The Bookshop Podcast
The Bookshop Podcast
Paul Rudnick's Latest Novel, What Is Wrong With You? Is A Laugh-Out-Loud Look At Modern Love
In this episode, Mandy welcomes Paul Rudnick back to the show to discuss his hilarious new novel What Is Wrong With You?
Synopsis
A tech billionaire and the flight attendant he’s marrying. A TV superhero who used to be married to the flight attendant. A Manhattan book editor and the sensitivity associate who got him fired. A twenty-three-year-old wild child prodigy who’s perhaps the savior of American literature. A vengeful Arkansas sheriff who sells a vitamin-enriched, ten-pounds-off-today demulsifier. A Wall Street bro who raps on TikTok. Two dentists—possibly stalking each other.
What do these people have in common? Invited or not, they’re all headed to the most anticipated destination wedding ever, on the billionaire’s private island, to seek romance, to cause mayhem, and to figure out everyone else’s futures and maybe even their own.
Find out what happens in Paul Rudnick’s heartfelt new novel, which dares to pose the question essential to anyone who’s ever been in love: What Is Wrong with You?
To get your copy of What Is Wrong With You? visit your local independent bookstore. The novel is available on March 25, 2025, from Simon & Schuster.
What Is Wrong With You?, Paul Rudnick
Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Our Evenings, Alan Hollinghurst
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a bibliophile. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week, I present interviews with authors, independent bookshop owners and booksellers from around the globe and publishing professionals. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to episode 286. Before I get into this episode with the fabulous Paul Rudnick, a quick reminder. If you're interested in attending any of the Santa Barbara Lunch with an Author literary series luncheons, you can go to my website at wwwmandijacksonbeverlycom. Forward slash events and you can get your ticket right there. I hope to see you. Forward slash events and you can get your ticket right there. I hope to see you.
Speaker 1:Paul Rodnick is a novelist, playwright, essayist and screenwriter whom the New York Times has called one of our preeminent humorists. His plays have been produced both on and off Broadway and around the world and include I Hate Hamlet Jeffrey, the Most Fabulous Story Ever Told. I Hate Hamlet Jeffrey, the Most Fabulous Story Ever Told. Valhalla, regrets Only and the New Century. He has won an Obie Award, two Outer Critics Circle Awards and the John Gassner Playwriting Award, and two of his short plays have been included in Standing on Ceremony, the Gay Marriage Plays. His novels include Social Disease and I'll Take it both from Knopf and Playing the Palace from Berkeley. He's a regular contributor to the New Yorker and his articles and essays have also appeared in the New York Times, esquire, vogue and Vanity Fair. Harpercollins has published both Mr Rudnick's collected plays and a group of essays titled I Shudder. His essays have also been included in the New Yorker anthologies Fierce Pajamas and Disquiet Please. Mr Rudnick is rumored to be quite close to Premiere Magazine's film critic Libby Gelman-Waxner, whose collected columns were published by St Martin's under the title, if you Ask Me, ms Gelman-Waxner has also reviewed in the pages of Entertainment Weekly, and the column now appears every four weeks on the New Yorker website.
Speaker 1:Mr Rudnick's screenplays include In-N-Out Sister Act, the Screen Adaptation of Jeffrey and Adam's Family Values. His young adult novels entitled Gorgeous and it's All your Fault have been published by Scholastic. He has appeared on the Today Show, real Time with Bill Maher, conan O'Brien, a Prairie Home, companion and Fresh Air, among other programs. On September 12, 2020, hbo began airing Coastal Elites, written by Mr Rudnick, directed by Jay Roach and starring Bette Midler, dan Levy, issa Rae, sarah Paulson and Caitlin Dever. His novel Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style was published in June of 2023 by Simon Schuster. The paperback of Farrell Covington was published in June of 2024. His new novel, titled what Is Wrong With you, will be published on March 25, 2025 by Simon Schuster. Paul, I am so happy to welcome you back to the Bookshop Podcast. It's great to have you here.
Speaker 2:Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me back.
Speaker 1:Well, please know you're welcome back anytime. I've got a little tidy office envy happening here. The last time we spoke your office looked like mine, which looks like a cyclone has hit it, but today your office looks like there's not a thing out of place.
Speaker 2:No, yours looks like a human being lives there, mine looks like someone, someone who's cleaning person just left, but that's rare, so please ignore the tidiness.
Speaker 1:I'll do the best I can. I keep thinking of you sitting in front of your computer on our last Zoom conversation and beside you was a stack about four feet tall of manuscripts.
Speaker 2:I felt at home. Oh, yes, that's my office in Manhattan, which is yeah, it's much more Dumbledore and much more, you know, hazardous. I'm now out on Long Island, where things are a little bit more sane.
Speaker 1:See, I think that's what I need. I need a second home. Let's talk about your new novel, what's Wrong With you. I loved it from the title of the page, the book cover and, of course, the story. But there's something I noticed about it, because the opening format of what Is Wrong With you reminds me of a cast breakdown for a stage play. Is this how you first wrote the manuscript, or did you add this halfway or when you'd finished writing the story?
Speaker 2:did add that chapter after I'd finished everything else, because I realized when the book had begun with just one character situation with Rob, it was deceiving that you thought, oh, okay, we're just following this guy. And then, as soon as I put in this sort of menu, this welcome to you know, a larger world, it made a lot more sense and I think readers found it much, much friendlier. So it's um, yeah, but it's. I'm glad you picked up on that because it was very necessary, because I'd never written anything where there were so many people all coming from different parts of the country or the world and you eventually find out how they, how they intertwine. But I thought, okay, let's set this up.
Speaker 1:I think it flows beautifully. Um, now you've got, as you said, a lot of characters. I think there's about eight characters sharing the spotlight in the story, plus Dax, who's like your supporting actor, and Jake, who appears in backstories and as an apparition, while being a fixture in Rob's life. How did those characters come to you All together? Or, as you wrote, did another one appear? They began to accumulate.
Speaker 2:I did not outline, I had a vague sense of where it was headed, but I didn't want to restrain myself in any way. So one thing that and I'd never written a book that was in this particular form, where you visit so many different people and they are all end up at the same destination. But it was exciting. It's one of the things I love about writing is when the book itself, the material and the characters, surprise you. And they did, because it began with Rob, who had been inspired by, actually, this random blog post I'd come across a few years ago.
