Audition Book Club

Summary

Bad On Paper Podcast: Audition Book Club Episode Summary

Release Date: May 28, 2025
Hosts: Becca Freeman & Olivia Muenter
Book Discussed: "Auditioned" by Katie Kitamura

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of Bad On Paper, hosts Becca Freeman and Olivia Muenter delve into their latest book club pick, "Auditioned" by Katie Kitamura. The episode blends insightful literary analysis with personal anecdotes, creating a rich tapestry of discussion for both avid readers and casual listeners.

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Weekly Highs and Lows

Becca Freeman and Olivia Muenter start the conversation by sharing their weekly highs and lows, providing a personal touch to the episode.

• Olivia’s High: Successfully Hosting a Baby Shower

  • [01:06] Olivia expresses excitement about successfully hosting a small, intimate baby brunch for a friend. She highlights the balance between socializing and enjoying quiet moments with her partner, Jake.
  • Quote:
    "It was the perfect balance of like, heavy socializing with just prime introvert behavior." — Olivia Muenter [02:19]

• Becca’s High: Clothing and Product Swap Event

  • [03:05] Becca shares her enthusiasm for attending a clothing and beauty product swap hosted by her friend Zoe. She enjoyed the Shark Tank-like pitching of items and ended up bringing home more than she came with.
  • Quote:
    "I think we're gonna try to do it quarterly...it's good to know that I can keep kind of like a running bag of stuff." — Becca Freeman [05:17]

• Becca’s Low: Depleted Social Battery

  • [05:26] After a month of constant social engagements, Becca feels utterly exhausted. She looks forward to a weekend of solitude to recover.
  • Quote:
    "My social battery is dead. It is flatlined. It is dead." — Becca Freeman [05:26]

• Olivia’s Low: A Disturbing Week

  • [06:25] Olivia recounts a week filled with a pervasive sense of unease and personal dissatisfaction, exacerbated by a missed opportunity to capture photos of a well-hosted event.
  • Quote:
    "I felt like everything is so beautiful in these photos except for you, Olivia." — Olivia Muenter [07:03]

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Book Discussion: "Auditioned" by Katie Kitamura

The core of the episode revolves around an in-depth discussion of "Auditioned", exploring its complex narrative structure, thematic depth, and ambiguous storytelling.

Synopsis and Plot Interpretation

• Becca’s Synopsis:

  • [12:38] Becca provides a brief overview of the book, detailing the story of an accomplished actress who encounters a younger man in Manhattan, leading to a perplexing relationship dynamic.
  • Quote:
    "Auditioned by Katie Kitamura is about an accomplished actress who meets a much younger man for lunch in Manhattan." — Becca Freeman [12:39]

• Olivia’s Interpretation:

  • [13:34] Olivia admits to struggling with understanding the plot due to its unconventional structure, expressing excitement to unpack the book's layers.
  • Quote:
    "It's hard for there to be a plot… the author is doing something that you just aren’t aware of." — Olivia Muenter [13:34]

Themes Explored

1. Performance and Authenticity

   • [32:42] Both hosts discuss the pervasive theme of performance in the book, relating it to acting, social media, and personal relationships.
   • Olivia’s Insight:
     "The performance will disappear. It is hollow because it's never yours. It's owned by other people." — Olivia Muenter [57:55]

2. Ambiguity and Narrative Structure

   • [24:26] The hosts debate the book's intentional ambiguity and its impact on reader comprehension, noting its place in Katie Kitamura's thematic trilogy.
   • Becca’s Observation:
     "This is supposed to be ambiguous… part is the ambiguity." — Becca Freeman [26:32]

3. Gender Imbalance and Familial Roles

   • [46:07] Discussion on the portrayal of gender dynamics and the expectations placed on women within familial and marital contexts.
   • Becca’s Reflection:
     "It felt like he was allowed to just do as he pleased in some way… tension within families." — Becca Freeman [46:07]

4. Social Media Parallels

   • [56:57] Connections between the book's themes and the roles of social media in modern life, particularly the concept of "trauma porn" and performed realities.
   • Olivia’s Connection:
     "The performance of it, the sharing of it, ultimately it is consumed by other people and then it becomes something else." — Olivia Muenter [57:55]

Critical Reception and Reviews

• Goodreads Ratings:

  • The book holds a 3.44 rating, indicating a mixed reception with more middle-ground reviews than polarized ones.

• Selected Reviews:

  • Four-Star Review:
    "High concept, structurally complex literary fiction is so tricky… I loved it." — Goodreads Reviewer [27:57]

  • Two-Star Review:
    "A frustrating, high concept piece of writing… I personally think it's clever to make a mess and wait for others to see art in it." — Goodreads Reviewer [28:00]

Host Perspectives

• Becca’s Take:

  • Appreciates the book's thematic commentary and finds the story compelling yet challenging to fully grasp.
  • Quote:
    "I enjoyed the thematic commentary so much. The language was really simple… easy to read." — Becca Freeman [31:16]

• Olivia’s Take:

  • Sympathizes with both positive and negative reviews, recognizing the book's intellectual ambitions and emotional impact.
  • Quote:
    "I felt like this too shall pass. But, yeah, just a weird off week." — Olivia Muenter [09:17]

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Key Insights and Discussions

Performance as a Central Theme

• The narrative explores how individuals perform various roles in their lives, both professionally and personally.
• Becca:
  "The idea of audition, both because the character is an actress, but then how we are constantly auditioning to be worthy to play these parts in our real life." — Becca Freeman [62:49]

Ambiguity and Reader Engagement

• The book's ambiguity is both a strength and a challenge, fostering diverse interpretations and deep analytical discussions.
• Olivia:
  "They are deliberate in making the narrative obscure, more confusing." — Olivia Muenter [27:57]

Familial Estrangement and Roles

• Discussion on how adult children’s decisions to distance from parents can complicate established familial roles and dynamics.
• Becca:
  "It was really interesting to see this adult child come back, kind of rock his mother's psyche about how she was as a mother and about her relationship." — Becca Freeman [44:16]

Social Media and Authenticity

• The conversation draws parallels between the book’s themes and the performative aspects of social media, highlighting the contrast between real emotions and their representations.
• Olivia:
  "The performance of it, the sharing of it, what you post online, ultimately it becomes something else." — Olivia Muenter [57:55]

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Conclusion

Becca Freeman and Olivia Muenter conclude their discussion by reflecting on the book's complex themes and personal impacts. They express anticipation for their upcoming bonus episode featuring an interview with Katie Kitamura, aiming to gain further clarity on the book's ambiguous elements.

• Becca:
  "I think the ability for that child to hurt you… portrays motherhood as not idyllic." — Becca Freeman [52:20]

• Olivia:
  "It's about who the people around us force us to be. Whether that is a choice or a role we fall into." — Olivia Muenter [41:27]

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Additional Content

While the episode includes brief advertisements for Cozy Earth and Quince, these sections are omitted from the summary to focus solely on the core content of the podcast.

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Upcoming Episodes and Recommendations

• Bonus Episode:
  A deeper conversation with Katie Kitamura is slated for release the following day, promising further insights into "Auditioned."

• Listener Book Club:
  July’s book club pick will be "All the Other Mothers Hate Me" by Sarah Harmon, offering a lighter contrast to the episode's literary discussion.

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Bad On Paper offers a profound exploration of "Auditioned", blending literary critique with personal reflections. The hosts adeptly navigate the book's complexity, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding while inviting them to engage with the material's deeper themes.

For more discussions, join the Bad On Paper community on Facebook, Instagram, and Substack.

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Notable Quotes:

• "The performance will disappear. It is hollow because it's never yours." — Olivia Muenter [57:55]
• "What was family if not a shared delusion, a mutual construction?" — Becca Freeman [42:15]
• "We have family members who we have very fraught, intense, layered relationships with." — Olivia Muenter [43:05]

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Timestamps:

• Introduction: [00:18] – [00:53]
• Weekly Highs/Lows: [01:06] – [10:14]
• Book Discussion: [12:30] – [63:00]
• Ads Skipped: [10:25] – [12:30] & [48:14] – [49:20]
• Conclusion: [63:00] – [75:47]

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Stay Connected:

• Olivia Muenter:
  Instagram: @oliviamentor
  Substack: liviamentor

• Becca Freeman:
  Instagram: @ecamfreeman
  Newsletter: eccafreeman.substack.com

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Thank you for tuning into Bad On Paper. Join us again next week for more books and banter!

Transcript

[Olivia Mentor]

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Baton Paper Podcast. I'm Olivia Mentor.

