Publication date: April 1, 2014 by William Morrow
Excerpt:
CHAPTER 19
FOCUSED AND FRUSTRATED
He had no doubt
betrayed “us” again in some form or fashion because things were going on around
me that he was lying about. He would do that in the future. I would either
smile through or ignore the signs in the future. I would feel angry and lost
and alone in the future. I would tear up photos again in the future that
represented romantic ideals.
“It doesn’t mean
what, Wade?”
He didn’t answer
my last question; I just heard his rattled breathing on the other end of the
line. I looked around at the mess in front of me. How the hell was I supposed
to finish my work with this bizarre, awkward, unfinished, hurtful conversation
looping in my head?
“Wade,” I said. “I
can’t do this now.”
I
hung up and suddenly I was back in that mangled plane, in the snow, desperate
for a protector. Was Wade just giving more of the same unsafe
feeling I’d wanted to get away from? And it hit me that I hadn't so
much forged a new life in marrying Wade; I'd simply come full circle. Strange
how we often seek what we hope to escape.
about the author:
Holly Peterson is the author of the New York Times and international best
seller, The Manny. She was a
Contributing Editor for Newsweek and
editor-at-large for Tina Brown’s Talk
magazine. She
was also an Emmy Award–winning producer for ABC News for more than a decade,
where she covered global politics. Her writing has been published in the New
York Times, Newsweek, Talk, the Daily Beast, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and
other publications.
www.Facebook.com/HollyPetersonny
Twitter:
@HollyPetersonNY
Question & answer with Holly Peterson:
Why did you
write this book?
I wanted to write about the phenomenon of falling in love with the “idea”
of someone versus the reality of the actual person across the dinner table from
us. I think it’s something we all have done. Once we are in a relationship,
sometimes we delude ourselves into being happy, yet something doesn’t feel
quite right. When reality hits, we must confront our fears of being on our own,
and that can be frightening. Our fears of being on our own often propel us into
staying with the wrong person.
I know I’ve personally fallen for the “idea” of someone numerous times
because I have an idea in my head of what I want that person to be and how I’ll
feel with him: the cool guy with the long hair will make me cool, the stable,
appropriate guy will make me feel safe…I even fell for a Frenchman over how his
cashmere blazer felt on my cheek! All that stuff doesn’t count in the end: the
only thing that matters in my mind when it comes to love is an accompanying
true friendship and deep intimacy.
Your first book,
THE MANNY, was a New York Times bestseller and was also set in present
day Manhattan. How much of what you see around you is also in this book?
I have written a fair amount of journalistic pieces on big money in New
York. Money is deeply psychological in that it drives people to act insane and
say the craziest things. Every time they do, I put the quote in a little book I
carry around and use in my fiction. I have now written two romantic books that
primarily focus on relationships but that have modern day Manhattan as a
lively, current backdrop. The characters in my books are composites of people I
know and the events are based on real things I’ve definitely seen with my own
eyes.
You’re a
journalist who’s worked at ABC News and written for magazines like Newsweek.
How does that come into play when you’re writing fiction?
I am trained journalist by trade first and foremost. When I write a
fictional scene, everything must be real and believable and accurate or it
doesn’t feel right. That’s the joy of writing social satire in fiction. It’s
all real, but it’s all so funny.
A friend of mine told me that fiction gets you closer to the truth
because you don’t have the constraints of journalism when writing it. As a
reporter, you often don’t have access to dinner parties or events or your
interview subject doesn’t say the quote clearly and you are constrained by your
access and sound bites. In fiction, you
can write the living room cocktail party, go into the bedroom, relay the
conversation in a totally realistic way that is technically very truthful and
that is very liberating for me.
What was your
greatest career mistake as a journalist?
While at ABC News, I once did a big piece for Peter Jennings declaring
that the Internet would amount to nothing.
You can find it on my website under the writings tab and ABC News icon. Brilliant prediction.
The main
character in THE IDEA OF HIM is a hard-driving businesswoman with two young
children, and she struggles to balance her home life with her career. Is that a
struggle that came from a real place?
What woman doesn’t struggle with work, home, and family? Even women who
don’t have a “paying” job work hard in a zillion ways that aren’t financially
recognized: they maintain the value of the family’s home investment, help local
charitable and religious institutions, and keep their neighborhoods and schools
safe and the best they can be. So, yes,
I write at 4am to avoid a barrage of email interruptions, yell at the Verizon
repair man, cry when my boss yells at me, and worry non-stop about the emotional
health of my children, their progress in school, and long term happiness and
stability that I’m supposedly grounding for them. Who wouldn’t be nuts trying to do all this? We all are. I tried to depict a lot of
this in THE IDEA OF HIM with Allie’s struggles so that people who read it can
relate, cry, nod, and laugh.
In this book,
the protagonist female character is not leading towards happiness with a man as
her goal. Tell us about that.
I believe a lot of women’s fiction and tons of romantic comedies in
Hollywood don’t get published or produced because executives feel women have to
“get the guy” to be fulfilled and for the audience to leave happy and
“relieved.” I did not want to add to that “fiction” and I wanted to write about
the opposite: a woman finding strength on
her own. How does she find what makes her most happy at work, at home, and
in her personal life? The proverbial
knight in shining armor or kissing Colin Firth in the rain is a nice, neat way
to end a story for sure, but I wanted to write about the power within to make
ourselves feel okay, safe, and, yes, happy.
Lots of time in life to find the right guy who isn’t an “idea”, but
first let’s focus on ourselves and what we want for a moment and prioritize
that before we leap for the next or most convenient man to hopefully do it for
us.
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