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Season 1 Episodes

For this 29th Second Hand Book Factory, Charles Adrian’s guest is the fashion writer (and more) Beth Druce. They have a brief discussion about luxury goods before going on to talk about books that might or might not be read on the train. The Oversoul, by the way, is working overtime this week.

Corrections: 1) The album that Miranda July’s track Diagnostic is taken from is called Chez Vous and is a compilation album drawn from the show The Cha Cha Cabaret, rather than being (as Charles Adrian has it here) an album called Cha Cha Cabaret (Chez Vous) by Miranda July. 2) The album that Miranda July’s track Blood Race is taken from is called 10 Million Hours A Mile, rather than being (as Charles Adrian has it here) called 10 Million Miles An Hour.

You can find some of the writing Beth has done for the Guardian here.

This episode was recorded over Skype for London Fields Radio.

This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.

A transcript of this episode is below.

Episode released: 1st July, 2013.

Book listing: 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant

Links:

Chez Vous on Bandcamp

Beth Druce for The Guardian

Beth Druce

Charles Adrian

Episode transcript:

Music
[Diagnostic by Miranda July]

Jingle
You're listening.... you're listening... to London Fields Radio.

Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to Page One On The Run. I'm Charles Adrian. This is the 42nd Page One. It's the 29th Second Hand Book Factory. This'll be going on... This'll be going up, rather, on or around the 1st of July, hence the opening track. That was Diagnostic by the amazing Miranda July from her album Cha Cha Cabaret (Chez Vous). My guest today over Skype - this is the second Skype... this is the second Skype interview I'm doing but hopefully a bit clearer because my guest has helped me work out how to record it better - is Beth Druce. Are you still there, Beth?

Beth Druce
I'm here. I'm here. The technical... technical department.

Charles Adrian
Absolutely! Technical... What do we call that? [frustrated sound] Words always disappear from my head as soon as I start to do these interviews. You're consultation - is that right? You're a technical consultant?

Beth Druce
Um...

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] In this capacity.

Beth Druce
Yes. For this show not... not... not... not more widely than that.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Not in general. No. What... So what... Tell me straight away what... More widely than that, how would you describe yourself?

Beth Druce
I'm a fashion writer. I'm a freelance writer so I write for lots of different people but my specialised subject, as it were, is fashion. And I have a few things: I have a column in... on the Guardian blog network that's called Fashion By Numbers, I work for a selection of magazines concentrating on show reports, and I also write a bit about watches and jewelry and luxury goods. Although I always feel a bit odd adding that in as if it's... you know, it's an afterthought and...

Charles Adrian
Is that... Do you consider that fashion? Or do you consider that not fashion?

Beth Druce
Sometimes it can be fashion.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Or does it, sort of, blend? Okay.

Beth Druce
Sometimes it's as far away from fashion as you can get. It depends what it is. And watches... luxury goods, it's, sort of... it... we always think it's, sort of, this... it sounds quite odd because it sounds, sort of, very... it sounds, kind of, salesy and commercial-y but basically luxury goods are anything that [costs], sort of, a significant amount of money that probably isn't accessible to everybody but are, sort of, more widely covered and reviewed, perhaps, than they used to be. And it can be really interesting because I... I write for a magazine called The Swiss Watch Report and I produce a feature that runs through the history of jewelry brands - so it could be something like Chanel or Christian Dior - and so it can be very... it can be very fashiony. But it's... it's... it's actually talking about clothes that I prefer.

Charles Adrian
Okay. And are you writing for people who will possibly buy the clothes or are you writing... is there another, kind of... is your audience reading for a different reason?

Beth Druce
I... So I think that's a really interesting question because, in the first instance, sort of, you think, "Yes, you're writing for somebody who might buy these clothes" but I don't think that's true. I think that... I'd like to think that my reader is interested in fashion as an art... as an art form rather than purely... purely to, sort of, take advice on what they might be wearing. And I have... This might sound odd but I really don't believe you have to wear fashion in order to appreciate it.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay. Right. Yes. So... And you do that from wherever you are?

Beth Druce
Yeah, I live... I live between Cornwall in the summer months - North Cornwall near Polzeath Beach - and I live in Switzerland in the winter - so from December to, sort of, April time - which gives me a really nice exchange of, sort of, mountains and the ocean.

Charles Adrian
[appreciative] Mmm! It sounds perfect to me. So we can imagine you... when this goes out, you will be in Cornwall.

