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125 Susan C Wilson | Historical and Mythological Fiction Author
447 Plays2 years ago
Historical and mythological fiction author, Susan C Wilson talks about her debut novel 'Clytemnestra's Bind', the many years she has spent researching, writing and editing it and the 'House of Atreus' trilogy that it is kicking off.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
So our podcast is called Right and Wrong.
00:00:02
Speaker
Are these your notes?
00:00:03
Speaker
These are your notes about what we're going to say.
00:00:06
Speaker
Anything is a short answer.
00:00:08
Speaker
So how many novels did you not finish?
00:00:10
Speaker
Oh my God, so many.
00:00:13
Speaker
It was perfect.
00:00:15
Speaker
What are you talking about?
00:00:16
Speaker
This is not a spicy question.
00:00:19
Speaker
I love it.
00:00:20
Speaker
This is it, guys.
00:00:21
Speaker
The big secret to getting published is you have to write a good book.
00:00:25
Speaker
You had it here first.
Susan C. Wilson and Her Debut Novel
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:33
Speaker
On today's episode, I am joined by a Scottish writer who has just published her debut novel, Clytemnestra's Bind, the first book in a three-part epic series based on Greek mythology.
00:00:44
Speaker
It's Susan C. Wilson.
00:00:46
Speaker
Hi, welcome.
00:00:47
Speaker
Hi, thanks for having me.
00:00:49
Speaker
Great to have you on.
00:00:50
Speaker
Let's kick off with the book, which will be out as of this airing.
00:00:56
Speaker
Clytemnestra's Bind, what's it all about?
00:00:59
Speaker
So, okay.
00:01:00
Speaker
So it's the story of Clytemnestra, which she relates herself in the first person.
00:01:07
Speaker
It's written as historical fiction and it's set firmly in the Greek late Bronze Age.
00:01:13
Speaker
So Clytemnestra's world turns upside down when Agamemnon invades her palace.
00:01:18
Speaker
He destroys her family and he claims not just the throne, but Clytemnestra herself.
00:01:24
Speaker
She vows to avenge her dead by killing Agamemnon, but she quickly becomes pregnant by him with her first daughter, Iphigenia, and then with Electra.
00:01:33
Speaker
So she faces a dilemma.
00:01:35
Speaker
If she avenges her dead, which is a sacred duty as well as her desire, what will happen to her children?
00:01:42
Speaker
Agamemnon is the most powerful king in the land, and he's also ruthless and untrustworthy.
00:01:48
Speaker
So will her children be safer with him alive, or...
00:01:52
Speaker
Will they be less safe?
00:01:53
Speaker
And if she fails in the attempt to kill him, what will happen to her children?
Character Choices and Gender Bias in Mythology
00:02:01
Speaker
And then, of course, there's a familiar part of the story when Agamemnon turns his attention towards the wealthy citadel of Troy and his ambitions threaten even more starkly to destroy Clytemnestra's family.
00:02:13
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:14
Speaker
Gosh, Greek mythology is just non-stop drama, isn't it?
00:02:17
Speaker
It is.
00:02:18
Speaker
It's non-stop drama.
00:02:19
Speaker
That's why I love it.
00:02:21
Speaker
Am I right in thinking that you've always been fascinated by ancient mythology?
00:02:27
Speaker
I have, yeah.
00:02:28
Speaker
I first discovered ancient mythology when I was a child, just leafing through my mum's dictionaries and encyclopedias.
00:02:37
Speaker
I stumbled on all these names and I just became absolutely fascinated with the stories and all the connections.
00:02:43
Speaker
I even at one point attempted to write my own
00:02:46
Speaker
Greek Mythology Dictionary when I was about nine or ten.
00:02:50
Speaker
I didn't realise you could buy such a thing, so I attempted to write my own one, complete with lavish illustrations, and it just quickly became a mess because I kept discovering yet more connections and more characters.
00:03:01
Speaker
So I ended up very much out of order.
