Find Page One on APPLE PODCASTS or STITCHER.
(Background noise might make this episode a challenging listen.)
Episode image is a detail from the cover of The Little Friend by Sarah Waters, published in 2010 by Virago Press; hand lettering: Stephen Raw (after Val Biro); cover illustration: David Frankland/Artist Partners; cover design: Duncan Spilling - LBBG.
For the 65th Second Hand Book Factory, Charles Adrian is joined by performance artist, writer and musician Nick Field. It may have been a tactical error to sit outside, at a café not far from Victoria station in London, where the background noise from taxis, buses and other voices threatens to overwhelm the conversation at times. Oh, and you will hear the microphone somersault off its improvised mic stand at one point. It is nearly the summer holidays for Page One; everything is falling apart. But the episode is still worth listening to. Promise.
Another story by Junot Diaz, Otravida, Otravez, is discussed in Page One 129.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters is also discussed in Page One 178.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
This episode features a jingle written for the podcast by the band Friends Of Friends.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 22nd July, 2014.
Book listing:
The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon by Tom Spanbauer
Drown by Junot Diaz
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Links:
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
So. Shall we go? And then the drinks will arrive when they arrive.
Nick Field
[speaking over] Yes. Okay. That's [indistinct]
Charles Adrian
So. Hello and welcome to the 89th Page One. This is the 65th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and I'm here, somewhere behind Victoria station in London, with Nick Field.
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Charles Adrian
Um...
Nick Field
Oh, I love the fact you've got a jingle.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Yes. That just... I think just starts us off with the right, kind of, atmosphere.
Nick Field
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I hope.
Nick Field
Yeah, no, that's good.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
I like a jingle.
Charles Adrian
How are you, Nick? Thanks for coming.
Nick Field
Oh, well, thank you very much. It's nice to see you.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Let me... yeah, ask you how you describe yourself.
Nick Field
Well, I am a performance artist and writer and musician. I think that's probably how I describe myself.
Charles Adrian
Okay. What kind of music do you make?
Nick Field
Well, I... so I have a band called Waterpoppet.
sound
[drinks arrive]
Nick Field
Thank you.
Charles Adrian
Thank you.
Nick Field
So I make... it's kind of like electro-ey folk.
Charles Adrian
Electro-ey folk. Okay.
Nick Field
Yeah. Is kind of where it's coming from but it's going more electro-ey, I think. But there's always an acoustic basis because I always write on acoustic instruments. And I write very much with, kind of, vocals in mind and harmonies and things like that. But... And I'm a harpist so the harp is often at the centre of what I do. I usually on the harp.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] You're a harpist?
Nick Field
I usually write the songs on the harp initially and then build everything else around it. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Oh, that's interesting because that's pretty rare. There are not so many harpists.
Nick Field
There's not. There's not a lot. And I tend to, like, get rid of the... [laughing] I get rid of the competition. I'm like, ‘Ooo...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
That harpist fell down a... down the stairs.’ No I don't. No, there's not a lot. And there's not a lot of, kind of, boy harpists either.
Charles Adrian
Uh huh? Mostly women, are they?
Nick Field
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I suppose it does... Yeah, it has a feminine reputation, I suppose. There's something about the, kind of, floatiness of it that would seem quite feminine perhaps.
Nick Field
Yeah but I think what interests me about the harp is that there's all sorts of different textures in there. And you can actually do a lot... It doesn't have to be feminine. Yes, you can absolutely go to that place of floatiness and that's beautiful. But it can be quite sinister. You can take it to quite a dark place. Obviously, it has this really beautiful deep resonance. So it just has lots of different things you can work with. I quite like working against the expectations of what the harp is.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Oh, nice. Nice. Very nice. Okay. Hopefully... Can I link to some music? Do you have anything online?
Nick Field
I do, yeah. We have a bandcamp page.
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Nick Field
Waterpoppet.
Charles Adrian
Great. I will put a link. What's the book that you've brought that you like?
Nick Field
So the book that I like is The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon by Tom Spanbauer, which I read fairly recently and is one of the few books that I've actually missed Tube stops...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
... [laughing] because I was reading it and I was so engrossed. I was like, ‘Oh, I've actually... I was supposed to get off two Tube stops ago’.