Beth Druce
I will definitely be in Cornwall.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] On the 1st of July.

Beth Druce
Yes. Yes.

Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm. We can imagine you there. Wonderful. Wonderful. Let... Tell me about the... Tell me about the book that you... that you like.

Beth Druce
The book I like - and I've only recently read it, as in the past week...

Charles Adrian
Okay. Wow, this is really hot off the... hot off the... well, not hot off the press but hot...

Beth Druce
[speaking over] This is hot off the press. And I feel a bit of a sellout because it's what everybody is going to be reading on the train - or already is...

Charles Adrian
[laughing] Okay.

Beth Druce
... but we'll just forget that because it was so addictive that I had to keep reading it. And it just... I just felt, “Well, this is the book I've got to talk about”. And it's a book called Gone Girl by a writer called Gillian Flynn.

Charles Adrian
Ah. Okay. A new one on me. Yeah.

Beth Druce
So shall I... shall I start with the first page and chat about it afterwards?

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Go ahead, yes.

Beth Druce

When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. The shape of it, to begin with. The very first time I saw her, it was the back of the head I saw, and there was something lovely about it, the angles of it. Like a shiny, hard corn kernel or a riverbed fossil. She had what the Victorians would call a finely shaped head. You could imagine the skull quite easily.
I'd know her head anywhere.
And what's inside it. I think of that too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy? The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?

Charles Adrian
Wow.

Beth Druce
So...

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That is wonderfully gruesome, in a way. [indistinct] [laughs]

Beth Druce
[laughing] It's really gruesome. It is gruesome. And I don't read gruesome novels.

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Beth Druce
No, it's not... it's not gruesome. It's not gruesome. Without spoiling it, it's basically... it's about a husband, a man, who comes... who comes home to find his wife has gone and it looks like something's happened to her. And it's... So it's a thriller but the... I don't want to give too much away.

Charles Adrian
No, no, no. No.

Beth Druce
The backdrop to the story is: How well can two people ever know each other?

Charles Adrian
Yeah, that's really nice.

Beth Druce
And so you start off in the beginning with two people and it presents them in a certain way. And as... as... as the story unfolds, you're left with something very, very different. And that's what I find fascinating about it - this idea of, you know, how well can we ever know somebody in this world? And, sort of, the... the disguises and the masks that we wear, especially in... in close relationships. Because I think we're all very aware of the relationships with - or no, not the rela... the disguises that we build, in sort, of more formal situations - perhaps at work or people we don't know very well - but I think it's the ones that we... that we create for ourselves in our closer relationships that are the most interesting.

Charles Adrian
Yeah, I agree. And especially because we're supposed to be so open and honest with each other.

Beth Druce
Absolutely. And this idea that a relationship means you expose everything. And that's... And that's what, sort of, really drew me into the book. But it does have this incredibly gripping quality about it. And a friend of mine who also is reading it... because I said to her, “I... you know, I haven't been able to get anything done” and she said, “Yes, I just keep telling everyone I'm really, really busy”. [laughs]

Charles Adrian
[laughs] It's so great when you pick up a book like that, isn't it? I mean, not great for your... your productive life, but it's such a wonderful experience.

Beth Druce
I love it when it happens.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's the dream.

Beth Druce
And it's... it's... it certainly... it certainly does that.

Charles Adrian
Superb. Well, the... So the first track that you've picked, which I'm going to play now, obviously fits in with that very, very well. Congratulations, you've...

Beth and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Charles Adrian
... you've organised that...

Beth Druce
[speaking over] Do you know I actually hadn't started reading the book when I chose the tune.

Charles Adrian
No! Really? It's just one of those wonderful serendipitous...?

Beth Druce
[speaking over] No! It's one of my favourite songs ever and I literally... the next day I'd heard about this book and I downloaded it onto my Kindle and I was like... It worked.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Superb. Okay, good. One more... one more point to the... what I call the Oversoul, who [laughing] is looking after us and making sure that all these things make sense. This is Brilliant Disguise by Bruce... Bruce Springsteen - and he... actually, he's somebody that I... I don't think I've ever really listened to but I do like this. And the video... Have you watched the video of him on YouTube singing this?

Beth Druce
Yes.

Charles Adrian
The original video? It's… I find it very odd but it's very...

Beth Druce
It's very odd.

