[00:02:03] Host: What is the book that you chose to talk about?

[00:02:05] Natasha Lester: I chose to talk about Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion, which I actually have two copies of here, because I love it so much. One is not enough. [chuckles]

[00:02:14] Host: Great. Totally. When did you first read it and how was it introduced to you?

[00:02:20] Natasha Lester: I first read it when I went back to university in my, I was around 30. I had studied a commerce and marketing degree and then had worked in marketing for a number of years but had always wanted to be a writer since I was really young. I think I needed a bit of time to grow up and mature, and so I returned to university in my 30s and in one of my creative writing classes, the tutor issued a list of books to read for the course. One of those was just one essay from Slouching Towards Bethlehem, it was the essay On Keeping a Notebook. I read that essay and fell in love. [laughs]

[00:03:03] Host: Yes, I had a similar experience. Someone told me about Joan Didion in high school and I was like, okay, because I always love to write and like, fine, I'll read it. That was the essay that I was like, wait a second, things are making sense now.

[00:03:17] Natasha Lester: Yes, absolutely. I've never heard of her until that moment, and I think I probably approached the reading like, oh, here's another reading that I have to do. Until that moment I guess everything I'd read at university that was a set reading had been intellectually interesting or technically interesting, but that was the first time that something I had read literally touched my heart. I just wanted to dive into her work and just keep reading it. In fact, I actually wanted to be Joan Didion for a while there. I was such a fangirl.

[00:03:55] Host: What was it in that essay that she wrote about that really just connected with you?

[00:04:01] Natasha Lester: There were a few things. I think one of the things I loved to write about is the clothes that people wear. I think that what people wear is such a reflection on who they are or who they want to be or who they're trying to be. She opens by talking about herself at the bar, and she talks about the red plaid dress that she's wearing and how the hem's coming down and she wishes she had a safety pin to pin it back up.

She also talks about another woman who's at the bar and she's wearing a crepe de chine wrapper, I think it is. That was the first thing that drew me in because it was through the clothes that these people were wearing that I could see them and I could see this whole scene and I thought, wow, that's so fabulous, that here is someone who's not afraid to write about clothes.

They don't think it's frivolous, but they can see that immediately for some people makes them visualize this scene in a much more meaningful way than if she just said that, she was standing at the bar watching this woman. The fact of the clothes they were wearing and that detail of the hem falling down and wanting a safety pin just threw me straight into the scene in a way that I hadn't experienced before.

[00:05:11] Host: Totally. That whole essay, so much of it is about observation and why as writers we are compelled to record in a way, but is it recording totally because we're not writing down every exact thing?

[00:05:26] Natasha Lester: Yes. She says, for her, she worked out that it was all about how the moment felt to her. I loved that idea. It wasn't necessarily the precise detail of exactly everything that was happening, but it was the details that made her be able to show how she felt in that moment. I think that was probably one of the biggest learning experiences I'd ever had as a writer. That was what writing was all about. That even when you're writing fiction and you're writing made-up characters, it's still about how they feel in that moment and how can you get that onto the page. Clothing was one of those ways and she has lots of other wonderful ways of being able to articulate those personal feelings that feel so universal- or they certainly did for me as a reader anyway.

[00:06:16] Host: Yes. How long was it in between you first reading this initial essay and then taking the book home and deciding to read?

[00:06:26] Natasha Lester: It was a very short period of time. I noticed that the following week we'd been sent another essay from the book, which was On Going Home, which is where she talks about returning to California from New York and what that experience was like. I loved that one so much too, that we had to do a mimicking essay in class where we drew from the style of another author's piece and I used that as my piece that I was going to try and mimic, of course, very badly, probably.

Then once I'd realized that, okay, here were these two pieces by this one author, Joan Didion, that had spoken to me above everything else I'd read in my entire life, that I needed to go to the library and take that book out, and I did. Very soon after that I bought my copy, this one here. Then when they did the crowdfunding campaign for the Joan Didion documentary a few years ago, I don't know if you saw that. I contributed to that because I couldn't help myself and they sent me a book for that too so now I have two books.

[laughter]

[00:07:32] Host: How often do you revisit it?

