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- [00:01]
Mia Sorrenti
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Douglas Stuart
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- [01:20]
Mia Sorrenti
June 30th terms at aka mscollegepc I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. In this episode we return for Part two of our recent live event with Booker Prize winning novelist Douglas Stuart Stewart joined us at Union Chapel to discuss his new novel John of John. Following on from his acclaimed works Suggie Bain and Young Mungo, Stuart returns to themes of masculinity, family and sexuality. In the remote island of Harris, he was in conversation with content creator Jack Edwards. If you haven't heard part one, we recommend jumping back an episode to catch up. But now let's return to the conversation live at Union Chapel in London.
- [02:04]
Jack Edwards
A major part of John's identity, as you've mentioned, is his religion. He's characterised with his Bible clutched to his chest and he's always the first to raise his voice to God when they're in a church. You may understand now why we're in this venue and Protestantism, the Presbyterian Kirk and Calvinism. Key ideas presented here. So tell me where your interest in that first came about.
- [02:28]
Douglas Stuart
Yeah, I mean, I think anybody that grew up in Scotland, even if you were in the church or not, feels the church's effect on the broader psyche, even in the central belt, you know, that sort of idea that you're gonna get what you're gonna get at the end of it all sort of infected young working class men with a bit of nihilism. It goes hand in hand with an old folksy saying of, if it's for you, it'll no go by you, is what we say. And I always found that very sort of limiting as a young man. But also, you were meant to accept whatever you got, which is God's doctrine of predestination. And so the church has had a huge influence on me, on my psyche, even though I wasn't a part of it. But then I also have a great love for Calvinism because Calvinism brought literacy to Scotland in a way that made Scotland have the Enlightenment. You know, it gave everybody a Bible, made us all read it, and made it a very literate country. I also love Calvinist sort of aesthetics. You know, I did work for Calvin Klein, which is no relation, but it borrows from it. But, you know, I loved being in the church where there is no musical accompaniment and John is a presenter, where he sets the line and he sings the hymn to the congregation and they sing it back to him. And if anyone has ever heard a Gaelic psalm service, it is so beautiful, you know, it almost sounds a little bit like shape singing. You're not quite sure, if you don't speak Gaelic, what the prayer is, but it's just a beautiful sound. And so the whole thing for me had its own beauty, even just an aesthetic beauty that I wanted to capture in the novel, which I think is something that many of us didn't get to see. But when I was on the islands between that barren landscape and then the spareness of worship, there was just something really magical.
- [04:06]
Jack Edwards
And then on the flip side to that, I suppose we have the things that it represses. And so a major focus in this book is sexuality and the half lives that people are forced to live in secrecy and shame as a result of their religious upbringing. This year, James Baldwin's giovanni's room turns 70. And that's a book in which David's tragedy is not that he desires men, but that he cannot live truthfully in that desire. So I suppose I wanted to ask you how both John and Cal wrestle with this in different ways.
