Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan

Hello and welcome back to Books and Chat Podcast. I'm your host, Christina Young, and in today's episode I'm chatting with Zoe from Book Club about Mayflies by Andrew O'hagan, a book that's equal parts hilarious and heart wrenching. Zoe, let's dive in. Can you tell everyone what this book's about? OK, yes, So this book is told from the perspective of a young guy living in Scotland called Jimmy, or as it gets older, James. And it's split into two parts, really. The first is set in the summer of 1986, when he's just about to go to university and he's noticing the world changing and planning a massive trip to Manchester Big Weekend with all of his friends.

Weekend, Yeah. Yeah, we get told about this weekend, been doing great detail on how it's the best weekend. And then in the second-half of the book, kind of flash forward to 2017 when his probable closest friend and friend who was on the trip, Tully, has some news to share with him that isn't as good, but it makes you think and reminisce about this weekend that they had together. Yeah, sure, powerful book, isn't it? This one found it powerful. No spoilers yet, but what was your initial reaction after finishing Mayflies?

Did you scream, cry, or throw the book across the room? I know you've only just finished it this afternoon, so it's. Really, it's so fresh in my mind. It is, yeah. I was just saying that I was. It was emotional. I did cry, but also I kind of want to say all the above. Like I said, we won't go into spoilers just yet, but the role that Jimmy takes on with what happens to Tully is really significant, and the way they go about it may not necessarily be the best way at all times. So I found a lot of conflicting emotions.

It was very tender, it was very poignant. It made me think about the best friends that I've had in my life and the friends that have stuck with me. But also I felt terribly frustrated on behalf of Tully's wife. But we might go into that in a bit more later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we certainly will. I mean, obviously the one of the main themes of this book is friendship and nostalgia, isn't it? The bond that there is between Jimmy and Tully is the core of this book. And, you know, were there moments where their friendship reminded of you, you of your own life or maybe other books or films?

Did you have any kind of flashbacks to that? I know that I have thought about my friendships a lot. I've got friends that I knew at school and I still very much in close contact with those friends. It's made me think about them a lot more and how important friendship is and especially long term friendship, you know, seems really crucial. Did it remind you of any of your friends? It did, yes. So I wouldn't say that my friendship groups necessarily from the age where Jimmy and Tully met have lasted a long time, but it made me think of close friends.

It also made me think a little bit about book club because I joined in 2017. So I've been meeting with you and podding and making friends from Gloucester Book Club. 4 Eight years. Yeah, gosh, so much has changed you. Don't realize how much changes in a short period of time. And I think having the second-half of the book so close to the current day has made me think, oh, actually, you know, I've known some people in my life for a lot longer than I realized, and that time's gone by really quickly.

Yeah, absolutely. So Telly's probably the larger than life personality of the book, isn't he? Definitely. Jimmy is much quieter, reflective sound of guy, kind of guy. And he's sort of he's, he's the watcher of of the friendship group. He he watches what's going on and he sort of reflects on things I think more. Do you think that Tully's larger than life personality almost defined Jimmy's youth in the book because? And if so, do you think that's healthy or toxic in hindsight? I do emphasize with Jimmy a lot, we're not told a lot about his parents, but the gist of it is really that particularly this summer where he turns 18, his parents don't really care that awful much about him.

They not really care that much about each other. That doesn't seem to be a family unit for him at all. And he's an only child. So I think it would be really difficult to be in that situation and not transpose or could have maybe sometimes a slightly different relationship with somebody who would usually be your best friend. He really treats the whole of Tully's family more like his extended family. He's often over there a lot. So I don't know, I think Jimmy was just adapting to the situation at the time and doing what he needed to survive those months and weeks before he had space at university and could get a place of his own really.

Yeah, and of course it's this group of lads, it's a group of friends come from Ayrshire in Scotland, don't they? And it's a mining village that they that they come from and their fathers mostly have worked in the pits and have lost their jobs and some of them are already working at 18. They've already got jobs in the local factories around and about, and they have probably a quite difficult home life because their fathers are no longer able to get jobs from being made redundant from the pits. So there's a lot, sort of.

They're working class lads really, aren't they? Yeah, And they decide that they're all going to go to Manchester for an amazing mad weekend where they're going to encounter drugs and women and music and drink all of the things, and they've got nowhere to stay. And they haven't planned it at all. And they all get on a coach. And it's just, it resonated so much with me because not that I've done any of that stuff really in my youth, actually, I hastened to add listeners out there, but it reminded me of guys that I knew.

