Ilona Bannister: 1995

Ilona Bannister talks about the summer of 1995, when she was preparing to leave her New York City home for university in Nashville, Tennessee.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Hello, I'm Laura Pearson, and this is That Summer, a podcast about being a teenager. Each episode, I talk to a different guest about the most pivotal summer of their teenage years. We're talking first love, first loss, first steps into the adult world. We're going deep into their teenage crushes, the music on their mixtapes and playlists, and some of the biggest feelings they've ever felt. If you like the sound of that, you might like my novel What Happened That Summer, which explores some of these themes. It features a pop star, a theme park, a podcast, and plenty of 90s nostalgia. And it's out now. My guest today is the brilliant Ilona Bannister, who grew up in New York but now lives in Brighton with her family where she writes novels. Hi Ilona, and thank you so much for coming on to that summer to talk to us today.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Hi, I am so thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

You are the author of two novels, and you have a third novel titled Five, which is coming out in May, and it's a bit of a shift for you genre-wise. So could you tell us a little bit about what your writing has been like up to now, and then a little bit about your new book?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, um, so my first two books, um, the first one's called When I Ran Away, and the second one's Little Prisons, and I think those get put into like the women's fiction, literary fiction sort of category. Um, When I Ran Away is a story about motherhood and postpartum depression and being a fish out of water, and uh Little Prisons is a book about four women in an apartment block. Um, they they're all in their own sort of frigative little prisons and their lives, and it's about how their lives intersect, and then they help each other sort of move on and escape. Um with five, this is my third book. I uh really wanted to do something a little different. I didn't necessarily intend to go out and write a thriller. I I didn't know that's what was gonna happen. Um, because I'm a person I don't outline, I'm one of those writers. Me too. So I didn't, I yeah, so I didn't really know um what direction it was headed in. I just had this idea. Um, so five is about five people standing on a train platform five minutes before one of them dies. And uh the uh reader is complicit in what is going on, and it you're basically being asked to judge who you think deserves it, who you think deserves to survive, and who you think deserves the death. Um I uh I I did consciously with five try to write something uh a bit more accessible and a bit more um something that would reach a wider audience than my previous two books. Uh and I was trying to figure out a way to do that, um, something fast-paced. What's interesting though is that a lot of feedback that I got on the first two books, um, it would people would often write, like, I liked it, but it was really sad, I liked it, but it was really dark. And what I've discovered is in the thriller world, like the darkness is actually exactly what people are looking for. And I suddenly am like, oh, maybe this is what I'm supposed to be writing. Um like this is the place where um sort of the darkness that I write about, like, has a home and an audience.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

So that that's really interesting because I think I think if you're not an author, you would think, oh, you just write your book and then the publishers decide what genre it is and how to market it, and that kind of thing. But it's very easy, isn't it, to kind of fall in between genres. So you're maybe dark women's fiction bordering on thriller, bordering on domestic noir domestic noir, that kind of thing. Um but when you came up for the with the idea for five, you must have been, and your publishers must have been so delighted because it's such a brilliant hook, isn't it? And it's it's so easy to tell people what the book is, and that is what I think publishers are always looking for.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, and that that was a big thing that I I focused on because with my first two books, it's it was always quite hard for me to do the elevator pitch. Yeah, I never it it was very hard for me to not need a paragraph to explain what each one of them is about. That was a big learning for me. And I thought, okay, now I need to figure out how do I get a story to people that is really going to make them want to read it, that that I can I can catch their attention right away. That was something that I consciously worked on doing because I knew that part of what was difficult with marketing my first two books was uh getting the message across in sort of a pithy, interesting way. I was never sort of quite able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Um, quite consciously thought about that. Some of the best books you can't um summarise them like that in a couple of lines, and it's very much like, oh, it's kind of about this girl and she does this thing, and um, and I know that it doesn't help with marketing, but um you've got to you might have written the most beautiful book in the world, but you've got to bring the people in for them to know people in it exists, and uh I absolutely loved five as I've told you, um, because I thought I loved the hook, and I was like, you know, I I fall for these really high concepts and I have to read that book, but it um it delivered on being a brilliant book, it wasn't just a great hook, you know, because sometimes you do get books that are just a great hook and then they're quite a letdown. Uh but I yeah, I thought it was absolutely incredible, and uh I can't wait until it's out in the world and uh more people can discover it. So that's May.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Thank you. Yeah, it comes out on May 5th, yeah. Um that's we've been having a lot of fun with the number five coming out on May 5th. There's a big train theme going on through the marketing.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

That's been that's also Oh, and it's the fifth of the fifth, yeah. Oh, brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

The fifth, yeah. So um it's it's also been fun to have a book that uh has those kinds of like quick concepts and quick quick ways to um get across what it's about. Um that's been very fun and creative.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Um, so uh yeah, listeners, don't miss this book. Um but thank you. We are going to talk um about uh a summer from your teenage years, and the summer we're going to talk about is 1995. Um so to put listeners in the right kind of frame of mind for this year, it was the year of the Oklahoma City bombing, uh, the year of the O.J. Simpson trial, it was the year that Fred West died, and it was the end of the Bosnian War. So, Ilona, where were you and how old were you, and who were you living with in that summer?

