Sarah Gwonyoma: "Books saved me"
Sarah talks to me about losing her husband and becoming a single parent, how she survives grief, and still being in pursuit of love
I’m always saving and screenshotting book recommendations from all over the Internet, and if you’ve been online as long as me, you’ve noticed evolution of how people have spoken about books and how they get reviewed.
The great thing about social media is how it democratised the space — everyday people read! Teenagers read! Queer people read! Black people read! What a marvel!
But with Bookstagram and BookTok came TBRs that are miles long, and intimidating book hauls that seem impossible to get through, let alone afford.
I was excited to come across Sarah Gwonyoma (@whatsarahreadnext) and her book club. A simple, effective breath of fresh air. Sarah talks about books like they are her old friends.
And when I was seated next to her at a book launch party for Tamu Thomas’ Women Who Work To Much, that’s exactly how I felt just chatting to her. Like an old friend. I knew I needed to speak to her for this newsletter because she lives and loves so richly.
While you’re here, be sure to join Sarah’s book club, What We Read Next!
Name Sarah Gwonyoma
Age 44
Relationship status Single
Monogamous/ENM/Poly? Monogamous
So I came across your account a few years ago now and I remember how happy it made me because I’m always looking for book recommendations and I could just feel your personality straight away coming from my phone screen. I felt that you were someone I trusted and wanted to be friends with. How did you get started doing this work?
I've always been a big reader. I've always loved reading from a really early age. One of my earliest memories of reading was actually with my late dad. Dad would be up at the breakfast table, reading The Sun newspaper, always the sports section. He was a big Tottenham supporter. I was three or four, just always sort of be sitting on his lap and like, just wanting to know what he was reading. I guess I just always wanted to get Dad’s attention, and the only way I could do that was to sort of mimic what he was doing. And he would take my finger and follow along the words and just say them out loud. That was how I learned to read.
I was really inquisitive. I loved the library, and there was always a book in my hand. I was just that child.
And then fast forward to 2017, I lost my brother and my husband within five months of each other. James (my brother) died Easter 2017 and Tim (my husband) ended up passing away. Suddenly, both sudden deaths, two weeks before Christmas. And I would say, books saved me. They really saved me.
My own world was so broken, shattered, and dark that I didn’t want to be in my world. I wanted to be in other people’s worlds. And actually, the darker the literature the better for me, because I wanted to connect with writers and stories that were as dark as my current situation.
The first night I slept in our bedroom when Tim (my late husband) passed, we were living in Fiji at the time, he had heart attack in our shower and we had an en suite. So where I was lying in our bed, I could see the shower. So despite closing the door, was just like, “oh God, I don’t know how I’m going to sleep.”
And I picked up Roxane Gay’s Difficult Women because we were reading it for our book club, and those stories are dark. I devoured them in one night.
Grief got me back into reading a lot.
Then I started logging the books on Instagram. Back then I didn’t really know there was a whole Bookstagrammer world. Then fast forward to lockdown and by then, I was actually blogging a lot more and having fun with it. I was having fun with my account, taking pictures of the books and of me, with these really funky glasses on.
During lockdown I quit my job. I was working in international development and I was managing this big health program. And suddenly I was a single mum, homeschooling my son. I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing, my boss was a nightmare and I was scared of having to navigate these new waters like everyone else. And from there I was like, fuck it, I’m not going to do this anymore.
I started reaching out to the authors whose books I was reading to ask to interview them online on Instagram live. One of the first authors I interviewed was Douglas Stuart (author of Shuggie Bain) and he had just been longlisted for the Booker Prize. I knew he was going to win so I had to lock him in right away. And I did! It was beautiful because we had all of these connections. One of them being he was brought up by a single mum, and I had just become a single mum. I felt seen.
And then we finally met in person only a few months ago now toward the beginning of this year and we bonded over being lover girls. Have you always been a lover girl? What did that look like for you in the early stages of life?
I’m a Capricorn.
Oooh, I’m a Taurus. Earth signs!
Yes, we’re big-hearted. Deep. We’re complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. We want to be loved because we’re big lovers. As long as you show us trust and loyalty, as long as there’s reciprocation…
I've always just given, I’m just a big giver. I’m one of four, I’m the first daughter, so I’ve always had a feeling of being motherly.
I was a late bloomer, so like, I wasn’t the girl that guys were going for at school. I was like, geeky, spotty, acne…I sort of grew really quickly and was taller than everyone else.
