Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mother and mea podcast. Hello out
Speaker 1: loud as a gangzel Here, we've got a full house
Speaker 1: today joining me, Holly Wayne Wright, Amelia Lester, m Vernon.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, Hello, And we're here to talk.
Speaker 1: About Lena Dunham's Fame Sick. And we've got a very
Speaker 1: crowded desk because everybody has thoughts.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to talk about.
Speaker 1: It, and we had to lock the studio so Kleas
Speaker 1: Stevens could again. We have all read Lena Dunham's second
Speaker 1: memoir before we get to it and how we felt
Speaker 1: about it. It's called Fame Sick, and it's about the
Speaker 1: time in her life when she was both becoming famous
Speaker 1: and also becoming and staying sick. Really, it transitions the
Speaker 1: Girl's era, what happened after Girls, her relationship with Jack Antonov,
Speaker 1: her relationship with Jenny Connor, who was her executive producer
Speaker 1: and creative partner through the Girls years and afterwards, and
Speaker 1: the progression of a series of terrible illnesses that climaxed
Speaker 1: well it was unrelated really, but when she set herself
Speaker 1: on fire, but we'll get to that first. I wanted
Speaker 1: to just check in with any of you whether you
Speaker 1: read the first memoir, because I know Amelia and I did,
Speaker 1: and we didn't love it. Not that kind of girl.
Speaker 1: And it was when Girls was peaking, and yet it finished.
Speaker 1: It was really just about a childhood and it finished
Speaker 1: when Girls started, and that was incredibly disappointing to me.
Speaker 1: Oh did you read it?
Speaker 2: I did not read it. Not a complete tst you.
Speaker 1: Missed out or nothing.
Speaker 2: I read about it a lot same.
Speaker 3: I didn't read it either, And what I read about
Speaker 3: it was a lot of people didn't like it.
Speaker 1: Why didn't we like it? Amelia?
Speaker 4: First of all, I had to say, I went to
Speaker 4: the book party. What did her first book party?
Speaker 1: The actual one, the actual irl.
Speaker 4: It was held at New York editor David Bremnick's house or.
Speaker 1: His apartment, the most incredible, and he.
Speaker 4: Has bookshelves that have ladders. I'm just going to say that,
Speaker 4: which I know is holly history.
Speaker 2: I would love that.
Speaker 4: And the funny thing was reading this book, I realized
Speaker 4: that when that book came out, she was at the
Speaker 4: peak of that toxic fame era. She was really in
Speaker 4: a mess, and you could tell at the party. I'd
Speaker 4: never met her before, but I went up to introduce
Speaker 4: myself because I was a big fan and she kind
Speaker 4: of treated me like she was uncomfortable with the praise.
Speaker 4: She didn't really want to hear from me. She thought
Speaker 4: that I was like one of the obsessive fans who
Speaker 4: maybe comes up to her on the street. She kind
Speaker 4: of shunted me aside, and I was a little offended.
Speaker 4: But now I've made this whole thing about me, because
Speaker 4: now I've read this book and I realized it wasn't
Speaker 4: about me. It was that she was going through so
Speaker 4: much stuff, and then when someone praised her or complimented
Speaker 4: her at the time, she couldn't even take it on board.
Speaker 5: That was peak irritation with Lena Dutton. One of the
Speaker 5: things that makes this book so great is she's coming back,
Speaker 5: you know, almost a decade later and looking back at
Speaker 5: all that time, with all the perspective, and I think
Speaker 5: the world was ready to hear it. I think at
Speaker 5: the time no one wanted to hear more. They felt
Speaker 5: like they'd heard so much Lena. Everywhere they looked. She
Speaker 5: had her newsletter. Then she was writing all the times
Speaker 5: she was the queen of and it was what you
Speaker 5: have to do. But like processing life while you're living
Speaker 5: life forgetting it all out there, and it's not. It
Speaker 5: just drove everybody crazy, which is not her fault. I
Speaker 5: think it was internet culture of the Internet culture.
Speaker 2: Of the moment.
Speaker 5: But now I think the world is ready to hear
Speaker 5: this story, and that's why it's so well received, and
Speaker 5: the fact that she's always just been the most incredible writer.
Speaker 1: She has been. There's a new generation that's also rediscovering girls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also with John said.
Speaker 1: General watching it, are you?
Speaker 3: I watched it, I think after it came out a
Speaker 3: few years, like five or six years after, and it's
Speaker 3: now one of my constant rewatches. But what was really
Speaker 3: interesting that I learned about fame seeking this memoir is
Speaker 3: that a lot of younger girls, even some my age,
Speaker 3: who didn't know Lena Dunham at all, are kind of
Speaker 3: reading it in their book clubs, and they're reading it
Speaker 3: like a novel, because it does read like a novel,
Speaker 3: like it reads like a piece of fiction from a
Speaker 3: first person point of view. And I'm finding it so
Speaker 3: interesting that people are reading a memoir without actually knowing
Speaker 3: the person.
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 3: Because I've seen it on a New York Times bestsellers
Speaker 3: list and they're just like I just want to read
Speaker 3: this book. And I think when we go to read
Speaker 3: a memoirs, you kind of know who that person is
Speaker 3: and they don't know.
Speaker 1: How So you mean like jen Z's reading it just
Speaker 1: as a bit say.
Speaker 4: I also want to on that point, that's really interesting
Speaker 4: about how people are reading it as a novel. It's
Speaker 4: very revealing to me that the cover is sort of
Speaker 4: an Alice in Wonderland trope of legs falling down.
Speaker 1: They're not her eggs.
Speaker 4: What an interesting choice for a memoir to not have
Speaker 4: the person pose on the cover.
Speaker 5: I don't know they weren't heleg I assumed they were
Speaker 5: her legs.
Speaker 1: Look, this is our forensic journalist here.
Speaker 5: I believe Amelia, though I will definitely be trusting.
Speaker 1: She did an interview with the New York Times just
Speaker 1: when the book came out, and again it has been
Speaker 1: a very corrective reception for her, I would say, because
Speaker 1: the book and the tour and her legacy has been
Speaker 1: so well received pretty much unanimously. And she was talking
Speaker 1: about this compulsive need she has to express herself and
Speaker 1: making it about me for a second, I related to
Speaker 1: she kept putting her foot in it, and she kept
Speaker 1: getting canceled, and she said, I just kept trying to explain,
Speaker 1: and every time I tried to explain, I made it worse.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, ah, I've been there, So I want
Speaker 1: to kind of look at this in a structure of four.
Speaker 1: The four sort of buckets I put this into when
Speaker 1: I was reading it was family, her, particularly her relations
Speaker 1: with their parents, Fame the whole Girl's Year and becoming
Speaker 1: incredibly famous and becoming such a lightning rod in culture.
