What is the title of your latest release?
I’M SORRY YOU FEEL THAT WAY
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Two estranged sisters, one toxic family, and decades of things nobody will talk about: a bleakly comic novel about corrosive secrets and the peculiar ways that families can hurt each other.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I’d lived in London for more than ten years when I started writing I’M SORRY YOU FEEL THAT WAY, but I’d never set a book in London. My other books are about as far from ‘city’ books as you can get, with settings ranging from the remote Yorkshire moors, a tiny Scottish island, and a run-down girls’ boarding school on the English coast. But I knew I wanted to write a London novel. It’s hard to convey how much I love that city.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Yes, definitely, both the sisters. Not sure they’d want to hang out with me.
What are three words that describe your hero?
The book doesn’t have a hero. In fact, thinking about it, most of the men are a bit rubbish. Sorry, lads.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
The darker the comedy, the more fun it is to write.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I edit as I go, because I can’t move forwards if the previous work feels messy. I need a clean foundation. I edit a lot afterwards, too. Basically, I love to edit.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I like really creamy, heavy pasta sauces. I know it’s not good for my arteries, but whatever. I’ll die happy.
Describe your writing space/office!
I don’t have a designated writing space, and certainly not an office. I move around the house using whatever clear surface I can find. I also work my way around my local coffee shops, and library. But I’ve mostly lived in small flats and I’m used to finding corners to work in.
Who is an author you admire?
Helen Garner.
Is there a book that changed your life?
The King James Bible. I don’t believe in God (I used to), but the language of this translation (and Tyndale’s before it – the KJV translators stole quite a lot) is radically beautiful. I first read it – not all of it, obviously – in my early teens and it made my blood sing.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
Apart from when my first novel got picked up, years ago, I don’t really feel wild excitement when I sell a book now. Honestly, I mainly just feel relief that I haven’t wasted a couple of years of work. That sounds depressing, but this is my job, and I need to sell books to pay my bills. On the plus side, I love writing. I enjoy it every day. I feel very privileged to get to do it.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
Depends on my mood. Mostly literary fiction (such a massive and vague category anyway!), but also crime.
What’s your favorite movie?
Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility
What is your favorite season?
Autumn
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
With friends at the pub. I drink lager shandies like a teenager in the 80s.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
At the moment I’m loving Furious on Disney Plus. Refreshing female rage. And I’d watch Emmy Rossum and Quincy Tyler Bernstine in anything.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Thai
What do you do when you have free time?
Read, or walk, or nap
What can readers expect from you next?
I’ve just finished my next book, which is called BAD ASSOCIATIONS, and is an unconventional love story set in the small, down-at-heel city of Gloucester, England. It opens in the mid-1990s during the Fred and Rose West investigation, one of the largest serial killer investigations in English history.
Rebecca Wait is the author of five novels, most recently Havoc.
I’m Sorry You Feel That Way was a book of the year for The Times, Guardian, Express, Good Housekeeping and BBC Culture, and was shortlisted for the Nota Bene Prize.
Our Fathers, received widespread acclaim and was a Guardian book of the year and a thriller of the month for Waterstones.
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