Latest / Like a Virgin / An Interview with Best Woman Herself, Rose Dommu

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An Interview with Best Woman Herself, Rose Dommu · Like a Virgin

0:00
Speaker 1: Go. Welcome to NPR. I'm Terry Gross and I'm Terry Grosser.
0:10
Speaker 1: Is Terry Gross even doing Is she still doing the pod?
0:12
Speaker 1: I don't. She could be dead for all I know.
0:15
Speaker 1: Are you going to storm out of this interview the
0:18
Speaker 1: way Adam Driver stormed out of his Terry Gross interview?
0:21
Speaker 1: Is that we're calling this an interview? Yes? Okay, this
0:24
Speaker 1: is it. This is a stop on your pressed for
0:27
Speaker 1: This is the like a virgin special edition, special edition
0:31
Speaker 1: RSS feed drop, the rare RSS feed drop, as long
0:34
Speaker 1: as we can pressure Phoebe into posting it because neither
0:41
Speaker 1: of us know how to do that. Yeah, and it will,
0:43
Speaker 1: it will, Yeah, and you know this, this uh formally
0:49
Speaker 1: will be the official official Friend and Rose interview about
0:55
Speaker 1: a book called Best Woman by Rose DomU. It is
0:59
Speaker 1: available and purchasable for pre order on bookshop dot org
1:04
Speaker 1: among other websites. You also, if you're in New York,
1:08
Speaker 1: you have to come and see Rose and heron Walker
1:11
Speaker 1: in conversation at the Strand on September twenty third, really
1:16
Speaker 1: chic date, September twenty Russia. You can get your take.
1:19
Speaker 1: I think there's like a ticket option with a book
1:21
Speaker 1: and a ticket option without a book available in Rose's
1:27
Speaker 1: link tree, in her bio or a social Bible. Will
1:29
Speaker 1: also put a linked tickets in the description of this
1:32
Speaker 1: podcast episode, so you can mosey on over there to
1:35
Speaker 1: get your ticket. I want to see you there. I'll
1:37
Speaker 1: be there. There's also a Los Angeles event there is
1:41
Speaker 1: I'm going to be in Los Angeles doing an event
1:44
Speaker 1: at Annabelle's Book Club on October eighth I'm also going
1:51
Speaker 1: to be at Greedy Read's in Baltimore on October second, Baltimore,
1:58
Speaker 1: and I'm going to be in both gratone on October eighteenth,
2:03
Speaker 1: and literally my entire family and all my mom's friends
2:07
Speaker 1: will be there, which I love. And if you're not familiar,
2:10
Speaker 1: I mean Deer's Virgins. I know you've heard us talk
2:13
Speaker 1: about Rose's book in some capacity or another, basically every
2:18
Speaker 1: other episode of the podcast. You know we've been edging.
2:20
Speaker 1: We've been edging, edging edge Lords. We are. If you're
2:24
Speaker 1: not familiar already with the premise of Roses book, it
2:30
Speaker 1: does take place in Boca Raton, Florida, or large large
2:33
Speaker 1: portions of it take place in book Raton, Florida, where
2:36
Speaker 1: Rose is from. I kind of want to give. I
2:41
Speaker 1: want you to give us a little summary, but like,
2:42
Speaker 1: can you start by telling us what Booka Ratone, Florida is,
2:47
Speaker 1: Like maybe how it influenced your malgoth persona, your your
2:52
Speaker 1: personal malgoth persona, and then I guess, kind of how
2:55
Speaker 1: does it become the backdrop for this book. Boca Ratone
2:58
Speaker 1: is a very weird place, which is why I always
3:00
Speaker 1: wanted to write a book that was set there. And
3:03
Speaker 1: there's a lot of old people there, So that's Heaven's
3:11
Speaker 1: waiting room, God's waiting room. Yes, I know, I've made
3:15
Speaker 1: that joke on this podcast several times. Yeah. I mean
3:19
Speaker 1: it's a lot of like very affluent people, a lot
3:23
Speaker 1: of old people, a lot of Jewish people. Ariana Grande
3:25
Speaker 1: is from there. Ariana Grande is from there, as am
3:28
Speaker 1: I mother Teresa's from there. It's a very weird place
3:32
Speaker 1: to be a child, yes, just because everyone so old.
3:36
Speaker 1: Like the neighborhood I grew up in, there were no
3:41
Speaker 1: other children in. You had no peers, no peers, you
3:46
Speaker 1: only had old. I only had old. So I do
3:49
Speaker 1: think that really explains a lot why I am the
3:52
Speaker 1: way I am kind of does. And there's this kind
3:54
Speaker 1: of with the again, we're going to get into the
3:58
Speaker 1: plot of the book. But the character of this book,
4:02
Speaker 1: Best Woman kind of uh comes in. It kind kind
4:07
Speaker 1: of interfaces with the kind of JENSI quad the kind
4:12
Speaker 1: of on we of is that's how it's pronounced right
4:15
Speaker 1: on on we Yeah, I've did. I used to pronounce
4:17
Speaker 1: that anwie yes, yes, the on wee of returning to
4:23
Speaker 1: your childhood, returning to your like childhood bedroom, or returning
4:26
Speaker 1: to your returning to your hometown, and the just like
4:32
Speaker 1: the great sadness, the great and unamable sadness that it
4:36
Speaker 1: kind of instills in you, yes, and also the string
4:39
Speaker 1: and the kind of immediate regression that happens when you
4:43
Speaker 1: return home. I noticed for so long that every time
4:48
Speaker 1: I would visit home, I would immediately I would like,
4:52
Speaker 1: within eight hours, I would become fifteen again, and I
4:55
Speaker 1: would be like, oh mom, And that is such a
5:01
Speaker 1: tense experience. It's so weird to go somewhere where everybody
5:06
Speaker 1: knows you, but like no one actually really knows you. Yeah.
5:10
Speaker 1: And it's like so that the primary character, Julia, she
5:15
Speaker 1: kind of comes home specifically for a wedding, and in
5:25
Speaker 1: she's kind of immediately reminded of like a lot of
5:28
Speaker 1: like I want to say, like ghosts. That sounds like
5:32
Speaker 1: a little more dramatic than it actually is. But there's
5:33
Speaker 1: a lot of these kind of ghosts of her, of
5:36
Speaker 1: her past, of her growing up, of just like what
5:39
Speaker 1: it felt like to be in Boca that I think
5:42
Speaker 1: are very I just related to them part, even though
5:45
Speaker 1: because I'm from a suburb, I don't know if Bocaca. Okay,
5:49
Speaker 1: so I'm from this I'm kind of from the suburbs.
5:50
Speaker 1: I was born on the South Side, was raised in
5:52
Speaker 1: the suburbs. And there's this just kind of like really
5:55
Speaker 1: weird dissonance that you experience, especially I mean definitely as
5:59
Speaker 1: a queer person, especially as a transperson reinstating yourself in
6:04
Speaker 1: this context. Anyways, Okay, I'm being very terrogressed right now,
6:08
Speaker 1: but will you do me the honor of giving a
6:12
Speaker 1: plot summary for the people that are not awareer of
6:15
Speaker 1: the of course. So Best Woman is about Julia Rosenberg,
6:20
Speaker 1: who is a trans woman in her late twenties living
6:23
Speaker 1: in New York City. She is a couple of years
6:26
Speaker 1: into her transition. Right before she started transitioning, her brother
6:31
Speaker 1: got engaged and asked her to be the best man
6:35
Speaker 1: at his wedding, and then when she transitioned, she became
6:39
Speaker 1: the best woman, the best woman. At the beginning of
6:41
Speaker 1: the novel, she's a couple of weeks out from the
6:45
Speaker 1: wedding and going to get her best woman dress, best
6:51
Speaker 1: woman dress. And I've never actually done this thing that
6:55
Speaker 1: happens in the book, which is like the appointment to
6:57
Speaker 1: get your dress that everyone has to wear. Yeah, ever
7:00
Speaker 1: done that either, But I've watched a lot of says
7:04
Speaker 1: to the dress, so I feel like I have an
7:06
Speaker 1: understanding of it. Okay. So she finds out that early
7:12
Speaker 1: in the novel that the maid of honor in her
7:14
Speaker 1: brother's wedding has dropped out. Slash been kicked out because
7:20
Speaker 1: she was uncomfortable with the idea of walking down the
7:24
Speaker 1: aisle with Julia because she is transphobic, and now replacing
7:30
Speaker 1: the maid of honor is Kim Cameron, Julia's number one
7:34
Speaker 1: ultimate high school crush, who is a very hot, sexy,
7:40
Speaker 1: confident lesbian. As a reader, this is this is the
7:45
Speaker 1: part where you realize that this book is an entry
7:48
Speaker 1: into the sapphic kind of romance canon. Yes, it is
7:54
Speaker 1: truly a lesbian romance. What's a bisexual Bulia. Julia is
7:59
Speaker 1: by sexual and she does. She does have a male
8:03
Speaker 1: love interest in the novel too, who's more of just
8:05
Speaker 1: like a hometown hookup. Because she is she is a
8:12
Speaker 1: chaotic bisexual slut and I love her for that. So
8:18
Speaker 1: what the tension of the novel kind of hinges of is.