Charles Adrian
That's the sign of a good book.
Nick Field
I think so.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Nick Field
And it's a really... It's just a very, very fascinating book about the, sort of, Midwest. About a boy who thinks he's Indian – or Ameri... Native American – and who... It's just about this, sort of, patchwork of identity that he has to, sort of, put together throughout the book.
Charles Adrian
Oh interesting. Read the first page.
Nick Field
Okay.
If you're the devil, then it's not me telling this story. Not me being Out-In-The-Shed. That's the name she gave me not even knowing. She being Ida Richilieu, and later, after what happened up on Devil's Pass, they called her Peg-Leg Ida.
Hey-You and Come-Over-Here-Boy were also what I thought were my names. First ten years or so, I thought I was who those tybo words were saying. Tybo being “white man” in my language. My language being some words I can still remember.
My mother was a Bannock and she worked for Ida, cleaning, and whenever a man took a fancy for a breed. That's how I came about—or so I thought. My mother was called [sic] Duivichi-un-Dua which means something, which means I was somebody to have a name like that—not like Out-In-The-Shed. Took me a long time to find out what my Indian name means. One of the reasons why is because my name's not Bannock but Shoshone, so none of the Bannock could ever tell me when I was [sic] asked. Always thought my mother was Bannock. Guess she was Shoshone. Why else would she give me a Shoshone name?
My mother died when I was a kid just ten or eleven years old. Murdered by a man named Billy Blizzard. One of the things I remember about my mother is that she gave me my name and that I was never to answer to my name because it might be the devil asking.
Charles Adrian
Oh, I like that last sentence.
Nick Field
So there's this, sort of, theme of evil running through it. And, sort of, redemption and this, kind of, quest for knowledge and identity, which is very fascinating. It's very queer.
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Nick Field
It's a very queer book. And it's just... it's brutal but it's... there's a beauty to it as well and an incredible poetry.
Charles Adrian
[appreciative] Mmm. Oh it sounds... it, yeah, sounds very interesting. Yeah, that idea of always dodging, always hiding, always making sure that you're not found out. That's... I think that... yeah, that sounds very strong.
Nick Field
And it, sort of, starts there and it ends there very strongly. So it starts with him, kind of, hiding – and he's a young man – and it ends with him as an old man still hiding but in a completely different way. It's an incredible... It's a beautiful, sort of, transition that, kind of, takes you round in a circle.
Charles Adrian
How nice!
Nick Field
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Very nice.
Nick Field
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Oh wonderful. Thank you. Okay, now I'm going to play the first track that I've chosen. You gave me a list of artists and I've chosen... The first one is by Dolly Parton.
Nick Field
Yass!
Charles Adrian
Did you see Dolly Parton at Glastonbury this weekend?
Nick Field
I did! She was [laughing] quite amazing.
Charles Adrian
Was she good?
Nick Field
She was really good. I mean, it's quite surreal because she's seventy. She's [laughing] very sprightly.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
And I particularly liked her crotch necklace [laughing], which… I don't know if you saw the outfit. I would encourage anyone to witness that.
Charles Adrian
I didn't see a picture of her, I don't think, no.
Nick Field
I feel that crotch necklaces have a future in fashion.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
[laughing] But, yeah, I thought she was just amazing. And the thing is, obviously, she's, kind of, got it all down. She's got the patter.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Nick Field
And I'm sure it's the same every [laughing] time.
Charles Adrian
Right. Yes.
Nick Field
But she, kind of, did this really brilliant thing where she created a song for Glastonbury that morning, which just, kind of, kept it fresh. I think she's just very inventive and she's a brilliant musician...
sound
[microphone falling]
Nick Field
... what an amazing voice.
Nick and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
We just have to...
Nick Field
Drop the microphone.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, I don't know. That was a... quite a forward roll. [laughing] Okay. Let it calm down for a second and then... [laughs]
Nick Field
[laughing] I got excited talking about Dolly Parton.
Nick and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Okay, so this is Harper Valley PTA.
Nick Field
Oh, lovely.
Charles Adrian
Do you know this track?
