Come and chat to the award-winning SADIE JONES about her new novel FALLOUT, her previous bestseller THE OUTCAST, and her writing career on Monday 20 July, 9-10pm

[TillyMumsnetBookClub]

Our July author Sadie Jones' latest book, Fallout, grew from her impressions of the romantic, turbulent nature of Britain in the 1970s, when "everybody was stumbling in this fallout from the 1960s. There were recessions and power cuts and people doing pub theatre and feminism. It was an incredibly serious time."

Fallout follows aspiring playwright Luke and the beautiful but vulnerable actress Nina as they navigate their way through painful relationships and volatile careers amid the daily struggles of 1970s London life.

Like Maggie O'Farrell and Esther Freud, Sadie Jones is a highly intelligent and perceptive writer, weaving her sharp psychological insight into a gripping plot. Fallout is a beautifully researched novel, informative and deeply evocative.

Sadie's first novel, The Outcast, won the Costa First Novel Award, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and was a Richard and Judy Summer Reads Number One bestseller. It has been adapted by the BBC (with the screenplay written by Sadie) and will be shown as a two-part drama in July - find out more on Sadie's Twitter feed.

Vintage have 50 copies of Fallout to give to Mumsnetters: to claim your copy please fill in your details on the book of the month page. We’ll post on the thread when all the copies have gone. If you’re not lucky enough to bag one of those, you can always get a Kindle version here or here.

We are delighted that Sadie will be joining us on Monday 20th July, 9-10pm, to discuss Fallout, her previous award-winning novels and her writing career. Please feel free to discuss the book here throughout the month and then come and meet Sadie on the night, and ask her a question or simply tell her what you thought of the book. Look forward to seeing you on the 20th…

I'm interested in the comments you make about theatre not adding to a thinking society today, but do you not think that theatres like The Royal Court and Park Theatre in Finsbury Park have some very thought-provoking productions?

@PetiteBateau

I really enjoyed the outcast but gave up on this one halfway through

• and you share this with the group why?

[quote blogmumjd]I've finished reading the book but it was a bit of a struggle as I wasn't gripped by the storyline, so I found it hard to focus. But on a positive note, it was very well-written.
You can read my full review on my blog blogmumjd.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/mumsnet-book-club-review-fallout-by-sadie-jones/[/quote]

'Full review'? Seriously? That was a shortened version of a review?

[quote FernieB]First question for Sadie!

Given the huge amount of theatrical background in this novel, do you have any theatre experience or did you have to do a lot of research? [/quote
Oh thanks! What am I to say to this? It's apparently 'not your kind of book', and you are plainly not my kind of reader. Are you asking me this question to be polite? If so, it's a little late having described my book as 'tedious'. I'm not getting paid for this, and not much interested in persuading you of my book's worth or describing my process to you.

Hi Sadie,
Thank you for coming on to Mumsnet to answer our questions. I have just finished the Fallout and I am really sorry but I just did not enjoy this as much as your previous novels (my particular favourite being Small Wars). I found it a bit slow and I just could not relate to the London theatre scene and could not bear Nina! So Sorry!
I would like to ask you how you deal with negative reviews and whether you even read them? Who do you ask to read your first drafts and will you take their comments on board? Whose opinion on your work matters the most to you?
Can I also ask if you read for pleasure whilst you are in the middle of writing? And if so what would you choose?
Lastly, and if you have time I would love to know how much control you were allowed to have over the TV adaptation of The Outcast, which I am really enjoying.
Good luck with your future projects and I look forward to reading your next book.

@Impostersyndrome

Thanks Mumsnet and Vintage for sending me this book. It was a thoroughly absorbing read. The story of Northern writer or other arty type making their way to London to find an outlet for their talents is something of a cliche (indeed I reviewed a similarly plotted book on these pages only a few weeks ago), but what make for a sophisticated plot was how the Luke, the main protagonist, has success that is very much bound up in that of his friends and colleagues (and in this it is probably more true to life). I liked the way in which Luke?s motivations were revealed in stages throughout the book, all the better for making the story more real, albeit less of an escapist, easy read.

My question to Sadie Jones is whether you intended that the contrast of two sorts of damage in childhood - of Nina and of Luke - should result in one character seeming to come across as more sympathetic than the other. Or, in other words, do you see Nina to be more of a victim of her circumstances than Luke or is she in fact simply weaker?

