Bookwild - The Whispers by Ashley Audrain: Is It Even Possible to be a Feminist?

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

This week, I talk to one of my favorite authors, Ashley Audrain, who wrote The Push and The Whispers.  On this episode, we talk specifically about the inspiration and themes of The Whispers, and dive into what draws Ashley to write about the visceral, unflinching parts of motherhood most of us would rather not talk about.  You can follow Ashley on Instagram and GoodreadsAnd you can follow me on Instagram as well!The Whispers SynopsisThe Loverlys sit by the hospital bed of their young son who is in a coma after falling from his bedroom window in the middle of the night; his mother, Whitney, will not speak to anyone. Back home, their friends and neighbors are left in shock, each confronting their own role in the events that led up to what happened that terrible night: the warm, altruistic Parks who are the Loverlys' best friends; the young, ambitious Goldsmiths who are struggling to start a family of their own; and the quiet, elderly Portuguese couple who care for their adult son with a developmental disability, and who pass the long days on the front porch, watching their neighbors go about their busy lives.The story spins out over the course of one week, in the alternating voices of the women in each family as they are forced to face the secrets within the walls of their own homes, and the uncomfortable truths that connect them all to one another. Set against the heartwrenching drama of what will happen to Xavier, who hangs between death and life, or a life changed forever, THE WHISPERS is a novel about what happens when we put our needs ahead of our children's. Exploring the quiet sacrifices of motherhood, the intuitions that we silence, the complexities of our closest friendships, and the danger of envy, this is a novel about the reverberations of life's most difficult decisions. 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 

Hey, book talkers, books to grammars, and bookworms. Welcome to Between the Lines, a podcast where I go between the lines of some of my favorite books with the authors who wrote them. I am so excited to dive into season two of Between the Lines, but I'm even more excited for the first guest, and that's Ashley Audrain, the author of The Push and The Whispers. I am such a huge fan of both of her books, and I was so excited to talk to her about her most recent one, The Whispers, which follows four women, Whitney, Blair, Rebecca, and Mara. These four women all live on Harlow Street and aren't entirely aware of how deeply their lives have become

interconnected. At the beginning of the story, there is a barbecue at the Love Relief, and at one point Whitney finds her son, Xavier, doing something that he wasn't supposed to be doing, and she unleashes on him and says some strong and almost terrible things and then realizes that his bedroom window was open and everyone at the party just heard everything. Nine months later, Xavier falls from a window in the middle of the night and questions start arising all over the neighborhood. He's placed in a coma and we alternate through these women's perspectives learning what they know about what could have caused the incident and everything else that's going on in their lives. Anyone who's read anything by

Ashley Audrain knows how visceral and unflinching her portraits of motherhood are. And it's what I loved about both of her books, especially this one. And on this episode, we dive into what got her started writing, why she's so fascinated by writing about motherhood, and how it just might be impossible to be a feminist and a woman. So let's dive in. I listened, I actually listened to your interview on virtual book tour here this week recently. Yes, great. Yeah. I heard you talking about how you started writing at the same time that you became a mother. And so did you, was, were there times that you wanted to be a writer before? Or did that like come about as you became a mother? And like, do you feel like, creating life made you want to create stories. Yeah, yes, definitely, what you've just said, yes. Yeah,

yeah, it's interesting. I always wanted to be a writer. Like, if you had have asked me what I wanted to be when I was a little girl, I would have said, write books, right novels. So that was always something I just loved and wanted to pursue, but then life goes in different directions, you know, you sort of get swept up in, you know, young adulthood and making decisions about, you know, career and life and all of it. And I sort of let that go by the way. And I sort of let that go by the wayside and didn't like didn't pursue it. I didn't take writing in university or college or anything. And then yeah, I was working in public relations for like for a while like for my whole career basically and then had done publicity for Penguin Canada and from Toronto. And then went

