Zibby is joined by beloved British author and National Book Award winner Nina Stibbe to discuss WENT TO LONDON, TOOK THE DOG, an endlessly funny, blissfully gossipy, and enviably well-observed memoir of a woman changing her life at 60. Nina shares the story behind her sabbatical in London (prompted by an empty nest and the need for creative renewal!), and explains how her private diary turned into this funny and vulnerable book about midlife, marriage, motherhood, and reinvention. The two also discuss the emotional risk of writing a memoir and the often-dismissed importance of women’s inner lives. 

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Nina. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about, Went To London, Took The Dog, The Diary Of A 60-year-old Runaway. Congrats. 

Nina: Thank you for having me. Thank you. 

Zibby: This is probably the best title ever, I think. Don't you think? I mean, it's so good. 

Nina: Oh, thank you. Well, it's slight, it's a slight copy of I think an Emily Dickinson poem.

I think she had a poem called Started Early something something, and then an a British novelist called Kate Atkinson had Started Early, Took The Dog, and so yeah, I've stolen it. But you are allowed to. 

Zibby: Yeah. And, and it's the subtitle too, The Diary Of A 60-year-old Runaway. Like, you're immediately like, what is she running from?

Where is she running to? 

Nina: Yes. 

Zibby: It's, it's a lot of questions. 

Nina: You can tell, you can tell from the cover. It's not sinister. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Nina: Because it could, it could be quite scary. 

Zibby: Yes. But no, she's, she's running to a coffee cup, so we're, we're good. 

Nina: Yeah. 

Zibby: So by the way, I read Dear Nina when it came out, and so this is just, you know, I'm sure everybody tells you that.

But anyway,..

Nina: Thank you. 

Zibby: It's lovely. What is your new book about? Please give us the rundown.

Nina: The new book is about, it's a year in my life, and it started when I decided I was going to have a, um, what I called a sabbatical some time away from home, preferably in London. I'd been living right down in the southwest of England on the coast, a place called Cornwall, and it's probably 300 miles away from London.

That doesn't sound very far away to people who live in the States, but to us, British people, that's a, that's a long way. And I was feeling sort of a bit isolated and I decided I will go to London, find some motivation, write my next novel. My children had left home and gone to university. And so I looked into an Airbnb for me and my dog, and it was just too expensive.

And then I heard of my, well, I didn't know her then I heard of this woman, a writer called Deborah Magar, who, who rents out rooms to people just sort of on an, a ad hoc basis, and they just water her plants. She's not always there. So I, I went and lived there for a year for, for a pepper peppercorn rent with my dog and, uh, this is the diary of the year. Am I going to separate from my husband? Am I gonna go back? Am I gonna get the novel written? What's it going to be like being on my own again after, you know, 25 years of marriage and children? I didn't mean to write it as a novel. I didn't, uh, as a, sorry, as a, as a diary for, for, for you.

It was just a diary for me. So, and then you're like,.. 

Zibby: I can use this. 

Nina: Well, I, I thought I probably couldn't Zibby because it's so candid. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: And. Personal that I thought I probably couldn't. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: But then I met with my editor from Penguin, Mary Mount, and she said, I hope you are writing it down for publication.

And I said, well, I'm not really. And she said, oh, I think you should. So halfway through the year. 

Zibby: Mm. 

Nina: I started thinking, okay, maybe I will. And actually, I think. The first six months, I, I set the tone of this honesty about my feelings and other things, and once the six months had gone by, I couldn't then change it.

I couldn't say, well, I'm not gonna talk about A, B, and C. So I rather set myself up for that. But yeah, it happened. 

Zibby: And then how did you feel putting it all out there? 

Nina: Well, a couple of things. I, my kids are in there a lot and they were, at the time, my son was 21 and my daughter was 23 and lots of their friends, so I had to check with them.

Are you okay with this? They're in there, they're supporting me in this year of sort of running away. You know, they've got their dad to think of as well. The person I left so long chats with them and. Also, uh, in the first six months of writing the diary, my ex-husband was in a lot. I talked about him a lot.

I talked about our discussions about the future, but he in, at the end of the day, he said, I'm not comfortable being in there, which really disappointed me because he came out so beautifully. It was a really nice model. For how to end a marriage without trashing it. But that wasn't to be, and so he is not in it.

And that, that was a disappointment right at the last minute he said, he said no. And lots of people have said, I, I, we miss, we missed that side of things. Did you miss that side of things? 

Zibby: I relate to that because I also, I wrote a memoir and also had to take out my ex-husband at the last minute. 

Nina: Yeah. I had an inkling.