I knew those boys, I knew those lines from from my time and he captured them so well. And the banter that goes on between them I loved and it was funny. And of course there's a lot of, you know, Scottish humour in there too. I think I just really loved the way he did all of that. And I loved all the nostalgia about music. The Smiths. The Smiths came through really strongly. It's like a soundtrack running through the book. So yeah, I loved it. I. Think I was. I was saying to you just before we came on and to have this chat together that for me as a younger reader, so I was born in 93, I appreciated the banter at points.

At some points I found it a bit tiresome because I couldn't quite get all the references. But equally it kind of reminded me of those guys that you would sometimes meet at university that would lecture on a bit about how their viewpoint on Morrissey was the greatest thing they've ever discovered. And kind of the pretentiousness that we all have, whether we went into work or university or wherever we developed ourselves as young adults, and that we think our viewpoint is the best and most magical thing ever discovered.

I think he captured that very well. But at points it reflected that. And it was a little bit tedious for me. I wasn't loving it as much as you were, I don't think. It's interesting that because just thinking about our book club and the way we've got split in age groups, he, it sounds to me like you would be probably very much with the younger age group of book club because it's hard to kind of connect with something that you haven't really lived through or experienced much of. So it's the first half of the book is, it's very much set in two halves, this book, isn't it?

So the second part of the novel is 30 years forward, as you said at the beginning, and they're much older. They're in their 50s and you know, they, they're still friends. Did the second part of the novel if you if you didn't like the first part so much as the second part. And that was that repeated a lot in book club. People liked the second-half generally much more. So if you liked the second-half more, did you sort of get why the first half needed to be there and needed to be in so much detail?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's why it reminded me of my own friendships, I think because I know a lot of books now, it's popular to have chapters that go forward and jump back between different time periods and or perhaps from different stories, different perspectives. But I understand why Jimmy's story needed to be told in that way. Because then you get all the in jokes and those little references. You feel like you're Privy to those moments as they were happening. And then later on when you know they're talking about Joy Division or they're talking about that time they thought they saw The Smiths outside the hotel.

You know the knowledge because you were there and it had to be told in that way. I think otherwise it may not have had as much poignancy. It feels like you need to be there because that's how life goes. You have a moment and then you don't go back, you don't stop. It just happens and then it's over. And it doesn't create that kind of artificial sense that some books have of being able to link the dots really easily because you're going straight from one period to the other. That's not really how life works, and I think I appreciated that.

Because this has actually been televised, it's been dramatised on iPlayer a few years ago. Good, yeah. It's still there. I think it's on Amazon Prime. I think it's on BBC iPlayer if you want to look it up the way apparently I haven't watched it, but I'm going to. The way that it's been filmed is not so much you like in two halves like the book, it's more filmed like with flashbacks to the first half. Yeah, that's a shame, but I can understand that some things work better perhaps as a literary device, and some things work better for dramatisation.

So I'd be curious to see if anybody enjoys that, what readers and listeners think. Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely going to watch it because it sounds really good. I think it's just like a two-part and I don't think it goes on for for many, many episodes. So very much this book is about nail friendship, isn't it? And apparently there are many more books written about female friendships than there are about male friendships, which kind of didn't surprise me when I read that statistic, but it makes me question why?

Why? Why are there more books written about female friendships than me? I think the way that, yeah, just, I think as a woman, we're encouraged to be making bonds and also we don't have to deal often with. I was thinking about this and thinking about some of the more sentimental moments. There's a real friendship between them that includes physical contact. I think at one point Tally kisses his friends on the limbs and it's not a romantic thing. You know, he's he's very much about embracing people physically as well and giving close physical contact, which I think is really taboo still in male friendships.

It's all about being not emotional. Sadly, I think there's still a lot of homophobia, and I think that would have been very prevalent in Jamie or Jimmy and Tully's time, given that they're having this great time with the background of the AIDS crisis going on throughout Britain. And suddenly, you know, you don't want to be seen as too feminine, perhaps, or gay even. And so the dynamics of male friendships are changing. Things are becoming a lot more repressive because you don't want to be seen as a certain type of person that's really getting stigmatized.

Do you think as well that that maybe comes through with male authors, that they tend to write more maybe about crime, adventure, you know, those kind of genres and factual books perhaps than they do about, you know, relationship books? Yeah. And when I do enjoy reading a lot of contemporary literary fiction, that's why I enjoy your choices for book clubs so much, because they're always really relevant and they're either things that you've read by authors before you think. I've been interested in hearing more about that.

