How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S6, Ep4 How to Fail: Lisa Taddeo

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

Lisa Taddeo is a phenomenon. Although she is too humble to recognise that description of herself. But this is a journalist and author who spent eight years - EIGHT YEARS - of her life travelling the United States and embedding herself in the lives of three 'ordinary' women in order to report back on that hitherto unexplored topic: female desire as it really is. Not as pornographic exploitation or rom-com fantasy viewed through the male gaze, but as women truly experience love and loss and expectation and sex and marriage and crushes and abuse and threesomes and motherhood and daughterhood and sisterhood and all the liminal spaces in between.The resulting work of narrative non-fiction, Three Women, caused a sensation on its publication earlier this year. It shot simultaneously to the top of the bestseller lists in both the UK and America. Elizabeth Gilbert called it 'the best book of the year'. Dave Eggers said it was 'scorchingly original'. When I read it, I was blown away: I had never experienced a book quite like it. It turned out I had been desperately thirsty for these female stories to be shared, and Three Women was like a long, cool glass of water.I'm so thrilled to welcome Lisa as a guest on How To Fail. Meeting her was like falling in platonic love. She speaks so openly about crippling anxiety, losing both her parents in her 20s, quitting university for a boy and professional rejection, that I'm pretty sure you won't be able to help falling in love with her too.Along the way, we also discuss female desire and repression, the practicalities of writing Three Women, and her relationship with the women she wrote about.Thank you Lisa, for your work, your empathy and your humanity.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. This season of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day is sponsored by Sweaty Betty. I love yoga. I want to feel liberated and calm when I do yoga and I don't want to have to worry,

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Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Lisa Tadeo is a writer, but she is also, in many respects, a therapist, a confessor, a reporter, and an anthropologist. Her debut non-fiction book, Three Women, has already been called a masterpiece by Elizabeth Gilbert, riveting by Dave Eggers,

and has been credited with inventing a whole new literary genre, one that blends the detailed reportage more usually associated with an embedded war correspondent with a lyrical and gripping turn of phrase that makes it read more like a novel. The book is extraordinary in part because of the ordinariness of its subjects. Three women living in different parts of America whose attitude to sex and desire is at many points so relatable it hurts. There is Lena, a homemaker in suburban Indiana who is in the grip of an all-consuming affair with a man who does not return her love. Sloane from Rhode Island is married to a husband who likes to watch her have sex with other people. Maggie in North Dakota is struggling to come to

terms with a relationship she had with her high school teacher. Over eight years, Tadeo got to know these women intimately. She moved to live with them and shadow their lives. She taped thousands of hours of interviews. The result is a deeply immersive account of the erotic lives and longings of women, a subject so underserved by our culture that Three Women feels utterly revolutionary. It is unlike anything I have ever read before. In the end, Taddeo writes, it all comes down to fear. Men can frighten us. Other women can frighten us. And sometimes we worry so much about what frightens us that we wait to have an orgasm until we are alone.

We pretend to want things we don't want so nobody can see us not getting what we need. Lisa Taddeo, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. I read that sentence that I've just quoted and it's actually in the introduction to your astonishing book and that sentence resonated so deeply with me that I like dog-eared the page several times over, took a picture of it on my phone and it's a pleasure to quote it. And I just wonder, talking about what I've just described in the introduction, the eroticism, the longing, the yearning of women's desire and the fact that it's so underserved by all of our literature, it seems. Do you think the root of that comes from the fear that you described there?

Yes, I mean, I think that as women, we are so afraid of being judged by other women predominantly. That's what I saw across the hundreds of people I spoke to and the women all had men. I think, you know, men, we've been living in a patriarchal society for centuries. And men's desire is very straightforward. We are okay with it, you know, whereas women's is scary to men. It's scary to other women. When women want something, when they fight for something, whether it's a man or a job, it's almost seen as like aggressive and catty. And it's almost considered mannish more than it is a woman fighting for what she wants. I saw that just across almost 90% of the people I spoke to, not to generalise, but it was something that kept coming up.

And I'm so fascinated by how you found your subjects. Was there something that instinctively drew you to each one? Or was it a process of discovery? I mean, were there lots of people that you didn't use as case studies? Over eight years, I drove across the country six times. I also called lawyers, editors, psychologists, I would just say, do you have any patients or clients that you, you know, I didn't know, I didn't know what to do. You know, I was going to write about Desire. An editor, my editor had said, you can write about whatever you want. So Desire kind of came naturally after reading Gay Talese's My Neighbor's Wife. So it was taking the pulse of sexuality in the late seventies and early eighties. It was like about swingers, colonies,

and Mr. Talese very much literally immersed himself in each situation. You know, I read it. I was very impressed with the immersive quality. He spent a decade also. But however, it was told from such a male perspective. I think it's a great book. I think it was lacking the things that I wanted to hear about as a woman. And so that was sort of where I began from, to look for compelling stories that were also completely honest and ultimately that

people were going to want to share with me. So a lot of people who I had dropped off because I would say, you know, tell me as much as you want. And then if there's something that you don't want in there, we can take it out or, you know, so we would do that. And then we would, I would spend like five or six months out having moved into their towns and then they would say you know I don't want you to mention this part and this part and I would be like without that it's just a story about you know you working at a coffee shop and while that's interesting in a book about coffee shops you know it's a book about desire and so there was a lot of that so yeah it was difficult to find people And how did you make a living during that time? It was quite hard.