Speaker 1: Then also her relationships with Jack and Jenny, the two
Speaker 1: pivotal relationships that she had partner and her creative partner,
Speaker 1: magic and creative partners during that time, both of which
Speaker 1: imploded at a similar stage after Girls finished. And then
Speaker 1: finally or maybe in no order, in particular her chronic
Speaker 1: illness and the way that is such a through line,
Speaker 1: and she does some beautiful writing about exploring the parallels
Speaker 1: between fame and chronic illness. Before I throw it to
Speaker 1: a U whole for what you felt about the family,
Speaker 1: I listened to it an audiobook at your suggestion, Amelia,
Speaker 1: did you guys read or listen?
Speaker 2: Listen? Listen? Yeah, we all did.
Speaker 5: The audio sales of this book are going to be
Speaker 5: absolutely huge.
Speaker 1: Why do you think we did? Because she is a
Speaker 1: beautiful writer. And I said to you, Amelia, now I's
Speaker 1: going to read it because she's a beautiful writer.
Speaker 4: But you said, well, because she's famous for writing people talking.
Speaker 4: She's a green writers. So I wanted to hear her
Speaker 4: say the words.
Speaker 1: And I do love listening to memoirs that are read
Speaker 1: by the TOFA.
Speaker 5: It's like listening to a really long podcast, and you
Speaker 5: can do it in chunks and you can sort of
Speaker 5: pace yourself with it.
Speaker 4: You feel like you're also gleaning a little bit of
Speaker 4: extra information from how they read certain.
Speaker 1: Sections on that. A friend asked me if she should listen,
Speaker 1: and I said, yes, but don't try to binge it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to binge it. I had to have breaks.
Speaker 1: Did you find that I pretty.
Speaker 2: Much binged it?
Speaker 5: I have to say I listened to it pretty solidly
Speaker 5: on a few long drives, and I just I was
Speaker 5: hungry for it. I read it cleaning and I read
Speaker 5: it packing, and I wanted to get there. I found
Speaker 5: it quite propulsive, like I was dying to get.
Speaker 4: It's one of those books that's so good that when
Speaker 4: you finish you feel a bit sad.
Speaker 1: I did feel a bit sad you warned me about that.
Speaker 3: I binged it up until we got to the part
Speaker 3: where she started talking about her addiction and she was
Speaker 3: in rehab. I found that I found that kind of
Speaker 3: like a sub story within the memoir, like it felt
Speaker 3: like it could be your own standalone piece. And I
Speaker 3: found that very hard to listen to because I think
Speaker 3: that was the time where I started learning about her
Speaker 3: when I was younger, and I remember, and I remember
Speaker 3: when it got leaked that she was in rehab, and
Speaker 3: just like listening to her thoughts and what was happening
Speaker 3: while she was in there just felt like I needed
Speaker 3: to give it space.
Speaker 1: It felt like to me. The book ended a number
Speaker 1: of times and then kept going, and I thought that
Speaker 1: was quite evocative of chronic illness and perhaps the cycle
Speaker 1: of fame. But what did you take away about her
Speaker 1: relationship with her parents?
Speaker 5: One of the things I thought, because so she's very,
Speaker 5: very close to her family, right, and she that's not
Speaker 5: a secret about her and her parents are They're kind
Speaker 5: of arty New Yorkers.
Speaker 2: Aren't they right?
Speaker 5: They weren't famous, but they were respected in their fields.
Speaker 5: And she grew up in Manhattan, a very atypical upbringing,
Speaker 5: really growing up in Manhattan and in Brooklyn and in
Speaker 5: this ARTI world and going to very liberal schools and everything.
Speaker 5: But I felt like her family saved her because at
Speaker 5: the beginning of the book she dedicates it to all
Speaker 5: the people who didn't survive fame, So everyone from Marilyn
Speaker 5: Monroe to Amy Winehouse to Peaches gelled Off to Liam Payne,
Speaker 5: all these people, famous people who died in various ways.
Speaker 5: And I kept thinking, I wonder how many of those
Speaker 5: didn't have the kind of family that can swoop in
Speaker 5: and pick you up every.
Speaker 2: Time you fall, which she did have.
Speaker 5: And it was you know, the number of times she
Speaker 5: would go back to her parents' place, stay there. They'd
Speaker 5: put her back together, they'd know her back to health,
Speaker 5: they'd send her back out into the world. They were
Speaker 5: always her first call when things went wrong. They always
Speaker 5: forgave it. They're kind of tough love in some ways,
Speaker 5: but not ever in a way that they might take
Speaker 5: it back, you know, retract their love for her, And
Speaker 5: I thought they were probably what saved her. To be honest,
Speaker 5: as much as the dynamic is relatively enmeshed and complicated,
Speaker 5: I think that so often when young people get completely lost.
Speaker 5: It's because they do not have that base. That's what
Speaker 5: I thought. I thought it was I think a love Love.
Speaker 5: Loved the part about her mom getting really pissed off
Speaker 5: with her daughter's fame.
Speaker 2: I thought it was so interesting, so well written, and
Speaker 2: so insightful.
Speaker 5: So because her mom was an artist, as I said,
Speaker 5: and had not really a level of fame, but a
Speaker 5: level of fame in the art world, and suddenly your
Speaker 5: daughter is this absolute lightning rod and journals are going
Speaker 5: to your shows to try and glean secrets and make judgments,
Speaker 5: and your Lena Dunham's mother instead of being yourself, And
Speaker 5: how annoying that would be. I could really relate to that.
Speaker 5: That would be so annoying. And I loved how honest
Speaker 5: she was about all that and about them coming back together.
Speaker 5: I thought she wrote about them with really clear eyes.
Speaker 3: She describes her parents as helicopter parents, but you could
Speaker 3: also tell with the way she talks about them that
Speaker 3: she was very much leaning into it and very much
Speaker 3: wanted that.
Speaker 1: That part where.
Speaker 3: She came out of one of her surgeries and she
Speaker 3: said she could have chosen to go home with Jack,
Speaker 3: who was there waiting for her and she chose to
Speaker 3: stay with a parent and would message him and say,
Speaker 3: I need one more day with my parents before I
Speaker 3: come home. It was like she would always use a
Speaker 3: parent as kind of a safety blanket.
Speaker 5: Does it arrest your development though? Does it stop you
Speaker 5: from growing up?
Speaker 4: I disagree with you. Oh yeah, I think it does.
Speaker 4: I think it's interesting to say it was clear eyed.