- [04:41]
Douglas Stuart
Yeah, yeah. I think it's fair to say Cal's not the only gay man in the book. And so John has his own sort of legacy, and he's been dealing with it for a long Time. But the reason why I set the novel in 1996 is because I was remembering my own time as a gay man in Scotland. And you know, it was a time of really limited visibility and you know, there were gay bars in the cities, but they were quite intimidating places. And they went for me as a 16, 17 year old, they got sexual really quickly. And what I was looking for was companionship and friendship. And I was asking Colin Toybean about it and he said, oh, I used to go to Glasgow all the time and the gay bar in the city was under the railway station and it was filled with sweaty, hairy, self hating Presbyterians. And I thought that sounds about right. And I thought also it sounds quite hot. But I was like, and how did you do Colin? And he didn't like to say, but yeah. So Cal's. What he wants is love. He wants to find someone to be with and has to sort of maneuver that under his father's gaze. But I was looking back at how I managed and what I used to do. There was a magazine called sky magazine, which was like a teen magazine. It was very vanilla, very Hollywoody, but there was personal ads on the back of it. And so I used to write long form correspondence to other boys and men across Britain and we would correspond for months and months before we ever met. And I was rereading the letters and. And it's such an intimate thing to write to a stranger, a letter. You know, I was like a Bronte sister. I was like, you know, I hope your grandmother's feeling better. I do hope her health improves, you know, as you're trying to. And I was like reading, I'm like, who is this kid? I was 17 and there was something like wonderfully intimate as well about how we would send pictures. Today I've been married for 30 years, so I don't. I've never done this myself, but I do hear that nudes come out pretty quickly when you meet a stranger. But back in my day there was no concept of selfies and any camera that you had was the family camera. And so all the photos we would exchange as young men were sort of you sitting on the garden wall with the trainers you got from your birthday or at your auntie's house at her wedding or whatever. And it was almost more intimate than seeing somebody nude because you were inside their house and with their family and they were very vulnerable. And so I wanted to write that moment for Cal as a young man. He corresponds with men on the mainland. And then it gets really weird because you know, there's this line in the book where someone writes back to him and says, in the Bronte style, P.S. if it's not very rude, what is your dick like? You know, because I was thinking about, like, you know, what we do on social media now, dating apps now. And so Cal doesn't quite know how to explain that. And so he thinks, what tools do I have? And he thinks, well, I'm in textiles. So he knits a replica of his own penis. You know, he lies on his bed and he knits it, but as a real man, he adds too many rows and too many stitches, just in case it shrinks in the mail. But I'd been thinking about the Genet device, you know, where the prisoners in the south of France, when they corresponded with their lovers, they would lay their erections on the page, and then they would put pin pricks around it, and the letter would get past the guards because it looks like a blank page. And then you would get it and you would hold up to, I can't do that in a church. You would hold it up to the light. You would go, oh, wow, Francois. And you would sort of like clutch it to your chest. And so I was just thinking about the mechanics of loneliness and desire and how did we cope? And I think for young gay people, they're like, that's. You know, I was telling it to a friend in New York, and he was just sort of like, going back in his chair, and he was like, you guys were weird. Like, I was a Victorian.
- [08:26]
Jack Edwards
I really hope you told that part of the story when you were interviewed by Nicola Sturgeon as well.
- [08:32]
Douglas Stuart
Do you know, it was Oprah's favorite part? And it doesn't get onto the camera, but, like, Gayle King loved it.
- [08:39]
Jack Edwards
She ate that bit up.
- [08:40]
Douglas Stuart
She ate it up. Yeah. It was like being with two really fabulous aunties.
- [08:44]
Jack Edwards
Yeah, you mentioned that the Brontes. And I wanted to ask you about the fact that John and his friends read books like Wuthering Heights. They also read Virginia Woolf's to the Lighthouse. And I wondered, in a time where people say that not enough men are reading and that there's a male literacy crisis, we've lost male writers. Why was it important to you to put the reading lives of these men on the page as well?
- [09:11]
Douglas Stuart
We have so many misconceptions about the islands. We think that they're lost in time or they're somehow a little bit backwards. And we think that about rural communities all over the country, that maybe there's a slowness there And I'm not trying to be offensive, but you can see it in inner comedy and inner cinema. And when I got to the islands, I found nothing but curious minds and people who were better read and often better traveled than I was. You know, the seas, this huge gateway. And so people had been to the southern hemisphere in a way that I could only dream of. The men, especially, they would work for the Merchant Navy, and they would go and see the world. And so it was really important for me to write men, farmers, that weren't sort of cultural distant or divorced from what was happening. And so I wanted to write about men that were reading, to encourage men to read, but also because it was just the truth. You know, these are people with really curious minds. And as important as it was for me to write about working class men making beautiful things with cloth, it was also important to portray working class men who have big, expansive minds.
