Julia Phillips on Her New Novel, 'Bear'

Summary

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All Of It with Alison Stewart: Julia Phillips on Her New Novel, 'Bear'

Original Air Date: August 27, 2024

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Alison Stewart welcomes acclaimed author Julia Phillips to discuss her much-anticipated second novel, 'Bear'. The conversation delves into the novel’s roots in Grimm's fairy tales, the themes of care, family, and class, and Phillips’ personal journey from literary success to writing a book that felt utterly thrilling and freeing. The interview covers the novel’s plot—set in the San Juan Islands with sisters Elena and Sam—its exploration of economic hardship, and the allure and symbolism of the bear itself. Phillips shares her process, research, and the emotional landscape that shapes both characters and story.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Path from Literary Success to Second Novel

• Julia reflects on the surreal experience of being regarded as a “successful writer” after her debut, Disappearing Earth, became a National Book Award finalist.

  “It remains five years in, disorienting and exciting and bizarre to think of that dream that I fostered for so long being an actual real life thing.” (03:12)

• On the pressure to quickly start a second book after success:

  “I was at that time really deep in the throes of a project that was pretty anxious and was not working... I put it aside, and I started a project that was weird and wild and exciting and connected to what I loved as a kid.” (05:24-06:30)

• Discovery that embracing what genuinely excited her (wild, bloody Grimm’s tales) led to a more joyful writing experience.

  “It was the most thrilling experience of my life. It was wonderful.” (06:30)

2. The Grimm’s Fairy Tale Foundation and Reimagining

• Bear is rooted in Snow White and Rose Red, a story Julia was “compelled by and dissatisfied with” as a child.

  “It was that dissatisfaction that I think was so compelling because the characters and the images, the relationships stick with you, but the plot didn’t quite make sense to me. And so I always thought about it...” (07:26-08:48)

• The novel channels these elements into a new plot with sisters Elena and Sam, reshaping familiar archetypes through modern, gritty lenses.

3. Caregiving, Family Obligation, and Social Safety Nets

• The sisters’ life: Caring for their terminally ill mother on a small island with few options.

  “They’re outside of the very thin, like, existing social safety nets that we have in this country... so they don’t have an option other than being her caretakers.” (09:07-10:21)

• Broader commentary on American caregiving gaps, family obligation, and systemic failure.

4. Dreams of Escape & The Weight of Responsibility

• Sam’s escapist fantasies versus Elena’s realism:

  “What she really wants is the feeling of freedom. She wants to feel free, she wants to feel unencumbered because she and her sister have been caring a really heavy weight for a really long time.” (10:30-11:34)

• Exploration of sibling dynamics, birth order, and the self-identities they construct in relation to care and rebellion.

  “Especially Sam, kind of defining herself as what her sister, her older sister is not... And then where does that leave them?” (11:45-13:07)

5. Theme of Class and Economic Precarity

• Sam’s job as a ferry worker highlights class differences and economic frustrations in a tourist-dependent community.

  “Both [the pandemic and parenthood] experiences kind of deliver the same economic lesson... you are totally alone unless you can pay for it.” (13:18-15:50)

• Julia draws from her own recent experiences with new parenthood and the pandemic, intensifying her awareness of economic isolation and vulnerability.

6. The Bear as Catalyst and Symbol

• First encounter with the bear: Julia reads an atmospheric passage from the novel.

  "'There, not 10 ft away, was the animal's massive body... its muscles rippled... a dark stripe of fur lay over its spine.'" (16:02-18:20)

• Elena becomes obsessed—possibly to her own detriment—with the bear. The bear offers escape and novelty but is interpreted by the sisters through their own needs and projections.

  “She has feelings about it... we can see how badly she needed an escape all this time, that it’s been really difficult for her to carry this same burden.” (20:11-21:50)

7. Bear Research and the Line Between Realism and Fairy Tale

• Julia describes researching bears through memoirs (Eye of the Wild), documentaries, and even her own close encounters during her Russia research.

