Alisson Wood, BEING LOLITA
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[1:55]Melissa Noet is the author of Being Lolita.
[1:57]Her writings have been published in The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Rumpus, Catapult, and No Tokens.
[2:03]She teaches creative writing at her New York University and at Second Street Writers Workshop.
[2:08]She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Pigeon Pages, a New York City literary journal and reading series.
[2:13]Allison was a winner of the inaugural Breakout Eight Award from Epiphany Magazine and Author's Guild.
[2:19]Welcome, Allison. Thanks for coming on mom's and have time to read books.
[2:22]Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
[2:25]Thank you.
[2:26]I'm just sorry this took us so long, especially as soon as I started reading your book.
[2:29]And I was like, what has the hold up been?
[2:30]I'm so sorry.
[2:31]So anyway, delighted to be talking to you.
[2:34]Yeah.
[2:36]So being Lolita, can you please tell listeners what this is about?
[2:40]So at its core, this is a book very much about power and sex and gender, but in a much more simple plot way.
[2:48]It's about how when I was 17 and I became ensnared in this incredibly abusive relationship with an English teacher in my high school.
[2:57]And he gave me the book Lolita and he told me it was a beautiful story about love.
[3:03]And I was 17 and I didn't know any better.
[3:07]And the book goes over sort of follows the story of how I was groomed and how things escalated very quickly and became very abusive.
[3:17]And how I was able to leave the relationship and then what my life has been like since and how this has this experience had an impact to people for good and bad.
[3:27]So how would you say the experiences impacted you?
[3:29]Well, I think that on the not so good hand, you know, trauma never goes away.
[3:36]This experience was incredibly bad and it was very traumatic and in a lot of ways it set me up for a lot of bad relationships.
[3:47]There's all this research about how this is why it's so important to talk to teenagers about healthy relationships and consent and boundaries and red flags of abuse.
[3:58]There's all this research that shows that your first relationship is very much creates this mold for future relationships.
[4:06]And my first relationship was a secret and it was incredibly abusive and it was full of manipulation and lying.
[4:15]And so that was what I thought love was.
[4:19]And, you know, that was that was tough to figure out that, oh, that's not love.
[4:24]And I'm 36 now so I spent a lot of time in therapy and just sort of figuring things out and making a lot of mistakes.
[4:31]So, you know, but there is the other side you can get through it.
[4:37]The good side though, I think that because of what happened to me, I am incredibly incredibly aware and supportive of my students I teach now at NYU.
[4:49]I teach undergraduate students and I'm so aware and careful and I just I want to be a teacher that I wish that I had had as opposed to the teacher I had.
[5:01]You know, it's so funny. I feel like so many of the authors I interview mentioned the influence of one teacher along the way as like setting them on their path to becoming a published author.
[5:12]It's like someone has to notice your gift or your potential or whatever and that can just change everything.
[5:18]So, the power that you have as a teacher on all these inspiring authors that you teach creative writing right now.
[5:25]So, I would think almost like a daunting responsibility in a way.
[5:30]It is.
[5:31]And another funny thing is that I got angry about what happened to me in a brand new way once I started teaching.
[5:39]So undergraduates, they're 1819 I teach an intro class with a lot of you know freshmen.
[5:45]And as I'm sure any parent knows there's still kids, you know, they've never rented an apartment on their own.
[5:52]They've probably never paid a bill. They've probably never worked full time.
[5:55]They might not even know how to cook.
[5:57]I mean in so many ways they're still kids and so when we send them off to college, it's this wonderful opportunity for a safety net for them to, you know, figure out how to be an adult.
[6:07]You know, there's a dorm so they'll never be homeless. There's a dining hall so they'll never go hungry.
[6:12]You know, there's all these safety nets in place which is wonderful.
[6:15]But when I began teaching the first time I went into a classroom with my own students, I was just struck by how young they are.
[6:25]And for someone to go into a classroom thinking anything except how can I support and encourage and, you know, keep these students safe for someone to go into a classroom and be thinking about their own sexual or emotional or ego,
[6:44]education is just monstrous and it just made me angry about what happened to me in a whole new way because I think teaching is sacred.
