WEBVTT - Read This: Miranda July Wrote the Book She Couldn’t Find 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.720 Hey there, it's Ruby Jones. Each Sunday, we're sharing one 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:06.600 of our favorite episodes from our sister podcast. 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:06.760 Read This. 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:09.680 The show features interviews with some of the best and 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:14.040 most but loved writers from Australia and around the world. Today, 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.280 we're going to hear from Miranda July. Miranda is not 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.880 only a writer, but a well known filmmaker and performance artist. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.480 Her debut book of short stories, No One Belongs Here 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:28.120 More Than You, was a publishing sensation, and her films, 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:31.440 including Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillianaire 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.880 have become cult classics. She has a devoted, even rabid 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.720 following through her writing, her work on the screen, and 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:44.760 her collaborative art projects. Her latest book, All Fours explores desire, intimacy, 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.440 and an often overlooked part of the aging process, perimenopause. 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:51.559 Michael Williams is the host of Read This and his 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:56.720 with Me Now, Hi Michael. 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:58.680 Hi, their sister podcaster. 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:00.880 How are You? 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:03.720 I am very well. How are things with you? 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.480 Excellent? I am excited about this episode. All Fours has 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.319 been on my to read list since it came out 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:14.000 earlier this year. For those people who aren't as familiar 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:15.959 with Miranda's work. Can you tell us a bit more 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.839 about her career so far and why she has such 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:20.679 devoted fans? 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.760 For many people, Miranda July was unmissible for a few 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.240 years there. She brought out, as you said, her debut 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.000 book of short stories. She brought out a film that 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.760 did the festival circuit and was very popular. But she 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.360 was kind of synonymous with these high concept art projects, 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:38.760 and so she kind of, for some people, is a 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.000 bit off putting. Some people find the Miranda July experience 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.640 maybe a bit tweet, maybe a bit contrived, and so 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:47.840 they might have come to this book a little cautiously. 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.600 And part of what's so exciting is the book is 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.680 an absolute ripper and people are responding to it in kind. 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.560 As you say, all fours, it's a huge success. So 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.120 what is it about this book that made you so 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.280 excited to have Miranda on the show? 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.320 I saw a couple of reviews that took issue with 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.400 Miranda talking about the ways in which the book deals 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.720 with the aging process, suggesting that she's somehow too young 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.600 to have that conversation. But that's kind of the point here. 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.920 The point is that the great unspoken hinterland of lived experience, 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:25.440 and particularly women's lived experience, is perimenopause, and it's widely 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:29.839 experienced obviously, but rarely foregrounded in our literature, rarely foregrounded 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.200 in our culture. And Miranda July is utterly fearless in 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.040 the way she does it. The book is entirely fiction, 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.720 it's not about her own life, but you can't help 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:43.000 but feel like this is an incredibly bare, very generous 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:47.760 depiction about desire, about loss, about fear, and about the 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.280 ways in which we approach these major milestones. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.799 In our lives. 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.519 Coming up in just a moment. Miranda July wrote the 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:00.040 book she couldn't find. 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.720 I might kick things off at the very beginning, based 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.040 on an Instagram post you had not that long ago, 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.240 where you said that the very first sentence of the 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.960 book experienced some rewrites over a single word, the choice 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:21.800 of the word trouble. 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.639 Yeah, originally it was sorry to bother you, and then 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:30.400 you know, actually, full disclosure, I think it was that 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:32.920 the movie there's a movie called Sorry to Bother You. 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.920 It came out, and it's like, this isn't really an issue, 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.440 because that's a phrase in the world much more than 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.000 it is just a movie. But it did make me 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.000 think like, well, you know, I often try and take 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:49.200 those things as like, is it an opportunity to actually 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.080 look at this sentence you haven't looked at? And I 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:53.680 was like, is there another thing people say? 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:54.400 Well, sorry to. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:58.200 Trouble you, and ah, yeah, And then the word trouble 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.280 is such a great word to have in a first 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:06.000 sentence of a book. That's how about kind of transition 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.680 and crisis and upending. And you know that the waters 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.280 are troubled, you know, throughout. 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.920 The waters are troubled, and your protagonist is willfully troubled. 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.440 You know, actually choosing to trouble things is one way 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.520 of kind of seeing her journey. 