Speaker 4: I actually thought it was lacking in a willingness to
Speaker 4: question or interrogate the way she was brought up. It
Speaker 4: was like this was the best possible way it could
Speaker 4: be brought up. There were no trade offs, Like, yes,
Speaker 4: say her dad comes in swoops into rescue her when
Speaker 4: she gets a Q tip stuck in her ear, when
Speaker 4: she is literally making a show on HBO, Like that's
Speaker 4: probably one of the most adult tasks you could ever
Speaker 4: be given. And he's still coming in to get the
Speaker 4: Q tip out of her ear. And I just wondered
Speaker 4: at moments like that, where the questioning of that kind
Speaker 4: of ameshment and that slightly overbearing presence that did to her,
Speaker 4: whether it did arrest her development.
Speaker 1: I'll be harsher. I think she is a failure to launch.
Speaker 1: I think that she has this very infantilized role that
Speaker 1: she still plays with her parents. You know the fact
Speaker 1: that she's in an adult relationship with a man who
Speaker 1: she lives with. She has surgery, and she goes home
Speaker 1: to her parents constantly through the book, and I get
Speaker 1: that Jack was off and away, but sometimes he wasn't.
Speaker 1: And I went back and listened to the interview she
Speaker 1: did with The New York Times again after I'd read
Speaker 1: the book, and she says in that and I've heard
Speaker 1: her say it many times, my dad is my best friend.
Speaker 1: And I find that I've been really thinking about that.
Speaker 1: And I can think of two other women, famous women
Speaker 1: who say that, Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Kidman, and both
Speaker 1: of them have lost their fathers, but they said it
Speaker 1: very much when their fathers were alive, and they talk
Speaker 1: about being daddy's girls. And I think if a woman
Speaker 1: says that her dad is her best friend, it's not
Speaker 1: very adult. Because dads think their daughters are perfect. They
Speaker 1: have very unquestioning They don't make demands of their daughters
Speaker 1: on generalizing. But in the cases of you know, anyone
Speaker 1: that says their dad is their best friend, their dad
Speaker 1: thinks the moon and the stars of them now that
Speaker 1: is not an adult it's not an adult friendship, and
Speaker 1: it's certainly not a basis for a romantic relationship with
Speaker 1: a man.
Speaker 5: It's not what I would want. I mean when I
Speaker 5: say that I think it saved her. I don't mean
Speaker 5: to say that I think it was entirely positive and healthy.
Speaker 5: I just mean in terms of the context of fame, drugs,
Speaker 5: that world, having that saf nest, even whether that's a
Speaker 5: good thing or a bad thing to keep going back to,
Speaker 5: it is something that makes the difference so many times
Speaker 5: about how lost you can get.
Speaker 1: I think it saved her, but it also stunted.
Speaker 4: Her, and it also maybe led her down that path
Speaker 4: in some ways as well. Like I mean, I feel
Speaker 4: like it's interesting that you said that she said he
Speaker 4: her best friend. He would not say that she was
Speaker 4: his best friend. In fact, what came through to me
Speaker 4: was a curious asymmetry in that relationship. Remember when she
Speaker 4: first gets the girl's deal and he says something like
Speaker 4: is that a good thing? And it's like, come on,
Speaker 4: you know what's a good thing.
Speaker 5: I love that about them that they're always like unimpressed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not in a gas lighty mean way. It's just
Speaker 1: not their current.
Speaker 2: Their world.
Speaker 4: They I wonder if that relationship dynamic with her parents
Speaker 4: is one where when she does have a Q tip
Speaker 4: stuck in her ear, or when she is at rock bottom,
Speaker 4: they're very comfortable taking care of her, but they seem
Speaker 4: patently less comfortable when she's succeeding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, but like, what else are they meant to
Speaker 3: do if she gets.
Speaker 4: Maybe not say is that a good thing when she
Speaker 4: gets a TV deal? You don't have to be in
Speaker 4: that world to know that that's an impressive achievement.
Speaker 3: I reckon, No, I reckon, Like my dad would say
Speaker 3: the same thing.
Speaker 4: Individual relationships with so one of me. It struck me
Speaker 4: as an asymmetry and affection between her and her dad.
Speaker 5: But I think it's interesting because the other piece to
Speaker 5: this that's interesting about her mom. So you know, she
Speaker 5: obviously has that piece where she talks about their relationships
Speaker 5: had difficult times, but she also makes it very clear
Speaker 5: that from the minute she was walking and talking, her
Speaker 5: mom was telling everyone how great she was, Like when
Speaker 5: she said her teachers were was a drama teacher or
Speaker 5: something who was like criticizing Lena, and her mum was
Speaker 5: always in her court. I say, well, clearly there's something
Speaker 5: wrong with you.
Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, but that's because she's her creation.
Speaker 4: Like when she's a kid in drama class and the
Speaker 4: drama teacher doesn't recognize Lena's like obvious genius. That's a
Speaker 4: reflection on Laurie Simmons. I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 4: criticize them as people. I'm just finding what's interesting is
Speaker 4: that she doesn't ever reckon or grapple with any of
Speaker 4: these questions around to what extent was it helpful that
Speaker 4: they were so homesh amesh Why did she go home
Speaker 4: with her parents instead of her boyfriend. I just thought,
Speaker 4: for someone who's so unguarded and so frank in talking
Speaker 4: about sex, talking about other relationships, this is one area
Speaker 4: where she doesn't want to delve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I found what was also missing for me
Speaker 1: is that phase in life where you go from thinking
Speaker 1: your parents are your heroes and they're perfect, to becoming
Speaker 1: aware that they're very human, and then as you get older,
Speaker 1: feeling a level of responsibility for them. And maybe it's
Speaker 1: just that she's younger than and I don't even mean
Speaker 1: that they're getting sick, but she's like a lack of
Speaker 1: sort of protection she's always she's quite babyish with them,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting her she had a sibling who transitioned
Speaker 1: and that was really interesting too. She had to be
Speaker 1: very careful how she talked about that and the big
Speaker 1: falling out that they had over something that she wrote
Speaker 1: in her first memoir, and how they really detached themselves
Speaker 1: from her her brother over this time.
Speaker 4: I sensed every word she wrote about Cyrus her brother
Speaker 4: was agon. I think that relationship has been through the wars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I think that's clear right. She talks in
Speaker 5: the book about how much her brother's respect is all
Speaker 5: she wants. A lot of her relationships have all been
Speaker 5: about that, and I find I think it's interesting too
Speaker 5: to think that she did move to London so well
Speaker 5: as a mister she is with her family.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 5: She actually did when she was finally getting through this
Speaker 5: incredibly because she was so young when all this happened.
Speaker 5: She still was a kid, you know, And I think
Speaker 5: that in a way, the fact that she actually did
Speaker 5: remove herself from that family probably tells you a lot.
