Live web-chat with Tony Parsons, 9pm-10pm, 6 October

[rachel(mumsnet)]

Columnist and author Tony Parsons will be joining us here on Monday 6th October from 9-10pm for a live chat. Tony's sixth novel, 'My Favourite Wife' has just been published and is described by The Independent as 'a much bigger, more ambitious book' than million-selling 'Man and Boy'. If you can't make the chat you can post your questions in advance here.
Hope to see you here on Monday.

To Tony Parsons (er, the real one)

Do you reckon that the credit crunch is going to be good for marriage and families? OK, maybe the bankers' wives might not be so delighted with the change of style but is it possible that this economic downturn is going to take us back to appreciating the free stuff in life and that will bond couples/families/communities? Or is this view a bit naive in a modern urban world - will people just squabble about cash and break up?

Ah ? hello ? Tony here - sorry if I am late?just putting my little girl to bed ? you know how it is ? those Roald Dahl chapters go on forever - are we all right? Thank you very much for having me?everybody got a drink? How does it work? Shall we begin? The Real Tony Parsons

Dear Monkey Trousers ? I write for all those reasons. I write to make money ? because it is my job ? and I write as therapy ? because it helps me to make sense of the world and my life in a way that nothing else ever did (not drugs, not drink, not anything) ? Man and boy was written as therapy when my mother was dying of lung cancer. Everyone thinks of it as a book about my father and my son but in fact my old man had died many years before ? it was about watching my mum fight terminal illness with bravery and humour and writing it ? knowing that soon she would be gone ? she died about 8 weeks before it was published ? just jhelped me get through it ? just made a hard experience, and one that we all go through, a little bit easier to bear, or at least to understand and get my head around. So I write for every possible reason, but mostly I do it because it was the only thing I ever found that I was halfway good at. THANKS FOR THE QUESTION. Tony Parsons

Dear Octavia ? thanks for your question. I am happy you enjoyed Man and Boy. I had a lot of help bringing up my son so that made it all easier. I think there is almost nothing a parent can do about the storm that hits the moment they turn 13. I was a dad in my middle twenties, and we were always very close, but there is a pulling apart that happens in their teens and there is not much you can do about it. You just drive each toehr crazy and I think the really difficult thing is that you struggle to recognize the teenager in your house as being the same human being as the angelixc little kid he was just a few years before. I think you have to reassign yourself to losing each other for a while. I am very close to my son again now but he is a man, grown-up ? and I think he is a lovely human being. The world is a better place with him in it. But he was a typical little git as a teenager. Moving out seemed to help ? he had his own flat from the age of 17, and that eased pressure all round.
As for being working class, I think it probably helps in the media but I have friends in other professions where being from a modest background counted against them. But I never found it a problem for me. If anything, it helped. The middle class boys are all softer than me ? they burst into tears at the first bad review, or if someone says something snide about them. I just smile. THANK YOU FOR YOUR QUESTION!! The Real Tony Parsons

If I recall correctly very book I've read of yours features a man having an affair . I read My Favourite Wife last week so I know I'm right about that one. Do any of your books not feature men having affairs?

Dear Ahundredtimes, no being on Late Review doesn?t make my toes curl ? it is a very easy weekfor me because you just sit about watching films and reading books and you can pretend it is real work. And live TV is easy because no matter how much of a prat you make of yourself, it is over in an instant and they can?t ask you to do it again and you just go for a drink and everyone tells everyone else that they were wonderful. But I miss the old days of Late Review when I was on with the same people every week ? Alison Pearson, Tom Paulin and Mark Lawson. It?s better with people you know and trust ? you can even be a bit ruder and interrupt each other and step on toes because you know that you are mates really. With strangers everyone tends to be a bit polite. But it is a fun show to do. I think it is amazing that it has staggered on for so long. Thanks for your question, Ahundredtimes. You?re the best. The Real Tony Parsons

Gosh Tony you type faster than many of special guests on here- David Cameron was useless!

