Americanah with Candice Carty-Williams

[Music] Hello and welcome to Sentimental Garbage, the podcast where we talk about the checklist that made us who we are. My name is Karen Hladunhu and I'm an author, a journalist, and the ex-mysterious of an army general. Today we're going to talk about your Amanda and the Gozy Dichies 2013 book, "Americana" with Queenie author Candice Cardi Williams. Hi! How are you doing today? I am good thank you. I've had two photo shoots this morning and so I have been pulled about in various ways. So this is actually me regrouping which is really nice, very soothing in this room. I'm like you're looking incredibly glamorous and I'm feeling very intimidated just looking at you. Thank you. My skin is itching and I would like to say my makeup. So what's interesting about I think I imagine a lot of our listeners will be quite curious about the choice of this book because generally the books that we do are like incredibly commercial books that get no critical success whereas this is incredibly critical successful book. Like it was huge when it came out, it's still huge now, it won all sorts of prizes and Jim Manday is one of the most respected authors around I would think. But what I think is interesting about this one is that people often miss the commercial elements of this book. Like to me it's a very commercial story. That's how I see it. I see it. It's like because it's so accessible and it's so about love and so obviously you know like so much is about love everything's about love books, films TV. But it's so about that and like you know even though she writes amazingly the structure of it as you say is so commercial. It's just so accessible and it's kind of like these are plot points that you understand. But the way she goes about them is just completely different because she's Jim Manday goes there, Dichy. Yeah and even like it's 400 pages long and it goes by like that. Like when I re-bought I because I bought it on Kindle when an originally came out and I was just you know obviously because the skimming passed I think I ridden it in a week on holiday is kind of thing. And then when I bought it again I was like yeah no idea but it just it goes along it's such a clip because it's just it's kind of bouncy and fun and satirical but also deep and emotional and upsetting and romantic and oh I just love it so much but I'm going to do a quick plot summary and then we can talk about it properly. Amazing. So if Emeloo and Obinze are teenage sweethearts growing up in Lagos who are forced to go their separate ways when if Emeloo emigrates to the US and Obinze goes to the UK. The book charts the 15 years they spend apart as if Emeloo prosperous as a blogger and an academic and Obinze sort of fails in London and then he builds a property empire in Nigeria. Although they both go on to new partners they're obsessed with what might have been and eventually they meet again when if Emeloo moves back to Lagos in her 30s. So one of the most interesting things about this book is that the first kind of third of it is told in a flashback and that flashback happens while Emeloo is getting her hair done. Like when I picked it up I fell in love with it because I was like wow what is this book? Like it suggests that this person understands me and like even though I'm not from Nigeria it understands like my culture in a way you know she's come from Nigeria and she's in America and I was born here but my family from Jamaica and even though it's starkly different there is still that thing of being in the West when your culture is very much not from there. So I picked up and I kind of had that understanding and then as soon as I started reading it and I got to the hairdresser scene I was like wow I have been this woman you know you're eating your granola and carrots? No not that crisp but like I've been you know Emeloo you know you get to hairdressers and someone's like okay hold on sorry yeah you're meant to be here at half past one and yes you're at half past one but your hairdresser's not here yet and it's things like that and so I understood and we'll just like the talking around it and also the thing that was amazing for me is that shortly before I started reading it I had grown out my relaxer because I had my hair relaxed for years. Wow because my hair my hair is really thick and when I was growing up my nan who has got five daughters all of whom have a different texture because my granddaughter is Indian and so she had a like she was like a breeze doing their hair and then for me she was like oh fucking like you this is insane I'm just like breaking my arm to like get a comb through your hair and so with my hair my nan took me to get it relaxed when I was 11 didn't ask my mom just when I was like I can't deal with this anymore like we're just gonna do this and I didn't know what's going on I was just like okay fine my hair is different now my hair is straight and maybe it's easy to manage for everyone else around me and so when I got older and I was like the pain that I'm going through when I have my hair done is horrific and so like when anyone's because I've got tattoos and people are like aren't they painful I'm like no because I had my hair relaxed for years. So your threshold isn't quite right? So my threshold is absolutely yes honestly when I have a baby I'll just be like just when I'm ready just like let's get it done let's get it out. Just doing your taxes while in labour. Yeah exactly. Just like oh this is breeze and so yeah so I find that stuff about a hair and natural hair when she's trying to convince a hairdresser that her natural hair is like good it's amazing and I was like my gosh this book is like even though it's a completely different culture different place it's still speaking to me in a way that nothing else has before. And what's so amazing about that scene as well is that it's the first scene in the book and it kind of got it keeps going back to it in that first third and you were just thinking about you know her childhood and then she's back in the hairdresser scene and people are ordering Chinese food and all kind of stuff and it's that thing of I think it's really universal to the immigrant experience where she can't relate to the women she's around enough to be one of them because you can start tell by the way they're sort of looking at her and looking at each other like that. Oh she's kind of gone completely white now with her granola and her carrots but then also when she's in the white world