Speaker 1: Hey, right side, besties, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today is a special day on the bright Side. We're
Speaker 2: with Lee Reese's book club pick for April, Claire Lombardo.
Speaker 2: There has been a lot of intrigue online about her novel,
Speaker 2: and we get to go straight to the source. The
Speaker 2: author herself is here with us. It's Monday, April twenty ninth.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 1: And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side
Speaker 1: from Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Simone. How is the weekend?
Speaker 1: The weekend was good. It was really low key, just
Speaker 1: kind of hanging out. It was a social battery weekend.
Speaker 1: I just recharged the social battery. I went out to
Speaker 1: one function, went out to a dinner with my girlfriend,
Speaker 1: and that was it. How about you.
Speaker 2: I actually got out of the house the first time
Speaker 2: in a while. I went to a group dinner at Boa,
Speaker 2: which is way too trendy for me usually. I got
Speaker 2: some good walks in and I kept my promise. On Sunday,
Speaker 2: I went shopping for some new workout clothes.
Speaker 1: Oh amazing. Okay, I can't wait to see you rock
Speaker 1: these in studio because I'm going to be inspired by that.
Speaker 1: I need to get more, you know, it's all I wear.
Speaker 1: Oh same, But the most Monday thing happened to me
Speaker 1: twenty minutes before we hopped on this recording. I stepped
Speaker 1: on a lego with my full weight, my full weight
Speaker 1: into the middle of my foot, and now I swear
Speaker 1: I have to go to a doctor. I mean that
Speaker 1: I think I have a bruise. This is a little
Speaker 1: known phenomenon, the medical emergency that you don't know about
Speaker 1: until you become a parent.
Speaker 2: But which same name did you scream out when you
Speaker 2: stepped on the lego?
Speaker 1: Nobody? So I'm proud of myself for that. I just
Speaker 1: did on one of those like tight lipped grunts that
Speaker 1: I saw my mom do when I was growing up.
Speaker 1: But now it hurts.
Speaker 2: Do you keep order in your house or is it
Speaker 2: just chaos always, like with the kids toys and everything.
Speaker 1: No, we try to. We definitely make an effort, but
Speaker 1: it's yeah, there are certainly days where it's completely a mess.
Speaker 2: Seems hard, it's very hard.
Speaker 1: I see these clean influencers on clean talk and clean Stagram,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, how do you have this much time?
Speaker 2: It's hard for me to keep my own one bedroom
Speaker 2: apartment together. Like as soon as I try on two outfits.
Speaker 2: The whole place looks like a mess totally.
Speaker 1: Okay, should we get into our morning drip? Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: do it all right. So our girl, Emma Stone, I
Speaker 1: love her so much. Poor things, she was a revelation
Speaker 1: in that film. Well, she wants to switch things up. Okay,
Speaker 1: she wants us to call her Emily, which, if you
Speaker 1: didn't know, Danielle is actually her given name.
Speaker 2: Nah, hard, pass on this.
Speaker 1: You're not for it. It's like Emma Stone all the.
Speaker 2: Way she won an Oscar is Emma Stone. I know,
Speaker 2: how are you gonna go back on that? Girlfriend? It's
Speaker 2: etched in gold on the statue.
Speaker 1: That's so true.
Speaker 2: Late, it is too late for you. We all know
Speaker 2: you with Emma Stone. You've been out here for too long.
Speaker 2: If you were going to do this, you should have
Speaker 2: done this years ago.
Speaker 1: I know. I mean. So that's actually where this all started,
Speaker 1: is she started calling herself Emma Stone because Emily Stone
Speaker 1: was taken by another sag After member. But now she's
Speaker 1: totally eclipsed other Emily Stone. Unfortunately we don't know who
Speaker 1: that woman is. But this is I feel like the
Speaker 1: ultimate flex, you know, Like she started out with the
Speaker 1: stage name, but now she's so big that she feels
Speaker 1: like she can just revert to her original name.
Speaker 2: First of all, this is like when somebody has your
Speaker 2: Instagram handle that you want when you start a company
Speaker 2: or something, and it's already taken, but they're not using it.
Speaker 2: Emily Stone somewhere is probably not even acting anymore. She's
Speaker 2: not using the name, and now Emma is stuck with
Speaker 2: Emma because is anyone going to change how they refer
Speaker 2: to her.
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see. Maybe she has enough power
Speaker 1: to actually make this happen. But this got me thinking
Speaker 1: about all the other stage names that you may or
Speaker 1: may not know about. Oh yeah, yeah, Allie Portman was
Speaker 1: actually born Natalie Hirschlog. Yeah, she's Israeli American. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: took her paternal grandmother's maiden name Portman as her stage name.
Speaker 1: She said it was for privacy reasons. Okay, this one
Speaker 1: is so good. Jamie Fox was actually born Eric Marlin Bishop.
Speaker 1: Where do you get fox from? Bishop? You know?
