Julie Buntin, Famous Men

Brett sits down with author Julie Buntin to discuss her novel Famous Men. They talk small towns and leaving them for big cities, coming of age and what comes with the transition from young girl to young woman, consent, writing workshops and creative spaces, and a literary dinner party.

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https://www.juliebuntin.com/

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https://www.instagram.com/juliebuntin/

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Transcript

Brett Benner 0:00

it's Bret Benner, and welcome to another episode of Behind the Stack. Today, I am sitting down with author Julie Buntin for her second novel, Famous Men. This was such an interesting book because I finished it and it's been well over a month, and I really haven't been able to stop thinking about it. And when that happens to me, I know that I've read something great, and that it's gonna stick with me for a while. It's the kind of book that is going to, as I say to her in the interview, completely instigate a lot of conversations about a myriad of topics. But enough about that. So a little bit about Julie. Her debut novel, Marlena, was a finalist for the National Book Critic Circle's John Leonard Prize. It was released in 10 territories worldwide, and it was named a best book of the year by over a dozen outlets, including The Washington Post, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews. She's the co-editor of Notes to New Mothers, a collection of dispatches from postpartum life by 60 writers and artists. Previously, Buntin was an editor and director of writing programs at Catapult. Now, she writes and teaches in Ann Arbor, where she is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan. So I hope you enjoy this episode of Behind the Stack Hey, everybody. Welcome back, where I'm really happy today to be sitting down with Julie Buntin Button for her novel, which is fantastic, Famous Men. So thank you so much for being here today.

Julie Buntin 1:35

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Brett. I love seeing all your little, your little page markings.

Brett Benner 1:40

Oh my God, yes. Yes. I had a lot of them. Yes. It's so funny because- This is definitely one of those books that I finished it and I kind of let it wash over me. Mm. And I, I really haven't been able to completely shake it. And I've been thinking about it- Oh so much and everything it brings up. So I'm so happy to sit down with you and get into some of this because it's so, thought-provoking. I'm so interested before we start because I'm always interested in, in writers who are also editors. And I know you worked at Catapult-

Julie Buntin 2:07

Yeah

Brett Benner 2:07

for a while as an editor. How are you able to separate the editor from the writer in terms of your own process? Are you able to do that?

Julie Buntin 2:14

Yeah, that's a great question. No, not really. I mean, there's, yes, eventually, but it's quite hard. And I guess I would say, like one question I've gotten from people as I start to talk about this book is like, "Why did it take you nine year- why is this book coming out nine years after your first novel?"

Brett Benner 2:30

And there's,

Julie Buntin 2:31

there's maybe a few different answers to that. I had two children, I had moved, publishing timelines are long, like the book was finished before, you know, years before it comes out. But a- another very true sort of essential answer to that question is that I have a really hard time turning off my sort of like critical brain as I'm drafting. Mm. And e- every writer knows that you have to be in a place when you're generating text where you let go of the critic because you can't write a perfect first draft. Like it's impossible. Like you can't write a draft that satisfies the part of you that has an instinct for like what the highest version of something will be because no one can, I mean, maybe like Lauren Groff can do that now. I can't. I can't do that. So I'm writing these drafts and I'm feeling frustrated with myself about how they're not, the line isn't how I want it to be or the music of the prose isn't right, and I'm backtracking and fine-tuning and perfecting things that then just get smashed to bits and pulled out entirely because I'm still finishing or figuring out the story. So, so I have a really hard time with it and it makes my process very slow, to be honest. I'm one of those drafters who will go back over a paragraph to get it exactly right before I can move on. But again, then later, s- six months down the line, I'm cutting that section entirely and replacing it with some different beat in the story and then doing that whole kind of like perfect, you know, anal getting it- Yes exactly right thing again. So it's pretty painstaking and hard. I guess the, the benefit of it, I will say, is that by the time I finish something, I have given it all the stress tests that I can. Mm. And that makes me a little bit more like, I feel like I've run it through a lot of different filters in my own brain, and whether it works for a reader or not is like up to the reader, but I have come to some kind of satisfaction about the decision-making that I've done. So it makes me a little sturdier, I think, when the book like goes out into the world- Yeah, yeah, yeah in terms of how I've come, how I've come to finish it. But that is a negotiation I'm always trying to figure out. And like in terms of workload. When I'm deeply involved in other people's projects, whether it's,, editing someone's book or working closely with my MFA students on their books, which are excellent and often published, or published, you know, not long after we work on them, I can't always be deep in my own projects at the same time. I have to kind of put my work aside and come back to it. So it, I think in a, in a lot of ways it, it just makes me slow and painstaking.

Brett Benner 4:46

Yeah. Do you have a specific time of day that you write? Do you set anything aside, or is it kind of catch all? 'Cause I know with kids, it's crazy.

