Whitcoulls Recommends: We All Live Here and The Sequel

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes. Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A recently broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Not to mention a once promising writing career that is now in freefall. So when her real dad - a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago - suddenly appears on her doorstep wanting to make amends, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: about love, friendship, and what it actually means to be family. This is classic Jojo Moyes - warm, funny and highly entertaining.

The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz. This very clever book is in fact a sequel, to one she wrote a few years ago called The Plot. They’re terrific literary satire. In The Plot, Jacob Finch Bonner is a failed writer, now teaching at a third rate college when he gets the chance to misappropriate the plot of a book from one of his students and becomes a huge literary sensation. Now, in the sequel to this, Jacob’s met an untimely end and his wife Anna is picking up the royalty cheques while deciding to write a book herself - because, how hard can it possibly be? And she also hits the big time until one day messages start accusing her of plagiarism and it’s clear that somebody out there knows all about her deep dark past and is out to get her. They’re great books - I loved them both. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
It is time to talk books and with a couple
of recommendations for us. Joan McKenzie, Good morning, morning. Jojo
Moyes is back with a new book.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yes she is. She's terrific and she's got a big
fan club of readers, particularly women I would say, who
just love the really warm I'm going to say homely
stories that she tells, which are so realistic that sometimes
you feel as though you could almost be reading about
your own life. And she really nails it in this one.
Our lead character is a woman called Lilah, who is

(00:42):
an author. She wrote a book. She's been in what
she thought was a happy marriage. Her book was all
about how to keep your marriage alive, and two weeks
after it was published, her husband walks out on her.
So poor Lilah is embarrassed. She's a parent who turns
up at the school gates, sees all the other school
mothers there, knows that they're talking about her. It's all
pretty miserable, but as I say, there's so much that

(01:03):
you can relate to. And she has two kids who
live at home and her stepfather is with them because
her mother had died. So there's the family that's kind
of drawn together from various aspects. And then her biological
birth father one day turns up and knocks on the door.
He's been an actor out in Hollywood. I think, probably
a pretty second rate actor, but he's been out in Hollywood,

(01:25):
and so he comes with a flourish and all of
the drama into their family life, and she doesn't want
him there, but he moves in. And it's about how
a family can stitch itself together and get through things
with characters who have all sorts of flaws and funny
ways and very disparate different people, but families are what

(01:45):
holds the center together, and in this book, that's what happens.
It's really well.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Done, and this is classic Jojo Moys like, if you're
a fan, you'll be satisfied, Yes you will.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Rate.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Tell me a little bit about the sequel by gene hanf. Corelitz.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
She is a terrific writer. Some time ago on your program,
I talked about a book called The Plot, And in
the Plot we had a carriage called Jacob finch Bonner
who was a washed up writer ended up working at
a third rate college where he stole the plot for
a novel from one of his students. You might remember that.
So this now is called the sequel, and it is

(02:20):
the sequel. And since that first book, Jacob has met
an untimely death, and his wife Anna is busy picking
up the royalty checks and having a very nice time,
although she claims to be desperately missing her husband. But
then she gets the idea that she might also write
a book because now she has his literary connection. So
she writes a book, which yes, it's the bestseller, goes
to the top of the charts, and suddenly she starts

(02:42):
getting messages from someone who's saying to her, we know
that you stole this plot, and we are going to
expose you, essentially, And that's just as she's the new
darling on the literary circuit. But somebody knows exactly what
she did to get there. And I think this is
really well written. There's a very calculated insinuation of Anna
into the literary life with these derisive snares at her

(03:04):
former husband while she's enjoying the roots of his own misappropriation.
So what goes around really comes around and Gene is
also a screenwriter too. Yes. She wrote the book which
then became the TV series called The Undoing, which starred
I think it was Hugh Grant and great television. If
anybody's missed it, it's worth finding it.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Oh Okay, thank you so much, Joan. Two fabulous choices
There We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes and the
Sequel by Gene hamp Corralitz.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks the b from nine am Sunday,
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