Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club

I will tell you that it really felt like an act of madness as I was writing this book. I want to write all about philosophy. I want to make this huge mystery thriller. There was this whole section about internalized misogyny. I had this big, crazy ending.

And plus, it's a romance. As I was writing it, I never told anybody about it.

People would do this.

Yeah, exactly.

But I kind of knew that I could make it all work.

Everybody, hi. I'm so pleased to welcome you to the Oprah podcast. I'm in New York City, home to some of the oldest, coziest, and greatest bookstores in the country. Hope you check one out the next time you're here. This year we're celebrating the 30th anniversary of my book club, the Oprah Book Club,

something I'm so proud of because books have been just a balm to me over the years, a comfort and a joy since I was a little girl. And there's nothing I enjoy more than reading a good book, even better when I'm sitting by a fireplace or under a tree. Oh my goodness.

So when I started the book club, I never could have dreamed that I'd get to my 122nd pick with so many of you readers along for the ride who also find joy in reading as much as I do. I'm honored to host one of the largest and longest running book clubs in the country,

and that's entirely thanks to all of you. I appreciate you so much. The author of my 122nd pick, Go Gentle, is a writer who can create a page turner, y'all, mixed with painful life challenges and hysterical laugh out loud comedy.

Yes, her books have sold millions of copies. Welcome Maria Simple.

Hello.

Hello.

Thank you.

Maria Simple is the New York Times' mega bestselling author of Today Will Be Different, This One Is Mine, and Where'd You Go, Bernadette, which became a movie in 2019 starring Cate Blanchett. Before becoming a novelist, Maria wrote for iconic television comedies

like Saturday Night Live, Arrested Development, and Mad About You. Her fourth novel, Go Gentle, follows the main character, Adora, a divorced single mother, living in the Big Apple, whose cheerful determination to live a life of the mind is turned upside down by her heart.

It's been 10 years since your last novel. Yes.

We've been waiting. Your devoted readers have been patiently waiting. Tell us about writing this.

So, Go Gentle, I'd actually made many attempts at this book while I lived in Seattle. And I had gotten really into Stoicism about 10 years ago. And I knew that I wanted my protagonist to be a Stoic. And so I started writing from the point of view of the Stoic, but I was writing her

kind of emotionally shut down.

Stoicism as a philosophy, because I wasn't even familiar with the Stoicism until I read this book, and then I went and got other books about Stoicism.

Oh, that's right. Yes. So I'll tell you a little bit about Stoicism. Oh, that's right. So, I'll tell you a little bit about Stoicism and tell the people about Stoicism because it's maybe not as well known as I think because it's such a big part of my life. But Stoicism is a philosophy

and the Stoics were ancient Greeks. And I think of them as kind of the OGs of the self-help movement. From 300 BC, they thought that you could apply reason to achieve happiness. And the way you did it was by differentiating between what was within your control and what's outside of your control.

And you put all of your energy only to what's within your control. And they call that virtue. And I think of it as kind of personal character. The rest of it you just cheerfully throw over to fate. And it sounds simple, but it's certainly easier said than done. And it takes practice, but it is, you then get on a path to achieve happiness.

Okay, so you, Maria Simple, became a Stoic.

Yes.

Meaning, taking on this philosophy of living.

Yes.

And you wanted to create a character who was also a Stoic.

Exactly. So I really was so excited about Stoicism that I wanted to, I thought I really wanted to get inside that character. And so at first when I wrote it, I was writing the character as

kind of like I was saying emotionally shut down, a little grim. Right. And perhaps that reflected where I was at the time of my life, but I kept kind of trying to write from this point of view.

Because at the time of your life you were going through divorce?

Exactly, yes. I was, yeah, just like, and ending a long-term relationship. And this was just the voice that I was writing in. But I kept writing, maybe by when I get to 50 pages, the kind of souffle would collapse, so to speak, because the voice just wasn't fun to write, it wasn't fun to read. And so I abandoned the book, I just put it away.

And then my relationship ended and I moved to New York City and I started life fresh in the city. I was totally dazzled by New York and kind of was surprised at how much I love my new life here. I kept thinking, God, there's so many cool things

about that book that I really wanna get back to and I wish I could figure it out. And when it was time to start writing, it occurred to me, why does a Stoic have to be so grim and unfeeling? What if I make her,

what if I make my character like a Stoic sage and make her just really happy? And so I changed her name, I changed her city, I changed her attitude, and then the book just kind of broke open for me

that this was this woman who had kind of figured out, cracked the code to happiness.