Julie Bentin 4:53

Yeah. Well, you know, w- with my first book, I had a, this big kind of intense job in publishing and I had to be there every day. This was, like, pre-work from home time, and I would often write in the morning before work. So I would, but I- Mm worked in New York City in, like, a startup office. I'd have to get there till 10:00, and I'd get up at, like, 7:00 and work for a couple hours and take the train, and that was, like, a good system for me. I actually, I was so looking forward to a teaching job 'cause I thought it would be more accommodating of my life as a writer. But in a lot of ways, I found the opposite. Like, your teaching life, your schedule's super flexible, but you have a little bit, like the work metabolism, you have to accommodate your work metabolism to, the life of a college student. Like- Yeah,

Brett Benner 5:31

yeah

Julie Bentin 5:32

during finals time or when midterms are in or when there are periods where you're just so slammed. There's, just so much density in those times that it's hard to adjust. And then I have two small children now. I like my children and like to spend time with them. So I mean, most people do, but not, sometimes I don't. So I usually choose them over working to the detriment of my work. So I'm often writing at night. Like, I'm, I wrote a lot of this book- Yeah like, 10:30 PM after everything, after I had fulfilled every need of everyone who needs something from me and I could finally kind of be in my own head, which meant I was quite tired. Which then meant that the, editorial brain kicking back in would just, like, be very, "Oh my gosh, this sentence doesn't make sense. You have to rewrite this." And then also on breaks or, like, retreat type situations. I went to MacDowell at one point and, and wrote so much. I really do well with carved out time, like a weekend here. Yeah. I went to my friend's apartment for a few days at one point where there are no children and have never been children. Like, the atmosphere is different there. So I don't have, a settled, I aspire to that, but I don't really at this point with the way life is have, like, a quite settled, daily. I try to talk to the project every day, but it doesn't always look the same when I can do it.

Brett Benner 6:44

Well, and you have to believe that even though you're not actively sitting in front of your computer or whatever, your brain is still always- Yeah processing it and you're always thinking about it. You know what I mean? It's like, "Oh, I've got to get back to those people."

Julie Bentin 6:54

Yes. I definitely think that's true. sometimes I feel like I solve problems in my own work when I'm thinking about other people's projects or think I'm encountering a problem over and over again in the fiction I'm reading or the stuff that my students are working on. I was thinking a lot about interiority at different points of times in writing this book and how interiority works and, when we need to be close and not. And so all of that stuff I do believe there's, work in all of that work, you know?

Brett Benner 7:17

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that you said when you were just talking, which I loved hearing it was you talked about the music, the music of the book. Mm. And I love that idea, and I love that term. And it's so interesting to me. Now, When you talk about music, like I'm in casting and I work in comedy a lot. Yeah. And we talk all the time, my business partner and I, about the musicality of the text. Yeah. Because it's a, it's a wave that you either are riding it or you're not, and you hear it. So I'm so interested just to hear what your definition of that is in terms of your writing

Julie Buntin 7:47

Yeah, that's fascinating to me because I'm sure that with comedy, like timing and rhythm and like punctuation are all probably like huge parts of how we receive a joke in our minds, but also like in our bodies or something. There's something about that that feels intuitively really true to me. And I, it's really hard for me to talk about this because I think that my sense of the music of my prose is so specific and so personal. It's like something about the inner like my own, like I almost feel like I sound like I've taken like an edible when I'm talking about it It's like my inner ear has this sound. But it's, it really to me, it's just like sometimes I can tell s- too many sort of internal chimes in the prose, sort of like rhymes or half rhymes gives the prose like a tinny quality. I- it's like some combination of something I hear inside of my ear and then something I hear when I read something out loud. It's got something to do with the voice of the character, right? Mm. It's like a combination of something sort of like s- sonic, but also something emotional or some kind of aesthetic particularity of the character's way of seeing things. I try to be aware of like rhythm in terms of sentence lengths, but also I am interested in how sort of tonal shifts in prose can change the emotional register of something or add tension. So this book has some of those like movements. They happen in POV or structurally, which to me were almost like musical, like changing the chord or something to add a different dimension to our understanding of what Will is able to feel or what she might be feeling or what the reader might feel and kind of as they watch the decisions she makes. So it's, it's hard because it's sort of different project to project, but it is really essential to me. And I'm not a serious musician in any way, but I did grow up singing and like playing the alto saxophone, and I can play a little piano and guitar. Like that was a part of my life, and I do think that writing really, that's kind of like a foundational part of what it is for me in some way.

Brett Benner 9:37

That's really cool. Do you listen to music ever when you write?

Julie Bentin 9:40

Yeah. Not, not in any kind of strategic way really. Like sometimes I'll put on classical with, it can't have words. Yeah. I can't really do words because I get distracted by the narrative of the song. But I can do some classical music, and sometimes that helps. But I do like calming classical music on Spotify, like very lame. It's not Right, right it's just a background, like tune out thing. But sometimes I also find I can be quite sensitive to any sort of sound or distraction, maybe because it, it keeps me from hearing the thing I'm trying to hear in the work or something. Interesting. So usually I do that when I'm revising.

Brett Benner 10:10

Interesting. Okay, so for our listeners or our viewers, do you have like an elevator pitch of Famous Men?

