Weird Women in Writing
Are you a lonely outsider looking to be accepted and appreciated? Would you join a book club, but you don’t like wine or nibbles or talking to other people? Do you really just enjoy skulking around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are? These are the questions posed by Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd in the introduction to their podcast ‘Sara and Cariad’s Weirdos’ Book club’. As an avid raincoat skulker I have naturally been a fan since the podcast began and have now read several of the books they recommend, but it’s got me thinking.: why are weirdos better represented in books than anywhere else and does the novel truly belong to the weird girl?
The very first episode of the podcast is a lengthy discussion of Sheena Patel’s ‘I’m A Fan’. Throughout the series of vignettes that make up the novel, the protagonist discusses her desire for the Man I Want To Be With, as well as her racially complicated and covetous relationship with the Woman I am obsessed with (who the Man is also sleeping with). The main character in this book is undoubtedly weird. She borrows a dog in order to more effectively stalk someone’s sister. She harasses her psychic so much they block her. It would not be entirely unwarranted for multiple characters in this book to take out restraining orders against her. And yet when I read it I found myself sympathising with her. This is a woman who feels trapped – in her stale relationship, in her inability to move up in her creative career, in her financial instability. Yes, the things she is doing are objectively strange, but hearing it from her, being in her brain, makes them almost almost make complete sense. Seeing the world through her eyes makes the weird a lot less weird.
Looking back at my reading in the past couple of years, a lot of it is a similar story: in Sara Pascoe’s own novel ‘Weirdo’ the protagonist is convinced that her mother is able to observe her actions via the cat; in ‘Really Good, Actually’ Monica Heisey’s newly divorced academic thinks having a threesome in a portaloo at a wedding might solve all of her problems; ‘Big Swiss’ by Jen Beagin is about a sex therapist’s transcriptionist who shares her house with a swarm of dying bees. I love reading weird women, and it seems I’m not alone: all four of these novels were critically acclaimed, with ‘I’m A Fan’ winning The British Book Awards 2023 Discover Book of the Year, and being shortlisted for several more awards. Maybe, unlike in Hollywood blockbusters and arguably in real life, in books the weirdos are cool.
Why do novels belong to the weird girl? I would argue it’s the ability to show us someone’s unfiltered inner thoughts. Unlike in tv and film, we as readers can entirely know what someone is thinking in all of it’s illogical and strange glory. Since the modernists pioneered stream of consciousness writing, books have been the place to find the weirdness we wouldn’t admit to in everyday life. Perhaps Molly Bloom was the original weird girl. [to be clear, so I don’t get my English literature degree revoked, this is a joke]
What have I learnt this week? Reading weird books is fun. It’s certainly made me feel better about my life (I’ve never had a failed portaloo threesome and I don’t live with dead bees). And as a self-confessed weirdo it’s made me feel much less alone. I urge you to pick up a weird girl book and get completely lost in the mind of a mildly unhinged woman. Not sure where to start? Sara and Cariad give great recommendations. Like they say in their podcast introduction, join us…