Helen Monks Takhar | 'I started to get really angry about the hate narrative against Millennials in the mainstream press'

The end of catcalls during her jogs caused an unexpected epiphany for journalist-turned-author Helen Monks Takhar. “I realised I wasn’t young anymore. As a woman, most women experience that sort of micro-analysis of their bodies every day by themselves, by other women, and men who grope, pass comment. It’s awful because it makes you feel hyper-aware; it’s unpleasant and you feel disempowered. But when I was able to go for a run and didn’t get those catcalls, I was like, ‘Hey, I’m still young and hot!’ I had to give my head a shake because I asked myself, ‘How is it you care?’ and, ‘How is it that I am invisible at 40?’” 

“Then I got a picture taken by my brother-in-law and I was like ‘why do I look like a jolly, middle-aged woman?’ I’m not cool anymore, it’s someone else’s turn to be young—it was a gut-punch.”

We’ve hoovered up free education, cheap housing, some boom times—the cohort behind us has had nothing of that and they’re trying to take control of what they can through their politics or diets or food choices

She laughs at her own warring instincts as we meet in a moodily-lit booth in a London pub which she deems “the kind of place I bet lots of affairs take place”. It feels like a suitable setting to discuss the début author’s Millennial thriller Precious You—a sexy, scary and satirical literary equivalent of her “gut-punch” epiphany.

Following her internal questioning, the concept for the novel came to the north Londoner during a spell of insomnia as her main protagonist loomed into view. “I had this image of this woman at a party in a leather jacket with black hair, leaning over a line of coke and really thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m really bringing the party’, and then looking up and just seeing horror in the faces of the ‘snowflakes’.”

The result is a taut, sharply written thriller about two women’s toxic obsession with one another: Katherine, a 40-something coke-snorting editor of a trade magazine; pitted against Lily, a beautiful flame-haired intern who seems intent on stealing Katherine’s life, described by the latter as “a Millennial spectre clutching an orange Boole [branded] water bottle, complete with a luminous shard of cucumber glowing within”. It’s a cat-and-mouse tale on steroids, zipping between the two rivals’ narratives, prompting the reader’s sympathy to zigzag along the way. While it’s a compulsive psychological thriller, it also challenges our assumptions around Millennials, the pressure of the male gaze, and how women can be hostile to one another.

This issue feels particularly resonant the week we meet, during the royal media storm over Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leaving the royal family as many media commentators pour scorn on the couple. Monks Takhar was concerned by the reaction shown by many female journalists. “I was thinking about the bile... A lot was from men, but also women coming out and saying the most extraordinary things about a woman they’ve never met, in intense detail.” She adds: “I’m thinking, ‘Why are you thinking this? What is it that you’re feeling about yourself that is negative that is making you want to dish it out about someone else’s choices?’”

Under pressure

As well as exploring the pressure on women to be young and beautiful, Monks also wanted to explore the vitriol that can be heaped on Millennials .“I started to get really angry about the hate narrative against Millennials in the mainstream press,” the 43-year-old explains. “We’ve hoovered up free education, cheap housing, some boom times—the cohort behind us has had nothing of that and they’re trying to take control of what they can through their politics or diets or food choices… I just thought it was outrageous that we pillory them as avocado-munching precious snowflakes.”

She was desperate to write what she thinks could be the first Millennial thriller. “I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been done before. There’s a hate narrative around Millennials and where there’s hate, there’s fear. I used to open the Sunday supplements with one hand over my eyes because I’d think someone might have already done it. It felt fizzy, like it should be a story that was out there.”

An intensive period of research followed—Monks Takhar admits she had previously been more drawn towards literary fiction than psychological suspense. “I had not read a thriller before I decided to write this, not a single one,” she admits. “But once I had this story I knew it was going to be a thriller and my sister-in-law lent me all these books like The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl. I also read Miranda Sawyer’s book Out of Time because I wanted to confirm that the things on my mind and on Katherine’s mind—Am I sexy? Am I poor? Am I pathetic? Is my life over?—were not just in my head. I tried to ape some of the things they’d done but find my own voice too and be honest about who Lily and Katherine were, because they did feel real to me.”

Following a year-long writing frenzy, a summer spent tweaking with agent Hellie Ogden (one of five agents who asked to sign her on seeing the manuscript), the book is now ready to be unleashed. Originally titled Snowflake, it was changed because in the US the term is often associated with reactionaries rather than Millennials. Her editors (from HQ and Random House US) worked in tandem, pushing for some further twists and suggested a change to the ending. “There were always three or four confounding twists and then there was another level added in the edit,” she says. “The twists are coming not just for the sheer joy of it but because there’s something I want to say. If you assume the worst about another woman, you may well end up seeing that and getting blindsided.”

There is also a TV adaptation on the horizon, to be produced by Monks Takhar and her husband Danny. The couple have also optioned Ashley Hickson-Lovence’s début novel, The 392, under their recently formed production company Second Generation. 

For now, the north Londoner is focusing on the Precious You build-up, with the US version released next month. While she admits she has seen her first one-star review on US Netgalley (“I thought, ‘Come on, you one-star review, I can take you!’”) the overall response is positive though some readers are apparently reporting very visceral reactions such as “I needed a glass of wine and a Xanax reading this”.

Monks Takhar reveals that she is nervous about how her début could be perceived, hoping the focus on two warring women won’t be seen as misogynistic. “There are really provocative issues in here and it might be easy to misconstrue some of the content as anti-women or anti-Millennial, and it’s neither of those things. These characters represent extreme versions of a mid-life female and a Millennial female, and it would be my worst nightmare for people to think I hate either, I find women incredible and fascinating, and I would like us to be kind to each other.”

Book extract
You start to move away, squeezing through the other cyclists to the very front of the pack. You flash that smile of yours. Of course, they let you pass. That devastating smile. That smile is like the warmest sun and the brightest light. That smile has undone my life.

Behind you, I move ahead too, breaching the cyclists’ zone and causing various slaps on my Mini’s roof and cries of What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you stupid cow? to erupt as I force them out of my path. You swivel round to see what’s causing the uproar, but quickly turn back towards the lights, knowing they’ll change any second. You don’t notice my car creeping up right behind you, and you don’t wait for the green light before deciding to strike out on your own; up off your seat, powerful calves bearing down onto the pedals as you begin your acceleration. But it’s time you were stopped from getting ahead of me.Your back wheel fills my sight.

I wonder what your body will feel like under me, as your bones crunch and collapse. I can almost smell your blood, running hot in the final moments before it gushes from you, cooling as it flows out onto the tarmac to drip into the waiting drains and down to an impassive Thames.

Only when this happens can I really begin again.

The lights change to green. I slam my foot down hard on the accelerator.