Speaker 2:I have no idea who this guy was to this day. It was one of the saddest things I'd ever read. It was this guy who hated his life. He hated his romantic prospects, he hated his job, his family, everything. And it wasn't whiny, it was more heartbreaking. And I just thought, oh my God, where would someone go from here? And I thought you don't want to sort of stay in that darkness for an extended period. But I thought, okay, what would legitimately cheer this man up? Where could I bring him? That would show him at least the possibility of a better life? And that was the spark.
Speaker 2:And then from there it went to a story of real friendship between Rob and Sean, his trainer, because I thought I'd never really seen a uh, a story about a straight guy and a gay guy who got along so well, and it was just, and I thought, oh, okay, that would be kind of delicious to write. And then all their spouses started to arrive and their children and their best friends and their families, and it just became raucous and I loved that. So it just, I held on for dear life and it was. It reminded me a little bit like of an Altman film or something where you sort of catch up, um, but yeah, it was. I was always wonderfully surprised by what happened next and I found while I was writing it I could could always feel, okay, this belongs. And then I'd write a section and realize, ah no, this is extraneous, this can go away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a very satisfying experience. And it's satisfying to read.
Speaker 2:Oh good, oh, I'm so glad.
Speaker 1:I may have asked you this question about Farrell Covington and also Gorgeous but I'm always interested. Did you write this straight through, apart from the cast of characters that you added after you'd finished the book, or did you write it as the scenes appeared?
Speaker 2:I write pretty much from beginning to end because I can't wait to see what will happen next. I'm very irresponsible and don't have note cards or spreadsheets or bullet points. I just think, okay, what's you know? And it's funny because sometimes it'll take me a moment to realize, okay, this is what the book wants, this is what the characters are crying out for, and then I just follow their lead. So it's, yeah and it's. It happened on Farrell Cunningham too.
Speaker 2:I had this sort of sea change in my writing life where I just let these stories kind of erupt and they ended up structuring themselves, which had never been my strong point, but I was so pleased that it suddenly there was plot, there was foreshadowing, there was Dina, all those good things and yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was always a uh, you know, a roller coaster where I thought, oh, okay, this, oh, I can't wait to see where this guy goes or what would happen here. And what's also very helpful about working that way is when there's a wrong note or a bad turn, you're that, whatever that writerly part of my brain starts to spark and goes nope, no, no, no, you, you know that's, that's not the right thing. Note to strike. Um. And that's so helpful because you realize, oh well, maybe it is, and you realize I should stop arguing with myself. You know, whatever that little neuron is, it knows better. Um, it was deeply pleasurable kind of writing, even when there might be an occasional roadblock or a moment of where I think, ok, did this just in some way go off the rails or die entirely. It was like nope, I knew.
Speaker 1:I always knew very quickly what it needed, sometimes after a long walk and do you tend to go back each day and edit what you've written the day before I?
Speaker 2:charge ahead. I find I like to sort of vomit out a first draft, and I do have this recurring nightmare, which is so absurd, that I will finish a rough first draft, I will be hit by a bus and die and somebody will find this draft and imagine I thought it was good. I will be be displeased, they'll try to honor me and you have to realize every element of this fantasy is particularly rational, plus the fact that I'll be dead. So why would I care? But it took me a while in my career to realize nobody cares, nobody's going to find that manuscript, just keep going. So that then, because I love the rewriting process.
Speaker 2:Once I've got, um, something in hand, however unwieldy or rough, I love going back in and then tinkering and polishing and doing endless versions of it to see, oh no, no, this I get what I was after here, but I can make this so much better. Um, but yeah, so, and it's once in a while I'll read a little bit just to sometimes, if I need to remember wait, where was I. But I'll never go back to the beginning and say okay, then I'll get exhausted and I'll start to pre-edit and that's. That's usually not healthy.
Speaker 1:What about first readers? Is it John? What about first readers Is?
Speaker 2:it, john. No, no, I learned that by trial and error. It's like, no, never expect your partner or your spouse to be your fan, your critic, your editor, any of those things. So that I thought that's a terrible burden to place on someone. I remember, on our very first date, I made such a huge mistake and he was so gracious about it. I brought him to a play I had written and then it only occurred to me afterwards oh, no, pressure there. It was just the cruelest thing to book. What was he going to say, you know? But he was wonderful about it. But so that, and I? So?
Speaker 2:I learned over the years that no, no, no, no, no, that's not, that's not his job, and don't make him do that. No, I have a couple of friends, I have my editor, I have a wonderful agent, esmond Harmsworth, who I can trust. You know the people who will tell me, however gently, or maybe a little better than that, that when things aren't right aren't right, and because there's weirdly, I've discovered also over the years, there's a great satisfaction in writing 300 pages and then realizing you have to throw the whole thing out. Oh my goodness. That happens to me more than once, but I'm always so grateful for that reader who will tell me Paul, you know, sit down, this isn't working, so that I don't go further with it, so I don't keep trying to fix something that's utterly impossible. But yeah, there are a couple of people, and then my wonderful editor, peter Borland, at Atria, at Simon Schuster, that they especially because what I love is when there's a certain chapter or a section that really needs to go. But I've a little bit got my writerly backup because I just I want everything to be perfect and I think, wait, I can fix it. I can, you know, I'll make it better.
Speaker 2:And no, it really just needs to be cut entirely. And my agent and other people will keep nudging me and saying do we need that? Do we really like that? You know it always uses the word we the way you would with a child to make. So it's like no, we're not telling you to do this, we're all on the boat together. And I eventually, then the day, I call him up and say you know what? I cut that whole chapter. I'm so proud of myself. They're too smart to say, yeah, we've been telling you to do that for six months.
Speaker 2:So there have been those moments and once in a while, I even realize it before I show them my first draft, I will cut a section and feel as if, oh, no, this will be published separately someday, you know in some sort of memoir or diary, and it'll be this undiscovered gem and it's like no, no, it was just the wrong thing. Um, but yeah, no, I do. I so treasure those, those early readers, because you know, anyone you can fail in front of is invaluable and also I trust their, their opinions and their tastes so completely so I never feel like, well, they're just stupid. Of course, my two-year-old inside me, who thinks you know anyone who has any edits whatsoever, is just, you know, ignorant. But they're not, they're really. They're much smarter than I am and they are. They know their jobs, they're really good at them and you realize.
