Speaker 1: It is a pretty surreal experience to read about yourself
Speaker 1: in third person, something that has been written by a
Speaker 1: former lover in which you're murdered.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 2: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 2: change everything. This is part two of Hannah's story. If
Speaker 2: you haven't heard part one, you should go back and
Speaker 2: listen to that first. It was the night before the
Speaker 2: launch of Hannah's third novel. She was crashing at her
Speaker 2: friend Hughes place in New York. Her husband Patrick had
Speaker 2: stayed with him the week before. Hannah and Hugh were
Speaker 2: up late talking and out of the blue, h made
Speaker 2: a string. He said that Hannah should.
Speaker 3: Be more suspicious of people in her life.
Speaker 1: And I said, is this about Patrick? And he said yes.
Speaker 1: And I said did something happen when Patrick was in
Speaker 1: New York last week without me? And he said yes.
Speaker 1: At this point, my heart just dropped and I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm in a vomit. I said, did Patrick have
Speaker 1: sex with someone? And Hugh said yes. And I said
Speaker 1: did he have sex with Trish? And he said yes.
Speaker 2: Her husband Patrick had an affair with Trish, her best
Speaker 2: friend from grad school, the same woman who set them
Speaker 2: up in the first place.
Speaker 1: I think if it had been a stranger, it would
Speaker 1: have been a really unfortunate cry for help. But when
Speaker 1: he chose the person that I've had like second most
Speaker 1: intimate conversations with in my life, that clouded anything that
Speaker 1: we might have recovered.
Speaker 2: Out of all the people he could have cheated with,
Speaker 2: he chose Trish, Hannah's first true friend, her confidante.
Speaker 3: But Trisha chose Patrick too.
Speaker 1: Her betrayal felt so intentional and possibly like it was
Speaker 1: a long time coming.
Speaker 2: She thought back to the early days of their friend group,
Speaker 2: like that night when Trish reminded Hannah that Trish and
Speaker 2: Patrick were friends first. But Hannah had never worried about
Speaker 2: Trish and Patrick's dynamic.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter because she was married, and more importantly,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter because I knew Patrick worshiped me.
Speaker 2: Now Hannah was questioning everything she knew about the two
Speaker 2: most important people in her life. It was devastating, but
Speaker 2: sitting in Hugh's apartment, Hannah was numb.
Speaker 1: I said, I have to make a phone call. I'll
Speaker 1: be right back, and I went up to his roof
Speaker 1: and I called my sister and I said, guess who's
Speaker 1: having an affair.
Speaker 2: Hannah told her sister everything she knew and then went
Speaker 2: right into planning mode.
Speaker 1: She was like, what do you need me to do?
Speaker 1: And I said, I just need you to, you know,
Speaker 1: keep your phone charged and if you could handle like
Speaker 1: telling mom, I'm not taking phone calls right now.
Speaker 2: She needed to compartmentalize and be alone. She hung up
Speaker 2: the phone and walked back down to Hugh's apartment.
Speaker 1: He's like, did you did you talk to Patrick? And
Speaker 1: I said no, no. I called my sister and he
Speaker 1: was like, what are you going to do next? And
Speaker 1: I was like, well, right now, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: to bed because I've got a book launch tomorrow, so
Speaker 1: let's do that. And I could tell that I was
Speaker 1: freaking him out because I wasn't crying.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow was a big day. She just needed to get
Speaker 2: through the night. She went to bed, still trying to
Speaker 2: wrap her head around the news.
Speaker 1: I woke up, just bolt upright awake at five in
Speaker 1: the morning, sat in bed, waited till six hughes alarm
Speaker 1: went off. He got up, was like, how are you
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm fine. I'm going to make a
Speaker 1: phone call here in a second, He's like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to take a shower. And the person I called
Speaker 1: was Trish. Whatever the reason, she was the person I
Speaker 1: felt like I needed to confront.
Speaker 2: It was six o five in the morning and Trish
Speaker 2: picked up the phone.
Speaker 1: She said, hey, hey, you're in New York right and
Speaker 1: I said yeah, and she said I'll see you tonight
Speaker 1: at the book launch and I said yep, uh huh.
Speaker 2: Almost immediately, Trish could sense that something was wrong. She
Speaker 2: asked her what was going on.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I think something's happened to Patrick
Speaker 1: and she said, oh, no, is he okay? And I said, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think he is okay. I think he's had
Speaker 1: sex with someone. And she said no, who do you
Speaker 1: think it is? And I said, I think he had
Speaker 1: sex with you and she said no, why do you
Speaker 1: think that? And I said, if you're gonna lie, I'm
Speaker 1: not doing this and I hung up the phone. She
Speaker 1: called me back thirty seconds later.