Zibby: Yes. You know, it's a lot of threading and cutting. It's like an arts and crafts project, right. To put it all back together again. Yeah. 

Nina: And it's a shame because. It had been nice. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: You know, it had been, there'd been empathy and warmth and it, you know, so it was a shame. And I, yeah. Anyway, so yeah, I, I think the most, there's a lot of, uh, let's say content about being a late middle-aged woman, there's menopausal stuff and all that stuff, and, and I didn't, I don't feel sensitive about that at all. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: But I surprisingly did feel sensitive about. Ending a marriage, I felt guilty, and I, I, I've never had any, uh, negative feelings about other people ending their marriages and not at all.

I grew up with a divorced, with divorced parents. When I heard friends of mine were getting divorced, I'd always feel a bit jealous. I, I, I'm not, you know, I'm not judgmental at all, but while it was me, I felt. I thought, why couldn't I just have toughed it out? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: Why couldn't I just have stayed? Why have I caused all this upheaval?

And so I did. I did feel really guilty about that. And when the book came out, the a a a newspaper here, the Daily Mail, I'm sure you know of it, ran stories about saying. You know, with her marriage on the rocks, just kind of really relishing in that side of things, which I hadn't expected, which was naive of me.

Um, and there were lots of comments under those articles calling me names, and I didn't really mind, but my son minded, he could not believe the names I was being called. And then I felt awful. I thought, I haven't thought this through, but on the whole, I'm, I'm, I'm happy with it. I think it's funny. I think it's, I genuinely hope, I think it's useful to women.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: I do. 

Zibby: Isn't it really outrageous when you think about it that all these people that you don't know feel they have the right to call you a name based on a relationship they know nothing about. 

Nina: I know, I know. 

Zibby: I mean, it's really, it's, it shouldn't even be allowed. And then the fact that we read the names and we're, we take it personally.

Right. Even though they only see like this much. 

Nina: Yeah. Right. 

Zibby: If somebody were, if you, if you're showing a painting in a museum, but the people looking in the museum could only see like this little tiny bit of the canvas. 

Nina: Yeah. 

Zibby: And then they made all these proclamations, we would be like, oh well. That doesn't count.

But in about our lives, we're always like, yeah, okay. You're right. 

Nina: Yeah. And the the other thing that's surprising is I, I, when I've had sort of negative reviews in that way 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: I'll bump into the people sometimes at an event and they're so nice to me and I think, wow, I didn't, I see you saying, you know, what a selfish bitch I anyway.

Who cares? Who cares what they think? 

Zibby: They're just trying to sell papers. 

Nina: Yeah. 

Zibby: Right. 

Nina: Yeah. Yeah. 

Zibby: At the end of the day, I mean, they have to. 

Nina: I think, more, more frustrating than people commenting and, and, and being judgmental. The thing I have had in my whole career as a, as a writer, and this is my seventh book, it's what I've been really lucky with my press reviews.

I've, I've, the book has just gone into the right hands on the whole. It's been amazing, but I've had a few stinkers and it's always older men. 

Zibby: Mm. 

Nina: Who say that there's nothing important in here. It's very slight and inconsequential, and I just think, wow. Imagine, imagine saying that about women's lives about all the things, all the, I just, I've had that a few times and I've, yeah, I've, I've just had to swallow it down, but I've been raging about that and I think, have you got a mother or a sister or a wife or a daughter? Don't you know? 

Zibby: Yeah. They must have had one. One of them. Certainly a mother. 

Nina: Yeah. They missed it.

Zibby: I read a very good review, I thought, in the Washington Post of your book. Did you read that one? 

Nina: Yeah, that was lovely. I was so happy with that. 

Zibby: Yeah,.. 

Nina: Yeah. 

You know, the American Press have been very, um, supportive to me over the years and, uh, my American readers have been, you know, fantastic. I, with my first book, the book you mentioned, love Nina.

Zibby: Um, oh, did I say Dear Nina, by accident? I'm so sorry. 

Nina: Everybody does. No, it's absolutely. 

Zibby: I'm so sorry. Love Nina. I'm sorry. 

Nina: Everybody says it and it's fine. It's not fine. 

Zibby: I just, I'm, anyway, okay. 

Nina: What people, what, what I, I felt when that book was published, because that was a book of letters as you'll remember, it was just letters I wrote 

Zibby: Yes.

Nina: To my sister. That's all it was. And I thought it was being published in the UK and I thought privately, I thought, who's interested in this? I, I cannot believe anybody is going to find this interesting or entertaining or funny. But not only did the UK readers like it, but American readers loved it. Isn't that, I mean I was, 

Zibby: I'm not surprised.