[6:52]I think young people are should be nothing but supported and to do anything else is just horrible.
[6:58]So what do you think your teacher originally thought like when he went into teaching do you think that this just happened or do you know what I mean?
[7:08]Do you think he went in with lofty goals? I know he was so young at the time as well.
[7:12]He was 26 or he was somewhere between 26 and 28, I don't remember.
[7:17]But, you know, there's sort of two options for how that went on one side.
[7:23]He really did misread Lolita.
[7:27]And he really did think this was this utterly romantic story.
[7:32]And he really did think that he and I were in love.
[7:35]And, like, this was this, you know, thing that was fine.
[7:39]And that means he was kind of stupid to be frank.
[7:43]Like, I'm sorry, really.
[7:45]Like, I was a, I was 17.
[7:47]Like, I was a high school student.
[7:48]How on earth could you do the backflips in your head to make that seem fine.
[7:52]But the, the other option is that he was a predator from the start and he knew exactly what he was doing.
[7:59]And he was doing it on purpose.
[8:02]And that's also incredibly, incredibly difficult.
[8:07]Because I want to believe that people are good.
[8:10]And that, you know, people aren't evil or anything.
[8:14]But, you know, I don't know and I never will.
[8:18]But I want, well, either he was stupid or he's a terrible person.
[8:23]And probably a little bit of buzzer that these are the choices today.
[8:27]And that's so great.
[8:28]Now, not so great, not so great.
[8:30]And if, and I think one of the toughest things, and this is something I've had to face
[8:34]in sort of acknowledge over time, is that if, and this is sort of what I lean to.
[8:40]I think he was predatory from the get go.
[8:42]I think he knew what he was doing.
[8:43]I think there was some, I just understand how you can go into a high school and not think,
[8:48]huh, maybe I should not try to fuck my students.
[8:53]And how you can make that seem okay.
[8:56]But that then means that I was a victim, like clean cut of victim.
[9:02]Because I think something that's interesting about victim blaming.
[9:05]Because even especially when you do it yourself, like, which I did, of course, for a long time.
[9:08]I was like, well, I flirted with him.
[9:10]I, you know, wanted this.
[9:12]I thought he was so cute.
[9:14]But, you know, to start with that's completely developmentally appropriate.
[9:17]It's completely okay for a teenager to have a crush on their teacher.
[9:21]Like, no big deal.
[9:22]Like, you know, that's fine.
[9:24]It's part of what's going on in your teenager, you know, hormones are flying.
[9:28]And it's so exciting.
[9:29]And then there's this teacher who maybe pays attention to you.
[9:33]And, you know, that's totally fine.
[9:36]What's wrong is when the adult, the teacher crosses that line.
[9:42]That's morally and ethically and at times legally wrong.
[9:45]But my experience was normal and completely okay.
[9:49]But the victim-laning part came in when, you know, I wanted to believe that I had some level of control over what had happened.
[9:57]So I blamed myself, which.
[10:00]is then blaming my choices, my actions.
[10:02]But in actuality, I don't think,
[10:05]I think I was just a victim.
[10:07]And I don't think there was really any blame on my part.
[10:11]And that's also really hard to face
[10:13]because that's really sad.
[10:15]And you want to believe that you're a powerful,
[10:18]strong person who has some control.
[10:20]And it's tough to face that that's not always the truth.
[10:24]So it's been a process.
[10:26]Yeah.
[10:28]Everyone's got their stuff.
[10:30]Oh, yeah.
[10:32]Do you think you became a teacher in a way
[10:34]to kind of write the wrongs of what happened?
[10:40]The funny thing is it was in no way conscious.
[10:43]I just, I've always wanted to teach.
[10:45]I've always loved that.
[10:47]I've always loved writing.
[10:49]So it felt just sort of very natural and organic.
[10:51]But then of course, as I'm writing the book,
[10:52]I'm like, huh, interesting.
[10:57]I end up a teacher.
