The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Writer Lauren Hough on Her Cross-Country Road Trip and New Book

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

New York Times best-selling author Lauren Hough returns to the show to discuss her observations driving across the country with her dog Woody, how a speeding ticket turned into a warrant for her arrest in South Carolina, befriending Andy on Twitter back in the day, and much more.  Do you want to talk to Andy live on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio? Tell us your favorite dinner party story (about anything!) or ask a question - leave a voicemail at 855-266-2604 or fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER. Listen to "The Andy Richter Call-In Show" every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific on SiriusXM's Conan O'Brien Channel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the three questions. I'm the host, Andy Richter, and today I'm talking to my old pal, Lauren Huff. She is a New York Times bestselling author as well as a former Air Force Airman, bartender, bouncer, construction labor, barista, and cable guy. I met her through Twitter back in the day. We were Twitter pals for a long time, and I've been a fan of hers forever. Her new book, Monster of a Land on the Road in Search of Modern America, is out June 16th. Here's my great conversation. with Lauren Huff. All right. Well, hey, everybody. I'm talking to Lauren Huff for the second time. Yeah. I don't know. How long ago has it been?

I don't even remember. I guess I should know these sort of things since it's my podcast. But I mean, I should know. I'm not the one who's on podcasts. They're doing them every day. But it's been a few years. When did your book come out? 20, 21.

Maybe isn't the heart. 2021? Yeah. So it must have been back then. Yeah. Yeah. So you're, and you got another one out. How has life been?

I mean, you know, since the book came out, you've just been writing, right? You've just been able to make a living writing. Yeah, eventually things finally go quiet again, which is the fucking best part. And then, yeah, they ask you what you're doing for your next book, and I had nothing. I put it all in the first one. So, it's like, well, I got a, I got a dog and, why don't I do a road trip. Yeah. I mean, I think.

Was that pretty much it? It was just because, you know, like got to do a book and, you know, better do it. Yeah. And I don't know. I think a lot of us were restless after COVID. A road trip seemed like a really fun idea. They said you got to do a book. And then you just, did you have, when you set out on the road trip, did you have like sort of a thesis in mind?

or was it just like, let's see what happened? I really didn't. I thought it was, honestly, I thought it was kind of a dumb idea. They wanted a dog book. And I, every dog book, the dog dies at the end. And I had the dog Teddy and he died. And I think they wanted a book about it. I didn't want to write The Dog Dies at the End.

I just, I hate those books so much. Yeah, yeah. Like you get really attached to the dog. And I have dogs who died in my life. I don't need to read a book about one. You can kill as many people as you want in stories and nobody gives a shit, but you kill one dog and everybody loses their fucking mind. And I get it.

Like I get it. You know, it's kind of like, yeah, murder anybody. Yeah, sure, murder people. People deserve murder. But dogs, they should be eternal. I mean, unless you John Wick after it. And then you can't really do that in real life without some problems. So, yeah.

Well, Ted, it was a big deal in your life. too. I mean, I remember, because you and I have been Twitter pals or were Twitter pals before Twitter disappeared. And you used to get, I think the biggest fights you used to get in were over dog stuff because people are so militant about dogs. It's like, you're getting so much trouble just if you're like, gave my dog some chicken and they're like, you're killing him or something, you know, you can't do anything right. Yeah, how much do you miss Twitter? Yeah, I got called a fucking domestic terrorist for giving him cheese one time. Like, actually called a domestic terrorist.

They were serious. They were serious about it. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah, I can see why people wanted a dog book, but I was like, I got a new dog. I don't want to do that to him, first of all, but. Was it your first dog that you'd had? No. As an adult or as your own.

Yeah. I mean, as an adult who could afford dog. treats, yeah. Yeah. That was the dog. I had a dog before him, but, you know, that's the tragic story you don't really want to put in the book. I did end up putting him in there.

It was like one chapter, but I was working 12-hour days. And, like, I don't know that that dog had a better life with me than he would have had with someone else. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the hard. That's the hard thing about dog ownership is that it is. You know, like you're like, it can be a, the motivation is pretty selfish.

Like, I want a, I want a love machine. I want something that just is happy to see me all the time. Doesn't give me, you know, no back talk, doesn't question how I, you know, cook the fish. And, but then it is, it's a real responsibility. You get, you know, it's a, there is like. child light, you know what I mean? It is, you know, your dependent light with a dog, you know. Yeah.

I mean, you don't have to pay for private schools, but. You don't. Well, you can. Some people do, but. Yeah, some people end up. I'm lucky so far. I haven't ended up with one of the dogs who's allergic to everything. I mean, this guy, I have Woody now, and he does have to get shots every six weeks

because he's allergic to, I guess everything I've allergic to it. I started sneezing because of the oak all over everything. Right about the same time, he's scratching his face off. Yeah, yeah. And you're both allergic to Texas. Lucky you. Turns out. You're still in Texas, right?

