Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth

Hey listeners, this is Tyler. As the year ends, I'm reflecting on the incredible stories listeners have shared with me about how Conversations with Tyler has impacted their lives. From inspiring career changes to fostering intellectual growth, this show has profoundly impacted your lives, and for that I'm delighted and also grateful for your listenership. Please help us keep the conversations going in 2025. Your support will ensure that Conversations with Tyler remains a source of inspiration and growth for listeners worldwide. This year, we're offering special incentives to those who give. First, those who donate $250 or more by December 16th will receive a shout-out on our annual retrospective episode releasing Christmas Day. Second, the first 24 people who donate $750 or more will sponsor one of our episode transcripts in 2025 and receive a podcast shout-out. Finally, those who donate $1,500 or more will join me for a small group virtual "Ask Me Anything" and also receive the transcript sponsorship and podcast shout-out. Your donation supports everything, including production costs, enhanced transcripts, live events, and listener meetups. Every contribution in any amount helps us bring you more conversations. So to support Conversations with Tyler, click the link at the top of the show notes. Thank you. Conversations with Tyler Cowen is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. Learn more at mercatus.org. For a full transcript of every conversation enhanced with helpful links, visit conversationswithtyler.com. Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Today I'm talking with Paula Byrne. She has a new book out here, which I found in Daunt Bookstore in London. It is called Hardy Women. Mothers, Sisters, Wives, Muses. It's about the women in the life of Thomas Hardy and in the novels of Thomas Hardy. Paula is a very well-known and best-selling biographer. She has, among other things, books on Jane Austen, which are wonderful, Evelyn Waugh, a best-selling book about JFK's sister based on new archival research, a best-selling biography of Barbara Pym. She has done work on 18th century slavery, images of Jane Austen. She has written 2 novels and she leads a group called Re-Lit devoted to the notion of bibliotherapy. Paula, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

Simple opening question. What did Virginia Woolf think when she went to visit Thomas Hardy?

I loved what she said when she says his face looked like a round apple, 'cause I always think of him with apples, partly because they made cider at home when he was a young boy. And I think it's just such a brilliant description of that sort of little apple, hot, sort of slightly like an old withered apple, but still retaining some sort of juicy flesh. I think she did really like him. I think she liked him more than she expected to like him, which I think often happened with Hardy. People expected him to be really dour and pessimistic because obviously of the books, and then when they met him, they were quite charmed. He had a very soft and gentle voice. And it was quite bewitching. It was quite mesmerizing. So, and I think she was very moved, obviously, because of her father and her and Leslie Stephen's relationship with Hardy. So, she wasn't as acerbic as she was with quite a few people. I think she gave him quite an easy time on the whole.

And this would've been in the teens, right, of the 20th century that she saw him?

Yeah, I was just saying, he was quite sort of caustic about the sorts of novels that she wrote that don't have a, beginning, middle, and an end. So, and she took it, you know, in good humor, but he was definitely sort of feeling that the world of the novel had changed beyond recognition, which it had, and that she was a pioneer of some of that. But he was still very sort of old-fashioned about a story must have that trajectory, beginning, middle, end. But I think they got on very well.

If one visits Wessex today, Are there still traces of Hardy's world, or is it just simply homogenized and that's quite gone?

Yeah, I mean, I think it is quite homogenized. The house, Max Gate, which is where I got the idea for writing the book, obviously retains that original sort of charm. It's very dark, and it's an ugly house. But it's still— I think the spirit is there. And I vividly remember two things. One was the his study at the top of the house where he wrote Tess, and just feeling just, just the power of that room. And then the other room that really inspired the book was Emma's attic room where she disappeared for sort of 15 years. So I think you get a little feel of that in the house in Max Gate, and certainly in the cottage, because that is so beautiful. I've been— I've made many pilgrimages to Hardy's birthplace over the years, and that feels so unspoiled. But I mean, Dorchester, for example, is grim. It's shut down. It's just a horrible place. So you don't really get much of the sense of like the real rustic flavor, but the cottage is charming still.

But say if one goes to Cornwall or Northumbria, you do feel traces of the past. Liverpool, for that matter. Why not Wessex? What went wrong there?

It's a really good question. Liverpool, I don't know, maybe Liverpool, you know, it's a port. And I think that's really important that the thing about a port I'm in Manhattan now, and I'm by the river, and it really feels like Liverpool. I feel like I'm back in Liverpool. I think there's something about a port because it's always changing. People are coming and going. There's musical influences. So, you'd almost think that somewhere like Wessex, it would be easier to retain some of that. And yet, it does— it just has— I felt it looks very run down. I mean, I'm thinking really here of Dorchester, but obviously, places like, you know, the seaside, Lulworth Cove, and all these beautiful places are still incredibly gorgeous. And I think that's where you do really get a feel. And to some extent, Dorchester, you know, where the prison was, and you look— and Winchester, where Tess was hanged. I mean, there are— there are places in England where I think you can get a feel for that. But I think if you live in the life of the imagination like I do, I can really see it. But I took my son with me, and he was like, this is a dump, this is horrible, there's no Hardy here. So I think from the young guys, he was just like this world has gone, this world has evaporated, it can never come back.

If we ponder, say, Jude the Obscure, what's your implicit model of why it is for Hardy first marriages are so hard to break from?

