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ACAST. ACAST.com slash advertised. This is the best hang podcast featuring Max Kerman, Shane Cunningham, and I am Mike Bierman. Welcome to the best hang podcast.
I'm Mike Wigam, Max. We got Shane, and we also have the author of the whispers you've been hearing us talk about this for a long time. A week's leading up to this exciting moment for us recording this. At Max's place, we have the author, Ashley Adrain.
Welcome, Ashley. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. The smartest part we've ever had with a real intellect on the bottom.
When we announced that we were going to have you on and we're going to a book club, our listeners like they can read these guys, but also we sort of... We saw me. I was looking at you. But then the other day I was on the street, like just maybe three blocks from here on Dober Court, and someone was riding on their bike behind me and just yelled at me, like, Yo, where's the book club?
Whispers, what's up? Let's go. It was like a lady. That's a lady.
That's a lady. That's a lady. That's a lady with a weird accent. I'm not going to get it.
I know our listeners are very excited. When I posted on our Gels account that I love the book, I had so much feedback about it. The backstory with getting to know you is that you and Ash know each other from a previous life, and I was curious about how you transition from a book publicist to an international best selling author. Do you want to be the publisher's second-person?
How did it happen? I worked in public relations for most of my career for eight or ten years at the PR agency world. And then I had a chance to move over to do that same thing at Penguin Canada and worked there for a couple years. And the reason I moved over to work in publishing was because I've always just loved books and reading and writing.
And I sort of got a bit sort of work in PR for long enough and you sort of get a bit tired of it or you're sort of doing all this work with these big brands and I kind of wanted to do something about it. I love dummies and PR too. I imagine it's just smarter to be a book post that's like right because sometimes we work a lot of good post that we work with so many dummy publicists who can't even write a sentence. So do you have to pass a written test or something when you work with a big one?
No, I was really nervous to go work with Penguin because it is a totally different world. And I was in marketing and these big fun silly ideas to an environment that was definitely more serious and more very. And it was like a big transition. But ultimately you're sort of doing the same thing as the same sort of skill set.
But I was like a kid in a candy store working at Penguin because you just go in every day and have authors and the book and the editors and I was so excited to be so close to that process to learn more about that. And I always wanted to write. I had always, when I was young, I always felt like a writer. I was always writing, when I was in high school, I was always writing letters to the editor.
And I was like, yeah, like writing for, you know, like there was this theme, this fun scene in university. And I was always looking for ways to write. But I didn't pursue that at the level of the novel or something different. I did a lot of like, Nate courses at George Brown or Humber.
I was just always trying to stay close to it. But working in publishing was just, it was so cool to be really immersed in that. And I learned a lot from that experience. I actually didn't write much when I was at Penguin.
I think because it was, there was this intimidation factor, you know, of like working with, you know, real writers and real lovers. You can have a lot of pressure writing emails to people because I was just a few emails to people in the book world. And every one of them writes like there's a poem or is it like, you know, New Yorker article or something. Yeah.
Even when I texted you, I feel a lot of pressure texting you. Yeah. You're pretty good actually. You have really good text.
Really? Yeah. But yours are like beautiful paragraphs. I'm interested, you know, because you know, because you're this story sometimes where people work in industry and work with sort of established whether it's like artists, music or authors.
How do you sort of feel, oh, I can hang at this level? Like, what do you get the confidence to be? Was it inherent to you? Like, oh, I know I'm a good writer or did you have to sort of just try and be like, I think I'm as good as everybody I'm working with.
No, I think that was why I didn't write at all when I was working there. And so, and so basically, so what happened was I, what I read a lot there. Like, you really, when you were publishing, you read like an insane amount of books because you have to read the books that you're promoting and the books are important to your editors that you're working for. And I feel like that was this really interesting sort of different education in itself for writing.
I think that reading is really the best way to improve your writing or to think more about writing. So I was mostly sort of reading, just consuming and thinking and trying to think more like a writer, I think. But then, but how I started writing was so I went on maternity leave with my son and I planned to just, you know, do the regular maternity leave and go back to work because I really loved that job, like loved it. But when he was born, so everything was okay for another first two weeks and then at around two weeks old, he became really, really sick.
And we realized that he had a chronic illness and he was, he had like some pretty complex problems. And so then life like totally changed life. Are you guys not life already changed after having a kid? But when you have a kid who is so sick and was dealing with these problems, it really was, it was just like very overwhelming and everything really turned then.
And we spent like months living at sick kids and hospitals and like all of it was a lot. And I realized at that time that like I wasn't going to be able to go back to work. Like that was not part of my reality. It was sort of that job has a lot of like late nights and just the whole environment.