Right now I'm in Durham, North Carolina. Oh, you're in Durham. Oh, do you live there now? No, I'm in the process of moving back. This was, I make poor decisions is what happened. I tried. I tried to move to New York. Yeah. I don't know that we're going to write about this. There's nothing good happened. I just, I came here. I finished a book and then I went back to Austin for a friend's retirement and met someone. So like, why am I? Why do I keep trying to leave Austin? I don't. It's miserable. It's the worst place on earth. And I fucking love it. Did you move to Durham for a person? Like, no. I try to. to move to New York because I thought that would be cool to be a writer in New York. Yeah.

But you know, Durham is not New York. No, I couldn't figure out a way to make it in New York. Did you just like quit halfway there or something? I had to leave New York and I had about a month before my book was due and this was an easy place to go. Oh, and just yeah. Yeah, you don't know anybody. There's no distraction.

You just get there and crank it out. Just crank it out. crank it out, finish it, and then figure out the next step. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of how that worked. Yeah. I'm trying to explain Durham, but I can't. I made poor decisions.

It wasn't like a darted a map kind of thing, was it? Or just drive until you ran out of gas? I had a few friends here. Yeah. Kind of cheap place to rent, not too far from New York, not like a three-day move. It was, you know, it's like a seven-hour drive or something. And so it seemed easy. And is it like a fairly progressive city for North Carolina?

Oh, that, yeah, yeah, you got to have that. My entire street is pride flags. Oh, good. That's the whole thing about the beautiful South is, it can be pretty ugly. Depending on where you go. Yeah, I'm still not allowed to go to South Carolina. So, like, I live in North Carolina. There's a warrant for me from 1999.

that I found out about the last time I rented an apartment. And I've had background checks from, I've had a lot of background checks every time I rent an apartment jobs, whatever. Yeah, they do it every time, yeah. And then I wrote a book and I called a certain sheriff a bigot. And now there's a warrant for me in South Carolina. So it's a speeding ticket, it's a bench warrant, And the only way to clear it is if I called a lawyer when it happened because I was on Twitter and I talked about it.

And some lawyer in South Carolina was like, hey, let me look that up for you. So I called them. And yeah, I can go to South Carolina and get arrested and they'll release me immediately. And I just started cracking up with the lawyer. I'm like, I'm not going to South Carolina. He's like, you can just not come back. And I'm fine with that. Yeah, but you're missing out on Myrtle B.

You know? Yeah, I don't miss South Carolina even a little bit. It's annoying, too, because now I'm in Durham, and every time I have to drive, I have to go through Tennessee because I cannot go through South Carolina to get to the southern route. Well, do you, I mean, would they nab you? Or are you just worried that if, like, you get in a wreck or you get pulled over speeding, that that'll happen?

Are you just like... I just, with my luck, like, I don't, I really don't think there's an APB out on me. Yeah. It's a speeding ticket. from 1999. Right. But I'm paranoid and have terrible luck with cops, so I'm just going to avoid that. And do you think it was like it was a vindictive act from the sheriff that you, you know,

named in the book? I mean, I've had background checks. It's never, it's never been on anything. It never came up. And then three months after the book comes out, I apply for an apartment. And the landlord was like, I mean, we don't. don't care, obviously, but do we have a warning for you? Oh, dear.

So when you set out on the road trip, do you have a plan or was the plan to not have a plan? A little bit of both, because I'd been reading, I had been reading Travels with Charlie, and I've been reading it forever. It's just one of those books that you keep finding. Yeah. And so I wanted to do the travels with Charlie Tripp, Circle the U.S. But that was the only plan. Like that was that was it.

I figured I'd find, I didn't know how I was going to get people to talk to me. Turns out they just talk to a dog. If they see a dog, you're good. You can meet people easily. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Woody's just kind of friendly, happy-go-lucky guy. So he gets a lot of attention. But yeah, I had no plan.

I knew I needed to talk to people to get them into the book. And I'm like, how do you do that, just randomly approach people at gas stations? So I'm writing a book. I'm going to look at you, like, with your nuts. Yeah, can you give me a snapshot of your life in five or seven minutes, please? While I take notes, yeah. Yeah. But now it worked out.

Which way did you head first? I went over to Florida. And then... Might as well start at the bottom. Might as well start at the bottom. And then went north and had to go around South Carolina. Yeah. So Georgia to Tennessee to North Carolina.

And then New York, I have family. The whole East Coast part of the book was driving me nuts because I was just visiting family. Because once people here, you're in Florida, my mother lives in Florida. Yeah. So I couldn't just go to Pensacola because she'd be like, why didn't you visit me down in Fort Lauderdale? Yeah. It's a 10-hour drive. Yeah, yeah.

But I had to do it. Yeah. Especially when they find out you're driving around the country. It's not like, you know, it's not like you're late for an important appointment. Exactly. So, yeah, I was just visiting people. And then when I finally turned left and headed west, that's when it started really feeling like a road trip. Yeah.

