Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma Mia podcast. Mamma Mere acknowledges the
Speaker 1: traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is
Speaker 1: recorded on.
Speaker 2: TikTok.
Speaker 1: Not the dancing kind, the old fashioned sort click clicking
Speaker 1: away in the back of your mind, counting up and
Speaker 1: counting down up to that age you always said, I'll
Speaker 1: do that by then, and down to the inevitable finality
Speaker 1: of which we do not speak. By mid you've worked
Speaker 1: out that time is actually the only currency that counts,
Speaker 1: and you've got holds in your pockets. TikTok. Not the
Speaker 1: kind your almost adult kid lives inside, but the kind
Speaker 1: that was so painfully slow when you were young, tick
Speaker 1: talk when will I ever be old enough to? And
Speaker 1: the kind that now flies by at warp speed. TikTok.
Speaker 1: TikTok terms almost finished doing for Easter? May haven't you
Speaker 1: grown another fucking birthday? Cake? Winters so long this year?
Speaker 1: I don't celebrate the cup. We have to catch up
Speaker 1: before Christmas, wishing time away and then trying to hold
Speaker 1: onto It is the story, it seems, of a life.
Speaker 1: Act one that was a thing, the setup, the backstory,
Speaker 1: the foundation. Act two finds us here in the thick
Speaker 1: of the action, wondering if there's some hidden message to
Speaker 1: the unfolding chaos. Act three, if we're lucky, a satisfying conclusion,
Speaker 1: an investment paid off, a big reveal. Perhaps, of course,
Speaker 1: not every life gets divided so neatly, and the perfect
Speaker 1: finale is almost certainly a dream. So what we're doing
Speaker 1: with it now feels urgent, important, but brings its own pressures.
Speaker 1: Can we really live in the truth of time being finite?
Speaker 1: As if each day was your last? Rushing between loved
Speaker 1: ones telling them they matter, hoovering experience to tick off
Speaker 1: a list, savoring each sunrise, never going to bed angry?
Speaker 1: Do we really get here and need to despair about
Speaker 1: how much of it we spent on emails or folding laundry,
Speaker 1: wiping bottoms, waiting for the pasta water swiping Instagram TikTok, No,
Speaker 1: not that one, the one that's rushing past like Keanu
Speaker 1: and Sandra's bus can't slow down. You've got to keep up.
Speaker 1: Four thousand weeks, ten thousand hours, break it down, make
Speaker 1: it count, don't waste a second. So what is the
Speaker 1: best way, though, to spend the time you believed was
Speaker 1: infinite before life slowly unveiled the obvious? Is it a
Speaker 1: waste if you're not on a yacht, summering in Europe,
Speaker 1: grinding to makee bank? Is it a waste if you're
Speaker 1: not training for a try making your own cheese, growing
Speaker 1: your network, widening your funnel. Is it a waste to
Speaker 1: spend some of it just lying in bed with a
Speaker 1: kid a little too long, remembering that farts are funny?
Speaker 1: Or under a tree with a skyithing friendiding from today's
Speaker 1: to dos, or under a doner with someone you like
Speaker 1: later for work with every kiss. Is it a waste
Speaker 1: to spend some slow minutes making a meal only you
Speaker 1: will eat, Or talking to someone you don't really know
Speaker 1: in a line at a place you didn't choose to be,
Speaker 1: or reading that book, or binging that show, or laughing
Speaker 1: at how smart the Internet can be when it's not
Speaker 1: trying to destroy us. TikTok, not the one that says
Speaker 1: you're not brat, but the one that whispers how many
Speaker 1: more summers while you try not to hear? Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Holly Wainwright, and I am mid midlife, mid family, mid
Speaker 1: panic some days, and welcome to mid our show for
Speaker 1: gen X women who are anything but today, I'm talking
Speaker 1: to Leanne Moriarty. You might have heard. She writes books,
Speaker 1: not just books, but enormous books, books that sell millions,
Speaker 1: that speak to millions, that get made into culture defining
Speaker 1: TV shows that tell stories about ordinary people, ordinary Australian
Speaker 1: women actually, that then travel around the world and make
Speaker 1: entire other continents of women go oh yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: Leanne would hate this intro already. She hates bluster and
Speaker 1: fuss and overstatement. She hates big noting and pretension. She
Speaker 1: likes telling stories and writing books, and she's endlessly curious
Speaker 1: about people, which is what makes her great at those
Speaker 1: first two things. We're talking about time today because Leanne's
Speaker 1: new book Here One Moment, is in large part about mortality.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you more about that as we
Speaker 1: go along, because the premise is so clever, so great
Speaker 1: and so relevant. But in our conversation, Leanne talks about
Speaker 1: how some ordinary but extraordinary events in her own life,
Speaker 1: like losing her father both she and her sister being
Speaker 1: diagnosed with breast cancer, inspired this brilliant new novel's theme,
Speaker 1: what to do with the time You've got left? And
Speaker 1: what would happen if you knew exactly how much that was.
Speaker 1: Welcome to mid Leanne Moriarty Leanne. This is a podcast
Speaker 1: for women in their second acts, we often say mid women,
Speaker 1: gen X women. And listening to your interviews and reading
Speaker 1: your stories, I wondered if writing and Family is your
Speaker 1: second act. If your first act was your career in advertising,
Speaker 1: you had your own business, and then there's a point
Speaker 1: at which you decided to lean in to writing fiction,
Speaker 1: do you consider it your second act.
Speaker 2: I could consider it my second act if you want
Speaker 2: me to.
Speaker 1: You don't have to know.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think. It's funny because when I first
Speaker 2: started writing, I was in my early thirties, so it
Speaker 2: was twenty years ago now since my first book came out,
Speaker 2: and I remember there seemed to be a lot of
Speaker 2: talk as if I was really old to be writing
Speaker 2: my first book. But now I think I wasn't old.
Speaker 1: You talking about I've seen you say that that you
Speaker 1: thought that you were old too.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that was my feeling. I agree. Look at
Speaker 2: me as a middle aged person now I'm finally writing
Speaker 2: my book. But now I laugh sort of fondly at
Speaker 2: myself when you're talking.
