The Switch

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

From the author: “After The Flatshare, I was full of doubt about where I could do it again. I had to disconnect from all the coverage and just write for me. And that was where the inspiration for The Switch came from. My grandma had recently passed away and, while she was poorly, I spent a lot of time with her in the little village where she lived, meeting the people around her. I was hosting one of her Scrabble friends and I thought, ‘What would it be like for a young woman kind of trying to step into her grandmother’s role in a community like this?’ Originally, that was going to be it, but then, after my grandma died, I realised I didn’t really want to write about an elderly person who was unwell. I really wanted to celebrate what she was like just a couple of years before: fiery, full of life and funny. Then I got the idea of the grandmother going down to London and living the young woman’s life. Looking back, I’m not sure if it was conscious, but I think I partly wrote something about family because side-stepping slightly [away from another novel like The Flat Share] made me feel more free. I didn’t feel like I had to kind of live up to this book that was so well loved and I could do something a bit different. Writing from the perspective of a woman in her seventies was hard, though! I volunteered at a lunch club for older people every week and it really helped—I was hanging out with people aged from 75 to 105. It was really powerful for me. They had so much perspective and I thought, ‘This is what really matters.’”