And I think when it comes to male writers writing contemporary fiction, there's a lot of soul searching. There's a lot of internal moments where the protagonists, I'm just thinking of books we've read in book club where we've read things like less and we've read some books by Patrick Gale. So even in cases where men are gay or they're not afraid of male bonding for that reason, you know, they're not afraid to embrace the more feminine or queer aspects of themselves. Even then, I think men's writing is a lot about soul searching and quite philosophical, whereas female writers tend to reach out to the community.

I feel like I'm making a massive generalization, but even the way that we're socialized as the different kinds of people that we are, it seems to be it's a more feminine thing to reach out to have a community, and it's a much more masculine thing to have a stiff upper lip and find the answers within yourself and intellectualize everything. And I think that's reflected in the book a lot because Jimmy also has to do a lot of soul searching, particularly when it comes to the second part of the book and the decision that he helps Tally make.

He does indeed. I saw a YouTube interview with Andrew Hagan a few years back about this book and he says actually that the character Jimmy is based on himself, which kind of doesn't. It doesn't. Surprise you and all that. So yeah, there's a spoiler. You can tell he's very literally minded of the character. And that he also has, so it's semi autobiographical in a way, because he also had a friend, a really close friend who died very young. So there was a a loss for him. So it's interesting, isn't it, that he's, he's used quite a lot of what he knows of what he's experienced in this book actually that.

Must have been quite therapeutic for him, maybe. But to. Yeah, to pour that experience into the book kind of adds another layer to it again, doesn't it? He said it, it was written, it was sort of came out and lot before lockdown, I think it's 2020, so probably just before. But he said it was kind of like something that he had to write, had to write now. So yeah. So I mean, that probably explains, doesn't it, why he's chosen to write the story through the eyes of Jimmy. Because it's actually him.

He's a much quieter friend, Yeah. Definitely. Makes sense. OK, well, the moral dilemma of this book, which is covered in the second-half. Really. So this is the bit where we are going to do a bit of spoiler friendly stuff listeners. So if you haven't read the book and you don't want to hear this, now might be the time to switch off and go make a cup of tea or coffee. But yes, we are going to talk about that decision that Tully makes. So do you want to talk about that a little bit? So we. Perhaps.

Tell us about this decision. We get to 2017 and it seems like Jimmy and Tully have been in touch on and off throughout the years. They still keep in regular phone contact, but Jimmy's moved to London now, so he's not physically in Ayrshire anymore, where Tully is living. He gets this phone call and it's one of those phone calls that you never want to have. But Tully reveals that he's been feeling unwell for a time and has been to the doctors and they've confirmed he's he's got cancer that's spread to quite a few parts of his body.

So he is terminal and initially they've given the prognosis of four months to live. So really not a lot of time at all. And initially, it starts off as a way of not only telling his best friend, but roping him in and saying, you know, I'm really struggling, mate. I need your help to help me coordinate what the hell I'm going to do for the last four months of my life. And I need you to help me plan the things when the time comes that I'm no longer able to do so. And one of those includes how he wants to end his life, which is by assisted suicide.

Yeah. Yeah. So heavy stuff. It was heavy and equally so I guess because Anna who ends up being tell his wife they get married, don't they? Just before the end for him is not in agreement with his decision to end his life that way and it's really struggling with it. The fact that he's asked Jimmy to help him with that and hasn't asked her to. And I guess if we unpack that a little bit, Zoe, we could probably think about the reasons that Tully has chosen Jimmy. What were your thoughts on that? I think ultimately it is because Anna isn't in agreement.

It sounds like she and Tally have been together for a number of years and they're a really solid relationship. So I think potentially if he'd asked her to do it and she said no, perhaps at first he may have been afraid that he would back down from this decision. As time goes on, he becomes more and more resolute. And he has given lots of opportunities by various different people in his life, including medical professionals, to say, you know, this is what I consent to.

This is the thing that made me frustrated because naturally, coming from the perspective of with partner or girlfriend, I empathized with Anna. I thought about what would happen if it were if my fiance or husband and I am off the same viewpoint. And I think it's it's she was too close to the situation, being his romantic partner and living with him in a way that Jimmy has a different closeness, but he's tough enough to be able to make the decisions that perhaps she would have prevented. Yeah, and I think Tully knew that, didn't he?

