheerful, is the only novel today to have won both the
[1:15]Bollinger Every Man Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the Comedy Women in Print Award
[1:20]for Comic Fiction.
[1:21]Her latest novel, One Day, I shall astonish the world, was published in April 2022.
[1:27]Welcome, Nina.
[1:28]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibi to talk about when to London
[1:32]Took the Dog, the diary of a 60-year-old runaway.
[1:35]Congrats.
[1:36]Thank you for having me.
[1:37]Thank you.
[1:38]This is probably the best title ever.
[1:39]I think.
[1:40]Don't you think?
[1:41]I mean, it's so good.
[1:42]Well, it's a slight copy of, I think, an Emily Dickinson poem.
[1:47]I think she had a poem called Started Early, Something Something, and then a British novelist
[1:55]called Kate Atkinson had started Early Took the Dog.
[2:00]And so, yeah, I've stolen it, but you're allowed to.
[2:03]Yeah.
[2:04]And it's the subtitle, too.
[2:05]The diary of a 60-year-old runaway.
[2:07]Like you're immediately like, what is she running from?
[2:10]Where is she running to?
[2:12]Yes, it's a lot of questions.
[2:13]You can tell from the cover, it's not sinister.
[2:16]Yes.
[2:17]Because it could be quite scary.
[2:19]Yes, but no, she's running to a coffee cup, so we're good.
[2:24]So, by the way, I read Dear Nina when it came out.
[2:29]And so this is just, you know, I'm sure everybody tells you that.
[2:32]But anyway.
[2:33]Thank you.
[2:34]Absolutely.
[2:35]What is your new book about?
[2:36]Please give us the rundown.
[2:38]The new book is about, it's a year in my life, and it started when I decided I was going
[2:46]to have a, what I call the sabbatical, some time away from home, preferably in London.
[2:52]I'd been living right down in the south west of England on the coast, a place called
[2:57]Cornwall.
[2:59]And it's probably 300 miles away from London.
[3:02]That doesn't sound very far away to people who live in the States.
[3:06]But to us, British people, that's a long way.
[3:10]And I was feeling sort of a bit isolated and I decided I will go to London, find some
[3:17]motivation, write my next novel.
[3:20]My children at left home and gone to university.
[3:23]And so I looked into an airbnb for me and my dog.
[3:27]And it was just too expensive.
[3:29]And then I heard of my, well, I didn't know her then.
[3:32]I heard of this woman, a writer called Deborah Mogark, who, who rents out rooms to people.
[3:39]She's sort of on an ad hoc basis and they just water her plants.
[3:42]She's not always there.
[3:44]So I went and lived there for a, for a peppercorn rent with my dog.
[3:51]And this is the diary of the year, am I going to separate from my husband, am I going
[3:56]to go back, am I going to get the novel written, what's it going to be like?
[4:01]Being on my own again after, you know, 25 years of marriage and children.
[4:05]And I didn't mean to write it as a novel, I didn't, as a, sorry, as a diary for you.
[4:11]It was just a diary for me.
[4:13]So, and then you're like, I can use this.
[4:17]Well, I thought I probably couldn't zivvy because it's so candid and personal that I thought
[4:26]I probably couldn't.
[4:28]But then I met with my editor from Penguin Mary Mount and she said, I hope you're writing
[4:35]it down for publication and I said, well, I'm not really.
[4:39]And she said, oh, I think you should.
[4:41]So halfway through the year, I started thinking, okay, maybe I will.
[4:46]And actually I think the first six months, I set the tone of this honesty about my feelings
[4:54]and other things.
[4:56]And once the six months have gone by, I couldn't then change it.
[5:00]I couldn't say, well, I'm not going to talk about A, B, and C. So I rather set myself
[5:06]up for that.
[5:07]But yeah, it happened.
[5:10]And then how did you feel putting it all out there?
[5:13]Well, a couple of things, my kids are in there a lot and they were at the time.
[5:18]My son was 21 and my daughter was 23 and lots of their friends.
[5:24]So I had to check with them, are you okay with this?