on maternity leave and had my son. And I had always planned to go back to work after. Like I really loved my job. But he had some health problems when he was born and we were like in and out of the hospital a lot. And I just realized that, you know, he had some complex. needs associated with that. And I thought, okay, I'm not going to be able to go back to like work in the same capacity that I did before. Like I couldn't wrap my head around how that could work. So I decided at that time, like he was about six months old. And I thought, no, like, what I really want to do is right. And like, this is my chance. This is my moment. If I'm not going back to work, like, this is what I'm doing. So I started writing the push at that time. And you totally nailed it with

like the idea of like you, I don't know that for me, there was something about like giving birth and creating life that was so like I just felt like I had so much creative energy at that time. I didn't have any other energy, but I had creative energy. Right. It's such a tired, like hazy time, you know, having a baby. But I really felt like I just had that. Like that was what I, that was what I was feeling was creative energy. Right.

Right. That was so cool. So you said you didn't like go to school for it or anything. When you started writing, how did you like develop your process? So did you do research or was it kind of like intuitive? How did that go? You know, a lot of it I think is sort of intuitive. Like I think writing like I, you know, actually once I was working in public relations like after I graduated, I would do often do just like community college night courses or weekend courses on fiction writing just to like get into it and be surrounded by other writers. I met some like really like interesting people

who I normally would not cross path with, but we all. loved writing and kind of would, you know, share work and workshop stuff. And that was, that was a great experience for me. Like, that was the first time I felt like, okay, I'm trying this. I'm actually like giving this a shot. And I wasn't working on a book at the time, but I was just kind of experimenting with like what it felt like to put your voice on the page, you know. And so that's kind of how it started for me. I mean, I definitely learned some basics there, but I think I pretty quickly learned that like you can get that stuff from a writing class, of course, but you just have to do it. Like, you just have to sit down and do it.

And the only way your writing gets better is just to keep writing and show it to people and, like, be open to critique and open to feedback. So I didn't really know, like, quote unquote, how to write a novel when I started writing this. But I thought I read so much. Like, I think if you're like a voracious reader, like I know you are like so many of us are listening to this, you sort of, you sort of, you sort of, it's like that's its own study, right? Like once you, it's going to have a 10,000 hour rule sort of thing, you know. But I think reading contributes to that as a writer. Like I think those reading hours are training. They're really training.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're just like being around other versions of it too. Mm-hmm. Exactly.

So are you a plotter or a panzer? Do you plan or does it come to you as you're writing? I really wish I was a planner. I wish I could do it and I just can't. I just can't. Like I feel like I didn't know enough to plan anything with the push. I feel like I was really just doing it. And I didn't.

And also I didn't have a lot of time. Like I'm, I remember drafting the push. It was like in fits and spurts kind of like when I could find childcare or, you know, once my son like could go to a preschool, then I had some time. But so I feel like the planning was just like there was no thought that when I just was kind of like scene after scene. And really I just did it scene by scene.

Like what would be interesting to me? What do I want this character to do next? And sort of the same thing with the whispers I had a bit more of an outline. But when I look at what the outline is like when I'm. look at what the outline was and what the book is now, like it's, I mean, it's totally different. So I think I think what I've learned about myself as like a writer is I, I need a lot of revision. I need like a lot of time for revision. I need a lot of feedback. Like my, I know everyone says this at their first drafts are really bad, but like I feel like mine are actually special,

especially bad. I just, yeah, the revision is worth that for me. So I feel like I need to leave room. We need to leave room to like change things and open fall in. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as long as you know it works for you, it's kind of like, who cares how you go about it. Yeah, it's a learning process. That's for sure. So what kind of idea normally comes to you for your book? So like, do you have a scene, a theme, a person, like what normally like kickstarts your writing of a book? Oh, good question. I think it's been a little different each time. With the push, it was more of a theme. Like I knew I wanted to write about this darker side of motherhood.