Julie Buntin 10:17

You know, it's funny, I've been asked that so many times, and I know this is like writing 101, like go out into the world, talk about your book, give your elevator pitch. It's, really absurd that every time someone asks me that at this point in the process, I'm like, "Hmm. I do have one. I'll give it. I'll try." Famous Men is the story of Wil Miles, Wilhelmina Miles, who grows up in a small town in rural Northern Michigan, and is having just, like, kind of a hard time. And she, because of a sort of passing comment her mother makes, thinks that a famous sort of legendary writer from her hometown might be the father that she's never known. And that starts this whole journey, really, in her life where she becomes sort of interested in writing. She goes off in pursuit of this person to see if he's the person she thought he might be. He is not, but they wind up in a long and complicated relationship that sort of changes her life in a lot of ways, and the book is, is really an unpacking of that.

Brett Benner 11:08

It's so interesting because you break the, the book up into sections, and they're almost like act breaks going between these transitional moments. And I wrote this quote talking about her and wanting, um-

Julie Buntin 11:19

Mm-hmm

Brett Benner 11:20

she says, "I was open is what I'm trying to say. I was bored. I was a teenage girl in a small town, desperate for something to happen to me." Now, I, you grew up in a town very similar to what you're writing about in this, in, in Michigan, yes?

Julie Buntin 11:33

Yeah, I fictionalized harder in this than I did in my first novel in some ways because I learned from that book that there's, a lot of regional pride and if you get, anything. Like, I was like, "I'm gonna fictionalize very deeply here so that people can..." But yes, I grew up in small town Michigan, northern Michigan. I'm imagining in Famous Men a town that's, a little bit less sort of touristy than where I grew up, which is actually quite, like a, it's like a summer hotspot now. But, but yes.

Brett Benner 11:57

Did you feel that need to escape? Was that part of you, to get up and for something larger in life?

Julie Buntin 12:02

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think I, yes. And I think now there are so many things about that place that are so interesting to me, and I love it, and I will probably write about it forever. But I thought it was kind of like a garden variety small town in a lot of ways, and in a lot of ways it is, but there's also some things about northern Michigan that are kind of distinct I feel, in terms of maybe activating that feeling of close access to something bigger. Mm. But you don't really get it. And part of it is that it's become such a visited, touristy place. In the summertime especially, part of it is, the presence of things like Interlochen and, places that are so kind of like world renowned for their, you know, whatever artistic legacies. I grew up in Hemingway country. There's, Hemingway stuff around. The Nick Adams stories are set in Walloon Lake, which is very near where I grew up. And I realized when I left, it's not all small towns where you have, you're sort of right up against something that seems great but you can't touch it. Or, like, Jon Bon Jovi had a house like Michigan up north. You know? So there's this sense of you're so close and so far at the same time or something. And I think that really was activating to my imagination as a young person. And it's also a, a place with, a lot of literary vibrations. And I definitely took that for granted as a kid. I didn't think of it that way. But now I realize it's actually kind of special that there's, a ton of independent bookst- I thought all small towns had, like, a bar, an independent bookstore, a church. But they don't all have an independent bookstore. You know what I mean? I didn't kind of conceive of the ways that both opened doors and kind of changed my imagination in terms of what I thought might be possible for me.

Brett Benner 13:30

Well, even the, even the term independent bookstore I feel like something that came so much later. Like, it was just like- Yeah the corner bookstore. Your bookstore. It was-

Julie Buntin 13:37

Yeah.

Brett Benner 13:37

Yeah, that's what it was. It's so interesting, too, 'cause you, and you capture this so well. It's this idea of kind of a, a, a place creating its own memories that are independent- Yeah of a particular experience. It's just like when I think of, the, the town I grew up in, it's almost, like, sepia toned. Yeah. And I could see all of that. And also that feeling of, like, what... And I, and I didn't grow up in a small town. It was a suburb of Pittsburgh, but I was still like- What else is out there? Yeah. And that kind of yearning to find something more, especially, especially for people like Will, who is probably inside a creative person, who just has to find the outlet.

Julie Buntin 14:13

Yeah, definitely. And and not having access to that in specific ways, not having that be like understood as a legible interest really, like not having that, or at least not for someone like Will, right? Like, not having... I think too, like the gender dynamics in a place like that, like there are certain ways that Will is socialized as like a young woman in that place- Mm that are really limiting, but that she, and that she might have the self-awareness to be like, "This is limiting. I long for something more. I want a bigger kind of life." But then not ha- at the same time that she has that self-awareness, not have the self-awareness to be like, "The ways this is limiting have seeped into my sense of who I am- Yes and are now steering, and I can't recognize that until maybe it's too late." So I was really interested in the complexities that kind of come from place, and it felt really important to me to start the book with Will in that place where she's from, not start it in New York when she meets this figure that she's been seeking, which would seem in a maybe more traditional s- sort of structured story of this, in this vein, like the real kind of trigger for the story. Like to me, the trigger for the story was something else, and it, it started there, like where she's from.

