The prism of generation Ex turned on it’s head with glorious absurdity and abundance - Dara Lutes does not hold back - fun and risk-taking at it’s painful best
- CWIP
- Oct 10
- 3 min read
Can you tell us about 'Generation Ex' in one sentence?
'Generation Ex' is a novel set in Brighton about a childfree magazine publisher in her forties whose life falls apart in spectacular, humiliating fashion when she loses her very average middle-aged boyfriend to a famous Gen Z influencer.
What fascinates you most about Generation Z and how did you find humour in the differences of behaviours related to age?
I have a lot of wonderful younger friends, and I am absolutely intrigued by what appears to be the Gen Z extreme over-confidence online, versus their prevailing anxiety about real-life interactions. They share their unedited juvenilia for the world to see - stuff that people of my age hide in old boxes, or burn - and yet taking risks offline seems to worry them a lot. In comparison, my Gen X friends and I had no concerns about risking our hearts, or even our lives, in the pursuit of fun. I’m not saying one way is right or wrong - we’re all idiots and darlings, just doing our best.
Do you think wit on the page helps communicate the ‘pain’/inevitability of growing older?
Absolutely. Also, humour is the only way to handle ageing without sounding like a motivational speaker or a cautionary, Dickensian ghost.
Which witty novel inspired you the most growing up?
My mother reared me on a strict diet of P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen and Stella Gibbons, and I discovered the joys of Helen Fielding and Faye Weldon when I was an adult. But there is one book which impacted me deeply at a much younger age, when I was around 5 years old, called 'The Egg & I' by Betty MacDonald. It’s a first-person narrative from 1945 which recounts MacDonald's misadventures as a newlywed struggling to run a chicken farm with her first husband. Mum would read it to me most days, before I took a nap, and I would howl with laughter. I reread it this year, and it is still absolutely hilarious.
How long have you wanted to write and finish a manuscript? Where do you write? Do you take coffee breaks or stick to water/wine/other? Any writing habits gratefully received.
I technically wrote my first book when I was 9 - it was a (very short) autobiography called 'My Dog Is Dead & Other Realisations' - it was meant to be a searing exposé of parental dishonesty, but it became an unintentional comedy. 'Generation Ex' is the first book I’ve finished since then, with support from my lovely MA tutors at Brighton University, although I now have a couple more books in the works. I’d love to say I write staring out over my Tuscan-style courtyard, at dawn, wearing cashmere and sipping green tea, but in fact I work from bed with egg on my cardigan, drinking Diet Cokes. I take breaks of entire months and then write furiously for 93 hours in a row. The only healthy habit I have is attending bimonthly Saturday Writers Retreats hosted by Writers HQ, which is a fantastic online and offline community of kind and talented people. I would recommend joining Writers HQ to anyone who wants to write more often and more joyfully.
Finally, can you tell us why you think CWIP is important?!
Well, this might sound a little overdone, but I actually believe women being funny is the frontline of the resistance against evil, possibly tied with women having financial independence. If you can laugh at something, you can survive it. If you can turn that experience into something that makes other people laugh, humanity will thrive. Now, if women could be paid well for being funny, then we’d really be getting someone. So, in a nutshell, CWIP is important because it is SAVING THE F*CKING WORLD.
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