00:03:04
Speaker
But yeah, I've just always been fascinated.
00:03:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:08
Speaker
So this is the first book in your House of Atreus.
00:03:13
Speaker
Is it Atreus?
00:03:14
Speaker
House of Atreus.
00:03:15
Speaker
Atreus.
00:03:16
Speaker
This is the first book in the series.
00:03:17
Speaker
And like, there's a lot of, obviously there's a lot of Greek mythology to choose from.
00:03:21
Speaker
What was it about these characters in the kind of these events that really drew you in?
Dark Background of House of Atreus
00:03:28
Speaker
It has always struck me that the ancient Greeks,
00:03:31
Speaker
blamed Clytemnestra for killing her husband, which she did to avenge his murder of her child, whereas he didn't blame Agamemnon at all.
00:03:41
Speaker
Sometimes Clytemnestra garnered a sliver of sympathy, but it was always followed by condemnation of her as a supposedly monstrous woman because she was a woman who rebelled against her husband, her master, and she committed the ultimately wicked female crime of killing him.
00:04:00
Speaker
But I don't understand how anyone could at least fail to pity the predicament that she was in.
00:04:08
Speaker
But of course, I suppose the life of a daughter and the grief of a mother were outweighed by male concerns.
00:04:14
Speaker
In this case, Agamemnon's desire to wage war against Troy, which she could only do by sacrificing his daughter to the goddess Artemis.
00:04:22
Speaker
But the house of Atreus as well is...
00:04:24
Speaker
There are so many stories going back even further than Clytemnestra and Agamemnon.
00:04:30
Speaker
So there's just so much, there's so much meat that I could get from this.
00:04:36
Speaker
That's really what attracted me to the House of Atreus.
00:04:38
Speaker
I'm not too familiar with the mythology around that, but am I right in thinking that at some point Atreus, who was Agamemnon's father, did he feed his nephews to his brother at one point?
00:04:52
Speaker
He did, yes.
00:04:54
Speaker
That features in my story.
00:04:56
Speaker
It features because there's a whole backdrop of various murders that went on prior to Clytemnreshter coming into the story and just appalling treatment of the children in the House of Atreus.
00:05:13
Speaker
And it all features in the story.
Mythological Retellings and Research
00:05:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:18
Speaker
So mythological retellings, I would say in many ways, are probably more flexible than maybe like a straight historical fiction taken from a snapshot in time, because the fact that they are mythological sort of anyway, you know that there's elements that aren't exact.
00:05:38
Speaker
But I think it's still important to have an understanding of where it all came from.
00:05:41
Speaker
And by the sounds of it, it sort of sounds like you've been researching for this your entire life.
00:05:45
Speaker
But
00:05:46
Speaker
Was there a lot of research involved when it actually came to sort of putting it all together?
00:05:51
Speaker
Yes, lots and lots of research for the mythological elements and also for the Bronze Age setting as well, because I very much am telling this as historical fiction.
00:06:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:03
Speaker
So, yeah, in terms of the mythology, I've obviously researched the original sources.
00:06:10
Speaker
I say original sources, but the myths have come down to us.
00:06:15
Speaker
There were so many different versions of
00:06:17
Speaker
of these myths and the ones that have come down to us are really the surviving version.
00:06:24
Speaker
People kind of think of them as the final versions but there were so many different ones.
00:06:30
Speaker
So I've researched those, I've researched just basically everything I could get my hands on in terms of Greek dramas.
00:06:38
Speaker
the ancient Greek writers in terms of the history, the Bronze Age.
00:06:42
Speaker
I researched lots of, I read lots of books and continue to read lots of books on the Mycenaeans, on Mycenae, also Homer and classical Greece as well.
00:06:54
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:06:55
Speaker
So you sort of did the research that was necessary for this and then sort of read around the topic as well?
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:02
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:07:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:03
Speaker
That's great.
00:07:04
Speaker
So that you can really, you can sort of stretch in where, where isn't where you need to kind of stretch into different things and kind of reference different things.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:13
Speaker
Amazing.