she is an exotic thing among them as well and it's that thing and it's sort of a part of why the love story that whole thing of like staying in love with your childhood sweetheart your entire life is a really kind of beautiful romantic concept but it's like it's like she could only properly have a neutral state around this person who knows her just as she is not as like an americana or the this black woman among these white women people you know what do you know I mean and like this is beautiful bit when she's talking about her relationship with Abinze and she says I have the quote here she rested her head against his and felt for the first time what she would often feel with him a self-affection and he made her like herself. I think it's so beautiful. It's so nice isn't it? I think the way that that relationship is written because it's not straightforward at all and you know like love stories in books never are that's they wouldn't be very interesting if they were just you know a to b but the texture of that relationship and that the only thing that is straightforward is that they love each other is so beautiful and that I came to it again it's like a kind of like cultural touch point and I was like oh something that I can relate to but actually the love story that cut through it I was like oh my god this is like next time but I've never you know I don't know love like this I know haven't I mean I was young when I first read it but just knowing love like this and understanding that love can be so unlinear in the way that this is but also you can be so connected and such as someone I thought was really beautiful and just how the kind of very beautiful thing and I can imagine the scene would mean a lot to so many women of like she's there with her like her really beautiful quite glamorous and quite light skinned friend Gina or Gina Cam like her and and it's sort of because of binzays the new guy in school and he's quite sort of glamorous and whatever and they're supposed to destined I think she like she says sort of the gods whoever rules teenage relationships wanted a binzay and gonna get to be together but then he just like bypasses it totally and he goes for a family who's like really outspoken and just doesn't really play by the rules everyone else plays by I can imagine that just meaning so much to so many teenage girls you know I think so because also like whoever you are you have this thing where you know you just I mean even if you are everyone has their insecurities I guess right and even if you are like the most popular most beautiful most society determined good looking one you also have your stuff but as the person who is not that like it's amazing when you have the attention but not in like a let you weigh and not in an inappropriate way but just in a way that he's just kind of like you're more my bag and I'm into that you're my bag yeah and like what's so strange then it's it's both heartbreaking and very practicals because generally when we hear when we read immigration stories it's about like oh they had to they had to leave because of you know war or poverty or whatever but they're both middle class people yeah who make the practical decision but she's got to go to America to help her and to you two who's had this baby and who's needed to flee the country which I really want to talk about that whole thing that whole mess and then and and he's gonna follow her and it's but then they fall apart the way that childhood sweetheart's fall apart just because distance and and she she wishes this point where she's in America and it's like not and I really related to this as an immigrant it's like it's just not working out and that's a shame of it not working out and eventually she makes the decision to sort of engage in some light sex work and some very light sex work with them with a football coach and it's from that point she does this thing with him and she realized that she can never she can never look at Albanzi again as I don't know as a pure person or something and then she alienates him and then they remain alienated for most of their adult lives and it's just so it's a really sad thing I think it's just that you know the unspoken stuff is so hard and also just you know so much of how you feel about yourself that will always be projects on to a relationship that you're gonna have and like how you're gonna feel about someone and so when you're watching these two people who are they they're so linked to each other but also but also you understand that they probably need to like fall apart to be able to understand that they should be together and I do believe like you know everything happens for a reason and like if you'd have something said it free and so yeah I think that's like a prime example of like a fantastically written example of needing to just like go off and be your set for people and have these like completely different experiences, it's darkly different experiences but have the love still bond you just because you know when it's so pure and it has been there and you felt it so strongly like you were still gonna be you're still gonna be together. Yeah it's like what I really admire about both Chimanda and Yichu's writing and actually yours is that um we are not on the same level thank you. Well I mean Queenie has been you know compared to this a lot and very favorably so I mean well done you thank you um is that I think especially when you're in new I mean she was a new author when she wrote this that you're a new author now I think it takes a lot of courage for to write from a place of specificity um and like we some of this book is um set in Nigeria and especially in the early chapters which is you know the make or break period for any reader of like whether or not they're gonna continue with this book she um talks a lot about like how it was growing up in Nigeria in the 80s and 90s in like all these different military coups but she doesn't feel the need to explain herself or go like well in 1970 but a lot it's just like she just wants you to take for granted that like look they live in this this climate that is always politically changing and I'm not going to explain it to you because they wouldn't be explained to each other I'm not gonna do this. Yeah and like do you feel like there's like this pressure if you're writing from a group that is less represented that you have to explain yourself all the time or something yeah I think just I mean I think you have to explain your existence for a start so I