Speaker 2: Trish admitted it she and George weren't really together anymore so.
Speaker 2: The week before, when Patrick was in town, the two
Speaker 2: of them slept together.
Speaker 1: Trish explained, she said he did this to drive a
Speaker 1: wedge between us, and I said no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: And when Hannah didn't buy that, she.
Speaker 1: Said, he told me that you've always been jealous of me.
Speaker 1: And I said no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: Trish was grasping at straws.
Speaker 1: I was so clear minded. I just kept my wits
Speaker 1: about help me. And I didn't cry and I didn't yell.
Speaker 1: And I said, thank you for letting me know, by
Speaker 1: the way, you are not to come tonight. If I
Speaker 1: see you, I will lose my shit.
Speaker 2: With that, Hannah ended the call. By this time, it
Speaker 2: wasn't even six thirty in the morning. Hugh left for work,
Speaker 2: leaving her alone in the apartment, and it was around
Speaker 2: noon when she got a call from Patrick.
Speaker 1: He said, well, I heard you talked to Trish and
Speaker 1: I said yes, and he said so and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll do the work. Did you have sex with Trish?
Speaker 1: He said yes, more than once. Yes. Do you think
Speaker 1: you're in love with her? Yes? I said, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being honest with me. I will see
Speaker 1: a lawyer on Monday. I want the house, I want
Speaker 1: the car, I want the dog. He said, did you
Speaker 1: rehearse that? And I said nope, but it's pretty good,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Patrick told her he was getting on the next trained
Speaker 2: to New York to talk things out, but Hannah was
Speaker 2: done trying to fix things.
Speaker 1: There is nothing to talk about. You had sex with
Speaker 1: a person who introduced us, the person I consider my
Speaker 1: best friend. I will never have sex with a man
Speaker 1: who has had sex with her. There's literally nothing to discuss.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, we'll talk about it when I
Speaker 1: come home. And at this point, still not crying, I
Speaker 1: did become somewhat like laughing hysterical. I was like, ho, ho,
Speaker 1: you don't have a home anymore. If you are anywhere
Speaker 1: near me tonight, I will scream.
Speaker 2: Hannah was surprisingly calm. After all, she still had her
Speaker 2: book launch that night. She needed to stay on autopilot.
Speaker 2: She didn't have time to grieve. After she got off
Speaker 2: the phone with Patrick, she kept moving.
Speaker 1: I had five hours to kill and I was getting
Speaker 1: a divorce, and I wanted to go shopping, And so
Speaker 1: I went shopping and I bought myself a brand new
Speaker 1: miniskirt and a brand new top.
Speaker 2: She tried not to think about Trish and Patrick, but
Speaker 2: as she walked around New York, I.
Speaker 1: Had a sudden fear about STDs and so I sent
Speaker 1: the two of them a text message and I said,
Speaker 1: I need to know if I need to get an
Speaker 1: STD test. And she wrote me back and she said, no,
Speaker 1: I told you, it just happened. We didn't realize what
Speaker 1: close friends we were. And she started texting me this
Speaker 1: really long text message, and at some point Patrick wrote,
Speaker 1: stop texting Trish.
Speaker 2: Trish wasn't the only one blowing up Hannah's phone.
Speaker 1: I'm getting phone calls from Patrick's parents saying no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you guys are going to work this out. And I
Speaker 1: was like, no, no, no, Let me buy my miniskirt,
Speaker 1: go back to Hugh's apartment. Change.
Speaker 2: And then she went to her book launch. Despite the
Speaker 2: day she had. The event went well. She got up
Speaker 2: on stage and read from her new novel, acting as
Speaker 2: if nothing was wrong. Afterwards, her agent and editor asked
Speaker 2: her to go out and celebrate. They had no idea
Speaker 2: about the affair, so Hannah told them.
Speaker 1: And both of them just stared at me for a
Speaker 1: second and they were like, wait, why are you here?
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I'm here because I had
Speaker 1: a book launch and they're like, oh, but you were
Speaker 1: so funny just now on stage, and I was like yeah,
Speaker 1: and they were like oh. No.