I think he knew that he could trust Jimmy, even if Jimmy found it really difficult to carry out his wishes that he would do it, and that he knew him well enough to know that the friendship meant that he wouldn't let him down. And the last he would carry it through. But Jimmy's reaction is pretty visceral, isn't it, to all of this. You know, he's really kind of struggling, I think, with it. Do you think you would have done it? Do you think you would have done what Jimmy did in the end? It's so hard because talking about it theoretically is one thing, and then as we see the final scenes of the novel and just the simplicity of some of the things that Jimmy was saying really broke my heart.

You know, he's describing to his own wife. I own about their bond and might so strong and he's like we were young together. Just the simplicity of that, just oh, I rigged. And crying out and thinking about it. It really got me in the feelings, as you say. Yeah, that really was an emotional statement for me, and I don't know what I would do in that situation because my viewpoint kept changing throughout the second-half of the novel. When I first, you get the first kind of inklings that this is the way that Tully wants things to go, you think, OK, yeah, well, I'm in favor of people's right to live and personal autonomy and all that.

And then you change and you change again, and somebody thinks differently, and it's not straightforward. And I really like that, O'hagan says through one of the characters. One of the female characters, I can't remember which one. I think it may even be a Bishop that Jimmy consults a mutual friend and she says nobody's wrong in this decision, nobody's wrong. It's difficult and it's awful for everybody and nobody's right and nobody's wrong. And you can understand Anna not wanting him to do it because she just wanted him to be around as long as he could be.

But it was about her need for him, wasn't it? Her need for him to be there. And you can understand that, to totally get that. But also I totally get, you know, someone's right to choose how they die. You know, if, if, if, if that's the way they want it. And it's particularly pertinent at the moment, I think in the UK, isn't it? Again, it's come up in Parliament recently about talking about assisted dying bill. At the moment in the UK we we don't have it at all. And if, if somebody wants it to happen, then they would have to go to Zurich, to Switzerland, to dignitasty.

And it costs a lot of money. It's thousands and thousands of pounds and also it's still illegal here in the UK. So if somebody accompanies somebody to Dignitas to assist them getting there, not to assist them, the person has to be able to lift a cup and drink the drink themselves. So often that can mean that people go a little bit too early perhaps than they would otherwise need to because they've still got to be able to do that. But people, it's a lot to ask of somebody to accompany you because they could be at risk of being arrested when they get back into the UK, although no one has ever been prosecuted here for doing that yet.

But it's always a risk and it and it would be sort of hanging over you a bit I think if you were the person accompanying somebody. Do you reckon you could do it? Do you think you could do what Tully did, Zoe? I if I've got my cool book club intellectual thinking head on, I would say that I could, but how my partner would and my best friends would probably argue really different. I'm completely really emotional when it comes to death and I can't even bear to watch somebody die in film. So I don't know why I think I'd be the one flying out to Dignitas, but it's this whole thing about the sacredness of a best friend, of a lifelong friend, or if somebody who has done you such a great favour in your life, that not in a negative way, but I feel like Jimmy doesn't even question that he owes something to Tally and that this will be the thing because he is dying.

Yeah, because actually, Tally's really I'm not. Trying to do it. Yeah, I'm not sure I could do it. I'm not sure I could ask someone else. He was a friend of mine to come with me because again, I would worry about the responsibility. But I guess if I really needed to do it, it probably would be someone in my friends or family who would. I think, with Tully and Jimmy. Tully to me always seemed like a very kind man. Yeah, he always looked out for Jimmy when they were together, didn't he? And when they were all in that sort, yeah, that weekend in Manchester when, you know, the ticket gets lost to get into the gig, which is classic, isn't it?

One person in the group is always going to have lost their ticket. Essentially means to be fast.

So Tony ends up he does. Tony ends up giving the his ticket to Jimmy and, you know, manages to weedle his way in some other way because he's so charming and charismatic that he can do it. He's got the, he's an attractive personality. So yeah. But he was always kind of, I think, looking out for him. And Jimmy was the only one, wasn't he, that he told when they were on that weekend away in Manchester? He told them about his dad. Yeah. And his dad was. Yeah. It sounded like he was really struggling with mental health as well alongside that and not having much treatment or support for, as you say, what what the minds will have gone through with redundancies and closures, mental health support not being, you know, quite the thing that it is today either.

