Host (Waterstones Podcast)

Siri, welcome to Waterstones, first of all.

It is really great to have a chance to speak to you about this book, Ghost Stories, which is an incredible read, a sort of patchwork of a book made up of lots of different elements.

To start off with, if it's okay, I wondered whether you would be happy to sort of share the story of meeting Paul for the first time, because it's such a lovely part of the book.

Really?

It was an immediate connection, wasn't it?

Yes.

He got there in the end.

Do you mind talking about because quite soon after you, I suppose, got together, you sort of thought you'd lost him.

There's a very, very traumatic episode of part of the book where he out of nowhere leaves, leaves you and goes back to his ex-wife.

asides kind of some humor and then um you know he didn't answer so i wrote a second letter and they're they're both reproduced in the book and he did come back they are incredible letters as you say they are you can see them in the book i suppose the same tenacity that you used when you were talking to him for the first time you you used your words in the writing too and i wondered whether that first letter when you sent it and as you say you got no reply yeah

what the sort of, I suppose, the spark was to write a second letter?

Because some people would give up then, but are you just a person who would not have given up in that situation no matter what happened?

When he came back, you did that thing which any bibliophiles who are in couples with another bibliophile will know, which is that pooling of books, having to get rid of duplicates and decide which copies to keep and all the rest of it.

It's a really lovely moment again in the book when that happens.

And also, I suppose, what you share is this idea of the merging and the blending of your books, but also, I suppose, your references, your sources, to the point where after decades together,

you would say the same lines or find lines repeated in your own separate books because you have this sort of shared history, is that right?

What was really nice, I thought, was that he was very generous in that a lot of people would talk to him as if he was the intellectual in the relationship.

And he would always point out that actually you were.

That instinct to write, to reach for the typewriter when he left, for example, is clearly your instinctive reaction to any situation, I suppose.

Yes.