Dear JimJam - yes, the one I finsished this week, which is called STARTING OVER is about a WOMAN who has an affair - I KNOW I go on about the same stuff over and over...sorry...forgive me...I will try to do better, okay? THANKS FOR THE QUESTION tony

impressive typing speed

Dear Ginni ? thanks for your question. My inspiration comes first from experience, and then from imagination, and finally from research. Those three things. In some books you need more of one than the other. Man and Boy I wrote sitting in a room. I did not need to talk to anyone to write that because it came directly from my life. But a few years ago I wrote a book called The Family Way about 3 sisters and that was almost entirely built around talking to real women about their experience of pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, infertility, abortion etc ? I needed real flesh and blood and female experience to make it work. I know what a Caesarian birth looks like but I could never know what it feels like. But when the third or fourth woman told me, ?It?s like having someone do the washing up in your stomach, you pay attention. So ? experience, imagination and research. I think that is all anyone has ever got. THANKS FOR YOUR QUESTION!! The Real Tony Parsons

Dear Carmenere ? Cheryl Cole will be the big winner of X-Factor. There is no obvious Leona Lewis stand-out figure. They either seem to have just that little lacking in talent or temperament. I thin k nthat anyone who freaks out/ bursts into tears can?t possibly win, and that is happening a lot this years (a lot of crying boys, I have noticed). I quite like the young Irish kid with spiky blonde hair, or the older black woman with the beautiful face and the voice like Aretha Franklin. THANKS FOR THE QUESTION The Real Tony Parsons

notice me, notice ME, NOTICE ME!

Thanks Tony - I'll buy it (I thought that Becca was going t have an affair in My Favourite Wife- was kind of disappointed that she didn't).

Dear HumphreyCushion and CocoleBoo - no, I don?t read Viz, although I did up until about fifteen years ago ? like a lot of people. Funny enough, two of my friends have owned Viz ? John Brown and james brown (no relation). Magazines tend to have their day and then fade away. I am shocked that Viz still staggers on. Good luck to it. THANKS FOR YOUR QUESTION The Real Tony Parsons

Dear Zippitippitoes ? thanks for your question. I am currently listening to Seasick Steve and John Martyn most of all, and The Clash and led Zeppelin when I want to get my blood pumping. A lot of what I listen to now is determined by my 6 year old daughter. She likes that Rachel Stevens CD, Funky Dory, and she likes Japanese pop musid, and she LOVES musicals ? so with her, I am llistening to the soundtracks to Singin? inb The Rain, Cabaret and Seven brides For Seven Brothers. THANKS FOR YOUR QUESTION. LISTEN TO CABARET. IT STILL SOUNDS GREAT!! I MADE MY MIND UP BACK IN CHELSEA ? WHEN I GO I?M GOING LIKE ELSIE. Thanks. The Real Tony Parsons

Dear JimJam - but I reckon Becca DID have an affair - after the end of the book - do you see what I mean? I think it was just a question of time. Bedst - Tony xxx

blimey you can tell tps a writer, he's a damn fast typist

Dear Wavertree ? no I don?t mind being confused with nick hornby at all. He is a lovely man and a lovely writer. But we are actually very easy to tell apart. He is the one with the looks and the talent. And I am the other one. THANKS FOR YOUR QUESTION. I think the big difference between our work is that I was married/a father/ divorced/ a single dad before I was out of my twenties, and Nick had a more conventional young manhood ? you know, marrying later, becoming a dad later. But Nick is great ? I love him. Right now I am readying Larry McMurty?s Terms of Endearment ? remember that? It is funny and moving ? laughter and tears ? just like life?or coming on mumsnet. THANKS FOR HAVING ME. The Real Tony Parsons

thank you john martyn solid air

that is interesting

Dear Monkeytrousers ? I really don?t know where feminism is today ? it seems to be hiding - ? I wrote something recently about the incredible number of breast implants that really young women (in their twenties and even teens0 are having in this country ? I think there should be armies of women protesting about this stuff. I write about it from the viewpoint of a heterosexual man ? I can?t stand them, I think they are like plastic fruit ? just for looking at. But 40 years ago the likes of Germaine Greer would have been fighting back. I think one of the goals of modern feminism ? although this is your battle, not mine ? should be to stop young women disfiguring themselves with silicone implants. That would be a good place to start. The real thing is always, always better than the fake thing. We have stopped loving each other in all our fallibilities and imperfections. The world needs another Germaine Greer, another Female Eunuch.
On your other point, it never crossed my mind to write for Vanity Fair. I have one newspaper and one magazine that iw rite for, and that takes care of the journalism. I am too old and wizened to worry about writing for Vanity Fair. What?s the money like? THANKS FOR ASKING ANYWAYS The Real Tony Parsons

lol at the real tony parsons

I want to join your Britain is not broken campaign (no, you don't have one yet but let's start one). Am so fed up of that tory boy ranting about that, that I think I'm going to come and stand at Westminster with you and a suitable placard.