That was fun. What time was this? Like, what time are you heading out, you know? It's just like March of 2023. Of 23. Yeah. Okay. It kept getting delayed because it.

it turns out I bought probably the worst van in America. It kept mechanics just wouldn't fix it. I would have to, I'd get the front brakes done, and I'd have to go back to get the back breaks done. And then I'd get the alignment done, and I'd drive out of the place, and I'd be pulling over to the side of the road, and I'd go back, and you'd go, oh, well, yeah, if you wanted to go straight, well, yeah, that's, that is what I intended. Yeah, you didn't say you wanted the alignment to be straight,

alignment, you know. It's just, it's going to pull a little to the left if we don't do the entire front end. Was it an old, was it an old man? This is the problem is I can't do math. And I think 1995 was 10 years ago. So it was a 2001. So I thought I'd gotten myself a pretty cool new van. Yeah, yeah.

That was 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it was an old fan that I thought was in pretty good shape. Did you ever consider just like ditching it and buying a new one on the road? I mean, I would have loved to, but I'd already sunk so much money in it, and I had no money left. Yeah, yeah. Poor decisions compounded. But I mean, if you're going to, I was worried that I wouldn't have enough material, and the van falling apart made great material.

Yeah. But it turned by the end of the book, I had way too much. It just seen, and also, too, that's such a stressful way to do this. You've got so much other things to worry about. If I had just bought a fucking Honda Accord and stayed in motel. It would have been fine. But now, I had to do it in a van. It's going to be cool.

It's going to be a van. I'm going to put a kitchen in it. I didn't have a kitchen in it. I had like a little burner propane thing from R.E.I. It was a mess. The van life people are full of shit. Like those, I didn't. They are so full of shit.

You see like their yoga pictures on Instagram, but you see them at a gas station. They pull out the door and everything falls out. And like you can tell there's like a pile of garbage somewhere where they're doing the photo shoot. Can't you tell my love's a girl? Every time, you know, my wife and I will get like a romantic notion of like those sprinter van RVs, you know. Yeah, they're cool. And kind of the nice ones, but I still like every time that we talk about it, then I think about like, no, really.

Think about being in that thing for two days, just even like two days. And I, and it's like, no. Yeah. It was bad enough living. Me and my dog breathe in each other's farts is one thing, but I don't think a relationship survives that. How do you? No.

No. One of you has to step outside every time the other one has to take a shit. Yeah, yeah. No, it's not. I don't know. That's a level of closeness I don't actually want with anybody. I think, yeah. I think we'd probably splurge and shit in truck stops.

You know, we'd live the luxurious lifestyle. of shitting at the... I mean, I did for the most part, but every once in a while, there's like a 3 a.m. You had to go, and I had a little camp toilet. Also, you're just way too familiar with your own shitting.

You have to burp a camp toilet because it's watertight. So every time you change elevation, you have to open the thing, the flush valve, so that it makes this god-awful fucking sound of air being released because the pressure changed.

You know, like a bag of chips. swells up. Yeah. How do you know when to do it? Do you just have to, that's something you've got to keep on top of? You learn the first time that you do it. Will it pop? I don't know if it'll pop, but like you don't want to be sitting there.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. So. Yeah, it's just, it's the awareness of how much you shit, just not a regular basis. This is not something anybody needs to know. You don't need to know. No, well, it also too, yeah, well, I guess, yeah, when you got to take a it with you, it does become evident. And the other thing about that is like, is having children

is just, you just realize how much of life is shitting and pissing and how, you know, your own you kind of take for granted. You're not really like, you don't really clock it. But when you got like this other creature that's just constantly making waste, it's like, oh my God, this is what this life is. Yeah, we're disgusting animals. Like my dogs, my dogs doesn't bother me at all. I can, you bag it and you throw it away and it's fine. Yeah, yeah. Mine?

I don't want to be that aware of anything. I think there's a biological imperative to that kind of thing that's just like, yeah, you're not, I mean, you know, you're supposed to stay away from your own. Like, you know, you shouldn't be drawn to others, but, you know, tell my dogs that. They don't get, they've never got that message. Yeah, poop eaters. he's not a poop eater, but I've had a poop eater. And it's just, it's fucking disgusting. No, they're not really poop eaters.

We have, I have a big dog and a little dog. And the little one does, like I'm putting in a vegetable garden now. So I'm putting in compost, manure. Oh, that's good shit. And like good soil. And she's just back there. Yum, yum. Like just, I don't know if she's eating it or just like kind of letting it roll around in her mouth.

But she just comes in with like a black. ringed beard from just eating fresh soil and compost and like you know and I I mean I can't blame her it's like I'm the one that put all this stuff out there that's apparently delicious to her you know it's I guess it's my fault it's very organic so yes it's true good job on that it's high quality it's high quality you know waste that we're going to grow our vegetables in Did you start to form a thesis for the book after a while? I mean, because we're talking to, we're like talking about court towards the end of the Biden administration and, you know, and Trump coming back up. And, I mean, is that playing into what's happening as you're driving around?

It happened at the oddest time, too. I was getting an oil change in Duluth. And I took the time to just, you know, sit there and scroll my phone. And I was reading news and there was this announcement about, you know, the economy is doing great and they added this many new jobs. And I told the guy who's, you know, the guy with a little scroly computer who tries to upsell you on air filters. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, yeah, they just, he's like, what's going on?

