One of the main ideas that led me to begin writing Supper Club was investigating a sort of primal-scream theory regarding what might happen if instead of resisting something you are made anxious by, you did the opposite, leaned into it to an almost egregious extent. It is set is an unnamed city, though there are lots of clues it is set in the North of England. The novel has two timelines, visiting Roberta first as she begins university and starts making her way in the world, and then again, ten years later. Roberta is someone who confines herself to the margins of a room, who strives to take up as little space as possible.
Together they come up with the idea of Supper Club: a secret society of women who throw wild, all-night, Bacchanalian-inspired feasts, eating until they literally throw up, consciously gaining weight to take up space in the world. We then meet her again ten years later, in the throes of a tempestuous and often unhealthy friendship with her colleague Stevie. It centres on a character called Roberta, whom we first meet at university – during a time in which she is literally and figuratively reducing herself. Supper Club is about the often strange grey areas of female friendship, taking up space, women and food, and appetites.