Depressed by both the damning faintness of your praise, but... I find Nina to be a tragic character, rather than an unsympathetic one. She never really stands a chance. She is weaker than Luke, but also, she has not experienced the love that he has. Luke's parents, despite their incapacity, are both, in their way, loving. Nina is carefully constructed by her mother's warped attention into a woman who does not recognise love or have any experience of love that is not connected to approval or control.

@Iwouldgoouttonight73

I read The Outcast last year, and couldn't put it down until I'd read it! Has Sadie thought about what the characters would do after the book ended? Would Lewis & Kit meet up again?

Thanks so much, that's very kind of you. I do know what they do after the end of the book, and it's often tempting to tell, but it wouldn't be right. Everyone who reads the book has their own idea about what will happen to them, and it seems to me they are as 'right' about it as anyone. What do you think?

There are many books I read that I don't always enjoy, maybe because of the subject or the period etc, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate that they are well written and I am still very interested in the writers process.

Don't be depressed, Sadie - it's pretty brutal on here!

Can I ask you about the process of writing? What was the initial spark for The Outcast? How do you plot everything? You write so evocatively - what's your first draft like?

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

Evening everyone Firstly, thank you to all those who have posted their reviews and questions so far.

I?m thrilled and honoured to welcome author and screenwriter Sadie Jones to Bookclub this evening. Sadie?s novels have won multiple awards and I am delighted that we have the opportunity to talk about them all with her over the next hour

Sadie, thank you very, very much indeed for giving us your time tonight. We've already got a fair few questions to get through so I'll just add the standard Mumsnet ones that we like to ask all our authors...??

Hello, and of course -

What childhood book most inspired you?

I read and reread the Narnia books and A Little Princess more times than I could count, from reading them first at around... six, I guess, into adulthood. Thinking about what connects them, there's the passionate battle for justice that most children are drawn to, and also Lewis and Hodgson Burnett write with a constant feeling of the magical Other, that is yearned for, lost and re-found.

What would be the first piece of advice you would give to anyone attempting to write fiction?

Don't start too soon. Make a habit, however limited your time, and stick to it - even if you can't always actually Write, just to be doing Nothing else, for whatever period of time, regularly, that you can. Unless you are firmly a genre writer, forget the perceived marketplace, you can't second-guess it.

What is the best book you?ve given someone recently?

Funny you should ask, I gave Philip Roth's Nemesis to two people last week. It's a virtually perfect book.

And the best you?ve received?

My sister gave me When We Were Orphans. Ishiguro is the strangest writer - and I mean that as the highest compliment, he is the very oddest... both moving and distancing in equal measure.

Over to you...

@GetHappy

After reading this and reading about your father being a playwright. Did you always want to write novels or did you prefer to write plays etc?

Good question. I started out as a screenwriter, and always thought of myself as a dramatist. I thought I was the only writer who didn't 'have a novel in them'! It took me a very long time to get to it. It was partly that I was intimidated by the idea of writing a novel, and partly, I think, a novel has a particularly big life to it - I just didn't have a story with that much energy until The Outcast. A novel requires tremendous stamina.

Thank you for spending the hour with us Sadie.
Can I ask another question? Do you prefer writing female or male characters? I couldn't tell from your writing - both were cleverly and truthfully portrayed. Also did you find yourself drawn particularly to any one single character in Fallout? (Mine is Nina )

It was so easy (for me) to see The Outcast as a film, in a way that isn't possible with a lot of novels. What I liked most about it was the atmosphere - I think that's really hard to get across in a novel but it was beautifully done in that book.

Thanks for answering my question, Sadie. I think you've done an amazing job portraying realistic emotions and avoiding predictability. I'm going to read your other books now.

@Sarah3kids

Thank you for my free copy - just finished!! I would just like to say that like many I nearly gave up half way through as it was flitting back and forth between characters. However, it really livened up towards the end and was most enjoyable and I'm very glad I finished - so stick with it xx

As for being character driven - I would like to know did you have the characters all set out from the beginning? (as I would have liked to know more about Tony and the relationship between Nina, Tony and her mother).

There are also other relationships that could have taken up whole chapters i.e. Luke & his Father - the characters were so colourful you could have had another book. Do you ever feel that you have too much to say about a characters?