I mean, that is a massive question. And Jude, I think so much of Hardy's life is poured into Jude. It was such a personal book for him. It would take a very, very long time to answer that question, but it was also around the time when he was writing Jude that his marriage had by then completely ended. There was no going back. And really interesting, it was the first book that Emma did not like, didn't want anything to do with, because there is this idea running through it is, "Why can't you end an unsatisfactory marriage? Why can't you just live with somebody? Why can't you just divorce somebody?" And this is a refrain, like, what do you do if you can't afford divorce or it's still frowned upon? Well, you could sell your wife, like in the Maricaster. Or, you know, you can do what Jude does, which is you live with the object of your desire for the second time around. But it's, it's a question— the second marriage question was so huge for Hardy because he was so miserable. He was so miserable in his first marriage, and he just couldn't see a way out. But he did also come from that background, that working-class background, where it's still really frowned upon to divorce or to leave your marriage. And it was so complicated with him because when she does die, he sort of fell back in love with her, which is so typical Hardy.

But why write the 1913, 1914 poems to her? He's in what, the first year of his marriage to Florence? She can't be crazy about that. Why is he self-destructive? Or is it what he needs to do to make a second marriage work?

I don't know. I mean, there was a cruel streak in him, I think. I think you have to be quite cold-hearted to do what he did to Florence, because having sort of moaned and complained about Emma and pretty much moved Florence in, then to fall back in love with his wife is a little perverse. And of course, it made Florence feel completely awful, and then she couldn't live with— it was like Therese Raquin, she couldn't live with the dead ghost. But I do also think, this is where my sympathy swings for Hardy, that when somebody does die, you tend not to think of the bad things they've done. You tend just to remember the good things they've done. I've noticed this over and over again. People tend to just really linger on the positives. And there was so much remorse, and he just did remember that beautiful young Emma, so he did want to pay tribute to that. But you've just gotta remember Tyler as well, he's a writer, like, he's gonna use that for copy. And he knew those poems were good, and it did unleash something so emotional in him that— And he wanted to be a poet, he didn't want to be a novelist, and I think that's really important to remember. He did not want to be a novelist, he felt almost pushed into it. He wanted to be a poet, and I think then when he starts writing this amazing poetry, He knows this is good, and that's how he wanted to be remembered. And I think in that sense, he didn't really care that it hurt Florence.

Now, you're also a couples counselor. Do you still see this in couples today with first and second marriages?

Yeah. It's a short answer.

Good answer. Why do so many Hardy tragedies come in doubles?

Can you say more about that?

Well, the story in, say, Jude the Obscure, right? There's two women, there's two men. There's a total of multiple marriages, Mayor of Casterbridge, there's the doubling as a theme. It seems very Shakespearean, right? That there's a kind of ensemble of tragedy and different stories mirror each other or they show different facets of each other.

I mean, I've never thought about it, but I think it's a really lovely point. And I think that it's a great plot technique as well, that sort of shadowing and that mirroring. I think I mean, he's a great— I love his plots, you know. I think it's really— it's just so hard to get a plot right, and he does that really, really well. So I think again, but again, for me, for me writing the book, I was always conscious of this is a man that, between those later novels, wants to get out of his marriage. So he's always looking at the alternative relationship, like what would happen if this happens, or what happens if that wife dies. So he's always got that refrain going through in those later novels, but not in the first ones when he's still so madly in love. But also with Hardy, he's always in love with unattainable. Like, that's what— that's the whole thing with him. That's why I think The Well-Beloved is so interesting, because it's the pursuit of the well-beloved that you— once you get it, you don't want it. And I see that in couples counseling a lot, is that, you know, once you get it, you know, and, and, you know, you, you might have an affair and then you've got what you want, and then suddenly all those small horrible things that you haven't seen because it's all been so romantic— like, oh God, he doesn't brush his teeth before breakfast, or those sorts of tiny things— and the illusion is broken, and then you're just back in the same place. So I think for me, for Hardy, he almost as soon as he married Florence, he was falling in love with somebody else. And that's just what he seems to do all throughout his life, that unattainable beauty, because he's so susceptible to female beauty.

In your readings, what do you take to be the primary Shakespearean element in Hardy, just subjectively?

I think there's a divinity that roughhews our ends, shape them as you will, that sort of sense of— I'm thinking again of Tess here as well, of the idea that the gods are peevish, and they've got a plan, and they don't really care, and that they're just gonna move the pieces of chess on the board. And I think of King Lear as well on that, and the heath. So, I think that sense of, yeah, that sort of fatalism, that sense that almost there's no free will. Like, what could Tess do? There's nothing she could do because the gods have got a plan. And that sense of providence, that is really, deeply Shakespearean in Shakespeare's very dark period, I have to say.

As you point out, Hardy never really stopped working until he had to. How good is the unknown Hardy? It seems to me everyone reads the same few novels. What do you recommend from the rest?

I really like the minor works, and I'm gonna— I am gonna confess, like everybody else, I'd only read the— before I undertook the biography, I read all the big ones. So obviously, the first thing I did was set myself to read everything, and I did it in chronological order because I think that's really important. I always do that. I do that with Evelyn or just read everything, because I think you can really see the growth. And I do think some of those minor novels are really, really fascinating and sort of not Hardy-esque, you know, Two on a Tower. It's just so fascinating. It's so brilliant, the telegraph and all the sense of the new world and innovations. So I do, I really like the minor works. I find them interesting, but above all, I really love the poetry. And that— I really, really fell in love with the early poetry written when he was sort of 25, because it's so modern. It was so shocking. Like, when I read some of those early sonnets, I just thought, this sounds like somebody is writing it today. It has the most fresh feel and voice. I would urge anybody who thinks they know Hardy to go back and read those early poems, because they, they're really quite astonishing. But I do, I do really like the minor works as well.

Now, in another book, you argued that Mary Robinson was arguably the most interesting woman of her day in 18th century England. Why?

