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The fact that other independent businesses are feeling the squeeze as well if youre interested the deepening your under owing tonights subject, and in supporting our wonderful partners, may i politely suggest you wouldoo the buy the book button rather than relying on the local retail behemoth that used to sell books and now sells you corn or katy is as awe their and journalist whose work appeared across the spectrum in digital and an log present from the New York Times to weapons weapons, harpers, the slate and tin house. An he says in the anthology 30 wives looking at hilary, reflectionsly women rited and known the morning after, text, fear and effect system from 1994. 1997s last nugget in paradise. Who blockers exploring the life of writers, and [loss of audio] essay collection in praise of messy lives from 2012. Prefer at nyus arthur [loss of audio] thank you so much. I am thrilled to be here. I was very sad not to come to seattle in person, but happy to be sort of in seattle. And im going to talk a little bit and read at built about my few book, the power notebook, very strange book and when people ask me what its about, its almost hard for me to answer that question. Its about addiction, its about angry men, its about not knowing how to drive, its about eye digit horton d edith horton, its falling holding a new born baby wearing high heel. Its about asking for moore now in a job, its about being a single mother, and being on your own, and its about jean reeves and about simone de its hard to pin it down. And i actually feel like its called the power notebook but i honestly feel about this book, and i think its a little pathological, i feel the book my publisher kind of broke into my house the middle hoff the night and stole my actual notebooks and published them. I sometimes feel that way. Even though thats not exactly what happened. And the notebooks were very hart to write and they were so hard to write for various reasons that will probably become clear to you in the course of my talking about them. They were so hard to write i would only be able to work on them at 30 in the morning so i would wake up every day at 4 30 in the morning when he world was quiet and no one was up and i could trick myself into thinking was like alone on planet earth, and it was only in those hours that i was able to write them for whatever reason. And theyre written the a very different way than anything ive ever done before. Always written things that take a strong argument or sort of more hellish kind of scholarly work, or essays that are take a sort of confident form, and so publishing the net books was a could note bocks was a kind of perverse act in certain ways. The heart of them, they are inspired by two things. One of them i dont know if you can see it here. This is a photograph of simone, very famous forecast taken in 1950 by the photographer, art shaye, and as you can see she is in her 40s, she is getting ready in the bathroom, wearing very high heels, i dont know if you see them. Putting up her hair, and somehow the this photograph is always obsessed me and its the cricks of it the fact she is wearing heels but is naked. She wasnt really she didnt technically give her permission for this photograph but she did live the doctor open with this strange man who was the photographer kind of sitting right there. And he says, he heard the clicking and she was kind of like gnawingy naughty boy and she didnt care. You see in the photograph her not caring that the world is seeing her in this intimate moment and thats what sort of projected there, and the two thing that inspired the become from that photograph are both the idea that maybe its okay to at a certain point in your life to sort of show yourself in that kind of intimate unguarded moment, like the real self, the real you. And that was one thing but the photograph. And the other thing but the photograph that interests me is something that simone herself was interested in which is kind of showing women in all their contradictions, the kind of weird, jarring, facets, like putting her hear up and wear heels but is naked. Shes a brilliant feminist, intellectual but just like a woman getting ready in a mirror, and all of that kind of contradiction that goes interest being a self kind of interested me in this book. And so the second thing that inspired the book, also related to simone one of her biographers asked her, talk about her relationship with john paul and she was very they had an open relationship, very tormented. She was extremely on doctor obsessed with him and they that this open relationship and she basically wanted more of him than he wanted of her. She was sort of an equal relationship and would write him a letter saying without you i am mutilated. She felt she said her relationship with him was her greatest achievement, which irks a lot of people because she was such a Brilliant Writer and philosopher. So her biographer asked her, what would you say to funnel nists who say your relationship was at odds with your feminist theory and he locked at her and said, well, im sorry to disappoint the feminists, but i just dont give a damn. I live how i want and its too bad so many of them live in theory and not in real life. I found that quote so interesting. Maybe that concept of disappointing the feminist partly because i mishaves disappointed the feminist for many decade but also the idea that of that gap between theory and life. That you could be somebody who lived a sort of subject jug gated yourself in your relationship to a map and also this incredibly paul person powerful person in your work and life and intellectual achievements and that paradox is at the heart of this book, which really obsesses a lot over the questions of how i look at my own life very frankly in