As far as book recommendations go, few names hold quite as much weight – for young readers, at least – as Sally Rooney. For Jem Calder, this was no different: after his short story collection Reward System was praised by Rooney as “exhilarating and beautiful” in 2022, his career quickly took off, with said collection being named in the Guardian’s “Best fiction of 2022” list.
Four years on, Calder is now promoting his debut novel, I Want You to Be Happy, and on Thursday 20 August, he sat down with influencer and podcaster Jack Edwards, who brought his Inklings Book Club to the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Spiegeltent.
I found myself surprisingly excited as Edwards – whose career I have only absently followed over the years – took to the stage. It did not take long to understand the success of Inklings: Edwards immediately brought warmth and charm to the tent. As he explained that the name “Inklings” derived from the book club of J. R. R. Tolkeinand C. S. Lewis of the same name, I got the impression that I was witnessing someone who loves what he does.
The pair quickly turned to the novel’s central couple, 23-year-old Joey and 35-year-old Chuck – both of whom are writers. A charmingly candid moment came early on when, after some hesitation, Calder admitted to having drawn on his own experience of an age-gap relationship. Following which, Edwards confessed to having gone through a very similar experience of his own and was keen to segue this into an exploration of what seemed his main takeaway from the novel: attachment styles.
Calder, however, appeared less concerned with applying such labels, citing instead his fascination with “how people make allowances for themselves.” He spoke of contemporary life as “quite an addictive time,” connected vaping to a tendency to “let oneself have as much of something as possible” and spoke of the desire to avoid looking too closely at one’s life by finding a way to “make everything feel good.” The characters, it seemed, are somewhat conscious of the habits that shape them, but that does not necessarily give them control.
Calder shone while reading an excerpt from his novel. While it initially seemed slightly rushed, the pace quickly justified itself and Calder’s ear for dialogue became clear. Minute details such as the tapping of a “coral bank card” were masterfully woven into a conversation between Chuck and Joey regarding Chuck’s recent split from his fiancé, a confession which prompted Joey, astonished, to declare that he had “basically got divorced without actually getting married.” Another highlight was Chuck’s insistence on being “a creative.”
Afterwards, Calder noted that, while writing, he hums his characters’ words – a small detail, yet one I found quite illuminating. Further, he explained that he struggles to progress until completely happy with what is already on the page, a process he developed while writing his short-story collection, and which Edwards thoughtfully described as like “threading beads” onto a bracelet.
I would have liked Edwards to posit a connection between Calder’s process and our aforementioned “addictive time.” The author touched on a certain competitiveness and the pressure to appeal to readers, but Rooney felt slightly like the elephant in the room. One could easily have come away from the tent with the impression that Calder belongs to an expanding canon of writers, propelled by the success of Normal People, whose minimalist prose style is fashionable but lacking purpose.
And yet, this would be a disservice. Speaking elsewhere for Foyles, Calder showed himself as deeply intentional. He spoke admiringly of Elizabeth Taylor’s Angel, describing her as “very funny” and “experimental in a way that never feels very experimental until you get to the end.” Of Richard Yates’ Easter Parade, meanwhile, he spoke of its “very minimal style,” calling it a way of “checking in” with his view of “the high point of what can be achieved through minimalism.” He also spoke of Tolstoy’s generosity towards his characters, admiring the way he “keeps things moving incredibly fast” while seemingly knowing “precisely where your interest is going to be at any time.”
The event was possibly hindered by the slightly awkward conversion from podcast to stage, as well as the considerable amount of time the pair were given to fill. The conversation sat in somewhat of a limbo: at some points, I felt as though I was intruding on a private conversation; at others, I wished to be invited deeper into Calder’s writing process. While Edwards’ warmth made the event enjoyable, his questions did not always tug at the right threads. I got the impression that this was felt across the tent when, in the final few minutes, questions from the audience were mostly concerned with Calder’s writing process and decisions regarding genre.
Despite this, I left the tent feeling inspired and with the understanding that I had witnessed something relatable and raw, after the conversation was brought to a heartwarming close, with Calder concluding that, ultimately, it is a “privilege to be read.”
Photo by Joss Broward on Unsplash