I was like, oh, they just added a bunch of new jobs. So you can have another one if you want. And he's like, yeah, I mean, I've only working, I think it was three, he said. Like, I'm already getting five hours of sleep. It's making me lazy. And I was like, all right, I mean, that's, that kind of turned into the thesis of the book that the news and what we're seeing and what we're doing online has nothing to do as most people. Nobody in the country knew that I was famous on Twitter. They didn't give a fuck.

Yeah. Nobody knew what was going on anywhere in the world. People are just trying to survive. And everything just kept getting harder for them. So, yeah. I started thinking just because I look like this. I'd still carry a little knife on my pocket because I used to work for a living. It turns out it's really handy.

But it's one of those ones that people can see, too. Yeah, it's just a little. Is it on your belt? Yeah, I was just playing there. I took it off because I was playing with it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just a little clip knife. And basically, I still look like I work for a living.

Yeah. And people would talk to me about, you know, their jobs and their lives. Like, I just, I don't think any reporter has gone and talked to any of these people ever. Do you notice, like, as time has gone on, that to go into small towns and to go around strangers that, like, to be, to be a gay woman in those, in those kind of mixed atmospheres, is it easier now? Are people more accepting? Are they, you know, the same amount of weird in small towns that they ever were? there's the same amount of weird but there's also Americans are

if you talk to a European the thing they'll tell you about coming here is that people are obnoxiously friendly and it's still true and it still works I don't know I don't know

what it's like to be in anyone else's skin I know what it's like to be in mine and people initially think I'm a man and then they'll correct that and we try to not get lost in it because I don't care they just called me

sir because they're being polite. Yeah. But once we get past that, that initial discomfort, like, we're just talking about my dog. And the dog helps so much because it's just this great. We have this thing in common. We love dogs. You love my dog.

You think he's great. I love my dog. I think he's fucking terrific. And I don't know. I don't know what they do when I'm not there, but I know on an interpersonal level, I'm not the character. the news is created or the caricature of their church is created or anything else.

So, yeah, in person, I don't really have the same problems. I expected a little bit more grief. I expected a little more, oh, you're a writer from Austin, and I expected like MAGA nonsense, and I got none of it. Really? People were just trying to get through their lives. Yeah. Did people, were, was there MAGA conversations?

because I have, I found that those can, well, I'm not lately, but I do, I have found that like, they will come up and people just, they do seem to be like, just itching to start saying MAGA stuff. And, you know, it's up to you to sort of engage or not. I know that those people exist. Maybe they're not dog lovers. I don't know, but I didn't, I didn't run into. I think dog lovers are like, exist, you know. I mean, there's probably serial killers that are dog, you know what I mean?

There's, they're dog lovers. It's just, I think that cuts across. That's like, you know, the, I know it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like your calculated strategy. But yeah, that road trip, that dog, you know, you probably wouldn't have a book if you didn't have the dog. I would. Yeah, yeah.

I should probably split some of the profits, but, I mean, he's expensive. But yeah, people do that online, though. Oh, he's a good. person because he loves dogs. Hitler liked dogs. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that it's a great indicator of some. No. But yeah, I probably could have gotten into politics with a couple of them.

There was a guy in Florida who was telling me about his wife and how she'd always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. And they never, they never got a chance to go. It was maybe the next vacation and maybe next year we'll do it. and she died young. And yeah, he never took her, he never took her to see the canyon. And I know he was MAGA. I don't know how, I mean, we know.

Yeah, yeah. I know he was MAGA. Yeah. But it's also this question of, he was also just really lonely. Yeah. And I don't know that it was so much of a decision he made as just, you know,

he clicked on a link on Facebook. in 2014, and it started feeding him crap. Yeah. And also the crap, like reinforcing crap, stuff that reinforces, you know, like, it's all kind of the stuff that people are already feeling that, and I also think a big part of it is they know it's naughty. You know, like every, you know, I remember,

and I was still on Twitter at the time, during the last Republican convention for Trump, and they had all those mass deportation now signs. And I just took a screen grab of that. And speaking of dogs, old snorty has to go out and barked in the backyard. I just took a screen grab of a bunch of, you know, quote unquote, nice old, normal American white people

holding up signs that say mass deportation now. And I just put under it Christians. And people flip the fuck out. They're like, I don't think Jesus would have appreciated people being in the country illegally, which is like, well, actually, he explicitly did. You know, that was kind of one of his main things was except the stranger. But that to me just told me they know this is wrong. They know this is bad. They know that this is not, you know, that like, that this isn't to call them, you know, if they were all right with it and they mass deportation now and you say Christian, they're like, yep, that's right. That works together. But they know it does not. They know that those two things are a contradiction.