[Becca Freeman]

And I'm Becca Freeman.

[Olivia Mentor]

And today is our book club episode for audition by Katie Kitamora.

[Becca Freeman]

I'm excited to chat about this. I mean, spoiler. We're recording the intro after we recorded the meat of it. So we already had the conversation, but I'm excited for the listeners to listen to it. And I'm equally excited that we have a bonus episode tomorrow talking to Katie herself. And we had a fantastic conversation and also got some closure.

[Olivia Mentor]

I so enjoyed that conversation. I've been thinking about it ever since.

[Becca Freeman]

Same we.

[Olivia Mentor]

We same with exited the zoom call.

[Becca Freeman]

That's true of the book too, to be honest.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, it very true. Both worth listening to. Honestly, whether you read the book or not, it's interesting.

[Becca Freeman]

Well, before we get into book talk, tell me your high this week.

[Olivia Mentor]

My high is I successfully kind of hosted another event. So I'm really just full speed ahead on the hosting. But it was just a very small baby shower for a friend who was pregnant. And it was a brunch. A baby brunch.

[Becca Freeman]

Are you in your party girl era?

[Olivia Mentor]

I guess I don't. I guess I am. I'm taking a break from hosting for a little while, though, because it is. It's. It's a whole, whole effort. But some people brought their kids and there's people I did know, people I didn't know. So it was really nice. But actually the highlight of it, I would say, is, so it's kind of a long day. You know, it's 11, so I was up at 6, like, getting stuff ready, going to pick up pastries, and then everyone left around like four or five. So it was, you know, it was long. And after everything, Jake went out and picked up Chipotle, and we just sat in silence and ate our Chipotle on the couch. And it was the perfect balance of like, heavy socializing with just prime introvert behavior. Like, I don't think we talked to each other. We watched Love After Lockup. It was fantastic. It was a fantastic balance of activities.

[Becca Freeman]

Do you wanna know what I did after I saw you write this in the outline this morning?

[Olivia Mentor]

You got Chipotle?

[Becca Freeman]

Yeah, sure did.

[Olivia Mentor]

It's a thing. I think I was actually watching Love After Lockup and there was just a scene on the street and the Chipotle was just in the background. It was just in the background of this shot. And I was like, we gotta get it.

[Becca Freeman]

Yeah.

[Olivia Mentor]

And Jake's like, it's not even that good. Most of the Time. And it's true, our Chipotle is in chaos all the time, but it really hits the spot when it hits the spot.

[Becca Freeman]

Yeah.

[Olivia Mentor]

What did you get? Have you tried their new honey?

[Becca Freeman]

I got it.

[Olivia Mentor]

Chipotle chicken.

[Becca Freeman]

I really like it. I really like it. I always like their special meats.

[Olivia Mentor]

They have a lot. I. We're. It's overwhelming there sometimes with the special meats. There's so many.

[Becca Freeman]

Yeah.

[Olivia Mentor]

Well, tell me about your high. Thank you.

[Becca Freeman]

So my high is that last night, my friend Zoe, past friend of the pod. I mean, current friend of the pod, past pod guest, made her sound dead. She hosted a swap for a bunch of girlfriends. So people brought clothes, beauty products, books, office supplies, just basically anything that you had that was good. Not trash, but that for whatever reason, you didn't want anymore. And we had a swap. It was very fun. Also, there was like an element where basically it was kind of like shark tank where everyone got a turn and you got to, like, pitch the things you brought and who you thought might like them.

[Olivia Mentor]

Oh, that's really fun. Did she think of this herself or, like, go to one before or has she been doing this?

[Becca Freeman]

I have no idea. I didn't ask the backstory, but it was so fun. I brought more stuff than I came home with, which was my intent. I have too much stuff. But I did bring home. Our friend Emily had thrifted a butter yellow Ralph Lauren sweater that, like, I don't know, it seemed like it was maybe from the 90s or the early 2000s, oversized, like men's. So I brought that home. And then I also brought home a bag of protein to make protein coffee. That apparently is all the rage on TikTok.

[Olivia Mentor]

I've heard this.

[Becca Freeman]

Well, I'll let you know what flavor.

[Olivia Mentor]

Protein just so it's brown sugar oatmeal.

[Becca Freeman]

Flavor, which I think is on TikTok. People are using it to make this knockoff of a Dunkin brown sugar latte, I think.

[Olivia Mentor]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Becca Freeman]

So I haven't tried it yet because I only have creamer in the house. I don't have just, like, plain milk. And I feel like if I did creamer plus the. The flavored protein, it would be way too sweet. So I'll need to get some plain milk this weekend.

[Olivia Mentor]

Well, that sounds like a really good haul.

[Becca Freeman]

It was great. It was really fun.

[Olivia Mentor]

That sounds very fun. I need to do this because Jesus Christ knows I have too much stuff.

[Becca Freeman]

I think we're gonna try to do it quarterly. So now. Also, it'll be good to Know that it's on the agenda that I can keep kind of like a running bag of stuff.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. Oh, I might copy this and add it to my hosting things. I don't know. It sounds great. What is your low?

[Becca Freeman]

My low is that my social battery is dead. It is flatlined. It is dead. Since I came back takes a lot for you. Yeah, that takes a lot. Since I came back from Maine at the beginning of the month, I think there's been one night that I didn't have plans. And also, Maine itself was quite social. So I have basically just had plans every night for a month, except for one, and I am dead. And they've all been really fun. I'm excited. I had them all. But luckily, I mean, the solution is in sight, that I don't have any plans Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I'm going to a barbecue on Monday for Memorial Day. But I don't have any plans this weekend. And I'm planning to have a working weekend and buckle down with my book. But the fact that I don't have any plans. Interruptions. I don't have to get dressed. Oh, my gosh.

[Olivia Mentor]

That sounds very necessary. A month straight is more than I can fathom, personally. I have three days in a row this weekend, and I'm like, prepare yourself, Olivia.

[Becca Freeman]

It was fine until, like, two days ago.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. Well, at least you recognize that and you have just a nice rainy weekend to do. Nothing.

[Becca Freeman]

Yes, exactly. I want to work on my book. I want to read some books. Yeah. Eat the rest of my chipotle burrito bowl.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. Solid.

[Becca Freeman]

Okay. What about you? What's your low?

[Olivia Mentor]

My low is it doesn't sound like this is the case for you, but every other person I have talked to this week has been like, there is something so weird about this week. Like, this week, everything is going wrong. I don't feel good. Like, it's just. It's. Something is in the air. I don't know what it is.

[Becca Freeman]

Finally, I have no plans. And the weirdest coming.

[Olivia Mentor]

I really hope not. It's also just been very cold up here, and so I think that kind of just throws people off when you're expecting, like, nice holiday weekend weather. But I, too, have had a very kind of just weirdly stressful week, and I just have not felt great. I. I mean, one specific low is. So we hosted that baby shower, and my friend took a bunch of. He's a great photographer and took a lot of really lovely photos of the house and the setup. And it just. I have no photos. I think my Phone. This will surprise no one. I think my phone was dead for the entire thing. Of course it was. So I don't have any photos of anything. And he, the week after, sent a lot of photos of it. And everyone looked so happy and beautiful, and the house looked mostly nice. And I don't know, it was just a really, like, nice full circle moment to just be like, oh, I always imagined having, you know, social things here, and here everyone is. And then I just saw myself in the photos and I was like. And I felt like this all my life. And so I try to remind myself of that, but I just was like, everything is so beautiful in these photos except for you, Olivia. Like, why are you. I know. It's just like I wrote in my journal. I was like, everything was so nice. And then there was me, and I just felt. I don't know. And you know what's weird about it is that it was this moment where I didn't really think about what outfit I was gonna wear beforehand. Usually I would have, like, shopped for a whole new wardrobe in preparation for any event social. I didn't have time to do my hair because I was getting ready, and so I just had it back in a bun. I didn't have any makeup on, really. And at the time, I thought, like, wow, what a cool moment that I feel great about myself without the Instagram outfit, without makeup, without full hair, whatever. And then I looked at the photos and I was like, oh, no, you can't do that.

[Becca Freeman]

No.

[Olivia Mentor]

You know, and I don't know. Yeah, so it was just. It's just weird. An off week. Yeah.

[Becca Freeman]

I'm sure that's not true. Outside of your brain, seeing you in all sorts of states on this podcast, we really come as we are.

[Olivia Mentor]

It's true.