this book how sometimes you are strong and successful and sometimes youre not. And simone in her work, she says at one point, i wanted to write about women as they really are, as divided human beings, not as they ought to be. And i kind of am interested in that question of just those contradictions or the paradoxes in our relation to power. And so that was kind of those were the sort of nexus of intellectual ideas over at the heart of this very strange project i embarked on. Maybe ill just read at bit now to get a sense of it. Its written at notebooks and some are shorter than others but recall as if theyre kind of notebook entries. Im sort of working out these issues for myself. First is called catastrophe. Francois talking to a friend at the beginning of her relationship with acosta, your headed for a catastrophe, she said. I told her she was probably right. But i felt it was the kind of catastrophe i didnt want to avoid. This one is called emily. My sister emily once said to me, there is no man anywhere so psychotic so drunk, so helpless, to proudal, so indifferent, even just so annoying, that some woman somewhere isnt dying to take care of him. And this one is called the fall. And it is about me one of the one about single motherhood. My daughter violet is six and i had my son on my own and he is very tiny in this story, maybe few weeks old. One morning im walking violet to school. She is pushing the stroller but im carrying the baby because he is fussing. Im wear wink suede three and a half inch platforms. I have work meeting afterwards mitchell feel gets caught in the sidewalk ski lose my balance and fall forward, somehow managing to put both my arms up and cut my hands around the babys head so my legs and arms are badly scraped and bruised by the baby is untouched. He is crying, but only out of outrage at such a sudden and undying any identified change of position undying any identified change of position. Of course a drought gathered, woman carrying a new born has fallen and is bleeding. Violet was beyond mortified and people are not leaving us alone if. She is trying to stand a littleway from us so she wont be associated with us, but being six with only limited success. I try to respond politely to the concern while also trying to get away from the people so violet can stop dying of embarrass. She is right to be angry. I wore the heels the same way i wore stilettos to parties when im nine month progressant ask thats time it endangered of the baby who she thinks of as hers. I tell this story as a wade of hiding or imagine instincts insf hide motherhood. Er in telephone i it as a story how reckless or selfish i am, and how these various roles im trying to play are fundamentally not conducive to staying upright on earth. I see myself suddenly from the perspective of one of the women rushing to work who stop on the streets, vain, anxious, overcaffeinate, narcissistic, unable to give up men looking at her on the street for the first fie months of babys life, trying to hood, trying too flagrantly, clinging too tenaciously to the most hack any red indicator of female sexual power. Think not for the first time, why aim allowed to have this baby . I would not at this point be entirely suppliedes if someone in a uniform came and took him away. A couple of months earlier one officer my male colleagues swung by my office, noticing was visibly pregnant with no man in my life him said, wow, you really do what youre want i laughed of course but the comment stayed with me. The admiration but also the warning undertone thats was getting away with something you usually cant get away with. Being a sexual free agent and having a baby. As if i were shoplifting the baby. Getting him for free. Violet goes right to the heart of it. Why are you wearing those shoes . At six, she wears exclusively sports clothes, soccer jerseys and smokeres. She has not missed the sea of broken mothers in sneakers and bali slaps which in particular seem to telegraph a shimmering apex of female serenity i will never attain and im not at 8 2s schwin. Quoter women with more pride than libido do not see a quote, you only begin to [loss of audio] and your appearance when you get a bit older. A whole dimension of life slides away and you realize in fact you have been using to get attention has been what you look like. Realist a most fascinating thing to go through, shedding it all. The true power must be in not caring how you look when you have slept maybe three hours but i am seduced by surfaces, by habit, by the mysteriously lingering imperative to be recognize by me. The baby is fine, thank god, but he wont always be. Or could so easily not have been. The bruises to declare. Thes in festive yellow, green, mauve. This next section then is about violet again. Shes now in this section 14. So its many years later. And this section is called how to ride the subway. My daughter is taller now than i am. She is 59, wears cutoff shorts and white sneaker width gold stars. Even though she is 14 men start to follow her down the detroit call to her from cars to talk to her as shes coming up this he steps to our house. She writes an assignment for class, quote, puture experbe aware of surrounding, stand alone but close never to boom youre not totally otherwise rated. Move away from those creepy men who watch and talk pout you and make sure to adjust your shirt so it down show any skin. Actually put your sweatshirt on. That will help. And, yes you might want to switch cards when you feel uncomfortable, youre fine, just dont make eye contact. Remember when the drunk man asked you to come over and sit next to him and hull when you didnt he cursed until you could leave the car and think to yourself it could be worse. Dont tell your mom about these men. Once he gets around to showing me this the obvious comes as a shock. The