[5:26]They're in there.
[5:27]They're supporting me in this year of sort of running away.
[5:31]You know, they've got their dad to think of as well.
[5:33]The person I left, so long chats with them.
[5:38]And also in the first six months of writing the diary, my ex-husband was in a lot.
[5:46]I talked about him a lot, I talked about our discussions about the future.
[5:52]But at the end of the day, he said, I'm not comfortable being in there, which really
[6:00]disappointed me because he came out so beautifully.
[6:05]It was a really nice model for how to end a marriage without trashing it.
[6:13]But that wasn't to be.
[6:14]And so he's not in it.
[6:15]And that was a disappointment right at the last minute, he said, he said, no.
[6:21]And lots of people have said, we miss that side of things.
[6:26]Did you miss that side of things?
[6:28]I relate to that because I wrote a memoir and also had to take out my ex-husband
[6:35]at the last minute.
[6:36]I had an inkling, yes.
[6:38]It's a lot of threading, cutting, it's like an arts and crafts project to put it all
[6:43]back together again.
[6:44]Yeah.
[6:45]And it's a shame because it had been nice.
[6:49]It had been empathy and warmth and so it was a shame.
[6:54]And I, yeah, anyway, so yeah, I think the most, there's a lot of, let's say, content
[7:02]about being a late, middle-aged woman, there's menopausal stuff and all that stuff.
[7:09]And I didn't feel sensitive about that at all.
[7:12]But I surprisingly did feel sensitive about ending a marriage.
[7:17]I felt guilty and I've never had any negative feelings about other people ending their
[7:24]marriages.
[7:25]And not at all.
[7:26]I grew up with a divorce with divorce parents.
[7:29]And I heard friends of mine were guessing divorce.
[7:31]I'd always feel a bit jealous.
[7:33]I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not neutral at all.
[7:37]But whether it was me, I felt, I thought, why couldn't I just have tough it out?
[7:43]Why couldn't I just have stayed?
[7:45]Why have I caused all this upheaval?
[7:48]And so I did feel really guilty about that.
[7:51]And when the book came out, a newspaper here, the Daily Mail, I'm sure you know of it, ran
[7:57]stories about saying, you know, with her marriage on the rocks, you know, just kind
[8:04]of really relishing in that side of things, which I hadn't expected, which was naive
[8:09]of me.
[8:10]And there were lots of comments under those articles calling me names.
[8:16]And I didn't really mind, but my son minded, he could not believe the names I was
[8:21]pickled and then I felt awful.
[8:23]I thought, I haven't thought this through.
[8:25]But on the whole, I'm, I'm, I'm happy with it.
[8:27]I think it's funny.
[8:29]I think it's, I genuinely hope, I think it's useful to women.
[8:35]I do.
[8:36]Isn't it really outrageous when you think about it that all these people that you don't
[8:40]know feel they have the right to all you a name based on a relationship they know nothing
[8:45]about?
[8:46]I know.
[8:47]I mean, it's really, it's, it shouldn't even be allowed.
[8:51]And then the fact that we read the names and we're, we take it personally, right?
[8:55]Even though they only see like this much, if somebody were, if you, if you're showing a painting
[9:00]in a museum, but the people looking in the museum could only see like this little tiny
[9:05]bit of the canvas and then they made all these proclamations, we would be like, oh, well,
[9:08]that doesn't count.
[9:09]But yeah, it's better lives where I was like, yeah, okay, you're right.
[9:13]Yeah.
[9:14]And the other thing that's surprising is when I've had sort of negative reviews in that
[9:19]way.
[9:20]I'll bump into the people sometimes at an event and they're so nice to me.
[9:26]And I think, wow, I didn't I see you saying, you know, what a selfish bit, chime, yeah,
[9:33]anyway.
[9:34]You cares.
[9:35]Who cares what they think?
[9:36]Yeah, they're just trying to sell papers.
[9:39]Yeah.
[9:40]Yeah, yeah.
[9:41]At the end of the day.
[9:42]I mean, they have to.
[9:43]I think more frustrating than people commenting and being judgmental.