What I think is so amazing about it, really profound, is that you're telling this fictional story, because in the beginning, when she is like teaching stoicism to the boys, and tutoring the boys, I'm like, is this a real thing? So then I go and look up the books

that she's teaching from, and I realized it is a real thing.

Yeah, it's totally a real thing.

That you're enabled to incorporate this philosophy into a novel about a fictional character.

Yes, and it was actually really hard to do that. Again, for a long time, I think in the early stages of the book that weren't working out, I really felt like I had to explain what it was, and it just was kind of dreary, and that's not why you read a novel, to have someone explain philosophy to you. That's right. The fact that she is living it, teaching it, being it, makes it so accessible. That's right. Let's talk about the main character, Adora.

Yes. Who is tutoring these two boys. That's right. Okay, so Adora is a single, divorced woman, the mother of a teenage daughter who lives in New York City. Okay, so far, you. Yes, so far, exactly. So far, me. And she is a philosopher, and her job is to teach ethics to these twin boys of a old money New York family.

Right.

And she's figured out that the way to be happy is to rid herself of all desire. That desire is the source of suffering, which is a stoic thing. It's a Buddhist thing. It's something that, you know, you hear about a lot. And so when we first meet Adora, she's really living the philosophy quite swimmingly.

You know?

Of this quote from, he who wants nothing is the richest man in the world. I said, paraphrasing Seneca, the less you want, the happier you'll be.

Exactly.

She's living out that philosophy.

She really is. And so she's very contented with her life. And it's all going quite well until she meets a handsome stranger at the ballet.

Ballet.

And then she maybe realizes that the desire has not entirely been snuffed out inside of

her. And so I found this to have moments of being like a thriller and like a mystery and all of it combined. You are such a profoundly good, strong, brilliant writer.

SUSAN CRAWFORD Well, thank you. I, you know, that's a huge compliment and I will tell you that it really felt like an act of madness as I was writing this book because I was like, I want to write all about philosophy. I want to make this huge mystery thriller. I knew there was this whole section about, you know, internalized misogyny and television writing that I wanted to get to.

And I had this big, crazy ending. And plus it's a romance. And I just thought, oh my God, how am I going to make this work? And so as I was writing it, I never told anybody about it because I was just worried if I started to explain it,

people would kind of start-

People would do this.

Yeah, exactly. And then I would just like lose all enthusiasm. But I kind of knew that I could make it all work.

And you did.

Thank you.

You did. And I read that you were inspired to write about what you called the terrible secret of your life.

This was something that was really challenging to write, but it was really fun, is that in the middle of the book, we kind of flashback to Adora's past. Yes. And she was a comedy writer, as I was once a comedy writer,

and something happens to her, which is a workplace kind of sexual assaults

Yes

And and that was it's kind of a pastiche of two Different things that happened to me when I was a TV writer, which I really exaggerated for effect but they were sexual assaults, even though I didn't even really recognize it as such at the time. And, um...

That actually happened to you?

Yes, that happened to me.

But you exaggerated it in the book?

Yes, yes. And kind of combined them. Yes. And, and in my case, one of them made me kind of quit my job, and the other one got me fired from my job. And, uh, I didn't tell anybody about it. I didn't tell friends. It was just too shameful, you know. I kind of like fully shut it out. I just thought, I

don't think I... OPRAH WINFREY Because at the time, and in a different time

and age, we didn't even think about...

SUSAN SHERMAN There weren't words for it.

OPRAH WINFREY There weren't words for it.

SUSAN SH it. Right. And you didn't know what to call it, and it happened, and you just keep going. And you keep going, and that's what it was. And then when Me Too happened, it just really blew everything open because suddenly there's words for it. And there's a whole different framework to look at it.

And also, you were like, that happened to you too? I thought I was the only one.

