Episode 81: Nikki May, author of Wahala
Nikki May joins us from the UK to chat about her debut novel, Wahala, which was named a most anticipated book of 2022 by Vogue, Marie Claire, Glamour, Essence, and more.
Wahala, which means trouble, follows three Anglo-Nigerian best friends living in London, and the lethally glamorous fourth woman who infiltrates their group.
It’s been compared to Sex in the City, and Nikki describes the novel as a subversive modern take on friendship, family and culture.
Plus some great writing advice, including why you should read “rubbish books” too.
Books Mentioned:
Wahala by Nikki May (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Stranding by Kate Sawyer (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
In Every Mirror She's Black by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com)
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com)
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Lainey 0:00
Are you joining me from Nikki?
Nikki May 0:01
Hi Lainey. I'm in Dorset, which is in the West Country in the middle of nowhere in England.
Lainey 0:07
I love it. And you know what? pronounce the name of your book for me because I don't want to get it wrong. How do you say it?
Nikki May 0:12
My debut novel is called Wahala.
Lainey 0:15
And it's a perfect, perfect word to describe this book, which is a book about friendship between three women. And then a fourth one kind of comes in and kind of intrudes on their friendship kind of upsets, the balance of how things are going, but why don't you tell folks who've not heard the book yet? It just came out January, right? It just came out last month. So tell folks a little bit about the book.
Nikki May 0:35
Cool. My publishers are describing as a Sex and the City with a killer edge and I'm okay with that. It's set in the city. There's a bit of sex in it. They drink cocktails, but it's slightly more diverse than the original Sex and the City. I describe it as a subversive, modern take on friendship family and culture with and it's underpinned by a rather epic revenge twist. It sends it on 330 Something friends living in London, and they share a mixed Nigerian British heritage and I think I got that idea from me and there's wrong care. She's dating Kira de she's a dentist. She wants candidates to be the one she's desperate for happily ever after. And 2.2 kids then there's boohoo has everything wrong care wants nice husband, gorgeous child, lovely kitchen, but she's frustrated and unfulfilled and wants to get back to the real her semi is the Golden One with the perfect lifestyle and wardrobe on the surface anyway, but she suffers from imposter syndrome. Her husband thinks they're trying for a baby. She's not these women are all living their best lives doing the best they can until Isabel explodes into the friend group. She's very rich and very glamorous. And at first, it seems she's bringing out the best in the friends that Isabel is a wrecking ball and her motives are causing wahala - trouble propel the narrative, all the ways of that twist I talked about,
Lainey 1:57
Well, I gotta say you've got me hooked. I think I'm about halfway through right now. And I was like up late last night. And I couldn't go to bed and my husband was like, elbowing me on bed, buddy, like, Come on, honey, you can't read all night. So no spoilers because I've always like I've like I said, I'm like halfway through it. I love it. It's fabulous. And I'm loving, especially being British and Scottish originally, despite the accent. I'm loving all the British systems in the book. But also I'm learning a lot about like Nigerian food as I go through it. i There's a lot of food. I wasn't familiar. And I noticed that the back you put some recipes at the back of the book for some of the dishes that come up again and again was was that your idea? Or was it something that publisher suggested? Like
Nikki May 2:37
it's great? Oh, no, that was my idea. From day one. They were always going to be recipes in the book. I think Nigerian food is really underrated. And I think it's time to put it on the map. But also I wanted the book to be a celebration of the characters to cultures, which also happened to be mine. And food is such an important part of culture. And I think it's an important part of life, I can't imagine an occasion where I've met my friends where food of some sorts hasn't been involved. So there's a lot of food in the book, so needed to chuck some recipes at the back,
Lainey 3:08
I'm going to be in the UK visiting family in March. So I think I'm literally going to go like find a good Nigerian restaurant and try some of these dishes I've never had. So inspiration, where did the idea for this book, it's got so many different themes running through it. So I'm really fascinated on like, where the idea and inspiration originally came from.
Nikki May 3:26
I've always wanted to write a book that had people like me in it. So from the beginning, I always knew that my characters would be mixed race, and middle class. A lot of books with black people or by black people tend to focus on trauma and struggle and pain. And it's not we're not a monolith. That's not a universal experience. I wanted to write the kind of book I like to read. So aspirational, page turnery, sort of very modern, very contemporary. And I'd had this idea of a book, the sort of themes I'd had friendship was definitely going to be part of it. A shocking twist was always going to be part of it. But I put it off and put it off because work got in the way. And writing a book is really hard. Getting started is really hard. It takes a lot of confidence. A blank page is a scary thing. But one day after a very long and loud lunch with friends at a Nigerian restaurant that is quite similar to the Nigerian restaurant in the book. I boarded the train home and I had a pad and pencil with me I always have a pad and pencil I'm list obsessed, and I started sketching out the first scene and wrong care boo and semi came into my head. And I suppose when I got home, I realized I'd written the first scene of a book. And I it I think getting those first words down was what it took. The plot was all over the place. The characters weren't fully formed, but I had a start I had something that I could dive into. And after that I did a very short course a creative writing course online for six weeks called start writing your novel. And I'm still friends with some of the people I met on that course. And the book literally poured out of me in six months, I had a first draft.