Brett Benner 15:12

And, I don't wanna get into any spoilers- Mm-hmm so I'm trying to carefully navigate- Yeah through this because of this incident that I think we're referring to Mm-hmm. But there is a part of her, and I think having had a girl and having raised a girl- Yeah I feel so lucky because I don't know that I would understand kind of what she's talking about in this section of the book. Yeah. And by that, I mean this transition that young girls go from being a young girl- Mm-hmm to a young woman physically- Mm-hmm and all of it. Mm-hmm. And the sudden awareness not only- Yeah of their own changes that are happening to their body, but the awareness that they're being objectified and the way- Yeah that men are looking at them. And I say this because my daughter used to, like from where we lived in Los Angeles- Yeah she would walk to the bus stop up in this little village. Mm. And she started to come home and say I'm being watched or- Yeah these men are looking at me. And we were kind of like, "What is this overactive imagination? What are you doing?" And then I had a friend of mine say, "No, this is reality for every woman." Yeah. This is the- Yeah and, and that was so resonant in this with her.

Julie Buntin 16:17

Yeah. That was really, that really, like, that feeling, if there's, like, one thing I can point to where I think about, what got into, what was the, bee in my bonnet that made me wanna pursue this story for six and a half years, the six and a half years it took to write it, you know, it, it really was about unpacking that feeling. Like- Mm trying to make sense of what that feeling feels like when you become aware of it. And then also, too, like, how that changes, the pressure of that feeling changes, changes what, the decisions you make, and how it changes your sense of who you are, what you're, what you're capable of, how you might obviously, you know, there's been a, so much discourse about this, like, how you might p- pander to it, how you might resist it, how you might, whether or not you can escape it, how you might think you've escaped it and not. But that was really something that I think I was trying to work out, and I tried to unpack that in the novel in ways that are Thematic, but also ways that are just part of the narrative, part of the plot, like just active, and Will has to deal with that happening in different ways.

Brett Benner 17:18

Yeah. I feel like that's the nugget where you kind of- Mm-hmm curl up in really. So she gets to New York, and I have to say, I loved so much of this section. But what I so adored was her going into these workshops and starting- Oh to take these writing workshops because, look, I, having never been a writer, having- Mm-hmm never sat in a class or anything like this, but I, I was, I was an acting major, and I, so there- Yeah was this weird thing where I remember this. But it's, it's this idea that you capture so well, and I know that workshops were very instrumental- Mm-hmm for you as a writer. But that feeling, especially when you're young, of like, "Oh my God, we are creating art, and we are-" Mm-hmm "doing these amazing things," it's kind of like the Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along. Yeah. You know what I mean? Where it's like we're gonna take the world by fire, and what we're creating is amazing. It's kind of solipsistic and- Yeah. Oh, yeah at the same... it's so indulgent. But also, the hierarchy among these things of- Yeah who's been around longer, and just the dynamic that gets set up. I, I, I loved this, and, and you capture it so well.

Julie Buntin 18:20

Thank you. Yeah, I lo- it's true, right? It... I just feel like that those spaces are so interesting to me. I mean, I'm in them a lot. I'm in them now as a teacher, and I don't know that I could have written this book without having existed in both positions in relation to that space. Like, having been an MFA student in that world, and then also having been now a facilitator of these workshops, and so I can kind of see around all of these things. But it's true. They're so indulgent. They're so grandiose. But they're so earnest at the same time. Yeah. And the stakes are so... It's like from the outside, the stakes seem so low, but from the inside, the stakes are so... It's not seem. Like, they just simply are so high. And they're tied up in your sense of yourself and, like, your sense of what you'll do later and sense of your own self-worth. And that to me, that kind of collision of, something where internally the stakes are high, and from the outside the stakes are low, is also just like a fun tension as a writer of, like, can you convey how big it feels? Can you see around it? Can you show the reader the different ways of kind of, of trying to see this, this dynamic?

Brett Benner 19:18

And then you add to that when you bring Nathaniel in, who is this man that- Mm-hmm she's been wanting to meet. But it's also this teacher who comes into this environment and, you know, he's kind of a god. A, a- Mm-hmm literary god to so many of them, which creates its own power structure, its own dynamic. Yeah. Which, by the way, he, he's completely fostering and- Yeah. Oh, yeah and kind of- He loves it whether he's aware of it or not- Yeah reveling in it, you know? And again, this is so on the nose. I mean, in any facet. I'm sure it's in fact- Yeah any facet of business. But especially with the arts, and it's so this hierarchy of who's at the top and how everybody is kind of clamoring to have some of that light shine on- Yeah them for just a moment.

Julie Buntin 19:57

Yeah, and a sense that maybe that will be the thing that will give you some taste of whatever it is that they have. And then the complicated thing I think too in these MFA contexts is like- It's just such a complex relationship that you might have with that figure. I think in, for a Nathaniel, it's like the students want his approval, but they also want more than what he has. They wanna, like, defeat him. You know what I mean? They want him to love them. They wanna write- Yes the thing that he'll like better. They wanna be better than him. They think he's ridiculous. They, they are devastated when he doesn't take them seriously. And those, all of those layers, I think... And then I think there's also, too, something that you said, that I also found really i- interesting when I was kind of writing into this space, where it's like Nathaniel's both aware of it and plays into it, but there's also ways in which he isn't, you know? He isn't sensitive fully to, the power that he has in some ways, even as he totally, owns it and only works to grow it.

