‘Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!’ Episode 4
What follows is the transcription taken from the ‘Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin’ podcast, first aired on 20th July 2023. Listen on Spotify, Acast, or Apple Podcast.
Hi and welcome to episode 4 of ‘Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!’ My name is not Alex Summer; my name is actually Nicola Walker, and I am reading the part of Alex Summer in Lisa Jewell’s new book None Of This Is True.
The first three episodes of ‘Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!’ have been created as a fictionalised podcast as part of the campaign for the book. I am thrilled to say that Lisa is here with us, and we’re going to hear more about it all. Hello, Lisa!
LISA
Hi Nicola, thanks for being here and for agreeing to read the part of Alex in my book. You have done a phenomenal job and it’s been brilliant listening to this podcast coming to life.
So, I think we could say we left the last episode on a bit of a cliffhanger, and I know listeners will want to find out what happened. The good news is that the full story can be found in my new book, which is called None Of This Is True, and it’s available in hardback, e-book and audiobook. If you’re listening to this, I’m sure you’ll be excited about the audiobook!
NICOLA
I know that anyone listening is going to want to know more about the background of the book, and about the making of the audio version of the book. So I think we should probably get started. What do you think?
LISA
I absolutely agree. Let’s go.
NICOLA
Okay, I’m coming in with the first question. You have created these two main female characters and they are both brilliant voices - Alex and Josie. And I wondered was that a choice to have two female leads and where did they come from in your imagination?
LISA
It sort of wasn’t a choice. Most of my books have a really big mix of characters’ points of views. I normally have teenagers, children, men, women. So it’s actually quite unusual for me to only have two female voices. Josie actually came to me after her husband, Walter. She’s married, as listeners know, to a man called Walter and he was the inspiration for the whole book. I saw him sitting in the window of his flat one day when I was walking my dog; he was literally just a guy sitting in a flat staring at a laptop, but for some reason I was slightly obsessed with him. I just had this feeling that there was some dark story going on behind him. I kind of wanted to get inside his flat, to explore and see what was happening. I felt that there was a room somewhere inside that flat, and that there was somebody in that room… so Josie came from Walter, weirdly, and I was not expecting Josie to take centre stage in the way that she did.
And Alex! well, Alex was supposed to be a novelist and I kind of changed my mind because I thought that was going to be playing too close to home for me. I thought a really good alternative to her being a novelist would be that she could be a podcaster. I think, in my mind, I just have this idea that a podcaster is very glamorous and urban and cool and witty. So Alex came out of, I think, my stereotypical idea of what a podcaster might be like, with the glamorous recording studio in the back garden of her Queens Park house. But Alex obviously grew layers as I grew her on the page.
NICOLA
So when you’re writing, do you think about the audiobook at all?
LISA
Not even 1%, less than 1% of me is thinking about the audiobook. But not one part of me is thinking even really about the physical book itself. Every now and then I think about my readers and get a little nervous that they’re not going to like what I’m writing, but that’s about as much as I get outside of my own head and imagine a world beyond. My immediate situation is sitting at my laptop making up stories. So no, I couldn’t have thought about an audiobook while I was sitting working the story out, page by page.
NICOLA
I really expected that answer. I can’t imagine that you would, because the way you write makes it very clear that all these characters have completely full lives, that they exist in your head constantly while you’re writing. How does that feel? Are they talking to you?
LISA
They kind of are, that sounds really kind of spooky and slightly pretentious but they are. They’re just there, they’re just in my head and they’re not overwhelming at all. I think that’s very important when you write in this genre, that you should not become overwhelmed by your characters because so many of them are twisted and dark. And you wouldn’t want to be dragged down by them, so you absolutely just have to be a sort of cipher listening to them. They’re just there, and the minute my fingers touch the keyboard in the morning, they’re just ready to get to work with me, they show me the way to go. Which all sounds horribly pretentious but… laughs that is how it feels.
