Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl.
Speaker 2: Welcome to I Choose Me, the podcast about making choices,
Speaker 2: even when they're hard, sometimes dangerous, or even necessary to
Speaker 2: keep you safe. Today I'm talking to a compelling novelist
Speaker 2: whose stories navigate the consequences of choices people make, sometimes
Speaker 2: mysterious and dire, many times for love. Laura Dave has
Speaker 2: written a handful of incredible books, but her most recent
Speaker 2: The Last Thing He Told Me, and it's sequel The
Speaker 2: First time I saw him have taken the world by storm.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to welcome Laura Dave.
Speaker 1: Hi, how are you good.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to meet you. I'm such a longtime fan.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, thank you.
Speaker 3: I actually have your memoir and yes, and I unpacked
Speaker 3: my library. We just moved home and I was trying
Speaker 3: to find it to show you because I loved it.
Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wait, I heard this this crazy thing happened to you,
Speaker 2: because I've been hearing it a lot that you had
Speaker 2: an experience with a podcast scammer.
Speaker 1: Yes, what the heck happened?
Speaker 3: So someone reached out and said that they worked with
Speaker 3: you and that they wanted to you want to have
Speaker 3: me on the podcast, and so I was so excited,
Speaker 3: and then they did a check with me, like like
Speaker 3: they tech check, and when they got on, I referred
Speaker 3: to a couple of specific things that you have said
Speaker 3: like on shows like that I was such a big fan.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I can't. I thought it was your like
Speaker 3: your manager, your and his response, he like wasn't nice
Speaker 3: in response. So that was like my first red flag,
Speaker 3: Like he didn't say, like, you know, someone would say like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's so nice to hear that you like that episode,
Speaker 3: or that you love this in her book or whatever.
Speaker 3: There was none of that. And then I couldn't, because
Speaker 3: I'm me and a luddite, figure out how to work
Speaker 3: my Apple password. He was like trying to get into
Speaker 3: my Apple.
Speaker 1: Account, Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And he's like, because I have to be able to
Speaker 3: do something with a live with with with Jenny, and
Speaker 3: and I couldn't do it, and he got progressively angrier.
Speaker 3: And so then we got off the phone and Liz,
Speaker 3: who I work with, I had texted her, I'm like,
Speaker 3: something feels really off about this, and then she got
Speaker 3: on and she's like, we'll be handling this from here
Speaker 3: on out. And then she texted me later and was like,
Speaker 3: it's a scammer.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Okay, first of all, I'm so sorry that that happened
Speaker 2: to you. I feel like it's my fault, but it's not. Honestly,
Speaker 2: it just sucks that it's like because I think that
Speaker 2: happens to a lot of podcasts unfortunately, but I keep
Speaker 2: hearing about it from my listeners and it just makes
Speaker 2: me feel so terrible and also.
Speaker 1: What a jerk.
Speaker 3: I mean, what a jerk. But what's so crazy is
Speaker 3: he doubled down and reached out to me again and
Speaker 3: then so that was wild. But you know, as a writer,
Speaker 3: it happens to me too, and people take advantage of
Speaker 3: young writers. I get notes from readers all the time
Speaker 3: that say, oh, someone reached out and said you're willing
Speaker 3: to read my book for a manuscript fee, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: that's not me. I would never reach out to someone.
Speaker 3: You know, they just take advantage. People are just the
Speaker 3: Internet allows you to take advantage of other people.
Speaker 1: Really easy to do.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that we're talking about this, so in
Speaker 2: case anybody that's listening out there has had this experience or.
Speaker 1: Is in the middle of having it.
Speaker 2: Just really listen to your instincts because it's a scammer.
Speaker 3: It's a scammer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I cannot tell you.
Speaker 2: I read your almost entire new book on my plane
Speaker 2: ride yesterday.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I went right through it. It was
Speaker 1: so good. And I had never read the first one.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And I had never seen the show.
Speaker 3: So that's great to hear. I love hearing that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was already like into these characters because
Speaker 2: just skipping to the second book. So then last night
Speaker 2: my family and I I was like, guys, we have
Speaker 2: to watch the show. I want to watch the show.
Speaker 2: And we all sat down to watch one episode and
Speaker 2: we end up on episode four before we were We've
Speaker 2: got to go to bed.
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it. That's the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this the first time I saw him, Yes, is
Speaker 2: your most recent book?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: And then the last thing he told to me, Yes.
Speaker 2: This is confusing for me because it's confusing. It feels
Speaker 2: like it should be the other way.
Speaker 3: It should exactly. So the last thing he told me
Speaker 3: was the first book in the series, and then the
Speaker 3: second one is the first time I saw him. I
Speaker 3: don't know why I did that. If I could go back.
Speaker 3: I would call the second book like windbreak, like I
Speaker 3: don't know what I think.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I hate when it's too late to make changes.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's confusing for me though it was.
Speaker 2: It really came down to the characters, Like especially not
Speaker 2: having seen the show, I was able to just use
Speaker 2: my own imagination, which is such a lost skill.
Speaker 1: Oh you know if you.
Speaker 2: Don't, if you're not a reader and you wait for
Speaker 2: the book to come out, I mean to the for
Speaker 2: the show or the movie to come out, you're really
Speaker 2: doing yourself a disservice because the book is always better,
Speaker 2: and you know, you just get lost in. It's so
Speaker 2: much easier instead of having the imagery kind of fed
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that there's something very sort of immediate
Speaker 3: and intimate about, you know, the experience between when you're
Speaker 3: reading a book, when you're coming to it yourself, and
Speaker 3: it all comes to That's why I always say that
Speaker 3: I don't have any two of the same readers, because
Speaker 3: everyone brings something to it that's a completely different thing.