Brett Benner 20:46

That seems to be a whole argument for straight white men generally, right? Like, that's the whole thing. It's a kind of, um, it's expected, I guess. Yeah. It's like, well, well, of course this is what I am. He takes

Julie Buntin 20:56

it

Brett Benner 20:56

for granted. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna back up to something. Mm-hmm. Because this is interesting what you were saying about this whole thing. I, and it must be a change for you, too, having been in these programs at a certain point in your life and, and then teaching in them now, and the relationship just with the students. But also The way the students can relate to you, and I think so much is driven now by there's a social media component to all this- Yeah and a parasocial aspect with this. True. Even when thinking about writers and growing up, or even celebrities growing up, there was such a remove, right? Yeah. I'd read a book. Like for me, that writer when I was young was John Irving. Like when I discovered- Ah, yes John Irving, and the only way that you get to see a writer was if there was an event-

Julie Buntin 21:34

Yeah

Brett Benner 21:35

in a public space in your city. Yeah. Now, there's this immediacy. Because of social media, the dynamic changes, right? We watch it all the time on social media. Yeah. The relationship between writers and readers, and it's an interesting thing how much closer it feels.

Julie Buntin 21:50

Yeah, and I think that that's, I think there's something so sort of specific about our relationship with a text that we feel in some way speaks to a truth we haven't known how to express. Like, I really, maybe I just feel this way because I'm a writer and I love to read and that's my space and my like reason to live, but I just can't think of anything m- that has a more intimate charge with someone you've never met before than being like, "This book said something that I've always understood about the world, but it put language to it." Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Like, that's a feeling that it's almost as if it comes from inside of you as much as it comes from the, the object itself. And so there's a sense of kind of intimate collaboration before even be- without the other person's actual pre- like presence. So then I think that's why the disappointment when writers behave badly, beloved writers, is so great, or why we get this feeling. I mean, I just had this, even though I know better, I had this experience really recently. I met someone who's memoir I quite, I like really liked, and I, I met her for the first time in person and had this easy... It was like, "Hello." Like I knew her. Yes. And then I was like, "Oh." I was watching how she reacted to me and was like, "All right, I have to remember we've never met before. This isn't..." I don't know. What she ma- the thing she made is actually the product of a million careful decisions, an act of great control, and it's not her like messy, raw insides the way that it felt like it was my messy, raw insides. So that kind of s- that, the charge quality of that was so fascinating to me, and the idea of will Thinking she knows this person- Mm or feeling she knows this person, and then inventing this story and these different ways about how crucial he is to her life, which is part of her kind of parasocial sort of fantasy world a little bit. That all felt really kind of an interesting live wire to, to poke, I guess as a writer or to think into how that goes. But it's true now, there is th- this dis- dissolved space between like kind of your private life and your public life as a writer that I think can be kind of challenging-

Brett Benner 23:42

Yeah,

Julie Buntin 23:42

no for those of us who do it.

Brett Benner 23:43

I'm like you. And, and so even, even when I've done these interviews, I'm always like, "Oh my God, now we're friends." And I'm like- Yeah "Well, no, they're on a book tour, and they're promoting their book, and that's what that is." And I think of people who are also so affected, like you said, because- Yeah of that intimate relationship that develops between this text and what they believe has been this connection that's made. It's really, really interesting. Okay, back to what I started with. Mm. The Nathaniel thing. You thread this line that's incredibly delicate between the idea of consent or the belief in consent-

Julie Bentin 24:18

Mm-hmm

Brett Benner 24:18

um, in order to protect someone or this man.

Julie Buntin 24:22

Yeah.

Brett Benner 24:23

Um, and I h- would imagine just for yourself, it was a lot of back and forth conversations about how to present this.

Julie Buntin 24:32

Yeah, it was really hard. Um, and it was hard, I think what was hard, what was hardest about it is that, like, you know, this is a book written in first person. It's from Will's point of view. It's retrospective, but I, which means she, you know, she's looking back on this experience with some, with some of the wisdom of time, but not a lot. Like it's not a big vantage point. It, she's kind of telling the story from the end and kind of remembering it from the beginning. It's not like 50 years later, you know, with, now she's, she's in her 50s, she's older, she can really understand what was going on. And I wanted some of that. Like I really was interested in like the murk of it. And I'm never really as a writer, it's probably to my detriment, honestly, maybe I need to work on this in future books, like interested in providing a, an answer or giving a kind of conclusion or like making the takeaway really clear. I think I have an interest in the kind of ending that is... Like I was, I was happy to hear that you've been thinking about it still because my, I think my sense as a writer is that if you leave something slightly ambiguous in a specific kind of sharp way, the book sits in the imagination differently. You know? It's not a closed door. It's like there's wind blowing around, like it's still there. And I like the idea of leaving readers with something that's still like live a little bit where they have to take some responsibility for the conclusion that they would make. I do think that can be a frustrating place for a reader to be in, and I have felt that myself with text, so that's why I say maybe I'll change it up as I continue writing. But it was hard, and I think what was hard was that I was, I tried to stay very true to Will, and I tried to think of this less so as a kind of thematic thing around what am I trying to say about consent, and what am I trying to say about Me Too, and what am I trying to say about this kind of power dynamic in a relationship, and more of like who is Will and what would Will do in this situation, and what would Will believe, and what would Will think, and how would Will feel about this. And how Will feels about things and how she thinks about things are quite different than how I do. And yet she's a character who's very close to me. Like, I certainly couldn't have written her if I hadn't had many experiences of my own. So she's like a character who shares so much with me, but in, in very key ways is, is very different than me. And living in that space in her head was very hard. Like, there were times when I felt I needed to just step away from her, or I would write something and it would feel almost, dangerous or something, but it would, but it would feel true. I worried a lot that readers... I mean, I still worry about this, I suppose, that, like, a reader might not, might mistake Will's conclusions for my conclusions. That's a sort of stressful space to exist in with the kind of going back to our conversation about, you know, how we dissolve the kind of public and private and personal, the relationship between the author and the protagonist, especially in a first person novel by a woman, which is, just a tricky thing, who shares some background characteristics with the writer. So there's just a lot of that that felt really, really kind of hard. And again, I, I think I, what I hope is that it will force the reader to kind of sit with things and make, come to their own conclusions or look at experiences in their own lives differently, and maybe ask this question that I think is still a question as much as we've talked about Me Too and have unpacked so many things about it in our culture that is, not quite maybe looked at, we haven't looked at enough of what do we make of women who kind of s- with seeming awareness choose dynamics that are really harmful to them, or women who enforce silences that hurt other women What do we, what do we make of that? And like where is that coming from in the culture? How do we trace how that unfolds?

