Charlotte Woods Talks 10 years of The Natural Way of Things

Read a Q&A with Charlotte Wood about the 10th anniversary of The Natural Way of Things.

Charlotte Wood is the author of seven novels and three books of non-fiction. Her novel Stone Yard Devotional was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. It was described by the UK Guardian as ‘a quiet novel of immense power’ and has been praised by authors Anne Enright, Tim Winton, Karen Joy Fowler, Hannah Kent and Paula Hawkins among others. 

Her previous books include The Luminous Solution, a book of essays on the creative process; the international bestseller, The Weekend; and The Natural Way of Things which won a number of prizes including The Stella Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Her features and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Saturday Paper among other publications. In 2023 Belvoir Theatre Company staged an adaptation of her novel The Weekend, and her novel The Natural Way of Things featured in ABC Television’s 2021 series The Books That Made Us.

This year we're celebrating the 10th anniversary of Charlotte's groundbreaking novel The Natural Way of Things with the release of a stunning new special edition. We took the opportunity to ask Charlotte to reflect on the book 10 years on. 

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A&U: The Natural Way of Things turns 10 this year. How does it feel revisiting a book that has had such a lasting impact?

CW: Very strange. It was the first book I wrote that really seemed to come both from somewhere beyond me, and at the same time straight out of my gut, rather than my logical mind. I have not re-read the whole thing since publication (what writer does that?) but for various reasons I’ve had to look at different sections of it recently. On those occasions I’ve been surprised by its vividness and its beauty (this probably sounds weird, but also I was surprised by the compassion in it - for the girls, but also the foolishness of the two male guards, in the end, inevitably, reaping what they sowed). 

A&U: When you first wrote the novel, did you imagine it would resonate so widely, and continue to feel so relevant a decade later?

CW: Not remotely. In fact I thought nobody would want to read it - too bleak, too didactic. I also remember, at certain points along the way as I was writing it, having the feeling many writers do - that my novel, if I could even finish it, would be too late for the times. At one stage during the writing, we in Australia were introduced to our first female Prime Minister and Governor General. Watching news footage of the one swearing in the other, I remember feeling elated for our country, and crestfallen for my book. My story was too late. Misogyny was over! 

LOL!

That was before the appalling years of vicious sexist abuse endured by that first female PM, before #MeToo in 2017. It was before the flourishing of incels and Andrew Tate and Brittany Higgins and Donald Trump and AI deepfake misogyny, before the previously inconceivable setbacks in women’s reproductive rights in the US in particular. 

I have been really moved by how often young women come to me at events and tell me what the book has meant to them. It’s a young woman’s book, I think. Maybe it gives them a channel for their (absolutely righteous) rage. 

A&U: Looking back, are there particular passages or moments in the book that hit you differently now?

CW: I mentioned earlier my surprise at its beauty. After you publish a book, you can come to see it through the eyes of those who talk about it and read it and keep it alive. A lot of that public discussion focused on the brutality of its ideas and events, so that is how I came to view it - as a very dark and harrowing book. But what I see now, with some gratitude, is the abundance of dreaminess and poetry and sweetness and humour, balancing the darkness. Which makes me more proud of it.

A&U: Has the book's meaning evolved over time to you? 

CW: I think something that really stays with me is the need for resistance - and not just against misogyny. Verla’s words in the very beginning, and more importantly near the end, are: “I Refuse.” I think all of us, at this time, need to remember the power of saying those words to ourselves, internalising a sense of strength and resistance against tyranny of all kinds - and helping each other to be brave enough to say those words and act upon them. Refusing the status quo can be a lonely path, but freedom (from techbro domination, from misogyny, from climate destruction, from AI slop, from warmongering, from authoritarianism) absolutely depends on that refusal. (I have a secret longing for a The Natural Way of Things t-shirt, with this cover’s gorgeously lush and feminine colours and design, emblazoned in that lavish font with those words: I Refuse).

A&U: Did writing The Natural Way of Things shape the way you approached your subsequent novels?

CW: It really did. It was the first time I surrendered properly to my unconscious, to the weirdness in myself, to letting the novel show me how to write it. It was probably the hardest book I’ve ever written and it sent me a bit crazy, and it scared me. But it taught me that that’s how you get the good stuff. I’ve tried to take that trust in the artistic instinct, above all else, into my subsequent books, with varying levels of success. 

A&U: What do you hope new readers coming to the anniversary edition will take away?

CW: I hope young men read it to understand a little of the pain that misogyny inflicts on the souls and bodies of women. I hope young women read it to find strength and power - and beauty. 

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The Natural Way of Things 10th Anniversary Edition

by Charlotte Wood

A story of two friends, sisterly love and courage - a gripping, starkly imaginative exploration of contemporary misogyny and corporate control, and of what it means to hunt and be hunted.

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