[11:00]It's one of those things where it's like,
[11:02]I mean, I don't know if it's quite that simple,
[11:04]but clearly part of what I do is to try and write the wrong
[11:09]that happened to me and be the kind of teacher
[11:11]that I wish that I'd have.
[11:13]That's really important to me.
[11:14]Yeah.
[11:15]I mean, it's almost like a way of making amends in a way.
[11:17]I don't know.
[11:18]Yeah.
[11:19]Yeah.
[11:20]Yeah, definitely reparations.
[11:21]But I'm not afraid of you.
[11:22]He making the reparations.
[11:23]No, I know you're not.
[11:24]I know.
[11:25]I didn't say it made sense.
[11:26]I'm joking.
[11:27]Like from one of those weird subconscious things that we all do.
[11:31]I don't know.
[11:32]But of course, isn't that such the work of women
[11:35]to do this kind of work for others?
[11:38]And to, I mean, that's just that's such a woman thing
[11:41]that we are trained to do.
[11:42]We're trained to care and fix things.
[11:45]And that's a whole other conversation.
[11:47]Yes.
[11:49]Let's save that for a cup of coffee, isn't it?
[11:52]Maybe a house of wine.
[11:53]I'm a glass of wine.
[11:54]That would be great.
[11:55]You know, I was also, I was so interested
[11:57]in how you sort of came into this book
[11:59]and how you came into the, not the book itself,
[12:01]but how you as a character came into the relationship
[12:04]of the book and your backstory and how you started it
[12:07]feeling like such and so other than other people
[12:11]in your school and that you had gone through a lot yourself.
[12:15]And there were all these rumors about your hospitalization
[12:18]and had she tried to kill herself
[12:19]and had she been doing this with other guys
[12:22]and like all that swirling around you
[12:25]and your previous sort of diagnoses.
[12:28]And also the whole insomnia part,
[12:30]which I thought was really fascinating
[12:33]because like you got in so much trouble for that
[12:35]all the time missing classes and everything.
[12:38]And even though it was documented,
[12:40]it put you on like a totally different trajectory
[12:42]from an academic standpoint.
[12:44]So tell me a little more about all of that.
[12:46]Well, I think like so many teenagers, I struggled
[12:50]when I was a teenager.
[12:52]I mean, starting probably when I was 14 or 15,
[12:55]I began having really serious depression.
[12:59]And, you know, there was no specific reason.
[13:02]It just happened.
[13:03]Like it does oftentimes with teenagers, you know,
[13:05]like when you sort of start hormones and puberty,
[13:07]that can often be a time when depressive episodes
[13:10]or any sort of mental illness will sort of kick in.
[13:13]And I just became incredibly depressed
[13:16]and at one point I was cutting myself.
[13:17]And, you know, I never tried to kill myself
[13:20]but I was in a very dark place for a very long time.
[13:23]And like you mentioned, you know,
[13:25]I became an insomnia.
[13:26]I switched my nights and days for a while.
[13:29]I mean, I was not a happy stable camper.
[13:33]I was very, very depressed for a long time.
[13:35]And so I stopped going to school.
[13:38]Cause if you're up all night
[13:39]and you're sleeping during the day,
[13:40]you're not making a class.
[13:42]So it was at the point that my depression was so serious
[13:45]it was at the point where I had ECT.
[13:47]I had electric convulsive therapy when I was in high school
[13:50]to try and, you know, snap me out of it.
[13:53]Cause, and you know, ECT is incredibly safe.
[13:55]We have this real stigma about it in our culture
[13:58]because of the way that it's portrayed in movies and in TV.
[14:02]But it's actually really safe.
[14:03]It's only a couple seconds.
[14:04]You're under anesthesia.
[14:06]You're not awake.
[14:07]They give you muscle relaxers.
[14:08]You know, if there's no like shaking.
[14:10]And it's an incredibly effective treatment for depression.
[14:13]And so this is very much an aside in my book,
[14:16]but it is something that I think is important
[14:18]that I wish we didn't stigmatize treatments for depression.
[14:21]I think we've gotten better about talking about mental illness
[14:24]and medication.
[14:25]I think we're better at that.