Brett Benner 27:57

Yeah. Completely. I, I love the way sh- that she describes their relationship. She said, "What I had with Nathaniel was naughty and uncertain," and naughty, K-N-O-T-T-Y for our listeners. Yeah. "And uncertain and destabilizing. It was dangerous, and it could hurt me. Those were the qualities freshly 24 that I associated with love."

Julie Buntin 28:19

Mm-hmm.

Brett Benner 28:20

And like boom. I'm just like, "Oh my God." Like that, that, those few sentences are already so complex and so, uh, just tangled to me.

Julie Bentin 28:32

Mm-hmm.

Brett Benner 28:33

Mm-hmm. And trying to unpack it and at a young age.

Julie Buntin 28:38

Yeah. And I mean, again, like it's like I don't wanna boil, make it sound so simplistic as like everything that she, every- her bad choices are all linked to like the trauma she experienced growing up. Like it's not that simple. But I do think these questions of how do you choose a healthy relationship if you've never seen one or- Yeah, yeah if you, if you've never had in your life a male, adult male figure who isn't in some way like, you know, fraught. That what models do you then seek out in your life? And does being aware of that make you more likely to choose differently, less likely? I mean, I think all of that was so interesting to me. And also another element of this book that's just like fundamental to what it is, like a friend of mine who read it He messaged me and was like, "This is a horror novel about being young." And I loved, I loved that description of it because that's another part of what this is. Like, Will's just so young, and she gets in- stuck in a situation where she is not able... I don't know. There are... Some of the young people I meet now are so smart and careful and just so smart in ways that I was not. But I feel like a lot of us in our early 20s are really just, like, you know- Of course making a mess. Yes. And, like, so much of adulthood is about being like, "Wow, it- did the mess I make..." And this is a question that I was fascinated with with my other book, too, and I, I think I'll be fascinated with forever, just, these choices we make when we're young. It's just, you're just young. You just made a mistake. But sometimes these bad choices, they get their fingers into the rest of our lives, and what does it look like to kind of have to live with, live with that?

Brett Benner 30:02

Yeah. Yeah. And also, thinking about her leaving her town, going to New York City, and just surviving because we all know, uh, for any of us who've done that experience- Mm-hmm or anyone who's moved to somewhere else or trying to strike out on their own and forge a path of independence and that kind of disastrous early youth- Mm-hmm moment of like how many bad things can happen or how many mistakes can I make that just feel so close to, you know, doing something dreadful that could irrevocably change so much later. Yeah. It's crazy.

Julie Buntin 30:31

Yeah. And too, how that's all tied up with, class and what kind of safety net you have and, like, if you have one or not, who you might turn to. Like, Will's also a character who if he, Nathaniel becomes a kind of safety net for her in a way that maybe no one has before, and there is all sorts of things about that where I hope the reader is like, "No, he's not. It's not safe, actually." Right. Yeah. But there's things on the surface that seem to her like a kind of comfort and stability and safety that fills something that was missing, so that makes things,, extra confusing. And I think that those kinds of dynamics are also available to be opted into when you're young in ways that can be really complicated. Uh, so I was, I definitely kind of trying to look at all of that and ask how, what, what is, the most complicated way of, of kind of telling this story that feels true.