00:07:14
Speaker
So moving on to some more sort of publishing sort of stuff now, you are with Neemtree Press.
00:07:25
Speaker
Do you have a literary agent or did you submit directly to them?
Publishing Journey and Finding a Press
00:07:31
Speaker
I submitted directly to them.
00:07:32
Speaker
So I had attempted to, well, after I finished writing Clytemnestra's Bind, I approached a number of agents.
00:07:44
Speaker
I didn't keep a tally because that would just be depressing.
00:07:47
Speaker
But I spent about maybe a year trying to get a literary agent and I
00:07:53
Speaker
And it's just, it's such a slow process.
00:07:55
Speaker
And maybe I was a little bit impatient, I don't know.
00:07:57
Speaker
But I then decided that I was going to submit to publishers directly.
00:08:03
Speaker
So I got a hold of, obviously, you can't submit to the big publishers directly.
00:08:09
Speaker
Very often, there's hardly ever open windows.
00:08:11
Speaker
But I got a hold of a book called Myslexia's Independent Press Guide, which
00:08:17
Speaker
which was fantastic it's absolutely fantastic and I discovered the various different independent presses that I could submit to so when I started doing that I got a lot more interest than through the agents and I was offered a contract by another publisher which I turned down and there was quite a bit of interest from various publishers but then I
00:08:39
Speaker
I submitted to Neemtree Press.
00:08:41
Speaker
That was actually in 2020 that I submitted to Neemtree Press.
00:08:44
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:08:44
Speaker
And at that point, yeah, I knew that I'd find my publisher.
00:08:51
Speaker
So before you said you'd submitted to lots of agents and things, had you sort of workshopped the manuscript and done sort of critique with different people before you submitted it?
00:09:02
Speaker
I did back in the early days.
00:09:06
Speaker
So there's been quite a big history, if you like, with this manuscript.
00:09:11
Speaker
I started it actually in 2011, which is frightening.
00:09:15
Speaker
That's frightening.
00:09:15
Speaker
But I haven't worked on it all that time.
00:09:18
Speaker
I started it in 2011.
00:09:19
Speaker
And back then I had a critique group.
00:09:22
Speaker
which I think is massively important to have people reading your book, especially in kind of early stages, it's really important.
00:09:30
Speaker
So I had a fantastic little critique group back then and I worked on it for about,
00:09:38
Speaker
a year and a half, maybe two years, which, yeah, it's quite a long time.
00:09:42
Speaker
But then I put it aside and I actually worked on the Helen book, which is the second book in my trilogy.
00:09:49
Speaker
I worked on that for a while, put that aside.
00:09:52
Speaker
I put books aside, but not because I don't intend to come back to them.
00:09:55
Speaker
It's just the way I work.
00:09:57
Speaker
So I put that aside as well.
00:09:58
Speaker
And I worked on yet another book, which was nothing to do with Greek mythology.
00:10:02
Speaker
It was a political satire book.
00:10:05
Speaker
And then I took a wee break from writing for a while.
00:10:07
Speaker
Then I went back to Clytemnestra.
00:10:08
Speaker
And by that stage, I wasn't actually in a critique group, but I'd benefited, I think I'd benefited so much from it already.
00:10:16
Speaker
And then I began submitting.
00:10:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:20
Speaker
And you eventually decided to go with Neemtree Press, who you seem very happy with.
Choosing Not to Have an Agent
00:10:29
Speaker
Now that you have the book deal, and it's a three book deal, right?
00:10:35
Speaker
Are you interested at all in looking for an agent, working with an agent now, or are you happy just working directly with the publisher?
00:10:42
Speaker
I think because I've signed these, it wasn't actually a free book deal.
00:10:47
Speaker
It was three separate contracts, but splitting hairs there.
00:10:51
Speaker
But because I've already signed those three contracts, I don't know what the value would be right now in bringing in an agent.