Speaker 3: You're bringing yourself in a different way, and as a
Speaker 3: mother of girls, it must have hit you in a
Speaker 3: different way, you know. Then it would hit someone who
Speaker 3: does not have that lived.
Speaker 2: Experience, right, or just someone who's this gutsy. This character Hannah,
Speaker 2: she's so gutsy and like she just does whatever it
Speaker 2: takes to get to the end of this ordeal.
Speaker 1: Yes, which I don't.
Speaker 2: Don't tell me the end because I'm still I want
Speaker 2: page let's see, I want page two fifty seven, so close.
Speaker 3: I want you know. It all started for me with her.
Speaker 3: I heard an interview in which Gloria Steining was quoted
Speaker 3: as saying how important it was for women to watch
Speaker 3: other women become the hero of their lives, And I thought, well,
Speaker 3: what if there's this completely normal person who's just living
Speaker 3: a normal life and all of a sudden her experiences
Speaker 3: amp up everything she needs to do to like the
Speaker 3: highest volume, Like, how does she become a hero in
Speaker 3: that case?
Speaker 1: She's not a no, she's just a what is she
Speaker 1: a wood.
Speaker 3: Or wood turner? She's just an artist. And then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden she's in this impossible situation in which
Speaker 3: the people she thought she knew and trusted she can't
Speaker 3: and so she's left with herself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and having to figure out every little piece on
Speaker 2: her own. Which now going back and watching the first
Speaker 2: book in the Apple Show. I it's like, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: that makes sense, And yes, I see the connection between
Speaker 2: the first book and the second book. And I don't
Speaker 2: know why yet because I haven't gotten to the end
Speaker 2: of the first season. Yes, but I know it's all
Speaker 2: going to come together, which is really fun to watch.
Speaker 2: It's so fun to watch out of order for some reason.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. I mean I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: because I tried to write I really don't like a
Speaker 3: sequel that spends like one hundred pages retreading old territory.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, for myself, it was an exercise and
Speaker 3: how am I going to get people in quickly without
Speaker 3: them having to read the other book? And so something
Speaker 3: that we did when I was writing the book was
Speaker 3: I gave it to like twenty readers who had not
Speaker 3: read the first book to say, like, where are you lost?
Speaker 3: Where are we not following this? So that they could
Speaker 3: read it as you can read it as a standalone.
Speaker 3: Was the idea.
Speaker 1: You will.
Speaker 2: You accomplished it, that's for sure, And that's so interesting
Speaker 2: as an author to you know, do those sort of
Speaker 2: tests to make sure that it's landing. That's really interesting
Speaker 2: because I felt like I knew the story. I felt
Speaker 2: like I knew the characters, and you know, Ohen wasn't
Speaker 2: even in it that much. Yes, so until you know,
Speaker 2: until he was. But then you know, I just I
Speaker 2: loved it.
Speaker 1: Loved it. That's all I'm going to say.
Speaker 3: I love hearing that.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Your novels often explore like the secrets within close relationships,
Speaker 2: like her finding out this huge secret about her husband
Speaker 2: and what what kind of what would you say? Draws
Speaker 2: you to that sort of tension between the intimacy and
Speaker 2: the deception, and that those two living in the same space.
Speaker 3: I think often, you know, the question that really drove
Speaker 3: these books was can we ever know the people we love?
Speaker 3: And I think that you can live with someone for
Speaker 3: five years or ten years or fifty years and wake
Speaker 3: up and somehow that person can either feel more known
Speaker 3: to you if you're really lucky that you really have
Speaker 3: this soul sort of understanding, or if the coins turn
Speaker 3: in a different fashion you don't recognize each other anymore.
Speaker 3: And how does that happen? And it does it happen
Speaker 3: because you never knew each other to begin with, or
Speaker 3: because you grew apart, or because someone kept the secret.
Speaker 3: There's so many different ways you can come to that.
Speaker 3: And I've always been interested in this idea of not
Speaker 3: only the secrets we keep from each other, but I
Speaker 3: think they often start with the secret we keep from ourselves.
Speaker 3: So what is the story that we don't want to
Speaker 3: tell ourselves about our own life that make an intimacy
Speaker 3: with another person compromised or impossible because we're not acknowledging
Speaker 3: something to ourself or that person isn't acknowledging something to himself.
Speaker 3: And that's where it all starts for me, that initial secret.
Speaker 2: Yes, and most importantly, that relationship with yourself. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: love that. Well, yeah, I was definitely thinking, like, what
Speaker 2: about my husband, don't I know, Like laying next to
Speaker 2: him last night, I was curious and I didn't, you know,
Speaker 2: he was sleeping so I couldn't ask him.
Speaker 1: But maybe tonight I was.
Speaker 3: I was. I was listening to one of your episodes
Speaker 3: in which you were I think it was with Molly Simms,
Speaker 3: and you were talking about how your husband's a Gemini. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 3: is that right? Yes, I'm raising a Gemini, and so
Speaker 3: I'm always thinking with a gemini, there's always two beautiful sides.
Speaker 3: But what I actually think is that My experience of
Speaker 3: geminis is that they're so authentic to each part of themselves,
Speaker 3: so you probably do know him the truth.
Speaker 2: It's the truth either way, either.
Speaker 1: Character they're playing in that moment.
