Maria Semple

Um, stoicism is very male.

It's like very bro culture now, you know, and even though I like it and I'm, 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, because 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 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.

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,