Bookwild - Problematic Artists, Body Image Wars, and The Intersection of Creativity and Commerce with Halley Sutton

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

This week, Halley Sutton and I catch up on everything we've been reading and watching, including The Studio and how it examines the intersection of creativity and commerce. We also get into the messy subject of what to do with the art of problematic artists, and the pernicious linguistics and attitudes about women's body image. It's a little bit of everything this week!Halley's SubstackThe White Lotus Podcast  Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

So I am back with Hallie Sutton this week. Woohoo. And you've been being a surrogate dog mom for a few weeks. Yes. Yes. I was taking care of Annie the dog, who is my parents' dog while they were in France. And she is a love and a queen bee. And she has a lot going on in her life.

And also while I was there, I got to spend a week with Lane Fargo, Friend of the Pod, She came out to, so where my parents live is this beautiful part of California, very far in the north, very rural, called Humboldt County. It's the middle of the redwood forest. It's like, you know, the town I grew up and had 16,000 people and it's centered around the university that's there, which is why I'm there. My grandparents were professors. So that's why they moved there. It's how my parents met. They met in college there. And it's beautiful. It's like just like forest wonderland. And it was beautiful while I was there. It was everything was in bloom. It was perfect weather. So Lane and I spent a week there on a quasi writing retreat slash just friend hang out. Yes.

She was working on her new book. I was sort of working on mine, but mostly playing, mostly playing like tour guide slash taking care of this dog. Yes. And we had some fun times together. We got to, we did a bunch of fun. things. We saw wild elk. We went and saw seals. We did some hikes. We went, I took her on the skywalk, which is a thing that they have at the zoo, which this zoo isn't great, right? Like, it's actually okay. But like when I was growing up, it was like Ravens, you know? Oh.

Like, that's what we're working with. Yeah. And, but they do have this beautiful exhibit where you can like walk up basically on this like tall, tall. walkway, some of which is kind of like rope swinging through the redwood. So you're kind of up above the ground like 50 feet to 100 feet like walking amongst the trees. And I have done it before. I got a little heights thing. So we got up there and I was like, it's, it's not God's plan for me to be up here. Like I was just like, you can go ahead. I'm not and I'm not, this is something. It freaks me out too. Like don't be here. So she enjoyed that. And we had another very romantic date where we went to a sauna together and Lane dumped a bunch of water on the steam

thing and we had to run out of the sauna because it like both of us neither of us science majors and we were like a little water is good more water should be fine and we was just like it was just like cloud out of the sauna and we were like oh god get out but but it was fun and very creatively fruitful and that's amazing yeah and I'm excited to know that like when her next book comes out, whenever that may be a little bit has like my hometown threaded into it. Oh, I love that. You know, I love all your romantic stories. I know.

I know. I know. Sorry to her husband. I don't, you know. I know. Your life partners at this point. Right. Oh, that sounds so fun.

I went like the week before you guys did that. I went to a suburb of Chicago for Ashley Winstead's event. And I saw Elaine and she was like, oh my gosh, Holly's going to be jealous. And then she was like, but also you should be jealous because I'm going to go see Hallie. And I was like, you're just a little sister of chaos right now. And I was jealous that I wasn't there.

But yeah, we had a great time. We're going to make it happen sometime. Well, I also just need to make it out to L.A. Yeah. The amount of people I know there is growing. And I'm like, didn't see this happening. but here we are. I've got a murder bus tour just waiting.

I know. That's why I told Tyler. I was like, and Hallie would take me on a murder tour, and he was like, what did you just say? And I was like, oh, sorry, I forgot. You didn't read the hurricane. Yes, we're not going to be murdering people ourselves.

No. I mean, unless somebody pushes us, you know. Who's to say? Self-defense sometimes happens. It needs to happen. Yeah. I think we can handle ourselves. first work. Yes. Well, that's awesome. So you also said it's creatively fruitful. So you feel like you did get some writing done or other creative.

Yeah. So I'm, um, I've been working on a book for a year and a half. I think we've talked about this that I have kind of wound up shelving at the moment. And so I'm working on a new one. And I'm pretty busy between now and the end of July. So what I'm just trying to do right now is just sort of like build up. the world and the plot and the characters and then come august i'm going to try to really make a push to write a big chunk of the book i'm not somebody who could draft a book in a month um i do have friends who can do that wendy heard for one who is a fabulous writer and also just like the most like on it person yeah um but you know if i got like 35 or 40 000 words down in like a month i would be thrilled and that does seem doable um even if they are going to need a lot of work so yeah so while i was there it was sort of thinking about different elements talking stuff through with Lane and then also, I don't know, man, my brain has also been invaded with the idea for another thing that's

like very different. So I'm taking, man. Yeah, I know. You and I'll maybe, sorry, I hate to do this. Yeah. Maybe we'll talk about that not recording because it's still here. You do that. And I don't really know what I'm doing with it yet, but there's something tickling my brain.

What about you? What are you working? How's your book? Where are you? How are things? Yeah. So the big push last month was to get these author social media packages like packaged, get the website, get to posting about it. So that was the big focus last month. And I wrote a little bit in like my book. But the other thing that had been kind of standing out to me, like obviously a lot of people have substance. and you do too. If anyone wants to follow Hallies, I'll put it in the show notes. And I've debated it before. And then I've been like, okay, what, you obviously kind of want some kind of theme.

I mean, maybe some people don't, but I was just like, I don't know. Like, what would make it separate from what I'm already doing? And like, worth doing sounds really funny in the context of us about to talk about creativity versus commerce, but what would make it worth adding this other? thing, but it also kind of came from the book that you mentioned a couple episodes ago about like fitting writing in. I can't remember the title. Yeah. Was it, it's possible I have it here on my, was it this one? Pen on Fire. Yeah. Yep, it's that one. Definitely that one. And that, the idea of that being kind of like just write a paragraph. It's okay. That, that's some of what, where like,

if I had a weekly obligation to write for substack, then I would at least be doing that on weeks that maybe I'm not building a fictional world by the time I'm done with work. So it'd been in the back of my mind, but I hadn't started it. I had never started it yet. But another fun conversation you and I had was when we recapped the White Lotus. And we both listened to Mike White's podcast about it when it had. all aired. I'll also link that in the show notes for anyone who was like,

they did a podcast about it. So if you need to go back and listen, you can. But he talks about, because in that final scene, there's the monologue from Carrie's character about like, finding her religion. And we talked about that too. But he in the podcast had the comment about how like he thinks if he had to pick something that story is his religion.

And I resonated with it. you resonated with it we definitely talked about it um there's like the silly part of my brain like you know the memes that are like instead of getting rid of what you think is cringe what if you got rid of the part that says something's cringe so there's a part of me sometimes that's like okay how out there am i being being like story is my religion like it can sound goofbally but I need to get rid of that part of my brain that that talks to me that way um but then a couple where is this I'm trying to find my notes for it I'm loving I'm loving the thoughts you're having in the way that they're like scaffolding and like I'm so excited about all of this they're all over the

place here um why can't I find I'm sorry guys I literally just pulled it up yesterday it should be in my oh it should be right here um so then In that same week, I was like scrolling TikTok as one does. And this account, her account's called No Nonsense Spirituality. I will also include a link to that. It started putting her content in front of me. And she basically approaches talking about religions from a sociological perspective and is an atheist herself, but likes to talk about the form and function of religions, which is very fascinating to me typically. But the first video I saw of hers was her responding to a comment where someone said they were commenting on a TikTok she had posted previously talking about how religion served an evolutionary purpose.

And it like helps people meet certain needs and evolve in a certain way or whatever. So someone commented and said if religion was created for like an evolutionary purpose, are atheists and an agnostic? better off or are they struggling? I was like, that's a really interesting question. You've got my attention. So she broke down. She explained that from an evolutionary perspective, religion provides like these things.

