Paperback writer

I co-wrote a novel with my friend Chloë; it came out in hardback in June 2025; it’s published in paperback this week.

Here are 10 things about it.

1. It’s called The Book Game and the “author” is Frances Wise.

2. It’s about a group of old friends and colleagues – writers, university lecturers, book people – in peak mid-life: 40s and 50s. Think Miranda July meets Joanna Trollope with a soupçon of John Milton and a dash of White Lotus. It’s that rarest of birds, a Miranda-Trollope-Milton-Lotus. The Spectator summarised it like this:

3. Some people who read it thought there were in it. It was interesting that they thought this. But the only presence from real life that is faithfully maintained (although transplanted to another city) is the setting – the house and the garden, which are the same, inch-for-inch.

4. Literary talks, book signings (but which name should we sign — Frances, Chloë, Adam?), visiting reading groups, people saying they know someone exactly like Lawrence, people saying they cried at the end – total fun. If you can, do it.

5. Why are there not more co-authored novels? Why do we still expect a link between sole author and literary fiction? Chloë and I would meet on Zoom, allocate scenes (‘You do the dinner party; I’ll do the fight in the garden’, etc.), and then we’d write. When we ran out of the steam, we’d swap. Our one rule was no similes or metaphors.

6. Here is our shared Dropbox:

   

7. I wrote my bits mostly early in the morning: 6-7am was my favourite, sitting on the sofa, before the rest of the house awoke. It was important for it not to become folded into academic work – in terms of the time of the working day, the location of writing.

8. Here is a pile of them, freshly arrived last week, on my garden table.

   

9. You can see it, and buy it, at this definitely-not-Amazon site, here. It’s cheap!

10. “Frances Wise” will be interviewed at Waterstones in Cambridge on Wednesday 17 June by the novelist Kate Sawyer. Details here.