I think because she really understood celebrity even before celebrity had been invented. She really understood how to market herself, how to fashion herself, how to reinvent herself, and how to support herself. And she was really, I think, a very, very interesting writer. She understood the importance of image really before many, many, many people did and used it to her advantage. So I think she is, for many, many reasons, so fascinating. And, you know, the poetry editor of the Morning Post, I mean, she was a prolific writer and poet. She didn't let her disability impede her. Just more than anything, she just really— I was really frightened of her when I was writing about her. I was like, I don't— I don't ever want to meet this woman. She's really scary. But, and I couldn't wait to get out of my house when I'd finished writing about her. But I still, I think about her all the time. In fact, I'm writing a novel about her at the minute.

That's great. Who is arguably the most interesting woman in England today?

Hmm. That is such a good question. I don't really find anybody interesting in England, really.

Katherine Rundell? Amiya Srinivasan? I would think Catherine Rundell, whether or not one agrees, she would be the obvious first pick.

I just, my mind just goes like, I instantly go to people like Sally Rooney, but I don't really like her. It's like, I just, I'm so—

And that's not England. Yeah.

And that's Ireland. Yeah. Not Great Britain.

Well, you are from Liverpool, right?

I am from Liverpool. Yeah.

Yeah.

But the other side of the water, Merseyside. So yeah.

But they have a lot in common culturally.

Yeah, no, they do. They do. But I, I, yeah, I've been living in America for far too long. I've been in America for 6 years. So I'm like, I, I'm really not sort of aware of interesting women, much to my shame.

Now, you've had a longstanding interest in Jane Austen. What's your sense if you think of late Georgian theater in England, which was a big influence on Austen, but just how good was it? If you or I went to one of those plays, Would we be bored? Would we think it's stupid? Would we be amazed and wonder why the theater had declined? What do you think? Obviously, it's guesswork, but you must have a sense.

I think they did it quite interestingly because, you know, they would do like a 5-act serious play, and then there would be like a farce, and then there would be, or at a dance. And so, there was a little bit of something for everybody. So, you could go and see your Shakespeare. And I think, particularly in the Georgian era, this is the time when those really great actors, you know, Sarah Siddons and, you know, obviously Garrick, coming to the end of Garrick, but, Kean, Edmund Kean, George Cooke, you know, these— Dora Jordan, these absolutely brilliant actors. And it's so hard, 'cause we don't know how— why they were so great. Like, we've— I mean, Jane Austen talks about Edmund Kean in her letters and says, "He's so natural." But we don't know what that means. Like, to us, it's like, we think of method acting, don't we? We instantly— we might go to Sean Penn, or we might go to the great method actors. And so when they say, "Oh, he's so natural," What does that actually mean? It can't mean the same thing that it can mean to us. But what I do know is it wasn't like declamation and, you know, throwing your hands and being like over the top. It was tempered down. I think when Jane Austen calls it real hardened acting, good acting is real hardened acting. So I think there was definitely, you could see some of that. But a lot of people just sometimes went for the farce. And the farces, I think, were great. Like, She Stoops to Conquer is hilarious. The rivals, Sheridan. People would just go and, you know, spend, they go halfway in and stop see the last bit of the main play, and then they'd see some great farce. And I think often people went to see each other, you know, they went to look at each other. So there was a lot of gazing around the room and who's there, what are they wearing, what are they doing. And also it's very noisy, so people didn't sit there in deference like they do now. They'll be chatting and jostling and talking, and it was much more sociable. And it's a place where the classes intermingle, and there aren't many places like that in Georgian society because it's so stratified. So I think it's really fascinating as a sort of social space where you might You might mistake a prostitute with a fine lady because she's wearing the clothes of a fine lady because she's bought them secondhand. You've got all these interesting things going on, but I think it would be really good fun.

And how is the farce related to Austen?

Well, she loved farce. You know, she, in her letters, she talks about going to see Don Juan, and she, and it's a farce, and she's like, "A compound of cruelty and lust," she calls it. But she, and there's other farces that she, The Wonder That a Woman Keeps a Secret, it's not very funny, feminist, um, by Susan Sontag. And she's laughing, she says, oh, the farce really pleased me. And I think she had quite low taste. I think she was hard to please, so she really liked the farce. And also she used to take the children of the family, so they'd like a good farce. So I think she was quite eclectic in her taste. But you know, these clowns were really funny and they were really good. And I think I say she wasn't a snob, she wasn't an intellectual snob. She didn't just— she did want to see Mrs. Siddons in, in the great Shakespearean roles, But she also loved comedy, and she is a comic writer, which we all forget about, which is the most important thing to remember about Jane Austen is how funny she is. So, and I would, I argued in my very first book that she could never have been such a good comic writer if she hadn't watched all those farces, if they hadn't performed them at home, if she hadn't read them, because her sense of comic timing is derived from 18th-century theater. Pride and Prejudice is so much dialogue. So it is like being at a play, and then she used to read her novels aloud, and that is like being at a play as well. So I— for me, that was such a big and undervalued influence.

How is Mansfield Park set against a background of war? Total war, you could say, by the standards of the time.

Well, she's a war novelist because, you know, many of her novels are written in the background of the French Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. And Mansfield Park, I think, is particularly— 1814 is a really interesting year. There's some very interesting books being written in that year. It happens to be my favorite Jane Austen novel, Mansfield Park. I know everybody hates it, but I really love it. I find it so different to the others and so much more serious and so much more interesting. So, although she doesn't set out to deal with— she's not a war novelist, but it infiltrates, you know, it's so turbulent, you know, there's something is always happening in the shadow hinterlands. You know, you will get that a feeling with Mansfield Park of great unease, I think, that the house itself's corrupt. I've always felt that the Crawfords coming in and corrupting the house isn't what's really going on. It's the house that's corrupt, and the house is built on the spoils of the slave trade. So, I think it's much more interestingly politically.

