‘Grief Is Such A Powerful Word – I Don’t Want To Trivialise It’: In Conversation With Elizabeth Day

Elizabeth Day has shared her heartbreaks with millions – but it is her capacity for hope that shines, says Lucinda Baring.

Elizabeth Day On Life, Grief & Her New Book

Elizabeth Day and I are discussing life – and in her case, success – in our forties. As she publishes her tenth book, there is no doubt she is thriving but not without her struggles to get here. ‘In my 20s, I didn’t know who I was – but I thought I did which is a terrible combination. I now understand my 30s were for me to sort out my personal life: I went through a divorce, started fertility treatment and had my first miscarriage. I don’t think I could have managed professional success at that moment in time because I was emotionally so invested in sorting out my relationships and my desire to become a mother.’

She has certainly been busy: Day is best known as a writer (of five novels and four works of non-fiction) and creator-host of the How To Fail podcast (now in its 21st season, guests include everyone you’ve ever wanted to hear from: writers, musicians, actors, politicians, from Jilly Cooper and Salman Rushdie to Bonnie Tyler, Jane Goodall and last week, Monica Lewinksy). The threads that bind Day’s work are connection and storytelling but it is writing that’s ‘nestled in her soul’ from a very young age. ‘I consider it one of my great loves, where I make most sense.’ While she has OG readers who have been with her from the start – and she craves the quiet and space writing delivers – she acknowledges her bigger audience came through the podcast. ‘It’s a lot of work, but it’s work I really value and that teaches me a lot.’

She once said that heartbreak is a great fuel for creativity. Now that she’s happy in love, with second husband Justin Basini, might that creativity dry up? ‘I still remember my heartbreaks so vividly, but I’ve learnt from Justin that there is so much creativity in feeling safe. And there are many other ways to experience heartbreak, like friendship heartbreak or the heartbreak of letting go of something you thought was your lifelong dream.’

Day is generously open about her ‘fertility journey’ and recently revealed she has stopped receiving treatment after 12 years. No longer grieving the idea she will become a biological mother, she says she has finally found peace. ‘Grief is such a powerful word. I don’t want to trivialise it. Sadness seems more appropriate now. There’s an ambivalence because I will always live alongside the sadness of not having children, but it’s also given me the life I’m living now.’

That means focusing on the podcast (still compelling in what has become a crowded field) and this September, her sixth novel One of Us is published. It’s a sequel to 2017’s The Party, a psychological thriller with strains of Brideshead and The Talented Mr Ripley, and an antecedent to Saltburn, in which scholarship boy Martin inveigles himself to the Fitzmaurice family through his boarding school and Cambridge friendship with glamorous Ben Fitzmaurice. One of Us picks up the same cast: Ben is on the cusp of power in British politics just as his family begins to unravel and Martin finds himself unexpectedly invited back into the fold.

They are a fascinating, well-observed and mostly loathsome bunch and Day admits damaged characters who behave in despicable ways have always intrigued her. ‘They give us a window into this [aristocratic, politically elitist] world that we might have prejudices about but we also envy. And that’s an interesting contradiction. Often a character like Serena [Ben’s wife: vapid, lonely, unfulfilled] will trigger something in us and so it’s a clarion call not to allow those initial judgments to cloud our need for understanding.’ The search for understanding – and empathy – is a big driver for Day, ‘whether it is a podcast episode asking you to look beneath the bonnet of success or writing a character who might seem unlikable and hopefully revealing that they’re much more like you than you imagined’.

Day always secretly liked Martin – who in The Party is a creepy borderline sociopath whose sexuality is repressed – and wanted to give him his redemption. ‘When I started writing novels, I had no compunction about putting my characters through really difficult situations. I still do that because it’s where some of the most interesting material lies, but I also want them to have hope. There’s much more hope in this book.’

Being less critical of herself has also allowed her to write more freely. ‘In my early fiction I was struggling so hard to be taken seriously. I confused being a serious writer with being serious in prose, but writers who get you by the throat and pull you into their pages are ones who understand light and shade and the humour in life.’

Day has always been a sharp observer of people, first in her job as a young newspaper diarist, and then as a journalist. Now in the podcast – each episode essentially an intense and revealing therapy session – might her guests worry she will mine their flaws for her novels? ‘Half of them don’t know I write books,’ she laughs. ‘It probably all goes into the primordial soup of trying to understand human nature. But I take seriously creating a safe space where someone can be vulnerable. When someone meets me on that level, I would never betray it.’

I can see Day turning her hand to acting, perhaps in a piece co-authored by (and co-starring) her pal Phoebe Waller-Bridge. ‘You’re not the first person to say it but I dismissed it because I didn’t want to sound like a twat. I did have a psychic reading once where they saw directing in my future. Recently though I have found myself writing more poems, “she said to the sound of everyone’s heart plummeting”.’

She strikes me as considered and highly evolved. What makes her feel vulnerable? ‘Conversations like this. I am so used to being the one asking the questions.’ What doesn’t she want to be asked? ‘Anything about my ex-husband [BBC journalist Kamal Ahmed]. That is his story to tell.’

Her happiness coda is simple. ‘I remember reading the incredible White Teeth at university. Zadie Smith had got a massive deal for her first novel and I hoped for the same. Obviously, I got a tiny advance – as is only right – which meant there was minimal expectation. I’ve realised the secret to contentment is to approach things with your whole heart, but with managed hope. Then if something exceeds your expectations, you’ll feel so much more fulfilled.’

One of Us (£18.99, 4th Estate) is available to pre-order now. Elizabeth Day will be discussing One of Us with Marian Keyes at Chelsea Arts Festival on 21 September. chelseaartsfestival.com