Latest / Radio 831: A Romance Podcast / Office Romance Recap, Lyla Sage on Cowboys and Small-Town Romances, and The Idea of You Reading Assignment

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Office Romance Recap, Lyla Sage on Cowboys and Small-Town Romances, and The Idea of You Reading Assignment · Radio 831: A Romance Podcast

0:06
Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio eight three one podcast.
0:09
Speaker 1: We're your hosts.
0:10
Speaker 2: It's Sinjon Obasker and Tyler McCall, and we're so excited
0:13
Speaker 2: to talk everything romance, from the novels and the tropes,
0:17
Speaker 2: to the book to screen adaptations and of course the
0:20
Speaker 2: drama of it all, you know, unpacking what the genre
0:23
Speaker 2: says about who we are and how we love big stuff,
0:27
Speaker 2: important stuff, like we are officially in the thick of summer,
0:32
Speaker 2: which summer is probably the second best season for rom comms.
0:35
Speaker 2: I feel strongly that follows the best season for rom coms,
0:38
Speaker 2: but summer is.
0:39
Speaker 1: A close second for me.
0:40
Speaker 2: I'm inclined to agree.
0:41
Speaker 1: And all that in mind, Sonja finally watched Office Romance
0:45
Speaker 1: on Netflix.
0:46
Speaker 2: I also watched Office Romance on Netflix.
0:50
Speaker 1: We've already talked about the lore, the like Brett Goldstein,
0:53
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lopez lore, but just a recap. He wrote this
0:55
Speaker 1: movie for her, Yes, he wrote this movie. And if
0:58
Speaker 1: it wasn't going to be joniferl As, he just straight
1:00
Speaker 1: up like, wasn't going to make it. I think he
1:02
Speaker 1: was like, I'll take the l Yeah. And the premise
1:04
Speaker 1: of the movie is that Brett Goldstein plays a lawyer
1:09
Speaker 1: in house at this airline. J Loo plays the CEO
1:13
Speaker 1: of this airline who is also a pilot, and her
1:16
Speaker 1: position as CEO is threatened because she's a woman, and
1:19
Speaker 1: you know, sexism abounds. Yeah, but it's complicated for them
1:24
Speaker 1: to have a romantic relationship, even though they immediately have chemistry,
1:27
Speaker 1: because there's a no tolerance policy for in office relationships.
1:32
Speaker 2: And this is also, by the way, an interesting premise
1:35
Speaker 2: because Brett Goldstein is also one of the lead writers
1:37
Speaker 2: for Ted Lasso, the TV show, where there is also
1:41
Speaker 2: a similar kind of dynamic between Ted Lasso, who plays
1:45
Speaker 2: a soccer coach in England, and the owner of the
1:50
Speaker 2: soccer franchise that he.
1:51
Speaker 3: Is coach for.
1:53
Speaker 2: So it's almost like Brett Goldstein has been specifically writing
1:56
Speaker 2: this kind of story about powerful authoritative woman and devoted
2:01
Speaker 2: simply man in many fonts for a while.
2:04
Speaker 1: Okay, Brett Goldstein.
2:05
Speaker 2: Okay, sorry I had to add that context.
2:07
Speaker 1: I appreciate that because I actually didn't know that. I've
2:09
Speaker 1: never seen Ted lassa No one yell at me it's this.
2:11
Speaker 2: I mean, you've seen a huge chunk of what it
2:14
Speaker 2: is of.
2:15
Speaker 1: Ted Lasso, minus the football. The further complication is that
2:19
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lopez's character is trying to acquire more gates at
2:25
Speaker 1: the Dallas Fort Worth Airport, and she's like being accused
2:29
Speaker 1: by a rival airline of sleeping with someone to get
2:32
Speaker 1: those gates, which is why she also doesn't publicly want
2:35
Speaker 1: to be seen as sleeping with somebody that she's working with,
2:37
Speaker 1: because she would never do that, even though she is
2:40
Speaker 1: immediately charmed by Brett Goldstein's character. How successful was this
2:44
Speaker 1: for you as a rom com on its own?
2:46
Speaker 2: I thought it was successful, Yeah, I really, I quite
2:50
Speaker 2: liked it. I think it was successful because Jalo and
2:53
Speaker 2: Brett Goldstein have unreal chemistry. It's successful because it's genuinely funny.
2:58
Speaker 2: Buddy Gilpin plays Jaylo's assistant, and Betty Gilfen funniest woman,
3:02
Speaker 2: funniest one alive.
3:04
Speaker 1: She was like genuinely a highlight of that movie for me.
3:06
Speaker 2: Yes, she really is a star as an assistant who
3:09
Speaker 2: like is trying to get between j Lo and Brett
3:11
Speaker 2: Goldstein because obviously she's trying to protect her bosses integrity
3:15
Speaker 2: and her position. But I think you know, many times
3:18
Speaker 2: people will say romcom and then it's like not particularly funny.
3:20
Speaker 2: Betty Gildpin is part of the reason why this movie
3:22
Speaker 2: is actually truly funny, and it does also follow rom
3:26
Speaker 2: com beats. You know, like boy meets Girl. They have chemistry,
3:31
Speaker 2: there are internal and external circumstances that keep them apart
3:34
Speaker 2: until they are not a part. And you know, there's
3:36
Speaker 2: a grand gesture like it's got all of the ingredients,
3:39
Speaker 2: and I think all of those ingredients are independently successful
3:44
Speaker 2: in their own way.