Community, ways to experience awe and experience transcendent moments, rituals, ways to interact with your subconscious and conscious selves in a way to process death. And so then she went on to say that there's not an answer, there's not a blanket answer for our atheists and agnostics doing as well. Right.

And so what she went into is in her experience, because she also coaches people on their spirituality or kind of like guides you through stuff, she said in her experience, atheists who then found ways to meet those needs in other ways tend to be just as happy as people who find it in religion or maybe even happier, whatever. And the ones who don't find ways to fulfill those needs or whatever are the ones that you kind of see that are like so angry, they're like angry atheists that are like so hateful toward religion. And there are parts of religion that I hate in any super fundamentalist, any of the religions

that get that way. But I don't hate it in general. And I thought I loved the distinction for multiple reasons. One, it helped me kind of be like, sometimes I don't want to even use the term atheist because it like has so much, I don't know, negativity or that anger that she was kind of referencing, but like I don't believe I know what happens. So it also kind of helped me with that. But the other thing that clicked into place for me, having just heard Mike White talk about

how story was religion. I was like, I have found community through story. I have definitely experienced awe and transcendent moments through story. Most recently, we saw sinners in 70mm imax. Talk about some transcendent moments. Like, I still need to see it. That's okay. I won't go into what it is. Rituals, which like I put out two episodes a week, which means I'm typically recording and like talking with my community. Yeah. In a ritual way, I also read every single day. And the ways to interact with your subconscious and conscious, same thing.

Like I have had profound breakthroughs watching TV shows where it was like, oh, that's what that is in reading. And then the way to process death, I've also experienced like other people's journeys with death and different approaches to death through movies, TV shows, books, all of it. And all of a sudden I was like, the part of my brain that likes proof and reasoning was like, oh, I can prove that stories are my religion. So I am thinking of doing my substack as like each week talking about like different ways that stories fit those different things for me. And then it's still like something kind of fun to think about each week and then write about as well. I love that. I love that. I think that's wonderful. I think that there's so much richness there. I also, that resonates with me totally. Like, I do not have an organized religion that I believe in. I said that thing about, like, it is truly, I think I might have said this even before on the podcast. I don't know that I believe in God, but like, for some reason, when I'm up in the air, like, turbulence happens or I'm up in that. I have this like, this is not God's plan. And I'm like, do you even believe in God? It's just like, that's just the form of my fear. Right. The form my fear. takes is this sort of like get down to the ground, you know. But I love all of that. And I think that makes so much sense. And I totally agree with that perspective. I mean, this person is like way more

knowledgeable about all this stuff than I know. She's just so smart. But like, yeah, I don't think you could say like one blanket thing of like atheists or anonymousics are the same way you couldn't say like all religion is bad. You know what I mean? Can't throw all of it out. You can certainly say there's critiques. There are a few things we should talk about. But like, You know, I think that there's so much as individual experience and what you find that, like, gives your life meaning, you know? Yeah. Like connects you to other people into, like, humanity.

Yes. And I'm with you. I find that in books, too, and, like, storytelling. Totally. If you're an author, chances are high that you just want to spend your time writing and maybe reading, not thinking about social media, what to create, and what to post. And the good news is, I have a solution for you. With just three hours of in-person filming, you can receive 90 days or three months' worth of social media content.

The content is a mixture of videos, photos, edited reels, and when you receive the content, you also receive a PDF that's a content calendar that links to all of the content tells you exactly when to post it and gives you an option for captions. And if you've ever felt like you're tired of just talking about your book all the time, we will help you, come up with ideas that are general content for your page that's not just all about your books. If you are tired of thinking about your social media presence and just want to get back to writing, check out the link in the description. Yeah, I think it's also that part that we've talked about with how it like expands your empathy because you get to experience so many different things. So it was reminding me of that. So this week I have been kind of writing my first entry for substack is what I've basically been working on writing-wise. And it's a little easy.

year. It's a little less daunting to like fit in at the end of the day. Like this is it's I'm not coming up with something from nothing with this one. So like even when I've been a little more tired at night, I'm like, okay, I could work on this though. So I want to do that and I think it will. I think it will it, I don't think it will. I know it will. It'll make it so I'm still writing every week, even if it's not, you know, writing fiction. Yeah, I love that. I think that's so great. And I'm excited to read your substack and subscribe as soon as stuff. It also, you said something earlier that I wanted to make sure I went back to you. Basically, we're talking about sort of like, what's my theme?

What do I have to say? And it sounds like you found it. But it made me think of this other book that I'm reading right now, too, called The World Leads Your Art by Amy McNe. Excuse me, and it's AMI-E. And that actually was also a Lane Fargo recommendation. But it's also basically about the way that, like, culturally, we minimize creativity and art. And basically, like, you know, that's cute when you're a kid.

But like now it's time to get a real job and blah, blah, blah. And like how that actually like goes against what we need and like what we should be doing collectively. Yes. Like as people and like the way that art enriches us individually and collectively. And like so it was just taking a few of those boxes. I definitely want to read this. That sounds really good because it's like also. I'm going to keep talking about it.

But sinners was such a good example. There, a lot, this, none of this is spoilery. A lot of centers is also focusing on how art and music and dancing and like coming together was so important for the black community for so long. Yeah. And so then it's then Ryan Coogler is creating art that is reminding you of like the power of art and the way it can. connect us with even like our ancestors in a way that i mean maybe not you and me um but our ancestors are probably on the wrong side i don't know if i want to be connected to my ancestors but in that context the way it connected them to their ancestors and brought them through so many

things um and it that movie also reminds me so much of how like church is where you make it or church can be where you make it so that's kind of what was bringing me back again to my story is religion. But I love this idea of you also can just be creative to be creative. And it is important. It like does help us understand ourselves and other people. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's such an interesting point too. I really, I want to see sinners. I just, I don't know why I haven't prioritized it. I do know. You're being a dog mom. I was being held hostage by the way of a bossy pyridoodle for three weeks. And I wouldn't great but that was what happened um and but it also makes me think of like to your point too of like

the power of song and music making particularly under like a sister like enslaved or a system like enslavement and thinking about the direct connection to church there too of like singing songs in church like continuing that and like bringing that like that there you're right there is so much of art that also gets like sucked into the divine so i don't think i think it totally makes sense to also like decouple that and be like that experience of the divine quote unquote does come right like my own art in this way that was part part of my deconstruction was when I also realized that I had the same like frisian I had the same collective effervescence listening to secular music that I did in church and I was like oh it's it wasn't just because in my in my experience it wasn't just because God was there and because I was

church and then there are times like when I got way obsessed with the Erez tour I would get like the collective effervescence feeling watching people's tick talks just like watching their faces so full of awe and I'd be like oh my god totally I mean I think like I mean it's going to sound um facetious for me to say that Taylor Swift is a religion but I think but I but I think there are people for whom it does fit that box in many ways that they're having that sort of transcendent feeling they're finding their community they're like you know that it is doing something for them along yeah I think it and it is like sometimes I'm like is there a better word than religion which obviously like I'm going to be explaining my position with this substack kind of like I just already did um but it's kind of like I remember when

I was in therapy and it was like you have your mental self your emotional self your spiritual self your physical self and I was deconstructing at the time and so spiritual self was still so confusing and I think more in my late 20s and 30s I started to like actually rewrite that debt or like know what a different definition of spirituality could mean yeah so it's like in some ways you could also use like spirituality as a as a blanket term to where you're like it's like feeding your spiritual self I think religion sounds also ends up just sounding so dogmatic I know I think that's what it is about that word yeah yeah but yeah it's spiritual or, I mean, essentially, I think what we're also just talking about is like connecting

to something outside of yourself. Yeah. Like that, that helps you connect to like humanity more collectively. Like that's not stuck in your brain. I was thinking this the other day, this is like a strange digression, but I've been doing morning pages. Um, in the morning sometimes as a way to like get back in touch with my creativity. Um, and the other day I was doing them at a coffee shop and I was so stuck and I didn't know what to write. And then I was like, just observe the people around you. And it made me remember something that I do feel is true, which I think is that attention is a form of love. I don't think that's true, maybe necessarily of all attention like TikTok trolls. But like choosing to pay attention to something outside of your brain, yourself, your like subjectivity,

