Full Interview with Francis Spufford

·36 min·3 clips

Francis Spufford explains why he wrote a female character who is manipulative, ruthless, and not sorry about it.

Publication week gives the interview its charge. The hosts welcome Francis Spufford with obvious delight, then move quickly to Iris, the force at the center of Nonesuch. She does not scare easily, which seems to be the point. Spufford describes her as someone who has learned, in the non-supernatural world, not to be pushed around by stronger powers. That habit travels with her when the supernatural arrives. To Iris, angels have the feel of pompous male authority, fair or not. Raphael gets handled sharply, and Spufford's picture of Iris as impertinent and hard to frighten catches much of her appeal. The hosts enjoy that defiance. She keeps refusing the reactions the world appears to have ready for her. Money gives the conversation its other engine. The City setting puts Iris in a place where timing, nerve, and knowledge all matter. Wartime opens doors that would usually stay shut to a woman seeking financial power, even while the economy is closing in. Spufford makes markets feel a little enchanted for Iris, so money and magic start to echo each other without becoming the same thing. The closing stretch turns to Jeff, with Spufford and the hosts making a firm case for his sensitivity, practicality, and courage.

As heard by us

Iris's money markets and angels become rival powers in Spufford's conversation about Nonesuch.

Francis Spufford's conversation about Nonesuch is sharpest when it tracks the novel's bond between financial ambition and supernatural power. Iris, 22 and living in 1940, reads money markets with unusual confidence just as the economy is closing in around her.

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Why you'd press play

Want a heroine who treats money like magic while angels loom? Press play for Francis Spufford on Nonesuch.

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