The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

Hello. Welcome back to Gloucester book clubs podcasts. I'm Christina Young tonight will be discussing the paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller.

On the perfect August morning, L Bishop heads out for a swim in the pond below. The paper Palace, her family's holiday home in Cape Cod. As she Dives beneath the water. She relives the passionate encounter she had the night before, against the side of the house, that knows all her darkest Secrets, while, her husband and mother chatted to their guests inside. And so begins a story that unfolds over 24 hours and 50. Years as elves, shocking betrayal leads her to a life-changing decision and an ending.

You won't be able to stop thinking about, let's join some members of Gloucester book club and see what they thought about it. But before we do that, let me just say that if you are a fan of where the Crawdad sing and little fires everywhere, I think you're going to love this one. Thank you for joining me again tonight. Guys, I've got Joe, is me again, and Stella's come back to tell us what she thought about this great novel actually that we just read quite recently in book club. So, let me first of all, start by saying that this is a debut novel form around it.

Kelly hella, she's one of those people who's in the enviable position of dividing your time between residences. On the other side of the Atlantic, so she's got one in London. She's also got one in LA and she happens to have one in Cape, Cod, which is the setting for this novel. Let's begin by asking you both, Joe and Stella. What did you like about this novel? I actually really enjoyed the writing style of the novel when I started it. I didn't love it at first, and I found the writing to be very flowery and very Active and a bit over descriptive for me.

But actually, by about page 40, I think I was really, really enjoying it. Really enjoying the descriptions. They are actually very Vivid, or I found The Bravery of it, and very evocative of the locations. And I really love that I didn't especially emphasize with the characters though. I thought they were well written. And possibly quite realistic in the name of shown very much warts and all. But I thought, but I just didn't typically emphasize or connect with any of them. Having said that, I really enjoyed the story.

Well, I really enjoyed it, too. I hugely enjoyed it. I like the timeline. It's story is told over 24 hours, but equally over 50 years. So you getting flashbacks, which bring in This tree which we'll talk about later on. I liked hell. I thought she was a very appealing and attractive character. I like the fact that she was portrayed as being G portrayed as being vibrant and sexy and rather than me we just push a data sort of a Mumsy type character. She was portrayed as a real-life woman with all the hungers and desires have.

And I like the depiction of this enormous Blended dysfunctional family. It's an absolute master class in Sure is. Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, the novel is set in Cape Cod, it's the setting, the, the author is manages to describe with Vivid intimacy, I really liked the way she uses of language of that and I felt like I was there but in what ways did that place? Where the paper Palace is set and the paper Palace the house is there? How did it shape the lives of this family? The bishop Bishops because it was a major part of their lives, wasn't it though?

They went there every summer for that summer holidays. Well, yeah, I agree. Did shape them, the whole place shape them. I found the description of Cape Cod so vivid that I felt I was there and the the camp then they go to every summer including the paper Paris which is like the HQ surrounded by a load of up. Some shades that are used for their sleeping accommodation. The paper Palace is very flimsy, it's been built in a very sort of Quick and cheap way. And there's almost a metaphor there for the state of their family of this house of cards, that at any moment, could collapse.

And it's that, isn't it right by the lake or the sides of this Pond or this large pond that they swim in quite a lot talking about swimming? And one of the things that Miranda Cowley Heller says and I quote from her and she's trying to think about kind of what goes on beneath the facade of a seemingly perfect family. But actually, what goes on underneath, isn't really perfect at all. And she says, that Swimming with Sharks is the best method. Her. And she's looking at the most beautiful ocean on the cape, and yet it has become one of the biggest meeting, places in the world.

Now, for great white sharks, which is a bit scary if you're prone to wanted to go swimming in the sea, they were never there before. So you look at the seat and then underneath it at what is actually going on, you know. And that was a metaphor for this family. Don't you agree? I mean, it was a very dysfunctional, family. Did you feel that when you were reading it? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, the family were quite a middle class family, of course. And so I think to all intents and appearances, they did seem to be quite, you know, quite well to do.