I had just become a mother. I was just immersed in that world. And I just was so consumed with this question of like, why does everyone say it's supposed to be one way? And we all keep saying it, but it's actually a different way. Like what is that disparity? And why do we keep doing it?

So that was something I wanted to write about there. And in The Whispers, there was a few like plot points that I was sort of really stuck on that I wanted to write about. There is this incident in the book and this doesn't give anything away because it happens very early. But, you know, there's an incident in the book that happens with, like, a little kid who falls

out of a window. And I was living in this house at the time that had, like, a very sort of similar window in my child's bedroom. He was, like, too young at the time to, like, you know, get out of it. He was still in a crib. But, like, the window was really low to the ground and there was no lock. And it was, like, so high up. And I just always, every day, I was like, oh, my God, what if a child did this?

Like, what if? And so that kind of stuck in my mind. And I was spending a lot of time at the hospital at that time, the children's hospital with my son. And I kept thinking about like that environment and that dynamic and families there. And so there was all these little things. Like also I lived next door to this really wonderful like Portuguese family. Like the parents were in their 80s and they didn't speak English. And that became sort of this, you know, part of the plot and part of the character.

So I feel like at that time I was kind of collecting these things that were just really of interest to me. And they all kind of came together to be the wisdom. first. That's really cool. It is kind of like, I feel like a lot of, or I've talked to authors where it is just kind of like the random things that are happening in their life are like influencing it the most and it does make sense. Like that's like what your brain is most like used to or whatever. Yes, definitely. And I think that I was like I had the idea earlier, but I was revising it during the pandemic. And there wasn't a lot going on in that pandemic obviously, right? Like our lives were so insular at that point.

Yeah. And this book actually feels quite insular. Like it's very close to home. It's very set in homes. It's very much about sort of only the people you can see when you look at your window, you know. And so I think that all kind of probably fed into it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So with with the push and the whispers, you really dedicate looking at like the visceral and like unflinching parts of motherhood. So what do you think draws you to kind of like exploring the parts of motherhood that we don't always talk about or see? Well, I was always really interested in just this idea of motherhood, like long before I had kids myself.

Like just wondering why women do it. You know, why do women make this choice? Like, why do we do it? What, what is the like instinct to be a mother? What is the drive to want to do it? Like, yeah. And I sort of was like pretty, I didn't know if I would want to have children or not. for a long time.

And obviously we did. But I feel like that I, that question always interested me. And then when I became a mother myself, like I said, like I, you know, obviously had like a challenging experience with a kid that had health problems, but, which like heightened a lot of things. But I like really felt like even just looking at the mothers around me and like all my friends having their kids at the same time. And it really felt like there was still this pressure to like present as a certain way as a

mother. You know, like there's things you're supposed to. say and you're not supposed to say. There's like ways you're supposed to behave and you're not. There's things you are not supposed to confess. Like there's, you know, and it's just, it's so funny to me because like we've come so far as women in so many ways, you know, but there is something really like remaining about that. And so I think that's part of what interests to me, like that darker side that we're often so afraid to talk about or think about, but that is inside everybody for sure, you know. I love the epigraph that you had.

at the beginning. Oh, it says what I increasingly felt in marriage and in motherhood was that to live as a woman and to live as a feminist were two different and possibly irreconcilable things. That's Rachel Cusk. So how did you go about like translating the truth of that quote into like four different women? Oh, thanks. Yeah.

I, you know, I found that quote like at some point while I was kind of working true. revisions in the book. And how I found it was I was, I read, so Rachel Cask, if people don't know, she's a, you know, wonderful literary writer who, she wrote two books, two memoirs about, one was about the end of her marriage and the other one was about motherhood. And at the time they came out, like, they were quite bold. And she was pretty much vilified, you know, in a lot of places for like the way that she was speaking about both of those things and the, and like the truths that were on the page. And so I had read, I read aftermath, you know, one of her books. And then which I really loved and then was sort of doing a deep dive.

