Curtis Sittenfeld — Romantic Comedy - with Martine Powers

thank you hello everyone welcome to sixth and I I am Allison Michaels I'm the deputy director of audio at the Washington Post we are so excited tonight to be partnering with six and I and the politics and Pros bookstore on this event whether you're here in person or watching virtually from home thank you so much for being with us tonight and in doing so supporting a non-profit an independent bookstore and DC's Hometown paper while I'm speaking tonight as a representative of the post my first job out of college was actually right here at six and I I worked as their Communications associate so this feels a little bit like a full circle moment for me and I cut my teeth promoting events like this one tonight starting the organization's first blog which was not my best work and most memorably publicizing 69's kosher deli food truck called 6th and Rye in case you missed it that was at the height of DC's food truck craze so we really nailed it it's such a pleasure to introduce Curtis at inval tonight the New York Times best-selling author of six novels including titles like Rotom eligible American Wife and prep which fun fact she wrote in part while teaching English here in DC at St Albans School you can figure out where some of that was based tonight we're celebrating the release of her seventh and much anticipated novel romantic comedy Curtis's talent for Sharp observations and her trademark ability to bring complex women to life are ever present in the story of late night TV comedy writer Sally Mills and her unexpected chemistry with Noah Brewster a famous musician serving as the guest host on the show Sally writes for many of us can relate to the neuroses inducing and heart fluttering feelings of a crush and the early stages of new love what sets romantic comedy apart or the nuanced Reflections on beauty gender Dynamics and romance that still manage to throw many of us for a loop no matter how evolved we are in our thinking tonight Curtis and Feld will be in conversation with my dear colleague Martin Powers the founding senior host of post reports the Washington post's award-winning Flagship News podcast yeah that's right it's good the work of Martin and the post reports team has been recognized by the Peabody awards the online news Association the DuPont Columbia Awards the Gracies and many many others if you don't already follow post reports wherever you listen to podcasts you should start now that's right I'll give you a second just take out your phones fire up those podcast apps hit subscribe and you can also see our complete catalog of shows at washingtonpost.com podcasts later in the program we would love to hear your questions and you'll be invited to line up at the standing microphones in either aisle following the event there will be a book signing thank you again both here and at home for being with us tonight please join me in giving Curtis sittenfeld and Martine Powers a warm welcome to six and I [Applause] good [Applause] [Music] Ness I'm so happy to be here especially because uh the last time when I interviewed you for your last book I was in my closet with my dog like barking outside I don't know if you were in a closet but it was like April of 2020 and things were really weird and I think that this is a lot better so thank you for being here thank everyone for being here um thank you I yeah I think I I have a little um office in my in my house in Minnesota and I think what I would do is like stuff a blanket next to my so I wasn't literally in a closet or literally under a blanket but it was it was messy and unpleasant yes and also I'm so delighted thank you all um you know thank you this is such a joy I'm such a fan of Martine and obviously the like I feel like the triple intersection of like post reports six and I politics like it's and yeah it's like lovely thank you all thank you so Allison very helpfully gave a little bit of a of the premise of the book um I actually want to ask how many people have read it already even though this came out like what like 10 days ago I feel like everyone who's read it right has like gone through it in 24 hours because it is that much of a like delicious read um but so this is about a show uh that's supposed to be Saturday Night Live um called the night owls and a writer on that show um and it centers on this thing called the Danny Horst Rule and I was hoping you could explain what that is um well so so I would say I always have to give a kind of disclaimer that I think I think uh Sally the protagonist thinks it's a rule or like a an ironclad law and in fact I would say it's maybe more of a pattern but um she has noticed that on this particular um sketch comedy show and then sometimes also in in life um there can be a pattern of talented but maybe ordinary seeming men um dating women who who seem more like you know goddess-like or transcendently gorgeous and talented and um and you know smart and good at their jobs and uh it doesn't seem to what what she's particularly notices is is that it doesn't seem to kind of cut in the direction of an ordinary woman very conspicuously dating up in this case like a sketch writer a female sketch writer dating a smoking hot male celebrity who's a guest on the show um I I just have to say that I I know that you don't want to share publicly who you were thinking of and this very hot like celebrity host slash musical guest but this person is like objectively very very hot well actually the the funny thing is so he's a musician Noah is a musician and it's been really like fun and but also kind of revealing and interesting when people say who they think he might be based on and I would say actually I think that his music is inspired by a few people but I don't think he has their personal I mean I don't really know enough about their personalities but and also his appearance I mean it's like I don't want to deconstruct him so much that it you know ruins him or something but some people like people who are in their 20s will say oh is it um like Justin Bieber or Shawn Mendes and then someone closer to my age which is 47 might say like oh is it you know John Legend or John Mayer and then someone actually said to me is it um Richard Marx which pretty broad broad like it speaks to people from older yeah yeah yeah um so uh what I love about the Danny Horst rule is that it does seem to be a little bit based on real life but talk about what your influences were when you kind of came up with this idea of like oh what if we had a comedy writer who was writing about this Dynamic that we have sometimes noticed um well so as you said you know my last book Rodham came out in in the spring of oh that's so it's so touching because one I like never left the house for Autumn so you know um and I mean being in DC thank you um uh but it was and I definitely like I felt I felt very invested in that book and I felt very proud of it and it came it was published in this world that like none of us you know could have imagined and so while doing Zoom events while you know wearing a shirt like this on top and sweatpants on the bottom if I was asked um you know what what will your next project be I would say I want to write something short and fun and I started another novel and I got about um maybe like six or eight months into writing it and and realized it was not short and also not fun um and I mean I I actually might go back to because I did think it was interesting in spite of um and Meanwhile my family was watching a lot of Saturday Night