SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Martin Gilmour teaches art history, and he's consumed by a festering resentment. Early in the new novel "One Of Us," he confesses to the reader that he agreed to take the blame for his best friend, Ben, who had killed a young woman in a drunk driving accident decades ago. Ben is a member of the celebrated Fitzmaurice clan, an upper-crust British family. And to secure Ben's future prospects, they gave Martin a substantial payout for his silence.
ELIZABETH DAY: (Reading) For a few comparatively happy years, the family counted on my discretion, and I foolishly believed my loyalty was being rewarded with something like love. But at Ben's 40th birthday party, my wife and I were unceremoniously dumped, cast overboard like sacks of grain from a sinking boat. Our faithful retainership was no longer required, we were told. Ben would be standing for political office and needed to tidy up inconvenient loose ends, of which I was one.
SIMON: And as you might guess, as Ben reaches for power, Martin does not stay silent, certainly not tidy. "One Of Us" is the latest novel from Elizabeth Day, who's also host of the hit podcast "How To Fail." She joins us from our studios in New York. Thank you so much for being with us.
DAY: Thank you so much for having me.
SIMON: Help us understand this rivalry friendship at the center of the book between Ben and Martin.
DAY: So I have long been fascinated by outsidership, and Martin is, in many ways, the quintessential outsider. So he came from a difficult background, and he won a scholarship to an elite boarding school in England. And at that boarding school, he fixated on this wealthy, aristocratic, glamorous young man called Ben Fitzmaurice. And as you've just heard there, something happened at Ben's 40th birthday party which ensured the disruption and explosion of that friendship.
Several years later, Ben is on course to become the next British prime minister. But Martin is hell bent on revenge. Martin is still somewhat in love with Ben, but he's never properly admitted it to himself because he's struggled with his own identity. And the idea of revenge, of nurturing it like a pet, it's the closest he can get to having that love reciprocated.
SIMON: When we meet Martin, he's in therapy. Not much of a believer in therapy, though, is he?
DAY: No. Martin is an acerbic observer, which is partly why I really like writing him. As someone who acts as a kind of gateway for the reader, he's a sort of perfect observer of things. But he's also quite bitter and resentful. He's someone who has always wanted to make more of his life. He's wanted to have power, but he's never been allowed into the inner circle because he is not one of them. That's where the title "One Of Us" comes from. And so he occupies this really interesting space where the things that could help him, he's not allowing in because of his own bitterness.
SIMON: Ben's rival, Tory - a member of Parliament - Richard Tate, is also taken down by a scandal. But he comes roaring back, doesn't he?
DAY: (Laughter) He does. So Richard Tate was probably the character I had the most fun writing. And the reason...
SIMON: I had a lot of fun reading him, too...
DAY: Oh.
SIMON: ...I want to say.
DAY: I'm so happy to hear that, Scott. As you say, he's a Tory MP. He was a frontbench politician, but he lost his frontbench seat because of an indiscretion at work. He was filmed on CCTV watching pornography on his office computer. So Richard Tate is determined to go on a rehabilitation program, and he does that very modern thing that so many failed or disgraced politicians do in today's culture - he goes on a reality TV show. And that reality TV show re-endears him to members of the public who become familiarized with him again.
And really, what I wanted to look at there was how reality TV, whatever you think about it, has become a sort of preeminent cultural force. But I have to say, although he starts off as this sort of comic and absurd character, he does go on a redemptive journey, and I end up rather loving him (laughter).
SIMON: Yeah.
DAY: 'Cause he's able to learn from his failures.
SIMON: I do feel the need to say it's a reality show about sewage workers. With a title, at least in the United States and broadcasting, we can't repeat word for word. Let's just call it Stuff Happens. How's that?
DAY: Yes. Perfect.
SIMON: Among your (laughter) lines I admire - you talk about how losing politicians can usefully resurface as podcasters. Quote, "most of the podcast feature two white men from different sides of the political divide joshing agreeably while analyzing the brokenness...
DAY: (Laughter).
SIMON: ...Of a system they contributed to breaking." That's the formula, isn't it?
DAY: Yeah. I'm so thrilled you picked up that line. You know, sometimes things annoy you so much, and you wonder why people aren't saying it, and you almost have to write an entire book just to put a line in (laughter). That was my line.
SIMON: You're writing about Tories, members of Britain's Conservative Party - seemed to be the living definition of privilege. As I don't have to tell you, the current leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, a Black woman from a Nigerian family of no particular privilege. And Lord Peter Mandelson, so recently charged in the Epstein case, was a Labour political figure. So are the Tories really figures of British privilege anymore?
DAY: Times are definitely shifting, thank goodness. But I was looking at a very specific era in "One Of Us," which was the Boris Johnson era. And there was a succession. I think there were three Tory leaders who had gone to private school, sailed into Oxbridge and then went into a career in politics without ever having lived a normal day as an ordinary person. And I felt like there was such a disconnect there, and I thought it also said a lot about the electorate, to be honest. There's something still so embedded, I think, in British culture, where we believe that the people who speak properly and went to the right schools and are in some way characters - we sort of trust that they're the experts. And I'm glad to see that that is changing now, but I think that we still need to be wary.
SIMON: Do we in the public, as well as journalists, abide these lives because, in the end, they're entertaining? I mean, at least since the time of Shakespeare.
DAY: Yes. In short, I do think that with certain politicians. We mistake their joshing, characterful personalities for someone that we are familiar with seeing down the pub or dancing badly at a family wedding. We become used to them, and their character seems like qualification enough. When you're running a country, you also need to have qualifications. You can't just be the kind of man that you want to share a pint with (laughter). And I think they are very entertaining - these characters - as you rightly say, from the days of Shakespeare onwards. And the problem is is that sometimes the character masks the danger.
SIMON: Elizabeth Day - her new novel, "One Of Us." Thank you so much for being with us.
DAY: Thank you so much for having me. I really loved this conversation.
(SOUNDBITE OF FUTURE SONG, "MASK OFF") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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