3:45
Speaker 1: What did you think. I absolutely thought it was a
3:48
Speaker 1: successful rom com. Here's my thing. I'm not super familiar
3:51
Speaker 1: again because I haven't watched Ted Lasts, so I'm not
3:53
Speaker 1: super familiar with Bret Goldstein. I am super familiar with
3:56
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lopez, who's like a queen of the rom coms
3:59
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, Like Jennifer Lopez could have
4:01
Speaker 1: chemistry with a brick wall, I think yes.
4:04
Speaker 2: Also, she's so hot in this movie.
4:07
Speaker 1: I mean she's so hot period. Yeah, she's so gorgeous
4:09
Speaker 1: in this movie. I fully understand why if you're Breugoldsten,
4:12
Speaker 1: You're like, I'm running a movie for Jennifer Lopez. The
4:14
Speaker 1: Wedding Planner was like genuinely one of my favorite movies
4:18
Speaker 1: in high School. Jennifer Lopez hits this beautiful balance and
4:21
Speaker 1: she does it in this movie. As well of being
4:24
Speaker 1: a woman who's like she's very in control, she's very
4:28
Speaker 1: self possessed. She knows who she is and what she wants,
4:32
Speaker 1: but she has this like softness to her. She does
4:36
Speaker 1: this like giggle that I'm like, I'm in love with you.
4:39
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lopez.
4:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jaylo carries this movie on her own because of
4:44
Speaker 2: her magnetism. For me, it was The Wedding Planner, but
4:47
Speaker 2: it was also made in Manhattan. It was also Monster
4:51
Speaker 2: in Law. Like, she has great comedic timing. She's so
4:56
Speaker 2: in this movie down, like she's just down. She's someone
4:59
Speaker 2: who I because she takes herself so seriously, which is
5:02
Speaker 2: something that she gets flack for, Like she does get
5:05
Speaker 2: take does being corny for this because she takes herself seriously.
5:07
Speaker 2: She takes the rom com genre seriously because she's an
5:09
Speaker 2: it that I think translates into a really thoughtful, compelling performance,
5:14
Speaker 2: Like it makes her interesting to watch. There's a really
5:18
Speaker 2: specific kind of charisma required to lift a rom com
5:23
Speaker 2: off its feet. Right when you're looking at familiar formula,
5:26
Speaker 2: familiar endings, familiar tropes, your load. Bearing weight in a
5:30
Speaker 2: rom com is charisma and good writing that's actually.
5:34
Speaker 1: So shockingly difficult to actually pull off. Yes, and I.
5:38
Speaker 2: Think Jlo is bringing the chemistry and the charisma, and
5:41
Speaker 2: Breck Goldstein brings the writing.
5:43
Speaker 1: So makes a pretty successful recipe for me. Speaking about
5:47
Speaker 1: a Gilpin have to discuss. Yes, Oh my god, the
5:51
Speaker 1: birth scene. Yeah, spoiler alert, Yeah, spoiler alert. But an
5:56
Speaker 1: hour and twenty minutes in maybe, and you're like a
5:58
Speaker 1: mirth scene, what a big deal? You do just get
6:00
Speaker 1: like a straight up anatomical close up. I mean, obviously
6:04
Speaker 1: it's like effects like macept it or whatever. Yeah, but
6:07
Speaker 1: you do get like a literal anatomical close up of
6:10
Speaker 1: like a baby crowning, and you're not prepared for that
6:12
Speaker 1: at all, because why would you be. Yes, it's very shocking.
6:16
Speaker 2: It was a shock to the senses. I like, I
6:19
Speaker 2: was trucking along having a good time, and I think
6:22
Speaker 2: I suspected that a birth would be on the table
6:25
Speaker 2: because Betty Gilpin's character is pregnant from the beginning.
6:27
Speaker 3: There's a joke in.
6:28
Speaker 1: The first Chekhov's baby bump.
6:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Checkov's baby bump. Like within the first five minutes,
6:32
Speaker 2: jay Loo says something about how she seems too pregnant
6:34
Speaker 2: to be here, why doesn't she go home? And she's like,
6:36
Speaker 2: I refuse to go home. I'm nine months pregnant and
6:38
Speaker 2: I'm still working, you know whatever. It is so like
6:40
Speaker 2: you know that something is coming in the way of
6:43
Speaker 2: like Chekhov and also romance rules one hundred percent, the
6:47
Speaker 2: graphic nature of that scene.
6:49
Speaker 1: Was not prepared. That said, though, I mean Betty Gilpin
6:52
Speaker 1: went to like the Judy Greer school of best friend
6:55
Speaker 1: in a rom com acting, like the scene where she
6:58
Speaker 1: shows up at Brett Goldstein's new office like after the
7:04
Speaker 1: third act breakup, and she has her baby with her
7:07
Speaker 1: and the baby just fell asleep, so she has to
7:08
Speaker 1: whisper and she's like whispers shouting at him. Had me
7:12
Speaker 1: on the floor, like it's so good. It's so good.