Speaker 1:Well, also your agent Esmond Harmsworth.
Speaker 2:Oh the best.
Speaker 1:While I haven't met him in person, in emails he's such a gentleman, always polite, you know, always returns my emails and I appreciate his thoughtfulness. You are so lucky, as is he, for representing you.
Speaker 2:Oh, I am. No, he's the best. He also has the best name in the world. That I mean, I keep thinking I could not do better than to name a character, esmond Hemsworth. But he's just a delight, and he is such. He's incredibly kind and incredibly tough minded at the same time, which is what you want. That's invaluable. So that he's you know, and I mentioned to him. You know, esmond, I get how sweet you're being, but you don't have to just tell me it's bad. Just get out the big red pencil. But yeah, no, he's just a treasure.
Speaker 1:Okay, back to what is wrong with you. There's a passage on page 310, where Rob is thinking about Jake and you write quote Rob decided that silliness, or at least appreciation of love's. I felt this paragraph was truth. It spoke of truth and it jumped out at me as the theme of the story.
Speaker 2:It is very much so, because the book is an exploration of every aspect of love imaginable, which includes loss, and includes the greatest loss of all, which is when someone you love dies. And Rob is wrestling with that from quite a bit of the book and it was particularly a grim death. But it's something I've learned over the years. It's sort of the difference when you go to someone's memorial and everybody's having a wonderfully good time and you realize that's not inappropriate or diminishing in any way, especially if the person who died was beloved. You want to remember them at their best, at their funniest, at their brightest, at their most inspiring, and that it doesn't lessen the the, the loss, but let remind you of why you valued this person. And that's something that rob really has to go through, because that's not an easy thing to to achieve. But yeah, I realized and it's something that, because I'm a helplessly comic writer, I realized, no, but I want to delve into the deepest possible subjects also because they'll often be the funniest as well. But life never falls into categories. Nothing is unrelentingly grim or hilariously funny all the time. They're always mixed together and I found, with people I know who've experienced the worst life has to offer, from battlefields to fatal illnesses, to family abuse. They often have this balance wheel which is their sense of humor, and they can shock people with it and I love that.
Speaker 2:And I love that trying that in my books, where you realize, no, if you could, it's the light at the end of the tunnel. You know that, it's the joy that you thought you'd lost forever. And that's where Rob arrives. And the trick, I think, and the challenge, is to justify that, because I think we're all terribly jaded and cynical, with great justification, which means we're very wary of a happy ending or a moment of pleasure. So I want the reader to be able to really buy into it and say, okay, that I'll go. You know, I won't feel like a fool or a sucker. And with Rob, because he's an editor, he's, he's read so many romances, he's read so many novels, he knows the tropes I thought if I can make him genuinely feel better and genuinely acknowledge, in a way, a certain structure to his life, that would be you know what I, what I was after all along. So it's. But yeah, I'm so glad you read that passage, cause yeah, it's, it's a real summation for him.
Speaker 1:In this novel. I was taken once again with your talent for conveying characters traits via your use of descriptions and dialogue. There's a description of Tremble Woodspill I love that name and where you write, quote she may have downed a few Adderall which she considered mildly enhanced Skittles, end quote. In that short sentence the reader immediately gets the gist of Tremble's personality, which also shows through in the name of her novel Life as we Fucking Know it. I'd love to know more about Tremble and how you came up with her name.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, well, tremble Woodsville. The name came to me in an instant and I of course had the immediate reaction of oh my God, that's so over the top. And then I couldn't get rid of it. I thought, no, that's her name, that's the name she wants, and because she's one of the youngest characters in the book she's just in her early 20s and she's a writer, so I didn't want to be too precious with her.
Speaker 2:You know, often when you read there's a writer figure in a novel, you think, oh, that's going to be a stand-in for the actual author and it's going to be deeply sensitive. And, um, you know, this fantasy version of whoever is is penning this. So when I thought, no, no, she's much wilder than that and I wanted her to be somebody who didn't immediately leap out at you as a grad student at the fiction workshop, you know she's an essayist and she's from Arkansas and she's lived this very rough life, but she's got this wild sense of humor and sense of herself, and so I wanted to convey all that, also because she's you know, she's come from foster care. She is surrounded by a lot of people who doubt her on every level. You know she's biracial, she's everything that doesn't quite belong in that small town where she grew up, and so she's written her way out of that place.
Speaker 2:And I also, I love the relationship between her and Rob. You know her 60-year-old gay white editor in Manhattan. You know it's so unlikely, but I found with editors, the best ones. They often like to discover people and they like to discover voices that are very different from their own or their usual stable. So Rob, just just, you know, cherishes tremble and when they meet up it's just such a, you know, a wonderful epiphany for both of them. But tremble, yeah, tremble just appeared, and I also was interested, because sometimes she almost could shock me, because she really is so resilient and so inventive and she, she will go from, you know, a tugboat to a shipping container to Times Square. And yet there's a moment that I think is also very central to her, which the first time she comes to New York and sees Times Square, for the first time she's never been anywhere outside her small town.
Speaker 2:She's looking at these mobs and these signs and the noise and she says, says, this is exactly what the inside of my head looks like yeah, that was such a great line and I love that, a moment of identification and how she manages to place time square in her experience and you hear, you only get a sample of her writing, sort of towards the end of the book, which I think I've experimented with a little more, but I thought, no, no, that's what you want, because she's also this is her first book.
Speaker 2:There actually was a moment when I was going to call the whole book Life as we Fucking Know it. That would present a problem, you know, on the Barnes Noble bookshelf so, and I think, and then, once I realized it should be, what Is Wrong With you, it felt like oh, that's what it was meant to be all along, because people say that to me so many times a day, I say it to so many other, no, I say it to so many other people. Everyone loves saying it out loud when they realize that's the name of the book. So it felt, no, that's perfect, because it was especially, I know, in married couples there's always that moment where you stare at the other person and you go what is wrong with you? Who are you? How did I ever marry you? I always love that and then you can get past that, but there is that sense of who is this disheveled stranger in my apartment?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think in my situation I sometimes add a few curse words in that sentence.