Speaker 2: One knew what to say to her, mostly because on
Speaker 2: the outside she seemed fine, good even still, she wanted
Speaker 2: to be around her people that night, so she went
Speaker 2: out with Hugh and a couple of her other friends.
Speaker 1: We had this great dinner and nobody is talking about it.
Speaker 1: And then finally, at like midnight, I mean, the restaurant's
Speaker 1: still open. We've had a couple bottles of wine. Hugh
Speaker 1: said something, and I just started bawling. And then Hugh said, Okay,
Speaker 1: there it is. There we go.
Speaker 2: All of the emotions, the sadness, hurt, anger, confusion hit it.
Speaker 2: Once the floodgates were finally open. She was still crying
Speaker 2: at three am.
Speaker 1: When Patrick called me again, and he was crying. He
Speaker 1: had gotten on a train and he had come to
Speaker 1: New York City and he was calling me from Trisha's apartment.
Speaker 2: Hannah had just found out that her husband had been
Speaker 2: having an affair with her best friend in a twenty
Speaker 2: four hour period. She confronted both of them, asked for
Speaker 2: a divorce, and launched a novel. It had been one
Speaker 2: of the longest days of Hannah's life. And then at
Speaker 2: three am, the phone rang it was her husband Patrick.
Speaker 1: He was with Trish and they'd been drinking, and I
Speaker 1: could not believe that he was calling me from her apartment.
Speaker 1: He wanted to talk to me about how dramatic I'd
Speaker 1: been and how we would talk about this.
Speaker 2: He told Hannah that their marriage could survive this. All
Speaker 2: the while Trish, the woman he said he loved just
Speaker 2: hours before, was in the next room. It was clear
Speaker 2: to Hannah that no matter what promises Patrick made, he.
Speaker 1: Was going to continue seeing her.
Speaker 2: Hannah told Patrick to give her space, so Patrick's stay
Speaker 2: to New York to figure things out, and he stayed
Speaker 2: with Trish. Meanwhile, Hannah had to keep going. She needed
Speaker 2: to keep promoting her book. The next morning, she left
Speaker 2: for DC for another book reading, but now she was
Speaker 2: having trouble holding it all together.
Speaker 1: On the train ride down, I couldn't stop crying. I
Speaker 1: was so disgusting. I had to get clothes out of
Speaker 1: my luggage. So I pull out this shirt and I'm
Speaker 1: wiping my face with it, and I feel like I
Speaker 1: look like I'm contagious. And the train is packed, and
Speaker 1: there's this lovely man and he's got this gorgeous suit on,
Speaker 1: like beautifully put together perfect specimen of New York City
Speaker 1: sitting next to me, and I am trying so hard
Speaker 1: to make myself small, and I just keep leaning closer
Speaker 1: and closer to the window because I am so disgusting.
Speaker 2: The whole ride down, Patrick continued to text and call
Speaker 2: her she was falling apart. Those around her couldn't help.
Speaker 1: But notice in Philly, this man stands up, who I
Speaker 1: have just assumed I am like a leoper to this guy.
Speaker 1: And he gets his bag and I think, finally I
Speaker 1: can spread out and be gross and not worry about
Speaker 1: touching anyone. And he puts his hand on my shoulder
Speaker 1: and I really thought he was gonna yell at me
Speaker 1: or say like, do you know how disgusting you are?
Speaker 1: And I looked up at him and he said, I said,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it's gonna be okay. And if it's not,
Speaker 1: there are probably people who love you.
Speaker 4: And I just like lost it all over again because
Speaker 4: he was so nice, he was so generous, and when
Speaker 4: he said that, I just thought, I love people. People
Speaker 4: are just the most amazing things in the world. He
Speaker 4: was such a gift.
Speaker 2: It was a moment of kindness when she needed it
Speaker 2: the most. After DC Hannah finally went back home to Kentucky,
Speaker 2: and as promised, she saw a divorce attorney right away.
Speaker 2: Patrick was in denial.
Speaker 1: He kept insisting that the marriage wasn't over, and I
Speaker 1: just kept moving forward as much as I could.
Speaker 2: But eventually Patrick had to come back to Kentucky because he.
Speaker 1: Still had a job at the same school where I
Speaker 1: was working.
Speaker 2: It was difficult to fully disentangle their lives. For ten years,
Speaker 2: they'd built their worlds around each other.
Speaker 1: Until we weren't. We'd always been sort of connected at
Speaker 1: the hip. You know, all of our colleagues would say,
Speaker 1: you guys do everything together. You're always together.
