Nina Stibbe Meet the Author


Nina Stibbe

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Nina, why is adolescence such a rich source of comedy?

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I think it is because we make so many tiny little mistakes.

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And we're very tolerant about those mistakes.

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Maybe mistakes is too hard a word, but we look back, don't we?

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We remember the funny little decisions that we made

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and our reasoning.

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I think we look back with affection at ourselves.

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Because that's how we've learned about the peculiar

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and absurd ways of the world?

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Yes.

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Yes, and I think that sort of innocence and the carefreeness,

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when we're looking at other adolescents, when we are

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reading about adolescence, somebody else's adolescence,

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there are universal things, always.

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Let's talk about the difference between now and then.

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This is a story about the '70s, Paradise Lodge.

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An old people's home, that's what they were known as then.

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One of the sources of comedy in the book, I think,

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is this change in the language, the change in the euphemistic

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language that is being used?

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Yes, that is one of the things I remembered most strongly

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when I looked back and tried to recreate it.

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The way we skirted around certain things and the way

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we were very open - and thoughtless, even -

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about other things.

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Like what?

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For instance, when I first started at the old people's home,

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as we called it, we called the residents "patients".

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Even though some of them, really, were very able

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and were using the place as a hotel, really.

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You know, a long-stay hotel.

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So we would call them patients.

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We were taught absolutely never to say the word "toilet",

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or "die", or mention any part of the human body.

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There were just endless euphemisms that were used.

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Which must have been difficult for staff maybe coming

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from other cultures - which was possibly less,

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then than it was now - who would be lost in this

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minefield of language?

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That's exactly what happened.

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We had a very traditional manager who told us the golden rules

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of working with the elderly.

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It wasn't the same golden rules that we'd have

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today about respect, that kind of thing.

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You know, never swearing or using slang.

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We used to lots of lovely slang in those days.

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We would say things were "brillo".

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We were told we mustn't say that.

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We mustn't say "God", we had to say "gosh".

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And then, halfway through my time at the nursing home,

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as an auxiliary nurse, this new manager came from Malaysia.

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She couldn't cope with it at all.

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She didn't understand what on earth was going on half the time.

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She thought people were talking about their finances,

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when they mentioned their tuppenny piece.

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HE LAUGHS.

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Sorry!

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She would come and ask us, "What is this lady asking me?"

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Then there was a total ban on it.

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You obviously enjoy the whole business of the human comedy

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in which we are all embroiled and trapped, I suppose.

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It seems to me there is nowhere better than an enclosed setting

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like that to see it playing out.

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Everyone is stuck in their own place, and have to find

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their relationships?

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Yes, and I found that joyful to write.

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My previous book was just a family stuck in a sort of a trap.

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But it was a non-tangible thing.

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The nursing home was wonderful and you've got the layers

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of the staff, and visitors, then you've got the residents.

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Yeah, it was wonderful.

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Lizzie Vogel in this book, aged 15, is in the old people's home,

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working.

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In the previous book, she was coping at home

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with very difficult things.

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Rather depressing things - depression, alcoholism and so on.

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And yet you made us laugh?

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Yes.

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Some readers found that book, Man at the Helm , hilarious and some

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reviews said, it was just comedy gold, that kind of thing.

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Other people said, you know, "I was frozen rigid with fear

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and anxiety for you."

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Or for the characters.

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The line between them is probably quite thin?

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Yes.

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So, yes, it's a funny thing.

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I was a little bit concerned with Paradise Lodge that now

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Lizzie's older and more in control, that to lose the bleakness

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might lose something.

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But it's a different kind of bleakness in Paradise Lodge,

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because it's a kind of real bleakness.

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You know, it's death.

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I don't know how I do it, but I know that when I've seen it

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done by authors myself, I've loved it.

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I've loved that coexistence of sadness and humour.

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I like it a lot.

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It's a cliched question to ask writers, if they're connected

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with their principal characters.

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But, in your case, is inescapable because it is pretty

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obvious that there's an autobiographical

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element, isn't it?

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Yes.

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"Love, Nina" is a straightforward memoir.

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It just is me, and it is absolutely true.

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When I was writing Man at the Helm, which is very autobiographical,

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I did get a little bit tangled up with being allowed to not be

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truthful, even though it was a novel.

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Have you got over that yet?

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I'm working on it.

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Yeah.

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I have to.

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It was very difficult.

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With Man at the Helm, I would worry if I moved the vet's

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surgery to a different part of the village.

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I would think, "Somebody's going to complain about this."

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You've got to pinch yourself and say, "Hang on, it's fiction."

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Yes, exactly.

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I'm having to work on that.

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Autobiography has to be authentic and true.

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You can't mess around with that.

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But fiction can be both true and not true.

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That's what I've struggled with, I think.

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You must be very fond of Lizzie Vogel.

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I love her.

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What's she going to do next?

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She's just about to pass her driving test.

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How long will it take?

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It might take her four attempts.

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Is that autobiographical, or not?

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It's autobiographical.

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But then it gives her freedom to move on, and she does move on.

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We'll have a similar bittersweet story.

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The great thing a writer needs to do is to find a voice.

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Do you think you've now found the voice that will

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carry you through?

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It's a voice that I will want to write more.

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But it might not be the only voice.

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But it's been very fascinating about this voice, because Man

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at the Helm was written a long time ago, not in that voice.

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I'd written it sort of in a mix of Margaret Drabble and Edna O'Brien,

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trying to be very clever, sort of lyrical.

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And it wasn't until "Love, Nina" was published,

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and people liked it, that I thought, actually,

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I could write in that real voice and that might work.

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I did, and they have liked it.

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That's quite a joy.

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That's a thing I love to tell people when say to me, at literary events,

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"I'm trying to write a book, what tips have you got?"

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I say, calm down and write in your own voice.

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At least try it.

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It might just work.

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Nina Stibbe, thank you very much.

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Thank you.

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Sunday

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Sunday has

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Sunday has brought

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Sunday has brought with

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Sunday has brought with it

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