I think is a form of love, right? I was like looking at this woman who was sitting there with her dog and like trying to imagine how I would describe her in a book. and then started thinking about like, oh, I hope she's having a nice day and imagining, you know, and it just, it's like a way to sort of get out of yourself. And I think any time we do that is, you know, a good thing generally. Yeah. A couple of things on that. I have a friend who has a 15 year old daughter and she is going through it because it's like it's the age where you even start to individuate and so naturally you are so selfish like you do think the world revolves around you yeah and she was saying how she's like oh my gosh like this like they're about to be home all the

time for summer and she's already doing like can you drive me here at eight and then pick me up and take me here at five can you take me here and like she's starting to say no sometimes not all the time but no you don't get to all the time and she's already getting to like oh you suck and then just pouting for the like just being a cloud of bad energy for the rest of the day and everyone deals with that differently some of us can be like okay that's her i'm not going to let it touch me some of us have to still we may know we don't need to absorb her energy but we still have to be really conscious about it so she was like i am just like i don't even know what i'm in for this summer and so then i was just it was making me think about when i first started like meditating

I do not do it enough to like sound like a person who like really meditates. I understand. But when I was first learning about it, that's one of the things that kind of told you to do is almost like to kind of like however you're sitting, like imagine like kind of like roots going out from your feet. And then also think of how many different lives are like all around you. Like sometimes that trips me out. I live in a neighborhood that's like 400 houses like just pack or pack in um but it was great it was a great price 10 years ago um so sometimes that would come up

and I'm like oh my god there are there are this many people like you drive past houses and you don't think of it as like the whole world that you have totally and you're like there are so many people around me that are having as rich of a complete life experience as me and it is good to remember it's not all about you sometimes totally dude I think about that all the time like and I I talked to my therapist about it sometimes where her, her feeling is this is simplified and I know she has a more complex view, but like one one problem that we're having globally is that we are not meant to imagine eight billion people on the planet all having rich individuated lives, right?

Like we evolved to imagine like a village of like a hundred people and like that's a number that we can like make sense of. But like yeah, it's hard to like understand. And I think about that all the time too where you're like, like this is going to sound so crazy and also make it up a little like college freshman but like it's really easy to imagine that like everybody you encounter in your day is like an extra in your life it's really hard to think that like everybody has a rich subjectivity yes you know and their own experiences going like it really like it boggles the mind it's like trying to think about like

how many grains of sand are there on this planet and you're just like can't do it you know like And you're kind of like, no, I don't know, you know, like that. It's so crazy. And it's so true and hard to like hold in your head. And like to some degree, you can't hold it in your head the whole time. No. Just never, you'd never do anything. And you like do have to have a degree of selfishness.

I think to be a human like a healthy degree of selfishness. Right. Like I deserve like survival even. Yeah, exactly. Like, but yeah, it's crazy. I do think about that a lot too. It's just like there's so many. so many people out there.

I know. And we get to write about a small subsection. We get to make up our own people and write about it. Yeah. Yeah. Then there are the fictional people that feel real in our minds. Totally. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, you're right. It would be overwhelming to be aware of truly everyone's, like everything everyone's facing every day. Yeah. So it's also okay that sometimes our brains go into default and they're like, oh, this is the plumber in my life. Yeah, I think so.

I think you like have to do that, you know, to just like get through your to do list. Just like get through the day. You can't be like, I'm going to put myself in his shoes all the time, you know. Yeah. We could all probably stand to do it a little bit more. Right. Yeah. That's a balance.

Well, other than, right. We have spread our wings and we're now in new places. Yes. other than this book that I now want to read, the world needs your art. Did you read anything recently that you were loving to? Yes, I read a couple of things while I was home that were excellent. I just finished a book last night that was excellent.

So when I was home, two of the books that stood out to me that I read was one was called Monsters, a Fans Dilemma by Claire. You told me about that. You didn't like tell me much about it, but I think I want to find an audiobook version of it. Anyway, go ahead. It's really good. She's feeling so her basic question is kind of like she's, I don't remember how she starts the book, except she starts it with Polanski, which I think is a good starting place for this. That's a good one.

Tackling where she's like watching his movies and loving his movies and being like, how can I love his movies when I also can't stop thinking about what he did? And then uses that to kind of like talk about this wider question that I think a lot of us culturally have been wrestling with. And I don't think there's any one easy answer to that is like, what do you do with good art made by shitty people? Usually shitty men, but not always. Like, and she does make a few examples in there. Like, she talks about basically what's monstrous in a man is usually like rape or murder. And then what monstrous in a woman is oftentimes like abandoning your children. And she like talks about writers who have done that and the way that that impacts the work.

And like, it's just, it's really, it's really interesting. And so she's wrestling with these really complex concepts, but she's also doing it in such an approachable funny way. Like at one point she's talking about Hemingway and she does this like parenthetical aside that's like makes wanking motion with hand. Like is so like fun to read. Oh. So yeah, accessible while also being really smart and thoughtful. And not allowing herself to take any sort of easy answer away. And I loved it.

I thought it was great. this will be my next audiobook. There is an audiobook version of it. Yeah, it's wonderful. It's really interesting and we won't get into all of it. But I didn't know until recently because, like, lively just can't stay out of the press. I did not know that she and Ryan Reynolds got married on a plantation.

Yep. And I don't think it was like, because I was like ignorant, ignorant. It's just like I've never paid it. I don't pay attention to where anyone gets married. I get it. because this is happening that got brought back up and I was like really now one like um being enslaved is significantly worse than me being like really do I have to not like Ryan Reynolds now but like it was like oh I like love Deadpool like what are my favorite humor and I was having the same thing I'm like what

do you do with that do I even consider myself a fan anymore and then like I think the other tricky part is on a movie scale versus like one author writing a book yeah there are so many other people involved right so it's like is it okay because it was other but deadpool was ryan ralds vision so like i don't think i can use that excuse either totally totally i mean she goes into like for me that's like very much the woody allen of which lucky for me if i'm really allan very annoying so most of his movies i can be like i don't i'm not watching them because i'm an activist when i'm also just not a a huge fan. Right.

Which is like a, you know, I'm very aware that that's the wrong reason to do it for. But for me, I know there are people for whom for him in particular, like it's a really difficult thing because he's made. It really resonates with them. And for me, it's not. So I get to luckily just be like, yeah. Yes. But the, yeah, the Ryan Reynolds one.

So I will say I did know about that. He at least put out a statement apologizing for it. I assume that it's on both. their behalf. But I do remember it came from him. Interesting. More specifically. Because yeah, that is a pretty bad look. And I'm aware that like at the time they were married, perhaps

that was not a conversation that was happening in the cultural consciousness, the same level it is now. But like, do you have to be told? Did you have to? That's where I'm not getting married on a plantation. We all know. Like, I mean, it's even the idea of like, like, I don't know that I think that we should

destroy plantations because I think that you also get into the idea of like, well, then you're sort of whitewashing or erasing this history. But I do think we always need to be like looking at those in the context of like the only reason this exists is because it was built by enslaved people. And turning it into a resort for the Uber rich just kind of rings of the same bad story. Yeah. And I agree.