Speaker 2:Oh, of course, of course.
Speaker 1:What I love and enjoy about your writing is that when I pick up the book, I know I'm going to get a giggle and I know it's going to be easy to read and it's going to uplift me. And yeah, when she says that about Times Square, it was just a reminder of the stupidity that's going on around us right now socially. I think the juxtaposition between Bimble and Isabel yes, Isabel McNally, the sensitivity associate. Let's talk about this sensitivity associate.
Speaker 2:No, I've known so many Isabels, though, and sometimes they're very well intended, so I didn't just want to condemn her, and I think she ends up in a much better place in the book. But the thing I find a little frightening in the publishing world and in the arts in general and in life, are the people who don't just want absolute political correctness at every second, but want it enforced. I always think no. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. You can go online, you can rate things, you can give them stars or no stars, but what you're not allowed to do is to actually erase someone's work. You can't censor it. You can't say this should never have been published or this should be taken off the shelves.
Speaker 2:A little of that going on, or a little more than that in the world, and it's not related in any way to all of the dei um chaos that's going on right now. It's much more about. It's the point at which the loony left meets the old, hardcore christian right, because they both want things only their way. They don't want any other voices to be heard, and that that's scary. And Isabel, because she's very young and she's welcomed to the world of publishing at a very specific moment when people are looking for a sensitivity edit. You know, we've all heard these stories of books, some of which have been taken off the shelves, have been before publication sometimes, and some of them have actually triumphed over that sort of, you know, doctrinaire feedback.
Speaker 2:But it's really, it's something I really wrestled with because I thought no, no, no, I don't. I'm thrilled to have a real editor go over my work and to have readers respond, but I don't need a policeman. You know, you don't want someone who says also because I can see it in other people's writing when they're being overly careful and too cautious, when they're saying I don't want to offend anyone, and it flattens everything out and they're polite and you think, okay, I'm not buying this. All of a sudden, this is too nice. Yeah, you're writing for the teacher to give you an A and it's a real danger. And so Isabel is the sort of loony version of that where she just is like a fever in her to remake the world. And I think you could only have that sort of passion in a way when you're very young and you think you can. You know where you imagine oh, I can make everything I touch better and more well-behaved and unite the world and end climate change this afternoon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and marry a certain guy in the book I can't give it away oh yes, well, that's what I love is that she.
Speaker 2:I think where Isabel sort of falls apart in the most sort of deliciously frazzled way is when her libido and her heart take over. She's got all these crushes, she's got a love affair that she's kind of ashamed or embarrassed by and she doesn't know what to do with them. And I love taking someone who's that confident and that totally sure of herself and, you know, messing with her Because she has this vision, which I kind of respect in a way, because I love anyone who's that. The people I've met in the world who are the most confident usually are the most deluded, you know, and sometimes the least talented.
Speaker 2:I once knew a writer who at the end of every working day she would put the pages she'd been working on in the freezer because supposedly, if your house burns down that will be the last place to burn, and I thought I wish I had that reverence for my work that I wanted it chilled every morning, you know, she just had such a sense of her place in the world and she was not a good writer and I thought but I love how, you know, she'd also clearly come from wealth, but she, you know, it's like sometimes there's been a mommy and daddy who've never said the word no, and Isabelle's a bit of that, but it's, but yeah, she's just. Also, I love the sense of what someone's starting out in the world, because I remember having you know huge chunks of this where you feel, oh wait, maybe I'm a secret genius, you know, maybe I really am the Messiah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, until someone says to you hey, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 2:Completely. That's what she's never heard. Or she always thinks that the people in her small town or in her college class or or in in the larger world are just not as evolved as she is. You know, and we've seen those it's it's a stance that's very much encouraged in academia. You know where people are, they're sort of siloed a little bit. They usually have fans. They really get very, um, you know, just tyrannical in their opinions. And Isabel is, you know, I hope by the end of the book she's sort of course, corrected a little bit because that's not a good way to be for the rest of your life because you're going to get smacked hard, but by life itself and probably by individuals as well. Yeah, but she was fun to write just because she was, so one track.
Speaker 1:On page 13, we see Isabel through Rob's eyes. Quote Isabel didn't greet Rob, but then again she never greeted anybody because, as she'd explained at her introduction to the staff, women are too often required to project a stereotypical caretaking, false warmth, as Rob had noted at the time. This would never be a problem with Isabel, who was somewhere in her 20s and wore boxy handwoven tunics and chunky wood-soled half boots. Her hair was hennaed and mountainously frizzy daring, sexist judgment or a comb.
Speaker 2:Well, everything about her is a statement and a challenge to, to the people who she meets. Just how dare you pick at me for anything? You know, find any flaw, um, but she's yes. Well, I think this is something that women have to deal with far more than men all of them and get their share.
Speaker 2:But that sense of oh my god, you're constantly being judged and you're constantly being tormented into picking a persona for the day, let alone a wardrobe, that, um, in a hairstyle, it's that thing of okay, what will I be attacked for? Especially, I mean, it's with anyone young nowadays or even plenty of old people online as well where you realize that the world is your Yelp, that there will be people out there all too eager to rip you to shreds, and that's ooh, it's that scary when you realize that. I think that protection of either anonymity or just the Internet lets people become very cruel with each other. And I think Isabel is a little too comfortable with that at first because of her absurd self-assurance, but yeah, she really. She's just basically had way too much time at a very liberal college.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about another hilarious character, and that is Rob's best friend, the dentist Paolo Baumgartner. There's a great description you give of him here. Paolo was fully clothed on the duvet, wearing sunglasses and a striped dish towel knotted babushka style on his head. What would you suggest to new writers struggling with character descriptions?