They had a good lifestyle. There were a lot of references in the book to sort of beautiful people. So the mother Wallace Ells, mother L and her sister. Anna, their mother was described as beautiful. Although, at the at this point obviously is she He's older, she's must be in her. 70s L, and Anna are variously described as being beautiful in the book as well. So there was a, you know, a lot of the sort of outward appearance of being very, very acceptable and sort of middle class and possibly upper class type of appearance else.

Husband the British husband was? Wasn't he? Some sort of, was he titled or something? I can't quite remember, but he came from In the top drawer, but brat background in the UK. Yeah, so yeah, you had all of that on the outside, but then, on the inside all of the secrets and all of these awful childhoods, and things that happened, and starting quite shockingly with Wallace cells, mother. And when she was a child, and one of her, her parents, I think had both me mad. Lots of them had been divorced and remarry, so yes, that's right.

So I think oh Wallace was married, three times herself but her mother was divorced and remarried and she was. So Wallace was actually abused by her. And her brother were abused as children by The Stepfather. That just seems to sort of have cascaded down the generations. So you've got all those everything on the outside. Looks wonderful. Are quite an aspirational lifestyle when you get into it, it's pretty awful. It was a lot of abuse in this book. Wasn't there? Ticularly sexual abuse? Yeah. An awful.

Lot of sexual abuse and I agree with Sarah. That is the dysfunctionality of passed on down the generations all the time hidden below. The surface, there is awful Secrets going on the abuse that people have had to suffer. And unfortunately, as time goes on, they end up very often repeating the same cruelty on their own children. So actuators do I'll forever. Yes. Absolutely. I was very struck by that and just so the readers might, what listeners might want to know that? Actually, there is quite a lot of abuse in this book and if you're sensitive to that, it might not be something that you want to read about.

Just so, just be aware of that before you dive into it. But actually, we've already talked about this paper, Palace unfolding over 24 hours and over 50 years. So that's just one day in Al's life. There are moments times that lead up to this particular day. The story is quite cleverly told to those two timelines, what did you make of that? When you were reading it, did you find that easy to slip in and out of did it need to be told in multiple timelines? Yeah, I did think that work. So again at the start, the timelines swapped quite quickly.

So they were quite short the parts in each of the The 24-hour time line and the 50-year time line, but then, go as novel. Got further on that, there were bigger chunks and it did work well, and you definitely needed to know that the whole of the backstory, of course, with what, informed that 24-hour period and what was happening in it. And yes, I think it worked absolutely. I think without that backstory, there of the 50 years that preceded the 24 hours. You wouldn't have been able to make any sense of the choices that L finally makes at the end of the 24 hours, to under Miranda, Kelly had a herself as described the book not so much has a whodunit or a wide and it as there is a very steamy passionate encounter, fairly early on in the book in the first few pages, you'll learn about it.

And the question is, why did that happen? What on Earth's going on here? And then they timeline from the past is telling us all the Events, which lead up to the current events that are going on the 24-hour. But I found it quite a page-turner. I don't know about you guys, what's I got into it? You know, I was one of those books that I wanted to keep picking up again and again and again because I wanted to find out what happened. How did you two feel about that? Was it something that you found it easy to read, or didn't like very much?

Yeah, I certainly found it easy to read in the sense that I was very Raised in the story. I just coming back to previous point, you made, I would like to sort of confirm that, that actually, there is a lot of abuse in it and it is abusive children as well. So, yes, I imagine potentially. It could be very triggering and it's not really in some novels and we violent seems quite often. I've just literally skip the page and not read it. It's not something it's not quite somehow that you can do that here because it is a thread throughout the book rather.

Just an actual description of an incident that you can just miss. So in that sense, I found it, I found that quite hard actually and quite sad because it everything's described in quite to matter-of-fact way. And yeah, I thought those bits that was very tough actually to leave know that that is actually the reality for, for people, and for children, and, but yes, the book was a page. Turner with the main character L. And the as Joe mentioned, the steamy scene at the start and the yes. Why? And then I think unravels and you find out more and more and more, I was certainly very, you know, invested in it and I wanted to know what happened, absolutely that.

That first thing that you mentioned are Stellar, you know, where you've opened that book. And that's the first scene. And I'm like, wow, we got to read this now. Because actually, if you listeners out there, if not read the book, some of you may have done, I've read it. Some of you won't have read it. There is a seam right at the beginning where she's outside the paper Palace, the house, where they're staying the summer and she's having sex with a man up against the wall and her husband, and children, and her mother inside the house.