I thought I was the one that was carrying that. Yeah, that's right. And to me, what I went through at the time was that I felt really kind of guilty for being part of the system, which which was just to kind of be on these shows. And and I feel like comedy at the time, really, there was so much misogyny in it. And I didn't I can't say that it made me feel

really bad about myself. And I thought there was anything wrong with it. Like I thought that was comedy. I thought that's what you had to do to be a comedy writer. I was often the only woman on the writing staff or one of two.

And so I just kind of went along with it. And so I felt really guilty for being part of that, but also I felt really angry about what had happened to me. And so this combination of like guilt and rage.

All of that gets.

Yeah, I thought like, wow, there's something right about.

It finds its way in Go Gentle. So the story features a lot of what I would call richly defined supporting characters with complex backstories. So how do these characters come to you? Do you just invent them? Do they visit you? I've heard different authors say different things.

So I usually start with my protagonist. You know, that's always where I start. And I think about the journey that I want to put her on and the character arc that I want to put her on. And from there, I kind of build the world around her. And...

But you don't know the full arc?

No, I kind of know emotionally where I want her to land. And I think you have to in order to work backwards. But in terms of the plot machinations to get there, I don't know that yet. And so, in terms of where I want her to land, I then start kind of filling her world with characters who, to me, have to earn their keep. You know, they have to come into conflict with her. They have to make

her life miserable. They have to kind of go the distance of the novel. I have to just really make sure it's not just a funny person who appears on page 10 and disappears. Like, how am I really gonna work them into the fabric of the entire novel? And I normally don't start writing a character until I come up with like an emotional truth

or a comic premise. And usually the emotional truth is based on something about me, like my emotional truth. And it's often nothing I'm particularly proud of, kind of even better, you know? So what was it for Adora?

What was the emotional truth for Adora?

Well, the emotion...

In this, in Go Gentle.

Okay, in Go Gentle, Adora's emotional truth is that it's a woman who has always struggled with desire, that when she's young, she's just burning with desire, but she has like bad values and she's chasing these bad values that get her into so much trouble. And so then she kind of maybe overcorrects

and turns off all the desire. With the stoicism. With the stoicism. And so to me, it's like this intellectual and wonderful woman who really has it figured out, but the kind of deal with the devil is that she has decided

she doesn't want anything in her life. No more desire. And to me, that seemed like kind of funny, but then you bring desire into her life, and

then what does she do with that? And that seemed like a comic premise to me. Well, I know women are going to love this idea of the coven, right? Oh, yes. It's a living arrangement of all single women in their 50s that Adora is trying to create in her apartment building. And on page 31, she says,

"'We want women like us, women who present as scary, but have good hearts, women who know how to get shit done, women who, despite our age, share a dirty little secret. We're just getting started. I just love that. Explain the idea of the coven.

Well, that really was kind of a narrative solution where I needed in the beginning for Adora to be really happy being single, like genuinely happy. And I felt like if I just had her sit there and say, I'm so happy being single, I love being single, maybe we wouldn't believe her. She would, it would be maybe protesting too much. So I thought, how do I put that into action with just her full imagination and energy and ingenuity?

And so she kind of creates this thing on the floor of her building where all of her friends kind of move in. I love this. And the idea, so they pool their resources, they kind of share subscriptions to the ballet

and Netflix accounts.

Oh, and the celery.

Exactly. And going shopping. And then they the celery. Exactly. Going shopping. And then they go shopping.

Because when you're single, you don't need the entire loaf of bread. You only need half. And I only need three pieces this week, and I can have a half a stalk of celery.

Exactly.

And so she's very happy with everything about the covenant, really, like, captures her imagination. And so I felt like this was a really good way to dramatize how a single woman would be happy. And I will say, I didn't invent it. My women friends and I are constantly talking about it

and you're always reading these articles. I feel like the New York Times, they just come fast and furious, these articles about women making compounds, you know, where they wanna to work together for themselves. Yeah.

Well, we gave some members of our book club an advanced copy of Go Gentle, and they now have questions for you. So who's joining us from Texas? Jay? Hey, how are you? Hi, I'm doing great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

You read the book?

I devoured that book. I must have torn through it in a day and a half, max.

Okay. That's good.

Good timing. It was so good. So, first of all, I do need to say my name is Jay Collier. I am from Houston, Texas, and I have been an Oprah's Book Club fan since 99.

Wow.

Thank you.