Speaker 3: Yes, And with this I really did want to the
Speaker 3: conclusion I came to here and I won't ruin the end,
Speaker 3: but the conclusion I came to very early on when
Speaker 3: I started writing this first book. It was before before
Speaker 3: I became a mom, and it was it was a
Speaker 3: love story with the idea that even if the details change,
Speaker 3: even if you learned that the details you thought you
Speaker 3: knew were different, you can know someone's soul, you can
Speaker 3: know who that person is, and then that can be
Speaker 3: this sort of rewarding journey. And then when I had
Speaker 3: my son, my little Gemini, I realized that this was
Speaker 3: the primal story of someone becoming a mom. And what
Speaker 3: does that love story look like? And why does supersede
Speaker 3: all the other love stories in our life? What about
Speaker 3: that it's true?
Speaker 2: And even in this experience where it's a stepmother stepdaughter
Speaker 2: relationship between Hannah and Bailey, that really brings, you know,
Speaker 2: the heart and the empathy to the story in general.
Speaker 2: And I mean I can understand even though I'm not
Speaker 2: a stepmom, I can really relate to Hannah's like longing
Speaker 2: to be liked by Bailey and all her teenage angst.
Speaker 2: And you never had a stepchild either, right, Am.
Speaker 3: I never had a stepchild, but I have several godchildren,
Speaker 3: three of whom were teenager teenage girls. While I was
Speaker 3: writing this, and I think, you know, it's this really
Speaker 3: weird thing where I think there's something when a girl
Speaker 3: is coming into that age and you're close to her,
Speaker 3: like you walk into a room and you still see
Speaker 3: yourself as that age in some way, and you're like, wait,
Speaker 3: and then you see yourself through their eyes and you're like,
Speaker 3: but I'm not and I'm so not cool and I
Speaker 3: just want their approval and how did I get here?
Speaker 3: Like how am I the grown up in the room.
Speaker 3: And when Hannah starts with Bailey, you know, I think
Speaker 3: that this thing is going on for her where she's
Speaker 3: trying so hard, but she's trying in all the wrong ways.
Speaker 3: And someone can sense that from you if you are
Speaker 3: being an authentic, if you are being not the version
Speaker 3: of yourself that someone needs, because it's not really you.
Speaker 3: And then her movement to their movement toward each other,
Speaker 3: because I had seen so often on TV or in
Speaker 3: books that there's an antagonistic relationship between a stepmother and
Speaker 3: a stepdaughter. But what I wanted to do here was
Speaker 3: suggest that they were distant because they didn't understand each other,
Speaker 3: but that they have something in common. As opposed to
Speaker 3: which you often see the husband or the step and
Speaker 3: the husband slash father you're competing for him. What they
Speaker 3: shared was the knowledge that he would do anything for
Speaker 3: both of them, and that in forging that understanding together,
Speaker 3: they found their way to each other. So it was
Speaker 3: almost his love that binded them together. And then you know,
Speaker 3: they had this relationship they didn't anticipate.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I loved how you wove into to make the Hannah character,
Speaker 2: the depth and understanding why she was a little bit
Speaker 2: more reserved or why she was treading so lightly with
Speaker 2: Hannah and that relationship. Learned that her own relationship with
Speaker 2: her own mother was so incredibly twisted. Yeah, that she
Speaker 2: had a lot in there going on about that being
Speaker 2: a mom, having a mom?
Speaker 1: What is a mom?
Speaker 3: Yes, because how do we do anything if we don't
Speaker 3: have a model. It becomes impossible or it becomes a
Speaker 3: different kind of challenge, and so I like the idea
Speaker 3: that they became each other's key in Locke, a mom
Speaker 3: who was never mothered herself and a girl who lost
Speaker 3: her mother way too young. Yet somehow they're each other's
Speaker 3: key and lock they were able to find their way there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was the backstory in your mind that made
Speaker 2: you made Hannah trust Owen so implicity? You know, without
Speaker 2: any spoiler, she always believed in him.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think for me, it started way before I
Speaker 3: even started writing the book. I saw do you remember
Speaker 3: the Enron trial in Houston with the there was that
Speaker 3: terrible embezzlement at Enron, And I saw an interview with
Speaker 3: Linda Lay, the wife of Kenneth Leigh, on the Today Show,
Speaker 3: in which she said, my husband's done nothing wrong and
Speaker 3: I didn't putting aside whether she actually believed that. I
Speaker 3: started to imagine, what if your love for someone was
Speaker 3: so real and felt so lived in And Hannah comes
Speaker 3: to Owen at a moment in her life where she's
Speaker 3: fully formed, She's in her late thirties, she knows who
Speaker 3: she is, and then, but what if you feel that
Speaker 3: kind of love for someone and the world is telling
Speaker 3: you they're someone else do you believe yourself or do
Speaker 3: you believe the world? And so I wanted to create
Speaker 3: a character who is so seeped in her own understanding
Speaker 3: of herself. She didn't have a mother to guide her.
Speaker 3: She guided herself. She totally self made in every way,
Speaker 3: and so what she's her own guiding light, she's her
Speaker 3: own sort of true north. So when she finally meets him,
Speaker 3: and she's and I talked about this in the first book.
Speaker 3: She almost got married before, and she didn't. And she
Speaker 3: was never the person who wanted to just be with anyone.
Speaker 3: She was the person who was worried about picking the
Speaker 3: wrong person, and so she waited. And then when she
Speaker 3: met Owen, she was sure. And how do you hold
Speaker 3: on too that certainty in the face of so much
Speaker 3: evidence to the contrary? And does that make you a fool?
Speaker 3: Or does that make you someone that is sort of
Speaker 3: the grown up in the room who understands more than everyone.
Speaker 3: And that was sort of the tension of the book.
Speaker 3: And when I'm writing, I never know the answer. I
Speaker 3: didn't know until I got to the end what I thought.
