We chat with co-authors Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees about You & Me and You & Me and You & Me, which is Back to the Future meets a midlife marriage, with music, multiverses, and the question of what it really means to love the life you already have.
In your own words, tell us what YOU & ME AND YOU & ME AND YOU & ME is about.
It’s a book about what ifs. What if our lives had been different? What if we’d made different decisions? Would we be happier or not? These are the kind of questions that midlife married couple Adam and Jules are asking themselves and each other when we first meet them. Then they find a time machine in their shed which allows them to go back and revisit pivotal points in their relationship, but also to start tweaking things about each other behind each other’s backs, with hopefully hilarious consequences. It’s about finding out what really makes each other tick and what’s really important in their lives.
What was your inspiration for writing the book? And why did you decide to team up again to write it?
We’ve always had a big love affair with pop culture since we first got together as a couple in 1998 and, like a lot of couples, have built up an archive of shared books, films, music and TV over the years. Big inspirations include When Harry Met Sally, David Nicholls, The Beatles, Back to the Future, the movies of director Alexander Payne, and It’s a Wonderful Life. The kinds of stories and storytellers that can flip you from sadness to joy in a heartbeat.
We decided to team up again to write this because we felt we had a lot to say about this mid-life stage of life we’re in. We also didn’t feel like there were that many books around that delve into long-term love and look at couples that stay together. With this in mind, we wanted to find a way to write a love story set over 25 years. Something that reflected the kind of journey packed with highs and lows that we’ve been on ourselves. We thought teaming up was the best way to do it, because we wanted to give the fullest deep dive into a relationship that we could, by sharing the male and female point of view. We also hoped there’d be plenty of comic sparks along the way like there were when we first started out writing together. We had a lot of fun throwing plot twists at each other as the chapters went by.
What was it like to work together again 25 years after your first co-written novel, Come Together?
Once we hit on the idea of the book, of course we knew we had to write it. But we were actually really nervous about it. Seriously. Even though You & Me and You & Me and You & Me has a fantastical idea at its core – a time machine! – we wanted Adam and Jules and their family to feel super relatable and real, so readers would be able to go on this crazy journey with them every step of the way. That meant being really honest, of course. About all the wonder of a long-term relationship, but also the harder times too. Like most people who’ve been together for a while, we’ve had plenty of ups and downs over the years, and so we ended up having lots of honest, soul-searching conversations. Talk about mid-life therapy! It actually brought us closer as we dug down into the nitty-gritty of day-to-day family life, asking each other what really makes for a good life and what can turn a good life bad. What this led to was a lot of our own lives on the page. Mixed with fiction, of course. It’s been nuts watching our three kids reading the book and spotting what bits they think are real and what bits are not.
Things start to go awry when Adam and Jules change a few tiny things in their relationship. How did you decide which relationship issues you would tackle? Were there any you wanted to include but didn’t make it into the book?
Most of all, we wanted this book to be an honest look at the trials, tribulations and joys of what a long-term relationship can be. So we decided that everything should be on the table, from honesty, to sex, to regrets, to ambition. Basically, all those conversations we’ve had with each other and friends over the years. And to use a comic lens to see what kinds of effects changing these things in a relationship might have. We went from the perspective, if this scenario happened to us, if we found a time machine and could change anything, what might we change? Josie wrote Jules and Emlyn wrote Adam and we knew right away that our characters weren’t going to be solving political issues or world peace, so it had to be domestic. Adam and Jules start by changing things out of vanity and self-interest, but it soon becomes – hey, human nature, eh?! – about what they can get away with. But within limits, because they’re loving people too, so they always have one eye on what they can do without affecting their family too much and are always protecting their kids, of course.
What are 3-5 things in your relationship where your views have drastically changed from say the first few years to the most recent few years?
Looking back, when we first got together, we went from writing partners who didn’t know each other very well, to being engaged and married with our first child in quite a short space of time. We were fairly clueless parents to begin with, but happy to wing it. In recent years, our parents have all died and now we’re at the stage where our children have nearly all left home, so our views on aging and how it affects us and those around us have changed dramatically. We know how fleeting and precious it is with the people we love, whereas when we were young, we took it for granted that our parents and kids would always be around. Having been through some health challenges, we’re both more respectful of our bodies and taking care of ourselves than we were when we were young. But if there was to be a 1,2,3 top changes that have come down the line for us, it might be how love changes, what partnership means, and that how you choose to look back at both the past and anticipate the future together can change who you are.