8:21
Speaker 1: During an early interaction where Julia has seen Kim again,
8:27
Speaker 1: she makes the mistake of telling this little white lie,
8:34
Speaker 1: which is that her family is actually more transphobic transphobic
8:43
Speaker 1: than they actually are. They're actually pretty accepting. She does
8:48
Speaker 1: this in a very misguided bid to gain Kim's sympathy
8:55
Speaker 1: to her. Yes, because of an interaction that they have,
8:59
Speaker 1: and and because she is kind of at this place
9:04
Speaker 1: in her transition where she feels like she has accomplished
9:07
Speaker 1: a lot of her goals and feels affirmed in a
9:11
Speaker 1: lot of ways. But this girl kind of represents this
9:15
Speaker 1: like last hurdle of her womanhood, which is this lesbian
9:20
Speaker 1: who she was obsessed with in high school and knew
9:23
Speaker 1: she would never be able to get because at that
9:24
Speaker 1: time she presented as male. And so she has this
9:29
Speaker 1: idea that if she's able to successfully you know, kind
9:33
Speaker 1: of con this girl into likely lightly but con into
9:41
Speaker 1: being interested in her romantically. Then that will be proof
9:45
Speaker 1: that she really is the woman she has always wanted
9:50
Speaker 1: to be and seen herself as. This is very much
9:53
Speaker 1: inspired by my best friend's wedding, and you know, the
9:58
Speaker 1: idea of a very unlikable protagonist who lies and makes
10:05
Speaker 1: bad decisions to get what she wants. And I really
10:08
Speaker 1: wanted to see a trans character be able to do
10:10
Speaker 1: that because I feel like in a lot of a
10:13
Speaker 1: lot of media depictions of trans people they have to
10:15
Speaker 1: be either like saints or victims or a murderers, And
10:21
Speaker 1: I wanted to see a really complicated trans protagonist who
10:26
Speaker 1: you just kind of want to shake and go what
10:28
Speaker 1: are you doing? Like are you doing? I very much
10:31
Speaker 1: see Julia as like a little sister. I'm like, what
10:33
Speaker 1: is wrong with you? So that is the setup, and
10:36
Speaker 1: then the bulk of the novel takes place over the
10:38
Speaker 1: wedding week in book ratone, as Julia reunites with her family,
10:43
Speaker 1: all while staying connected to her friends back in New
10:46
Speaker 1: York City who are like very much her chosen family.
10:50
Speaker 1: And there's a really big cast of kooky characters, shenanigans, En, Sue,
10:58
Speaker 1: and there's some steamy hookups and some very painful growth
11:05
Speaker 1: for lots of the people involved. I don't want to
11:09
Speaker 1: give too much of the book away, but I want
11:11
Speaker 1: to dig a little bit more into the plot in that. So,
11:17
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, there's this the the thematic tension kind
11:23
Speaker 1: of starts with this, uh this, like, I guess, like
11:32
Speaker 1: not so great choice of emotionally manipulating her high school
11:36
Speaker 1: crush Kim Cameron at a cheesecake factory. And a dream
11:41
Speaker 1: of mine was always to set a scene in a
11:43
Speaker 1: novel at factory. And I did it, and you did it,
11:46
Speaker 1: and it felt like I was there. Maybe we never
11:49
Speaker 1: had our cheesecake factory day, remember when we were supposed
11:51
Speaker 1: to have our our like a virgin holiday party, but
11:56
Speaker 1: we couldn't because what COVID something like that like that.
12:02
Speaker 1: But yeah, so so the the all of the tension
12:06
Speaker 1: kind of starts in this moment where like Julia decides
12:12
Speaker 1: to lie and save her family's a little transphobic, and
12:15
Speaker 1: it kind of works immediately and Kim Cameron has all
12:17
Speaker 1: of this cis guilt that like she like soaks the
12:22
Speaker 1: conversation and being like, oh my god, you I mean
12:24
Speaker 1: she's not like you, poor thing. But the affect is
12:26
Speaker 1: very like you poor thing. It's very the subtext is
12:28
Speaker 1: very You're so brave, and you're so brave, and oh,
12:31
Speaker 1: I want to take care of you, and oh, this
12:34
Speaker 1: is like maybe feeding already a kind of funny romantic
12:40
Speaker 1: dynamic as well, because it is immediately I would say
12:44
Speaker 1: it's I think it's pretty clear from jump that Kim
12:48
Speaker 1: is into Julia, like she kind of said she she
12:51
Speaker 1: all but says that that's a possibility, but it's also
12:56
Speaker 1: it's like like with in terms of like her actions,
12:58
Speaker 1: but it's also like she doesn't. It's not immediately, do
13:01
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Well, it's I think it's
13:03
Speaker 1: more so that Kim's interest is very clear, but Julia
13:10
Speaker 1: can't or won't let herself believe it. She can't trust it,
13:16
Speaker 1: and she thinks that this manipulation of the truth is
13:23
Speaker 1: kind of justified because this girl will never organically like
13:28
Speaker 1: her when the evidence is staring her right in the face.
13:33
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't want to give too much away,
13:36
Speaker 1: but there is a point like through the novel where
13:39
Speaker 1: it is pretty clear that Kim is interested in her,
13:42
Speaker 1: and even knowing that, Julia still continues on with her
13:47
Speaker 1: deception because she is an incredibly anxious, insular person. Like
13:56
Speaker 1: that was one of the most fun parts of the novel, was,
13:59
Speaker 1: you know, it's toll from first person perspective, and you
14:04
Speaker 1: spend so much time in Julia's head. She really overthinks everything.
14:09
Speaker 1: That's one of the ways in which she is like me.