  “I read a lot of books about bears, which was great, and listened to a lot of podcasts actually... and I had some personal experiences to draw on...” (18:26-19:54)

• The bear’s characteristics are grounded, physical, and ambiguous—not a magical prince, but a large, real animal with unknowable motivations.

  “I wanted the bear... to feel very, very, very much like a bear... It’s mysterious to them not because it’s magical, but because it’s another way of being in the world that is by its very nature a mystery.” (22:02-23:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On literary success:

  “It surprises me to be sitting here hearing that question from you. That’s pretty surprising even now.” (03:27, Julia Phillips)

• On resetting her approach to writing:

  “I put it aside, and I started a project that was weird and wild and exciting and connected to what I loved as a kid.” (05:24, Julia Phillips)

• On economic gaps revealed by motherhood and the pandemic:

  “Both of those experiences kind of deliver the same economic lesson, which... you are totally alone unless you can pay for it.” (14:10, Julia Phillips)

• Describing the sisters’ position:

  “They’re outside of the very thin, like, existing social safety nets that we have in this country.” (09:07, Julia Phillips)

• On the bear’s “realness”:

  “It’s not enchanted prince like—it is its physicality, its behavior, it’s mysterious to them not because it’s magical, but because it's another way of being in the world that is by its very nature a mystery.” (22:37, Julia Phillips)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• Introduction to 'Bear' and Julia Phillips – 01:50
• Julia’s reaction to literary success – 03:12
• How and why the second novel shifted directions – 04:25-06:53
• Childhood fascination with 'Snow White and Rose Red' – 07:14-08:48
• Sisters’ family circumstances and limited choices – 09:07-10:21
• Sam’s and Elena’s different coping styles – 10:30-11:45
• Class and economic pressure in the setting – 13:07-15:50
• Julia reads from 'Bear'—first bear encounter – 16:02-18:20
• Bear research process & inspiration – 18:20-19:54
• Elena’s obsession with the bear & its meaning – 20:00-21:50
• Intention in writing the bear’s character – 22:02-23:56
• Conclusion and thanks – 24:13

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Tone & Atmosphere

The conversation is candid, warm, and reflective. Julia Phillips is self-deprecating about literary fame, open about her writing struggles, and deeply thoughtful about the real-world issues her novel addresses. Alison Stewart skillfully guides the conversation to balance the literary, the personal, and the urgent socio-economic context in which Bear was written.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

This episode offers an insightful exploration into not just Julia Phillips' creative process and new novel, but also the ways in which personal and societal pressures—family illness, economic hardship, new motherhood, and the shock of a pandemic—shape art. Bear emerges as a modern fairy tale, rooted in reality and emotional truth, in which the appearance of a bear becomes catalyst for sisters trapped by circumstance, longing for escape but constrained by love and obligation. Phillips’ conversation will resonate with anyone interested in how contemporary literature draws from myth to examine the hard truths of family and class in America.

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Transcript

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[E]

This is all of it on wnyc. Hi, I'm Alison Stewart. Julia Phillips latest novel follows the setup of a Grimm's fairy tale called Snow White and Rose Red, about two girls living in the woods who become friends with a magical bear. In Julia's story, Sisters Elena and Sam have very different experiences with the Ursa Major who comes to visit. A bear is sighted in front of their house, 10ft away. @ first, they freak out. Wildlife rangers tell them that the bear's just passing through the area. But there are more sightings over time. Elena becomes sort of obsessed with the bear, seeing it for its beauty, its grace, what she perceives as her invitation to become friends. Sam is not so sure at all. In fact, she's not so sure about anything. She has a bad attitude about the tiny island they live on or the invisibility of her job on the tourist ferry and the ever present bear. When it comes time to do something about the animal and her life, things take a sharp turn for Sam and Elena. The New York Times review said a massive, mysterious grizzly takes on symbolic weight in Julia Phillips. Moody and affecting second novel. You may have read Julia's first book, Disappearing Earth, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Bear is out now, and you can see her tonight at my bibliotheca in Brooklyn at 7pm and she'll be part of the Brooklyn Festival, the Brooklyn book Festival on September 25th. And she joins me now in studio. Welcome.

