Book Club Meets: Ambitious women and generational trauma, with Emily Henry

0:00There's an old saying about stories and how there are always three versions of them. Yours, mine, and the truth. The guy who first... Welcome to the Happy Place Book Club with me, Fern Cotton. We're not really supposed to take sides. We're supposed to deal in fact. Today, Great, Big, Beautiful Life by Emily Henry. Fact. Robert Evans, producer, studio exec, and actor who coined that catchy mantra about the truth, was married seven times. Fact. I, Alice Scott, staff writer for The Scratch, aspiring biographer, not much else, am not even officially the girlfriend of the man I've been dating for seven months.

0:40Fact. At five feet and nine inches tall, Robert Evans was the exact same height as I am. Fact. My entire life is quite possibly about to change, and instead of sprinting up the walkway to the quaint picket fence separating me from a lifelong dream, I'm sitting in my rental car, blasting air conditioning and reading the IMDB page of a man whose name I'd never heard three minutes ago because his quote about stories popped into my head and also because I'm stalling. I'm more excited than nervous, but there are still a great deal of nerves vibrating through me. With one last deep breath, I turn off the car and pop the door open.

1:19Immediately, the dense midday heat of a Georgia summer hits me from all sides, a familiar and deeply loved sensation that's only improved by the salty sea breeze sweeping in off the water surrounding Little Crescent Island. I double check that I have my notebook, voice recorder and pens, then bump the door shut and stoop to check my rapidly dampening bangs in the side mirror. I try to school my grin into an expression of neutrality. It's important that I play this cool. Fact, I have never played it cool in my life. So two writers are competing for the chance to tell the larger than life story of a famous reclusive heiress.

2:01The thing is, heiress Margaret is giving each writer different tantalising little pieces of her story. Oh, I love this book. I loved it so much. I have to say I particularly love a slow burn love story. Absolutely delicious. And as we discuss in this chat, Emily's fans are very, very passionate about her work so she has her own literary nickname m hen which i'm here for i'm wondering what's my f cots hasn't got the same ring to it and you lot in the happy place book club on instagram really do love m hen this is shelby okay i finished great big beautiful life yesterday and i still am having the hardest time like putting into words how it made me feel because it is such a beautiful book the story of how margaret and alice and hayden how it all intertwined in the end how it was just it was just beyond beautiful probably my favorite book of the year it's my favorite book of the year so far probably will end up being my favorite book amazing amazing book your favorite book of the year shelby that is so brilliant fran's just finished reading as well and says this is the third M Hen book that I've read and loved definitely different from the other two and I loved it caught me off guard the characters were so surprising and touching and Roxanne this is the most gorgeous message from you I've just finished the audiobook Julia Whelan did a great job narrating the beautiful story Emily's written I love the message behind it all and without giving too much away it makes me desperately wish I could go back and record my own parents and their stories.

3:43Yeah, that is a good, good lesson learned from this book. This chat with Emily was just so much fun. There's loads about the book, but we also went off on some really cool tangents, like the idea of picking apart who you are by looking back through the generations in your family, and also why we need to question where our need to prove ourselves is coming from. The market's uncertain, revenues tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts.

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6:35Right, let's do it. Here's the show.

6:58Hello, lovely Emily. Hello, Fern. Or M-Hen, as they say. they do say that they do it's cute nickname yeah it's funny my sister-in-law has called me that for years oh really yeah and then suddenly now there are a lot of other people calling me that too em hen is great what's who's the beautiful model who's got a name like that um emily ratajkowski oh yeah emrata yeah yeah see all the cool people have these abbreviations me and emrata it's great I love it and well look we're so happy to chat to you today your gorgeous book is our happy place book club recommended book for May and I mean the comments have just been like everyone's loving this book loads of people had already read it people are just eating up the story loving every minute of the romance it is gorgeous so first of all thank you for writing it oh my gosh thank you for choosing it for the book club it's been really fun and yeah I also have been trying to not like monitor the comments too closely but I see some of them and it's been fun and exciting seeing people you know talk about it and be excited about it and especially I mean this is your sixth New York Times best-selling fiction that is just huge I mean for people that don't write books and people that don't know about book sales it is incredibly hard to get in that top 10 yeah it is it is and I will say too like it's I would say the Sunday Times is like it's so much more competitive for some reason to me I think so it's like it's a really big deal I feel like I don't even know at what point I don't think it was until maybe my third I'm not sure when I started hitting the Sunday Times but that always feels like a really big deal and I feel like you know like I feel like UK readers really like support UK writers which is awesome so it's like an American author trying to get into that top 10 is like even trickier, which I think is like a very cool thing.