00:10:59
Speaker
But afterwards, then, yeah, I think I would be keen to get signed up.
00:11:06
Speaker
But Meantree Press have done, they have done so much in terms of publicising things.
00:11:12
Speaker
the work so yeah but yeah later on I think I would maybe like to bring an agent in if I could okay so you've got a little bit of time while you put these books out to sort of think about it and maybe like look at your options and things like that see how it's going yeah and you mentioned that the second book is was it called Helen um it's now called Helen's judgment Helen's judgment and I'm assuming this is Helen of Troy
00:11:38
Speaker
It is, yes.
Upcoming Books and Supernatural Elements
00:11:41
Speaker
How did you guess?
00:11:41
Speaker
She's Clytemnestra's sister.
00:11:44
Speaker
And yeah, it just seems like I actually started writing that book first originally before Clytemnestra, but it makes sense to have that book as the middle book now.
00:11:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:56
Speaker
So the series is going to be sort of head hopping between the sort of women of the family.
00:12:04
Speaker
Yeah, so the second book, Helen and also Achilles.
00:12:09
Speaker
Achilles actually narrates the story from, I'm bringing in a wee bit of the supernatural, which isn't really in my first novel, but Achilles is actually narrating the novel from beyond the grave in the second book.
00:12:21
Speaker
Because in the Iliad, he wasn't just a warrior, he was a poet, a bard as well.
00:12:25
Speaker
So I thought it'd be quite interesting to bring him in as a sort of all-knowing
00:12:30
Speaker
narrator.
00:12:30
Speaker
And because the Helen story is such, I mean, Trojan War is such an epic story, I wanted to tell it from more than one perspective, but it does very much concentrate on Helen though.
00:12:42
Speaker
And then the third book is Elektra.
00:12:44
Speaker
So Elektra's Fury, which actually is Elektra, who is Clytemnestra's daughter, and Hermione, who is Helen's daughter.
00:12:53
Speaker
So it's kind of exploring their fraught relationships with their mothers.
00:12:58
Speaker
Oh wow.
00:12:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:59
Speaker
This, this sounds really, it sounds really, really interesting way to kind of tell one long story, but then from different points of view.
00:13:07
Speaker
That's great.
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:08
Speaker
I prefer to do that rather than pack everything into the one novel.
00:13:12
Speaker
It's more satisfying to, you know, read it across several novels.
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah.
Balancing Writing with Other Commitments
00:13:18
Speaker
And, um, so currently working on book two, many authors say that the second book is a very different experience to the first book.
00:13:28
Speaker
It's sort of comes with a host of, of different challenges.
00:13:32
Speaker
Have you figured out a good routine, uh, like a good scheduling kind of system for your writing and editing?
00:13:39
Speaker
Well, so the second book was actually originally the first book.
00:13:46
Speaker
But now that I am in the process of publicising the first book, I am kind of struggling a little bit to get time to work on the second book.
00:13:58
Speaker
I'm so glad that it is already in the editing stage because if it was still in the writing stage,
00:14:04
Speaker
the first draft stage, I would be panicking a little bit.
00:14:06
Speaker
Oh yeah, of course.
00:14:07
Speaker
But I work full time, quite a demanding job.
00:14:10
Speaker
I'm quite tired in the evenings.
00:14:11
Speaker
So a lot of my publicising is done at the weekend.
00:14:17
Speaker
And so I'm kind of struggling for time a little bit.
00:14:20
Speaker
But I'm hoping that when we get the, well, I'm hoping that maybe in the next few weeks, things might have calmed down slightly with the publicising.
00:14:28
Speaker
And then I can concentrate a bit more on editing Helen.
00:14:31
Speaker
But I am just so glad that it's already in quite a reasonable state.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's great.
00:14:37
Speaker
You really set yourself up to be in a good position with that.
00:14:39
Speaker
Yeah, and Elektra's in first draft as well.
00:14:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:43
Speaker
So are you kind of simultaneously also trying to start getting a lecture done?