I mean, the advance I received for the book was very kind and generous. However, it was for a two-year contract, not an eight-year contract. So it was difficult. My boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, got a job at a local Kmart taking pictures. He had a very fancy photography degree from the Corcoran, but we were in rural Indiana. So he went to the Kmart and was taking holiday photos of families that you print out. So we were doing a lot of that. It was running on fumes to a large extent.

But Indiana was inexpensive, and I wrote some more articles, and it kind of, you know, it just, it was difficult. Did you ever once doubt what you were doing? Yes, every single day. I had no idea what I was doing. Until I finished the section about the housewife in Indiana whose husband no longer wanted to kiss her on the mouth, until I finished writing that, I didn't know what I was doing. And after I finished writing that,

I felt a little bit more like I had a nucleus from which to build on. It's fascinating that strand. So Lena, which is not her real name. So the only person whose real name you use is Maggie because it's a court document. Yeah. But Lena, I think so many women relate to because it's the sort of unquantifiable nature of unrequited love. And it's so agonizing because you can completely understand she's having this sexual awakening and Aiden her lover doesn't feel the same way and is it true that you actually you would follow her to the assignations that she had with Aiden yes I would either drive with her and like wait down the road or there was a winery right down the road. So that was an easy thing to do. Or I would go right to the spot. It was the river, which is where they had first, you know, used to meet each other during high school. And I would go to the river directly after she had

been with him to take in the smells and the sounds and be able to describe them. But also like the moment she would leave, she would call me and just give me a rundown of the whole interlude. And then there's one time and I quoted in the book verbatim because she just wrote me this Facebook message because she couldn't, I don't remember how texting quite worked at the time, but it was, she had to pay per text. So she sent me a Facebook message of everything that had transpired down to every single movement during their interlude. And I just reprinted it completely because I couldn't have done better than that. But the thing is, she was finding herself in those moments.

So it was less about sex, I think, than sort of regaining her sense of self after having been raped as a young woman and then, you know, a husband who didn't want to kiss her on the mouth. So there was a lot going on. And so her sections, the sexuality of them was less about erotica for me than it was about someone just truly being in love and seeing sort of starting to like themselves again. The Maggie story, I found the most heartbreaking because this is a podcast all about failure.

And actually, it felt like Maggie had been failed at every turn by the society that was meant to protect her. Was that difficult for you as a writer to be able to pass your emotion from the objective reporting side? Yes and no. I mean, one of the reasons I drove to Fargo the next day after having read her story in a local newspaper, I was working on something else. I was trying to get behind a lead that there were a group of immigrant women working at a coffee shop during the day and then being trucked out to the local oil fields at night to have sex with the men. So I was working on that. I was very interested in it.

And I thought it was going to be the next leg. And then I read about Maggie's trial, which had just ended in the local paper, like, you know, the text messages that they allegedly sent each other were not able to be recovered, because it had been such a long time, but the phone calls were. And there were these hours of phone calls after, after midnight. And for me, and then it was just like nobody was saying that. And I have the Twilight book where he wrote all of these post-it notes that said, I can't wait till you're 18. When you see the Twilight book with all these notes, the handwriting expert that they had was like the,

she said Maggie definitely didn't write them, but Aaron Canodal might have. It was a sort of, one of the jurors said that even if he had written those notes, she still would not have convicted him. Yes, it was difficult for me, but at the same time, I think that the only way to really tell her story was to remain very even about it. Because as I said to her at the time too, I'm like, you know, you're going to read things in this that are going to make you cringe that you told me. But I'm not going to

write this in a way that's completely as though I am taking your side. Because if I do that, it won't be real. You know, it has to be the truth. It has to be your truth and your story. And I have to tell it, it was a consensual relationship it was statutory rape but it was consensual so there's an element of that that if you don't say that if you just deny that and go into the sort of element of rape and grooming which is true but there's two sides to that story and if you don't tell the other one so yes I guess what I'm saying is yes I was enraged but I was also trying to be as even as possible I thought you did a beautiful job by the way of that kind of close third person and it was very even-handed

and I so felt for her because it felt as if Aaron Knodel who is the high school teacher who was accused of this got away with it because he looked like a nice kind of guy and he just won this award for North Dakota teacher of the year. Yeah. And so it was almost like the jury was hesitant to convict him because he looked okay. Yes, exactly. No, 100%. And that's what Maggie's mother said. She said, nobody wanted to believe this nice young man had done this. But it's easy in our society, especially prior to the Me Too movement to look at a young woman who, you know, from the quote-unquote wrong side of the tracks whereas Aaron Canoodle was on the right side of the tracks and to say you know she wants

