Maria Semple

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.

Yeah, exactly.

And then I would just like lose all enthusiasm.

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

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 assault.

Yes.

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

recognized it as such at the time.

Yes, that happened to me.

Yes, yes, and kind of combined them.