Speaker 2:Oh well, I think I mean some writers sort of pop out fully formed and I'm always just in awe. But there are some where you think no, you pick your details. It's like, yes, it's all too easy to write 85 pages of description of one character. And it's like, no, you probably need two sentences of that. So you just learned it and that's something I found, at least for myself. You only learn from years of failed attempts that you really figure it out and your brain starts to tell you you know, some of it may be that there's that mastery algorithm of how many hours you need to become better at any task when you start to feel instantly when to shut up, you know when to stop the sentence. Although I did love someone online. They were so sweet and they said they reviewed actually this book. They said there are, I think it was this book. They said there are no more commas in the world because Paul Rudnick has used all of them. And then they gave me a five-star review. So I just adored them and I thought they're not wrong.
Speaker 2:But sometimes I find in each book I'll develop a bad habit that I then have to learn to curb and then, luckily, my editor will catch, but the weirdest thing is that it's a different bad habit each time. Catch, but the weirdest thing is that it's a different bad habit each time. You know. It's either like descriptions in group of threes, which you need to learn to avoid because it will become very droning, um, or too many commas and too many semicolons, which are just I think rob refers them as literary zits where it's just knock it off, you don't need that many, and the reader is going to go insane. Um, but it's, uh, but I always, yeah, I always like to. Usually after I'm far too far along, I'll realize okay, what was my bad habit this time around. Um, but yeah, it's, yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2:I mean, for young writers, I think, as in any field, pretty much, keep doing it. That is the only way you will learn. There are no shortcuts. And again, don't treat every syllable as if it were pure gold, because it's not. Even if you are faulkner, you know, or dickens, you have to learn how to cut, you know, I always I'm amazed at people, at writers although some of them they're probably absolutely right who just resist editing and who say not enough, every word is precious, it's like I wish, but it's. Yeah, I mean that would be my. My real advice to anyone young is first of all, find people you're worth listening to and don't treat yourself as if you're the king james bible.
Speaker 1:You know you're not well, speaking about grammar, where do you stand on the m dash?
Speaker 2:oh my god, oh, now you. Now you really struck such terror into my heart because then I had to try to remember what is the m dash and the new yorker, which I sometimes write for, just for the first time in, like you know, 3,000 years, made a minor adjustment in their house style and when I sometimes will write pieces for them and they will come back copy edited with, and it suddenly turned into, you know, a Jacobean manuscript in written in, you know know, with the quill pen, and I think, no, no, I can't, you can't do that, um. And then it becomes a negotiation. So I have no position on any forms of grammar. I just think, god bless, I had the most wonderful copy editor on um, on what is wrong with you, who was firm but gentle, and she, just when she would find things and, you know, just make suggestions.
Speaker 2:She was never like, she wouldn't humiliate me even though I deserved it, and I just thought, oh my God, thank God you're here. You know the idea that there are people who have that skill set and it's that's one of the things I really worry about and that that will fall by the wayside, that there are fewer people who really want to become editors, or that somehow people will imagine that AI will accomplish that, and I thought that's something.
Speaker 2:AI can't do you know? Ai will tell you. It's like the style function on your MacBook. It's often wrong, you know. It corrects your spelling and you're like no, no, no, that was the person's name. You can't fix that so that you want that great human insight and that great sense of someone who really understands grammar to that sort of Benjamin Dreyer degree. I mean, he's just the master. I'm just flailing. When it comes to punctuation, I just usually will go through and say how much can I remove? You know, because it's just, it's not, it's like sprinkles on a cookie. Well, not that I think the more the better, but it's still just. You know, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Speaker 1:That's excellent advice. Early in the book you write about the commonalities of each character. Quote they all owned Trone phones and were all seeking love in one form or another, but were helpless to locate that love or sustain it or even categorize its nature. End quote. How far into the story did Trone Meston appear? And, without giving anything away, did his backstory arrive first, or the trone phone? Or did you need this tech guru?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I needed an organizing principle. And also, once I realized that the book was that love was so much the central subject, I thought, okay, what if you had someone who thought it could be controlled, who thought it could be mastered? And I thought, okay, that only a tech guru, with both their insane amount of scientific knowledge and also their weird distance from human behavior, would dare to attempt that. And when I was writing Trone, you know there's that whole set of gurus from Mark Zuckerberg, peter Thiel, steve Jobs, elon, of course and it was never based on any specific one of those, but I did think it was fascinating to have a character who had that much power and that much reach. You know, that's something that's really completely new in the world, because you could compare those people to a Ford or an Edison or anyone who had a breakthrough that changed the way we live.
Speaker 2:But those guys are. I mean, it's been fascinating to watch them as they've I wouldn't use the word mature, but as they've grown older, you know, they've all suddenly now just discovered their masculine energy and that nonsense. But I want Trone to have that strangeness that a lot of those guys have, which may be a necessity for you to suddenly create or promote a product that's never been there before, because I thought that can be, you know, hugely impressive that, whatever you think of any one of those guys, something like Facebook or Mac or the MacBook or the iPhone, those have changed the world, you know, in many ways, and we all have them, and that's the other thing I liked about having a character like that was what he literally reached it to everyone's pocket. You know everyone's enthralled to their devices, or at least finds them necessary. You know there are. There are those few hermits who say I'm offline completely, and they're always lying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. I agree with you there.
Speaker 2:No, it's all that. I know that the snobs will always tell me and some of them are my closest friends oh, I never watched television. I think you watch television on your phone. You still watch television. You know, watching Max or Netflix is watching television, even if you're pretending. Well, it's not abc, it's not. I love lucy.
Speaker 2:I thought, no, you've got a tv on your wrist. Um, so there it's something. You know it's, it's inescapable, which is what I liked about it as a writer. I thought, no, this guy is everywhere. And I thought, with all the algorithms that are being invented and with AI and with coding and everything, I thought there will you know. Now there are there already all the dating apps which pretend that they can match people, according to you know a very short list of characteristics and preferences and photoshop photos. But I thought what if you took that even further, where you said I will use all these various physio elements and really determine an, a ultimate match for each human being on earth? Would that be possible? And, beyond that, would you want it?
Speaker 2:Because one of the things I love is the way that love defeats tech. You know and it's the ultimate kind of message of the book that when you try to control something that cannot be controlled, you know you're going to crash and burn, horribly or interestingly. But that's why Trone needed to have the strangeness and the acumen to attempt that sort of lunacy, to say I will, and that he also imagines he's doing the world this enormous goodness and favor, that he will make everyone's lives easier. It's like the people who tell you you know, the only way to really meet the one, the special person for you, is when you stop looking. That's the meanest thing you could say, because then the person goes okay, I'm going to stop looking, which means it's like negative energy.