[14:27]But I think ECT is still something that's sort of like,
[14:29]oh, you know, that's only if you're psychotic
[14:33]or, you know, something it's really dangerous.
[14:35]And it's really not.
[14:36]It's actually one of the safest treatments for pregnant women
[14:40]cause anesthesia doesn't pass through the placenta.
[14:42]So there's no danger to the baby
[14:45]as there are in many medications.
[14:47]I'm sorry, this is a side.
[14:49]No, I find it really interesting.
[14:50]I'm like, gosh, I could have used a little ECT.
[14:55]I was hearing that, you know, I mean, it saved my life.
[14:58]I really, I really believe that.
[15:00]And it is.
[15:01]It's this sort of like dark corner of mental health
[15:05]that people don't talk about because there's this horrible stigma.
[15:08]And you know, when this was happening,
[15:09]so this was like the late 90s, early 2000s,
[15:13]there was a lot.
[15:14]This was 20 almost 20 years ago or more than 20 years ago,
[15:17]there was a lot of stigma about mental illness
[15:19]at that point still, you know.
[15:22]It's interesting thinking about that
[15:23]because part of the reason that medication has come so far
[15:27]and like being sort of normalized is because medical companies
[15:32]were able to prescription companies
[15:34]were able to start advertising their drugs.
[15:36]So like, I remember the first time I saw like,
[15:38]the ab for Prozac in a magazine, you know,
[15:41]it was like the stormy and then the sun and Prozac,
[15:44]it'll fix it, you know.
[15:46]So that's part of why there's been all this money
[15:49]and advertising to make medication seem okay
[15:52]and thus to, you know, make it the buy it.
[15:55]Where's there, there's no big ECT.
[15:57]There's no big, you know, there's big pharma.
[16:00]There's no big ECT.
[16:02]It's machines.
[16:03]It's, you know, there's no money to be made.
[16:07]So there's not this, you know, public service sort of
[16:10]trying to break down the stigma.
[16:13]But anyway, so yeah, when I came back to school,
[16:16]I had gone to a therapeutic day school my junior year,
[16:19]which was, you know, also that was a normal school
[16:21]smaller population.
[16:23]Like the only real difference was that we had group therapy
[16:25]in the afternoons or it's just, you know,
[16:27]teenagers in a circle talking about what's bugging them.
[16:30]But I came back my senior year and people thought
[16:35]I had died.
[16:36]People were like, oh, you know, the hospital
[16:38]because she tried to kill herself.
[16:39]Like she's this slut, you know, love a blood.
[16:42]Because teenagers can be cruel.
[16:44]And I think that hasn't changed.
[16:45]So I was very, very much an outsider when I first came
[16:49]back to school and I didn't really have any friends
[16:51]and I felt very alone, which also made me really easy
[16:55]pray because one of the first steps in an abusive
[16:58]relationship or in an abuser's, you know, sort of plan
[17:01]of action is to isolate their victim.
[17:03]And I was already pretty isolated.
[17:05]So it just made it easier.
[17:07]Wow.
[17:07]So your point about stigma, by the way,
[17:09]I'm on the board of the Child Mind Institute,
[17:11]which it's all about helping childhood mental illness,
[17:14]you know, up to teenage years.
[17:15]So it got me to high school and all that.
[17:17]And there's research and there's treatment.
[17:19]But a huge component is trying to get rid
[17:21]of the stigma of mental illness
[17:23]because that's like a whole added layer of everything.
[17:26]So anyway.
[17:26]Yeah.
[17:27]Well, I mean, I really struggled with,
[17:30]that was something that I wasn't sure if I should include
[17:32]because on one hand, I felt like it was really
[17:34]important context to who I was and it was happened
[17:38]that I was very lonely.
[17:39]I was very sad.
[17:40]I was depressed.
[17:41]I was very vulnerable.
[17:42]It was part of why I think I was such an easy target.
[17:45]I really believe that.
[17:47]But at the same time, I was afraid that
[17:48]because of the stigma, it'd be used against me.
[17:50]It'd be, it has been so really.
[17:54]Yes, yes.
