2026-08-30
35 分钟Hello and welcome to Meet the Writers.
I'm Georgina Godwin.
My guest today is a novelist, screenwriter and journalist.
Over the past three decades, she's written 10 novels, including Apple Tree Yard,
Platform 7 and A Bird in Winter, often exploring desire, secrecy and the stories people tell about themselves.
Her new book, On This Spot, Fell One Tear of Love, is something different.
After the deaths of her parents, she and her siblings discover letters and documents
that revealed a version of their parents' lives they had never really known.
Louise Doughty, welcome to Meet the Writers.
Thank you.
This is a memoir which is a huge departure for you.
It is a huge departure and I have to tell you that when you tell your agent or your publisher
that you're writing a memoir, they groan and their forehead hits the table.
I think it seems to happen to almost every novelist of a certain age.
You get to a point where you think, gosh, I've been making it up for a long time.
In my case, 30 years of publishing novels.
And I had this personal story that I was burning to tell.
But, you know, literary memoir doesn't sell.
It certainly doesn't sell as well as my novels.
And now the book industry has this thing called, you know, your track.