And I just, I felt like I just can't go back and do that anymore. So that was around like, I think around six, when he was about six months old and I sort of started to kind of like gain my footing back around that time and we weren't at sick kids so much anymore. And I thought like, I just thought, okay, if I'm not going to go back to work and everything is just so different and it was so hard, I thought, what do I really want to do? I really just want to be writing.
Like that was the only thing I wanted to do. And I felt at that time that I don't know if you guys felt this becoming parents too, but for me, there was something so creative about having kids. Like it was like the creativity was just like so there on the surface. Like logistics or what do you mean?
Like all of it. Just the creativity was actually very hard. I would say that was the problem, but it was more inspiring. Yes.
I mean, on so many different levels, like on one level, I was talking to just the other day to like an actress who was pregnant and she's filming something right now and she was saying, I'll tell you after. And she was saying that she felt like now when she's acting, like the emotions are the way she put it was like the emotions are on her skin and she can just like fuck them for like it's all just right there and like acting between different her. And I can so relate to that, like that idea that I know I just felt like I think there's something about just how emotional that process was, how hard motherhood was for me. It was really, it was a really hard time having a baby, but also a baby that had like the challenges that my son did.
And it was all just there on the surface. And I just really, I felt so compelled to be like exploring that. Like I felt very, like the other reason I just felt so compelled to write I think is because you, I felt like you really lose a part of yourself when you become a mother, I think. Like you really, you lose so much of not even like who you were, but almost like who you thought you'd be or like it's just such a life changing thing.
And I think that it's almost like a way of kind of like holding onto this piece of yourself that you value the most, that you treasure the most. You know, there was something about that for me I think. And also this idea like I guess on like a bigger level that's, and maybe you would maybe you'd relate to as more as a parent too, is this idea that like I feel like as soon as I had a kid I was you're just like whoa, you are somebody's mother. And like how do you want to show up in the world?
You know, like who do you want to be in this world? And you have this sense of like I want that kid to have a mom who is like doing exactly the thing she's meant to do and like exactly the thing she loves doing in this life. You know, so I felt like motivated on that level. I don't know if that is that resonates with you guys.
Do you see people, so you obviously spend a lot of time in the hospital and you're interacting with people in a much different way because it's less about me to you. So maybe do you re-examining people in a deeper way and in a different way instead of just saying, oh, I saw my doctor. I'm like, I'm not seeing my doctor. I'm seeing my kids doctors.
I'm going to look at that and be like, what is this? You're kind of analyzing it in a completely different way because it's like through the kid. Is that how you mean what's like a heightened sense of awareness? Totally.
I think all of that. And you know what's interesting like, which I hated is that when you have a child at like a place like kids, which is just the most wonderful, this is just the most wonderful criticism, but it's the most wonderful place in the world. I'm so grateful to the kids and we're still there all the time and they're involved there. Especially when you are, especially I think when you have like a baby, they call you mum.
They only call you mum. And so everyone just stops using your name. And I understand why because there's like, you know, hundreds of parents in the hospital and they know your child's name. But like for, and so for, but I had this baby and then it was so hard and then two weeks later you're in the hospital for months and like no one uses your name the whole time.
And it's such a loss, like an awful loss of identity, you know. So there's like, so yeah, it was just this. You're just coming at it all from such a different place and yeah, the whole thing. Like I remember my friends, I had lots of friends that had kids around the same time and they were all doing all the baby stuff, right?
Like going to the yoga classes and going to the groups and all this stuff. And I was like, I just, I had like no interest in that. Like I just couldn't engage in any of that because my experience was just so different. And I knew that they couldn't relate to me at all anymore and I couldn't really relate to them.
And it was just very isolating. And so I think also turning to writing, especially my first book, The Push, was very much about this woman's very dark experience through motherhood through the earlier stage of motherhood. And I think I just wanted, it was like me in the book, you know me in the writing like that? That was a place where I could just, you threw a woman who's having obviously a very different experience than I did.
But it was a place to really explore that on the page and work out a lot of those, that sort of darker side, a lot of the fear and all that. Going back a bit, you went to Western. And now, did you, so when you went to Western, did you go with the intention of being a writer? No, I didn't.
No, because it was interesting that you have this career obviously publishing, it's writing adjacent but not writing. Like I'm just always fascinated by like people that are like, what makes somebody a writer? Is it being published? Is it being proud of your own work?
Is it somebody saying it's good? How did you sort of reach the point where you're like, oh, I'm a writer and I know I'm good at this? That's a great question. Yeah, I think, you know, when I went to Western, I didn't pursue like writing, but I took a, I was really interested in media.