OG. OG, thank you for helping us weed through all of the bestsellers to find the books that actually stay with you and change the way you see the world. This was one for me. First of all, it was abhoriously funny, so witty, the dialogue, the pace,

I just, that's why I said I devoured the book. In fact, this is the first time I ever thought there was a world where philosophy was maybe sexy? I don't know.

Yeah.

All right.

Or fodder for like good first date banter. Much like what Oprah said earlier, I started wanting to read the works. So thank you for giving me more perspective on the world in that way. But I do have a question for you.

So much like what was just discussed, I love the idea of the coven. I love the idea that these women would have a community that was beautiful and they could take into their golden years and they wouldn't really need to worry about being tied to someone in order to do that.

But it felt like pretty quickly, Adora was enamored with and enchanted by the idea of being in a romantic relationship and seeing when she meets this charming male character who they could be to one another. And I guess my question for you or Adora through you

would be, were you trying to tell us that the idea of moving into your golden years with a community of women and friends is really just a plan B in kind of settling. And in truth, we all just want to love and be loved romantically, no matter what age.

That's a very good question.

Good question. Good question, Jay.

I don't think it's a plan B. I think it's a plan A. And this thing happens to Adora and she finds love, but I think that what, first of all, the coven is still going strong on the seventh floor, so the coven still exists in the world of the book,

it's happening. And I think it's always there for her. And I will say, who knows if this thing with Digby will work out or not, but I think that in the course of the book, Adora, I think, has learned to love herself in a way where she doesn't really need a man, you know? And I think that that's really where I was hoping

that she would to leave her. Land it, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. That it's not like, oh, this is the solution to all my problems. Like I actually think the coven is the solution to her problems.

And I don't mean to sell out the coven. I know it's kind of a problem with the book, but I personally love the coven. And I will say on the floor of my building, two apartments are coming up for sale and there's a long list of my friends who now will hear about it for the first time and will say, wait, I need to be in those apartments. So the coven will probably become a reality. Jane, thanks so much. And you're right, there's

so much laughter, right? There's so much humor in the book. It was so funny. That's because

we were the comedy writer here. A comedy writer who became a fiction writer. Was that a hard transition?

It wasn't that hard because while I was writing for TV, even though I had a 20 year career, worked on a lot of shows and was always kind of getting hired, I never felt like I was that great at the job. I was good at story, but I was never really good at jokes.

And there always felt like there was something wrong with me as a comedy writer. I felt like I was kind of wearing my shoes on the wrong feet or something. And I certainly never watched TV. I wouldn't go home and watch TV.

I never watched it. Instead, I would go home and read books. I was an English major in college. I still self-identify as an English major. And that's really what I loved was books. And so, even though TV taught me some really amazing things

and I loved my time there in many ways, and they really teach you story, in TV that's your job is to just be breaking story and working on scenes. And I think I really kind of developed a story muscle while I was working in TV.

It wasn't until I met a novelist whose books I really liked and I talked to him all about how cool it was that he was writing books and what was it like that was so special. And he said to me, why don't you write a novel? If you like them so much.

And I just thought that novels were for other people to write. They were for kind of more serious or dignified people to write. That there was like no access for me to become a fiction writer. As you, you, you like I have writers on this pedestal. Totally on the pedestal. On the pedestal.

Yes. And I've never, I'd never written a word of, of prose in my life. Yes, and I'd never written a word of prose in my life. And he said to me, novels are just your personality and your interests. And you have a good personality and you have a lot of interests, and I would read your novel.

And that's really all it took for me, was kind of getting permission from a relative stranger to even try being a novelist. And so I just set out, I bought a book on-

A stranger who had done it.

Who had done it, yes, who had done it. And who just gave me that encouragement. And so I bought a book on fiction writing and kind of learned how to do that. And I just really was concerned that I would be a bad writer, you know,

and that I didn't know that I could be a good writer. And so I just kind of did sentence by sentence. And in my first novel, this one is mine, there are no similes or metaphors because I didn't trust myself not to just write bad similes and metaphors. And so, but now Go Gentle is my fourth book and I'm a little more confident

about similes and metaphors. Well, and also because you had such success with the Bernadette book. Yes. Yes, yeah, yeah. So, and success builds your own sense of confidence and your ability to do it. Once other readers respond.

