Irish author Sophie White gets real about love, loss and life’s messy middle on the "Natter" podcast

What happens when one couple’s marriage implodes and everyone around them starts questioning their own lives? That’s the juicy setup of Sophie White’s "Such a Good Couple", and in her lively chat on the Natter Podcast, the beloved Irish author dives deep into friendship, fame, grief, and why millennials are suddenly swiping again.What happens when three couples who are incredibly close friends since college are on their annual holiday, when one couple’s marriage crashes and burns, leaving them all questioning their own life choices?

This is the fascinating premise of "Such a Good Couple", the latest bestselling novel from Irish author, columnist, and podcaster Sophie White.

In this smart, compelling exploration of human relationships, White’s couples have essentially grown up together, although their lives are wildly different now.

“They're almost like legacy friendships, the friends you’ve had for 20 years. Your circumstances when you first become friends can be pretty similar. You probably all live in a fairly crappy house share with roommates and you’re all working in hospitality or retail or whatever. And then like suddenly, you wake up and your friends are rich and you’re not, or they have kids and you can't. That kind of stuff can become a real pressure cooker.”

Sophie says she was interested in writing about a group of friends who are just at that pressure cooker moment. Maggie and Finn, are now stratospherically rich because Finn has become an A-list actor (Paul Mescal-esque!). Clara and Ollie, meanwhile, are under a lot of financial pressure and just trying to keep their heads above water. Annie and Conor are trying to have a baby, which is causing a lot of tension in their relationship. The story unfolds through the viewpoints of the three women.

“I really wanted to look at like how, sometimes if you have that kind of group, you’ve been friends for ages and your friendship is a lot predicated on the fact that you're all romantically involved and paired off. And then like if one couple breaks up, it makes everybody else start examining their own relationship and being like, actually, where are we?”

Sophie was chatting with writers Kate Durrant and Michelle McDonagh on their chart-topping Irish books podcast "Nhttps://www.irishcentral.com/culture/top-irish-books-podcast-natteratter" with Kate and Michelle, produced in association with Bookstation, Ireland’s fastest-growing and best-value bookseller, and IrishCentral, your daily source for all things Irish. 

“The other thing that I'm really interested in,” Sophie explains, “is that a lot of us millennials are with their partners for like 20 years, I'm with my husband 19 years and I'm only 40. So we got together in the analog era, we had (Nokia) 32-10s. We never did internet dating, no apps, no nothing, you know? And so I’m very intrigued by the fact that a lot of my friends now are kind of striking out into dating again … And they're out there now and they’re on the apps. And I’m like asking if I’m around their house, can I play Tinder?”

Clara and Ollie, who end up on a reality TV show competing for an all-expenses-paid divorce, are probably the most autobiographical couple, the novelist laughs, being on a similar financial standing to her and her husband and also having three boys.

Sophie says: “I basically write about the things that fascinate me and hope that other people are as fascinated as I am. I write in a lot of different genres, but with my commercial popular fiction stuff, I'm always very interested in writing about how we’re living in the here and now, and I always want to write things that are juicy and gossipy because that’s what I like to read.”

Sophie, who is bipolar, has always spoken openly and eloquently about her mental illness and the nervous breakdowns that have led to hospital admissions. She writes candidly and with genuine warmth and humour about these experiences as well as the grief of losing her beloved dad to dementia in her bestselling memoir "Corpsing", which was shortlisted for an An Post Irish Book Award.

While she is sad that her father never saw her publish a book or even become a writer, she knows he’d be happy that she gets to ‘do my dream now’. She scattered some of his ashes out on the South Wall in Dublin, just past the red lighthouse and every time she sees that lighthouse, she thinks of him and taps her heart three times.

Sophie talks to Kate and Michelle about the shame and judgment attached to being a mother with mental illness and in recovery from addiction, and how much higher the stakes become once you have children. 

Her advice is "If you’re feeling negative about yourself, if you’re in an insufficient head space and you have the bandwidth, just go and do something for someone else. That’s truly my top prescription for myself if I see I’m spiralling. Go and check in with someone you haven’t checked in with for a while and ask them how they are. I do think that’s a very good life lesson. It can just help to put things that are kind of consuming you into perspective for a minute."

Listen to the full episode of "Natter" here:

"Such a Good Couple" by Sophie White is published by Hachette Ireland and available in paperback, ebook and audiobook. You can purchase it at Bookstation.ie here. 

Listen to Sophie’s interview on Natter with Kate and Michelle now at Acast or on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to follow us on Instagram @natterthepod or Facebook.