Speaker 2: Even though she was putting one foot in front of
Speaker 2: the other, she was taking the divorce really hard.
Speaker 3: Patrick had been her person.
Speaker 2: She missed him, and she didn't have the luxury of
Speaker 2: space from him. She still ran into him on campus.
Speaker 2: So a few months after the divorce was finalized, they
Speaker 2: started grabbing coffee.
Speaker 1: We were able to maintain some amount of a friendship
Speaker 1: for a little while.
Speaker 2: It felt a little like those early days when the
Speaker 2: two of them were just friends, playing scrabble and coffee shops.
Speaker 3: They would talk about how.
Speaker 2: Things were going in their careers. As months went by,
Speaker 2: they even began talking about their new relationships. Hannah started
Speaker 2: dating another professor at their university, and Patrick remained with Trish.
Speaker 2: One time, he invited Hannah to grab drinks with him
Speaker 2: and Trish.
Speaker 1: And of course I was thinking, this is great. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to show them that I do not care.
Speaker 1: So I got drinks with them, and when it was over,
Speaker 1: they went to another bar and I offered them a ride,
Speaker 1: dropped them off, and I went home.
Speaker 2: Looking back, she's still confused as to why she said yes,
Speaker 2: because practically no time had passed between their divorce and
Speaker 2: their friend and soon boundaries began to blur. Patrick started
Speaker 2: making a lot of requests of Hannah. Once, in the
Speaker 2: middle of the night, he called her on a drive.
Speaker 2: He was on his way to see Trish.
Speaker 1: He was crying and I asked him if he was
Speaker 1: safe to drive and if he needed to pull over,
Speaker 1: and he said, I just need you to promise me
Speaker 1: that we're always going to be friends, because if it's
Speaker 1: we can't be friends, if I stay with her, I'll
Speaker 1: break up with her. I need you in my life.
Speaker 1: And I said, don't break up with her. We'll always
Speaker 1: be friends. And I knew that I was lying. I
Speaker 1: told him what I thought he needed to hear in
Speaker 1: order to be safe.
Speaker 2: It was an unhealthy friendship, but it did have one rule.
Speaker 2: Hannah made Patrick promise that if things ever got serious
Speaker 2: with him and Trish, he would tell her.
Speaker 1: I never wanted to hear about something secondhand, and he
Speaker 1: said that he would never let that happen.
Speaker 2: He promised. Then the following Christmas.
Speaker 1: My sister pulled me aside and said, I have to
Speaker 1: tell you something, Trisian. Patrick got married, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to be the one to tell you, because it was
Speaker 1: pretty clear that he wasn't going to tell you. When
Speaker 1: classes resumed that spring, he sent me an email and said, coffee,
Speaker 1: you know, like we had been doing. And I said sure,
Speaker 1: And I assumed that at this coffee he would tell
Speaker 1: me that they'd gotten married. And I met him for
Speaker 1: coffee and we talked for an hour and he was
Speaker 1: wearing the ring, but he never said a word. He
Speaker 1: never told me. I left thinking, whatever we just did, whatever,
Speaker 1: Like weird anti flirtation that we're doing with him wearing
Speaker 1: a ring and us laughing in a coffee shop while
Speaker 1: he's not telling me. The most hurtful thing. I just
Speaker 1: didn't need it.
Speaker 2: It felt manipulative, cowardly, and it was hurting her. She
Speaker 2: was finally ready to cut him off. Throughout their whole separation,
Speaker 2: Hannah seemed to be doing really well.
Speaker 1: Everyone would say, Oh, you're so much lighter now, you're
Speaker 1: letting yourself have fun again. Everyone said that I was
Speaker 1: just so much better, and I told them they were right,
Speaker 1: that I was just so happy and it was such
Speaker 1: a relief.
Speaker 2: She would smile and agree, but in reality, that couldn't
Speaker 2: be further from the truth.
Speaker 1: This was when my eating disorder came back. I'd been
Speaker 1: with Patrick for ten years, and I'd forgotten how to
Speaker 1: eat by myself, how to do a meal alone, So
Speaker 1: it was really easy to you go into starvation mode.
Speaker 2: Hannah's writing also took a hit. She was under contract
Speaker 2: to write a fourth novel. It was the first time
Speaker 2: in her career where she couldn't meet her deadlines.
Speaker 1: When I was writing this fourth book, I was very
Speaker 1: aware of Hannah sitting at desk in front of computer,
Speaker 1: making character move from point A to point B in
Speaker 1: order to get to the next plot. Ce that made
Speaker 1: me feel terrible.
