On the day I chat to author Plum Sykes she is voicing her frustration with her bantam hens. They have not laid an egg for her since early May and yet last year they were prolific layers. Their fickleness is frustrating, but she laughs it off. She clearly loves her life in the country and is not going to be deterred by erratic fowl. The bantams live at home with her and her two daughters in Gloucestershire (the less flashy part of the Cotswolds….more on this later), alongside two dogs and three horses.
Plum admits she couldn’t imagine living in the city now: ‘For me the English countryside feels like coming home. And wherever I have lived in the world – New York, London, Milan – I always hark back to the green fields, meadows, hedges.’ This love of the countryside was instilled in her by her grandmother, who lived in a bucolic part of Kent where Plum spent much of her childhood riding ponies and racing around in nature. ‘She was the most amazing and kind person. She was so into horses and so instrumental in my upbringing I think that my love for her and my love for the countryside are all one thing.’
After a career in fashion writing for British and American Vogue, Plum turned her hand to novels and produced her first book – Bergdorf Blondes – a New York Times bestseller. Two more novels followed and now her latest, Wives Like Us, sees Plum return to Gloucestershire to satirise the lives of the flashy Cotswold ‘princesses’ who, with their butlers, helicopters, large country piles and glamorous wardrobes, have colonised the Oxfordshire side of the Cotswolds. Is there a clear divide between the two Cotswold sides? Plum assures me this is true: ‘The Oxfordshire side is the very hot east-Hampton version of the Cotswolds. That is where all the celebrities want to buy anything expensive. This side is much more rural, less developed and built up.’ Plum herself lives near Bisley, home to that other doyenne of Cotswold literature, Jilly Cooper. She feels it is less contrived: ‘Over there on the dark side as I call it, it is all parties and caterers, Range Rovers and helicopters on the rugby pitch. Here there is a sort of old-school-ness to it. It is further from London, so less attractive to London types.’
To my mind, the society she satirises in her book is flawed and potentially problematic in these straitened times. Plum agrees: ‘I think that particular universe with the fashion and the setting and the social side has got out of control. When it gets out of control and too much money is being spent on silly things, then I think you have got a satire waiting to happen. I didn't have to invent anything or exaggerate anything – that’s how it is.’
Wives Like Us is woven through with such layering of fashion and interiors that these create symbiosis with the characters themselves. Plum says: ‘You can tell a lot about a person by how they dress. People's personal style speaks to me in a way that perhaps words don't. Clothes are part of the story, like another character or a plot line.’ They certainly allow a platform for rivalry, envy and social competition, as do the houses and interiors of her book, some with a more modern finish and others a more faded glamour. Plum agrees: ‘Each of the women is an archetype and their houses are the architectural archetypes. These people live in the same area but they're each trying to express something about themselves, it is all very intentional. Wives Like Us is almost like a non-fiction fiction book because there is so much in terms of style, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously.’
Plum is as disciplined with her writing as her busy life allows her to be. ‘Writing is such a hard process it is not easy to say you’ve enjoyed it,’ she admits. ‘The feeling of having done it is wonderful, but it is so much work.’ She works in the term time when her children are at school and if she has to write in the holidays, she gets up early before anyone else. She rarely spends a whole day sitting at her desk, instead finding it more productive to do a few hours at a time and then head off for a walk or ride to clear her head and develop more ideas.
As for Somerset itself, she is a big fan: ‘Hauser & Wirth is lovely and I have been there a few times, plus the area around the Newt. Bath is wonderful and it is only about an hour from me. They have an amazing bookstore called Toppings, plus some fantastic museums. My favourite part, however, is Exmoor. On one of my visits I took my horse with me and we went riding over the moors and it was amazing. You can go on three-hour rides, which is incredible. You can't really do that in Gloucestershire as it is very truncated by roads.’
What is next on her writing agenda? Perhaps a story set on Exmoor or maybe a version of Wives Like Us set in the fashionable hotspots of Somerset? Plum, however, feels she still has plenty more material for a Cotswold follow-on; ‘I would actually like to write a trilogy of these books, because I just think it is asking for it. I've got so many good scenes which I cut that I can put into another book.’ The Cotswold princesses will be quaking in their leather Hermès riding boots…
The Dulverton Literary Festival takes place on the weekend of November 16-17. Tickets can be bought via visitdulverton.com/dulverton-exmoor-literary-festival.
Plum Sykes will be in conversation with The Times journalist Alice Thomson.
