In this episode, Maxine Mei-Fung Chung shares a glimpse into the psyche's profound influence on creativity and personal growth. I found my own experiences with psychoanalysis echoed in our dialogue, highlighting the transformative power it has on both the canvas, the page, and the mind. Maxine's articulate distinction between psychoanalysis and other therapeutic forms paints a vivid picture of the therapeutic landscape. At the same time, her personal narrative and the profound impact of her beloved childhood librarian provide a rich backdrop to her professional evolution.
Maxine discusses her literary contributions, notably her latest book, What Women Want: A Therapist, Her Patients, and Their True Stories of Desire, Power, and Love, which delves beyond Freud's well-trodden question—what do women want?—to celebrate the authentic needs and desires of women.
Maxine's first novel, The Eighth Girl, was optioned by Netflix and was a most anticipated book from Bustle, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, and LitHub.
In What Women Want, Maxine emphasizes the empathic and advocacy-oriented nature of her writing, inviting readers on a journey of self-discovery. This episode is a tribute to the potency of psychotherapy's intersection with storytelling, an intimate exploration for anyone fascinated by the depths of the human experience.
Maxine Mei-Fung Chung
What Women Want: A Therapist, Her Patients, and Thier True Stories of Desire, Power, and Love, Maxine Mei-Fung Chung
The Eighth Girl, Maxine Mei-Fung Chung
Long Live Our Librarians: An Ode To Mrs. Veal, Maxine Mei-Fung Chung
The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O'Farrell
American Originality: Essays on Poetry, Louis Glück
The Bookshop Podcast
Mandy Jackson-Beverly
Social Media Links
Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson Beverly.
00:00:13
Welcome to the Bookshop podcast .
00:00:16
Each week, I present interviews with independent Bookshop
00:00:19
owners from around the globe, authors, publishing
00:00:23
professionals and specialists in subjects dear to my heart the
00:00:27
environment and social justice.
00:00:29
To help the show reach more people, please share it with
00:00:32
friends and family and on social media, and remember to
00:00:36
subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this
00:00:39
podcast.
00:00:40
You're listening to Episode 240 .
00:00:46
Maxine Mae Fung Chung is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist,
00:00:51
clinical supervisor and training psychotherapist.
00:00:54
She lectures on trauma, gender and sexuality and clinical
00:00:58
dissociation.
00:00:59
Originally trained in the arts, she previously worked as a
00:01:03
creative director for 10 years at Condonast, the Sunday Times
00:01:08
and the Times in London.
00:01:09
Maxine currently works in private practice, where she has
00:01:13
a particular interest in the creative feminine advocating for
00:01:16
women and girls finding a voice .
00:01:18
Her debut novel, the Eighth Girl, published in 2020, was
00:01:23
optioned by Netflix and was a most anticipated book from
00:01:26
Bustle, the Rumpus, electric Literature and Lithub.
00:01:29
Maxine's latest book, titled what Women Want a therapist, her
00:01:34
patients and their true stories of desire, power and love, is a
00:01:39
profound and intimate exploration of female desire and
00:01:43
identity as studied through the lives of seven of Maxine's
00:01:47
female therapy patients.
00:01:48
Hi, maxine, and welcome to the show.
00:01:51
It's lovely to have you here.
00:01:53
Speaker 2: Hello, mandy, thank you for inviting me.
00:01:55
It's a pleasure to be here.
00:01:57
Speaker 1: I loved your book, maxine.
00:01:58
I thought it was fabulous what women want, and now I want to
00:02:02
read the Eighth Girl.
00:02:03
I haven't read that yet.
00:02:04
Before we get too deep into our conversation, could you define
00:02:08
the words psychoanalysis and psychotherapy?
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Well, psychoanalytical inquiry means
00:02:15
that we probably go into more depth.
00:02:17
We may stay in analysis a lot longer.
00:02:19
The frequency may be more than twice, three, even four times a
00:02:23
week.
00:02:23
So we're going down in the depths of the psychisoma and of
00:02:30
course it stems from Freud's original thinking around drive
00:02:34
and drive orientation.