dune offering her power over men is simultaneous with her growing vulnerability. She experiences both so violently at once. She discovers her power to attract men as a burden, a danger, it arrives already fraught. Simone describing this stage, quote, mens gazes flatter and hurt her at the same time. She feels herself at risk in her alienated flesh. Her power is itself a threat, so much of a threat that she is already writing howto guides on protecting yourself from it. The line for girls i razor then. Thin. You have to be confident but not too confident. I noticed girls her age say she is really feeling herself about a girl who seems to exuberantly confident, too interest herself, quote, she is really gassing herself. The irony of these phrases is a cover for an elaborate and variously articulated contempt. They are dedelineating a taboo. At times, at that age, almost feels like the secret police will come in the middle of the night and take you away if you are standing out in this way. If you are feeling yourself. In the lonely crowd David Reisman quotes an interview with a 12yearold girl, hey, i like superman bert than the others because they cant do everything superman can do. That man cant fly and that is very important. Would you like to be able to fly a i would like to be able to fly if everybody else did put otherwise it would be kind of con conspicuous. So before i read the last entry of the note book, i just want to talk a little bit about the form of the notebook and why i chose it because while i guess because its so strange to kind of write in these little pieces and fragments and try to work things out in that way. The reason i chose it is partly bus ive always written notebooks since i was 12 years old. And so for me its kind of a common way of processing the world and in my scholarship i have a ph. D in literature and written some books that very researched kind of biographical book. I love reading peoples notebooked. Its a thrill to sit in a lie area and read through someones notebook, susan sontag 0, whoever, and ive always liked the intimacy of them. But what i real where wanted to get across the note books was the unfinishedness. The idea of the rawness of them, of somebodys thoughts where they have not actually put the together into a polished thing, and for me it is very hard not to try to i have like a kind of orderly mind so i want to resolve contradictions or i want to work things out, and i want everything to be neat and linear and so this back is much more like the way the notebooks work because its fragmented. More like a jigsaw puzzle. Start with this mystery or bee willedderring questions bewildering questions and lay out the pieces and hopefully at the end you can see the picture. Its a much different way of thinking and i wanted to kind of force myself into this very for me very uncomfortable territory of letting myself have these contradictions and kind of choosing a form, the notebook form, which embodies because its notes, you can good off on a tangent go in one direction, you can explore one thing, and then at another point in the noteback in another mood, you explore it in a very different way. So, for me the form itself was an effort to do that, to kind of encompass the way we really think about these questions which is so much more complicated than the sort of easier political ways we like to think about them. And so the form itself was meant to create that sense of, like, my mind, like working through these contradictions or these strange vignettes or moments or little tiny power struggles, or as in this section i just read the question of do we why do we resent powerful women, you howe do girls grow up learning to hide their power in various ways. So these are the kind of questions that i wanted to write but but i didnt want to write in big generalizations like all women are this. Wanted to examine them in these little pieces. And so thats why i chose the notebook form. And incorporating the biography of these women, this section on sill very ya platt which ill sylvia platt which ill read now. Quote, i am aware of a coward disin myself, wanting to give up. If i could study, read, enjoy people on my own, teds leaving would be hard but manageable; quote, how can i live without him . I mean if i could write and garden and be happy with my babies i could survive. But i am so sick and sleepless and jumpy, always a mess. In the years before he leaves her the letters obsess over their her dream of a perfect artistic domesticity. How she she to its. When you send two pairs pairs of dwight ab tigs, when be paint the floors, win we borrow a heat, you send me tollhouse chocolate more sellses when, when we sell poems when aget a sewing machine, when we get a husband the country, when we get a flat in london, he looms over all of this brilliant, dangerous, sexual happiness, the only man she cannot boss. He takes her steak and mushrooms and a glass of red wine in bed when she recover from the strain of her exam. The letters she writes to her american psychiatrist shock me. Its early july 1962. She just discovered the hard fact that ted is cheating on her with an exotic working woman who works in and rent it their flat inch those first createssed leader she is trying solve the problem of herself. How can she change to accommodate him . Moment of trying to hold on to this consuming love before she seize it is over, the letters are darting, the stress, wild. How can i make these women unnecessary to him and keep up my own sense of seductiveness and womanly power . I dont want to be sorrowful are bet, men hate. That what can die . Quote, can you suggest a gracious procedure when you see little tart is after your husband as a party. She leads him it to, engage a hotel room, smile and vanish, smile and stand by, what i dont want to be is stern and