The trips to Antigua, there to slave plantations?

Yeah. Very clearly, and she says so. And Sir Thomas, the house is built— it's a new house, Mansfield Park. It's built on the spoils of the slave trade. And he goes out 'cause there's unrest, and we don't know what that is, but there were enslaved riots happening at the time, especially in Antigua. And he takes his wild son with him in the hope to get him away from wild company, which doesn't work. But I think you always get that sense of the spoils of the slave trade. And then, of course, Fanny's the only one brave enough to ask Sir Thomas when he comes back, and she asks the question about the slave trade. And nobody else is really interested. They don't want to talk more about it, but she does. So it's— and, you know, it's a very important moment in the novel that this shy, timid, diffident little girl is the one who says, what, you know, tell me more about what's happening with the slave trade. So, and again, the Lord Mansfield connection. Anybody reading Mansfield Park is going to think of Lord Mansfield and his, his role in the abolition of the slave trade. So it's— that's about the nearest I think she does come to to politics. She stays away from it, a bit like me, but it's there.

It all seems political to me, just the relationships between the sexes and class and who does what to get ahead. I'm not sure she sees a relevant alternative, but it's mostly an indictment as I read those novels.

Yeah, I would agree.

She was an abolitionist, right?

Absolutely. She was obsessed with this really interesting man called Thomas Clarkson, who wrote the first history of the slave trade. He was also from Liverpool. Or he went around Liverpool. I know he might have been from Liverpool, I can't remember. But she was obsessed with Thomas Clarkson, who was the first person to argue that instead of slave and human traffic, if you want to trade with Africa, you could do this with goods, with beads, with clothes, with all sorts of different things. And she really, really— so she absolutely, I think, abhorred the slave trade and everything it stood for.

And when does the opium trade pop up in her novels?

Does it?

Persuasion? Maybe I'm misremembering. Anyway, we will ask ChatGPT in our spare time when we're done.

Definitely.

You recommend a movie, Patricia Rozema's version of Mansfield Park, which is now on my to-watch list. But why is that more interesting and vital than most other Austen adaptations?

I think at the time, it was quite a while ago I saw it, and it did feel very refreshing because it was, it really engaged with the politics, it engaged with the slave trade. I think it revealed field Franny as more spirited. It's not a faithful adaptation, put it that way. And it— I know it really did divide people, but I thought at the time, I was like, it's really fun, it's really risqué, and it's fresh. But then I saw it again recently and I was a little disappointed. I was like, oh, it's not as brilliant. You know how you go back to a film that you love and you think, oh, that's so great, and you go back and you're like, uh. I don't think anybody's really got Mansfield Park right, but there was something very new and fresh and vivid about the way that she filmed it as well. And filmically, it's really interesting. And I really liked her depiction of Tom Bertram, the wayward son, and his engagement with the slave trade. And I really like the way Harold— because Harold Pinter played Sir Thomas, and he was really a— he was, he was a bully, which I've always felt that Sir Thomas is a bully. So she took, she took lots of, lots of risks. I mean, ultimately she doesn't get Fanny right, but I just felt at the time Yeah, keep it fresh, keep it relevant. We don't have to be so faithful, and we don't have to be like all frocks and smocks and big houses. Like, every Jane Austen adaptation, the house is way bigger than what it would have been. She's not interested in aristocrats, she's interested in gentility. So she's— they've always kind of got it wrong. And the ones, the films I like, I love Clueless. Clueless is the best. Yes, I love that adaptation because it's so funny. Like, she just gets the funniness, and that's the really important thing. Clueless is so great. And that has never lost its charm for me.

Your book on Yves Lenoir, the phrase pops up, and I quote, "Naturally fastidious." Why can it be said that so many British people are naturally fastidious?

Your questions are so crazy. I love it. Did I say that?

I think Yves Lenoir said it, not you, but it's in the book.

Do you know? Give me the context of that.

Oh, I'd have to go back and look. It's just in my memory. But it's a claim.

It's a great phrase.

We can evaluate the claim on its own terms, right? I'm not sure they are anymore. It seems maybe they once were, but the stiff upper lip tradition seems much weaker with time.

Stiff upper lip. Yeah, I think Evelyn Waugh would be appalled with the way England has gone. Not true for the States. Yeah, I think, yes, it's different to reticent, isn't it? Festidious, hard to please, it means, doesn't it? Festidious, naturally hard to please. I kind of think that's quite true of even more— certainly of even more, because he was naturally fastidious. That literally sums him up in a phrase.

If I go to Britain as an American, I very much have the feeling that people derive status from having negative opinions more than positive. And that's quite different from this country. Would you agree with that?

I would, and I, I would agree. And I think one of the things I have always loved about America was that— I know it's such a cliché about, you know, Americans have this sense of positivity and you can do anything, but it's true. And, you know, and I do find in England there is a sort of real eeyore sort of dour sort of putting, putting you down or putting you in your place, but I kind of like that as well. So like Scouse humor. It's very much keep you in your place, don't get too big for your boots. And I kind of like it because I think the corollary, the, you know, the opposite of that is what the phoniness of Americans— like, you know, when you go to LA and everyone's like, oh my God, you're so beautiful, that is amazing, and like, oh my God, like, you know, and you just think it— you don't mean a word of what's coming out your lips. So I think like the, the balance— New York, New York feels like the balance is pretty right.

When did that start in Britain? Does it exist at the peak of Victorian Britain? One doesn't feel it in John Stuart Mill or many other writers. What's the evolution of that? Because you've written British biographies about a number of different eras.

