Weirdo, a novel by comedian, Sara Pascoe, has won the inaugural Jilly Cooper award, named in honour of the acclaimed Riders novelist, who sadly passed away earlier this year. The new award joins the Comedy women in print prizes, which were founded by writer and comedian, Helen Lederer.
The CWIP awards were launched in 2019, celebrating “witty, intelligent writing” by women and non-binary authors across published, unpublished and self-published fiction. This year’s winners, including Pascoe, were announced at a ceremony in London on 3rd November.
Weirdo is the début novel from Sara Pascoe, whose previous publications have been works of non-fiction exploring biology and feminism. Weirdo first published in 2023, following in the footsteps of Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body in 2016 and Sex Power Money in 2019. The novel centre Sophie, a woman just trying to fit in and not been seen by everyone else as a ‘weirdo’.
“Deep in Essex and her own thoughts, Sophie had a feeling something was going to happen and then it did. Chris has entered the pub and re-entered her life after Sophie had finally stopped thinking about him and regretting what she’d done.
“Sophie has a chance at creating a new ending and paying off her emotional debts (if not her financial ones). All she has to do is act exactly like a normal, well-adjusted person and not say any of her inner monologue out loud. If she can suppress her light paranoia, pornographic visualisations and pathological lying maybe she’ll even end up getting the guy she wants? Then she could dump her boyfriend Ian and try to enjoy Christmas.”
Alongside Sara Pascoe, the other writers to be awarded at this year Comedy women in print prizes include: Nussaibah Younis for her debut Fundamentally in the published novel category, Natalie Willbe with Music for the Samosa Generation in the unpublished novel category, and Ruth Foster for A Perfect Year in the self-published novel category.
“What unites all these novels,” said Lederer, “is that these are brave modern voices questioning key issues – marriage, religion, sexual desire, ageing, weirdness – with wit and warmth. The female comic novel has truly grown up.”