7:15
Speaker 1: It's like exactly what I want out of that role,
7:18
Speaker 1: because sometimes you get like a best friend role in
7:21
Speaker 1: a rom com and it's again it's very like empty.
7:23
Speaker 1: It's very like window dressing of like this person needs
7:26
Speaker 1: someone else to talk. It's very wife in a biopic
7:29
Speaker 1: who's only there to put lotion on her hands and
7:31
Speaker 1: listen to whatever the powerful man has to say, and
7:34
Speaker 1: this is not that role, which I also really appreciated,
7:37
Speaker 1: which is also what elevates it to me to like
7:40
Speaker 1: god Tear rom com category.
7:42
Speaker 2: Did you have any critiques, anything you didn't like.
7:44
Speaker 1: No, I don't think there was anything about it that
7:46
Speaker 1: I really didn't like.
7:48
Speaker 2: I was a little sure whatever about Brett Goldstein's character's backstory. So,
7:54
Speaker 2: for those who haven't watched it and don't mind being spoiled,
7:57
Speaker 2: he's like this really accomplished lawyer in the UK or
8:00
Speaker 2: arister in the UK, but he comes to the US
8:01
Speaker 2: because his sister is somehow in prison in California and
8:05
Speaker 2: he wants to be close to her slash working on
8:07
Speaker 2: her case, I guess, And so he decides to take
8:09
Speaker 2: this job, which is technically a demotion even though he's
8:11
Speaker 2: still very high powered, and that is a whole element
8:15
Speaker 2: of the plot that was just like, sure, what the hell?
8:18
Speaker 1: Sure, what the hell?
8:19
Speaker 4: I mean?
8:19
Speaker 1: It was funny, I guess. I didn't have a problem
8:21
Speaker 1: with it because I did really I liked the sister.
8:23
Speaker 1: I thought it was funny. But yeah, it is a
8:24
Speaker 1: bit of a hat on a hat. It's a bit
8:26
Speaker 1: of a like overly complicated plot device to give him
8:29
Speaker 1: a reason to get at this job. Yeah, I would
8:32
Speaker 1: agree with that. I think we're in such a dry
8:35
Speaker 1: landscape for rom coms that it's like seeing something that
8:37
Speaker 1: was made with so much love for and respect for
8:39
Speaker 1: the genre made me so happy. Yeah that like, I'll
8:42
Speaker 1: take a weird sister in prison? Great?
8:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, why not?
8:47
Speaker 5: Guess?
8:47
Speaker 1: Sure the hell? Well, we're going from the big city
8:51
Speaker 1: of New York slash New Jersey because a lot of
8:53
Speaker 1: this movie does happen in New Jersey to a small
8:56
Speaker 1: town with Vila's age, because today we will be talking
8:59
Speaker 1: about small town in cowboy romances with arguably one of
9:03
Speaker 1: the masters of small town and cowboy romances. Lila is
9:07
Speaker 1: a fantastic romance author. She has the Rebel Blue Rant
9:11
Speaker 1: series Soul Searching and then the upcoming Free Falling, which
9:15
Speaker 1: is out this September. And I can't wait to talk
9:19
Speaker 1: with Lyla about the challenges of writing small town romances
9:24
Speaker 1: in our current political climate.
9:26
Speaker 4: To put it nicely, to put it nicely, it nicely, Lilahi,
9:39
Speaker 4: are so excited to have you.
9:40
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to be here.
9:42
Speaker 1: I want to start by asking what your history with
9:46
Speaker 1: cowboy romances and what made you want to get into
9:49
Speaker 1: the genre.
9:50
Speaker 6: I mean, my history with cowboy romance, I think is
9:52
Speaker 6: very similar to any kind of lifelong romance reader's history
9:57
Speaker 6: with any sort of romance, which is, I fell in
10:00
Speaker 6: love with love at a young age, probably because it
10:03
Speaker 6: was being force fed to me by Twilight and Divergent
10:06
Speaker 6: and the Hunger Games.
10:08
Speaker 3: Like love in many forms.
10:10
Speaker 5: I read my first cowboy romance called Never Marry a
10:12
Speaker 5: Cowoy by Lorraine Heath. It's a historical I found it
10:16
Speaker 5: in my grandparents' kind of like back room, which I
10:19
Speaker 5: kind of feel is also kind of like a quintessential
10:21
Speaker 5: romance reader experience.
10:23
Speaker 6: On It's like a beautiful, like painted illustrated cover.
10:26
Speaker 5: He's like leaning over her, and it's very the horizon
10:30
Speaker 5: is like vast and beautiful and breath taking in the background.
10:34
Speaker 5: And I'm from a smaller town, and I generally don't
10:38
Speaker 5: like cowboys, to be so clear, that's not a thing.
10:43
Speaker 3: That's for me.