Speaker 2:How do you stop looking? And that then? What if that person doesn't appear? What have you done wrong since this other guy gave you all this advice and I think Trone's the ultimate version of that of the person who says I will give you the answer. You know, I will give you a. Well, the other thing we're all looking for in every area of our life is a guarantee, a sense that if you follow these three you know mottos or bullet points you will achieve whatever you want. Three you know mottos, um or bullet points. You will achieve whatever you want you know.
Speaker 2:It's sort of like remember the secret, that book that still around that people. Now people call it manifesting, but where you think, okay, if you want that special person, if you want that job, if you want that haircut, if you focus on it it will appear. And I thought if that were true we would all be billionaires with great skin. You know that it's just nonsense, but I totally understand that urge, that desperate desire for sort of surety, for some sense of please, dear God, or whomever, let my life make sense. And troned, because those guys kind of think of themselves as you know if I was being kind I'd say wizards but they think of themselves as far more godlike, because my husband, john, is a doctor and he's not like this. But he has always told me about surgeons and people who really do think of themselves as having extraterrestrial powers because they do wield a certain level of life and death over the world.
Speaker 2:But, um, I thought that's both really impressive and terrifying anyone who thinks they can change the human or lasso somehow the human brain. And that's one of the things I love about the way life actually works is you can keep trying, you're never going to get there. You know that we are too weird as a species and too sort of deliciously obstreperous and instinctual. So if you try and codify everything that's you know the most blind alley of all that you're just it's just not going to happen. But I love watching trone try, because he's somebody who's really you know. He's decidedly odd but very charismatic in a way too too, because of his both his confidence and his insight into human nature. He's not in any way stupid. So he became very helpful at various points in the story where you thought he was going to say something absurd or helpless. And he says something really smart and you realize, oh, that's how he got there. You know, that's why he has a corporate empire, that's why people buy all his stuff, because there is something slightly magic going on there.
Speaker 1:And you set Trone's personality out early by giving us the backstory of the chicken story, where he's trying to outsmart his siblings and the chickens. Yes, the final scene in the gym with Rob and Sean is gorgeous. I mean, I love the final paragraph with the woman sitting on the mat staring at them and Tremble's book title tying up everything. Was this always the ending, or did you write multiple endings before arriving at that particular ending? I think I did.
Speaker 2:I kept expanding the ending because I kept thinking, okay, where does the book want to end? You really have to listen to your work then to see. You know how tidy does it want to be or how unruly or how abrupt. You know, there's always that soprano sending where it just stops, um. But with this I thought I knew that rob and sean were the um core of the book and I knew that I wanted to, and they both experienced different forms of loss, but they were, both had had reached a kind of new plateau in their lives, but that was satisfactory and not, but that they understood each other and that it was their friendship that would sort of get them through. So I knew I wanted it to be that their version of a, their sort of nutty version of an epiphany, um, and the fact that because I love that the woman, there's a stranger who's listening to them, who can't decide if they're like exes or current boyfriends, or flirting or getting straight. They, just because everything they says takes you somewhere else. But that's what I love about them and that it's.
Speaker 2:You know, I think it's always our friends are what will get us through that. They, they're what we really rely on, especially when our lovers are vanishing or dying or divorcing us. Your friends are what you come back to and I love how unlikely that friendship is. You know that it's this editor and this guy who's both a very high-powered gym owner and personal trainer, who is also a TV star superhero for a certain part of his life. You know it's just nuts, but the thing is, I know people who've been in both those places in their lives and I adore them. And it's, yeah, it's also one of the great joys that I think of living in New York City is that you're forced into contact with every sort of person every day. You know it's not just your neighbors on your block in your often delightful small town. It's people who you have nothing in common with, or you think you don't, people who you immediately are very suspicious of, who end up being your closest friends and who would entertain you endlessly and who give you shockingly helpful advice. And that's what those two guys are for each other.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, I knew and I knew we needed to check in with everybody, which we do by the end. You want it to be satisfying, you don't, and you want to honor everyone because hopefully, the the readers have invested in these people, and so we. We do travel from one person to the next, which I love. By that point in the book, if it's cooking, you get the. You know that the reader will follow you and that you don't have to do enormous amounts of description. At that point it's like you know you're. It's like quick cuts in a movie where it's like, okay, here we are in a private jet, here we are in an apartment building, but Robin and and Sean just there's a devotion there that I really cherish.
Speaker 1:Yeah, their relationship is precious. Okay, I want to ask you about one more thing. In the book, early on in the story, we discover that the publishing company where Rob works has been sold to corporate overlord Trone Meston. And you write, quote the architect for the new premises is Finnish and had told the New York Times quote I hate prominent entrances or visible street numbers. Instead of shouting, I want my work to whisper and shrug. End quote I love those last eight words and the way it adds to Rob's character. And in circling back to something you were talking about earlier, if we're all really honest with ourselves, there are fragments of all of us within the characters of this book and, honestly, sometimes I was blushing. I thought, oh my God, I remember doing or saying that.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm so glad you said that, because that's how I fall in love with all my characters that I think a writer has to Even the ones who are very wayward or close to evil. You really have to embrace them all and find parts of yourself in them. No well, that bit also came from the gym I go to in Chelsea in New York, the Chelsea Piers, and it's in what's called the Starcitect area, where there are all of these enormous buildings designed by the most highly paid, respected, trendiest architects. So they're all wildly different, which I love visually, but it's also, you know, chaos, and you look at some of these places and you think what were they after and who were they trying to impress, sometimes by making the buildings as unpleasant as possible, or is it's that thing of where you can't find the front door, you know, when you go, okay, I get, I get why. That's where you'd say oh no, I'm over front doors, I'm bored with front doors, you know, and especially if you're a stranger and you're trying to find a street number, you go. You know that would be helpful. Well, and it was.
