My guest today is the award-winning novelist Sarah Perry.

Sarah is the internationally bestselling author of four novels, but the one you will almost definitely heard of (and may well have watched) is The Essex Serpent. Published in 2016, it sold over half a million copies, and won both British Book of the Year and Waterstones book of the year before being made into an apple tv+ series starring Clare Danes and Tom Hiddleston (Sarah was an extra!). Sarah has also been nominated for the booker prize, the women’s prize for fiction and the costa novel award, amongst others.

Born and brought up in Essex, Sarah is chancellor of Essex University, where her latest novel Enlightenment is set. Enlightenment - a novel about the presence and absence of faith draws more directly on her own life than usual - because Sarah, as you may or not know grew up in a closed religious community.

I met Sarah at her publisher’s office in South London to talk about being brought up in the equivalent of 1860, leaving the church, and coming out of the womb as a 45 year old novelist! We also discussed the success that led to incurable illness, the surprisingly difficult transition from a woman who doesn’t have children to a woman who didn’t have children, premature menopause and why she doesn’t want to look like someone who hasn’t seen death.

Btw, I've made that sound really depressing - I promise it isn't!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I'm Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

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Claudio Bono - Founder Givearoof.Org (NEW 5/16/25)