In “Maame,” Jessica George Taps into the Relatability of Loneliness and Grief

Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.

Margaret Hargrove: Hi, listeners, I'm Audible Editor Margaret Hargrove, and today I'm honored to be speaking with Jessica George, author of the highly anticipated debut novel Maame. Jessica was born and raised in London to Ghanaian parents and studied English literature at the University of Sheffield. After working at a literary agency and in the editorial department of publishing house Bloomsbury UK, Jessica wrote her own first novel. Maame chronicles the journey of a 25-year-old British Ghanaian woman as she comes to terms with the role she did not seek and discovers who she really is. Welcome, Jessica.

Jessica George: Hello, thank you for having me.

MH: Jessica, we had the pleasure of meeting back in October to talk a bit about Maame. At that time, there wasn't any audio and I hadn't finished reading it yet. Since then, I've not only read the entire book, but listened to the audio twice. Maame is seriously just that good. I know you told me a little bit about the inspiration for Maame, but can you please share with our listeners what was your inspiration for Maddie's story?

JG: In the summer of 2020, I lost my father to complications with Parkinson's disease, and I only began writing about Maddie because I started recording diary entries just to kind of come to grips with the grieving process. Losing my father was the real first tangled grief that I'd had, so in order to kind of make sense of it, I just started randomly and spontaneously writing down thoughts and feelings during the process. And it wasn't until a couple of months after that I thought, “I could maybe turn this into a book.”

MH: Maddie's father in Maame also suffers from Parkinson's, and I know you mentioned to me that Maddie's theater job is similar to a job that you had. Can you share with us, are there any other ways that Maddie's story is based on your own life?

JG: So, her friends, Nia and Shu, her best friends, are based on very real people in my life, they're my two best friends, Ashley and Camilla. Like Maddie, I've also worked in a publishing house. But I think that is perhaps where the similarities end and that's where the fiction really gets started.

MH: Maame is Maddie's family nickname. In the native language of Maddie's parents, it means “woman” or “responsible one.” On the surface, the nickname does seem like praise for Maddie's reliability; she's only 25, but she's working full-time, she's taking care of her dad, who's in the late stages of Parkinson's. Maddie does have an older brother, James, but he has little to no interest in helping out, and their mother is living in Ghana for years at a time. So, it seems that Maddie had to grow up really fast and she hasn't been able to live a normal 20-something life—moving out, having roommates, going to parties, dating, things like that. Maddie says in the book, "Maame was meant to be a term of endearment that my family turned into an excuse." Talk to me about Maddie's complicated feelings about her nickname.

JG: So, Maddie has been called Maame for many years, since she was a teenager, and I think because with some people, when you're younger, being referred to as an adult is an accomplishment, and it feels like praise. It's like, “Oh, you're wiser beyond your years, you're so responsible, you're so reliable,” and these are what sound like compliments until the effects of them start to weigh you down. So, she's always loved being called Maame, because it does sound like praise, but it has also stuck with her to the point where she doesn't know who she is, because all she knows is responsibility and being, or rather, acting older than she is.

"I can't speak for everyone who's lost a family member, but I think the biggest regret people usually have is how much time they spent with someone who is now gone, because there is literally nothing that can be done to reverse that."

And so when it comes to a point where she thinks about Maame, and who she is now and who she actually wants to be, there's kind of a desperation to separate from Maame. But because she wants to separate herself and perhaps eventually does, what I like at the end is that Maame doesn't only have negative connotations. As much pressure as there is to be the responsible one, to be the reliable one, in Maddie's case, it's given a lot of positives as well. Because she was the reliable one, because she was the responsible one, she has spent the most time with her father than perhaps any of the other family members. And obviously I can't speak for everyone who's lost a family member, but I think the biggest regret people usually have is how much time they spent with someone who is now gone, because there is literally nothing that can be done to reverse that. And so Maame has been quite a comfort in that sense, where she has done as much as she possibly can do for her father, so the regrets are, by the end, as limited as they could be.

MH: You're right, at the end there's this moment—not to spoil it for the listeners—but there's a little moment at the end where you feel that it kind of comes full circle, where her dad is kind of reaching out to her in a way. And I think she feels really comforted by it, so yeah, I really liked that touch.

So, I really love the narrator, Heather Agyepong, who is also British Ghanaian, like you. I mean, she does a masterful job with the accents and the Twi dialect. Have you had a chance to listen to the audio yet?

JG: Yes, and actually, it's so funny, an hour ago I got an Instagram DM from a Bookstagrammer who has listened to the audiobook and she described Heather's voice as “creamy as stirring a risotto,” and I thought that was amazing. It's not only the perfect description, but it's so visual. “As creamy as stirring a risotto.” Brilliant.

MH: Yes, that's why I've listened to it twice. I just, I can't get enough of her voice. And this is her first book that she's narrated. I hope she definitely does more. Did you have a hand in picking Heather as your narrator?

