Love Lives - Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan on gender identity and how to untangle a toxic political debate

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

This week on Millennial Love, we’re joined by bestselling authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan to discuss their new novel Mad Honey.We talk about the process of writing a book collaboratively, some of the questions the book raises around gender identity, and how our past shapes our future selves.We also discuss treating narratives about domestic abuse with sensitivity and care, how trans issues have become hijacked by a toxic political debate, and why it’s more important than ever to educate cisgender people about the struggles faced by their transgender cousins.Check out Millennial Love on all major podcast platforms and keep up to date @Millennial_Love on Instagram and TikTok.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more. This week, I am very excited to be joined by authors Jodie Pico and Jennifer Finney-Boylan to discuss their new book, Mad Honey. So it's a very unique and interesting book that I can't talk too much about without revealing much of the plot. But in this episode, we're going to talk about the process of writing a novel together, some of the questions that the book raises around gender identity, and how the person we were in the past shapes our present self. and how the person you were in the past shapes our present self. Hello, both of you. How are you?

Great. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much for joining us. So can you start us off by telling us about the plot of Mad Honey, what you can reveal to us? Mad Honey is the story of Olivia McAfee. She, years ago, was in an abusive relationship and she took her son, Asher, and she left for a new start. When the book opens, years have passed. She's now a beekeeper. Asher's 18. He is head over heels in love with Lily, who is the new girl in school. And then one day, Olivia gets a phone call from Asher. Lily is dead and he is being questioned by the police. And she begins to wonder how the past

really stays in the past or if it continues to inform your present. When I think about this book, it's about just that. It's about how we become the people that we're meant to be and how much of the past we have to carry with us to do so. And the reason I wanted to write it with Jenny is because it's also about what it means to be a woman right now. And Jenny and I have had very different lived experiences as women. So I thought teaming up would allow us to create something that really hadn't been done before. And how did you come to write the book together? How did the kind of collaboration process begin? Well, this is a really cool story. There I am in New York City. It's 2017, May 8th, 2017, in fact. And I awake from a dream. There were two voices in the dream. And one voice is a girl who's been murdered. One voice is a mother of the

boyfriend who's been accused of the crime. And not only was that the dream, but in the dream, I was co-authoring this book with Jodi Picoult. So I woke up from that and I thought, yikes, because I mean, my dreams usually a lot like I'm fighting a giant squid in the supermarket or something. But here's a dream where I'm co-authoring a book with Jodi. Anyway, I tweeted out. I just dreamed I was co-authoring a book with at Jodi Picoult. And 30 seconds later, I got a direct message that said, what was this book about? And I told her what I just told you. And she said, what did you say, Jodi? LOL, let's do it. LOL, let's do it. Well, we swapped another dozen messages back and forth, kind of talking about what sorts of things could happen in the book, what kind of things the book could be about. A couple of years later, we both found ourselves, in fact, March of 2020, with a whole

lot more free time on our hands than we ever expected. And so we got to work. I love it. I mean, I'm a big believer in spirituality and, you know, getting into like manifesting all that stuff, which people are talking about a lot more now, but that's like the classic kind of manifesting all that stuff which people are talking about a lot more now but that's like the classic kind of manifesting story well here's a dream but as a result of that dream we we have this amazing new book and also Jodi Picoult whom I'd never met became not just my collaborator but my friend and here we are in London talking to you I love it and obviously you know you make it sound like it was kind of seamless and perfect and And I'm sure in some ways it was. But also the process of writing a book on your own is hard enough. So writing it together when you both have very different writing styles and approaches to planning, which I think you both do. How did you kind of work on that together?

And I know that, you know, I think Jodie, you're quite a sort of like meticulous planner. And Jenny, I think you said you kind of like to see where the story takes you, right? How on earth did you make that work? I basically bullied you into outlining a book. It didn't take too much bullying. When you have a story that is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, you have to know where you're going.