Speaker 1: About maybe it's partly because I mean I work with
Speaker 1: a lot of young women, and they often feel like
Speaker 1: there's some sort of finish line at thirty and then
Speaker 1: a finish line at forty. Yes, that you have to
Speaker 1: have done X, y Z, so they'll be like, gosh beyond.
Speaker 1: Mariotty was over thirty when she published her book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when really that's very young. But was there a moment
Speaker 1: from your advertising career where you were like, I definitely
Speaker 1: want to change what's next in my life?
Speaker 2: Well, it happened because my sister had her book published,
Speaker 2: so I was definitely in the corporate world. And I
Speaker 2: can still see my office. I can even see what
Speaker 2: I was wearing with the shoulder pads. And I got
Speaker 2: that phone call from her saying that her first book
Speaker 2: had been septem for publication, and I was thrilled for
Speaker 2: her because I love her dearly, but I was also
Speaker 2: filled with a kind of rage that she'd finally achieved
Speaker 2: our childhood dream and I hadn't even given it a shot.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't so much Okay, now here's my second act.
Speaker 2: It was, well, I should at least try this, and
Speaker 2: I kept working. Yes, that probably that's why I don't
Speaker 2: think of it as a second act because the acts
Speaker 2: all merged together because I was a freelance copywriter for
Speaker 2: a long time before I finally let clients go. The
Speaker 2: more successful I got, well, I let the horrible ones
Speaker 2: go first, so I do want to enjoy exactly. And
Speaker 2: then right towards the end, I still kept this lovely
Speaker 2: lady who did kitchen bench tops, and finally I said
Speaker 2: to her, I, really, I don't do this anymore. I
Speaker 2: just kept kept writing them for her. Yeah. So, yeah, well,
Speaker 2: all the acts merged together.
Speaker 1: I've obviously read about you and your two sisters who
Speaker 1: are also writers. Yes, writing when you were little stories
Speaker 1: for your father who would pay you a little advance
Speaker 1: contract mission.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a lot of us might have passions in youth
Speaker 1: that we lose touch with, Yes, and sometimes that can
Speaker 1: make you feel quite far from yourself.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, But I didn't realize that. I wasn't
Speaker 2: thinking to myself, I'm unhappy. I wish I was writing
Speaker 2: my novel. I was pretty pleased with myself with that
Speaker 2: with the shoulder pads, and I quite liked management because
Speaker 2: I'm the eldest sister, so I think I'm quite good
Speaker 2: at delegating. I have no trouble with that. But when
Speaker 2: I was writing that first year, when I was writing
Speaker 2: Three Wishes, I was amazed at the feeling of relief
Speaker 2: that I felt, and that I continue to feel now.
Speaker 2: When I stopped writing for a while and then I
Speaker 2: get back into it, I think, oh, that's right. It's
Speaker 2: something that I need that I didn't know that I needed.
Speaker 1: You said, when you're a little girl, you thought I'm
Speaker 1: going to be a famous writer. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: you said when we think we know exactly how life's
Speaker 1: going to turn out, and we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: here one moment quite a bit later. But it's a
Speaker 1: book a lot about fate and different paths taken and
Speaker 1: all those things. You are obviously famous writer. But I'm
Speaker 1: sure that the path wasn't exactly how you imagined it.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think I imagined a path at all. Then,
Speaker 2: as you said, I thought you could just choose how
Speaker 2: many children you got to have, and what their names
Speaker 2: would be, and what your career would be. So I
Speaker 2: don't know what that little girl would have thought of
Speaker 2: that path. And people often ask that question, what would
Speaker 2: you say if you could go back in time? And
Speaker 2: sometimes I think I'd say well, you should have started,
Speaker 2: you should have been writing sooner. Maybe you'd be a
Speaker 2: better writer now. But perhaps it just had to happen
Speaker 2: the way it happened. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Young writers ask you for advice, you have said to them,
Speaker 1: lead a bit of a life first, so you've got
Speaker 1: things in your height.
Speaker 2: And I do think that. But then of course there
Speaker 2: are some writers who you know, they're so young, and
Speaker 2: they write brilliant novels straight away, So I wouldn't want
Speaker 2: to stop in a body. If they want to do it,
Speaker 2: they should do it. But yes, my advice would be leader,
Speaker 2: Leader a whole lot of different lives, and then you'll
Speaker 2: have more material to call upon.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the things we talk about
Speaker 1: a little bit on this show is how when you
Speaker 1: sort of get to sort of what we're calling mid
Speaker 1: and we're deliberately like reclaiming that term because the young
Speaker 1: people you probably know this, because you've got young people
Speaker 1: in your life, use it as an insult. Yes, and
Speaker 1: so we're reclaiming it. Yes, But often when you get
Speaker 1: to mid, like the world is sort of telling you
Speaker 1: that you're not that interesting anymore. Yes, but certainly you
Speaker 1: have always known this in your characters, but you write
Speaker 1: about grown up women beautifully and with a real understand
Speaker 1: standing of the multitudes they contain. To use a cliche.
Speaker 1: Is that a deliberate choice? And has anyone ever pushed
Speaker 1: back on that from you?
Speaker 2: No, I don't know if it's a deliberate choice. No.
Speaker 2: I always just wrote what I wanted to write. I
Speaker 2: feel like sometimes when I look back on some of
Speaker 2: my earlier novels and I've got a character in their fifties, now,
Speaker 2: I think, oh, I don't know. I think I would
Speaker 2: have written her differently now. And I think that as
Speaker 2: a reader too, when I go back and read novels
Speaker 2: that I was more interested back then in the daughter,
Speaker 2: and now I'm thinking, but what about the mother? So
Speaker 2: I hope I still did a good job with the
Speaker 2: older characters when I was younger. No. Margaret Atwood says
Speaker 2: to younger writers, you don't know what it's like to
Speaker 2: be seventy because you're not there yet. But I remember
Speaker 2: what it was like to be twenty because I once
Speaker 2: was twenty, which I think is true. But it's interesting
Speaker 2: even when I look back at Big Little Lies. I
Speaker 2: picked that up the other day and I was looking
Speaker 2: at it, and there was a scene where they have
Speaker 2: to stop the car and they have to get the
Speaker 2: booster seat for the little five year old, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: that's right. I've totally forgotten that at five you were
Speaker 2: still in the boosters seat, because when I was writing it,
Speaker 2: I was right at that time of my life. So
Speaker 2: I don't know. I often would like to write about
Speaker 2: the age I am right now. And another Margaret, Margaret Drebbel.
