Claire Fuller, Hunger & Thirst

Brett talks with Claire Fuller about her new novel, 'Hunger & Thirst'. They discuss writing without a plot, being drawn to dark stories, horror movies, book lists, and find out who became a character in the book. 

The book anthology Claire talks about:

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Unquiet-Guests-by-Dan-Coxon-editor/9781917792073

Claire's instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/writerclairefuller/

Claire's website:
https://clairefuller.co.uk/

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Transcript

Brett Benner 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Brett Benner, and welcome back to another episode of Behind the Stack, where today I am sitting down with author Claire Fuller for her new book, Hunger and Thirst. A little bit about Claire. She is the author of five previous novels, including The Memory of Animals, Unsettled Ground, which won the Costa Novel Award in 2021, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction. Bitter Orange, which was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Swimming Lessons, which was shortlisted for the Encore Prize for second novels, and Our Endless Numbered Days, which was winner of the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction. They have been translated into more than 20 languages. She has a master's with distinction, and creative and critical writing from the University of Winchester. She lives near Winchester, England with her husband and a cat called Alan, and she has two grown children. So I hope you enjoy this episode of Behind the Stack. Welcome back to another episode, where today I am so thrilled to be sitting down with Claire Fuller for her latest book, Hunger and Thirst, which is so good. It is so delicious. I also have to tell you, I love this cover so much, but I ordered the UK cover yesterday, which I love equally as much. And I saw on your Instagram you talking about it, and you know what really sold me as the final thing? Is the fly in the inside on the book itself.

Claire Fuller 1:39

Oh, no. Should I go get a copy and- Yes, yes, yes, yes show the viewers? Get a- So this is the UK hardback, and yeah, under the... There's a fly. There's a fly. Which won't mean anything

Brett Benner 1:51

until you read it, but it- No it is, um, it, it certainly has its, its point, and I was like, ugh, such a wonderful detail. I always wanna... I think I still wanna do an episode at some point and have someone from the UK on and just do a run of American covers versus UK covers because there's such a debate always about w- who does the better covers. And there's so many times that I'm like, "Well, I have to get that copy 'cause whatever reason." And I also, with books in the UK, I find your paper stock feels so much better than a lot of the American books. I don't know what that is. Mm. You guys do a lot of, they do a lot of sprayed edges over there. Yeah. It's much more prevalent than in the U- the US. And I, and I wonder if it's too because the UK just generally seems like so much more of a book world. I, I'm not trying to obviously denigrate the US, but I do feel like there's a bookstore on every corner, and I love it so much. Um, so anyway, just a side note.

Claire Fuller 2:52

I don't know. I feel like that about the US. Feels, well, it's just such a bigger country. It feels like you have so many more bookstores. But I guess it's just, you know- Yeah you're, the US is bigger generally. But, um-

Brett Benner 3:06

Sure. Maybe that's it too. Yeah. Or maybe it's just in a designated city, you know. Uh, who knows? So I loved the book, and I wanna get it into... I wanna get into it in a second. I just had some questions for you beforehand. I love a discovery of a writer and their life either before or, you know, before they started writing. And for you, it's that you got your original degree in sculpture, which is also so cool to find out after the fact reading the book. Do you still sculpt?

Claire Fuller 3:33

Not really. The writing kind of took over. But I still have all my tools, all my chisels and my mallets and a few, quite, quite a few lumps of stone hanging around the garden. Just in, in case, you know, maybe one day the, the urge will take me. But feels like my creative need is satisfied by the writing at the moment still.

Brett Benner 3:57

Interesting. And when did that kind of transition happen? Because I think of the sculpture as such a physical art, and the writing is a cerebral one. So when did that happen for you?

Claire Fuller 4:09

Yeah. I think, I think it kind of happened at about the time I started writing, creative writing, which was when I was 40, which was, you know, quite late really for most people- Yeah most writers. I started writing, and I stopped picking up my chisel. Probably physically, you can probably tell 'Cause not only is it more cerebral, it's kind of... Yes, there's less physical exercise definitely when you're just sitting at your desk.

Brett Benner 4:37

Yeah. But you were always a reader?

Claire Fuller 4:41

Always a reader. Always a reader. We didn't actually have that many books at home, so really I discovered libraries when I was very young and discovered books and just had free rein on whatever I wanted to read. Probably read some really inappropriate books for my age, but, um, always a reader. Still, still very much a reader.