Speaker 2: Her doctor was the first person to notice that Hannah
Speaker 2: wasn't doing as well as she said.
Speaker 1: She said, are you getting any sleep? And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: when I take you know, trazy doone and clonipin and
Speaker 1: a couple glasses of wine. And she said, that's not sleeping,
Speaker 1: that's passing out.
Speaker 2: She recommended that hannah' see a therapist, and Hannah knew
Speaker 2: she was right. So for the next year, Hannah threw
Speaker 2: herself into therapy and had some major breakthroughs. She'd been
Speaker 2: so isolated as a child that she never learned how
Speaker 2: to build healthy relationships.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, what do I do if I
Speaker 1: don't like this girl that I'm friends with? My therapist
Speaker 1: was like, so you don't like the girl, don't see her?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, what do I do if I'm
Speaker 1: dating a guy and I just want to break up
Speaker 1: with him and I don't have a reason. She's like,
Speaker 1: you break up with him? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think because of my parents' divorce and because of
Speaker 1: the trauma of that custody battle, I'd missed out on
Speaker 1: just some certain everyday basics.
Speaker 2: It had been three years since the divorce and she
Speaker 2: was still with that professor at her university. This relationship
Speaker 2: also helped her heal. He had a young daughter and
Speaker 2: together they formed a little family.
Speaker 1: And in twenty nineteen and November we bought a house together,
Speaker 1: having never lived together before, so we did it all
Speaker 1: at once. His daughter moves in, he moves in, I
Speaker 1: move in, and then like three months later, COVID hit.
Speaker 2: During COVID, Hannah had more time than ever to focus
Speaker 2: on her writing and to reflect on her divorce. But
Speaker 2: she wasn't writing her usual fiction.
Speaker 3: New ideas just.
Speaker 2: Weren't coming to her. Instead, she kept revisiting real conversations.
Speaker 1: The conversations between Trish and Patrick and George and me,
Speaker 1: and the conversations with my family and grad school. There
Speaker 1: was something about that isolation and being sequestered in this
Speaker 1: house that brought it all back. It was during that
Speaker 1: time where I thought, Okay, I'm not over it, because
Speaker 1: I'm still thinking about it. Let's just get it out
Speaker 1: of me.
Speaker 2: So she started writing it all down, every conversation she
Speaker 2: couldn't get out of her head, memories of Trish from
Speaker 2: early days of their friendship, things she'd wish she'd said
Speaker 2: to Patrick, or that Patrick had said to her, scenes
Speaker 2: from the life they'd built and knocked down together.
Speaker 1: And then it accidentally became something that I thought could
Speaker 1: be shared with the world, and then that turned into
Speaker 1: my memoir.
Speaker 2: She named the book We Are Too Many a memoir
Speaker 2: kind of She wanted it to be an honest attempt
Speaker 2: at capturing a marriage gone wrong. If she was going
Speaker 2: to write about her divorce and all the real people involved,
Speaker 2: she wanted to get it right.
Speaker 1: I was such a part of it that fictional words
Speaker 1: did not exist for what I had gone through, and
Speaker 1: I just thought the stakes are so low in fiction.
Speaker 1: But then when I made it us, I.
Speaker 2: Cared, even in sections that were entirely made up, like
Speaker 2: imagined conversations between Patrick and Trish. She tried to paint
Speaker 2: these people as they really were.
Speaker 1: He can be dismissive, he can be condescending, but when
Speaker 1: he is charming, and when he shines that charm on you,
Speaker 1: it's quite lovely. I wanted to capture that complicated character.
Speaker 2: There's no hero in the story.
Speaker 3: Every character shares Blaine herself included.
Speaker 1: In early drafts. I almost always got what I wanted
Speaker 1: to say correct, and I almost always gave myself the
Speaker 1: upper hand and the punchline and I realized I had
Speaker 1: to go through and get rid of all the bullshit.
Speaker 1: I think I did a pretty good job being honest
Speaker 1: about how demanding I can be. I was unpleasant, especially
Speaker 1: towards the end when I was mad.
Speaker 2: She also made it clear that she was only writing
Speaker 2: from her perspective. These were, as she writes in her introduction,
Speaker 2: imperfectly recollected exchanges. She was only telling her version of
Speaker 2: the truth.