Lastly, sorry for waffling on - Like Luke (letting go of his play) - once your book was published do you just let it go, or do you think of changes that you would have liked to make to the storyline?

I know a great deal more of the characters' lives and their relationships than there is room for on the page. A book is deceptively short, and I think it should feel as though it is crammed full, with a lot unsaid, rather than loosely-written and full of padding.

I often want to rewrite after a book is finished. Reading at book events, I want to edit as I read, and often find it difficult to concentrate, as I'm busy pulling the writing apart, switching sentences and punctuation around in my mind. Someone once said a book is never finished, just abandoned - or something like it. I forget who.

Leonardo da Vinci said it

Thank you so much for your insight, I have found it so interesting! When you say you would like to rewrite a book after finishing, did you feel like that after 'Fallout'? Is there anything you would have changed about the story line?

This is fascinating! I want to read both books now! Thanks for your insights into your writing processes, Sadie: it's oddly reassuring to yet another author who wimps out before getting underway.

Do you map the characters & stories out thoroughly before you start, or do their trajectories develop as you write?

Love your spirited responses

@SallySwann

I really enjoyed this book, though it, for me, was a bit of a slow burner to begin with. Maybe it was me, but it did take a while to get into it, but suddenly I was gripped. That moment came when Luke was stopped in the pouring rain by Paul and Leigh in Leigh's Mini - from that moment on I couldn't put it down.

I loved the fact that a lot of the plot was set around the theatre, whether that was the small amateurish theatrical productions or the major West End ones. A spooky moment for me was when me and my husband were on the train to London to see a production at the Theatre Royal and this theatre, Sloane Square and Peter Jones thereon got mentioned, all places we went to on our trip.

I know exactly what you mean - seeing places in real life when you're reading or writing about them can be unnerving and extraordinary.

I thought the period setting was really good and it made you realise how recently things have changed from mental institutions to attitudes to smoking.

Yes. I was in Ireland doing a book event and one woman was very angry and upset about the just the use of the word 'mental hospital' - things have changed, tremendously much, and thank god they have. Smoking everywhere, on the other hand, I have tremendous nostalgia for. The good thing about Writing smoking is you don't smell of it at the end of the day!

I wish to ask whether there are any theatrical influences that Sadie has drawn upon and also whether there are any particular reasons for setting her novels in the past.

I come from a theatrical/creative background but I didn't consciously draw on it as I wrote. I tried to approach the book as though it were a world I did not know at all. I did not want it to be an 'in' book, or inaccessible.

I set each book in the decade or century that feels right for the story. Hitchcock said that the setting of a story should be one of the main characters, and that's how I approach era, as well.

@ImperialBlether

Leonardo da Vinci said it

I thought so, but someone else said someone else...!

Leigh and Luke have an odd relationship - his refusal and her dismissal and then his ongoing attractiveness towards her. How crucial to the plot was this relationship and how it characterised Luke?

@barricade

Another quick question while its fresh in my mind:-

You've written the screenplay to the televised adaptation to 'The Outcast'. How different, and how much of a challenge, was writing the screenplay as compared to writing your books?

It was a great pleasure as well as a challenge to adapt The Outcast. It is a different process technically, of course, but good to be back in the world of it. A screenplay is more a sprint than a marathon.

@susanterblanche

I was wondering what was Sadie's motive for setting the story in the 70s as opposed to a different decade?

I think I answered that for Mollkat? (sorry if the name is wrong!)

@SallySwann

I'm interested in the comments you make about theatre not adding to a thinking society today, but do you not think that theatres like The Royal Court and Park Theatre in Finsbury Park have some very thought-provoking productions?

@SallySwann

I'm interested in the comments you make about theatre not adding to a thinking society today, but do you not think that theatres like The Royal Court and Park Theatre in Finsbury Park have some very thought-provoking productions?

Yes, they really do, and I don't mean to dismiss new work at all. Jerusalem is one of the best plays I've ever seen, I think. It's just that culturally theatre has a different place now. It's not essential, as I feel it used to be, and as it needed to be for these people, and politically.

@SallySwann

I know that some authors put people that they know as character names in their books. Have you done this or based any particular character in Fallout on anyone?

I did for one person Mrs Dunford Wood in The Outcast - just because the name is so good. My friend is lovely, and that character was a cow, though! I try not to think of real people, I find the fiction sort of dies when I consider my own life too clearly.