Maria Semple

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 going to 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.

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