Brett Benner 5:02

I read this interview with you and, you were talking about your process of writing and you said you write in total for about three to four hours a day, but when you're editing, that's when it could be up to 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night. And you talked about the intensity, but how much you love it. And you also said you'll go back the following day and review the previous day's work and do some editing right then. Is that correct?

Claire Fuller 5:22

Yeah, that's right.

Brett Benner 5:23

So I was curious because I, I, I then I thought, so on that first day when you have your four hours, do you just try to get st- as much as you can out without gatekeeping yourself and without stopping kind of the flow with the idea that you're gonna go back tomorrow and fine-tune this a little bit?

Claire Fuller 5:42

No. I wish I could do that, but no. The little voice in my head is saying, "Oh, but you've written that, so therefore this doesn't make sense that you've got, you know- Uh-huh a few pages back. You have to go and correct that. Go and correct it." And I find it really hard to just kind of get in the flow. All the time I'm correcting myself and rewriting and editing. And so my, my rule when I'm writing the first draft is that I must write some new words. Could be 10 new words. Mm. Hopefully it might be 3,000 new words. But-

Brett Benner 6:21

I,

Claire Fuller 6:21

otherwise I will just edit the whole time. I find it very hard just to let, let it go and just write anything and see w- what happens. 'Cause the voice is saying, "This is really bad." You know, "What are you doing?" And I can't shut the voice up, so I have to go and fix stuff.

Brett Benner 6:43

Wow. Are you a, a planner? Are you an outliner? Or do you just kind of go in and just see where it takes you?

Claire Fuller 6:50

I see where it takes me, yeah. Not a planner at all. Wow. No plot. Starts usually kind of with a person in a place or sometimes some other things as well, but, uh, yeah, it's all very organic. I don't know where it's going. And I have wondered in the past whether that's why I find writing that first draft so difficult and- Mm so unenjoyable. You know? I really have to make myself do it. So I have, in the past with other books, tried to start with a plan, to write a plot, to s- to put down what might happen. And then all that happened is I thought, "Well, I know that story. That... I'm really bored now." You know, uh, why write it when I know what's gonna happen? So I, I've just gone back to kind of freeform. Let's just see where it goes. I

Brett Benner 7:42

actually love hearing this, to be honest, because I think I, uh, uh, talking to so many writers, and I think a lot of them do plan out so much of it, which I admire. But I don't know... Like you, I don't know that I could do that. And so to hear you say you're kind of going on this journey and it's gonna surprise you as much as it may surprise the reader is incredibly refreshing. Do you start, when you go in, do you start ever with you have a general idea, but then you have a... You start with a character and you say, "I'm gonna follow this person and launch off and see who comes into the world"?

Claire Fuller 8:20

Yeah, it is. Usually I know where they are in that particular moment, you know, which house they're in, what job they're in, which landscape they're in, something, something about their place where they are at that moment that I start the novel. But I, I don't know whether they work there or whether they live there or whether they're visiting or what year it is or how old they are. I just kind of start and then stuff starts sticking or not. Mm. I'll discard it. Someone will come in, like you say, and I think, "Well, who are you? Uh, okay, you could be, you could be this woman's best friend," or, you know, however. I find it hard to express it, um, because it is so organic and freeform really. The one thing I do have is always I have the shape of a novel in my head, you know, that there has to be some escalation. Mm-hmm. That you have to reach some crisis point, that there has to be some outcome of that, that things have to get worse and worse and worse for the protagonist in general. so that kind of mountain peak shape and then the fall, I, I have that shape, but I don't know what all the elements are gonna be.

Brett Benner 9:39

God, I love that. Some of your stuff, and this is, this is one, I, I was trying to think because it's not really... There- in some ways you can say, okay, they're kind of like a psychological thriller a little bit. But I also... I, I thought of this yesterday, I was like, more of it to me, and thinking about your other work as well, it's, I, I would call it unsettling lit fic.

Claire Fuller 10:00

That's... I'm happy with that genre. That's a good one. Yeah,

Brett Benner 10:03

I... Because it- Mm-hmm is a bit unsettling, and also you as the reader never quite are sure, are you on firm ground or not, as the characters are, are very much the same way. Um, I'm so curious, what is it about kind of the darkness or the dark side of human nature that attracts you?