[17:55]One of the first critical reviews of the book,
[17:58]the opening line was Allison Wood had ECT,
[18:01]was a cutter or had shock therapy,
[18:03]was a cutter, was on 20 different medications
[18:06]and then this happened.
[18:07]And it's like, it's set me up to be like,
[18:09]oh, she's this crazy, unreliable narrator
[18:12]who's going to listen to this book.
[18:13]I mean, it was honestly like that first review
[18:15]was sort of all of my fears.
[18:17]Honestly, I think it was everything I was afraid of.
[18:19]That would happen.
[18:20]But I really felt like it was important to be honest
[18:23]and to be fully honest and fully vulnerable with my reader.
[18:26]I feel like that makes a good memoir.
[18:28]Like that's sort of part of the point to share.
[18:30]100%, it would have been a different story
[18:32]without that context.
[18:33]Yeah.
[18:34]It's not like, because you're depressed,
[18:36]you deserve to be sexually abused or like in a,
[18:38]you know, like, I mean, like, who would think that, you know?
[18:43]And the behaviors come from the underlying stuff.
[18:47]Right, it's not like you're, you know,
[18:49]like if you hadn't.
[18:50]Yeah, no, I'm sorry that that happened to you.
[18:52]That's really the side of the point
[18:54]and someone who just missed the plot of your book entirely.
[18:57]And it's so common for teenagers.
[19:00]And for, you know, any age group,
[19:01]but I think it's especially common for teenagers
[19:03]because oftentimes that sort of little first sort of start
[19:06]popping up and I just think we're so bad at
[19:09]the supporting teenagers with this.
[19:11]We're just so bad at it.
[19:12]And I think, you know, we've come a long way,
[19:14]but there's still a long way to go.
[19:15]And especially queer teenagers or trans teenagers or women.
[19:19]I mean, it's just, it's tough.
[19:21]And did you think about, like, did you worry about,
[19:24]I know you worried about the beginning,
[19:25]but even just having the whole story out there
[19:28]when you decided to make this a memoir and publish it.
[19:30]Like, and then actually as you were writing it
[19:32]and it was coming out, did you have fears about that
[19:34]for like all the personal stuff?
[19:35]I mean, the whole thing is very personal.
[19:37]The book is really personal.
[19:39]I know, I know that's what I'm saying.
[19:41]It is a very personal book.
[19:43]You know, I actually am not and didn't worry
[19:46]not much about that.
[19:47]Really what I worried about was the,
[19:50]the being honest about the depression part
[19:53]I worried about how I would be judged for that.
[19:55]But for some reason, I was like,
[19:58]ugh, this is, this is what it's.
[20:00]is you know I feel like when when you write a memoir you make a contract with the reader that it's like
[20:05]okay the whole truth nothing but the truth even when it's really ugly and even when it's not flattering
[20:10]you know so it's funny I didn't struggle with oh someone's going to read this people are going
[20:16]to know this about me I struggled at times with the actual writing because it was going back to
[20:20]something really traumatic it was going back to something really awful and painful and embarrassing
[20:27]just like oh my god I cannot believe I need to write this scene when this happened but I
[20:32]knew it was important and early readers this bothered me to know and early readers were like oh my god
[20:41]this scene where he made you pee in front of him that's the best scene and I'm like oh my that one
[20:47]like one of the most embarrassing things and like shameful and awful things like sexual humiliation
[20:54]that ever happened that's your favorite scene okay great but to me that speaks to like how universal
[21:02]in some ways maybe not the exact situation but I think for so many women we've been put in situations
[21:09]where you know we had to do things that we didn't want to abuse is so common and also you know
[21:15]the sort of power imbalance abuse of relationships like with the teacher it's incredibly common
[21:22]and I hear from readers every single day still I hear from readers emails and dms and things
[21:27]like that of women thanking me for writing the book which is just so amazing but then talking about
[21:33]how you know I feel understood I feel seen I feel acknowledged because this happened to me or
[21:39]something very similar happened to me and that's honestly the best part about this book
[21:44]and has been the best part about publishing it and having made it through the trauma of reliving
[21:50]the moment and going through the actual writing and being a creative writing teacher I have to get
[21:54]your advice and for aspiring authors you must have like you know hours worth of what are some of
[22:00]like the things that were most helpful to you and that you think are the most key in trying to