8:53Oh, well, we all love you. Thank you. The UK loves you. We're just putting that out there. Do you feel like because you've now had six in the top 10, it does that does the pressure mount each time because you're literally writing a book a year. It's a huge turnover. Do you feel that pressure mounting? Yeah. And you know, I don't even feel it as much for the sales stuff. Like I feel like the lists and the numbers and all of that. It's like, I know eventually eventually this bubble has to pop and I can't just be at, I mean, I assume I can't be at this level forever. So I'm braced for that. That's fine.

9:24But I think as far as reader reactions, that's where I feel the bigger pressure because, you know, every book when, when people like it, I'm like, well, I want those people to be happy with the next one. And this one was like, you know, a slight sidestep from what I've been doing. It brought in this historical component and this B plot. And I think the pressure that I feel is more just being like, I want the readers who liked the last one to like the new one and but also knowing I need to be able to move forward and do something slightly different with each book yeah and you've got to feel creatively challenged and like you're enjoying it do you have that sense that the last book you've written is always your best one or do you have a favorite I do feel that way I do feel that way but I also think it's so interesting like every time I'm finishing up a book I'm kind of like you know I'm so sick of it at that point I'm like oh no it's horrible it's garbage and then people finally start reading it and I can see it with clearer eyes and I'll reread sections and feel very proud of it but yeah I always feel like the most recent one is the one closest to my heart and the one that is the best but I also think my goal is always kind of for the new one to just be someone's favorite doesn't have to be everyone's favorite but if it's someone's favorite I will feel good I will feel settled why is that process so horrendous I've been through every book I've written where I'm so excited oh my god I've had the best idea ever whether it's fiction non-fiction this is the best thing ever and then I can't wait I'm so excited then I start editing it and I think okay yeah this isn't bad this is this is okay and then I edit it again and I think this is a pile of shit exactly why did I even start I hate this I don't stand by a single word that I've written here and then i have to ring other friends that write to boost me and say no this is remember this is the thing we do this every time every time and they'll tell you every time literally i mean yes you know this is a conversation you will have every single time and all of your friends will tell you you said it last time and you'll say yeah but i think it's like actually true this time like that time was different and this time it actually is a pile of shit and it's so interesting because it's like you can be in it at the same time as one of your other writer friends and you're still able to tell them with perfect clarity no you've just read this book 9 000 times of course you don't think it's funny anymore but when they tell you that you're like no it's because it's not funny and it never was and everyone's been lying to me it's the pits it's just and the thing is with writing as well it's like the only thing keeping you on track with that very long at times arduous process is the sort of hope that you'll finish it and the hope that people will like it there's no science behind it there's no you know sort of particular shared framework or routine way of doing it you've just got to keep writing it and yeah and sort of be motivated somehow you basically keep doing it until your editor pries it from your hands and it's like stop stop I mean yeah I don't know I guess I hear in you something that I feel in myself and in everything where it's like I want there to just be a checklist where it's like you've done it and now it's done and this thing is done and I want that for everything like if I'm grieving I want that if I'm having anxiety I'm like why isn't there just five steps and when you do them you will feel better and I think with writing too you're like I should be able to tell for sure is this book good or bad at a certain point or I should be able to complete these steps and then know it's done and it's just not how it works and you could just tinker with that forever and then at a certain point you do start making it worse I think yeah I agree you've got at some point release it into the wild and just you know let it have its own thing and of course especially with fiction and with your books you know everybody will have their own version of who those characters are what they mean to them how they're visualizing them how they're visualizing the place that's quite a scary thing to you know you've got to really let go at that point yeah it really does become the readers in a way which is really strange because there's this version of it that is yours but that's not the only version of it out there anymore and I think that's like the exciting thing but it's also daunting and like you said it's like everybody's going to bring their own stuff to this and I mean reading the reviews for any book in the entire world will teach you that because yeah some people will have exact opposite reactions to the exact same thing so yeah yeah it's it's it is weird to just accept like this is no longer just mine it is now ours but I also think like you were saying it's kind of like the point it's like the thing that you're excited about that gets you to keep writing when you're ready to just stop when you're bored or when you start thinking it's bad whatever you're you're really just chasing that moment of being able to let it go and and find other people to belong to yeah it's done you've finished you know you you get to almost sort of say goodbye to those characters because you've had you've had your time with them I mean I first I probably should have said this right at the start but I first became aware of you because you've got a book called happy place yeah that's the name of my brand and And people kept tagging me with your picture and the book.