Speaker 2: I've noticed she her characters have just got older and
Speaker 2: older with her.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because as you said about Attwoods saying that
Speaker 1: I know what it's like to be twenty, that feels
Speaker 1: like how I talk to my teenage daugher.
Speaker 2: Yes I know, and so I do want to say
Speaker 2: to Margaret, but you don't know what it's like to
Speaker 2: be twenty now.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, that's true. But it's that interesting thing
Speaker 1: of you know, when people ask you questions like does
Speaker 1: parenting change your attitude to work or whatever? And again,
Speaker 1: the young women I work with will be very anxious
Speaker 1: about that, and I'll say, well, I know what it
Speaker 1: was like to be you and working before I had
Speaker 1: this other focus, and it's okay, Yes, it's all okay.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, you know that's right bread out, Yes exactly.
Speaker 1: Do you pick up your you were just saying about
Speaker 1: re reading big little lies? Do you sometimes pick up
Speaker 1: your previous books and them?
Speaker 2: No? I never do. I'm the reason is because there's
Speaker 2: the possibility of a sequel with the kids's teenagers. So no,
Speaker 2: I hate picking it up and reading my old work. Oh.
Speaker 2: Every now and then I think that's okay, But other
Speaker 2: things I think i'd write that differently now. It's like
Speaker 2: hearing your own voice.
Speaker 1: Gives you a cringe, and then hopefully sometimes you read
Speaker 1: a paragraph though and go, oh yeah, I know what
Speaker 1: I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Yea. Sometimes sometimes when people pull out quotes, I think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was nice and I really liked it with big
Speaker 2: little eyes metal and saying I tend to my grudges
Speaker 2: like little pets and things like that, so I do.
Speaker 1: I like that. It must be interesting for you with
Speaker 1: this back catalog that gains such momentum with the TV,
Speaker 1: with every new adaptation and things, of people rediscovering books
Speaker 1: that you almost left behind so long ago. That must
Speaker 1: be quite strange sometimes if people really want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about it, and do you ever go.
Speaker 2: Yes, I can't remember can't happen. No, I can't, and
Speaker 2: I can't remember what they're talking about. But sometimes they
Speaker 2: do say things which I think, I'm sure that wasn't
Speaker 2: in the book. And I find that so interesting because
Speaker 2: I think what they're doing is they're taking things from
Speaker 2: their own life, and that's why. And I'm thinking that
Speaker 2: they describe a character who looks a particular way, and
Speaker 2: I think, nope, but that's something from their own imagination. Yes,
Speaker 2: they've taken it, Yes, made it their which is really
Speaker 2: special to me because I think every single reader, they're
Speaker 2: using their imagination together with my imagination, and every single
Speaker 2: one of them is having a slightly different experience of
Speaker 2: the book.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean this is just related to that. I
Speaker 1: know people have asked you about the Big Little Lies
Speaker 1: adaptation a million times because gosh, so brilliant.
Speaker 3: It's one of the reasons that I the reason you
Speaker 3: don't believe them. There are other reasons, Okay, I'm madly
Speaker 3: in love with him. He adores me, he treats me
Speaker 3: like a goddess when he's not hurt of you. Look,
Speaker 3: he's a great father, we have great sex. There's violence, yes,
Speaker 3: in the relationship, and that's why we came in and
Speaker 3: it's an issue. But I mean, all marriages are complicated.
Speaker 1: Is there ever a little like Oh I didn't think
Speaker 1: they were like that. Sometimes if I listen to audiobooks,
Speaker 1: it'll jar me a little bit. Oh, I didn't think
Speaker 1: she sounded like that. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's right. Oh, yes, definitely. And it just
Speaker 2: a tiny things like when in one of the very
Speaker 2: first scenes, metal And twists her ankle, and so in
Speaker 2: my mind, she twisted her ankle the way I twist, mind,
Speaker 2: because I do that horrible what's it called spinning? Not spinning?
Speaker 2: You just twist over, yeah, twist over onto the side.
Speaker 2: And she went forward. So it's sort of no consequence.
Speaker 2: So you could get caught up and thinking, no, that's
Speaker 2: not the way her ankle should go to the.
Speaker 1: Side, but you have to let it go.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, exact, Yes, that's rue. And also I think
Speaker 2: every actor they bring in their own in the same
Speaker 2: way that the readers bring their own experiences. Every actor
Speaker 2: brings their own experiences and things that they've witnessed in
Speaker 2: their own life, so it becomes their own separate creation.
Speaker 1: Talking about hair on moment a little bit, you right,
Speaker 1: I think what I would term grown up women brilliantly,
Speaker 1: like I thought Joy in Apples neverfore was just I
Speaker 1: love Joy so interesting. And Jerry, who's the main character
Speaker 1: in Here One Moment, is older and what I love
Speaker 1: about this And we're going to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the pot but the first time you see her
Speaker 1: the way that other people see her as this little
Speaker 1: old lady, almost this neat, tidy, little old lady on
Speaker 1: the plane, and then as the characters are excavated, you
Speaker 1: realize all these things that she's lived through and all
Speaker 1: these amazing experiences she's had. And that's what I think
Speaker 1: midlife women often feel like when they're being overlooked, whether
Speaker 1: they're being overlooked in life or at work or in relationships,
Speaker 1: as sort of like you're becoming invisible, You're fading away, Yes,
Speaker 1: but they've done so much more of my conversation with
Speaker 1: Leanne Murriarty about her new book Mortality and Writing Through
Speaker 1: the Pain after this short break, can you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about Here One Moment and how it starts.
