This is literary fiction and I'm Carrie Plitt flying solo today without my wonderful co-host Octavia Bright.

This month on the podcast, we're bringing you an oldie but a goodie. It's our Arrested Development Show,

first broadcast in January 2015 live from the NTS Studios. On this show, we talked about

arrested development and fiction and all the characters who refused to grow up in books

from peter pan to rabbit angstrom our guest was emma jane unsworth whose excellent second novel

animals features two female friends who are definitely in no rush to become adults we also as usual

discuss the theme and recommended books but before we get get to the show, we also wanted to share

some exciting news. Literary Friction are teaming up with Faber Social for an event at the Social

in London on Monday, February 1st. The theme is new voices, and we've got a fabulous lineup planned,

including Ned Bowman, Evie Wilde, Joanna Cannon, the Faber New Poets, Plus More to Be Confirmed.

There will also be DJs from NTS and our very own Eddie Knight playing tunes.

We'd love to see you there. You can buy tickets and find out more information at fabresocial.co.uk.

And now, here's our interview with Emma Jane Unsworth.

Emma Jane Unsworth is the author of two novels,

Hungry, The Stars and Everything, which won a Betty Trask Award and Animals,

published last May, which Catlin Moran called With Now With Girls.

She has worked as a journalist, columnist for the big issue and a barmaid.

Her short story, I Arrived First, was included in the best British stories of 2012.

Animals is the story of Laura and Tyler, two best friends who live together and lead each other astray through the pubs and bars and clubs of Manchester.

But their hedonistic lifestyle is threatened by Laura's upcoming wedding. Will their friendship survive? Hi Emma. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you for having me. So I've asked you to start with a reading just to give us a sense of what the book is about and what it sounds like. And I think you're going to start from the very beginning. Sure. Yeah. I'll read from the top. So this is the first chapter which is called white, piss,

good, amber piss, bad. You know how it is. Saturday afternoon. You wake up and you can't move.

I blinked and the floaters on my eyeballs shifted to reveal Tyler in her ratty old kimono over in the doorway.

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