14:26And I was like, what is this book? Emily Henry, I need to work out. And then it was, I mean, you've got a whole window in my local bookshop. Oh my gosh, that's incredible. A whole bloody window. They don't do that for anyone. Like that is, it's a big deal. You've got a whole great big beautiful life window. And it looks so, so pretty. But your book, I mean, you've got these gorgeous front covers. You've got these amazing poppy colors. They're so standout. And Happy Place was like instantly eye-catching. Like, what the hell is this? And then obviously your latest book fell into my hands and I was like, we have to talk about this book on book club.

14:57It's just such a feel good story. I got swept away. I actually did read it on holiday, which I think is the perfect place to get into a book like this, where there's this slow burn romance, which is my favorite thing ever. Really interesting characters. You've got Margaret, who's a reclusive heiress, who I became completely obsessed with the idea of that and the mystery behind her and her backstory. where did these characters and this whole plot come from you know how what is your method in finding these characters yeah well it it really is for me like always just taking everything that I'm interested in in that moment that I haven't really explored and just tying it together like if it's like a little serial killer board with yarn on it you know it's like the intersection of these things makes this exact book and so one piece of that like one strand was that I had just written this book, funny story, about two very nice people who like each other.

15:52And it was so hard to find a real plot in that and to keep these characters apart and to create that slow burn when it's like, well, but they're nice and they like each other. So, you know, they should be together. And so coming off of that, I was like, okay, that was a real struggle. I want to have an external plot that keeps characters apart. So that was like the mercenary piece of it. It was like, I need the love story to be decidedly complicated. And so putting these two characters competing for the same job was like a way to keep them apart in a in a more tangible way. So I was like that good settled.

16:29And so obviously, then I just created a bunch of new problems for myself that were different from the last book's problems. So there was that piece. And then there was this mother daughter component. Alice's relationship with her mom is like a big focus in the book. And I have written a lot about father-daughter relationships, but I haven't written as much about mother-daughter relationships. And I think that's because they do tend, at least in my experience and my friends' experiences, they tend to be so much more complicated. I don't know what that is. But that just has been my experience. They can be very loving, but they're very complicated, even the best ones.

17:07And you can feel as a daughter, Like you can feel that the weight of your mother's hopes and dreams are on your shoulders, whether those were your hopes and dreams or not. And so with Alice, I knew I wanted to write a character who has this very loving mother, but does not feel understood by her, who doesn't necessarily understand her and who feels like she is like this letdown, whether that's actually how her mother feels or not. And so that was like a huge component from the very beginning before I knew anything else about the plot. And then because of that, I was thinking about this concept of legacy and the idea that you don't really totally know.