So there's two voices. Olivia, who's the mom. Lily is the girl. Chapter one, Olivia where you're going. So there are these two voices. Olivia, who's the mom. Lily is the girl. Chapter one, Olivia tells you her story. Chapter two is Lily's voice. It's her last hour on Earth. And the Olivia chapters go forward in time. The Lily chapters go backwards in time.

Let's ask the question, whose idea was it that my chapters would go back in time? That would be my idea. That would be her. Why? Because I've written books in reverse, and it is really hard, and I didn't want to do it again. So I decided Jenny could take that one for the team. She said, don't worry, Jenny, you'll do it. But the other thing that we did was, you know,

in addition to kind of figuring out what the differences were in the way that we created text, we really didn't want this to sound like two author voices fighting on the page. In other words, I didn't want people to read it and think, oh, this sounds like it was written by two people. I wanted a reader to be able to pick it up and feel like I'm just reading a book that was written by one author. And so what we kept doing was swapping our chapters. It deserves to be said that for the most part, I wrote Olivia, and for the most part, Jenny wrote Lily. But we did say that we would each take one of each other's chapters, in part

because it's a really good way to kind of inhabit the other character. Also, because we wanted to give readers a fun little Easter egg, try to figure out which chapters we swapped. But when we would give each other chapters, I would heavily edit what Jenny sent me and she would heavily edit whatever I sent her to the point where we've gotten to this space now where when I pick up the book and I read a particular line, I honestly just don't know which one of us wrote it. Yeah. I was looking at the book when it first came out and reading like all of like my chapters because I was like so pleased with myself and there was and I and I started reading at one point and I was like this is amazing this is so cool I don't remember

writing this but I I just oh and then I was like oh wait that was the chapter that you already wrote and one of the things I want to ask you about again without giving too much away um you mentioned the main character Olivia she she had an abusive relationship with her ex-husband who she winds up having to call in for help when Asher is accused of murder. How did you go about researching abusive relationships in order to get that story right? Because I think it's so rare that we see abusive relationships

portrayed in fiction, not just in books, but I think in all the popular culture, conveyed accurately and sensitively towards the survivor, as opposed to these kind of like really aggressively violent scenes that we're so used to seeing. How did you go about doing that? The truth is I cheated because I'd already done this research. When I wrote Picture Perfect years ago, I spent a lot of time talking to women who were survivors of domestic violence. I went to a lot of domestic violence shelters. I knew very early on that I

wanted Olivia to be a survivor, and there were multiple reasons for that. The first reason is because there is an element of this book where every character in it has to question how much of the past they owe people in their future. And whether you are a victim of, a survivor of domestic abuse, and you, you know, you wind up in a new relationship years later, do you need to tell your new partner about that? What if you had an abortion when you were 16? Is that something you need to share? At what point do you get to keep your past in the past? And how do you make that decision? And, you know, we've been on the road forever now. And when we talk about that in front of a crowd, you can ask a crowd, what is the one thing that you were afraid to share because you thought it

would change someone's impression of you? Everyone has something like that. And it's different for everyone. It's worth saying, too, that there is an element in this book that has to do with identity and gender and the same question can be asked of someone who's trans. Do you owe your past to someone new in your life? So that was the first reason to have Olivia be a victim of a survivor of domestic abuse. The other reason is because one of the biggest challenges particularly in this country right now, to trans people are feminists who feel that trans women are not women. And the reason that they feel that, from what I can glean, is they believe that trans women are actually just

men, like wolves in sheep's clothing, going into safe spaces for women so that they can physically harm them. I wanted to create a character who had been through that, who actually had been harmed by a man and could still find space in her heart and generosity to have the empathy to look at somebody who is trans and find a way to connect in her soul with that person. Because I do believe that's possible. And the thing that gets me the most about that argument is that you should see you're on the same side. Because if you are a survivor of domestic abuse, you at some point had your body fail you. It wasn't't strong enough it couldn't stand up to violence