Claire Fuller 10:26

I think it's partly because I'm just not attracted to the light side of human nature. God. I don't know. I, I find that when I re- I do read kind of lighter novels, and I do read some funny novels, but I find that sometimes the humor just doesn't hit for me. And I think we all find really different things funny. You know, you could go to a stand-up comedian, some people are, just don't get it, and some people think it's hilarious. And I think comedy or kind of lighter things in fiction is often the same. People react or don't react to, to humor or comedy or lightness. But I think the darkness, any darkness in fiction, we generally all feel that same kind of darkness. It might not be terror, but it might be, you know, as you described, kind of something unsettling, horrible or scary or sad. You know, it might just be sadness we're talking about. But those kind of negative emotions I think we all react to. And they're, I think they've just drawn me from the very beginning. So as I said, when I was discovering books in libraries And I was drawn to the adult fiction even though I was kind of 10 or 12 or something. What I was drawn to was really by the cover. It was all about covers. There was nobody guiding me. No librarian, no parents really guiding me about what to read. And so the things that drew me in were ghost stories and horror stories. Hmm. So I read a lot of Stephen King. I read some James Herbert. I read M.R. James. And, you know, one of those would lead me to another. I never really got into anything lighter or anything w- what might be regarded now as YA. Um, and I never really got into the classics. So I discovered dark fiction, and then I discovered literary fiction as a reader. And so I suppose that was what I read. That was what I read for so many years. And so when I came to write, it seemed weird not to write a novel that had some darkness in it because that- that's what I read as a reader.

Brett Benner 12:49

Yeah. I totally get that. It feels like we were reared on the same, literary diet. We... And, and it was the same thing. So many writers that I talk to talk about Stephen King so much of the time as one of the early books that they went into. And I, I, I've said this before, like I remember distinctly going to the library and getting out Carrie, was my first Stephen King book. Mm-hmm. And sitting down in the living room. I could still see myself, where it was, the light coming in. I, I talk about this with my business partner. We talk all the time because we cast basically just comedies, and yet both of us- watch the darkest, the darkest the better. And as we used to say, like I would have loved to have been casting a show that when I walk out to the waiting room, I think that any one of these people could kill me. Like that would've been a dream. But it's never happened. But there is something I think for people generally about us being drawn to this stuff and, you know, the, uh Just the kind of darkness of human nature. All right, so do you have a, uh, a logline for Hunger and Thirst?

Claire Fuller 13:54

Yeah. So Hunger and Thirst is about a reclusive and famous sculptor, Ursula, who is looking back at the year 1987 when she was 16. And in that year, she meets wild child Sue, who becomes her best friend, who dares her to do various things, and eventually she dares her to kill someone. And when Ursula actually does, she is haunted, literally haunted for the rest of her life. And a true crime documentary maker has discovered some of this information from 1987 and is making a film about what happened.

Brett Benner 14:38

Okay, so one of the fun, one of the fun tidbits of this and discovering this post, and now I have to go back a- a- and, and I'll explain to our listeners and our viewers why, is that, uh, she works at the Winchester School of Art, um, in the post room, and this is the same school that you went to. as a sculptor. Yes. And, uh, as we, as we said previously, Ursula is a sculptor, which, you know, kind of comes out, later, and she's not at the school initially to go there as a student. But what I love about this is you've talked about you put some of your classmates in the book, at least one of them, you said- Yeah without saying who. And you actually give yourself a cameo in the book as well- in the guise of a character. So now, of course, I have to go back through these sections and try to figure out which one is you.

Claire Fuller 15:36

A really young, beautiful, sexy one, of course.

Brett Benner 15:41

Right. Who brings it all down. Yeah, so that's, for anyone who, when they break into this book, just have that in the back of your mind and try to figure it out, and maybe send Claire a message on Instagram to say you figured it out. So I love this present day, this, uh, it's called, the show is called Dark Descent, which is kind of like the Dateline show. And in the book, Sue's brother, who is named Raymond, is talking to Ursula, and he says, "You know, we watch these things because we want to know the absolute worst, and if it happens to someone else, we can be sure it didn't happen to us." And Ursula says or thinks, "Even better, I thought, if we could nearly have been the victim, have once walked the same streets in the same town, then we can be horrified, empathetic, and relieved." I, I loved this so much, and I thought this is such that, that this is such a universal feeling. It's not even schadenfreude, 'cause it's not obviously gloating in someone's, misfortune. But it is that feeling of, my God, thank God that didn't happen to me, and oh my God, I know where that is, and, or oh my God, I could've, I could've been there, and I could've been that person. Do you watch these Dateline type shows?

