How a Toronto mural changed Ian Williams’s book title

To write You've Changed, Ian Williams's new book, the author took a construction course to see the world that his main character would be living in.

Williams is the author of several books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. His debut novel, Reproduction, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He gave the 2024 Massey Lecture on his nonfiction book What I Mean to Say. 

He's currently an English professor at the University of Toronto and director of the creative writing program.

In You've Changed, middle-aged couple Beckett and Princess are having marital issues. They're sent into parallel mid-life crises after their friends come to visit for the weekend. While Princess is concerned that their problems stem from her physical attributes and turns to surgery, Beckett decides to relaunch his contracting business in the hope that his accomplishments will revive their relationship.

The sharp, funny and deeply human novel asks questions about how much people in a relationship can change while remaining together. It was also longlisted for the 2025 Giller Prize.

Williams spoke on Bookends with Mattea Roach about his book and the stories behind it. He also revealed that the title came from a mural in Toronto.

Mattea Roach: I want to start by asking about this title, You've Changed, which feels like a scary phrase, it's not one that's often used as a compliment. Where did that title come from for you?

Ian Williams: The book was called something else for a long time. Maybe somewhere around the eighth draft it changed and that liberated the book for me.

This book is actually about change and the degrees of change that we can accommodate. I was living in Toronto at one point and there's this huge mural that says "You've Changed" in block letters against a red background.

To confront that every day — when you're on the streetcar, when you're coming back home — it's perfect public art because you've got to engage with it and say "Have I? In what ways have I changed? It's inevitable, but is this a compliment?"

The main character, Beckett, a white Quaker from Maine, is referred to by some of the other characters as a bit of a redneck. Why did you want to inhabit his point of view?

I think a lot of fiction these days is moving towards the autobiographical but I really believe in the possibilities of the imagination.

I wanted to write a character that does not resemble me, at least from the outside. We talk a lot about empathy on the part of the reader — how can characters help you understand the rest of the world?

For writers, it's really important to inhabit points of view that you don't own, that maybe you don't even respect, to get inside the inner workings of the human being.