and if you happen to be trans you have had your body fail you it hasn't performed the way you wanted it to perform it hasn't been the way you wanted it to be and to me that just underscores the fact that we are all much more similar than we are different which really I think is kind of the touchstone for Mad Honey. Definitely and And that definitely comes across. And I think it's so important to hear those words coming from someone who makes art. And there's another author I'd like to send that to, but let's hope maybe she gets the message at some point. One can only hope. One can only hope. So obviously, we know that one of the characters in the book is trans. I'm

not going to say who, because that's part of the story. But I think what's really interesting is that obviously we don't find out until quite a way into the book. And that kind of taps into everything that you were just saying. So why was that structural choice so important to you? And what kind of message do you hope that that sends and conveys to readers? Well, we wanted you to fall in love with all of these characters as you learn about them as their lives are revealed to you. And we wanted to draw a line in some ways

between what that trans character goes through and what everyone else, I mean, there's every character in this book is dealing with that question of the past and how much of the past we carry with us forward. I'll tell you what, when I came out as trans, my mother said that she knew who I was and that she would always love me and that she knew that I was the same person.

So I got my mother's support because she knew me, because she loved me. She said, I would never turn my back on my child. Those were the words that were said by my 85-year-old Republican evangelical Christian mother. She said, love will prevail. Why? Well, because she knew me. So in the story like this, we hope that we give you the chance to fall in love with all these characters before you then learn the information that if you had it earlier, you might make a judgment about

that person and you might make the judgment based on things you've heard about in the news, things which might not even be true. There's a real kind of whataboutism that is now somehow become part of the, well, it's called the transgender debate, but it's actually, there's no debate. I'm here. There is no conversation or argument that we could have, which I could have in which if I were to lose that argument, I would somehow not exist, or I would not be exactly who I've known myself to be since I was five years old. So we learn who we are in this way, and so we reveal that in the book so that you don't have that whataboutism. You don't have the whatabout swimmers. Whatabout children on hormones?

Whatabout men in sheep's clothing? No human being is an issue. No human being is a question. People are people and trans people, just like anybody else, have to figure out a way of becoming themselves and living with peace and grace. So why did we wait to page 220 before you learn what's at the heart of this book? Because we wanted you to see the humanity and find some love for everybody first.

And it's worth saying that that's the magic of fiction too. Because when you listen to politicians and when you listen to people who are spouting inaccurate facts or who are writing very, very virulent emails to you about how trans women aren't women, they are repeating what they've heard. They are, like Jenny said, they're not thinking about the people behind those statements. And ultimately, that is what fiction does. The best way to combat hate, which is born out of fear of the unknown, is to talk to someone who is different from you and to perhaps learn that they're not as scary as you think they are. If you can't talk to someone who's different from you, you should read something they wrote. And if you can't do that, you should read something that was written with care and informed ability about their lives.

And that ultimately is, I think, what the book will do. 100%. I think you're so right. The power of fiction, the power of art to really convey a different message and get beyond the political rhetoric that we're so used to hearing and actually really tap into people's hearts and people's emotions and, like you said, help them see the humanity. And and also it's a very vocal minority that are saying terrible things um very vocal very vocal yes but minority is also important and part of the reason to write mad honey is not for the trans community which let me tell you they know what their lives are like it's for the cisgender community to be able to

have the vocabulary and a springboard for discussion. Because very often the reason we hear that vocal minority is because nobody else is speaking up against them because they don't know how. And what we hope is that the novel will give you the tools to speak up as well and to drown out that call. I think part of the problem is that trans lives can be hard to imagine if you're not trans. Because the thing that has defined my life from my earliest time in childhood is something that, if you're not trans, is something that maybe you've never even thought of as being remotely a problem. So the philosopher Edmund Burke called this the moral imagination. It is the ability to imagine what life is like for someone who is not you. And this is what fiction can do so well.