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.440 I think right right to resist a kind of peace 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:29.920 that has become dishonest? 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.760 How often I mean, as a fan of your work 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:39.440 in different media, how often is that impetus the desire 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.720 not to settle, not to have an idea settled, the 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.960 character settled, to find a way to trouble it. How 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:48.800 often is that an engine for art? For you? 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:56.479 It is true that there's a kind of unrest that 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:01.640 you begin to realize is very valuable despite the discomfort 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:06.000 of it. And it certainly you know there are major 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.200 characters in this book that didn't start out that way, 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:11.480 and I often would be like, well, why is this 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.520 woman selling this quilt? Why is she still in here? 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.800 Why is that scene even here? You know, and to 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:22.680 live with that sort of unanswered question until she's either 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.200 cut or in this case no, she becomes important. And 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.479 then with myself, I mean, you know, with this book, 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:34.120 I resisted the poll of having a good idea. You know, 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:38.240 usually I'm just down on my knees looking up at 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.599 the sky, being like, whenever you're ready, I'll take the 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.719 lightning bolt of my next movie or book. 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:47.120 And it comes. It actually does. 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.560 I think it's through a long process of sort of 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.440 openness and soul searching and research, but eventually there is 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.599 this kind of moment where the story rushes in. And 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.039 with all fours, I had the sense that if I 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:05.920 just put notes on what I was interested in into 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:10.240 a file for as long as possible, and each time 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.440 a story idea came knocking, that could hold all these notes. 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:20.400 And these notes were about gender, aging, femininity, marriage, sex, desire. 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.760 You know, each time a story came knocking, I'd be like, 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.279 too soon, too soon, this has this territory has to 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:31.919 grow it has to deepen, and I think the book 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.080 reflects that. Like to me, I'm like, oh yeah, this 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:39.640 book is wider and deeper and encompasses more voices and 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.479 more other women than I could have done if I'd 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.919 just happily gone into a story from the get go. 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.880 So it is living with that sort of troubled, unsafe feeling. 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.600 When does voice come in? When do you find your 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.520 character as a discreet human being with their eyes, voice 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.880 and their own who is capable of surprising you? 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.720 Yeah, that can be a hard part. 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.120 And I actually had sort of a cheat with this 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:12.920 one because I wrote a story called The Metal Bowl 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.280 that was in The New Yorker a little while before, 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:20.360 and that was the difficult work of discovering a new voice. 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:23.680 And it was a voice that was sort of embarrassingly 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.440 normal in some ways, in the sense that like, she 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.400 could be someone just like me. I could play her, 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.560 you know, less distance between me and her than with 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:38.200 my other characters. And this felt very like, I don't know, 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.240 sort of short story ish in a normal way that 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:45.440 I wasn't used to. But the effect that it had, 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.000 you know, the conversations that I had after it with 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:54.320 my women peers was so raw and interesting that I 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.800 was like, oh, well, who cares? This is a great voice, 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.480 and if I could just keep going? So I had, 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:02.760 you know, more or less, she's a little bit different 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:03.800 than that character, but. 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:06.080 It's quite fine. Just talking about it now, I'm like, 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.080 I want to keep going. I have. 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:12.760 Actually I was writing something the other day and I 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.920 was like, is this just like all fours? 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:17.440 Two? Is this all fives? 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:17.560 Like? 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.200 When is this? Do you need to get out of 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.680 this voice? But it's hard to kick her. 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:24.960 Now you've got the name of all fives. You really 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:26.080 can't resist at either. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:27.840 It's literally the worst name. 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:32.600 That is your girl band version of the Fabulous. It's 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.520 a kind of ludicrously fun. The Metal Bowl is an 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:40.200 amazing story, and there's a great line in it when 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.440 the main character is reflecting on the piece of amateur 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.000 pornography that she's shot, and she reflects that her payment 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:52.000 is not for her beauty, it's not for any personal 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.440 talents of any sort. It's for her naivety. And that's 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.800 what they're buying from her, is that innocence that she 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.119 can sell one. And that relationship between kind of naivety 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.280 and reflection after the event seems to me to run 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:07.600 powerfully through. 