Speaker 1: I was never attempting to pretend that I had a
Speaker 1: recorder with me. The whole time. I was just trying
Speaker 1: to get out of my head these things that I
Speaker 1: kept coming back to.
Speaker 2: But three years after beginning her memoir, and just as
Speaker 2: Hannah was about to announce her book to the world,
Speaker 2: she got an email from her agent.
Speaker 1: And the subject was have you seen this? And I
Speaker 1: opened it, and I read it, and I read it again,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't able to really make sense of what
Speaker 1: I was reading, because what I was reading was a
Speaker 1: synopsis of my husband's affair, our divorce, and our life
Speaker 1: together as it imploded. And it was an announcement for
Speaker 1: my ex husband's debut novel.
Speaker 2: Hannah was about to announce her fifth book, a memoir
Speaker 2: about her divorce. Throughout their marriage, Hannah's husband Patrick had
Speaker 2: struggled to get published himself. He'd often relied on Hannah professionally,
Speaker 2: and now his first book is about the affair.
Speaker 1: I had a million feelings all at once. I was
Speaker 1: so happy for him. I was also so mad at him.
Speaker 1: This is how you're going to get published. Finally it's
Speaker 1: going to be about us.
Speaker 2: At first glance, Hannah thought her ex husband had written
Speaker 2: a memoir to a truthful account of what he'd done
Speaker 2: to blow up their marriage. Confused, she sent a screenshot
Speaker 2: to a friend and she was.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, sweetie, it's a novel. And I said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: but this all happened. Everything in the description happened. And
Speaker 1: she said, and he's written a novel about your marriage.
Speaker 2: In her book, Hannah was confronting her role in her
Speaker 2: marriage and its breakdown. She wrote Patrick as a real person,
Speaker 2: someone with flaws and strengths. Her memoir was nonfiction. Still,
Speaker 2: at the end of her book, people would know that
Speaker 2: this was only her version of events, but he was
Speaker 2: writing fiction. He was taking their real story and passing
Speaker 2: it off as made up. Fiction writers often use material
Speaker 2: from their real life as inspiration Hannah certainly did, but
Speaker 2: this felt different. She worried how would he paint what happened,
Speaker 2: how would he paint her? She wanted to gather as
Speaker 2: much information as she could ahead of his novel's release.
Speaker 1: So for the first time in six years, I googled him.
Speaker 1: I was looking for news of his novel. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know anything I could. I couldn't find it but
Speaker 1: a link to one short story that he'd written and
Speaker 1: published in twenty nineteen, and I sat at the kitchen
Speaker 1: table across from my boyfriend as I read this short story.
Speaker 2: The narrator of the story seemed a lot like Hannah's
Speaker 2: ex husband, and the story was about him having an
Speaker 2: affair with his wife's best friend. He gets divorced an
Speaker 2: Remarri's sound familiar.
Speaker 1: And in the story there's very clearly a me character.
Speaker 2: There were scenes from their real life, down to the
Speaker 2: details of his trip to New York and the phone
Speaker 2: call confrontation about their affair. There were also details that
Speaker 2: mirrored Hannah's career, the guy Hannah was dating, and even
Speaker 2: weird details like how she's slept with a can of
Speaker 2: pepper spray under her mattress, which the real Hannah did
Speaker 2: during her marriage to Patrick. In the story, the narrator
Speaker 2: is in the hospital with his new wife. Their ten
Speaker 2: month old baby.
Speaker 3: Is extremely ill.
Speaker 2: While he's at the hospital, he's thinking about his ex
Speaker 2: wife who's just died.
Speaker 1: The me character gets knife to death by a homeless person.
Speaker 3: The scene is pretty violent.
Speaker 1: She pulls over and she tries to help this homeless
Speaker 1: guy who's on a bridge. She had had a couple
Speaker 1: of glasses of wine, and he kills her, knife's her
Speaker 1: to death. And that's sort of how those story ends.
Speaker 1: That he's in the hospital thinking about his dead ex
Speaker 1: wife and about to go be reunited with his new
Speaker 1: wife and their new baby, and how he never got
Speaker 1: the chance to tell the me of the story that
Speaker 1: they had a baby in the first place.
Speaker 2: Hannah was at a loss for words. She was sitting
Speaker 2: at her kitchen table reading about her imagined death.
Speaker 1: It is a pretty surreal experience to read about yourself
Speaker 1: in third person, something that has been written by a
Speaker 1: former lover, in which you're murdered. I was both amused, terrified, outraged,
Speaker 1: and flu mixed that this story had been in the
Speaker 1: world for three years without me knowing.