Like I, that's all I wanted to do was like, like pop culture and media. And they have a program there called Media and Information Techniculture, which is still around, but it's, it was this really small program that was just all about like, um, critiquing media, like critical theory. Um, so I really, I loved that world. And there was a lot of writing in that world, but um, yeah, I think I always knew I was like a strong writer.
Like I just, I loved, right? I'd always had like good feedback on writing in my life, like through like school and stuff. And I just, I just could feel it. I just knew I was, I just always felt like a writer.
That's like part of just what I identified with, I think. And then, and then I didn't really, like when I started writing when I started writing when I started writing the first book, it took me like a long time to show that to anybody. Like I worked on it for several years and revised it and like had a few people I showed it to, but there does come this sort of terrifying point in the process. I think where you just realize that if you want, if you want your work to be better, you have to share it and get feedback and work on it.
And I sort of got to that point where I thought I can't make this any better. And, and you just sort of come to a point where you think, okay, this is either going to, I have to go for this or not. And I was in this weird position where because I'd worked for Penguin and was so close with them, I knew I had to show it to them at some point, but they didn't know me as a writer and like, what, you write? It's like, you might be like insecure.
It's like, yeah. Do you think a lot of people that work in history want or writers? And they probably have to go into another public system. Exactly.
I feel like they're all going to be like, oh, God, here she goes. And I sort of had just disappeared because I was supposed to come back and I just had sort of disappeared with this kid. And that was it. So I felt scared.
I felt scared. But it was actually funny because I, so Nicole and Stanley is the publisher of Penguin Canada. She's just a remarkable person, but I had worked with her for her for those years and kept in touch. I actually had kids around the same time when I had my son.
She also was going on that leave. But so I knew I had something to show her and I was just, I was so scared. So we met and we had a tea together and I was so nervous the whole time because I wanted, because I had to tell her that I'd done this and I didn't know really what to do next and I kind of wanted to advice on agents and stuff. Did she know what the tea was about?
Or was it just a fun hand? No, it was just like a fun hand. And you were just going to drop an honor. Yeah.
And I was so nervous. And I think she could tell I was really nervous. And then at the end I was like, look, I have this thing I want to tell you and I'm so scared to tell you and it's going to sound weird. And she interrupted me and she was like, let me guess.
You wrote a book. She was like, I always knew you'd write or I always knew you'd write something. I guess just from work stuff. Like, you know.
That's a terrible point. Oh, wow. That's so interesting. That was very, it was just such a generous level.
Like, for responses she had and then I shared it with her. And then, yeah. See, I'm the opposite. The second I have half of an idea, I called my, I don't really know what it is, but I need you to help me when I figure out.
Yeah. It's like, I have three lyrics in a song who wants to hear it. That's what I'm saying. But when did you show your husband or when did you talk to your husband about writing in the first book?
Because obviously you need your own space to create, but how's that work? Yeah, it was good. So I, what's he do, by the way, tell us about it. He's not in, he's not in anything creative.
He's in finance investing. Okay. So not in that world at all. But I, but he's a very good, um, he has like a very good understanding of people.
Like he's, he's, and so I knew he would be helpful with like the characters with like insights of people. But he, so actually what happened was I was pregnant with my second child, my daughter. I'm trying to remember now. Yeah, I was pregnant with my daughter and I really wanted to get, um, I've been working on it for like a couple years.
This is the push. This is the push. Yeah. And so I had to sort of start like sharing it with people or sending out agents.
And I had this idea that like I would be done this book, like before I had her, like before I gave birth and then I'd be able to like, just be done and then kind of pursue it later, like send it out to agents after. And so I was like pretty pregnant at that time and then like finally gave him sort of this, the book that I'd been working on and it was like, read it, you know, can you read it, give me feedback? Are you getting any inkling of what it was about? Yeah.
He kind of knew. Yeah. He kind of hadn't read a lot of it. And then he, he read it and then he was like, Well, let's go, let's go, let's go for lunch.
Like go for lunch and talk about like, like. Oh, oh God. He wants to be a writer actually. I don't want to.
Can you hold me in the news? I've got the connections. Yes, yes. We went for lunch and he was like, look, this is really hard feedback to give.
I feel like you're not going to like this, but I feel like, um, like 75% of the book is like just not working. 75% of the book is amazing. Okay, so this is interesting sort of question about partners and feedback. Is your instant reaction, um, like, are you fuming?
Or do you take constructive criticism? Oh, I was like, fuck this guy. He was like, this, there's this like quarter of it that he felt like was so good and the rest of it was just kind of like meh. And so I was obviously like really pissed off at that.
And just thought like I'm not going to like whatever I shouldn't, whatever he doesn't really know what we're talking about. And also I was like very pregnant. Like if I had a baby and so wasn't good, it just wasn't good. But you're giving me shit.