Speaker 2: All the swag that Jamie Fox has I think is
Speaker 2: in part because of his name. It's like he is
Speaker 2: a fox, you know what I mean? I sound like
Speaker 2: I'm eighty five, but he is like Eric Marlin. Bishop
Speaker 2: does not have the same ring to it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. I mean, he clearly knew this was a
Speaker 1: strategic move. He knew that it would be worthwhile, that
Speaker 1: it would be good for his career. He actually chose
Speaker 1: Fox in honor of Sanford and SunStar red Fox with
Speaker 1: two ex'es. So there you go. I think the one
Speaker 1: that most people know is Lady Gaga. So Gaga came
Speaker 1: from what she calls this stronger individual part of herself
Speaker 1: that she discovered when she was coming up in New
Speaker 1: York City as a young musician. But she was actually
Speaker 1: born Stephanie Germanada. I think that name has star power
Speaker 1: in and of itself.
Speaker 3: I don't know it has german it, sure, I agree,
Speaker 3: But she has so much star power that I'm not
Speaker 3: sure it would have mattered for her exactly.
Speaker 1: She was born for stardom. One of our producers told
Speaker 1: us this as we were working on this story. Apparently
Speaker 1: all of her classmates at NYU put together a Facebook
Speaker 1: group saying, Stephanie Germanada, you will never be famous. She
Speaker 1: proved them all wrong. I mean, she proved them all wrong.
Speaker 1: That's so crazy that they did that.
Speaker 2: That's a huge part of her backstory. She had a
Speaker 2: lot of resilience and she was like, I am going
Speaker 2: to be famous. She went to every club in New
Speaker 2: York City to perform and said it.
Speaker 1: I love seeing those videos of her performing at Lollapalooza
Speaker 1: back in the day. Hearing those stories of how she
Speaker 1: was lugging around her keyboard herself making her own costumes.
Speaker 1: Is that kind of grits and ingenuity that I really admire.
Speaker 2: I got to spend a little time with her backstage
Speaker 2: at a few concerts and events, and she is such
Speaker 2: an artiste. Like some people are pop stars and some
Speaker 2: people are artists, she is truly an artist. I do
Speaker 2: have to admit something to you. Tell me it's a
Speaker 2: big secret. I have a stage name. I am not
Speaker 2: truly Danielle Robe.
Speaker 1: What is the real name? I mean, I already knew this, but.
Speaker 2: I feel like I have to be honest with everybody.
Speaker 1: Honest.
Speaker 2: So Robe is my middle name. So it was one
Speaker 2: of my given names. It's on my birth certificate. But
Speaker 2: my mom is a huge feminist, she always has been,
Speaker 2: and so she said, I wanted to name you after
Speaker 2: two really powerful women, and it's my two grandmothers. So
Speaker 2: Rody ro and Barbara BA and she made up the
Speaker 2: name and I started going by it my junior year,
Speaker 2: senior year of high school because oh, this is embarrassing.
Speaker 2: But I was singing and I had some like a
Speaker 2: very small amount of success, but enough that I didn't
Speaker 2: want any colleges to find, like any music videos or
Speaker 2: anything I was doing because Facebook was so new, and
Speaker 2: so I started going by my middle name, and then
Speaker 2: it caught on. And now it feels weird because all
Speaker 2: of my best friends call me Robe, like it's become
Speaker 2: who I am. They forgot my real last name.
Speaker 1: I do call you Robe sometimes, no first name.
Speaker 2: I know last name only, but like all my friends
Speaker 2: from fifth grade, sixth grade, they don't have my real
Speaker 2: last name. They have Robe. It's so interesting.
Speaker 1: Is today the day, Danielle? Are you going to reveal
Speaker 1: your true name today?
Speaker 2: Sure? I think it's on the interweb. My real last
Speaker 2: name is Willerman, Danielle Robe, Willerman. Oh, oh my gosh, Willerman.
Speaker 1: Breaking news. I didn't think you were going to go there.
Speaker 2: Wow, neither did I Actually it just sort of flew
Speaker 2: out of my mouth. But I feel like this podcast
Speaker 2: is one of truth.
Speaker 1: We are truth tellers here on the bright side.
Speaker 2: Did you ever go buy a stage name or you've
Speaker 2: always been Simone? Boys?
Speaker 1: There were parts of my career where I went by
Speaker 1: Simone Danielle. I think because Danielle is my middle name.
Speaker 1: I have two middle names. My other middle name is Bonnie,
Speaker 1: and that's my grandmother's name, so my mom also named
Speaker 1: me after my grandmother. But I guess I sort of
Speaker 1: have a stage name in that my name that I
Speaker 1: go by professionally is my maiden name. I don't go
Speaker 1: by my married name. So yeah, that's the closest that
Speaker 1: I'll get to that. But I'm kind of jealous that
Speaker 1: you have a stage name, like I feel like I
Speaker 1: want one. But I'm thinking maybe I just need an
Speaker 1: alter ego name. Maybe that'll scratch that itch for me.
Speaker 2: How about See Money.