Speaker 2: I even't felt that with the flashbacks of her as
Speaker 2: a younger girl, I felt that inner strength in her,
Speaker 2: and you kind of get to see it develop a
Speaker 2: little bit in those flashbacks. Yes, what she was enduring
Speaker 2: and like how she was her own Like you said,
Speaker 2: true north.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's becomes a different journey. And I
Speaker 3: think also when we become mom, we have to inhabit
Speaker 3: that in a new way, being a true North for
Speaker 3: these little people that walk into our lives or you know,
Speaker 3: I always talk about how I felt reborn when I
Speaker 3: had my son, but I think that was another way
Speaker 3: of saying that I felt the responsibility shift, like I
Speaker 3: felt it in the earth, Like everything looked different to
Speaker 3: me because it was like a seismic shift. Because I
Speaker 3: was like, I want to be the person that helps
Speaker 3: him know he can trust himself, and in order to
Speaker 3: do that, I have to model that I trust myself
Speaker 3: even when I don't. So what does that look like?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean the characters often choose others first, like so
Speaker 2: often their partners, their children, their secrets. In this case,
Speaker 2: what at what point in your writing process do you ask,
Speaker 2: what does this character need to choose for herself to
Speaker 2: keep herself or themselves safe and healthy and happy and
Speaker 2: moving forward.
Speaker 3: I think that is such a great question ever asked
Speaker 3: me that I love that question because I actually think
Speaker 3: that's the entire motion of a book, is someone figuring out,
Speaker 3: how do I choose myself? Like what version?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: I always I always talk about this idea, especially when
Speaker 3: there's some sort of triangulation going on, that you're not
Speaker 3: picking between two different people, You're picking the version of
Speaker 3: yourself that you want to realize. And here Hannah is
Speaker 3: choosing herself really by figuring out what matters most to her,
Speaker 3: and what matters most to her is she's not going
Speaker 3: to leave the child behind even though she was a
Speaker 3: fifteen year old child when the book starts in the
Speaker 3: way she was left behind and everything else is going
Speaker 3: to fall second to that. And that isn't just choosing
Speaker 3: the child, that's choosing her most upstanding self.
Speaker 2: And her truest calling right, and she just knows that
Speaker 2: she knows in hers that were.
Speaker 3: Being yes exactly, that's what she needs to do.
Speaker 2: That's so good. Okay, So I love this part too.
Speaker 2: The listeners that are here with us today that are
Speaker 2: in Northern California, also Los Angeles, Austin, and even Paris,
Speaker 2: your novels will make them feel right at home because
Speaker 2: you choose the most beautiful places to tell your stories.
Speaker 2: How do you decide where your stories will live? And
Speaker 2: do the locations become like part of the characters in
Speaker 2: the story.
Speaker 3: I love communities that are on the edge of the
Speaker 3: world in some way because I think they require something
Speaker 3: different of their inhabitants and that makes for interesting character choices. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if you're living somewhere where you're both depends on each
Speaker 3: other in a different way. And also you can be
Speaker 3: anonymous in a new way. That is such a weird friction.
Speaker 3: And so I always try to pick place is that
Speaker 3: exist in that way, and I don't know what it is,
Speaker 3: and I do a ton of research though, so sometimes
Speaker 3: it shifts. Like in the second book and the book
Speaker 3: that you were reading, my most recent book, there's a
Speaker 3: scene in Fisher Island, and originally the whole last third
Speaker 3: of the book took place in Fisher Island, and then
Speaker 3: I got there. I went first of all, to get
Speaker 3: to Fisher Island. For listeners that don't know where it is,
Speaker 3: It's a little island off the coast of Miami, and
Speaker 3: you have to like take a boat out there. You
Speaker 3: have to know someone out there, so in order to
Speaker 3: even get on the island, I had to pretend I
Speaker 3: was interested in buying an apartment for a house there.
Speaker 3: My poor son, I forgot to tell him, and he's like,
Speaker 3: what are we doing? Are we moving here? So because
Speaker 3: he came with me. But when I got out there,
Speaker 3: I realized that this wasn't right, that it wasn't that
Speaker 3: this was like the place of a scene, but not
Speaker 3: the place of the soul. And all of a sudden
Speaker 3: I started researching the French Riviera and I came across
Speaker 3: this town as in which the motto is in death
Speaker 3: we are reborn. And I got on a plane the
Speaker 3: next week and I went to the south of France
Speaker 3: and I spent time doing research, spending time with locals,
Speaker 3: really learning about it. And it does it becomes like
Speaker 3: a character. I start breathing into that place and thinking,
Speaker 3: what is this? How is this informing the story in
Speaker 3: a way that another place would not?
Speaker 1: Right? I mean, I want to go there. I know that.
Speaker 3: I know it's fun, it's you know, Saslito was especially fun.
Speaker 3: Now there's a restaurant there that serves the hannapasta and
Speaker 3: it's really easy.
Speaker 1: Look what you've done, Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 3: So we had a lot of fun with that.
Speaker 1: I'm curious.
Speaker 2: I'm not as familiar with this, and maybe some of
Speaker 2: our listeners aren't either.
Speaker 1: How does this happen?
Speaker 2: How did your book become So you got on a
Speaker 2: list or maybe Reese Weatherspoon's book club selected your book? Yes,
Speaker 2: and then she bought the rights to the book to
Speaker 2: make it into a show.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: And was this your first experience going down that road?