I'm just trying to make myself feel an appetizer. No, that's good. Exactly that. Exactly that.
But then after time went by and I thought about it, and what he was saying was that this part that you have that's really working is the really dark motherhood stuff, like the story about the really honest, true raw stuff is so good. And then there's all this other stuff that I think I was writing to try to make the dark stuff not feel so heavy. I was kind of doing a bit of what I really wanted to write about and then kind of putting other stuff on top of it to make it feel not so. Not fucking right, dark stuff.
It's like a slapstick comedy. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And then I came around to realizing, no, he's totally right.
That's exactly what's wrong with this. And that the good writing is this small, the small little bit that I can keep and the rest of it needs to go. So I came around to that and I rewrote all the rest of it. And that became exactly what the push is.
You know, now it speaks to his character that he was interested in all the weirdness, because I always think of it whenever I read any novel, especially one that really getting in the weird corners of the human experience, I was like, what does their partner think of all this? You know what you're talking about? Motherhood, you're talking about relationships between marriages. And I feel like it would offend 96% of the population who's in a partnership.
Yeah. That's all I was thinking. Yeah, reading the way. I was like, what is your partner?
We're going to do a spoiler alert. I'm halfway through this. We're not transitioning to the Whisper's. We're not running there yet.
We can say there's lustful thoughts in the Whisper. I see a lot of wondering eyes there. So when your husband reads that, is he like, do you have wandering eyes? He's suspicious or anything?
No, I don't think he can't. No, he's pretty. Well, it's funny. With the push, I think he didn't see it.
And I didn't either. Honestly, I don't think we really, really, really. A lot of the feedback on the push is like, oh, it's so dark. And it's so honest.
And it's so raw. And I don't think we really saw it that way entirely. And maybe we should maybe just talk about our experience of the parents. I don't know.
But I don't know. And then the Whisper's, no, he doesn't have no issues. No issues with it. Well, I guess this is a general question about writing.
We talked to musicians about this, too. When you write a song or anything, how much you hold back, how much you worry that people in your life think, oh, they're talking about me. As an author, you obviously must have friends in your neighborhood who think they're a Blair or Whitney or Rebecca or whatever that is. Are you very conscious of that?
Where it's like, oh shit, they're going to know what someone says has been. Yeah, it's funny. I got a lot. I got that a lot.
Like a lot of people say to me, like, are you so worried about what your partner's going to think, what your kids are going to think. And to me, it's not a memoir. It's not a book that's personal to me in a sense that, I don't know if you feel like this with songwriting, but there's a true feeling or a true emotion or real questions or things I'm interested in or things I'm obsessed about. That's all in the book.
But it's not me. It's not my best friend. It's not my partner. So I think you find these little bits of truth that you hope people really relate to.
And I hope that readers relate to a lot of what's in the book. But then you're building something totally different out of that truth. But if we were to go through a character, like a character, because it's like a character profile. They're so vivid.
And would you be like, oh, OK, if we're going to talk about Whitney, this is a composite of seven different people. I know or movie character that I could do. If you were to think deeply about it, identify, OK, this guy kind of reminds us six different people. And sort of the good parts and the bad parts.
Or is that not the way your brain works. It depends on the character. But yeah, there are some characters where I'm thinking of a certain thing about a person I know. And that definitely shows up in the character.
But never to the point where I hope people try to find themselves. When you're writing, do you picture an actor in your head? Do you have a complete sort of a new sort of image of someone or is it someone in your life? What do you picture when you're writing your character?
I usually have an idea in my head. But it's never an actor for some reason. It's never because that would be too specific. It has to be someone totally different in my mind.
There's a few characters though that there's a character of Mara in the whispers. And that is, yeah. And so she is based off of a neighbor that I had. So I lived in this neighborhood in the street called Argyle right around the corner.
We lived it for eight years. And I had this neighbor who was sort of a Mara type. She was a Portuguese immigrant. She was just a really lovely woman who literally lived on her porch.
She embodied that really beautiful porch culture that a lot of neighborhoods like this have, which actually will be gone within a generation. That is a thing that won't exist anymore. You touch a lot of the point. Yeah.
And so we had this. I never had a conversation with her in eight years that I lived there because she doesn't speak any English. But she would watch our lives unfold. She would just watch us come and go.
I would think about bringing our kids home from the hospital. And she was there watching. And first day of school, she was there watching. She was observing so much about her life.
Do you think she secretly spoke English? She just wanted to talk about that. So she could hear me. She probably understood more than probably.
It's interesting how it detached witnessed your life. Someone that doesn't have to do with some of these miles, she would bring the kids home for the first time. Totally. Yeah.