Speaker 2: So Here One Moment, I definitely did not start with
Speaker 2: the character of Cherry. I started with the premise, so
Speaker 2: I was on a flight from Hobart to Sydney and
Speaker 2: there was a delay, so I was stuck on the
Speaker 2: plane with the flight was delayed, so everybody was becoming
Speaker 2: increasingly frustrated. People were making lots of phone calls relatives
Speaker 2: and friends, canceling plans. There was one mother who was
Speaker 2: talking to her little girl and she was saying, well,
Speaker 2: you're going to have to wake up daddy and he
Speaker 2: can make dinner for you. And she couldn't wake daddy up.
Speaker 2: So I was listening to this call. She was a
Speaker 2: few seats in front, and I started to think, I
Speaker 2: think Daddy's dead because it was going on for so long,
Speaker 2: and I was texting my husband saying he's dead, He's dead,
Speaker 2: and my husband was saying, no, he's just the poor
Speaker 2: man's just having a nap on the couch. So he
Speaker 2: was no good. So then I texted mum and the
Speaker 2: sister's chat and they were saying, oh no, poor little
Speaker 2: whatever a name, I can't remember a name, poor little Chelsea.
Speaker 2: What's she going to have for a dinner? Oh no, no, no. Anyway,
Speaker 2: my husband was right annoyingly but happily for a poor
Speaker 2: little girl. But that had got me thinking about death.
Speaker 2: And it's probably not surprising because death was probably a
Speaker 2: subject always on my mind at that time for three reasons.
Speaker 2: So the first thing that happened was my sister was
Speaker 2: diagnosed with breast cancer. Then I lost my father. Then
Speaker 2: there was sort of directly after that because after he died,
Speaker 2: as we were walking out of the hospital room, the
Speaker 2: nurses were saying, wash your hands, wash your hands. It
Speaker 2: was the first time that was only just starting at
Speaker 2: the very beginning, and we were very lucky because we
Speaker 2: got to have a wonderful, big funeral, but a week
Speaker 2: after we would not know. And so the whole world
Speaker 2: sort of stared death in the face for such a
Speaker 2: long period. And then I got diagnosed with breast cancer.
Speaker 2: So I think I had just become aware of my
Speaker 2: own mortality. So I'm well now, my sister's well now,
Speaker 2: and also probably just being in your fifties, you just
Speaker 2: have you know, there's a year of a new diagnosis
Speaker 2: so often. So the cheerful thought came into my head
Speaker 2: that everybody on this plane is going to one day.
Speaker 1: Die, and clearly it's true.
Speaker 2: It's true, obviously, And that thing I couldn't get over
Speaker 2: in my head was we're all going to die, and
Speaker 2: one day that information will be available as to how
Speaker 2: and when each of us died. And isn't that fascinating
Speaker 2: that one day we'll know? And then I was looking
Speaker 2: around at people, thinking, you know, will you live to
Speaker 2: be one hundred? Will you be the one whose life
Speaker 2: is cut short? And that's when I thought, imagine if
Speaker 2: somebody stands up and starts pointing it out each of us,
Speaker 2: end says this is your age of death and your
Speaker 2: cause of death.
Speaker 1: And this is how the book begins because that person
Speaker 1: is Cherry I was talking about a little bit before.
Speaker 1: And everybody on the plane gets a different prognosis, and
Speaker 1: some of them are relatively you know, old age when
Speaker 1: you're a hundred, and some of them are much more confronting.
Speaker 1: And then the book then follows a lot of those
Speaker 1: characters as well as Cherry's story. So it very much
Speaker 1: focuses this book on mortality but also on fate. And
Speaker 1: the people in the book have very different reactions to
Speaker 1: being given this information. And I know you just mentioned
Speaker 1: about your own cancer diagnosis, and I've seen you write
Speaker 1: about it that you know you knew that you were
Speaker 1: getting off lightly almost in commas because you'd seen your
Speaker 1: sister go through more invasive treatment. But it still was
Speaker 1: terrifying and upending.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and it was still hard, I realized. Because
Speaker 2: I'm very close to all my sisters, I would keep thinking, well,
Speaker 2: I'm fine because she had to go through so much worse,
Speaker 2: and she definitely never made me feel this way. Nobody
Speaker 2: in my family did. But I kept on doing it
Speaker 2: to myself because I can always remember a school mum
Speaker 2: saying to me standing in the driveway after a pickup,
Speaker 2: and she was asking me about it, and I was
Speaker 2: starting to talk about my sister, and she looked at
Speaker 2: me and she said, well, I don't want to hear
Speaker 2: about your sister, what about you? And then I burst
Speaker 2: into tears because I thought, oh, I realized I'm allowed
Speaker 2: to It was it was hard, yeah, But I feel
Speaker 2: bad saying that because I don't want anything. I don't
Speaker 2: want my sister to be because it's just like everything
Speaker 2: that happens to your sisters, you feel like it's happening
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: But it was nice of that mother to say that,
Speaker 1: And it must have been a very difficult time because
Speaker 1: you know your sister and losing your father and then
Speaker 1: you may, but with the backdrop of COVID.
Speaker 2: Yes, because we were in lockdown when I was having
Speaker 2: most of my treatment. But yeah, that was quite nice.
Speaker 2: Guy got an excuse to leave the house each day
Speaker 2: to people and talk to people, and yeah, you see
Speaker 2: there's all the lockers there in the hospital and it's
Speaker 2: just everybody's going through the same thing. But it was
Speaker 2: only in those very early days that nurse she was saying, oh,
Speaker 2: I had to have a similar biopsy, and she was
Speaker 2: looking at the screen and she was holding my arm
Speaker 2: and I said, so it was your biopsy benign and
Speaker 2: she said no, and I could tell mine's lot good.
Speaker 2: I think she knew from looking sort of saying yours
Speaker 2: isn't going to be benign either, but she was saying.
Speaker 1: Back here, I am.