Live during the pandemic my my kids are now 12 and 14. so I think they were maybe like you know if we started watching not because of the pandemic we I actually first showed them a sketch in December 2019 they were maybe like a little too young which I think can be a huge part of SNL's appeal um just I mean including like kind of being like I don't get the joke but like it seems very you know intriguing and clever so anyway while we watched I would think um you know I observed this pattern that other people have and we're I think we're allowed to say the words Pete Davidson um although there's also we also brought up Colin Jose yeah and there's also Emma Stone is married to a now former SNL writer named Pete McCary who she met when she hosted the show and there's a there are a few other examples um but anyway I would think to myself um someone should write a screenplay for a romantic comedy about a writer at a show like this who writes a sketch making fun of this phenomenon and how it wouldn't happen for you know like an ordinary woman however you define that and then that week There's a host that she has chemistry with and then after I I set aside my not short and fun novel um I started to think oh like maybe that screenplay should be a novel and maybe maybe that someone should be me and then I started writing it like you're really coming for Pete Davidson does it does he seems like a nice guy a big smile pretty funny it's funny because okay this is what I'll say I I actually really sincerely hope it doesn't seem like I'm coming from Peter was it because it's the one well okay I I have so much to we could just make this like all all Pete Davidson from from here on out also for people who don't know and my mom is watching and she like knows nothing about SNL or any of this like Pete Davidson dated Kim Kardashian yeah yeah and a few other Ariana Grande right yes Ariana Grande when after she was a musical guest on the show um so I think that he seems like very sweet and charismatic and it doesn't seem weird to me that all these gorgeous women want to date him like the the funny thing is that the ultimate conclusion I came to after giving this like extensive thought for a long time was all that it's actually it's not surprising that say Scarlett Johansson apparently wanted to marry Colin Jost it's it's almost the the surprising or depressing part I mean I I really do feel like like what would be better than having a funny partner really like I mean everything else gets kind of boring but like being being funny you know lasts forever um but is what we tell ourselves um but but I I um it seems like like the sort of most you know dreamy male celebrities should want to find I should want to find like female comedians like that's really the the sort of um which obviously this is all a very heterosexual version of this I think it also applies that like I would think anyone would want to date the the funniest person that they could possibly find um but anyway uh so so just just to close the Pete Davidson Loop and Pete Davidson listens to the like I really do well the funny thing is it turns out as I've learned whatever book you write you end up being sort of um like the recipient of people's confessions on that topic so when I wrote um eligible which was like a retelling of Pride and Prejudice oh it meant more when you only did it for Rod I'm actually I'm just kidding um uh but people would come up to me and almost like whisper like I've never read any Jane Austen or or they might say like every year I reread persuasion or like some one time uh a woman who was I would guess she was like maybe 80 um in Milwaukee gave me like an i heart Darcy pin that I still have so like I loved it but it turns out with romantic comedy um and we can kind of get to this right but the the people come up and sometimes they'll say oh I once had an email courtship because there's that but the other thing is I'm now um like the recipient of a lot of 40-somethings 40-something women's confessions about if they do or don't find Pete Davidson attract I I feel like that's wonderful I think I know it's very interesting but I kind of feel like oh sure like I'm I'm very um you know like I think he seems sweet and Charming I'm not I'm not trying to kind of convince an aunt very like tender-hearted you know I see some real back pedaling in here so but now I want to talk about the opposite of this right which is the dynamic between the protagonist Sally Mills and Noah Brewster who's this like pop singer and Incredibly famous incredibly Rich incredibly attractive and part of it I mean it seemed like it's actually a sort of challenging premise because it's like oh here's this hot guy who's rich who likes the main character what is what is the conflict yeah like that sounds great where are the obstacles or or in some ways like should we even be rooting for this right like isn't this rich guy this super famous celebrity guy isn't his ego gonna go to his head do we really want our like wonderful ordinary main character to end up with with him how did you how did you navigate that um well I think it's true that that there may be not as many um conventional external obstacles in the story and a lot of the obstacles are sort of Sally's self sabotaging um and and being unable to get out of her own way and I I definitely I like reading about and writing about neurotic characters like I just I feel like that's like more interesting I mean I like other kinds of books too but um so I do think she's like grappling with her own insecurity and again I feel like um you know she's in her late 30s she's one in Emmy she's professionally successful she was married and divorced in her early 20s and I do feel like like um actually someone who is I think you know probably if I'm 47 someone who's probably more than 20 years younger than I am interviewed me and and I was kind of saying oh yeah like people people in their late 40s are very confused and you know my friends who go on dates will sort of talk in exactly the same terms as I feel like my friends and I talked when we were like 13 about if they have a crush on someone or whatever and I think she was shocked and horrified but I I I do feel like being kind of competent or confident in one area of your life does not guarantee that you are and so and even if it's like you're somebody who like weeps at the dentist or like you know is very good at your job but like can't drive on the highway because it's so stressful like that's very endearing to me like again I don't I don't think I don't know almost like if you really know someone I don't think anyone is like 100 sort of poised and competent yeah certainly um what I also loved about the book was the world that you built this place that is tno SNL um and the first half of the book essentially takes place in uh one week of that show right that they have the show on Saturday and it starts on Monday and you're just going through the whole week with the with the main character as they you know start pitching the sketches and you're seeing behind the scenes of the show so how did you build this world like how it seemed very realistic I I felt like I I know how an episode of SNL is made now that I read this um how did you go about making that it's so funny because when you're saying when you're like how did you build this world I feel like you should be saying like how did Lauren Michaels build this world like I I wish I could take credit I mean the the research that I did was kind of you know like there was a time when I