NICOLA
I’m fascinated by how you write, and I’m sure it’s a really annoying question… because when people ask me about how I do acting, I find it really hard to explain, but I am going to ask this question.. what does an ordinary day look like when you’re really in it, when you’re really involved in writing?
LISA
It looks incredibly ordinary! I think ordinary is the key word here, and in fact, the best existence for a writer, when they’re trying to get a really good quality amount of work done, is this Groundhog Day existence. When there’s nothing in your diary, and you wake up at the same time and do the same thing every day. So for me, on a good writing day, I can spend the morning getting on top of all my domestic stuff and emails and what have you, then just have a nice quiet afternoon at my kitchen table, and spend as many hours as it takes to write a thousand or 1500 words or so. And then my job is done for the day. Boring is good. You need a good routine and to be quite rigid with yourself. But obviously there are other things that you’re committed to doing as well; if you wrote a thousand words a day you could write three books in a year, and obviously I’m not writing three books year because there’s so many days where I can’t write when there are other things going on.
NICOLA
Do you feel that there’s a great difference for your readers from having a physical book in their hands and this quite new, it is quite new really though we’re all used to it now, this walking around going about our daily lives while having an amazing story, very intimately, in our ears? It’s almost private, it sort of feels quite secretive when I get really engrossed in an audiobook. How does that feel for you? Do you think there’s a very different relationship with the story from someone holding it to someone having it in their ear?
LISA
I actually think there is, and I have to be quite honest and say I haven’t listened to many audiobooks because it doesn’t really fit into my life; there aren’t that many moments in my life where an audiobook works. But I have noticed on the few occasions when I've listened to a book on audio, it stayed in my head afterward, in a really different way- in almost the same way that books stay in my head, if I've read them on a sun lounger on a particularly interesting holiday or on a trip abroad, or when there's something else going on. Rather than me just sort of sitting in my arm chair or lying in bed, reading a book, you know, reading 20 pages, putting it down, there's something else that is an added element, when you're listening to an audiobook, that has an effect on the way you feel about that the book you're listening to, and adds a whole new dimension to it. So yeah, I do think there's something kind of strange… I mean books are magical, I am the biggest fan of the physical book that you could ask for, but there is some little extra magical element when you're listening to an audiobook, and someone speaking to you in into your ear, while other things are going on around you. I guess that's what it is, your eyes are looking around you. So it's a different sort of listening.
NICOLA
Does it does it sometimes shock you the way and actor has interpreted a character? Have you listened to other books that that you've heard turned into audio, and had a moment of going “what? That’s not how they sounded!”
LISA
I don’t know. Because this is the thing, it's like when people ask me about casting a dream fantasy cast for a movie adaptation, I can never think of an actor whose face entirely fits this sort of weird wishy-wishy vague idea of a face I had in my head, because it's a different, sort of like a dream like face you have in your head when you're writing a book. It's not a real face. So I find it really hard to look around at the real world and look a real human beings and and find a face that that matches. I feel the same about voices. So yeah, I don't have a very set idea what my characters’ voices sound like even though I do describe them in the books.
NICOLA
You do, you're very clear. It's beautiful for a voice actor, you do so much of the work for us.
LISA
Thank you, I guess I'm doing that also for the reader because I want the reader to have a sense of it but it's very broad strokes. It's very broad strokes. You can't pin down the absolutely tiny minutiae of what somebody's voice actually sounds like. And the way their tongue hits the roof of their mouth, when they say certain words and sort of, you know, the size of someone's mouth obviously has an effect on the way their voice sounds and how many teeth they've got and all those sorts of things. And I can't obviously get to that level of describing a voice. So these broadstroke descriptions are there for the reader to give them a feel but to answer your question, I don't I've ever heard a voice actor doing an audiobook and thought no, that's so wrong.
NICOLA
The joyful thing I think it with this book for me is, is that although, as I said, there are these two very strong female voices that take you on the journey, it is fully populated by these other characters who are all really vividly drawn. I was just wondering out of all of the characters in the book, Could you possibly point at one and say that was the favourite one, that one was occupying my head or is that a bit like asking you who your favourite child is?