- [10:13]
Jack Edwards
Yeah, I'm gonna hand over to the audience for questions in a moment. So this is your heads up to get formulating your question. And while you do that, I'm going to ask one last question from me. I wanted to ask you about language. The characters deploy Scottish Gaelic and switch to English very deliberately and pointedly. You signal this to us in the dialogue by italicizing the Gaelic. So this in some ways affirms identity and in other ways establishes all opposition. So tell me about the symbolic and practical uses of language here.
- [10:50]
Douglas Stuart
Yeah, I think so much of my writing has been about meeting the characters where they are, rather than meeting the readers where they want to be. And, you know, I had a lot of trouble with the Glaswegian dialect and Shuggie and Mungo, and a little pressure, not from my UK editors, but just from the world in general to move closer to receive pronunciation. But, you know, Gaelic is the lifeblood of the islands, and it's already had such a hard history because the government tried to knock it out of people. It was the government in Edinburgh wrote letters that said it was the language of wild, wicked people and peasants. And so they often sent school teachers up there that would teach only in English. And if someone spoke Gaelic, the mother tongue in the classroom, they would be hit. And so they've only come to a place where they've been holding on to the language and also reclaiming it. And now it's, you know, sort of growing again in Scotland. But I had to celebrate it because it's also a language that's very ancient and romantic and so allowed the lovers in the book, of which there are Many sets to sort of be very intimate with one another and very private when they were wanting to hide from the world, but then also to have the device when they become very angry with each other, they want to be understood, to speak to the business language of English, to switch to English. But in the novel, when you have three people in a house, there is an imbalance. You know, Cal is a pawn between his grandmother and his father, and they're always trying to get him on side. Ella can't speak Gaelic, and John can speak Gaelic and English, but he chooses only to speak Gaelic. And so often when Cal's at home, Ella's talking in English and John speaking in Gaelic, like two radios and on at the same time. And it's an incredibly childish behavior of these grown adults. But what they're wanting is for Cal to come to them. And for me, it was just, like, irresistible, you know, from a dramatic sense. And so I loved doing it. And also, I had to learn Gaelic. I'm not a Gaelic speaker. And so I had, like, three friends that checked everything I wrote. And then I sent it to the Gaelic board, and they checked it again. And then just before it was about to publish, somebody said, but have you checked it against the Harris dialect? And so I had to go back and start again.
- [12:57]
Jack Edwards
Great. Thanks so much.
- [12:58]
Douglas Stuart
Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My next novel will be in English and only English.
- [13:05]
Jack Edwards
Now you've heard enough from me. I would love to pass the mic over to everyone in the room.
- [13:10]
Mia Sorrenti
Hi. Thank you very much for your presentation and really liked your previous books. I was wondering, when you were on the island, did you tell the neighbors or the other people on the island who you were, what you were doing, why you were there for, or were you in some kind of, you know, anthropological disguise? And did you talk with them about the book or bounce ideas off of them?
- [13:43]
Jack Edwards
Yeah, yeah. Did people stop performing once they knew you were writing a book? Like, I need to make sure I get my spot in it.
- [13:48]
Douglas Stuart
Yeah, yeah, it was. Well, funnily enough, I went in 2019, before Shuggie published, as I said. And so I was just a guy from Glasgow at the time. And whenever. I mean, everybody was so generous to me. But if the person I was talking to didn't know about something like how to launch a boat, they would say, well, go and talk to Michael at the end of the village. And I would say, as a city dweller, will you call ahead or will you send an email? And they would say, no, go. It's the red door. Go chap it. And every time I did that, I was. Whatever the person was doing, they would generally stop and admit me and give me their time. But they would often say to me, you're not with the BBC, are you? And I would say, I'm not with the BBC. And they'd say, you can come in, you know, because I think the BBC often wants a certain portrayal of the islands. But, you know, one of the things I never did because. And I wouldn't do it to somebody if I didn't know them as I never spoke about sexuality, you know, I never spoke about my own, because I don't think you can sit at point some. Someone's kitchen table and then sort of talk about that. It's too intimate, even between strangers, even if you're both, you know, if you think it's a very sort of liberal point of view. And so I just said I was writing a novel about a son returning home and I was keen to know about the islands. And I was always met with, like, real generosity.