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:11.600 All thoughts, right, I really I am glad you use 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.280 that word naive, because I do often say that the 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.520 character is a bit. 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:18.400 More naive than me. 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.560 And that was because I mean, you have to have 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:26.760 seen around the corner of a feeling to write about. 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.800 It, you know. And I changed over the course of 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:30.640 writing the book. 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.480 You know. I started when I was forty five. I'm 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:38.480 fifty now, and there were things I really outgrew. But 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.720 I thought, oh, it's so valuable. It's so valuable, like 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:47.960 her kind of borderline misogyny, you know, in moment, like 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.720 it's awful, and I you know, I worry sometimes, you know, 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.360 people quote books a lot these days online and it's 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.839 just some horrible thing that the narrator thought, and then 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:02.400 it just says Miranda July. I was like, you know, 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.480 don't think about that, obviously, you know, good writer would, 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.920 But to let her be wrong, you know, because I 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:13.640 think having like a woman talk about her real honest 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:19.760 feelings about aging and desire and her own body and 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.240 all these things like, well, if you're not going to 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:26.640 be honest, like what are you doing? What is the 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:30.160 new ground that you're breaking here? And that was the 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.880 project was to like write the book I couldn't find 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.800 that I wanted, and to have real kinship. I don't 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:37.679 want to be shamed. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:38.240 I don't want to. 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:42.600 Feel more vain than the writer, you know. I also 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.559 want to feel like the writer grows, you know, and 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.839 that there is more for me beyond anxiety. 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.360 You know. You talk about honesty. I think that's where 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.320 the power of the book lies is that. I think 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.240 all your characters, I think have this capacity for extraordinary 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.000 honesty of the soul that you don't read very often. 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.720 But it's not necessarily honesty with self knowledge. They're reflecting 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.600 something You're one step ahead of them at all points, 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.360 but they're kind of opening up to us, and I 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.440 think that's that's an incredible trick. 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:18.200 Yeah, it feels really good at the time too, you know, 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:21.559 to be writing and just to be unknowing. 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:22.000 You know. 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.440 It's a kind of openness to not try and be 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:32.520 smart about everything, because that's not really how things are alive. 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:37.520 Like people are trying, you know, trying to figure stuff out. 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.280 It's not like she's not trying, but kind of like 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.520 the dumbness of us, you know, the dumb ways we 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:49.000 try to connect or transform or those are interesting, right, 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:50.720 like that that's very human. 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:54.800 I think that's right, and I think getting that relationship 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:59.680 right between allowing for uncertainty while at the same time 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.320 not letting it be coupled with shame, like that that 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:08.960 idea of getting past shame, or that sometimes the business 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:13.000 of living or making choices or taking risks requires you 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.079 not to be kind of motivated by shame, And that 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.960 seems again one of those things that's really important in 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:19.440 this book. 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:24.760 Yeah, I mean I started out writing it frankly just 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.640 kind of embarrassed to even have to show how old. 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.760 I was, like, talk about shame. I really like, you 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.880 just start where you start. And in the first few 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:38.280 months I was like, is this really a good idea? 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.320 Because then I can't sort of fudge my age for 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:46.280 a long time as people do come. And then I 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.880 was like, well, but really that's such a small reward, 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:54.440 And what writing the book offers is a much richer 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.960 life than this kind of I mean, it is really 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.960 what's offered to women and past a certain age is 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:07.600 really so little that risk taking it starts to feel 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:08.320 less risky. 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.200 It's like, what am I losing? 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.120 You know, I'm going to be ignored less meanly if 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:19.080 I don't do this, I mean now in retrospect, I'm like, 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.000 I kind of I think almost in every interview I 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.160 sort of state my age, just because I'm trying to 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.120 help people kind of orient themselves. And I also, you know, 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:32.480 there's also quite a lot of young women reading this book, 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:37.240 and that's part of the project too, is to allow 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.080 young women to have something to connect the dots to 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:41.040 in the future. 