So I don't know. They just, I think a lot of people, you know, I, I'm, I'm not on Twitter anymore. I don't engage a lot publicly, politically, politically, like I used to, because a lot of it is just kind of baffling to me. And a lot of it, I think, too, is just a huge part of it is that everything is entertainment now. And so owning the libs, that's fun, you know, and being shitty is fun. You know, being a troll is fun. And I think a lot of people, they just were, they were having fun, being mean and being shitty to people that didn't affect, you know, to people in a way that didn't affect them.

And now that their gas is $6 a gallon, they're probably going to start to go like, wait a minute. I don't think things are wrong, you know, but. Yeah, it turns out that maybe the only thing that mattered. Yeah, they're having the time of their lives. If you watch any of their alleys or whatever, this is, it's the Grateful Dead. It was the most fun they've ever had. Suddenly they're part of a community, people like them. These are, this is their new family.

Yeah. They were having a blast. And yeah, I don't think any of them even considered. I really don't that there would be consequences, and possibly the only thing that matters to them is $5 gas. But it's weird I just drove through Texas. I went back to Austin, came back out here. And I went through traffic trying to get me to avoid Dallas.

So I started going through these halls. small towns, Corsicana. I didn't, I've been there before. I've driven through those towns, and there were MAGA signs everywhere. Maga flags, Trump flags, Make America Great Again was everywhere, and I didn't see a single fucking sign. This time.

Yeah, this time. Gas had just hit $3. I didn't see one. I started, it got to where it was weird, and I started veering off the highway just to kind of look around. I didn't. There aren't any. Yeah.

It's not that I didn't see many, and I didn't see as many. I didn't see any of them. Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know if that was, I don't think it was the Epstein thing. I don't think they actually gave a shit. Yeah. This was just something that they thought they could hold over Bill Clinton,

and I don't think they realized any, none of us give a, like, fuck about Bill Clinton. Right, right. Yeah, take him. Fine. Whatever. Take him. Nobody gives, none of us give a shit about Bill Clinton. Yeah, yeah.

Do you think part of it too because it's Texas that people started to be, that people in Texas started to be touched by the deportation and by the ice stuff or, you know, because I mean, I don't know. Was the ice stuff that heavy in Texas? Because they pretty much just hit the blue states. They hit the blue states. They hit my neighborhood here in Durham. Did they? Really hard. Yeah.

Yeah. I had the guys across the street putting a roof on one day. and we were all walking around with whistles and, you know, doing whatever you can to do anything. Yeah. And I heard Tejana music. And I looked up, I was like, hey, guys. And what I'm turned around, he's like, nah, bro, we're the decoys. They were all white up there.

Oh, that's great. I love them so much. But, yeah, they hit the blue states. I don't, I've heard in Rio Grande Valley that, you know, construction slowed. and people starting to lose money. But I don't know how much that affects the average person or how much the average person's looking at it. Yeah, because I think here in Southern California,

there were people that might have voted for Trump who did. Because you can't be unaffected by it in Southern California by the amount of people they were snatching off the streets for no reason. And you can't, you know, even like the local news that, you know, usually is just about keeping. old people scared that somebody's going to break into their car or, you know, or seeing a, seeing a mountain lying on your ring doorbell camera. You know, that's, I love local news for that. It's all just like shit that would make my grandma nervous and I just love it. But even there,

you couldn't escape it. You couldn't escape, you know, guys getting grabbed at Home Depot and, you know, a father of Marines getting, you know, snatched off its, a landscaping job. You know, it was here. And I think it really did start. People were like, oh, that's what they were talking about. Oops. I fucked up. I don't really want all that, you know.

Yeah. Even Joe Rogan was like, well, this is too much. Like, yeah, no shit. That's what they were talking about, you know. This was the point. Yeah, Andrew Schultz was doing. This isn't what I voted for, buddy. Yeah.

What did you think deport them all meant? Yeah, mass deportation now. What did you think that? Like, there was. You're just supposed to go after the criminals. Hmm. Yeah. Really?

They called them all the criminals. Okay. Can't you tell my loves it grows? So when did, I mean, did you start to, were you all, like, very early into the trip, did you feel like, okay, this is going to work? Like, I have kind of like a thesis that's happening here. Or did it, was there a point at which it built? And that you knew, like, okay, this is kind of, this is the lead I'm going to follow?

It went back and forth. Several times I thought, oh, this is it. This is going to be the book. And this is it. This is going to be the book. And even in writing it, it took a lot longer to write than I thought. Turns out it's hard to write a book. You don't do it again until you forget how hard it was the first time.

And people told me that, and I did not believe them. I was like, I can write a book. It's fine. No. Turns out, I just watched Mad Men for three months and pretend that I'm writing. I don't know why madman. But I thought I had the idea several times. And I thought I was going to write a book that's a lot angrier

and a lot more yelly about everyone and everything that I disagree with. And when I sat down and started putting it down, it just I wasn't that angry. And I didn't think it was useful. I mean, why wasn't the anger there? Why did you think it was going to be there and then it wasn't there? I thought it was going to be there because we re-elected in Trump. Yeah.