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Um, okay, so I was 17. I was on Staten Island in New York City where I grew up, and I was living with my parents and my older brother, and I had just graduated high school.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Okay. Um I lived in New York very briefly, but and I went on the Staten Island Ferry a number of times with people who came to visit to see the Statue of Liberty, and I never went out into Staten Island, I just came straight back. Um so I don't know much about Staten Island, but it's so like Manhattan is so accessible from there, right? So yes. That's a was that a really cool place to I mean everybody only knows the place where they grew up, but did you feel like it was a great place to grow up?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Um Staten Island's interesting, just like all the outer boroughs outside of Manhattan are interesting. Um Staten Island is a little bit of an underdog because it is the furthest one away. Um, and you do have to take a boat to get to get off the island. Um so it's an interesting place, it's a really diverse place. Um, it's very much a residential, um lots of a mix of lots of different kinds of neighborhoods and lots of different kinds of classes. Um it's uh it's it's an interesting place to grow up because I could see the Manhattan skyline from the window of my house. Um, but I got to grow up in a house and have a little bit of a backyard and have a little bit more of a neighborhood feel than you would get if you were living in sort of an apartment building in Manhattan or in a high-rise. Um so it you're part of New York City, but you're just far enough where like the city, you can see it in the distance. Um so you you are definitely a New Yorker, but people from Staten Island are it's a little bit of a a different side of New York, I would say.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Yeah, that's an interesting mix. Uh, like you say, having a house and a garden. Um and yeah, I hadn't really considered the fact that you the only way across is by boat. I do think those boats they they go all the time, don't they? 24 hours a day, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, 24 hours a day. There is the Verrazano Bridge also, which you you could go by car, um, but uh the only way to go by public transportation is a boat.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Um and they are amazing. Like they're the you know, as a writer, growing up taking that ferry all the time, and then when I lived at home for a while, when I worked in the city, um taking that boat as a commuter, the characters that are on that boat, I mean you just it is a really interesting being being on a boat for 25 minutes with the cast of characters. Um, it gives you a lot of inspiration when you write novels later on.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Yeah, and quite a I mean, commuting is never fun, but it's quite fun to commute by boat, surely.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

It was. It was um beautiful views. They're the best views that you ever get of Manhattan are from that boat.

SPEAKER_04 10:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Um, and I think the ferry also it has a very sort of um uh nostalgic, important meaning for every Staten Islander. Everybody has a story about the ferry, everybody has an experience on the ferry. Um, it was certainly a a figure in my childhood for sure.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

Wow, okay. Okay, so 17 just graduated high school. What is it about that summer in particular that because I think our childhood summers, um, you know, we they're very nostalgic for us, and they often feel like they lasted forever. But when I asked you to pick one, what was it that made made you choose that one?

