The Blitz, romance, and time-traveling fascists

March 18, 2026·46 min·2 clips

Francis Spufford's grandmother casually revealed her secret life of affairs at age 90, then slammed the door shut forever.

Sam Brigger starts with real admiration. He places Francis Spufford alongside Cahokia Jazz and Golden Hill, and treats Nonesuch as another turn from a novelist drawn to alternate histories, period detail, and social texture. Then the conversation settles on Iris. Spufford describes her as brave, but not especially sweet, a woman whose one-night stand with Jeff becomes more revealing than she expected. Love shows up without asking. The guest gives that shift a hard edge: being known by another person can change you, and it can hurt. Class never sits quietly in the background. Brigger reads a passage where Iris introduces herself and hears Watford in her own vowels, with suburbia, school, and an unwanted future packed into the sound of her speech. Spufford answers without dressing it up. Watford marks her as prosperous, suburban, and lower middle class, not poor or working class. In England, those distinctions carry weight. Iris starts without the polish of the people she wants to impress, then teaches herself how to pass among them. Brigger follows the passage closely. His question turns accent into a social tool, asking what a voice could give away before reinvention blurred the clues. Spufford keeps the answer clear-eyed. Iris's class awareness shapes how she moves through desire and status, whether she wants it to or not. The interview stays literary without floating away. It uses prose, plot detail, and social context to let the romance carry bigger questions about self-fashioning. There is also the usual broadcast frame: Terry Gross introduces the segment, mentions Maureen Corrigan and Sam Brigger's enthusiasm, and the closing credits bring Fresh Air back to its public-radio rhythm.

As heard by us

Spufford on what a Watford accent announces, and whether love is worth what it costs.

Fresh Air gives the hosting seat to executive producer Sam Brigger for a conversation with Francis Spufford about his novel Nonesuch. The talk keeps close to the page: Brigger reads a passage where Iris, Spufford's protagonist, hears her Watford accent surface around people a…

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Why you'd press play

Francis Spufford on Iris, class, and why a Watford accent could follow a woman into any room.

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