[B]

Thank you so much, Alison. Thank you for having me.

[E]

So we met in 2021, I guess it was out in Idaho at a conference. And now that you had time to reflect on your first, what surprised you about being a quote unquote, successful writer?

[B]

Well, it surprises me to be sitting here hearing that question from you. That's pretty surprising even now. Yeah, it's been five years since my first book came out, which was in 2019, and the whole experience has been shocking and surprising. I spent my whole life fantasizing about this, about from the extent of fantasizing about getting to be here in a room like this, talking on the radio, wearing these cool headphones, just so folks know, you know, because I know it's not a visual medium. We're wearing very cool headphones right now. And also fantasizing about getting to have my work in people's hands, seeing, you know, holding a book of mine. It was all just an extraordinary fantasy. And it remains five years in, disorienting and exciting and bizarre to think of that dream that I fostered for so long being an actual real life thing.

[E]

When did you start thinking about the second book?

[B]

You know, when you sell your first book, you've published books like, you know, this. I think there are two kind of standard pieces of advice. One is get a therapist if you don't have one already. And the other one that everyone tells you is write a second book, start working on a second book. Start working on a second book. So really attendant with the sale of my first, which was in 2017, was this kind of energy and strong encouragement to start thinking about the second. So I did think about the second and all of the anxiety and bizarreness and I can't believe this dream is coming true. Excitement and also terror feeling, those were all going into what I imagined would be this second book. So when we met in 2021, we.

[E]

Caused a lot of trouble. I'm just saying that out loud. Just saying that out loud.

[B]

For anybody wondering, we had some Idaho adventures. I mean, I have not been invited back since. It could be. There you go. But yeah, we made some ruckus in the wild in Idaho. And I was at that time really deep in the throes of a project that was pretty anxious and was not working. And that just a few weeks, really after we met, I came to a point where I thought, I've been trying to take this advice. I've been trying to write this second book. I've been trying to write a project that would make me feel like. I mean, the first question you asked, like a successful author. And I thought, I don't know what I'm doing. I gotta put this aside. So I put it aside, and I started a project that was weird and wild and exciting and connected to what I loved as a kid. Like the kind of stories that made me fall in love with writing and reading in the first place were these very weird, bloody Grimm's fairy tales. And I started writing this bizarre story, and it was the most thrilling experience of my life. It was wonderful.

[E]

That's amazing.

[B]

Yeah, it was a very joyful writing experience in a way that I think writing hadn't been for a long time for me. Even before my first book was published, I wanted to publish a book so badly that it was very fraught, the experience of writing. I wanted to do a good job and show other people I was doing a good job. And this felt much more liberated, I guess.

[E]

That's so interesting. Whatever happened to the second.

[B]

That alleged second book, it went in a drawer. And I hope it'll come out of the drawer one day, but I think it's gonna be very. I think it's time in the drawer is gonna serve it well.

[E]

My guest is Julia Phillips, author of Bear. So Snow White and Rose Red, two girls. They befriend a bear. He. I think he becomes a prince at the end. I love this story, by the way.

[B]

Me, too. Me too. Did you like it as a kid? Did you read these?

[E]

I did. I loved that story. Although I got confused. Like, what? Snow White isn't like the Disney Snow White. Why did you like this version of Snow White and Rose Red?