to take down this man it's just easy to do that it's just easier to do that in art you know even now still there's something about you know the Madonna whore aspect that we hold almost every woman to that is so ingrained that yes. I am going to come on to your failures for a minute, but I just want to take this opportunity because there's so many questions I want to ask you, having read the book. What efforts did you make to disguise the identity of the other two women? Because I was so fascinated by the book that the first thing I did was go on Google and try and find out who they were by putting in Rhode Island restauranteur couldn't find couldn't find anyone um so good job but what did you do and did you talk to them about how you were going to protect their

identities yes I did I tried my best at first and then I would tell them because you know I mean they would know better than I would so I did my best and then I told them that you know I'm like does this I didn't change that many details but I think I changed enough to hopefully safeguard against that. I mean, not against, you know, but just people in their communities are the people I think that would be the most harmful. They'll try to find out. And that's something that keeps me up at night. Have the women all read the book? Yes, two of them have. The third one does not. Lena does not want to. It's weird. It's almost like she'd like write things on Instagram to me like, you know, the

book looks like it's doing well. I'm so happy for you. And I'm like, are you sure you don't want to read it? So Maggie and Sloan read it. And they surprisingly didn't want any omissions, which I was shocked by. They did both ask me to add a number of things, which was really interesting. And really, I thought added layers to it that, you know, hadn't previously been there. But they'd also been fact-checked by a professional fact-checker. So I think they knew what was coming. But I think for Maggie specifically, it was difficult to relive those things but a couple of days ago she actually sent me an email that said thank you it was like it's been like closure

at the same time I think she's very afraid of the same people who criticize her to begin with to do it again and do you think you're going to have a lifelong relationship with these three women now I would like to I hope that you know you know, everything goes well book-wise in their favors. They don't end up regretting the situation, which is possible. But I feel very strongly for each of them. I'm very invested in their lives in a way that, you know, I think would be completely sociopathic if I weren't. Yeah, I mean, I hope so. I still talk to each of them very often. Maggie, the most, probably like once or twice a week to just kind of keep her updated because she's the most, you know, it's going to be her real name out there. So. Next time you speak to Maggie, please do tell

her that I'm so on her side. I will, but she's actually doing really well right now. She's a social worker. She's helping people like herself who had been, you know, who didn't have a guidebook for this sort of a thing. So yes, I will tell her that she likes to hear. She didn't get any of that. She's been getting that now from early readers of the book. When people write things, I send her how her story has helped them because she didn't get that from anyone. It was shocking. So your first failure is related to a very dark period of time you went through in your 20s um specifically to do with your mother who actually is a very interesting presence in your book because you start off talking about your mother and this

incident that happened to her when she was a teenager and you say this beautiful this beautiful turn of phrase about how your mother's desire was never fully expressed but it was like she was I'm gonna get it wrong now but following a trail of footsteps through a forest left by your father yes oh my god it was so good that turn of phrase it's like again so many women of a certain generation will relate to that but the first failure that you sent me was about your parents dying when you were in your 20s and what happened next. Will you tell us about that? It was a very difficult time. I think the anxiety was just, and it still continues to this day, I suffered a great amount of anxiety and I wasn't able to really pull myself out for at least a decade.

I stopped writing for a long time. I didn't really socialise and didn't want to do that. I remember one of my friends set me up on a blind date and I just got up and left like without even saying anything. It was just, I was like, this isn't going to help. So I just wanted to stay where I was. And what happened? Because you said that your whole family died. Pretty much. Yeah. My grandfather, my aunt and uncle who had lived with us when I was a child. So they were like almost a second set of parents. They both died. My mom, my dad, my dog.

And yeah, it was like literally everyone except for my brother. And was it illness? My mother, cancer. My uncle and aunt both died in Italy. It was a very small town. I wasn't there when it happened. My dad was in a car accident. Yeah, it was a lot. I'm sorry. No, thank you. I wasn't there when it happened. My dad was in a car accident. Yeah, it was a lot.

I'm sorry. No, thank you. I had a miscarriage. So there was a lot of, and you know what's funny is the miscarriage, I'd almost gotten myself out of it. And then that kind of like just sent me like spiraling right back down. So yeah, it was, it was a lot. How old were you when you effectively were an orphan? Like how old were you when you effectively were an orphan like how old 23 when my father died and 27 when my mother died I wrote a story for Glamour called the 20-something orphan interestingly enough and it's so horrific because I was in the middle of like the pain so I think you know there's nothing worse than writing when you're in pain it just comes out all like rageful like