Speaker 1: No, See, that's too close. I think I need something
Speaker 1: that feels too real. It feels too real to who
Speaker 1: I really am. I needed a departure, perhaps something a
Speaker 1: little more sinister, you know, like Sasha Fierce. I need
Speaker 1: a I like Angelica or like Giselle. I feel like
Speaker 1: that conveys like I don't know Franngelica Frienjelica Where are
Speaker 1: we getting the friend from? I? No, no, I have
Speaker 1: been trying to find an alter ego name generator for
Speaker 1: like the past ten minutes. Okay, I did actually ask
Speaker 1: chat ept for alter ego names. Are you ready for these?
Speaker 2: What did you type in first?
Speaker 1: I just said my name is simone voice watched my
Speaker 1: alter ego name be, which is not the best problem. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. These are really good. Phoenix Noir interesting.
Speaker 1: I kind of like that one, Luna mystique, Nova Eclipse.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's really on brand for you.
Speaker 1: Oriyan Enigma, Nebula, Veil, Ember, frost Ember.
Speaker 2: Why are these all like moon and sun and cosmic?
Speaker 2: This feels very you.
Speaker 1: It really is interesting. Our producer Tim says these sounds
Speaker 1: drag queen names, which I mean, I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't deny the similarities here.
Speaker 1: It's epic.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: After the break, we're talking with Claire Lombardo, author of
Speaker 1: this month's Reese's book Club pick, The Most Fun We
Speaker 1: Ever Had.
Speaker 4: Stay with us, Danielle.
Speaker 1: Today is a very special day because we're talking about
Speaker 1: the April pick from Reese's Book Club. New York Times
Speaker 1: best selling author Claire Lombardo is joining us all the
Speaker 1: way from Iowa City. She's the author of the Most
Speaker 1: Fun We Ever Had, And we.
Speaker 2: Had so much fun reading the book as a Chicago
Speaker 2: and it really made me feel like I was back
Speaker 2: at home. It's a family drama set mostly in Illinois
Speaker 2: and follows a married couple's forty year love story. It
Speaker 2: includes the messy lives of their four very different daughters
Speaker 2: and a grandchild who was given up for adoption. It's
Speaker 2: a deep dive into complicated relationship dynamics, the perils of comparison,
Speaker 2: and what it means to love a partner, to love
Speaker 2: your family, and to love yourself. Claire, welcome to the
Speaker 2: bright Side.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me. It is a
Speaker 5: delight to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, I imagine it must be pretty fun to be
Speaker 1: Claire Lombardo right now, because The Most Fun We Ever
Speaker 1: Had was published back in twenty nineteen, but it just
Speaker 1: became a Reese's Book Club pick this month, and we
Speaker 1: talked to Reese on our show. She just lights up
Speaker 1: when she talks about being able to amplify the work
Speaker 1: of female authors like you. So, how has the RBC
Speaker 1: selection impacted you? It's been incredible. It's I mean, like
Speaker 1: you said, this book is it's a five year old
Speaker 1: paperback at this point, and to see the new life
Speaker 1: that has been breathed into it overnight has just been
Speaker 1: so incredible, Claire.
Speaker 2: When I talked to authors, they tell me that it's
Speaker 2: the hardest thing they've ever done. And most of these
Speaker 2: women are also mothers and entrepreneurs, and they still say
Speaker 2: just getting this book birthed was the hardest thing they
Speaker 2: have done. Why did you have to get this story
Speaker 2: onto the page? This is your first book. Why did
Speaker 2: you choose this one?
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't know that I was writing a
Speaker 5: novel when I started writing this novel. I didn't set
Speaker 5: out to write a novel. Writing was always sort of
Speaker 5: on the side past time for me. It was something
Speaker 5: I did after my you know, nine to five job
Speaker 5: that it always just brought me pleasure. But I started
Speaker 5: social work school, a graduate school in my mid twenties,
Speaker 5: and about the same time I started writing this novel,
Speaker 5: and very quickly these characters kind of took over the
Speaker 5: rest of my life. And so I guess the bigger
Speaker 5: and bigger the story got in, the deeper and deeper
Speaker 5: I got into it, the harder it was to ignore it,
Speaker 5: so it did kind of just become this thing that
Speaker 5: I to pay attention to and then ultimately finish.
Speaker 1: You worked closely with unhoused individuals in Chicago as a
Speaker 1: social worker. How did that inform your writing?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I gosh so much. Most of the
Speaker 5: people that I was working with had never been given
Speaker 5: a chance to tell their own stories. They had never
Speaker 5: really you know, they had sort of been on the
Speaker 5: fringes and not been paid attention to by a lot
Speaker 5: of people. I was working primarily with parents and kids
Speaker 5: in the Chicago public school system, and their lives were
Speaker 5: incredibly complicated in many, many, many different ways, and I
Speaker 5: think sometimes just being able to validate that for someone
Speaker 5: is an incredibly powerful thing. And so in my kind
Speaker 5: of helping people to you know, it's a matter of
Speaker 5: asking the right questions, or asking one hundred more questions
Speaker 5: than you might need to to kind of get the context,
Speaker 5: get the backstory, and to understand where people are coming from.
