Jacqueline Roy In Conversation at Calderstones

Novelist and writer Jacqueline Roy will take part in a special ‘in conversation’ at Liverpool’s Calderstones Mansion this weekend.

The dual-heritage author will talk about her ‘forgotten’ novel The Fat Lady Sings and her latest book In Memory of Us, published in 2024, at the afternoon event organised by The Reader on Saturday, February 8.

Tickets cost £10 or £9 for The Reader members.

Both novels explore issues of mental health and identity affecting black, British-born women post-Windrush.

A tender and deeply moving depiction of mental health, The Fat Lady Sings is a striking portrait of two black women - one in their 20s, the other in her 50s – as they navigate life on a London psychiatric ward.

It was one of 13 novels relaunched as part of the Black Britain: Writing Back series curated by Booker-winning author Bernardine Evaristo to address the ‘historical bias in publishing’, working with Hamish Hamilton at Penguin Random House.

The novel was also picked by staff and volunteers as part of The Reader Bookshelf 2024/25, a curated annual collection of books for adults and children based on a different theme. This year’s theme is Wonder.

Roy, who previously appeared at The Reader’s Gravity festival in 2022, says: “I love visiting The Reader. It’s such a warm, inviting place and books and reading are really valued here so it feels special.

“I feel very honoured that The Fat Lady Sings has been selected. Big thanks to all involved. Wonder has more than one meaning. To wonder is to question, and in The Fat Lady Sings, Gloria, one of two central characters, constantly questions the way she is treated.

“She questions authority and challenges the people who dehumanize her and the other patients on the psychiatric ward.”

Meanwhile her latest novel In Memory of Us offers an insight into life as a black Briton post-Windrush.

Roy says: “Experiences of being black and British-born, growing up in the 1950s and 60s, haven’t been explored in fiction very much at all.

“I wanted to produce a novel that addressed this, so I wrote In Memory of Us, which is about twin sisters, who are part of the post-Windrush generation. It spans 70 years and looks at some of the changes that have taken place in that time.”

Jacqueline Roy is In Conversation at Calderstones on February 8 at 2pm. Tickets HERE