painful and not exactly well written. I think you need a good couple of years, at least I do before, you know, I can accurately describe something painful. But I wrote this story. And then the picture on the first page was me. God, I mean, I still I'm so like, I didn't want them to put it on the internet, because I didn't want it to be a record. It's me putting a Christmas tree onto onto the top of a car my dad's old car that not the one he had been in the accident and i'm putting a christmas tree on like this is me like i mean i can't you're all alone yes with my christmas tree and i don't know how you know sometimes there's photo shoots and they just talk you into doing these crazy things and i was like

i can't believe i'm doing this they did did my makeup in this like Christmas tree farm. And then they just like had me loaded on. It was awful. But I think especially as a young female writer, the whole disposition is predicated on saying yes to stuff. Yes, 100%. Yes. I mean, I just said it to you. It's wild. I think it's so, and I'm trying to do it less, specifically to things that don't mean anything to me. Like I wild. I think it's so, and I'm trying to do it less, specifically to things that don't mean anything to me. Like I was talking to somebody the other day, and we were talking

about how, you know, on planes and trains, and just on the beach, you know, if you'd rather be reading a book or just sleeping, and a man starts talking to you, and if you don't talk back, he's almost enraged. And I've done that so many times in my life I've talked I remember I was on a flight to Singapore once and I was like 25 and there was like a 50 something year old man on the plane and I was in my early 20s and he started talking to me like I was just talking to him it was like a long flight I was talking to him the whole time I started chewing tobacco that he gave me and you know I just look back at that and I didn't want to do any of that. So why did I do that? Oh, I totally hear you. One of my first jobs in journalism, I was asked by basically like an all-male editing team to try out an orgasm machine.

Yeah, and I was. That's not a euphemism. It was an actual machine that, you know, extracts onto ankles. What did it look like? It was like a little box, but box but with electrodes coming out of it and you literally put them it was like a sort of heart rate monitor but you put them on your ankles so they like shoot yes but it wasn't like an actual tactile thing no touchdown no and i must have been 24 and not one moment did i think i'm gonna say no to this because it makes me feel really uncomfortable and it did make me feel uncomfortable and i had a photographer come around to my flat and take a photo of me wearing it oh my god well at least you didn't perform it on the air no I didn't I drew the line that okay okay um but I do think it's you're so right that especially as young women

because you want to avert the threat or you want to avert the notion that you might displease someone you spend so much time forgetting your own boundaries totally why did you feel that the death of your family was your failure why did you choose it as one of your failures I mean to be very modulent my father called me right before he left work that day and I didn't pick up the phone he called me like every day like three times a day I was very much a daddy's girl and it was very like there were helicopter parents before it was like a term and I just didn't pick it up and it was one of the only times I didn't pick it up because I was like busy and I was like you know usually I picked it

up and I would say I'm busy but I didn't even do that and I just watched it go to voicemail I would say I'm busy but I didn't even do that and I just watched it go to voicemail and I'm sorry um so I just felt like if I had picked it up it you know so so then life has become for me oh my god I'm sorry I haven't done this please don't be sorry thank you so much for being so open so for me like that became like a sliding doors you know like the movie with Gwyneth Paltrow it became a sort of sliding doors thing for me so I the failure is not so much the not picking up the phone although I think about that literally every day the anxiety from that continues and I have not been able to get over it and I don't think I want to like that's the truth I've seen therapists have you ever heard of Talkspace? No.

So I've been very busy lately. I was busy finishing the book. And I also live in a very rural part of Connecticut. So I didn't really have access to going to a therapist. So there's an online therapist that like, I mean, therapy thing where they match you up with someone and you talk to them. Sometimes you can do Skypepe calls you pay a little bit extra for skype but for the most part it's just like emails and chatting so it was great and i asked her it was you know i went on for like a couple of months and i asked her towards the end i said there was something going on and i was like just tell me everything's gonna be okay and she's like i can't do that and so i literally hit cancel that second because i was like I need someone to be able to say I know that sounds insane it doesn't at all yeah it sounds like you want someone to parent you yeah a little bit exactly and I also just it's like look if everything's not okay I'm not going to

come after you and like I understand how life works I just want to be sort of coddled a little bit in that department so that's a failure for me my husband says I refuse to grieve my parents have you read the year of magical thinking so that I mean that to a t was my experience and my mother's so you know and whatever I'm sorry I'm like feel like I'm so I know it's about how to fail but I'm just like I feel like I'm not anybody sorry I haven't done this yet don't be stop apologizing you're being amazing this is exactly what this podcast is about so you're fine um the anxiety did it get worse because you're now a mother yeah oh it's hideous I mean who told me who thought I should have a child not I mean it is absolutely insane because it is I'm just awful Like she said to me the other day, she was playing with her friends on a swing and I

went up to her. I walked by her and she's like, don't worry, mommy. I'm not doing anything. I'm not going up too high. And I was like, you know, so this is another failure. I'm like, I should just not do this to her. And I'm like, okay, great. You know, like I'm just not like there's stuff like that, you know?

And my husband was saying like, you know, I think she really, she could, and she loves riding horses. I don't want her to ride horses, you know, because I'm scared of. So it's literally everything. How old is she, your daughter? Four. So you see, another way of looking at it is that she knows how much you love her. There is no way she could not know that. That's true.