disapproving or teary but im only human. Quote, i am by the way not fat. This feels familiar. Also, repellent. How can i solve the problem of myself so he wants to stay . She writes, quote, other men seem ants compared to him. Im physically attract to the no one else. All the complexities complexitil and mound are involved with him. Quit i was prepared for almost anything. His having the odd affair, traveling, drinking, i mean, getting drunk, if we could be straight, good friends, share all the intellectual life, that has become meat and drink for me, for the is a genius, a great man, great writer. I am tempted to throw the book at a wall. The elaborate accommodating, the clinging to any small part of him. Platts famous cold fury is more palatable, quote, out of the ash i rise with my red hair and eat men lick air. But this other platt, trying to hash things out with the psychiatrist, trying to understand, trying to work things out, to compromise to find solutions to understand a genius, to keep a man is there, too. Her american psychiatrist writes her, quote firework, middle and last, do not give up your personal oneness. Do not imagine that your whole being hangs on this one man. The letters make it clear that platts pretty quickly experienced use departure as creative force. She saw very clearly the poem shed was writing after he left that fall were by far her strongest, that something wild and original had been shaken loose in her. She ate very little, she took sleeping pills at night. She wrote at 5 00 a. M. , before the babies woke up. But that wasnt enough. The poems werent enough. She off erred to he pay the doctor write back to her letters. The doctor refuses the payment but writes to her anyway. Do not imagine that your whole being hangs on this one man. The sad thing to watch is that she was trying to make her way to the doctors words. Quote, the part pout coping my personal oneness is a real help. I must. But my god, he cant see the thinking straight. Four months later she was dead. So, thats kind of a sad note to end on. But one of the things i try to do with the portraits in the book is to look at these women writers i admire and contradictions in terms of power in their own lives so we look at sylvia platt, write outs ted hughes and somebody says why are you attracted to him or whats the appeal me and writes, he was the only man i could not boss, hed bash my head in. Says this as a positive thingstraightforward kind of description of the attraction, like she just saying, of course, he was the only main couldnt boss around. The only man i couldnt boss around. We think but this brilliant, creative, very strong personality and in her imagination that, i eat men like air, and theres sylvia platt who is enraptured by the only man she cannot boss and what that complicate relationship to her own power is, and the other biographical store i think in the become, edith warton also incredibly accomplished, successful woman, in her 40s, she has a relationship with morton fullerton, who is the sort of very sketchy, treacherous, not very intel electric timely dazzle intellectually dazzling accomplished person and she writed at one point i want to lose everything to you. And so again that paradox of she wants to lose to him shift doesnt want to be in this strong position in relation to him and i think also about a writer likemer mccarthy like Mary Mccarthy, an incredibly fierce, successful, almost sort of intimidating public figure, in her life, but in her relationship with the critic Edmond Wilson she talk but how he would humiliate here in front of her friends and how she would have to ask him for a nick toll make a telephone call, and so i kind of look at all these different biographies as a way of thinking about how complicated this idea that simone talked about was that gap between theory and life, that question of who you are to the out world and who you are on just an average tuesday night when youre just sitting at home. And i tried not to theres that scene in the part i just read and talk about wanting to throw the book across the room and i do feel the same sometimes that same frustration that the feminists, what but your theory . I feel that frustration, too, and its tempting to kind of judge or moralize or say that somebody of these relationships arent healthy, all kinds of ways that we get judgment of women when they act this way but i didnt want to do that in this become and i didnt want to kind of take moral stand or say this is bad or good or anything but it but i really just warranted to look at it how those contradictions no, a single life and contradictions work in a single life and in a way i think come to peace with them. Toward the end of the back, this become has a lot somebody told me its harrowing to read. Not exactly what you want to hear. Not like the highest collect when someone says your book is harrows but its a little harrowing, i have to say, but it has what i think of as a happy ending. Thick of the ending as peace for now. Goes through a lot of struggles but it ends with peace for now. And i kind of end on a semi peaceful note, and i think part of that peace is coming out at the end of the become, a little after the sylvia matt system i just read, with the idea that these contradictions are okay. Out can live with them in yourself and thats that confidence or that nonchalant of simone when she is stand fog front of the mirror with he doctor open or when she says, im sorry to disappoint the feminist but i just dent care. That feeling of just canes with yourself and all the divisions and contradictions and ways in which you are the kind of messiness of that as it manifests in a single life. So i the biographies and developing into these contradiction the way the contradictions work was part of the process for me so one of the weirdest things