think like when you're in a room you have to explain why you're there you have to justify a lot of yourself and you almost have to give like a CV of how you got to where you are because people will be confused as to why you're there um and so yeah I think writing is such an extension of that and it's um it's it's right is being like okay so just so you understand I'm gonna hold your hand through this exact thing because it might not be your specific story but I think that your Amanda just kind of like well I'm gonna write what I'm good at and I mean she's she could write anything but I think that's such a strength to be like keep up with what's going on if you don't know about it go and go and go and research and go look it up because I that's what I've had to do for context that I don't understand you know like I don't loads of the zosive contextual stuff like British stuff that I mean I mean obviously we're taught so much of it in school and not anything else but there's so much that I've had to learn around other cultures and that's fine because it's not my culture and so great to do that extra work but you know the author shouldn't have to do that and did you feel that way when you were writing Queenie there was some things so when like Darcy for example is asking about what certain words mean like and and Cheska is telling her like eventually it's like go on Urban Dictionary and just look up what's going on here and I just I thought that just made me laugh that they did that someone was just kind of like and what does that mean what does that mean without just like going to get up themselves so there was that but otherwise I was kind of just like people will just get to it and the same with like writing password was like well I have to hear it and you can probably make sense of it and if you you know like you can you can you can get you can get what it means like you know it's just like I just didn't feel like I should have had to do loads of extra work to explain something that was just kind of like part of my life because it's kind of like you're reading it you understand this is through my lens so like you know buckle up I love that because I wish I had the courage to do the same thing because I'm from the first book last year and I was you know I'm proud of how it's come out and everything for it there are these reasons but um lots of people just asked me it's like why did you make the heroin English and and it was because I felt that like I had been away from my home country for so long that I wasn't I didn't trust myself to write the Irish experience without like getting it wrong and I think what was it I didn't want to I don't know it was kind of a fear of vulnerability or something um for sure I mean this has been I don't know if I'm very vulnerable having written this because people in their droves have been like so you're Queenie writes what's a paragraph and it's like well nah yeah like I think it's so weird to just be like you can only write your life so it's just like do you not think that I have imagination to like create something or someone like it's you know it's kind of it's it's it's such an odd thing that I'm asked but I think that's the risk that you take when you write from like what is technically your lens people are just like so it's you then um which is really odd but it's also just how you feel comfortable right and like would you felt comfortable doing that if you were always second-guessing like if you were getting things right or if like yeah your people would be like oh she's got that wrong like she's gone over there and she's like and Irish people love doing that as well they love like like I I feel like all my friends just love watching dairy girls to like see how things are wrong I love it too but I didn't know the context so I kind of like yeah I can just like yeah so okay I'm sure that's right um but yeah no it's an interesting thing isn't it I think like also but you know as we know there are different ways of being a type of person there are different types of black can they say different types of being Irish there are different ways and like multitude within that and so you know not everyone's experience is going to be universal yeah um and I think that's really important to remember when you're reading something of another culture as well yeah so you mentioned that people think that your book is autobiographical can you give us a brief little review of what Queenie is so Queenie is about a young woman who is living in South London and she kind of realised early on that she's not the most together with people um so she works at a newspaper um and she's the 80 black person in her office and I've been in that position many times so I guess it's autobiographical in that specific sense um but but I think it gives you another sending of it gave me an understanding of what that's like and how environments go quite hostile um but she has kind of this long-term partner with whom she lives and she's like you know this isn't great and you know like but you know I've got my stuff but it's going to be fine because we might just have like a little break and then like I can sort my head out um but in the time that she went sort of her head out she just like does very bad and reckless things um because you know all this stuff about her value and who she's as a person and how like I guess growing up in these environments with like white middle class people has molded her and how men treat her um and her family stuff and there's a lot about her past that's also like kind of pushing it off to the surface um and stuff with her family and stuff with her mum and basically she kind of descends into this like this wreck of a person who needs a lot of help to kind of like pull herself back out of where she's got to um and say yeah I guess that it's kind of it's kind of not a coming of age it's kind of like an awokeening yeah I guess of a story it's someone who's kind of like it has to understand learn to understand her value in her place in the world someone who has had to strut all two cultures and that is contributing to you know her sense of well I guess all the lack of sense of who she is and so I mean there's a lot of parallels there with with Americana like did you have Americana front of mind as you were sitting down to write it or did you feel like the burden of this huge successful book that like deals with similar themes I remember I mean I've always been very aware of it and that was this this was