
Author Imprint
Meg Wolitzer Discusses "The Female Persuasion"
In her new novel, best-selling author Meg Wolitzer explores the life of a young woman growing into her identity as a feminist. After suffering a sexual assault, the protagonist seeks the advice of a famous feminist - but life complicates their mentorship. These themes are particularly relevant today, but Meg has been thinking about them for years. This book is her "warm take" on gender equality.
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Author Imprint, I'm
your host, Maddie Orton.
The past year has changed the
way we talk about gender in a
way we haven't seen since the
60s.
Between the Me Too movement
and Women's Marches, the
subject is garnering new
attention and it seems like
everyone is scrambling to
figure out what happens next.
In this episode, guest host
Lisa Lucas, the Executive
Director of the National Book
Foundation, will interview Meg
Wolitzer.
Meg's latest novel, "The
Female Persuasion" shines a
light on our zeitgeist.
She explores how men and women
relate to each other and to
power.
Here's Lisa.
So excited to talk to you
today about your new book.
Thank you.
"The Female Persuasion." So
we've talked about the fact
that "The Interestings" is one
of my very favorite books.
Yes I was so pleased.
And I was really excited both
that there was a new book and
that it was talking about
something that is so crazily
timely right now.
It is.
In the age of Me Too.
It is.
So how long ago did you start
"The Female Persuasion"?
How long ago did you start
writing?
I've been working at it for
years.
While we are in a moment right
now, these are not new issues,
these are issues I've been
thinking about for a really
long time.
And how do you think now that
the world has started thinking
about these issues that women
are dealing with all the time
and have always dealt with,
will receive the book?
The world is catching up in a
lot of ways.
For me as a fiction writer
though, one of the things that
I love is like in this time of
"hot takes" I told somebody
that I'm the master of the
"warm take." Necause writing
fiction about things you care
about in this, you know, in
this moment things like power,
female power, who has it, who
wants it, misogyny, all of
these things that I've been
thinking about a long time.
You can do it through nuance
when you write a novel, as
opposed to the headlines.
Do you have any nervousness
about reception, given that
everybody is talking about it,
that it seems sort of timely
in a way?
You know you always have
nervousness when you have a
novel coming out because it is
your baby, it is your thing,
you know it really well, you
can quote lines back to
yourself, and you do.
Alone at night.
I want it to be good, I want
it to be right, and I want
people to take something from
it.
So you can't control that.
Yeah.
So one of the things that I
was so impressed by, that's
sort of non narrative, it's
more just about the way that
you dealt with so many things
that feminism is dealing with
right now; intersectionality,
multigenerational feminists
sort of at odds with one
another, thinking about power,
right, within these movements.
Right, not just power male
female but also all of these
varying types of power between
women.
For me ideas are channeled
through characters and what
was interesting for me to do
this time, because I hadn't
done it before, is to have a
novel in which there were
people of two different
generations dealing with each
other at the same time.
You know the media of course
always loves a cat fight
between generations.
But I'm struck too, again and
again, by so many of the
things I think that women want
from different generations are
so similar.
And the characters of course
always come together in
conflict.
They have to be real people.
It's not just like they can be
vessels for ideas or
ideologies, they have to be
real.
And then what they care about
comes out.
That's one of the things that
I love most about this book
and about "The Interestings"
which is the characters.
It feels like reading about a
real person that sits next to
you in your office or that's
riding the subway, and it's
like this looking in the
window that we all wish we
could do into other people's
lives.
Well I'm really thrilled that
you feel that way.
I didn't want to write a
pamphlet.
I really wanted to write a
novel with a depth of
experience.
So you really have to go deep.
It's about characters and it's
about what your passions are
as a writer.
And mentorship as a huge thing
and it's complicated right.
Mentorship is this complicated
thing...
Oh definitely.
It is something that I
actually hadn't seen written
about as much as I thought it
would have been written about.
Certainly there are some great
things about mentors out
there, books that I've loved,
and movies, but I haven't
really seen it written about
this way, exactly, where you
can see it from both sides.
It's not like that I'm taking
a side and one of the things
about looking at this moment
in time is that mentorship is
such a, for me, it's such a
wonderful lens to sort of look
at it through.
Because what about, not the
ways that people undermine
each other, but what about the
ways that they really try to
help each other?
I've really been helped by a
lot of women in my life.
I have, and you know you try
to do that yourself too.
(Yea) Of course it's
complicated.
There are ways that we betray
each other, there are ways
that we disappoint each other.
And that's all in the book.
So who are some of your
mentors and how did they shape
who you are?
