Interview

This week, debut author Kristie De Garis WhatsApped me from her bedroom office in her one-hundred and forty year old house in a Perthshire village. We spoke for two hours about her forthcoming memoir, Drystone: A life rebuilt (Birlinn, 2025) which is not, to be clear, just a book about drystone. I asked about the challenges of writing such an intimate memoir with themes of addiction, sexuality, manual labour, racism and feminism—and how she hopes her porn proclivities and intergenerational trauma will be received by the general public. This interview has been condensed for clarity.

Vikander: Hi, thanks for joining me. There’s so much to talk about! My first question is about the reader. What do you think we take away from reading this book?

De Garis: That change takes time, a lot of time, and a lot of fucking effort. But it's possible—huge change is possible.

Vikander: Usually we think of change as something happening suddenly. We say someone ‘had a eureka moment.’ But it took you longer?

De Garis: Yeah, those moments never existed for me. I've never experienced instant transformation. It’s more like planting a seed, and over a long time that seed grows into change. I used to think you had to be hard on yourself, but it’s not that. It’s a gentle firmness—boundaries.

Change is difficult, for the person changing, and usually for the people around them, too. So you have to push through that discomfort. Sobriety, relationships—I know I can’t go down certain paths because that might undo the changes or set me back. And when I look back and see how far I’ve come, there's a bit of patting myself on the back, but there is also a lot of respect for the work I’ve done. It reminds me what it took to get me here. If it came easily, maybe I wouldn’t be so keen to hold onto it.

Vikander: What was easy about writing your memoir?

De Garis: Fucking nothing. Hilariously, the easiest part was getting the book deal. I got a Twitter DM. I’ve kept the message. It said, “Have you ever thought about writing a book?” Yes, obviously, hasn’t everyone? Then, of course, I Googled Jamie Crawford because I was sure it was a scam. Even after I met him on Zoom and a few months after that, signed the contract, I was still like, “Wow, these scammers are really committed to the bit.” Sometimes I still think it! But if this were a scam, I’d have nothing but respect for them at this point.

Vikander: What was hard about writing your book?

De Garis: Everything else. Outside of raising children, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The vastness of a book—especially if it’s a memoir. It’s your life: what goes in, what doesn’t? What’s important, what’s not? Even though there’s chronology, there still needs to be a narrative. I didn’t realise that until halfway through. I had never written anything of this length. Time. Patience. Fuck. All the things that I feel like I don’t have. Lots and lots of patience and, again, that gentle firmness where you just have to get up and write, even if it’s one of those days where you write only two lines—that’s part of the process. Because there’s another day where you write 3,000 words. Over time, I learned not to be so frustrated by that. It also takes a laptop that can handle more than 30 tabs open with synonyms. And for me it took therapy. It would have been such a mess on the page if I hadn’t had extensive therapy.

Vikander: There’s so much in this book. But what didn’t make it in?

De Garis: The stuff that I haven’t had an opportunity to fully process in therapy. Some of it got written down, but I was aware when I was writing just how it was making me feel. Too much. That’s not when the best writing is done. I needed to be very sure that I was okay with everything in the book, after all I am sharing it with the world. And there were things I wasn’t okay with at the beginning, and then that changed. I’m very lucky to be naturally maniacal—once I’m invested in something, I need to do what’s best for it. If I saw that something would really help the book, I was willing to work through it and write it. To a certain extent.

Vikander: That sounds kind of therapeutic. Was it?

De Garis: I’m not sure I ever would have gotten into some of the really difficult stuff in therapy if I hadn’t written a book. But as it was, the writing fast-tracked the therapeutic process. Of course, I want to be a successful author but the fact that writing this book led me to do that work in therapy is in itself life-changing and valuable. My therapist wondered if it was just some sort of post-writing high, you know, where you have this intense feeling of accomplishment and clarity. She seemed sceptical it was going to last. But it was real, lasting insight that I had gained. Not to say that the emotional breakthroughs were easy. After I handed the manuscript in to my publisher and started the hardest work in therapy, I had four months of excruciating emotional pain. Obviously worth it, but so hard. Parenting when you’re parenting yourself—fucking hell! I was parenting this very hurt inner child and my actual children. So I explained to my kids that they were dealing, at that time, with a child-mother, and I just had to go through this. And I gave myself permission to cry all the time. I thought that would stop once I got it out of my system, but nope—now I’m just a person who cries all the time. I’ve accepted it, and I’m pretty sure it’s for life. I think it’s really healthy.