Charles Adrian
... it's... it's somehow... what's the word I'm looking for? It doesn't let you go. He's just, sort of, staring at you for four minutes.

Beth Druce
No, absolutely. And there's also something I like about this... [I don't know]... People always laugh when, you know, you say you have... you might listen to Bruce Springsteen.

Charles Adrian
Yeah. He's [indistinct] a particular...

Beth Druce
[speaking over] I kind of like that. It's not... It's not that it's not cool but it's, kind of, not cool.

Charles Adrian
It's a bit niche.

Beth Druce
It's a bit... [laughs] Yes.

Charles Adrian
Or... it's not... Well, yeah, ‘niche’ isn't quite the right word either but you have a very... he comes with a sense of who might listen to him, I think. [laughs]

Beth Druce
Completely. Yeah, well I am that person.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] You are that person and this is... this is him. This is Bruce Springsteen singing Brilliant Disguise.

Music
[Brilliant Disguise by Bruce Springsteen]

Charles Adrian
Oh that's so great. I think I should... I should start listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Beth Druce
[laughs]

Charles Adrian
[laughing] It's a great song. He's wonderful.

Beth Druce
I like it. And I love that last line, which is: “God have mercy on the man that doubts what he's sure of.”

Charles Adrian
Oh, amazing. Yeah, that's such a great thought.

Beth Druce
But it's... Yeah, that's one of my... one of my favourites.

Charles Adrian
Superb. Superb. And, actually, as it turns out... so the Oversoul hasn't stopped giving. The book that I'm going to give to you contains a character who can read minds.

Beth Druce
Really?

Charles Adrian
Isn't that amazing? Yeah. So where your narrator says, “What are you thinking, Amy?” this... this woman would know. Now, I'll explain why I've chosen this book. I was reading your... one of... So you have... you have another blog which is called... Oh... [laughing] It's gone out of my head now. I didn't write down what the other blog is called.

Beth Druce
[speaking over] Which? Just bethdruce.com? My website?

Charles Adrian
Oh, yes, it is.

Beth Druce
Yeah, yeah.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's bethdruce.com, where you write about cooking and restaurants and food and drink?

Beth Druce
Yes.

Charles Adrian
Yes. And so I was reading some of your entries there and this... so in A... On A Cook And Her Book, which is about Luisa Weiss's [/waɪsəz/] My Berlin Kitchen - or Weiss [/vaɪs/], perhaps - you... the first sentence is: “For a writer, I don't read many books.” Which I really... I love that as a first sentence. I think that's very... that's very nice. And I think... This is something that I've come across in lots of... lots of fields, actually. I'm... So I'm a performer and I don't go to the theatre very much. I think there's no need... If you... If you work in a particular field, I don't think there's any need to want to be a consumer of that thing, whatever the me... whatever the... you know, the medium is. And I can totally understand why... why you might not feel like picking up a book at the end of the day, given that you spend your whole day writing and reading. So what I did, I thought to myself, what would I read if I didn't read many books. And this is a book that I would read if I didn't read [laughing] many books...

Beth Druce
[laughs]

Charles Adrian
... and certainly it's a book that I've read... it's the first book of a series that I've read at times when I really couldn't be bothered to do anything else. It's the first book from the True Blood series. Have you read any of these?

Beth Druce
Well, now you bring that up... Wait, True Blood? This is the vampire series...

Charles Adrian
This is the vampire series.

Beth Druce
... that they've made films out of.

Charles Adrian
They did. They made TV series out of it.

Beth Druce
Yes. Because my... Because George, my boyfriend, is obsessed with the programmes. They are...

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Beth Druce
I think they're a load of rubbish - not the book, the TV programmes.

Charles Adrian
[laughing] No, they are... they are absolute...

Beth Druce
He even made me go to the cinema to see the third. But I'm really intrigued that you chose that.

Charles Adrian
No, wait, you're talking about Twilight.

Beth Druce
Oh, yes, I'm talking about Twilight. Thank God. Yes.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah, no, this is entirely different from Twilight.

Beth Druce
[laughs]

Charles Adrian
In fact, it couldn't be... Well, apart from the fact that they both contain vampires, it could hardly be further away. This is set in Louisiana, down the south, and there's a lot of sex in it. There's a lot of different kinds of creatures - not just vampires. But it's just... it's really silly. It's really silly and really fun.