It sounds like he really struggled physically and mentally with addiction. Yeah. So the endings impact on me. The last section gutted me. Did the ending feel inevitable to you at all? I mean it. It. Kind of had to happen, didn't it? It did have to happen, but as I was saying to you just now, there is a bit where we're not 100% sure if it's going to pull through. And I think that ultimately is what brings Anna around to not exactly being on the side of supporting it, but allowing the trick to happen, allowing herself to be there and be fully present for Tully because he becomes poorly in the UK.

And Jimmy says to him, oh, well, it's only two weeks, mate, until you've got the date, we've got the official letter from Digna Test, you've got two weeks. And he's just in so much pain and really, really depressed that he just wants things to be over then. So I wasn't quite sure if they were going to make it and whether it was going to be a case of Tully died in the UK. Yeah, it was both inevitable and sad at the same time. Yeah, Yeah, I think so. But that very end scene where he's taken the first drink of the, you know, medicine that they give them and then he sees a football pitch because football was a massive thing to tell.

He wasn't. It was one of the things he loved, as well as all the music and everything of the ACS. He loved football. And he sees a goal post and he goes out and he just kicks this ball into the goal and puts his arms up in celebration. And that's the end of the book and it cool. That really does get you. I mean, did you feel that emotion at the time? Definitely. I think it was a really good ending because as you go back to Airship and you find out Jimmy's mum is still alive, although it sounds as if she may have a lot of memory loss or something like dementia.

The links and thinking back over the past, knowing that whilst his dad was still alive when he was younger, he and Jimmy connected over football and that was the delight of the whole family really. That in a way, I think it took on a much more poignant meaning because it was celebrating his life with his wife, but also going right back to the beginning and almost saying, you know who you are, Dad, I'm doing it. Yeah, I know. It really got me actually not ending. It was really. And actually our book club was really split on this one.

It was a love or hate book for a lot of people. And there were some people who actually loved it so much they wanted to give it more than 10 out of 10. And then there were other people who thought that the first half was really boring and tedious and long and they didn't get half of the references in it and and they couldn't be bothered with it. And we're scoring it like one or two or three out of 10. And then the second-half, they were scoring much higher. So it was really one of those Marmite reads in our book club.

I loved it, I must say. I scored at 8 1/2. But yeah, And I'm so glad I read it. And I think that Andrew Hagan is an amazing writer. I haven't read anything off this point. I think I'm going to go away and have a look now at some of the things that he's done, or we'll be more interested to hear interviews from him because he narrated the audio book. So yes, I am one of those people that listens to books and I thought he did a fantastic job and kept me going through those parts that were maybe a bit long and maybe pretentious with the discussions because he had a way of pacing that was brilliant, that made a lot of the statements sound poetic and fun.

He had all the Glaswegian and the airship accents sound perfectly of course, and puts on different voices for the different lads in the group. So I think that really helped me get through that section and appreciate it a lot more for what it was as well. It's a brilliant audio book if anybody it. Sounds like if if someone thinks they might struggle a bit with reading the actual book, that doing the audio version might actually. I definitely recommend it. It clocks in at about 7:00 or 8 hours, so it's not a long one either.

And it's, no, it really immerses you in their story, I think. Yeah, yeah. So just a fun hit bit on the end here of this podcast. So we quick fire around for you. Pick one. Oh, OK, Tully or Jimmy, who would you rather have as a friend? I think Tully, because, as I said, as somebody who loses a lot of their things and their keys, their phone, just getting into that gig would be a lifesaver. And I feel that if he hadn't have been able to charm his way in, Tally would have said, oh, it's OK, mate, Let's go.

Yes. Not that Jamie. Oh, Jimmy, James, Jim, Jimmy. Here's a man of many names, isn't it? Doesn't seem like noodles. Yeah. Having it read in the Scottish accent noodles helps as well. Yeah, not that he doesn't seem like a good guy, he does, but it's told through his eyes, of course. So Telly is the amazing guy. He's the one you want to be your friend. Who would I choose? Oh, it's a tricky thing. I think I might go with Telly just because he sounds like he's exciting and vibrant and you know, he's he's got he's a good, he's got a good personality.

He's kind as well. He sounds fun. Not like I disliked Jimmy at all. I didn't, you know, it's a really time 1. With Jimmy, you know, being the introverts kind of lover of books and words, although Tully becomes an English teacher as well, so they're both very into their words and books. That's true. He goes into teaching, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah. I think they'd both be fun to have a chat with. So, best soundtrack for this book? I'm voting for The Smiths, obviously, because I'm a bad hero. Yeah, well, it's got this.

