Nicola Sturgeon and Val McDermid: 'Crime fiction made us friends'

“The grounding of our friendship really is a love of books,” says McDermid, 69. “I didn’t know Nicola but we bonded very quickly over our taste in books.” Sturgeon, 54, joins in with: “When we get together over dinner and, you know, a modest amount of red wine, we tend to talk about books a lot. The books we’re reading, we’ve enjoyed, hated. Often we’ll agree, sometimes disagree – and that’s more fun.”

Both currently writing – Sturgeon her memoir and McDermid a new Karen Pirie novel as well as a short 20,000 word work on ‘winter’ – the pair are also vocal about conversations about books being accessible, not least because they’re both from similar backgrounds.

“I think we came at books from a similar direction,” says McDermid, who helped to co-found Harrogate’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in 2003. “We’re both from working class backgrounds where our access to books came through libraries,” in her case literally with Kirkcaldy Central Library across the road from her childhood home.

In their mutual love of books, where do they agree and where disagree? “I think we both have a love of crime fiction,” says McDermid. “I think we also both read pretty widely. I’ve pretty eclectic taste. I don’t read much non-fiction if I’m honest, I tend to only read non-fiction when it’s relevant to something I’m working on.”

“You’ll read my book when it comes out,” says Sturgeon, who is currently editing her memoir, due out next year. “I’ll totally read your book, yeah, yeah yeah,” says McDermid. “Absolutely I’ll be glued to it, every page.”

Sturgeon continues: “Crime fiction I suppose is what made us friends, but like Val, I’ve got a very wide taste. I like reading about different themes, different parts of the world, different time periods and I think that makes for good conversation, and the odd disagreement. We’ve had books where Val’s loved it and I’ve hated it or vice versa.”

They still live in houses full of books, despite McDermid having given 172 boxes to charity during a recent move. “I had three copies of Ali Smith’s How To Be Both. I could justify two because it’s published in two editions, one with the medieval story first, the other the contemporary story first. And also Ali gave me her reading copy, so that’s special.” The Ali Smiths survived the ‘winnowing’.

Sturgeon agrees with this philosophy, saying “I’ve got loads of books in different editions. I don’t know how many copies of Sunset Song I’ve got. And I was in a second hand bookshop and bought a couple of The Women’s Press editions of your earlier books,” she says to McDermid. “I keep meaning to get you to sign them to up their value.”

“I think that probably lowers their value,” says McDermid.

Sturgeon has been reviewing books for the New Statesman, appropriately a couple of memoirs. “I read Boris Johnson’s memoir which wasn’t time well spent. And I read Angela Merkel’s which was better,” she laughs. “I used to read more non-fiction but in government you spend so much of your life reading papers about real things that fiction is definitely my preference.”

McDermid agrees, enjoying what she calls the window on other people’s worlds. “One of the main reasons I read is to be taken into somebody else’s world rather than stay inside my own existence so I can try and understand how somebody else lives their life...And if it wasn’t for books, I wouldn’t have the life I have now. I was reading a [Elinor M Brent-Dyer] Chalet School novel and one of the characters gets a letter from her publisher with a cheque in it and that was the moment I realised, it’s a job! I could do that.”

“I can’t imagine my life without books,” says Sturgeon. “It would be, frankly a life not worth much, and I have learned more through fiction about the world and history and different cultures and places than I ever would reading big, weighty non-fiction tomes, because it doesn’t just educate you and give you insight, it gives you a sense of empathy for different people and different times. I do think there should be some way of making it compulsory for leaders everywhere to read fiction and do some of their learning about the world through that medium.”

And how is Sturgeon getting on with her memoir? “It’s been harder than I thought. I’ve got a greater respect now for what people like Val do. I’ve enjoyed the process, trying to take something big and in my case way over length and unwieldy, and moulding it into the thing you want. I’m starting to get a little bit stressed at how close it is now to publication.”

“I’m looking forward to reading it, genuinely,” says McDermid. “Occasionally someone will ask me if Val is helping me to write it,” smiles Sturgeon. “No, she’s isn’t!”

“No, I’m not writing Nicola’s book. I take no responsibility for it whatsoever.”

Later, McDermid says: “The thing about fiction is you can always get the last word...That’s one of the advantages of writing fiction. You get the last word. Unlike politics.”

“Obviously having the last word doesn’t matter to me,” says Sturgeon and they both laugh. Before McDermid has the final word: “Really?”