Like, you know, sometimes you finish a book and you just want to go back and read like. Yes. What were the reviews like? Like, wanted to read her interviews. And she had an interview and she said that quote in one of the interviews I read. And it really stopped me in my tracks like that quote and that idea. And I think it's because it does like there is truth to it. Like it's a that is a very uncomfortable idea for so many of us.

But there is a lot of truth to it. And I think we spend a lot of time. you know, as women, as young women, I think so many of us feel like very loud, proud feminists, you know, and we like grow up feeling that way and we have these like ideas of who we're going to be in the world and, you know, the power that we're going to have and the like the influencer, like all of those things, you know, that we grow up, like we take women's studies courses. We talk about it. We read about it.

And then we sort of, for some of us, like we sort of hit that midlife point where you are a mother and you are somebody's partner and you're taking on like all of a sudden you look around and you've taken on all of these very traditional roles, you know, in a family. And the power is not balanced whatsoever. And that's not a knock against like a partner or the husbands we chose or whatever. It's that is a larger societal thing, right? That is like an ingrained thing in our culture. And so that just really got me like that quote because there is so much truth to it, although I don't think many of us feel comfortable with that or would want to admit it. And it just and it just, when I read that, I was I was obviously said working on this book.

And I thought, oh, my God, this is like exactly what I'm writing about. This is exactly how these characters feel. Yeah. Yeah, that was running me because even in the push you touch on, like, even like the fact that when you were saying, like, it's not a slam to our partners or anything, like, they also can't physically have the babies. So like the push you've been explored a lot of the, like, her body was like the source of everything for their family just because it only could be hers.

That's right. Sort of that physical demand. Yeah. Yeah. definitely um so in some ways this is the first sentence of the book it's like a little bit after the kind of like prologue section um and it starts off saying there's something animalistic about the way the middle aged adults size each other up while feigning friendliness in the backyard of the most expensive house on the street and i love when first sentences like pack the punch of the whole

novel like this one did oh thank you thanks you're welcome um so So were you intentionally focusing on like how animalistic even the most kind of like boring suburban people can be? Yeah. Yes. I just thought that yeah, that really sums up like those kind of situations, you know, where it's like that dynamic in this backyard party where all the families have gathered and it's the end of summer.

And Whitney, one of the main characters is hosting and she wants it to be this very picture perfect backyard scene. She does have the nicest house on the street and the most put together family. And I love the idea of like everybody gathering there and kind of just really like looking each other up, you know, like what have people worn? Whose kids are behaving? Like what is everybody eating or who is drinking too much? Like but and yet, you know, that whole scene, everybody is very much like saying the things

they should be saying and complimenting the things that they should be complimenting, you know, and then you can sort of just see the like, you know, two friends in the corner kind of like making a side comment about something that the host is done, you know, it's that, it's that it's so uncomfortable. But I think it's like a party we've all been to. It's like a scene we've all been to. And it's just, I think at the root of that is this idea of like envy and judgment, you know, which is a huge theme in the book, you know, between all of the friends or between all of the four women, you know, the things we envy in each other and the things we judge about each other. And what is that really saying about, you know, ourselves and what we feel like we're missing in our

lives. So that was really the kind of the heartbeat of that scene, I think, is this feeling of envy. And with kind of like with the judgment part, what I thought was so impressive was like, we know that like all of most of the characters have done some pretty questionable or like easily judged things. But you feel empathy. like within your within their chapters because like just because you know where they're coming from. So how did you like, because the women are very distinct. They all approach motherhood very differently. But you still feel really empathetic for all of them at certain times.

So how did how did you build your characters? So I don't, you may not have plotted much of it. But did you like spend time with the characters before? Did you just like get to know them as you were writing them? Yeah. Good question. And yeah, I'm glad you felt that way because I feel like, I feel like that alludes to this idea of like the likable character or the unlikable character, you know?