That's true. Except for when we hiss at each other. Because she's a real something. That's true. That's true. Except for when we hiss at each other. Because she's a real something. She's like a little demon. But yes, she knows I love her. One of the best and slightly random pieces of advice that my own mother gave me, because I was a massive worrier as a child. I was very anxious, worried about lots of stuff.

She said to me, if you've worried about something, the chances are that it won't happen. That's exactly how I feel. And I still feel that way. I'm like, just've worried about something the chances are that it won't happen that's exactly how I feel you're and I still feel that way I'm like just to think about all the things I'm like air conditioners falling out of windows check you know all the most traumatic things the most unexpected yes if you just think about them yeah I told oh my gosh your mom what a wonderful piece of advice perhaps see that's what I mean. See, constant failure. I'm like, literally, I'm like, that's not supposed to be it. Like, you're supposed to think against that. I think whatever works to get you out of a patch of anxiety.

Totally, totally, 100%. As I mentioned there, your mother is a presence in Three Women. And actually, mothers generally are a massive recurring theme in that book in quite a worrying way because I feel like part of your thesis is that a woman's desire or lack of or warped sense of self is so often an inheritance from her mother yes totally well that's what I've said this a couple of times and I really believe it we talk all the time about daddy issues and men, it's a very male notion even. It's like, oh, she has daddy issues and that's why she's easy or whatever. But nobody talks

about mommy issues, you know? And I think that that's, or they talk about men with mommy issues. It's always flipped. And for me, I clearly have mommy issues. I sort of feel like I'm making my mother out to be this, you know, she was really just an Italian woman from a certain generation. But she said to me once, you won't be a good mother. I know, isn't that? And I think, of course, I think about that every day. But at the time, much like Lena, who had been raped as a young woman and said, well, I never got a disease from it or got pregnant, so it's fine. You know, we metabolize these things. But when it comes to my mom saying that, it was like, you know, she also put the strands of hair from people that she thought were going, were like malevolent into the freezer and froze them so that it would be like, so, you know, I clearly, there's a little bit of this,

another kind of magical thinking going on that I've come from. But yeah, I mean, you know, there's sort of paralyzing things that our mothers can say to us that just stick there forever in a way that I don't think fathers really do. Because I also think men are less good at hurting in a certain way. Their methods of hurting are more experiential rather than vocal. And the vocal stuff is the kind that like just pings around in your brain, at least in my experience. Let's talk about your relationship with other men as an adult, because your second failure is how you transferred from New York University to Rutgers. Have I pronounced that correctly? Which is a state school for a boy. So tell us that story.

You know, and he's one of my best friends today. So however, I did not have to transfer to keep him as a best friend. That's why I was so drawn to Lena. And, you know, people have called her situation pathetic, which I think that we've all been pathetic at a certain time. And I certainly have been. So I still am in different ways. She was chasing after this man, and I have done that. And with that boyfriend, he, you know, we had a relationship.

He loved me. I made up all these excuses for why I've done things in my life. You know, and I always say that, like, I think, he, you know, we had a relationship, he loved me, I made up all these excuses for why I've done things in my life. You know, and I always say that, like, I think like moving across the country for a job is fine. You know, everyone's like, oh, but if you move for a love interest, everyone's like, you know, he might not even stay with you. And it's like, well, the job might not keep you on. But that said, I do think it was a failure on my part. I think we should be generous to people who do that to each other because we do. We all do that. Men do it. But yeah, we like when we're in a position of where we think we're in a better place, we kind of are like, oh, that's pathetic. Like the word

pathetic, I don't think has any place in the world. I don't think it should be there. It's like we're all pathetic. What does that word even mean? So I was pathetic, though. Having said that, I had almost a full scholarship to a private university where I was in a class with seven other people studying Virginia Woolf. I moved to a state school where I had to pay. It wasn't much, but it was still, I had a free ride to a great school. Not that Rutgers isn't great, if anyone there is. But, you know, I was all of a sudden in a lecture class of 200 people studying, like, you know, elementary Shakespeare. So, I don't know, I just got there and it was like, just, what am I doing? I kind of felt that right away.

But I was also always scared of losing a person, you know, and way before I lost my father. And then that only kind of perpetuated the feeling. But yeah. You had some kind of choice roommates. Oh my gosh, it was awful. The first roommate who I had at NYU was a young woman named Jenny who would eat out of a dog bowl that said Jenny on it. Like literally it was a dog bowl. And she would leave it on the bathroom floor. We had our own bathrooms. And I also left a place with private bathrooms, which is rare in college.

And she would leave it on the bathroom floor. And one time she built a Q-tip castle out of used Q-tips using the wax to kind of like, I'm sorry, I know that's disgusting, but it's true. A Q-tip is a cotton bud that you put in your ear, isn't it? Yes, sorry. The brand name, we use the brand name as a kind of like Kleenex as tissue. But yeah, so she used ear swabs that were used to build very intricate little castles. Oh, wow.