thought I think I've read 100 of the SNL Memoirs by cast members and then like a day later I was like oh no I think I've read 25 of them but I read like probably eight of them and including they're the well-known ones and which I I mean I loved it was it was such a joy to do all this research but um in addition to like Tina Fey or Amy Poehler or um Tracy Morgan um Rachel Dratch there's a real gem that I think is lesser known is um a cast member J Moore like Mohr from the early 90s wrote what I feel like is the most fearlessly Bridge burning Memoir that I read and he also he made a choice that I think most of the other writers didn't make which was it he he kind of ignores like his upbringing any relationships it's like all on set and it's just and it's nothing but SNL for two years and it's called gasping for air time and I mean again it's like very candid so there was there was that there's actually James Franco made a documentary about sorry what I know I think about SNL yeah I've heard that it was maybe like a master's thesis or something and it feels very low budget and this is probably at least 10 years ago very low budget and very he was given a ton of access um there's also SNL itself makes um it's almost like teeny tiny documentaries or something where it'll be like this is how the um you know the Wardrobe department works and this is how the sets get built and um there's a 750 page oral history called live from New York that again is just like you read the whole thing I I like devoured it like it was such a pleasure and then also um we live in like I mean of course the Golden Age of all podcasts but the Golden Age of um comedy podcast where I'd be it'd be like um this is Conan O'Brien interviewing David Spade and then this is like David Spade interviewing Conan O'Brien you know like there's just so many and obviously Mark Maron was sort of obsessed with Lauren Michaels and SNL for for years and then finally successfully interviewed Lauren Michaels and then finally I did interview two people who worked for SNL in the in the recent past but I did you say ooh or who oh no I said I said and then my next question was who I know it's funny I I feel like almost more protective of them than they seem to feel of themselves um but it's it's were they were they actors around no they weren't actors okay um but it was I I will say though that and I I feel this way about like for instance my Laura Bush book or my Hillary book like you definitely will not find any juicy real secret like it's not like I have ever uncovered something in a like a journalistic capacity it's it's more like I mean there I think there's it's about as realistic as I could make it but it's not like a blind gossip item about anyone I mean there is the the wig thing is actually I was gonna bring up thing I was because I did my research on your read the book there is a mention of a wig sandwich oh which is that a character um uh whereas some type of hair piece potentially a toupee but they don't want to admit it publicly uh and they have to be wearing these costumes because you know it's Tiano and so the they basically have to have their toupee on and then put a hair uh hair net over it and then have another wig on top of that and it's a wig sandwich and I was telling Curtis before that I was so obsessed with this idea that I Googled it and it turns out that Colin Jost wrote about this in his Memoir and he did not say explicitly but implied that this happened to a person who was hosting SNL in 2015 who may or may not have been a former president wait that's it because I've actually heard that's so interesting that it's a musician oh well then maybe the the implication was was vague and open for that reason by Donald Trump or this musician that's so interesting um who's that musician oh I'll whisper it to you afterwards um uh um but a clone Joe's book a very punchable face is is wonderful by the way you should also clap for that I didn't write africologist um so so what you know there was so much to to work off of in terms of things that you wanted to incorporate from the real SNL worlds but what did you make different uh that's a good question um well okay so one thing I did was that I that I think no self-respecting SNL writer would do is I sometimes gave almost like cutesy names to the sketches and I think that the names are intentionally vague because no one wants to give away the joke and you just don't I mean I think there's kind of a I don't know if it's like playing it cool ethos or something but so at one point there's a sketch that that Sally has written that's like Nancy Drew And The Disappearing access to abortion or something and but it's like no one would actually I mean you can see why I felt that was tempting but it was no one would actually call a sketch that and then I think that there's a night when I mean this is really like in the weeds but I think that on maybe Tuesday nights which are the nights they write all night um that Lauren Michaels takes out the guest host for like you know like an 11 p.m dinner and and maybe like the head writer and I think I make them go out on Monday night not Tuesday I know I was doing I was doing research where I was like because there's there's also um you know like there's the writer's offices on the 17th floor and then there's like the studio is more you know like um and and I would be like the ultimate questions that I had for the people I interviewed were so nitty-gritty and were like where's the bathroom that like Lauren Michaels using or like is it you know is it when he does this is he in his in the studio or in like the office up there like where does a writer stand when the live show is happening like it was it was things like that wow yeah well the thing is is that it does feel like there was a lot of pressure on you in this book to make a compelling case that the episode that you are single-handedly writing is like a believable episode of SNL like by the time I got halfway through the book I was like I don't know if you put Curtis in a room for a week she can write the whole script to SNL and it would be pretty good so yeah I don't know was it did it feel like you had to kind of pump up your kind of Comedy brain to be able to like embody what it would mean to make you know not not just like the nuanced sort of like like commentary about The Human Condition stuff but like like crazy silly sketches that involve farts and like biological humor yeah yeah I mean so I actually feel like with my um books and especially I think if there is if like I I wouldn't want to be thought of as like stunty like I feel like like oh it's also heartfelt but like if I if I wrote a book like you know Rodham or something where it's like a sort of what like um you know sort of uh I don't know like ambitious or or risky premise or something I I feel like I um will kind of like set rules for myself that allow me in my own mind to do it but then the weird thing is then it gets published and like no one knows what those rules are except for me and so like for example with eligible you know I felt like like I'm not declaring that I think I'm the second coming of Jane Austen and and what I'm you know it's like this is a total like fan girl you know homage project and I feel like this is you know a love letter to SNL and I I definitely know that like I'm I'm not Tina Fey and only Tina Fey is Tina Fey um and I so there aren't it's interesting I mean I'm I'm delighted that you you feel that way I mean there's there are no they're very few lines I mean I think