Claire Fuller 16:53

I watch a lot of true crime. I mean, uh, we don't have Dateline here, but I understand that it's a little bit trashy. I don't know. Is that right?

Brett Benner 17:04

Dateline- Maybe not. No? is a little, yeah, it's a little sensationalized, sure. Yeah. Okay. But, but, but the way you've set this more up is I would say, like, it is like a true crime story. It almost, if it was like The Jinx on HBO or something. Mm-hmm. Even the way you detail the camera angles and how they have the, the, the person being interviewed sitting there beforehand for a moment to get a sense of them. It's, like, so on the mark the way you've captured it.

Claire Fuller 17:28

I watched a lot of true crime documentaries and, and some of them I absolutely analyzed for how they do that, w- what information they drip feed, what they hold back. And in fact, I interviewed a doc- true crime documentary maker to kind of get her input on it because it's not really a genre that I know except as a consumer. And I really watched, in particular, kind of actually kind of writing down the, uh, timings, was a documentary called Evil Genius, which was on Netflix, and it was about the pizza bomber. And it, uh, it's, it's an amazing documentary, really well put together, kind of still leaves a mystery at the end. It's a terrible, terrible story about a, a bank heist where some people have put a bomb around the neck of the man they send in to rob the bank, and it all goes terribly wrong. But I have kind of taken some of the structure of that documentary and used it for my own ends because I knew nothing about documentary making. So, so I used that to help me. But yeah, I read, I read a lot of it and enjoy it and then feel bad about enjoying it because- it, you know, there is often somebody's misfortune, isn't it? Yes. You know?

Brett Benner 18:53

Yeah. Yes. And it's very easy to then be like, "Ugh, that was good. Good night."

Claire Fuller 18:58

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And some terrible things have happened to people.

Brett Benner 19:03

So Ursula goes to live in this squat with Vincent Who is dating. But the place that they're staying in, it's the, it's called the Underwood, and it is, the house takes such a prevalent role itself as well. How did that come up for you? And, and you've done this before with the house a little bit in Bitter Orange, also dealt with a house as well. So I'm so curious about that.

Claire Fuller 19:28

Yeah. Well, places are really important in all my novels, you know. They all seem to take place in very, uh, important locations, or important to the characters. So like you said, I went to the art school that Ursula works in at, in the post room, and I studied there as a sculpture student. And when I finished in 1989, I didn't have anywhere to live, and so my best friend, who was called Louise, said, "Well, come and live with me. I live in this squat, which is a bungalow in Winchester." And so her and two friends had been living in this house. They had been renting rooms from the landlord, and then the landlord had gone on holiday to Australia to visit his daughter, and he decided never to come back. He'd let go, and he'd left all his stuff there. So when I moved in, all his belongings was, was still there. His food, his clothes You know, he'd taken a couple of suitcases, I'm guessing. And the house was owned by a housing association, so they kind of knew we were there, but the house was in so much disrepair that they just turned a blind eye to us being there and didn't charge us any rent, and we didn't kind of officially... We weren't officially there. So the house is a real house, but- Wow I've, I rename it, so it ha- has a particular name, and it was knocked down because it was such a disgusting, scummy house, this little bungalow. And a new house was built on the land which has the same name, the actual original name. And I felt I couldn't really use it in the novel because someone actually still lives there, and, you know, there was no actual haunting. Although there were some scary things that went on, there was no actual haunting. But if somebody wrote a novel about my house that I live in now, say, with, with its original name, I would be a bit freaked out. So I felt I had to kind of change the name. But the house absolutely existed. Wow.

Brett Benner 21:30

It's so cool. So both Ursula and, and Vincent are drawn into Sue's orbit. She's very charismatic. She's very charming. She has an incredible family, which I have to tell you, those sections with the family in the early parts of the book, her family is so funny. I mean, I almost was like you descended into almost writing a sitcom with these- family members. And they were all so engaging, and it was such a great counterpart to what is starting to build, but it also is such a great intro for Ursula to see this world and a family that she thinks, "Oh my God, I would really love to be a part of this"- Mm and where Sue came from. But both Ursula and Vincent have had traumatic incidents in their past, and I'm so curious, what is it you think draws them to Sue or Sue to them? Because I also think, does Sue recognize something in both of them that she's drawn to, that's connected to something maybe dark in their past?