my entry to Amanda Americana and I think I was more just grateful that she'd been able to talk about things in that way so hair sex with white men having this partner who you're with but you're unfulfilled by for reasons that you can't really vocalize but you just feel it within you um Queenie has no childhood sweetheart neither do I um and so I know I'm a really nice but like so I was like I guess you know I'm aware that existed and I think like knowing that that's when that was on the shelves gave me the confidence to be like okay maybe I have a story that I can tell as well definitely um I'm really intrigued by a DK in the book um so DK is the son of Andy Uju um he's sort of the the bastard child of an army general who is then the army general is suddenly killed and then Andy Uju is forced to flee to America and then we see Uju go from being this incredibly glamorous sort of trophy girlfriend in in Legos to being this she goes through like actually the most severe transformation of anyone in the book and she goes from being so glamorous to being someone who's just working really really hard to break into the American system but it's like because she's slightly older than a family she can't seamlessly move between things she can't be as agile yeah and um actually before we get on to DK I kind of just want to just talk about Uju um it's that thing of anti-Uju is fighting to break into the system and a family who is fighting to change it and neither of them will get any not not they both have various levels of success but they won't fulfill them you know what I mean yeah it's an interesting thing isn't I think also it's really smart because it's um anti-Uju but it's her cousin and so it's just like but this you know just like that small um generational shift just like a few years and also it's just like it's a respect thing but also so it's interesting to see just like with not much time between them how different two women can be and their strands of experience can be so starkly different and obviously they are on different tracks and anti-Uju is like yeah you know like it was all glamour all the time and you know like got into this like bad boy stuff with this general and obviously like wonderful DK's born and if Emily was just kind of like whoa I am completely just like different to that person entirely and I think it's I think for me I love that relationship because it also shows the diversity within black women yeah which is really really I mean like you know and that's really important and again it's just you know the books I read and I was um growing up they didn't have I mean unless they were written by black authors they didn't have any black women in them and so I grew up reading a lot of Malorie Blackcomen which is really great then as I got older I would read like British owned I'd read Louise Renaissance books I'd read Adrian Moll so I do all these things now is like okay that you know just to give on that black woman and then you know I was saying to someone the other day I was yet to read a novel where um by white person where there was a black protagonist or even a black secondary character and I saw like a boyfriend and it was really important in she remanded his books to me that you saw different types of black women presented and that was such a and also their love as well the love between them and it was in how unconditional it was and how that family tie is so so binding in a different way to you know that romantic love could ever be you know just that like we are in it together yeah and the the sort of the the criticisms and the sort of like the picking at each other that comes from someone like anyone who's got a female relative like to understand that relationship you said something very interesting there um and I'm interested in your your point of view as an author and as someone who's worked in books as a marketer for a very long time but there's like kind of because you mentioned them you haven't seen a book by a white author that deals with a black man character or even a side character um then there's kind of a a debate going on sort of like own voices versus like white authors trying to capture um non-white experiences do you have like any firm opinions on that or I feel like I'm constantly reading stuff in the book press about this about like people either getting it wrong or getting it right or what do you think of that um so kit de voe the author um she put it really well when she said I want to paraphrase because I'm really bad at remembering quotes word for word but she basically said tread where you like but tread carefully and I think that's so important it's kind so in queenie queenie's black she's got three best friends one Jewish one white widow class one black and that's because I that represents the world that I live in all of my friends are from different backgrounds and I didn't feel nervous or scared writing characters who would Jewish because I basically made sure that I was certain to understand that I was capturing those cultures properly and that I was talking to those people and and I I asked them to read my friends who are Jewish who are Jewish and why I asked them to read queenie and let me know if I put anything wrong put it for wrong but and they were like no no you got it like it's fine or like oh this is the thing that we would do well like this is the song that we would sing when it's like Hanukkah and um that was really important but also I just had the understanding that so that is you know like to represent the world that I see because it is diverse within itself it's not just like me and a load of black girls like walking around you know yeah I had a similar thing where um the one of the characters in my book is it is a Muslim girl and that was it came from a similar place of like I want to represent the people that I've worked with that I see whatever um and then I remember reading a review of my book that said um oh John who clearly just wants to cater to all levels of feminism like yes that's what I'm doing here I'm just like going down a list and checking out boxes so that's what's so that's so that's kind of but that's when the review and it's the review it's the reviewer not understanding that like that is your lived experience you know and that it's just that's their stuff not yours I think it's so weird to just be like oh this person's writing it in because like it fits a quota or just pandering or something yeah but it's just like but you you so narrow-minded