10:44
Speaker 5: But I read that book and I was so swept
10:46
Speaker 5: away by it, and that led me to in junior
10:50
Speaker 5: high in high school, reading more Lorraine Heath Beverly Jenkins,
10:54
Speaker 5: eventually making it to like Loralai James, who is kind
10:57
Speaker 5: of a staple in the genre with like really slutty,
10:59
Speaker 5: wonderful covers as far as contemporaries go. And then in
11:04
Speaker 5: college I read The Cowboys of California by Rebecca Weatherspoon
11:08
Speaker 5: and just like continue to love and I love westerns
11:10
Speaker 5: in general, so I also like, I loved that cowboy
11:14
Speaker 5: romance was kind of a convergence of my two favorite things,
11:16
Speaker 5: which is love and the West, and so that's kind
11:19
Speaker 5: of where I got started.
11:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that you said that about not liking
11:23
Speaker 1: cowboys in real life, because I want to differentiate a
11:25
Speaker 1: little bit between the fantasy of the cowboy and the
11:28
Speaker 1: reality of the cowboy, and how you approach tackling that.
11:32
Speaker 3: Well, I think that it's not just the cowboy.
11:35
Speaker 6: I think the fantasy of men is better.
11:37
Speaker 5: Period than the reality of men period actually, but the
11:41
Speaker 5: fantasy of the cowboy is also much better than the
11:44
Speaker 5: reality or at least cowboys as we know them now,
11:48
Speaker 5: as they exist now. And kind of the perception of
11:52
Speaker 5: what a cowboy is, which I would argue is kind
11:54
Speaker 5: of incorrect at almost every single turn, except for the
11:58
Speaker 5: fact that they like wear gan and swear a lot like.
12:01
Speaker 6: That's kind of those are like the two things that
12:04
Speaker 6: really connect.
12:05
Speaker 5: But the fantasy of the cowboys much better, especially if
12:07
Speaker 5: we're talking like a rodeo cowboy.
12:09
Speaker 3: They're short, they're little.
12:11
Speaker 7: In my opinion, this is one of those things that
12:13
Speaker 7: it's like, should I say it out loud, I'm going
12:15
Speaker 7: to they're not good horsemen.
12:17
Speaker 6: They like aren't great with animals.
12:19
Speaker 3: They don't care that much.
12:21
Speaker 5: And so that's why I also don't write about rodeo cowboys,
12:25
Speaker 5: because not even I can like detach myself enough from
12:28
Speaker 5: the reality to be like, I'm gonna ride a wonderful road.
12:30
Speaker 5: There's not for me, But the fantasy of the cowboys
12:33
Speaker 5: arguably much better.
12:34
Speaker 1: I think that I appreciate that you do. Is you
12:37
Speaker 1: care so much about the land and the responsibilities to
12:42
Speaker 1: as you're saying, like the animals and to wildlife and
12:47
Speaker 1: to national parks, and you weave that so seamlessly into
12:51
Speaker 1: your books. I'm curious kind of why that's important to
12:54
Speaker 1: you in these small town romances.
12:58
Speaker 7: I mean, well, I'm really passionate about rural communities in general,
13:01
Speaker 7: and I don't know if my you know, love and
13:06
Speaker 7: understanding of rural communities and the fact that they're often
13:09
Speaker 7: flattened by popular culture.
13:11
Speaker 5: Came through and Rebel Blue Ranch, even though that's something
13:14
Speaker 5: I was going for. But I think, you know, as
13:15
Speaker 5: I've grown as a writer, I think it's something that
13:18
Speaker 5: begins to weave itself really well into Sweetwater Peak, and
13:21
Speaker 5: that's something that I'm really proud of. I love the
13:24
Speaker 5: planet and as people who are you know, working land
13:29
Speaker 5: like my family always raised me that we are stewards
13:33
Speaker 5: of where we're at and where we live, and not
13:35
Speaker 5: just of the planet, but of our things.
13:36
Speaker 6: Right.
13:37
Speaker 5: We like take care of our clothes, we take care
13:40
Speaker 5: of our house, we take care of all of these
13:41
Speaker 5: things that we have. And so my hope is that
13:45
Speaker 5: if I can get people to care about rural communities,
13:48
Speaker 5: I can also get them to care about the planet
13:51
Speaker 5: and about the people that live there, and about the
13:54
Speaker 5: ways we can all continue to take care of each other.
13:57
Speaker 5: I think one of the themes of my novels, if you
14:00
Speaker 5: were to ask me about it, would be like community care.
14:02
Speaker 2: I'm also curious about Like, obviously all of these features
14:06
Speaker 2: set necessary like context for the existence of this relationship,
14:10
Speaker 2: but I wonder if you also see, or at least
14:12
Speaker 2: I did, when I read your work, like a kind
14:14
Speaker 2: of symbiosis between these descriptions of land and like descriptions
14:18
Speaker 2: of bodies, like community care and connection, and like the
14:22
Speaker 2: intimacy of being cared for in a rural community is
14:25
Speaker 2: totally conveyed. But I'm also wondering, like, does it contribute
14:29
Speaker 2: to the kind of erotic or romantic dynamic between your characters,
14:32
Speaker 2: and like, how do you think about integrating that like
14:36
Speaker 2: external world into these like internal dynamics between characters, if
14:41
Speaker 2: at all.
14:41
Speaker 3: I think that's a.