Now immediately, that draws me straight into the story because I think who is this man? Why is she behaving in this way? When her husband and children are inside, Didn't, how could you do that for immediately? Wanted to know why. So, I was a great opening scene in that book. I felt. What did you think about that Joe? Did you did you enjoy that bit? Yeah, it is actually very much it smacks you in the face, and you immediately find out what, on Earth's going on here? Who would, who would an Earth would do that and risk.

Just Discovery by her husband and children? Yeah. Why is she doing it? And as I said before, the why done it part is is really the story in the book. Is why is she behaving like this? Why is she in a position effectively of having to choose between two men. Her husband, loving husband and her teenage love that. She hasn't seen for a long, long time. I mean, it's not, the only intimate thing that's in this book. I there is it Joe because there is an intimate scene on a beach as well, between L and Jonas.

And, you know, there is kind of peppered with Intimates sort of seeing through The book really, let's think a little bit at the moment about and talk a little bit about the paper Palace and its susceptibility to the elements. We know that this house was built by else father and he ran out of money. I believe along the way and couldn't really finish it to a very high standard. So over the years this house is kind of like very fragile and crumbling, and he's sort of acting as a bit like a mirror. Isn't it for what's going on?

All in the Family that the family is also the crumbling at the edges. Do you think that was deliberate? Do you think that Miranda Kelly hello is deliberately using that as a metaphor really, for what's going on in the in the family? Yeah, I think very much. So as I said before paper Palace is perhaps not that description. I would use I would say House of Cards is maybe more like it is so precarious. The state of this family that huge to huge disclosures and huge discoveries could wreck it internally.

There's so much going on there that could get out and you're sort of teetering on the brink all the time of is this family going to survive or not. So it's very gripping from that point of view. It certainly is and we've got Secrets as well going through this novel, haven't we? Lots of them and the acts that create these secrets and their decisions to keep them hidden. What is the outcome? Do you think of keeping those secrets? And how do we see that play out within the novel and what do you think?

L keeps the secrets that she does from her family? Boom? Now I need a full with this one for you to tackle there. Yeah, plus - but yeah, I think Secrets these types of secret are probably generally very damaging, they're always going to be damaging. And I guess I feel that actually family secrets like this sort of quite big secrets. They never really stay Secrets. They always come out at some point. So maybe it's quite fruitless to try and try and keep secrets but of course, the reasons for why things aren't said, It is a sort of very interesting and I think you can see here with L that she hasn't said things because because of the ramifications and because of the actual problems that it will cause within the family.

So in particular, her such a first secret is, I think the reason that spec is because it without giving too much away in these actually doesn't really give it away. He said, it's it could create a problem between Her mother and her stepfather. So with that relationship I should say with that family Dynamic. Yeah, I'm guessing that's the reason she kept the secret and of course at that point, she's a child as well. Yeah. My feeling about the whole secret thing was that there was a tremendous amount of guilt that L is carrying throughout this book, isn't there as well for reasons, which we won't give spoilers about what she is, carrying a lot of guilt over a tragic accident, that happened.

When she was a child and a. Well she was a teenager I suppose she was about 17 I think at the time and she's carrying a massive secret about that and I think you know, she's also carrying secrets about the abuse that she knows it's gone on as well. And so I agree with you Stella very often. It is quite common for girls. Women who have been abused to keep that secret to not tell anyone partly, because they might feel that they're responsible for what's happened to them in some way. Way. And that is very common for women and men who've been sexually abused, I think and so I can see why that was in the novel.

But yeah, I mean, can you think of any times when you maybe have kept a secret, you don't have to say what it is. And then, but whether you have kept a secret that you know, you thought was helpful or turned out to be harmful. Well, I think nothing Springs to mind immediately that I particularly want to bring bring back to My mind. However, I think about Secrets the important thing is not so much the secret itself and the keeping of it is the motivation for keeping the secret secret. Are you doing it to protect other people?

How you doing it, to protect your children and in particular, that's a very good reason for giving a secret. Or are you just doing it for your own self protection for your own advantage? Actually, in this book Toshi, in fact keeps quite a lot of Secrets From heater, her husband, Jonas, who's the ex-boyfriend? The guy? She's probably always been in love with. He's the one that knows all of our secrets, really? And he's the one that she shares everything with he was there at the time and, you know, he grew up with her.