[Becca Freeman]

But I. I totally empathize with the feeling of seeing a candid photo that you didn't realize is being taken or something that's like a weird angle, and you're just like, that's what I look like to other people.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. And everyone else is also candid, but I'm like, they beautiful models, perfect. And me, I'm like, what is happening here? Like, why is the human shape that way? I know that everyone feels this way in different moments too. And I have felt this way at so many different sizes and full, glam, no makeup, all the things. So this too shall pass. But, yeah, just a weird off. Something's in the air, kind of weak. I've also been on my period. I feel disclaimer is necessary.

[Becca Freeman]

There Bound to make anything 20% worse.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, it's true, it's true. But I have been going on lots of walks still and that's been really making me feel good to counteract the bad. So an off week, but it's bound to happen.

[Becca Freeman]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Olivia Mentor]

Thank you. Well, enough about that. Let's move in to some bookish content. But first, let's take an ad break.

[Becca Freeman]

Let's.

[Olivia Mentor]

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[Becca Freeman]

I feel like we haven't talked about these in a minute, so I need to bring up my love for their loungewear. And specifically, I'm so into their brushed bamboo wide leg pull on pant. And one of the things I appreciate most about all of Cozy Earth's loungewear is that they come in tall sizes. And I don't know how many tall ladies we have listening, but oh my God, it is a game changer to have sweatpants that actually are the length they're supposed to be. And these are wide leg. Like I think they almost can pass as real pants in public, which I appreciate. They're so comfortable, they're so soft, they don't lose their shape so you don't end up with like the dumpy butt situation. In love with these pants. I have two pairs. Like it's not ruled out that I'm getting more. The only reason I don't have more is because I also have joggers from them. But if that isn't convincing enough for you, you should know about Cozy Earth's 100 night sleep trial and 10 year warranty on all bedding products. Both of these policies prove just how much the brand stands behind the quality of their products. You can order and use their products knowing that if something doesn't work out for you, you can get your money back. But my guess is that you're going to want to keep everything and maybe buy more too.

[Olivia Mentor]

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[Becca Freeman]

Okay, Olivia, let's start with a quick synopsis of this book, which is, ironically, the part I feel least confident in.

[Olivia Mentor]

Do you want to do the honors or should I?

[Becca Freeman]

I would love to. I've gotten us into this mess. I would happily do the honors. So the book Auditioned by Katie Kitamura is about an accomplished actress who meets a much younger man for lunch in Manhattan. And we're forced to wonder who they are to each other. So in the first part, he has read a profile of her and mistakenly believes he might be the son that she gave up for adoption. And in the second part, we get to see them as mother and son. Okay, right off the bat, Olivia.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, like, where do I begin?

[Becca Freeman]

Okay, I guess right off the bat, even before, did you like this? Do you feel like you understood what happened in this book plot wise? And if you are able to please explain your perception to me.

[Olivia Mentor]

No, I feel like I could make some guesses. I think the thing is that this book is so different than most things I have read and it's so clearly doing something very different that any sort of instinct or idea I have about what happens or about what happened in the plot seems wrong to me. Like, instinctively, I'm like, that can't be it, Olivia. Like, it can't be that simple. Like, clearly this author is doing something that you just aren't aware of. So I'm really excited to talk about it. I also, I should say I went into this with your sort of pitch, being like, I think I understood what happened, but I'm not totally sure. And so that was comforting. I'll say that it was comforting, yes.

[Becca Freeman]

So I understood part one and part two to be alternate realities. So they are not connected in any way. They are alternate timelines. So in part one, this boy man thinks that he is her son, but it is impossible because she has never carried a pregnancy to term. She talks about having had an abortion in one case and a miscarriage in another. So he physically cannot be her son. She has never given birth. But then they kind of go on to be embroiled in each other's lives. And in the second timeline, he actually is her son. She talks about memories of him as a child. So it is not like she has adopted him in his, you know, early 20s after they met at the theater. He actually is her son that she has. I don't know if it doesn't seem like it talks about whether biologically or not, but she raised him from a child. And in the second part, this is the part I understand the least I guess so I'm taking them as two separate, distinct realities. But in the second part, it begins with them at a dinner. So another meal. And she is worried about his relationship with his father, her husband, and saying that they kind of like butt heads and the father wants him to grow up, wants more out of him, and they have kind of an adversarial relationship. But then throughout the second part, it becomes clear that she is the one with the adversarial relationship with him. And I couldn't tell how much it was happening and changing in real time versus she had just totally misrepresented their relationship in her mind on second read. So I read this for a second time yesterday in full, because I want it to be very fresh coming into this. And in the second one, if you kind of zoom out a level from what's happening plot wise, it's almost like in the first half, he is the monster and he is creeping closer and closer. It starts off where it's like, I can't have a relationship with you. We're not sure what the relationship is, if it's romantic or it turns out he thinks she's his mother. Then he gets this job, he becomes close to her boss. He kind of becomes a mouthpiece for the boss. Like, it's like he's creeping closer and closer. And then in the second timeline, it's almost as if she is the monster. Where it starts off as she is this wonderful mother, and then the walls keep closing in as they live together and the relationship gets worse and worse. Does any of that read for that feels.

[Olivia Mentor]

That feels right? It's funny to like talk about this book because it's hard to put it all into words because I'm thinking about it all at once. I think that I kept trying to figure out what was going on and then the book would present me with something that like completely blew that out of the water, you know? Yeah, it was like I kept expecting something to happen. Be like, ah, yes, it's clicking. Having said that, I mean, you haven't asked this, but I did really enjoy parts of it. Like, the writing is obviously wonderful. I thought there's this one part about how when you choose not to have children, like that choice has a presence in your life. And not necessarily in like a lacking sort of way, but just it has this space that it takes up in the same way that making the opposite choice does. And I found that so poignant. But interestingly, as much as the pitch of this book is about a mother and maybe a son, and as much as like the plot is about that as well, I found it to be more of a commentary on marriage and like a long term relationship. And I think there is a way of looking at it where it's these two alternate realities, these two paths. You know, she talks about how her husband really secretly wanted a child. And in this alternate reality we see in part two, they have this child and still there is this tension in their marriage and there is this tension kind of like divide that is also in part one. And so like I think there's a way to look at it that it's like that's going to remain in any timeline, in any choice you make. But the book is so like highbrow or like intellectual that I almost feel like, is that too simplistic? You know, like, is that too basic of a take? I just don't know. And so I found myself asking that like, and just having this feeling that you mentioned in the pitch a lot which was like, I'm not totally sure if I understood. I don't. I'm not sure if I am smart enough, you know.

[Becca Freeman]

So I fully agree with what you said at the top where it's like, I enjoyed this in parts. And I saw a reviewer say, because after I finished the book for the first time, I felt like I needed to go on the Internet and be like, did other people get this? Am I too dumb to get this? And everyone else understood it. And I read a bunch of reviews to kind of see how people were talking about it. And one reviewer said something to the effect of they appreciate Katie Kitamura books. Like they're plays so on a scene level, but maybe less so as a whole, which is really interesting because I've never had a reading experience like that because I loved and we'll talk about. There were so many thematic moments, so much commentary that felt so broadly applicable outside of the story. And I found the story really compulsively readable. I was like wanting to know what happened. It was very short. Like I, I was never like, oh God, you made me read this 700 page book. And at the end I have no answers. Like I think it being 200 pages, I never felt like that. But I'm admittedly a plot reader in this book, cannot say that I understood the plot right.

[Olivia Mentor]

I mean I don't think they're really was one in a way, you know, because like there is no clear connection of the two parts really. Like it's not really clear as just an average reader what is happening. So it's, it's hard for there to be a plot.

[Becca Freeman]

I think that's the intent. I, I listened to one interview yesterday. I didn't want to do it before I did the outline, so I did the outline first because I didn't want to bias myself. But I listened to one interview with her and I read most of the reviews that were unpaywalled of this book and it feels as though it's supposed to be ambiguous. And what I learned is that this is actually part of what she calls a trilogy of books. So they are not related in any way by character, but thematically they're linked. And so they're all about language and about interpretation and about perception. And they're all told from the point of view of unnamed female narrators. So the first book in the trio is A Separation, and that is about a literary translator who goes to Greece to look for her estranged husband who she's separated from but not yet divorced from. And she's acting as a translator for her mother in law who does not know about the separation. In the second one, Intimacies, which was long listed for the National Book Award. This is about an interpreter at the International Criminal Court, the Hague, who was assigned to translate the testimony of a former president who's being tried as a war criminal.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I listened to part of one interview and she was saying how they're all in conversation with one another and I would be really curious to see if you read all three of them and something clicks that doesn't with just one, because it really like, it doesn't read like a novel despite being so propulsive. So I wonder if you read all three of them. It feels more like, yeah, something clicks.