You mean the stiff upper lip?

Well, the negativity as a means of conferring status upon yourself.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's slightly tall poppy syndrome that you don't want to big someone up too much because it makes you feel small and it takes your light away from you if you You're a tall poppy. But I think it is tied in with something that I've really come to value the older I've got, which is English reticence and English diffidence. And I actually, the older I get, the more I'm like, I really like that because it does feel very intrinsic to who I am as a British person, which is, it may not be, you might say negative, I might say realistic. You might say pessimistic, I might say honest. You know, it just sort of depends how we, define these things. But I think when someone gives you a compliment, or to me, they mean it in England, they mean it because they very rarely give you one. And I'm like, oh, you must really mean that. And that comes— that has value. And I think that stiff upper lip has value. And as a therapist, it also does not have value. As a therapist, family secrets are the worst thing that you can ever do. So I see both both sides of it, if that makes sense. But in terms of the novel, and in terms of the great writers, I think you're on to— I think you're right about that. There is a sort of deep pessimism that runs, like a strain that runs through it. However, as with Evelyn Waugh and Jane Austen, you always get that leavened with satire, with humor, with don't take yourself too seriously. I think that's the great British sin. Don't take yourself too seriously. Like, if you take yourself too serious, you're doomed.

And do you read Waugh as actually a snob and a misanthrope, or is that a kind of put-on, and that actually he's very good-natured about humanity?

The latter. I completely think it's put-on. And I argued this really strongly in my book, that he— everything was a joke. Everything was up for a joke. And he played the part of the sort of grumpy colonel, which he talked about himself. Deep down, he was incredibly kind to his friends. He was deeply sensitive. He wasn't a snob. He made— and again, Again, he makes fun of the aristocracy in Brideshead, even though people don't always see that. I don't think he was any of those things. I think he was a snob about cleverness. I think he was a bit of an intellectual snob. I think if you were really stupid, he wouldn't have much time for you. But I— and maybe that's a British thing too, but he really valued wit and good conversation. But it didn't matter whether you were— when he was during the war, his bagman adored him. And there's an interview where they're trying to get get this bagman to sort of say, oh, he's a horrible snob, wasn't he? He said, no, he's absolutely lovely. Did he shout at you? Is he horrible to you during the war? No, no, he couldn't have been kinder. And he just— he was somebody who knew him intimately during the war, and he, he just did not have a bad word to say about him. So it's become a bit of a parody, and he became a bit of a parody of it himself. He parodied himself. But I think he played that part, and for me, he certainly was, was not a snob.

If I understand your life history correctly, you and your husband come from very different status bands in British society. How do you think that shapes the books and biographies you write?

I think we're both interested in social class, but I think if you live in England, you are, because it permeates everything. You— that another thing I really love about America is, and I know there is an American class system, I know that, but I've always felt very free in America because people don't judge me by my accent, whereas in England you're instantly— or you were instantly judged by, oh, you're a northerner, that means that you steal things, or you're a northerner, that means that you're stupid, or so. And I, I've never got that in America. So I think my husband and I have always been really fascinated, and we come from different class, different backgrounds, but the great unifying thing for us always was books and literature and art and music and all the things that we have in common. So I think it's— yeah, I mean, it, it does shape, it does shape the writing because I'm, I'm interested in people who write about social class. Jane Austen, even more now, obviously, Barbara Pym. Yeah, to those writers I'm same with him.

But do you have the sense that in your books you're working through something about your own life and your own history and that's what you have to get out and that by doing it indirectly, there's some way you can psychologically resolve that where it won't quite work so directly? 'Cause I feel that way about my books. Mm-hmm. That I'm always writing about myself in some ways.

100%. And I, I've said it many, many times that all biographers are writing autobiographies. Like, you— even the fact that you choose to write about these certain people, I mean, it's something that appeals to you, or you may have been shaped by. So I was really fascinated, right, going back to the Hardy book for a moment. I was really interested in working-class women's stories because I come from that background. And the background I come from, it's very matriarchal, it's Catholic, it's— women had a lot of power. I could never understand middle-class women saying women have no power, because I was like, oh my God, you've never been in my family, because, you know, they were always the storytellers. They were really powerful. The men were like really not as strong as the women. So I was really fascinated by female lore in Thomas Hardy. Like, what are these stories that go through the generations? Do we believe them? These illegitimate children— I was always, always interested in giving people a voice. Now, I wouldn't be drawn to that if I hadn't had that background, because I know that's how women talk and speak. And I think Hardy was really fascinated by working-class women and their strength of character and their stories and their, you know, all those things. So I think you're completely right. I don't think the single book I've come— I've written where I feel cold, where I feel like I don't know this world, or I don't share something of myself. And I think it's just a fallacy to say, oh, I'm really objective, I wrote that book and I'm so objective. I just don't think it works like that. I think you see things that you think, ah, okay, that's really fascinating, as somebody else might say something completely different and not see it. So I think, yeah, for me, there's always my own autobiography, and I hope it doesn't distort it too much.

No, that's great. I love that in the books. I feel a bit, I mean, I don't know you at all, but I feel a bit I know you just reading the biographies.

Oh, that's a lovely thing to say.

A related question, does Paul McCartney still have a Liverpudlian accent? Because he pretends not to. If you listen to 1963 Paul McCartney or more recent Paul McCartney, it's a very different way of speaking. But underneath, do you still hear that he's from Liverpool?

Oh, 100%. See, the thing is, I just think he sounds so Scouse to this day. I think— I know it's softened, 'cause a bit like me, I haven't lived in Merseyside since I was 18, really. I came back for a bit and then moved away again. So I really hear his accent. But I know what you're saying, like with those early, like the accent's really thick and it's very guttural, that it's right back from the throat and it's softened. But to me, I so hear the accent. I'm like, oh my God, he's so Scouse.