And COVID, it just ended, or I guess it's still around, but the lockdowns and everything. Yeah, we seem to have accepted that we're past it. Yeah. I just thought I would be angry. I'm still, and like on an interpersonal level, I'm still pissed off at family. family voted for him. I was going to ask you, did you have to, like, travel through some MAGA family to get, you know, while you were on the trip?

Not while I was on the trip. I have a couple in Austin who irritate me. But there was a flag outside their house. We haven't talked in a long time. But I just don't think the anger is useful. And I think a lot of very powerful people have a very vested in. in keeping us all at each other's throats. Yeah.

It's most the news part of it is manufactured. You always hear about the illegals who killed a woman or the illegal who did this or the illegal who did that. And so people are pretty easily duped, I think, into thinking, well, they're all criminals and we should deport them all. I'm like, no, it's the guy working on your house. It's just people trying to make it through their day. Yeah.

And they came here. To be here undocumented, first of all, just, you know, I mean, I know you're using the phrase because it's the phrase that she used, but like, nobody's illegal. It's, you know, you're here documented or you're not documented. And the thing that I, and I feel like they must know it at this point, it's not a crime. It's a civil offense. It's, you know, it's similar to a- Still don't think they know.

We're all tuned in. I mean, I just, I'm like, how can you not know that by now? If you're into this shit, how do you not know that like, oh, yeah, no, it's, it's, you know, it's like a civic thing. It's a, it's a civil offense. It's similar to jaywalking. You know, you can't get, you're not supposed to get snatched off the street and tossed into a van just because you're not, you're not documented. That's like, that's illegal. Yeah.

But, no, you know. Defying judge's orders, that's illegal. Yeah. Yeah, all of the stuff they do is really illegal moving. people around states and not providing habeas corpus, that's illegal. But no, crossing a border, it's

Mark Zuckerberg wanted to build a website to rank who wouldn't fuck him at his school and now there are people who have no contact with reality whatsoever.

I don't think they know even now that it's not illegal. Yeah. It's a civil infraction. I don't think they have, they're just not in touch with reality anymore. Yeah. And we're all living in completely different realities. And we're all fighting each other while, you know, three people in the world make off with all the money.

Yeah. How did the trip line up with your expectations of what the trip was going to be like? Like, did you think, like, this is going to be fun or were you like, oh, this might suck? A little bit of both. I thought I might lose my mind being alone with my own thoughts so long. That's not fucking healthy. Is that something you've been? Is that a space you've been in before?

Yeah, anytime I drive. It turns out by like the second day, I'm ready to break up with my girlfriend, quit writing, move to Alaska. I come up with crazy ideas. It might be why I'm in Durham. I had this hairbrain scheme to move to Italy for a minute there, and I think it was because I drove too long. Well, you know, at least you know yourself in Up. I know that that's where the craziness is coming from.

I don't know. I'm still in fucking Durham, so I don't know how much I know myself. You know, Durham, it's the Durham to Italy pipeline that happens so often. Yeah, being alone with my thoughts is no. ever going to be healthy. My therapist, I think, was so excited for this. We scheduled video calls throughout because I think, I think she just wanted to watch me lose my mind. I don't know if you've ever, like, FaceTime your therapist or video called your therapist from your mother's house, but no. Well, you know what? I probably, I do phone sessions. We don't, we don't look at each other.

We, because we were sort of, you know, our phone sessions, I've been talking to the same guy for 30 years. So we've been on the phone for the last 25. And I think because we predated Zoom and FaceTime, we just kept it, you know, probably and neither one of us has ever suggested changing it. So I think we're both very happy with the situation. But yeah, I've probably, I've probably been at my mother's house and had a, had a phone session. you know, out in the garage or sitting in the car or in the rental car or something. Yeah, she looked like it was Christmas morning. It was just, wait, you're at your mom's house?

Yes, I am. I was smoking on the back porch. And she's like, I thought you quit. What? Oh, yeah. I'm at my mom's house. I forgot. You know, it's nice to be able to smoke during a session, though, you know.

That was terrific. Yeah. Plus my mom and her pack of. Barbara Bensall Ultralites. That's funny. Yeah, I had a friend who told me once that, because my mother's name is Glenda, she made the joke that this friend of mine made the joke. Then my shrink has a boat named Glenda.

I like, that's pretty good. It's probably accurate. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she enjoyed it. Yeah, I thought I would lose my mind. I also thought it would be really fun. I was right about the parts that would be fun, too.

Like, I knew Montana would be fun as shit, because I've never been, I wanted to go there my whole life. I saw a river. Well, I mean, tell me about what you expected from Montana and what you, you know, rivers and streams and being away from everyone. Yeah. I could go fishing. I didn't catch a fucking thing.

But, yeah. It's just, I've seen the pictures. It's fucking beautiful, and it is that beautiful in person. It looks like a postcard. And so, yeah, I wanted to get. I knew California would be fun. I do love that fucking state. Oh, California is, it's pretty incredible.

Like, you know, granted, the lines that define it are arbitrary. It's kind of made up. But still, it's like, it did a good job of. throwing a lasso around a lot of cool shit, you know, a lot of amazing stuff. It's an amazing place. Yeah, it's, it's fucking beautiful. That drive up from, like, Tahoe to the coast is just absolutely gorgeous. It was, every time I stayed on a highway, I was miserable.