14:13
Speaker 1: And even with the proof of all of these different things,
14:19
Speaker 1: her her family's acceptance, this girl's interest staring her in
14:23
Speaker 1: the face, she still is seeing demons around every corner,
14:29
Speaker 1: and what is the name? So if so, she lies
14:33
Speaker 1: and she says her family's not that accepting. It's more
14:36
Speaker 1: so that it's more so that she doesn't correct Kim
14:42
Speaker 1: when she makes a sort of assumption. And I think
14:48
Speaker 1: that's why Julia feels kind of almost like self righteous
14:54
Speaker 1: about it, is like, well, she already assumed, and so
14:57
Speaker 1: I'm just not correcting her, And it was her fault
15:00
Speaker 1: for assuming in the first place that I was some
15:03
Speaker 1: like poor little tranny that she needed to save. And
15:05
Speaker 1: the real life nature of Julia's relationship with her family
15:10
Speaker 1: is kind of more like, you know, mom and Dad
15:13
Speaker 1: might might not have been totally understanding of it initially,
15:17
Speaker 1: but ultimately really really understanding. She also has an older
15:21
Speaker 1: brother and two twin siblings, two younger twin siblings. The brother,
15:26
Speaker 1: I think I could say is like the most accepting,
15:31
Speaker 1: but on the hint of this lie, Julie kind of
15:37
Speaker 1: positions him as maybe the least accepting kind of Yeah,
15:40
Speaker 1: she really throws him under the bus, the darkest lie. Yeah,
15:44
Speaker 1: that is the darkest lie because with the rest of
15:45
Speaker 1: her family, you know, like, what I really wanted to
15:47
Speaker 1: explore is this nuance of queer acceptance where your family can,
15:54
Speaker 1: you know, say all the right things and do the
15:56
Speaker 1: right things, but there's still kind of a stinky vibe
15:58
Speaker 1: of like, you know, it's still all a little conditional,
16:03
Speaker 1: the way that you use a she her pronoun with
16:05
Speaker 1: an emphatic kind of or it's like, I only see
16:08
Speaker 1: you as a woman if you do these certain things
16:11
Speaker 1: that I expect a woman is supposed to do. And
16:15
Speaker 1: with Julia's brother, Aidan, he really is the one in
16:18
Speaker 1: her family who has embraced her identity the most, and
16:23
Speaker 1: maybe even more so than well no, with her mother
16:27
Speaker 1: there her transition did bring them closer in a way,
16:30
Speaker 1: and with her and Aiden, they've always been close and
16:34
Speaker 1: Aiden's Aiden's he's her younger brother, so like a young
16:37
Speaker 1: oh and with Aiden, like they were always close and
16:41
Speaker 1: so her her transition really changed nothing about their relationship,
16:45
Speaker 1: which is like such great proof to her that she
16:50
Speaker 1: has the support she is looking for and why it
16:56
Speaker 1: makes it all the harder to justify what she's done.
17:01
Speaker 1: And that is the place I wanted her to be.
17:04
Speaker 1: I really wanted the reader to be really frustrated with Julia,
17:09
Speaker 1: because that's fun, yeah, and like, well, that frustration is
17:15
Speaker 1: really I think that frustration is the thing that is
17:19
Speaker 1: like perhaps in my experience of reading the book, the
17:22
Speaker 1: most interesting part of it, which is that like you know,
17:25
Speaker 1: her her mom and dad are like very accepting now,
17:29
Speaker 1: but they've come a little ways to get there, and
17:33
Speaker 1: so there's still this like there's this tension. There's just
17:36
Speaker 1: feeling like the certain the way the way her mom
17:38
Speaker 1: uses that she her pronent still feels a little a
17:42
Speaker 1: type of way, or that this these very little ways
17:46
Speaker 1: that SIS people, SIS family meverse can still disappoint us
17:50
Speaker 1: even when they're trying, creates this like negative kind of
17:55
Speaker 1: foil to it that I think, and sometimes it's the
17:59
Speaker 1: trying that feels hard, like like what like because like
18:03
Speaker 1: sometimes like the lack of effort is the effort, you know,
18:09
Speaker 1: when someone is not making it clear that there's something
18:13
Speaker 1: different or weird or quote unquote special about you, versus
18:18
Speaker 1: when someone is clearly putting an effort, when there's an
18:21
Speaker 1: emphasis on the she or the girl, or when assist
18:25
Speaker 1: girl is like hey lady, you know like that that
18:29
Speaker 1: is almost more hurtful than an out as would rather
18:36
Speaker 1: like them. Yeah, it's funny, but like I the I
18:42
Speaker 1: think in throughout the whole book, you depict something that
18:48
Speaker 1: I've never really seen in any media before, not to representation,
18:53
Speaker 1: but like it's it's something that I've never really seen
18:55
Speaker 1: depicted before, which is that it's this transgender urge to
19:00
Speaker 1: play up your trauma or oppression or to balloon that
19:06
Speaker 1: frustration inside of you to a degree that feels manipulative
19:12
Speaker 1: or punitive to those around you, you know what I mean.
19:15
Speaker 1: Like it's like it's this thing where you're kind of
19:18
Speaker 1: like you're like, oh, I am the victim, I'm the victim,
19:21
Speaker 1: or these are my perpetrators, and in reality it's like
19:24
Speaker 1: really really not that dynamic is not actually real, Like
19:29
Speaker 1: it's it's much more nuanced than that, but it also
19:31
Speaker 1: comes from a real place because when your trands like
19:35
Speaker 1: you do, live in this constant fear of you know,
19:38
Speaker 1: the turf around the corner, constant victimhood, and your marginalize,
19:43
Speaker 1: you're minoritized in every interaction, and so you can't help
19:47
Speaker 1: but expect that from people to an unhealthy extent, and
19:52
Speaker 1: it actually can lead to being very unfair to people
19:55
Speaker 1: who are not giving you that energy at all. Yes, exactly.
20:00
Speaker 1: And I think like Aid and the Brother is maybe
20:02
Speaker 1: the primary example of this. There's almost even a level
20:06
Speaker 1: of it that comes from Kim who kind of I
20:09
Speaker 1: mean as a reader, I immediately had these like alarm
20:12
Speaker 1: bells in my head about how the Crush would speak
20:16
Speaker 1: about transness or just like acceptance in general. We have
20:20
Speaker 1: this like movie, this like after school special idea like
20:26
Speaker 1: trans acceptance, so that SIS people can have a trans
20:28
Speaker 1: acceptance that is like very grading. Okay, there's also a
20:34
Speaker 1: kind of wait, what is even There's there's some sort
20:37
Speaker 1: of slang term for like trade you have at your hometown.
20:41
Speaker 1: What is it? It's it's just like like a town hookup.
20:46
Speaker 1: It's like an old flame. It's kind of like basically
20:48
Speaker 1: Julia has this old flame named Ben Ben who is
20:52
Speaker 1: her brother's friend brother and one of the grooms men,
20:55
Speaker 1: who is someone who feels like comfortable and life just
21:00
Speaker 1: one is one of those hookups that like just knows
21:02
Speaker 1: your body, and so hooking up always feels like easy
21:04
Speaker 1: and giggly and fun. Well, and also the special thing
21:08
Speaker 1: for her is they were hooking up before she transitioned
21:12
Speaker 1: right right, and so he's been this like constant in
21:17
Speaker 1: her life and someone who was equally attracted to her
21:21
Speaker 1: in both presentations. So that is really comfortable. Like I
21:26
Speaker 1: think at one point I wrote that like hooking up
21:29
Speaker 1: with him was like putting on a pair of like
21:31
Speaker 1: the perfectly worn and old jeans, you know, which is
21:35
Speaker 1: such a which is such a goal. When you have
21:38
Speaker 1: a person who is like you're just like very comfortable
21:41
Speaker 1: around can get off with. It's like really easy, you
21:45
Speaker 1: don't have to put in too much effort. They know
21:47
Speaker 1: you really well, they know your body. Kind of kind
21:51
Speaker 1: of goals. It's been so long since I've had an
21:53
Speaker 1: old Jean's hook up, but it's like it's almost too comfortable.