that you can't imagine a world in that in which you have a Muslim or a black friend that's that's one name that's on you um to get back to decay quickly um so you're you're a second generation is that how is it the way it goes um yeah second generation it's an immigrant yeah and so is he and he kind of um he's this great little kid we kind of watch growing up he's this really sunny lovely kid you just I find it really hard to fall in love with children and books because because he's also he's just like okay just like yeah yeah are they say something like very wise then you're like yeah okay but he's just a really good little kid and we see him grow into a teenager and um and he's sort of told by his mother Uju just not to speak iqbo at home and he's sort of getting a lot of conflicting messages over who he is um and like he he's sort of taught to be respectful of adults the way that people are in Nigeria but also he's got all these white friends at school he's living in a very white area um like did you kind of relate to that second generation depiction at all it's a really weird thing so my nan came over here when she was 18 and she so you'd be third generation oh yeah yeah yeah i don't know but my dad came over here my dad was born into a girl as well okay and my mom was born here all right so i have no idea yeah more um but my nan came over here when she was 18 and her M.O. was just like assimilate like we are gonna assimilate we're not gonna let anyone know that we're any different so she speaks like the queen um and because of that i um my my my my aunts were really well spoken and my mom is well spoken and so i am well spoken and i slip in and out of it you know i have my different voices for different things oh yeah it's fine um i was at my friend's house here the day and she was trying to um get Alexa to play one extra and she's like Alexa one extra Alexa one extra and i was like i can do it and i was like Alexa BBC one extra and it was like and Alexa was like pig one extra and i was like that is the whitest voice i've ever said whoa i was like you know you got a different voice in Alexa's an asshole that way Alexa's like my parents have Alexa and they have really bad trouble with their actions she's a dick she's never coming in my house but yeah she's a yes she's just so it's things like that so she's kind of like so i guess code switching is like a real part of my life and also just the thing is i think i like that decay is a boy and i think as a woman it's a very different experience when you're a young girl and you're growing up and you're growing i mean decay is growing up around strong women and i grew up around strong women but i was turning into a strong woman very lucky but it's a different experience because you know black women are seen differently to black men and attractiveness is such a different thing and while black men and women are both fetishized um and sexualized it's it's just it's just a different thing the way that it's the way that it is it's just different for the sexes anyway um and so that was thing when i was growing up around lots of white women you know just like different everything was different and so when i was growing up i reached my sense of like selffulness my sense of beauty didn't exist because i was just that the marker was always his women around me and i was just like oh gosh wow okay so i'm just i'm not attractive at all and so i think like beauty is such a it's such an important aspect of growing up as like second or third generation around all of these girls who just don't look like you i can imagine and and yeah and it's interesting that they make the two amount of me the choice to make it this boy yeah who has like grown up with these amazing women very smart very people very ambitious women who are also beautiful um and he's without sort of any kind of male father figure or anything yeah and there's just sort of no direction for him to go in really it's it's really sad um it's also just i think it's also i mean like black women often do raise young black women alone and i think it's a really beautiful example of an upbringing where there is support there there is kindness there there is love there and there is allowing of there's been allowing of him to just grow up as the man who's going to become there are no rules about being a good boy or a good man you know and not leaner just you know i think it's i think that's a really important what an important thing what an important upbringing to portray yeah yeah i haven't even thought of it from that point of view but of course you're right yeah i listened to this podcast hosted by two black dry queens um bob's dry queen in moana exchange it's called sibling rivalry amazing and they talk about like how they sell posters in their neighborhood the thing like um black men stop leaving your families to be raised by women because of their turn out gay and they were like oh i mean don't leave your families but i'll tell you that it's too much isn't it i think it's really high i think it's something that um it's something that you know it upsets a lot of us but um you know i grew up with it i mean it's different because i'm a woman but i grew up without a dad there and i think it was better because had he been there i don't think i could have dealt with the way that he is so you know it's just one of you just don't i mean again it's every family just don't know you can't really wish for anything different because it's like the point of the change where you are yeah exactly you just don't know and so i think it's like you know great if the family units together but also we know that loads of family units don't work well when they're together yeah yeah they can be like the most toxic of relationships what's interesting is that i've heard uh in interviews to Amanda referred to this book as her fuck you book yes she's such a legend by the way like even outside of this book even if this book was like less than it is she's just like class like she has so many like she's so good with sound bites you know um but she said about like how you know it was sort of a fuck you to the sort of because she doesn't really bouch that kind of liberal speech of like and what what interesting is the depictions of racism in this book it isn't the kind of racism that you get in books like to kill a mockingbird where the racists are just like these outsized monsters who will like follow black women down the streets spitting at them you know it's like these are