LISA
When people asked me what my favourite one of my books is, it’s a bit like asking me about my favourite child, but actually, there's always a character in every book I write who I enjoy writing the most, and it's usually the most twisted one, usually the darkest one. It's usually the one with the most unsettling personality, who does the worst things. So Josie was just delicious to write. I hadn't known that she was going to be quite as peculiar as she was. I knew she was going to be very very different to Alex, and I knew where she lived and I knew she had this much older husband, and I knew she was a little bit downtrodden, and a little bit weird. Creepy is, is that's where I set off with Josie. I wanted her to be a little bit creepy, the sort of person you would want to keep at arm’s length if she tried to get into your life. Yeah. So so when she went as peculiar and unnerving as she did go in the end, I wasn't quite expecting that and that was unbelievable amounts of fun to go with her every day and see what peculiar things she was going to do that day.
NICOLA
When we were recording, during breaks, I was saying you know, we've all done this on on a micro scale, we've all done it. We’ve all met somebody and sort of had an initial, ‘this new person that's popped up into my life seems to be quite interesting’, and then we’ve had to do an about turn when we get to know them.
LISA
Exactly. You suddenly get these little red flags coming up and they're just something unsettling. And you can’t put your finger on it. You just say actually maybe I shouldn't have invited you to the pub. Maybe I shouldn't have replied to your email, whatever the thing was that you did. The world is is full of people like that and that was the fun of writing this book; just exploring what happens when you make bad decisions.
NICOLA
And also, I think that what you nail in this beautifully is the different ways that we all consume content. Now, you know, we do it through books, through podcasts, through, you know, you've got the Netflix documentaries. I really love the way you're sort of drawing on the different ways we now consume the things we enjoy.
LISA
Yeah, I mean with the podcast I made a very, very deliberate decision that I wasn't going to write the book as a podcast. I just thought I'd seen that before and it just kills a lot of the narrative for me, writing in that, in that sort of way. But the Netflix transcripts were quite a surprise. I think I just kind of got to this point with the book, where I was building up this weird relationship between Alex and Josie, and building up the reader’s sense of discomfort about Josie and ending these chapters on these little weird sort of cliffhangers of “oh, Josie stolen the hand soap, that's a bit odd. She's, you know, rifled through the recycling, that's a bit odd, but it didn't feel like enough for the reader to feel really invested in the fact that something was about to go horribly wrong. So that was when I actually retroactively when went back and started putting in these little Netflix teasers from this pretend Netflix documentary. So that came after the event, actually, because I really wanted to give the reader something meaty, even though they're watching these very quiet scenes between Josie and Alex where hardly anything is happening, that they could tell from these little Netflix interludes that big stuff was on the way.
NICOLA
Yeah, it really works. I mean it works beautifully. And, finally, I would like to ask without getting any spoilers, I wondered whether these characters would be characters that you would ever return to? Only because where you leave us is… Oh gosh, I can't I can't speak about it without really spoiling something. So I'll just leave it at that. Would you ever return to them?
LISA
I am going to say that I shall not return to these characters. I can't tell you how much work I did on that last chapter. I rewrote that last chapter about six times, It was completely different every single time I wrote it and when I finally got it right, I just knew it, with goose bumps and just sort of knew this is done. This is… this is all we need to know about these people and this is a little sort of something for the reader to take away from the book and make them feel uncomfortable for the rest of their lives. But I don't need to go back to them. So no, I'm not going to return to these characters… but who knows, they might still be out there somewhere?
NICOLA
Yeah, I think it's so complete. I would have been really surprised. You don't seem to be to, you know, to be doing that with the end of this book, you give an end. Endings are hard, don’t you find that?
LISA
In life generally, too, yes! The coming in and the going out is really hard. Yes. And I think I owe it to a reader or a listener, when they've put in all that effort, reading 370 pages, they’re owed a good ending and I always work extra hard on them.