Speaker 2:I was in an office in one of those buildings and they look gorgeous from the outside. They're so interesting because they always look like children made them from crayon drawings or blocks and um, but it had which occurs in the book this snake-like day. It was a big open office, because that's the most current form for workplaces. It was no walls, no cubicles, no doors, nothing. It's all open because that way you'll all interact and everything will bubble up and you'll have a lot of beanbag chairs and it's like the Google offices are like that, which are in that area. And this was this winding plywood desk that went on for like 50 feet or more and everybody was sort of had their own little corner of it and I thought if I had to work here I would cut my throat.
Speaker 2:I thought there's no privacy. You're also always weirdly catching glimpses of the other person when they're nodding off or, you know, watching porn on their phone and I thought whose idea was this? Nobody likes it, even the you know 22 year olds that it's, and I thought this will go away and they already know. You could see in a lot of these workplaces walls are going back up at least half walls. People like their space and they like to be protected and they like to put their little bobble heads along the edge.
Speaker 2:So it's, but for a while there and still ongoing that there's that sense of oh no, we're all a big communal family, even though some of us, and we'll all give ourselves titles that somehow sound non-hierarchical, like, you know, you're the deputy associate, junior, quasi-executive, whatever, and I thought, no, you're a secretary. You know you're going to get the coffee, no matter what your title says. So it's, but it's fun to watch. Especially, it reminds me of one of the great things about being a writer is you don't have to go to work every day in one of those places, and so my heart goes out to the people who, you know, really have to show up and go. Oh my God, that's why they all have snack bars, because that's the only part people really like. It's like I can get through my day.
Speaker 1:And how does one cope with all of the noise, the chatter and the tapping of a keyboard? And, oh my God, I can't concentrate in that kind of situation.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah in that sense that I mean I understand the value of listening to lots of opinions, but not constantly and not in that sense of, you know, a clubhouse. It's like there's a certain sort of sense in a workplace there should be people who are really good at what they're doing and good at different things, and therefore not always having to sit there and stare at each other. But it's also why, I think, during COVID, people started which the big secret is people became incredibly productive when they worked at home, which every writer knows, because you, of course, you can be very productive and also have a lot of snacks, you know, and sit on your couch but in your sweat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with a cat or a dog beside you. Paul, when I was reading this book, I saw it as a play. I just was thinking, oh my goodness, I feel like I'm sitting on the stage watching this as a play. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Speaker 2:Really, oh, that's so interesting. Well, no, because one of the reasons why I've so embraced fiction as of late is because I love the freedom and the sense that if you're going to take people to wildly different locations on stage, there are huge technical problems there. You have to. How much scenery do we need? What do we? What one piece of what, one chair or table will tell the story, and how much doubling do you need if you don't want to hire 83 actors? But in a novel, if you want to go to the cocktails at the Eiffel Tower, you're there, you know, and you're. Also you're not tormenting the other people and the producers into giving you a hand. So it's funny. I mean, I find that my work as a playwright helped me enormously in terms of dialogue and shaping a scene and knowing, ok, get into this scene as it's well underway. Don't sort of start always from zero, because then there's going to be a lot of dead air. Um, but so yeah, I mean that's it. Started with Farrell Covington where I realized, okay, whatever skills I've developed over the course of a career, I'm using all of them now, from playwriting and screen write a play.
Speaker 2:Plays are are technical beyond belief, which I realized the sort of mathematics of it. But it's very tough and can sometimes I found it very constraining after a while because, especially if you're writing comedy, you want to get that laugh from the audience and you want to get out of it fast too. You want to have you get people on and off stage. That's, if you ask any writer. That can be the trickiest thing of all.
Speaker 2:And lately I've seen even some wonderful plays that are all set in living rooms in parlors with a big spiral staircase and everybody's always finding a reason to go off stage into the kitchen or the bathroom, or they're folding a throw on the couch to give themselves something to do, or they're plumping a pillow, or they're bringing a dish of whatever to the sideboard in ways that no one would ever do. But when you work in the theater you realize you got to keep things active. You know you got to give the actors something to do so they don't just stand there and you know jabber at you all the time. But so that when I write plays I love that challenge. But I also love writing books where that's not an issue.
Speaker 1:There's something you spoke about in our last interview for the podcast and it's to do with your friend, the costume designer.
Speaker 2:Oh, william, I Belong.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, I was thinking about him while I was watching a show the other night. It's called Everybody's Live in LA, I think it's what it's called. It's John Mulaney's kind of late night show, which is totally wacky, and I love it Because he did this one scene where he had a whole lot of people in a small room who had played the lead in Death of a Salesman and they all had a suitcase with them. And I suddenly remembered you telling me about I can't remember which show it was, but it was one that William designed and it had a suitcase in it. Someone was carrying a suitcase and it was a period piece and he put props and clothing piece. And he put props and clothing, everything he could think of in that suitcase that had to do with that period and it was to help put the actress or actor in that right frame of mind.
Speaker 1:And I just thought that was great. Well, john Mulaney asked everybody you know, what did you put in your suitcases? And someone said, oh, nothing. Another one said rocks, I think. But it was so interesting that that came back to me and now I'm thinking about it. It is easier to do in a novel.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh yeah. Also because, unlike web, dead, screenwriting and screenwriting is a little crazy because of the economics involved. I remember when I was writing a script for one of the Addams Family movies and you write two sentences of description saying Gomez and Morticia go to a decaying French restaurant. And then I remember, then, a few months later, I went to a soundstage in Los Angeles where they had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building a decaying French restaurant, which was gorgeous, you know, with these wonderful actors, but I I was had a heart attack. I thought maybe we should have sent some kids to college with this money.
Speaker 2:You know, it was still that sense of you have. You know, there can be enormous amounts of money and skill and design at your disposal, but that's a little daunting. And in a book, again, you can create the most sumptuous luxury, the most, the rainforest, the pyramids, whatever you're after, with a few words, and so it's yeah, and you just feel a little less guilty as a capitalist. You know when you're really going for a certain lifestyle. But yet no, william ivy, that, like the costume designer, he was one of my best teachers because he taught me about detail and about really looking at everything about a character, and not just what they're wearing, but their attitude, their posture, their economic status, all that stuff which he is always so aware of, and the amount of research he does you know, for any, for any historical thing, but anything.