[B]

I loved this story because, yeah, it's not the sort of most mainstream version of Snow White. I would say it's kind of a minor fairy tale. And it's weird. It's a very weird story. The original story is about these two sisters who live in a cottage with their mother. And this bear comes to their door, exactly as you said. And they kind of befriend it. And. And the befriending is bizarre. They roll around on the floor with it and they put their hands in its fur and I didn't know the word perverse as A little kid. But I think if I had, I would have said, this is very perverse. It was a little beastial in ways that were confusing. And the story itself, the structure of the story, didn't kind of feel satisfying to me as a kid. And it was that dissatisfaction that I think was so compelling because the characters and the images, the relationships stick with you, but the plot didn't quite make sense to me. And so I always thought about it, and I kept thinking about it. And as a kid, I would try to rewrite versions of it. And then at this point where I got to in 2021, where I thought, well, I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. So let me just go back to what I love. And what I loved were these characters, this relationship, this kind of situation, but poured into a new container of plot.

[E]

Sam and Elena are your sisters. They live in the San Juan Islands with their mom. Their mom is sick, so they stay to take care of her. But the mom has made some really questionable decisions in her choices as an adult, decisions that have affected them. Why do you think they decided to stay? Stay and take care of mom?

[B]

I don't know if they had a lot of options other than stay and take care of mom. They occupy a particular place, an economic place or cultural place where they don't. They're outside of the very thin, like, existing social safety nets that we have in this country. They're not qualified for care. What little care there is, I think, on a kind of societal level, but they can't afford private care. And their mom is sick. Their mom is terminally ill and has been for a long time. And so they don't have an option other than being her caretakers. I think it is a situation that they are not alone in at all. A situation that a lot of folks find themselves in where, okay, like, there's no one who's going to step in and do this. My community is not gonna do this. The government has refused to do this. So who's gonna do it? I'm gonna do it. And the sisters have, in a way, made that choice, but also, like, accepted that responsibility that they are the ones who are gonna have to care for her if anyone is going to.

[E]

Sam is convinced that they'll move on once their mother passes away. What does she want to do?

[B]

I don't think it's clear to her. She has. That was a very fun part of the book was to write about her fantasies of what she wants to do. Yeah, both of these sisters are, as you said, kind of in the home, in the cottage with their mother. But it's not fairy tale idyllic. In the story, they're caretaking for her in her illness. And Sam keeps. Sam copes with this situation by kind of losing herself in fantasies of the future. One day we're gonna move away. One day we're gonna be wealthy. One day we're going to be comfortable, going to be free. And what form that fantasy takes can be a million different things. She has these pages where she thinks, like, you know, maybe we'll move here or we'll do this or we'll go there. Maybe we'll live in a city or maybe we'll, you know, live in a tent. And like, it sort of doesn't matter to her, the specifics. But what she really wants is the feeling of freedom. She wants to feel free, she wants to feel unencumbered because she and her sister have been caring a really heavy weight for a really long time. And she just dreams of the day she's going to be able to set it down.

[E]

Elaine and Sam are close in age. Did you think about birth order, though? Because Elaine is the older sister and she's a little more. Well, on one level, she's rooted in reality.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's certainly how she ought to be in her younger sister's eyes. She ought to be the more sensible one. I definitely thought about Bertha. In fact, I think the original fairy tale I loved in part because I was drawn to the little sister character and that this rose red sister who, you know, in the kind of simplistic or very straightforward fairy tale terms, like she has darker hair, she is the younger one, she is the rebel, you know, and that was exciting to me as also, you know, a brunette younger sibling of a blonder and more socially well adjusted older sibling. I was like, ah, something about this is resonating. And I really, really enjoyed that dynamic. And I wanted to lean into it a little bit. These sisters are in this binary, just the two of them, and they've grown up their whole lives, especially Sam, kind of defining herself as what her sister, her older sister is not. If my older sister's responsible, then I can kind of shirk responsibility. Or if my older sister takes care of everything, then I don't need to pay attention to any. Or if my older sister always does the right thing, then I can like have some wiggle room to do the wrong thing. And then where does that leave them? You know, by their late 20s when they've been trapped in this home and in this dynamic for so long. Where do they wind up in that?

[E]

Sam works on the ferry that brings tourists back and forth, and a lot of class differences come up for her in the job. What did you want to observe about class difference?