about me is when im confused about something i read biographies, and i kind of do Research Interest peoples lives. And these figures sort of keep me company in this book as im trying to work out some of these issues for myself. But thats the center of it or the heart of it, and the i think ive kind of represent the full weirdness of this project. Its very strange, as i said, and the reason that i wrote notebooks instead of, like, what i think of a in my head is a leal become, never became a real book with a single narrative because that was sort of defeat the purpose of this become which is meant to be to really represent these fragments or these moments in a kind of messy way in a kind of unresolved way, unlinear way. And that is what i wanted it to look like in the end. So thats sort of how the form worked for me and also how the process of writing worked for me. So, even though it was a little harrowing both to. It to write and maybe to read, it couple out in the end with that idea of it coming together in a certain way, and being able to tolerate contradictions and simone, as i said, it was kind of the inspiration for it, for the figure at the heart of it who started me on this project. And one of the male characters i call him the claw in the book. Strong and powerful in their outside lives but abject in their relation to men in their private lives. In the clause like you made all women . Which simultaneously i thought was funny but also extremely maddening. But in that comment was again a paradox this book came out of. That strange question. I do think its more than just me. I did resist generalizing in this book but i did want to write about something i see in some other women or think is a little more common as a phenomenon. And also, obviously applies to some men too. So anyway, that is my projects. I dont know where maybe we could turn to questions if anyone has questions . Thank you katie sgt missing a pop back up was being computers being temperamental part of theirs thoughts or questions joint opposed to kt now is your opportunity. Ill start with something that has occurred to me, he spoke very eloquently about the form of the notebook, and sort of adopting a form and a very conscious way on how well it suited its self to what youre trying to achieve with the book. But notebook to me also implies a sense of an un finished exploration of a topic this almost raw source material. I guess i was wondering in the context of other work over your career, how certain or confident and sort of ascertaining the entirety of your topic of your issue did you feel when you came into it . And to what extent how did that help dictate where you push the form of the book . Is that making sense of the question. [inaudible] today bring in my previous work . So part of what i mean but since you thought about it and before he actually did subsequently go to a form for unfinished equality, it connotes an exploratory the culmination of what you studied getting to this point to a thesis. Interested in how youd drag forward for previous work and also how exploratory nature of notebooks and form your confidence for what you wrote about in this topic . Guest when i was 23 and writing my first book i felt more confidence about my conclusions the world as accent of certain i understood everything in my interpretation with the right interpretation. And this book, maybe because i am old and a little bit wiser, i have a lot less and may now print i wrote much more confidently with more certainty when i was younger. What i wanted to do with this book was really interrogate my own uncertainty and look at these problems and an incredibly different way. There things i wrote about in particular i write about an affair had with the rabbi when i was very young. I was in high school and he was in his mid 30s. When i was younger i wrote about it and this was a comingofage story i was fine, it was fine. I felt like id much more power in the situation. But when i thought about it at this point in my life i was able to look at that story in a much deeper way. Ive always resisted in my work political language like easy political language. It adds resisting, George Orwell talks about words of your thinking for you. Ive always resisted those kind of words where i feel like they tried to i talk a little in this book about not wanting to use the word abusive to describe a relationship it feels like that kind of word to me where it simplifies something very complicated. Id rather look at the complicated thing. Mona wanted to do in this book was examine some of these questions that i wrote about in a much more clinical departmental leeway. Outside of that political framework as not that im rethinking things i wrote before, or its not that im recanting changing my previous opinions, but i want us to write in a different register. I have become less interested, i think a lot of us have in the political generalizations. The something predictable about the kind of politics about these things get talks about. I want to take those questions and look at them outside of those arguments. So i think ive brought more i think the notebook allowed be just as you said, to bring my un certainty and my doubts and my confusion and put them on a page. Which is not something i wouldve ever thought to do and i was 23 or 33. Its something that only now it feels to me like the confusion or the doubt thats actually valuable and interesting. And so the notebook, because you are right there unfinished they are raw. They give space for that kind of exploration worse if i tried to write an essay with an argument and a through line that move through the whole book, i would not have that as much. So thats that. I almost feel like ive gone backwards in terms of how much i understand the world. I extended to the world way less than i did was 