00:02:35
So whilst we may be modernizing a therapy, we are coming from
00:02:40
the founder of psychoanalysis, which is Freud's theories and
00:02:43
drive theories, where a psychotherapy can be many things
00:02:47
.
00:02:47
It could be CBT, it could be EMDR, it could be many things
00:02:52
where a psychoanalysis lies in one genre, one form of working.
00:02:57
Psychotherapy is many things.
00:02:59
It may be for CBT you're coming just for a short period,
00:03:04
potentially to work through grief it could be for six months
00:03:08
or a year.
00:03:08
It could be EMDR, it could be tapping.
00:03:11
I would say that therapy is more of an umbrella for many
00:03:17
other therapies.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: You and I were talking earlier and I mentioned
00:03:21
that I had been in psychoanalysis for going on 11
00:03:25
years.
00:03:25
I think I just turned 50 when I started the therapy and I
00:03:31
really enjoyed it.
00:03:31
However, it does go deep and it does get dark.
00:03:34
I have been journaling my dreams for nearly 30 years and
00:03:39
so that part of Jung and analysis I really enjoyed.
00:03:44
Plus, I was painting a lot then and that really helped with my
00:03:49
writing.
00:03:49
I loved it.
00:03:50
But you can't go into psychoanalysis thinking you're
00:03:54
just going to feel good or get quick answers, because it
00:03:57
doesn't work like that.
00:03:58
But I highly recommend it.
00:04:00
I thought it was fascinating.
00:04:01
You go very deep and you go very dark.
00:04:05
Speaker 2: Life certainly takes a dive before we rise again,
00:04:09
doesn't it?
00:04:09
When we go to those depths of understanding ourselves and the
00:04:14
inquiry, we've entered analysis, and I imagine being an artist
00:04:19
Mandy, you were interested in all the archetypes as well that
00:04:22
Jung bore.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: Oh yes, absolutely.
00:04:24
It just gave me a different way to look at the world and my
00:04:29
place in it.
00:04:29
Yeah, it's absolutely fascinating.
00:04:32
Okay, I would like to learn about you and whether your
00:04:36
chosen career path was the one you envisioned as a high school
00:04:39
student.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: Sure, it's a great question.
00:04:42
I think if my mother and father here were here with us, they
00:04:48
had very strong opinions about what they wanted for me.
00:04:53
So my father came over as an immigrant in the late 60s.
00:04:56
So he came from Hong Kong to the UK and he had a motto which
00:05:01
was if you work hard, you are rewarded, but at the same time
00:05:05
we keep our heads down, we don't become too visible.
00:05:10
We grew up I grew up, me and my two brothers grew up in a
00:05:13
predominantly white working class community.
00:05:15
So we were, we experienced the level of othering to some degree
00:05:21
.
00:05:21
But I think my father was also somewhat what he might describe
00:05:25
as a curiosity to the community that he'd come into.
00:05:28
So I think he might have said that he would have liked me to
00:05:31
have worked in his restaurant and my mother would have liked
00:05:35
me to have been a hairdresser.
00:05:37
So you know kind of blue collar work.
00:05:41
You know they would have had me in factories.
00:05:43
Because of our working class roots and in a way, you know
00:05:48
psychotherapy and hairdressers there's not a lot of difference.
00:05:51
We both listen, we both engage, we have empathy.
00:05:54
So I think my mom was actually onto something very early on,
00:06:00
but I got lost in books and words and they became, without
00:06:05
being too dramatic, they became an obsession for me.
00:06:07
I could escape into words and into literature, and I think it
00:06:13
was the attachment that I made to a very early mentor, who I'm
00:06:17
sure we're going to talk about later, the librarian Mrs Veal
00:06:21
who really changed the course of my life and had me wondering
00:06:25
about what a further education would look like.
00:06:28
I came from a family that hadn't gone into further
00:06:31
education, so I was the first person in my family to go to
00:06:35
university, which was achieved by bursaries and so forth.
00:06:40
So, yes, it turned out that I took a career in the arts.
00:06:45
That's how I arrived, and then I became an analyst, or trained
00:06:50
to be an analyst, in my 30s.