[9:49]The thing I have had in my whole career as a writer, and this is my seventh book, it's
[9:56]what I've been really lucky with my press reviews, I've.
[10:00]the book has just gone into the right hands on the whole. It's been amazing. But I've had a
[10:06]few stinkers and it's always older men who say that there's nothing important in here. It's very
[10:16]slight and inconsequential. And I just think, wow, imagine saying that about women's lives,
[10:26]about all the things, I've had that a few times. And I've just had to swallow it down,
[10:36]but I've been raging about that. And I think a lot of mother or a sister or a wife or a daughter,
[10:42]don't you know? Yeah, they must have had one of them. Certainly a mother.
[10:49]I read a very good review. I thought in the Washington Post of your book, did you read that?
[10:54]lovely. I was so happy with that. Yeah. You know, the American press have been very
[10:59]supportive to me over the years. And my American readers have been fantastic. With my first book,
[11:06]the book you mentioned, Love Nina, did I say Dear Nina? I'm so sorry. No, I'm so sorry. Love Nina.
[11:14]I'm sorry. And it's fine. It's not fine. I just, I'm sorry. What people, what I felt when that book
[11:22]was published, because that was a book of letters, as you'll remember, it was just letters I wrote.
[11:27]Yes, to my sister. That's all it was. And I thought it was being published in the UK.
[11:34]And I thought privately, I thought, who's interested in this? I cannot believe anybody is going to
[11:41]find this interesting or entertaining or funny, but not only did the UK readers like it,
[11:48]but American readers loved it. It was so charming. And you had all these scenes of you observing
[11:59]the family you were the nay for and their dialogue, which was so funny and the whole cast of characters
[12:04]in that book in this book. You know, it's just, I mean, I guess so. And I, it's the sort of thing
[12:09]that I myself like, but I just couldn't imagine it happening. And there's so many funny little,
[12:15]in this book that we're talking about today in the new one and in love Nina, Nina will comment
[12:22]on America. I mean, in this book, it's not as sort of itself conscious. I know I'm writing a
[12:29]diary, so I say has, I can't remember there was something, has Biden had a facelift. My, my, my landlady
[12:37]said, I don't think he had COVID. I think he's had a facelift. And so I put a few American things
[12:43]in because we're over here. We are intrigued, fascinated and charmed by the states and just
[12:48]always interested. But in love, Nina, she's constantly talking about America because she just moved to
[12:55]London. And everybody's obsessed with America. And they always going off to New York and coming
[13:00]back with headache pills that you can't get over here and lots of American things. Yeah, we're
[13:07]obsessed of here. That's good. I wasn't sure that was exactly the case. I feel like
[13:14]we often, I feel like we're often embarrassing ourselves. But anyway, you feel free.
[13:18]Thank you. So do we. So do we. You think of well, come on. Oh my goodness. Well, the book was also
[13:28]really fun because of all of your references about other authors in the book. It was like a,
[13:34]a who's who wears Waldo of the book world in here. And it's just part of your daily life.
[13:39]It's like behind the scenes of publishing. So having been in publishing and knowing so many
[13:45]authors, what do you feel like? How are you feeling about the publishing world today and having a
[13:50]book come out now versus when you first started? When I first started working in publishing,
[13:54]well, publishing books either way. Oh, well, what really fascinated me about publishing that book,
[14:01]this book, was that by accident, I was coming to London from the sticks. You might do,
[14:08]do you say that from the stick? I mean, personally, but it is said.
[14:16]So I was coming from a long, long way away to London to live with a literary lady. It happened
[14:20]twice. I did it in 1982 when I was 19. And I came from Leicester, sharing the countryside,
[14:26]and I just rocked up. And I accidentally was in the middle of this street of accomplished
[14:32]writers and directors. And you know, there was Alan Bennett and a woman called Claire Tomlin,
[14:38]who was the literary editor of the Sunday Times, became a very famous biographer. And I,
[14:44]they, they meant nothing to me. I didn't know who they were. I just rocked up as the nanny.