there's maybe like one it exception or two exceptions of scenes where you get lines from the actual sketches uh and the the way my Approach in that case was um like I think just going through life I often find life um undignified and you know absurd and embarrassing and I'll think to myself this is like an SNL sketch and so I was like all I have to do is like every time I think this is like an SNL schedule I have to like write it down for like four months or something and I'll have by the end yeah so so um but I I kind of again like like I think there is some weird I don't know like if it's like a delusion that where I'm like I'll write a book called romantic comedy even though I'm very clear that like I'm not a comedian you know and but but I mean I have I think I do have more confidence in my ability to like write and sort of emotionally realistic novel and get a a character through various scenes and and all that but there is there's there's one scene where um the characters are kind of brainstorming on like dogs Google searches and I will say my my children help me with that we got a pandemic dog that we're of course obsessed with and one time we were trapped in gridlock in a parking lot and and we had been kind of talking and and like we came up and then after after we had this sort of like festive you know parent-child moment then I added some like R-rated stuff at the end and like that's what's in the book but they did help me with it yeah so I I honestly I thought that would be a great sketch I was like I want to see it dogs Google searches they can I feel like that could be like my my gift to Lauren Mike to thank him for all he's given to me oh absolutely um since we have so many fans of your previous novels here um I want to ask about a theme that I've noticed um in your in your books and your short stories as well um that you focus on people often who have kind of been thrust into fame or are kind of close to Fame in one way or another but also on like small communities like small communities of either like Elite people or talented people or some kind of insular community so I'm thinking about Rodham where you know part of it takes place at Yale law school and it's this kind of like Elite insular place and then it's the white house or prep when you're thinking about about a prep school or even eligible where you know your the reality TV show is part of the plot um and then here you have this place where it's a bunch of talented people who are thrust together other and to get a job like this is like a big thing and that people kind of live and die by this little Community why is that interesting to you um that's an excellent question that I I feel like almost like that's like a like therapy style question uh let's let's go I know I mean I I do think setting is very important um and I do think there's something like you know maybe it's because I wrote prep and and it was because I had gone to boarding school it was a sort of insular you know Elite Community but it was also one that I had you know first-hand experience with and then maybe maybe I I sort of felt like oh there's something about a place that kind of makes it more interesting I think I'm definitely like just like I Above All I Have to not bore myself as a writer you know and then and then aspire to not bore other people um but so so it might be you know partly having to do with that I also I remember really consciously thinking when I watched the the TV show um Saturday night lights no Friday Night Lights sorry all right we're gonna sketch on SNL about Saturday night night lights we could work on that together yeah um where it was I I like I think it was the first time I had been really conscious of it that if you establish a sort of a community of some size I mean I don't know what it is if it's like 75 people or whatever it's somehow it's really satisfying for the viewer or can be for the reader if two people intersect who you don't think of as kind of naturally like having a relationship but then when you think about it it's really realistic like there's something I don't know that I don't know if it like mimics real life in some way um but yeah so I I think there is something about because even like some of the novels that I kind of want to write in the future I think do that thing that you're pointing out the one one other thing specifically about um romantic comedy is that doing this research everything I read about SNL reminded me of being a grad student at the Iowa Writers Workshop like 20 years ago just and so much and I don't I don't know if you feel this way as like like obviously for you to work at the Washington Post you know there's many people who would see this as super desirable and enviable and I assume that once you work there everyone you know works at the Washington Post right so like there's a weird basically there's like a weird like internal external status thing so I think that like you know it's obviously so competitive to get hired on SNL but then if you get hired on SNL you know you spend however many hours a week at the office and everyone else works there and then you're there can be kind of competition with each other and so there's just like a lot of I mean a lot of things that in life you don't want to exist like friction and conflict and overly close uncomfortable relationships it can be actually really great for fiction um I'm actually thinking about when you're talking about that intersection of people in a in a space like that um and Rodham you know the way that at the beginning it's like Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton and that like you think that Bill Clinton's like he's got a different kind of social scene and different personality and it doesn't make sense that like he would be into Hillary but then that's that's so I can see the like how you do your magic here thank you um so I want to ask I want to ask two questions one of which is a bad question and I think and I hope that the second of which will be a better question um so you know you talked about how you wanted to write this book because in some ways you wanted to do something that was more fun and a little lighter and that we could all enjoy it I think speaking for myself and I'm sure a lot of other people that like having this after the last three years um feels just like a treat um but I also wonder if there's a part of you as a serious writer and I don't know if you agree with that but I think you are a serious writer um that to have a book called romantic comedy with a cover like that that looks a little bit like a like a Valentine's Day card um that it's like I don't know were you worried that it was too chiclet-y it's so funny actually that it was funny to hear you use the phrase Chiclet so as as you may or may not know Chiclet is now called rom-coms like the the books are called rom-coms just like the movies and and apparently as you may or may not know that um there's a category an unironic category called women's fiction as as opposed to fiction but and it's it's being rebranded as book club fiction um which I mean some people also have feelings about imagine that um uh so I mean I I would say it I think I think that the kind of rom-com community and here I'm referring to the books is very it's very like robust and diverse and I think I think it's different it's not my personal area of expertise but it's very and I have read some books especially some popular um like there's um red right and royal blue is like a very you know beloved recent rom-com or I