00:06:53
Speaker 1: And do you remember what actually sparked the
00:06:56
interest in you to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist?
00:06:59
It's quite a jump from being a creative director for 10 years.
00:07:05
Speaker 2: I was also secretly writing.
00:07:06
So from the age of nine I was writing poetry thanks to the
00:07:10
librarian that I was so fond of and who became a lifelong friend
00:07:14
.
00:07:14
So I was secretly writing poetry and dropping them in
00:07:19
jokes of hedgerows in supermarket aisles.
00:07:22
I was trying to connect and I think it was because I was
00:07:27
terribly lonely and I think Mrs Veal noticed in me something of
00:07:33
a crippling aloneness and later a very narrow adolescence.
00:07:38
So I was always writing secretly.
00:07:41
I was always drawn to nature and the arts, but as a working
00:07:46
class family we were not really.
00:07:49
It wasn't part of our vocab really.
00:07:53
And that's not to say that we you know any class can obviously
00:07:57
access the arts, but for me we didn't have shelves of books.
00:08:00
I had to, you know, go to the library and so forth.
00:08:03
So I think my career in the arts, which I enjoyed very, very
00:08:09
much, it was for about 13 years .
00:08:13
I was an art director.
00:08:14
I was at Condé Nast, traveler, gq and later went on to launch
00:08:19
the Sunday Times magazine in the UK.
00:08:21
But during that time, mandy, I was a Samaritan.
00:08:25
So I was working with suicidal people voluntary for 10 years
00:08:32
and I think that that was where the real interest sparked of how
00:08:36
conversation and connection can really support people to come
00:08:41
out of dark and dire times.
00:08:42
So I think that that was the spark and I also went into my
00:08:46
own analysis at 25.
00:08:48
So I was in five times a week age 25, I think purely for the
00:08:53
connection.
00:08:55
Speaker 1: So there was a drive, you know, and that drive I
00:08:57
think I have my father to thank for what I find fascinating
00:09:02
about getting older is that we can look back at our life and
00:09:06
recognize the moments where changes started to unfold or
00:09:11
where people were kind of molding us a little bit, as in
00:09:14
our parents, in your case, your father.
00:09:17
For a quick example, my sister and I always thought that our
00:09:21
mother was kind of pushing us away, but in retrospect, when we
00:09:25
look back, she was helping us become strong, independent women
00:09:30
, encouraging us to make our own decisions.
00:09:33
But it wasn't until later in our lives that we realized this.
00:09:37
Speaker 2: Right.
00:09:38
So do you think that it was less, maybe not pushing you away
00:09:43
, but pushing you towards yourself?
00:09:45
Speaker 1: That's an interesting point, and I think you're
00:09:47
absolutely correct.
00:09:48
I think she always envisioned herself as traveling and maybe
00:09:53
living in another country, but that dream for her didn't happen
00:09:55
, and I think that's probably the reason she coaxed us into
00:10:01
this independent way of thinking .
00:10:02
Do you think the same way about your dad?
00:10:06
Speaker 2: I think he was a very strict man and he had, you know
00:10:09
, things were.
00:10:10
It was very black and white, right and wrong, and in a way
00:10:15
there was a comfort with that binary when I was younger.
00:10:17
But what I found as I got older was that I was more drawn to
00:10:21
the in-betweens and the not knowing and the curiosity.
00:10:25
I found the binaries quite restricting and that's
00:10:30
interesting also to me, with having been raised by a white
00:10:35
British mother and a Chinese father, you know that kind of
00:10:39
mixed heritage again of the, the either or, and I've always
00:10:44
found that I've come to the in-between, I've not wanted to
00:10:47
fall in one or the other.
00:10:49
So I find great comfort in the in-betweens and I'm, you know,
00:10:54
I'm very interested in, you know , kind of post-colonial
00:10:57
discourse without healing, without resolution.
00:11:01
What happens when there is resolution.
00:11:04
So whilst my father was black and white, I think he also gave
00:11:08
me the opportunity to think about the in-betweens because of
00:11:11
his black and whiteness.
00:11:12
Speaker 1: There's something you talk about in your books and in
00:11:15
some of your interviews, and that's ghosts in the nursery.