Yes.

Yeah. That lets you know you're on the right track.

That's right. That you've got something and it was really like my voice, I think, that I learned to kind of trust my voice. And I think that's really what my career has been, is just kind of leaning in deeper and deeper to my voice and just trusting that if I like it, they'll like it, and not trying to make it any more complicated than that.

Well, Annie, who lives in New York, is joining us. You have a question about stoicism too. Hi, Annie. Hi. Hi. Hi, Oprah. Hi, Maria.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here. Maria, I absolutely loved the book. Similarly, I devoured the book in about a day and a half. I just couldn't read it fast enough. I actually recently turned 30,

so I'm a few years behind Adora. But like her, I'm single and navigating living in New York City. And as a single woman, I've realized that it's really important to have a philosophy or a mantra to keep you grounded. For me, mine is really simple. It's that everything happens for a reason and nothing happens by mistake. And this helps me navigate the highs and the lows of living in a city that can sometimes

chew you up and spit you out, which is a big reason why we love New York, but it can be tough. So I actually have two questions for you. My first question is that you wrote Adora, as you mentioned previously, to have stoicism as her anchor. Was that intended to show how having a guiding philosophy can help a woman survive and thrive

in a challenging and fast-paced environment like New York? And also, do you see stoicism as a universal tool that anyone can use to stay centered while they figure out their life, their love, or their career?

Good question. Well, New York, as you know, it's a hard place to live. We're all going through it. So any help we can get, I think that we will all take. And so yes, stoicism can help that. And I do believe just

because I have the personal experience that I think that stoicism can help with just going through your day on a small level with career stuff, with relationship stuff. It just kind of reframes, it helps you reframe and find like very helpful perspectives on situations that make you not

kind of go crazy with obsessive thoughts and regret and disappointment. It's a structure that kind of inoculates you against all of that. And so I think that's good for any age because life is going to come at you.

How do you use it? Give us an example.

Well, I have a stoic practice where I, every morning I sit down in a chair, my old philosophy chair, and I write out the four stoic virtues, which are wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. And I write them out,

and then I pick virtues to work on that day. Like for instance, if it's a writing day, focus is a subset of temperance. And so I really think that my job here is to focus. It's not to write a bestseller. It's not to make a lot of money with a book. Like I just have one job here.

It's to focus. That's 100% of my control. You know, I'm not wanting, basically, I try to desire only what's 100% of my control. And that I feel like if that's your goal for the day, is not to want anything bigger, not to want outcomes, not to want to change people, not to-

So you don't go through the world with expectations of other people.

Yes. Yes. And of things to turn out the way you exactly want them to turn out. And so if that's the case, then you actually can go to bed feeling good about that day. Like you've, you know, done what you needed to do that day and you're not just disappointed or frustrated. And so I do think that it's really helpful and it helps me just reframe just things that happen

or things I'm going through.

Absolutely, that's great advice.

Thank you.

Well, I think it's so interesting. Every single person so far that we've talked to was as attracted to the stoicism philosophy as I was. I think the Stoicism, you did exactly what you wanted to do. You nailed that thing.

And got us all thinking about it in a different kind of way. Didn't it do that for you too?

It really did. And I, like you were saying before, I hadn't had my eyes open to Stoicism previously. And I also wanted to go and investigate more, read some of the books that you'd mentioned, and really understand not only Stoicism, but other types of philosophy,

and seeing if there was something there that really resonated with me.

Yeah, it did the exact same thing for me. Thank you so much, Annie. Thanks. Thanks, Annie. Thanks for reading it.

Yes, of course.

Thanks for reading it and loving it. Wow. I really loved it. So, adore lives by the Latin phrase, is it amor fati?

Yes, amor fati. And translated that means? Love fate. Love fate. Meaning, whatever shows up, find a way to love it, make peace with it. Yeah, don't just accept it, but love it.

And the idea is that even negative events, things that you might perceive as being negative, you can use to make yourself a better person. You can then use that to work on your patience, to work on your courage, to work on any of the virtues, that everything is fodder for being a better, more resilient person.

He says, once you truly accept all the shit that happened to you, you can get to work on everything that still is available, but even acceptance isn't enough.

That's right. You have to love it.

You have to love it.