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Um well let me say this. Like one of the things that I loved about your book, about what happened that summer is the portrait of exactly what you're talking about, of an adolescent summer of love and uh excitement and romance and intrigue. And um, I think you captured those feelings of what it's like to be young like that really, really well. And part of why I loved it is because my adolescence was not like that. Um this summer of 1995 was important because I had just graduated high school and I was about to leave to go to university. Um, but I was going to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, a thousand miles away from New York City. And, you know, America is such a vast and diverse country. New York City and Nashville are like different planets.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Um and that was significant, not just because I was going to uni and going so far from home, but I grew up in a very um sort of sheltered and insulated immigrant community. My parents and grandparents were refugees from Ukraine during the Second World War. And even though I was born in America, my parents, their their whole social and cultural life was very much still in the Ukrainian community, and that's how we were raised. Um, so every Saturday I was at Ukrainian school, I was at Ukrainian Girl Scouts, I was doing Ukrainian dance. Um we I I was sort of an American kid on the outside going to school, but at home and um and sort of on the weekends, I had this whole other um very vibrant Ukrainian cultural life that I was a part of. Uh which which meant that I was always sort of a little bit set apart from what other American New York teens may have been doing. So this trip to Nashville, this leaving that very sheltered, um sort of tight-knit life where my parents kept me on a pretty tight leash. I I wasn't going out, I didn't have boyfriends, I didn't party, I I wasn't doing that uh sort of teen stuff. Uh this this was a huge transition, not just because it was university, but because this was really breaking with everything that I had ever known to go this far away on my own.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Um were you scared about that or excited about that or both?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Um well, the whole reason that I went is because I was awarded a scholarship from the Posse Foundation. At the time they were a very tiny organization. They're now a huge national foundation in the US. But the premise of the foundation was to take students from um New York City public high schools, meaning state schools, um, who had a lot of leadership potential, who were used to being in diverse situations, and to train them as a group, as a posse, and to then send them to elite universities like Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt was a top 20 university, um, but it's in the deep south. And they were working on their diversity initiatives and on their diversity dynamics on their campus. So the idea was to take this group of leaders, give them a full tuition scholarship for all four years to go to Vanderbilt and um to do that kind of leadership work on campus and to start creating uh better cultural bridges and um understanding between groups of people on campus. Um and as you can imagine, you know, Nashville, Tennessee, uh there's a whole obviously um intense uh history of the South in America. Um so going from New York City um to that university was um it wasn't frightening, it was exciting. I had a team of other students with me who were my built-in friends and support network. Uh, but it was 1995. Like I didn't have the internet in my house. Um, there was no social media. I think we saw a brochure of the campus, and we may have seen the website and the Posse office. We may have looked at the Vanderbilt website, but we didn't know where we were, where we were going. It's crazy to think about that time. How if you were going somewhere, you were literally showing up there, and you know, you might have a guidebook, but like you're hoping, you're hoping for the best.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Yeah, that's so true. Um, I mean, in the UK, people tend to go to you know to visit different universities for open days, but none of them are thousands of miles away. So um yeah, that's such a kind of leap of faith. And you're kind of signing up for what four years, is it?

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Four years, yeah. Um what was your degree? Uh so I did a degree, it was called human organizational development, um, which is sort of like a it's a bit of a organizational psychology. I think that's how you would describe it, kind of sociology, organizational psychology. Um, and I also did a um a minor in child development because I thought I was gonna go into education. Um but uh yeah, it was it was yeah, definitely um a huge leap of faith. Uh, which is why having the support network built in with you with kids who had also were experiencing the shock of being in such a different place um was so important. So I'm very grateful to have had them. It definitely made the transition easier. It was still tricky, but um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

I think sometimes when you have a hard transition like that, uh it is hard, obviously, but um then you're quite blasé about transitions further down further into your life, I think. Uh the reason I I'm saying this because I moved to a different area when I was 16 and I had to go to a new school, and it was quite a difficult time to do that with um everybody, you know, already had their friendship groups, but then when it came to going to university, I wasn't anxious at all, really, um, because everybody was new for that. Um but I'm just thinking, like obviously, at some point in your life you moved over to the UK, and maybe you were kind of brave enough to do that because you'd already done this very hard transition. Do you think that had any impact on it?

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah, I think um I think that's I think that's a lot of the reason why I write about outsiders, and I'm always writing about people who are sort of on the outside or on the edges looking in because it it has been a theme for me throughout my life. So as a kid, you know, I was in the in this community, but I was also had one foot in being an American. I had this kind of like bicultural um upbringing, and then in university, even though I didn't fit in, it it, you know, I I have some wonderful friends and relationships and experiences from that time, but there were some challenging times when I definitely felt like I did not belong at all. Uh, but I also was okay with it because as a as a child I was used to sort of being a little bit on the edge. I had lovely friends who would like invite me to things and I would be in there, but I wasn't always sort of participating fully, and that's a lot what you uni felt like. Like I had some lovely friends who were a part of you know, in sororities and part of the Greek scene and very, very socially in the center. And I wasn't really there. Um, but I but I was also okay with being a a bit apart. So that when the time came and I met my husband and we moved here, I mean it was a it was a similar experience, especially once I had kids. Um, because I think that's when you sort of relive a little bit of the high school clickiness, is once you become a mom, and then there are mom groups, and then there are groups of mothers at school. And um again, it was uh I I was okay with being different and a bit apart and having a different life experience. Um, I wasn't afraid of it, like you, like you've said.

unknown 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

It's also as a as a writer being in that position um where you're observing. I mean, that's I think that's why I ended up writing in the end, is because um so much of my life has been about being in that position and observing people and having access to the inside, but not quite being a part of it.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

Oh, that's so interesting. Um, so all of that was to come, all of the the experience in Tennessee, um, the summer of 1995, you were preparing for that. So um were you were you mostly spending time were you working that summer when you were 17?

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Uh no, I wasn't working. I was just getting ready for it was a short summer because we had to go in August, so I was um just getting ready to go.