And then when I moved to Rutgers, I stayed, I moved into an apartment with my then boyfriend and another woman named Christina who, I mean, she would sleep outside on the deck. She would, one time we came home and she was just using a vibrator in the couch, like in the middle of the room in the middle of the day, kind of shamelessly. It was just, it was quite, and also, oh, on my birthday, but like I came home and I was going to take a shower to go out that night and there was cat litter in the tub. And her reasoning was that she was just trying to like get rid of the cat litter to change it because we had told her to change it we're like you got to

change the cat litter and I'm like why would she's like I thought it would just you know and I'm like but why would you put something that's meant to absorb in a shower and this the water is just going to impregnate the smell it was horrendous yeah so I moved from well I did move from one terrible roommate to several more but was the boyfriend appreciative. Yeah. So I moved from, well, I did move from one terrible roommate to several more, but. Was the boyfriend appreciative? One of the reasons I moved was because being in New York, I was going there to see him more than he was coming to see me. Not because of a lack of anything on his part, because we were committed to each other. it wasn't, but it was just, he would be fine with not having seen me as much. I was not fine with it. I was always also nervous and jealous. You know, I don't know where that jealousy came from, but it was very much a part of my life. And I'm

sure it would be there. I trust my husband very much, but that part of me is not gone. And I don't think it ever will be. But it feels like a lot of women do the emotional labor in relationships so they are the ones who go and stay in the apartment yeah yeah do you think that part of the reason that female desire has been so marginalized and so underexplored until your book is that we fear its power yeah I mean you know do you guys have the incel community here? Okay. It's the same sort of. So, I mean, I think that's one of the reasons for its uprising,

these people coming out of the woodwork, is because, you know, there's the Me Too movement, and then there's just women kind of talking about their desire more. Men have always been able to say that they like attractive women. Women saying they like attractive men is disastrous for these men. It doesn't even matter if they're unattractive, they just feel unattractive. But whereas women who feel unattractive end up feeling bad for themselves and, you know, just doing a bunch of things, men who feel that way just take out their rage on the women who want

something that's not them. So I think that's coming out because of women showing their desire. We don't want to see that. Women don't want to see it. Men don't want to see it. It's just nobody wants to see it. And it's sad. And what's been your own relationship with desire as a woman? What have your relationships looked like? I mean, you talk so lovingly of your husband, and it sounds like he's a good one because he packed up and moved around the country for you have you always felt connected to your desire yes but I felt like my desire was more so something that wounded me it was more like Lena is the one that I I associate myself the most with which is funny because so many people have said you clearly are like Maggie someone said that because my mom was like Sloan. I'm like, my mom was nothing like Sloan. People have had different reads of the book period. But for me,

Lena is the one that I align myself with the most. So for me, I was never trying to serve a man's desire, but I think my desire was largely performative. And I derived pleasure from being something that would be wanted. It's very recessive. Because who I am deep down, like I want to be in charge of everything. Now with my husband, because I feel comfortable, I'm very like, you know, he is watching our daughter right now. I'm just like, I'm doing this, we're doing this. I am very much like my father, but I have acted like my mother, like most of my adult life. And, you know, from my teens on, because I've been afraid. And I think that's what happens. Like my dad told me that I could do anything I wanted.

And my mother, you know, was like, because she came from abject poverty, told me that nobody could have what they wanted and including me. So, you know, having those sort of dual energies in me, I think that I spent the first half of my life being like my mom. And now I think this is who I am more, but I bet that if something happened and I were back, I would do the same things again. I don't know that I've learned

because I don't know that our desire really changes so much. At least I don't think mine does. I feel like it doesn't change. It reveals itself. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yes. And I think that's why your book is so important

because it's changed how I view my desire. And I wonder if writing it changed how you viewed yours. Yes. I mean, I was able to come to terms with... I've also, you know, one of the things the book did was bring up things that I had not thought about, like sort of not even the bigger things, but the tiny little rapes that happen, you know, every day to women, especially when you're young. Just these little things that

stick in our minds. I remember a man, just with that comment alone, a man who liked me that I didn't like back, an older man said to me something about, I had just turned like 30. So I wasn't, I was young. And he said to me that so-and-so didn't even notice me or something. He's like, you know, you're getting old when a young man stops looking at you. And it's a cruel thing, right? I've just thought about things like that. And there was a time when I was at a club trying to get into this music venue in downtown New York. And I was probably 14 or 15. And I went with my friends, we drank 40s, you got it was like a 40 ounce of beer, like that we like