00:11:19
I tend to think of it as inherited suffering, but I love
00:11:23
the phrase ghosts in the nursery because it's talking about
00:11:27
multiple generations, not just our parents, and our forebears
00:11:31
and our lineage.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: It's what shapes us right, and however much we try
00:11:36
to escape or avoid or swerve our ghosts, they come to find us,
00:11:42
sure enough.
00:11:43
Speaker 1: Yes, they do.
00:11:44
If you were to paint a picture of yourself today, do you see
00:11:49
your upbringing as deepening the swirls and the tones of pink in
00:11:55
your self-portrait?
00:11:56
I?
00:11:57
Speaker 2: love the description of colourful swirls of pink and
00:12:01
Beautiful.
00:12:01
It's a beautiful.
00:12:03
I can really feel your art to stream and even your talking.
00:12:07
Speaker 1: Well, you know what the text in your book had me
00:12:10
thinking of all the pinks and the reds and the oranges and the
00:12:13
deep maroons and deep reds.
00:12:15
And I love the cover of the book with all of the colors and
00:12:19
the gold and the dress you wear in your cover shot.
00:12:23
It's beautiful.
00:12:24
So all of those colors evoke a great image of the feminine.
00:12:30
Yes, anyway, back to you.
00:12:32
How did your upbringing paint the picture of how you think
00:12:36
today?
00:12:37
Speaker 2: I'd like to say it's more color by numbers when we
00:12:40
get those paintings and maybe when we want to color outside of
00:12:44
the lines.
00:12:45
So, whilst these very firm black and white and I think the
00:12:51
black and white kept my father very safe I understand now why
00:12:55
those black and white were used, because it kept him safe, but
00:12:59
for me it also gave me an opportunity to rebel against.
00:13:04
So I would say that the painting is.
00:13:07
I mean, I use the color by numbers, but I'm not averse to
00:13:12
thinking about a slightly more.
00:13:13
It may be a painting, but it may also be a piece of sculpture
00:13:19
, it may be many things, or it may be a poem, it may be a piece
00:13:23
of creative writing, but it absolutely has shaped who I am
00:13:28
and I, you know I have the utmost respect and challenging
00:13:33
thoughts and feelings in terms of my forebears.
00:13:37
Speaker 1: Maxine, when you said more paint by numbers, it hit
00:13:41
me.
00:13:41
I started to tear up and I thought, wow, is that having an
00:13:46
effect on me?
00:13:46
Because it's reflecting back on me.
00:13:49
It wasn't that.
00:13:50
What affected me was the thought of anyone being
00:13:54
restricted, especially creatively.
00:13:57
So here's me talking about swells of color and the depth of
00:14:01
the color and the tones, and you're talking about paint by
00:14:04
numbers.
00:14:05
It just broke my heart.
00:14:07
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and so the desire, when we have the paint
00:14:12
by numbers, the desire within me is we know that that's the
00:14:15
construct or the constriction we might say and there is a desire
00:14:20
within me then to paint outside those lines.
00:14:23
So again, you know the kind of energy, that creative energy
00:14:28
empowered to give one a reason to paint outside those lines,
00:14:33
which it was my attempt with.
00:14:35
What women want in many ways, well you, definitely did that,
00:14:38
Maxine.
00:14:39
Speaker 1: Your book is fantastic.
00:14:40
In interviews you've said the question isn't what women want,
00:14:44
but rather the statement women want.
00:14:47
So can you expand on the research and reasoning that
00:14:50
brought you to this statement?
00:14:52
Speaker 2: Sure.
00:14:53
Well, it's really a conversation that I'm in with
00:14:57
Freud, because Freud's original question, which was what do
00:15:01
women want?
00:15:02
And then he claimed, after 30 years of inquiry, to be no
00:15:05
closer to understanding what women wanted.
00:15:08
And this kind of was bewildering for me because in my
00:15:11
research and my work in clinical practice it was very
00:15:15
clear that all, if not most, of the women and men and everybody
00:15:21
in between that were coming to my practice knew clearly what
00:15:25
they wanted.