[14:49]And I, as you said, I wrote letters to my sister describing it. And then really ugly, 40 years later,
[14:57]I did exactly the same. I came from right down in Cornwall, where I'd been for 20 odd years.
[15:03]I came back to London, lived, I live across the road now. Deborah lives over there, Deborah Mogark,
[15:09]who is, I didn't know her then, but I knew of her because she wrote the, the, the, the best exotic
[15:15]married gold hotel. And she's done all sorts of novels and screenplays and things. So I,
[15:21]I ended up living with her. And then in this area of London, wherever,
[15:25]everybody's around. So it happened all over again, except this time, they know me as a fellow
[15:31]writer. So I, I, there's nothing charming or naive about it. I'm very self-conscious and knowing,
[15:41]and I'm sort of presenting myself is, it was very interesting that the, that the, all that,
[15:47]you know, when I came as a nanny, I was under the radar. I was just watching and reporting. And you
[15:53]know, I'd say, yeah, he might have written the best selling biography of, of, of such and such,
[15:58]but he doesn't know how to make a cup of tea. Well, I couldn't say that now because I know these
[16:04]are my friends now. And so I had to be really quite careful. And there's one character. So you
[16:12]were talking about publishing. So there's all these authors like Nick Hornby, who I think you've
[16:17]interviewed. I have. I have. And, you know, Bonnie Garmus from, I'm so interviewed, yes. Yeah. And
[16:25]another really famous authors that I'm rubbing shoulders with, but they, what they don't realize
[16:32]is I am just the same as that old version of me. I haven't changed. I've been away. I haven't
[16:38]been here in London or New York or Melbourne. I've been by the seaside 300 miles away where
[16:47]nothing much happens. So that was, that was strange. And I was writing about them. And I thought
[16:54]that when the diary was finished, I'd send it to each of them, which of course I had to do. And
[17:01]I'd say, let me know if you're happy with this. It will completely understand if you would rather
[17:07]I didn't have you in. Well, nobody, nobody said no. They all said yes. And I'm quite cheeky about them.
[17:14]I mean, I'm not, I'm quite mischievous with them, I think. And I, there was one, there's a writer
[17:23]called satanam sangira who as well as being a novelist here, is a very serious journalist.
[17:29]And he had lived in the lodgings with Deborah, where I ended up living. And one of my diary entries,
[17:37]I say, I've finally thrown away satanam's loofah. You know, I'll loofah it. Yes, of course.
[17:44]I didn't know what one was. I was like, what is this? So I said, it's a loofah. It's for scrubbing over there.
[17:48]Yeah, yeah. And I was sure that satanam was to say, please don't have that,
[17:54]that, you know, image. I don't want people imagining me in the bath with a loofah.
[17:59]But he didn't, he was delighted. And everybody was delighted, except my ex-husband who just
[18:06]for whatever reason said no. But there was one woman called Rachel Dearborn, do you remember her?
[18:14]Every horrible thing that anyone does in the diary is her. Every horrible thing that said is her.
[18:21]She's just this grumpy sort of, she's rather judgmental and comudgingly. She doesn't like the
[18:29]world anymore. She doesn't like young people. She doesn't like them being on their phones and
[18:34]she's always complaining. So she was in it right from the start. I was introduced to her and I wrote,
[18:40]I wrote everything she said because I thought it was so funny. I then sent her all her entries and I said
[18:45]to her, I'm going to change your name. And she went, why? And I said, well, because of all the
[18:51]awful things you say about wanting to close down libraries. I said, you can't be in a book that's
[18:59]going to be published. And you're saying, you think libraries should be closed down. When the whole
[19:03]of the country is praying that libraries stay, you know, and so she said, well, all right,
[19:09]then you can change my name. So I did change her name. But people have said to me, who is that?
[19:17]I can't tell you. But it's so funny that she didn't see any wrong in it. And also these
[19:24]other people who are very serious novelists didn't mind at all. What I was saying about them.
[19:29]I mean, any impress is good press, right? Isn't that how I guess?