And so she became the inspiration for the character Mara in the book. I would always think she was watching us. I was like, wow, I wonder. It must be nostalgic for her.
She must be thinking about her kids and her family and comparing what motherhood looks like and womanhood. I wanted to write about that. I was really interested in writing a dynamic like that. So sometimes to answer your question, sometimes a character like that is very much inspired by someone.
And other times there's stuff about a friend or whatever that I think. I have to use that at some point. And I take a lot of notes. I'm a really like obsessive note taker on my iPhone.
Voice that's interesting. To like just text. Yeah. And I have like, yeah, I do that constantly.
Like all day long. Like I know we're all obsessed with their phones, but I like want my phone your back because I'm going to think of something and I have to write it down. And I use that a lot with characters and developing characters going back to like things someone did or someone said where yeah. The next book is a slapstick comedy book three podcasters.
Yeah. I love that. I was going to play ourselves. How quickly after you finish the push, did you start conceiving of the whispers?
Oh, well, you know what? Pretty soon because well actually not. I guess I had finished the push. So what happened was I so lucky the way that it all went with like an agent and a book deal and all I did was like magical.
Like it was like the stuff that just doesn't happen. It just happened quick. It did happen really quick. So I had went out to this handful of agents that I just thought I just I thought like okay.
And this was actually advice from Nicole and Stanley who I mentioned earlier who just sort of said you know what, you get like one shot at this. Just go big. Like go big. Like go out to like the best agents in the world and just try to start there and try which is such advice.
I think especially as a woman when you sort of maybe have a bit of a inclination to want to play small sometimes, you know, and she was it was just yeah, it was kind of what I needed to be like, okay, I do want I do want this to be a big book and I want to have like a successful career. So I reached out to these like I think it was five or six of like these great agents like in London and New York and was so lucky to have interest from them. And I went and one of them, Madel Nilburn had said she was from London and she said like we have to meet face. I was trying to make a decision on the agent and she said we have to meet face to face and I'm going to be in New York next week and would you fly to New York and just have dinner with me and I was like, okay, sure.
It was so exciting and so fun. So I went to New York and we had this great dinner together and I decided on the spot I did dinner like yes, we should work together. We just had such great chemistry and I really loved her. And then she was like, oh, so once I made that decision like at dinner, she was like, okay, great.
So I'm going to do a summary of your second book like tomorrow morning. So I was like, okay, put the champagne down. And like, yeah, basically. And then so I put together and I did have the idea for the whisper a lot of it, but it was just like a little idea in my head.
The title, yeah, the title at that point. I didn't know. No. What did you have a title for?
No. I was just untitled until I started. Yeah, I was just untitled on my desktop. And then I went home and next morning I wrote like a summary of it.
And the reason she wanted the idea is because she wanted to sell two books at once, which is wonderful. She did a bit of a package. Yeah. And then so she sold both books like literally the next day in the UK and then Canada and the US.
So it all happened to be. You can sell the second book before it's even written. Yeah. Yeah.
So it was sold on the idea change a bit, but I had to commit like that day. Like what is the idea going to be? I've done the wine. I'm going home.
I'm going home. I'm going home. Yeah. Yeah, it was great.
It was all it was like so lucky and so wonderful that it happened that way. And then after that book deal happened, I had like a year and a half until the push came out and I worked on the whispers. So do people in the industry just know we got to hit book on our hands because you sign the thing and the push comes a year and a half later. So who is it because your friends at Penguin just sent them out to agents and they're like, oh, this is really good.
How do people know? Yeah. So I didn't go through Penguin. So I did it all like independent of Penguin and then we ended up selling it to Penguin when we were looking at the book deal.
I don't, you know what? It's like, I wish I could explain it. It's like this. It's all kind of like a timing thing and an energy thing.
And I feel like I had this really great agent who just knew like the way she would say it is the reason she sold it so fast to the UK was because she said, I know that the UK, I know that UK editors are looking for something just like this like right now. And it's like a bit of a building of hype, right? It really is an industry that's really like susceptible to hype. I think like you can and it's like you have the right agent and then the right editor buys it really quickly overnight and then you know the next market knows that that's happened and then there's excitement there.
And so it all just kind of builds from there and it only, it doesn't, I don't know how to explain like what book it happens to and what it doesn't but I think a lot of it is just. But the agent read it the early, like it wasn't finished. It was like, it's different than what it is now. I got it edited a lot with the editors but it was finished.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I did. Yeah. I felt a lot of pressure at the second. I felt like writing it was really hard.
I felt like writing it was really hard. I revised it a lot. And I was also writing it like a lot during the pandemic. I don't know how you guys felt about like, yeah, it was so hard.