Lainey 5:04
That's amazing. And did it have to change a lot from that first draft as you went through the editing? Like, how many years was the process between that first draft and this book that we got to see?
Nikki May 5:14
Hell yeah, it took two years before I queried agents. So the draft came out in six months, I then printed it out loads of paper, flip through it, read half of it realize it was terrible as an absolutely terrible.
Lainey 5:30
It was a first draft.
Nikki May 5:32
But I didn't know this at the time, I just thought, Oh, my God, it's hopeless. So I put it in a drawer, shut the drawer. And unfortunately, I told people I was doing so they keep saying, how's that book going? And I'm like, Don't Ask, Don't ask. But the girls are still talking to me in my head. So I dug it out. And I pulled it apart, and I realized it was wahala. But it was needed that I somehow because I've fallen in love with my characters. Although I knew what I wanted to do, I didn't do it. So nothing bad happened to them. They just had loads of food, war, lots of clothes, and talks a lot. So I unpicked it all through loads of trouble at it, my characters were fully formed. And writing is all about editing. I think the thing that's good about being a debut is you don't know all the rules. So you don't know much about genre, although I'm a big reader. And I've always have been a reader. I don't think I never thought in genre terms. Because also because I read really widely, I read all sorts of things. So I've never sort of thought, Oh, I've got to raise a crime book, or I've got to raise a literary book. I just wrote the sorts of book I'd like to read.
Lainey 6:33
It's a really good question, because it's got those thriller elements I've got you on because I consider it women's fiction because it's got the friendship and these really well developed characters of the women are all very different and really well developed. Like, how do you think about genre? Do you just hate the whole word? Do you view it as a certain genre? Do you just think it's a pain in the derriere? Like how do you view genre?
Nikki May 6:51
I think it is a pain. And I think I think publishers like having handles to hang us on. So you're this sort of book or you're that sort of book. And I guess I worked in advertising. So I get it, I get the idea that you need these handles, but I think it's, I think it can be quite limiting. And also I hate it when people are snobby about books. And when women's fiction is considered a bad word, if I really, you know, I just I absolutely resent that I abhor it and make because I read all sorts of things. So I read, and I hate the idea of women's fiction and men's fiction. I mean, it's just a stupid concept. Almost as stupid as the concept of black fiction and white fiction, I just find all these handles are very limiting. And I think they almost make your or they almost imply their audiences too stupid to just recognize good writing.
Lainey 7:38
Yeah. And I like the fact that your book, like you said, the characters are interesting how to say this. They're dealing with issues that come from their heritage, right? They've all got their own backstory and background and their different backstories. And background, even though they've all got that connection to Nigeria and grew up at some point in their childhood. It's not a story about that. That's their backstory of who they are. But the book is not about that. And I thought that was great, because I do see I was actually talking to another author just a couple of weeks ago, I do see that we tend to want authors of color to write immigrant stories about dealing with issues of color only. And
Nikki May 8:12
that is such a good point. And you're completely right, the fact that they're mixed race is part of their background, it's texture, it's not front and center. And yes, you can't have mixed race characters without touching on race and colorism and class but the story is not about that. Those are just things that just like I have you just deal with. They're not. They're not everyday things. They're just little annoying things that happen on a day to day way. And I do find, you know, sometimes in conversations like, oh, we must get some black bloggers to read your book, you think well, let's just get bloggers to read my book. We don't have to have pinpointed you know, you wouldn't ask that wouldn't ask you as your as your should we get some Scottish people to read your will? Yeah, and English ones at America. So I do find it slightly frustrating. But
Lainey 8:58
yeah, no, I can see that. Well, it's very well done. And your characters are great. Like, it's hard when you're a debut, I think to get the character, I worked on culture a lot in my own debut to get the character to come across on the page. And for the reader in their mind in the same way they are in your mind.
Nikki May 9:10
There was one point where someone said, oh, we need to explain who Fela Kuti is. And I was like, No, we don't. If I wrote about Elvis Presley, you wouldn't explain who he was. And if a Nigerian was reading about Elvis Presley, they would get the idea that this is a musician, and he must have been quite big and famous. And I do think we need to give writers credit readers credit for having some intelligence. And if it's written in the right context, you can read around it. Plus, we all have Google. So if there's something you don't understand, check,
Lainey 9:40
I was talking to Mansi Shah a couple of weeks ago and her book is takes place in and out of India. It's a first generation us a person from the US who goes back to India. And one of the things she said is like we all have Wikipedia, like if someone were to India, they can explain it and her point was the character would never stop and think Oh, that's who this is just completely in authentic character, whatever explained something like that.
Nikki May 10:06
I read a lot of American books and to today I do not know what grits are. And if you ave me a bowl of grits, I honestly, but it doesn't stop me understanding what's going on there eating food and they like it. So I think we can accept that you don't have to explain everything that if it's written, well, the context isn't.