14:42
Speaker 5: Great question, and I think about that kind of constantly,
14:45
Speaker 5: and I think about it. I think maybe in a
14:46
Speaker 5: different way than the way you're framing it. A sense
14:49
Speaker 5: of place is extremely important in my novels. Atmosphere is
14:52
Speaker 5: extremely important, and I depend a lot on atmosphere to
14:56
Speaker 5: relay romantic tension. The way my characters see the world
15:00
Speaker 5: around them and describe the world around them, they know
15:04
Speaker 5: that it.
15:04
Speaker 3: Is beautiful and that it should be cared for.
15:06
Speaker 5: Especially in my male main characters, I think that kind
15:10
Speaker 5: of contributes to the way that they describe the people
15:13
Speaker 5: that they care about, whether that's a woman that they're
15:16
Speaker 5: romantically interested in or a platonic friendship. I think their
15:21
Speaker 5: sense of beauty and what they find beautiful or worthwhile
15:25
Speaker 5: or meaningful comes from the environment that they're in and
15:28
Speaker 5: what it looks like and what it feels like. And
15:30
Speaker 5: I hope that translates to the interpersonal relationships that my
15:34
Speaker 5: characters have with each other.
15:35
Speaker 1: I am curious what the appeal is in this current
15:39
Speaker 1: moment of a Western romance or a cowboy romance.
15:43
Speaker 5: Well, I think the idea of like the West and
15:45
Speaker 5: the Western thing is what it has always been. It's
15:50
Speaker 5: a new frontier, it's freedom, it's in some ways solitude.
15:55
Speaker 5: Piece a lot of that like romanticization of the West.
15:59
Speaker 5: Now this in a contemporary cowboy romance, and I think
16:02
Speaker 5: that's something people want, especially right now where we're consuming
16:06
Speaker 5: at all hours of every day, at all times, and
16:09
Speaker 5: whether intentionally or not, I think looking for peace or
16:13
Speaker 5: looking for home or longing for those things.
16:16
Speaker 3: Is very normal and I.
16:18
Speaker 5: Hope that that is part of what kind of drives
16:21
Speaker 5: people to explore, whether it's a Western romance or just
16:25
Speaker 5: a Western in general, especially modern and contemporary westerns that
16:29
Speaker 5: are kind of shifting perspectives in the genre. As somebody
16:33
Speaker 5: who writes, like, you know, cowboy Western romances I would
16:36
Speaker 5: also be remiss if I didn't mention the political and
16:41
Speaker 5: social landscape that exists right now, and how I think
16:44
Speaker 5: that conservatism is also.
16:46
Speaker 3: Driving people towards cowboys.
16:49
Speaker 5: Because of, like I think, misrepresentation or a misunderstanding of
16:53
Speaker 5: what again, rural communities are. I think if you approach
16:56
Speaker 5: a cowboy romance without knowing anything about cowboys, it's really really,
17:00
Speaker 5: really easy to write something that feels tricky, and even
17:05
Speaker 5: if you do know, that still happens because of the
17:08
Speaker 5: way that like cowboys the West ameral communities are a trade.
17:12
Speaker 2: I've loved hearing that your start was with like historicals
17:16
Speaker 2: and like Lorraine Heaths such a classic, like miss above,
17:19
Speaker 2: such a classic too, where like there's this legacy of
17:24
Speaker 2: cowboys in romance that I think people don't always I
17:29
Speaker 2: wonder if, like if you've noticed this too, and like
17:31
Speaker 2: your own readership of like you are for many people
17:35
Speaker 2: who are newer readers in romance their entry point into
17:37
Speaker 2: believing that cowboy romance exists. They aren't aware of all
17:41
Speaker 2: of the things that you're referencing or drawing on or
17:45
Speaker 2: were influenced by when they pick up your work. But
17:48
Speaker 2: I think that like having knowledge of that history in
17:53
Speaker 2: romance creates like such a sense of richness and like
17:57
Speaker 2: helps people also read your work with like more techure
18:00
Speaker 2: and detail. I think, I guess I'm most curious about,
18:03
Speaker 2: like even in your own readerly experience, like as purely
18:07
Speaker 2: a reader and maybe not as a writer. Like what
18:10
Speaker 2: was the thing that you felt when you read a
18:12
Speaker 2: cowboy romance that made you think, like, yeah, I really
18:15
Speaker 2: fucking love.
18:16
Speaker 5: That everything for me comes back to the world around me,
18:19
Speaker 5: Like I'm so inspired by when I look at my window,
18:21
Speaker 5: I see the mountains, I see like this big, beautiful
18:24
Speaker 5: thing that makes me feel small but not insignificant. And
18:29
Speaker 5: I think that's what I get when I read a Western,
18:32
Speaker 5: whether like a Western romance or a Western in general.
18:35
Speaker 5: I get the sense that I am part of something
18:38
Speaker 5: so much bigger than myself just by existing. The reason
18:42
Speaker 5: we like to read is because we're like in pursuit
18:45
Speaker 5: of the human condition of thinking about it, of feeling it,
18:48
Speaker 5: And we're in pursuit of connectivity, whether that's connecting directly
18:51
Speaker 5: to a character or you know, deepening our sense of
18:55
Speaker 5: empathy by reading about people.
18:56
Speaker 3: Who aren't like us.