SPEAKER_03 20:46

And were you spending time that summer with your family and your Ukrainian community or with your friends from high school or a bit of both?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Um, it was it was a bit of everything. I definitely felt a pulling away. Like I I I was the only person I knew who was doing something this sort of drastic in terms of uni. All my friends were going to uni, but in terms of this distance, this scholarship, sort of the sort of the all the dynamics around it, I was the only person I knew doing it. So I definitely had a lot of anxiety. I had a lot of physical symptoms of anxiety. I was definitely panicking. I think it's the first time I had a panic attack was that summer. Um, because I was outwardly saying, like, yeah, I'm excited and this is gonna be great, and I'm going with the foundation, and it's gonna be and it's gonna be wonderful. And and it was such an opportunity. I mean, it was such a huge opportunity to have you know how much university in America costs, like to have your university paid for. I mean, it was such an incredible opportunity and such a phenomenal university that I you know, I I put a very brave face on. It um but I was freaking out. I was completely freaking out the whole summer.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Um was it something you'd applied for or had they sought you out for it?

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Um you had to be nominated by your high school, and then um you would go. They had uh they have a really interesting selection process. You sort of go through three rounds of large group interviews and small group activities and then individual interviews, a really rigorous um uh sort of interview process. And then you spent a year, we spent that whole last year of high school training together, getting to know one another and building our team. It was really beautiful. They're still my friends today, like a really beautiful experience. But definitely going to uni with a purpose and a mission.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yeah. How many of you were there in that group that were going?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Uh there were eight of us.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Okay, so quite a small manageable group and um a mix of boys and girls?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Yeah, boys and girls from all different parts of the city, from all different cultural backgrounds, all different immigrant experiences. Um, we were a very diverse group. And when we got there, we weren't the first. So in all of the year groups above us, each group had a a posse. So there were older students there also to welcome us when we got there.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Um, yeah, uh so I don't know much about um further education in the US, but um what I always see in films is that people often stay in their own state because it's cheaper than going elsewhere. Um so I guess doing what you were doing, I mean, I understand that your uh yours was a scholarship, but um that like I understand that that would have been more unusual than a lot of people might have been staying much closer to home.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah, it was yeah, it definitely, it definitely, but I but but because um I I view that experience and that award of that scholarship, that is really when I look at everything else I have done in my life up to the present, publishing these books and writing and having been a lawyer and everything that I have ever done, it it all began there. It began with me at 17 and someone saying, and them them saying, you know, we we think you can do this, we think you can handle it, we believe in you. Go and do this big thing. Go and think you can do it.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

External validation. Um because you can do well at school, but um that's like another thing, isn't it? Somebody outside of your school saying, We believe in you enough to pay this amount of money for you to have this experience. And I can imagine So it definitely Sorry, go on.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

No, I would just say it definitely felt like a it felt like a big responsibility, but it also felt like a huge honor to be entrusted at such a young age to um to take on this important mission. So it it was definitely one of the most important experiences of my my whole life and career.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Amazing. Um so what would a typical day look like for you in that summer when you're preparing? Like, can you talk me through what you might have been doing on either a typical day or a typical evening that you can remember?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Um I don't know if you do you remember what a New York City, how hot a New York City summer is?

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

It's incredibly hot and humid.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Um I I don't I don't I don't remember I remember a few events because um high school graduation in America, all over America, no matter what city you're in or a state, um, is a really big deal. Um and so there were there were loads of like um final sort of senior events when you're a high school senior, like uh parties and events and um graduation celebrations. So there was definitely a lot of that going on.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

When does graduation take place? Is it a tip is it always in the same month? Uh usually June, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Yeah. And um, so I so there was a very festive atmosphere. We were all really excited, we had come to the end. My parents had sort of let go of the rains a little bit finally that summer. So I was going out at night, and you know, but going out at night on Staten Island was like we're all gonna drive to South Beach to the parking lot, and so everyone is there with their cars and we're just like hanging out in a parking lot. Because of course, you know, in America, like we couldn't go to bars or pubs, or you the drinking age was 21. So if if there was any alcohol or anything like that, it was all like very clandestine and and it all had to be done like in a park or in a or a parking lot or somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

Which we have over here, it's like we do that at 15 and 16.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

I know.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Well, I don't know whether people still do, but um yeah, I it's always absolutely baffled me that you can go almost throughout college not being able to legally drink.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yeah, it's really um so to get a to get a hold of anything in high school was you know, it was it was an achievement. So and and then also now that I'm a parent, when I think about that, when I think about kids with cars and alcohol in public parks, and I just, you know, it's it it was dangerous and dicey and illegal. So it was just um quite tricky as a teen. Uh, but that summer there was a lot of that going on um and saying goodbye and uh spending time with my family and just um looking forward. I remember the last party. I had like a really tight group of friends in high school. It was the last party at someone's house where I knew that I was leaving in a few days. It was my last goodbye. Um, I remember that being tearful and lots of hugs and really feeling like we had come to the end of an era and I didn't know what was waiting.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Um you in touch with any of those people now? Because it was so much harder to keep in touch, wasn't it, when we all kind of scattered at that point. We couldn't email, we couldn't follow each other on social media. It was a case of writing letters and visiting each other.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