Much later on Nora Ephron was
a person who was very
important to me and she was so
supportive of writers whose
work she liked.
She would be really
enthusiastic, and I think
that's one of the things that
mentors can give the people
who they are helping, they can
give them not only their
expertise, but their
excitement.
And that means just the world
to you.
Yeah.
No it's amazing.
What was- what was Nora Ephron
like?
Here, I'm going to say the
dullest thing.
She was funny.
That's an inside scoop.
She was funny, she was engaged
in other people and in the
world, in the world of ideas.
She was a huge reader and she
was a Scrabble player, which I
am, and we got to play
Scrabble.
So you're at a point in your
career where I think you can
call it a body of work.
Oh!
Ok, nice.
Right.
Like how many books have you
written?
Uh it's - it depends on how
you count, but it's up there
into like the ten range.
I mean that's incredible.
When you look at all of it you
know, what do you- what do you
notice the most in the sort of
change in your own voice in
the stories that you want to
tell and how well or
differently you tell them?
There have been some themes
that have been there from the
start.
So this book which does deal
with "What is it like to have
power?
What is it like to be a woman
who has power in the world?
And what about misogyny?"
These are things that I can
track back through my whole
writing life.
I'm always like, "What's
obssessing me?"
People say that thing, "Write
what you know." For me it's
always been, "Write what
obsesses you." What are the
things you think about?
And you always have more to
say about them?
And in this case it was- I
hadn't written about it so
directly.
So I think that these are
things that have been with me
for a really long time.
One of the things I notice is
this, you know, and it happens
on different timelines right.
Like this book has a different
timeline than the full life
arc of "The Interestings".
Yea it's a shorter sweep.
It's a shorter sweep but it's
still- there's so much about
the process of becoming.
Right, like the process of
becoming a person or an adult
or a success.
Success comes- You know it's
like, these are successful
people.
At least in the last two (yea)
that are people who have done
very well and have come from
not, you know, being young and
not doing very well and
becoming success.
Is there a particular reason
that you've an interest in
sort of that arc of you know
upward mobility?
I want to write a novel, and I
hope that I have with "The
Female Persuasion" in which
you get access to people's
inner lives.
You get access to the interior
moments.
So I kind of think that
looking at people over time is
something that a novel can do
really well.
I'm writing a talk about
literature and I started it
with thinking about Me Too,
and thinking about how
complicated it has felt to
have these conversations.
And one of the books that I
felt like was clarifying like
during all these
conversations, was this book
was "The Female Persuasion."
Oh excellent.
It was just helpful because I
think reading about, again
that like protracted
engagement with a piece of
text, and really diving in,
and being able to be with a
story rather than reading some
"hot take" and just being like
I have to develop my feelings
around it, was so helpful.
No so we're - we're - I'm
really really happy to hear
that, because we are so
flooded by important
nonfiction, important essays
about this topic.
And I think what novels do, is
they slow things down.
We're talking about essential
questions right now in the
world.
How are we together?
How should we be?
What's right?
What - what creates equality?
Right.
And I think on a more
practical level the book
starts with sexual assault.
And I think that it's so hard
for people to imagine what
these things that don't seem
big on paper, or written as a
sentence in a newspaper
article, can be so enormous
for a person.
Yea my character, Greer, it
opens with her at college and
she's a very very shy person
and she has an experience
that's really upsetting to her
at college and she doesn't
quite know what it is or what
to do with it.
And the novel tracks her
evolution.
When the great famous feminist
comes to speak at her campus
and it moves from there.
Yeah I can say to somebody
"it's complicated" if I can't
get them to understand what
I'm saying, but if I show them
that chapter I don't have to
say "it's complicated" I can
show that it's complicated.
That's right because saying
it's complicated can mean a
million things but showing the
specific ways- the thing that
novels do is, you know, they
are specific.
They show not just "What is it
like for a woman to have this
experience" what was it like
for this one to?
Well thank you so much for
sharing your time and your
book.
Oh my pleasure.
"The Female Persuasion," it's
very good.
Thank you so much.
Thanks again.
Take care.
Thanks so much Lisa.
Check out "The Female
Persuasion" wherever books are
sold.
Let us know what you're
reading on Facebook or Twitter
at #AuthorImprint.
I'm Maddie Orton, thanks for
tuning in.
Author Imprint Podcast
- WordsAuthor Imprint: The Podcast — Lisa LucasJune 28, 2018
- WordsAuthor Imprint: The Podcast — Meg WolitzerJune 21, 2018
- WordsAuthor Imprint: The Podcast — Steve BerryJune 14, 2018
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