I don't know. Did you see all of the stuff about the Louisiana mansion or plantation that burned down last week? Yes. So I saw some of it. And there was like the doll Annabelle was all. And people were like, yes, she got them, you know. Yes, I loved that.

Yeah, so this doll Annabel, who is possessed is like what we think. She went on tour and like days after she was in Louisiana, there's a plantation that burned down and firefighters kept thinking that they were done and the fire kept coming back. And so I'm kind of on board with this shit that some ancestral shit was going down. and like that feels like something spiritually related was happening there. And then if you saw the drone shot after it had burned down, the servants quarters is the only thing that was left standing. But through this, I also learned that there are plantations that exist and are memorials or museums.

And I'm like, that makes sense. Don't think we needed to turn these into resorts. No, no, I think that is a terrible look. But yeah, I've been to some plantations that are museums. Yeah. And some do a better job of recounting. Like some people are not there to talk about that. And I'm always like, we got to.

What else? Amazing here. This is why, you know, like this is a piece of history we have to talk about. Yes. Okay. But I also, that made me think of your story about the like, is this the ancestors? Is this Annabelle? Is this the ancestors?

What is this that happened with this plantation? Reminds me of a great book by Attica Locke called The Cutting Season. And it is basically about the idea that, like, there could, if I'm remembering correctly, it's been a while since I've read it. But as I recall, it's sort of like the idea that like plantations and places where great evil has happened carry with them the scar that kind of resonates throughout the ages. And she does a really interesting job with that. Ooh. I have this in my want to read. Oh, good.

At some point, I added it. And how I, like, want to know when did I? Sometimes it tells you. Yeah, when you added it? No, it doesn't. I don't know. Interesting. It says I already want to read it. Yeah, that sounds interesting. And I've had people asking for like Senner's book recommendations. This is, would be in line with that as well. Definitely. So now I'm going to, I think, oh, September 2012. So this would qualify for Book Wilds Backlist Book Club. So if anybody wants to, maybe we'll vote that one next month. Yeah. That would be good. But yeah, so you, I love it to monsters. But one of the first times I kind of became acquainted with this concept was the first, like, years ago, I heard someone talking about Bill Cosby and like, oh, no, there was a documentary that went out that it was called, what do we do about Bill Cosby or something like that, where

it's like, you cannot deny that he changed things drastically for black actors, even probably just black people as a whole through the fact that there was finally representation on TV and how long it went on. And then you can't also deny the fact that he really, really abused women for years and years and years. Yeah. Yeah. She does talk about him a little bit. And yeah. And she has this really unique framework where she kind of talks about. I think she calls it the stain, which is essentially like this object exists, but now it's stained with this cultural knowledge. And like your ability to engage with that stain will depend entirely on who you are. And like, yeah, There are plenty of men or people who haven't experienced or aren't afraid of experiencing some of the things that these people who have perpetuated for whom it might be easier to engage in the stain and not look at it and be offended by people who do.

But like if you have been, you can't separate it or, you know, if that's something that's like in your consciousness, you can't separate it and just say like, oh, well, whatever, you know, like, Polanski raped a kid. Whatever. Like, no, no, you know, there are there are some people who can do that in some. some people who can't and like yeah basically how do you navigate some of that space yeah so she kind of like just brought up good points to consider a little bit she doesn't like fix it yeah i mean you know because there's no and there's no there's no one answer which is sort of what she right at the end of the book that's good you cannot say we have to throw out every woody allen film ever made but you also can't say it's unfair to think about his work in the context of his life

because that's also crazy. Like, you know, that, like, and that there's, it's, yeah, so it's a, it's a really smart, interesting kind of like wrestling with this question. So that was one of them. I'm sorry. I won't talk for 90 minutes straight about. We're on a podcast. You got to talk.

And then I also read all our hidden gifts by Caroline O'Donohue, who is an Irish writer, who I have, like, developed a little bit of a book crush on. She has a great podcast also called Sentimentalienable. garbage that basically like reclaims like pop culture things that women are often told are like silly to love. Oh my God. Yeah. It's great.

And so it'll be like she'll have an episode on like the movie the bodyguard with Whitney Houston or like different things that it's like people might consider like girly and not worthy of like analysis or appreciation. And it's really fun. And she's got what did you say the podcast title was? Sentimental garbage. Sentimental garbage. Okay.

Go on. But she's also a writer. sure most famous book probably is the rachel incident which you might have oh yeah yeah i haven't read that one but i just see it everywhere yeah so all our hidden gifts is like a why a fantasy that's being comped to like dairy girls but also is like about taro and like all this and it's just really i loved it i enjoyed the hell out of that book oh my gosh i yeah i'm scrolling through the podcast right now too and for anyone who says as intrigued as I am. Like, Mermaids is this week's. Yeah. The Hunger Games was two weeks ago.

Theme parks. Yeah. Yeah, I am really excited. This looks fascinating. And now I want to read that book, too. It's great. It's a part of, I think there's a trilogy. And it's set in Ireland. And it's just, it's really, the voice is great. It's really fun. It deals with some interesting things like Christophascism. like non-binary identities while also just being like a really fun speculative fantasy romp that like centers tarot cards and like friendships and coming into your own it's great that's fantastic yeah i really enjoy okay well now i want to read those both of those as well um yeah i've had i have gotten more into audiobooks i've always known i could do nonfiction um but there was oh that's where it started I got, I think it was an ad from Penguin about this book, Girl on Girl, by Sophie Gilbert. And the subtitle, it's actually worth me just reading the full subtitle, How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves.

And I was like, I am intrigued. So I like immediately ran to see if it was in audio form and it was. So then like I probably have six different podcasts I listened to throughout the week, probably like on dog walks. There's sleep behind me and I'm like, oh no. But I didn't listen to any of my podcasts because I was captivated by her writing. It's read by the author. The way she approached it. What it also reminded me of is how you were saying like with Monster that she also just like presents all the things that she kind of discovered.

But she's not condemning like everything. It's not like she's condemning skinny bodies either. It's just like here were the words that became phrases that had never been phrases before. So there's also kind of that linguistic part to it. You kind of you're hearing like the way basically one of the lines that stuck out to me was. until the 90s when we were starting to have cameras that were portable. And so the privacy, she calls it the end of the privacy era, which is like a whole other thing I could talk about forever, as I say here on my podcast that I'm going to publish and post to the whole world. But when all

of that changed, then we're all seeing more images of ourselves. We're also seeing more images of everyone else. And the terms body after baby, scary, skinny, and heroin chic had never been said until the 1990s. And you're like, yeah, those aren't great. And obviously, you want your body to also feel good and functional after baby, but that was not the way that this was being used. I mean, I mean, heroin sheik, I mean, first of all, if we want to turn this into a diet culture podcast, I'm also here for it. Oh, we can definitely do that. But, but like, the idea that you could even, even call something heroin chic to valorize something like i mean you might as well call it like

corpse chic you know what i mean like look how look how beautiful you look when you're unhealthy like that just up like that's so fucked up i know and i had been i feel like in the last three years i see it more in articles where it's like we're returning to heroin chic the Kardashians are dissolving their butts i'm like oh my god what are we talking about the advent of like ozempic and we govi which to be very clear. I think everyone has the right to do whatever they want for their body and to make the choice of health choices. But there's also so much of that that's going to be used as a tool to get phobia to say like that's more choice than ever. And to like for people who are like need to lose 10 pounds and they're going to use like I don't know that I believe that's how that

medication should be. I'm not a doctor. So maybe I'm wrong. But I don't know. Well, and that was what was fascinating because she's doing this whole chapter about the way like body body image and stuff in general shifted over that decade. But then she also comes to the present and she was like, she brought that up. And she was like, all of a sudden, heroin she was back in the vernacular and you were hearing that celebrities had found this magical medication that could help them so much. And then the way she phrased it was just so good. She was like, and good news for you, just like everything else they'd sold to you before, you could pay for this too. And I was like, girl, you are, I'm just her writing style.