00:14:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:49
Speaker
So it's not as much simultaneously, but I do, I've had the leisure before signing up to Neem Tree Press.
00:14:58
Speaker
I had the leisure to put things aside and that's kind of what I like to do.
00:15:01
Speaker
I like to write a first draft and put it aside and come back to it a while later after I've worked on something else.
00:15:06
Speaker
I like to come back to it with fresh eyes.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:10
Speaker
And I don't know if I'll always be able to work that way, but when you don't have the time pressures for getting the next book written, then it's possible just to put things aside for a year or two years or whatever, then come back to them.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:25
Speaker
And are you working with the same editor that you worked with, with the first book?
00:15:31
Speaker
Um, so I've not, I haven't worked with the editor yet for Helen or Electra.
00:15:36
Speaker
Um, the first editor, I'm not sure because they've actually just taken on a new editor who's actually locally based for me.
00:15:45
Speaker
So that's great.
00:15:46
Speaker
I'm going to meet her, but I'm going to meet her shortly.
00:15:49
Speaker
So, but I suspect it will be a different editor.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:55
Speaker
How do you feel about that?
00:15:57
Speaker
I'm fine.
00:15:57
Speaker
Yeah, good.
00:15:58
Speaker
I mean, Clytemnestra didn't really require much editing anyway because I'd worked on it so much that really it was a lot of commas got added.
00:16:06
Speaker
Always commas.
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, always lots and lots of commas.
00:16:12
Speaker
That was basically the main part.
00:16:13
Speaker
There wasn't any major changes.
00:16:15
Speaker
There was one scene that had to be
00:16:18
Speaker
reduced to a couple of paragraphs.
00:16:19
Speaker
It was a scene that I drew a parallel with the House of Atria's story.
00:16:23
Speaker
It was later on in the book where a couple of petitioners are telling their story to Clytemnestra and it drew parallels, but it was also meant to be some comic relief.
00:16:32
Speaker
So I don't know whether that was entirely appropriate in a book like Clytemnestra's mind as well, but it was meant to be a sort of
00:16:38
Speaker
a bit of relief from all the high drama but that ended up getting reduced to a couple of paragraphs so but there wasn't an awful lot of editing so okay it might be a bit different when it comes to Electra because it's going to be in I'm not going to have edited it myself quite as much as I've done with Clytemnestra prior to to handing it over
00:17:01
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah.
Excitement for Different Editing Process
00:17:02
Speaker
But I, you know, in another way you with, when books are in earlier stages and you're working with the editor at an earlier stage, there's probably going to be less editing later on anyway, because you know, two heads working together and stuff.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:16
Speaker
I am actually really looking forward to that.
00:17:18
Speaker
Um, it'll be, it'll be a very different process.
00:17:20
Speaker
It might be a lot quicker.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:24
Speaker
Well, I know from my friends who are authors and have one or two books published that the process does change a lot in terms of there's a lot more sort of like drafting ideas and sort of writing up a few chapters and then bouncing that between agents or editors or whoever it might be.
00:17:44
Speaker
And then either like completely reshaping that or things like, I guess, similar to like you were saying with critique groups, but I think a little bit more kind of flexible.
00:17:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:54
Speaker
I'm actually really looking forward to that to see how it changes the editing process.
00:18:01
Speaker
So you've got the three part trilogy and it sounds like you have always been and continued to be fascinated by Greek mythology.
Future Projects in Greek Mythology
00:18:14
Speaker
after this will you do more greek mythology maybe pick a different like time or characters yes yeah i will um i've put so much research into it and to be honest i don't really do things by half so if i was to move on to if i was to move on to a different um mythology and maybe north or something like that then i would have to do lots and lots and lots of research
00:18:36
Speaker
So yeah, I'm going to stick with the Greek mythology.
00:18:39
Speaker
It's going to pay off because I've spent so much money as well and all the books and it's going to pay off.
00:18:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:47
Speaker
Are there any like certain characters or stories that you have your eye on?