Speaker 5: That's very much a part of my writing process.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: It's something that I do, you know, terrogate my characters,
Speaker 5: so to speak, in a similar way, so I can
Speaker 5: get to know them, you know, as well as I
Speaker 5: can and empathy.
Speaker 1: That's clearly something that you lead with.
Speaker 2: I hopes.
Speaker 5: Thank you, I hope so it's it's important to me. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think it's one of the most critical things that
Speaker 5: we can bring, you know, as writers and as readers.
Speaker 5: I write a lot of difficult and not always particularly
Speaker 5: likable characters. The big thing for me as a writer
Speaker 5: was learning how to love them even when I didn't
Speaker 5: like them particularly, and I do think that all is
Speaker 5: you know, kind of stems from from having empathy for them.
Speaker 1: Claire, you talk about making this pivot from social worker
Speaker 1: to author, and you make it look so easy. Was it?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm thank you. I'm glad to hear that. No,
Speaker 5: it was very messy. It's I think people are always
Speaker 5: a little nervous about me talking to their teenage children
Speaker 5: because I'm like, I dropped out of school twice and
Speaker 5: everything turned out fine, but it didn't feel fine or
Speaker 5: easy at the time, and certainly wasn't an easy or
Speaker 5: advisable decision to drop out of school twice as I did.
Speaker 5: I mean, ultimately, I'm obviously very grateful that I did.
Speaker 5: But I think and I explore some of this with
Speaker 5: the Grace character in particular and the most fun we
Speaker 5: ever had. It strikes me as really bizarre now at
Speaker 5: thirty five, that we expect seventeen or eighteen year olds
Speaker 5: to know who they are or what they want from
Speaker 5: the world, or even twenty five. You know, I recall
Speaker 5: at the time feeling like a failure or feeling like
Speaker 5: I was doing things wrong, because you know, I couldn't
Speaker 5: make it work and I couldn't figure out what I
Speaker 5: wanted to do. And now I'm very grateful that I
Speaker 5: was able to figure it out that way. And I
Speaker 5: don't think I would have written the books that I've
Speaker 5: written or be the person that I am had I
Speaker 5: not gone through those sort of messy or ill advised
Speaker 5: decisions that I made.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, we want to dig into the book with you, Claire.
Speaker 2: It's not all It's not often that we get the
Speaker 2: actual author here with us such a treat A huge
Speaker 2: element in this story is the relationship between sisters, specifically
Speaker 2: how we compare our lives and our successes to our siblings.
Speaker 2: Why did you want to dig into that dynamic?
Speaker 5: Well, I am a sister. I also have a brother,
Speaker 5: but I come from a big family and I'm the
Speaker 5: youngest of my big family, and so I've always been
Speaker 5: very much an observer of family dynamics and very interested
Speaker 5: in family dynamics.
Speaker 2: I think as.
Speaker 5: Women we are able to we have a capacity for
Speaker 5: empathy like a you know, an unusual capacity for empathy,
Speaker 5: but we also have the ability to be cruel in
Speaker 5: ways that are sometimes rather inventive. And so having these
Speaker 5: these four sorens and daughters in the same space was
Speaker 5: just really fun to explore. And there's kind of the
Speaker 5: old you know, you don't choose your family adage. These
Speaker 5: four women don't always want to be around each other
Speaker 5: or acknowledge that they are related to each other, but
Speaker 5: they have to. And so that's a fun position to
Speaker 5: be as a writer too, is to kind of lock
Speaker 5: yourself into a room like that full of people who
Speaker 5: are kind of explosive and just sort of see what happens.
Speaker 5: And plenty did, and you know, plot is born from
Speaker 5: bad behavior, and all these women are doing pretty much
Speaker 5: is misbehaving. So it was really pretty fun to write
Speaker 5: about them. You mentioned that you're a sister.
Speaker 2: How did your family and your relationships with your parents
Speaker 2: and your sisters inform your writing quite a bit?
Speaker 5: I had a professor once who said that writers are
Speaker 5: either drawn to messy families or tidy families in fiction,
Speaker 5: and I'm clearly very drawn to messy families. And I
Speaker 5: think when you're immersed in that kind of messy, intimate
Speaker 5: environment from the get go, you can't help but I
Speaker 5: don't know, be interested in that. And I also, I'm
Speaker 5: the youngest of kids by quite a bit, so I
Speaker 5: was also kind of an only child. Most of my
Speaker 5: siblings had gone off to college by the time I
Speaker 5: was I don't know, nine or ten, so I grew
Speaker 5: up with my parents in a very different way. So
Speaker 5: I feel like I kind of had the privilege of
Speaker 5: being both the youngest child and an only child, and
Speaker 5: I think that enhanced my perception of my parents too,
Speaker 5: and their you know, the fact that they were people
Speaker 5: instead of just.
Speaker 2: Being my parents.
Speaker 5: I think I maybe was more aware of that earlier
Speaker 5: on than some people might have been, just by virtue
Speaker 5: of my place in the family.