23. I think i want to do a little more nuance, complexity and a little more and something that feels very real something is not able to do with my previous books. Thank you. It got a few questions we can turn to now. Brook wants to know how long it took you to write the book . And given the form you chose how did you know when to end it . Seems like it took me about 20000 years to write the book. Its really hard to write this book. Like i said i get up about 430 in the morning always exhausted. I couldnt pull it off or i shouldnt do it very hard i think it took me about took about two years or Something Like that many times i thought about abandoning it. And many times people discouraged me in various ways. In the book i talk about the character, diana, who is a trusted editor of mine. Like the character said she was unlikable but shes unlikable because shes me. And this person was i most trusted editor. We have that awkward moment of whitish think the characters so unlikable . And what can i do to change the character, but the characters really character. So i had a lot of discouragement. One point, and, this is slightly embarrassing, i found myself when youre in sixth or with an index card or writing it term paper youre spreading them out on the floor and try to figure out where they go, like i had them all with these colored, when you call the things like paper clips. I was spreading them on the floor at one point during this sixthgrade moment, i did kind of think this is not how grownups write their book. So i lost of despair, thought of not doing it. Thought id put it away for a few decades. In his memoirs of the end of her life and i thought maybe i should wait until then. Thats all about her sleeping with three men in one day. I stopped writing the book was very interesting it happened like this, one day it was like 430 in the morning sis when i get out of bed to write the book i just felt like im not going to get up today this isnt a book you can finish by my very nature the work is never finished. This, pointing out is a contradiction could go on forever. This is a book thats finished but it kind of ended. I guess what happened as i felt no longer felt the need to get up and write the notebook it happen like that it vanished like a fever and it ended kind of has a happy ending i finally after all my taste in men came out in a good spot with a good spot but now piece for now its very complicated piece for now. It felt like that i was finally sort of able to live with these contradictions they were not killing me and tormenting me. The project was over. And it just was i didnt get out of bed that day and i ended it then. I dont really understand why it ended or how it ended and ive got a lot of questions and a lot are closely bound alexa wants to know how much time when their writing allows these women to present a strong powerful authors of the time. They were writing a vulnerable or less forceful womans voice of the lesson published. Is that the time we are living in required of them to be successful . Guest i think to extent. Think that is true there are ways that women have historically approached authority in their writing and she was aware and conscious of and really trying to sound like a man she writes in one point at the notebook i meant to be arrogant like a man, she chose to have this powerful voice in her writing. And certainly some of the issues are different now than they were in those time periods. She is very aware kind of road and a former time she wrote about these in her own work they are fictional characters. But some of these contradictions are true now, and they were true then. That they have always been ways that powerful women are supposed to act. Then there has been a resentment against powerful women there was always been powerful women with their own power. He thanks some of these issues are also sort of timeless. In a way. Pk wants if your definition of a strong woman has changed after witness book . Guest yes. I think, for one thing, i myself dont normally express vulnerability. Im not one to show vulnerability. I think people have thought of my work i kinda thought is unlikable and daunting and kind of feared in my writing. I put in a different side of myself into this work that ive never put into my work before you always have to be strong i think my tolerance, really pushed up specially things there would be moments when i would be frustrated. And hed say to her she would plan a trip with another man, to spain or something and he would say no i want you to stay in paris so she canceled her plan with the other man she drop everything for him. And i would get this to judge mental thing. I think i just stopped feeling those. I got myself through that judgment always have to be consistent and strong you can be superstrong but have these moments we dont want to be strong. I think i understand theres ideas about a consistently strong person to believe in or think is important. Theres more dogmatic and linear, more conclusive and now, revisiting some of these ideas, you are willing to admit a lot less certainty and a lot more space than you thought right . Guest yes. Courtney asks, you mentioned diving into biographies and work at their own thoughts. Which by auger fees, where to go just vanished, which biographies have you found the most impactful or profound . Guest there are so many biographies had a huge impact on me. I have a list at the end of the book its not a bibliography or anything it just works that inspired me. I have always loved hermione weaves biography, virginia was incredible. I love a bunch of the Mary Mccarthy biologys, i love Janet Malcolms book on sylvia flask which has hugely influence my work. But there are so many biographies, im sort of in love with biography. So is roses parallel life also had a big effect on