had someone buy us, you know, like the classic teen thing to do. And we were waiting outside the club using our fake IDs. And this man who was probably in his 30s asked me how old to do. And we were waiting outside the club using our fake IDs. And this man who was probably in his 30s asked me how old I was. And you know, I was gonna lie. But then I was like, I'm just gonna whatever. I'm not interested in him. So I was like, I'm 14. He's like, Well, you know what they say, if there's grass in the infield, you can play ball. I will never so like stuff like that. And I've probably had like a thousand things like that said to me. I think we all have to some extent. And all those things kind of came bubbling to the surface. And I was just, so that happened. And I was like, I've let all of these things happen. That's why

my mother's, you know, this man who masturbated on her way to work every day behind her. It's like, you say that and it sounds shocking, right? But I think about all, I've allowed all of these things to happen. I still do. And I think to a certain extent, like, you know, men that we talk to, especially like, you know, do you guys, are you use the term woke right now? Okay. There's men who I feel like they're basically saying, and some of them have said, if I weren't so woke, I'd say you have a hot ass.

Like that's literally something that the people, that men still say. It's just that, so yes, we are getting so much better. But at the same time, at night, these things are still going. Women are still doing things to other women at night. Jealousy is still alive and well. I've learned so much about the things that I've done. You know, I mean, I used to like, I remember walking by a table when I went to the Kentucky Derby and seeing a man who was probably with his wife and a bunch of other couples. And I just took a piece of steak off his plate as I was walking by and ate it. You know, I don't know what I wanted. Like, what was I trying to do?

If a woman did that while I was sitting with my husband, I would probably punch her in the face. There's something about, like, you know, self-satisfied 24-year-old women that I was like that now I look at and I'm like you whore you know what I mean like I will actually think that sorry but it's like you're playing a game at that age that you don't know the rules the rules have been imposed by a patriarchal society yeah yeah just as you were talking there I was reminded of a guy who I had a very brief fling with that consisted of like four dates and when I called things to a close he said to me well as long as you don't change your mind in six months and come running back to me because by then your ovaries would have shriveled up and I won't be

interested anymore and this was a guy who knew I mean it's similar to you I'd had a miscarriage and I'd had very various fertility problems and similarly to you, I assimilated that. And all I said to him was, that's a bit mean. And he was like, it was a joke. And I allowed it to go. And it was only when I was talking to my friend afterwards and she said, I would have thrown a drink in his face. That's outrageous. And I think in the moment when it's happening to you as a woman, so often, again, your conditioning is to make things nice right for the other person exactly yeah like i think about gone did you read gone girl love gone girls so much it was the last book i tore through yeah she talks about being the cool girl you know that's i

think all any of us if we're not cool then we're aggressive and ugly what whatever, throw any insult at it. You're not cool. You're not. And we have this twin need to be attractive and cool to men. And I think that that's a deadening thing. Do you mind my asking how old you are? 39. So do you think things are changing for the younger generation of women? You know, I think that the younger generation is much less okay with things because of them growing up with the Me Too movement. Because of their growing up with that, at the same time, you know, I do worry about the cycling of things that we sort of cycle back in. But I do think that once we get older, I think it's better.

25-year-old women that I know are very vocal about Me Too. They get very enraged. But then they're still kind of chasing people at night in a different way, which is why I always think, you know, people have been like, well, what does your book say about Me Too? And I'm like, no, it doesn't really. We're talking about what we don't want, but we're still not talking about what we do want, because it's more dangerous to do that now and still. fascinating so your third failure is about your career which by all accounts from my perspective looks like a success but it's really interesting this because you you say career-wise there were thousands of mini failures but I didn't allow them to stay failed

because it sounds to me like you're a perfectionist yes Yes, I mean, and that's the thing. It's like, I was worried that if I failed at any of them, that I needed to not fail because there's too much at stake. Being a failure in the career sense or the relationship sense, I didn't want anyone to say that about me. And specifically other women. Like I didn't want women who didn't like me and who I didn't like throughout my life to be able to say something.

I think that's driven me my whole life. And so I think that's a failure. There is a thousand things that I should have just let go. I choose getting things right over being happy almost every day. Tell us about the Esquire story that you wrote. The one that you wrote and they said it wasn't good enough to put in the magazine. Oh, story that you wrote, the one that you wrote, and they said it wasn't good enough to put in the magazine. Yeah, the Heath Ledger one. So yeah,

that's an example of my doing that. And sort of like, I mean, I'm happy I did it. Don't get me wrong. My father had just passed away. My mother was about to be diagnosed with cancer. So it was a very troubling time. And the editor of Esquire at the time, David Granger, asked me too, Heath Ledger had just died. And he wrote me an email saying, how did Heath Ledger die? You know, tell me, go research as many facts as possible and fill in the rest with fiction. He's like, it can be anything. But most importantly, it has to be beautiful. Because, you know, someone had just passed away. I understood loss. But you know, at the same time, the idea of writing something that his daughter might one day read and is, you know, Michelle Williams, who was kind of his partner at