I know it's actual writing letters. I know it's just so crazy to think about now.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

I mean it's a lovely thing to have. Like I I keep letters and I have letters from friends from that sort of time of my life, and uh obviously people in younger generations won't have that, but um, it's such an effort to write a letter and then find a stamp and go out and post it. You know, you might manage one or two of these steps, but actually managing all of them at that age is quite um quite an achievement, I think.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah. Um, so yes, those those friends from high school, I'm they're still my best friends today. Um that, you know, and that that says a lot, doesn't it, when you when you have friendships that have lasted that long.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

Yeah, I guess you must have seen each other in university holidays when you're all back home. Um are they all still in the States?

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Uh yes.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

Yeah. And how often do you go there?

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Um we we sort of go uh sort of once every two years um or thereabouts. I I always found New York when the when the children were small, it's a tough place for little kids. It's a tough place to take little kids. Um now that the boys are older, of course, they absolutely love it. They love New York. Um and it's much easier with them now that they can get around and use public transportation and it's just and they can walk everywhere and like they, you know, they can they can manage it now. When I always found when they were little it was a really hard trip to make.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Um yeah, because the flight is a slog, and then when you get there, it's a slog. Um yeah. I've always wanted to I haven't I'd love to take my children to New York and uh haven't done yet, but um they are of an age where I think it would be easier, but obviously if you're doing it when they're little because you've got family and friends to to catch up with, um it makes you do it, but it's yeah, it's hard work. Yeah. Um did you have any was there any romance in your life that summer?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Um no, because again, because I didn't I didn't really so so basically the way my teen years worked is um I didn't go out on Friday nights because on Saturday morning I was up very early to go to Manhattan to go to Ukrainian school and Girl Scouts and Ukrainian dance. And I loved Ukrainian dance. I was part of a folk dance company um called Sizokreli, they still exist today. Um, and uh we were rehearsing for like three or four hours, and then I wouldn't get home until like nine o'clock at night, so I didn't go out on Saturday night. So I missed, yeah. So I and you know, obviously there were young people there and they were my friends and I loved them, but we were we were working, we were dancing, like we were really um into what we were doing. Yeah so it wasn't this it wasn't like hanging out in someone's basement, you know, and like stealing beers, like it wasn't that experience. So very much I look back on those yeah, and I think that that was also done on purpose by my parents, I think. Um so I look back on those teen years and I am a little sort of wistful. Like it is a shame that I didn't do a lot of that stuff. I did some of it once in a while I would get out. Um so boyfriends and romance and dates and um it was very, very limited in those years. Um yeah. That's why I like Sorry, go on. Oh I was just gonna say that's why I like um reading those kinds of stories and watching those like TV shows and movies, because that really um yeah, that wasn't that wasn't my life. Passed you by in a way. What happens as a result is now I'm very conscious, especially as my kids become teens, I'm very conscious about making sure that they don't miss out on stuff, that they go out and that they do whatever they're gonna do. Um because it's important.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Yeah. Do you remember much about fashion and what you were wearing at that sort of time of your life?

SPEAKER_00 33:13

So I remember, I remember what everyone else was wearing that I wanted to wear. Um, so everyone had Doc Martin's. Um a look in my school was like Doc Martin's and like vintage jeans from the vintage store. Um grunge was very big, yeah. Right in 1995. So there were a lot of flannel shirts around. Um I it there was a lot of like that look that all the girls are wearing now, which is like the big like big trousers, baggy jeans, or like big cargo pants, and like a tiny tank top, like that was very much that was very much the look in those days. Um but I I like struggled to figure out like what my style was. Like I wasn't um I wasn't really that with it. Uh one thing I did I do remember is New York had these, um, they still have them now, uh $9.99 stores. So a $10 store where every single piece of clothing is ten dollars. So it would be like a sequin ball gown could be ten dollars, like a suit could be ten dollars, or like a tank top could be ten dollars. Everything in the store is ten dollars. Um, and I used to go to those all the time. That's where I got most of my clothes because they were cheap and trendy, um, and really quite amazing. So whenever I go to New York now, I always try to see if I can spot one. They don't have as many anymore, but they're still there. I like to um they are still around.

SPEAKER_03 34:49

I don't I don't remember ever seeing one of those.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

They were mostly downtown and like around Wall Street in the financial district.

SPEAKER_03 34:57

That's where I lived. I lived on Wall Street.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Did you not see any $10 stores?

SPEAKER_03 35:02

No.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

No?

SPEAKER_03 35:04

Maybe I just didn't have my eyes open, I don't know. Um missed out. I just like the the idea of everything from a top to a pair of jeans to a dress being ten dollars.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

They were amazing. They were amazing.