Could you explain to me as an American what you've called the poison pen episode? So your husband has a governance post at Oxford and you're there with him and someone starts writing these nasty letters about you. Now people write nasty comments on the internet about me every day, basically, and no one cares. But in the society you're in, this is somehow an event. There's multiple newspaper stories about it. You end up writing a novel partly based on these events. Like, how is it that the poison pen letters have force? It's very puzzling to me.

Again, I really like this line of of questioning. And I think there's something powerful about somebody who takes the trouble to go and buy a nice sheet of paper and a first-class stamp— or in this, I'll tell you a really funny story about that in a minute— and, and write this beautiful letter that has care and precision has been thought about. And then you go and you take it to the post box and you post it. And that's not like— come on, Tyler— that is not like writing, Tyler, you suck, on a tweet. Like, it's really not the same thing, you know. And I'm like, I— and then I remember, I— when it first happened, and the same thing had happened to my best friend who's a clergyman in London, and I called him up and I was like, oh my God, I've got a poison pen letter. And we were talking about the power of this, the question you just made, and he said, he said, darling, you know, there's, there's one question I have to ask you. And he said, is it— did they send a first class— it's so British, this response, by the way— a first class stamp or a second class stamp? And I said, well, it actually was a second-class stamp, and he said, "Oh yes, cheap as well as vicious." And how good was the penmanship? Oh, it was superb. And I knew straight away it was an academic because it was so clever. And I knew it was a woman because it was so clever and bitchy.

And did you ever find out who it was?

I did.

And you found out factually, or you just inferred in a Bayesian sense who it must be?

No, I flushed this person out via Twitter. Letter. So I— she eventually made a mistake. She, she posted a letter with it where there was a camera, and I— and it was by registered post, so she made a mistake. So I pretended that I had camera footage, which I didn't, and I tweeted it and said, sorry, you've been caught, I know who you are, that we've got CCTV camera, you better fess up. And she fessed up. So, and there was— I mean, I sued her as well. There was a— there was— I mean, I didn't want it to go to court because I— she was clearly unwell, and I didn't want to do that. But I, you know, it got very far, and, you know, it did get very far. And full apology.

And what do you take to be the true motive behind it? Just viciousness or mental illness or a little bit of vicious—

a lot of mental illness. I think it was someone whose life hadn't really, really turned out the way she'd expected, and I think she sort of of— there was a little bit of envy. I don't know why, but they felt like there was, like, it should have been me sort of thing. And like really wanting to put me down. Again, that class, that British class thing, that who are you to be parading around Oxford as a Provost's wife? Who knows? Because I never had met this person. I did not know this person. I'd never ever— it was just like, why would you even do that? And everything was from Twitter. Like, she'd— talking about Twitter is my Twitter novel, because I figured out earlier, I was like, oh my God, every— this person doesn't know me. I was like, everything that's in these letters are things that I've tweeted. So, and that was the case as it happened. So, little link there with our Twitter experiences, Tyler.

How many letters were there?

I think there were about, maybe about 20 over a 5-year period.

That's a lot of letters. It's a lot of penmanship.

And they were very long. That's how I knew it was a boring academic because they were so long and convoluted. And I was like, oh, for God's sake, like academic, like typical academics never write any books and whinge and take all their long holidays. Sorry, everyone's gonna absolutely kill me for this, No, they'll love it.

Keep on going.

And then, don't even do anything. And then I was like, you're writing me these 30-page letters, why don't you write a book, love? Like, just do something with your life. I knew it was a female academic, and it was. And it was just like, so it was just, it took, it just took so much of her time. She basically, she later said alcohol had played a part. So I think she would just get completely smashed and then decide to take me down and write these letters. But honestly, they were hilarious. Like they were so funny that I was like, I have to use these letters in a book. This is a waste. This is so, so funny. Like this stalking of me. I was like, it's hilarious. It was just so, but it was so bonkers. It was like baby reindeer before baby reindeer.

Now, if I had known of this at the time, I would've inferred that you were a nonconformist and in some way, some mix of like quite interesting and ambitious and wanted to meet you. You. Did other people in England react that way? Like, did you become a heroine, or did they just assume the letters were somehow some correct, you know, critique of you?

Oh, I don't think I was a heroine at all. I, I was absolutely vilified. I think so many people were just really, like, not happy that I went public. And when I wrote the novel, I was a little bit critical of Oxford as an institution, and that really didn't do me any givers. So, no, I, I did not get many admirers. The greatest— it wasn't my greatest career move. However, I wanted to flush her out, and I wanted her to stop. So I, you know, I was— and I was absolutely determined that something positive would come out of this horrible— because it is distressing, and I know I make light of it, but it is really, really horrible. It was so nasty and vicious and cruel. And then you just think, who is it? And then you start thinking, is it my friend, or is it so-and-so? And it— so you do become quite paranoid So I really feel sorry for famous people because I'm like, they must get this all the time. And then who do you trust? And it's hard enough in an Oxford college to trust anybody because they're all such backstabbers. So like, I was like, oh my God, what if it's somebody like who sees me every day? So you do become a little bit paranoid. But so I think writing the novel was cathartic, and it did enable me to sort of step back from it and say, come on, this is actually quite funny. But I, I didn't get any people saying good. I just A couple of people went, "Good on you. Good on you for doing that." But not many.

And do you think there's some element of jealousy that you are ladybait? And that, to some sense, someone feels that's not deserved? And it's a sort of protest?