Speaker 3: So no, So I've written several novels, most of which
Speaker 3: have been optioned, but this is my first time that
Speaker 3: it's gone all the way to fruition. And it was
Speaker 3: sort of this very strange and surreal experience because it
Speaker 3: was in the middle of COVID, the book wasn't out yet,
Speaker 3: and they said, you know, we had recent Her production
Speaker 3: partner Lauren called and said, we want to turn this
Speaker 3: into a TV show, and my husband's a screenwriter, and
Speaker 3: they said, and if you guys want to write it,
Speaker 3: go ahead and write it. So the first season he
Speaker 3: and I wrote with a small writer's room, and so
Speaker 3: it was wild because we were home alone trying to
Speaker 3: bring this to life. And you don't think it's necessarily
Speaker 3: going to happen, and then you know everything it feels
Speaker 3: like everything has to align for that to come to be.
Speaker 3: And then it was this really wonderful thing of because
Speaker 3: I do all the research, I already had their houseboat
Speaker 3: picked out. I already had all these things. So then
Speaker 3: when you go back for location scouting and everything, I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: this is where Hannah lives, and this is the doc
Speaker 3: she's on, and this is all the things, and it
Speaker 3: was it was. It was really kind of a surreal,
Speaker 3: amazing experience.
Speaker 1: And then you blink your eyes and you're on the set.
Speaker 3: It's wild. That's totally wild. The first day I drove
Speaker 3: to set, the very first day I got there, and
Speaker 3: it's really my first day on set. This is such
Speaker 3: a like And and I drove past who I thought
Speaker 3: was two police officers. They were extras, And I drove
Speaker 3: straight into the middle of the first scene. No one
Speaker 3: stopped me. Jennifer Gardner, who plays Hannah Hall, very sweetly
Speaker 3: like directed me to a parking spot and then went
Speaker 3: back to shooting the scene.
Speaker 1: It was amazing, of course she did. I mean, the
Speaker 1: casting is amazing.
Speaker 2: Jennifer Garner plays Hannah obviously in the TV adaptation, of
Speaker 2: your books, and she is that rare combination of kick
Speaker 2: ass action hero like you. You know she's going to
Speaker 2: run at some point in the show because it's Jennifer Arner.
Speaker 2: And then she's got this I was wondering because she's
Speaker 2: got a very strong maternal instinct, just having you know,
Speaker 2: having her children be such a priority in her life,
Speaker 2: and then you can tell she loves being a mom
Speaker 2: and then having to kind of like step back a
Speaker 2: little to have that reserved like stepmom position of and
Speaker 2: how tricky that is, Like she did such a great
Speaker 2: job of playing that. And you it seems like you
Speaker 2: two have become friends, And I just was wondering, like
Speaker 2: having adult friendships with women now, whether you meet them
Speaker 2: through your work or how important is that to you
Speaker 2: because writing is like a very solitary expense experience, Like, yes, so.
Speaker 1: How do you keep your social cup?
Speaker 3: I think that is such a good question. I think
Speaker 3: it's so important. You know, I lived in New York
Speaker 3: and then I moved When I moved out here, we
Speaker 3: lived here briefly, and we moved to New York and
Speaker 3: we moved back and my best friend found me a
Speaker 3: house across the street from her and that's nice of her,
Speaker 3: so nice. And then I moved another very close friend
Speaker 3: onto the street. But I think that community and women
Speaker 3: friendships and my best friends, my best friend another since
Speaker 3: I'm like five years old, and like, you know, I
Speaker 3: think it is it is so important, you know, have
Speaker 3: you The way women friendships operate are so different than
Speaker 3: anything else, And they keep you honest and they remind
Speaker 3: you who you are. I talk a lot about this
Speaker 3: idea in all of my books about having witnesses to
Speaker 3: your life, and what I mean by that is someone
Speaker 3: who reminds you of who you used to be and
Speaker 3: holds you accountable to the version of yourself that is
Speaker 3: the most authentic and the most honest and helps you
Speaker 3: not get lost. And I think making friendships as an
Speaker 3: adult is in part you know, sometimes you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know what it is, but in like the last decade,
Speaker 3: I almost know it immediately, whether it's like a mom
Speaker 3: friend at school or someone I meet through work, it
Speaker 3: feels like you're skipping the small talk and you're right
Speaker 3: to this is some soul.
Speaker 1: Connection, Yes, the stuff that matters.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love that feeling too, because I hate small talk.
Speaker 3: Like, yes, it's like get me out.
Speaker 1: I will run if there's a yeah, clothes, I'm like,
Speaker 1: la la, la, la la. I don't want to do
Speaker 1: small talk.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to some of that stuff that
Speaker 2: really matters exactly. And when someone can like volley with
Speaker 2: you on that level, you know you're in the right.
Speaker 3: Spot exactly and you feel it. You can feel it.
Speaker 3: And I do think that's one of the beautiful things
Speaker 3: about getting older, is you know it quicker. Yeah, if
Speaker 3: someone's you could you know there's I do think there's
Speaker 3: an energy exchange when you're with anybody, and you feel
Speaker 3: quickly if that energy exchange is depleting or invigorating, and
Speaker 3: it's so it's so unique when it's oh my god,
Speaker 3: I need to see this person again. I really with everything,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna make time for that that you know it,
Speaker 3: you know. And Jennifer Garner, what's so amazing about her
Speaker 3: and how she like took on this role or how
Speaker 3: she is as a person is like I think people
Speaker 3: think they know her because of the way she is
Speaker 3: so accessible and lovely, and that's who she is. I
Speaker 3: mean to me in my experience, like she's so she
Speaker 3: is who she is. There's no sort of separation in
Speaker 3: that way, which is why you know that is such
Speaker 3: a gift. When you see someone who's like that, you
Speaker 3: get to know someone who's like that.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely, I think so too. I was wondering about
Speaker 2: the backpack. Okay, Hannah and Bailey have to run away
Speaker 2: in an instant and they have a backpack at the ready,
Speaker 2: just they've prepared.