[B]

I wrote this book on out of kind of an economic pressure cooker, which I guess every single day of our lives isn't. You know, we're talking to each other here in downtown Manhattan. Talk about an economic pressure cooker. Like, money matters to us a lot and to the folks around us. Laugh. But I was coming out of these two particular experiences. One was right, like, out of the pandemic, kind of the onset and height of the pandemic. And the other one was out of my entry into parenthood. So I had a kid, my First Kid, in June 2020, and those experiences were really stacked for me, the pandemic and parenthood. And both of those experiences kind of deliver the same economic lesson, which my experience of both was like, you are totally alone unless you can pay for it. If you want to have health, if you want to have a job, if you want to have, like, any caretaking at all, if you want to, like, not. Not be crushingly, devastatingly, like, alone and unable to. To do anything in your days, if you want to have anything possible, well, then you're going to have to pay for it. And if you can't pay for it, then, like, good luck, because we're not helping. And the feeling of abandonment and the feeling of this shock of, like, shouldn't it be different than this? But it's not. It's not different than this. Before those twin experiences, I was kind of able to pretend that. That it was different from that. And then this, and then I couldn't pretend anymore. And Sam has been living in that reality for a much longer time, and she has been really embittered by it. She really, really feels the gap that she and her family exist in where their life is not livable. Like, every single time they get a little bit of money, some emergency takes it away. Every single time they think they're going to get ahead, something changes and they fall back. And then everyone else is closing this gap, this gap of social services, this gap of care with money. And she sees them all the time because she lives in this tourist destination. So she sees it constantly. It really, I think, has ground on her and formed her into the person that she is when we meet her.

[E]

Julia Phillips is my guest. Julia Phillips is my guest. The book is called Bear. Okay, so the bear comes to the house.

[B]

It sure does.

[E]

Would you read their reaction the first time they see the bear?

[B]

I will. They went together to the window in the living room. Elena was holding on to Sam now. Sam could feel her quaking, the tendons seizing, Elena's effort over and over to release them. And how they refused. Be careful, elena whispered. But Sam, having seen their mother, wasn't scared anymore. It wasn't that she didn't trust her older sister or didn't heed sincere warnings, or didn't fear apex predators. She kimped simply couldn't process how it was possible, an animal like that outside here? The words made no sense. Was Elena delusional, she who had spent her whole adulthood so level headed? Yet there was her movement, the seize and release at Sam's side. And there, Sam saw through the glass, was a bear. It was hunkered down at their front door, just at the edge of the walkway. It faced away. Its rump was huge, thickly furred gold and black and brown, matted in spots, dense with texture. Past that, the lump of its shoulders, the soft half circles of its small high ears. Its head was massive. It turned its face and the sisters shrank from the window. But it was calm. It looked in profile toward the road, sniffed the air, and yawned, expansive, a mouth opening, vastly yellow teeth exposed, three inches long, black lips curling back and tongue spilling forth. It shut its mouth and faced away from them again. Is this real? Elena whispered, her warm breath against Sam's cheek. Sam stared the smudged window pane, the cracking frame, the slimmest of barriers between them and it. There, not 10ft away, was the animal's massive body, as big as three men, wider, stronger, and far deadlier. Its tail, its back, its thighs. It twitched and its muscles rippled. A dark stripe of fur lay over its spine. Elena clung to her. Sam said they had to call someone, get help. The 911 operator told them to calm down and breathe. They described the animal outside. Clutching Sam's phone, they talked while pressed against the refrigerator. The bear, with a blow could smash through one of their windows, barge into the kitchen, demolish their lives. But they huddled there as if the humming fridge could protect them from the back of the house. Their mother made a sound and Elena met Sam's eyes, grimaced. The operator told them someone would be there soon.

[E]

That's Julia Phillips reading from Bear. What kind of research did you do about bears?