[Becca Freeman]

I wonder that too. Another thing that I thought was fascinating is that all three are labeled as psychological thrillers. Does that fit for you?

[Olivia Mentor]

Uh, I mean, I felt like I was psychologically struggling, so maybe that's it. I guess that kind of fits. I mean there is a sort of like dread building discomfort to it. I found the last 50 pages really disturbing and hard to make sense of. Maybe, but like if you go to the average psychological thriller reader and you're like, here you go. I don't think it's going to maybe hit the way that, that they're trying to market it for. I don't know. What do you think?

[Becca Freeman]

I think it almost read as. I don't think this is a genre but like banal horror.

[Olivia Mentor]

Right.

[Becca Freeman]

Where the horror aspect was very mundane. It wasn't as if they were actual Monsters. But it was about kind of people's monstrosity in relationships, in our interpersonal relationships. And it almost read like a horror to me.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I can see that. Sure.

[Becca Freeman]

It's very interesting because there's this meta quote in the book which I feel like explains the whole thing or what the thing is trying to do. I don't think it actually explains any plot details, but at one point, the narrator describes seeing a play by the same playwright who wrote the play she's acting in. And she describes it with this quote. She says tension grew out of every scenes, scenes in which nothing took place and people said very little. And yet the pressure grew and grew so that by the end of the play, I realized I had been in a sickening state of unease for some time. And when I emerged from the theater, I was simultaneously invigorated and physically exhausted, every nerve of my body standing on end.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, that's a pretty. A pretty good description of what it felt like to read the book.

[Becca Freeman]

I would say it's funny because this is in the first part of the book. So when I read it the first time, I didn't clock this as overly prescient because I didn't yet know what was gonna happen. And reading it the second time, I was like, you're just describing this book.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I didn't pick that out either. It's really weird. I wanted to ask you this. So when I was reading and then I got to part two, for some reason, I was like, okay, and there's gonna be a part three. And then I flipped through to see, and there wasn't. And that, to me, felt like, I don't. Did you have that instinct at all?

[Becca Freeman]

Like, were you like, okay, No, I read it the first time on Kindle, and it has the percentage at the bottom. But I think the part one ended right around 50%. So I think my understanding was like, okay, part one took up 50%, so part two will take up 50%.

[Olivia Mentor]

Did you ever feel like you expected the two halves of the book to be more in conversation with each other?

[Becca Freeman]

Yes.

[Olivia Mentor]

And they just weren't at all in some points?

[Becca Freeman]

Yes. At one point, I think I thought maybe, like, they took him in as their son and she was pretending he was their son?

[Olivia Mentor]

Yes, I also had that. And then I was trying. I was thinking, like, wait, like, is this a play? And like, we're just like, yes. I kept thinking that. So I think, actually, in a way, it kind of made it harder for me to engage with what was actually on the page. Because I was constantly like, what is happening? Where is this going? Is this actually a play? Is this actually all happening in her head? Is he pretending to be her son?

[Becca Freeman]

Yes.

[Olivia Mentor]

And that made it more. Just more difficult. But, like, do you think if it was less ambiguous, you would have liked it more? It's almost hard to imagine it for me as not as being more clear. But how do you feel about that?

[Becca Freeman]

I think my brain craves certainty. So I think, you know, whether it's in the book or in the context of an interview, if I understood what the author's intent was, I would feel more comfortable. We are talking to Katie about this book. We have a bonus episode that's gonna come out tomorrow when you're listening and we will ask her. But I have heard that she has been very evasive about what happens in interviews. So I'm not expecting that we'll get an answer, but maybe we'll get a little pieces of clarity. So I do think that my brain craves clarity, but I think part of what makes this book what it is is the ambiguity.

[Olivia Mentor]

Right? Exactly. Like I said, I have trouble imagining it. As you get to the end, you're like, yep, I see.

[Becca Freeman]

So maybe let's take a second to talk about what other people thought. So first I went on Goodreads, and this book right now has a 3.44 rating. So, like, strongly medium. And I expected there to be a lot more 5 star and 1 star reviews. I really thought that the rating bell curve was going to fall at either end, but it really fell with many more people in the middle, where even the positive reviews were four stars and even the very negative reviews were two stars. Like, I think people were almost afraid to be like, this book is great because what if I'm wrong? Or like, this book is terrible because, like, I think I'm a dummy and just don't get it. So I thought that was very interesting. I picked two reviews that I felt like were representative of the pack. So first we have a four star review that said, high concept, structurally complex literary fiction is so tricky, and it tends to send readers in drastically different directions in response. And this will be one of those for sure. It's a book that deliberately makes the narrative more obscure, more confusing, rather than offering the gradual increase in clarity we expect from a novel. I loved it. So it seems like this person loved it, understanding what it was trying to do, not because they understood it in a way that we didn't.

[Olivia Mentor]

Right. And I think that's fair.

[Becca Freeman]

And then I have a Two star review a little longer, so stick with me. This person said, a frustrating, high concept piece of writing. It was beautifully written and I appreciate it was clever, but it was not my cup of tea. I was unfamiliar with Kitamura's work going into this, which was likely an error on my part. Had I known the author typically writes abstract, postmodern stories, I wouldn't have mistook the premise for something I would enjoy. As noted above, the writing is quite beautiful and. And the narrator provides us with some interesting commentary on race and theater as well as on being a mother childless. But this is one of those literary novels that forces you to ask many questions, yet the answers remain elusive after the final page. I was contemplating giving it three stars for being quite clever, but the last 50 pages just went completely off the rails. Up until that point, I had felt I somewhat understood the novel structurally and thematically, even if I did not necessarily enjoy it. But then the narrative dissolved into what in parts read like random chaos. In the end, I was left thinking that this is one of those books so abstract that I think you could say it means literally anything. Oh, this symbolizes this. And this is a metaphor for that. So very deep. But books like this exhaust and frustrate me. I don't personally think it's clever to make a mess and wait for others to see art in it.

[Olivia Mentor]

Damn.

[Becca Freeman]

I felt like both of these reviews were very fair in that I could almost agree with both.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I feel equally with both of them. I agree with both of them, just like you said. But it's interesting when you were reading the part about, oh, it's one of those books where it's so abstract you could think this means this. That's a metaphor for that. It really does kind of echo this, like, this idea of the performance and like these little phrases that could be turned either way. And like, at a certain point it becomes so meta that, like, it just becomes shapeless blob. So that's worth, you know, holding in your hand when you think about it too.

[Becca Freeman]

It almost hinges to me on how much understanding the author has of what they're doing. And I tend to think that in this case there was a very high level of understanding.

[Olivia Mentor]

Absolutely. Because I think to sit down and pitch this book, you have to be able to at least say in a few sentences to the team, like, here is what it is. You know, like, everyone's going to have a different point. That is kind of the point as well. But, like, here is the thing. I looked up the Kirkus review for this afterwards. And I was. I had no idea which way it would go. Starred starred review. And it's funny because I read more positive reviews, too. And I got the sense, reading all of them, that actually no one knew what it was about.

[Becca Freeman]

Yes.

[Olivia Mentor]

But everyone could recognize something good about it. And, you know, I do think there are certain books that especially like Riverhead, highly literary books, that the hype is so much that, you know, she was nominated for a National Book Award. The last book, like, it's just. It's going to be deemed as prestigious and excellent, regardless of a lot of other things. But maybe it doesn't matter that no one knows what it's about. Maybe it just literally doesn't matter.

[Becca Freeman]

Well, so going back to what I said earlier, it didn't matter for me because I enjoyed the thematic commentary so much. So I took something away from it. And again, it was short. My feelings on this would be completely different if it was 600 pages. Like, I think it's the Bee Sting by Paul Murray, where there's, like, one chapter that's 100 pages with no punctuation. Absolutely not.

[Olivia Mentor]

Oh, my God. No, I haven't read that.

[Becca Freeman]

Something like that. I might be conflating it or misrepresenting it, but there's, like, very experimental novels that are very long and make choices that are very hard for the reader to read. Whereas this, outside of it not having quotation marks, which I do think I know, irks a lot of people. It didn't bother me. I found this very easy to follow. The language was really simple. It wasn't using, like, an incredible amount of, like, really difficult words. Like, it was saying what it meant. It wasn't, like, overly metaphoric in any way. And, like, I found it really easy to read.