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.080 You know, there's a cliff on the cover of the 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:45.520 book that's. 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.720 Sort of quite resonant, and I think part of the 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.800 reason that this time of life feels like a sudden cliff, 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.840 like you've suddenly entered a mapless place, is because it's 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:01.680 so underdescribed, you know, because it's I guess implicitly humiliating 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:05.320 or something that you have nothing to connect the dots 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.680 too from younger ages, so you just come upon it 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.520 very suddenly and you're like, I don't know what I 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.319 was assuming. I guess just more like more of this, 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.600 more of my young self. But I just somehow it 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.800 was all going to work out. And so that that emptiness, 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:23.720 you know, just lack of kind of imagery and even 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:28.480 basic information about your body. You know your hormones and stuff, 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:30.800 which literally just a few years ago, there was like 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:35.760 endless information about your reproductive system, like everyone wanted to 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:40.720 be involved. So it's it's actually quite useful to kind 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.880 of peg these ages just to allow young women to 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:46.600 have something to move towards. 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.360 In preparation for writing this book or and they laid 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.760 up to it, you spoke to a whole lot of gynecologists. 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:56.359 You wound up doing a kind of maniplese Deep dive. Yeah, 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.080 tell me a bit about that process and its relationship 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:00.280 to the writing of the. 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:01.560 At the time. 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.680 You know, in the time that I've written the book, 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.480 things began to change. So, for example, near the end 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.880 of writing the book, there was a New York Times 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:16.720 magazine cover article called Women have Been Misled about Menopause. 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:19.320 Huge article, you. 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.280 Know, very important, a lot of the information in that 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.800 I knew not to not to toot my own horn, 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.040 but I had also come to the same conclusion. But 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.560 that article hadn't come out yet. So I did for 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.000 a long time think that I needed to be the 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:38.480 one to explain that women had been misled about menopause, 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:44.680 And so I had the task of writing this very 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:49.560 informational educating book that was really hard. Let me tell 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.120 you then, Actually what happened was a book called what 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.680 Fresh hell is this? A book about perimenopause, came out 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:01.440 like during the pandemic. And it's a great book. It's relatable. 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:03.240 It's the book I would want. 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:08.880 I would not want Miranda July poorly educating me about it. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.960 And so and I actually hunted down that writer and 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:13.760 I talked to her and she was she was like, 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.880 how great that it's a novel. You know, you're free 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.040 and I from that point on I took out an 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:24.520 incredible amount of pages. And then I realized, like, oh, 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:29.040 all these things that happen to our body are so 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.760 shape shifty, you know. I mean, the reason we get 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:38.800 influenced by googling something online and whatever ailment is because 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.960 like we really have no idea. It's just filtered through 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:46.640 all our own needs and plans and is we can't 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:48.960 see inside ourselves. We don't even really know where our 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:49.720 organs are. 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:50.560 I mean I don't. 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.440 And so I let periamenopause be like that, and the 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:59.080 information to be this kind of fun house mirror. 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.720 For the near. Like things loom huge. 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.280 At certain points and then they get smaller and shrink 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:10.200 when you know she's shifted through a certain phase, and 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.440 that has its own strange accuracy. 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:28.240 We'll be back in a minute. 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.000 The kind of other parallel thing for your character and 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.880 all fours. That's I think really important to the way 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:42.080 she's experiencing perimenopause and and aging more generally, is she 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.880 has experienced a difficult birth of her son years earlier, 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:51.719 and the nature of that means her relationship to her 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.600 own body and her relationship to mortality I think is 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.080 defined in very different terms. Was that always there in 0:17:59.119 --> 0:17:59.600 the story? 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:01.000 Yeah? 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:05.560 I did have in those early novel two notes stuff 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.359 about how trauma stays in the body. First of all, 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.120 Like if this is a book about this woman's body 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.399 and desire and dance and all these things, it also 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.880 it also holds this. It also holds this not just trauma, 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:25.560 but like sense of mortality, where it's like death has 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.400 entered your life at a certain point and it's not leaving. 