Vikander: Your book deals with addiction. What do you think people usually get wrong about addiction?

De Garis: So many things. That it looks a certain way—messy and chaotic. For me and for a lot of people, it doesn’t look like that. Despite being prevalent in society in many different forms, addiction is still stigmatised, so people do a lot to hide it. I did. In my case, it was so civilised, so middle-class. Expensive. It’s hard to believe someone can be an alcoholic drinking good wine, staying up late, buying art and listening to music, imagining a better life. Of course, the hangovers weren’t as civilised, but… they’re still acceptable. People are sick or tired, grumpy with their kids, forgetful, physically unhealthy—that’s all in the realm of acceptable behaviour, not typically considered signs of addiction. People also get the reasons behind it wrong. They think people get addicted because they are sloppy, weak. But for me, and for many people, it was a coping mechanism above and beyond anything else. No one sets out to become an alcoholic, to be addicted to a substance. It’s something that sneaks in.

There was nothing about my alcoholism that wasn’t totally acceptable in Scotland, even when I was going out and getting shitfaced. It’s so normalised here. My daughter hears about people her age getting their stomachs pumped. Poisoning themselves. When I was young, it was crazy too. Shots of Sambuca—sometimes five shots… in a fifteen year old body. Throughout my whole life there has been so much drinking and everyone doing it.

Alcohol is everywhere. I only see it now, but if I watch a show, everyone has a glass of something in their hand all the time. It’s so normalised. A woman comes home from work, makes the kids a snack, and pours herself a glass of wine. It’s framed like a good thing, a helpful thing, and that’s what I did—every night, and multiple glasses. As a society, it makes us really avoidant.

Vikander: In the book you write about quitting cold-turkey and kind of stumbling through a list of coping strategies and replacements. Why didn’t you do AA?

De Garis: It’s different for everyone. Honestly, I don’t really like other people very much. By which I mean that I don’t feel comfortable around other people a lot of the time, and being in a room and listening to others’ trauma didn’t feel like an environment that would facilitate me staying sober. I’m very all-or-nothing, and maybe there was a level of delusion, but even though I was an addict, once I had cut alcohol out, I trusted myself to make the right decisions to stay sober. I was also able to completely remove myself from triggers.

If I had still been living in Edinburgh, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I think that’s one of the reasons I moved to a rural area. I knew I had to leave the city but not necessarily why. I think at least a small part of me knew I was leaving to heal.

Vikander: Right. How has living remotely helped you with your mental health?

De Garis: I talk a lot about body image in the book. In the city, I was hyper-aware of how I looked to other people all the time. And here, I can go out for a walk and not see anyone else, and I love it. Not being perceived—it’s my favourite thing! Choosing my clothes purely based on how they feel and their suitability for the weather. I have five pairs of the same jeans, 10 of the same top. I felt so much more pressure in the city and I had a whole closet full of uncomfortable clothes. All the other things are important, too—connecting with nature, sensory issues (I used to struggle with noise a lot in the city, and smells). Living in the countryside is where my brain is happiest, for sure.

Vikander: Your book has feminist themes. Do you consider yourself a feminist?

De Garis: I absolutely believe in the basic principles of feminism—who the fuck wouldn’t?—but ideologies make me nervous. Am I a feminist? Yes. Do I ascribe to all the views of Feminism 2024? No.

Vikander: Would you say your mum is a feminist?

De Garis: Yeah. She’s worked very hard as a woman to be respected and safe and all the things that you want to be as a human being. She taught me a lot about advocating for myself, being strong, and sticking to my guns. There is a huge, positive element of my mum in my personality. She has always gone out of her way to stand up for herself and for others.

Vikander: You write a lot about your relationship with your mum in the book. How have your feelings about the relationship changed?

De Garis: Even as an adult, parents have such power to trigger you, you get pulled back into their orbit—that feeling of them saying something and your brain immediately being in the fear or stress it knew as a child. I write in the book about disentangling myself from that. I’ve continued down a path where I am independent from my mum, extracted from what was unhealthy. Now, I am emotionally an adult in that relationship. Writing the book helped me get there.

