Matt Haig: ‘It's impossible to wee next to a Beatle'

Telegraph

15-03-2025

Born in Sheffield in 1975, Matt Haig studied English and history at the University of Hull. Following a mental breakdown in Ibiza in his early 20s, he wrote Reasons to Stay Alive, which became an international bestseller. He's since published a further eight novels including The Midnight Library and The Radleys, which have been adapted for television and film. He has two children with his wife, Andrea Semple, and lives in Brighton.
Best childhood memory?
I remember a holiday to California in 1983, to visit my uncle, who had been a hippy back in the Sixties. He'd settled down with a Mexican woman called Donna, and I'll never forget a day learning Mexican cookery with her. For someone who grew up in Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, it felt incredibly exotic to be spending the day making tacos, enchiladas and spicy food outside in the July sun. It was the first time in my life I'd done any proper cooking.
Best day of your life?
One day in 2004 I'd been really struggling in all kinds of ways. I was still quite mentally ill after a breakdown, and I'd been agoraphobic for a while. I'd failed to get a normal office job, and I felt generally useless, but for years I'd been writing a silly first novel, The Last Family in England, told by a Labrador. I'd sent it off and had had at least 40 rejection letters, and had little faith in my agent at that time, but then it got accepted. It was at a point where I had very low self-esteem and was depressed and felt a burden to my partner, Andrea, so to get a response, and acceptance, from the publisher felt like the first time I'd achieved something of any real worth. It felt like a huge achievement and a massive relief, even though that publisher dropped me three books down the line, and I had to start all over again.
Best thing about having been diagnosed with autism and ADHD?
My diagnosis made sense of a lot of things. I was told at school in certain subjects I was special needs because I'd sit there with my mouth open, I'd be the classic daydreamer, and I was incredibly messy. Getting the diagnosis didn't change my identity, but it allowed me to be more compassionate about certain points in my past that I've been hard on myself about. If I'd known why I was different back then rather than just feeling different, that would have been helpful.
Best celebrity encounter?
I was someone's plus one to the Baftas and I remember having a wee next to Paul McCartney. I'm a nervous wee-er anyway and I always struggle if I'm right next to someone in a urinal, but when I realised it was Paul McCartney I ended up having to go into one of the cubicles to finish the wee off, because I couldn't go, because how can you urinate next to a Beatle? It's simply impossible.
Best thing about your personality?
I'm a good listener. I'm genuinely interested in people and I'm always trying to understand people. If you're a writer, you have to do that. I ask people lots of questions, I like to know their stories and I like to understand people.
Best decision you ever made?
Deciding not to kill myself in Ibiza when I was 24 years old. I was on a cliff a short distance away from the villa where we lived, and I fantasised about it and very nearly did take my own life. For a short while after that I wished I had, because I was in such a deep state of depression that I could see no future. I was genuinely convinced I wouldn't see 25 years of age, but the thing that brought me back from the brink at that moment on the cliff was thinking about my partner and my parents back in England, and just knowing that if I did do it, the pain would spread out. It was a decision that led to so many other things, including writing How to Stay Alive and the books that followed, but ultimately it made me just appreciate being alive and realise that the only guarantee in life is that nothing stays the same.
Best advice you ever received?
Jeanette Winterson was very generous to me when I contacted her back in 2001 or 2002, when I was very depressed. I asked her would it be OK if I gave her a 500-word sample of my writing to look at, to see where I was going wrong. She had a look at this extract from what would become my first novel and instantly spotted a pretentious line about someone talking about their epiphanic moment. And she said, 'Just write, 'moment of epiphany. Don't write epiphanic.'' And that has always stuck with me whenever I get a bit lofty or try to be highbrow or pretentious. The trick is, don't show off. Keep it simple.
Worst childhood memory?
My nan dying was very impactful for me, as she had lived with us. She was someone I could tell things that I couldn't tell anyone else, and she died quite a slow death from breast cancer when I was about 16, which was when I was going through issues with shoplifting. I spent three hours in a police cell after getting arrested for stealing wet-look hair gel and a Crunchie bar from Boots, and it wasn't the first time I'd done it. I got a big telling off, and it was the first time I realised things had consequences. I didn't do it again.
Worst moment of your life?
When you've had suicidal depression for a long time, it's hard to pin-point a single day, because every day felt like the worst day, but the Christmas of 1999 was probably the nadir. I was no longer suicidal, but my existence just felt like hell, and I remember walking to Morrisons to get some stuff for my mum for the Christmas dinner and there were lots of drunk people in town laughing, and that just felt so haunting to me. Even worse, though, was last year when my son Lucas got an extreme post-Covid flu – he didn't sleep for almost a month and went into a delusional state of paranoia for about a week. It just felt like we'd lost him. He was given melatonin to help him sleep and eventually recovered, but that sense of helplessness was worse than feeling suicidally depressed.
Worst trolling experience?
Someone in the United States claimed that she had written The Midnight Library and that I had plagiarised her. Eventually, the American publisher had to call the lawyers in, as she was continuing to lie about me, and it soon became clear that her claims were ridiculous, a letter was sent and she eventually backed off. Probably the worst thing ever said to me online, though, was after Reasons to Stay Alive was published, and someone wrote on Twitter that I'd failed at suicide and that I wasn't really depressed because I was depressed in the Mediterranean. For a while I became a lightning rod for anyone who had an issue with mental health treatment or advice, simply because I'd written my own account of having mental health issues.
Worst celebrity encounter?
I was on an ill-advised American book tour in 2007 when Andrea and I decided to get married in Las Vegas. After the tour, we had a honeymoon week in LA and ended up doing a little bit of work in the business centre of the Beverly Hills Hotel, when in walked [the rapper] 50 Cent, with a massive entourage. He didn't recognise me but had a huge smile on his face and asked us how we were doing, and then I said the most embarrassingly mundane thing imaginable to him. Excruciatingly, all I could come up with was, 'We just sent an email'. Not my finest moment.
Worst personality trait?
I'm very insecure and too bothered about external opinions. I've searched my own name way too many times, and I've had a hard time becoming myself. I used to get jealous of other young writers, but I genuinely want the best for people now and I spend more time trying to boost people up.
Worst decision you ever made?
On my 21st birthday in Ibiza, I made the mistake of trying cocaine in the toilets at a party. A local dealer gave me a line and it was a really bad drug for me, which totally played into my addictive tendencies. I only ever took it to enable myself to stay out drinking, but it did get to a point where I wanted it every night, which was extremely bad for my nervous system and my ego. As soon as I had my breakdown I gave it up, along with everything else. I just became petrified of anything that could potentially make me feel even worse. The silver lining, though, is that I've been clear with my kids, who are very sensitive, that if their brains are anything like my brain, it will not end well, so it's been positive that I've been able to give them that advice based on my lived experience.