Speaker 1: I mean Hannah hasn't prepared.
Speaker 2: I really wondered what is inside of that backpack? And
Speaker 2: be what would you put in your backpack?
Speaker 3: So I love that question because as a person that's
Speaker 3: like always like my husband always jokes that, like if
Speaker 3: there's like not even like the whiff of an apocalypse,
Speaker 3: the whiff of a crisis, I'm like the first one
Speaker 3: on the plane. I'm like, I'm already gone. I'm already then,
Speaker 3: So like that backpack. So I actually one of the
Speaker 3: things I do for research is I speak to like
Speaker 3: experts in like all the fields, so like here because
Speaker 3: organizational crime was such a big part of it. I
Speaker 3: spoke to this lawyer who prosecuted more organizational crime than
Speaker 3: anyone else in the country, and I spoke to survival experts.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what would need to be in that backpack
Speaker 3: for you to get away and live with that backpack.
Speaker 3: And then like basically that's how I came to them
Speaker 3: having a car, because he was like, you need a trunk,
Speaker 3: Like you need more than just the backpack, which is
Speaker 3: why we ended up having the car there, but in
Speaker 3: the backpack itself. I needed her to be able to
Speaker 3: exist off the grid but have access to every things
Speaker 3: she needed to know so that she could follow everyone else.
Speaker 3: So the first I put in there were devices. She
Speaker 3: needed a clean tablet, a clean laptop, and several clean phones.
Speaker 3: She needed passports, I mean, she needed other identification. And
Speaker 3: the number one thing you need is cash. You need
Speaker 3: to have a lot of cash in there. And then
Speaker 3: I imagined, I mean, like I have this whole answer
Speaker 3: because I think about this, so I should have this backpack.
Speaker 1: I'm I've been thinking, you must have the backpack.
Speaker 3: It's like she has a little first aid kit. Like
Speaker 3: I didn't do anything like food. I asked him, like
Speaker 3: don't you need food? He's like, she's not like going
Speaker 3: to the jungle, Like she can get food.
Speaker 1: Right with her money?
Speaker 3: Get it exactly. You just need the money and you
Speaker 3: need the identification is huge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So fake ideas or what fake.
Speaker 3: So the whole idea is that she would have been
Speaker 3: organized enough years ago that she would have had access
Speaker 3: to all of this.
Speaker 2: I need to know where I can get these clean computers,
Speaker 2: these clean phones, and this fake egg I D.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to backpack, like I.
Speaker 3: Want to backpack. So the clean, the clean computers, and
Speaker 3: the clean I D. You can just go to that.
Speaker 3: You can go anywhere and get it. You just never attack.
Speaker 3: You never put it on the internet before you use it. Okay,
Speaker 3: went and bought a computer today, Just you set it up,
Speaker 3: but never give it access to the Internet until you
Speaker 3: need to, and then no one has your IP address
Speaker 3: or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you lost me at Internet.
Speaker 3: I know. That's how I am. That's why I'm such
Speaker 3: a like. I mean, but just don't just need you
Speaker 3: just need a computer you've never turned on.
Speaker 1: But do I put stuff in it? Like? Nothing on
Speaker 1: the computer?
Speaker 3: Nothing on the computer.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to use it to look on the
Speaker 2: Internet when I want need to, Yes, okay, yeah, Do
Speaker 2: I ever send an email from that computer?
Speaker 3: Only from another? So the other thing that this expert
Speaker 3: talked to me about, which I thought was so interesting
Speaker 3: was and I had a whole section of this in
Speaker 3: the book and then I took it out because I
Speaker 3: didn't need it. But if you're emailing, you can never
Speaker 3: email from like your email address ever again. So you
Speaker 3: want to create a fake email address at some point,
Speaker 3: but you never hit send on those emails. So like say,
Speaker 3: say it was you and your husband, and you each
Speaker 3: create a fake email account. You sorry, you have the
Speaker 3: same fake email account, and you just send drafts to
Speaker 3: each other. So you both have access to the email
Speaker 3: account and you write to him. He would check the
Speaker 3: draft folder from wherever he is, beat that email, erase it,
Speaker 3: and right back to you and draft. So it's never
Speaker 3: going out into the world.
Speaker 2: Okay, Wow, I'm.
Speaker 1: So excited right now, Like there's a chance for me.
Speaker 1: There's a transfer of freedom.
Speaker 3: That's how I had Nicholas and Owen communicate in between,
Speaker 3: and then I'm like, it's gonna we don't need it,
Speaker 3: but that's what you do. You just never send the email.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Well, I hope you all learn something there, because I
Speaker 2: sure did. This is really good. Okay, So the backpack.
Speaker 2: I got to get the backpack. Also, I met the
Speaker 2: episode where the money is missing under the bed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm panicking because that's a lot of cash.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of cash.
Speaker 2: Wait, what do you do with cash? I mean, nobody
Speaker 2: uses cash. Isn't that a little suss when you're buying
Speaker 2: stuff with cash?