Speaker 1: Claire. At its core, this is a novel about a
Speaker 1: happy and loving marriage, and we don't always see happily
Speaker 1: married people in fiction or TV dramas for that matter,
Speaker 1: So were Marilyn and David Sorenson inspired by people you know.
Speaker 5: I will say my parents were incredibly in love, so
Speaker 5: that was something that I It was just part of
Speaker 5: my life. It wasn't something I was particularly aware of
Speaker 5: as being unusual until I became an adult. When I
Speaker 5: was a graduate student, the joke about me was that
Speaker 5: my stories were all very long, none of them had plots,
Speaker 5: and they were all about people who really really liked
Speaker 5: each other, which is not like the fodder for great fiction.
Speaker 5: But I kind of took that as a challenge to say,
Speaker 5: we have these people who really really love each other
Speaker 5: at the center, and how can I actually turn that
Speaker 5: into a sometimes negative plot device. It was a fun challenge.
Speaker 2: Why did you want to write characters who liked each other?
Speaker 1: That's a good question.
Speaker 5: That's some deep psychological mining that I have to do eventually.
Speaker 5: I'm conflict avoidant, so that might have something to do
Speaker 5: with it.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think I like to feel good when I'm reading,
Speaker 5: and I like seeing love rendered on the page, and
Speaker 5: I do think it is you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Life is hard.
Speaker 5: It's a hard time to be a person right now,
Speaker 5: and so I think it can be nice to have
Speaker 5: a book where there are people who are enjoying each other.
Speaker 2: Say so, yeah.
Speaker 1: That's how we created this show too, is like it's
Speaker 1: okay to be happy and joyful.
Speaker 2: So we are absolutely aligned on that. I want to
Speaker 2: hear more about that. When did you first fall in
Speaker 2: love with storytelling and writing? How did that come to
Speaker 2: be for you? Yeah, so I feel very lucky.
Speaker 5: I grew up in a house where books were just around,
Speaker 5: and it was just kind of a part of all
Speaker 5: of our lives. As I said, I have four older siblings,
Speaker 5: much older siblings, so I was exposed to books, sometimes
Speaker 5: perhaps earlier than I should have been, but I was,
Speaker 5: you know, constantly constantly reading. It was like the only
Speaker 5: way that my parents could think to punish I was
Speaker 5: a fairly well behaved kid, but the only way they
Speaker 5: could punish me was to not let me read before
Speaker 5: bed when I was little.
Speaker 2: So cool. I know it was brutal.
Speaker 5: It only happened a few timess, but yeah, it's always
Speaker 5: been a huge part of my life story and I
Speaker 5: feel very very grateful for that.
Speaker 2: So so funny my parents punished me with t t
Speaker 2: that you couldn't watch it, or that you had to
Speaker 2: know that I couldn't watch it. I always loved watching
Speaker 2: inappropriate things like I was watching Sex in the City
Speaker 2: and the Sopranos way before it was okay. I was
Speaker 2: never allowed to watch that stuff. Yeah, what did your
Speaker 2: parents punish you with?
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, anything, I mean grounding? Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: lose allowance. I was a bit of a troublemaker as
Speaker 1: a kid, so I got I ran the gamut.
Speaker 6: Kind.
Speaker 1: I've learned that you use post it notes quite liberally
Speaker 1: throughout your creative process, as many authors do. So what
Speaker 1: would we see? I want you to just take us
Speaker 1: into your creative brain for a minute and tell us
Speaker 1: what would we see if we caught you midbook development.
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, you would be frightened of me, I think,
Speaker 5: without without question. I in my office at home, I
Speaker 5: have a huge, almost full wall sized post it board.
Speaker 2: It almost looks like you're cracking crime case. I have
Speaker 2: to tell me.
Speaker 7: I know.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's very.
Speaker 5: Yes, Yes, I'm like that person who has the hotel
Speaker 5: room with the red string between the pictures of bodies. Yes,
Speaker 5: it's a slightly tamor version of that. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 5: it's it's a portrait of real disordered thinking. And I
Speaker 5: think because I'm kind of a disordered writer. I'm a
Speaker 5: fairly organized person in my regular life, but in my
Speaker 5: writing life, I don't write an order. I kind of
Speaker 5: operate on you know, I'm writing today what I feel
Speaker 5: like writing today, and it might not be the scene
Speaker 5: that comes after the scene I wrote yesterday. So with
Speaker 5: most fun I ended up with just, you know, hundreds
Speaker 5: of pages of non consecutive scenes about this family, and
Speaker 5: there was no through line and there was no real
Speaker 5: sense of order. And at the time, I was like,
Speaker 5: this is fine. It's an artistic novel. And I remember
Speaker 5: telling my agent that and she was like, that's like, no,
Speaker 5: you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't do that is not a genre.