Like creatively, it's funny. I was like, I have like nothing left to give writing. How did you guys do? Were you guys working on your show at that point?
Yeah. I took a minute though. It's like the first, I was useless for the first few months of the pandemic going around. I was like basically just in family mode.
Yeah. Did you get anything creative? Early on? Well, I was, I wasn't scared but I'm an anxious person and then when something actually happens to warrant being anxious, I can actually take money out of the bank and change it to per gold or something.
I was like, no, no, no. Shit went off for me. My brother-in-law is also kind of a smart financial. I was like, take cash out.
He was on it early. It was like December. He was like, I'm wanting to try the markets. I was like, I'm going to pay the pandemic.
I was like, are you guys planning? And I was like, yes, we hadn't planned a fucking thing. But we acted like we didn't want some bad parents. And then I went to work and I'm like, this thing's going to actually happen and you should take your money out because that's what I did anyway.
So that's okay. And now looking back, it's like, why did you think that? I didn't take no cash. Oh, you didn't know.
I thought my advice was worth something. I took it seriously, but then I also, I realized that you're not a normally that anxious of a person. So it gets scary when life hits you because me, I'm always prepared for it. So I just had worked really hard to like keep my job.
So I'm like, I'm going to write two scripts a day for my job, but all my side projects I kind of put on hold until the pandemic. I realized it was there for a while. And then I started like, you know, family podcast and TikTok accounts and everything. But it did take about eight months before I could actually do side pursues.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you were writing, you were, you were talking about your own decisions. Show like that Instagram show, yeah, I'm flying the Kermit's class where we were just like teaching people how to play guitar.
Actually, did you take out cash and preparation for the pandemic? No, I didn't know. I was like a finance guy. He does.
I just felt I just hated every day. Yeah. I'm not great with I'm not great, like with being home with the kids anyways, like that is not I'm just not like a I can very much relate to Whitney in the book. I was going to say I don't want to offend you.
But I don't love. I'm not like that engaged. I don't love to like, you know, be playing and doing stuff at home. And it was like that was all there was to do.
I found that so hard because all I wanted to be doing was writing was working. So I was, yeah, I was like a mess those days. I just didn't. Yeah.
You know how the book deals with default parenting a lot with Blair being the default parent and then she envies Whitney's life and then Whitney's not the default parent, but she still feels like she's not. Measuring up to being like what a mom should be. Do you feel like that when you don't want to be that default parent or don't necessarily enjoy playing with the kids? Yeah, I think I do.
I think I do feel. I like I don't know. I have a I mean, so funny. I feel like I was just about to do the thing that I always do, which I'm trying not to do, which is when I'm going to be honest about something with motherhood, I always want to say, but you know, I love my kids so much.
And I'm trying to like stop doing that. But it's funny. As a side thing, I was having a conversation with someone who is also working creatively on like stuff around motherhood, like writing and directing. And we were having this great coffee and chatting and talking about motherhood and like this really honest way and like really relating to each other and I was hearing about her work.
And it was so great. And then I kept thinking of it. I felt like we were playing a game of chickens. Like I felt like I was going to say, but I was just waiting for her.
I kept thinking, I wonder if she's going to do it. And I thought, I wonder if I'm going to do it. Like I wonder if I can just leave this conversation without being like, oh, but I love my kids. And they're so cute.
And it's a cute stage. And in the end, we both did it. We both did it. We both like got it in there and probably felt better about ourselves.
So it's so funny. It's so funny how we feel need to do that. But back to your question. Yeah, I do feel this sense of like, I think especially when you're doing something creative, when like creativity, when you're pursuing something, like whether it's like writing or I don't like music or acting or anything that's creative, you almost feel like it doesn't count in some ways as this like thing.
Pursuit like responsibility or something like that. Totally. I think your husband goes to work. Yeah.
He's doing important number stuff and he's bringing home money for us or whatever. But it's like, but if it feels like, I need time to myself to think about a made up world I'm building right now. Exactly. And sometimes I think like, I talk to my kid like when I when I like I try to be really transparent with my kids about like work time, like I'm working, I'm not just sitting at a coffee shop all day, you know, like trying to be trying to like communicate that to them.
But so yeah, I do I think I struggle with that a bit in terms of like value and trying to show, I don't know, time away from your family or away from your kids pursuing anything you want to do. The score bet up here with trusted stats and real time sports news. Yeah. Hey, who should I take in the Boston game?
Well, statistically speaking. No more statistically speaking. I want knee jerk reaction. That's not really what I do.
Is that because you don't have any news or. The score bet trusted sports content seamless sports betting download today. 19 plus Ontario only if you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to conic.tario.ca I'm not the default parent, not that there needs to be a default parent, but that's just the situation we're in. And I don't feel guilt about it.
