There’s this glorious time before I start writing a novel that I call the “incubation period”. It
starts when I first have that wonderful lightning flash of an idea for a story and ends when I
finally, crack my knuckles and sit down to write the opening line. Between then, the idea
needs to be “fed” and I do this by reading books and watching films and TV shows related to
the novel’s themes. This is my favorite part of the writing process - stuffing my idea with
other people’s stories, like it’s a foie gras goose - until my story’s ready to be written.
Researching WHEN WE WERE FRIENDS was one of my favorite incubation periods because it
involved researching my favorite topics - female friendship and feminism. Here are the
main inspirations that shaped Fern and Jessica’s tale.
The Robber Bridge, Margaret Atwood
There’s a time in every woman’s life when they stumble across Atwood’s quote about the
male gaze and feel totally shaken for at least two days afterward by its disturbing accuracy.
For those of you who haven’t read it, here is the quote. Sit down. Prepare yourself.
“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies?... Even pretending you
aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you
have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the
ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own
head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your
own voyeur.”
I wanted my book to tell the uncomfortable truth about female friendships, but I wasn’t quite
sure where to ‘park’ this notion. Until I read this quote, and I realized much of the unraveling
of good friendships between women is due to the male gaze. And out came the story of Fern
and Jessica! This quote was on my wall the whole time I was writing When We Were
Friends.
Now and Then
This film is so delightfully charming. It follows four female friends who were super-close as
children and one transformative summer they shared in 1970. Now, as grown adults, they’re
brought together once more and are forced to revisit what happened that summer and
what’s led to them becoming estranged. Besides the obvious fact that this film has the
dream cast - Demi Moore AND Thora Birch AND Rosie O’Donnell AND Melanie Griffith AND
Christina Ricci - it’s a truly moving portrait of female friendship, what causes it to dissolve,
and how hard you have to work to keep it going. When We Were Friends is set between the
past and present, and I very much borrowed that narrative structure from Now and Then.
Girls and Sex, Peggy Oreinstein
When We Were Friends takes quite a dive into the realities of young girls’ sexual
experiences and aims to confront some of the unpleasant downsides of sex-positivity when
it’s been misinterpreted. While I’m certainly not “sex-negative”, I spent five years working as
a sex and relationships advisor for a youth charity and witnessed first-hand how many girls
are having sex they don’t particularly want, or enjoy, because of the pressures on them to
have a carefree, “cool-girl” attitude towards sex. Oreinstein’s book, which explores the sex
lives of young women really empowered me to write about what I saw with honesty and
courage. It was such a fine line to tread - wanting to tell these unpleasant truths about sex,
without slut-shaming or pearl-clutching or purity spiraling - but her research reassured me
that I was onto something and that these realities need to be confronted.
Frances Ha
Greta Gerwig is such a goddess, and I adored this film and how it explores how jealousy and
life-comparisons ruis precious friendships. I truly believe female friendships are the most
nourishing, hilarious, soothing, sanity-keeping and profound relationships women can have. I
love art that celebrates the wonder of them. But, sadly, beneath the surface, I do believe
society has groomed women to be in competition, and that can infect these gorgeous
relationships and spread poison. Frances Ha is so honest about the feelings of pain, betrayal
and rejection that arises when a woman ‘leaves’ another woman to focus on her romantic
relationship with a man.
She Said, by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
This incredible book details what incredible lengths Kantor and Twohey took to
publish the abuse accusations against Harvery Weinstein, which ignited the seismic MeToo
movement. Like so many women, the MeToo movement forced me to confront the
normalization of sexual violence I’d grown up with. When We Were Friends is a book for
every other woman who has looked back at her formative years and had to reconfigure
everything they accepted as normal and accepted. How do we make peace with what we
saw? What happened to us? The boys who did these things to us and our friends? These
boys who are now grown men, posting pictures of themselves as feminist allies on the
Women’s March? It’s been an uncomfortable process for millions of us, but hopefully one
that will pave the way for a brighter, safer, future for the girls we are now raising. I am so
grateful to the authors of this book for everything they did to help survivor’s voices be heard
and to find them justice.
A darkly funny story about two women who reunite after a decade of estrangement, only to confront the forces that destroyed their friendship in the first place.
The world was a very different place in the early aughts, when Fern and Jessica became best friends. It was a compliment to get groped in a club, normal to have your arse rated out of ten in school and unremarkable that a song about a man murdering his pregnant wife was the number one Christmas hit. Not that the two girls noticed any of that. They were too busy growing up, trying to find themselves, and experimenting with love, alcohol and drugs amid their near-obsessive friendship. Until one day something happened to make Fern cut Jessica out of her life completely.
Fifteen years later, the pair is reunited in a very changed world. Fern’s a successful mental health columnist, waiting for her perfect boyfriend to finally propose. Whereas Jessica is a single mum who has done very well out of her divorce. Tentatively, they try to rebuild their friendship.
Soon, though, old and unhealthy patterns start to reemerge. Have things really gotten better—for these two best friends, or for women in general? Set within two timelines, When We Were Friends is an unflinching celebration of female friendship and how much it has to overcome.
Women's Fiction | Humor [MIRA, On Sale: September 27, 2022, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780778311294 / eISBN: 9780369703460]
Holly Bourne is a UK bestselling author and Ambassador for Women's Aid. Inspired by her work with young people, and her own experiences of everyday sexism, Holly is a passionate mental health advocate and proud feminist. She lives in London, but dreams of the day she has a garden, dog, chickens, and a bee hive.
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