JG: I remember at the beginning, because there are a lot of Twi phrases in there, I thought, “If we can find someone who's Ghanaian, that would be great.” And then my team sent me Heather, they sent me a sample of Heather's narration and I, off the bat, I just knew she was perfect, and the team loved her as well, so it was really quite easy.

MH: How does it feel hearing her narrate your first novel?

JG: It's really strange, I've not heard it back except from anyone but me. I'm the only one who I've heard read it, because I often read it out loud. That was one of my surreal moments, as in, “Oh, this is actually a thing now. I can hear somebody else reading it.”

MH: I really like how Heather handled the Google sections. So, Maddie's only confidant is Google and throughout the novel, she types really interesting, sometimes desperate questions and gets never really helpful responses back. She searches on Google for everything—career guidance, dating advice, panic attacks, back pain, and dealing with grief. I'd like to play a short clip from Chapter 41 where Maddie is once again using Google to get answers to life's probing questions, this time whether or not it's okay to date the ex-boyfriend of a flatmate.

"Google, should I date a flatmate's casual ex?"

The nuance of my request proves too much for Google to comprehend and instead throws up responses for, "Can I date my friend's ex?" I briefly consider the fact that my first descriptor for Jo is not friend but the more ambiguous flatmate.

Grace: "Absolutely not."

Erin: "Is he tall?"

Ollie: “Depends how close you are. If she's your best friend, then no. But if you just know her, like if you saw her on the street, you might not even wave, then it's fine."

Megan: "Were they official or was it some kind of two-week thing?"

Debs: "How did they end things? If he cheated on her, that means you don't care about her feelings or how the relationship affected her. If it was amicable, then I don't see why not."

MH: I mean, it does sound like stirring creamy risotto, right? Her voice is amazing. But you know, what I love about these Google moments, it helps to add some levity to Maddie's story and it humanizes her. I mean, we all Google weird questions and symptoms. At least I know I do. So why did you include these moments of having Maddie use Google throughout the novel?

JG: Well, it felt very realistic. Like you said, a lot of us Google. But also, it was sort of to highlight her loneliness, but also her quite low self-esteem. Maddie has two absolutely great friends who in the book we see would be by her side no matter what, but because Maddie is seen as the responsible one and the one that people go to for help, whereas perhaps others are reluctant to help her, it kind of hints to her low self-esteem, because she doesn't feel like she can bring these questions to anybody else in her life. She doesn't want to bother anyone else with these questions, she doesn't want to sound silly, she doesn't want to have people say, "Well, is this really a question that matters?" Whilst it does bring levity and it's one of my favorite tools that I've used in writing so far, it really does hint at the fact that she feels she can’t ask for help in the big things and even the very, very minute things.

MH: This feeling of loneliness and feeling that she's alone, it plays into her mental health. At the beginning of the story, she worries that she's depressed. She even Googles it, I believe. And she does eventually seek help from a therapist. At first, of course, her mom is against it because Maddie has been taught that family business should stay private. But I was happy to see that her mom does eventually come around, I think only because she learns that the therapist is also from Ghana and is a Christian, perhaps. Was it important to you that Maddie end up going to therapy? Was that always part of Maddie's story, or did there come a point where you decided that she needed to talk to someone, especially after everything that she's been through?

JG: I think very early on, it perhaps wasn't even an idea until I started developing the story and writing how tough it was for her to deal with her father's loss. But it was also important to me that when she did go to therapy, it was almost by force. I think she wouldn't have chosen, which is very interesting, but I think sometimes if you grow up in a very religious household where prayer is the answer or you're taught to keep things to yourself, there isn't a switch in your brain that suddenly goes, "Okay, I'll go to therapy and do the opposite of all of that." I would be reluctant to say that Maddie would have gone to therapy off her own back, but rather it was her boss who kind of said in a way, "If you want to keep your job, I suggest you go and see a counselor." And she's even reluctant during the first session; she was ready to get out of there. And so as soon as I'd written that first scene, that first therapy scene, I knew that therapy was going to be an ongoing thing for her. Even when the book ends, she would still be doing her therapy.

"You don't realize how much of what you have gone through—what you've said, what you've done, what you’ve heard—is incredibly relatable."

MH: And I like that you include the therapy sessions, and you get to see how she's processing everything that's happened. I think that's really helpful, especially for a young Black woman to see.

So, the reception to Maame, I mean, it's been overwhelmingly positive. People have been talking about this book since summer of 2022. How does it feel to not only release your first novel, but have it be one that is already garnering so much praise and attention?

JG: It's so unexpected because I think obviously, and I think every author or writer wants their book to do very, very well, but I always remind myself that I've written five books before Maame. Maame was the sixth one. But it was the only one to get picked up by a publisher, and it is literally the only one out of all six I didn't think would go anywhere, and it was, of course, the only one that was picked up. And it's still so strange. From that very moment where I was getting this agent request to when I was getting requests from editors and publishers to seeing reviews in magazines or having people who have read it message me on Instagram to say that they loved it, it’s still such a surprise. I mean, if this had happened with any of my other books, I'd be like, "Well, this is what I'd hoped for, this is what I'd expected," but because it was so unexpected with this one, it's such a warm and lovely surprise every time it happens.