No, it was because it was so charming and you had all these scenes of you observing the family you were the nanny for and their dialogue, which was so funny. And the whole cast of characters in that book, in this book, you know? It's just,.. 

Nina: Yeah. I mean I guess so, and I, it is the sort of thing that I myself like, but I just couldn't imagine it, it happening and there's so many funny little in this.

Book that we're talking about today in the new one. And In Love, Nina. Nina will comment on America. I mean, in this book, it's, it's not, not as sort of, it, it's self-conscious. I know I'm writing a diary, so I say has, I can't remember, but there was, there was something, uh. Has Biden had a facelift? My, my, my landlady said, I don't think he had COVID. I think he's had a facelift. And so I put a few American things in because we are over here. We are intrigued, fascinated and charmed by the states and just always interested but In Love, Nina. She's constantly talking about America because she'd just moved to London and. Everybody's obsessed with America and they're always going off to New York and coming back with headache pills that you can't get over here.

And just lots of, uh, lots of American things. Yeah, we are, we're obsessed over here. 

Zibby: That's good. I wasn't sure that was, uh, exactly the case. I feel like we often, I feel like we're off often embarrassing ourselves. But anyway, 

Nina: We feel for you? Thank you. So do we, so do we You think of what? Come on. 

Zibby: Oh my goodness.

Nina: Yeah. 

Zibby: Well the book was also really fun because of all of your references about other authors in the book.

Nina: Yeah, yeah. 

Zibby: You know, it was like a, a who's who, where is Waldo of, of the book world in here as, and it's just part of your daily life. It's like behind the scenes of publishing. So having been in publishing and knowing so many authors, what do you feel like, how are you feeling about the publishing world today and having a book come out now versus when you first started?

Nina: When I first started working in publishing or publishing books. 

Zibby: Either way. 

Nina: Oh, well, what really fascinated me about publishing that book, this book was that by accident I was coming to London, I. From the sticks. You might, did you say that from the stick? 

Zibby: Yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean, I don't personally, but it, it is said.

Nina: Yeah. So I was coming from a long, long way away to London to live with a literary lady. It happened twice. I did it in 1982 when I was 19. 

Zibby: Yeah,.. 

Nina: And I came from Leicestershire in the countryside and I just rocked up and I accidentally was in the middle of this street of accomplished writers and directors.

And you know, there was Alan Bennett and a, a woman called Claire Tomlin, who was the literary editor of the Sunday Times, became a very famous biographer and I, I. They, they meant nothing to me. I didn't know who they were. I just rocked up as the nanny and I, as you said, I wrote letters to my sister describing it, and then really oddly, 40 years later, I did exactly the same. I came from right down in Cornwall where I'd been for 20 odd years. I came back to London, lived, I, I live across the road now. Deborah lives over there. Deborah Magar, who is, I didn't know her then, but I knew of her because she wrote the, the, the be the best Exotic Margold Hotel, and she's done all sorts of novels and screenplays and things, so I, I ended up living with her and then in this area of London where everybody's around, so it happened all over again. Except this time they know me as a fellow writer. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: So I, I, there's nothing charming or naive about it. I'm very self-conscious and knowing, and I'm sort of presenting myself.

It is, it was very interesting that the, the two almo, you know, when I came as a nanny, I was under the radar. I. I was just watching and reporting and you know, I'd say, yeah, he might have written the bestselling biography of of, of such and such, but he doesn't know how to make a cup of tea. Well, I couldn't say that now because I know these are my friends now.

And so I had to be really quite careful. And there's one character. So you were talking about publishing so there's all these authors like Nick Hornby, who I think you've interviewed. 

Zibby: I have. I have. 

Nina: And, uh, you know Bonnie Garma from Nixon 

Zibby: I've also interviewed. 

Nina: Yes. Yeah. And, and another really famous authors, uh, that I'm rubbing shoulders with, but they, what they don't realize is I am just the same as that old version of me.

I, I haven't changed, I've been away, I haven't been here in London or New York or Melbourne. I've been by the seaside 300 miles away where nothing much happens. So that was, that was strange. And I was writing about them and I thought that when the diary was finished, I'd send it to each of them, which of course I had to do.

And I'd say, let me know if you're happy with this. We'll completely understand if you would rather I didn't have you in. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Nina: Well, nobody, nobody said no. They all said yes, and I'm quite cheeky about them. I mean, I'm, I'm not it, I'm quite mischievous with them, I think. And I, there was one, uh, there's a writer called Satnam Ra, who as well as being a novelist here, is a very serious journalist.

And he had lived in the lodgings with Deborah, where I ended up living. And one of my diary entries, I say, I finally thrown away sat Nams Luther. You know what a Luther is? 