[B]

I read a lot of books about bears, which was great, and listen to a lot of podcasts actually. And there's There's a pretty deep pool of folks who have described their encounters with or like survival from bear attacks. For example, there's a fantastic memoir called Eye of the Wild by Nastasia Martin that I read. It's by a French writer, I believe. Yeah, about a time she was attacked by a bear in Russia. And she talks about the sort of, like, intimate experience of it. That was really, really helpful. I attacked because I wanted to really think about proximity and proximity to a bear from the perspective of someone who wasn't like a bear expert, a bear scientist. I also watched some very happy and cozy and fun documentaries about bears rolling around on the ground and enjoying each other's company, which I loved. And I had some experiences of my own. My first book was set in Russia and in a region with a lot of brown bears. And I had, very foolishly, while researching this book, approached some brown bears overconfidently myself. So I had some personal experiences to draw on there that hopefully will never be repeated in my life. But I certainly had my own ideas about the attraction of a brown bear.

[E]

Elena becomes obsessed with the bear in the book. She might be putting her life in danger or not.

[B]

That's the question.

[E]

We have to kind of decide what is behind her obsession with the bear. And do you think the bear is obsessed with her?

[B]

I think the bear, she and the bear have a relationship for sure. And the bear is getting something from her that it wants. The bear is drawn to her. They have a kind of kinship with each other. I think her interpretation of that relationship is very human. And I don't think that's the bear's interpretation of the relationship. She. She has feelings about it. We talked before about Sam's tendency to escape into fantasy and like, always think about the future. Always think about the future. And her sister Elena doesn't really do that. And Sam doesn't really understand or sort of thinks to herself, I think, oh, well, I guess Elena, like, doesn't need any escape at all. Or I guess she's fine, or I guess she's just, like, so well adjusted that it really doesn't matter to her this. She can just put up with it. And I think, in fact, when we see Elena's relationship to the bear, we can see how badly she needed an escape all this time, that it's been really difficult for her to carry this same burden. And she hasn't been able to console herself with the fantasy of one day because today has been really hard. And so when today all of a sudden offers something novel and Special and exciting and unique. And that's an irresistible thing. And to become obsessed with a bear is, I don't think, something that happens to everyone all the time. I mean, it's a pretty unusual experience. But I think it's, to me, it's really understandable that she has this intense reaction to something that offers her a way out of her day to day when her day to day has been so difficult for so long.

[E]

Bears are smart, they use tools, they remember things. Your bear seems to have a quite a bit of emotional intelligence in this story. What qualities did you want the bear to have?

[B]

I wanted the bear. One of the things I loved the most about the source material and about every, every story I read, to be honest. But I really, really was taught to love it, maybe by fairy tales, is their kind of feeling of hyper realism in a way, and how realistic they seem, how grounded they are. It went into these, you know, if you read a fairy tale, it doesn't just say like, oh, and the stepsister tried to put on the glass slipper and it didn't fit. The Brothers Grimm will say like, and her mother handed her a knife and she cut off her big toe and then filled the glass slipper with blood. I mean, it's so, so, so grounded to a degree that is shocking and really illuminating. And I wanted the bear in this story to feel that way. I wanted it to feel very, very, very much like a bear. So there are ways that it behaves and operates that Sam and Lynn are trying to understand, but they, but are opaque to them because it is a bear and it, it has a certain smell and it has a certain weight and it opens its mouth a certain way and it, its body is, it's not enchanted prince like it is its physicality, its behavior, it's mysterious to them not because it's magical, but because it's another way of being in the world that is by its very nature a mystery. It's a different species, it's a different way of understanding. So yeah, they attribute this emotional intelligence to it or they attribute motivations to it that are their own and projected. And in fact, like, what the bear wants or how it is behaving is not legible to them from their human points of view.

[E]

And that's where we'll leave it. You'll have to find out what happens to the bear. Sam and Elena. The name of the book is Bear. It's by Julia Phillips. Julia will be at my Bibliotheca tonight at 7pm she'll also be next September 25th, she'll be at the Brooklyn Book Festival. Thank you for coming in. Really happy to see you.

[B]

I'm really happy to see you. Thank you so much for this, Alison. I can't wait for next time in.

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