I'm wondering, do you think that will ever change where a woman who doesn't want to be the default parent and chooses to pursue interest outside of the home will ever stop feeling guilt or shame surrounding that or embarrassment around other moms like they have to pretend. I think that that is one of the things like obviously women have come like so far in society in so many ways and there's like all examples that we can talk about, but I do feel like that exact thing you're talking about has not changed and I don't know if it ever will. I feel like that's this one thing that we seem to really hang on to. There's a quote at the beginning of the book about feminism and motherhood and being like a wife, you know, and the quote is by I can't, I'm going to butcher it.
So I'll just read it. But it's by an author, Rachel Cusk, who wrote very like honest memoirs about the end of her marriage and about motherhood and she really was vilified for them at the time. This is like 15 or 20 years ago. And she was doing an interview actually with the Globe and Mail and after I finished her books, I was doing like a deep dive on her, you know, just like a few years and stuff.
I loved her books so much. And I read and she said this in the Globe and Mail that what I increasingly felt in marriage and motherhood was that to live as a woman and to live as a feminist were too different and possibly irreconcilable things. And I read that and I was like, oh, that's so true. I think there's so much truth in that, although I think there's a lot of women that would be really uncomfortable with that idea and wouldn't want to agree with it or wouldn't want to agree with it.
But I think it is this idea exactly what you're saying, that I feel like we I think especially our generation like millennials, we sort of have grown up with like such a strong feminist message, like being thrown at us all the time, right? It's like you grew up feeling like you can do it all. You can have it all that like, you know, the equality like in so many ways, like during your really formative years, like feminism is such a huge part of all of our identities. And then the reality is you like, you enter into this very like domestic life of being a partner or being a mother and all of a sudden like you feel like you can't, if you don't have that anymore.
Yeah, like it's hard to win. Like even if you don't care, you're being judged and you care about the judgment that other people are throwing on you. Exactly. Exactly that.
Exactly that. Yeah. So I just think that when I read that quote, I was like, oh, that is true. Yeah, I think that's what the book gets you to is that there's just like different types of moms.
And there's, and as you say, like there's a little room for that, seemingly in our culture, where it's like there's lots of room for different dads. You know, like there's dads that are away on business all the time. There's dads that are at home working. There's dads that are not in the picture at all, but show up sometimes.
You know, I mean, like there's a spectrum of them doing it. And that's just my dad's on around or my dad's around all the time. You know, but with moms, it's like you're either like locked the fucking everyday being a domestic. What's the term default or you're not, you don't care as much or something.
Sometimes if you are the man and you're the default parent, it's different. You can be judged for that. But am I able to read the opening sentence? I'm always fascinated by the first sentence of a book.
Sometimes I'll, I don't read much, but I do like reading the first sentence. Oh, he's just one sentence in the book. He lifts two fingers through his nose and smells the child's mother as his eyes were wide in the dark of his kitchen. So that's pretty like you want this to be an erotic.
I was going to sit that's why I was like, that's what I did like the snook around. Listen, listen, listen, listen, right now. This is the line. This is the line where we're not crossing over to talking exclusively about the whispers in a way that nothing is going to be a mess.
No, I like this. I wasn't trying to go into spoilery territory. It's a good time to put it over there. So we're going to talk about this.
Starting with that line. Did you read it again? Yes. He lifts two fingers through his nose and smells the child's mother as his eyes were wide in the dark of his kitchen.
Now, how much effort was put into just that opening line knowing how much pressure it is for authors to come up with that great grabbing line? Did you do it last? Did you do it first? Did it change like a million times until you had it just right?
Oh, yeah. Good question. I think that I did. Yeah, a lot of I revise a lot.
Like I rewrite a lot. So usually when I first start writing, it's not, it will end up differently. Like it will. I sort of write the first kind of you takes of a book.
I'm just writing to get everything down just to make sure that it's all there. And then there's a phase when I go back and really pay attention to the writing. So I feel like I feel like that came in a bit later. But yeah, I think opening lines are so important.
I agree with you. And like opening the ending is really important to me as a writer to get people right away and to set a tone right away with the first few sentences. It feels important to me. Yeah.
So what I was reading. I was like, I was like, at times I got emotional reading the book, at times I got like turned on. Like I felt everything honestly turned on. I feel weird.
I feel weird. I feel like I'm trying to do this back on motion. It's like, am I going to work together? So I was like, were you like turned on?
Yes. I didn't feel as weird saying it. But obviously, like you want the ride to be fun or like a rollercoaster is reading it. But how much of a takeaway when the book is done, do you want people to have?
And what would that take away if there is one? I think exactly what you said. I think it's just an entire ride. Yeah.