21:58
Speaker 1: Like Julius still is like she she understands that if
22:04
Speaker 1: she was like kind of a simpler person. She could
22:07
Speaker 1: like let that be enough for her and like let
22:10
Speaker 1: herself love this person. But she's not simple. She's not
22:13
Speaker 1: a simple girl. She's very complicated. Sweet Home Alabama. Yeah,
22:17
Speaker 1: it's sweet of Alabama. I mean everything is sweet Home
22:20
Speaker 1: Alabama to me. Sweet Homo Alabama, Sweet Homo Alabama, three
22:24
Speaker 1: sweet trans Sweet sweet Home Trallabama, Tranabama. What we're like
22:33
Speaker 1: the what we're like the most? Okay? Actually, no, no, The
22:38
Speaker 1: question I want to ask actually is what changed? Because
22:41
Speaker 1: you know, I was like with you in like cafes
22:44
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles when you were writing the first drafts,
22:46
Speaker 1: in the first chapters of this book and somewhere along
22:49
Speaker 1: the years long process. Because how many how many years
22:51
Speaker 1: did it take you? It's been a little over three
22:53
Speaker 1: years since I started writing the book, Okay, so but
22:56
Speaker 1: you completed the manuscript like a year you know, yeah,
23:01
Speaker 1: a year and a half ago. Okay, so it's like
23:02
Speaker 1: two and a half years of writing essentially in that
23:06
Speaker 1: two and a half year process. What changed? Like? What
23:14
Speaker 1: was there? Is there? Like it doesn't have to be everything,
23:15
Speaker 1: but like, what's something specific, whether like a plotline or
23:18
Speaker 1: character or a dynamic or I know that the ending
23:21
Speaker 1: changed that you don't need to share that, But is
23:23
Speaker 1: there something else about when you were, like, you set
23:25
Speaker 1: out to write this book and it ended up being
23:27
Speaker 1: that book. Yeah, I think it started off as more
23:33
Speaker 1: of a kind of cut and dry romantic comedy and
23:40
Speaker 1: it ended up being much more of a family drama
23:45
Speaker 1: and coming of age novel because the romantic comedy was
23:49
Speaker 1: really kind of like the like chocolatey rapper around a
23:57
Speaker 1: sort of more like bitter center that was this like
24:02
Speaker 1: exploration of family and identity and growing up and love
24:08
Speaker 1: and kind of like lures you into a book that
24:12
Speaker 1: I hope like has some pretty deep things to say.
24:16
Speaker 1: It does about all of those things it actually really does.
24:19
Speaker 1: I mean the family drama, well, the thoughtfulness of a
24:22
Speaker 1: family drama is really in the book when she when
24:28
Speaker 1: her inner monologues kind of pop off. She has like
24:31
Speaker 1: a range of like inner monologues about transness, acceptance, family presentation, love,
24:36
Speaker 1: et cetera throughout the book that are really really beautiful
24:38
Speaker 1: in my favorite parts to read. When you were writing it,
24:42
Speaker 1: you had quite a lot of references. Obviously, we've referenced
24:45
Speaker 1: my best friend's wedding. I think we talked about Red,
24:48
Speaker 1: White and Robe but at one point, even though they
24:50
Speaker 1: have virtually nothing to do with each other. But the
24:54
Speaker 1: big one was actually Garden State a way, I don't
24:59
Speaker 1: wait talk to me about that. So, I mean, Garden
25:01
Speaker 1: State is one of my favorite movies, and I revisit
25:07
Speaker 1: it quite often. Actually, today's kind of a perfect day
25:09
Speaker 1: to watch it, because it's like Rainy. That was in
25:14
Speaker 1: mind a lot, because that is a movie that is
25:16
Speaker 1: about coming home for a family event. In that case
25:19
Speaker 1: it's a funeral. In this case it's a wedding. But
25:23
Speaker 1: the idea of forcing yourself back into a life that
25:26
Speaker 1: you have outgrown and but also still being able to
25:31
Speaker 1: find the beauty in that former life and some kind
25:34
Speaker 1: of comfort in it while knowing that you have still
25:38
Speaker 1: transcended it. And also you know that the family and
25:43
Speaker 1: that is Jewish, and you know this Julia is Jewish.
25:46
Speaker 1: Her family is very culturally Jewish, and so that is
25:50
Speaker 1: a big part of the novel as well. Truly likes
25:54
Speaker 1: Cafelta fish wait right yeah, which is famously disgusting. It
25:59
Speaker 1: is famously discuss and she does. There is a vomit
26:02
Speaker 1: scene early in the scene is really satisfying. I need
26:07
Speaker 1: to see that as a movie. You also reference wait,
26:10
Speaker 1: what is it for wedding? Four Weddings and a Funeral?
26:12
Speaker 1: What it was that? Again, I've never seen it, I
26:14
Speaker 1: don't think, or if I have, I don't. It's some no,
26:17
Speaker 1: not what's the movie I'm thinking about about a funeral?
26:21
Speaker 1: I'll remember later. Four Weddings and a Funeral is a
26:25
Speaker 1: Richard Curtis movie. He made Nodding Hill and kind of
26:28
Speaker 1: all those British romantic comedies with Hugh Grant. It stars
26:34
Speaker 1: Hugh Grant and Annie McDowell and it is a movie
26:38
Speaker 1: where you experience this group of friends as they go
26:42
Speaker 1: to over the course of a couple of years, four
26:45
Speaker 1: different weddings and one funeral. And there very much is
26:49
Speaker 1: a chosen family in it. There's a lot of you know,
26:54
Speaker 1: like sexy romantic drama, some lying and manipulation. There is
27:00
Speaker 1: some like very intense sadness with you know, the funeral
27:05
Speaker 1: of it all. And it was a movie I had
27:07
Speaker 1: never watched until I started writing the book and was
27:10
Speaker 1: like actively seeking out romantic comedies about weddings to sort
27:14
Speaker 1: of be inspired by. And that was definitely a big one.
27:19
Speaker 1: Any other because okay, so I'm basically trying to paint
27:22
Speaker 1: for the consume, for the consumer of this book, sorry
27:25
Speaker 1: to be all sales. It's like, if you like for
27:26
Speaker 1: weddings in a funeral, you like best No. This is
27:29
Speaker 1: literally how we're marketing the books. I would also say
27:31
Speaker 1: I would also say my big fact Greek wedding, yes,
27:34
Speaker 1: because of the the kookie crazy family who are very
27:38
Speaker 1: much like a huge like, this isn't a book where
27:41
Speaker 1: the family are on the sidelines. There are a really
27:44
Speaker 1: active part of the story, as are Julia's friends who
27:48
Speaker 1: are her family. I also the number of times I
27:51
Speaker 1: brought this up on like A version is embarrassing. But
27:53
Speaker 1: then in real life starring Steve Carrell never seen and
27:58
Speaker 1: Juliette Binoche stunning family drama where you're always trying to
28:02
Speaker 1: get me to watch a movie with Julia Boch and
28:04
Speaker 1: we should watch it right now. Uh yeah, what any
28:08
Speaker 1: any other films or books that could be comps to
28:12
Speaker 1: this where it's like, if you like this, you like
28:14
Speaker 1: Best Women. I think if you like well, I know,
28:18
Speaker 1: you know the the authors that that my publisher really
28:22
Speaker 1: like trying to compare it to or people Casey mcwisten
28:26
Speaker 1: did blurb the book, Yell, Dolly Alderton, Emily Henry. Yeah,
28:33
Speaker 1: I did get some really great blurbs from some authors
28:37
Speaker 1: I so deeply admire and respect, like Casey Mccuisten, Kristin Arnett,
28:44
Speaker 1: J P. Brammer. I was very touched by their their
28:52
Speaker 1: thoughts about my book, and Tory Peters Casey. But Casey
28:57
Speaker 1: said irresistibly fresh, bright, funny, and with singular voice, this
29:01
Speaker 1: is the kind of romance I've been waiting for, and
29:03
Speaker 1: we're so lucky to finally have it. Wow. Anointed by
29:06
Speaker 1: Jesus themselves, incredible, anointed by queer romance. Jesus, queer romance Jesus.
29:13
Speaker 1: Casey mcquest has anointed and blessed this but read this
29:16
Speaker 1: book and blurbed it. I want to know, Wait, were
29:20
Speaker 1: there any Is there anybody that like you went out
29:22
Speaker 1: to that didn't that didn't blurb them? No, I got
29:26
Speaker 1: you got all your blurbs. Yeah, what I didn't know
29:29
Speaker 1: that you've got a hundred Yeah, I mean Tory, Tory,
29:32
Speaker 1: Casey and Kristen were like my holy trinity of blurbs,
29:36
Speaker 1: and they all said yes, and we're so happy to
29:38
Speaker 1: do it. That's that's been one of the really amazing
29:41
Speaker 1: things about doing this is how generous other authors have
29:46
Speaker 1: been with their time, with their advice. Uh, Like, I
29:51
Speaker 1: had coffee with Haley Jacobson a couple of weeks ago.
