Nina Stibbe is not confident in herself. Her hilarious first book, a 2013 memoir. All the best, Nina, received critical acclaim (and became a BBC series starring Fay Marsay and Helen Bonham Carter); her graphic novels are from Lizzie Vogel Award Winning Series Reasons to be happy until last year One day I will surprise the world – saw their successor Sue Townsend (and not just because they are both from Leicester). But she still has, in her words, “a blissfully low self-esteem.”
“I don’t have sad insecurities,” she tells me. “I don’t just sneak around.”
She believes it’s because she’s a black sheep. Stibbe grew up in a single-parent family in rural Leicestershire, and “my mother was disapproving and spiteful, but the rest of the family were neat and orderly.” Then I went to Thames Polytechnic. Since then, I have always interacted with brilliant and talented people, with whom I often do not feel like equals.”
When she recently met a potential new agent, the powerful Felicity Blunt, sister of actress Emily and wife of Stanley Tucci, she felt unworthy of such an impressive performance and asked, “But do I agree with you?” Blunt rightly rebuked her.
“I don’t have impostor syndrome, but I just thought, ‘Do I belong in such a prestigious society?'”
But isn’t this imposter syndrome? She starts laughing. “This? I don’t even know what impostor syndrome is! That’s how bad I am.”
We talk on the phone; plans for a personal meeting were disrupted by a train strike. This is disappointing, at least to me, because Stibbe is charming, chatty, and just as funny in person as he is in print.
“I’m in London, sitting in the bottom room of Sam’s cafe. [a venue that features frequently in her new book]”I came to meet my college son for lunch and my daughter works here, and then I thought, ‘You know what, I don’t want to have to look for a Lime bike and look where I live.’ [to do the interview]. I think I’ll just ask if I can come here.
In October, Stibbe published her second memoir. Went to London and took my dog with me. Like the first, this is the story of her time in London. All the best, Nina. The letter, made up of letters to her sister, was about Stibbe, who, as a naive 20-year-old, left Leicestershire in 1982 to take a job in Camden as a nanny for editor and journalist Mary-Kay Wilmers. It was quirky, uplifting and often made me laugh out loud. The new book is a diary covering 12 months from March last year to March during the breakdown of her marriage. It’s still funny, but the tone is very different now that Stibbe is older and wiser.
No further explanation is given as to why the marriage is in trouble. All the reader knows is that, having lived in Cornwall for twenty years, she is now in London and, at least initially, somewhat frightened by the prospect. There’s no real story, but the underlying themes are getting older and the outlook on life is very different from what she imagined.
Stibbe is still not divorced, “but I think I probably shouldn’t talk about it because it’s not fun for him or my kids,” she says. She and her husband got married just five years ago but have been together for decades.
Among all the humor – “I don’t know what I like least: people who recommend meditation or are prone to conspiracy theories” – there is a hint of sadness and regret, and there are sentences that leave the reader wanting for the best. At one point she writes, “I haven’t cried in over forty-eight hours.”
Later: “And I have never judged other people who end their marriages, quite the contrary. Now it is, but I feel guilty. It’s so difficult, difficult and sad. It drags others down, and the person feels selfish and weak if they don’t just want to move on.” There is a real sense of the fragility of things.
IN All the best, NinaMuch of the humor comes from the fact that Stibbe finds himself in the heart of literary London, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett, without having the slightest idea who they are. She asked Miller if he was an opera singer and thought Bennett had once been one too. Kroningsstraat.
Now, after the success of this book and her subsequent works, she is herself a member of the literary establishment.
She spends the registered year in Went to London Stay with Tulip Fever author Deborah Moggak. She collaborates with authors Katie Rentzenbrink, Meg Mason and Nick Hornby (who adapted). All the best, Nina for television in 2016). She faces Jojo Moyes, Frears and Bennett.
But the book is also full of everyday observations—“The grapefruit soap I bought as a housewarming gift smells like pork”—and trips to the local laundromat—“Bubbles is open late today: 10:30 a.m.” Pollution, wisteria dust and the like are responsible” – and reports on her eating habits: “Debbie defrosted a Charlie Bigham fish pie on the radiator.”
According to her, it is a simple account of her days.
“I didn’t plan on writing this for publication, so the first few months were very pure and unconscious. I wrote only for myself because I knew I wanted to remember that time.” When her editor suggested publication, Stibbe wondered whether she would retroactively censor certain articles. She decided not to do this. “I was writing about the gynecological, urinary and vaginal problems that me and my friends were having – it’s all vaginas – so I thought, ‘OK, should I remove all the vaginas and prolapses?’ And then I thought, “No, I’m going to talk about women’s health through menopause and beyond.”
For example, we learn that her friend Fiona is stumped: “every time she gets up from her chair, her bladder and uterus fall out of her vagina.” , blaming her husband’s erectile dysfunction on the fact that he “only puts it in once every two weeks, leaving her open for business.”
Does she worry about the reactions of the people she mentions who she was, shall we say, “ambivalent”? For example, she refers to the fact that she “dodged Lionel Shriver for a quiet life” at an event and later apologizes to avoid “dinner with Lionel Shriver.” “It’s a challenge, but I think she’s good at it, so I don’t feel like I’m putting her down,” she says. “I don’t think I treated her too badly.”
She reports a friend’s comment: “Alan Bennett thinks it’s funny that teachers touch teenage teachers.” Won’t he get angry? “I know Bennett regrets being a national treasure,” she says. “He would like to become famous for a sex scandal, he really would. I think I did him a favor. I returned it to the map.
Throughout the book, her joy for her two children, Alfie and Eve, is clearly felt. Swimming with them, she writes: “I can’t describe the joy of seeing them move with frog legs and look perfect, wonderful and just beautiful.” If you need something extra, go swimming with your kids.”
They both live in London and are the main reason why Stibbe loves spending time there. “I can’t be that far away from them. Even though they are 20 and 22, that’s too far away.
“When I come to London, it will be nice to be with them again. Yesterday at dusk Alfie and I were cycling from Upper Street to Primrose Hill and I almost cried with joy. There was something about being alive and feeling the wind in your hair that was just wonderful.”
By the end Went to LondonStibbe seems to have found acceptance in this new phase of his life. The melancholy, sad entries disappeared. On one of her last nights, she is ridiculously excited about beating Nick Hornby’s team in a pub quiz because she knows the name of the poison extracted from the foxglove and enthuses that “it’s fun.” As she explains in her latest entry, she has “learned to be alone.”
When you talk to her, she definitely sounds happier than she did at the beginning of the book. “Yes,” she says simply. “I am.”
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.