Speaker 2:And these mood boards he creates and I thought, god he's, he's writing his own novel yeah, I would love to meet him.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's the best just knowing he, yeah, also. It's just wonderful because you get to see the result. You know when I would go and see the shows that he had designed. And he also designed a lot of big musicals and won many Tony Awards, like the original production of Nine and the original production of Chicago no, the big revival of Chicago that's run for 40 years, and I see his genius and I see how he also makes performers feel good and he knows the human body and he knows how to make someone sexy who never thought they were sexy.
Speaker 2:And you know he's a therapist in that way too. So it's, it's just an amazing skill set and it all. Again, it was something you know. He studied French history at college. He really has a craft to everything he does, but and he's crazy which is helpful too, you know because he's like everyone who's, you know, a perfectionist where everything does have to be perfect and you dye things and you sew sequins on and you do all that and you have a staff and it's like, oh my God, this is a, you know, a little nation state in itself.
Speaker 1:Yes, he's an extraordinary creative. Okay, let's talk about books. Have you read anything fantastic lately? Oh yeah, I mean I've read tons.
Speaker 2:It's the Alan Hollinghurst book that was Our Evenings is just magnificent. I mean, I'm a huge fan of his in general. I have I haven't not read it yet um, stag dance, the new book by tory peters who wrote detransition baby, which I just adored, um, I think she's the real thing, I. What else have I read that? This is the trouble is, whenever anyone asks me what I've read or seen, or let alone for what are the five favorite things, my mind immediately goes blank. But you know, oh, I love Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Ackner, which was from sort of last year, but it was just an extraordinary novel. Um, all Fours by Miranda July is wonderful.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, these are books that have been been wildly successful as well, but there are so many good writers out there, I hate all of them. No, I don't. No, actually, I find that's the one thing I'm never jealous of. I'm always so grateful when I read something wonderful and there's a little part of my brain that is always going how did they manage this? And then you realize why waste time being jealous? You're never going to be them. That's. Their secret is that they have their own.
Speaker 2:Um, you, know madness and and talent, um, but I love it when you realize, oh, my god, you've really done the impossible. You've written a wonderful book. That's so. It is so, only that, only you could have written. So that, yeah, because sometimes when I explore certain other bestsellers where I figure out, okay, why is this book, you know, been selling so well for 15 years? And I get it and it's great.
Speaker 1:But I thought I'm not going to read 15 volumes of anything you know, yeah, you know, I get books sent to me every single day, from the big five to imprints, to small and medium presses. And I'll get this big stack and I'll start looking at it and I'll think, okay, now, which one do I need to read first, in order, you know, of publication and everything. And I'll pick one up and I'll read, you know the first paragraph, and I'll start to think I don't know, do I want to keep reading this? Maybe I'll read, you know, the first paragraph and I'll start to think I don't know, do I want to keep reading this? Maybe I'll give it a chapter, maybe I'll give it two or three chapters, but I would say, out of the 10 books and this is kind of being hopeful I would say three make the cut.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's very generous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it kind of is, isn't it? But you know, the questions I ask myself are these am I going to recommend this book Because that's important to me? I don't like putting books down, but I love talking about books that I love. So if I don't like them, I don't talk about them. That's just the way I see things. And the other thing is do I want to give six to eight hours of my life to read this book? But taste is subjective, and that's a good thing, because the books that I may not like or don't think are for my audience. Someone else is just going to adore them, and that's great. I'm not much of a romance reader, but I do love a good romance, you know. I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 2:No, and I read them because I'm curious about what are other people finding so addictive, although there is one book right now which I will not name it's a huge bestseller literary fiction where I have tried to read it for the past like eight months. I will read three chapters and then my eyes just refuse to focus on the page. I will then go read an entire other book that I actually enjoy and then come back to it and say I'm going to conquer this like it's my everest, and lately I've been thinking you know, paul, maybe this just isn't the book for you and you know what, paul, that's okay it is, and you think clearly the author has a huge devoted fandom.
Speaker 2:They just need me. But it really was. It became like my ultimate task is if I was going to run into her and I've never met this writer, and she'd say, well, what did you think of Chapter 83? And I was like, no, no, no, paul, you are allowed to stop reading. Also, I've already bought the book, I've contributed to her coffers, but I've always been astonished that it really became this strange sort of like monastic self-punishment where it was if you don't read two more chapters, you are a bad human being.
Speaker 1:Oh, I get it, I call it reader's guilt. Are a bad human being. Oh, I get it, I call it reader's guilt. Yeah, now, I'm a pretty big rereader. I do have about probably eight to 10 books that I have reread and reread. One of them is your book, gorgeous. That got me through the pandemic. It gave me hope. It just uplifted me, and you know I love fashion. It was great. Are you a rereader?
Speaker 2:Once in a while I try not to both, because I'm always sort of greedy for something new and because I don't want to sort of tinker with my memories. It's why I won't go see movies or plays more than once, because I love them so much that I think, oh, I never want to get bored with this. I never want to suddenly see the flaws, I just want to sort of burnish how much I what the great time I had. So, yeah, but once in a while I will go back to something, fall into it and realize this is the best you know and I, and once in a while I'll when I've read something really awful, and once in a while when I've read something really awful this is terrible to say where it's just unspeakable and often acclaimed.
Speaker 2:I will go back and read someone's book that I adored, like remember Ann Patchett's the Dutch House, which I just thought was one of the best books ever. I'll go back and read a few chapters to remember oh, there's such a thing as good writing, because the bad book obliterated that option. I, no one has ever written a good book. It's it's don't even try. And then you go read something that you loved and you realize, oh no, no, this is, this is a worthy pursuit.
Speaker 1:Paul, I'm probably keeping you way too long. I just thoroughly enjoy chatting with you.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it. No, thank you.
Speaker 1:I love your new novel what Is Wrong With you? And it's published in a couple of days, right yeah, march 25th. I wish you all the best with it. And listeners, go and get this book. It is going to make you laugh. It's just hysterical.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. This has been a joy.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to my conversation with author Paul Rudnick about his new book what Is Wrong With you. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. To find out more about the Bookshop Podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop Podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, mandy Jackson-Beverly, theme music provided by Brian Beverly, executive assistant to Mandy, adrian Ohtohan, and graphic design by Frances Perala. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.