17:45Like you might have this sense that you have your mother's hopes and dreams on your shoulders, but you don't totally know her. You don't totally know her childhood. You don't know what it is she is trying to make up for or to recover from. You only know what she has told you. And she only knows what her parents told her. And so there's this feeling that you can have all this history that's affecting your day-to-day life that you don't know anything about. And the one exception for that is when these families are really in the public eye because we see so much of it. We might not get the true deep feelings behind everything, but we witness it.

18:24It's documented. And, you know, like I was thinking about like the Kennedys and the British Royals and the Murdochs and the Hearst, these big media families, all these families who for generations have been in the spotlight to some extent or or being or they're being monitored in a way like historically. And so we can see in their lives things that would be much harder to see in our own, like looking at like Harry and Meghan and being like, OK, well, we can trace this back directly, like their reactions to things. We watched Princess Diana like die. Like we, you know, we mourned her. So there's just generations of information that we, the public, have about these families who are like larger than life, storied families.

19:06And I loved the idea of pairing that concept with this woman who's trying to understand her mother and trying to understand where she comes from and what shapes her. and so she's interviewing this woman Margaret and and she's getting Margaret's whole story to the best of Margaret's ability to tell it and uh while also kind of wrestling with her own sense of legacy in her own life and so that that was like the the multiple threads that came together to make this exact book yeah it's so clever because I think also within all of the you know especially when we're looking at Alice you know you can see how her levels of confidence are impacted whether that's romantically or in her career how she sees herself how she sort of sort of sees herself instantly as someone lesser than Hayden because of his own achievements and also because the drives coming from everything you've just described with her mother and I think that resonates with so many of us you know we we question where our drive comes from what our ambition is based on if it's even ours in the first place and also why we're striving so hard and what we want out of it and And I think the exploration into that and seeing how Alice sort of doesn't necessarily change her mind, but she learns so much more about herself through not only getting to know Margaret, but also getting to know her own mother in a different way.

20:26It was it's a really great moment to, I think, have that self-reflection, which I think good fiction always does that. Yeah, totally. I mean, and what you're saying, like that that that ambition piece of things is not even necessarily a thread that I had consciously pulled on so much. But hearing you talk about it, I'm like, oh, yeah, that really is in there where you're like, I need to prove myself. But why? Like, I was having a conversation with a writer friend and we were talking about like book adaptations and like wanting Hollywood to kind of like acknowledge that we're good at what we do, because that's just its own world that's like so different from publishing.

21:02and and just we both have a ton of frustration with and I was like telling her like I need I want to do this I want to like write a script that gets made and I want to do all these things and she was like okay but why and I was like so that they know I can do it and she's like but why do you care if they know you can do it like you know you can do it yeah yeah who are these people would you stand up would they stand up who are they yeah I know I know and she's just like but And she's just like, you already know you can do it. Who do you need to prove this to? Like the worst people in the world.

21:36And so now that's like a thing that I didn't have a good answer for, but it kept being like, but I need them to witness me. You know, I need the people who have told me I can't do something to see me being able to do it. And she was like, but that's not going to be satisfying because they're going to act like they always knew you could do it. They're not going to be like, wow, you really proved us wrong. They're going to, you know, switch up. You're not going to get a badge. You're not. You're just playing on the hardest setting. you're just trying to accomplish the most just so like for this sense of external affirmation that's never going to come and you know never if it does like it's so i think about this all the time especially because i in the old iteration of my career i was sort of like quite literally climbing this ladder i need to be the biggest broadcaster ever and like you've just said prove all the tv execs who don't even know who these people are right these theoretical people you know yeah these theoretically these sort of like ghost people like that i am worthy and again it was like I mean I'm not doing that anymore but it's like why what am I doing and also you always want to prove yourself to the people that aren't necessarily going to accept you rather than the people that you know love you and think you're great anyway it's like we're so we're so messy like that and I so understand it and I and I so get that thing of like you know you're you've you've proved yourself in the book world you don't need if you never wrote another book again you've had six, you know, New York Times bestselling books.