Speaker 3: Now, well, it's hard at a hotel because now you
Speaker 3: have to have which is why you need to have
Speaker 3: the ID. So that's that's more complicated. But besides that,
Speaker 3: like at you know, most most establishments, you can still
Speaker 3: use cash. But it's a little suspicious. It's a little suspicious.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, this has been like twenty years coming for me,
Speaker 3: probably because when I was writing my first book, my
Speaker 3: very first book, my father was a lawyer, and he
Speaker 3: was always like, don't send it over the internet, Like
Speaker 3: I come by this honestly, apparently like someone could take
Speaker 3: it now. I'm like, no one's taking it. But at
Speaker 3: any event, so I never emailed it to myself. I
Speaker 3: had no record of the first book except you know,
Speaker 3: I was writing it. I was twenty five years old.
Speaker 3: I had written almost the entire book, and I had
Speaker 3: published some short stories, so I was ready to try
Speaker 3: to send this out into the world. I spilled water
Speaker 3: on my computer and I lost the entire because I
Speaker 3: had never emailed it to myself because there was no record,
Speaker 3: so all I had was the first chapter I printed out,
Speaker 3: and I had to start all over again.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm so sorry. That sounds terrible. I
Speaker 1: would give it up right there. I would have been like,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not going to be a writer.
Speaker 3: Sorry, guys, there's no books. So I guess I come
Speaker 3: by not sending things on you. Pretty.
Speaker 2: I mean, I never in my life thought about I
Speaker 2: got to have a plan if I need to run away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I'm thinking about it. Is this a good
Speaker 1: thing or path?
Speaker 3: I know, I know, I think it's like and I think.
Speaker 3: I didn't start thinking about it in a real way
Speaker 3: until I thought, if you're a normal person like Hannah,
Speaker 3: like us, you know, who has to do this? What
Speaker 3: do you what does that look like? You don't have
Speaker 3: the agencies or the water, not.
Speaker 1: Like a specialist in ESPIONO, like any kind of training.
Speaker 3: So what do you do? How do you like stay
Speaker 3: close to the highways? How do you how do you
Speaker 3: you know, keep it? You know, because there's so many
Speaker 3: ways to get to be under surveillance. Now, Like I
Speaker 3: love that movie. It came out maybe it's Oh my god,
Speaker 3: it's probably longer than that. Now, Enemy of the State.
Speaker 3: Did you see that, Will Smith?
Speaker 1: But I don't remember it at all. But are there
Speaker 1: are cameras everywhere?
Speaker 3: Cameras everywhere, so you know, stick close to the to
Speaker 3: the side of the road.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I think that when I'm like doing something I
Speaker 2: shouldn't be doing, like I don't know, putting my feet
Speaker 2: in the fountain, or like something like as a pedestrian,
Speaker 2: that I'm doing that I shouldn't be doing, I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh no, there's cameras everywhere exactly anyway you forget exactly.
Speaker 3: It's oh my gosh, sort of wild if you think
Speaker 3: about it. I'm like, I'm meant to live off the
Speaker 3: grid somewhere, Like that's the next step.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, that's going to be so fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't wait about that. You're still you're in
Speaker 3: La're Yeah? Ever think about leaving?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Every day?
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I mean I kind of live away from
Speaker 2: the hustle and the grizzly part of it, but I do.
Speaker 2: I've always wanted to move since I because I'm not
Speaker 2: a city girl. Yeah, but I love now. Of course,
Speaker 2: I'm used to the conveniences of the city and the
Speaker 2: uber eats and the getting the food delivered every night.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what because.
Speaker 2: I was just in a really small town yesterday two
Speaker 2: days ago, and I was thinking, what do they do
Speaker 2: here all the time?
Speaker 1: Where do they get their dinner? It's delivering dinner. You
Speaker 1: have to cook every night.
Speaker 3: You have to cook it every night.
Speaker 2: Did you ever see that movie with Robin Wright and
Speaker 2: she moves off the grid for whatever her reason is?
Speaker 1: And I was fascinated by that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so oh that's see. That's the thing. Like I
Speaker 3: I always say to my husband, I'm like, I like
Speaker 3: show him farms or I'm like, you know, we were
Speaker 3: just like we should move to Puerto Rico. They have
Speaker 3: all these ideas. And then he's like, except that you
Speaker 3: don't go outside except to like walk around your block.
Speaker 3: And you are like you're You're not the person who's
Speaker 3: going to be good at living off the land. Like
Speaker 3: I'm like you, I'm like, where how can I get
Speaker 3: something delivered here at eleven o'clock? Like you know what
Speaker 3: am I handling that?
Speaker 2: We were at a cabin recently and there was a
Speaker 2: little it was a cabin in Pennsylvania, it was like
Speaker 2: an Airbnb and there was a little fireplace, and so
Speaker 2: I said, I know how to start a fire. So
Speaker 2: I was out there in my bathrobe at like two
Speaker 2: am because I was working weird hours, and I was
Speaker 2: like scrummaging around the grounds for twigs and sticks, and
Speaker 2: I thought, oh, I don't know. This is if people
Speaker 2: see me right now, they're probably like, what is this
Speaker 2: city girl doing in a row at two am?
Speaker 1: Okay, I have a.
Speaker 2: Question because you said that you pick a song that
Speaker 2: you listen to on repeat the whole time you're writing. Yes,
Speaker 2: what's the song that you would pick and play if
Speaker 2: you were writing a memoir or an autobiography about you
Speaker 2: and your life?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that is such a good question.
Speaker 1: That's hard. That's a hard question.