Zibby: Yes, of course. 

Nina: I, I didn't know what one was. I was like, what is this? Someone said, it's aloof. It's for scrubbing you back. 

Zibby: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nina: And I was sure that SAT was to say, please don't have that. That, you know, image. I don't want people imagining me in the bath with a Luca. But he didn't. He, he was delighted and everybody was delighted except my ex-husband who's just for whatever reason, said no. But, uh, there was one woman called Rachel Dearborn.

Do you remember her? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: Every horrible thing that anyone does in the diary is her. Every horrible thing that's said is her. She's just this grumpy, sort of, she's rather judgmental and curmudgeonly. She doesn't like the world anymore. She doesn't like young people. She doesn't like them being on their phones and she's always complaining.

And so I, she was in it right from the start. I, I was introduced to her and I wrote, I wrote everything she said, 'cause I thought it was so funny. I then sent her all her entries and I said to her, I'm going to change your name. And she went, why? And I said, well, because of all the awful things you say about wanting to close down libraries.

I said, you can't be in a book that's gonna be published, and you are saying you think libraries should be closed down when the whole of the country is praying that libraries stay, you know? And so she said, well, all right, then you can change my name. So I did change her name, but people have said to me, you know, who is that?

Who is that? I said, I can't tell you. But it is so funny that. She didn't see any wrong in it. And then the, and also these other people who are very serious novelists didn't mind at all what I was saying about them. 

Zibby: I mean, any press is good press, right? Isn't that how it goes? 

Nina: Yeah, that's the true, I mean, I'm, I would be very up for it.

I come from a big family of lots of siblings and we were always pranking and teasing each other. So for me, that whole thing is like a love language. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Nina: It's, it's attention as you say. Um, so I personally, I would, I'd be very happy, but I. Yeah, I was surprised at some of the more serious people, not minding.

I mean, there's a bit where my landlady, the very famous novelist, Deborah Magar, said, um, she said that her husband used to fall asleep. When they were in bed together and I said just, and she went, oh no. It happens to everyone darling. So, okay. So it's much more, I knew it was going to be candid about me and my menopausal journey and my leaving my husband and my marriage.

I knew it was gonna be kind, but I did think I'd have to tone it down with all the famous authors, but not so.. 

Zibby: Amazing,.. 

Nina: Thankfully. Which is really nice,.. 

Zibby: Thankfully. Yes, because definitely added an entertainment level. Love that. Are you writing anything now? 

Nina: I'm writing a novel. I wrote a novel, it was published in 2022, and I'm writing a sort, not quite a sequel, but sort of a follow up with some of the same characters, and I'm near the end of that.

Zibby: That's exciting. 

Nina: Yeah, I'm, I, I love it and I, I love writing novels. Writing the diary is sort of easier in that you just write down, you plot along every day, but writing a novel gives you butterflies in your tummy because things happen than you're thinking, oh my gosh, what next? It's amazing. Do you write novels?

Zibby: I do. I have one published and I am writing. My second, I threw out the whole first draft. I was like, this didn't work at all. I can't believe it. I need another year. And I was like, I'm gonna write a totally different book. And then literally just in the middle of the night last night, I was like, wait a minute.

I figured out how I could relate these two books to each other and maybe not have to throw absolutely everything away from the first draft. 

Nina: Fantastic. 

Zibby: I know. I'm so excited about it. 

Nina: Great. Yeah. That is fantastic. First of all, I think we do sometimes have to say, let's throw it away. 

Zibby: Yep. I mean, I deleted, I like had to, you know.

Nina: Yeah. Just push it aside. No, I think that's brilliant. I, I've done that. Not quite as dramatically as, as you've just said, but I, I have said. I need to just go in a different direction and Yeah, it's, it is great. It is. These things come to you when you're half asleep. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. Yes. 

Nina: Don't they? 

Zibby: Yes. 

Nina: First thing in the morning or in the middle of the night.

Oh, I'm really happy for you. 

Zibby: Oh, thank you. Thank you. 

Nina: That's great. 

Zibby: Thank you very much. 

Nina: Good for you. But do you have, do you know about that feeling of sort of, and you are writing and you're thinking, oh, I know what could happen, and you're writing it and you're stomach's flipping over. I, I get that a lot with writing novels.

I love that feeling. 

Zibby: I don't think I write novels enough to have that feeling a lot. 

Nina: Oh, that's funny. 

Zibby: Anyway, Nina, thank you so much. This has been such a joy to chat with you as I knew it would be having read this, um, because that is how charming you are and everything. So thank you so much and uh, best of luck on the next novel.

Nina: Thank you so much. 

Zibby: Okay, take care. Bye bye.