Speaker 5: No nobody wants to read that self included. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I kind of had to get mathematical at the end,
Speaker 5: and it's I mean, it's become kind of a fun
Speaker 5: part of my process. I have, I guess, a creative
Speaker 5: brain in some capacity. I have a visual brain, which
Speaker 5: novels are are not. Particularly You don't really get to
Speaker 5: tap into that part of your brain when you're writing
Speaker 5: a book, and so I think doing things with post
Speaker 5: it notes or storyboarding or you know, a variety of
Speaker 5: different writing exercises. I guess is a way to concretize
Speaker 5: and make visual something that is inherently not. So I
Speaker 5: try to find ways to do that where I can.
Speaker 1: How many stacks of post It notes do you think
Speaker 1: you go through during that process?
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, I should have like bought stock and post its.
Speaker 1: Buy it now because she's writing a new novel and
Speaker 1: it's gonna go up.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna, yeah, go buy some before I yeah, sell
Speaker 5: out Staples or whatever. It's hard to tell because I'm
Speaker 5: also a very impulsive shopper for post it. So I'm like, oh,
Speaker 5: there's a new because they have different collections of post its.
Speaker 5: There's like the Marrakesh collection and the Belief. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's very weird. This is a niche bit of information
Speaker 5: that nobody wanted to hear about.
Speaker 2: But thinking there's a collab in your future, right, Oh yes,
Speaker 2: I am available the Lombardo post It collab. Yeah, very
Speaker 2: jo Yeah, Claire. There's a passage in your book when
Speaker 2: David and Marilyn are expecting their fourth child and it's
Speaker 2: Mother's Day and Marilyn is in the bed with her
Speaker 2: girls having a moment. It's page two forty one. Will
Speaker 2: you read a little bit for uses. Yeah, I would
Speaker 2: be happy too.
Speaker 1: I love when authors read to me.
Speaker 2: Oh thanks, such a special thing, right, so special?
Speaker 5: Oh, I'm glad you. I do that with my students.
Speaker 5: My students who are you know, in their twenties. I'm
Speaker 5: always like, do you want me to read to you?
Speaker 5: And they're always like, yeah, Like it's a very comforting thing.
Speaker 5: Not my own books. I don't teach my own books, okay, umm.
Speaker 8: E.
Speaker 5: Liza draped herself over Marilyn's belly, dropping the tulips and
Speaker 5: they're accompanying dirt onto David's spot on the bed. Oh
Speaker 5: my gosh, she squealed. He kicked me, and suddenly she
Speaker 5: had three pairs of hands on her stomach, even reluctant
Speaker 5: Wendy's prodding. Reacting to the movement from within, laughing murmuring
Speaker 5: to one another, she allowed herself to rest back against
Speaker 5: her pillows, again, contented in an entirely different way. Your
Speaker 5: family could do that to you, sometimes catch you off
Speaker 5: guard with their charm and their normalcy. Those rare moments
Speaker 5: like this one were the reason that she was pregnant again,
Speaker 5: that she and David would soon be celebrating their seventeenth
Speaker 5: wedding anniversary that these three girls, wearying as they often were,
Speaker 5: were currently making her happier than she'd possibly ever been.
Speaker 5: This was the point of having a family. These fleeting
Speaker 5: moments of absolute pleasure, Stockholm syndrome. They kept her coming
Speaker 5: back for more. She shifted beneath the weight of the
Speaker 5: baby and the six small hands. She reached a stroke
Speaker 5: Wendy's hair, and her heart swelled when Wendy let her.
Speaker 5: This was the point God, David said when he returned,
Speaker 5: I leave for ninety seconds, and look what happens.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Claire, You're welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm still stuck on this one line that you just read.
Speaker 1: This was the point of having a family, these fleeting
Speaker 1: moments of absolute pleasure. I think I just got pregnant
Speaker 1: again after you read that passage, Claire. I think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have a baby now. Congratulations. It makes when you
Speaker 1: write that, it makes me want to expand my family
Speaker 1: and have another baby. That was beautiful. Is there a
Speaker 1: character that you really have a soft spot for?
Speaker 2: Wendy?
Speaker 5: I think she was the character that people the most
Speaker 5: either hate or love, and I did both when I
Speaker 5: was writing her.
Speaker 2: But she was so much fun.
Speaker 5: To write because she's not diametrically opposite to me, but
Speaker 5: she is not like I am outwardly. Wendy has a
Speaker 5: fairly traumatic experience, many many traumatic experiences that kind of
Speaker 5: characterize her adulthood. And so I really the deeper I
Speaker 5: went into her past, and the deeper I my understanding
Speaker 5: of her became, the more I grew to love her.
Speaker 5: Which is my hope for readers too. Like I said earlier,
Speaker 5: like you're probably not going to like or be particularly
Speaker 5: happy with a lot of these characters, but it's my
Speaker 5: hope that by the end of the book you'll at
Speaker 5: least see where they're coming from and maybe find them
Speaker 5: charming and the way that we do with our own families.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll get Claire's answers to your questions, including whether or
Speaker 1: not there's an adaptation in the works.