Yes. And there's always so much that's available. Have you been able to achieve this yourself? Well I'll tell you what. There's one thing to accept it. All the stuff. Right. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, what I can do. And it helps because to me, it really

engages my imagination. Yeah. Is if something doesn't go well, and it or you know, the way I want it to and the way you know, that I'm hoping it will, I can very quickly get into the mindset of, it's not the worst thing in the world. Like, there's a lot of other things I can do. Like, and then there's a Seneca quote in the book

that is kind of a clunky quote, but it says, nothing can happen to you that bars you from something that's not even bigger. It's basically whatever you feel like you've been prevented from, there's always so much more that you're not prevented from.

Yeah. And so I kind of switch into this imaginative mindset where I just kind of picture, you know, the good things that can still happen. And I think that every good thing in our life, I don't think

it takes that much work to connect it pretty directly to a previous disappointment, you know? Right, right, right, right. And so that's what I think is really useful. And once you really internalize that, you learn to kind of roll with the things that don't go your

way, because you just realize, you know, it's all gonna work out, it's all for a reason. Something better is gonna come around. Okay, Adora struggles with her weight. Oh, yes. And there's a very funny and relatable passage here on page 103. Sweat trickled down the back of my jumbo calves.

Why had I eaten those cookies? If I started work on Monday, that only gave me three days to lose weight. And if I took two step classes, this is so me. If I took two step classes a day and ate nothing but cabbage soup, oh, remember that cabbage soup?

Yes.

If I ate nothing but cabbage soup, I could lose six pounds, not great. If the show started a week later, I could lose 20. Right. These are thoughts that so many women have had over the years. So, I mean, have you had those thoughts yourself?

Or do women come up to you and say, how do you articulate so well exactly what we're thinking?

I've certainly had those thoughts myself, I'm sorry to say. I mean, the hundreds of hours that I've wasted, you know, fantasizing about how my life would change if I was 20 pounds lighter, all the doors that were magically open to me You know loved and successful I would be and and

I'm writing that from a doors point of view in the flashback when she's younger That's right. And and that's really was definitely my mindset just yo-yo dieting just self-hatred hating my body Thinking that if I was thin, my life would magically change. And I really wanted to write a character from someone who had no really, no strong sense of self. And to turn over your sense of well-being and hope and anything good to other people

loving you because you're thin is just a prescription for kind of insanity and unhappiness. And so I really wanted to, you know, write Adora as a young person in that way so we could contrast her with the Adora we meet in the beginning of the book. That's right. That's right. Yes. And then we see how she got there and also how kind of hard won her serenity is. So that when it starts to get challenged by Digby, you know, we were like, don't go crazy again, Adora.

You know, you've got it all figured out, don't throw it all away.

Well, one of our book club readers, Rebecca is joining us from California.

Hi, Rebecca.

Hi, I did want to say first off, Adora is like, I feel like she's the woman that you would meet at like a friend's dinner party

and that you would want to sit next to her.

Yes.

Just become her friend and be part of her coven, like ideally. Yeah. I feel like she's very relatable in a lot of ways. So Adora in LA specifically felt like I associated with her

because when I moved to LA 18 years ago, I knew nobody. I felt totally adrift and I leaned heavily into like all of the Buddhism, the meditation, the radical acceptance. And I think looking back now, I feel like a very different version of that person.

And as a reader, I think we also get different versions of Adora throughout the book. I wondered which version of Adora was like the first version for you. Did you start with like current day New York and then you created like the backstory and the scaffolding

or was it baby Adora and then you moved forward?

It certainly was present day Adora is where I started. And it's a very good question because, you know, I know every people start very different ways, but it was definitely the present day Adora. And the more I kind of built her out, I started just wondering like,

why does she need stoicism so badly? What happened to her that she needed to just kind of put this entirely ancient operating system into herself to replace what she had had before? And I just started thinking about what that was. And I'm very interested in character. I mean, personal character. And that's what stoicism really is about, is like strong personal character. And when I think about that, I just feel a lot of shame about my past. And I feel like

I didn't have good character for many years. I didn't even, again, know the concept of good personal character. And so I was raised Catholic but I was never taught character. I was taught to be kind of afraid of nuns and to lie in confession so you didn't have too many Hail Marys. But I never really had like an ethical training system. And so I really then kind of reverse engineered the young Adora according to that, you know, and it just made it very interesting to me.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Thanks for loving the book. Yes. Thank you, Rebecca.