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:35.000 You have to form a relationship with it. And maybe 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.680 that's okay, you know, maybe that is leading you as 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:44.040 much as lust to different relationships. It's tricky, you know, 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:48.160 And a book about aging is going to have mortality 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.760 in different ways, but I didn't. I'm not ready to 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:53.320 face you know, I don't. 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:54.600 I'm not thinking. 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.680 About my own mortality enough. And yet I think by 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:02.920 this age, you've usually been through something where you kind 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.560 of get it. You get you you have a basic 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:10.560 empathy for anyone who's been through a tragedy, like you've 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.040 touched it, or you've come close, or you're whatever, spent 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:18.240 some time in hospitals, and so that seems so important 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:22.840 because it's part of what's meaningful about getting older too, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:28.120 is that you have that to connect with, even connecting 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:32.639 with someone you know very unrelatable otherwise, you know, if 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:36.400 you had that in common, that would be like a 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:38.200 very spiritual joining. 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.560 One of the ways it functions for your character, partly 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.639 because it's tied with parenting, is the ways in which 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.480 it locks her into a sense of responsibility as well. 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:51.720 You know, when you know the fragility of the people 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.240 that you love, you feel the impossibility of letting them 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.840 down or being away from them. And I think particularly, 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.439 I think you make the case in the novel in 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:06.040 myriad ways, but particularly for women, that limiting of possibilities 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:08.840 after a certain point because of the ways in which 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:13.000 life a cruise, a sense of responsibility to others. Is 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:16.440 it makes for a beautiful dramatic tension in the book. 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:22.560 Yeah, Yeah, it's sort of a constant crisis to be 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:24.240 holding all of that. 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:26.679 And and I guess I. 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.840 Felt like maybe you could root for her to have 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:37.840 some relief or some spaciousness and freedom, knowing that she 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.720 was like holding death in one hand and like this 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.719 precarious living child, you know, as all children are precarious. 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:47.399 Like in the other and. 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:51.719 Yeah, and that I didn't want to just kind of 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:58.160 rehash the never boring to me the plate of the 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:03.800 modern working woman mother. But I guess, you know, you 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:06.880 try and do it in your own way, and it's piercing. 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.239 It's it's like not a there's nothing mundane about it 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:10.680 for her. 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.040 But there is also the flip side of it is 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:19.320 there is also this incredible joy to release, to risk, 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:24.640 to weirdness, to breaking frame that becomes this absolutely kind 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:25.560 of joyous thing. 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:30.800 I mean, I think any parent, certainly any mom, knows 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.399 that the sort of almost psychedelic feeling of like a 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:39.639 childless you know, night or chapter. But the question is 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.560 like how much do you trust that, Like if it 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:47.080 contains some important part of you, you know, some part 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.960 that you perhaps need to learn how to incorporate into 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:57.320 your life. You know, this essentially like drug trip feeling well, 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:01.240 how is that done? You know? And how is done responsibly? 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.800 And is that allowed? You know what? 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.080 What are the examples of how you do that? 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:13.960 How you you bring that free sense of yourself into 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:16.240 this family structure? 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:18.080 Does the structure have to change? 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.600 Yeah, and you know, not just letting go of shame, 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:25.000 but letting go of guilt, trying to work out the 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.040 role for selfishness in a family unit as well the 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:31.680 ways in which, as you say, that structure might need 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.960 to change to accommodate the various ways in which people 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:35.840 grow and change. 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:42.920 Right, Yeah, it does to me still always seem staggering 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.880 that we're doing marriage in the same the same way 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.560 since it was invented. I mean, not going to cite 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:51.200 a date there. 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:52.840 I'm not sure that's fact. 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:53.879 We can put it in a post. 0:22:54.480 --> 0:23:00.320 Yeah, in eighteen sixty two, that's definitely wrong. But when 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:04.439 you think about how different our lives look, especially as women, 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:10.119 you think this is a funny thing to commit, Like 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:12.800 we're going to sleep in this bed together in the 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:15.280 same house for the rest of our lives, because that 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:19.160 is a core tenant of the marriage, you know. And 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:23.240 it's like if you pull it one thing, if you're like, 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:25.560 well are we like is that best? 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:27.960 Is that what everyone really wants? You know? Then it's 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:30.159 sort of like, well, the whole thing is up for grabs, 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:31.840