18:57
Speaker 5: And that's what I get when I read like a beautiful,
19:02
Speaker 5: just sweeping western romance story, and that's what I hope
19:05
Speaker 5: every day, trying to capture that feeling.
19:08
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about cowboy romances as a trend,
19:11
Speaker 1: but as you mentioned, it's something that has a long
19:13
Speaker 1: history in the romance genre period. What you see as
19:18
Speaker 1: kind of the future of cowboy romances.
19:22
Speaker 5: My hope for cowboy romances, for my own cowboy romances,
19:26
Speaker 5: for cowboy romances that continue to come out of the woodwork,
19:29
Speaker 5: I hope is like appreciation for the genre, but also
19:31
Speaker 5: recognizing that it's a genre that needs to be updated, like.
19:35
Speaker 3: Any genre, like romance in general.
19:37
Speaker 5: Right it's a genre that needs to like meet us
19:40
Speaker 5: where we're at at this point in time right now.
19:43
Speaker 3: I hope to see more like.
19:46
Speaker 6: Maybe historical nods in cowboy romances.
19:50
Speaker 5: I hope to see less rodeo cowboys, and I hope
19:55
Speaker 5: to see, you know, more diverse cowboy romances hitting the
20:00
Speaker 5: because cowboy culture is I hate using this word because
20:04
Speaker 5: it's like so America, but it really is like a
20:06
Speaker 5: melting pot of so many different things in people and ideals.
20:10
Speaker 1: Lyla, thank you so much. It's been so great to
20:13
Speaker 1: talk to you. Thank you for making the time for
20:15
Speaker 1: us today.
20:16
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
20:27
Speaker 1: I love that discussion with Lila. Honestly, I could talk
20:30
Speaker 1: to Lila all day. But moving on from cowboys to
20:34
Speaker 1: rock Stars, you may remember the homework assignment from when
20:39
Speaker 1: Soane had me read again The Magic, a beautiful, wonderful
20:43
Speaker 1: historical that, by the way, I'm still thinking about. I'm
20:45
Speaker 1: still chasing the high of good. We'll see if my
20:48
Speaker 1: recommendation hits the same high. So I have assigned a
20:52
Speaker 1: somewhat controversial pick, which is The Idea of You by
20:57
Speaker 1: Robin Lee. This is gonna be controversial because it's actually
21:00
Speaker 1: not technically a romance novel. Oh we'll get into that,
21:04
Speaker 1: but for those who haven't read, the Idea of You
21:07
Speaker 1: is essentially Harry Styles fan fiction. Like though I think
21:11
Speaker 1: probain Lee would object to that description, she I'm sure
21:14
Speaker 1: that she would, and she should. That's that's totally fine,
21:16
Speaker 1: even though she thanks an known named person for being
21:20
Speaker 1: her forever muse in the acknowledgments like I don't know
21:23
Speaker 1: who that is. So The Idea of You is about
21:28
Speaker 1: a thirty nine year old woman, Selene. Selene is a
21:31
Speaker 1: single mom and her ex husband is meant to take
21:35
Speaker 1: her daughter to an August Moon concert, and he has
21:39
Speaker 1: to bail at the last minute, So Soelene ends up
21:42
Speaker 1: being the one who has to take her daughter to
21:44
Speaker 1: this August Moon concert in Las Vegas, where they have
21:46
Speaker 1: VIP meet and greet tickets, which is how she meets
21:49
Speaker 1: Hayes Campbell, a very charming, very twenty year old British
21:54
Speaker 1: boy band star, and proceeds to have a very steamy
21:58
Speaker 1: affair with him across the globe. The reason it's not
22:01
Speaker 1: considered a romance novel is because it does not have
22:03
Speaker 1: a happy ending for the couple. Spoiler alert. I think
22:06
Speaker 1: the novel at this point is actually close to ten
22:08
Speaker 1: years old, and it's been a major emotion picture starring
22:11
Speaker 1: Anne Hathaway. So I think if you don't know what's
22:13
Speaker 1: going on, that's on you. That is sort of the
22:17
Speaker 1: synopsis of the book, very briefly, and why I wanted
22:21
Speaker 1: Sonche to read it because I wanted to discuss it
22:23
Speaker 1: with you. Yeah, Songe, tell me what you thought.
22:28
Speaker 2: I had such complicated feelings about it. Okay, let me
22:31
Speaker 2: tell you my reading experience. I started it yesterday, I
22:35
Speaker 2: finished it today at one o'clock. I barreled straight through it,
22:40
Speaker 2: and I do tend to read in one setting, but
22:42
Speaker 2: I really do think that there's something kind of relentless
22:44
Speaker 2: about this book, because the stakes of the fame just
22:48
Speaker 2: ratchet up and up and up and up and up
22:50
Speaker 2: until it just gets like so intense so quickly, like
22:54
Speaker 2: it goes from being kind of leisurely to being so intense,
22:58
Speaker 2: and so I like flew through it, so it was
23:00
Speaker 2: eminently readable. And I do also see the appeal, like
23:05
Speaker 2: I think it's a book that treats fame with more
23:07
Speaker 2: seriousness than some of the other romance that I tend
23:10
Speaker 2: to read, like not just seriousness in terms of like, oh,
23:14
Speaker 2: these are really famous people, but like understanding how oppressive
23:17
Speaker 2: and surveilling celebrity culture is and paparazzi are. I think
23:21
Speaker 2: that this book captured it really well. I ultimately didn't
23:25
Speaker 2: like anybody involved, except for Isabelle, and I think isabel
23:31
Speaker 2: that sweet child who cares so deeply about her mother.