[22:04]write a memoir I was really lucky and that I had an awful lot of primary source documents I had
[22:10]a stack of journals from my senior year I had all these photographs of me from that time I had a
[22:19]whole bunch of letters and notes and hall passes and hotel receipts and all these things that were
[22:24]really helpful in creating the timeline because you know memory memory is faulty memory you can
[22:31]make mistakes right an example of something I write about in the book is how I distinctly remembered
[22:36]this moment or this sort of you know scene where the teacher in shop in the shop room in his
[22:44]study hall the teacher wanted to trade me my bra size for the size of his penis and you know
[22:52]I distinctly remembered that happening but I thought it had happened like in May so in May I would
[22:58]have been 18 we would have been like almost together quote unquote so that's still awful but you
[23:05]know well you know I don't know it's sort of mitigated in a bit in my mind but then when I was
[23:12]going through my journals and sort of you know trying to like track things I realized that it had
[23:17]happened on November 21st so that meant I was 17 he had only known me for at most two months so that
[23:24]also like showed how quickly it escalated from after school help because I was a really good writer
[23:32]to you know sexual coercion stuff that today of course would have been over text message or Snapchat
[23:39]you know like trying to get me trying to course me to like send him a you know topless photo for a
[23:43]dick pic I mean it's just and that was a moment when I really snapped through the victim blaming
[23:52]and was like nope there is no way know how that anyone can make an excuse for this or you know
[24:00]there are no jumping jacks that you can do to say like this was fine and this was my fault like
[24:05]nope nope nope and that was really upsetting again just sort of just face that I think that was one
[24:10]of the hardest parts about the book was just facing at some point it felt like I was opening up like
[24:14]this onion of trauma like the more I looked the more I reread the more I sort of like dove into it
[24:21]the worse it was and it was it was writing the book was really hard and also tell me two seconds
[24:27]about pigeon pages pigeon pages is a writing community that I founded about four years ago I
[24:35]founded it because I really wanted to create my own writing community I wanted it to be full of
[24:40]women and queer people and non-binary folks and trans folks you know I didn't want it basically I
[24:46]didn't want any straight white guys in it I wanted to sort of create my own community and we hold
[24:52]monthly readings we are a literary journal we publish every week poetry and prose and you know it
[24:57]it's really wonderful we just we're opening tomorrow essay contest with Morgan Jerkens who's
[25:03]oh wonderful author as our judge so we're so excited so I just had her on my podcast she's the best
[25:09]she has a wonderful yeah she's judging her essay contest no opening October 1st and run
[25:15]through November 15th you can find out all sorts of information of pigeon maybe I'll enter
[25:18]yeah we're at pigeon pages NYC on all the socials and it and you know that's our website
[25:24]so I couldn't believe how many authors who I've had on my podcast have been like contributors
[25:29]in some ways in pigeon pages oh yeah I was like going down and down and down and I was like I
[25:32]got so many so yeah I'm like all about it I'm gonna I followed it and I'm very interested
[25:37]very lovely nest yes that's so nice also a lot of bird pun yes because why don't you
[25:43]believe writing is joy and you know let's be a little silly we can all get a little pretentious
[25:46]you know so pigeon pages is a place for like all right let's knock that down a bit let's talk
[25:52]about writing which is what it's supposed to be you know I love it Alison thank you thank you so
[25:56]much for coming on for discussing being Lolita for going through the pain that you had to go through
[26:01]to get it on the page so that other people could benefit and I have to continue our conversation
[26:06]offline sometime yes thank you so much I'm so honored to be here I truly appreciate it oh that's
[26:12]my pleasure all right bye bye thanks again to today's sponsor sugar wish send a surprise sugar
[26:20]wish to somebody you love and check it out yourself sugar wish dot com thanks for listening to
[26:25]this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget to follow me on instagram at
[26:30]zebi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com
[26:36]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week thanks so
[26:40]much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon
[26:45]productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music