Nick Field
[laughing] No I don't actually.
Charles Adrian
Aw! Well, you should do. This is wonderful. This really sweet. It's one of her narrative tracks.
Nick Field
[laughing] Oh, great.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] It's supposed to be about her mother.
Nick Field
Amazing.
Charles Adrian
So, here it is. Harper Valley PTA by Dolly Parton.
Music
[Harper Valley PTA by Dolly Parton]
Charles Adrian
Okay, so that was Dolly Parton singing [laughing] Harper Valley PTA.
Nick Field
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
So now it's time for me to give you the book that I've brought for you, Nick.
Nick Field
[speaking over] Ooo!
Charles Adrian
And I'm a little bit distracted, I have to admit, because the people just inside the window here have been eating a cooked breakfast .I've recently given up meat so...
Nick Field
Oh, have you?
Charles Adrian
... [laughing] I've been watching... I've been watching him eat the...
Nick Field
[laughs] Oh, you're like...
Charles Adrian
... sausage with a certain amount of...
Nick Field
Were you just ready to lick the window?
Charles Adrian
More or... I'm three weeks into being vegetarian and...
Nick Field
Are you fully veggie?
Charles Adrian
I'm fully veggie at the moment.
Nick Field
Not vegan because that's really hard.
Charles Adrian
No that would be too hard.
Nick Field
Yeah, that's really hard.
Charles Adrian
That would be too hard. So I will just... Sorry. That's just an excuse really for... I'm giving you Drown, which is a collection of stories by Junot Diaz. I don't know if... Have you heard of him?
Nick Field
I haven't. No.
Charles Adrian
He's... Recently, a few people I know have been posting a quote. I'm going to read you the quote because I think it's a good one. It's a quotation... I don't know where the quotation comes from. It's from him about why he writes And he says, ‘You guys know about vampires? You know vampires have no reflection in a mirror? There's this idea that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. And what I've always thought isn't that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. It's that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn't see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? [That] the whole society seems to think that people like me don't exist?” And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous. for it.’
Nick Field
Wow.
Charles Adrian
Which is... I think is very interesting because – kind of following on from your book...
Nick Field
Yes.
Charles Adrian
... what he writes is not queer but it has that same thing running through it, I think, of people not... Yeah, not feeling themselves reflected in the world, which I think is really interesting. His Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar... Wao I think [laughs] the boy's name is. Yeah. Woa [/waʊ/]. I suppose that's how you pronounce it. W A O. Which is about this, kind of, chubby kid growing up a Dominican. Have I got that right...? Yeah. And so he's growing up in this very macho culture. And it's all about, you know, ‘If you're a man, it means you're sleeping with women’. And he's really not. He's a geek and he's chubby and he's just not succeeding.
Nick Field
Right.
Charles Adrian
And this is a whole selection of stories about the experience of being different – ethnically but also within... I think, within the culture that's surrounding him.
Nick Field
[speaking over] Within the cul... Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I'm going to read you the first page of the first story, which is called Ysrael – spelled with a Y.
Nick Field
Lovely.
Charles Adrian
1
We were on our way to the colmado for an errand, a beer for my tío, when Rafa stood still and tilted his head, as if listening to a message I couldn't hear, something beamed in from afar. We were close to the colmado; you could hear the music and the gentle clop of drunken voices. I was nine that summer, but my brother was twelve, and he was the one who wanted to see Ysrael, who looked out towards Barbacoa and said, We should pay that kid a visit.
2
Mami shipped me and Rafa out to the campo every summer. She worked long hours at the chocolate factory and didn't have the time or the energy to look after us during the months school was out. Rafa and I stayed with our tíos in a small wooden house just outside Ocoa; rose bushes blazed around the yard like compass points and the mango trees spread out deep blankets of shade where we could rest and play dominoes, but the campo is nothing like our barrio in Santo Domingo. In the campo there was nothing to do, no one to see. You didn't get television or electricity and Rafa, who was older and expected more, woke up every morning pissy and dissatisfied. He stood...
There you go.
Nick Field
Oh lovely. Thank you so much.
Charles Adrian
You will be plunged into their world somehow and then plunged into another world. And then another one and nother one. It's a collection of short stories.