Lainey 10:26
So clearly, when I go to the UK, I'll ask you for recommendations offline, a really good Nigerian restaurant in London. And when you come to the US, you've got to find a really good southern restaurant to have. So you've obviously learned so much along this journey, what advice you give to writers who would like to be you who are maybe starting their debut or hoping to their debut published like, what do you advise other writers,
Nikki May 10:51
I think the biggest best piece of advice is to read. I'm ancient I'm 56. And this is my debut. So it's taken me a long time. But I think what's helped me get here is reading I've read a book a week since I was dean probably. And I read really widely and I honestly think that is it's helped me so much. It's helped me understand the structure of a book, even when I wasn't thinking about it. But just subliminally I've absorbed so much info. So I think Read, read widely read brilliant, amazing books that make you feel inadequate, but also read some really rubbish crap books that make you feel actually, I'm not so bad. And when you have that confident moment, because I do think self doubt is a prerequisite for being an author, it's at the essential quality. So you need to read a bit of rubbish, just to help boost your self doubt. The other piece of advice would be keep going just plow through that shitty draft that we talked about. I've met so many people that have spent so long polishing and re polishing the first chapter that people who was on the same course with where I wrote this book, who were still polishing chapters, one, two and three. It's like just keep going. I have placeholders when I say this is crap, come back and sorted out, or no idea what's going on with me to find a way but just keep trying to plow through to the end, because you're going to change it all. Anyway, so get to the end. And the third.
Lainey 12:18
This is rubbish. I've never heard anyone gives it this is read some rubbish advice. It's brutal. Yeah, you're surfing. Oh,
Nikki May 12:23
yeah, definitely. I've got quite a few of those in my book, too. And the third piece of advice is try and write from the heart. I think it helps. And I asked, I think for a debut that the gift of being a debut is the lack of knowledge. So because you're not burdened with expectation, always all this new things you've learned, you can just sort of do write what you want to read.
Lainey 12:43
I love that. I love that and talking of which, don't give me a list of the rubbish books. Although I love that tip. I'm gonna go find myself some rubbish to read. But um, what about the good ones? Do you have anything you could recommend that folks might want to read that you've enjoyed?
Nikki May 12:55
So one of the favorite books I've read lately, and I not sure if it's out in the States, I'm not sure it's by Kate Sawyer. And it's called The Stranding it is just beautiful. It's a it's a dystopian End of the World Book, which I tend to like, but it's also about life and hope and survival. It's a wonderful book, and it was long listed for the cost of price. So that's how good it was a book that came out in another class in the States, I think it came out late last year is called In Every Mirror She's Black by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström . And she's Swedish, Swedish - Nigerian, and it's about three very different women. But again, a bit like my book, it's about modern, sassy women trying to get on with their lives. And I really think she digs deep into character, and a book I haven't read, but I am desperately counting down the days is Sea of Tranquility, by my favorite author of all time, queen, Emily, St. John Mandel.
Lainey 13:51
Awesome. And I'll put the links to those in the show notes. So if you go to the website, and I'll have the links to those books, so people can find them. And is there anything I haven't asked you before? Before we wrap up, and we work out where people can connect with you anything I haven't asked that you wanted to be sure to say.
Nikki May 14:05
The other thing is, a lot of people my book was sold as books or films. It's going to be a TV series on BBC, which I'm thrilled about absolutely over the moon. And I think one thing that's that really helped when I was waiting, what Hello, so sometimes, especially if it's a scene that has lots of people in it, sometimes just imagine it, picture them, see where they're sitting, see how they're talking to each other, and then write what you see, I found it really helpful in scenes where there more than two or three people to actually try and look at it in my head and then write it down.
Lainey 14:38
That's great advice. Because you do have a lot of scenes. I'm thinking about it in your book where there's several of them at once around a table or in a restaurant or having drinks and get that it's difficult to write because it's really hard for the reader to keep a handle on where I'm talking and where they are.
Nikki May 14:51
But if you get it in your head, it somehow comes out easier.
Lainey 14:54
Oh, that's great. Well if folks want to connect with you and follow the progress of when this will come on board See, I know it just started. But it's so excited, citing if folks want to connect and they want to follow your progress. What do you recommend? Where do you like to turn up in social media? Please come
Nikki May 15:09
and find me on Twitter where I'm at Nikki. Oh, Mei. And I'm still learning Instagram Instagrams hard I don't get it yet, but I'm trying and there. I'm at Nikki, may writer.
Lainey 15:20
Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Nikki. And I would encourage everyone to go read this one. It's like my own book. It's about friendship. So I I'm loving that aspect of this book. You do such a great job of portraying the friendship between the woman but it's also a little darker, and it's witty and it's humorous. Like, it's a great read, I can see why they compared the sex of the city because of the humor aspect of it. But it's also serious, right? It's got some really serious themes, and it's got a little thriller aspect. So I love how you blend it, all of those things. Congratulations. It's a great book.
Nikki May 15:51
Thank you so much lately, and I'm now about to add your book to my list of books I have to read. So thank you.
Lainey 15:58
Thanks for joining me today.