- [15:04]
Jack Edwards
Any other questions? Yeah, there's some more over here and at the front as well.
- [15:09]
Douglas Stuart
Hi. Thank you very much. I think you're like the master of the metaphor, the simile. There's a kiss like hot buttered toast Thoughts flapping like laundry in the wind A belly rising like dough can you talk to how you come up with these? Are you up all night pulling what hair you have, or does the muse just deliver them to you in a flash? Can you talk to that, please? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. I don't know. I struggle. But I think two things are true about me. I think, first of all, I come from a people that are expressive in the most exciting and surprising ways. I think until you've been insulted in Glasgow, you haven't known the full power of language, because you're definitely insulted. And then you think, oh, my God, that was brilliant. And that's just when you're on the street. And so I think that sort of in the working class, that invention with language is just innate as a way to have some kind of power. But I'm also a kid that went to art school. I didn't read books until I was 16, 17, but I went to art school. So I've always been looking at the world and, you know, I look at the world first before I read it. I think. I don't know if that makes sense. But, you know, I've always been interpreting things visually and paying very close attention. It starts with my mother, any child of an addict. Is a very watchful child. You're always watching what's going on. And then it sort of becomes my language as I go through two different art schools. And so I think of language as a very visual thing. And I think what is the most surprising image, the most unexpected image I could present to the reader?
- [16:44]
Jack Edwards
I hope, I think you do a great job of it. I'll say.
- [16:50]
Douglas Stuart
Let's not overlook this person here. We'll get.
- [16:52]
Jack Edwards
We'll make sure that it comes your way.
- [16:55]
Mia Sorrenti
Thank you. Hi. I think your work is absolutely beautiful. So thank you. There is a scene in young Mungo where a Shuggy like character walks into the pawn shop with a pair of scissors. I'm just wondering if any young Mungo or Shuggie like characters appear in the new book. Thank you.
- [17:20]
Douglas Stuart
Thank you for the question. They do not. And so there's no Easter egg here. But I will say I did write a draft of it where it happens and I felt in doing it that I ruined Mungo in a way that having Shuggie and Mungo didn't ruin Shuggie. And so I took it out. I took what I thought was true out, just not to go back and spoil the book for readers. Thank you.
- [17:49]
Mia Sorrenti
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- [18:33]
Douglas Stuart
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Mia Sorrenti
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Douglas Stuart
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- [19:44]
Jack Edwards
Do you hear that? Sounds like breakfast is ready because Quakers coming in hot with morning nutrition 100% whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day. And that sounds absolutely delicious. Fuel to start whatever's next. Quaker official sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26. Let's go. There's a question up the top here. Hello.
- [20:20]
Mia Sorrenti
Hi, sorry, would love to hear your thoughts more generally on I suppose, Scottish storytelling and the importance of Scottish storytelling now.
- [20:32]
Douglas Stuart
Oh, that's a big question from the balcony.
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Jack Edwards
It's a great question.
- [20:35]
Douglas Stuart
That's my PhD question.
- [20:37]
Jack Edwards
I don't know, it's a surprise attack from the balcony from a Scots person as well. Yeah, never get too comfortable.
- [20:43]
Douglas Stuart
Never get too comfortable. Do you know, I think I'm really excited because I think there's a lovely flowering in Scotland right now of queer people reclaiming the working class space. And I love that. And I think that's just answering the silence that we grew up amongst because not only was there a silence on the page, but also we felt so invisible on the landscape, we had to be for self protection. And I also really love that we're republishing the work of Agnes Owens in her centenary year because when I'm asked about all the those sort of central belt de industrialized writers that influenced me, it was always her most because first of all, I don't know if you know, but she was always Billy Conley's char woman. She was this cleaning lady all through her life and always wrote. And so for me she was a very authentic working class voice, but someone who was answering the masculinity of the landscape with the tenderness of a mother. And that was a lovely sort of guiding light for me and my work that I didn't see with other places. But you know, I think Scottish literature has always been excellent. One of the things I think can sometimes, I don't know, I wish Scottish literature had the audience that Irish literature seems to achieve because I always think Scottish literature is excellent, and it makes me very sad when people think that the Booker that James Kelman won and then the one that I won 30 years later is the history of it, because every single year there has been nothing but excellence between it.