Speaker 2: We're back with Claire Lombardo. We have some listener questions
Speaker 2: for you now. We asked all of our listeners or
Speaker 2: should I say readers, to send us a voicemail with
Speaker 2: their questions about the most fun we ever had. This
Speaker 2: is kind of like an extension of the book Club
Speaker 2: So first up, we have Ashley.
Speaker 8: Hey, my name is Ashley, and I'm a nurse in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 8: When I was in nursing school, I worked a lot,
Speaker 8: so I didn't really have enough time to read for fun.
Speaker 2: So when I graduated and found.
Speaker 8: Reese's Book Club, it really helped me to find my
Speaker 8: love and passion for reading again. I just finished reading
Speaker 8: The Most Fun We Ever Had, and oh my gosh,
Speaker 8: the drama was insane, and I love drama when I'm
Speaker 8: not directly involved in it. The Most Fun We Ever
Speaker 8: Had was a phrase used a couple of times in
Speaker 8: the book. My question for you, Claire Lombardo, is what
Speaker 8: does that mean to you? And why did you choose
Speaker 8: that to be the title.
Speaker 5: Oh that's a great question. That was not the original
Speaker 5: title of this book, actually, and I so the line.
Speaker 5: So it comes from a line early on in the
Speaker 5: book when Marilyn has two children, so basically too, you know,
Speaker 5: she has a one year old and like an infant,
Speaker 5: and she's quite young, and she's at a faculty party
Speaker 5: with her husband, and she's underslept and very underwhelmed by
Speaker 5: motherhood or overwhelmed and underwhelmed at once and she says,
Speaker 5: I love being a mom. That's the most fun I
Speaker 5: ever had, And it pops up a few more times.
Speaker 5: It kind of becomes this call and response between David
Speaker 5: and Marilyn and what I love about it. If I
Speaker 5: can say that I love my own title, is that
Speaker 5: thank you?
Speaker 2: Is that it is? I mean, it's tongue in cheek.
Speaker 5: It's not, you know, Marilyn is not having the most
Speaker 5: fun she ever had when she says that. But that's
Speaker 5: kind of the tenor of this book. There's often a
Speaker 5: lot of happiness alongside a lot of sorrow. There's often
Speaker 5: a lot of gravitas alongside a lot of you know,
Speaker 5: hopefully humor, And that's life to me life. I'm often
Speaker 5: the person who you know, will make a joke at
Speaker 5: inappropriate times. Not unlike Wendy, I guess, but I think
Speaker 5: that is very true to family life, at least my
Speaker 5: experience of it. And and that's, you know, that's kind
Speaker 5: of how the soren Sins operate. There's a lot of
Speaker 5: things happen that they wish hadn't happened, but they sort
Speaker 5: of get through it by bucking up and trying to
Speaker 5: find humor where it's often pretty well hidden, all right.
Speaker 1: Next up is Elisa.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 6: This is Elisa from Pennsylvania. I am an English teacher
Speaker 6: and I am an avid reader. I spend a lot
Speaker 6: of time on book talk. So I have a two
Speaker 6: part question for Claire. The first question that I have
Speaker 6: is about Wendy. I was really drawn to Wendy as
Speaker 6: a character because she is so real and flawed, and
Speaker 6: I'd like to know if you had the idea that
Speaker 6: Wendy would be a morally gray character as you were
Speaker 6: writing her, and if you agree that she falls into
Speaker 6: that category. And then my other question for you is
Speaker 6: do you think that that the story is ever going
Speaker 6: to be made into maybe a mini series or a
Speaker 6: series or a movie.
Speaker 7: She did?
Speaker 2: She was ready? Yes.
Speaker 5: I'll answer them in order, because I often forget everything.
Speaker 5: But Wendy is very much a morally great character. I
Speaker 5: think that's a very it's very English teachery way to
Speaker 5: phrase that too, which I appreciate.
Speaker 2: I think I did.
Speaker 5: Always know that because Wendy's actions people take issue with,
Speaker 5: Readers take issue with, and they're not the choices that
Speaker 5: I necessarily would have made, or maybe they are. I
Speaker 5: think it's hard to put herself in other people's shoes.
Speaker 5: I absolutely would say that she is a morally great character,
Speaker 5: and she is hopefully a character again that by the
Speaker 5: end of the book I hope that readers will will
Speaker 5: like instead of seeing as a villain. I don't believe
Speaker 5: in villains in fiction, and I don't believe in heroes
Speaker 5: in fiction because they don't exist in real life. Nobody
Speaker 5: is all bad or all good, and I think Wendy
Speaker 5: is an example of my sort of commitment to that
Speaker 5: that people can make, you know, questionable choices but still
Speaker 5: be okay people, or still be coming from a good place.
Speaker 2: So that's that.
Speaker 5: And then, so I'm not sworn to secrecy, I will
Speaker 5: say yes, I do think that adaptation is a possibility,
Speaker 5: and I will be as excited as the rest of
Speaker 5: you when I find out.