So you all have secrets and I did struggle a little bit with wondering why she hadn't told Peter What about some of the things that had happened to her? Yeah, I agree with that. I mean that did occur to me that I don't know if there was a moment that past where she sort of felt the moment had passed to tell Peter these things and then, you know, you go. So as time goes on it then becomes more difficult maybe to say things was, I did find that a little bit strange because it felt difficult to know how she was how she's giving her marriage a property.

Pounce when she's keeping those secrets back that are quite significant actually and as adult hood goes on as well. I think in childhood I can see much more easily that you know, for so many reasons that children won't say things and quite understandably because it will impact everybody. They might you know, they children quite often feel things that our own fault anyway. With anything bad happens. They tend to think it's probably their faults so, but as she's Gone into midlife. Yeah, I I wasn't quite sure about that and maybe maybe she just didn't think about it over and she literally put it out of her mind completely and it's only when she saw comrade that it sort of came back term, you know, back to her mind because he was with those Secrets it wasn't.

So maybe it's to do without that, she wanted to leave them in her past that she didn't want to bring them into her marriage. I agree that I agree with you. I think that, you know, the longer you don't say, Something in a marriage. And then maybe 10 years later, you, blurt it out, and you say something, I think that could lead your spouse to say why. Now, why didn't you tell me this before? And you know, and caused quite a lot of, you know, disturbance in the mirror. Yeah, you just reminded me actually, she didn't miss her chance because Peter asked her, the first time they went to bed together.

He asked her if she was a virgin. Yeah, though, she sort of missed her chance then. And so then that It becomes a little bit more difficult because I don't with your what you may feel. Your husband's idea of you is hmm, and that you will then be saying well actually your idea of me isn't, right? Exactly, yes, it was. A lie. That sort of started the marriage off. There was no we need to talk a little bit about Conrad, who's The Stepbrother of L in this novel. Let's talk about him as a character. Well, he's not a very likeable character for reasons, which I won't say on air, but he's not very likable.

He is however, Central to the story because I don't think it's a spoiler to say that there is a terrible accident and the circumstances in which that happens, the other people in the boat being L and Jonas circumstances of the accident are such that they carry a burden of guilt, for the whole of their lives, over it, and it's that Which keeps them apart as teenagers and is something which there are possible. Coming together again, might relieve. So it's a big factor in the book. Is this killed over the accident?

Yeah. Absolutely. There is a tremendous amount of guilt over that and for those listeners out there, we're not going to tell you exactly why because you don't spoil it for you. But it is it is a central theme as Joe says to this book. It's a multi-generational stories, isn't it? That we got here as well? So the I've got we see as you mentioned before, reverberations cascading, down through this family's teller, the choices made by the grandparents and the parents, and the scars that they've left or nail herself, is it possible to break the cycle with this family?

Do you think, or are they just going to keep repeating? Thanks. I think there's always hope maybe it gets harder, I don't know. As time goes on, I'm not really sure. But I think if there is the you know, the insight and awareness and the nation, the desire to break the chain, then I'm just going to vote for the fact that, yes, it can be pretty, can be broken. Yeah, don't be. Yeah, but it's not an easy. I don't think it's an easy thing and I do Whitney would need a lot of work and a lot of desire in a lot of awareness.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot that's going on. I mean, when we get towards the end of this novel, we know that L is faced with a life-changing Choice here. Don't we and you know, we're not going to tell you where how Russia chooses or what she chooses or where she goes. But there was it was a major plot part really about L choosing and he's got to choose really between two men or she's got to choose a version of herself. Did you say the ending was successful? Because I think, you know, Joe and I know that Miranda Kelly.

Hell has said that she can decide on the ending until about three pages from the end. Isn't that right? Yeah, it is right? And I think that shows how difficult it was for L to decide how that if you like to put it crudely, two men were neck-and-neck in her mind and how they're durable. It was For the author to decide. How are things going to go in her mind and write the ending of the book. And I should say that the ending of the book is not conclusive. The reader is left with an interpretation job of working out how they feel it ended and what the outcome was.

