love
I would shy away from now, which at the time felt
like the only story to tell.’
We’re here to discuss Nicholls’s new novel, Sweet
Sorrow, a story of first love and the complicated cocktail
of joy and sadness that comes with teetering on the edges
of adulthood. Nicholls was drawn to writing about
teenagers because ‘that little window in between school
and college was an intense time of excitement coupled
with fear. You were like jelly beginning to set – starting
to work out who you were and what you believed and
who you wanted to be with.’ He set the novel over summer
because it has three acts (June, July and August) and is
often ‘a hinge in your life’, with a ‘sense of wanting to
hold on to something that’s inevitably passing.’
If Richard Curtis were to write a British author into
one of his films, I imagine they might be a lot like Nicholls.
He’s charming but self-deprecating, thoughtful but
slightly hesitant, and quick to remind me that although
his novels rise out of periods in his life, they aren’t
autobiographical: ‘When I wrote Starter For Ten in my
30s, I was still living in the shadow of university. When
I started One Day, I’d just become a father; it was a swan
song to the days when friendships and dating were the
overwhelming things in my life. The books I’ve written
now, even though they’re not about my family, are about
how we get on with our
parents or children, because
that’s become a preoccupation
for me. My son is 13 and my
daughter is 11, and I can feel
[the teen years] looming. I wanted to write about that,
rather than the aches, pains and moroseness of being 52!’
As a teenager, Nicholls was ‘swotty, awkward, solitary,
with terrible skin’ and ‘part of a popular group but sort
of on the edge of it’. Did writing about teenagers make
him nostalgic, or thankful to be older? ‘The latter,’ he
quickly replies. ‘I have a lot of regrets about that time.
The summer Charlie [Sweet Sorrow’s main character]
spends falling in love, I spent in a factory making coffee
percolators, so there was none of that elation or romance.
I feel much happier in myself than I did at 16. It gives me
the shivers, actually, talking about it too much.’ Nicholls’s
regrets are ‘hard to talk about’, but mainly concern the
‘pretty gruesome’ way his friends treated each other then.
‘A great deal of energy in those friendships was spent
undermining each other; I feel quite sad about that.’
From Emma and Dexter’s friendship-turned-love-affair
in One Day to Pete and Jen’s divorce in Cold Feet
(Nicholls was a screenwriter on the show), he continues
to write about love because it ‘offers up the most
opportunity for comedy, drama and sadness. It has
always felt like the best subject matter to me. Often
it alters your direction, it’s immense, and I’ve never
felt that there wasn’t anything more to say about it.’
At points in Sweet Sorrow, Nicholls suggests first
love is a fantasy; at others, he implies it’s an intenseconnection you’ll never experience again. What does he
believe? ‘First love, by definition, is something that only
happens once; it’s a whole new range of sensations and
emotions that suddenly hit you... and yet it’s not real.
It depends on where you are in life, but it’s free of the
domestic concerns and social awareness you inherit in
your 20s and 30s: where you are in life and work, where
you live, what you want from the future. None of that
crosses your mind when you’re 15. Instead you have this
poetic, intense, almost physical sensation that’s different
from the mechanics of love later in life. That isn’t to say
that it’s better, but it’s very particular.’
Unlike the tumultuous relationships he writes about,
Nicholls’s own love stories are quietly romantic; he has
been with his partner, Hannah, for 22 years and is ‘an
embarrassing father’ to Max, 13, and Romy, 11. The
past 12 years of his life ‘have been dominated by the
business of parenthood’, which has also made him
more curious about how he got where he is today. ‘The
past seems to take up, literally, more of your life. And,
having kids, every day you have a little reminder of what
things felt like. Things you didn’t notice or give enough
weight to as a child. You’re reminded not just of your
own childhood, but of your parents’ experience of your
childhood.’ As well as the business of domesticity,Nicholls’s recent years have been dominated by career
success. This year, he won a BAFTA for best drama
writer for his adaptation of the Patrick Melrose novels
(‘I’m not cool about it at all! I’m thrilled’) and next he’s
working on a four-hour TV drama based on his novel
Us (starring Tom Hollander). Although, in typically
self-deprecating fashion, he’s wary of assuming any
success. ‘I’m still convinced there’s going to be some
horrific backlash and it’ll be torn to pieces just to teach
me a lesson,’ he admits. ‘But I’m very proud of it.’
Given Nicholls found fame writing about love, I ask
what he wishes he had known about it. ‘Goodness,’ he
replies, taken aback by the vastness of the question. ‘Well,
I suppose I wish I’d been a little more confident and known
[love] isn’t something anyone is excluded from. When I
was a teenager, I did feel it was something that everyone
else was up to. You see so many people around you who
seem to be having this extraordinary time. It doesn’t feel
like something that you deserve, or that might happen.’
With so many triumphs, it’s difficult to imagine
Nicholls as the solitary teenager, unsure if he would ever
find love or success. Part of me wishes he’d known about
all the wonders that would be waiting for him on the
doorstep of adulthood. Then again, if he’d been more
confident, we might not have his beautiful love stories on
our bookshelves.‘THE PAST SEEMS TO TAKE UP,
LITERALLY, MORE OF YOUR LIFE’
Sweet Sorrow (Hodder & Stoughton) by David Nicholls is out 11th JulyPH
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