And every time I got off on, like, a state highway and could slow down to 55 and roll the windows down, I was having the best time. Yeah. So it's just the interstate's the kind of run. Anytime I had to get on an interstate, I started getting pissed off. Yeah. Did you ever consider living in California since, yeah, I mean, because you really are kind of a wanderer. I mean, just from knowing, you know, from your, you know, from talking to you in previous times and knowing your story a little bit. You are a bit of a wander.

Have you ever considered West Coast living? I haven't. I mean, I was stationed in Monterey for a year and loved it. And it's probably one of my favorite places on Earth. And I could never afford to live there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if I sell a book for $3 million, actually, I said it wouldn't be enough. You can rent.

You can rent in Monterey. I'm going to have to be a much more successful writer to live in Monterey. It's funny. It's funny you say that because my dad's, my dad, started out college at DePaul in Greencastle, Indiana. He was a music major. And he changed his mind. He didn't want to be a music major anymore. And so he joined the Army because he couldn't figure out. This is in the 50s. He couldn't figure out what he wanted to do. And he tested high in language. And then, you know, the Army language school is in Monterey. And he was coming from Springfield, Illinois.

he went to Monterey and he was like, this is the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life. And they said, you got to pick a language. All of these are six months. Chinese and Russian are a year. And he's like, I'll do Russian just because he got to stay in Monterey for an entire year. And then that was his career. He became like a Russian professor of the Russian language.

And that was the rest of his life. just based on the beauty of Monterey, you know, it was just like, oh, okay, I'll learn Russian. So, yeah, and Monterey is like, you know, I used to, my older kids, we were, we were an aquarium family. We went like from aquarium to aquarium. And so Monterey is just like one of the best ones in the world, and we used to go up there all the time. So, yeah, I get it. I would live up there, too. but I'm going to be down here where the coal mines are, at least for now, I guess.

Do you have a favorite place and a least favorite place from your travels? Least favorite's hard to choose. I should have one, you know, upstate New York. But I don't know if that's because it's a terrible place where I was just miserable. Once all the clothes in your van get wet and then you're just wet and miserable, It's just, it's hard to look out at any sort of natural beauty and think, yeah, when your feet are frozen. And it turns out if you are going to be doing this van thing, skip the memory foam that once it freezes, it's really hard to sleep on. Turns out, like my pillow is just a random brick, and I was sleeping on a brick with a brick for a pillow, a cold brick.

It was miserable. It's probably the most miserable I got on the trip. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, upstate New York was unpleasant. I ended up checking into a hotel just so I could drive my clothes long enough. I was not happy. Probably most fun.

I think I loved North Dakota and Montana. I loved Wisconsin, too. I was surprised how much I liked Wisconsin. I didn't know it looked like. It's just green. and there are cows everywhere. Yeah. Gorgeous.

Everybody talks funny. It's great. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I love that accent so much. I didn't know that you could do that accent and swear words. Uh-huh. Don't know why I didn't realize that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I, coming from the Midwest, I mean, we don't exactly, you know, that's close to us, you know. Yeah. But, like, all the seasons of Fargo, which I love that show. sometimes they it's almost like kind of like a clownish use of the language you know like like there was there was one part like there was just one and I could just tell it's like Hollywood writers just thinking of things that would be funny to say like when you're from you know North Dakota or

Minnesota and there was one where a banker offers people they come in it's a big business meeting goes like want a cream soda you want a cream soda anyone want a cream soda and I was like no fucking banker in the world has ever offered anybody a cream soda. That's just because you like the way it sounds with the accent. You just wanted to hear cream soda. Yeah, green soda. You want a cream soda? Oh, my God.

Yeah. No, I go, I go home and I hear myself starting to talk Chicago. You know, like it starts to be like, you know, Toyota in the yard and, you know, mom and dad. Yeah. It just, it creeps back. I spend 20 minutes in Texas and suddenly I'm saying, y'all and slurring. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, not opening your mouth.

Yeah. Yeah. Someone asked me how to do it once. I was like, just put a toothpick there and then try to talk. That's pretty much it. That's really all you have to do. Don't work too hard. I mean, Midwest is kind of like that too.

Don't work too hard enunciating anything. Yeah. That's pretty much it. You know, just slow way down. I saw on the notes that you dedicated the book to your dad. And I mean, forgive me, I don't remember. But I always felt, I thought that you guys hadn't had always the best relationship. It's not that we didn't have the best relationship.

We just didn't really have a relationship. My parents divorced when I was seven. And so I wasn't around him. I had a stepdad. It was just a dick. And then just unnecessarily so, too. Yeah. And for people I don't know, your parents were in what is largely considered a cult now,

the children of God. It's a famous kind of. Yeah, I don't think there's an argument. about whether or not the children of God was a cult. Okay. I want to be polite, you know. I appreciate that. Yeah, I grew up in that.