Speaker 5: It's so interesting memoir, how you there are some things
Speaker 5: in here that you think, as a parent, you'd be
Speaker 5: devastated to read, but you also know that broadly speaking,
Speaker 5: she's not going to throw them under any boses.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Jack and Jenny. Oh so good, Amelia
Speaker 1: in my Roman Empire hat for a long time has
Speaker 1: been the fallout of Jenny Connor and Lena Dunham's relationship,
Speaker 1: and it's always pained us deeply that we would never
Speaker 1: know why, because it seemed like there were a lot
Speaker 1: of NDAs and they just seem like they never talk
Speaker 1: about it, And here we are, Amelia or not to.
Speaker 4: Explain, I got to get your So we've already disagreed
Speaker 4: about this because to me, she hates Jenny, and Jenny
Speaker 4: comes across as a gool.
Speaker 1: But wait, you need to take people on the journey
Speaker 1: of who is Jenny Connor?
Speaker 4: Who is Jenny Connor? So she What I didn't realize
Speaker 4: is that Jenny Connor came from a Hollywood family. Her
Speaker 4: father wrote for the Sopranos, Her uncle lived next door
Speaker 4: to Lena's family, which I thought was a crazy coincidence.
Speaker 4: And basically jud Apatow was close with Jenny, and when
Speaker 4: Tiny Furniture came out, jud was like, you're really talented
Speaker 4: and essentially broken a relationship between Jenny and Lena.
Speaker 1: Because HBO gave her this deal. She was an executives,
Speaker 1: a director, writer, star, but she'd never done anything before really,
Speaker 1: and so they needed she needed a chaperone, essentially, and
Speaker 1: Jenny had executive produced on other shows and had more
Speaker 1: experience and was a lot older, So she was about
Speaker 1: thirty eight and Lena was twenty four when they met,
Speaker 1: and Lena chose her. So she interviewed a number of
Speaker 1: potential creative partners and she chose Jenny.
Speaker 4: Jenny was giving Cheryl Samberg and Kellless People to me.
Speaker 4: Has anyone read Kellless People, Sarah Wynn William's book about
Speaker 4: working at Facebook. There's this kind of, I'm going to
Speaker 4: say it, a bit of a gen X woman vibe here,
Speaker 4: like there's no boundaries. There's a sort of like ambition
Speaker 4: and unbridled ambition. But maybe that's why I didn't. I
Speaker 4: came through thinking I was fully on Lina's side, but
Speaker 4: you were a bit more.
Speaker 2: Oh, I on Jenny's version of this?
Speaker 4: What did you think?
Speaker 1: I feel like I could tell Jenny's version of its fame, So,
Speaker 1: em if you can explain how the relationship was depicted
Speaker 1: from Lina's point of view for people who perhaps haven't
Speaker 1: read the book.
Speaker 3: So I remember when I learned about this relationship, and
Speaker 3: very much the headlines were Lina Jenny best friends, worked
Speaker 3: on girls together, and then they broke up and had
Speaker 3: a falling out, and everyone was just like, oh, it's
Speaker 3: because friends should never work on a show together. After
Speaker 3: reading this, I didn't realize how much of Jenny's life
Speaker 3: was embedded in Lina's. And reading this I kind of
Speaker 3: felt a bit cringed towards Lina because it seemed like
Speaker 3: Lina saw Jenny as her very, very best friend in
Speaker 3: the whole world, and she thought that Jenny was someone
Speaker 3: that should be across every inch of Lina's life, and
Speaker 3: Jenny was very much like, I have my own life,
Speaker 3: you're only a tiny part of it, which is the
Speaker 3: work part of my life. And Lina didn't get that well.
Speaker 1: I think that no, I don't think she was that
Speaker 1: at start. I think that it was a fast and
Speaker 1: furious friendship. It was very intimate. They both sort of
Speaker 1: accelerated to this level of intimacy where they were having
Speaker 1: sleepovers at each other's house and giving each other these
Speaker 1: gifts that were like engraved and like almost a love affair,
Speaker 1: and Holly and I concerned how we roll. We can
Speaker 1: certainly attest for that might seem really weird to people,
Speaker 1: the enmeshment, but when you work in an intense environment
Speaker 1: around well, it's like a form of women's media essentially,
Speaker 1: it can.
Speaker 5: Be that totally could see how it can see that too.
Speaker 5: I could see how, and I am sure that it
Speaker 5: was in many ways when times were good, that was
Speaker 5: an even It felt at least like an even thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Lena.
Speaker 5: The simplistic way of looking at it, right is Lena
Speaker 5: was the creative genius and Jenny was brought in to
Speaker 5: be the business babysitter. Right, so HBO had to deliver
Speaker 5: how to get their pound of flesh. Jenny knew how
Speaker 5: to do that, knew how to run a show. But
Speaker 5: Lena was obviously the creative genius who had made this
Speaker 5: amazing movie in their life. So that was the dynamic.
Speaker 5: And then if that gets stirred into this very intense
Speaker 5: friendship living in each other's pockets all the time, how
Speaker 5: is that not going to blow up at some point?
Speaker 2: How is that not?
Speaker 5: Because what I kept thinking, I mean, I found it
Speaker 5: really interesting and I could see how hurtful. It was
Speaker 5: when the business side of Jenny reared up and shocked Lena,
Speaker 5: like when she tells her to put weight on in
Speaker 5: the first season of.
Speaker 4: Girls, put food in your mouth.
Speaker 5: Just put food in your mouth, because that was really interesting.
Speaker 5: How they were saying, your body isn't interesting if it's skinny,
Speaker 5: like this show doesn't work if you're hot, is basically
Speaker 5: what they were saying. So get fatter so that this
Speaker 5: show becomes edgy again.
Speaker 2: Eat some food.
Speaker 5: I can see how much that must have That would
Speaker 5: have been devastating for Lena, for her bestie to suddenly
Speaker 5: rear up with the business brain, but also inevitable. How
Speaker 5: could it have gone any other way? And to be honest,
Speaker 5: by the time it all falls apart. I can't remember
Speaker 5: exactly what was happening in Lena's life, but there's a
Speaker 5: moment when Lena calls Jenny. I think she might have
Speaker 5: been recovering from a surgery or going through her pill withdrawal,
Speaker 5: and Jenny says to her, and Lena describes it very clearly,
Speaker 5: very kindly, very firmly, this is too much for me.
Speaker 5: You need you need to talk to a professional. I
Speaker 5: can't handle this.
Speaker 2: I have a life.
Speaker 1: That to me was the.