00:15:26
So I like to start from the premise of not to what do women
00:15:29
want, but women want period.
00:15:31
Now we just have to inquire what that desire is, what that
00:15:35
want is, what that need is.
00:15:37
So let's just start from there.
00:15:39
That feels like a more modern premise to begin, rather than
00:15:42
the question of what do women want.
00:15:44
It kind of implies also that maybe women don't want and even
00:15:50
if that want is very small or lukewarm, there is still want
00:15:55
there and still desire, and maybe, for whatever reason or
00:15:58
not, that desire has not been ignited.
00:16:00
So I choose to start from that place.
00:16:03
Women want period, without the question point.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, and I think there's sometimes a fine
00:16:10
line between what we need and what we want.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and sometimes I feel that we maybe
00:16:18
need to address our needs before our wants also and, as you say,
00:16:22
those basic human needs that we need we all need love and we
00:16:27
all need companionship and friendship and food and shelter
00:16:33
before we can maybe answer some of the more nuanced desires.
00:16:37
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.
00:16:39
In 2020, William Morrow published your novel the Eighth
00:16:42
Girl, a thriller about Alexa Wu, a brilliant yet darkly
00:16:47
self-aware young woman whose chaotic life is controlled by a
00:16:50
series of alternate personalities.
00:16:53
In the synopsis of the Eighth Girl, the question is asked,
00:16:57
quote does the truth lead to self-discovery or to
00:17:01
self-distraction?
00:17:02
End quote On page 17 of what Women Want.
00:17:06
Terry asks you so what happens now?
00:17:09
To which you answer now we work .
00:17:12
Is there a relationship between these two books and their
00:17:16
female characters fiction and non-fiction regarding the path
00:17:21
of self-discovery and truth?
00:17:23
Speaker 2: What a great question , andy.
00:17:25
I love the question.
00:17:26
Thank you, I love it.
00:17:27
Well, I guess the thread that holds the two books is that I am
00:17:32
the writer and the advocate for women's voices and writing,
00:17:38
lives and storytelling, because I don't think that non-fiction
00:17:43
is non-storytelling.
00:17:45
I believe that non-fiction can be storytelling if the author
00:17:48
wants it to be so.
00:17:50
I guess that the link is my ongoing desire to understand
00:17:56
women, people, all humans, more deeply, which was what I did
00:18:00
with Alexa Wu's character, who has a series of alternate
00:18:05
personalities, and it was my attempt also to bring to the
00:18:09
forefront and in the culture what multiple personalities
00:18:12
really looked like.
00:18:13
In the culture, people living with this diagnosis have been
00:18:18
demonised, and I wanted to give it a different lens.
00:18:22
It's often depicted that these people have committed crimes
00:18:26
when in fact they've actually had crimes committed against
00:18:28
them.
00:18:29
So I think a lot of my work is about rising others and
00:18:36
advocating for others, whilst being in connection in a deeper,
00:18:40
meaningful way, and also collaboration.
00:18:42
So I think the link is my desire to know more deeply
00:18:49
myself and others.
00:18:50
Speaker 1: And, as you are the link, being the writer, I was
00:18:53
fascinated by the format and style in which you wrote what
00:18:56
women want, because in places it reads like fiction, immersing
00:19:00
the reader into the lives of your patients, which draws one
00:19:04
to empathise with each woman's story.
00:19:06
Was this style there from the onset of writing or did it
00:19:09
evolve as you wrote the book?
00:19:12
Speaker 2: It absolutely was there from the get go, because
00:19:15
it was also highly collaborative in that myself and the seven
00:19:22
women who I talk about they read every chapter.
00:19:25
I was very transparent and I wanted it to feel like a
00:19:30
collaboration.
00:19:31
Kitty actually gave the name of the title for her own chapter.
00:19:37
And I wanted them to all feel included because it was their
00:19:42
stories that I was telling and I think the reason why I wrote it
00:19:46
this way was that when I read other books with clinical
00:19:50
vignettes and they felt quite distancing and I wanted to be
00:19:55
more intimate with the reader and I'm really pleased to hear
00:19:59
that you felt empathy for the stories, because that was my
00:20:04
intention was to really for us all to connect.