- [22:11]
Jack Edwards
I wonder, do you have any kind of recommendations when people finish John of John and they need their next summer read? Any Scottish authors that you highly recommend?
- [22:20]
Douglas Stuart
Yeah. I'm not an island author, and so if I was to guide you towards one. I really love Donald S. Murray, who grew up on Lewis, and he wrote a really wonderful book about the Isleir disaster, about the men who came back from war and drowned in the harbor because islanders often can't swim, surprisingly. But they'd fought war, they'd gone to war because the government had promised more islanders, more land if they fought. And so they turned out in these enormous numbers to defend freedom. And then as they were returning, finally the ship struck a rock, and almost all the men drowned while the people on the harbor watched them drown. And it's had a huge influence on the psyche of the islands. It's what made the place a matriarchy. It changed generations. But Donald S. Murray is a writer that every reader should read. And also Kevin McNeill is also a fantastic island writer.
- [23:14]
Jack Edwards
Great recommendations. We will get to your question at the front. Do you want. Do. Would you like to ask it?
- [23:22]
Douglas Stuart
Yeah.
- [23:22]
Jack Edwards
Go for wiggle time. The mics are coming your way from all angles. You can pick which one you'd like or take both. Yeah.
- [23:33]
Mia Sorrenti
Thank you both so much. I'm so excited to read John of John. I wanted to ask how Cal's queerness differs from Mungos and Shuggies, and how that was for you, whether there was any Catholic in this and just how you navigated it for Cal.
- [23:51]
Douglas Stuart
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Cal is a man, and so Cal has agency. And he has done things in the novel that I think sort of go beyond the moral. You know, the moral, black and white. He's done things that are very gray in the book that I don't know that all readers will. Might knock you back a little bit. But he is a man, and. And he has agency. And for him, that was lovely for me, because Shuggie almost didn't have any sexual desire. His only love in the book was really his mother. And then Mungo and James were very much in love. But Mungo had to survive all that sexual trauma that was happening to him, because I'd wanted to write about that. The time of sort of two things being true. And terrible at the same time, which is I grew up in a time where all boys were expected to. To be safe around all men, no matter who the man was. And any sort of masculine influence was always good for a boy. And then we come to know, obviously there's terrible things that also happen to young men and boys too, especially with men in institutions, obviously. And then at the same time, you know, young boys who were growing up to be gay were told they would be monsters in the future, which was not true. And so I wanted to put those things together. And Mungo. But in John of John, Cal is a young man who is very sure of his sexuality and his identity. And, you know, he has a very complex relationship with his childhood sweetheart in the book, who's called Isla. And she always thought they were going to be betrothed and be married. But unknown to Isla, he has a very complicated relationship with her brother, Doll. And so he does lots of different things. Yeah, sorry, that was a good answer.
- [25:33]
Jack Edwards
Yeah. We do have about 10 minutes left for questions, so if you do have a question, I know there's one at the top just there. Yeah.
- [25:39]
Mia Sorrenti
Hi. I just wanted to say I love your work. I've read the other two books. I haven't read this one yet, but I'm gonna buy it tonight. This is more of a question from a writer because I'm learning to be a writer at the moment at Bath Spa Uni. And I just wondered, like, I read that you'd contacted loads of. And loads of publishing places to get it, the first book published. I wanted to ask you, did you get it published and then get your agent then?