Speaker 3: I have to think. I mean, so, it's so it's
Speaker 3: so interesting because sometimes I don't even know the reason
Speaker 3: I picked the songs for the like for for the
Speaker 3: last thing you told me, it was if I should
Speaker 3: fall behind by Bruce Springsteen in the East Street Band,
Speaker 3: but it was a specific version that he sang at
Speaker 3: Madison Square Garden. Everyone in the band sings a verse,
Speaker 3: and in my mind I imagined it because Owen and
Speaker 3: Hannah get married at a restaurant in San Francisco. Very
Speaker 3: Small got married at city Hall. I imagine it is
Speaker 3: their wedding song. After everyone leaves it, they're dancing to it,
Speaker 3: like with nice. So like, I don't know how that
Speaker 3: came to me. And for this book, it was card
Speaker 3: Again by Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: Really because that last.
Speaker 3: Verse feels like a siren call to me, Like I
Speaker 3: read The Odyssey several times when I was working on
Speaker 3: this book, because it really is a coming This is
Speaker 3: a coming home story, and that last verse about you'll
Speaker 3: come back to me, You'll come back to me. I mean,
Speaker 3: the first thing that comes to mind is I've been
Speaker 3: listen litening to I've been listening to a lot of
Speaker 3: boy Genius recently.
Speaker 1: Random.
Speaker 3: Random, I know, I was, I don't know what my
Speaker 3: answer is. It might be I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: It's hard. I would never be able to answer that question.
Speaker 1: By the way.
Speaker 3: I want to say, it's it's shake it out, but
Speaker 3: I don't write to that. But I love that song.
Speaker 1: I love it that you love Taylor Swift. It sounds
Speaker 1: like take it out to Florence and the Machine. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a good thing.
Speaker 3: So that one, yes, I do, but I do love
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift. But I love that shake it out. Every
Speaker 3: time I listened to it, that first line of regrets
Speaker 3: come back like old friends. There's something that makes me
Speaker 3: want to sit down and write. So maybe it would
Speaker 3: be that.
Speaker 1: Oh God, a good pick. I love that.
Speaker 3: What would yours be? For you?
Speaker 1: I told you I cannot possibly answer that question?
Speaker 3: Okay, it's so hard.
Speaker 2: I can't remember anything. How could I breast song title?
Speaker 2: I know a spur of the moment. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 2: asked you that. It's really tricky, but I was just
Speaker 2: so intrigued by this, the process. I love the idea,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to do this next time I write
Speaker 2: my next book. I listen to something like that makes
Speaker 2: it come to life in my mind.
Speaker 3: There's something about it. It creates a rhythm to the
Speaker 3: storytelling that I think is. I think it helps you
Speaker 3: stay in the story from day to day because we
Speaker 3: have so much else going on. It brings you back
Speaker 3: to the storytelling.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean that's important because when I was writing my book,
Speaker 2: it's impossible to have people stop interrupting you, I know, or.
Speaker 1: Just life style you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's really hard to sit down and focus.
Speaker 1: For me, that was a big challenge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you? And this is what I want to do.
Speaker 3: I bought it, but I haven't used it yet. I
Speaker 3: bought a do not Disturb signed to put on my
Speaker 3: office store, like you know what they have like at
Speaker 3: a hotel.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't think it will work.
Speaker 1: People not They'll be like, oh what is this.
Speaker 2: It's true and we all need to do not disturb
Speaker 2: sign Like we could wear it like a necklace.
Speaker 3: Exactly. That would be a great necklace.
Speaker 1: We should make that.
Speaker 3: All. I used to listen to my I'm dating myself,
Speaker 3: but I had a walkman and I had people would
Speaker 3: call me walk man girl because I would with me everywhere.
Speaker 3: But it was really because then no one can talk
Speaker 3: to you. You're wearing your headphones and you're listening.
Speaker 1: You're like and.
Speaker 2: You're in your own bubble of whatever the song is exactly,
Speaker 2: no matter how chaotic the world is around you.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: My husband is like that.
Speaker 2: He listens to a lot of music as his Like
Speaker 2: it's like medicinal.
Speaker 1: Almost, yes, it is.
Speaker 3: It really is. It's like a it's like a sedative
Speaker 3: in some way, but it's cozy.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, this has been so much fun. I
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me. You can find
Speaker 2: Laura's books everywhere. Pick up her newest the first time
Speaker 2: I saw him, sequel to the Last Thing he told me.
Speaker 2: Also an incredible Apple Plus TV series that I am
Speaker 2: in the middle of right now. But Laura Dave, before
Speaker 2: I let you go, what was your last I choose
Speaker 2: me moment?
Speaker 3: So I just had a really great one.
Speaker 1: Hi, Well, let's hear it.
Speaker 3: I choose to remember that at the end of each
Speaker 3: book that I write. Before I had my family, I
Speaker 3: used to go to Big Sir. It's my favorite place
Speaker 3: in the world, and I would finish my books there.
Speaker 3: So for my first several books, that was like sort
Speaker 3: of a ritual that I came to almost accidentally. I
Speaker 3: would go in January for the first couple and then
Speaker 3: it was the spring, and I go to the same
Speaker 3: hotel and I give myself like five days and I
Speaker 3: just do my last read before I turn it in.
Speaker 3: Since I've had my family, it feels impossible to do that.
Speaker 3: And I'm finishing a man in your Scripts, and I
Speaker 3: just booked myself five days in Big Sir to finish
Speaker 3: this book. There and go and give that to myself.
Speaker 3: I choose me, I choose. That's how I finish a.
Speaker 2: Book that is so good and so important. To remember
Speaker 2: things like that that just really nourish you on a
Speaker 2: level that's kind of indescribable, like that time.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, oh my gosh. I loved our conversation.
Speaker 2: I've loved getting to know you, and I can't wait
Speaker 2: until our paths cross.
Speaker 3: Oh me too. I've adored you for decades, so I talk.
Speaker 1: To you today, all right, have a great one too.
Speaker 1: Bye bye,