she's dealing in with university towns yeah like i'll find a form of white savior liberalism tell me about it yeah yeah and that's really that's amazing i think it's like and that's why because it's so it's it's like it's a very like nuanced fuck you yeah it's just a kind of like and you know as much as those slavery narratives have been you know they have been a cornerstone of black literature and they have helped us to understand exactly what things were like back then um and you know they're really hard to read the hard to watch like 12 years of slave absolutely destroyed me um but actually I think it's really amazing to just have like a sort of present day story that's kind of like racism is alive and well and it's not uh lynching or someone saying the n-word it's the way that you're spoken to the way that you're seen the way that you're understood the way that men approach you the way that men have sex with you and the way that it's so insidious and so I have it's so heavy on you but you go and write like an anonymous blog just just to kind of like get it out of your system you know yeah and what I love about this as well is that like it's also it's serious but it's also kind of taken with the pinch of salt it's kind of empowering and brilliant how like she just takes the piss out of these people she's also so she's a very playful writer yeah and I think and I think people miss that a lot yeah I think so much and it's I think because so she's written so beautifully about the bar from war and people are just kind of like yeah her work is like you know really like rooted in you know history and it's very like serious but it's that she's also like very she's very cheeky writer oh she's cheeky is the good is good for it one of my favorite scenes is when she's um so with family when she's in her kind of early 20s she worked as a nanny for this very privileged white family who were like very for the most by very well-intentioned very nice people but anyway so and then there's one Kimberly and she notices that um they do a lot of like you know international charity work and stuff they're always sort of dropping in conversation their international charity work and Kimberly says to her um oh I'm meeting this absolutely beautiful woman who works with my charity and be like if family realized that when she said beautiful she meant black yeah exactly and she's been oh handing her magazines being like isn't she beautiful being like no she's an average looking black woman well it's kind of like it's that thing is it's just like weird coded language that black women can understand and pick up on when it's just kind of like oh look at your skin I love your gorgeous skin and actually someone pointed out to it the other day that it's really hard people to talk about like women who are dark skinned without being like look at her skin it's so gorgeous like her good and it's like it's not quite fair to shoot you don't go about anything else like it's so weird like just to be like she's got a nice teeth she's got like nice eyes but they're just like that skin that dark rich like ebony skin yeah but that's like the like people just like but it's so we hear it so much that we pick up on it um and it is it's just so you can you just kind of it makes you just feel distant franchise from the conversations for this and gauge because it's just kind of like you know understand that there are differences sure but like in this context they're on like you don't have to see that or like you know signpost that like can we just talk as like two people in this room who like have common ground you know who both really like this book yeah um we what's nice as well is that and because those um depictions of like casual racism are so nuanced and so funny and satirical um but also like they leave an impression on her and and stuff um is it made me check myself in a way that like not but like I can't already stand that sort of like wide guild thing we're like you know woman just sort of oh my god I can't believe all the thing and they kind of make it all about themselves and they can send to themselves and you just kind of like how I'm gonna go yeah yeah yeah like this is clearly not about yeah it's clearly about you but um just like I mean I was at an at an event the other day and um I did that thing of that that happens in the book of like having to point out a black woman to my friend who which is I was like oh yeah wow what her name again because we've been introduced but I forgot my name and she was like I was like the woman in the green dress yeah I'm like why are you doing that just say that black woman you just mesh you know I know it's fine I know yeah it's just kind of like it's a descriptor and that's okay yeah yeah but it's again it's just that thing it's just you know I think people I think we're all so cautious I'm very cautious you know to describe you know how to describe people but I think it's just but you know it's just out of the way that it's the way that things have ended up going and I think it's just like a lot of work that needs to be done to just kind of like undo all of the social stuff that has kind of made us go so far in one direction that we're like panic to about like just describing someone yeah um and just relating to the amount of basic human it's like I this sort of emphasis especially in social media kind of parlance um on like um acknowledge because I feel like the 90s were very much about a kind of a color blindness and I don't see raising the the and now which is which is obviously fucking bullshit um and then but now we're sort of in a place of like what we're seeing it's so clearly it's all we're talking about if you know it's like a a really intense tribalism or something it's kind of it's just kind of like it's it's also pretty boring for the most part it's kind of like come like you know not you know just like existence and like you know some people I remember people you know some people have said like Queenie is like an issues book and it's like it's not fucking issues book it's someone who's just like living their life there is no issue in that like it's just it's like it's funny and it's like it's like wonderful and you know it's like keep it funny but it's also you know I think it's just I think we have I think it's again that so the analogy that I use is if you say like come and say my house you don't need to bring anything with you you're just like a guest like bring nothing and I say like oh I might bring a few things