SPEAKER_03 35:21

I used to find um shopping in the summer in Manhattan so confusing because, like you say, it was so hot. Um and but then inside the um shops it would be really cold with the air conditioner. Freezing and you'd like to have to have something like another layer on so you didn't freeze to death in the shops and then as you're going in and out, in and out. Yes. I mean you welcomed the air conditioning, but it was like it wasn't just like cool, it was cold, like properly cold inside the shop. Freezing, yes. Bizarre. Um, okay, and what about uh were you so obviously you're a writer now and a reader. Were you a reader and a writer back then? And are there any books you remember reading at that time?

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Oh yeah, I um I loved books as a kid. I read all the time. My mom was a really big reader, she always took us to the library, and because in New York, like you spend so much time on public transportation, on subways, and on the ferry, the ferry was always the perfect time to read because you're sitting there for 25 minutes. It's long enough, isn't it, to get into your book. Yeah. Yeah. So my whole life I always um I was always a big reader. Um, I think in high school, um, a a really important book for me was The Grapes of Wrath, um, Steinbeck, which I still refer to now. So, like when I talk about writing now, I still refer to that book because it struck me even then that um you know he's got this one chapter about uh a turtle that's trying to cross the road in the desert, and um and the turtle uh it's it's on its back and then trying to write itself. And it's it's just the most extraordinary. I think that's my favorite piece of writing ever. Just that description of the turtle. Um, because Steinbeck uses uh he uses his economy of words, like um he uses very few words to express like incredible emotion. Um and I read that book in high school and it is just it's always stuck with me. So whenever I need writing inspiration, I read that scene.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

I think there's some books that um hit you really hard if you read them at a certain age. Like the one I always think of as Catcher in the Rye. I was 14 when I read that, and I think if I hadn't read it until I was in my 30s, it might it I might not have had much connection to it at all. But there's something about reading it when you're an adolescent. Um, and so some books kind of find you at the right time, don't they? Was was it was Grapes of Roth a book you studied in high school or just when you chose to read?

SPEAKER_00 38:18

No, I read that myself one of the one summer. Um and I just remember like I couldn't put it down. Like I was really, I think it was the first time that I was really, really struck. Um because I think before I was always reading just for the story and to keep my mind occupied, but that's the first time that I understood, like, oh, that's like amazing writing. That's like real, that's like there's something special about that.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

And have you read all of his books? Are you a like a big Steinbeck fan, or is it just that one in particular?

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Um it's that one in particular. I loved um I did of My C M with my own kids. We read that together, which um they were little when we did that. Well, not little, little, but maybe year five and year eight when we when we read that together. And um they were they they were so struck by it. They were so, and I just thought, well, that is amazing, isn't it, the power of someone to write that way, so that even like these little British boys who can't relate to to what this is about at all, um, are still so affected by Lenny. They were so affected by it. Um they and they still think about it now. So um, yeah, so I just think he's amazing. East of Eden's great book too.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Um I should I always I should read of my some men with my children because they're that age now. They're year five and year seven. Um yeah, and it's a long time since we've read something all together, but yeah, it's a nice part of the.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Some of it, you know, I I I did censor some of it because it is a bit adult in places. But um but the the uh but they understand the emotion of it for sure. They fully get it. They fully understand Lenny, like they fully understand um the emotion of those characters.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

It's um a beautiful thing to discover a writer in high for you know, you discovered him in high school, and then to pass that on to your children however many years later. Yeah. Um okay, um what about TV and film from that era? Was that a big part of your life? Um I mean you might have been too busy because you were at school every day, and then all of Saturday you were dancing and at Ukrainian school, so you probably didn't have much time for um hanging around watching TV.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

Yeah, because I don't I don't remember very many films, but I do remember um Friends was enormous. Of course, yeah. So Friends was huge, and it had just it had only just come out, or maybe it was a couple years old at that point. Um and I just and Monica and Rachel to me were just the girls I could never be. Like I just I just they were they were su they were such dominant figures, I think, for um girls my age at that time. Uh ER um was E did they show ER over here? Was on TV here?

SPEAKER_03 41:27

I've never seen it, but they did. My mom was a big fan.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Oh, ER, amazing show. And Seinfeld, um, did you guys have Seinfeld did they show it? Yeah. Seinfeld was um just so New York. So New York.