Beth Druce
That's... I really like that because the other... the other thing that I was going to touch on today is that I'm... I'm a bit of a snobbish reader. I judge... I judge... I can be really, sort of, judgmental on certain forms of literature.

Charles Adrian
This will challenge you.

Beth Druce
Yes.

Charles Adrian
This is a book that I think you would be embarrassed to read on the train.

Beth Druce
That's good. That's good. We're breaking down my preconceptions.

Charles Adrian
[laughing] Yeah, absolutely. I'm not sure I would read this on the train. But it is fun. I totally... I just ate these up. I bought a set of them from The Book People and there... I don't know, there were about six or seven of them that came and I just devoured them. Appropriately enough. I'm going to read you the first... So this is Dead Until Dark, it's called.

Beth Druce
Okay.

Charles Adrian
All the titles have some... some kind of deadness pun in them. Actually, maybe I'll read to you the ti... just the titles. So: Dead Until Dark, Living Dead In Dallas, Club Dead, Dead To The World, Dead As A Doornail, Definitely Dead, Altogether Dead, From Dead To Worse, Dead And Gone. Those are the ones that were... that have been written.

Beth Druce
I'm intrigued. I'm really intrigued now.

Charles Adrian
[laughs] I'm not sure how much the first page is going to give you but you'll be able to read the rest of it later.

Chapter 1

I'd been waiting for the vampire for years when he walked into the bar.
Ever since vampires came out of the coffin (as they laughingly put it) four years ago, I'd hoped one would come to Bon Temps. We had all the other minorities in our little town – why not the newest, the legally recognized undead? But rural northern Louisiana wasn't too tempting to vampires, apparently; on the other hand, New Orleans was a real center for them – the whole Anne Rice thing, right?
It's not that long a drive from Bon Temps to New Orleans, and everyone who came into the bar said that if you threw a rock on a street corner you'd hit one. Though you'd [sic] better not.
But I was waiting for my own vampire.
You can tell I don't get out much. And it's not because I'm not pretty. I am. I'm blonde and blue-eyed and twenty-five, and my legs are strong and my bosom is substantial, and I have a waspy waistline. I look good in the warm-weather waitress outfits Sam picked for us: black shorts, white T, white socks, black Nikes.

So there you go. It sounds like a, kind of, teen read which is what it is.

Beth Druce
No, I'm sold on the fact that it's something I wouldn't normally read. And I think it's always good to do something that makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable.

Charles Adrian
[laughing] I think so too.

Beth Druce
[laughing] [indistinct]

Charles Adrian
So I'm going to... I'm going to... I'm going to pass that to you somehow. And right now I'm going to play your second track, which is by Van Morrison. Again, somebody who I don't listen to but think now that I probably should. This is The Way Young Lovers Do.

Music
[The Way Young Lovers Do by Van Morrison]

Jingle
London Fields Radio... it's London Fields Radio.

Charles Adrian
It is, it's London Fields Radio. My name's Charles Adrian. I'm here... This is Page One On The Run. I'm Skyping with Beth Druce today for the 29th Second Hand Book Factory. That was The Way Young Lovers Do by Van Morrison. And now, Beth, is the part of the show where you tell me about the book that you think I ought to have.

Beth Druce
Well, the book I think you ought to have is a book called The Thoughtful Dresser by an author called Linda Grant, who you may or may not have heard of. She wrote a very successful book called When I Lived In Modern Times. And she was... She's, kind of, a historical novelist and she, sort of, branched out with this book about clothes. And I think it's the... it's not the opening line but, sort of, the... I can't... I think premi... there's... there's a... I think there's a quote in, sort of, the page before the book starts that says you can't have depths without surfaces.

Charles Adrian
Ooo nice, yeah.

Beth Druce
And the book... the book challenges the idea that our clothes don't really mean anything. But it's not... it's a novel, it's a story. And it's... it's a story about... it's a story that intertwines lots of different things including the Holocaust and the Second World War, and it tells the story of... well, it tells the story of the people in her story via the clothes that they wear. And it's... it's incredible. And it's... I often feel it's.. I liken it to when, on my birthday - and I hope no one's listening - …

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Beth Druce
... people always give me birthday cards that, sort of, might somehow relate to fashion and they're awful. And it's... And it's a little bit like that with a book... books about fashion is that...

Charles Adrian
Yes, I can imagine.