Speaker 2: So there was just a terrifying few days, especially looking
Speaker 2: at my children, before I knew that, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: caught early, and now here we go on now through
Speaker 2: the process that so many people have been.
Speaker 1: Through before they have And I'm sure once you did
Speaker 1: talk about that, I'm sure you've got a lot of
Speaker 1: women talking to you about their own experiences of that. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that can obviously be wonderful because you realize you're
Speaker 1: part of a community, but also a little overwhelming. I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some people want to say this. I've learned this.
Speaker 2: People want to say, oh, you'll be fine, don't worry
Speaker 2: about it. You know, it's easily cured. And I can
Speaker 2: remember saying exactly that to somebody once after my sister.
Speaker 2: So I saw her and I said, oh, don't worry
Speaker 2: about it. My sister's running marathons now, which is true.
Speaker 2: But I should not have said that because I'm not
Speaker 2: her unconscious, and when it happened to me, I think, well,
Speaker 2: what do you know? I think what you should say?
Speaker 2: If I could go back in time, I just say,
Speaker 2: I'm so, I'm so sorry. Yeah, and she's not fine.
Speaker 2: So that's why I feel. I feel terrible that I
Speaker 2: said that. What did I know? Hopefully she still will
Speaker 2: be fine. But it's human nature, sure, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, lots of women listening to this,
Speaker 1: and women in both our lives who will be going
Speaker 1: through this at the moment, and for the people who
Speaker 1: love them and want to support them, they're like wrestling
Speaker 1: with that a little bit. Are we all chipper? Are
Speaker 1: we like you can beat this? This is going to
Speaker 1: be great, we're baking cupcakes today, or are we telling
Speaker 1: horror stories, which is worse. Yeah, So do you think
Speaker 1: just listen and meet people?
Speaker 2: Well they are so Yeah, But you're right, because maybe
Speaker 2: there are some people would say no, I don't want
Speaker 2: to hear, oh, I'm so sorry, with a somber look
Speaker 2: on my face. Do tell me about your sister running marathons.
Speaker 2: I don't know. So maybe there's not one right answer,
Speaker 2: but for me, I didn't want to hear that this
Speaker 2: is nothing. No.
Speaker 1: And also, when you're going through something, it is scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just don't want to be Yes, you don't
Speaker 2: want to start them planning your funeral, but you don't
Speaker 2: want them to say this is nothing.
Speaker 1: And obviously we're not going to go into spoilers for
Speaker 1: what happened to the characters in your book, but there
Speaker 1: are some within that group of people, there are very
Speaker 1: different reactions to being given this news. Yes, and to
Speaker 1: the other people who are on the plane, because obviously
Speaker 1: we follow closely a few of them, and then we
Speaker 1: begin to hear stories of what's happening outside. And that's
Speaker 1: really interesting because I think we all know that is
Speaker 1: exactly what people are like you know, they'll handle the
Speaker 1: same information very differently.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think when I first came up with the idea,
Speaker 2: I think I was thinking, they all have these wonderful
Speaker 2: revelations about life, and you know the meaning of life.
Speaker 2: But then when I put my characters in that situation,
Speaker 2: then I thought, actually, what you would do is, first
Speaker 2: of all, you would probably disbelieve it, so obviously the
Speaker 2: predictions have to start coming true before it to mean anything.
Speaker 2: You would fight it in the same way that if
Speaker 2: you get a terminal disease, you ask for a second opinion,
Speaker 2: and you keep trying, and you enroll in that what's
Speaker 2: called the.
Speaker 1: Brain fall very very familiar with the brain from.
Speaker 2: When you're doing it. Why a clinical tual. When you're
Speaker 2: enrolled in the clinical trials, you do whatever it takes,
Speaker 2: so you're not necessarily having these amazing revelations. You're fighting.
Speaker 1: And also that depends on who you are, as it
Speaker 1: does with these characters, because the ones who you know. Again,
Speaker 1: not wanting to give too much away, but there's a
Speaker 1: character in there who in the past has struggled with
Speaker 1: obsessive compulsive disorder, so obviously the way she reacts to
Speaker 1: this information is different to the way that somebody who
Speaker 1: doesn't have that in their back. Yes, and so it's
Speaker 1: the sort of beautiful exploration of that idea that you know,
Speaker 1: we're not all the same, We're not all going to
Speaker 1: handle the information the same way.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So the book is very much it focuses on moretality
Speaker 1: and fate. As I say, because the character Cherry, who
Speaker 1: I thought was so fascinating, who is the woman who
Speaker 1: stands up on the plane and tells everybody how they're
Speaker 1: going to die, and when she's assumed to be a
Speaker 1: fortune teller and she comes from a family of fortune
Speaker 1: tellers and psychings. So it really leans into that aspect
Speaker 1: of WO and what you believe. And sorry we wo
Speaker 1: is a dismissive term, but I just found it just
Speaker 1: fell out of my mouth into that sort of area.
Speaker 1: Are you a believer? Does that attract you?
Speaker 2: It attracts me. I'm a skeptic, but I'd love to believe.
Speaker 2: Nothing has yet happened to me where it's been proven
Speaker 2: to be true, but I would love it to be true.
Speaker 2: And I think it's possible that there are people with
Speaker 2: special abilities, but I haven't met any of them yet.
Speaker 2: And I do think there are a lot of them
Speaker 2: who have special abilities to read the person in front
Speaker 2: of them, to use probability, but I'm open. I'm completely
Speaker 2: open to it, and I love hearing people's stories from believers.
Speaker 1: Cherry's mother in the book obviously was Madam May, who
Speaker 1: she did tell fortunes for a living. But Cherry is
Speaker 1: a very mathematical, scientific person, and so as a teenager,
Speaker 1: she was watching her mom do this and just being like,
Speaker 1: what a lot of nonsense. It's like, of course you
Speaker 1: knew that woman was going to have a baby soon
Speaker 1: because she'd just got married, and that's relatively likely. So
Speaker 1: sometimes we often think maybe that these people are just
Speaker 1: very good readers of people. Yes, and I think that
Speaker 1: writers are also that to a point. We look at
Speaker 1: people and we make calls.
