13. Evie Wyld

For several years, Evie Wyld combined writing fiction with running an independent bookshop - Review, in Peckham, South London.

“It seems like the perfect marriage, doesn’t it?” Evie says of the dual role of writer-bookseller, “but sadly you don’t absorb the books through your skin.”

Something about her routine must have worked, though, because the two novels that Evie wrote between serving customers and managing the store - After the Fire, A Still Small Voice and All the Birds, Singing - led to widespread acclaim and, in 2013, she was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.

The Observer calls her ‘one of our most gifted novelists’.

Evie has now stepped back from the day-to-day of running Review but maintains a close involvement with the shop. She has also written a third novel, The Bass Rock. It is an epic, bracing novel, full of anger and heart - one that Max Porter has called a ‘triumph… haunting, masterful.’

In this episode - released to coincide with the day of its publication - Evie and Ben explore the The Bass Rock: they traverse its gothic landscape, touchstone themes and overlapping timeframes; they also browse Evie's bookshop; and, along the way, discuss everything in between - from the Me Too movement to tickling.