me. Like i said there is a list in the back there are so many of them. I also find an credible and i find it comforting im not sure why. I like reading about peoples lives and struggles, comforting for some reason. Host a couple more questions. Candice wants to know if you agree to the facade women have to put on of power in public versus a private life, which may mean more vulnerable is how men have to be as well. What would you say is the difference between how men have to perform . Guest its funny, i really tried in this book to say not all women i tried to resist that because of certain women that fall into these they were kind of romanticizing objection or giving up their power and theres men who do that to their men theyre much less powerful you look at them in their homes and when they are in their jobs these contradictions are both the true both men and women. I think the idea that men maybe its just me i find i was going to say about to say i find mens lives less interesting i was about to literally utter that comment. Into that i, i think for women limits it differently. The relationship to powerful women is different. I think we as a culture, like powerful men. I say this in the book, i said i think we like the idea of powerful women but we dont like powerful women themselves. And i feel i love this mary beard book on power and women. I have a section in this book where i talk about women just how much women feel like they have to apologize for their power, or they have to pretend they are not powerful. And how much of our energy kind of goes into this competitiveness of the world. Someone gives you a compliment, some mrs. O you look great you say oh no i havent slept ive dark circles under my eyes. You always have to say oh no, its really hectic in every things falling apart, you have to present yourself but no i seemed like im pulled together but not. I see ways that women hide and defuse their own power. I talk about little bit in the section i read about how i ride the subway with my daughter. In a talk a little bit about Hillary Clinton she has a line in one of her book that if that was really sad were she talked about, she knows her people like her more if she cried a blue streak or she danced on a table . She sort of right people want her to fall apart my gift she just fell apart that they know shes not this terrible powerful woman we hate. She actually is just like me. Shes kind of vulnerable. Women are more bevel and about their powers you learned from girlhood that you have to to hydropower my talk with that little girl despaired of superman can fly she doesnt want to fly because should be too conspicuous. I just feel like that. Someone said about asking for raise from a female boss preaching of the boss would respond by what makes her think she so special . I just feel like that idea that you dont want anyone to think what makes her think she so special. And you have to say im not special. You have to say that. I think for men who are powerful the culture is kind of like great, you are powerful so yay for you. Maybe that is over simplifying. By think powers a little easier for men. I think that for women, because of the ambivalence in the culture about powerful women, women are ambivalent about their own power they dont feel as comfortable about it and away. That was what i was trying to look out. Again, i wanted to stay away from the political of this is how women experience life because i dont know how all women dont experience life this way. Im sure theres a lot of women who look at things youre talking about anything that would not be me. And ive heard that from readers that would never be me. Im sure thats true. Theres a sizable portion of women who know what im talking about when i talk about these things or recognize these things. Host a meta pose a couple more. Can you talk about how you see the role of women changing in literature. How that is impacting social progression, the quality for women . Guest yeah. I think that is a very big question. Im trying to think where to go without. I think that, obviously there is a ton of amazing women writers and their are tons of great characters. I do feel that, i feel the power of like the bookstore reading affects things. And a lot of the fiction and nonfiction is about complexity. I sort of noticed in the me to it moment, a lot of the more interesting things coming out of this moment are fiction. I feel like in novels, people are able to look at these questions of power and exploitation, is really complicated stories of what happens between two people. Ive seen it explored well and fiction in various ways. Health civil think about the exact complicated way that rather than a simple way. I think about victim theres ways we can think about these things that are not very challenging to us. Especially with fiction written around these subjects the more political subjects, there is a lot going on in terms of challenging and changing peoples minds and getting them to see things. Host we got one more question and i think you covered it and touched on in your last answer. Actually while the person has come over. Going to flip this little bit. I try to group them together and im not always successful. Lets try this. There seems to be a contradiction between women feeling, as you sam not so special, and women like the one you studied writing about their own lives. How did the authors you study negotiate the contradiction or as you say deflect or defuse their power . How do you negotiate this as an author . Guest i have a section in the notebook right talk about the section of being relatable. Like the students and class hes debatable shes debatable i hate that word that should not be in literature why are we looking for somebody who we went to have coffee with, why cant we look for im really amazed by this