Chris Power; Online Dating in Fiction; Postcard from Delhi

Books and Authors

BBC

Society & Culture, Books

4.2 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Elizabeth Day talks to Chris Power, writer of the short story collection Mothers, about his debut novel A Lonely Man. Robert Prowe is a struggling writer living in Berlin with his wife and two young daughters. One night he meets Patrick, a stranger with a story to tell, who is a ghostwriter for a Russian oligarch who is now being followed. Robert finds himself seduced by Patrick's dramatic story, wondering if it might provide the inspiration he needs for his own novel, and becomes caught up in a paranoid world of threats that may or, may not, be real.

Swipe Right is Radio 4's series of short stories written by young writers under 30; Caleb Nelson, Bryan Washington, Naoise Dolan, Rebecca Watson, and Beth O'Leary. The series explores relationships and sex in the modern world, characters searching for love in a myriad of ways. Novelists Beth O'Leary, Flatshare, The Switch, and Okechukwu Nzelu, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney, share their thoughts of the joys and challenges of writing love stories in an online world.

And Trisha Sakhlecha whose novel Can You See Me Now is a pacey, psychological thriller exploring female friendship against a backdrop of Indian politics, sends a literary postcard from Delhi.

Book List

A Lonely Man by Chris Power The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary The Switch by Beth O’Leary The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney by Okechukwu Nzelu The Fourth Hand by John Irving Less by Andrew Sean Greer The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang Can you see me now by Trisha Sackhlecha We That Are Young by Preti Taneja Society by Mahesh Rao The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.8	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.5	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to
0:22.4	helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put
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0:35.0	check out BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:41.3	Open Book and Rihanna. It's the collaboration you never knew you needed.
0:58.7	Today, we too are attempting to find love in the hopeless place of online dating.
1:06.0	We hear about a writer's passion for the multiplicity of Delhi, plus one author's take on where
1:12.1	real life stops and where fiction begins. We start with Chris Power, who began his career as an
1:19.6	advertising copywriter before publishing mothers, a 2018 collection of short stories, which was
1:25.6	long listed for the Rathbone's Folio Prize.
1:28.5	A Lonely Man is his first novel and tells the story of Robert Prou, who also just so happens to be
1:35.5	a former advertising exec turned short story writer at work on a debut novel in Berlin.
1:41.7	Robert is searching for an idea when a chance encounter with an English
1:46.0	ghostwriter called Patrick, whose most recent subject, a dissident Russian oligarch, has been
1:51.3	found dead, provides the necessary inspiration. Patrick now claims to be on the run, and when Robert
1:58.6	decides to turn that story into fiction, the entanglement gets messy.
2:04.2	I'm delighted that Chris, no stranger to the Open Book Parish, has joined me in the studio. Welcome
2:10.2	back, Chris. Thanks very much. Nice to be back. Now, this is a book, as I said, which really talks to
2:15.8	who owns a story.
	...

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