Scala Radio Book Club: Lifesaving for Beginners by Josie Lloyd
In life's stormy waters, it's your friends who keep you afloat...
Last updated 17th Aug 2022
This week in the Scala Radio Book Club (Thursday 28th July), Richard Allinson chatted to the author Josie Lloyd, on her brand-new novel Lifesaving for Beginners.
In life's stormy waters, it's your friends who keep you afloat...
Maddy Wolfe's life has just capsized. After her twenty-year marriage suddenly implodes, she heads to Brighton to search for her estranged son, Jamie. But he's nowhere to be found and for the first time, she's totally alone. That is, until she meets the Salty Sea-Gals, a group of feisty sea-swimmers.
Seventy-two-year old Helga is determined not to slow down, while thirty-something Tor is still figuring out who she is. Bereaved Dominica is trying to find a reason to carry on, and busy mum Claire is learning to put herself first for a change.
As their regular cold-water plunges become a lifeline for them all, Maddy starts to realise that these brave women might just help her find both Jamie and herself. Together, will they turn the tide?
Richard jumped straight into the interview, asking Josie why she found swimming in the sea, so helpful for her mental health.
‘I live in Brighton and for many years, I was kind of a fair-weather swimmer,’ said Josie. ‘You know, I’d go to the beach with the kids in the summer. But then covid struck and we were in lockdown, and I just couldn’t stop swimming! I became a complete addict. I met this community of people and everybody was helping each other. Nobody gave a monkeys about what was going on in your life. It was just about the sea in that moment. I met some really amazing friends. So, for me, it was important to write what we gained about in during lockdown, and what we lost.’
Richard asked, ‘Lifesvaing for Beginners has been called “the most heart-warming and hopeful feel-good novel of the summer”. How important is it to you to have that feel-good factor in your writing?’
‘You have to make a balance because you want it to be realistic and it's not soppy,’ said Josie. ‘It's got some quite difficult subjects in it because, it's about Maddy trying to find her son and he's homeless. I did a lot of research into the homeless situation in Brighton, which obviously is a very tricky subject. It's got a lot about mental health issues, and bereavement. So, there's some quite dark subjects I'm tackling, but I like doing it with a lightness of touch, because actually the sense of humour of these women, is what keeps everybody going.
I'm a positive and upbeat person. I always like a happy ending. But what I like to do is string it out for as long as possible. So you're not actually sure whether you are going to get the happy ending that you want, and it's not necessarily the one that you think it's going to be. So that's the trick.’
‘You're married to Emlyn Rees, a writer, and you've co-written a few books together. Is it helpful living with another writer? Do you throw ideas off one another?’
‘Oh yeah, enormously! Because, you know, we meet at the fridge at lunchtime and then I'll go, “I can't write this scene, what am I going to do?” And then he’ll say, “What about going this direction?” Or he'll say something about his plot and ask how to solve it, and then I actually come up with an answer. I love having him there as I'm also a chatty person. I would find it really very lonely being a novelist by myself in my house, and I would be terribly distracted.’
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Lifesaving for Beginners by Josie Lloyd
Maddy Wolfe's life has just capsized. After her twenty-year marriage suddenly implodes, she heads to Brighton to search for her estranged son, Jamie. But he's nowhere to be found and for the first time, she's totally alone. That is, until she meets the Salty Sea-Gals, a group of feisty sea-swimmers.
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