Thanks for writing it.

There's a conversation between Adora and her Gen Z daughter, Viv, about their generational divide and the tension between, you know, mothers and daughters. You all know all about this. Was this based on a moment in your own relationship?

Well, so I have a daughter who's older than Viv now, but she was once a teenager. And Viv is definitely an exaggerated version of my daughter. And it's funny because when I gave the book to my daughter to read, I said to her, you know, just make it past the first 20 pages

because Adora's really harsh on Viv. She really thinks she has terrible character and is very open about it. And if you read the book, you're going to think I just really don't like you, don't like anything about you.

But don't worry. There's method to my madness. Viv is gonna come to life and kind of steal the book at the end and she does, and everybody ends up loving Viv. And so if you're asking me if my daughter has said that I'm an old, joyless person

who's just trying to take away her happy youth. Yes, words to that effect have been spoken in my household.

All right, Laura is joining us from Arizona. Laura, hi. Hi. You get to talk to Maria. Yes. Thank you for reading.

Hi, Laura.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and it was exactly this relationship between Adora and Viv that spoke to me the most. I am a divorced mom of a certain age, and I have a teenage daughter. So there were moments where I laughed out loud

because their text message chats could be ours. So those moments really spoke to me, and I think that's probably why I was so gutted, and maybe even a little defensive in the scene in the Cafe de Flore in Paris, where Viv finally lets all of those tense emotions out and says to her mother

how wounded she is that her mother is dismissive about her feelings and her experiences and her generation's challenges. So my question for you is, one, was that an intentional choice, it seems like Adora may have a bit of a blind spot, even in her own stoicism practice,

where her daughter is concerned. So was that an intentional drafting choice on your part?

Yes, very much so. That's very astute. Thank you for that question. Is that one of the hardest things for me in writing the book is I really did want Adora to be as harsh as possible, to Viv in the beginning without you disliking her, you know, and I was kind of trying to push it because I knew where it would go.

You know, this kind of goes to the title a little bit is Go Gentle, is that with stoicism, you go hard on yourself and easy on other people. And I feel like there's this hole in it, which is Adora's relationship with Viv, that she just can't, she can't apply that to her own daughter.

And I think the reason why I did that is because stoicism is very male. It's like very bro culture now, you know? And even though I like it and I'm into it, I feel like it doesn't really leave room for the experience of being a mother.

And in fact, one of my favorite lines in the book is a line that's not even mine. It came to me from my editor, Lindsay Sagnet. And it's when Adora has had a really hard day, has gone through all the stoic possibilities to make her better, and it doesn't work.

And she gets into bed with Viv, who's asleep, and she hugs her daughter. And she says, the stoics made some good points, but none of them were mothers. And it's just like the love of the child is what she needs. And the thought that like,

you would be okay losing your child. I mean, cause that's what the Stoics say, is you should just like not be attached to anything. And like the attachment that a mother has to a child is a really wonderful part of life. Like why are you, why would anybody want to rid themselves of that? And so I was really trying to bring that kind of alternate perspective into the stoic practice through

Viv and Adora.

Thank you, Laura. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Yes. So you write on page 75 when a woman decides to leave a marriage as late in life as I did She's not leaving the marriage to find someone better She's leaving the marriage because anything would be better than the marriage Anything being that she'll most likely die alone

Finding a man was never top of mind. It wasn't even on mine. Why was this important for you to explore?

Because again, I wanted Adora to be really happy being single. I think that that really was something where, and perhaps she's in denial a little bit about it. And I think that it showed her kind of resilience, and I think it's part of the coven is that when she prides herself on perceiving reality correctly, and part of that perception of correct reality in her mind is that in her late 50s, you know, all the age-appropriate

men are dating women in their 30s and 40s and they're not available and they're just not around and it most likely will never happen. And so, instead of bemoaning that fate or feeling like a big victim or getting angry at men, why not just make the best of it and put the coven together and devote herself to philosophy and her daughter. And so, I so that's the reason why I was kind of so harsh about that.

I had my own favorite quotes from the book. Cease to hope and you will cease to fear. And I wanted to know, is that a favorite quote of yours?