And I feel like I really don't believe that we need to write characters that are likable. Like I don't really believe in that. I don't want to do that. Like that's not what I set out to do with the character. And I know some readers like that. Some readers don't like that. But I feel like a character doesn't need to be making decisions that we understand. you know, we don't need to like them as people, but we need to understand, we need to understand where

they're coming from, right? Like, we don't, we don't need to feel like, oh, oh, I would do that too. Like, that's, to me, there's a difference between like a character that's relatable, you know, and a character that we like. Yeah, so these characters do. They make, like, really questionable choices and they put themselves in some really tough situations and they have thoughts that we wouldn't necessarily want to have. But I think that's the empathy piece, yeah, is just making sure that the reader really feels like they understand where the character has come from, why they have done, like truly why they have done the things they have done, even if it's not something we would do. Yeah. And so I just think that takes work like with time, time and like revision work.

I think I always know in a first draft that like my characters aren't who they really are going to end up being. There's sort of like a shell of themselves at the beginning. And then it's like a building, like a layering on, you know, to make sure that they feel like solid and real. and all of that. Yeah. So I think time. I don't know that I could ever write, like, publish on a book a year schedule for that reason.

You know, I feel like I just need more time with the characters to figure this, to figure them out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When it's really character driven, there's like more to figure out than just like what's happening. Yeah.

For me. Yeah. I need to really let them like live in me for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Um, so I am going to ask some questions. They get into spoilers.

So if anyone hasn't read it. just pause, but if you've already read it, you can keep listening. So Blair's struggle with her identity as being a mother and a person is a really large part of her story arc. And at one point it's even like discussing everything she's doing on a daily basis. And it says, and yet Chloe's, her daughter, Chloe's needs consume Blair or Blair finds herself needing to be consumed. So how did you balance that like tug of war and Blair of like really loving being consumed by Chloe but like also wondering what it would be like to not?

Yeah, good question. Yeah. That was so core to her character, I think. Like so cool that that conflict is so poor to her. And she's just, she's given up so much in her life to like be this where she's at right now. You know, she gave up a career. She's like given up a lot of happiness in her marriage. She's like putting up with a lot that she doesn't really want to put up with, but she just feels like, well, I have to.

Like these are the choices I've made. This is where I've, these are the decisions that I've made that have like brought myself to this point. And so yeah, I think with her daughter, like if her daughter doesn't need her in that same way anymore as she grows up, then what is her value? Like she had put so much value in being a person that was just the mother to this kid, you know, and needed by her. And so throughout the book, we sort of see her realizing that that value isn't what it used to. to be, you know, it doesn't feel the same way anymore. It isn't doing for her what it used to do where she used to find, like, there's a line in there, but how she used to find, like, so much satisfaction and being her mother. And she can't reconcile that with how, like, empty she

feels right now, you know, at this midlife point. And we sort of see that that takes her to some very dark places. And it takes her to, you know, to make some pretty terrible decisions in the end as well. Yeah. You know, but yeah, she's really caught in a tough place. And I think it's a place a lot of women can relate to. I think that's like a really relatable place to be, you know, at the midpoint in your life, having raised kids. Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. So I always love when I find the section that kind of like gives the book its title. Oh, yeah. It was so cool in the whispers. So it says she'd once heard them described as the whispers. The moments that are trying to tell you something isn't right here.

The problem is that something. Some women aren't listening to what their lives are trying to tell them. They don't hear the whispers until they're looking back with hindsight, feeling blindsided, desperate to see the truth for what it is. But maybe she's just paranoid, too much time on her hands to think. Do you think less tragedy overall would have happened if, like, the women of the whispers felt like they could listen to the whispers? And then especially at the end there, do you also feel like it would have?

