Scala Radio Book Club: Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Sutanto
A black comedy suffused with gallows humour and spiky wit
Last updated 11th Jan 2022
In the Scala Radio Book Club (9th December), Mark Forrest chatted to the winner of the Comedy Women in Print Prize 2021, Jesse Sutanto about her black comedy novel Dial A For Aunties.
When Meddy Chan accidentally kills her blind date, she turns to her aunties for help. Their meddling set her up on the date so they kind of owe her.
Although hiding this goddamn dead body is going to be harder than they thought especially when her family's wedding business has THE biggest wedding of the year happening right now.
It turns out the wedding venue just happens to be managed by Meddy's ex, aka the one who got away. It's the worst time to see him again, or...is it? Can Meddy finally find love and make her overbearing family happy?
Mark began the interview asking, ‘What's really striking about this book is there is no shortage of really great, fascinating female characters. It’s not quite the same for the men. How much are you making a point with that?’
‘So, I actually wanted to write a story that was inspired by my own family and I have a huge family!’, Jesse laughed. ‘We're all very close but when I tried writing the book with my uncles in it, I was like, “oh my god, this is too overwhelming! I'm losing track of characters!” So, I decided it wasn’t going to work with men in it.’
‘It's quite refreshing, though,’ said Mark. ‘Virtually from page one, you explain why the men aren’t there. They've all done runners, which is why we have all these Auntie's left behind. And of course, the body. It's not like your regular murder mystery, where there's a beautiful woman and she's naked, and her body is lying there on page one. I got the sense that that was a place that you did not want to go to.’
‘Yeah. So, I've actually spoken about this quite a bit because suspense thrillers are actually my favourite genre to read. I got really tired of the way that female characters are treated. So I wanted to flip the script a little and see what it's like to treat a male character the way that female characters are often treated in a suspense thriller. I sound so men-hating! I'm married to a man and I haven't killed him yet!’
Mark was interested to know what winning the Comedy Women in Print Prize 2021 meant for Jesse.
‘Oh my Gosh – it was so surreal’ Jesse said. ‘When my husband was telling our six-year-old, he said “you know Mama is like, certified the funniest author in the entire country.” That’s when it hit me. I was so so excited. I'm so thankful for Helen Lederer setting up this award because I do feel like for years and years, women were not considered very funny and so, I feel like, with awards like these, we're giving a bit more recognition to female comedic writers.’