- [26:08]
Douglas Stuart
All right, Yeah. I can tell you, I can definitely tell you that, by the way, this is like a rock concert. You're like Celine Dion up there in the spotlight. I was like, I hope you can sing. Yeah, Look, I didn't. I was always a writer, even when. When I worked in fashion. I just didn't know that I would ever be a published writer. I'd finished Shuggie and Mungo before I sought Shuggie to be published. I told the story many times, but the first draft of Shuggie Bain was 1800 pages, single spaced. It was a monster. You know, it was like the Old Testament. It was in two big legal folders. And my husband was the first person and the only person who read it before I sought advice from the outside world. And when I look back at his notes now, he pays great attention over the first 150 pages. And then by page 150, he wants to die. And you can see it in his notes in the margin. And so I was learning how to write, and that was the joy. Like, the struggle was the joy. But I eventually find an agent after being refused by loads of agents. And she's a powerful agent. I was very lucky in New York, but I thought, and I think she thought that people would want to publish this book. It's now 550 pages. I've worked on it for a decade. And she sends it out, and very quickly we get 20 rejection letters in a week or a week and a half. And when your agent sends your novel out, she says to you, so I had an agent first to answer your question. She says, do you want to see the rejection letters? And I thought, well, yes, I would love to, because surely it will teach me something about being a writer. And they were really harsh, as they are. A no is always a no. In fact, I was looking at them recently and my favorite one, some of them said, oh, I love the book and I love the characters. I don't know how to publish it. But my favorite one just said, and her name is Anna. It said, dear Anna, I don't like it. Lunch. And I thought, that's like, if I'm going to ever frame a rejection, that's the one to frame. But I'd written that. I love that. I think it's the clearest thing. You didn't like it. You know, fair enough. Lunch. Lunch is never far away. But, you know, through the rejection, I didn't change the novel, I didn't move a comma, I didn't change any glass region, I didn't do anything. And it eventually gets one brave publisher in the UK in the United States, and then one brave publisher here, which is Picador. And the night that I won the Booker, a journalist asked me the question about rejection, and what did I go through? And I start to tell the story well, and then I was rejected 20 times really quickly. And my agent unmutes herself because it's all on zoom. And she goes, you were rejected 44 times. I just stopped telling you. And so what I'm telling you is you're going to, you know, you will one day get an agent, you, one will one day be published, and rejection is part of the process. It'll all turn out well.
- [29:04]
Mia Sorrenti
Thank you so much. It's really nice.
- [29:07]
Jack Edwards
Thank you for your question. You know, when the spotlight went on you, it felt like divine intervention.
- [29:10]
Douglas Stuart
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- [29:13]
Jack Edwards
Are there any at the back? Yeah, sorry. There's one right there in the middle. Hi.
- [29:21]
Douglas Stuart
Hi, Douglas. I was just rereading Shuggie Bain on the way here, and I kept thinking about Agnes being this amazing part to play. If I was a female actor, I think I would take someone's arm off to play that role because she's fascinating and she's a movie star in her own head, in a way. So I just wondered if. Not that it needs film adaptation, it's amazing by itself, but what has been your experience?
- [29:45]
Jack Edwards
Would you like.
- [29:46]
Douglas Stuart
What are you thinking about? What actress would you like to play her if you had a choice? I have a friend who's in TV who said that there was talk about it being adapted and I just didn't know if that was the case. Yeah, that's a good question. Well, the first thing is, I don't think he minds me telling this story, but I love Alan Cumming, and one of the first times I met him, he said to me, I would love to play Shuggie. And I sort of was, like, looking at him, and I went, alan Shuggie's eight. And he went, well, then I'll play Agnes. And I thought. And I thought that version I could see, like, Agnes would, like, love that. You know, she was with a black bouffant, like. Absolutely. Alan Cumming could play Agnes. Yeah. The adaptation for Shuggie Bain is written. I wrote it. I finished it a couple of years ago. It was with a 24 and the BBC bought it. I think they're just having a tough time raising money, and so it's going slow. I don't know if that will ever turn, but I, as the writer, just have to sit around and wait for someone to tell me. So Mungo's moving forward. There's lots of lovely interest in John. And so, I don't know, it's kind of. You know, I love what Bern Lerner says, which is, it's really great to sell a book and get a check and then to have nobody make it, because then nobody sort of, like, changes your work, but I just don't know what's gonna happen.