MH: Why did you feel like out of the six books that you’d written, why did this one feel like this wasn't going to be the one to blow up?

JG: Because I just thought it was so unrelatable. And this is the thing about not sharing, you don't realize how much of what you have gone through—what you've said, what you've done, what you’ve heard—is incredibly relatable. When I started writing this, I thought agents and editors were going to tell me to take out the Googling bit because they were going to say, "That's very weird, nobody Googles that much." And the first thing I heard was, "I love the Google, let's add more." And then I thought people wouldn't like it because even though grieving is such a universal process—everyone will go through it, there's no escaping it—the actual individual process of it is so isolating and so individual. I would never be able to say to anyone, "Oh, I know how you feel." Even though I've lost my dad, if someone else has lost their dad, I don't think I could say, "Oh, I know how you feel," because it's just such a personal experience. And so I thought again, no one's going to relate to this kind of grief, because this kind of grief wasn't what I'd heard about. I'd heard about the seven stages of grief and that it was meant to be a very straight line from one step to the other and the other, and that just wasn't the case for me or for Maddie, and so I thought that's just going to be another thing that nobody finds relatable.

And then not many people write about working in a theater or a publishing house. I was like, "Okay, so no one's going to find that relatable." And then there's Maddie, who’s a 25-year-old carer, and she's never been in a relationship, she's never left her home before, she only has two friends, one who's been living in America, so really she has one friend who's nearby. And because I hadn't read much about that, I again thought, "This is just another unrelatable thing." And so it was literally, it felt like unrelatable stories in one novel, and I just thought that's not going to do well at all. Lo and behold, the exact opposite.

MH: It's so relatable. And I think what I connected to Maame so much about, I was in a similar situation. My father passed away very unexpectedly, he had a heart attack in his sleep, and my mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's all at the same time. So, my father's gone, I have a mother with Alzheimer's, I'm 25, fresh out of college, and then I became a caretaker, just like Maddie did. And I just remember the feeling of the isolation and not being able to tell people. My closest friends didn't even know that my mother had Alzheimer's until they went to her funeral. It's like, you can't talk about it, no one's going to understand what you're going through so you just kind of bury everything and keep it really deep.

But the part you mentioned about the grief. Sam—we'll get to Sam a little later. I really like Sam—he also experienced a loss, but he's very quick to point out to Maddie, "Just because I've experienced a loss and you've also experienced a loss, our experiences aren't the same." And just like you said, grief can present very differently. It could be a straight line for some people or you can jump to the end, to the middle, zigzag, all the way around it.

So, it's very relatable. I know I relate to it. I recommended it to my friends because I grew up in a West Indian household. I have a lot of friends who are first-generation, either Nigerian or from Ghana, and our backgrounds and growing up are so similar. A lot of Maddie’s experiences was the same conversations that we had in our households growing up. So the praise is well-deserved.

JG: Always good to hear.

MH: You used to work in the publishing industry, so I'm wondering, how does it feel now to be on the other side of the business as a novelist?

JG: Yeah, it's quite strange. I used to work for children's fiction and that's quite a different ballgame to adults. I think it's helpful in terms of I understand a bit more of what's happening. Rather than it helping the writing aspect, I think it helped more towards the publishing aspect. I understand deadlines, I understand why things need to be at a certain time, and when edits can really be final, and how much the author presence is important, and all of those things.

MH: So, what are you working on now?

JG: I'm working on book two, and this one is very friendship-based. It's about making friends as an adult, what you do when the friends you have are going on with their lives and they relocate, and their careers progress, and they prioritize relationships. It's a very platonic book, which I'm really enjoying. I'm just enjoying the conversations that happen between friends, kind of the reality of losing the friends you thought you'd have forever, just how you navigate that kind of portion of your life.

MH: So, do you think we could ever get a sequel to Maame where Sam—back to Sam [laughing]—where Sam and Maddie could, I don't know, live happily ever after?

JG: What I will say is, the reason I'm hesitant to do a book two is because the way the plot lines kind of have to follow is that I would have to put Maddie in some more emotional turmoil or something for there to be that kind of moment that gets resolved. If a publisher is more than happy for me to write Maddie just being happy for 300 pages, just hang out with Sam, hang out with her friends, maybe make her some new friends, then I would happily do that. But for now, I think if any emotional turmoil has to be involved, I think I'm going to leave Maddie alone to be happy.

MH: Yeah, the way Maame ends is a perfect ending to Maddie's story. Thank you, Jessica. It was a pleasure to see and talk to you again. Maame is absolutely flawless and already my favorite audiobook of the year. I'm so happy for your success and I can't wait to see what's next for you.

JG: Thank you so much for having me.

MH: Listeners, Maame is available now on Audible.