Speaker 5: Kindest, just boundary, Like what else was she supposed to
Speaker 5: She would have by that time spent a decade being
Speaker 5: on the end of the phone for every one of
Speaker 5: Lena's dramas, and Lena's dramas are relentles.
Speaker 4: Okay, I hear you on that, But as a counter argument,
Speaker 4: Jenny was the one. You can't have it both ways.
Speaker 4: You can't say this is just purely a professional arrange.
Speaker 2: No, no, I don't think, she said.
Speaker 4: When it comes to the pay issue, she insists that
Speaker 4: they go in there together, like, I agree with you,
Speaker 4: and then Lina ends up having to take a pay cut,
Speaker 4: presumably because Jenny's.
Speaker 1: Like, but we're best buddies, we're best mates, Like you
Speaker 1: just can't have.
Speaker 2: It both I agree it was toxic.
Speaker 5: I think the whole situation was toxic, but I'm sure
Speaker 5: the manipulated each because that is shocking. By the end,
Speaker 5: when Jenny insists on pay parody with Lena, it is
Speaker 5: really shocking.
Speaker 1: And the scenior described whole because I was really struck
Speaker 1: by that too, Because things kept happening to Lena, either
Speaker 1: illnesses or she'd slip and she'd break her elbow, and
Speaker 1: I could really relate to the key man pressure of
Speaker 1: Lena Dunham of being the star of this show but
Speaker 1: also the writer and just being the person essentially responsible.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jenny could have left, but Lena couldn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Like if Jenny got sick, the show could go on,
Speaker 1: but with Lena it couldn't. And there were hundreds of
Speaker 1: people whose livelihoods depended on her being on set. And
Speaker 1: you know, if a show goes even a couple of
Speaker 1: hours over a time lit alone days or weeks because
Speaker 1: the star is unwell and the writer can be ruinous
Speaker 1: for budgets, because a show is a business. And so
Speaker 1: Lena wanted a mother. She wanted Jenny to be her parents,
Speaker 1: like her parents, but Jenny had to also be the
Speaker 1: designated driver of that show and keep the train on
Speaker 1: the tracks. And in the scene you describe hole, she
Speaker 1: was recovering from another surgery and she was having very
Speaker 1: sort of a post traumatic response and remembering sexual assault
Speaker 1: that she'd experienced by her babysitter and comparing it to
Speaker 1: how she felt now, and all of that was really
Speaker 1: really valid, But she was screaming down the phone at Jenny.
Speaker 1: No one protected me, then no one's protecting me now.
Speaker 1: And Jenny is like, as I said, I completely empathize
Speaker 1: with Jenny, which is this is too much for me. Lena,
Speaker 1: you have to speak to a therapist. Did you empathize
Speaker 1: with Jenny in that moment?
Speaker 4: I think I'm sort of playing a part here on
Speaker 4: behalf of millennials. I think she is an exhausting presence,
Speaker 4: and she knows that about herself too. She is very
Speaker 4: open about that. One interesting chapter we should touch on
Speaker 4: relates to the letter that Jenny and Lena put.
Speaker 1: Out, The Big Bad. Yeah, the Big Bad.
Speaker 4: So basically what happened was Lena was on day one
Speaker 4: recovering from her hysterectomy at home at her parents' house,
Speaker 4: and Jenny comes over, and the net result of what
Speaker 4: happens in that meeting is that the two of them
Speaker 4: release a joint statement saying that a professional associate of
Speaker 4: theirs named Murray.
Speaker 1: Miller, one of the writers on one of.
Speaker 4: The writers on Girls, was not guilty of an allegation
Speaker 4: that had been put forward that he had sexually assaulted someone.
Speaker 4: He denied the claims. They backed him up on that
Speaker 4: denial and said, essentially, mostly we should listen to women
Speaker 4: except when we know the man involved. It was devastating
Speaker 4: for both her brand. I'm sure it was also devastating
Speaker 4: in a personal sense, but that went to the heart
Speaker 4: of her brand because to say we believe all women
Speaker 4: except when we know the man that was so bad undercuts.
Speaker 1: Years of work. What do you think am about how
Speaker 1: she spoke about that in the book, Well.
Speaker 3: She spoke about it away where she was still going
Speaker 3: through and I think that was also time where her
Speaker 3: relationship with Jenny was still a bit fraught. So when
Speaker 3: she talked about doing the letter, it did sound like
Speaker 3: it was like a business deal that they were doing
Speaker 3: it together, not as like friends getting together to do it.
Speaker 3: But the way she talked about how Jenny's reaction to
Speaker 3: the outcry from the letter and how she was absolutely
Speaker 3: beside herself and crying was kind of interesting because it
Speaker 3: was during that time where people started to not like
Speaker 3: Lena Dunham as we were mentioning before and Lena only
Speaker 3: talked I felt like and Lena was only talking about
Speaker 3: Jenny in that moment. Because Lena has apologized for this
Speaker 3: publicly and she says that it is one thing that
Speaker 3: she shouldn't have done. But it was really interesting to
Speaker 3: see also Jenny for the first time getting that backlash.
Speaker 3: That's something that Lena had been going through here, and
Speaker 3: she's experiencing it.
Speaker 5: Because part of the pressure on Lena. Also to your
Speaker 5: point about Keyman Maya, is that every miss in Inverted Commas,
Speaker 5: every misstep, every issue, she cops it. She's the famous
Speaker 5: person and she's the one with the following and she's
Speaker 5: so they can publish Lenny and Mia.
Speaker 2: Would relate to this very strongly.
Speaker 5: They can publish Lenny letters about all kinds of things,
Speaker 5: and if it's a bit on the nose, it's not
Speaker 5: Jenny who's getting their reputational drag, it's Lena. So that
Speaker 5: relationship was always going to be so uneven, so complicated,
Speaker 5: so devastating. It's really at the end of that when
Speaker 5: they sort of break up in a therapist's office and
Speaker 5: then walk away on.
Speaker 1: Seven seven minutes into a joint therapy.
Speaker 5: And they never see each other again, is wild.
Speaker 1: What do you think Jenny does now? You think her
Speaker 1: career is ruined, But it's a little tangent. She was
Speaker 1: brought in to do a similar thing on Nobody Wants
Speaker 1: This in season two because in season one. It was
Speaker 1: a similar situation with a creator writer, first time TV
Speaker 1: show run. And even though season one of Nobody Wants
Speaker 1: This was phenomenal was very well received, behind the scenes
Speaker 1: apparently it was chaos. So the network was like, we
Speaker 1: want season two, but you need a babysitter. So Jenny
Speaker 1: was brought in in the same capacity, and interestingly, season
Speaker 1: two wasn't very good.