I didn't they're just like no I've got you covered and like I go and say the house and I'm like okay we've gone swimming I need to wash my hair and they're like oh we've got like her best sense is like I can't use that so it's like it's good to understand that difference is there but we don't need to talk about it like you know do you know I mean it's kind of like differences like it's it's fine that we're different it's fine that like we will use different champions because we require different things but like to like sign postings and talk about them and like trivialize them as pointless it's just like so we do everyone's time yeah you know um no yeah it's great and that's not great obviously it's great that we're talking about um but well how do you like what do you feel about the last third of the book when when she goes back to Nigeria and uh as kind of this as this america and that kind of thing I think it's some of the I just think first I think it's just some of the most beautiful writing yeah um because I think that she captures that she captures her place so well you know I think she captures Nigeria so well and it's she's always writing it in such a loving way yeah um but I just I like that things seem easier for her because I think by that point you're kind of like she kind of deserves this break and so in terms of like a job I know it's not like all straightforward but you know she she ends up doing the things that she loves and you know abinze is kind of you know all his stuff with you know I mean for me as a it's the last set is to say about that love story and maybe and like I really want the ending that I that I think we deserve I think I just I remember spending I spent the the last third of it just being like I just want them oh totally that's all I mean that's these two kids have to just work it out I know it's just like given that you know also you know the stuff that he went through in the UK I find that I found that really really hard yeah so yeah so talking about that for the listeners of all your students in the UK so when he's in the UK I'm the scene that always stands out for me I'm I mean I've read it twice now is when he's a clean so she you know she has this quite prestigious career when she's in America working universities and he ends up being a cleaner when he is in London and and they're both amazingly educated actually he's even more educated than she is amazingly educated and there's a scene where he's he's cleaning an office block and someone has taken a shit on the toilet itself oh yeah I forgot that scene and it's really and that at that point you're just his humanity is called into question because you know you're kind of like this is a he's a man doing his job like this is he has to do what why is he dealing with someone else's shit you know like you know whatever his job is he could be like he could be he doing any job it doesn't matter if it's academic if it's if you know anything but for him to have to deal with that and then finally to get you know it's just like you know all of this like what was it what was it all for and when he gets back to engineering he's able to kind of like build the life for himself that he almost deserves having had this like full star and then like abrupt kind of ending when he's in England it's such a payoff for him to kind of settle back into being his own person but then he kind of has this life that he doesn't even identify with because no binsey we haven't actually talked about that much he ends up marrying like the perfect Nigerian woman called Cuzzy and he has his beautiful house in this gorgeous daughter and she's just he like doesn't even know who this woman is who he's been married to for a year is she's just like flattens out all of her hard edges to the point and she's just like and you feel like she could be quite em a funny you could you could feel quite cruelly about Cuzzy because she's just so amenable and she's kind of like a lap dog but then you're like oh god like this is just it's kind of like this is so what happens to so many people who don't leave home they just they they melt into whatever cultural idea is projected on them and she's never questioned it you know I find her so interesting I find really interesting and also she's I mean like look again look at her against Ujji who's like a trophy wife right these women who like make themselves what men want them to be yeah and again you can see that difference there and you can see how Ujji she's kind of like well like I've been really banned by this and also like Cuzzy as well like she's also it's not gonna turn out yeah great for her but again the different women who have put men at the forefront of what they're about and it's like both ways of showing that that is not what as a woman you should be doing and the times in the family's life when she's kind of and she's never like an official 12-weeker her friend but she kind of is like she's a really rich white guy who like flies all over the world and yeah and she's so conscious of that do you know what I mean yeah she refuses to like fall into that trap she doesn't and I think it's also I think it's just it's a comment on I guess also understanding that that that has been the fate of so many and it's not one that you want for yourself yeah yeah and and then finally the book sort of ends and like it actually reminds me of something that Marion Key says a lot which is that um to give people a love story and not a happy ending is fucking rude yeah I think it I think it's I think it is I think it's and that's why I mean like Queenie's not a love story it's the kind of it's not a love story is it it's absolutely not it's almost like an anti love story yeah I think yeah I agreed and I think it's the ending again like also because it's such a long book as well and you're so invested because it's a long and you kind of you're just like I deserve I deserve for them to happen you know that actually is at the expense of of someone and the expense of like what is a family unit but you're also just kind of like but you know like sorry they were in love they were loved first so it's got to come back around it's got to yeah and interestingly because like he ends up leaving his wife spoilers for a family it's worth it's worth three though it's worth three sick of the journey but it's very much like a last page thing it's like like like the last five lines you're like oh my god but yeah but the thing is is that lots in lots of romance books people