29:55
Speaker 1: Haley Jacobson wrote another queer novel called Old Enough that
30:00
Speaker 1: is really like a campus novel also is very much
30:04
Speaker 1: a coming of age story, and she we had this
30:09
Speaker 1: this coffee date because we met at the Meta Pride
30:14
Speaker 1: book Fair this summer, the Meta Pride book that I
30:17
Speaker 1: did my first ever reading of Best Women at. And
30:20
Speaker 1: we had coffee and she like gave me some really
30:23
Speaker 1: amazing reassurance about just like the process of publishing a
30:28
Speaker 1: debut novel, and like the fact that it's not all
30:32
Speaker 1: about pub day or pub week and that novels have
30:35
Speaker 1: such a longer lifespan and really can like build up
30:39
Speaker 1: a following over that, and also just like navigating what
30:43
Speaker 1: it's like to have a book that is so like
30:47
Speaker 1: identity first and that's the way that it's going to
30:49
Speaker 1: be perceived and talked about, which was so helpful. Well,
30:54
Speaker 1: that's the I mean, that's the kind of annoying thing
30:57
Speaker 1: about marketing a book with transcaracter in it or queer
31:01
Speaker 1: characters in it is that it immediately becomes trademark LGBTQ
31:05
Speaker 1: bookshelf section of borders. But you know what I was
31:08
Speaker 1: really happy and kind of gagged about was that my
31:12
Speaker 1: team at no point was like, Okay, well, we have
31:14
Speaker 1: to publish your book in June. It's a queer book.
31:18
Speaker 1: Well no, no, no shade to queer authors who do
31:23
Speaker 1: publish their books during Pride month, but it does. It
31:26
Speaker 1: does feel very much like a siloing of queer art
31:29
Speaker 1: that it's only important at the time when people are
31:33
Speaker 1: kind of trained to pay attention to it. And the
31:36
Speaker 1: fact that my publisher really believed that my book had
31:41
Speaker 1: mainstream appeal and legs and like didn't want me to silo.
31:45
Speaker 1: Didn't want to silo me. Like that meant a lot,
31:48
Speaker 1: which it does. I mean, I read, I finished. It
31:52
Speaker 1: took me months to read the book because I famously
31:55
Speaker 1: can't read, but I did finish it with Rose Damu
31:58
Speaker 1: at Fire Island at a Beautiful Fire Island share courtesy
32:04
Speaker 1: of Joel Kim Booster. And I remember closing the book,
32:09
Speaker 1: I had like, well you saw me like gasp multiple
32:12
Speaker 1: times because the ending has some gags and some twists,
32:15
Speaker 1: and it is a roller coaster. There was a there's
32:17
Speaker 1: a there's a moment where I truly, truly audibly gasped.
32:23
Speaker 1: But all that to say, I immediately wanted to I
32:30
Speaker 1: immediately started fan casting it, and I was like, what
32:33
Speaker 1: has do you have aspirations for this book to be
32:36
Speaker 1: a film? I would love. I would love if it were.
32:40
Speaker 1: I have, we have interests I have, I have film
32:42
Speaker 1: and TV agents. Who are you know sending me around
32:45
Speaker 1: to meet people to talk about that. I think it
32:47
Speaker 1: would be so cool to see this movie, this book
32:51
Speaker 1: that was inspired by romantic comedy films, to become a film.
32:56
Speaker 1: I also think the state of romantic comedy movies right
32:59
Speaker 1: now is pretty die and this could be a good
33:03
Speaker 1: injection into that. Yeah, my dream would be, of course
33:07
Speaker 1: that because this is inspired by my best friend's wedding.
33:11
Speaker 1: If Julia Roberts were to play the mother character, you're
33:15
Speaker 1: gonna say, Julia so sickening Julia Roberts or maybe Sarah
33:22
Speaker 1: Jessica Parker could play, could play Dana Jessica Parker wasn't
33:28
Speaker 1: Oh no way, no, she wasn't. She wasn't, she wasn't. Sorry,
33:30
Speaker 1: that is I'm thinking of the movie that's exactly like
33:35
Speaker 1: Dan and this woman blindness Dan in real life movie,
33:39
Speaker 1: but it's you're talking about the family Stone. The family Stone,
33:44
Speaker 1: Julia Roberts would be fabulous. I was there's no there
33:48
Speaker 1: are I was just talking to somebody the other day.
33:50
Speaker 1: There are no transactresses period, Like, there are none. Yeah,
33:55
Speaker 1: it would have to be a breakout. That's that's what
33:57
Speaker 1: I would want, like because I just think we need
34:00
Speaker 1: to be opening the door, like I know, as much
34:03
Speaker 1: as possible. I know, like Hari and like Jesse, James
34:06
Speaker 1: Kittle will be given the script, but like who, like,
34:09
Speaker 1: there are actually no transactresses and this would be the
34:14
Speaker 1: most delicious role for what is a huge, huge, huge
34:21
Speaker 1: population of transaction actresses that are ready to break out.
34:24
Speaker 1: And you know, I really it was important to me
34:27
Speaker 1: that Julia not be the only trans character in her story.
34:30
Speaker 1: You know, there are a few she and that is
34:34
Speaker 1: kind of what is so hard for her about going
34:35
Speaker 1: Home is she goes from a life where she is
34:37
Speaker 1: surrounded by queer people and never interacts with straight people
34:41
Speaker 1: really and then goes to Boca Ratone to a wedding
34:47
Speaker 1: and this is her first time seeing her whole extended
34:50
Speaker 1: family since transitioning, and that is a huge moment in
34:56
Speaker 1: a queer person's life, you know, kind of re meeting
34:59
Speaker 1: everyone in a way. A family wedding is pretty much
35:02
Speaker 1: the most cisgender thing that can happen. Well. Weddings, I
35:05
Speaker 1: think are I mean, there's a reason why so many
35:09
Speaker 1: stories are set at weddings. They are so high stakes,
35:13
Speaker 1: there's so much drama, there's so much gender, like like
35:17
Speaker 1: the concept of gender, like the bride and groom of
35:20
Speaker 1: it all like they are. They're this sort of operatic
35:23
Speaker 1: stage for family drama, romantic drama. The bridal party becomes
35:29
Speaker 1: the chorus. And it also like weddings have a very
35:34
Speaker 1: natural beginning middle and it has the kind of like
35:39
Speaker 1: surprise and delight of the bachelor slash bachelorette parties, the
35:43
Speaker 1: bachelors parties, and an opportunity to serve some looks with
35:47
Speaker 1: which Julia gets to do thanks thanks to one of
35:52
Speaker 1: the one of the most fun things I had I
35:54
Speaker 1: got to do in writing this novel is I got
35:57
Speaker 1: to invent a fake pop star who is the source
35:59
Speaker 1: of Julia's couture wedding looks, and that was that was
36:05
Speaker 1: super fun. I got to like think about you know,
36:07
Speaker 1: like what what she would be wearing to like serve
36:11
Speaker 1: invoke a retone. And I know that this is the
36:14
Speaker 1: most These are the most annoying questions to get as
36:17
Speaker 1: an author slash. They're kind of dereguer in the literary
36:19
Speaker 1: world to ask about real life counterparts. But if you
36:24
Speaker 1: were you modeling this pop star after anybody specifically or
36:27
Speaker 1: a combination of anybody, she's kind of just an amaglamation
36:30
Speaker 1: of a bunch of people. Like I just needed to
36:32
Speaker 1: come up with like a like a B list or
36:35
Speaker 1: maybe even C list pop star, plus like someone who
36:38
Speaker 1: someone who would like be on the red carpet of
36:40
Speaker 1: the VMA's, but not the Grammys, not the Grammys, the
36:43
Speaker 1: VMAs which are tonight upon recording tonight, okay, on that,
36:49
Speaker 1: on that, well, okay, any other and it will let
36:53
Speaker 1: me pin this any other fan casting you would do,
36:56
Speaker 1: any other celebrities that you would like to be in this.