NICOLA
You nailed the ending, nailed it because it's incredibly satisfying and shocking and creepy. And glorious.
LISA
Thank you. Thank you. So now it's my turn to ask you because, Nicola, obviously You know, I sat at my kitchen table and and wrote these words, never expecting that Nicola Walker would be reading them one day. And as I said earlier, not even beginning to envisage or think about the audio aspect of what I was doing. So there's so much I don't know about how it works from your point of view. So I'd love to know a little bit more about your experience of recording an audiobook. Obviously you're only reading Alex’s sections of the book; so when you're speaking from the narrator’s perspective, how much do you think about the other character voices or ones that you're not reading?
NICOLA
You have to love them all, you know, I can't read a book if I haven’t enjoyed the book. So the first point is you'll be sent a book and you read it, and then you make a decision on whether or not you can do a good job for the author. So that's the first point, and that means, you know, you're involved in all of the characters, the whole story and then you go through and look at your role in it and that is a really strange process. It's really practical. So I mean, you know, my answers are going to be similar to yours. It's far more practical than people think. I go through and highlight in different colours the different voices. And they have a colour in… I'm gonna sound mad, like you… they have a very clear colour. Josie is this strange sort of dark muddy lilac..
LISA
Are you gonna say purple?
NICOLA
Yes! I knew it. And Alex is this sky blue, quite clear, sky blue. And we're going to sound mad, Nathan's kind of like a burnished yellow colour and sunflower. Anyway, so you colour everybody, you know, everyone's got a distinct colour And, And often, you know, you're doing everybody. But yes with this, we've done it differently. And it's been really, really exciting to do because you're aware that there are lots of other voices involved. I mean, this is sort of surfing on being somewhere between an audio drama and audiobook. It's giving birth to something else which is very interesting.
LISA
Yeah. I think we're going to have like 20 voices or something when the when the book is complete, which is just kind of mind-blowing, It is, it's like a huge cast, So obviously you're a screen actor on the whole. So, for you, what is different about the preparation before recording an audiobook? How do you set up your day for recording an audiobook? How is it different from turning up to the studio to do screen work?
NICOLA
It is very different and that's why it's actually, that's why it's so enjoyable. It's a very different discipline. There's different disciplines between doing a piece theatre and a piece of telly and a book. With the book it's about thinking about your relationship with the one person you're going to speak to, and whereas obviously you know with telly, you’re getting your energy from the other actors in the room in front of the camera. And you don't really think about the audience that much, you know. But but with a book my main loyalties to you, so my main loyalty is to the writer, and that goes across everything you do. So for me it’s slightly different with a book, because yes, you're hoping to get an intimate relationship with the one person that’s listening to you and you want to convey directly to them what the writer wants them to hear. You try not to get in the way too much. That's the difference, really!
LISA
And how long does it take? I mean, do you do all in one big hit? Or do you break it up and sort of fit it in between other things?
NICOLA
No, we did in one, here. You do it in one hit, it's very hard. I only, I think once I had to sort of keep going back to to something, and then it's very hard to keep your flow. So you sit in your little, you know, your little cubby hole with your earphones on and you have this relationship with the microphone and, you know, your director or producer. And they keep an eye on you. They make sure the ship goes the right way and gets to its destination. And because sometimes listening, you know, if you're only listening to your own voice, you can get a bit lost. So they give you the lights, guide you through it.
LISA
And in a way, is there the danger that - if you split it up over different days - you might have a different tone to your voice or the way you sound?
NICOLA
Absolutely, your voice sounds completely different day to day. So, it's much better. Normally, I mean, this has taken - because I’m not reading everything - this has taken, you know, a day and a half to read. And we start at 10 and we finish at 5 and, and we've done sort of just a morning to finish it off. So we push quite hard through it. But you always have got a chance to go again, you know, and you've got someone listening to you. Telling you when you've just sort of gone blind and missed a word or you've just missed the point of the sentence and you're not alone. You've got someone looking after you. Obviously onset, you'll be surrounded by people. And, you know, the the people who were playing the characters that you're playing against obviously, that's not the case when you're recording a book like this.