And I, people know, because I've talked about it. I definitely am using OZMB. But I've, like, everything you said, I agree with. And then even when I'm hearing it in this book, I'm like, that still is the point, though. It's not always going to be women with PCOS, like, having breakthroughs. Like, sometimes it is going to be, like, 20-year-olds who want to be, like, a model. And if we're shifting back that direction. So, and not that we got that far from that direction, by the way.

No, really. I know. People talk about, like, the body positivity movement. And I'm like, how far do we? we get with it because we didn't get very far but that far you know like we kind of started to lift off and then it was like ah get the good getting out of the spotlight and you're like exactly well and we never dropped the signifier it was always oh there's a plus size model we never is just said oh there's a model like we never dropped the signifier to me that means we didn't we didn't get too far so yeah like

the thing to be concerned about is like really young girls or whatever you could also be 40 and like feel so intimidated because maybe all your friends are like bone skinny and you're like now I need to do it and that's that will be a harmful part of it too totally totally and again I want to reiterate I think everybody gets to make the choices that are right for their health I agree and I think that it's just a bummer that it's like fat phobia also exists I know going to be a thing that happens alongside of this you know I know live in a world in which it is like the because I get because I'm using it I get all kinds of that type of marketing in my feed now. And it is.

It's very like high pressure. It's very like assuming just being skinny is what you're obsessed with. Like I remember like because I started it in October of last year. And so all of a sudden I start getting all these ads that's like, don't you want to go to Thanksgiving dinner 12 pounds smaller? You can do it in three weeks. And I'm like, can we not be advertising it that way? Like there's. So it is.

You're completely right. the language is rough. Yeah, and it's just another, it's as if, like, as you put your finger on it, like, as if smallness always is the goal. And that weight is always a problem, you know? Yes. Like, and then also, this ties into something we're going to talk about more, but I had something else I wanted to say, that's a long girl, but like, it's just another thing for

us to buy, you know? It's like there's another thing that you can be spending your money on capital is like, it's also hard for me to get away from that aspect. of it of like oh now I can buy thinness you know I know something about that that's also like I don't even know I don't know what my thoughts are about it but it just it's so clearly tied to capitalism that I also it is well it's so tied to capitalism too that even in my experience and also if anyone ever wants to talk about it has considered wanting to go on it I would like please reach out to me I'm coming from that perspective because it wasn't until I heard a girl sharing

I mean, she's a woman, but I feel like we all call each other girls on the internet, talking about her experience because she has PCOS. And when she was saying, like, there are a few things she said that I was like, oh, wow, like she and I are having the same experience. Then she went on it and started talking about it. And I, for similar reasons, I didn't like the marketing around it. But I also have been struggling to lose weight for my entire life, even though I work out a decent amount and actually eat,

pretty well. I've also had problems with PCOS my entire life. So she started talking about that and I'm like, I have to try. Like it just got to a point where I was like, nothing else is working. And her story was so close and similar to mine. And so it's been super beneficial from that perspective. I can't remember exactly where I'm going with it. But also, if anyone ever wants to talk about it, I'm just saying like I would talk about it because it's changed my life from having her talk about it. But yeah, when it was, oh, the capitalism part, though. So I go through my doctor and they say, like, she has PCOS, like, no, you do need to cover this. And they wouldn't. They won't. They won't. They're like, the FDA hasn't. The FDA hasn't signed off on the fact that this helps

PCOS, which anyone who has PCOS or doesn't, the gist of it is you also act, your hormones start, your like more reproductive hormones start causing problems with your insulin so that's also why this kind of helps this because a lot of people with PCOS end up with diabetes so it's like very it can be very interventional like basically to just kind of start it anyway FDA though is like we they haven't paid for the trials to prove that it works for PCOS so we can't cover it because that's not a reason or whatever so then I'm like okay $1,600 a month is what it would cost if I didn't go through insurance. But what finally happened is thankfully this had been around for about a year and a half.

The kind of like the conversation about it happening more on like podcasts and stuff. So it had been around long enough that finally compounding pharmacies were able to set up. And so if your insurance won't do it, you can buy directly from compounding pharmacy. It is $189 for me. I just have to like manually like use syringes and stuff. But you want to talk about capitalism. That like $1,600 a month. I know.

Because my insurance is like, I don't know, but like it's not exactly right for you. So it is. Like all of it is complicated and like all of it has these sticky conversations to it. Totally. Totally. And it has. Yeah. This doesn't really put with the book wild brand.

But like I would love to have this conversation with you more. up sometime too because at the time pandemic i actually started um i have somebody who is also in a bigger body and has like struggled to lose struggled to want to lose weight my whole life and at the beginning of the pandemic um i was like i'm off the diet yo-yo i'm not doing this to myself anymore and so i started um into uh intuitive eating intuitive eating uh institutional counseling and it has like changed my life in like a huge way i love that yeah would love to like talk about it but it's like a very different like then book wild but like i think i know perspectives on like two sides of it too and i think a lot of our audience is female so it's i think i think they're interested in stuff i feel like you and i have

talked about something kind of like it and people have been like that was really interesting like hearing this so yeah yeah yeah we can stretch the book wild brands the other thing that might happen um i reached out to sophie gilbert the author um to have her on and um she said she did like 52 podcasts. Oh, damn. Like leading up to it. So she was like, so I'm on a hiatus, but email me and then I'll tell you when I can. So hopefully I'm going to talk to her about this book in depth too.

So like might get some other insight there, but we could definitely. I think people would still be interested in this topic. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I also like thinking about this book, you reading this book, I know this is so in tune with your interests, but it also feels so, it feels like it could be research for your book too and like what I know your book. That's how I felt while I was reading it. Yes. Because I had a friend who I posted about it and she was like, that sounds good. I just saw it in New York, in the New York Times and now you're posting about it. I got it. So then we had this fun experience of like she started it when I was like halfway through it.

So then she's sending me things like, oh my gosh, this line. And I was like, yes, wait till you get to this part. Yeah, so it was a really, like, fun experience listening to it that way, but she covers so much. And, yeah, so hopefully she'll kind of be on the podcast as well. But I think we could totally talk about all of this stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to add it to my Halley note. So physical. Sorry, oh, sorry, what?

Oh, no, I just said I'm so honored there's a Halley note. Yes. I wanted to interrupt this episode really quickly. I have a goal of monetizing Book Wild, but I would love to do it without having to have ads in the podcast. And one way that I can do that is through my Patreon community. For those who don't know, Patreon is a community platform that allows creators to share what they're creating behind a paywall. And so that means exclusive content or early releases. The Book Wild Patreon has two tiers.

The first tier is the bookish tier, and at that tier, you get all of the episodes out a day early, and you get access to our private community chat where we can talk about anything book-related or TV shows or movies. The second tier is the Book Wilde tier, and it includes everything from the first tier, but also Book Wild's Backlist Book Club. So this year, I've been wanting to also still read more backlist, even though I read plenty of arcs. And Book Wild's backlist book club felt like the perfect way to do that. We meet on Sundays. We are international right now. So Sundays are the best way to do it.