SPEAKER_03 41:43

Um Seinfeld and Friends, both very New York. Um, and my one of my memories from living in New York is that you get um so much filming going on, and you get those um like billboards, don't you? Like posters up on posts just saying this is filming here tomorrow. Yeah. Uh which you don't get in the UK, you don't get any kind of advance notice of these things. Um, and when I lived in the financial district, it was quite quiet down there, so there used to be a lot of filming going on. Um did you ever is that something people would have done? Go to try to see where these things were being filmed.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Um, I no, I don't know. I don't know of anyone doing that. But I do it you you would definitely see celebrities just on the street. That definitely did happen. Um Liam Neeson, I saw on the street, so tall. Really tall. Um uh who else did I see? Uh I saw oh my goodness, what is the name of the actress who does the ballet and she was in Black Swan? Oh, nothing Portman. I saw her in a restaurant. Um she just had such a magnetic face. She wasn't wearing any makeup or anything, she just had her hair pulled back. I saw her in a restaurant. Um yeah, so they're definitely you definitely have those sightings. They're everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

I used to have a bit of that in London. We used to, I worked in Soho in London for a while, and we'd all go off and get our lunch and then spend the afternoon. If anybody had seen a celebrity at lunchtime, we had to all guess who it was in the afternoon. And it was one of those, you see, really famous people, and it takes your brain a while to realise it's like, do I know that person or is that person famous? And then you don't want to say hello to them in case you really don't know them.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Um, I saw Ben Stiller at the gym. He was running on a treadmill really fast. That was a good one. That was a good sighting. Um, but yeah, it is weird to see them out and about. And then I sort of feel bad for them because they know everyone's looking at them. That must be just uh yeah, it must be an uncomfortable way to live.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Do you miss New York?

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Um, yeah, I you know, New York is uh it was an extraordinary place to um uh have my 20s. So like after uh uni, I went back to New York and that's where I um worked and went to graduate school and all those things. And um I loved having my own apartment in Brooklyn, and then I had an apartment all the way uptown on 207th Street. I loved those days of like being like a girl in her 20 in the cities. Of course, that was Sex in the City Times.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Um, yeah, I I I loved it. And I met my husband in New York, um, and like to be young and in love, and like in the city, it's a it's a wonderful place. Um I am grateful that when we had our children, we had them in London and that we had moved to have family life in London. Um, because it's a very different childhood in New York City than it than it was even in London, because London's actually a very green city and it's really big and sprawling and spread out. You know, a childhood in Manhattan or in Brooklyn um is very interesting and it's full of all kinds of interesting things, but it's a really different way to grow up. Yeah. Um, so I was uh happy that we had our kids in London and um we lived in Clapham, so we had a we had a house and a garden, and the commons were all around them, so they still had green, yeah, but we were still in the city. Um so I think New York is wonderful when you're young and you stay up all night and you don't have responsibilities. Um, it can wear you down, like winters in New York can really wear you down. Um it is a hard grind.

SPEAKER_03 46:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

But I I love, you know, I love New York. I'll always love it. I will always be from there. I always every New Yorker always feels like they have to tell you immediately that that's where they're from because it's like such a such a nice entity to have. Um, so I do miss it. I miss, I I do love the energy of New York. Um, but I also feel like I'm I'm happy that someday the boys will be able to go and have their 20s there if they want to and experience that energy of that place. Because it really is, there is no other place like it. So I I definitely miss it.

SPEAKER_03 46:36

Yeah. Okay, and finally, before we do a little quiz, um, would you go back to that summer if you could? Would you relive it?

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Oh, that is such a good question. I don't think so. Um I don't think so. I think not not for not for any, you know, negative feeling toward her or anything like that, but I feel like I was so um that age for me, as it is for anyone that age, I was so confused about so many things and um figuring trying to figure out where I belonged and trying to figure out my identity and pulling away from family. It was just so much like uh it was so up and down and so much hard transition.

SPEAKER_03 47:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

I'm grateful for it. It was very important. Um but I think I think there are other summers I might go back to, like in my 20s or when I was traveling or something like that. I think those are some some summers I might go back to. Um I think yeah. I'm grateful for it, but I'm not sure I would I would go back.

SPEAKER_03 48:00

Okay, great. Okay, I've got a quiz. It's only five questions, it's just a bit of fun. So um plea, I feel I have to say that because one of the one of my interviewees said she had had sleepless nights about my quiz.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Um Laura, I I heard that interview, and um I I I don't I I will tell you a major cultural difference.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

I love living in the UK. I've lived here 20 years. But um, if you talk to any American who has lived here for any period of time and you ask them how they feel about quizzes, we will all we will all say, why are people always quizzing us? Why everywhere we go, every social occasion, Christmas, whatever it is, somebody's got a quiz. Um, it's very British. And in the in the first years that I lived here, we would go for Christmas at my in-laws, and they would always pull out like the quiz and the telegraph or the quiz and whatever. There's always a quiz, and I could not answer anything ever. And then like it would be worse because then they would say, like, okay, well, we'll just ask you the questions that Americans would know. And then I also couldn't answer those because it's just not like just the quiz is just not part of our culture, I will say. So I will participate in this quiz, but it's highly likely I don't know anything.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

Okay. If you get no questions right in this quiz, we none of us will think any the less of you, and we will all still read your books.

unknown 49:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 49:40

So I've I've tried to make it um American-centric. So um let's see whether or not I've succeeded. Um which classic Pixar film was the first fully computer animated movie and came out this year.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

Toy Story.