[Olivia Mentor]

I agree. Yeah. And like I said, there were some lines, some scenes, some sections that really stuck with me, and I found, like, very impactful. And I wanted to keep reading to know what was going to happen. Counterpoint, obviously, that is going to be the effect when it's impossible to know what's going on. So I see both sides of the review spectrum. I think I land maybe somewhere in the middle.

[Becca Freeman]

Well, let's go down the first road that you said about the moments, the thematic content that we really enjoyed. So I thought it was really interesting that one of the biggest themes here that I think kind of was pervasive throughout the book was around performance. And so for the main character, that's as an actress, but also in her roles in her real life. So as A woman, a person of color, a wife, and then in the second half of the book, a mother. And also in the first half of the book, as somebody who is not a mother. So one thing that stuck with me most from my first read, and I have thought about frequently since reading it, was this anecdote about the narrator being blown away by the performance of an actor and then later learning that he had dementia and was quite literally confused on set and that this was not performance. And then she goes on to reflect, if this dilutes the performance. And it's kind of what we were just talking about with the book. Like, if it wasn't intended, does it still have value? Do we still like it? Or if it is accidental, does that negate that? Did that one stick out to you at all?

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. I found all the commentary on performance very interesting. And I don't know if this phrase that I'm about to talk about was in the section with the actor with dementia, but there's this part where she talks about how the performance of something is why we are actually able to, like, be moved by it or entertained by it, because we don't actually want to see real death or, like, real suffering. We want to see this performance of it. And I'm not sure if that was in the same section, like I said, but it really made me think a lot about social media, actually.

[Becca Freeman]

Oh.

[Olivia Mentor]

Throughout. And like, these ways that. And in a way, social media is kind of. Kind of the opposite because the general sort of feeling is like, if something is more real, people like it more. Yeah, but this thing.

[Becca Freeman]

But the real is a performance.

[Olivia Mentor]

Exactly. And I was thinking about this idea of, like, trauma porn, like, people watching videos that will just make them cry about these horrible things that have happened to other people. And I wondered if, like, it is actually this distance, this feeling of this isn't quite real, but it still evokes these emotions. And on the surface, it seems so real, is why we are able to consume it in such high amounts. But, like, if we were to have a family member come to us sobbing about the same thing, it would feel so much different, so much more painful, so much. We'd have so much more resistance to it. I think so anyway. Yes, it did stand out for me, but maybe for different reasons.

[Becca Freeman]

It really reminded me of. I won't say who it is, but I heard an author talk about how they don't know what their books are about and they wait for their readers to tell them what it's about. And I remember being so angry when hearing that, but not quite being able to articulate why. And I feel like it's like if you're not controlling the performance, it almost invalidates it because somebody else is just projecting things onto it.

[Olivia Mentor]

Right. But isn't that inevitable to some degree?

[Becca Freeman]

But to say that you have no idea, which is also what is happening in the case of this actor with dementia. I was like, wow, that feels like such a cop out.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I wouldn't see it as a cop out necessarily, but maybe like, I don't know. I think there's something like a little bit kind of self protective about that because when you write something and you have a really strong attachment to it and a really strong vision in your head and then someone's like, well, actually this is what I got out of it. It could be super, like destabilizing. And it kind of makes you feel a little bit insecure. So if you go into it like it's whatever you want it to be, it's. I don't know. I don't personally feel that way with writing at all. But I do feel confident that this author knew exactly what they were doing and didn't care if anyone else agreed with it or had the same takeaways.

[Becca Freeman]

On the second read. I also caught that there's a huge irony that the narrator feels this way because the narrator's breakout role was a role she performed phonetically in a language she doesn't speak. I think it's implied to be in Japanese and therefore any emotion in that role is false. She doesn't speak the language, and yet she has also benefited from this.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, it's very true.

[Becca Freeman]

It made me think of how skewered Selena Gomez got for her performance in Amelia Perez because she spoke the role phonetically. She doesn't speak Spanish or doesn't speak Spanish fluently enough to perform the role. And so she performed it phonetically and she got skewered.

[Olivia Mentor]

I hadn't seen that.

[Becca Freeman]

I haven't seen it either.

[Olivia Mentor]

I assume that if she did it, that she's. That she spoke fluent Spanish. But knowing what I know about the origins of that movie and the fact that it's a French production team, that does make sense.

[Becca Freeman]

It was one of the controversies around it.

[Olivia Mentor]

Ah, okay.

[Becca Freeman]

This really rocked me in a way that I felt put on notice in a good way. But there's this moment where she talks about performance as a person of color. I think it's implied that she is Asian, as is the author, but there's no specificity to it. She never Calls out what race she is. There's this moment where Hannah, who is the son's girlfriend, comes to stay with them in the second part. And on meeting the narrator, she compliments this movie that was the one that made her famous. And Hannah says, parts of speech was so important to me to see someone who looked like me on screen. You have no idea what that meant. And the narrator goes on to stew that this is so generic as to be hollow. And it's like meaningless flattery. And it really rocked my perspective to think about what is meaningful to the viewer. So the representation of it, which is so meaningful to the viewer, is almost meaningless to the artist. That all the effort and, like, meaning they put into it, like, this person learned their lines phonetically so that they could perform this role theoretically. There was a ton of preparation and choices made to put into it. And what you appreciate is the mere fact of their existence in relation to you. And I was like, oh, my gosh, what an insult. Whereas before, I think, like, I almost had a view of, like, representation matters. All representation is great. And it really made me think. And of course, I think about this in terms of books, but it's like an author spent 1, 2, 3 years laboring over something, and what you appreciate is just that a character is black, let's say, as opposed to any skill choices, anything put into it. That one really rocked me.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting portion of the scene that I kind of paused and, like, read multiple times, because I thought it was. More than anything, it struck me as such a great character development moment because I was like, oh, I understand this narrator so much more. And it felt also so real. Like, that felt like a very real takeaway from a very universal moment. Like, there's nothing weird about this interaction. Like, I could see it happening to any artist, to any person with a platform. And, yeah, it's more complicated than just like, oh, that's nice. You know, like, it is. It always is.

[Becca Freeman]

And then the added discomfort of that, then you need to thank them for that.

[Olivia Mentor]

Right? Yeah. I also hated that character Hana. Like, I talk about a monster. I was like, what is she? Why is she here? And why is she Just show. Like, if I walked into my kitchen in the morning and my son's girlfriend was just, like, eating at the counter and then, like, begging to go on a walk with me, like, what a nightmare. I don't know. It got weird there for a second.

[Becca Freeman]

It did. I thought that relationship was fascinating between the main character. We don't know her name. So I just have to keep calling her the narrator. And Hannah. I thought that was really fascinating. I wasn't expecting another character to enter so late into the book. And neither of them are wrong in a way. Like, Hannah's boyfriend asks her to move in. Like, theoretically, this is all fine. They run it by the parents. The parents say it's okay. Of course it's annoying having this person you don't know living in your space. Like nobody is wrong. But like, it really made me think about how the addition of another person into a pre existing relationship can change it entirely.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, yeah. And it can be so uncomfortable.

[Becca Freeman]

And I, I loved this quote. I wrote down that the narrator says, she says I chafed at the part she made of me, the aging and difficult mother in law.

[Olivia Mentor]

I actually don't remember that line. But that's a great line.

[Becca Freeman]

It's a great line.

[Olivia Mentor]

And I think it's also a lot about. If there's one thing I think the book is about, it's like who the people around us force us to be. And like, whether that is a choice or it is, you know, a role we fall into. And yeah, I'm just sitting, I'm just sitting here staring out the window, thinking about it in my own life. But very interesting to consider going back.

[Becca Freeman]

To the theme of performance. I think this might be my favorite line in the book. But on family, she says, what was family if not a shared delusion, a mutual construction? I clocked this both times. I think this might be my favorite line in the book. It's so interesting how, you know, the idea falls apart once one person is not playing their role.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. I think this is actually why there is so much tension within families. And so many people have highly complicated relationships with their family members, even if they are some of the people that they are closest to. And actually I was talking to friends about this over the weekend about how, you know, we all have family members who we have very fraught, intense, layered relationships with, but when they meet other people, it's always like, oh, they're lovely, they're great. I don't understand what your problem could be. But when you're in this tightly knit intersection of personalities and roles and birth order and like all the other things, like, it's just, it's this highly constructed mess that anytime a piece of it like changes, everything else changes too.