And we meet on Zoom and we all pick a book and we talk about it. And then we talk about everything else we read during the month. And then we pick another book for the next month. So it's been so much fun so far. And we'd love to have you join the book club. So if you'd like to support the Book Wild podcast, you can go to the Patreon link in the show notes and you can sign up for whichever to your interest you. And if you're looking for a free way to support the show, if you can like and review it on whichever platform you listen to,

that helps so much. Physical book that I read and gave five stars recently is we don't talk about Carol by Kristen L. Berry. She's a debut, but I did see that Lauren Ling Brown is in conversation with her at some point in LA. That was actually Lauren Ling's post about it was what made me aware of this book. So then I ran to NetGalley and was like, please. And then I got it a couple of days later. I'm having a hiccup attack. So hold on. You're lucky you're not in person with me. I'm known for like trying to scare hiccups out of people and it makes people really works. So I mean, I kind of do scare easily actually you could possibly make it happen um but we don't talk about carroll one the cover is beautiful i was like oh this grabbed my attention two i always enjoy kind of multi-generational family

mysteries um and so this one sounded really good i might just read the synopsis so i don't spoil anything but i might be well basically our main character sidney has to go back to her parental grandmother's house because she just passed. And when looking through the stuff, she finds this picture of a teenager who looks a lot like her. And so does it say in the synopsis who she is? I think my agent represents this book. Ooh.

That's exciting. Yeah. I'm interviewing her tomorrow. Girl, not the agent, but Kristen Elberry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But basically she's like, who is this? And she basically discovers that she has an aunt that no one talked about. Like the first chapter ends with, we don't talk about Carol, which I love.

Yeah. And so then she gets really invested in what happens to her aunt and discovers that six black girls in the mid-1960s went missing. and no one did anything about it. And she gets kind of obsessed with figuring out what happened to her aunt. But like her grandma never spoke about her. And that was the only person left she could talk to about her because her father has passed too. But basically her father had a sister that no one ever told her about. And she kind of is like, I want to know about this woman.

And it just, it covers a lot of things. Like it's very emotional and like also really well crafted. Like there is a there are some reveals like in some ways I expected it to stay pretty much like a family drama mystery like there are some reveals and I was not necessarily expecting that. So that was like cherry on top basically. Well I'm going to have to go to this event. Yeah. Local to L.A. which I imagine it is because Lauren lives here in L.A. I am like 98% positive my agent because I'm like I know this book. Like I remember about this book and like I'm pretty sure she and I share an agent. So. that's awesome yeah she seems so cool from just like talking to her to like set this up yeah and i loved the book so that helps oh i got to read it it sounds great mm-hmm yeah i'll really quickly and i'll keep it very short matriarch by miss tina knolls is fantastic too i mean it's the miss tina knolls i listened to it on audiobook and she reads it and it was just like i was like can you read all of my audiobooks, I would read more audiobooks.

It's fantastic. To think that, like, on her, the generation behind her, like, her parents are, like, barely, barely out of slavery than, like, and also in the Jim Crow South, like, essentially. Then there's her who, just like, her life even just gets so much huger than, like, what like they were how they were living when she was really young with her parents um and facing so much racism still like so much overt not that there's not overt now for the fact that that's on one side of her and then there's her life and then that she's the mother of Beyonce the it was so fascinating to just listen to and she's so she is so connected to Beyonce's success and

like loves her daughter so much and it just wants to my heart too. So I took so much away from hers as well. Okay, I got to read that. I got to read that. It's good. I have one final plug too and I will also make it for which is that I finished a book last night that I loved. I'm obsessed with the premise. It's called Sky Daddy. Have you heard of this by Kay? I have been seeing this. Is it satirical? No. Okay. I couldn't tell from the cover. Yeah. So it's a woman who is um, it's a woman who is um, obsessed with planes. So in that sense, it sounds hysterical. She really does ground it. Like she knows that she's off and she like is like, I can't tell people about this. But like she wants to be married to a plane, which her version of it would be that the plane senses her on board of flight and they crashed together. And like that's like what being married to a plane would be. And this is like, she has through the whole book. And there's one excellent line that like gives you a sense of,

I mean, there's a million excellent lines, but one excellent line that gives you a sense of, like, the tone of the book is at one point, the Linda, the main character says, I could not be a man's girlfriend if I hope to become a plane's wife. And like, that's like the voice throughout all of it. And so it is satirical definitely not, but it is like quirky, you know? Yeah. See, and I didn't know it was quirky. I thought because people say Sky Daddy satirically about God. Right. That's what I thought was going on. Now I'm like, oh, okay, no. It's just like, like, quirky fun. Nice. Yeah, it's excellent. I can't see the cover and had never read the description. Yeah, it's really good. And it's funny. I have told a couple of people about this and their reactions have been like, well, that's different.

And I'm like, what else do we want to read about if not a woman who's like erotically obsessed with planes? Like, that's all I want, you know. I know. And like, we want unique things. Yeah. We do need some like different stuff mixed in there. Absolutely. I love it.

Man, we are having good book. I know. We really are. We really are. Yeah, I love when that happens. And we're also, I know we're watching the same show and enjoying that one too. Yes. So if you love TV, if you love movies, if you love comedy, like you need to be watching the studio on Apple TV.

Apple TV Plus. my voice has decided to leave so so gosh and now i'm coughing we're falling apart so so so set rogan had gosh he and evan like they've been evan goldberg they have been friends forever and made so many things together and still sometimes i'm like this is the guy who made the hot dog movie or was it actually the Wiener movie? Because that sounds more, I don't know. But like this is the same guy who did that is doing like some of the coolest meta, take you behind the scenes of a production company and what it's like to film something.

Like it's some of the best I've ever seen. Totally. Totally. And it works in a lot of like Hollywood tropes while also. Yes. I feel like still giving these characters heart, you know? Yes. He becomes in the first episode, the studio head.

And it's actually, so I'm not as far as you. I think you fit. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But clearly one conflict I'm seeing come up over and over again is that he is a people pleaser, which is not a good attribute for somebody who has a studio head who has to be delivering like tough bottom line driven.

All the time. Assessments and news. And it does become like part of what we want to talk about this. is sort of like creativity versus commerce. And like that is like one of the central questions of the show, I think is like, how do you like he wants to make art, but he's a studio head. So he has to make money and like how to those to kind of live hand in hand. Yeah.

And I think to your point, um, with people pleasing, uh, that's like the other, that's going to be the, there's so much struggle between, uh, like who you get notes from, like no notes. is like fun to say because it's like, oh, the production company didn't tell me I had to change anything. But like that person versus the person who's passionate about art, can that person even be that job? Right. Because he cares so much about the art. And then, yes, a big theme through the whole season is him kind of naively thinking that it would get better if he was like the head of the studio. I don't think so. it gets even more complicated.

Yeah, and that like, I don't know. Like, and I mean, I think that is a problem like Hollywood is facing all the time, which is like, I mean, I'm not trying to dunk on these movies because they're like a whole beautiful thing that I just am not a part of. But there is some extent to which the Marvel and all of these reboots and franchises of things are really to make sure that the studios are hitting the bottom line that they want to. a hit. Those are movies that they're making because they know they will get a large audience and there are artistic parts about them. I'm not arguing that. But I think the main driver, they sometimes, but like they wouldn't be making them if they didn't make a shitload of money. Exactly. Like that is why those movies are so big. And let them find a balance like, and then I think sometimes the commercial wisdom has been like, like, or Martin Scarsese has this

like one for me, one for them. Right? Yes. I'll do. one for the studio to make money and then I'll do one that's like a very personal project that I'll get to finance because of this thing and yes I don't know and it's it's interesting to think about as writers too that's what I was thinking about so the other thing that I think about in terms of writing especially watching this show it also has like frenetic anxious energy straight through every single episode by the way like you are just in it everyone everyone in the industry I think that's why he was able to get so many good cameos too. Everyone in the industry is like, this is exactly what it's like.

Like you're like trying to put out two fires while you're having to like rush talent somewhere, but they're like too high or something. So you're having to figure out that. So like there's this frenzied feeling to all of it. And it's, have you gotten to the Kool-Aid episode? Yeah, that's the first one. Or at least I've seen the first one that has the Kool-Aid where they talk about something is going to do.

have you seen the part where they need to cast Kool-Aid? No. Okay. So there's a scene there where then like all it, it was, it's a good perspective for anyone who wants to think like, do I actually want to be a part of Hollywood? And I kind of think I don't and I'm just fascinated in it. Like, I don't, I understand authors who sell the rights and they're like, you guys can do what you want to do.