Claire Fuller 22:30

Yeah. Oh, I had never thought of that, but quite possibly, especially considering she wants to be a horror film director, so, you know, she's looking for- Weird stories, dark stories. You know, that's kind of why she's drawn to the house, absolutely, because she makes a short film in the house using these people as her actors. Um, yeah, she is really curious about Ursula's backstory and Vince's. She tries in all sorts of ways to draw it out of them in the way that, you know, maybe we've just been talking about with true crime, that we want to know but we feel a little bit bad about knowing. It's a little bit seedy to try and find out people's backstory and all the bad things that happened. But, but Sue absolutely wants to find out that stuff from Ursula and Vince. And so maybe that is why she's drawn to them, you know? Maybe she sees something in them that they are looking for something else, and she answers that need as well. But, but I think she is someone who's very larger than life. She draws people to her so that they orbit her, like you said. I mean, when I was writing it, I would take sections of the novel to my writing group and, um, they would all say, "We love Sue. Write more Sue. We want more Sue." No, this is b- not a novel about Sue. Um, so, you know, without giving spoilers, I had to do something about that really. So I think she's a very kind of, I don't know what the word is, effervescent. She's a real live wire.

Brett Benner 24:12

Completely. You should tell all your writing group the next book will be called, like, Sue's Story. Yeah. Yeah,

Claire Fuller 24:18

you're talking about Sue's family, and I agree. Yes. I was really interested in them all. And, well, you find out a little bit about Ray and what happens to him. But the rest of the family, we don't really know what happens to the rest of their lives. So a little while ago, I was commissioned to write a horror story for an anthology, and I thought... So what I did was take the twins, who are Sue's younger sisters, and I make them, I think they're 40 in this short story, and they go to the house that, um, once belonged to their father, because they all have different fathers, so they have a different father from Sue. And yeah, scary things happen in this other house for the twins when they're adults.

Brett Benner 25:04

Wow. When is that supposed to come out?

Claire Fuller 25:08

It's out already. It's in an anthology.

Brett Benner 25:12

I love that so much. Yeah, because I thought that family is so funny and fascinating and so eclectic that I kept thinking when I was reading it, I was like, "This could be a television show," just this family. You know, the mother had all these different... All, all the kids have different fathers and, I mean, all of it, I just thought, "This is hilarious." But, um, I love that you did that. I also, I think it's interesting that there was a difference between the UK and the US in terms of publishing, and that the UK was happy with everything the way it was going, and the US wanted it to be a little more... Was it more black and white? Was it more definitive? Or how, what was the beef?

Claire Fuller 25:54

Uh, my US editor really, I don't think she is Team Believer at all. I think she's very definitely Team Skeptic when it kind of comes to the supernatural. So she really wanted some real-life explanations for what happens. You know, she wanted a particular character to be in a particular ti- place in order to have removed the body. You know, we know there's a murder. So I wrote it with that in. You know, I put all that in, with a round of edits in conjunction with my UK editor, who was kind of already saying, "Well, I don't know. This could just be a horror novel. We don't have to have real-world explanations." So I was kind of going one way and going the other, which is why really for me, the edits once the novel was bought by Penguin in the UK and Tin House in the US, why it went through a year of edits. You know, I rewrote this book maybe four times trying to kind of keep them both happy, and it never quite working. Even for me, it felt like often there was too much explanation. But what has happened in the end that actually I think everybody is happy with and I'm very happy with, is that you can read it completely like supernatural horror story. Lots of bad things happen to Ursula that can't be explained. Or you could read it as some kind of psychological suspense where lots of stuff that has happened to Ursula in her past revisit her. And so lots of things that happen to her aren't really seen by anyone else except the person that is, that, that is doing it and Ursula. And so there's never really any corroborating evidence. So for those skeptics, you could read it like a, a psychological thriller, as you say, with, with lots of explanation. And I, I'm really happy with that solution in the end because kind of means that there's more to discuss. Oh, did this really happen or is it something in Ursula's head or Ursula's past?