Yeah we've all got different views on that and I'm not going to say what My Views are because of the sport live for our listeners because in good discussions about that ending. Haven't we in book club? And you know we have been several of us about disagreed about the ending. So yeah, we'll leave it out there for you listeners to make up your mind. Should you choose to read this book? Is it a good book club book guys? There's a lot to discuss in it, all the things we've discussed and also there are a lot of divorces in it.

So there's a lot to do with how far this can become quite absent and have others. Have you, you know, may remarry and then you have Blended this so many things And so there's all of that really complex stuff and it's all in there so it's all discussable as we've said, there's a lot of abuse unfortunately, in the in the family and the ramifications of that, lots of Secrets there is a lot. I mean, I count it. It's not really a main part of the book, really? But I counted four drownings in the book, lots of things in the book to discuss.

While of drownings? Yeah, there is quite a lot of drownings and a bit of sex. So there's quite, you know, there's something for everyone in there. What do you think, Joe? I mean, it's a good book club for you. Yeah, definitely. It is. And I think it's him. It's sort of invites, you to think about the morality of parents and people deciding whether to give in to their desires and their passions or whether to put their family and their children first. And very often in life is pretty much a choice between the two.

Certainly in this dysfunctional family is pretty well. Every time a choice between passion or children, and that's quite difficult to discuss sometimes people because our lives, haven't all been perfect. And sometimes we have given into desires, and maybe on reflection, not done what we wish we'd done. But so it certainly opens up these sort of things for discussion between friends. It certainly does, what about the general? Actors in the book, there were few of them, did you like any of them in particular?

I'll say first that. I didn't really find any of the characters, particularly likeable, maybe Peter was okay. He's the he's Ells English husband and he's a, I found him a little bit stereotyped for a Brit. I could see, you know, it felt a little bit, like, I don't know. He Grant could have been playing him in a film Notting Hill type film, but he was a bit scary. So type for me. What do you guys think? Did you find anyone to really like as a character? Well, I don't actually think I did but I suppose I said at the start, but I didn't really mm empathize with them.

And maybe I did a bit more than I thin because I think the female characters the mother Wallace and L and Anna. I did feel that I they were in difficult situations and and I did quite emphasize emphasize with them. I guess, although I don't know that I would do any of the things that that they did Peter was, as you say. I think he was quite stereotypical. There wasn't this for me, there wasn't a lot to him, but interestingly, I think you mentioned. Joe in another conversation that Miranda Cowley, hurlers husband is British Yes.

Yes, that's so. It is just like, oh, maybe it's listeners, might find it. Interesting to know that Miranda Kelly had. I spent her youth spent her summer holidays on Cape Cod. So, there's an awful lot about this story, which may have been met been inspired by her own childhood experiences. Of the lives between London and Cape Cod, and also Los Angeles and in the novel L and Peter live between London, Muslim stories, between London and Cape Cod. So, there definitely are some parallels, which she may have drawn on.

And I think that is one General thing I'd say for the book and that is that the characters were quite American and I think that's that is a bit different culturally to being British, you know, I did. I feel that I quite enjoyed it but it did see. Maybe it has a slightly different. Feel that the characters are maybe more more direct and more open and more overstated than British characters will be. Yeah, that's true. I think that's that's very common Miranda Kelly Heller. Says, that the work she did at HBO?

She doesn't work the money longer actually, but she used to work for them and she was an editor. I think for, you know, Their screenplays work. She did at HBO also influenced her writing of this book and she is now writing a screenplay for this book and so it will come on to HBO as a mini drama series. And I guess, you know, if that reminds me of little fires everywhere and hoping where the crawl dance, sing is going to come soon and it reminded me of one of those books really, I think if you liked those two but those two other books probably will like this one if they're He's coming similar and feel.

I think the guys we actually do recommend this book for book club to read and we hope that you've enjoyed listening to our talk tonight. And next month we're going to be discussing the promise which is the booker Prize winner for 2021 and written by a South African writer Damon. Gal Gadot So there we are. Thank you for listening to as talking about the paper Palace Miranda Cowley, Hellas debut novel. We hope you enjoyed listening and if you want to look for us again we're here on Spotify anchor or Google and apple podcasts.

The Story