leave their wives for the love of their life but it's the context and the social weight of it is different in this book because people don't just do that in in their society you know I think that I mean we don't I mean it's just again it's a different society and some men don't just have one wife but this feels like it's very much kind of like I'm leaving that and I'm doing a different thing rather than being like I have like you know like I'm polyamorous and you know just like it's a set it's just quite it's very much like this is like a new beginning with an old person and I think you do feel I think you do feel the weight of that and you do feel so you mean you do feel it's a sad situation but out of it is this love that you've been rooting for so you're kind of like and it can't for damage I'm really sorry but that's just what it is you know and you kind of know that like that like he he's probably not going to be able to work out some straightforward like like parental visitation rights type of thing like that's going to be a long bitter divorce with lots of people involved lots of different family members involved and it's like wow he was really willing to give up basically his place in the society that he's carved out for so long for the love of his life and that's like it's like that's what makes this like the ultimate checklist in a way yeah exactly and also she she gets what she wants but not in a way that's kind of spoiled because I think by that point she's kind of accepted that you know maybe that's not going to happen and maybe he you know not the acceptance that he's happy but just also the acceptance that like maybe their fate is not sealed and maybe that they're not going to be together forever yeah yeah and so but the deserve that a chance to make it work at least you know to try and just to understand in their adult lives when they're in the same place what could work out yeah I always just found it heartbreaking when she leaves for America and his mom who's kind of a mentor to her says you know just make sure you have you and her bins they have a plan yeah and just like she always comes back to that kind of thing of that plan that never quite worked out but it finally did and it finally does I think it's really I think it's just it's such a nice it's such a nice way of saying it right it's such a nice way of just being like it's not like make sure you keep in touch just like make sure you have yeah and it's like you know that's just like something that is going to work out at the end of the planned that you will that you will have your love and so meaningful as well because like this woman who is open says mother and she's so educated and she's so brilliant and she's like huge she's like the first real hero a family who has and the heart is saying to her in a very subtle way look I'm prepared to have you in my life forever yeah it's almost like a sub love story within that love story you know absolutely and I think again like there was so much love between black women in this book yeah and it's so beautiful you know like there was so many I think love stories of any of any ill-co-important and like you know Queenie has a lot of female love stories and I know that in my life I just say I'm like so obsessed and in love with my friends at the point you know like it's self-destructive how much I love them but I think it's really important to show that and I think that like you know like men will come and go and it's important that you have the women that you love around you and this because you know as much as it is about a man and a woman there was so much fear my love there that really drives that relationship forward and really molds that relationship and it really molds the family into the woman that she is and it's also like in also decay you know like it's so many people are affected by not affected by but so many people are enriched by few more love in this book I think it's a lovely place to end that's everyone all listening as please go forth and be enriched by female love yeah is there anything else you like does obviously Queenie's coming out soon is there anything else you'd like to say about that you haven't said so far no I'm just really I mean like yeah just I'm very I'm very I guess I'm I'm very excited looking forward to I'm looking forward to talking about it now because it's been two years in the running and so it'd be good when people stop being like what's it about and I can be like you maybe hopefully read it by this point yeah yeah so we can just have a chat about it but I'm so nice when you get to that bit of like it's no longer theoretical but like an actual thing like the whole like being an author thing is just kind of like I'm kind of like yeah okay like that's fine that's just working books for so long that like yeah all those on that glamour see I imagine it's not I mean you see you see how the sausages are made basically when you work in publishing and so you're kind of like yeah okay so but it's just I really wanted to start talking about it and you know the thing that I've understood a lot of Queenie's quite frustrating to some people really yeah because like she makes a lot of questionable choices but I think that's what I like about her and so that's what I want to show you the girl she's I think it's really important I think it's right I think like people say it's reality such a like important interesting thing and I'm bored of like like I'm the full front of like you know like they're my behavior yeah I'm at this I'm I'm having a get I just started it but I'm there is this I'm at the bit where she is having sex with us vastly an appropriate guy in his car and it's the most embarrassing cringy sexy but I kind of love that she's going through with it because most people do just go through with it you do I think that's the important thing is kind of like you find yourself situations and you're kind of just like it is like it's a story I guess right and I guess like if you don't take your sexual you know like you're like you're sex too seriously then you should say oh yeah here we go all right thank you so much Candace thank you this has been sentiment for garbage and I've been carried on a here you can follow me on twitter at zera line that's cz a r o l i n e or email me by the podcast at zera line of [email protected] thanks to Harry Harry for the jingle Gavin Dave the logo and a cast for the recording space this has been justice for the woman podcast produced by Hannah Varel you