Therapy has also helped. Reading, too. And truly, and I cannot overstate this: healing my fucking nervous system. Being in the countryside, making careful decisions about who and what I’m going to have in my life. I feel it in my body every day. My mum and I will always have a complicated relationship but now when I get negative communication from her, I still have peace—for the first time, not just an instant rush of adrenaline. I’ve been away from the stress for long enough that my body knows something different.

Vikander: What about racism as a child in far-north Thurso? Was it worse than it would have been somewhere else?

De Garis: I’ve often wondered why my family didn’t just leave Glasgow when they were experiencing so much violence. And I think they knew that they weren’t going to escape it—that it was going to be some degree of awful no matter where they went. It was the same in my case, it was inescapable, and living in the far north absolutely brought some of it to my doorstep. I have light skin, but I had the brownest skin my classmates had ever seen.

But I was lucky—there was only violence a couple of times.

Vikander: I mean…

De Garis: Ha! Just another way that trauma skews things, “Well, I wasn’t stabbed like my uncles, so that’s…fine”

Vikander: Your book has a lot about intergenerational trauma and family. How have your views on these things changed over the process of writing this book?

De Garis: I was always worried that if I forgave people, it would give them carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. But I’ve realised that I can forgive them, and I have. What I won’t accept is the same behaviour now. Understanding someone and forgiving them doesn’t mean just putting up with their shit. They’re separate choices.

Vikander: Do you worry that your profile as an author will interfere with your work as a waller?

De Garis: Drystone is an art and a craft, but it’s also graft. It’s a labouring job, a working-class profession. It’s changing, but in that world you don’t want to be seen as getting ideas above your station. I know there are a lot of people who already think I have no business writing a book about it because I haven’t been doing drystone for 25 years. And it’s not like I’ve endeared myself to the community as it is, having spoken out about behaviour from men, about being a woman in the craft.

But I’ll always do drystone, I know that. It’s so beneficial in my life. I never want to be in a position where I end up only talking about drystone. It’s a craft that can only be fully appreciated and understood by doing. But ‘successful author and occasional drystone waller’ sounds perfectly acceptable to me.

Vikander: Has writing changed how you are as a waller?

De Garis: It’s really helped me with patience and how I talk to myself when I get frustrated. It’s helped me understand that it’s a process, and if I’m not doing great—only three stones, or only three sentences—trusting that there will be a time when it all comes together and I’ll be flying. Accepting the highs and lows as equal parts of the process and not berating yourself when you’re in one of the dips. I’m pretty sure the dips last longer when you tell yourself you’re a piece of shit.

Vikander: How many women wallers are there in Scotland?

De Garis: I think no more than 10 in total. It’s hard to know because you’re relying on women signing up to official organisations to make themselves known and if they’ve had experiences like mine, they probably don’t want to. There is only one woman in Scotland on a professional register at the moment. Drystone isn’t attracting or retaining women. That has to change. Women are strong, smart, and resilient enough, so why aren’t more women here? It doesn’t say anything good about the profession as a whole.

Vikander: Who will resonate with your book?

De Garis: Women. I think all women or certainly most—and that’s a wonderful thing, that the female experience is so connected, but also very fucking sad. Abuse, body image, difficult relationships with ourselves and the world around us.

The men who have read it—I thought it might be alienating, since I’m so ‘honest’ about the men in my book—but no, it’s been interesting to hear their responses. I think there’s a straightforwardness to it that men seem to appreciate. There’s a lot in the book about bodies and craft, which also might resonate with men. I see this a lot in drystone work: old white men inherently respect me because I’ve lifted heavy stuff. They’re like, “Look at her getting her hands dirty.” It’s not real, really—everyone is getting their hands dirty—but I take the compliments where I can get them.

Vikander: Toughness, survival, hard work—these are coded as masculine. It sounds like men, and probably a lot of women, appreciate your toughness.

De Garis: Men do appreciate my toughness in life. But if I’d always been that tough, I wouldn’t have done the work. I’ve had to be very strong but the real work got done in the moments of the most incredible weakness. Yes, you have to be strong to get to, and through, those moments, but the emotional work was done when I was vulnerable. And through that work I am now capable of even more strength.

Vikander: What might people find surprising about the book?