Brett Benner 28:08

And for Vincent as well. Mm-hmm. That is what's so much fun about it, is I think you really could look at it and say, "Okay, is this some gestating trauma and this is some psychological break, or is something really happening?" And, and like you said, and now that I'm thinking back on it- There is no one else there to substantiate- Right what, anything that she's saying. So, you know, I was gonna say, it very much is, uh, Bruce Willis turns out to be a ghost the whole time.

Claire Fuller 28:39

Well, it- Sorry for anyone who has not seen that movie yet. I love that movie. And although- So good you know, all the m- all the movies in the no- in the novel are ones that Ursula and Sue could have watched, so they are 1987 or earlier. But there is, uh, trying to again ex- speak about this without giving away spoilers, but the- there's a character who stands in the bathroom in his underpants, which is absolutely taken from Sixth Sense, you know, where- Oh my

Brett Benner 29:12

God. Yep. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote down, it's funny 'cause I, you know, they talk about Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby and The Shining, and all of these movies, of course, were horror, but there was a, there was... Except for clearly some parts of The Shining, but where I said it, it, it can be a little violent, but a lot of the violence, it's much more of a psychological thing. And it's also all of these questioning, is this really happening? What's really going on? Mm. It plays all of those references to those films that you've made play thematically the way this all plays out, which I loved so much. Are you a horror movie person?

Claire Fuller 29:47

Yeah. Yeah. I am. But I, but I don't like slashers or, or lots of gore. It, it is about- Gore the kind of psychology. And so those novels that you've just mentioned are some of my favorite, favorite novels. And when I decided, for various reasons, that this novel would be set in 1987, I thought, "Well, maybe they should be watching, Sue and Ursula should be watching movies from the 1980s." I mean, they, there is a reference, I think, to Aliens, but, but all the others are, are mostly earlier. The Shining was early 80... Oh, I can't, I've forgotten when The Shining was. Maybe early '80s, wasn't it? I think. Um, and so I thought, you know, should they be watching more contemporary movies for them? But then I watched some of those movies, and they just didn't mean as much to me as the earlier ones like Rosemary's Baby, uh, you know, which is way back to the '60s. But I, and I, it was really just I wanted to write about the horror movies that I love, and then the fact that they are- like this novel thematically, as you say, is perhaps not necessarily, um, deliberate, just that that's the kind of novel I've written because that's the kind of- Right movies I like, you know?

Brett Benner 31:09

Yeah. Y- y- your Instagram is wonderful, and for, uh, for anybody listening or watching, you have to go check it out because first of all, you have great book recommendations, you put reviews in. But I love that you and your library husband, as he's referred to, do a top 10 of the year together. Oh, yeah. So this is my question for you. Do you guys ever discuss beforehand something that could be on your list? Like, for example, if you finish a book and you, you say to him, "This is definitely gonna be on my top 10," or do you kind of keep a lid on it until the end of the year and make it a surprise? And is there a particular, uh, ritual for the unveiling? Do you do it over a dinner, or how does that happen?

Claire Fuller 31:51

It's an ongoing process. Yeah, we don't... I think it would be too hard to hide it from each other because we're always reading, both of us, and we're reading at breakfast, we're reading at lunch if, if he's working from home and, you know, so we're reading next to each other. And so we're alway- the, the conversation is always about books. You know, "Did you... Is this one good? Are you enjoying it? What, what mark would you give it out of five? Is it gonna go on your, you know, your reads of the year? Is it gonna be in the top three?" So it, it would be impossible to keep it as a surprise. And also we have some very definite crossover in taste, but not, not everything. But we do recommend books to each other if we've loved something, "I think you'll love this too." And so sometimes, some years it becomes really difficult when we have both got the same books on the list because it would be lovely to have 20 books, but sometimes, you know- Sure there's 17 or 18 because we've both absolutely loved a book. Um, and Tim always says, "Oh no, we can't share books. We can't share books. We've got to have our own 10." And I say, "Well, I'm having this one. You, you, you can have it or not," you know? And so he says, "All right, I'll have it too."

Brett Benner 33:07

Right, he has to do a caveat and say, "These are not my actually my top 10 'cause she took most of the ones I wanted." Yeah. I did say though, I was looking at this past year, the one book that I, I, I have it literally sitting behind me, and I bought I don't know why I bought the hardback of it except I wanted the hardback of it, which is,, Lonesome Dove. So I, I'm determined that I'm gonna get through that this year because it's I, I keep missing these groups on Instagram who do- Oh a read-along together. And so I'm like, all right, I just have to dive in. I just have to do it and, like, give myself over to it for a while, because I love a big book, but I've always There's that moment of something like that where- It's a- it's I know I'm gonna love it. I know it. Yeah. And seeing it on both your lists, I was like, I, I- Yeah I absolutely have to try to tackle this. You have to.

