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Kit de Waal: The Best of Everything

The author discusses her new novel about the love that can steal into our lives – in spite of the best laid plans – in conversation with Bernardine Evaristo.

More details for Purcell Room
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Someone with short silver grey hair and brown eyes wearing red lipstick and an orange top.

Paulette’s the kind of woman who likes the future all mapped out: the wedding to Denton, the Caribbean honeymoon, the gingham quilt on the baby’s crib.

Until one morning Garfield, Denton’s friend, arrives at her door with news she just can’t take in: that Denton won’t be coming around anymore, that there won’t be time for her to say goodbye.

Somehow Garfield finds his way into her bed, if not her heart, and sooner than anyone can believe there is a baby, and suddenly giving Bird, her son, the best of everything is what gives Paulette’s life meaning.

So why is it another little boy, Nellie, who keeps Paulette awake at night? Nellie who is being raised a few streets away with no sign of a mum, with a grandfather who is obviously struggling.

Surely Paulette is the last person who should be getting tangled up in any of that? is a novel about what it means to care and to learn to live in the aftermath of loss.

Kit de Waal is the author of the novels My Name Is Leon, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, The Trick to Time, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, a short story collection, Supporting Cast, and a memoir, Without Warning and Only Sometimes, which was a Radio 4 Book of the Week and was shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the Irish Book Awards.

She is also editor of the Common People anthology, and co-founder of the Big Book Weekend festival. My Name Is Leon was adapted as a film for BBC Two.

Bernardine Evaristo won the Booker Prize 2019 with her internationally-bestselling novel, Girl, Woman, Other. Her 2013 novel, Mr Loverman, was a hit BBC One eight-part drama series in 2024. She has received over 80 awards, nominations and honours including the two British Book Awards.

A literary activist, she has set up several literature inclusion schemes. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University of London, an Honorary Fellow at St Annes, University of Oxford and President of the Royal Society of Literature.

Need to know

Age guidance
For ages 16+

For your visit

This event is held at the Purcell Room Southbank Centre

The Purcell Room is located in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is open from 90 minutes before events start until they finish. It’s closed at all other times.

Concrete interior of Purcell Room entrance at Southbank Centre View larger image

Plan your visit

The Purcell Room is an auditorium located within our Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Getting here

Our address is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.

The nearest tube stations to us are Waterloo and Embankment; Waterloo is also the nearest train station. And more than 20 different London bus routes pass within 500 metres of our venues.  More information on getting here by rail, road or river is available on our Getting here page.

We’re cash-free

Please note that we’re unable to accept cash payments across our venues.

Access

We’re working hard to remove barriers, so that our facilities and events can be accessible to as many people as possible.

All help points, toilets, performance and exhibition spaces at the Southbank Centre are accessible to all, as are the cafes, bars and restaurants. We also have excellent public transport links with step-free access.

All information about booking wheelchair spaces, step-free access, blue badge parking, access maps and guides and other help available whilst you’re here, including details about our Access Scheme, can be found on our Access page.

Food & drink

From coffee to cocktails, filling favourites to fine dining, plus some of London’s best street food – it’s all here at the Southbank Centre.

Places to eat and drink whilst you’re here