It is a pleasure to welcome Tabitha Carvan to my blog, Mrs B’s Book Reviews for A Tea Break with Mrs B, a author interview series. To help celebrate the release of This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch we sat down for a chat. Thanks Tabitha!
What is your drink of choice as we sit down for a chat about your new book?
Hopefully it’s okay to have black coffee during a tea break!
Can you give us an overview of your writing career to date?
I went from zines to blogs, to opinion writing, to features writing, to science writing, to… a book.
How did you come up with the unique title of your book, This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch?
At first I thought I was writing a book about why I, and so many other women my age, had fallen for the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, and what that said about us, and him too. I soon realised, however, that he actually wasn’t the most interesting aspect of our stories at all. Instead, it became a book about the role of joy in our lives.
What themes and issues dominate This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch?
It’s about the things women love, and how we love them, and why we love them, and, maybe most importantly, why we sometimes don’t love anything. It’s a midlife and motherhood memoir with feminism, academic research, and pop culture thrown in.
How long did it take you to write This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch?
I spent about three years researching the themes of the book and writing various essays about them, but once I decided it was actually a good book idea, it took about six months to go from beginning to end.
What is the most surprising thing you discovered while writing This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch?
I literally discovered a note hidden in a library book by a fellow Benedict Cumberbatch fan here in Canberra! That was an unbelievable spinout, and a breakthrough in writing the book because it got me together with my first interview subject, right here on my doorstep.
What do you hope readers will take away from the experience of reading This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch?
I hope it reminds them of a time when they might have felt really passionate about something, and gets them thinking about would happen if they felt that way again.
What writers have inspired you to become a published author?
As part of the process of getting my book published, I participated in the ACT Writers HARDCOPY program. Watching other writers who did that course with me get their books out into the world was hugely inspiring: Ruhi Lee (Good Indian Daughter), Michelle Tom (Ten Thousand Aftershocks), Katherine Tamiko Arguille (The Things She Owned), and soon, Jennifer Pinkerton (Heartland).
What does your writing space look like?
A desk in the spare bedroom in our house, situated beneath many writing notes and photos of Benedict Cumberbatch, naturally.
When you are not writing, what do you enjoy doing?
Listening to music, playing board games with my family, going for walks up the mountains of Canberra, and reading celebrity gossip.
What book is next on your reading pile?
Michelle de Kretser’s Scary Monsters.
What are you working on writing wise at present?
I’m writing about science as part of my job with the Australian National University while toiling away on new book ideas!
Thank you for taking the time to visit Mrs B’s Book Reviews Tabitha and congratulations on the publication of This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch.
If you feel that sense that there is something missing from your life, some gap between who you are on the inside and who you are on the outside – then this is the book for you.
This is, as the title says, not actually a book about Benedict Cumberbatch.
In fact, it’s a book about women and what we love, about what happens to women’s passions after we leave adolescence and how the space for joy in our lives is squeezed ever smaller as we age, and why. More importantly, it’s about what happens if you subvert that narrative and simply love something like you used to.
Drawing upon her personal experience of unexpectedly falling for the British actor Benedict Cumberbatch while stuck at home with two young children, Carvan challenges the reader to stop instinctively resisting the possibility of experiencing pleasure. Hers is clarion rallying cry: find your thing, whatever it may be, and love it like your life depends on it.
Funny, intelligent, transporting and liberating, this book is a total joy.
This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan was published on 2nd March 2022 by HarperCollins – AU. Details on how to purchase the book can be found here.
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