36:58
Speaker 1: I know this is like so so ghosh, but like
37:02
Speaker 1: I do actually, I mean we know that Charlene, we
37:04
Speaker 1: would ask Charlene to play Daytona. Were are you one
37:07
Speaker 1: of the producers. I'm definitely a creative producer on this film.
37:10
Speaker 1: If I don't have a credit. Well, Riot Daytona bitch,
37:13
Speaker 1: who is Julia's closest Her name is Daytonah bitch. I
37:17
Speaker 1: didn't know that that was I forgot that she is
37:20
Speaker 1: like the probably the one of two characters in the
37:23
Speaker 1: book who are most closely modeled on someone I know
37:25
Speaker 1: in real life. And she is very heavily inspired by
37:29
Speaker 1: my dear friend Charlene. So yeah, I would love I
37:34
Speaker 1: would love to have for who's the other character? My
37:36
Speaker 1: grandpa is like basically copy it pasted into this book
37:39
Speaker 1: just because like lawyer Grandpa. Yeah, because I really wanted
37:43
Speaker 1: He's such a He's such a singular character that I
37:46
Speaker 1: really wanted to immortalize him in fiction. I know you're
37:51
Speaker 1: just starting your press tour, but I do feel like
37:55
Speaker 1: you will you will experience. I think you'll get a
37:59
Speaker 1: lot lot of questions about the book versus real life
38:05
Speaker 1: because you're also from Boca, because there are some thematic
38:12
Speaker 1: and character through lines in your life that are similar
38:15
Speaker 1: to Julia's life. There's this sicky thing that can happen
38:19
Speaker 1: on a pressed horror in your panels and your interviews,
38:22
Speaker 1: et cetera, where people want to know about the real
38:24
Speaker 1: quote unquote real life of it all, or like what
38:27
Speaker 1: is the closest space, what is what is close to
38:29
Speaker 1: your reality? How does it how how do you plan
38:32
Speaker 1: on interfacing with those questions? Because it's it is just again,
38:37
Speaker 1: it's it's it's any anybody in the literary world knows that.
38:40
Speaker 1: It's kind of like it's like not impolite, it's like
38:47
Speaker 1: truly not about the work. It's it's not it's not
38:49
Speaker 1: a way to look at the work. It's tricky to
38:51
Speaker 1: navigate because it almost it almost feels or at least
38:55
Speaker 1: it you I think it's easy to feel like defect
39:00
Speaker 1: of in a way to and view it as this
39:02
Speaker 1: sort of gotcha, like, oh, you didn't come up with
39:05
Speaker 1: any of this. You just like you know, basically wrote
39:08
Speaker 1: about your real life and change the names, which is
39:12
Speaker 1: like sorry, Like literally literally every single writer ever in
39:16
Speaker 1: existence writes things based on life like it's it's not
39:20
Speaker 1: like not saying based on your life, not based on
39:23
Speaker 1: like real like your real life, but like we write
39:25
Speaker 1: from lived experience or even like fucking Italo Calbino or
39:28
Speaker 1: whatever the fuck like writes things that have something to
39:31
Speaker 1: do with life, and it's really it's really only something
39:34
Speaker 1: women get asked. Men do not get asked that question. Yes, period,
39:38
Speaker 1: and men have been copy pasting their their life into
39:41
Speaker 1: their work for millennia. Yeah, so yeah, it is tricky
39:47
Speaker 1: to navigate. I've been kind of not cagey about it,
39:52
Speaker 1: but I've been like sharing just little tidbits, and I think, like, what,
39:56
Speaker 1: what I'm most comfortable saying is that some of these
40:00
Speaker 1: circumstances in the novel are pulled from my own experiences,
40:04
Speaker 1: and definitely some of Julia's family are inspired by my own.
40:10
Speaker 1: But the actual you had a wedding, I had a wedding,
40:15
Speaker 1: But the actual series of events and the way in
40:18
Speaker 1: which they happen our total fiction. And Julia is not
40:25
Speaker 1: me and I, And actually that is one of the
40:27
Speaker 1: things that changed over the course of the novel. I
40:29
Speaker 1: think I intended to write her a lot more like
40:32
Speaker 1: me and she really it's such a trite thing that
40:35
Speaker 1: authors say. It's like characters tell you who they are,
40:39
Speaker 1: and they evolve by themselves. Like she really did become
40:42
Speaker 1: this like totally separate person for me. And what I
40:45
Speaker 1: said earlier is really the way, the truest way I
40:48
Speaker 1: can say it is like, because I have younger sisters.
40:51
Speaker 1: She really does feel like a little sister to me
40:54
Speaker 1: who I am like want to shake and be like,
40:58
Speaker 1: please make better decisions the way. She's not like you.
41:01
Speaker 1: She's not as driven as I am. She's not an artist.
41:06
Speaker 1: She's not a creative person. I did not want to
41:08
Speaker 1: make her, you know, like a writer or whatever. She's okay,
41:12
Speaker 1: she is. I think she's me in some way. It
41:19
Speaker 1: definitely like her anxieties are are are very similar to mine.
41:23
Speaker 1: She's a light gothisthet a light well maybe she's a
41:26
Speaker 1: former punk. She's a little bit. Yeah, she's a little
41:28
Speaker 1: bit more punk than I am. And yeah, she's like
41:31
Speaker 1: a lot less driven and a lot less sure of herself.
41:34
Speaker 1: Like even though I suffer from a lot of anxiety,
41:37
Speaker 1: like I've pretty much always put yoursel that's pretty much
41:39
Speaker 1: always known from a very young age what I wanted
41:43
Speaker 1: and who I wanted to be. And Julia, it's taken
41:46
Speaker 1: her much longer to figure that out, and a lot
41:49
Speaker 1: of it she still hasn't figured out. I'm sorry to
41:52
Speaker 1: ask us, did you have a lesbian crush in high school?
41:56
Speaker 1: I definitely did not. I did note, but but there
41:59
Speaker 1: is there is a scene the crush is so palpable.
42:02
Speaker 1: I feel like you. I definitely transposed a lot of
42:07
Speaker 1: gay yearning that I felt in high school onto Julia's
42:10
Speaker 1: bisexual yearning. The book kind of jumps back and forth
42:13
Speaker 1: through time occasionally to like give you more context on
42:17
Speaker 1: Julia's backstory. And there's this scene I think it's it
42:21
Speaker 1: might be the first jump back where it's a scene
42:24
Speaker 1: where her where Julia pretransition, is being driven home by
42:28
Speaker 1: her crush, Kim Cameron. And it is the most relatable
42:32
Speaker 1: portrayal of like a high school crush. It's just delicious.
42:37
Speaker 1: It's like so and also excruciating. It's excruciating, but it
42:41
Speaker 1: feels it. I just I love high school crush books.
42:44
Speaker 1: I love books like this because they get you so
42:50
Speaker 1: intimately in touch with what that felt like when you
42:53
Speaker 1: were that age. Okay, uh okay, anything else about real
43:00
Speaker 1: life that you want to discuss, No, I want to
43:03
Speaker 1: keep it a little bit of a mystery. If this
43:06
Speaker 1: book had a soundtrack, it actually does. There's a playlist
43:11
Speaker 1: that is it published? It's out? It's out? Yeah? Is that?
43:13
Speaker 1: If we would mac on it? What's on it? What's
43:16
Speaker 1: on it? Is it on your Spotify? I want to
43:19
Speaker 1: I want to know, we'll pull it up. But anyways,
43:21
Speaker 1: I bring it up. I bring this up because there's
43:23
Speaker 1: just a lot of music in the book. There's a
43:25
Speaker 1: lot of like there's a lot of like references to
43:31
Speaker 1: certain artists and songs that will like paint their way
43:35
Speaker 1: through scenes and like not even I not even place
43:39
Speaker 1: you in time, to place you in the culture that
43:41
Speaker 1: she belongs to, and like the ecosystem of like queer
43:46
Speaker 1: nightlife that she comes from, or the kind of late
43:50
Speaker 1: nineties early aught sense, like radio sensibility. Yeah. So some
43:53
Speaker 1: of the songs in the playlist Black Velvet by Alana Miles,
43:57
Speaker 1: Ray of Light by Madonna, Educated Guests by Anita Franco,
44:02
Speaker 1: Prologue from Into the Woods, Pearl Jam there is Fleetwood,
44:07
Speaker 1: mac Kate Bush, Torri amos Selene Dion, Jonny Mitchell, Phantom
44:13
Speaker 1: of the Opera the Opera wa case of You. Okay,
44:17
Speaker 1: love that I forgot that Joni put her music back
44:20
Speaker 1: on Spotify. Oh you have a Moon River cover. That's fair.