read um another um Normie celeb ROM is um Nora goes off script which I for that one I won't I don't want to say the celebrities for my own but I pictured either it's like a a woman who's a writes Hallmark Channel movies and then ends up with a celebrity who I pictured either George Clooney or Brad Pitt like it seemed like that that vintage and level of Fame and um so anyway so I mean there's like that whole and and it's a very passionate um kind of like reading community and it's a very um like uh what's what's the word that's very high sales right now I mean I think eternally but especially now um but I mean I I uh feel like I definitely think in terms of the specific like topic or plot I want to write and it's almost like the the world which by which I mean like publishing tells me what I wrote so they're like you wrote a literary Coming of Age novel or like you wrote I mean people will say that both I think especially um Rodham they'll say oh it's it's fan fiction or it's so so there's I mean like political entry like romantic I mean again but it's but it's also like a lot of those categories exist not I think because right I mean some writers I think are very passionately like self-identify as like I'm a science fiction writer I'm a rom-com writer but I think a lot of those are like marketing and sales categories and and I feel I feel very flexible um you know in terms of but I I think I definitely did write a romance and I I mean I think it's like really pretty I didn't I love the gold that's beautiful um yeah and it screams like love and fun yeah yeah which I I also have to say I've I've sometimes thought to myself like I'm I'm super kind of protective of like every sentence and every comma and and then but if if I were given you know permission from Random House to like choose my own covers which I never I mean I it's like a conversation but if I unilaterally could choose one I think I would probably choose some like terrible and like yeah so it's like they they kind of come up with this and and sort of yeah and then I say like oh that's so creative um wait was that the bad question yeah yeah that was the bad question okay just because I do I feel like even chick lit e as an adjective is like pejorative and unfair and like we like what we like and we get to to um Embrace that um but you also set up my better question very well because in thinking about this I um recalled a short story that you wrote for the New Yorker uh in 2017 I believe called show don't tell which is about um and also if you haven't read this story always read Curtis's short stories is like the tldr here um but so it's about and I'll just summarize it briefly um it's about a woman who's a writer in an MFA writing program that's very prestigious that seems a lot like the Iowa Writers Workshop um of which you are an Alum as you mentioned um and that she's like really stressed about getting this fellowship and it's very competitive and she's sort of comparing herself to all her color writers and then you realize spoiler You Realize by the end of the story that this narrator this protagonist has gone on to become a very successful writer but a very specific kind of successful writer um and I am going to read a little bit um of what she says you know this is the voice of the character in the almost 20 years that have passed since that night I have written and have had published seven novels all except the first two were Best Sellers as it happens my novels are considered women's fiction this is an actual term used by both Publishers and bookstores and means something only slightly different from gives off the vibe of 10 year old girls at a slumber party several times a year I traveled to speak to auditoriums of 500 people no more than a handful of whom are men on occasion none are men though we do have some men here which and my uncle's here no and my brother-in-law yeah there you go and then she goes on to kind of talk about how she's thinking about like another like former classmate who's also been very successful but in a different kind of way she says he's the kind of writer about whom current students in the program have heated opinions I'm the kind of writer that their mothers read while recovering from knee surgery to be clear I'm mocking neither of my readers nor myself here it took a long time but eventually I stopped seeing women as inherently ridiculous and I'm wondering how much of that and I know I know it's not autobiographical but fiction but but how much of that do you think reflects your journey and how much do you think this book reflects that Journey okay well so one thing I'll tell you like uh I mean so I wrote that in 2017 which I've actually um this is like the third book I've had so I probably thought like how many books has she written seven it's funny like imagine writing seven books or whatever and like like this is totally sincere like you guys are a huge crowd for me like I'm I'm It's the funniest part of that is that I would never like I would I would have 500 people come to hear me if I was on a panel with like eight other writers or something like it's and I mean again random house has done like a beautiful like a very talented publicist but that writer is definitely more successful than I and I I kind of met her to be like uh it is so I mean it's like totally absurd where um you know like like as a as a writer like you could be like you know write something where like let's say you have a a twin brother and like you you grew up in Philadelphia and then um like you write a story and has all those details or something and people are like it's autobiographical and you'd be like but the comforter on my bed was blue when I was little or something like that it feels but and I think it's also really disorienting like the more you know a writer the more distracting it probably is to be um but still I feel like the premise of like was there did did you have to come to embrace that like that writing a book like this is Meaningful and it and it oh oh well so actually there's maybe a different a different way to answer that so I I like tweeted about this and then I was surprised that it ended there ended up being a response that this is a sincere thing so a journalist said to me um are you worried that the title or the cover of your book will deter male readers and like in the tweet I said like I I feel like all seven of my male readers are really loyal and I think they'll like I think they'll like it but it it actually I mean I remember when prep was published 18 years ago and it did kind of I think there were almost more questions I mean this seems so ridiculous but almost about like positioning me or positioning the book or whatever and I I mean I actually when I said like the seven seven male readers I like literally I almost could name like I could be like there's there's David like there's Donny like there's um so I don't know I I it just feels like I mean it's interesting I I do I mean Sally talks about like obviously you know like I feel like gender is is we have a different conversation about it and um you know it seems like much more interesting I think that's a wonderful like expansive thing I mean I think most of my like probably 95 of my readers identify as women and I think the publishing world is is like like I I so I don't know like that's why I actually feel so lucky or like I don't really give much thought like there's and the other thing I will say so there maybe in like the early 2000s there was a year when all the national book award nominees