00:18:52
Speaker
Maybe.
00:18:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:54
Speaker
Top secret.
00:18:55
Speaker
Maybe.
00:18:57
Speaker
I might delve a bit further back in time, I think.
00:19:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:00
Speaker
I mean, there's a lot of time to play with when it comes to Greek mythology.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah.
Learnings from First Book Experience
00:19:05
Speaker
So as of this airing, the first book will be out in the world.
00:19:10
Speaker
Through that experience of not only writing it, but then also like submitting and eventually working with Neemtree Press, what have you learned through the experience of that first book that you think is going to really help you out going into the second book?
00:19:27
Speaker
Um...
00:19:31
Speaker
That's quite hard to say because I am actually already so far into the second book anyway.
00:19:38
Speaker
I've edited it a couple of times already.
00:19:42
Speaker
It's gone through quite big changes because when I first started on it, that was before I discovered critique groups.
00:19:50
Speaker
And it has gone through some quite major changes anyway.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:55
Speaker
It sort of sounds like your second book is kind of more like the experience of a first book because you didn't edit the first book too much because it had been worked on so long.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:20:07
Speaker
It's kind of like that.
00:20:08
Speaker
I did have written things in the past as well, but never particularly seriously.
00:20:12
Speaker
Yeah, never really with a view to getting published.
00:20:17
Speaker
But yeah, I think I did my first book.
00:20:19
Speaker
I wrote my first book when I was 21.
00:20:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:22
Speaker
And it was just a pile of rubbish.
00:20:27
Speaker
It really was.
00:20:27
Speaker
It was just a test of stamina to see if I was capable of sitting down and writing a book, but I never really tried to get that published.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's true of so many people and writers.
00:20:39
Speaker
I remember the first thing I wrote and I did make the mistake of trying to get it published and things.
00:20:45
Speaker
And it was rightfully rejected by everyone.
00:20:48
Speaker
But yeah, it sounds like you're in a kind of interesting and somewhat unique position where your first book didn't get that
00:20:57
Speaker
you didn't have too much editing because it was very long, the process, you've done so many drafts of it, thus making your second book a more similar experience to most people's experience with their first book probably.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, probably.
00:21:10
Speaker
So your third book, which you're excited for because then you're going to work
00:21:13
Speaker
It's going to be rather different.
00:21:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's going to be your... Like my second book.
00:21:18
Speaker
Yeah, kind of.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think so.
00:21:20
Speaker
And I'll have much more of a clue as well about how much publicity and publicising is involved as well, which I didn't have much idea about with Clytemnestra's mind.
00:21:31
Speaker
I knew it would be quite intense, but yeah, it is quite intense.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:36
Speaker
It's good though.
00:21:36
Speaker
That's good.
00:21:37
Speaker
It's good to be busy and to be doing lots of publicity and things like that.
00:21:39
Speaker
So all good.
00:21:41
Speaker
As always proving that everyone's writing journey and when you go through publishing is entirely unique because I don't think, I think your, your experience is going to be so different to everyone else's.
00:21:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:56
Speaker
I think that's a good thing.
00:21:57
Speaker
Maybe.
00:21:57
Speaker
I think it is.
00:21:58
Speaker
That's, I mean, it's one of the things that I love about this industry is that no two writers have the same journey.
00:22:05
Speaker
It's all unique and there's no, there's no sort of one correct way of doing it.
00:22:09
Speaker
Everyone gets into it and gets through it in their own, has their own path.
00:22:13
Speaker
Yeah.
Desert Island Book Choice
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:14
Speaker
And I think that brings us on to what is always the final question.
00:22:19
Speaker
So Susan, if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book, which book would it be?
00:22:27
Speaker
So of course I knew this question was coming up and I've tormented myself.
00:22:32
Speaker
I've absolutely tortured myself.
00:22:34
Speaker
I was thinking about cheating.
00:22:36
Speaker
I've got this huge omnibus of Muriel Spark, but I suppose I can't really get away with that.