44:24
Speaker 1: I was going to ask about Audrey Hepburn. Okay, I yeah,
44:31
Speaker 1: I think to who I know? This is not for
44:35
Speaker 1: you to decide, but to ask you. Anyways, who's this
44:37
Speaker 1: book for. It's for trans people. It's for trans people. Yeah,
44:40
Speaker 1: also sis people. It is for SIS people, because I
44:43
Speaker 1: think SIS people do need to like see inside the
44:47
Speaker 1: mind of a trans person. But yeah, it's for it's
44:53
Speaker 1: for trans people. It's for trans people who who should
44:59
Speaker 1: be able to see their lives reflected in fiction, and
45:05
Speaker 1: not always in the most extreme of ways, like it
45:10
Speaker 1: they should be able to have this sort of like fantasy, escapist,
45:15
Speaker 1: romantic comedy experience the same way that that SIS people
45:21
Speaker 1: get to. Yeah, and and well, I think i've I
45:24
Speaker 1: can't remember if I've mentioned this on the pod before,
45:26
Speaker 1: if I I talked about your book for in a
45:32
Speaker 1: Pride video series a couple of months ago, and I
45:34
Speaker 1: was talking about how something that I think that the
45:38
Speaker 1: best kind of writing about queerness and transness is one
45:43
Speaker 1: where in the book has a trans character and has
45:48
Speaker 1: no need to come to a screeching halt to like
45:52
Speaker 1: explain that, you know what I mean, Like the trans
45:55
Speaker 1: character exists, and where we have this like this, like
46:02
Speaker 1: this plotting of emotional manipulated manipulation as whatever we want
46:07
Speaker 1: to call it, tagged to her transness. The book in
46:11
Speaker 1: and of itself doesn't interface with like only transphobia, like
46:15
Speaker 1: it the book, like kind of the Shenanikins and the
46:21
Speaker 1: rompang around has is like so much more than that.
46:25
Speaker 1: It's actually just it's just entertaining, yes, but it's still
46:28
Speaker 1: it's still is all explicitly tied to her transness, because
46:34
Speaker 1: I really set out to write a story in which
46:37
Speaker 1: the plot couldn't exist if the character wasn't trans. Those
46:41
Speaker 1: are the kinds of stories I'm interested in, and I'm
46:44
Speaker 1: so inspired by other trans authors who have done that,
46:48
Speaker 1: you know, people like Gretchen Valger Martin and Tory Peters
46:53
Speaker 1: who are writing you know, because I feel like so
46:57
Speaker 1: so often the part line is like and it doesn't
47:02
Speaker 1: even matter, It doesn't even matter that she's trans or like,
47:05
Speaker 1: and she just happens about that. It's extremely about that,
47:10
Speaker 1: because our lives and the ways we interact with the
47:13
Speaker 1: world are different because of our transness, and that is
47:18
Speaker 1: not something that we should minimize. And they haven't been
47:22
Speaker 1: written yet, Like, yes, your book belongs to like an
47:25
Speaker 1: amazing slate of like trans author authors publishing things right now,
47:29
Speaker 1: but we are still in the infancy of trans fiction
47:32
Speaker 1: as a genre. Yes, exactly, like it's it's it's like
47:36
Speaker 1: if you think about it at an on timeline of
47:40
Speaker 1: like you know, a growing up like sis, fiction has
47:45
Speaker 1: had jillions of years to write and make work, and
47:51
Speaker 1: so we've kind of seen everything there is to see
47:55
Speaker 1: from CIS stories, and so trans literature like obviously trans
48:01
Speaker 1: literature hasn't existed also since the Dawn time, but are
48:06
Speaker 1: trans trans cultural production produced to a level of like
48:13
Speaker 1: Summer ram com book is like in its infancy, and
48:17
Speaker 1: also trans people telling our own stories and centering transnists
48:24
Speaker 1: in them is still pretty you know, uh, pretty new
48:32
Speaker 1: and radical in certain ways, and I hope people respond
48:38
Speaker 1: to it. And I know you said this book is
48:40
Speaker 1: for trans people, but I would also say this book
48:42
Speaker 1: is for people who love books that are funny. It's
48:46
Speaker 1: a really funny book. So if you're a lover of comedy,
48:48
Speaker 1: you will love this book. I would say, if you
48:50
Speaker 1: love a rom com, you love this book. If you
48:55
Speaker 1: need a bet read, you love this book or a
48:57
Speaker 1: vacation read. I think this book is really delicious because
48:59
Speaker 1: it has like chapter like a lot of the chapters
49:02
Speaker 1: are like three or four pages long, and I think
49:04
Speaker 1: think that book Cadence a kind of Casey mc question,
49:08
Speaker 1: I mean doesn't belong to them, but like a kind
49:10
Speaker 1: of like there's a beach read cadence of short, digestible
49:14
Speaker 1: chapters that's like really really nice. It does. I've had
49:18
Speaker 1: a lot of people say to me in a very
49:20
Speaker 1: positive way that they read it in one sitting, like
49:23
Speaker 1: they really couldn't put it down. And it does move
49:28
Speaker 1: very quickly. It's like it's a short novel. It's two
49:32
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty eight pages, but there's a lot packed
49:35
Speaker 1: in there. The pros is very dense, as I discovered
49:39
Speaker 1: when I did my first reading of it. It was
49:41
Speaker 1: like dense. How Like it's just so like Joe Keavy
49:46
Speaker 1: is so introspective, jokes per minute are really on. Julia's
49:51
Speaker 1: internal monologue is always running at like a twelve out
49:55
Speaker 1: of ten. Yeah, which I love, though I mean like
49:57
Speaker 1: sometimes that can be overbearing in here. I actually think
50:00
Speaker 1: that there's just there's a lot that it's it's you're
50:03
Speaker 1: you're you're playing it. You're I think you're overplaying a
50:05
Speaker 1: little bit. There's a lot of scenes, it's it's a
50:07
Speaker 1: lot of like it feels like a movie. It feels
50:10
Speaker 1: like you're reading a movie. A lot of the time,
50:12
Speaker 1: which is why I immediately wanted a fancast when I
50:14
Speaker 1: was when I finished, I want to end on rom
50:18
Speaker 1: coms like a thematic. We've we've I feel like we
50:21
Speaker 1: haven't done a whole episode on rom coms. Have we Yeah,
50:23
Speaker 1: we have, we have, we have. I'm pretty sure I
50:26
Speaker 1: can't remember, but I think we have. What is the
50:28
Speaker 1: state of the rom com right now to you? In
50:32
Speaker 1: TV films, books, movie movies, but you see you alluded earlier,
50:35
Speaker 1: you're like the rom comms little rotten right now. I
50:37
Speaker 1: mean they're getting materialists, they're getting made, but they are
50:40
Speaker 1: largely relegated to streaming, and they are kind of served
50:45
Speaker 1: up as almost like anciliary content and kind of scene
50:48
Speaker 1: as like lesser than when they used to be, like
50:52
Speaker 1: very much the tent poles of culture. It used to
50:56
Speaker 1: be the blockbusters. Yes, And I do think it's because,
51:01
Speaker 1: you know, just like the way that media has changed
51:03
Speaker 1: and the kind the types of films that get made,
51:08
Speaker 1: you know, like the marvelification of media, These movies that
51:13
Speaker 1: are often very sexless, even when there are you know,
51:18
Speaker 1: when there is romance in them. Romance is important. Also,
51:23
Speaker 1: family stories are important, and stories about coming to terms
51:27
Speaker 1: with their identity are important, and those things are are
51:30
Speaker 1: valuable and meaningful. And I would love to see, you know,
51:34
Speaker 1: a romantic comedy resurgence in which we're not just getting
51:39
Speaker 1: you know, even though this is kind of like a
51:41
Speaker 1: remix in some ways of a pre existing romantic comedy,
51:44
Speaker 1: like it is a holy it is an original story,
51:48
Speaker 1: and I would love to see more original romantic comedies
51:52
Speaker 1: that are that are risky. Yeah, and there are what
51:56
Speaker 1: what else? Like? Yeah? More like I also like prefer
52:02
Speaker 1: romantic comedies that have primary and secondary characters that are
52:06
Speaker 1: fucking weird, Like I think we don't get a lot
52:09
Speaker 1: of that. I think a lot of rom coms in
52:11
Speaker 1: the canon are about normies. Did that make sense? Well,
52:16
Speaker 1: that's why. That's why my best Friend's wedding was so
52:18
Speaker 1: transgressive was because Julia Roberts was a bad person. Bad
52:22
Speaker 1: person I didn't I totally didn't even understand that when
52:25
Speaker 1: I so when my first we talked about this in
52:27
Speaker 1: the episode about my best Friend's wedding way back when.