Well, it's so interesting. I mean, I find it so fascinating because hope you don't think of as a bad thing. Yes. Like I've never seen think of as a bad thing. Yes. Like, I've never seen a cast as a bad thing, like as something that makes you afraid.

But if you really think about it, if you're hoping you want something to happen.

To be as it is not.

Yeah, as it's not, that's out of your control. And so it does kind of put you in a sense of fear. Yes. That you really want the thing to be happening. So I think that's just like a very interesting insight, and I think it's true.

OK, small-minded people blame others, I said now to Lionel. Average people blame themselves.

The wise blame nobody. If only, right?

If only. If only.

Yes.

If only. It's not enough to be happy. You have to be aware of it and enjoy being happy It's a subtle distinction, but it's the difference between Living and being truly alive in that moment. I made a point of immensely enjoying my happiness

Yes, I love that. I I I I don't know how I came up with that, but I just realized that to blithely go through being happy is not enough. Life is short and you have to just be so grateful.

You have to know that you're in the happiness.

In the happiness and being so happy. Like right now, I'm very much in happiness, Oprah. Thank you very much. I'm deeply in happiness.

As I am with you. Go slowly, I told myself. This is my only opportunity to hear the actual words being spoken. I love this one because it allows you to, my one chance to ascent to reality before it gets distorted by emotion.

That is just such a beautiful sentence.

It's so true because, you know, I have anxiety. I think a lot of people struggle with that and that if you're in a situation, often, you know, I'm really the queen of hearing what I want to hear and not what somebody said. And so I really try to just take out all of, you know,

what I want to have happen in the interaction and just try to say what is actually happening so that when I think about it later, I have the facts and I'm not basing it on some fantasy that I wish the words had been spoken.

I like this one, character is fate.

Yes, Heraclitus, that's a quote.

Heraclitus, yes.

Yeah, that, oh God, I think that just says it all. I think that if you really intend to be a good person and to be wise and to be modest and to do your work and to keep your head down, then good things will happen to you. Then I think they will take care of you.

Heraclitus, character is fate. And this one from Thoreau, I'd never heard before. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

Isn't it beautiful? He said that, oh, I'm gonna cry. He said that about nature. Yes. Yes. My thanksgiving is perpetual. Right, right. And I just, I love that. And that's what Adora thinks about. Actually, I think Thoreau said that about nature and philosophy together.

That it was philosophy and nature when he was in that mindset. In nature, reading philosophy, he said, my Thanksgiving is perpetual. So, those were mine. And then you have a whole handbook of Adora's. Yes. And that's based on a 70-page one that I made for myself that I keep editing and reprinting.

Nothing is heavy if we take it lightly.

Oh, yes.

Seneca. Yes. The most important contribution to peace of mind is never to do wrong. Okay.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Thanks a lot, that really helps. Okay. The greatest remedy for anger is delay. Anyway, all of these are just Adora's handbook for how to live. Yes. That came from your handbook for how to live.

Exactly.

I love it all.

Thank you.

You've said that my number one consideration is always the reading experience. Yes. And we can tell that as readers, that you have us in mind. And you say that to me, Go Gentle is a book of ideas. I can't wait to get to talking about it with my readers.

What is it you hope that the reading experience would be?

Well, all I want is just a good time. I feel like I just want the page to be turned and for people to get to the end of the book. I feel like if they get... And I love how quickly everyone's getting to the end of the book. I know, yeah, a day and a half. Yeah, it's amazing. So I feel like, wow, I did it.

And so that's really what I want to do. And I'm not really trying to expose people to stoicism, but apparently I have and they like it. You did. You did. So that's kind of amazing. That really was never my intention. But I think I, you know, want to show people a good time and maybe laugh along the way and feel along the way, you know, and learn to love better. I think ultimately this is a book about love and loving better.

And so I think that that really should be what art does, you know, is make you want to love better.

Well, that's what you do. And I thank you for doing it, for showing us a good time, and Go Gentle, which is available wherever you buy your books. And thank you all the readers who got their copies in advance and were

able to share your questions with us today. Talking about great books is one of my favorite things to do. My 122nd book club pick, Go Gentle, is available now wherever books are sold. Go well, everybody. You can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.