were women and they all were books that had sold relatively few copies like a thousand ish or two thousand ish and there were lots of articles about it um and I feel like no one would bat an eye now like just the conversation has shifted so I don't I don't think I feel defensive and I mean I also I feel so like kind of grateful and lucky because because I've gotten to publish you know eight books now um but I still in books that really speak to people um yes yes but although I'm not I still truly like I think I I meant for this woman to be almost like Jody Pico level more than you know we'll see I'm I can and by the way Jody was like a super lovely person and I feel like the theme of this conversation is going back to be like just to be clear I'm not shading this celebrity guy and Pete Davidson are both lovely I actually have never met Pete Davidson but I'm sure it'll happen soon um but I mean I think you know just to bring It full circle I trust I trust you all know he has a Hillary tattoo right I mean that's so endearing like people couldn't love him where is his tattoo I mean it's hard to tell her face or her logo I think or something else I think of her face and the day when it was made public I think it was after 2016. you'd think I had like committed this all the memory I'm pretty sure she on social media posted something like now I can reveal my Pete Davidson tattoo look um so despite the the silliness um and the fun in this book um it it does go to some real and and sometimes serious places um especially because the latter part of the book takes place during the pandemic um and I was wondering like what what are the not just like the the kind of circumstantial plot devices of the pandemic that were useful like we're all at home where you know like we all lived it um but like what are the qualities that you wanted to bring out in this plot in this like will there won't they romance um that you felt like were of the pandemic um well so you know the the TV show like the the week in the life of the TV show takes place in 2018 and I don't I don't you can stop me if this is a spoiler or something but um they you know there's this like chemistry and flirting and then Sally kind of makes things go off the rails like maybe not consciously but maybe some semi-intentionally um and then two years pass and it's um 2020 and Noah reaches out to her via email and I do think you know like a lot of us had more time on our hands than we usually did and I mean it's almost like um you know the things that you think of if you if you get in bed at night and then you don't fall asleep like there's you know your your mind kind of goes to certain places and so I think in in this context it's supposed to be like well you know she's she Noah is still sort of thinking about Sally and Sally is still thinking about Noah and maybe neither of them would have done anything about it if they were leading their their normal lives where she's working you know 90 hours a week and he's touring constantly but in instead he's lonely and his mansion in LA and she's staying with her stepdad and his beagle in Kansas City um slightly less glamorously um and so you know that it's it kind of I think I mean obviously the pandemic was was and is like horrible and it's it it's you know it's so confusing and it's it's hard to know like you know sometimes it's like hard to know how to how to be a person or what what Norms there are what risks to take um and I also do think it it made people in some cases like think about their priorities or restructure their lives and that the characters are examples of that yeah yeah um so part of that part of that part of the book um during the pandemic there is a moment where one of the characters um uh she has a well I'll just say the main character has um stepfather um and he gets sick um and it's a pretty scary moment and I hope this is okay to ask you about and feel free to be your way if um if it's not but um I know that your dad passed away yeah yeah about a year after the start of the pandemic and I just thought that those scenes of like what it's like to care for an older loved one yeah we're really really moving and I was just wondering if that was in your mind while you were I mean yeah I'm sure like I I think I do think um I mean I think that if you're if you're a fiction writer like you know there's there's sort of things coming in from you know like in in all sorts of ways and I think you know again like sometimes it's conscious and sometimes it's not conscious but yes definitely and I think in general um you know like I was saying that I I feel like um in terms of writing the kind of fake sketches for the show that I feel like life ends up being um you know like absurd or embarrassing like I I try very hard to be realistic in fiction and I think I think for all of us like life is super sad it's like super you know funny it's like delightful and if you if you are kind of realistic and Faithfully depicted like your your book will have kind of all the moods and yeah it does I mean the um just to so it's not to dissuade people I would say the the book does have a happy end I don't know like that's kind of a little like they're actually in the one thing I've learned about the sort of romance that people will say is is there an AGA which is a happily ever after and I almost like You Know cover your ears if you really don't want to know but I I think you can have you can feel relatively confident going forward and what's great is that I feel like the at least to me one of the takeaways of the end of the book is like caregiving is sexy and like people who are good at giving care to you know to each other to family members you know yeah no I mean well that's that's the money quality you're looking for especially when like the world is coming to an end that's kind of true I mean I I do think that there there's like I mean I think something Sally kind of thinks or wonders about is you know like like what is romance or what is fake and are we like is is writing emails and kind of being your polished funny self like are you being more fake or more real and then also like you know if you're having a kind of very romantic date and you like put on your nice clothes and whatever like is that a fake version of you and then is the itself that's I I do think that that the kind of challenges that the characters end up facing things like you know going to buy medical supplies at Target like actually does bring them closer so there is a hopeful element there um I think we want to start taking questions in just a second and so if people want to start lining up um but before we do that I have one lighter question from our virtual audience um from Amber in Columbia Maryland and she says at what point in your writing process did the Indigo Girls song Dairy Queen become Central to the story it's so perfect for Sally and a really beautiful song and I wonder how many other readers were like me inspired to stream the song right away oh I definitely listen I was like I actually don't know that song but I listened to it as soon as I said okay up in the plot so um well one one way to answer this is a friend of mine I think this was in the spring of 2016 um said to me like do you and I was living in St Louis Missouri and I live in Minneapolis but said do you want to go to an Indigo Girls concert and I hadn't um you know like I had sort of liked them and listened to them in high school and college and then not listen to their recent albums and I think I was like oh no I can't stay