52:29
Speaker 1: But when I first watched my best friend's wedding, I
52:32
Speaker 1: was kind of like, I mean, I kind of like
52:34
Speaker 1: thought that a lot of the things she was doing.
52:35
Speaker 1: I was like, that's fine, like she's she's being awful,
52:37
Speaker 1: but like, actually I would I would do that too, sure, whatever,
52:40
Speaker 1: But I also remember watching it and being like I
52:43
Speaker 1: didn't understand I really didn't understand her motivations and I
52:48
Speaker 1: didn't understand why the character was the way she was.
52:50
Speaker 1: And I retroactively am like thinking about my reaction to
52:54
Speaker 1: the first being of that film as something that was
52:59
Speaker 1: claud How would it buy a canon of rom coms
53:03
Speaker 1: that were very normy, a canon of rom comms that
53:06
Speaker 1: were all kind of these perfect protagonists, these perfect Julia
53:10
Speaker 1: Roberts esque protagonists, And here was Julie Roberts actually being
53:14
Speaker 1: extremely imperfect. And I didn't get that kind of misogynist
53:18
Speaker 1: of me, honestly. Okay, anything else you want to say
53:21
Speaker 1: about the state of the rom com I think this
53:22
Speaker 1: is like a juicy end note because I feel like
53:25
Speaker 1: I want to see more original stories. Yes, I want
53:28
Speaker 1: to see more transrom coms. Yes, I want to say
53:31
Speaker 1: I would rom coms to be hornier, hornier, thank you,
53:34
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this book is so horny, you guys.
53:36
Speaker 1: The sex scenes are one and there are multiple. It's
53:39
Speaker 1: crazy to me. My grandparents have read sex scenes that
53:44
Speaker 1: I wrote. You also you well, sorry, I don't be
53:49
Speaker 1: mad at me for saying this, but you had sex
53:51
Speaker 1: scenes that had that were edited, that were yeah, tinkered with,
53:57
Speaker 1: tinkered with a little bit. But I think but I
53:59
Speaker 1: think there were Ultimately, ultimately it was in service because
54:04
Speaker 1: this book is not it's not like a spicy kind
54:07
Speaker 1: of mutt. It's not smut. It's not my sweet Audrina,
54:10
Speaker 1: it's it's it' that'll be. It's the horny. It's horny
54:16
Speaker 1: and sexy. But it's not smutty. No, it's not smuddy.
54:19
Speaker 1: There's a there's there's a lot of yearning in it.
54:23
Speaker 1: There's ellipse, there's ellipses, and there's there's But I also
54:29
Speaker 1: think it's pretty frank about sex. Yes it is. It
54:32
Speaker 1: doesn't shy away from it at all, which I love.
54:34
Speaker 1: And it has sex humor that's like very good and funny. Okay,
54:40
Speaker 1: I think this concludes our terry gross as interview. I
54:44
Speaker 1: I want to again say, if you are in New
54:46
Speaker 1: York City on Center or in the Tristate area or
54:48
Speaker 1: in the Tristate area, honestly, you should drive up for
54:50
Speaker 1: it because it will be worth it. There might even
54:52
Speaker 1: be an after party if things come to fruition the
54:54
Speaker 1: way we want to. But come see Rose in conversation
54:58
Speaker 1: with heron Walker on September two third. We need you
55:01
Speaker 1: to buy a ticket. If you don't buy a ticket,
55:03
Speaker 1: you're not a virgin, period. I'm saying that right here now,
55:06
Speaker 1: even if you're not in New York, you should just
55:08
Speaker 1: buy a ticket, just to do it. Like love that mentality, no, literally,
55:12
Speaker 1: like we need you to get into swifty mode, sorry
55:15
Speaker 1: to say it's swifty mode, and just like get into
55:18
Speaker 1: the subreddits. And we need people buying books and buying
55:20
Speaker 1: tickets to Rose Damie's book event with heron Walker on
55:24
Speaker 1: set for twenty third at the Strand in New York City,
55:26
Speaker 1: as well as the Los Angeles event on October twelfth, twelfth, twelfth, Yeah, twelfth,
55:35
Speaker 1: No eighth eighth, eighth, eighth, October eighth at Annabel's Book Club,
55:40
Speaker 1: and the Baltimore event at Grady Reid's on October second,
55:46
Speaker 1: and the Boca Ratone event on October eighteenth at Barnes
55:52
Speaker 1: and Noble. And also I'm doing a second New York
55:55
Speaker 1: event in Brooklyn at Lofty Pigeon with Bobby Finger right oh,
55:59
Speaker 1: my God be okay, And all the links for all
56:02
Speaker 1: of these events are again in the description of this
56:05
Speaker 1: podcast episode. Just click on over to find them, or
56:07
Speaker 1: you can go to Rose Damu's instagram Rose DomU and
56:11
Speaker 1: check her link tree and her bio and they're all there.
56:15
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this with me. This was,
56:17
Speaker 1: I mean, it's my pleasure. It was. It's I mean,
56:20
Speaker 1: you I insisted, just f why I roasted, don't ask
56:23
Speaker 1: me to do this. I was like, we need to
56:25
Speaker 1: do this because, uh, we just we want to we
56:30
Speaker 1: want to set the record straight on your terms. Yes, okay.
56:34
Speaker 1: And the controversy wait, it has there been controversy? No, No, no,
56:39
Speaker 1: there's been. I mean you've had like you had like
56:41
Speaker 1: one negative book Goodreads review or something like that like
56:44
Speaker 1: months ago. For for the most part, people seem to
56:49
Speaker 1: really enjoy it. And if they don't, it's kind of
56:52
Speaker 1: in the ways that I wanted them to not enjoy it. Yeah. Actually,
56:56
Speaker 1: did you send a copy the JK rolling yet? Yeah?
56:59
Speaker 1: I had. I had it sent. And it's sort of
57:03
Speaker 1: a drone strike. There's kind of like like a T
57:06
Speaker 1: shirt cannon but for books, and it's being shot into
57:08
Speaker 1: her castle windows. Uh, that'd be a really great use
57:13
Speaker 1: of marketing. Someone did. Someone did. When I posted about
57:17
Speaker 1: this on TikTok recently, someone said, don't en jk Rowling
57:20
Speaker 1: like this. I mean coming. I'm coming for her gig.
57:25
Speaker 1: She coming for his gig, his Jake Hay Rowling. Anyways,
57:31
Speaker 1: that is Best Woman by Rose Dom. You go get
57:33
Speaker 1: your copy, go buy your tickets. I am fran Torado
57:36
Speaker 1: and this is fresh air. This is stank air, stank
57:40
Speaker 1: air with love you