SPEAKER_03 50:00

Yes. See, now you're gonna get them all right.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

And now No, but Laura, I only know that because I told my husband, I said, Laura's gonna ask me some quiz questions, and he said, Uh-oh, I know what you're like with the quizzes. So he he looked up for me. He was like, You should know this about Toy Stories. So I feel like that's cheating. I didn't actually know that.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

Oh wow, you might you might know the others. Okay. Two, which iconic video games console came out in 1995? Oh, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

We did my my parents wouldn't buy us video games. I don't know and know nothing about it.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

Okay, it's the Sony PlayStation. PlayStation, yeah. Number three. Which British film star was arrested for lewd conduct in LA in this year.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Ooh, ooh, that's a spicy one. Okay, British film star. Who was big at that time? He was kind of um yes. Oh, that's Hugh Grant! Oh, with that terrible mug shot. Yeah. And he was with that woman. Oh, I do remember that.

SPEAKER_03 51:16

That's you knew, you knew.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Uh I was going to start telling you that he was like a British darling of uh, you know, Richard Curtis films, but you didn't need that help. Um four, which Canadian female singer-songwriter had one of the year's biggest debut albums?

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Canadian.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

So there's two big Canadians, right? There's Celine Dionne and Shania Twain.

SPEAKER_03 51:46

It's neither of those.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Okay, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 51:52

If I tell you the album was called Jagged Little Pill, would that help?

SPEAKER_02 51:57

Oh my god, is Alanis come Canadian? Yeah. Oh, I hope so. I hope I haven't got that wrong, or I'll have to edit this out. What's that? I hope I hope that I have got that right. You probably do. No, no, you probably do. You probably do.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Let me probably do. I didn't know she was Canadian. She probably is.

SPEAKER_03 52:19

Let me Google it right now as we speak because um that would be very unfair if I had asked you a question and the question was wrong.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

I'm I'm sure she is. Or Avril Avril Levine is Canadian.

SPEAKER_03 52:34

Is she? I can't remember when she was. Yes, Alana Smarissa is Canadian. Phew. I had such a just you know, just before we came on this call, I was fact-checking my quiz because I did the quiz uh a few days ago, and I was just kind of googling when did this happen just to make sure the facts were correct. And I had uh that question was which Canadian female song singer-songwriter had the the year's biggest album? And it wasn't, it was uh the year's biggest album in America was Hootie and the Blowfish album, and in the UK it was I can't remember what it was, and so I had to change so she's Alanis has been a problem in this quiz, so I apologise for that.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

I think I loved that album, I remember it. I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

I loved it too. Uh it just felt so fresh and different from anything else that was around at the time. I loved the kind of rage of it, and she's still touring it, isn't she? Like she's still doing that album. She's great. Um, I feel like you might know this uh or might be able to guess this. Last one. Which Hollywood star was named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Who were who were who were who were this who were the sexy men then? Uh Johnny Depp.

SPEAKER_03 54:02

Oh no, although that would have been my that's who I would have chosen. No, it's the other, I would say he was the other massive film star at the time. Think about Friends and Jennifer Aniston. Oh, Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt? Yes.

unknown 54:22

Brad Pitt.

SPEAKER_03 54:23

Well done, and thank you for doing my quiz when you hate quizzes. I didn't really, I wasn't even really aware that quizzing was a um a British thing. But you must have found it really funny that in lockdown we all started doing quizzes over Zoom.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

Yeah, I was like, this is you guys, we we have to do something else. Like, I can't, I can't do it. I can't do it.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

Show off our knowledge. Yeah, it just weirdos. Uh okay, well, yeah, thank you for not just refusing to participate.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

No, no, I will I will participate, but I just can't guarantee that, you know. That didn't do too bad though. That wasn't too bad.

SPEAKER_03 55:04

No, you didn't do badly at all. You it was very respectable.

unknown 55:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 55:11

Um thank you so much for a doing the quiz, but B, oh, I've lost my headphone. Talking to me about your summer of 1995. It was so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

Yeah, thank you. This is such a great idea. I love this idea. I I love the premise. I love this idea. I thought about things I haven't thought about in years and years and years. So thank you so much. It's such a great way to talk about um books and writing, but also life. I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of That Summer. I'm Laura Pearson, and you can find me on Instagram at LauraPAuthor and at That Summer Pod. And if you're hungry for more, please check out my novel, What Happened That Summer. See you next time.