Dolly Alderton's debut novel and memoir 'Everything I Know About Love' was released on the 15th of January 2018. Ever since, it's been our comfort book and a must-read we've been preaching to everybody.
Dolly Alderton is the world's big sister. She's made a career off of giving advice and telling stories from her life that act as both parable and influence. She's written a best-selling memoir that lives on our bedside locker, a permanent friend, and also a fiction novel called 'Ghosts'.
She gobbles up love stories and even had a great (like really great) podcast where she'd talk with guests about the great loves of their lives. If you haven't listened to the Stanley Tucci episode, drop everything, listen to it, and come back here once you have.
She's fluent in love — every kind of love from friendships to flirtations and full blown knock your socks off romance which she showcases in her new BBC show based on her memoir. So there'd be nobody more qualified to create the Rom-Com of generations to come. And she plans to do just that, according to her interview with Variety.
"I long to write a romantic comedy with characters that you’re really rooting in, that’s original and recognizable, and I want it to pull off all those old rom-coms that I love — those Billy Wilder rom-coms, the early rom-coms of Diane Keaton like 'Annie Hall' and 'Manhattan', those films of Nora Ephron."
She continues, " I want a beautiful, evocative jazz score, and I want a story in acts with a clever cast and I want an ending that mirrors the beginning". Though she dreams of writing "a romantic comedy that will really be around forever", she admits that she will likely never return to memoir.
"Never memoirs, ever, ever again — until I’m completely down on my arse", she says of the genre that likely took a lot out of her. On the flip side, she waxes lyrical about adapting the memoir for television, which lent itself to blending between the memoir itself and fiction, "in this horrible time of darkness, this [script] was a very warm place to land. And that’s just something that I’ve decided to be really proud of actually — its warmth".
In the face of questioning around her next projects and the possibility of another Dolly book, she replies "Yes, I’m working on another book. I’ve got a deal for two more novels".
So, we've got two more books in the pipeline, we've got a new series that will hopefully become available in Ireland at some point, and we've also got the prospect of a Rom-Com by Dolly Alderton. Happy birthday to us.
Dolly Alderton's series 'Everything I Know About Love' is available on the BBC iPlayer tonight.