Speaker 2: As she always did in big moments.
Speaker 3: She called her sister.
Speaker 1: I said, my ex husband murdered me And she said what,
Speaker 1: And I said three years ago, and I've been walking
Speaker 1: around with no idea that I'm even dead.
Speaker 2: Hannah could have allowed this revelation to take her to
Speaker 2: a dark place. It definitely concerned a lot of people
Speaker 2: in her life.
Speaker 1: I have a couple close female friends who were really worried,
Speaker 1: and my family thought it was pretty creepy.
Speaker 2: But if this was what he wrote in a short story,
Speaker 2: what was he going to say in his forthcoming novel?
Speaker 3: It gave her anxiety.
Speaker 1: Knowing that there's a book in the world there is
Speaker 1: going to be a version of me. It is going
Speaker 1: to be a portrayal that I cannot like, And just
Speaker 1: knowing that there was nothing I could do made me
Speaker 1: feel slightly out of control and a little bit crazy.
Speaker 2: Who was she in this book of his? Hannah had
Speaker 2: taken great care to try to write him truthfully. How
Speaker 2: would he write her?
Speaker 1: I had a lot of serious conversations with my partner
Speaker 1: now about whether or not I should read it, whether
Speaker 1: or not he should read it.
Speaker 2: Patrick's novel came out two years after the announcement and
Speaker 2: a year after her memoir was released, she asked a
Speaker 2: few trusted friends to give it a read.
Speaker 1: They said, it's unflattering, it's ungenerous, you're smug, you're insecure,
Speaker 1: and some amount of fun is being made of your body.
Speaker 1: That I was being portrayed with such a caricature, I thought, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't sound like something I need to read.
Speaker 2: Hannah did read the preview on Amazon.
Speaker 1: Though, and it was more than enough.
Speaker 2: In the first few pages, she recognized the character that
Speaker 2: was supposed to be her, but it wasn't her at all.
Speaker 3: Like she said, it was a caricature.
Speaker 1: She's obsessed with her careers. She's obsessed with sales. She
Speaker 1: writes books while walking her dog and talking to her
Speaker 1: sister and watching TV. She's like hopping around the kitchen
Speaker 1: talking to NPR while in her sweatsuit and making like
Speaker 1: a smoothie or something. She's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: To this day, Patrick consists that his book is entirely fictional.
Speaker 1: He is to the world saying, this is fiction, this
Speaker 1: is a novel. It has nothing to do with my life.
Speaker 1: But he has given very very real, very factual scenarios
Speaker 1: to the book.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, there's a clear connection between
Speaker 2: their two books. When someone searches for Patrick or his
Speaker 2: books on Amazon, Hannah's book is one of the top results.
Speaker 2: Hannah doesn't know for sure, but she wonders if that
Speaker 2: was an intentional move by his team.
Speaker 1: Because there's a story there, right, and stories sell books.
Speaker 2: Instead of staying angry, Hannah decided to do what she
Speaker 2: does best, right, and so she flipped the script.
Speaker 1: I just thought, wouldn't it be funny if I wrote
Speaker 1: a book about my ex husband writing a book about me.
Speaker 2: When Patrick wrote his novel, he reduced Hannah to a
Speaker 2: two dimensional character, a cartoon. It was infuriating and humiliating,
Speaker 2: and she decided to use those emotions to write.
Speaker 1: And I wrote a little scene in which there's this
Speaker 1: woman sitting across the table from her boyfriend and she
Speaker 1: reads this story in which she's been murdered by her ex.
Speaker 1: And I started laughing after I wrote it, and my
Speaker 1: boyfriend says, what are you laughing at? And I read
Speaker 1: it to him and he said, that's funny. And then
Speaker 1: I just kept writing these things.
Speaker 2: Pretty soon the book took on a life of its own.
Speaker 1: The book became something so much bigger and different than
Speaker 1: just being like a revenge book, it became a book
Speaker 1: about what it's like to be a middle aged woman
Speaker 1: navigating this world.
Speaker 2: The book falls somewhere in between fiction and nonfiction, in
Speaker 2: a genre called auto fiction. Hannah actually got the idea
Speaker 2: to pursue auto fiction from her ex husband.
Speaker 1: I did not know what auto fiction was until I
Speaker 1: read my ex husband's debut announcement in which the ex
Speaker 1: wife is working on auto fiction, and at that point
Speaker 1: in my career, I did not know this expression. It
Speaker 1: was driving me crazy, and I started looking into auto fiction,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was wonderful.