De Garis: That it’s not really about drystone! It’s also about blood and land and body hair and platonic throupledom! It’s often surprising in its juxtaposing really difficult life stuff—abuse, racism, violence—and nature writing, and then some dark humour. I was very keen to avoid writing misery porn, I wanted to try to show how complex the hard things are by highlighting the parallels with more beautiful or enjoyable things. Just like in life.

Vikander: Maybe ADHD would be surprising to the reader. It’s probably the first book to ever discuss ADHD and drystone in the same sentence. And are you concerned putting your diagnosis out there will change the way people think about you?

De Garis: I think the more perspectives we have out there, the better. Some people’s experiences of ADHD don’t resonate with me much, and with others, they could be writing about my life. But it had to go in. The diagnosis and the meds have been so life-changing for me. I’m not concerned that it might change the way people think about me—people are dicks and they think all sorts of things.

Vikander: And sex?

De Garis: Again, the way I think about how other people will react is just a reflection of how I think about others. I don’t give a shit about these things when it comes to other people. I don’t judge. I don’t really think about it. Maybe I’m naive about this—maybe people are capable of coming up with insane things that will trigger me. But what are they going to say? “Oh, we know the kind of porn she watches!”? I was there when the internet started, I’m pretty sure I understand all the names I will be called by people who don’t agree with my choices/ideas. I’ve made peace with it.

Vikander: This reminds me a bit of the way you talk about your past sexual experiences where you would run your actions and sexual responses through ‘filters’ while in bed with a man to find what would make him the most aroused. I think a lot of women can relate to that. And now you seem to care so little what other people see or think. How do you get out of that pattern?

De Garis: I don’t know if I can. I think a lot about the damage done to me as a woman growing up in the ‘90s. But the work I’ve done in therapy, extracting myself from those experiences, pulling out who I am from that… It helped. The more you know yourself, the more you can advocate for yourself. Now, I care enough about myself to also care if I have a good sexual experience. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be free from that desire to perform for men. It’s always there, niggling in the back of my mind.

Vikander: Do you think there is something inherently performative about female sexuality?

De Garis: It is inherent in the way that female sexuality is understood in society. Women are expected to perform. I don’t know what makes men’s dicks harder than thinking they’re...well, sometimes men prefer a performance over an actual, authentic experience. For example, the way real orgasms happen—it’s not really about the other person at all, is it? It’s a really intense, overwhelming, personal experience. So I think that often men prefer the performance. Because it makes it more about them.

Vikander: Do you wish you had written this book earlier?

De Garis: I mean sure, but I couldn’t have. It all happened right when it could. It would have been a different book—really angry. A lot of feelings on the page. It would have given me more clarity—not the amount that I’ve gotten now, but of course it would have helped me. A catharsis.

Vikander: So what is this book about?

De Garis: This book is about change, being yourself, healing, building. Acceptance, generosity, finding your place in the world and how that often doesn’t look like you think it will. Seven years ago, I would never have thought this outdoor-carefully-curated-hermit-life is where I would be happiest and healthiest. But it is.

Vikander: What would you say makes your book different from other memoirs?

De Garis: It’s about me. [laughter]

But seriously, I think it’s potentially more honest than other people want to be, or can be. That’s the feedback I’ve gotten. Though, they don’t actually know for sure that I’m being honest. What they mean is something else, I think. I don’t know what—maybe raw, vulnerable, open? I was able to write about some pretty terrible things I’ve done because I’ve had so much therapy, which helps you take the ego out of it. You can truly forgive yourself for your mistakes. That made it easier for me to talk about my fuck-ups and chaos without worrying about how I’d be seen.

Vikander: What are your next projects?

De Garis: [Deep sigh] I have been very privileged in how I got a book deal, but it’s a bit of a curse because I didn’t even have to think about what this book was about. The publishers requested a book about drystone and my life, so it was easy to write the proposal, to get started. And now that I’m thinking about it for myself… It could be anything next. The ultimate blank page. I’m trying not to be hard on myself in this process. I’m letting it come to me. I do hope to be helping some friends with their projects, though.

‘Drystone - A Life Rebuilt’ will be published August 2025 by Birlinn/Polygon - Pre-Orders early 2025.

Interview by journalist, therapist, broadcaster and editor Svea Vikander www.sveavikander.com