Speaker 2: Also, Claire, you're making us Chicago girls very proud. I
Speaker 2: could talk to about Chicago for a while, but I
Speaker 2: think Renee, who is our next reader, would be upset
Speaker 2: if I didn't ask her questions. So this is Renee. Hi.
Speaker 7: I'm Renee from Ohio and I am a wife and
Speaker 7: mom of three kiddos. I adore the most fun we
Speaker 7: ever had. I came across it when it was first released,
Speaker 7: and I wanted to shout from the rooftops to everyone
Speaker 7: I knew to read this book. I just connected to
Speaker 7: it on a really deep level. The Sorenson's reminded me
Speaker 7: a lot of my own family, and being the oldest
Speaker 7: of four siblings, there were a lot of things that
Speaker 7: really I could relate to. Fast forward to this month,
Speaker 7: I've been rereading it and I just love it even more.
Speaker 7: I've found myself underlining so many passages that I glossed over,
Speaker 7: and I'm just connecting to it in a different way.
Speaker 2: So my question for Claire.
Speaker 7: Is how has been chosen as Reese's book Club pick
Speaker 7: for April made you reflect on this story as a whole.
Speaker 7: Knowing that we've all changed since the first time it
Speaker 7: was released, has it made you think about the story
Speaker 7: or the characters and would you want to do anything differently?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: I love that question.
Speaker 2: I do too.
Speaker 5: It was it's been really interesting to return to this book. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: the world has changed a lot since twenty nineteen, you know,
Speaker 5: to put it lightly, and we've all changed in small
Speaker 5: and large ways.
Speaker 2: I feel almost.
Speaker 5: Like sisterly about this book in a way that I
Speaker 5: don't think I did five years ago.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 5: When I was writing this book, it's the most intimate
Speaker 5: thing in the world, and you think you'll never be
Speaker 5: distant from the material. It just feels so almost claustrophobically close.
Speaker 5: So that's been really interesting for me. And I think
Speaker 5: it's good as a writer to be able to distance
Speaker 5: yourself from your material. And I think it's that'll be
Speaker 5: a good lesson to me with future books, my current
Speaker 5: you know, my new book that's coming out next month,
Speaker 5: month after next.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that novel, can you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit more about it. It's called Same As It Ever Was?
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: I have a copy of it here.
Speaker 1: Coincidentally, I love the cover.
Speaker 2: Thank you Me too.
Speaker 5: It comes out on yeah, June eighteenth, And I would say,
Speaker 5: if you are, if you liked The Most Fun We
Speaker 5: Ever Had, I think these books are very much in
Speaker 5: conversation with each other. I was writing Same as It
Speaker 5: Ever Was when I was editing The Most Fun We
Speaker 5: Ever Had, So a lot of my occupations are similar.
Speaker 5: So Same As It Ever Was is about a woman
Speaker 5: named Julia who lives in the Chicago suburbs, and she's
Speaker 5: in her fifties and she lives an ostensibly very lovely life.
Speaker 5: She has a husband, she likes a lot, into almost
Speaker 5: grown children, and then she goes to the grocery store
Speaker 5: one day and runs into an old friend who she
Speaker 5: not only was not expecting to see again, but was
Speaker 5: actively hoping to never see again. And it kind of
Speaker 5: throws everything into relief for her. So, if The Most
Speaker 5: Fun We Ever Had is a story about a you know,
Speaker 5: the life of a family same as it ever was,
Speaker 5: is also a family story, but it's kind of one
Speaker 5: woman's life told from beginning to end, though out of
Speaker 5: order in my characteristic disorganized fashion.
Speaker 1: Claire, thank you so much for being here. This is
Speaker 1: a really special moment for us because you're our first
Speaker 1: Reese's book Club author to come on the bright side,
Speaker 1: So thank you for christening it in such an unforgettable way.
Speaker 5: Oh it's an honor. Thank you both so much. This
Speaker 5: has been so much fun.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Claire. Claire Lombardo is the author of the
Speaker 2: Most Fun We Ever Had, which was the Reese's book
Speaker 2: Club pick for April. We're announcing the Maypick from Reese's
Speaker 2: book Club next week, so don't miss that, and remember
Speaker 2: you can always send us your book and author questions
Speaker 2: to Hello at the bright Side podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're getting to watch Claire define who
Speaker 1: she is as an author, which is really exciting. And
Speaker 1: I love that she's unafraid to explore the Morley Gray area.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: No one's a full villain or a full hero. I
Speaker 2: was struck by her fortitude. She's so chill and like
Speaker 2: you can tell, she's easy going. But to have a
Speaker 2: nine to five and then come home and write a
Speaker 2: novel from I don't know five to nine and do
Speaker 2: what be a daughter, sister, friend, whatever else you are
Speaker 2: just is so impressive to me. That's it for today's show. Tomorrow,
Speaker 2: Joanne Lee Mullinaro aka the Korean Vegan is coming by
Speaker 2: to top food, family, and culture.
Speaker 1: Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Simone Boye.
Speaker 1: You can find me at Simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro o
Speaker 2: b A Y See.
Speaker 1: You tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.