have needed to be that people would believe them too. Yes. Yeah, that's a good point. Yes. I think for sure. I think that there's so much, so many of the things that go wrong in this book I think could have been avoided if, yeah, there was the listening to those whispers and also the doing something about it. You know, there's kind of two different things. And I think like why I have so much empathy for these characters, even even in the instances where they don't want to listen to the whispers, they don't do anything about it is because like we all know how hard that is right that like you do have whispers in your life or instincts about things in your life that like you're just not going to do anything about it because the consequence is just too grave like the it's just going to like it's very hard for

you know somebody to like listen to an instinct and follow through with it and do something about it if the end result is going to blow up their lives right yeah and each of these women are sort of caught in that really like particular predicament so you can sort of understand like why they're doing the things they're doing um You know, but yeah, I think at the heart of it is like if we really listen and if we can do something about it, like, yeah, each of these characters, I think would be in a different place at the end of the book. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I loved both of your endings in the push and the whispers. And I feel like both of them are like they feel open ended, but they also kind of aren't because they still like answer some of the main like questions of the book. Like you're still getting a satisfying answer, but technically it's not like a complete conclusion. of everything. But I just loved both of them. But at the end of the whispers, you're welcome. Xavier wakes up at the end and he asks for Whitney. And when he's talking to her, he, I'm paraphrasing, basically says, what's going to happen to you when I tell them everything? And so I have a friend

who read this book too. And he thought it completely meant one thing. And for me, it was like open to interpretation. So to me, it was like he could be saying, I'm going to tell everyone everything, or he could be asking what's going to happen if I tell the truth. So should I not tell the truth? So were you trying to leave that open ended or did you have like a specific thing in mind? Yeah. I haven't like talked to readers about the ending yet. So this is fun. Yeah. Nice. Thanks for saying that. Yeah, I worked on this ending a lot. I revised it. many times. It's had several different endings, but then when I wrote this ending, I was like, no, this is it. This feels right. This is, this is the way to go. And I did play with the wording because

I feel like I do want there to be, I always love like some level of interpretation to an ending because I feel like it gives the reader like just a bit of agency and like how they want to feel like the book, which I think is cool. As a reader, I like that. I think it probably frustrate some people. But, I'm sure it does. But yeah, but I, yeah, I really couldn't decide whether I should be like giving Xavier this power at the end or not. And like how much I wanted to put Whitney through. And that was hard because I feel like I'm always kind of standing up for Whitney, you know, the choices that she's made and what she's done.

But I feel like, I feel like that to me like this was the right outcome was for him this boy to like for the very first time, like get some power back. You know, some power back. and somebody else who read the ending pointed out that like oh well in both which i did not consciously do but like in both the push and the whispers these kids come through at the end with like having way more power like over the adults than they should and i i didn't consciously do that but it is true you know in both books um yeah and so i'm not sure what that says but yeah i think it's cool yeah i i love just leaving it like that because to me too it was also like was the like even though obviously his relationship was really difficult with his mom. I think especially at

that age, you're still wanting to protect your parents. So exactly. That's what I thought was cool about it. And I think that's right. I think that you're absolutely right. There is this sort of loyal, like you are as a kid like your loyalty is to your parents. Like that is your world. Right. And it is so fraught like it is between Whitney and Xavier. Like what does that mean? Like what you know. So yeah, that's that was interesting for sure. Yeah. I loved it. Thank you, Kate. I'm sure other people did too. Oh, thanks very much. You're welcome. And it is out. It came out yesterday. So happy kind of late pub day. But everybody could go and get it and read it. Where should people

follow you to stay up to date with everything? Yeah, I am mostly, mostly on Instagram. So at Ashley Audrae on Instagram and I post most kind of stuff there. Also on Twitter at Audrae. Nice. I will add those links into the show notes so people can go there and thank you for being on the podcast. Oh, thanks, Kate. I love chatting with you. Those are great questions. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Between the Lines. And if you did, the biggest thing you can do to support the podcast is to go rate and review it on whatever platform you listen on. You can also follow me on Instagram at The Girl with the Book on the couch. And if you still need more thrillers in your life, check out Killing the Tea.

podcast where I talk to my friend Gare about literally everything we read.