22:55You could stop tomorrow without the, you know, the love and the enjoyment of writing books. But in a sense of achievement, like you've bloody done it. But we always want the trickier level up. But then I think what happens is you get that. You know, you could easily have a script made and the films made and everyone's absolutely loving it. It could even win an Oscar and you'd feel the same. Oh, totally. You'd go, oh, I'm still me. That's a shame. Exactly. Exactly. Actually, you're like, the thing I was trying to fix here did not really take. I still got all those problems. This is not good. I wish I hadn't done all that.

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26:02that's why i love the exploration of that between these characters because there was that competitiveness like you say at the start which is not the greatest footings for a new relationship or a romance is to have that sort of competitiveness and to see them navigate it in really different ways and of course there's a wonderful twist that we're not going to talk about um towards the end for readers that haven't read it yet but it was just it was so enjoyable i you know each night I try and get my kids in bed as quick as I could so I could get stuck back it's like proper proper escapism yeah what do you need to ensure that happens because it's not a guarantee you know you can have the characters you can have a plot but how do you get that tantalizing immersion where like you people feel like they're in it what what makes that you know possible for you Fern I'll try to answer but I don't know if this is true it's like every time you know it's like you're writing a new book and you're like, here we go.

26:55Is this going to work? I feel like there's part of it that's like as a writer, when you feel it, you know, probably they're going to feel it, but you don't always feel it. Sometimes you have to fake it for a very long time until things click. And so the thing that's like kind of the formula in my head that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't is like first, like a question you need to have answered, like a mystery, even in a romance novel. And like this one obviously has a more obvious mystery component, it, but in my past novels too, like there's just, there should be some question that you need answered, even if it's just like, what decision is this person going to make?

27:30And you have to feel the really real pull of multiple options, if that's the case. I think having a big question that you just, you would want answered will get you a long way with the readers. And then I think like setting, you know, like, like creating a place, a place that your reader is going to want to live inside of I mean I think like tension like romantic tension is like part of that question that we're talking about so creating that romantic tension will usually pull a reader along if you're like dying for these people to get together the slow burn yeah like please just have a kiss yes yes you're killing us oh but I think the setting you're absolutely right because I did feel like I was teleported to this gorgeous location and um it was all so visual and yeah I mean you're just obviously well we all know you're clearly excellent at what you do so it was just it was a joy it was a joy to read so look obviously you're still in the depths of talking about this book and getting it out there and doing all the promo and you're on various huge book clubs let's just talk about Reese Witherspoon um but um if you already started thinking of new ideas do you give yourself a break like because you're churning out these books how when does it stop yeah I mean this is the first time that I am giving myself a break.

28:45I don't, there will be another book. I don't know when that book will come out. I'm starting to slowly be thinking about things that excite me, but really I've been using this break to try different things that I haven't done before. So I've been like, I wrote an essay and I've got a couple of short stories that I'm toying with. And I have been like working on the scripts for the adaptations, even though as we just established, it's not going to fix my life. So yeah, I feel like it's interesting how even it's like taking a break, but not taking a break from writing entirely is still a break for me.

29:19And like just by not working on a novel, it feels like, oh, I'm on vacation. Like, yeah, because nobody's like demanding these other things for me. It's just something I can do that I can, you know, for fun. So yeah, there will be another book for sure. There will hopefully be many more books, but I am taking a little breather for the first time since like 2016 so yeah good I'm so glad you are because I think not only do you need to have that moment of just actually processing the fact that it's been another great success you know that's something in itself rather than okay great I've noticed that I'm plowing on you know we all need to take more time to go wow I've actually made something really gorgeous here and people are getting so much enjoyment from it being able to spread joy like that is huge so I think you should definitely take the time to do that and also I guess just for ideas to show up I don't know about you but my best ideas always come when I'm not trying to think of one 100 % and it's so hard to have been on that schedule where you need that right idea I've had some of these books that I've put out I have had the idea as soon as I needed to have it and I had a nice long stretch to write it and to edit it and all of that but there are other books that I tried four different ideas before I landed on one that actually worked and felt exciting to me.