the time would read, I feel like I shouldn't have done that. Do you know what I mean? Like, maybe I should have said no, but I did it because I wanted to write a piece for Esquire would have been my first piece. So I wrote this really crazy, not good, not beautiful thing where I had like all these different voices in there, including the Olsen twin who, you know, was involved with him. So there was just like this menagerie of like voices and I handed it in and they wrote back to me, you know, that day it was very kind. It was like, hey, this is good, but you know, we'll probably put it online. And you know, now everything's online and it's probably better to be online. But it was horrifying at the time, because I just wanted to be in the magazine. I cried for like an hour. And then I stayed up all night rewriting it, smoking cigarettes with

my mother and not knowing that the cigarettes that she was smoking were going to lead to the lung cancer. Modulin again, but you know, everything that's just the way that I am. So I rewrote the story I handed it in and they said this is I actually said something like you don't even need to read it or not I just had to do it for myself which wasn't really true I was like you better read it and like put it in the magazine so yeah but I think of that as if and what was their response they loved it and they put it in the magazine which was cool you, and it's clearly what I wanted. But I don't know, I don't look at it as a success. I look at it as, as I needed to prove something. So I'm happy I wrote the story. But the way that I did it, I think that what was driving me was not necessarily.

So interesting that you were writing it in the physical presence of your mother. Yes. Who in many respects, to me, sounds like your judgmental voice as well. yes who in many respects to me sounds like your judgmental voice as well yes but you know more so than judgment she was kind of separated they both were in a way my father said i could do anything nobody really was reading my writing do you know what i mean i remember one time it was absolutely awful i gave them a short story that i'd written because i was always writing short stories and i heard like you know they like i typed it up on this like Smith Corona typewriter and I gave it to them and I heard them talking about and they were like it's kind of boring and I came down and I was like what did you say they're like no you know whatever

it's you know and I get all these things were happening like I wrote a poem when I was eight and the librarian called my parents in and said that why were you writing it for her so there were a lot of little things like that but I won a poetry contest when I was like 12 and won a thousand dollars there were a bunch of things that happened but my parents like did not really not that they were not supportive just they didn't get it yeah and do you feel proud of three women I do I do but like I said to you earlier pride is not an emotion I really have yeah it's strange it's like, I guess because I'm so in touch with my fear, I'm very self fear aware. What I want my goal in life is to this is the largest failure of all. My goal in life is to I'd like don't want people to hear this, but I feel like it'll be a success if I say it. My goal in life is to have enough backing and support and financial, etc. to coddle every single one of my fears. To get former Secret Service agents to bring my daughter around.

My husband and I have been the only people to put her in a car. And that's all my doing. So I'm completely off the reservation. Are you fearful of success? No. Good. No, exactly. That's, I worry about the women that I wrote about. I worry about them. I want things to go well so that I can do what I just said, but I don't worry about career stuff. I wish I could. Everyone thinks that I do and that I'm totally not being honest, but I swear I barely think about it. I don't want people to ever be alone the way I

have felt alone. I don't think they're sad stories, but there's sadness. Also, it's just life. It's sadness and love. It's like there's nothing else that's really going on. It's one or the other at any given point in the day or the week or the year. So I'm drawn to people and to not letting people feel alone. It's something that I feel very connected to. So I want that to happen book-wise, but I do not care about career in a sort of general sense. So have you thought about what's next? Well, my novel is coming out next year.

You've written a novel. I'm so happy. What's it called? It's called Animal right now. You've written a novel. I'm so happy. Yes. Thank you. What's it called? It's called Animal right now. Okay. It's about female rage. Brilliant. Have you read Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister?

No, I haven't read it. I actually have it. I had a galley of it. Well, she writes for New York Magazine now and I haven't in a while. But yes, so no, I haven't read it. So I want to. Have you read Elena Ferranti? She's my favourite.

Okay, because as you were talking, just talking about your mother, I was like, that is a character from Elena Ferranti. I don't really love My Brilliant Friends series. It's Troubling Love and The Lost Daughter and Days of Abandonment. Those books are just, I mean, I don't think there's anything truer about female pain and rage.

And it's so honest. And that's the thing that I think is so rarely out there. And people get angry at this book, I think, because of the honesty, because they don't want to look at the things that they do. And I think that that's a big deal. And I think that Elena Ferrante, at least it's fiction, so people can read it and be like, well, that's just fiction. And it's like, well, but it's not. I always think about Game of Thrones, and I think it's fiction, so people can read it and be like, well, that's just fiction.

And it's like, well, but it's not. I always think about Game of Thrones that I think is amazing. I've never read the books, but the storyline is amazing. And I'm always like, you know, these come from like real emotions, but he's so amazing at using those emotions and kind of adding dragons to them. Yeah. Which is like amazing, right? I think that Elena Franti is amazing. Lisa Tadeo, you've written about three women, but you've helped all women. And I just want to thank you so, so much, not only for writing the book, but for coming on this podcast and being

your eloquent and brilliant self. Thank you so, so much. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure. Sorry for crying. Never be sorry for crying, ever. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure. Sorry for crying. Never be sorry for crying, ever. Thank you. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.