100%. 100%. I think they think I'm Lady Docker from Liverpool. And like, I think they think, "Who the hell does she think she is?" And those things don't matter anything. To me, that was Jonathan's accolade, and he deserved it. It. So like, anything that I, you know, getting a title from that is not my title. Like, it's lovely for him and I support him and I think he deserved it. And he, he was— I think he's the only second person to be knighted for services to literature. I was so proud of him, but it wasn't mine. But I definitely think there were some people, particularly in Oxford and Cambridge, who were really, really angry about shit and really thought, who? Because I am outspoken, Tyler. I do say it as it is, and it is the sort of scouser in me, and I don't really put up with bullshit. And I don't think people like that. They thought that I should look— just shut up and up. And so I think there was, there was a lot of viciousness that came as a result of the title. And really interestingly, I don't think you— you can't know this, but it's absolutely true— the first letter came a week after the knighthood was announced. So I think that was the trigger. I was like, ah, somebody's seen this in the papers and this is the trigger. So whether there was— I don't know, I can't say whether there was some sort of, not even envy, but just like, who does she think she Do you think you're an outspoken Liverpudlian as a therapist? Yes.

So you'll just call BS when you hear it?

Completely. And you have to with couples. I love couples. I do all therapy. I do family therapy, but I love couples because you have to call it out. Like, you've got to call people's bullshit out. And of course, you'd only do that when you've created that bond and, you know, but I absolutely will because I will not waste people's time or money. And I will say, you are wasting your time, you're wasting your money. You don't want this and not want that. I will absolutely call it out because I can't bear people who just go into therapy for therapy's sake and waste their money and their time. And in America, it's expensive. It's a lot of money to, to, to speak to me.

Sure.

I've got to be worth it. I've got to be worth it, you know. I want them to feel good about this. So I am outspoken, but I'm gentle too. And I think I've always been a good listener, so I've not had any complaints.

Now, I know it's hard to generalize, but if you think about how American couples American couples are different from British couples? I mean, what ideas come to mind?

I really think American couples are incredibly— I know this makes me sound a bit of a tosser, but they're so sweet. Like, I feel like, well, I lived in Arizona for so long, and I was just like, "God, the relationships are so lovely. They're so kind to each other. They're so warm." And I was like, "British people are just so horrible to each other." I feel like we're always in an Ivy Compton Burnett novel where everyone's like whispering horrible things under their breath to their husbands and their wives. I feel like the family values in America and is huge for me. But it may be the West Coast thing as well. I was like, wow, so much family and support. And of course, not everybody, but my— just generalizing, I'm like, wow, there's a, there's a real support within the, the family that I don't— haven't seen quite so much in England. I think it seems a little bit more fraught. And so many people who marry their college sweethearts, I'm like, how does that even work? Like, how can you still be married to someone you knew when you were 40? It's like, seriously, do you really want to stay together? You can leave.

Do you think there's evidence of any kind of mental health crisis in the US today? And maybe only with people's children, but I see some of this parents with teenagers or children, say, in their 20s. I hear of many more issues than I would have, say, 15 years ago. Maybe people just talk about it more, but this to me is notable. Do you agree or find the same?

I do agree. And my, my favorite group apart from couples are teenagers. They're the population I always wanted to work with in therapy. And I'm fascinated by teenagers. I love them. They're hilarious. And, you know, I— they are just great. And, and I'm shocked by how many teenagers are seriously depressed. Like, I'm, I'm seeing 11-year-olds with depression, 12-year-olds with depression, 13-year-olds with depression. And that's something that I think is new. And just the sense in which— and I'm not going to blame social media for this, because I think social media is fantastic— but the pressure young women, particularly, I noticed in therapy, are under to— to that sort of cult of perfection. And also, when you're bullied, there's no escape. You know, I, I can remember being bullied, and I was like, at least you'd go home, and then your parents would be nice to you, and it'd be fine. Your siblings would just— like, you'd laugh it off. But you— there's no escape. There is no escape. Escape at all. I love that population, and I think there is a huge mental health crisis, no matter what, however way you cut it. There really, really is. And, and the sad thing is, is that I'm a family therapist, so I really love families. I love getting families in a room because you can't just take one person's perspective. Everyone has a different perspective. And, and making families stronger— I think therapy is just so brilliant and important for all families in order to connect. That's, that's the E.M. Forster thing, isn't it? Only connect. But I've been really scared affected by the mental health crisis amongst young people, and particularly in America. I've seen some pretty shocking stuff, I can tell you.

Why do you think it's gotten worse? Because I don't know.

I, again, I mean, people will blame social media, and to some extent it's that. I think a lot of children are really lonely. Both parents work and they, they often go home to an empty house. I mean, I've just had such horrific stories about— there's no community. Like, America is great for community, but I'm like, what? We don't really have that sense of community anymore. Anymore, which I think is so important. Like, you know, I don't know, churches or whatever, like having a sense of community is really important, and we just don't have that anymore. And I think that's a problem. I think there's all sorts of things that I do think social media plays a part. I mean, honestly, it's fascinating. I think about it all the time. I'm like, why, why we got— why we got this bad? Like, what's happened? Why are we in this state that we're in? And I think it is lack of connection, of real meaningful connection.

Now, one hears often of a human capital crisis in Northern England in particular, which of course is where you're from. How would you diagnose that? Because it did not exist in earlier times. What has happened there? Is it just deindustrialization or there's something else in the story?

Again, it's complicated, isn't it? Definitely. I mean, I was just thinking of The Full Monty when you said that, that brilliant film.

Yes.