Brett Benner 31:15

Funny, we were talking about the book at dinner last night. I was talking about it with my family, and this part of this conversation was about, sounds so bizarre to be like, "Pass the potatoes," and about grooming. But my daughter, and my daughter's 19. Mm-hmm. And she said to me, she's like, "Wait a minute. I thought grooming was about little kids." And I said, "No, no, no, no." Mm-hmm. And so I had to kind of- Talk her through it

Julie Buntin 31:37

Yeah

Brett Benner 31:38

And it was just this interesting moment because... And I, to be honest with you, I looked it up when I was- Yeah going through this- Yeah 'cause the, the, the actual literal definition of it, because I wanted to know, you know, you hear it thrown out all the time. Yeah. And so I wanted to look at it to see what it actually was, and so I said to her, "It's not at all. It's not something that's, you know, age-related. It's, it's just, it's more about a power dynamic." And I think this book is such a book for, say, a book club or a group of people. Yeah. Particularly what I would love is to be the fly on the wall with a group of women who read it- Mm-hmm because of shared experience of just knowing w- and the levels of things that happen

Julie Buntin 32:18

Yeah. And the, the grooming question with this book was also something where I was kind of trying to think, look, like this story, the, the broad shape of this story, a young woman has developed this sort of like obsessive thing with an older man, it derails her life. Like we know that story. We've heard that story. Mm-hmm. Teachers and students, we know those dynamics. We've seen them in media. We've seen them. And so, you know, there, there's this delicate thing, I think, that was on my mind where I just find, again, this is one of those things as a writer where you're like, "Really? Can't I think of high concept premise?" Like, nope, I'm just gonna go like write for like an old standby. Tried and true. Like my first novel was about, you know, a teenage friend, like an adolescent friendship between like kind of a wild girl and a more like introspective character. But I think I'm interested in those shapes because tho- those shapes are part also so whether they come from the stories or the stories reflect them because they exist in life, there is this like interesting swirling back and forth where we keep seeing them, they keep happening. They're either, are we... In, in Will's case, I tried to create this dynamic where it's like that story because of the things she's read, which are the things that he has written. So she, she's, is she opting in willingly? Is she mirroring a dynamic that she's read? Does she think because she's read it, she understands it? What is she missing? And that became a way for me to feel like I was bringing something kind of new or complicated to this, adding almost like a meta-textual implication in how it unfolds. But with the idea of grooming, I'm thinking, I was thinking of that in this novel as not just what happens with her and Nathaniel, but the ways in which her adolescence and her childhood and the things that happened to her are groom her pre sort of in advance. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So she's like already, she, so she, when she's in that relationship, she's not thinking like I'm carrying all this other stuff with me, but we hopefully as the reader can see like, oh, the circumstances have been set- Yes for this to unfold in a specific way. And, and that, how that then complicates things because it's not like Nathaniel comes into that at a different point maybe than we would understand it in that kind of classic structure. So it's my sense, at least from having been a woman in the world or am one, that like these stories have so many intersections in women's lives, and they, there are so many different versions of them and degrees, and they start so much earlier than you think, and the ones that happen when you're young are related to the ones that happen later and how they unfold- Yeah and how you carry them. And I think that was just something I felt I had seen all of these stories, and I love some of them and felt like they had talked to all these things that felt specific and true. But I hadn't quite seen like that slice of it, and I felt like I wanted to like get in there, I guess.

Brett Benner 34:50

I was laughing because, and I, I don't know if you find this now raising your children, but there would be various points when something would happen with my kids, and I would look at my husband and be like, "That's a year of therapy right there that we've just created for them."

Julie Buntin 35:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, my son is five, so it's like we're just getting into that a little bit. But, but yes.

Brett Benner 35:08

Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting, and do you think, uh, now that you have- kids. Mm-hmm. Because you do write, both of your books are about complicated women and women who there's questionable things that exist. Yeah. Which is real, and that's life, right? And that really is. But, it'll be interesting to see if the tenor of something changes in your writing as you parent it'll just be something interesting to watch.

Julie Bentin 35:34

Yeah. It's interesting you say that. I was talking to this, I was taking a long walk with a friend yesterday. I was talking to her about various things, and I was thinking, like, you know, one thing I found myself really interested in as a writer in both books, is I have an endless appetite for, like, discomfort. Again, I'm like, I don't feel, I'm, what's the most uncomfortable thing? Like, let me go there. I think in a way it's almost like fiction has been a place for me, a person who's otherwise, I'm generally easygoing and pleasant. I'm not making people uncomfortable left and right in my daily interactions with them. I hope. I don't think. But on the page, my work can be very uncomfortable, and I, I almost think it's a place where I can,, act out or something, if that makes sense. Acting out is maybe a little dramatic, but where I, it, it exists in more registers than I can kind of in the-

Brett Benner 36:14

Sure, sure

Julie Bentin 36:14

public. But I do feel now that I have little kids, I, I'd love to write something,, a little nicer. You know, my life is so much more uncomfortable in some ways. Just, like, the actual texture. I awake to screaming. I have food, there's food everywhere. I don't necessarily wanna then move into a fictional space that's also psychologically uncomfortable. Right. Like, somewhere I need to find- Right some, like, ease.

Brett Benner 36:36

Yeah.

Julie Buntin 36:36

So I do think that that will change. And I was pregnant and my son was, I was pregnant twice while I was writing this. My son was really small while I was revising it, and I think, like, s- especially maybe the dynamics between mother and daughter were affected in revision by that, by having had a child along the way. A sense of maybe, like, expansiveness and how they could relate to each other by the end definitely crept in there, I think, a little.