Speaker 2: It was really bad. It was really bad.
Speaker 5: It Also, I didn't know what Jenny was doing anymore,
Speaker 5: so when I was reading the book, she was like
Speaker 5: a fictional character to me, and I was like, I
Speaker 5: just hope she's like taken all the money and she
Speaker 5: just lies on an island taking ayahuasca or something like.
Speaker 5: I just wanted her to like not have to deal
Speaker 5: with any more drama.
Speaker 1: What about Jack jack Antonov, who is famous, Well, I
Speaker 1: first got to know him when he started dating Lena.
Speaker 1: That was before I was very into I got to
Speaker 1: know him as a as a person we're best Subsequently,
Speaker 1: that was before I was really into Taylor Swift, and
Speaker 1: so I subsequently understood the role that he played as
Speaker 1: a musician and a collaborative creative partner of Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: for many many years and many other artists as well.
Speaker 1: She talks about how they were very much the cool kids,
Speaker 1: the kind of cool indie kids. He's got this very
Speaker 1: nerdy sort of image, but he's like.
Speaker 4: He dated scholleto Hudson in high school.
Speaker 1: So you have to take that with a grain of salt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and tell me how you think he was sort of
Speaker 1: portrayed in the book And what did you take away
Speaker 1: about their relationship. Is it what you thought it was
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: He was like guy in Fun. Like I remember the
Speaker 3: band Fun because it was huge when I was younger,
Speaker 3: and then they had like one big song and then
Speaker 3: they kind of disappeared.
Speaker 1: We are young?
Speaker 3: Were you we are?
Speaker 2: It's terrible. Yeah, everybody's just turned off.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I like that, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: So I remember him because he was like the guy
Speaker 3: in the white shirt playing the guitar, wearing the glasses.
Speaker 3: And then it came out that he was one who
Speaker 3: was writing all the songs. And when she describes their relationship,
Speaker 3: it does seem like a relationship that she needed to
Speaker 3: kind of like for a valid for validation, which I
Speaker 3: think she has spoken about in the past. She wanted
Speaker 3: that validation because every time she described him, especially when
Speaker 3: they were out in public, it was always through the
Speaker 3: eyes of another girl, Like it was always through the
Speaker 3: supermodels were like talking to him, Like whenever he stopped
Speaker 3: filming for his music videos, the girls were looking at
Speaker 3: him from the crowd, and even towards the end, when
Speaker 3: she starts talking about the breakup and what that meant
Speaker 3: to her, when she speaks about Margaret Qualley as like
Speaker 3: the girl known for the big laugh.
Speaker 1: She doesn't mention her by name.
Speaker 3: She just describes her laugh and saying she's likening for
Speaker 3: having a quirky laugh and how like her. One thing
Speaker 3: she wishes is that they hope that she's not jealous
Speaker 3: of their relationship. It just seems to me that she
Speaker 3: just wanted that relationship to feel that validation, and because
Speaker 3: she got the hot guy, she was able to be like, yes,
Speaker 3: this is like such a.
Speaker 4: Good point because remember they were breaking up. The thing
Speaker 4: that she's most worried about is not like I might
Speaker 4: lose the love of my life. It's but people thought
Speaker 4: that I was okay because I was with him and
Speaker 4: because he chose me. And what's it going to mean
Speaker 4: when he's no longer choosing me.
Speaker 5: I feel like I owe him an apology because when
Speaker 5: we talked about this book before we'd read the book
Speaker 5: we did, we talked about it the Lord Power Corlis gossip.
Speaker 5: We talked about the Lord PowerPoint and the part that
Speaker 5: had been leaked from the book about how Lena, you know,
Speaker 5: the teenage pop star, was in the other room and
Speaker 5: it gave much sleasier vibes than it did when you
Speaker 5: actually in context.
Speaker 2: I think he actually comes out of it pretty well.
Speaker 2: I'm going to.
Speaker 5: Say, I think it seemed to me like a relationship.
Speaker 5: It was longer than it should have been, so much
Speaker 5: longer than it should have been. Both got what they
Speaker 5: needed out of it, to a point in that she
Speaker 5: had been in all the the awful relationships where she'd
Speaker 5: been literally, quite literally abused by dodgy.
Speaker 2: Guys, and he was a good guy.
Speaker 5: And she talks a lot about how he was very
Speaker 5: invested in seeing himself as a good guy too, but
Speaker 5: that also worked for her. They were the hot thing
Speaker 5: around town. It seemed very genuine best friends, but that
Speaker 5: it really overran its course. Would I don't imagine how
Speaker 5: difficult it would have been to be in a relationship
Speaker 5: with her for no fault of her own. But she's
Speaker 5: always sick, she's always in hospital, she's always working like
Speaker 5: that would have been a tough gig.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that I really appreciated the clear
Speaker 1: eyed way she described the relationship throughout the book in
Speaker 1: terms of her culpability is a strong word, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't he was a dirty dog. Like At one point
Speaker 1: she echoes exactly what you say, which is yet another
Speaker 1: reason why you should always write from a scar, not
Speaker 1: a wound. She says, we should have just broken up,
Speaker 1: but we were acting as though we had six kids
Speaker 1: and would lose all custody of them to the state
Speaker 1: if we broke up like that. There were these stakes
Speaker 1: that there were, she said, we had no dependents. And
Speaker 1: I thought that he wouldn't end the relationship when it
Speaker 1: should have ended, because she was always in a crisis.
Speaker 1: And I think that probably the reason that it could
Speaker 1: last is that he did have to travel so much.
Speaker 1: He was always on tour.
Speaker 2: That's why I was going.
Speaker 3: Because it felt like they just didn't see each other
Speaker 3: that often. Yeah, so they were living together, but they
Speaker 3: really were.
Speaker 5: I think that's famous people Like one of my favorite
Speaker 5: scenes that I will always carry from this book is
Speaker 5: they've broken up and she's in London, and she's supposedly
Speaker 5: okay now, but she's at a party with Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 1: So this is so.
Speaker 2: She had just I think maybe after she'd set herself
Speaker 2: on fire or something.
Speaker 5: Anyway, she and Jack had just started talking again or something.
Speaker 5: But anyway, she knows that Jack knows Bruce Springsteen, and
Speaker 5: Bruce Springsteen leans across to her and says, you know,
Speaker 5: Jack's become a very important person to me, we really,
Speaker 5: you know, and Lean just goes off, well, I'm glad
Speaker 5: he's nice to you. I'm glad he's a very important
Speaker 5: person to you. Actually he's abuse of shit, who remember,
Speaker 5: And you're just like, oh my god. And I think
Speaker 5: Bruce says something really wise and really.
