Julie Powell on Having an Affair

Julie pals Julie and Julia the my year of cooking dangerously was made into a hit movie this year starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams the book which was almost as much about her husband Eric as it was about her obsession with cooking every recipe and mastering the Art of French Cooking was cited as an example of an almost perfect urban marriage Julie returns to our show today to talk about what happened to that perfect marriage after her year of cooking dangerously she calls her new book cleaving a story of marriage meat and obsession it's published by a little brown I'm very pleased that has brought Julie Powell back to our show I understand the the marriage in meat part what was the obsession well there are several involved in the book but the main obsession that this is that that refers to is a obsession with a man that I had and a two-year affair with that was quite messy and the resulting chaos in my marriage and that came right after the book was published soon after the yes soon after the actually before the book was actually published after the period of the blog we were you feeling like you were in an uneasy place at that time yeah I mean I think the the you know the effects of Julie and Julia the the the project and then more importantly the the book the book deal the you know my ability to quit my job as a government worker and I was working as a writer I was being hired and had a whole new life and and it did it had ramifications that I hadn't expected more just in terms of sort of throwing into a new light a marriage that had not grown whereas both of its participants had and we'd been together since we were 18 because people often ask how I know they're asking now when they look at pictures of Tiger Woods wife why did he have to go and and spoil it all well you know Julie and Julia is presented two sweet portrait of a marriage you're a best-selling author it does sound perfect well and it was and I think you know I think that you know nothing that's that's in Julie and Julia the book certainly and even the movie even though the movie is sweetened rom-com version was is inauthentic and everything that Eric was and Julian julia is absolutely true I think that cleaving is in part about how even the strongest marriage can can can crumble when it isn't changing with the two participants so I wouldn't say that infidelity is a great way to solve marital problems but it did bring to light ways that we needed to to look again at our relationship and this man you call D throughout the book is he very different from your husband Eric in almost every way yes yes did you try to be discreet you know I I did I tried I was I was but but it was an inherently self-destructive act and and you know participating in this affair I there was some part of me that wanted to be found out I think how long before Eric did find not terribly long it was a couple of months before before he discovered things said how did he react you know he was extraordinarily upset and I was extraordinarily upset and we you know we did everything you would think we cried and fought and sobbed and tried to start trying to figure things out but we never walked away from one another good think of getting divorced well we talked you know we talked about it we tortured ourselves over it but it just I don't know I think something between us never broke and you know if one of or the other of us had stopped feeling the same way that we felt then we wouldn't we would have walked away but often what happens is when you hit that kind of crisis you have to make a decision you give up the affair or you end the marriage that's how it happened no we I was I handled things very mentally I would I spent a long period of time when I could not I couldn't make that choice and and didn't make that choice and that was that was it was difficult for me incredibly difficult for Eric and and in some ways very selfish on my part but I think that it was also I mean in a weird way Dee came around at the sort of exact right / wrong time and and and put this wedge and and into the marriage that probably would have not been torn asunder in the same way but which ultimately needed to be torn asunder so that we could figure out how to put it back together again well the biggest crises in Julie and Julie oath is whether you can get the recipe cooked correctly is I assuming clipping was a much more difficult book to write well yes I mean absolutely it's a much darker more personal book but it was also you know like the butchering that I do in the book it was the writing as well was a sort of cathartic experience and it was my way of sorting through what what happened here you know and as I was writing the book I was still reeling from the events and Eric and I were still trying to figure out what what we were going to do so it was it was very very difficult but it was also necessary but you don't present yourself in a flattering way in this movie not particularly

Channel: WNYC

Views: 101,050

Keywords: lopate20091204, julie, wnyc, leonard, lopate, powell, cleaving, Julie and Julia

Id: poCyWEqP51c

Length: 5min 43sec (343 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 08 2009