LISA
So what's it like when you haven't heard or met the other actors, the other voices?
NICOLA
It does, it feels just strangely disjointed and lonely.
LISA
Or do you picture them as imaginary friends in the studio with you?
NICOLA
The brilliant thing is, I was sent a little voice note of everybody else in the book. So when I then have to be them, because everyone else had recorded before me, when I have to be Josie, I can listen to Josie and I can listen, you know, to all the other voices and try, you try to match them. You know, it's not, you don't have to be identical, but you try to be in the same place as those voices. Which you don't normally have to worry about, you know, normally it's just you doing them all.
LISA
And I was wondering, obviously some audiobooks, the one reader reads the entire book including all the characters. Some writers have spoken about enjoying the opportunity to play every character in a story than just one particular role. Is that something you are an enjoy, or is it a challenge in going about it like that?
NICOLA
I'm careful about the books I read anyway, because, you know, as I said, you have to really love them. But I'm also careful that it doesn't become a voice over actor. I am not a voice over actor. There are plenty of actors who are brilliant at that. I've had terrible moments in recording studios where I've had the person press the button and say ‘Nicola, was that meant to be Canadian?’ And you think I'm…. yeah. What's wrong with it? A boot? And they they've actually had to say ‘you know that say they're from California instead’. Oh awful. I did a book once years and years ago, the first one I did and I went in quite cavalier. I was naïve, I didn't understand how much work it would be. And there was a party scene, I think they were 10 characters in the party scene and they were from all from different parts of Europe. And I was sweating and almost crying with these sound recorders saying ‘no, no, they were Dutch, they were Dutch’ and I'd have to go ‘okay, okay, Dutch... yeah, hang on, hang on, hang on, Disco Disco. Awful terrible offensive Dutch accent. Thankfully we’ve moved beyond that now. I think everyone's quite careful about accents these days. Yeah, so absolutely, absolutely. Yes. I've had a little bit of feedback from some of my older audiobooks from back in the day, where people haven't done very authentic accents.
LISA
Yeah, we're actually re-recording on my old books at the moment for that very reason. So obviously you've just finished recording this pretend podcast which is just so fun; but if ‘Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!’ was a real podcast, would you be interested in listening to it? Is it your kind of thing?
NICOLA
You know what's interesting is I do listen to quite a lot of podcasts when I'm walking my dog. I love them and I'm ashamed to admit that the thing I listen to is quite a lot of true life crime podcast as a lot of women do. Interestingly, I've got a theory about that. And so I would. I think what would happen is I would listen to ‘Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!’ because I’d think oh, this seems quite fun. This seems like a nice fun, light thing, you know, sort of interesting about different people from different places. Yeah, I probably, I would probably give that a go and then I'd very quickly realise that I'd found my perfect podcast because it's one of those deceptive ones that has a really relatable woman speaking to you and saying, ‘you think you came for something and I'm going to give you something else’. So that's something very very, very different And I would be totally hooked on this.
LISA
We're done. I feel very sad. I mean listen, if you want to, at a later stage you and I just make some podcast together.
NICOLA
I think that would be really fun and we'd just put them out there and happily reincarnate us, and see if anybody notices.
LISA
So I take it from that you have enjoyed being Alex?
NICOLA
Very much so. She's great. What a great character. Brilliant woman. And yeah, her story…. does did not go where I thought it would. You gave me a short sharp slap towards the end of this book that I wasn't expecting and it's not the twist, the people will see…, it's not. There is an incredible twist, but the twist for Alex, I think, is really interesting psychologically, really interesting. I've loved playing her.
LISA
I think that's a very, very tantalising moment to stop, and to say, thanks so much. Thank you for being Alex. Thank you for recording my book. It's been brilliant talking with you today; and a reminder that None Of This Is True is available in hardback, ebook and audiobook in July 2023.