Adam and Jules’ relationships with their kids are at a pivotal time of change. Did your own children inspire any of this aspect of the book?
Very much so. Without wanting to compromise our kids in any way, there are plenty of family catchphrases and the odd legendary early tantrum on show here too! Some of the funniest and saddest parts of the book – bits one of us wrote that then made the other either laugh or cry – revolve around Adam and Jules’s experiences as parents in their younger years. How all that affects their relationship with their grown-up kids here in the present is one of the big drivers of the book. When we first meet them, they both think they’re moving into a post-parenting phase of their relationship, but one of the things they learn is that parenting never stops. And this is something we’ve learned ourselves and have also come to understand better through writing this book.
Have your own children read the book? What do they think?
Yes, they have. And knowing they were reading it freaked us out more than anything! Luckily, they all said they liked it and that it made them laugh, but they had plenty of questions too. They spotted some bits based on them, but totally misappropriated other bits. What they have been unanimous on is that they can hear our voices in Adam and Jules. The fact we wrote this as a he said/she said narrative in the first person probably hasn’t helped! There are a lot of family jokes in here. And we’ve set the whole story in the square mile where we live, so all the places we hang out, the pubs and parks and beach, etc., are all very real to them. They also think that our dog Ziggy needs to sue us, as we really have lifted him fresh from reality onto the page. They say your parents are your toughest critics, but we now reckon it’s the other way round. But in all seriousness, they’re proud of us, and that’s all you can ever want.
There is so much music nostalgia from the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s! How did you decide what music to include in the book? Do you have a favorite song on the YOU&MEx3 playlist?
There’s always music on in our house and we’ve listened to music together from the very first time we met. Music is how we’ve always time-stamped our relationship. We have, literally, hundreds upon hundreds of CDs, vinyls and tapes and our Spotify playlists go all the way back to 2014, each seasonally named! And the book is no different. Music really is central to the plot. There was a lot of debate about what to put in. Some choices were obvious, and others came about because the story demanded that we put a certain song in. We would wake up in the middle of the night and go ‘but what about that? We’ve missed that one off the playlist!’ So it grew and grew. Emlyn’s favourite song on the You & Me playlist Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads: Josie’s: Across The Universe by The Beatles.
Is there one particular moment in time that Adam and Jules go back to in the book that’s your favorite? Or one that was the most difficult to write (on your own or as a couple)?
Josie: When Jules goes back to bathtime when the kids are little, I thought it would be a nostalgia trip, but when she revisits her younger self, she’s horrified by how distracted she is. It was a great scene to write, as it turned into something I wasn’t expecting and really hit home. I think most mothers can relate to being frazzled and resentful, but it’s only looking back that you can see how magical these everyday routine moments truly are.
Emlyn: What she said.
Josie: He’s being modest! There were plenty of laugh out loud moments and some of Adam’s scenes were so fun. When he comes back and he’s ripped, I honestly fell about laughing. I could just see him admiring his abs in the mirror so clearly.
After 25 years of marriage, what is the most important thing you have learned?
That kindness is key. In a relationship, it’s not about grand gestures but the little things that form the glue of a relationship. The cup of tea in the morning, the funny message, the unexpected hug when you need it. Showing up for each other in the small ways is what keeps us happy. Also, we laugh a lot.
If you could pick two actors to play Adam and Jules in the movie, who would they be? And do you both agree on these (😊)?
Josie: Hard to pick, but Gillian Anderson and Simon Pegg are both current favourites. It would be amazing to see our characters come to life on screen.
Emlyn: I want our own collie dog Ziggy to have his moment on the big screen, method acting as Adam and Jules’s dog, Groucho Barx. He’d be a natural. Lassie who?!
What authors or books did you look to for inspiration while writing? And do you both have similar reading tastes?
We’re both big readers, although we read different genres. Emlyn loves crime, sci-fi, horror and non-fiction and Josie reads all sorts of fiction. Some books and authors that inspired us writing You & Me include: Nick Hornby, Jojo Moyes, Greg Egan, Gabrielle Zevin, J G Ballard, David Nicholls, Tom Perrotta and Elizabeth Gilbert.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from YOU&MEx3?
To stop and think about what you have and be grateful for it and make the most of it, because life is precious – and way too short.
What’s next for you both? Any chance in teaming up again soon?
We hope so! We always have plenty of ideas on the go. This has been a dream project for us, so to write more like it would be amazing. It’s been wonderful being able to work together again on a novel after so many years. We’ve honestly had the time of our lives.