- [31:06]
Jack Edwards
Fingers crossed. And by the way, we've done a really good job at avoiding any spoilers Of John. Of John.
- [31:10]
Douglas Stuart
I know. There's so many spoilers.
- [31:12]
Jack Edwards
This is like we. Yeah. An Olympic medal in avoiding spoilers. I need to tell you that, because I'm busting to say there's another one at the back over there.
- [31:21]
Mia Sorrenti
Hi. Thank you so much. I was just wondering, writing in a different place, in such a different Landscape that's, as you say, quite barren compared to perhaps a city where there's distraction. How do you think that changed how the novel progressed in the way in which you wrote it? And. Yeah, that's.
- [31:42]
Douglas Stuart
That's it. Oh, yeah. Thank you for the question. You know, I only knew it in hindsight. I didn't know it at the time, but I think what really called me to the islands was young Mungo, because I think after I finished Mungo. Mungo is a hard book. You know, I wanted to. After Shuggie, which was a portrait of a family and was really a character study, I went into Mungo knowing it was going to be a very heavily plotted thing, especially after 1800 pages. I was like, I'm going to get out of here in 400 pages. And the tension in that book has a toll even on me. You know, it sort of lived inside me for years. And so when I was thinking about my new novel, I think I had a desire to be gentle on the world and to be gentle in myself. And I think that's really, without knowing it, what called me to the islands. But I was confused, confronted with that almost instantly, because I am a city writer. I did grow up in Glasgow, I live in New York. And I got there with a vague idea of a plot and I realized that I had to throw it all out because the islands have their own heartbeat, you know, things happen very slowly. You're sort of beholden to the seasons, you're beholden to the church calendar. But the most interesting thing was sort of the rhythm of memory and how things can take a very long time to. To come to the surface, because people are always managing reputation and what neighbours think. And there's a difference between what is known and what is said, because everything is known, you know. When I was on the quite lunar landscape of Harris, I felt very lonely for 12 weeks. I often didn't see anyone all week, but yet I would go to the shop either up in Tarbert or in Leverborough on a Thursday or a Friday, and I would drive. It was 30. It could be 30, 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes to get to the shop. And when I would get in, it was 2019. I wasn't yet anybody. And the guy behind the counter would always say, so you're the writer then, you know, and I'd never met the guy. And he would say, you went to the beach on Wednesday. And I would say, I did. And he said, and what were you doing at the old church on Thursday? And so I had to like give in to that. You know, I had to give in to like the sort of the slow rhythm of things on, but everything always being known, you know, that feeling of being lonely but never quite being alone.
- [33:53]
Jack Edwards
Okay, I think we have time for one more. I'm just checking at the back. There's one right in that corner. And then we'll have a signing after this.
- [34:04]
Mia Sorrenti
What is your favorite character? Or would you rather not say?
- [34:08]
Jack Edwards
Or do you have a favorite character from any of the books or from this? From all three.
- [34:13]
Douglas Stuart
All three. Ella was the most fun, but my favorite character is Innes in this book. I'm excited for you guys to meet him. Innes is a wonderful man and he's a very patient man and I don't know, he was sort of. I felt a real romantic love for Innes when I was writing him. He's all the virtues of masculinity that I really admire. So I hope you enjoy meeting him.
- [34:36]
Jack Edwards
Yeah, he's a very special character and I think your love for the character totally comes through on the page. Thank you guys. I hope this has whet your appetite for this incredible novel. You are in for such a treat. But that's all from me. I just want to say thank you all so much for sharing this experience with me. This has been so magical for me to get to talk to Douglas. And one last time, a round of applause for Douglas Stewart.
- [35:05]
Mia Sorrenti
Foreign. Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by me, Mia Sorrenti and it was edited by Mark Roberts. For ad free episodes and full length recordings, you can become a member at intelligencesquared.com forward/membership. And if you'd like to join us at future live events, you can find our full program and buy tickets over@intelligencesquared.com for forward slash attend. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.