You can make you wear the shoes of someone whom, until that point, you've never been able to imagine. With any luck, it'll open your heart. research breakthroughs. But now is the time to aim even higher. Together, we can create a world where no one is left behind. Donate at camh.ca from November 25th to December 3rd, and your gift will be doubled for twice the impact. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly.

Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. comment I've never really thought about before. What do you guys think the differences are between those two things? Well, a secret is something that maybe you hope to keep buried. And maybe you have reasons of your own. Maybe it's something you're ashamed about. Maybe it's something just that doesn't belong only to you. Something that someone else has told you that you've promised not to talk about because it's not your truth to reveal. Privacy is something that often is not anything to be ashamed of, but privacy is something that's no one's business but your own. So just because something's private doesn't mean that there's any shame attached to it. There are a lot of things that belong only to us and we get to choose who to reveal it to and when.

I guess fundamentally it's about autonomy then. Yeah, and shame. I think what you're ashamed of and what you just feel is valid to hold close to your own heart for yourself. Not because you're being held accountable to other people's opinions and thoughts, but because it's important to you alone. And tell me about the choice to make Olivia a beekeeper. Why did you choose to go down that particular route? It's my favorite thing to talk about.

Do you just love bees? No, I knew nothing about bees when we started this. I just kind of knew that Olivia was a beekeeper. And then I started doing the research and I realized that apparently I was having a stroke of genius unconsciously because it all fits so well. You know, everyone knows that this is a book about what it means to be a woman, right? And everyone knows that bees are run by a queen bee. Hives are run by a queen bee. It's a world of women. It is a world of women. Or females. Right. So the hive is any worker bee in a hive is basically a female bee. They are nurse bees. They are forager bees.

They do everything. The nurse bees decide to create a new queen. And the way that they do that is by picking a comb cell that has a larva in it, which was an egg, and they feed it only royal jelly. If they choose a fertilized egg larva, that would have been a female bee. It would have become a worker bee, a forager bee, whatever. But instead, feeding it only royal jelly, it will turn into a queen bee. If they happen to choose an unfertilized egg larva, which would become a drone, a male bee, and they feed that only royal jelly, it will turn into a queen bee. If they happen to choose an unfertilized egg larva, which would become a drone, a male bee, and they feed that only royal jelly, it too turns into a queen bee. So you're saying that changing genders is something that exists in nature? Go figure.

And it's actually part of the natural world, part of the world that God has created for us? I didn't even make that up, Jenny. I mean, you know, and when I found that fact, I was like... Makes you think, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. Is there any trouble with any of these new queen bees being thought of as invading bees' sacred space? I don't think there is any gender discrimination in the hive. Once you're a queen bee, you're just a queen bee. I really love this quote from you, Jenny.

You said that all of us have something in our hearts like a flower that cannot bloom because it is held in secret. The adventure of life can be to get that thing out of the darkness where it lies and let the sun shine on it. I think that's such a beautiful way just to look at life generally. I wonder how you think that that phrase can be applied, I guess, to the book and how also you think we get to a point where we incorporate that kind of worldview into our life, because it's easier said than done to have that level of, I guess, self-compassion. I guess maybe that's where it comes from. Why are we afraid to share who we are with other people? And it's a very common thing, isn't there? Is there anyone who hasn't felt some fear about

opening their hearts and letting others know who they are? So why are we afraid? We're afraid because of how other people might react. We're afraid because the world is just a scary place and to call attention to yourself can be frightening. But sometimes it's just that we don't have the language. Sometimes we don't know how to talk about the thing that we feel. The sign language for transgender is, you make like a sign that looks like a flower, and then you make that flower open

as you change it from pointing downward to pointing upward, and then it goes back into your heart. And I just love the way that that sign, that symbol, it's a way of seeing the thing that we all know, that if you keep the thing that is inside you hidden and unspoken, you never quite become yourself. But if you bring it out into the sunshine, somehow, with courage, with luck, with good fortune, with the right kind of friends around you, with the right kind of family, then you can become yourself and live in the world