I want a reader just to feel affected. Like I think I just want them to feel something, whatever that and honestly, there's people that like I think both of my books are like polarizing. In a lot of ways, like there are people who just don't want to read about this. Like they don't want to read about this stuff.
And they feel like it's either like to me, it's maybe that comes from it being too close to the truth or too relatable or uncomfortable. Like I like writing uncomfortable stuff. Like I like to kind of just go there and go to the uncomfortable place and that's not going to be for everybody. And so even when I get feedback from people that'll be like, I like who didn't like the book or they were like angry the whole time they're reading it like I'm totally good with that.
Like that's okay. If it made you angry, wonderful. Like that's an emotion. That's a takeaway that's affecting, you know.
I told my mom through the book and she loved it. She just this was the text. Finished the whispers. Excellent book.
Am I right? What a finishing line. She goes, oh yeah, that kid is nasty. But then so is his mother.
So his mother comment. Whitney. That kid is nasty. He's been awesome.
He's just so true. He's got a weird relation with his mother. I loved that. Okay.
But when if we're in spoiler territory, Mike and I were kind of debating this and I hope you can give us a definitive answer. Sometimes I was like, what do you think? But was she dreaming when she was pinching the tubes to cut off the oxygen? It's potentially ambiguous.
This is for people who have already read the book. So to me, in my mind, I think she wanted to do it desperately, but didn't. Yeah. Mike's not that.
She was, I think that that was an escape. That was something that she wishes she could do. And whether or not she did it just for a second or not, she wouldn't have gone through with it. But it was, it was like so close that she could taste it and that did something for her.
Yeah. Also, in there, in a sense, at this point, we didn't know the outcome of what happened in a year. So it helps point to see that maybe she would have some sort of nefarious intent or would go that far with the child. She's been making juice here, though.
The fact that he lived. Talk about spoiler. Yeah. When it comes to dropping tea leaves, because Mike was bragging to me earlier just before you were arriving, and it was been the entire since I did, he flipped forwards.
That's my theory. That's my theory. Absolutely. It was a specific point.
It was when you throw the book, you did this thing that just as a literary device, each chapter is sort of based on the person's POV. So the Whitney chapter starts with Whitney. It was the first time you actually doubled up. You did like POVs in a row.
So it was like Rebecca had a stacked thing. And then at that point, I started going, I'm like, we haven't seen Aidan sleep with Whitney. She's kept him off the scene off the board a long time. And then just economy characters.
I just, my brain started going. It was awfully, obviously, still a wallop. And I had some other theories that were wrong, but that was right. I absolutely did not look forward.
I would never like front, like go ahead and look and try and score points. I believe you guys. I believe you guys. I believe you guys.
I do. Yeah. So, okay. So, but the art of that is so essential because that's what makes any great book, great or TV show.
We're like, oh, that thing that happened, which I wasn't paying too close attention to. Catch. Yeah. I was like, how much of that needs to get developed?
Like, is that a conversation you're having with your editor? Like, you know, let's move that like that sentence up to the fourth chapter instead of leaving to the sixth. Like when you, when you're pulling, I'm just really interested in the strategy and planning that. Yeah.
That's a good question. It's, um, it, I think that all comes in the revision. Like, I feel like, um, yeah, it's almost, you know, the weird thing about writing a book is that you get so close to it that you then there comes a point where you can't see it anymore, you know, like, and then you need feedback from other people to be like, this wasn't surprising, this was surprising. Like, so yeah, my editors helped with that a lot, like giving feedback to just say like where things felt like you're revealing too much or not.
And I worked on that a lot. Like, I worked on the shuffling around of chapters and to exactly what you're saying, like the reveals in a certain place. I think what's interesting is that you want to give the reader enough so that like you don't want things to feel entirely out of left field, right? Because then that, then as a reader, you almost feel like, well, what the fuck?
Like I've taken on this ride. That's like, it's not earned. Exactly. And so you have to get the reader.
It's probably very similar. Like, you know, anything like TV, any other kind of writing to that. You have to give the reader enough that they're, um, they feel satisfied by, and you kind of want them to almost to see things coming. But the trick is to get, give them enough that that happened at the right point and not too early.
And when it is revealed, you go back and the breadcrumbs were perfect. Yeah. This is earned. And also, I don't think it was obvious.
I'm like that guy that goes to a magic show and I'm trying to learn the fucking thing that's happening before it happens. So my brain was already doing a bit of that. And it was just kind of fun. You're like, Matt, they made a good one thing.
Yeah, it's like the track we're figuring out the whispers. Yeah. No, it was great. You know, speaking of the characters, I'm really curious to know if you know, in your mind, what has happened where all these characters are at post the book.