It's a different beast, right? Yeah. Different thing. Yeah. Yeah. And so they basically have to come back to these writers over and over again. All this higher level stuff has been happening that we've been following in the episode. And then these two writers who are like really passionate about a movie, they're like, yeah, you're going to have to completely change this, this and this about it. And they're like, we won't be the right people to write that movie anymore. Then it's even like thinking about being a writer in Hollywood. Like the people who do that and I'm glad there's so many I love. who have produced so much great shit. Yeah. But like that is another kind of like determination,

but also I think ability and willingness to be super flexible. And I don't know if I have it in me. So that's like also why like even as I'm writing a book, I'm like, I think I think this is where it's at for me. For sure, for sure. Because you will get feedback from like an agent and an editor. But it is, um, money of which was like I have direct. experience with this that I can talk about with the lady upstairs of like a lot of it is about

making it like more commercially viable. But you're not getting notes from a million different places, which I think is where and like you're not getting notes to try to appease like a corporate sponsor, which is like you're not like getting, hey, this ads running so we can't be making jokes about this. Right. Right. And like and it's interesting. So I haven't gotten to that part of the show yet. But I have already seen things like there's one episode where they're screening a Ron Howard movie and it's like the best and they're like this is going to be the best thing he's ever made but like what they think is the ending there's another 45 minutes and they're like this has to go and it's it is and it's so funny because I think they're doing a good thing of showing

both sides of it right of like you can get noticed by a studio and trying to like make it to corporate but then it's also their responsibility to say like to save Ron Howard from himself and say actually your movie ends here and if you do that it's a great movie even though this is personal and you have to kill a darling to do it. I know. But that episode was so nerve-wracking. I mean, all of them are.

Yeah. The episode. Right. They're all very stressful. It has that energy. I don't know if you saw, what was the gyms one with Adam C, uncut gyms?

I don't know if you ever watched that. Yes. But you know how you're just like exhausted by the end of it? Sometimes like, because we've been watching it as airs each week, sometimes we get to the end of an episode. I'm like, that was only 26 minutes.

Like, I feel like I've been stressing for an hour. I know. I would capture that. I've watched a couple of episodes over the last week. And then I was trying to watch more last night so that we can talk about it today. And I got, like, okay, I can't binge this because it's like, it is too much for me to be watching it and just being like, oh, God. Oh, yeah.

You like think you want to binge it because it's like 26 minute episodes. But every week it would be done and I'd be like, who. Totally. Wow. Yeah. um did you see the one shot the one shot episode is the second one incredible just like it has nothing to do with our topic necessarily or even books but holy shit the layers of meta but also the same thing he keeps getting in the cringiest like messing things up in the cringiest way oh god

i found it so much oh my gosh and i just had to like resign myself to it and be like it's happening yes happening um yeah no i totally agree and like but i actually do think it has some stuff for us to talk about in there right like yes they want to put in this one or shot which is like a in in the episode that is itself done in a oneer so it's like a meta and they're talking about bookends and the show itself is that episode is bookends with a bookend i like streamed at it tyler's like it's a book end and i'm totally i love that too and but like it's this interesting thing of like so in the movie that they're shooting they don't have to have this one or shot but they want it because of the like sort of craft level of it and i do think it's like a prestige thing to do yeah

and i i think that i think about that with like i'm writing thrillers right i'm not writing the great american or like crime novels i'm not writing the great american novel which is fine like i think i don't have that in me i don't need to be in that space um and uh but also like for me as an artist like it is fun for me to insert those craft pieces that it's like I don't care if anybody else gets that like this is the thing I want to do you know and so I think that there is like I don't know there was that episode I did like that part yeah yeah because he and he his character Matt Rimmick is such a film nerd that's the other thing like everything we're saying he doesn't sound like a studio head he's a film nerd he's so passionate about movies and he's a people

a pleaser um but it is like the kind of monologue that you get from him well that's how they did it really well south sapperstein yeah is his friend and um what bookends the episode is them driving up to this and then they drive away but um he's explaining to him that was like a really clever use of exposition because tyler and i have kind of become exposition snobs but especially when you go to action movies. Sometimes you're like, I would completely enjoy this experience if you guys could just do better exposition. Like when it's cheesy, it sucks so much, but I thought it was such a good use of it. It sounds like, why does this matter?

Like, I don't care. Like, who cares about Wonders and then everything that you said? It's like, well, the people who think it's cool are the people who care about it. And sometimes it's fun to just throw it in, even though there's tons of stuff that's going to go over all kinds of people's heads. Totally. But it can also be like a shot. makes or breaks. Like, I really do love the film Goodfellas. And that one or the two are on the date and they go in the back of the restaurant. And it's just like, you get the same sort of overwhelming feeling that the

character, like, that's when stuff like that works, right? When it like you in contact with something that the movie or book is trying to do. Yes. And I think worked in this episode too, the oneer made it even more anxious. Like they're trying to get the oneer, which is in itself this like high, high intensity thing that they have like the golden hour and the actress is going to leave tonight and then itself the episode being in a oneer felt even more anxious because there's no break there's nowhere that you're like tapping out just the whole time you're like oh my god get out of there yes I don't that was the most intense one I think that one that one might be my favorite just because it had so much a meta part to it so and then there's something as in they're

even talking about things about it within it But then it's meta because it is, it is three oneers brought together. I did hear him say that. There are some where the camera swipe, but they reference the camera swipe in the episode. If you go back and listen, they're like, no, we're not using boot. But like that might have been like the one place that they had to to do it. But like doing that like making a oneer about a oneer failing. Like having three oneers in 26 minutes is still pretty fucking impressive.

Because every time anybody fucks it up, you have to go again. Like, I cannot imagine the frustration and high stakes of that. Like, oh, yes. Yeah. And I also, if this is too much of a spoiler, we can cut it out. Yeah, we'll just see. It's the first episode. But like, the laugh, I laughed when he's like, okay, we have to make this Kool-Aid movie.

And then Scorsese comes to him and it's like, I want to make this Jim Jones project. and you see it being like Kool-Aid. Like we could do and you're like, oh, no, that's not what they meet. But it was so perfect. It was so funny. And I knew exactly where he was going with it. And you knew exactly that it was not going to fly. Yes.

Oh, we were, we cracked up too. I was like, that is, oh, and even having Martin Scorsese like in that context. Totally. And then the ending and he like pushes Scorsese's dreams and then like bounces and Charlie's there. I'm part of my party. Someone's like, he's so depressed. Why would you do this to him?

And they're like, it was going to be his last film. They find out right before he has to tell him. And he's like, oh, my God. I'm not made for that. That is for sure. No, certainly not. Oh, gosh. Yeah, it is, it's so good.

