Scala Radio Book Club: These Streets by Luan Goldie
From the author of Nightingale Point, longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020, comes a new thought-provoking novel
Last updated 17th Aug 2022
On Thursday 30th May, Mark Forrest invited Luan Goldie into the Scala Radio Book Club, to discuss her brand-new novel, These Streets.
Jess is a single mother to two teenage children, and although life can be tough she's just about keeping things together. But when her landlord asks her to move on so he can sell the house they're living in without warning, Jess's worries take on a whole new meaning. As Jess struggles to regain her footing, cracks begin to appear in other areas of her life and suddenly she feels she's failing at everything. Her daughter Hazel is becoming more and more distant, her son Jacob is struggling to find where he fits in the world, and the menacing spectre of Jess's older brother, someone she cut out of her life years ago, begins to make his presence felt again.
Jess knows she's the only one who can keep her family together, but how can she keep going when life keeps beating her back?
Set on the streets of East London, These Streets is a searing and powerful novel that explores how we are meant to find our place in a world that is designed for only the privileged to succeed. Beautiful and honest, it is an essential story about living in Britain today.
Listen to Luan Goldie reading from These Streets
Mark began the interview, touching upon the topic of the class. ‘This idea of gentrification is really the cause for the problems that Jess finds herself in. She resents the moneyed middle classes that are pushing her out of the area, but, I suppose, at the same time it's their money that supports her community theatre. How common is it to resent this group, you’re also desperate to join?’
‘Yeah, it's really tricky,’ said Luan. ‘For me, I grew up on a council estate in East London. I was brought up by a single mum and actually grew up in Hackney, which is one of these parts of London that's so gentrified. It’s crazy how different it is. Now I live in another part of East London and I guess I'm gentrified in a way. I've moved to an area that's not that nice, and I'm always complaining that there are not enough nice pubs or nice cafes and I'm on the other side a bit. We have these conversations about gentrification and how it's terrible or how it's brilliant. I wanted to write something that shows it from just one family's perspective. How it affects them day to day, and how it can really affect someone's life.’
Mark asked, ‘A lot of the tension that comes up in the book is between the mother of the daughter, Hazel. As these things are happening to Jess, she perceives that she's doing the family a favour by not telling them about losing the family home, and potentially losing her job as well. Why does Jess think that keeping these life changing events a secret is going to help her situation?’
‘Well, she's the mum! You know, as parents, it's just something we do. You want to protect your children. She wants her daughter to be able to focus on her exams and university. She doesn't want her kids worrying about where they are going to be living. So Jess takes it all on herself, and throughout the book, you see her get all these knockbacks, but she's so convinced she can sort it out herself.’
Mark then discussed Luan’s awards. ‘How important have the prizes been? In 2018 you won a short story prize, and then your debut novel from 2019, Nightingale Point was Longlisted for the Women's Prize for fiction. How important was that recognition?’
‘Well, winning the short story prize really was the start of my career, because I was completely unknown. I didn't really have anything published. I was a business journalist, but I used to write about online advertising, and stuff like that is completely irrelevant when you want to be a novelist or short story writer. So winning that prize, that was really life-changing. You go to this huge party, you win £3500, and then your name is out there. With the Women's Prize, it was just incredible to be on that list. I think that gave me more of a boost as a writer because you see the other writers that were on that list. I knew I wasn't really in the running for that prize, but it was incredible to get there.’
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