Nick Field
Oh wonderful. Thank you so much.
Charles Adrian
Oh, and you get a bookmark – free bookmark – from Daunt Books...
Nick Field
[speaking over] A free...! Oh! For travellers.
Charles Adrian
... which is possibly where I bought that.
Nick Field
Interesting. Interesting.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Might be.
Nick Field
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
So what's the book that you're giving to me?
Nick Field
Okay. So the book I'm giving to you is The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.
Charles Adrian
[interested] Uh huh.
Nick Field
And I read this book while I was in Bahia [/bəhiːə/] in Brazil, which was interesting because...
Charles Adrian
Is that how you pronounce it?
Nick Field
Bahia [/bəhiːə/].
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Nick Field
[speaking over] Bahia [/bəhiːə/]. [indistinct] Yes.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
I'm like a native.
Nick and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Nick Field
And... So basically this is a story about a doctor – a village doctor – who grew up in the shadow of this, kind of, great house and this great family that were, sort of... you know, it was, like... kind of like the lord and lady of the manor basically, in a way. It's, kind of, British aristocracy. It's, kind of... It's just postwar. And then he's an adult still live... still in the same village as a doctor and the house is crumbling and the family have lost all their money and they're trapped with... basically they're trapped in the house and they're trapped in a legacy. And he becomes increasingly involved with the family but as he becomes involved with them terrible things start to happen to the family. And they seem supernatural. So there's a supernatural sense of these terrible things that are happening. And there's all... People see ghosts and voices appear and people start to get slashed in the night and it becomes increasingly...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh wow. So it's quite violent.
Nick Field
... dark and violent. And then there's lots of death in it. But it's all [laughing] very British. So it's all very, kind of... Everyone's like, ‘It's all fine. Everything's okay. We're all right really.’
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
[laughing] Yeah. So, you know, it's kind of... There's a lot of, kind of, keeping up appearances but under... but it's also about this, sort of... that period of British history when the class system was collapsing and colonialism was collapsing.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Nick Field
And...
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Oh, well, read me the first page.
Nick Field
Okay.
I first saw Hundreds Hall when I was ten years old. It was the summer after the war, and the Ayreses still had most of their money then, were still big people in the district. The event was an Empire Day fête: I stood with a line of other village children making a Boy Scout salute while Mrs Ayers and the Colonel went past us, handing out commemorative medals; afterwards we sat to tea with our parents at long tables on what I suppose was the south lawn. Mrs Ayres must [sic] have been about [sic] twenty-four or twenty-five, her husband a few years older; their little girl, Susan, would have been about six. They must have made a very handsome family, but my memory of them is vague. I recall most vividly the house itself, which struck me as an absolute mansion. I remember its lovely ageing details: the worn red brick, the cockled window glass, the weathered sandstone edgings. They made it look blurred and slightly uncertain—like an ice, I thought, just beginning to melt in the sun.
There were no trips inside, of course. The doors and French windows stood open, but each had a rope or a ribbon tied across it; the lavatories set aside for our use were the grooms’ and the gardeners’, in the stable block. My mother, however, still had friends...
Charles Adrian
Still had friends?
Nick Field
That's where it ends.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
The first page.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Wonderful.
Nick Field
[speaking over] It carries on! [laughing] ‘... still had friends among the servants...’
Nick and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
It sounds like such a brilliant non-sequitur, doesn't it?
Nick Field
[speaking over] [in an exaggerated voice] She still had friends.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Nick Field
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I love it.
Nick Field
But I think the thing about that is... Because I grew up in a little village in Winchester... outside Winchester and for me that seems like something out of my childhood because we had, like, a lord and lady of the manor who used to come down and give us medals.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
You know what I mean? It was still... that was still...
Charles Adrian
That still happened.
Nick Field
... happening.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Nick Field
You know? So I think it's this really fascinating... really fascinating through line.
Charles Adrian
[appreciative] Mmm. That's really interesting. I read The Nightwatch by her. And I was in Italy when I read that. It was... I was there for seven weeks and I hadn't brought enough books with me so I had to read it several times...
Nick Field
Oh!