up that late and she's like no it's great they start on time they finish by nine and I was like I'm in like an awesome one thing I should say is um my family a hundred percent of the time we watch Saturday Night Live at 7 pm on Sunday um and actually in I honestly I wish you hadn't told me that because I was so impressed by the fact that you watched SNL every week and I was like wow oh yeah I go to bed I try to get in bed not try I like can't keep myself from getting in bed at like 8 45 and then I like read sometimes if I if I'm still awake enough um so anyway so I I went to with my friend Stephanie to this Indigo Girls concert in in St Louis and and I I think I was like oh my God like where have you been like here you here you are just in time for like my midlife crisis the election of Donald Trump like like it was and it did become sort of the soundtrack of you know like the next several years for me and so I mean I don't I don't think that I probably planned to kind of have this be like an Ode to the Indigo although of course anyone else who loves them will be glad to hear I I do have to like I paid to you like you there's a kind of fair use thing and if you like if you can quote like two lines of a song but if you quote as many as I did you have to like you know pay and so so it's like they get to share romantic comedy which is a proof I mean they're they're amazing and so I'd have them like show up to some of your book readers that would be my dreams I will say actually it was kind of a revelation and I've always kind of wanted to write an essay about this so maybe maybe instead of writing an essay I just like shoved a paragraph in there but it was kind of a revelation I mean I I will say that the Sally kind of like says the reason she loves them and she's definitely more of a consistent lifelong fan and some instead of someone who like looked away for 20 years and then was like Hey you know like um but you know just that I it was seeing them at that in so this is now seven years ago like I was kind of like oh this is such to me this is such a model of essentially like like aging artistic women and that I I feel like there's something that's it's kind of a huge bummer to me that it seems like so many um like so much of a conversation that we have about women is especially like actresses which I mean I I do read people.com all the time so I'm totally complete like I could I could you know find some other source or something but um is about how either like they look like they have an age or they look like they have age and it's like there's like two possibilities and it just felt like they've always done what they want to do artistically and they also I don't I I actually I'm not sure if this happens I should kind of like fact check this like I felt like they had different instruments brought out for every song like don't do you think that do musicians and which I I was kind of like I love that meticulousness or like that particular like so it just seemed like um yeah that they've and and I mean I mean again you can you can read some of Sally and my thoughts on the end of Indigo Girls in our our respect for them but it was very inspiring to me where I kind of thought like like you know more than I don't know like like whatever someone being you know I don't know just I I just don't like like when I think about you know I'm I'm 47 I hope that I will keep writing for several decades and everything and and it just seemed like they they seem like great role models of really doing things creatively on their own terms um so yeah I'm gonna hold them as my role model and they finish by nine o'clock most importantly um so let's have some questions from the audience I know that people are uh excited let me start with you all right uh hi Curtis thank you so much for coming this is really exciting um going back to the chiclet and the show don't tell conversation I was hoping to get your thoughts on what I'm now mentally referring to as the Curtis sittenfeld rule um this is the broad generalization but I think we've all noticed a pattern of where women will read books about men but men won't read books about women regardless of the genre and I was hoping you could talk about that especially having written so many genres featuring all these Incredible characters that aren't by definition Chiclet but they are about women um that's an interesting I mean so when I when I you know sent that tweet I also I I would love to know the data on this I think that probably I mean I don't if anyone Works in publishing like feel free to contradict me or yell out I would think that 90 of buyers of fiction are women um so I don't I don't know I mean I don't know like again I think that that there was it almost caught me by surprise again the response to that too where I was like doesn't everyone know this like doesn't um yeah I don't know I mean of course there are like lots of individual exceptions but I I don't I mean it's and obviously it's like I was just in Missouri where you know where I lived for 11 years I was in St Louis and then I was in um Kansas City and like horribly like the libraries have just been defunded which is you know there's such a resource there's like the books and then there's also there's all kinds of other like you know lunch free lunches for kids and things like that so it's like I don't I mean there's so many layers of unfortunately I wish I had some idea of like let's let's get men reading you know like novels by women with strong female protect but I don't I don't know and I feel like there's like layers of like problems it's a very good question and I would if if someone wrote an essay about that I would like you know read it in the first few minutes that I was awake and then like think about it and tweet it or something I don't I don't know so I'm sorry not to be more insightful yeah hi um I saw you speak at Goucher College about six years ago and at the time I had asked you uh what happened to Lee Fiora after the end of prep um like what her life was like as an adult and you had told me that there was a show coming out on HBO about prep and so I was wondering if that show is still in the cards um I'm sure this isn't stressful for you at all and if there's any more details you can reveal about what eventually happened to Lee um so I feel like I feel like this is I'm not supposed to say this in in public but I like can't help myself I'm like the kiss of death for um development deals and so like no matter how far down the path you go like it'll it'll always come around so um prep has been or like like I've literally I've I think I've read probably 10 or 12 film scripts or TV pilot scripts that someone else wrote based on my books and I've been like it should be like when you go to like a smoothie place and you get like a card punched or something and like like at least something should be made at the end um but yeah it's so so three times it's been developed and it's all I mean this is the thing about development stuff like you can you can sort of like which I probably apparently did very enthusiastically like drop all these names and it's like it's like HBO and it's apple plus and it's like this person is attached and you know Claire Danes is a and then and then it's like kind of smoke and mirrors I mean people like obviously we turn on our TVs and there are shows on them but I I think um I think that maybe because my books are have a really interior element um they're harder to adapt I think I think it will happen in the fullness of time and I also