Brett Benner 37:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before we go, I, I have one question for you that's so sly. I've never asked this of anyone. I'm just so curious. Uh, uh, this is the age-old, if you're having a, a, a, a dinner party and can invite three writers, who would you invite?

Julie Buntin 37:11

That's a good question. I sort of, I, I find it sort of stressful to be put on the spot with that because I feel like I really- I know. I almost- I really,

Brett Benner 37:17

but you know what? I almost

Julie Bentin 37:18

emailed you. I almost emailed

Brett Benner 37:19

you and said, "I

Julie Bentin 37:19

might ask you this." But you know, let me try. Let me try. Let me try. Um, Iris Murdoch.

Brett Benner 37:23

Okay.

Julie Bentin 37:24

Uh, who I love and who is just so fascinating. He's written so many interesting things. My daughter's name is Iris. It's Iris for a couple reasons, but that's one of them. It's me, my husband and I love her. That's beautiful. Um, Elizabeth Bishop, who is my all-time, one of my all-time greats. And ooh, maybe somebody, like, a little, who would, like, bring something Something Shake up the dynamic maybe like Jane, yeah, maybe like Jane Bowles or like, um Like somebody who would bring s- Joy Williams. Someone who would bring a little energy of like of like chaos to

Brett Benner 38:03

the mix. Yes, yes, yes.

Julie Buntin 38:04

Uh

Brett Benner 38:04

Yes

Julie Buntin 38:05

Yeah. Oh, I don't know, though. There, that's such a fun question. It's like I feel like there's even more people that I could say.

Brett Benner 38:13

I know, and then you also have to think, like, where would, you know, w- where you fit in that dynamic and how would you be within that

Julie Buntin 38:19

dynamic, too. Yeah.

Brett Benner 38:19

How would

Julie Buntin 38:19

I be

Brett Benner 38:19

as

Julie Buntin 38:20

a host? Would

Brett Benner 38:20

you be able to sit back... Yes, yes.

Julie Buntin 38:21

Good point. I think I might be intimidated if Joy Williams was there, or Jane Bowles, honestly. If any of them were there, I'd be intimidated. Um, who would you bring?

Brett Benner 38:31

Oh my God. Well, first of all, I have to say I love that you say intimidated, and as a writer and as someone who's published and doing this, it's nice to know that you feel that in regards to other writers. Oh. It's, it's, it's an interesting thing. Yeah, all the time. Yeah. I love that. Oh my God, I, I really don't know. I mean, I, I would love... Part of it is I feel like now I almost get to have my dinner party. Yeah. Like, I get to sit down with the people I want to, but I mean, I w- sure, I would love to talk to John Irving. I would love to, to have him at a dinner party. Um, I'm also, it's also recent. Ann Patchett, maybe.

Julie Buntin 39:02

Yeah. She

Brett Benner 39:02

would be great. Uh, because everybody would love to sit and talk to Ann Patchett. Yeah. And you wouldn't even, you wouldn't even- She would be fun have to talk with Ann Patchett. Mm-mm. She would just talk the whole time. You just have to give her subtle prompts. Um, and she would probably talk. Um, God, I'd really have to think about that for a third person. I don't know, maybe somebody like Oscar Wilde would be fun. I don't know.

Julie Buntin 39:18

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. It's hard to, the third person is hard because it feels like then you're- Does it change it? like you're really, yeah, you're really, closing it.

Brett Benner 39:25

Does it change it? Um, a- okay, before we go, I just have to ask 'cause you're an educator and you're a reader and you're a writer, is there anything you've been reading lately that you've loved?

Julie Bentin 39:34

That's a good question. Yes. I recently read a novel called A Splintering by a former student, actually, Durre Aziz Amna, that came out from Zank in like April, which is about a woman in rural Pakistan who has sort of aspirations for a different kind of life and the lengths she will go to achieve it, and it is really, really good and did not get enough attention, and I am trying to kind of spread the gospel of A Splintering everywhere I go. Um- Awesome she's an incredible, incredible writer.

Brett Benner 40:04

Awesome. Well, Julie Buntin, this has been great. Yeah. And I appreciate you being here on what arguably is a day off for everybody in your family. So-

Julie Bentin 40:14

They're outside. It's okay.

Brett Benner 40:15

Yes. At least it's not raining. So everybody, go get the book. It's so good. Buy independent if you're able to buy independent, and look for Julie Buntin on tour. I know you're going on tour. All of that is on your website, and I will- Yeah link that in the notes below. But good luck with the tour. I'm so excited for you. Thank you. It's, it's really a- Thanks so much, Brett beautiful and thought-provoking book.

Julie Bentin 40:36

Thank you, Brett. Thanks for having me.

Brett Benner 40:38

Thank you again, Julie. if you've liked this episode or other episodes of Behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing so that you never miss an episode. Also, what would be really helpful is if you can go to your podcast platform of choice and give the show five stars. All of these things will help other people discover the show so I can continue to bring you conversations like this one. I'll be back next week with another episode, and in the meantime, you can always find me at Instagram, YouTube, and Substack at Brett's Book Stack. And as always, thanks for listening