Gwendoline Riley

The award-winning English writer Gwendoline Riley speaks to Take Four Books, about her new novel The Palm House, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its three influences.

The Palm House follows the friendship between Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam, known as ‘Putnam’, who both work in the London media landscape in 2017. Over the course of a long weekend, they meet several times for drinks and crisps, and discuss the state of their lives, and share stories from their past.

Gwendoline Riley won the Betty Trask Award for her debut novel Cold Water in 2002. Subsequent works have seen her win the Somerset Maugham Award and she was recently given the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University in recognition of her life’s work to date.

For her three influences Gwendoline chose: Annie Ernaux's short non-fiction book about her experiences of having an abortion called Happening from the 2000; Charles Dickens's last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend from 1864; and Penelope Fitzgerald's novel Offshore from 1979, which won the Booker Prize that year.

Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.