23:36
Speaker 5: No.
23:36
Speaker 1: Explain to me why, though, Tell me tell me why,
23:39
Speaker 1: especially like Solen and Hayes, Tell me why you didn't
23:41
Speaker 1: like them.
23:41
Speaker 2: I have less compassion to spare for them. I think
23:43
Speaker 2: Selene has a classism problem.
23:45
Speaker 1: One hundred percent in a.
23:47
Speaker 2: Big way, like in a really big way that I
23:49
Speaker 2: don't know that people necessarily mentioned to me when they
23:51
Speaker 2: talked about this book in the past, which like, obviously,
23:53
Speaker 2: how do you bring that up in casual conversation, Like,
23:55
Speaker 2: here's this book I really liked. The main character is
23:57
Speaker 2: like a massive classist.
23:58
Speaker 1: I do that all the time.
24:00
Speaker 2: Well, now, I'm just kidding, of course, you're like, well,
24:03
Speaker 2: of course, but I do think that, like that's something
24:05
Speaker 2: that kind of bowled me over with this, where like
24:09
Speaker 2: and when I say classiest issues, I don't mean that, like, oh,
24:12
Speaker 2: it's the fact that she wears designer, Like who cares,
24:14
Speaker 2: it's the fuck like she wears Aliyah and like Chanelle
24:18
Speaker 2: and Almon and yeah, like her fashion literacy isn't the
24:22
Speaker 2: thing that really did that for me. It's the way
24:24
Speaker 2: that she possesisons herself repeatedly in her inner monologue compared
24:28
Speaker 2: to the other women in her same age range, where
24:31
Speaker 2: she's like, I'm not like these dumpy I'm not like
24:34
Speaker 2: other girls. I'm not like other girls. I'm not like
24:36
Speaker 2: other women in my age. I'm beautiful, I'm classy, I'm French,
24:40
Speaker 2: i am an art dealer, Like she has all of
24:43
Speaker 2: these other markers around class that she's really quite preoccupied
24:47
Speaker 2: with and seems to require that other people affirm in her,
24:51
Speaker 2: like yeah, other people have to affirm that she is beautiful,
24:55
Speaker 2: that she has taste, that she despite being a thirty
24:58
Speaker 2: nine year old woman dating a twenty year old it like,
25:00
Speaker 2: deserves to be there for other kinds of reasons. And
25:03
Speaker 2: I don't know that that's like textual or subtextual. And
25:05
Speaker 2: I wonder if you had the same experience, because I'm
25:08
Speaker 2: wondering if I'm doing some projecting around that. But there's
25:10
Speaker 2: specifically a moment in one of the first chapters that
25:12
Speaker 2: like kind of took me aback, where she brings her
25:15
Speaker 2: daughter to this concert and she literally refers to this
25:18
Speaker 2: crowd of people who she describes as like kind of
25:20
Speaker 2: fat and dumpy and like obviously sine of the times.
25:23
Speaker 2: Also like this book is a decade old, like reflecting
25:27
Speaker 2: something else.
25:27
Speaker 1: I'm not saying oh.
25:29
Speaker 2: In there that I was like, oh, yeah, a totally
25:32
Speaker 2: different time. The repeated mention of Diddy. I was like,
25:35
Speaker 2: this is really different world. Yeah, totally different world. But
25:38
Speaker 2: I think that those were parts of the reasons why
25:39
Speaker 2: I was like, Solana is irritating me in a way
25:42
Speaker 2: where like I find it hard to be like, I
25:44
Speaker 2: feel so much for you as someone who got to
25:47
Speaker 2: have a really hot affair with a twenty year old.
25:50
Speaker 1: I was really struck by how like how into One
25:53
Speaker 1: Direction were you? Like, how into Harry Styles are you
25:55
Speaker 1: as a person. So I was not in the fan them.
26:00
Speaker 2: I was not in the Direction fandom, but I was
26:02
Speaker 2: proximal enough that I felt like I absorbed a lot
26:04
Speaker 2: of context via osmosis. But like I guess I was
26:08
Speaker 2: into Harry Styles a normal amount.
26:10
Speaker 1: I'm into Harry Style's a normal amount. Now, I was
26:12
Speaker 1: into Harry Styles an abnormal amount at the time of
26:14
Speaker 1: One Direction for sure. Like I went to LA and
26:17
Speaker 1: saw One Direction four nights back back at the Staples Center.
26:20
Speaker 1: We can talk about this another time. No, I know.