will say that like like sometimes I mean sometimes when I even talk to people in LA and they're like we want to option this and we're so enthusiastic and I'll say to them I'm like a person who's been on Match for like 18 years and I've I've like gone on a thousand dates and I've like never kissed another human being or something where like and I almost feel like like what verb tense should when they're like well this will make such a good move and I'm like you should use like the conditional or something but anyway so that's also a very unsaturated someone has to ask you something that I can give like a a happy satisfying I mean I think something will get made eventually and and and although I also one other thing the last thing I'll say is is that I I and weirdly like so it's everything this has all been sort of going on for so long that um when prep first came out people would say like sometimes they'd be like I don't want Lindsay Lohan playing Lee Fiora and now it's like you know Lindsay learns like in her late 30s or 40s um but I think I feel more protective especially of prep the more like there's a time when I think I would I felt like wouldn't it be a lark if it was like a super trashy show and I I actually don't feel that way anymore like I feel especially because you know people like you like care about it I think like oh like if it ever gets made I want it to be well made so I stopped giving such long answers we have we have time for three more questions okay from this mic and one over there okay hi I'm so excited to finally uh see you my name is Nikki Payne I'm an author myself and I had a question about comedy itself like there's all this discourse about like romantic comedies like not being funny and I'm wondering about your approach to making something funny on the page which is not an uncomplex Endeavor yeah how do you manage that and do you have any tips you know I'm asking for a friend I know I think based on I think I think you're fine I think um I I mean it's sort of like Martin what you were like like this sort of sadness being in the book that that I feel like you know if you just go through life and interact with other people that like funny things always happen and like horrifying things always happen and so it's almost just like capturing things really precisely more than trying to be funny I also will say I think I I have a personal rule that I think I broke in this because well I felt like I had to but I think that um if you are have your characters joking around or something and it's funny it's almost like don't have someone compliment them on their funniness and and maybe go easy on saying like and they laughed or we all laughed so hard or did it which I sometimes felt like because I wanted to to show like Noah being smitten with Sally he laughs a lot and I think I do think I I you know I wish I didn't but I do read reviews and I think at least one person was like oh yeah like I wish I found this as funny as the characters did it's like I knew when calling it romantic comedy as like it's gonna it will there's a hundred and fifty percent chance someone will be like it's neither romantic nor comedic but um anywhere thank you um hi I'm a big fan of your short fiction and I was wondering if you could talk at all about uh your process and kind of in general the difference between generating a novel and short fiction for you um thank you I mean I I love reading and writing short stories I I think that a lot of times a short story for me it feels like you know some moment or some situation that could be easily summarized or like it could you know something could shift in a moment and I feel like a novel does have to kind of feel like an obsession or something that would be very interesting or have lots of angles and including actually when I wrote American Wife um I think I'm definitely a Democrat but I was intrigued by Laura Bush and sometimes and I and I thought she was endearing I mean I think even again I think well anyway um I I mean it's I think in some ways I like the cultural moment has changed and it's I mean anyway um but I if someone said like how can you be a Democrat but like find her endearing and I almost felt like I would have to write 400 pages to explain that to you and so then like I did um but I I it's so in a weird way I mean on the one hand you don't want to raise something that's going to like you know from the outside is going to repel other people but weirdly if you have an obsession that other people don't quite understand sometimes that can be a novel um yeah hi I'm also a big fan of short fiction so uh seconding that I'm wondering maybe especially for your short fiction if there are any authors that have sort of informed your writing how they've informed your writing and then also if you feel like you're in conversation with some authors as you're writing are you responding to any of your influences or or favorite writers sort of as you write um yeah so my my favorite writer since I was in high school has always been the Canadian short story writer Alice Monroe and I think I think sometimes when people like reviewers are talking about books they're very they make comparisons based on topics so some it would be like other boarding school novels or other you know kind of first I don't know if there are other first lady-ish novels um but I feel like it's like definitely I think I've been more influenced by Alice Monroe than by anyone else and I think I think the things I mean there's I admire like everything about her but um I some of the things that I I sort of most like are she's so precise in describing emotions she also I feel like she kind of operates like assuming that everyone is at a minimum self-interested and like not totally appealing instead of that like like you know we're all likable and moral paragons and um that people are like you know kind of whatever like sneaky and have like little you know little secret wishes and stuff um and I think she also really respects the complexity of everyone like she writes primarily about almost like like you know rural Canadians whether it's in like the 1950s or whatever I think some people could feel tempted to be like oh you know whatever country folk or something but they're always like you know people's lives always matter to them or us and and I think that she like respects that and and sort of has her characters like deeply care about their lives and take things take them seriously the way people really do um Curtis thank you so much for being here I thank you to everyone thank you for the toast and 609 politics and prayers Martinez thank you so much all right I think there's gonna be a book timing thank you so much to Curtis sinfeld and Martin Powers if you would like to stay for the book signing please stay seated for just a few minutes and for anyone looking to exit you can use the main lobby in this corner Lobby to my right please don't go down stairs though I'll exit

Channel: Politics and Prose

Views: 1,923

Keywords: books, book, politics and prose, bookstore, author, author talk, author video, book talk, new books, book store, indie bookstore, independent bookstore, book tube, booktube, reading vlog, annotating books, book annotations, reading vlogs, journalism, journalist, Washington DC, DC, bookworms, bookworm, book worm, book worms, book chat, @politicsprose, book discussion, author discussion, book video, book event, author event, book tour

Id: z2NCNSMH7Is

Length: 68min 37sec (4117 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023