00:20:09
I think anyone could recognise parts of themselves in one of
00:20:13
these seven stories, so it was very intentional that we write
00:20:18
and it's therapy is much like storytelling, yeah, telling our
00:20:22
life stories, going over them and understanding them.
00:20:25
Speaker 1: But your book what Women Want goes deeper.
00:20:28
It gives us the clinical information, but also the
00:20:32
personal side of each of your patients.
00:20:34
That's what drew me in, that's what made me empathetic for all
00:20:40
of these women.
00:20:40
Ok, let's talk about you.
00:20:42
What have you learned about yourself through writing what
00:20:46
Women Want?
00:20:47
Speaker 2: What have I learned?
00:20:48
I've learned that I want to write more, but I love writing.
00:20:53
I've learned that I need to work to write and I need to
00:20:59
write to work, and what a privilege that is to be able to
00:21:03
do both.
00:21:03
But I think one of the greatest learnings is that, moving
00:21:09
forward, I will be discerning and protect my writing life with
00:21:15
great gusto, because I think when we have busy lives and we
00:21:20
hold another vocation or another career alongside writing, we
00:21:25
have to be really protective.
00:21:26
We have to guard it like a fortress and really honor that
00:21:32
time and space we don't have hours on end.
00:21:35
We have to snatch those moments for writing.
00:21:38
Yes, they are precious moments.
00:21:40
Speaker 1: They really are, yes.
00:21:42
Okay, let's talk about desire.
00:21:44
Can you expand on the relationship between connection
00:21:47
and desire, or are they one and the same?
00:21:50
Speaker 2: regarding the female psyche, Well, I think, first and
00:21:53
foremost, the connection is with oneself, because if we're
00:21:57
connecting with another and trying to tell them what our
00:22:00
desire is and that could be not just sexual desire, it could be
00:22:04
a desire, you know, as we saw in the book the desire doesn't
00:22:09
just cover kind of sexual element of one's lived life.
00:22:13
It can be about making new friendships or the reclamation
00:22:17
of our bodies or reclamation of our life, as we saw with Agatha,
00:22:21
who falls in love in her 70s and claims to have never been in
00:22:26
love before then.
00:22:27
So I think it is a deep connection with ourselves and
00:22:32
listening to ourselves and honoring our bodies and
00:22:35
listening and trusting our bodies and our mind.
00:22:38
And if the body keeps the score , we listen to that score.
00:22:43
So I think, before the connection goes outward to our
00:22:47
loved ones friends, partners, families we need to connect with
00:22:51
ourselves and be truly honest, if we can, where that desire
00:22:55
lies.
00:22:56
Speaker 1: That's a lot to digest in that answer.
00:22:58
Thank you, that was great.
00:22:59
Let's get back to Mrs Veal.
00:23:01
In 2021, you wrote a beautiful essay for the Irish Times about
00:23:07
Mrs Veal, a librarian who remained your friend for 40
00:23:11
years.
00:23:11
You wrote a sentence in a letter to her while you're in
00:23:15
college.
00:23:15
Quote I'm struck by the creative feminine and she, like
00:23:20
your poets, keeps me company.
00:23:22
End quote.
00:23:22
How do you see this phrase reflected in your present work?
00:23:26
Hard to read that sentence and not be emotional, it makes me
00:23:31
teary again.
00:23:32
Oh, it's making me quite emotional as well.
00:23:35
Speaker 2: If I'm thinking about Mrs Veal.
00:23:37
It's a beautiful feeling and a beautiful memory.
00:23:40
I think the creative feminine is with me always, whether
00:23:46
that's in my mothering, with my son, whether it's in this
00:23:49
conversation that you and I are now having, whether it's with
00:23:53
engaging with the page on the words, whether it's looking at a
00:23:58
painting or a colour by numbers or a pink swirl.
00:24:00
I think that the creative feminine has been a constant
00:24:06
companion for me.
00:24:07
She also kicks my ass when I'm not.
00:24:11
She LAUGHS kind of, you know, when I'm not kind of making art
00:24:19
or thinking creatively.
00:24:20
She doesn't like to be ignored too long.