26:23
Speaker 1: And you're like, were they different shows? No, it was
26:25
Speaker 1: the same set list every night. I just went four
26:27
Speaker 1: nights so much. Yeah, this is deep lore, Like it's
26:31
Speaker 1: kind of crazy to me. The harryisms, if you will,
26:36
Speaker 1: that Hayes has his constant way of saying hi, really
26:40
Speaker 1: drawn out, like that's a hair that was a huge
26:42
Speaker 1: hairy thing at the time. She references a lot like
26:45
Speaker 1: a gesture he does, like where he'll like have a
26:48
Speaker 1: finger on his lips or whatever, like that was a
26:50
Speaker 1: very classic Harry Styles gesture. Like reading it, I was like,
26:54
Speaker 1: straight up, if this was published this year, it would
26:57
Speaker 1: be a clip arc cartoon of Harry Styles and everyone.
27:00
Speaker 1: And when we get really mad about it on the internet,
27:02
Speaker 1: like it's like that obvious, it's like really really crazy.
27:04
Speaker 2: This is so interesting to me because I remember reading
27:07
Speaker 2: interviews that were like it was never about him. I
27:09
Speaker 2: don't know why people keep saying that it was about
27:11
Speaker 2: other boy bands. I don't have I like I and I.
27:14
Speaker 1: Love that for her And if that she wrote it,
27:16
Speaker 1: so she knows better than I would. But I'll tell
27:18
Speaker 1: you that reading that, it was like the way that
27:20
Speaker 1: he dresses. Every single outbum was described. I could pull
27:24
Speaker 1: tell the pictures of Harry Styles circa twenty fifteen. That
27:27
Speaker 1: would be like those exact outfits, do you know what
27:30
Speaker 1: I mean? Like, there were just so many heroisms in
27:32
Speaker 1: it that I kind of couldn't believe it, And I
27:34
Speaker 1: had forgotten how abrupt the ending is really, and it
27:38
Speaker 1: was so abrupt.
27:41
Speaker 2: Makes a few pages past the author bio to be
27:43
Speaker 2: like did I miss something and then go back like
27:46
Speaker 2: it is.
27:46
Speaker 1: So abrupt, and in that sense I understand like very
27:49
Speaker 1: much not a romance obviously, because you're waiting for the
27:52
Speaker 1: change up from the breakup. I'm glad that I reread
27:55
Speaker 1: it before we discussed, because I think that I was
27:57
Speaker 1: prepared to come in here and argue that it was
28:01
Speaker 1: okay that it didn't end happily because it ended I
28:05
Speaker 1: remembered the book ending a little bit differently in my mind,
28:09
Speaker 1: that it's a happy ending, like they're too people who
28:12
Speaker 1: are happy and like marked by this romance, and like
28:15
Speaker 1: sometimes the happy ending, like romances can have a happy
28:18
Speaker 1: ending that doesn't end with people together. But then I
28:20
Speaker 1: reread it and I was like, actually they seem low
28:22
Speaker 1: key real miz, like yeah, really miserable.
28:26
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't always buy this necessarily, but I do
28:29
Speaker 2: think that oftentimes romance has an optimistic arc, and that
28:33
Speaker 2: doesn't mean like Pollyanna happy, go lucky. I think like
28:36
Speaker 2: in our first conversation with Jen about like the happily
28:38
Speaker 2: ever After, Yes, I liked her point about how expansive
28:41
Speaker 2: that definition is, where like there are books where happily
28:44
Speaker 2: ever after feels complicated and uneasy in some way, even
28:50
Speaker 2: it can it just feels big, It feels expansive. But
28:53
Speaker 2: like I do think oftentimes the arc of the romance
28:57
Speaker 2: plot is long and maybe trends towards optimism in large part.
29:02
Speaker 2: But there's something about the ending of this novel that
29:04
Speaker 2: I think has a cynical bent to it.
29:06
Speaker 1: It's very cynical what.
29:08
Speaker 2: Can and cannot be achieved in terms of intimacy. And
29:10
Speaker 2: also like the tone of their relationships gets more and
29:14
Speaker 2: more sour towards the end. Like there's this like glimmering,
29:17
Speaker 2: shiny beginning thing, but the end. By the end, I
29:22
Speaker 2: was like, thank God, Like, are either of you happy?
29:27
Speaker 1: I have to know if you would recommend reading this book.
29:30
Speaker 2: That's a good question to a diehard romance reader.
29:35
Speaker 3: Probably not.
29:36
Speaker 2: I think I would offer the recommendation with the requisite
29:39
Speaker 2: caveats of like, I thought this was really interesting, and
29:42
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot about intimacy in it. Don't
29:46
Speaker 2: expect a romance novel and then come back and tell
29:48
Speaker 2: me what you thought, Like, I think it's it's interesting
29:50
Speaker 2: in that it is discussion worthy. Would you recommend the movie?
29:54
Speaker 1: I would recommend the movie. It's like one of the
29:56
Speaker 1: hottest things and how the Way has ever done? Like
29:59
Speaker 1: in it, her and Nicholas Galazyin have like really good chemistry.
30:03
Speaker 1: If you want the romance though, the movie's great. Okay,
30:06
Speaker 1: I think I will. I'll watch it and I'll report back.
30:08
Speaker 1: Thanks for recommending this to me. I'm really glad I
30:10
Speaker 1: got to fill in this gap in my romance adjacent reading. Yeah,
30:13
Speaker 1: I'm delighted. It's good for discussion. Now that we've ended
30:16
Speaker 1: on a very hot topic, we've touched the hot stove.
30:19
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Speaker 1: next week.