Then when I got older, my first big love, I met because I was in Guardian Soulmates. I was matched with this guy and we were going on a date and my best friend had messaged me to say she’d been having a really shit day and needed to see me. And I was like, well, I’m on my way to this date in Leicester Square. I’ll see this guy for a drink and if it’s not great, let’s go for dinner.
Anyway, she ends up meeting me at the bar where we’re having a drink and they both end up getting on really well and are hitting it off in front of me! I ran home, in tears. I had a message from the guy saying, “it was really nice to meet you, let’s stay in touch…by the way, can I get your friend’s number?”
But it all ended up working out because the next day I was scheduled to head up to Leeds to hang out with a friend, I was up crying all night and I had maybe like an hour’s sleep. I’d almost missed my train by one minute, but I got to my mate’s and they were having a house party that night.
And this beautiful, beautiful guy walks into the kitchen and our eyes lock and that was it. We moved in together in Broadway Market in Hackney. But then he ended up cheating on me with his best mate’s fiancée.
I feel as though, like me, you love a love story. And over the course of that book launch we talked a bit about yours. Would you be able to tell me about how you met Tim?
I had just had lunch in Hampstead with a group of girlfriends and we were toasting the fact that we were all single, and we were like, “Yeah! Fuck men!”
The plan was to go back to mine in Camden, and we got home, and there in my front room there was just men, drinking beer and watching rugby, and I was like, “What’s going on?”
And the loudest of them all was this Australian guy, and he was the only one not supporting England. I was like, “Who the fuck’s this? What’s going on? What are you doing here?”
We had this amazing chemistry, we had the banter. I love quick wit. I love energy. I love humour, that shit is so fucking sexy. And he had the most amazing eyes, just incredible. And he had ambition! He was at LSC and I was at SOAS and we had this international development chat.
And the next day he went off to go on a second date with someone else! He was very honest. Then a couple of days later he messaged me to say like, “Hey, let’s go for a drink!” And I was like, “Well, what about the second date?” And he’s like, “What about the second date?”
Strange coincidence, but when Tim died, that woman he went on a second date with ended up moving across the road from me in Fiji.
Stop! No way! This cosmic shit always ends up happening to you!
I know? We’re like best friends now. And her husband is also called Tim.
You then followed him to Fiji, you had Zizzy.
Yes, he had to move for work. The night we met, I remember he told me he’d applied for a job with the UN and if he got it he would have to move. And at the time I just thought it was going to be a 24 hour thing so I wasn’t even listening. But yeah, six weeks later he got the job and moved over, got everything set up for us. My friends and family here were like, “Are you sure? You barely know this guy?”
But I was ready. When you’re ready you’re ready. So I moved to Fiji, we got married there and we had our son, Zizzy. And then sadly, Tim passed there.
You then became a single parent. That’s a lot of loss in a short space of time. A lot of love lost in a short space of time. How were you managing your grief, if you were at all?
When Tim died, I had no idea what I was going to do. Friends and family had flown over, they were like, “We’re going to pack up the house, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that,” and I was like, “No. Everyone just stop. Just fucking stop for a second.”
I’m still at the Tim is dead point. I haven’t moved on from the fact that Tim is dead. So let’s everyone ease the fuck up.
He died in 2017 and our lives absolutely imploded. And for Zizzy, that’s all he’s ever known.
But I managed it by reading. By lying very still. Crying a lot. Swearing a lot. You have to have really good people around you. You really have to have a network.
It’s funny because I used to be such a go, go, go, person. I’d like to be scheduled up to my eyeballs. And now I’ve flipped. I get so much joy looking into my calendar and having nothing in it.
When you have a sudden shock [of death], man, that trauma? Your appetite goes. Your sleep goes. Your anxiety goes through the roof. So the basics go completely out the window because making an effort to sleep or eat well, the things we do to survive become too difficult.
So I suggest taking the smallest steps. A banana, a slice of toast. Staying hydrated with water or a cup of tea, anything.
I remember when James [my brother] died, one of my girlfriends came to see me at my mum’s house. I was back in England for the funeral. She was just like, “I’m outside, come let’s walk.” I was like, “Where are we going?” And she was like, “I don’t know”. My mom lived in Tooting and we ended up in London Bridge.
We didn’t talk the whole time, we just walked. It was so cool, because you’re not having to think. So often you’re stuck in this loop of like, they’re dead, they’re dread, they’re dead. You’re present. You’re moving.
Cold water swimming is something I’ve picked up in the last year and I really recommend that as well. There’s something cleansing about water, and the cold makes you feel really present in your body.