And I, yeah, I was mad at him for a really long time. But, I mean, he left that a long time ago. But I was just pissed. I thought he left me basically behind with, you know, my mom and my stepdad, who I was not fond of. I don't know. You get to be a certainty. I was just tired of being mad about it.

Yeah. And I'm so much like him. And he's just, he's always been really interested in me, in all of us. He's interested in what we do, that validation that you want from anyone. Yeah. He's always been there with it.

He's so excited about my books. He's so excited about my dogs. He's excited about whatever. dumb idea I had in my head. He's just excited. He would like there to be more fishing in any book that I write, but I can't necessarily fit that in. He would probably like me to be more into sports or any of us to be more into sports, but we just, I mean, that's probably his fault. He wasn't around. Yeah, yeah. You could have programmed us. You could have groomed us for sports fandom if you'd been around.

I mean, without getting too personal about it, none of what happened was his fault. Yeah. And I just, I needed someone to blame. He was the easy choice, but it wasn't him. Have you talked about that? Yeah, we've talked about that. Yeah.

Yeah. So. I mean, was there, an exchange of apologies over that? Yeah, I think that's the other thing is, he's the guy who apologized and meant it. Yeah, wow. He doesn't try to, like, turn our life into,

well, you know, it was fun or whatever. He just, he apologized and he meant it. Or that, I'm sorry if you feel hurt kind of thing. Yeah, it wasn't one of those. It was, I fucked up. Yeah. Yeah. Where's he now?

He's in Austin. He's in Austin. Oh, that's good. good. Yeah. So I also saw that you had to give him a redacted version of the book. It did. It really does a better. What part did you redact? There's a, like, my dad doesn't need to know about my ass eating practices. Like, he just, is this a PG-13 podcast? One could argue opposite, but, you know, okay, I'll let it go. He doesn't, he doesn't need to know about that. I think somewhere, I don't know why I was so intent on it. Well, part of of it is I kept, I mean, you're on the road for a long time and there's no one around. Sometimes you

masturbate. And Steinbeck couldn't put that in his book. So I was like, fuck you. I'm going to put masturbation in my book. Right, right. So you've got to sell books. You know, you've got to sell books. It's got to have some sex in there. Yeah. So, yeah, I just, we glued comic books over those pages and sent it to him. Did he mind or did he? I mean, was he? I mean, was he? He took your word for what you had covered up with something he didn't want to see. He's great. I do a substack and I'll randomly, I don't know why I started randomly ranting about Dildos one time. But at the very beginning of the substack, I was like, Dad, stop reading here.

And he will every time. He'll be like, nope, not for me. And then I can talk about Dildos all I want. Yeah, yeah. What a good dad. He is very, he knows, he knows I mean it. Yeah, that's great. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for talking to me.

I wanted the Monster of Land is the new book, and it's coming out June 16th. So I'm going to get, when I hang up with you, I'm going to get on there, and I'm going to pre-order it from a small site. Maybe from, or maybe I'll go into my local bookseller and pre-order it. I mean, come on, that's a possibility, people. And you also have a substance called Bad Reads. It's always nice for truth in advertising. I think I'm funny. Yes.

Well, Lauren, you know, you're doing good. I take it. You know, you're happy. I mean, I imagine having the book come out. Is it a difficult birth? Or now do you feel like now you're kind of into the, just into the shoot? Now it's just all about sliding out of it. Yeah, I'm mostly just in the shoot at this point.

It's like, all right, well. we're going to do some humiliating things for the next three months, and then it'll get quiet again, and maybe I can think about it. We're switching to fiction. I'm not fucking do this anymore. We're switching to fiction. Right, right.

People know enough about my ass eating, basically. Right, yeah, but now, you know, you make up a character. Yeah. You can do anything to the character. They can have a whole different theory of ass eating, too. You put all the things that you don't want to put in a book in there. Yeah. Bringing my own, like, wine and cheese to my own breakup in Washington Square Park.

Like, I don't want to tell that story. Are you going to let your dad read all of the fiction? Yeah, he can read the fiction. That's not about me. Yeah, that is a fictional character. It's all made up. Yeah, sure, it's in my braid and everything, but, you know, yeah, it's not really me. Yeah, it's not me at all. I mean, John Grisham doesn't write about John Grisham.

No. Yeah. No. Well, Lauren Huff, thank you so much. Once again, the book is called Monster of a Land. Everybody should check it out. I loved your first book. It was such a good, fun read and complicated and everything you want out of a first-person book.

So people should get this one, too. You're the fucking best. It's so good to see you again. You're the best. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. And I will be back next week with more of the three questions. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a team Cocoa,

production. It is produced by Sean Doherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel, executive produced by Nick Leow, Adam Sacks, and Jeff Ross, talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, with assistants from Maddie Ogden. Research by Alyssa Graal. Don't forget to rate and review and subscribe to the three questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts. And do you have a favorite question you always like to ask people? let us know in the review section. Can't you tell my loves are growing? Can't you feel it ain't it showing?

Oh, you must be a dog. This has been a Team Coco production.