Speaker 2: Auto Fiction is rooted in real people and real events,
Speaker 2: but it gives writers the freedom to play with reality
Speaker 2: for the sake of a compelling story.
Speaker 1: It's so great. I basically just get to imagine myself
Speaker 1: doing all the crazy things that I do in my
Speaker 1: head but never out in the world.
Speaker 2: Unlike Patrick, she was explicit with her readers about drawing
Speaker 2: on true events. For example, in her new book, a
Speaker 2: woman named Hannah is living with her boyfriend and his daughter,
Speaker 2: just as she does in real life.
Speaker 1: And she gets the news that her ex husband is
Speaker 1: publishing a book in which a very unflattering portrayal of
Speaker 1: herself is prominently featured being out of control and having
Speaker 1: been turned into a character without permission. It's something that
Speaker 1: she's suddenly focused on and questioning. We watch her as
Speaker 1: she tries to figure out what's fair and what's not
Speaker 1: fair and what do you do with shared memories.
Speaker 2: Hannah thinks a lot about these ethical questions around shared memories.
Speaker 1: If you've got two artists or two writers who share
Speaker 1: these memories, of course they're going to be distorted. Even
Speaker 1: when you have two people who love each other and
Speaker 1: are still together and they're in a room, they're experiencing
Speaker 1: something different. And so I love the complication of what
Speaker 1: you do with the shared custody of memories.
Speaker 2: Today, Hannah's doing much better. She's in recovery from her
Speaker 2: eating disorder. It's still something she carries with her.
Speaker 1: I think I'm so proud of being on the other
Speaker 1: side of it that I will never let myself get
Speaker 1: back there.
Speaker 2: In many ways, she now feels grateful for what she
Speaker 2: went through.
Speaker 1: It took so long to be honest with what I
Speaker 1: wanted because I was so determined to please other people
Speaker 1: and to attempt to fit into a particular type of
Speaker 1: package to be palatable to be forgiving enough, to be sweet,
Speaker 1: to not cause problems getting a divorce, and re examining
Speaker 1: my life and making a conscious decision to figure out
Speaker 1: what I do and don't want out of my life,
Speaker 1: articulating my desires. That entire process was magical.
Speaker 2: The end all of our episodes with the same question,
Speaker 2: why do you want to tell your story?
Speaker 1: We tell stories to make connections. I teach kids who
Speaker 1: are eighteen to twenty six every day how to tell stories,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that I'm always telling them
Speaker 1: is we tell stories to make connections. And my divorce
Speaker 1: was a major disconnection for me, and it was a
Speaker 1: disconnection from the two people I thought I cared most
Speaker 1: about in my life. And the story that I'm telling
Speaker 1: I don't think is unique. In fact, I think maybe
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons that I want to tell it.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's something to be ashamed of. I
Speaker 1: don't think that being the person who's been cheated on
Speaker 1: means you should hide in a corner. And by telling it,
Speaker 1: I have the opportunity to make a connection, and I
Speaker 1: also have an opportunity to inspire somebody else to want
Speaker 1: to tell their own version of the same story.
Speaker 2: On the next episode of Betrayal. It's not like he's
Speaker 2: a catch me if you can type person. He actually
Speaker 2: lies to make himself as normal as possible, just like
Speaker 2: your average bloke. If you would like to reach out
Speaker 2: to the Betrayal team, email us at Betrayalpod at gmail
Speaker 2: dot com. That's Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com, and
Speaker 2: be sure to follow us on Instagram at Betrayal Pod.
Speaker 3: We're grateful for your support.
Speaker 2: One way to show support is by subscribing to our
Speaker 2: show on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and
Speaker 2: review Betrayal.
Speaker 3: Five star reviews go.
Speaker 2: A long way. A big thank you to all of
Speaker 2: our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a
Speaker 2: division of Glass Entertainment Group and partnership.
Speaker 3: With iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: The show is executive produced by Nana Glass and Jennifer Fasin,
Speaker 2: hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning. This episode was
Speaker 2: written and produced by Kitlyn Golden and Monique le Board,
Speaker 2: with additional production by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin
Speaker 2: Mercury and Caitlyn Golden. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry
Speaker 2: and Jessica Kriinchech. Audio editing and mixing by mattel Vecchio,
Speaker 2: additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by
Speaker 2: Oliver Bains. Music library provided by Mob Music and For
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