[00:07:34] Natasha Lester: I revisit it probably at least-- I've got a few books that I go back to perhaps once a year, and this would be one of those. Even sometimes if I'm-- For me, I've always particularly also loved the rhythm of Joan Didion's sentences. She does often use very long run-on sentences with lots of ands. I just love the way that style works. If I'm writing a scene myself and for some reason I'm feeling a bit stuck, often if I just pull out one of her essays, it doesn't even matter which one I've got like a shelf full of all of her books, I can find my own way back into my own rhythm as well.

Which some people say that they don't like to read other writers when they're writing, but I always think, if you're being inspired by amazing writers, how can that be a bad thing for your writing? She's a bit like that for me, I guess.

[00:08:28] Host: Totally. What do you think the world, your world would be like if you hadn't read any Joan Didion essay to lead you down the Joan Didion path?

[00:08:39] Natasha Lester: Oh, so much poorer. Just in two areas, I suppose. I feel like my writing would be poorer because there was a moment there when I first read Slouching Towards Bethlehem and I thought maybe I should give up because I'm never going to be that good, but then there was another moment where I thought, well, okay, so that's where you strive and you might never get there, but at least you've got something to aim for. Also just personally the way she observed things and that sense that fashion and clothing was something that you could legitimately write about and it wasn't frivolous.

It could be literature. That was really quite a revelation for me, I suppose. Just the way she chose to write in a way, I guess we're quite used to memoir these days, but I feel like she was really the first person, the first woman to really capture the essence of writing about herself. She shares some really intimate details, but never in a gratuitous or salacious way. They're always there to let you access what you might be feeling, I think, which I think is a really important way to set her apart.

[00:09:58] Host: Totally. Tell me a little bit more about your fascination with clothing and fashion in writing?

[00:10:05] Natasha Lester: I've always been a fashion lover. I lived in London for a few years in the late '90s. I'm from Perth, Australia, which is quite a small capital city. We don't have fashion museums or anything like that here. When I was living in London, I suddenly had this world of vintage clothing stores and beautiful fashion museums that I used to go and immerse myself in every weekend.

Then when I started writing fiction, the very first time I wrote a historical novel and I dressed the character in genuine pieces from the time, and readers seem to really love that. From there it went from just simply dressing a character in actual pieces from the time to then thinking, well, maybe I could include fashion history as a theme in my fiction. It's fabulous because it's a personal interest of mine. I love writing about it. It means the writing's really fun and readers seem to really enjoy it too. Joan Didion is definitely responsible for that. [chuckles]

[00:11:08] Host: Has any of her fiction influenced you as well?

[00:11:12] Natasha Lester: Yes, I read Play It as It Lays back when I was at university as well. Again, the sentence structure and her rhythm was really influential when I wrote my very first book which wasn't historical, which is what I write now. It was a contemporary novel. I also love the way that she uses lots of very short scenes. They're almost episodic, I suppose you could say. That was the style I really wanted to use for my first novel because the kind of character I was writing about, I guess was a little similar to the character she writes about there. The episodic, short, sharp scenes really worked for me, so she was a huge inspiration for my very first fiction as well.

[00:11:56] Host: You said earlier that a few other books you returned to each year. Do you mind sharing what those are?

[00:12:04] Natasha Lester: Of course. I love Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin as well. Again, it's partly historical, it's partly fantasy, it's partly newspaper articles. It's got a bit of everything and it's also, I guess got a little bit of that almost short episodic structure to it as well. I think that's one of the most brilliantly cleverly plotted books that I've read. I love that for that reason. I'm also a big fan of Jane Eyre. [laughs] I do like to pull that one off the shelf every now and again too. I read that when I was about 13 and it was the first book that made me understand what the word passion meant I suppose. That's a bit of a sentimental favorite for me too. [laughs]

[00:12:54] Host: Is there anything else you wanted to mention about Joan Didion before we go?

[00:13:00] Natasha Lester: I guess just that for me her writing style I think is just breathtaking, and I think there's so much to learn, not even just as a writer, just as a human being. From reading the way she observes people and the way she manages to get those observations onto the paper so that they mean something much larger than just the thing that she's writing about. I think she's a very clever writer, but also a very clever human being, which helps us to be better human beings. Everyone should read her. [laughs]

[00:13:38] Host: Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:13:42] Natasha Lester: Oh, it was my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

[music]

[00:14:09] Host: Join the conversation at withoutbooks.org.