00:24:23
You know she'll be yapping at my ankles if I leave her too
00:24:26
long.
00:24:26
I think we need one another.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I agree, and in fact, I don't think there's
00:24:32
anything better than being around other women and having
00:24:36
this conversation, keeping each other going, whatever it is
00:24:41
creatively that we're wanting to achieve, wanting to create it's
00:24:46
so important.
00:24:47
I resonated with what you said about thinking of the creative
00:24:51
feminine as a being, because then she is a part of our
00:24:55
conversation and, like you said, she will kick our ass if we
00:24:59
need it.
00:24:59
She LAUGHS.
00:25:01
Ok, now, before I ask you my final question, there was
00:25:05
something that intrigued me.
00:25:06
Can you talk about your father's death, because you
00:25:09
didn't know he had died?
00:25:11
Speaker 2: right, I didn't know, mandy, it was so I hadn't seen
00:25:16
my father for over 20 years.
00:25:18
We'd become estranged, so he had left the UK and gone back to
00:25:23
China, and so we were estranged and me and my brother actually
00:25:29
found out about his death six months after the event and the
00:25:35
shock was it was, yeah, it was Painful, painful.
00:25:41
As an analyst, I thought I went to that kind of crazy place of
00:25:46
thinking and my body ought to have known that he had left our
00:25:50
Earth.
00:25:50
My body hadn't.
00:25:52
Why hadn't my body been signalled in some way that my
00:25:56
birth father had gone, had left?
00:25:59
And that was the kind of preoccupation that I was working
00:26:03
through in my own analysis and reflections, and there was a
00:26:07
kind of echoism of grief.
00:26:09
You know that kind of had to be that had to be honoured.
00:26:14
Speaker 1: And the way you found out too was just so unexpected,
00:26:19
and I'm not going to give that away because it's in the book.
00:26:21
Is your mum still alive?
00:26:23
Speaker 2: My mum's still alive.
00:26:24
Yes, she's still in the UK and I don't know if she's read the
00:26:30
book.
00:26:30
I'm not sure, but I have hopes that she has or will at some
00:26:36
point.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I hope so too.
00:26:39
Let's talk about books.
00:26:41
What are you currently reading?
00:26:43
Speaker 2: That's such a difficult question to answer,
00:26:45
because I never, I rarely, have more than one on the go.
00:26:48
I usually have poetry, fiction, non-fiction, maybe a memoir,
00:26:52
but the work of fiction that I'm reading at the moment is the
00:26:56
Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrill, and my son bought me
00:27:03
a beautiful book for Christmas.
00:27:05
It's Louise Gluck's American Originality, which is essays on
00:27:11
poetry.
00:27:11
What a beautiful gift.
00:27:13
Yes, my son's studying fine art actually Mandy, at the moment.
00:27:18
What specific field of fine art ?
00:27:20
He's an oil painter.
00:27:22
So those are the two that I've got on the go at the moment, but
00:27:26
you know there's probably four or five others running in tandem
00:27:30
.
00:27:32
Speaker 1: I know that feeling well.
00:27:33
Maxine, thank you so much for being a guest on the show.
00:27:36
I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.
00:27:39
I hope Alice's have too.
00:27:40
You've given us a lot to think about.
00:27:43
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
00:27:44
Thank you, it's been a pleasure talking to you, mandy.
00:27:49
Speaker 1: You've been listening to my conversation with Maxine
00:27:51
Mae Fung Chung about her new book what Women Want a therapist
00:27:56
for patients and the true stories of desire, power and
00:28:00
love.
00:28:00
To find out more about the Bookshop podcast, go to
00:28:04
thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a
00:28:09
review wherever you listen to the show.
00:28:11
You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram
00:28:16
and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop podcast.
00:28:19
If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to
00:28:23
suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via
00:28:27
the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom.
00:28:30
The Bookshop podcast is written and produced by me, mandy
00:28:34
Jackson Beverly, the music provided by Brian Beverly,
00:28:38
executive Assistant to Mandy Adrian Otterhan and Graphic
00:28:42
Design by Francis Verralla.
00:28:44
Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.