But as we were kind of talking about with no notes, that's also like a big part of it is like they're obsessed with the commerce part of it but they do have to do it with like people who are actually creative as well and it is sometimes i wonder about that like how much how much do you change your story um i remember remember here we go back to ashley winstead um saying with oh we've talked about it with midnight is the darkest hour that her agent without giving spoilers was like do you want this to sit on an sFF shelf or mystery suspense thriller um and she was like it's gonna do better in the genre you already were in and sometimes i think about how like i felt the element of that in it and i would

have still loved if she wrote it the original way um but like at the same time, I do want more people to read her books so that she can keep writing more books. Totally. And that they're like, I'm curious to hear about your thoughts about like how much you think about commercial viability as you're writing and like if there's people would or wouldn't change. And I also think in Ashley's particular case, it's hard to talk about because I don't want to give away for anything. Yeah. Reddit. But she also, when I, I've talked to her about too and she talked about like there's a way in which, and I think this is true. Like you, it's one of the things is it's not fair to break a compact that you've made with the reader. So if a reader,

and I think that's where you see some books like there are some popular thrillers that kind of go supernatural without signposting that they're super natural and get backlash to it. Some people love it. But I think when you get backlash to it, it's because you have sort of not told the reader that this is what we're doing. And then you bring it in at the end. And it's sort of, like it's the sort of it upends everything that somebody things knew about what was going on in the world and sometimes that can work and sometimes it's a cheat you know what I mean I totally know Gair went on a really big rant about this on your episode so yes

like we agree yes and I'm not going to name any names but I have seen Garrett did if you guys want to go hear his names I didn't either but I but yeah but I think like sometimes you will see that critz often in like and I do think it's valid. I don't think it doesn't it doesn't mean that the author shouldn't have done it that way but like I understand why a reader would have the feelings of like okay for 90% this book was a thriller and then all of a sudden there's supernatural elements that I didn't know where like that kind of feels like okay I can't play along because you didn't I think that's a big difference yeah yeah is what you were saying with a sign posting like

and it's probably why when I heard that about her book I was like well I felt like that kind of was there if you were paying attention. And so and like also to be fair, it talks about vampires in the synopsis. So like, totally. But I know what you mean. There have been ones where like I was not expecting anything supernatural and it happened. And I'm like, what the fuck? Totally. And like, yeah. And it just, it's sort of it's like how mad do you want to make your reader? You know, like that's a question. I think everybody gets to answer for themselves. Yeah. Sometimes your publisher we'll answer it for you. But yeah, it's an interesting question. I am always interested in writing a book like a mystery that doesn't resolve because I think that like something I think is interesting.

And my agent keeps being like, I promise you no one wants to read that book from you. And I'm like, I want to write it. And she's like, cool. Right for yourself. Write a fan fiction or not a fan fiction. What was like the other? I can't think of what I'm trying to think of. Although I can look at you know like books like in the woods by Tana French like don't necessarily have a clear cut ending. Like I think there's ways people can and do do that. I will say if you want a rebuttal for your agent ever that I was just talking with Allison Bucola, the Ascent. It's out now actually. But her book revolves around a girl who when she was 12 years old, like she's grown up.

Nicole and her family like everyone in a call disappears and she's like the only one on the compound so then she has to go like live with an aunt who like doesn't know her basically yeah and now as an adult she's just dealing with all of what that entails um and then someone comes in her life and is like I was this person from your past and she's like is this can I trust them the book really deals a lot with like gaslighting how do you work yourself out after you you've been gaslit and told to not trust yourself so much. But where I'm going with it is a lot of the book was exploring how ambiguous a lot of her life is because of the cult stuff.

And ambiguity in general is like a theme in the book. And so then I was even telling her after we recorded so that I could give her spoilers. But I was like, I really enjoyed that like you didn't give answers to like these two things because it also fits how ambiguous and confusing her story is. So maybe there's like a way to be like, well, it fits the vibe of the book. Totally, totally. And I think that I think it can be done for sure. But it is also trickier, right?

And like how much do you think of stuff like that when you're working on your book? That's a great question. Because I think when I asked myself that question most recently, what it made me realize like I don't this isn't even a yeah it is a thought experiment in some ways um like would I rather be super financially secure from something that isn't writing so that most of the time I'm not against notes and I you know you like you do want collaboration you do I want to know what reader like beta readers think but would I prefer okay you know what I need to not be be scared to just say things that I would prefer would I love to have like book wild making 200 grand a

year so like I don't need to think about books making me tons of money so would I want that kind of power power or whatever or what I want one of my books to do like really really well sometime but you do have to craft with it in mind that you need it to make you money So like those are, I was like, which one do I actually prefer? Because I completely see the pragmatic part of wanting to make money with it. And do you want to, obviously? And then I'm like, oh, but is there a way? And there is, technically, where I can have more control over what I was writing.

The main thing that comes up for me when I'm writing on a less deep level than that, is how many reality TV thrillers there are. And I'm like, is that going to be hard to break the noise since there's like a decent amount of them? And typically I like counter to myself that like there is more going on. So I think there are more ways I could describe the book. But that one comes up for me sometimes. So what about you? Here's something bleak to say.

And I don't I don't mean this. thrillers are already a saturated market. It is really hard to break through the noise at any level at this point. So I think, I mean, this is advice I've gotten an advice I will get. I think you write the book that you want to write and that you want to, you know what I mean? Because you have to be most excited about it. Yeah. You know, like trying to write to a market trend, which I don't, that's not what you were saying and not what you're doing.

But like that is a thing people try to do, right? but like it takes so long to write a book and it takes somehow even longer to get it published that like something that was a trend five years ago might not be a trend now and so it is really hard to write exactly to the market specifications of what things are or like something strange happens like how how much must the conclave publicity people have been like the pope died like the day it went to amazon prime you know what i mean like it was a conclave awakening right What if there's like a crazy reality TV star scandal like the day your book is out on submission and people are like right with up, you know? And so there's like stuff that happens in the market that you just like cannot right for.

I do I do think about it. And I I'm always I always want to subvert it a little bit, which hasn't made some readers happy and hasn't boosted my sales numbers. Are we good with the dogs? I don't he just made like a sad sound like are you in pain or are you okay uh I was saying so you ask like how much do I think about it and oh yeah you know it is it is different right like when when you write your first book you get to like swing for the fences and be fearless and you're like you have all these hopes and dreams for it and then um and all of that is always true and but then you know it is more on my mind as I'm writing now my third book like having scrapped a book after a year and a half because I was really stuck on it and also my agent when I shared stuff with it

and she was like I don't think I can sell this you know and so it is something that's on my mind I always like to push the boundaries of things I always like to be sort of like I don't want to do it the way that I see everybody else do it and I don't want to but like part of the way that everybody else is doing it is because it's satisfying to read you know yeah it is like um there is a certain I do think about it for sure and I think about it now more than I ever did before I had a book published you know yeah and yeah it's which I think is good and bad I think it can constrain creativity a little bit but like if you do want to be doing this professionally and like published in a more traditional

manner you kind of can't not think about it you know right are you okay with only 1,500 people reading your book and your publisher saying they never want to work with you again like Yeah, you know, the consequences. Yeah. I know. It is hard to think about. And that, yeah, I see how it's the pros and the cons. So, like, in some ways, if you're trying to think of something unique, at least it might stand out against other stuff. But also, it's like, it's not, like, I love so many con thrillers. So in the same sense, you don't want to, like, keep yourself. from writing something because like I read all I read so many of them and I love those.

So I try to remember too that like readers read similar things. Like we do know that. That's why we can say subgenre specific stuff. And that it is actually a red flag if you're querying an agent and you say there's nothing like this on the market, which first of all, you're telling me we're probably not that well read because I highly doubt that like you've come up with an idea that has nothing in common No comment. Any book ever published ever.

But also like that signals to the agent sort of too. Like they don't know where this book goes in the marketplace. And you need to be like speak to that to some extent. Yeah. Unfortunately. I wish that like it was just pure creativity, but it really isn't. No. Yeah. It's not.

But at least it's not TV production company level complicated. Totally. Totally. and you're not getting notes from a corporate angle side saying, like, we need you to not say that about Diet Coke or, you know, like, and that it is, like, writing a book is kind of more a singular vision, even though you have input from your agent, your editor and all these different people and your readers.

It is very different, I think, than, like, somebody writes a script, and then an actor interprets that script, and then a director puts that together, and then an editor puts together like that's of it. You know, like there's so many ways that can become something very different from what was originally on the page. And you don't really have that with books

to the same extent. Go books. Go books. We love books here at Book Wild.