30:35So it is really nice to not have that pressure and to know that the next thing that I write will be because this idea hit me and it could not, you know, I just couldn't let it go. That's exciting to me. How much do you think your fiction is not necessarily based on, but helps you work through stuff that you didn't even know you needed to look at? Oh, so, so much. I mean, what you were just this discussion about ambition, like I don't think I even realized how much of a part of that it was for me was thinking through all these things of guidelines or goals I'm setting on myself without even realizing it.

31:14I think that was huge. But also all of it. I mean, there are things I'm consciously working through with with Happy Place, the book, not the club. that whole book was really intentionally me trying to figure out my people-pleasing tendencies it was like I'm going to give this character this people-pleasing impulse that is ruining her life while she's trying to use it to like keep everything you know totally manageable and balanced and all of that and that was a really conscious decision to write through this character and I've had some other books like that where it's been from beginning I kind of knew what it was I was using what I was trying to exercise with this book and and then there's also the things that you don't really know until you're reading like three years later you pick it up and you're like oh wow I see what I was going through here and I didn't realize it at the time but I was like working something out here do you find that experience too yes yeah oh my god I mean obviously with my non-fiction I'm quite literally working through things and telling everyone my problems but I've only written one thing I've written I don't know how many books but anyway the fiction um yes like absolutely look back at it now and go yeah I know what where my head was at and yeah and and actually I think most of the books I've written I would say have changed my life considerably which might sound a bit pretentious but I really think they have no I agree I think that's kind of the point I think like you know we were talking about how a big part of why we do this is because we do want to share this with an audience we want to be able to gift this thing to the world and have it go belong to the readers.

32:47But I think just as importantly, or if not more importantly, it is for us. I think when you're writing something or making anything, that process of making it has to be enough because there's no guarantee that anyone will ever see it or care about it. And if it's not changing you or doing something for you, then there's just no point. I think it starts with that internal transformation. And it sounds like kind of woo woo but I always think about it as like a version of alchemy where you're doing this weird little ritual and it's supposed to have these physical effects you know after the fact but also just the process of doing it is supposed to be kind of like magical and change you without you understanding why oh I agree and I think also for the reader you know I think people will will will read your books and learn so much about themselves you know any good fiction makes you turn inwards and look at your own tendencies and you know whether you're shouting at the page well I wouldn't do that or whatever it just is highlights things about you and that's why it's so reading will always bring me joy especially good fiction because it's just you know a constant little nudge to look at your own moral tendencies yeah outlook on life and it's it's fascinating but Look, we love this book and we're so glad that everyone's reading along with us and commenting and getting involved in the conversation.

34:11And may you have all even more success, if that's humanly possible, with your books and Hollywood and beyond. Thank you so much, Fern. And right back at you. You don't need the well wishes, but you've got them from my heart. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, thanks, Emily. God, I loved that. What brilliant, brilliant human. I loved that insight into Emily's process, her mind, her dreams, her desires, where her drive comes from. It was just brilliant. I loved it. So look, a new month and a new book to read in the Happy Place Book Club. June's novel is called The Names and it's by Florence Knapp.

34:50It's set in 1987 in the aftermath of A Great Storm. Cora sets out with her young daughter to register the birth of her son. Her husband intends for her to follow a long-standing family tradition and call the baby after him. But when faced with the decision, Cora hesitates. Is it right for her child to inherit his name from generations of domineering men? I'll tell you now, it's that, but it's also so much more. I don't want to spoil it for you, though. So do read along with us. We're on at Happy Place Book Club on Instagram, and then we can chat all about it in great detail. All right, until next time, a massive thanks again to Emily.

35:28to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Play Studios and to you, you lovely bookworms, you're the best.

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