[Becca Freeman]

Yeah, it really reminded me of. I feel like there have been a crop of articles recently about familial estrangement and basically about like children going to therapy Recontextualizing childhood experiences that felt normal at the time and then renaming it as trauma and how jarring that feels to parents. Like, there was a article, I can't remember if it was in the Cut or the New York Times, about parents whose children had cut them off. And basically, like, all of the parents were just so blindsided. And it felt really interesting to see that explored here in real time, where it's like, oh, I thought we all agreed this was years ago. I thought we all agreed that this was normal. We're all okay. And then somebody comes back and is like, actually, no, and nobody. Neither is wrong. Like, per se. Sometimes somebody is very wrong. But, like, it was really interesting to see this adult child come back, kind of rock his mother's psyche about how she was as a mother and about her relationship, which it seems like at the beginning of Part two, she's like, this is fine and dandy. We're closer than he is to him, than his father.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. That's another thing that I would love to, like, hear from people with children, especially adult children, if that's something they could relate to. Because also on the same note, I found it really fascinating how she observed her husband with Savior, like, and how she kind of almost resented the way he was acting. And you never think about that. You know, you never. You never think about parents sort of observing each of their individual reactions. With a child, it's kind of like a unit sort of thing. And I would just love to hear from people with older children if that resonated as well.

[Becca Freeman]

I have a question for you. So I can't quite put my finger on it, but this book seemed to have, like, a distinct gender imbalance to me. And, like, looking at the theme of performance, it's not necessarily gendered, because we also see Xavier and Tomas the husband, performing. Like, we see Xavier, like, in the very beginning, he's performing the narrator's bodily tics that he picked up from her films. He's later, like, performing to impress his father with his maturity and his new job. He's, like, picking up after himself in a way that, like, to perform that he's an adult for his parents. We see Tomas, like, performing as a doting father. He's making them, like charcuterie boards and, like, really catering to them. And the champagne.

[Olivia Mentor]

The champagne and the crackers. I was honestly, like.

[Becca Freeman]

So we see. We see the men performing, too. So it's not as if it's like, only women have to perform in order to be, like, appropriate or be likable or something like that. We can see the men are performed. And it's not that the men are allowed to be self centered without consequence because the main character is also quite self centered. But I can't. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Like, did you feel like there was also, like a gender imbalance here? Maybe that's just life.

[Olivia Mentor]

I felt this was a story about womanhood first and foremost. If that's maybe what you mean or a version of what you mean, then yes, I felt like it was about, you know, choosing to have kids, choosing to not have kids. Like, balancing that desire or lack of desire with your partners, especially if they're a man. Like that dichotomy. Yeah, but I mean, is that what you mean by imbalance or just that there was only one?

[Becca Freeman]

No, I guess maybe I'm thinking out loud here. It's almost as if, like, in the first half it was permissible for Xavier to make her uncomfortable for him to, like, get this job and stay in this play. And, like, it was for his advancement. And nobody thought that this was weird or unkosher in any way. Like, this was everyone else. It was like, only uncomfortable for the narrator, although she didn't speak up, but that he was allowed to just do as he pleased in some way. And it just felt like it kept getting tighter and tighter on her. It was like, oh, he's a proxy for my boss now, this kid who thought I was his mother. This is so awkward. And then in the second half, it was almost like, and I don't want to say that I'm like, justifying what might be considered neglect, but it seemed like Tomas was very, like, locked in his office. He was like a very rigid person, and yet he was allowed to have the nicer relationship with Tomas, whereas, and it was unclear what happened between the narrator and Xavier in his childhood to build up this animosity. But it was like, because she was pursuing a career, she was traveling, and that there was like this blame of being a bad mother where there was like, maybe there were lower standards on Tomas. And again, that's just by implication because we don't really get any backstory on the childhood. I don't know.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I would agree with that. I never thought of it as an imbalance, maybe. But yeah, I observed all of those things as well.

[Becca Freeman]

Yeah, Like, I couldn't quite put my finger on it as a theme of, like, this is what she's saying. But I think everything I'm saying just kind of feels like real life. So maybe it isn't even like part of the theme. It's just a reflection of like, this is the world. And I'm sensing that there's a gender imbalance in the world, so I'm sensing it in this book. But yeah, I don't know.

[Olivia Mentor]

That seems right.

[Becca Freeman]

Let's take another quick ad break.

[Olivia Mentor]

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[Becca Freeman]

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[Olivia Mentor]

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[Becca Freeman]

No. And I mean, well, you're more familiar with this essay than I am. But I think the thesis of the essay is that like it will be fine either way. Is that correct? Like there are pluses and minuses, but like net, like you will be fine either way.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yes. And also that you have to let go and think fondly of the other life you could have had. You know, you have to watch the Ghost Ship of your other possible life go by and know that you probably would have been fine, but you have to sort of make peace with that.

[Becca Freeman]

Yes. And I felt, like, very strongly in the first half that felt true, that the childless version of the narrator had made peace with the fact that she didn't have a child. It doesn't sound like she particularly wanted one. At one point, she had an abortion. At another point, she had a miscarriage. But it seemed like when she had the miscarriage, you know, she wasn't thinking about terminating the pregnancy. She was, like, committed to this version. And when it didn't work out, it seemed like she had made her peace and they had constructed this life that they quite liked. It does sound like she had some affairs around the end of that pregnancy. So, you know, it, like, didn't. It wasn't without its rockiness, but it felt like she had made peace, I thought. And I think this is gonna be controversial. I'm curious what you think, but, like, I think that her life is portrayed as significantly worse in the second timeline when she has a child. And I think the ability for that child to hurt you for, like, it sounds like she had lovely thoughts about his childhood. Like, it doesn't sound like the act of child rearing was, like, miserable or fraught. But having the adult child was clearly adding angst and negativity to her life in a way that did not exist in the first timeline, which I thought was really interesting and a really spiky observation. It's also worth noting that it's interesting that Katie Kitamura, the author, does have a son. I think her son is maybe middle school age, so younger than the son in this book. But I thought it was a very interesting portrayal of motherhood. That is not idyllic.

[Olivia Mentor]

No, I don't think you read this and you're like, well, decision made. I want to have a child who moves back in with their adult girlfriend at some point and takes over the living room. I think it's very intentional that, of course, that he's a boy and that he's a son. I mean, I think there is a way to read this that, like, in the first part, there is this sort of unspoken pressure from her husband, and she knows how deeply he wants this child. And even though they don't talk about it out loud, and it's sort of this, like, pressure that is exerted on her without it being directly stated. And you could say, like, okay, what if she gave in to that pressure? That's the second timeline. And in that Timeline. It's like that sort of unspoken pressure sort of remains. Like there is this sense that she doesn't really want him to move back in, but the husband does, but he's unwilling to say it. And yet she is sort of expected to fulfill this really nurturing role. And she clearly doesn't want to, in my opinion. So I guess you could look at it as like, you know, she gave in to this pressure from her husband and then she gave into the pressure from her son. And even though he's this perfect child who plays this role so well, like she wants her space and even though her husband sort of is like, oh, like it's just temporary, he's like making them charcuterie boards and pouring them champagne and like allowing this to happen. And. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what I'm thinking out loud, but there's just so much to think about.

[Becca Freeman]

Well, the other piece of content that I feel like this book had shared DNA with more commercial, which is funny because I don't know that this book is particularly commercial, but All Fours by Miranda July. I really was feeling parallels with the portrayal of female middle age and like the dynamics of a lived in marriage. And what I mean by that is just like, not newlyweds, this isn't the beginning. Like, this couple has been married for I don't remember how many years, but like, you're settled into your marriage. And I think the resentment in this book is quite different than In All Fours. And obviously she handles it in a much quite quieter and more passive way than the main character in All Fours who goes a little cuckoo and makes some unhinged choices. But I feel like it's all coming from the same place. Yeah, I think there's also this kind of unspoken, unstated theme of like the ambitious woman who also wants to have their career and not sacrifice that for child rearing in full. And like, does that make you a bad mother, partner, etc.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I can definitely see some overlap there. And like I said, it did seem to be a lot about marriage, more than you would think by the descriptor of it.

[Becca Freeman]

I can see what you mean about it being a lot about marriage, but I found it much more about parenthood than about marriage. It almost like depends what goggles you have on, you know, And I feel like somebody else could say it's about acting, although, I mean, I feel like that's a little too long ago.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I mean, I think parenthood and marriage are both so much about the roles that we fall into and that we expect if we have a partner, that we expect our partner to fall into. And the resentment when that doesn't happen and the chaos it can cause in the smallest and biggest of ways.