And books. Honestly, books are the number one best distraction. And people aren’t reading as much anymore, it’s pretty sad. They’re so addicted to their phones. If I’ve been on my phone perhaps a little bit too much, getting back into a book that I might have picked up to read becomes too hard.
I get worried at reading might become one of those, not like a thing of the past, but just, “Remember when we used to do that?” Like we’re in danger of it being like an archaic hobby.
And are you dating at the moment, how are you finding using dating apps? It must feel so different to the encounters you’ve had in the past.
No, I’m not. I haven’t dated anyone for like…the past year? I’ve had like, a couple of guys, but it’s hard. The dating arena is already so hard and when you have a child as well?
When I was introduced to my late husband, there was none of this dating app stuff.
Guardian Soulmates was already a disaster for me. So coming into the world of dating apps after just losing my husband, I just still don’t get it. I really, really struggle with it. I’m already online because of my work and I don’t want to meet my future person online.
You’re suddenly on your phone a lot. And then there’s a whole algorithm to reckon with. And then depending on where you area, I live in Hastings, the pool is getting a lot smaller.
I was on Hinge for a month, and there was this one guy, we had lots of good banter for a solid week, we were voice-noting and messaging. Moved it to WhatsApp, and I was like, well, listen, like, it was like, it was day four of this. Enough chatting, let’s meet up. Let's stop time wasting.
So then the morning that we're supposed to catch up, he ended up cancelling. Not only does he cancel, but there’s no, there’s no suggestion to reschedule. A few days after that happened I sent him a voice note to basically say that’s not on.
I was like, “Hey, it’s me. Can I just say that having kind of been in touch for a solid week and then suddenly you can't make the date, there's no follow-up, and then that's it. I don't hear from you. That's really bad manners.” You’re 49, you should have better manners!
I wasn’t expecting him to come back to me, but he did, he was like “Oh, sorry I’ve got a lot going on in my life.”
We all do! I hate that this is an excuse that everyone uses, it’s become so meaningless.
Exactly. We all do. We all have work. I’ve got baggage. Can you imagine if I carried my baggage around with me everywhere I went? I wouldn’t even have friends, let alone date.
Having had big loves in the past, is that what you’re in pursuit of now?
Absolutely. I love being in love. It's the best feeling.
I love my son, so much. It's unconditional. I say to him like, I don't know, a 100 times a day, “I love you.”
I just look at him and I’m like, “Zizzy man, I love you so much. I love you so much. Seriously, I love you.” I just have this surge of love for him.
I used to say it to my late husband all the time in the beginning, and he was like, “okay, Sarah…” And he came from home where like, people just weren’t saying that.
I still very much believe in love and I love being in love. I’m just not about to settle. I believe that my soulmate is out there and he’s on his way to me. I can’t wait to meet him! He’ll be like, “Ah, there you are!”
I don’t know if I would want to live with someone again, because I love my space, I love my routine. I don’t think I could compromise my reading time. I quite like the idea of having a boyfriend-girlfriend set up. I’ve been single for so long now that I don’t know if I can compromise that much.
And I want someone who isn’t intimidated by me or the work that I do. Someone that can stand on their own. I love humour, it’s my favourite thing. I like someone adventurous. They’ve gotta be cute. And they’ve got to be a reader. Even if it’s non-fiction. Men, please read.
Please read a fiction book! Read a book written by a woman.
Read books written by women! But also to women, read books written by men.
I’ve struggled finding books about love and loss from women who look like us. Stories from Black women in their 30s, 40s, and beyond who have lived full lives - perhaps divorced, widowed, but so many of these divorce or second chance memoirs from white women. Have you noticed this?
It's the Miranda July effect. We’re mid-life. Being mid-life and now the world in general, I think lockdown had a lot to answer for. Women are changing and they’re not taking shit anymore. They’ve realise they can actually do it alone. And they are doing it alone. And that’s we’re seeing literature about relationships falling apart. Mothers who are angry, pulling away, men not pulling their weight. It’s a vibe! And I think we’re going to see a lot more of it.
Nicole, I think you need to write this.
I’m going to try! I’ll do my best, but I know you’ve got many books in you!
Yes, I’m writing, I’m writing a book. I’ve been writing for a while and I just need to go off the grid, no distractions. I’m not one of those people who gets up at five and can write a thousand words. I just need to not see anyone for an extend period of time, no distractions and just get it done.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
About me: I'm Nicole, the writer of A Crumb of Romance. I’m the co-author of The Half of It: Exploring the Mixed-Race Experience, a content creator and the co-host of the award-winning Mixed Up podcast. Having been chronically online since the age of 13, you can also find me on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Pinterest.