How agreeable are you?
You’d have to ask my family, but I think I’m fairly agreeable. I’d like to think I know which battles are worth fighting.
What is your middle name and what do you think of it?
My middle name is Kelly. It’s actually my grandmother’s maiden name. She was of Irish descent. Her father came over to Yorkshire in the late 19th century ... Nobody has ever called me Kelly.
What is your favourite place in Ireland?
The Burren. I encountered it for the first time when I was speaking at the Ennis Book Club Festival in March 2020, before we moved over to Ireland. Somebody came up to me at the book signing and said, “Have you ever been to the Burren because from reading your books I think you’d really like it.” I said I hadn’t, but that I’d always wanted to. She looked at her friend and said, “Well, my friend and I go there every Saturday. Are you doing anything this afternoon?” I said I was flying out of Shannon at around six, and she said, “Ah, sure, we’ll get you back to Shannon by then.” So I just went off in a car with these two women I’d never met before, and we had an amazing adventure in the Burren. We did some hiking, they showed me a holy well and a ruined hermitage, and that amazing limestone landscape. As I was flying back through Birmingham that evening, lockdown happened, everything shut down, and that was the end of that for another few years. So it was absolutely the last moment I could have gone off in a car with two strangers and had a wonderful afternoon. I go to the Burren as often as I can – and those two women are now two of my closest friends in Ireland.
Describe yourself in three words
I was thinking about this. In the first piece I wrote for The Irish Times, I described myself as a bike-riding vegetarian feminist. So, yes, a bike-riding vegetarian feminist. I think they can put that on my gravestone.
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When did you last get angry?
A very long time ago. I’d have been in primary school, although I don’t think I was much given to tantrums. I don’t really do anger. Except when I’m on my bike and drivers nearly kill me, and then I get very uninhibited. I think I get angry only on my bike.
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
The confidence of my 20s. I think quite often, and probably as we get older, we become less sure about things. There’s nobody so certain as a teenager, and I slightly miss that absolute conviction. I’m sure that I’m a kinder, gentler, and better person for not having that, but it made life very straightforward. Quite often, teenagers are right about things, albeit in a completely inexperienced kind of way. For most people, we’ve discovered the world is a bit more complicated than we thought; things aren’t quite as black and white to us.
What is your strongest childhood memory?
Climbing mountains, mostly in the Lake District. I grew up in Manchester. My parents were very enthusiastic hikers, so they would collect us from school on a Friday, drive up to the mountains, and then we camped wild over the weekend. More than once, we woke up very early on Monday morning and were dropped back to school straight from the hills.
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
I’m the oldest. How has it defined me? I’m a classic first child. A driven overachiever. Slightly neurotic.
What do you expect to happen when you die?
There’s a Yorkshire folk song I used to sing with my grandfather – On Ilkla Moor Baht’at, and a line from it goes “then the worms will come and eat you up ...” It is best belted out in a Yorkshire accent with your grandfather while driving across Yorkshire. Nobody knows what’s going to happen, do they?
When were you happiest?
I’m pretty happy these days, but there’s no absolute measure of happiness, is there? I now live in a place I really love. I have good friends within walking distance, and my kids are doing well. There is a reasonable level of contentment within my life. Globally, clearly not, but I’m turning 50 later this year, and I think that could also be a good time.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
I was going to look up actors, but I forgot. Morven Christie reads my audiobooks so beautifully with the right accents and tones, so let’s go with her.
What is your biggest career/personal regret?
It’s not really a regret, but I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t gone straight into academia, because at this point in my life, I’ve been on one end or the other of full-time education without a break since I was four. I have a strange idea that I might have been quite good in the emergency services, as I’m very good in a crisis. Personal regret? No, because you always learn from it.
Have you any psychological quirks?
How long have you got? I like rhythmic things – running, knitting, sewing, walking. Anything that’s involved with iambic, heartbeat footsteps, I find very comforting.
In conversation with Tony Clayton-Lea
Sarah Moss’s new book, Ripeness, is published by Pan Macmillan