Speaker 4: What it was, I don't but but I love that
Speaker 4: scene too. But you know what's unsaid and very interesting
Speaker 4: about that scene. She has a very good friend who
Speaker 4: was not mentioned in the book apart from in the acknowledgments,
Speaker 4: who was also very close to Jack Antonoff. I speak
Speaker 4: of Taylor Swift. So clearly, Bruce Springsteen was not the
Speaker 4: first mega famous person that she encountered in her life,
Speaker 4: who was very close with her exploit.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a single mention of Taylor. No, why is that, Amelia.
Speaker 4: I guess she probably just told her I don't want
Speaker 4: you to mention me, right, I.
Speaker 1: Think it's just unspoken, particularly after the Black Lively shit.
Speaker 1: You do not like first rule of Bean Taylor Swift's friend.
Speaker 1: You don't talk about Bean Taylor Swift's friend.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 5: I think jack Antonoff has done well out of this though,
Speaker 5: because I was thinking about so. He's on a press
Speaker 5: tour of his own at the moment, because he's got
Speaker 5: a new album out with the band Bleachers, who I
Speaker 5: had never listened to, but now that I've gone down
Speaker 5: that rabbit hole from this, I've started listening to and
Speaker 5: they're amazing. So I'm like, well done. Jackie's got new
Speaker 5: fans from Lena's book. But also he has not mentioned
Speaker 5: her once. I listened to an hour and a half
Speaker 5: with him and Dak Shepard last week. Lena's name does
Speaker 5: not come up, not in a mean way or anything,
Speaker 5: but it's very classically not going.
Speaker 4: And he must have said to them before that interview,
Speaker 4: don't bring her up. Mia, you said something really interesting
Speaker 4: about we were talking about the fact that she does
Speaker 4: not hold back from criticizing Journey, but she does hold
Speaker 4: back from criticizing Jack, and you had a theory as
Speaker 4: to why.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was.
Speaker 4: The theory was that she's already worked all of that
Speaker 4: out in her TV show.
Speaker 1: Oh of course, So yes, she had her revenge on
Speaker 1: Jack when she made too much the Megan Stalter which
Speaker 1: was a little bit patchy, but thought it was very
Speaker 1: well written. But there's one sort of bottle episode that
Speaker 1: goes back in time and looks at the start of
Speaker 1: her relationship sorry Megan Stalter, who's a bit of a
Speaker 1: stand in for and the relationship with her boyfriend, and
Speaker 1: then he starts dating this much younger woman. And the
Speaker 1: actor she chose to play this version of Jack looked
Speaker 1: a lot like him, and.
Speaker 4: Emily Rattakowski looks not.
Speaker 1: Unlike Megan qually, and she basically made it seem like
Speaker 1: he was a gas lighting toxic. All these awful things
Speaker 1: we haven't touched on. Adam Driver and someone else that
Speaker 1: she is not completely unflinching about, but is not judgmental.
Speaker 1: Over there's been a lot of I thought this might
Speaker 1: end up blowing up, but it hasn't. He's another person
Speaker 1: that hasn't discussed it at all, but she talks about
Speaker 1: he of course played the character of Adam, who is
Speaker 1: Hannah's love interest on the show over all the seasons,
Speaker 1: and she said he was only meant to be there
Speaker 1: for like you know, it was going to be like
Speaker 1: Sex and the City and he was going to be
Speaker 1: boyfriend of the week kind of thing, but that he
Speaker 1: was so good and she discovered him as you reminded me, Ameilia.
Speaker 1: He's now in Star Wars and huge, massive style, and
Speaker 1: she said he's stuck it out. Even though he got
Speaker 1: so famous, he honored his commitment to the character and
Speaker 1: to the show and was part of it for all
Speaker 1: six or seven seasons. And she does talk about his
Speaker 1: volatility though, and on set at one point he threw
Speaker 1: a chair it missed her, but she was protective of
Speaker 1: him in interviews because of course a lot of interviewers
Speaker 1: have asked about that, trying to get her to diss him,
Speaker 1: and she said, look, I just have to say we
Speaker 1: were very different. We had very different approaches to our art,
Speaker 1: and Adam did honor the show and his character, and
Speaker 1: I needed to be very close and he needed a
Speaker 1: lot of space, and he had very good aim, and
Speaker 1: the chair did not hurt me. And what did you
Speaker 1: think about that whole Because some of my friends who've
Speaker 1: read the book have been like, oh, she's still protecting him.
Speaker 5: This is what I liked about the book because like,
Speaker 5: we have all these complicated relationships, particularly at that age,
Speaker 5: with the kind of world that they're in, that yeah,
Speaker 5: he behaved really badly, but she was not about she
Speaker 5: was crossing boundaries all the time too. There would have
Speaker 5: been no boundaries on that.
Speaker 2: Sete best friends in the cast.
Speaker 5: Her and Adam are obviously sort of having the bit
Speaker 5: of a dance with their sexual tension. The only reason
Speaker 5: they don't consummate that is actually because she decides not to.
Speaker 5: She doesn't answer the door on that night that he
Speaker 5: comes calling. And I think it was obviously very complicated.
Speaker 5: I don't think she wanted to annihilate his reputation. But
Speaker 5: it's interesting that she kept the chair throwing in because again,
Speaker 5: like the jack anentered off Lord thing, taken straight from
Speaker 5: the pages you just read that, you're like, what, yeah,
Speaker 5: terrible human. But I have seen a bit of commentary
Speaker 5: that's like he should mention her and give her credit
Speaker 5: for his career in every interview he does because she
Speaker 5: discovered him, to your point, and he doesn't. But then,
Speaker 5: to be honest, he's not that guy like he doesn't.
Speaker 5: He talks about almost nothing except the art.
Speaker 3: Everyone's talking about the chair. That wasn't even the worst
Speaker 3: thing in the book for me. It was remember when
Speaker 3: she was talking about that sex scene where she was like,
Speaker 3: there was before we had intimacy coordinators, so she because
Speaker 3: of the director, she had to tell everyone what to do,
Speaker 3: and she was describing the sex scene that she was
Speaker 3: having with him, and she's like, you do this, and
Speaker 3: then you flip me, and then you do this, and
Speaker 3: then you and then it's over, and then.
Speaker 2: He kind of took creative direction. That's true.
Speaker 3: I'm like, that would have been such a scary thing
Speaker 3: to go through, especially being the first time naked on
Speaker 3: camera as a young woman. And she explained how at
Speaker 3: the end she was just so shell shocked that the
Speaker 3: only reassurance she had was the crew just started laughing
Speaker 3: and were like, that's great, and she just had no way.
Speaker 3: She completely blanked from that moment, had no idea what
Speaker 3: had happened because she wasn't expecting it at all.