Speaker 2: We do, but certainly I still get it wrong. Sometimes
Speaker 2: I still make a snap judgment and think, oh, you're
Speaker 2: not that sort of person at all. Whenever I do
Speaker 2: an avenge, there's always somebody in the audience who's sitting
Speaker 2: there with a very blank face, and I think they
Speaker 2: hate me. They've been dragged here by somebody, and I
Speaker 2: keep turning to them, thinking, why does she hate me,
Speaker 2: and then in the signing line they'll come up and
Speaker 2: say something that you know they're a real fan or something,
Speaker 2: they're profoundly affected by something I've written. So I've just
Speaker 2: got that particular face that doesn't show anything. So I'd
Speaker 2: love to say that I'm a really good judge of character,
Speaker 2: but sometimes I definitely don't.
Speaker 1: Well, not right. There are a lot of characters in
Speaker 1: this book, and yes, the details of all their lives
Speaker 1: are so beautifully observed. I think I don't think there's
Speaker 1: any doubt about whether or not you're very good observer
Speaker 1: of people. But I also just love there's a theme
Speaker 1: that obviously has come up in a lot of your work,
Speaker 1: Madam May the fortune Teller, and there Terry's mom was
Speaker 1: actually helping a lot of the local women escape domestic violence.
Speaker 1: She'd say, I see you leaving and just swing that
Speaker 1: seed over, andever I love that part.
Speaker 2: Yes, I listened to something where a man who was
Speaker 2: a psychic, and I think he was quite clear that
Speaker 2: he had no psychic abilities, but if he heard somebody
Speaker 2: who was clearly in need of something, he would use
Speaker 2: those lines. He'd say I see you doing this, And
Speaker 2: he was just trying to help to help, Yeah, which
Speaker 2: I think is the case for a lot of psychics
Speaker 2: and fortune tellers and mediums. People just want to come,
Speaker 2: they want to be listened to.
Speaker 1: They want to talk about the people they've lost, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: and feel close to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It's interesting what you were saying before about how this
Speaker 1: period in your life in your fifties, you know people
Speaker 1: around you are getting diagnoses or you are. We're also
Speaker 1: often losing people around us. We did an episode of
Speaker 1: mid on Reef with Jackie Bailey, who's a doctor, and
Speaker 1: she was saying how it bringing you closer to death
Speaker 1: can often help you know how to live. And that's
Speaker 1: a little bit of the message of this bit is
Speaker 1: the rest of my conversation with author survivor Woman of
Speaker 1: Many Acts, Leanne Murriati after this short break, I've seen
Speaker 1: you write that you didn't necessarily see your own experience
Speaker 1: of diagnoses as a gift as a lesson. But is
Speaker 1: that the message you kind of wanted to run through
Speaker 1: this book.
Speaker 2: Oh, I definitely never set out with an actual message.
Speaker 2: I think that's a mistake. Even when I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe my characters will have these profound wisdom that will
Speaker 2: come from this, and as I start writing, I think, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: don't try to be profound. But yes, if there was
Speaker 2: a message that a reader would take, I would hope
Speaker 2: it would be that it's a simple one and you
Speaker 2: can't live every single day like that. But I do
Speaker 2: remember after I lost my dad, just there be moments
Speaker 2: where I think, oh, he's not getting to have this,
Speaker 2: he would love this. And so it does just give
Speaker 2: you those moments to think, oh, just really love this
Speaker 2: particular the sky, the breeze, my mother, my child's face,
Speaker 2: whatever it is to just have that one moment of
Speaker 2: joy that you hear. But then you've got to go back.
Speaker 2: You can't. You can't. You'd be pretty annoying if you kept.
Speaker 1: That's a great character in this. He's a guy called
Speaker 1: Leo who is a workaholic and he has this toxic
Speaker 1: boss who works stop messaging him, you so nail that
Speaker 1: whole productivity culture around him. And his wife's saying to him,
Speaker 1: if this was true, how would you want Because like
Speaker 1: all the other characters, he's been given this prognosis. If
Speaker 1: this was true, how would you want to live this
Speaker 1: next part of your life? It can be a helpful
Speaker 1: clarifying question if you have choices.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, and most of us don't really, And yeah,
Speaker 2: it's that foolish thing with what would you do if
Speaker 2: this was the last day of your life. Well, that's
Speaker 2: silly because you'd spend all your money, Yeah.
Speaker 1: To drink all the wine and yeah that's right, we've
Speaker 1: got to eat all the fatty food. And yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: And there's pleasure that's part of life in having a
Speaker 2: goal and working towards that goal. There's pleasure in working hard.
Speaker 2: And so I do have Leo saying when his wife
Speaker 2: talks about people on their deathbed regretting working so hard,
Speaker 2: which I'm sure is true, but I think they are
Speaker 2: forgetting the person they used to be and the pleasure
Speaker 2: that work brought them. So there's something in the middle.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. It's true. It's not as binary as
Speaker 1: not work bad. Yes exactly. Yeah, family smelling the roses
Speaker 1: and family time.
Speaker 2: Because if you tried it for a week, you go crazy.
Speaker 2: People need to.
Speaker 1: Work sometimes, though, that sort of mid realization, if it's
Speaker 1: that thing of loss and grief bringing you a bit
Speaker 1: closer to choices, is it can sometimes mean that people
Speaker 1: do go I am going to do that thing that
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to do, And maybe that is a
Speaker 1: career change. Maybe that is trying something new, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: which can be very galvanizing. I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: actually about, at this place in your life, with the
Speaker 1: unquestionably enormous success that you've had, what your relationship with
Speaker 1: ambition is like now? Is it still in you as
Speaker 1: you get older and have more success or do the
Speaker 1: goalpost shift or your motivations different.
Speaker 2: I think it's still there. I think I think I
Speaker 2: want each book to be better than the last. And
Speaker 2: that's a good thing about being an author. It's not
Speaker 2: like being an athlete where my body couldn't achieve anymore.
