EB! (KIA . . .'.'_‘
L and
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‘SHE'S WAY MORE NUTS THAN ME'
With her debut novel, Gemma Weekes has created a vibrant tale of obsession, identity and solitude. Claire Sawers hears more than just soundbites
‘A Big Mac and a hot chocolate please.‘ comes the voice down the phone. (lemma Weekes is in McDonaIds. ordering lunch. pushing her son‘s buggy and doing an interview. I ask if I‘m calling at a bad time. 'No. no.‘ she insists. laughing and also apologising for any chewing sounds that might follow. 'Believe me. once you have a kid. you get very good at multi-tasking.‘ The novelist is certainly used to a bit of juggling. As well as bringing tip her 20-month-old son Isaiah. Weekes keeps busy as a poet. author. singer and musician. When she‘s not eating burgers or penning love stories. she performs soulful musings under her MySpacc alter ego of (ioldyroxx.
But today. between bites. she‘s talking about her first novel. which she started in 2005. ‘I‘ve grown up with it. I‘ve been through so many drafts. seen the characters from all different angles. spent so long perfecting it: it‘s exciting for it to be finally published.‘ Although writing is her passion. she jokes that sometimes it feels like an abusive relationship. ‘It's painful. you‘re exhausted. but somehow you always go back to it.‘
Love Me tells the story of Iiden. a twentysomething Iiast Iinder who falls in love with a Brooklyn rapper. Her crush becomes an obsession. and led. who has eyes the colour of ‘I’epsi with ice’. holds her under his spell when he performs onstage in London. Her dad and friends grow worried as she becomes more fixated. whilst losing interest in her job. her appearance and eventually everything about London life. Iiscaping to stay with family in New York to ‘lind her mojo again‘. she Iinds herself lacing tip to
personal demons and a few skeletons in the family‘s
closet. After a slightly off-putting introduction. where A it looks like frothy. frilly teenybopper prose is going ;
to bridge the gap between gangster rap and Mills & Boon. the characters slowly reveal
their
disillusionments with British culture. sucking the reader in to a complicated mix of identity. alienation , and loneliness. It's a colourful. chaotic ride that starts in Ilackney and finishes in New York. detouring via :
West Indian wisdom. recording sessions in Queens
and childhood flashbacks. Like Iiden. the reader is 5 quickly desperate to escape the tedium of fashion , victims and ‘undead‘ commuters in London. to reach
the exotic diversity and creativity of the Big Apple. like a lot of first—time writers. I guess I was working out a lot of my own issues as I was writing:
confesses Weekes. The daughter of Saint Lucian 2
parents. brought up in London. she says she spent the second half of her 20s questioning what she should be doing with her life. ‘A lot of people that age are feeling a bit directionless. so relationships automatically take on extra weight.‘ Although Weekes didn't base Iiden on herself (‘she‘s way more nuts than me‘). she did draw heavily from personal experiences. 'I wanted to convey that visceral feeling of love. and that sense of being overwhelmed by love and the city. Some people are shocked by Iiden. others recognise themselves in her. I think sometimes
that‘s what love does; makes you walk the line line
between normal and crazy.‘
Love Me is published on Thu 15 Jan by Chatto 8: Windus.
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