00:22:41
Speaker
Well, I mean, a lot of people have.
00:22:43
Speaker
Someone found a bound copy of all three Lord of the Rings books.
00:22:49
Speaker
And they literally sent me the link on the internet to prove that it existed.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:54
Speaker
But was The Lord of the Rings, wasn't it originally a big, massive single book anyway?
00:22:59
Speaker
And he split it into smaller books, The Fellowship of the Rings and what have you.
00:23:03
Speaker
I think so.
00:23:05
Speaker
I could be wrong.
00:23:05
Speaker
It's just enormous as one book there.
00:23:08
Speaker
It is, yeah.
00:23:09
Speaker
Well, but I decided though on Wuthering Heights because...
00:23:13
Speaker
It's just the one book that I really could get to the end of it and go straight back to the beginning quite happily.
00:23:20
Speaker
I've read it so many times and the weird thing about that is it never actually changes for me.
00:23:25
Speaker
It's always the same every single time I read it and yet I can read it over and over and over.
00:23:30
Speaker
I think the only time that it changed for me was my second reading because I read it first when I was 14 and I kind of romanticised Heathcliff for some bizarre reason.
00:23:39
Speaker
So the second time I read it, I thought, whoa, yeah, he's actually quite a terrible person.
00:23:45
Speaker
But I just love it.
00:23:47
Speaker
I love the setting, I love the characters, I love the kind of darkness of it.
00:23:52
Speaker
And I love my conflicted feelings for Caffey and Heathcliff as well.
00:23:57
Speaker
Pity Heathcliff when he arrives as a child at the Heights.
00:24:01
Speaker
And then of course he turns into this terrible person, inflicting his vengeance on people who just don't deserve that treatment.
00:24:09
Speaker
But yes, it's just such a great book.
00:24:12
Speaker
It is.
00:24:12
Speaker
It's a classic.
00:24:13
Speaker
And I always say, you know, these books are classics for a reason.
Closing Thoughts and Social Media
00:24:17
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:24:18
Speaker
It's funny because there's definitely a mentality and I'm guilty of this as well as where, you know, I have this massive to be read pile.
00:24:25
Speaker
And then I also sort of have a sort of off to the side.
00:24:29
Speaker
I have like a classics I should read pile.
00:24:32
Speaker
And I'm always like, and I've spoken to other people who have a similar kind of energy to this.
00:24:37
Speaker
And they're always like, oh, I just want to read the new thing though.
00:24:40
Speaker
And then when they do eventually get around to reading a classic, they're like, oh my God, this is amazing.
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, I absolutely love classics.
00:24:46
Speaker
I would actually rather be reading classics than new things.
00:24:49
Speaker
But there's a reason why books are still being read 100 plus years later.
00:24:55
Speaker
There's a very good reason.
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah, I'm always blown away whenever I read like an old classic or even a modern classic.
00:25:01
Speaker
And I'm like, wow, I get it.
00:25:03
Speaker
I get the hype.
00:25:05
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yep.
00:25:07
Speaker
Amazing.
00:25:08
Speaker
Well, thanks so much, Susan, for coming on and telling us all about your new book and all the mythology and everything that goes behind it and your publishing journey.
00:25:18
Speaker
It's been really interesting chatting with you.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:19
Speaker
Thanks so much for having me.
00:25:20
Speaker
I've really enjoyed it.
00:25:22
Speaker
And for anyone wanting to keep up with what Susan is doing, you can follow her on Twitter at Bronze Age Woman.
00:25:30
Speaker
That's W-M-M-I-N.
00:25:32
Speaker
Or on her website, you can find out more at www.susancwilson.co.uk.
00:25:39
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow along on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook.
00:25:43
Speaker
And you can also support the show on Patreon.
00:25:46
Speaker
For more Bookish Chat, you can check out my other podcast, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:25:50
Speaker
Thanks again to Susan, and thanks to everyone listening.
00:25:52
Speaker
We'll catch you on the next episode.