Speaker 2: I think I can hopefully keep getting better. I was
Speaker 2: interviewed by a young woman who and she was sort
Speaker 2: of saying, why do you keep doing it? Why don't
Speaker 2: you just I'm what am I going to do? I'm
Speaker 2: only in my fifties. I'm not ready to just stop.
Speaker 1: So that's such an interesting question because I sometimes think
Speaker 1: that about some professions, where you know, if somebody is
Speaker 1: a successful business person, I'm kind of like, why don't
Speaker 1: you go and do something else? But I never think
Speaker 1: that about creative professions, probably because of my own biases.
Speaker 1: I'm like, why would you stop?
Speaker 2: I know it is interesting because I would think exactly
Speaker 2: the same thing, especially really successful they're making huge amounts
Speaker 2: of money. Yeah, so I guess they would answer exactly
Speaker 2: the same way.
Speaker 1: They love it, so yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I said that feeling of relief, I'll go
Speaker 2: through all this promotional period and then I'll think, oh,
Speaker 2: I can't do it, I can't do it, And then
Speaker 2: I'll sit down and then I'll think, oh, that's right,
Speaker 2: this is good.
Speaker 1: You could be constantly traveling, constantly promoting, constantly doing events
Speaker 1: with yourself or with other authors. Have you learned a
Speaker 1: lot over this very successful period you've been in, particularly
Speaker 1: in the last decade, about the boundaries you need to
Speaker 1: put in about what you will and won't do, and
Speaker 1: how you can protect your creativity.
Speaker 2: Yes. I think I've always actually been pretty good with
Speaker 2: the boundaries because I've always said no to a lot
Speaker 2: of things. And I do remember talking to my publicist
Speaker 2: once and I was saying, I just find I can't
Speaker 2: so I couldn't do this podcast today and then go
Speaker 2: home write because I'll be going over sing you sounded
Speaker 2: so stupid when you said, then you've got a teary
Speaker 2: at that perny. You'll be up in here and I
Speaker 2: can't write on those days. So I'm not one of
Speaker 2: those authors who will say yes to lots of things
Speaker 2: and then go and write. I need to separate those things.
Speaker 2: She did say, well, maybe you'll get over that, and
Speaker 2: then sometimes I think, well, maybe I will, but it
Speaker 2: hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: It doesn't need to, doesn't know, it doesn't need to.
Speaker 2: You're right, it doesn't need to.
Speaker 1: As a creative person, I imagine you've kind of worked
Speaker 1: out what you need to be able to do what
Speaker 1: you do, and so do you sort of design your
Speaker 1: year almost all your two years or whatever? It is like,
Speaker 1: this is protected writing time, this is promo period.
Speaker 2: Yes I do. I do, and it's true. But sometimes
Speaker 2: it's like, what do I really need and what am
Speaker 2: I just pretending I need? Do I really need this
Speaker 2: time to just think? Or am I pretending to think?
Speaker 2: So there's somewhere in the middle. I do need certain things,
Speaker 2: but sometimes I need to just sit down and write.
Speaker 2: So that's what I'm always struggling with.
Speaker 1: Do you think you've ever had like a creative burnout.
Speaker 1: Have you ever found it like when you maybe weren't
Speaker 1: as clear about what you needed for your processes to work.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been in that place where you just
Speaker 1: feel too frazzled.
Speaker 2: I feel frazzled at the end of a book tour,
Speaker 2: but not so much at the end of writing. Oh well, no,
Speaker 2: I still I feel a bit exhausted. And I know
Speaker 2: some authors who write the end and then the next
Speaker 2: day start something new, which I could not do that.
Speaker 2: But no, it's more the book tours that the rest.
Speaker 1: I can imagine. You came to motherhood late in Verlin Commas,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to ask you, at this phase in
Speaker 1: your life and watching your kids grow as they are now,
Speaker 1: are you finding a lot of joy in this phase
Speaker 1: of growing kids as well as that little bit of
Speaker 1: sadness that I think we all sometimes feel when they're
Speaker 1: not little anymore.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm well with having children late. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you feel this. I'm desperate for grandchildren. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I want a baby.
Speaker 1: It's it's so funny though, because obviously on my another
Speaker 1: podcast I co host with Mea Friedman, we are exactly
Speaker 1: the same age. She's you know, we've worked together a
Speaker 1: few years. We're really good friends. She's just become a grandmother.
Speaker 1: My youngest is twelve. Yes, it's a battle because my
Speaker 1: daughter is fourteen and I always say to her there's
Speaker 1: no hurry, But then there's a bit of me that's
Speaker 1: thinking about how old will I be? That's right?
Speaker 2: So yeah, sometimes I do say, well, you know, you
Speaker 2: can have a career after children. Don't do it the
Speaker 2: way I do it.
Speaker 1: Are you a person I think I've read maybe on
Speaker 1: your website or something, that you like to get together
Speaker 1: with your friends, your old friends and talk about being old.
Speaker 2: Yes, we all do.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling like in midlife? Are you finding
Speaker 1: the joy in it? You know, a bit more freedom,
Speaker 1: a bit more knowing yourself, or are you kind of
Speaker 1: fighting it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, a bit more freedom. I feel like I'm not
Speaker 2: quite there in that amazing feeling that women talk about
Speaker 2: where they don't care anymore. And I used to see
Speaker 2: groups of women at my events and I always thought
Speaker 2: they're in their fifties where they just seem so relaxed,
Speaker 2: and I thought that will happen to me when I'm
Speaker 2: in my fifties. But now I'm wondering if they're in
Speaker 2: their sixties and they just look like they're in their
Speaker 2: fifties because they were so relaxed and happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a character in them here one moment Sue
Speaker 1: who talks about how in her sixties she feels so
Speaker 1: much better in herself because she's not wrestling with the
Speaker 1: menopause and perimenopause symptoms. The actual mid bit can be
Speaker 1: quite difficult because you're going through the transition, but when
Speaker 1: you're on the other side of the transition, you can
Speaker 1: feel fabulous.