Beth Druce
A novel about fashion? It sounds awful. It sounds like it would just be, sort of, you know, how to go shopping or something. I don't know.

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Beth Druce
And this book is so far away from that. It's a wonderful book but it also... it also communicates the message of our clothes and I think perhaps most importantly our relationship to our clothes. And I just loved it from start to finish. And I... I don't believe you need to have any interest in clothes to enjoy it. And that... that's... that's the book that I... I mean, I toyed with... with opening... reading the first page of that but I decided I'd give that book to you. [indistinct]

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay, you still get to read the first page of it.

Beth Druce
Oh, do I?

Charles Adrian
Yes, you do. You do.

Beth Druce
Oh! Well, I need to get... Hold on one second. I need to get the first page of it.

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Beth Druce
Hold on one second.

Charles Adrian
[laughing] Okay. I will stay here.

Beth Druce
[laughs] Okay.

Charles Adrian
Okay. You have it?

Beth Druce
I have it.

Charles Adrian
Wonderful.

Beth Druce
This is The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant. This is the first chapter, which is entitled In Which A Woman Buys A Pair Of Shoes.

TWELVE YEARS AGO I saw a red high-heeled shoe from an earlier era. Glorious, scarlet, insouciant, it blazed away amid the rubber soles and strong cotton shoelaces as if to say, “Take me dancing!”
At night when I can't go [sic] to sleep, I sometimes distract myself by inventing its imaginary owner. I see her walking [sic] one morning in a foreign city, and as she raises the blinds on a spring day, the sun striking the copper rooftops, she realizes that she must go out this very moment and buy a pair of red shoes. A wide-awake girl in a white nightgown parting the shutters on a Paris day, drinking a cup of coffee, lighting a cigarette, thoughtfully smoking it before she quickly eats a roll, puts on her lipstick, and leaves the house.
Or I wonder, instead, if she is somewhat older—say, thirty-eight—in a gray wool coat and lines descending each side of her mouth, a small ruddy birthmark on the side of her right cheek, which she fruitlessly tries to cover up by curling her hair in waves below her ears, but the wind always catches it and exposes the strawberry stain. She's walking down a Prague street, a shopping basket over her arm, to the market to buy carrots, leeks, mackerel, and passes by chance a shoe shop, and there are the red shoes in the window—all by themselves on a plinth raised above the lesser footwear, the price tag coyly peeking out from the base—and she has such a powerful urge to go in and try them on [that] that is what she does. Even though her husband, who is a little mean, would go mad if he saw how much they cost. He married her because of his jealousy and her birthmark; he could not stand another man to look at his wife.

Charles Adrian
[laughing] Wow, amazing. I love that thirty-eight-year-old that was, kind of, conjured up out of nowhere buying parsnip, leeks and mackerel.

Beth Druce
[speaking over] Mackerel. I have to... I mean, I've realised now why I decided against... I thought, as much as I love this book, I don't think the first page has the...

Charles Adrian
[laughs]

Beth Druce
... has the strength of Gillian... I feel it actually... I hope Linda Grant isn't listening, but I actually feel it... It doesn't let it down but the book is...

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I'm fairly confident she won't be.

Beth Druce
... the book is fantastic. And sometimes first pages are good and sometimes they're great.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Beth Druce
So...

Charles Adrian
No, I think there's already... there's already enough to sink one's teeth into but I'm looking forward to reading the whole book.

Beth Druce
Good.

Charles Adrian
Wonderful. That's the end of... That's the end of our Page One, Beth. Thank you so much for joining me.

Beth Druce
It's a pleasure because it's... as I said before, I don't read a lot of books and it's... it's reminded me how much love I do have books, which I think, as a writer...

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm. The right ones.

Beth Druce
... you sometimes take for granted.

Charles Adrian
Yes, yes. It's good to be reminded of that every now and then, I think. I'm going to finish with... Because it's still July and I'm in full Miranda July fan mode, I'm going to finish with another track by her. This is from her album 10 Million Miles An Hour [sic]. It's called Blood Race. Anyone listening who doesn't like Miranda July, it's only two minutes of your life - there's nothing to get upset about - but I think this is just amazing. Thank you very much, Beth, and...

Beth Druce
Pleasure. Thank you.

Charles Adrian
... yes, enjoy the rest of your... enjoy the [laughing] rest of your Cornwall summer.

Beth Druce
Thank you.

Music
[Blood Race by Miranda July]

[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]