[Becca Freeman]

How did you feel about the closing monologue of this book? There's like a page and a half, kind of no dialogue closing monologue where the narrator is on stage performing the play that her son wrote or the monologue that her son wrote. And she talks about this ambition and wanting to have admirers and people applause and how she says, this is one part that really stood out to me. She says, too many parts. Those on stage and in life don't endure. And once they are gone, their logic is impossible to regain. Mostly there is only the emptiness they leave behind. But this is not something that I will say to him. So he's enjoying, like, his first taste of success. She is the vehicle for this. She is the star of this monologue and she's happy for him and not wanting to burst his bubble, which I think is like a really beautiful sentiment on motherhood. Even though the monologue is incredibly pessimistic about, you know, you'll find it hollow at some point. But this part, more than any other part that we mentioned, really reminded me of social media. Even though this book has nothing to do with it and, like, the hollowness that performing for applause and flowers eventually takes on.

[Olivia Mentor]

That's interesting. Like I said, I was thinking about social media throughout. Not maybe in this scene, but reading that quote, like, I can definitely see the connection. I kept thinking about. I wrote this essay a while ago about social media, and it was called you can't perform the Truth. And I kept thinking about that as I read, too. And the whole point of that essay was, like, who you are. It's really impossible to perform it to people in a way that will be universally understood. Because the performance of it, the sharing of it, what you post online, ultimately it is consumed by other people and then it becomes something else. So the thing that is true, like, who you actually are, what you believe, is something that exists separately from that, and you can't perform it well enough for anyone. And it's sort of a different idea. But, like, I just kept thinking about that. Like, the performance will disappear. It will. It is hollow because it's never yours. It's owned by other people.

[Becca Freeman]

It's so funny how I think we just have social media on the mind right now because of our careers and because of, you know, we've been talking so much about Phone boundaries, where it's like, this book has literally nothing to do with social media. I don't think social media is ever mentioned in this book. But, yes, it does feel so adjacent.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. Maybe it's just because of the narrator, but did you ever get the sense, reading this, that, like, there's a real sense of, like, detachment in this book?

[Becca Freeman]

Absolutely. Like, I do feel like there's a lack of emotion. I do feel like there's. I mean, there's even a lack of. Like, the narrator is very unknowable. Like, she doesn't have a name. She doesn't really have a lot of backstory, you know, outside of that. She broke out starring in this film called Parts of Speech. Like, we don't really know that much about her. We know that she was pregnant once, but, like. Yeah, there's, like, an unknowability to the character.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. It can read as very cold, but I think it was. It's very intentional.

[Becca Freeman]

Well, how did you feel about the narrator by the end of the book? And did your feelings change over the course of the book?

[Olivia Mentor]

That's a great question. I don't think they changed. I think I always felt kind of neutral toward the character. Sometimes I did get a sense of, like, this character is just watching this all unfold, and there's, like, such little agency, you know, in some of it. It's like she's just kind of floating through and observing, and.

[Becca Freeman]

And that's something that I heard the author talk about in an interview where she's really obsessed with passivity in characters, because writing advice generally is like, the main character needs to have agency in a story for it to be interesting. And she's also an MFA professor at nyu. And how the topic of passive characters comes up so often in workshops as a critique against characters. And she was saying how it's ironic because in life, so few of us have complete agency.

[Olivia Mentor]

Right.

[Becca Freeman]

And that we demand this of characters in literature.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, it definitely. It didn't feel bad to me. It just felt very different. But did you feel, like, attached at all to the narrator, or did your feelings evolve?

[Becca Freeman]

I think my feelings did evolve. Not sure that I felt attached to her. I did feel slightly righteously outraged for her, where I didn't feel like anything she had done was that bad that we know of.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah.

[Becca Freeman]

Yes. She had affairs. I think there's a real, like, puritanical attitude towards that in book characters where it's, like, so unforgivable, but, like, that happens in real life. Like, I was like, she had Affairs. She was somewhat cold. She did not want her son's girlfriend living in her house. I almost felt. I cannot imagine this was intended whatsoever. I felt a strong connection between this character and the Taylor Swift song Antihero.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. Yes.

[Becca Freeman]

Where it's like, I haven't done anything this wrong, but I've been, like, labeled as the villain.

[Olivia Mentor]

Well, as you were talking, I was just thinking, like, this is a lot of what being a woman feels like. It's like, I didn't choose this. Like, I didn't ask for any of this. And yet I'm still being punished for a lot of things.

[Becca Freeman]

Like, I felt like she became more unlikable throughout the second part of the book in that it was clear that she was the alienating factor. She was cold, she was reacting poorly. She had the bad relationship with her son. That became more clear. But, like, I still had empathy with her in a way where I was like, yeah, I wouldn't want this random girl in my house. And yes, my husband is acting like a sniveling butler.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. I was so uncomfortable in that second. The second half of the second part. Man. So wildly uncomfortable.

[Becca Freeman]

After you finished the book, did you have any thoughts on how the title or the COVID suit the book?

[Olivia Mentor]

Well, I will say that I didn't think much of the COVID And as I was reading and I got closer to it, I loved it. I thought it was so interesting. The splicing of the. Yeah, I can't say I was like, wow, this really makes sense with the book. But I guess it does have a certain feeling of like, darkness and sort of everything being a little off, which the book has. I don't know.

[Becca Freeman]

I'm looking at it now. And now that you've said the word splicing, I was almost thinking of it as like static on a TV set or something where the picture doesn't quite come in. But now that you say splicing of the Self, I do kind of like it more. I think it's very good looking, but it didn't tell me what I was getting in this book, which maybe is the point. The book is so opaque. Like, maybe I'm not supposed to know. But I thought the title. I thought the title was really fantastic. The idea of audition, both because the character is an actress, but then how we are constantly auditioning to be worthy to play these parts in our real life.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I thought it fit very well, for sure.

[Becca Freeman]

Anything else to say?

[Olivia Mentor]

I don't think so. I'm really just. I'm a little nervous But I'm excited to talk to the author and see what she will reveal to us.

[Becca Freeman]

Me too. All right, Olivia, let's get into some end matter. What are you obsessed with this week?

[Olivia Mentor]

You know, I wasn't sure what I was gonna say for this, and then earlier this afternoon, a surprise obsession. Yes, surprise. It's kind of a selfish obsession. You'll know what I mean in a minute. But I went to the nail salon. I got my nails done. The color is called dried chives, which, yes, did make me think of that. One of the eggman.

[Becca Freeman]

Yep.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah. But I do love the color. It's like a light, dusty green. Anyway, I was sitting there and I was listening to our bonus episode with Katie Kitamura. I was reviewing it, and I have to tell you, I loved it even more. Listening to it back, I was like, I think I'm obsessed with this woman. She is.

[Becca Freeman]

Maybe that's the plot of your nectar.

[Olivia Mentor]

Probably. A woman becomes obsessed with famous author. Yeah, I mean, that is my life already, basically. But, like, she was just so warm. And we talked about this afterwards. But, you know, she writes very literary books. She's a creative writing professor at a prestigious university. And she just spoke in a way that I was like, I feel so deeply inspired right now. Not only in writing, but. But as a reader. She described this thing of that. I think I've tried to describe myself before very poorly, which is I don't really read a book, and I'm like, I hated that completely. I loathed everything. Usually there's something that I like or something that speaks to me in some way. And anyway, I guess this is me just being like, go listen to the bonus episode.

[Becca Freeman]

But dropping tomorrow.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yes, dropping tomorrow. Yeah. Thank you to you for suggesting to doing that, because it was a treat.

[Becca Freeman]

I'm so glad it was a treat for me as well.

[Olivia Mentor]

Well, what are you obsessed with?

[Becca Freeman]

Okay, I've talked about this on Instagram, but my obsession with it has now grown, and now it has also become a podcast obsession. So earlier this year, I got you Beauty's Tinted Moisturizer. So I started using a bunch of their products. Like they have a discovery kit or something I bought over the holiday break and have loved everything I've tried. And then I got this tinted moisturizer, and I've never been a tinted moisturizer person. What was the one that was really popular? Maybe like 10 years ago?

[Olivia Mentor]

It's probably the one I still use. The IT Cosmetics. CC cream.

[Becca Freeman]

No, it was like the Laura Mercier one.

[Olivia Mentor]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Becca Freeman]

And I tried it, and it, like, transferred on everything, and, like, it always oxidized, and, like, you looked orange. Like, I just did not like it. So I've kind of been turned off by tinted moisturizer ever since, but my skin is so dry, and I was, like, really compelled to try this, and I love it, but I also feel like it gives this glow that's like a full face of makeup glow almost. It's like, a little bit of color, but I don't know, there's something in the formula that, like, it looks like you have highlighter on in a really natural way, and I feel like I can, like, put that on, like, two dots of blush, some eyebrow pencil, and, like, a coat of mascara. It takes a minute and a half, and I'm like, wow, I look like I put in a lot more effort than I did.