About the sort of, you know, the emasculation of men, you know, when women could get jobs and it was the men sort of pushing the prams prams. And I can remember seeing that in the North, like the shipbuilding industry, Camelards closing, and you suddenly see more men pushing babies in the prams. It really did make me think of The Full Monty when you said that. But then I think— I think tourism has— since Liverpool was a capital of culture, it became really more prosperous again, and people were getting jobs, and there were the garden festivals. And so I've seen such big changes, but I've been away from it for so long, Tyler. I've been away from the North. I bet— I know, I I haven't really been back for a long time. My sense when I've gone back to Liverpool is it seems so thriving. It feels prosperous in a way it didn't in the '80s.

Oh, it's great.

When I was growing up, it just— it wasn't.

I went there during pandemic. I loved it. It's fantastic. Have you ever bought anything on Penny Lane?

No, but I've been— I've been down Penny Lane many a times. I love the people. The people are really warm. My children love going back because I always took them home because my parents and my family mainly is Liverpool there. And my kids who were brought up in Oxford just said they just thought the North of England was the best places. They, they think the people are friendly and warm and kind and funny, and they found people in Oxford very snobby. So they've always really— I love seeing Liverpool through their eyes as well because they're like, oh, they're so nice, everyone's so kind, and people say hello on the streets. I just, I, I really don't know really so much about the politics because I'm so out of touch, Tyler. I'm really out of touch, and, and I'm, I'm so disillusioned. I'm disillusioned with Keir Starmer. I'm disillusioned with Labour. I'm disappointed. I'm saddened, you know.

I'm—

I think Britain's become, well, like America, a very divisive place. Like, families arguing over politics has become really vicious, you know, within, you know, within families. People not speaking to someone because you voted for Donald Trump, or you— I'm like, wow, how did it get to this? Like, I don't— who cares what you— who's somebody who votes differently to you? You still can love them. But it just becomes— it's become so divisive. I think the pandemics— and the pandemic, going back to mental health, huge, huge impact on adolescents. They really had a hard— many of them had a very hard time during the pandemic. So I think there's, you know, I think there's lots of complementary and complex issues around, around that, really.

What's the most underrated Beatles song?

Hmm. I love the Beatles. I really like the B-sides a lot, and I like George a lot. I'm going to go with Yes It Is.

It's a great song. Yeah. Wonderful harmonies. I said You Won't See Me when someone discussed this with me recently, but Mr. Moonlight also. No one likes, but it's an amazing vocal. One of John's best vocals.

You Won't See Me is a great song.

Yeah.

Yes, that is a great song.

The melancholy in there is just incredible.

The melancholy and the harmonies. And I love this boy, I love all— I think the harmonies of just those early harmonies are so beautiful. But I, I really love the B-sides. And yes, it is. Yeah, it is gorgeous.

What's the weirdest thing about living in Arizona? Like, truly weird? I don't know.

Uh, the weirdest thing about living in Arizona that. Oh gosh, there's so many. Oh my God, I'm really—

and you're in Phoenix, you're near Phoenix, right? You're near Phoenix?

Yeah, sort of Scottsdale. I love, I love the landscape, it's incredibly beautiful. What's the weirdest thing? Do you know what I think it is? I know this makes me sound so incredibly shallow, it's that the restaurants are in malls, shopping malls. I'm like, where are the restaurants? Like, where are the cafes? Where are, where are people sitting outside like people watching. But you have to go to a mall to get a meal.

You can't sit outside for 5 months of the year.

Yes, you can't. And you can't sit outside. And that's the kind of obvious one. But it is incredibly beautiful. Northern Arizona, which I really loved and spent a lot of time, is so completely gorgeous and beautiful. And the landscape is so different to, to Phoenix. That I did a lot of— I really tried to explore the area when I was living there. And I'd take the kids and we'd go to all these— to Payson and all these like really weird places and just press basket and just really get to know. And Bisbee— have you been to Bisbee?

No. What's in Bisbee?

Bisbee is the coolest place. It's, it's a mining town, so it look— you feel like you're in sort of the Alps of Switzerland, and it's full of music and bands, and it's cool, and it's the best place in the world. And there's all these inns that are built on the mountainside where the mining, the mining used to take place. It is, it's really, really cool, Bisbee, and I'm a big, big fan.

Before my last question, let me just put in another plug for your books. I very much like all them. The most recent is Hardy Women: Mothers, Sisters, Wives, Muses, about Thomas Hardy and the women in his lives and in his work. Last question, what will you do next?

Oh, I've just finished literally today before I spoke to you. I press send on another novel. It's my third novel. It's an historical novel and it's about Jane Austen's lost secret seaside romance.

That's great. But after that, now that that's sort of done, what will you do next?

I probably— I'm not sure I'm gonna write because there's no— I honestly, I can't afford to. There's no money in it. Nobody reads anymore. I'm really depressed about it.

I really—

I'm probably gonna practice—

yay!

I'm probably going to practice therapy, um, um, for a while, um, and maybe— I always say this of Tyler. I'm like, this is it, last book, no money, can't do it, nobody's buying books. And then I always like, oh my God, I've got this really good idea. So actually, I am writing a novel about Mary Robinson. You mentioned her earlier, so I think the historical novel thing is just so much fun. I really like it, and I don't have to worry about footnotes all the time. So it's quite freeing to be a creative fiction writer rather than nonfiction. So although I say this is the last one, I have been saying that for like 20 years.

I say that too, you know, and there's typically one more. But Paula Byrne, thank you very much. It's been a real pleasure.

Thank you, Tyler Cowen.

Thanks for listening to Conversations with Tyler. You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you like this podcast, please consider giving us a rating and leaving a review. This helps other listeners find the show. On Twitter, I'm @TylerCowen and the show is @CowenConvos. Until next time, please keep listening and learning.