Already gone. The Smiths. I think if I was going to make a playlist to define this book, the very, very top would have to be something by Joy Division. I'm not going to say I know they can't look well because I don't. But if you read the book, there are a lot of references to Joy Division throughout. And the very last thing that he wears on his last day telling is Joy Division T-shirt. So for me, I think that cements and the relationship that the boys have with Ian Curtis, obviously they don't know I'm on a personal level, but thinking about another working class guy who made it out, who got through with music but then also ultimately ended his life with suicide, it has a lot of resonances when you think about the story of Ian Curtis and Joy Division.

So that would be my. OK. And one last one. What do you think? What's one word to describe mayflies? Oh, that's so hard. I'm going to say conflicting, and that's not a bad thing. But I think it explains the responses that you were having in book club and that we've been having throughout the chat. Because I know it's one I'm going to go away and think about for a little while. Like you say, would you have done it? Would you have gone through with what they did? And that question is going to be in my head for a little while.

I think. I don't know about you.

I don't know what words I'd use. I'd use so many different words, it's really hard to choose one. Isn't it just one? Maybe a few times I. Mean it was just oh God, it was just it was emotional, it was poignant, it was a heartbreaking and all of those things. It was resonated so much with me and and anybody who's around sort of 50s sixties age group now, I think you would find quite a few bits in this book that resonated with you as well. So I would recommend it totally. But would you recommend it as somebody who's much younger?

Zoe, would you recommend it to your peers, do you think? Yes, I would, because I think it's important not just to be bottle nosed into Oh, well, this isn't about being Gen. X or Millennial or Gen. ZI think there's far too much of that around at the moment. And I think actually just to take on the perspective of this time and their environments and to think about a world where you could just get on a coach somewhere. You don't have phones to meet up. They don't even have a plan. They don't have Google Maps.

You know, it just you need to think about times outside of your own because it wasn't that long ago. And I think that's what the whole book is about, how quickly the time passes between this one great night and then the end. I think that's what made me remember so much, you know, you, you, you hitchhiked places you've got on coaches. You didn't have a phone, you had no money. You just slept on benches or wherever. You know, life was so different from what it's like today for young people. But some of it was better.

But a lot of it isn't actually wasn't no, I feel. Like you're survived a lot more now and it is risky. It's not for not wanting to do these things because we're afraid of doing them, but it's because of the consequences, and particularly for young women as well. I feel like hitchhiking as a lad has a lot of different comes and potential consequences. So, yeah, and indeed, so we're going to be coming up to the end of this podcast now. Thanks, Joey. This was Chef's kiss from me to you, as usual, because you were wonderful.

Love having you. We do need to hear from our listeners. If you would love to follow us, we would like that very much indeed. And also, if you want to make a comment on today's podcast, please do so in the comments bit at the end of the podcast. Yeah. Was Tully selfish or courageous? Well, it's for you to decide, but we thoroughly recommend you read this book. I don't know what book should we break our hearts over next? Zoe, I know I didn't. Wow, I was. Thinking about this, I'm I'm very so some people, most add, I say productive and I always make a note of of what I'm scoring books, not just in book club, but things that I've read.

And something that completely gutted me in a different way and from a very female perspective was Jacqueline Hartman's I have never known men. It's a sci-fi completely different from this, but the reason it gutted me is because while I don't want to give too many spoilers away, but it's just unlike anything I've ever read in the sense that this is a planet where women have been enslaved. Suddenly they're given a chance at freedom and there is nothing there. So just repeat the name of the book and the author again.

I want to make sure I have the name exactly right, so just bear with me a second because I was thinking about it and then realised I've got to get the name of this book right. It's the world. Zoe is checking her phone. Yeah. I couldn't last two minutes without modern technology. This is the proof here everybody. Thanks. Do follow us. It will be back next month with another books and chat podcast. So do keep reading, but Zoe's now going to give you this book that she thoroughly recommends as well.

Go ahead, Zoe. Wow. In terms of dividing reads, I think it goes exactly with this view. It will be a Marmite book and you will either love or hate what happens or what doesn't happen. And it's called I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Hoffman. It's a short book. It's about 200 pages. But if you want something that really makes you think and it's very unusual, then I would. Recommend it. Good recommendation. OK, thanks for listening out there guys. And do keep reading. We'll be back next month.

Bye for now. Bye.

The Story