[19:32]That was so true. I mean, I would be very up for it. I come from a big family of lots of siblings
[19:37]and we were always pranking and teasing each other. So for me, that whole thing is it like a love
[19:41]language is detention, as you say. So personally, I would be very happy. But I, yeah, I was surprised
[19:51]that some of the more serious people, not minding. I mean, there's a bit where my landlady,
[19:56]the very famous novelist Deborah Moggark said, um-
[20:00]She said that her husband used to fall asleep
[20:03]when they were in bed together.
[20:05]And I said, she said, she said,
[20:06]go, go, go, no, no, it happens to everyone darling.
[20:09]It's okay.
[20:12]I love you.
[20:14]So it's much more, I knew it was going to be candid about me
[20:19]and my men are Paul's all journey
[20:21]and my leaving my husband and my married.
[20:23]I knew it was gonna be kind,
[20:24]but I did think I'd have to tone it down
[20:26]with all the famous authors, but not so.
[20:29]Thankfully, which is really nice.
[20:31]Thankfully, yes.
[20:33]Definitely add an entertainment level.
[20:34]Love that.
[20:36]Are you rating anything now?
[20:38]I'm writing a novel.
[20:39]I wrote a novel, it was published in 2022
[20:43]and I'm writing a sword, not quite a sequel,
[20:45]but sort of a follow-up with some of the same characters
[20:47]and I'm near the end of that.
[20:50]That's so good.
[20:51]Yeah, I love it.
[20:53]And I love writing novels.
[20:55]Writing the diary is sort of easier
[20:57]in that you just write that you plot along every day,
[21:01]but writing a novel gives you butterflies in your tummy
[21:03]because things happen than you're thinking,
[21:05]oh my gosh, what next?
[21:08]It's amazing.
[21:09]Do you write novels?
[21:10]I do.
[21:11]I have one published and I am writing my second.
[21:15]I threw out the whole first draft.
[21:16]I was like, this didn't work at all.
[21:17]I can't believe it.
[21:18]I need another year and I was like,
[21:20]I'm going to write a totally different book
[21:21]and then literally just in the middle of the night last night.
[21:24]I was like, wait a minute.
[21:25]I figured out how I can relate these two books to each other
[21:28]and maybe not have to throw absolutely everything away
[21:31]from the first year.
[21:32]That's fantastic.
[21:34]I'm so excited about it.
[21:35]I'm so excited about it.
[21:37]That is fun.
[21:39]First of all, I think we do sometimes have to say
[21:41]let's throw it away.
[21:42]Yep.
[21:43]I mean, I have to say delete it,
[21:44]and they like head to, you know.
[21:45]Yeah, just push it aside.
[21:47]No, I think that was brilliant.
[21:48]I've done that.
[21:49]Not quite as dramatically as you've just said,
[21:52]but I have said I need to just go in a different direction
[21:56]and yeah, it's great.
[21:58]These things come to you when you're half asleep.
[22:01]Mm-hmm.
[22:01]Yes.
[22:02]First of the morning or in the middle of the night,
[22:04]oh, I'm really happy for you.
[22:06]Oh, thank you.
[22:07]Thank you.
[22:07]All right.
[22:08]It's very good to you.
[22:09]Do you know about that feeling of sort of,
[22:12]and you're writing and you're thinking,
[22:14]oh, I know what could happen
[22:16]and you're writing it and your stomach's flipping over.
[22:19]I get that a lot with writing novels.
[22:21]I love that feeling.
[22:23]I don't think I write novels enough to have that feeling
[22:25]a lot.
[22:26]Oh, that's funny.
[22:29]Anyway, Nina, thank you so much.
[22:31]This has been such a joy to chat with you
[22:33]as I knew it would be having read this
[22:36]because that is how charming you are and everything.
[22:38]So thank you so much and best of luck on the next novel.
[22:42]Thank you so much.
[22:44]Okay, take care.
[22:45]Bye-bye.
[22:46]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi,
[22:49]formerly momstone have time to read books.
[22:51]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[22:55]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[22:57]and spread the word.
[22:59]Thanks so much.
[23:00]Go and buy the books.