Claire Fuller 33:56

We, we I run this book club in a cocktail bar in Winchester, and mostly I choose the books 'cause I run the book club. And last year I decided I really wanted to read Lonesome Dove because I just saw everyone talking about it on Instagram. And so I decided that I would read it. I would take it to the book club, and we would read it over 12 months. So all of us were allowed to read, you know, the first five chapters and then chapter six to 10, and over various months. It was so hard to hold back. You weren't allowed to read forward. Oh, wow. You had to kind of come to the book club with just having read those chapters and then discuss it with everybody. Which was a odd way to read a book, you know, 'cause it took us 12 months to read Lonesome Dove. But, um, it was universally loved. Everybody loved it, and it's got the high It's had the highest score from our book club, so you have to read it. It's great.

Brett Benner 34:58

Okay. Do you meet monthly?

Claire Fuller 35:01

Uh, about every five, six weeks. Not quite month- Okay so 10 times in a year. Yeah. Thank you.

Brett Benner 35:09

Before we go, is there anything that you've read recently that you'd also recommend, being the reader that you are?

Claire Fuller 35:15

I have just finished London Falling by... Ah it's here, Patrick Radden Keefe. Yes. I know everybody's talking about it, but, um, I really loved it. Have you read that?

Brett Benner 35:28

I read it. Yes. Yeah, I read it, and, Patrick Radden Keefe, he's so great. He's also Have you watched, like, his, on any kind of social media or anything? He's so also incredibly charming. He's so compelling. But man, that kid, I mean, God, could you ever? Yeah. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it.

Claire Fuller 35:47

Yeah. Yeah. No, but he does it so cleverly because it reads kind of like fiction in that, you know, there's a cliffhanger at the end of every section and, "Oh, and then we discovered this about Zac Brettler," and you think, "Oh my God, I have to read on. I have to read on." And Right I, it's, it was really, really well put together and beautifully written. And also I felt less of a voyeur with this one, even though it's true crime, because the Brettlers, the, Zac's parents, are clearly very, very happy that it's happening and were closely involved in being interviewed and, and you know, what, what, um, Radden Keefe writes about. But so I didn't feel quite so bad with this true crime nonfiction.

Brett Benner 36:37

Yeah, yeah. Um, but it's,

Claire Fuller 36:38

yeah, it's a great, great book. Yeah.

Brett Benner 36:42

I love that he also pulls in, you know, there's a midpoint in the center where he's going into these different stories about these kind of ancillary characters, and you're of a moment of like, I don't understand how this is related. And then as it all kind of, he pulls the strings together and you're like, oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, it's so... It's just very well, it's weird to say plotted out of a nonfiction novel, but you understand what I mean in the way he, his construction is so, so, so- Yeah so smart. So- Yeah,

Claire Fuller 37:13

yeah

Brett Benner 37:13

um, and it creates a very intimate experience even though the, the players are kind of expansive. It's really kind of cool. It

Claire Fuller 37:23

was, yeah, very interesting for me to see London, which I know very well, from an American's point of view, and how I know it's, you know, very flavored with what this, you know, Russian oligarchs and organized crime and all that kind of stuff, which I don't really know anything about. But to see London from an outsider's or a non-Londoner's point of view was really fascinating as well.

Brett Benner 37:51

Well, Claire, I could sit here literally and talk to you all day. Your book is so wonderful. Please everyone, get the book. Buy independent if you are able to buy independent. Please do. But, please get the book. It is, it is really great, and congratulations. Oh,

Claire Fuller 38:08

really lovely to talk to you. Thank you for having me on.

Brett Benner 38:11

Thank you again, Claire. And if you've liked today's episode or other episodes of Behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing at your podcast platform of choice so that you never miss an episode. Also, what would be really helpful to me is if you could rate the show with five stars, and if you have the time, to give it a review. All of these things are incredibly helpful to help other people find the podcast so I can continue to bring you conversations like this one. I'll be back next week with another episode, and until then, you can always find me on Instagram, YouTube, and Substack at Brett's Book Stack. And as always, thanks for listening.