Charles Adrian
... just for something to do.
Nick Field
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
[laughing] I rather went off her as a result.
Nick Field
[laughing] Okay.
Nick and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
But it had that same, kind of... Yeah, I get the feeling that she's very interested by... in class.
Nick Field
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
And she's interested in... I don't know why... you know, whether... because it didn't... The historical setting. I don't know how important that was in... I mean, obviously, The Nightwatch is about a particular period in history but she's talking about relationships. I wonder if that's just a way of making it more remote so that she can talk about the things that she is interested in.
Nick Field
I think so. I think... You know, in this book the relationships are really key – and it's about, sort of, a crumbling family and it's about someone trying to, kind of, get into the crumbling family – but really it's, you know, that he wants the house. You know, he's talking about the house from the first book... from the first page. And the house is always prevalent. So whether or not, you know, the suggestion... By the end I didn't really know [laughing] what had happened. I still haven't quite worked out...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
... what the ghosty thing was or what the supernatural elements... or what they all were linked up or... But, you know, the suggestion for me is that he bri... his, kind of, desire to have this house brings these things to this family.
Charles Adrian
Right. Okay.
Nick Field
That's one way to look at it.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, yeah. Okay, that would be a... well, very... a very classic, sort of, Freudian ghost story reading of this.
Nick Field
[speaking over] Yeah, and it's kind of... it's quite gothic. You know, it's definitely got a gothic influence.
Charles Adrian
[appreciative] Mmm. Oh, lovely. Thank you so much.
Nick Field
[speaking over] [indistinct]
Charles Adrian
I'm going to look forward to that.
Nick Field
Yes. [laughing] Maybe you'll discover Sarah Walters all over again.
Charles Adrian
Again.
Nick Field
Just read it once.
Nick and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
I'm not going to overdo it this time. Now, I'm going to play the second track that I've picked. Gosh, the wind is picking up around us. It's something [laughing] leaking out of the book, I think. I'm going to play Lana Del Rey.
Nick Field
Lovely. I'm having a moment.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] She's been in the news a certain amount over the last week because of her Glastonbury...
Nick Field
[speaking over] Oh! Which I witnessed.
Charles Adrian
... set. Did you see that as well? Yes.
Nick Field
I did. I've got Lana Del Reybies right now, [laughing] I've decided.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
It suddenly happened. Well, I think what's really... what I like about her... you know, because she sudden... I like the, kind of, David Lynchian, sort of, conspiracy theory backstory about how she was, kind of, created, which, you know, I think gives her... is a slightly [sic] disservice to actually who she is now as an artist. But, you know, obviously she's got a slightly different face than when she [laughing] started out and a different name.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nick Field
But...
Charles Adrian
Well, it's working for her.
Nick Field
It's working for her. But, you know, I think the thing was that... I was quite dismissive of her at first – I think a lot of people were – and I think also she hadn't quite developed as an artist and suddenly she got very famous. And she gave... there was a lot of, kind of, slightly dodgy performances and... you know, it didn't qu... something about it didn't quite match up. And I think with... You know, when I saw at Glastonbury I was like, ‘Okay, well, you've either put in the work or you have... you're now owning it’. Because she's, kind of, walking this really interesting line between quite diva... strong diva presence and this real loucheness. And it's all with a bit of a wink. And her voice has really developed.
Charles Adrian
Okay. That's interesting.
Nick Field
She can do more than three notes now. And so it was... it was very... it was a really strong performance. I was listening to the album last night – the new one – and I think it's... you know, it's really, really quite a strong piece of work. So yes, I'm liking Lana at the moment.
Charles Adrian
Okay. I've picked... Yes, I don't really know her stuff very much. I've picked Born to Die.
Nick Field
Lovely.
Charles Adrian
Which is a beautiful...
Nick Field
Yes.
Charles Adrian
... beautiful track. So this has been our Page One. Thank you so much, Nick.
Nick Field
Thank you.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] This has been lovely.
Nick Field
Yes. Thank you so much.
Music
[Born to Die by Lana Del Rey]
Jingle
Thank you for listening to Page One. For more information about the podcast please go to pageonepodcast.com.
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]