Speaker 2: That's what I hear. I can't wait, hold go when
Speaker 2: I'm not there yet, I'm waiting for the fabulous.
Speaker 1: You've referenced a couple of times in this that obviously
Speaker 1: this isn't your favorite part of the job, talking about
Speaker 1: books and your second gas, And you'll think, do you
Speaker 1: feel that way when you write?
Speaker 2: Still?
Speaker 1: Do you still get the authors self loathing?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 1: What have you learned about silencing that?
Speaker 2: I just need to keep writing? So it definitely happens
Speaker 2: in the beginning when I'm starting a new book. It
Speaker 2: feels so odd to think this is your job, and
Speaker 2: to think you're just making up a story and you're
Speaker 2: writing sentences. It feels so embarrassing in the beginning. So
Speaker 2: my sister jackief she often goes to cafes to write
Speaker 2: orreas I couldn't because I feel like somebody could be
Speaker 2: looking over my shoulder and reading a bad line. So
Speaker 2: I definitely feel that in the beginning. I need the
Speaker 2: pages to start forming and the characters to start working,
Speaker 2: and then it goes away and then it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Do you have rituals? Are like I have to have
Speaker 1: this cup of tea like this, You have to sit
Speaker 1: in this place, The sun has to be there. Are
Speaker 1: you that person?
Speaker 2: No, I'm always interested in other people's rituals, so I'm
Speaker 2: ready to try different things. But honestly, I just need to. Oh,
Speaker 2: I turned the internet off and put my phone somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I love hearing that you struggle with that, because I
Speaker 1: think so many of us do. When you're focusing on
Speaker 1: creative work. If I'm writing, I have to put my
Speaker 1: phone in the house and I write out in a
Speaker 1: little shed.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it comes through in your books that Facebook
Speaker 1: and social media and phones play a role very much,
Speaker 1: which is brilliant, but they can be the enemies of
Speaker 1: our creativity.
Speaker 2: Child. It's terrible. Yeah, I'm addicted as everybody is. And
Speaker 2: that hand reaching out for whatever it gives me. I
Speaker 2: don't know what it gives me. I'm just I do
Speaker 2: that mindless scroll, and the algorithm says things like our articles,
Speaker 2: you might be interested in Jennifer Garner's wearing a stripe top.
Speaker 2: That's what the algorithm thing. So I'm interested in and
Speaker 2: then I click all, look, algorithm, Why was I interested?
Speaker 2: It's so strange.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's hard. The distraction is right there for
Speaker 1: us in a way that I guess it wasn't before.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think so, yes, because we had phones when
Speaker 2: I first started writing. But I definitely feel it's got worse.
Speaker 1: I used to have a laptop that was my writing laptop,
Speaker 1: so I didn't have social media on it, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't jump on to jump onto Facebook, caically look at
Speaker 1: what Yes, But then my will broke.
Speaker 2: And you got it. Yes, Well, I had a laptop.
Speaker 2: I had exactly the same laptop. I thought the Internet
Speaker 2: wasn't on it, but then my son said, of course,
Speaker 2: it's the Internet's everywhere. So then he showed me, and
Speaker 2: then damn it. Now I could do the clicking.
Speaker 1: Over thank you so much for being so generous and
Speaker 1: all your answers. I do want to ask you, when
Speaker 1: you think about what's next with all that you've.
Speaker 2: Achieved, what do you really hope is next? What do
Speaker 2: I hope is next? Such an interesting question. I want
Speaker 2: people to like the book, and I want grandchildren.
Speaker 1: The next phase is the grandchildren, but not at an
Speaker 1: inappropriately young age.
Speaker 2: What else do I want? I think, actually, what I
Speaker 2: want is good health, and I think, yeah, that's all
Speaker 2: that matters in the end, that everybody's okay. Everybody I
Speaker 2: love is okay. That's why you don't want to love
Speaker 2: too many people, because it increases your risk. I just
Speaker 2: want everybody to be happy and okay. Yeah, that's where
Speaker 2: all I really.
Speaker 1: Want in this phase of life. You like running through
Speaker 1: your people at night, you're taking them off like a vase. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Leanne, my pleasure, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Friends.
Speaker 1: That was Leon Murriarty, and I want you to know
Speaker 1: that that's the first time I'd ever met her, and
Speaker 1: I was nervous because she's a really big deal and
Speaker 1: I also write books, and there's something really unsettling somehow
Speaker 1: about meeting the person who's at the absolute peak of
Speaker 1: what you're also trying to do. That to be frank
Speaker 1: just makes eyeballs sweat a bit. But she was great
Speaker 1: as you heard, and couldn't have been lovelier or more
Speaker 1: gracious about my nerves. If this theme of time and
Speaker 1: lost spoke to you, let me point you to the
Speaker 1: episode of mid we recorded with Jackie Bailey about grief
Speaker 1: in season one. It's one of my absolute favorites, no question,
Speaker 1: and it's one that's being passed around by people who
Speaker 1: feel like they need it, and that might be you.
Speaker 1: And also, if you liked that stuff from Leanne about
Speaker 1: a writer's process and focus and all the rest of
Speaker 1: that stuff, go back and listen to our episode about
Speaker 1: burnout with another extraordinary writer, Catherine May. It's like a
Speaker 1: bomb for our frazzled souls. Anyway, I am not blowing
Speaker 1: smoke when I tell you, as I told Leanne Murriati,
Speaker 1: that her new novel Here One Moment, is brilliant. It
Speaker 1: is one of her absolute best. It's surprising and suspenseful
Speaker 1: and insightful. It's just come out so you can go
Speaker 1: and buy it wherever you get your books. But we'll
Speaker 1: put a link in the show notes to make it
Speaker 1: extra easy. Oh and we'll put a link to where
Speaker 1: you can buy my books too, because sweaty eyeballs. And
Speaker 1: as always, I cannot thank you enough my MID friends
Speaker 1: for being here. Big thanks to the MID team, to
Speaker 1: our executive producer and I'm a Brown I seenior producer
Speaker 1: Christel Cornelson, Tom Lyon on sound and our producer Charlie Blackman.