Speaker 4: But I think, Holly, one thing you just said, I
Speaker 4: really want to draw out where you said. She just
Speaker 4: allows for complexity. It's why she's such a like enduring artist.
Speaker 4: Because the thing that happened with Adam last time she
Speaker 4: saw Adam was when he kissed her on the cheek
Speaker 4: and said I'll always love you, and then they never
Speaker 4: saw each other again.
Speaker 1: On the last day, I fielm me, Yeah.
Speaker 4: It gave me goosebumps because it's just like you do
Speaker 4: have these like confusing relationships where if you put it
Speaker 4: all down on paper, it might look one way, but
Speaker 4: then you feel like for different ways. Sometimes you feel up,
Speaker 4: sometimes you feel down. And I love that she is
Speaker 4: in a culture where we always want to reduce everything
Speaker 4: to a label, like Adam is a complicated figure and
Speaker 4: I just think that's why she's so fascinating, because she
Speaker 4: doesn't try and label things.
Speaker 1: I just want to end by talking about chronic illness.
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew she'd written and spoken about having endometriosis.
Speaker 1: She's written beautifully about her hysterectomy and her decision to
Speaker 1: do that despite really wanting to have children. I learned
Speaker 1: other things about how she tried to harvest her eggs
Speaker 1: after the hystoricctomy because she still had ovaries left, and
Speaker 1: she's since been diagnosed with this complex autoimmune condition which
Speaker 1: is lifelong and there is no cure for I found
Speaker 1: her depiction of chronic illness, and it's such a good title,
Speaker 1: famesick to be really helpful in the sense that it
Speaker 1: was exhausting, and I found myself rolling that and going, oh,
Speaker 1: not again, and then I kept saying, well that imagine
Speaker 1: being her, like that is chronic illness for you. There's
Speaker 1: no tying it up in a bow. And then I
Speaker 1: was fixed because I found that drumbeat of relentless illness
Speaker 1: throughout it to be really the foundation of the whole book, and.
Speaker 5: Then just incredible that she achieved so much and was
Speaker 5: working through so hard through all of that. Whether that
Speaker 5: should be incredible or not, I guess she would probably
Speaker 5: argue with that, but also what was really and I
Speaker 5: think a lot of people who live with chronic illness
Speaker 5: or have loved ones to do would recognize this, even
Speaker 5: though on a very different scale. Because one of the
Speaker 5: things I also loved about this book is just the
Speaker 5: sort of pervy factor of seeing the lives of the
Speaker 5: rich and famous, because that's amazing. She has a specialist
Speaker 5: doctor in every city. She has a psychopharmacologist, which is
Speaker 5: a name I'd never even heard before. She has a
Speaker 5: million different healers and treats and all these things, and
Speaker 5: yet she couldn't get a diagnosis, she couldn't get reliable treatment.
Speaker 5: It actually took an email from like a sort of
Speaker 5: second removed friend of a trend a fan who is like,
Speaker 5: I think you might actually have what I've got, and
Speaker 5: which is called Ella's dane Los syndrome EDS, and it's
Speaker 5: very rare, but all of Lena's public facing symptoms seemed
Speaker 5: to point to this. So it actually took an email
Speaker 5: from a stranger to give her some of the answers,
Speaker 5: the fact that she wasn't being taken seriously by medical doctors,
Speaker 5: despite all the money, despite all the status, and the
Speaker 5: little things like she has one of her procedures, but
Speaker 5: she's still working at there at the Sunset Tower, her
Speaker 5: and Jack, and she has to wrap her middle in
Speaker 5: cling wrap, and so it gets delivered.
Speaker 2: By room service on a silver train.
Speaker 5: It's just like this very bizarre world where you've got
Speaker 5: everything but your body is still betraying.
Speaker 1: Chop it out to hire a plane or something.
Speaker 2: And then poor old Jack. It's like I just wanted
Speaker 2: Ald and it's just I don't know.
Speaker 5: I found that's all so beautifully depicted and what I wanted.
Speaker 5: And I don't know if this is true or not,
Speaker 5: but what I wanted for her at the end of
Speaker 5: the memoir is a happy not ending, but a happy
Speaker 5: resting point. And I feel like you kind of get
Speaker 5: it London, the new husband, the acceptance of her sick
Speaker 5: body and what it can do and what it can't,
Speaker 5: and I felt like she's happy.
Speaker 2: Did we think that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think like I would like a part two memoir.
Speaker 5: I reckon you'll get it in another Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like for a memoir to
Speaker 1: be good, there has to be complexity and challenges and
Speaker 1: complications and triumphinger over tragedy and hardships. And I feel
Speaker 1: like the tumultuous nature of the last sort of fifteen
Speaker 1: years of her life, I don't know if that's going
Speaker 1: to be repeated, and you wouldn't want that to be repeated.
Speaker 1: She seems very content with her musician husband and living
Speaker 1: in the UK, having escaped the Lena Dunham of it all,
Speaker 1: and she says that if she got to a point
Speaker 1: where her own name was even irritating her because it
Speaker 1: was just symbolic for millennial entitenment or all different kinds
Speaker 1: of things, people had projected so much onto it. So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt very satisfied at the end.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm glad that she felt able to be so
Speaker 4: honest with us all after being through so much shit
Speaker 4: and having so many people assume the worst of her.
Speaker 4: I'm just grateful that she put it all down.
Speaker 1: So loud as We very much recommend this book, whether
Speaker 1: Elena found or not, whether you don't even know who
Speaker 1: she is. And I've gone back and started watching Girls
Speaker 1: again because I realized, is it good? I'm loving it
Speaker 1: in the midst of all the drama, because like I
Speaker 1: also just got irritated by the whole leanness of it,
Speaker 1: and I stopped watching the show, did you? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: I barely even realized that I'd stopped watching it. But
Speaker 1: I've gone back from about season three and I caught
Speaker 1: the odd episode, but a lot of the episodes I missed,
Speaker 1: And so I've got three seasons to watch it. And
Speaker 1: my god, she is brilliant, not just as an actor,
Speaker 1: but as a creator, a writer. It's phenomenal. So out
Speaker 1: loud as if there's another book that you would like
Speaker 1: us to discuss, or perhaps a particular TV show that's
Speaker 1: in the zeitgeist that all I want to do after
Speaker 1: I watch something or read something or listen to an
Speaker 1: audiobook is to listen to people talk about it, and
Speaker 1: we'd like to be those people for you. So there's
Speaker 1: a link in the show notes you can email us
Speaker 1: your suggestions at at loud at mamamea dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: Mammamea acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which
Speaker 1: we have recorded this podcast.