persons ideas . I feel like it especially comes out with the women writers. I talk about how one of the ways i see women writers making themselves relatable as they have these moments in their writing ims moment. What that is, you have this brilliant dazzling person like Leslie Jamison you put in a moment i go so nervous before is going to go teach my class i must throughout. Or im so drunk when i walked on the street i took off my shoes. Or i was crying talking about crying everywhere she goes and crying with chinese laundry, i think some of these im not trying to say there tactics exactly but i think there is enormous pressure on women when they are taking authority to sort of put in something that shows them as a mess. Not that i am the daunting, terrifying person you think i am because i have all this intellectual confidence. Im actually a mess. We have a thing and Mary Mccarthy in the book she wrote in the early 1940s as line rose a one night stand on a train with the stranger. This hard for us to get our minds around it she has a safety pin in her underwear. Like a really embarrassing moment that she is a safety pin in her underwear. Why did she put in . What is that mean . Its a biographical story. Think that idea showing weakness is a way of showing im not that threatening. I might be threatening i might not be threatening. When you look at virginia woof in as confident, as dazzling, as ambitious as she is in her essay she will also have moments where she will say oh, my idea was so silly its like a small fish she should throw back in the pond. She will also undermine herself as shes taking authority. And i think that impulse, i see it in myself. I saw somebody with a piece i wrote about divorce it was kind of about how everybody thought i should be more devastated that i was. They didnt really like it that i was okay, my marriage broke up but i was fine. My friend, i showed her the essay and she was like well wouldnt it be better if you put in where you forgot to give your kid breakfast, you bought us scones and mashed into the stroller and the stroller was disgusting or scenery or crying . Said then im going to put in one of these vulnerable details and i tried but it didnt sound right. When he wrote it sounded weird and i took it out. That pressure which i have felt too, is to be relatable. And you know, some part of me in this section of the notebook, sometimes i think why do i have to be relatable . Cant i just be like a terrifying person dry have to be the best friend you want to have coffee with . I feel that pressure, that strategy what youre getting out of questions, the idea of humanizing yourself and saying i am not special im not that special im not that unusual. And i think writers who dont do it. I think of a few think of janet malcolm, there are very few though. I cannot think of tons of women writers who dont deploy vulnerabilities in this way. So i think its a struggle. Again i dont come out and judging anybody or saying theres a right way or wrong way to do it. I just notice it is a thing. If one is a confident, powerful writer, even writing about yourself at all seems a little narcissistic sometimes. Unless you do these things. I think there is a pressure i dont have any answers about it. I just observe it to be true. Stu and i just looked at the time and realize is anything else you want to share or add cadiz resort to bring this to a close . Or should i just make a bold reminder that people should buy the book . Guest make a bold reminder sure. Think i told you everything. Host so with that i just want to thank you, katie for joining us tonight. And for being willing to share this phase of what sounds like a lifeanddeath investigation into the ideas. And to share this point of your progress. It is great to have you and i hope will have you back in seattle and the actual realm at some point. Guest that would be amazing. That would be good right . Everybody pickup the power of notebooks. Well see you all very soon, talk to you soon. Tonight on book tv in prime time, New York Times economics reporter on racism in america. Book tv looks at awardwinning authors and their books. Expounds the growing Mission Business of collecting and selling data. On our weekly Author Interview program after words, syndicated columnist cal thomas offers his thoughts on whether the United States will remain a superpower. Here is a portion of the show. That used to be when you had an election, the losing side with the look their wounds they would have meetings how do we retool our message . How do we win next time . Now, its how do we bring this guy down . How do we bring this person down. They were arguing about impeachment, the democrats were, even before the election and certainly the day or two after. There are quotes from some of the more radical members of congress that is not the way to do that. It poisons the atmosphere and as people it said during the recent impeachment fiasco it was supposed to be rare. And now i fear will republicans get back in control both houses of congress theres a democrat president theyre going to go the same route. That will polarize employees in the political atmosphere even more than it does is now that is bad enough. To watch the rest of this program and find other episodes of after words visit our website booktv. Org click on the after words tab near the top of the page. Hi everyone my name is vanessa im an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, your host for the Young Leaders circle. I think all of you for taking the time to tune into this event today both are members in the general membership im so sorry we cannot all be together in person even though i very much hope it sometime soon. In the meantime its nice to connect this way. And satan, the Manhattan Institute is putting together a time of virtual content they