[Olivia Mentor]

It sounds very convenient. Is this. I've never heard of this brand. What?

[Becca Freeman]

So is it the brand? No, it's American. The backstory is so somewhat bizarre. So do you remember Tina Craig? She was, like, a early Gen1 influencer. Bag snob.

[Olivia Mentor]

Oh, bag snob. Yes.

[Becca Freeman]

And then she, like, I don't know, kind of disappeared from the Internet, or. I. I don't hear her name a lot. And she, like, went and started this beauty line and, like, got maniacally obsessed with, like, finding the right factories in Italy and, like, got really obsessed for herself, I think, of, like, creating this beauty line of, like, really good products. So it's expensive, which sucks, but everything I've tried is really good.

[Olivia Mentor]

If you're making your skin feel good and hydrated and, like, you're wearing a lot of makeup, then I think it's worth it.

[Becca Freeman]

Yeah. The only thing I will say about the tinted moisturizer is that I ended up being one shade lighter than I thought I would be.

[Olivia Mentor]

Okay. An important user note.

[Becca Freeman]

Yes. Because it's always so hard to buy these things online, and you're like, what color am I?

[Olivia Mentor]

Oh, yeah. That's why I'm like, just.

[Becca Freeman]

I. It ended up being fine because I. This sounds so capitalist, But I was like, I'll just keep the other one because I'll get a tan and then I'll use the other one. And I did go to Florida, and now I'm like, oh, I'm into the other color now.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, I've definitely done that before myself.

[Becca Freeman]

But I'm so obsessed with it. I don't know if you notice, this is, like, now grasping for compliments. But when we recorded our book club episode I'd put it on and I was like looking at myself in the zoom and I was like, you look like you put in a lot of effort right now. To me.

[Olivia Mentor]

You looked very good.

[Becca Freeman]

You looked very good for like nine in the morning. And I was like, yeah, it's like.

[Olivia Mentor]

We'Ve recorded a lot this week.

[Becca Freeman]

We have. We recorded like four times this week.

[Olivia Mentor]

But you look great, so.

[Becca Freeman]

Thank you. I feel like I fished that compliment, but I'll still take it.

[Olivia Mentor]

I do recall I was like, oh, Becca looks nice. So there you go. Well, what have you been reading?

[Becca Freeman]

Okay, so I haven't finished anything, but I need to tell you about the absolutely unhinged thing that I did. So while I was on my vacation in Florida, I started It's a love story by Annabelle Monahan, which comes out. Oh, when this airs, it'll have come out yesterday. So her fourth book. You know that I'm an Annabelle Monahan Stan. Like, I just think she always hits. So I started reading it. I was really enjoying it and I read up to like 60% and then I was like, no, you weren't paying close enough attention. You weren't like savoring this. And so I'd been reading it on my Kindle while I was away and then two days ago I was like, you must start over with a highlighter and read it in print.

[Olivia Mentor]

I. Yeah, like, that's how much I love that experience.

[Becca Freeman]

That's how much I was enjoying this book. Like, I think it was almost like a bid to not finish it, like on purpose because I was like, I don't want this to end.

[Olivia Mentor]

It's pre ordered, so it'll end up to me soon, hopefully. But I have heard it's like her best yet from many people.

[Becca Freeman]

I'm really enjoying it. I don't know that the pitch copy did it justice or it. The pitch copy wasn't totally. I wasn't positive what I was getting. But it's about this woman who is used to be like a teen TV star who was kind of like the butt of the joke type person. And now she's grown up and she's an executive, like a development executive for movies. And she's trying to get this movie made and she kind of has this like persistent underdog mentality about herself and she needs to team up with this guy who's like this smug capital A artist cinematographer to get it made and they end up going to Long Island. She like over promises something, they end up going to Long island and they end up staying with his family. And it's also like a found family story. Oh my gosh, it's so, so good. The way that I wanted these people to kiss who are fake and like obviously are going to kiss because it's a romance novel. I was like screaming at the book.

[Olivia Mentor]

That's a good feeling.

[Becca Freeman]

Oh, also, let me say that I am going to be in conversation with Annabelle Monahan in Brooklyn at the ripped bodice on June 6th. So if you're local, please come join us and you can watch me fangirl so hard because I've never met Annabelle in person before and I love her books.

[Olivia Mentor]

Oh, that's hard to believe that you haven't met her. I was like, wait, how have I met her in person then? And I was like, wait, I haven't met her in person.

[Becca Freeman]

I just feel like you have.

[Olivia Mentor]

I just feel like I have one of the funniest people, by the way. So that event sounds absolutely wonderful.

[Becca Freeman]

But tell me what you read.

[Olivia Mentor]

I read the Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett, who is the author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals. I've only read Unlikely Animals. I don't think I like this one quite as much as Unlikely Animals. But what I will say is that if you are in that kind of reading slump where you're like, nothing sounds good to me. No genre, no type of book, and you're like, I need something beyond it all, just different. You should pick this one up. It is about an older man, maybe in his 60s, who has had like a really kind of tough life. His wife left him, his oldest daughter passed away tragically, he's struggling with alcoholism. And amidst all of this, he won the lottery, which sort of only enabled. Yeah, there's a lot happening, a lot happening here. He won the lottery, which sort of enabled kind of his drinking and his sort of self loathing, among other things. But basically, long story short, he is given custody over these two kids who have lost both of their parents and they all embark on this road trip with his surviving daughter and a cat that can predict death. I know, there's so much happening this cross country road trip that is like funny and tender. And the author always says that when she started writing this book, her goal was to like make a funny book that contains as much horrible things as you can imagine. Oh, she definitely succeeded. So there's like, it's very dark and there's a lot of trigger warnings, but it's also very funny, super quirky, weird. Anyway, you're in the mood for something that's Unlike anything else. Then you should definitely pick this one up.

[Becca Freeman]

I'm curious about this one. I heard from Sarah Dickinson, who hosts Sarah's Bookshelves Live. So Unlikely Animals was a little bit too out there for me. It was too narrated partly by all of the dead bodies in the graveyard, as well as maybe some animals and some alive people. Don't remember. Anyway, I didn't finish it. It was a little too out there for me. But she said that this one is more grounded and I know that Unlikely Animals had such a culty following that I'm really curious to check out this author.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, she's doing something that I don't think anyone else is really doing, so I would love to know what you think.

[Becca Freeman]

Well, we'll see. My, my TBR is towering.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yeah, we're both, we're both underneath just 5,000 books, but a good way to go. Honestly, speaking of books, tell.

[Becca Freeman]

I mean, when are we not speaking of books, but tell us what June's book club pick is.

[Olivia Mentor]

June's book club pick is all the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harmon. I talked about this on, I think the last podcast. I absolutely loved this. It's humor, it's suspense. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a thriller because it's not really scary.

[Becca Freeman]

Perfect for me.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yes. But it is a great mystery and it is just unput downable. It's about a former pop star who is living in England with her 10 year old son. She's a single mother, she is a hot mess in every possible way and she's really just dealing with this elite English posh school world and this son who is a little bit quirky and different and the situation that arises is that her son is paired with this boy who has been his bully in the past and they've had conflicts and this other boy goes missing. So she begins to suspect that maybe her son had something to do with it. So it's a mystery. But oh my God, it's some of the best humor writing I have ever read and it's just a hoot. It's so fun, so I hope everyone enjoys it too.

[Becca Freeman]

I'm very excited about this because I feel like we've had an unusually heavy and literary spring of books. So we owe the listeners a fun one. And this sounds so fun. And if you are disappointed in this pick, I should also add that July is our Listener Book Club month. So we'll give you some more information next week about how we're going to do the voting for that and you get to weigh in and you get to pick our book for July.

[Olivia Mentor]

Can't wait. And if you want to talk about audition or anything with us, you can join us in the Facebook group, which is under batonpaper Podcast. Our Instagram is also batonpaper Podcast. Oh, our Geneva group is also Baton Paper Podcast. I am on Instagram @oliviamentor and on substack liviamentor as well.

[Becca Freeman]

And I am on Instagram ecamfreeman, and my newsletter is eccafreeman.substack.com and if you liked this, if you made it all the way here, I think we're going to see you tomorrow for our bonus episode.

[Olivia Mentor]

Yes. See you there.

[Becca Freeman]

Bye.

[Olivia Mentor]

Bye.