with grace and with courage. And again, this is not a book that is only about trans issues. It's not even a book that's primarily about trans issues. But I think the trans element in this book shines a light on all the things that we all go through, which is the impossible and yet necessary journey to become ourselves. I mean, we've spoken a lot about lessons that people can take away from this book. But at the end of every kind of episode, we have a Lessons in Love segment where I ask every guest to share something that they've learned from their previous relationship experiences. I guess for you both, it would be interesting to hear what you think. I mean, you can choose. Would you like to share a lesson that you hope that people take away from the book or something, something personal? Maybe it's the same thing. I don't know. Jodi, do you want to start?

When people ask me what I hope they take away from the book, the answer is I hope they take away absolutely nothing. I want readers to give. I want them to give a thought. I want them to give respect. And I want them to give a damn about people who aren't like them. I'm wearing a fantastic give a damn sweater right now. But jumper. Sorry, I'm in the wrong country. And. And that, I think, is what I want for this particular book. I think that relationship advice is something that you can definitely ask me because I am missing my 33rd anniversary to be here on Book Tour. Oh, wow.

I don't recommend that for a relationship. But it's funny because, you know, I have been married this really, really long time to a really incredible guy. And you would think it just gets easier and easier. And it doesn't necessarily get easier because you do have to adapt as you change. I know that the woman I am today is not who my husband married 33 years ago. And I'm very grateful that he took that journey with me. But this, this again speaks to

the fact that we all reinvent ourselves. We are all just our own best drafts and we're constantly revising. And if you start your relationship at 23, like I did, and make it to, you know, 50, am I 55, 56? I think I'm 56 56 if you make it to this age and your relationship is identical to the way it was back then you're probably doing something wrong so i think you have to hold space for people to not be rigid in a relationship and if you're lucky and and if you have grace i think you you reverberate with the person. Right. So when you are in love, you are in love with the person that you are with at that particular moment. And that's good.

And that's wonderful. We should all be so lucky to feel the joy that love can bring. But you're not only going to be with that person one day. And that person is going to change. And you're going to change. I'm in my 60s and when I look in the mirror sometimes I think whoa who is this little old lady and how did she get here? I'm not the woman that I was in my 50s. I'm not the woman that I was in my 40s. I'm not the

boyish looking person I was in my 20s. So how do we get here from there? And how will you get there with the person that you love as that person themselves also morphs and changes? And I mean, if you're lucky, if you get married at 20 and you are still married at 80, if you are lucky, you will have 60 years of change so when you think about love I think it's not only about thinking about who you are now it's also about thinking about who you will become but I will say that I'm not saying that love is all you need but it's it's pretty close that love has the ability. Well, look, let me put it this way. I got married 34 years ago when I was a boy, supposedly, to my wife.

And I hoped at the time that I would never have to come out as trans that was a secret that was private and it was a secret It was something that I wanted to bury way down on the whole and it was my lifelong Dream that love would cure me that if only I were loved deeply enough by someone else It would be okay for me not to become my true self because I was afraid that if I were my true self That I would lose the love of my life. Didi is the name of my wife. I would lose the love of everyone. After a few years went by I began to fear also what would happen to my to my children. What would happen to everything that I knew. So the thing is though love did cure me but not in the way that I thought. Love in

the end, because my wife Didi loved me enough, it meant not that I would be okay not being myself, but instead that I would have the courage that I needed in order to become myself. Didi stood by me and said, I will love you as you are. I will love you as you will become. We've now been married 34 years, 12 as husband and wife, 22 as wife and wife. We are now two little old ladies. The reason why I'm on of love, the gift of grace, and that's made all the difference. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you are a new listener to Millennial Love, please do subscribe to us on Acast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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