Daisy Buchanan

Yes, and I think because I have been such a long-term fan of Bridget, and I hope that it is a tribute rather than anything more legally problematic, but I did kind of write The Awful Connie as a little tribute to Perpetua.

I am in the middle of Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendes, which is dazzling.

It's really unlike anything that I've read before.

And it's the story of a young man who comes to London and he is queer and becoming a sex worker, not to give too many spoilers.

But it's about him escaping his very strict Jehovah's Witness family, but also about

to the UK from Jamaica and all of the hopes they have and the racism and the awful things that they encounter.

And the voices of the characters are so sharp and clear and immediate.

It's the sort of book I love because it finds humour in things that are quite dark and things that you feel that you shouldn't be laughing at.

But he's very good on the texture of life and paying great attention to

things that another writer might not think quite so much, you know, like the exterior of a pub or, you know, the way you feel sort of hanging around, waiting at a train station.

It,

really sort of, you know, a book that's staying with me.

And similar to that, I've just read Nurse Dolan's Exciting Times.

And I really, really love that.

And it's such a smart thing to do, to take this idea of, you know, expats who are, I think, liberated from the conventions that they'd have to observe at home, sort of being their worst selves.

And also the genius of having a narrator who is,

dealing with british people or english people as an irish person while um you know they're all sort of far away in hong kong and that has sort of her fascination with kind of with differences and you know what people say and what people mean it's like it's very sort of contemporary jane austen and extremely funny i do love a funny book

It's...

A terrible name to use because Daisy Buchanan is one of the worst characters in literature.

Gatsby isn't even my favourite S. Scott Fitzgerald novel.