Donna Freitas, THE NINE LIVES OF ROSE NAPOLITANO
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[0:38]Donna Freides is the author of The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano.
[0:42]Donna is a Brooklyn-based author of Fiction and Nonfiction,
[0:45]as well as memoir and novels for young adults and middle grade readers.
[0:49]She is a professor and researcher on topics related to sex on campus,
[0:53]title nine and sexual assault, as well as social media and young adults.
[0:57]She's spoken about her research in these areas at more than 200 colleges
[1:00]and universities across the United States.
[1:02]She has appeared on NPR, the Today Show, and many other radio and news programs
[1:06]to talk about her work, and her writing, has been published in the New York Times,
[1:10]the Washington Post, and the LA Times, among other places.
[1:13]In addition to all that, she has been a professor at Boston University,
[1:17]and in Hofstra University's Honors College, and is currently on faculty at
[1:20]Farley Dickinson University's MFA and Creative Writing Program.
[1:24]She privately offers consulting and coaching for writers.
[1:27]Okay, welcome, Donna.
[1:28]Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books.
[1:31]I'm so happy to be here today.
[1:33]Yay!
[1:34]Okay, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano.
[1:38]This book is like, it's like, should I have my character do this or that?
[1:43]Should this happen or should that happen?
[1:45]And instead, you put all of those alternatives in different lives.
[1:49]It's like a genius way to explore sort of alternative lives, and like what can happen when
[1:56]you make these little decisions, which I love.
[1:58]So I just wanted to say that up front.
[2:00]It's so cool.
[2:02]Thank you.
[2:02]It was really fun to write.
[2:04]I've actually really thought of it as a kind of generous structure for a character or for
[2:11]a novel because it made me feel like I had room for my character to make lots of
[2:19]mistakes and do transgressive things and that maybe the reader would be able to forgive her
[2:26]because in other versions of her life they'd see her being good or doing the right thing.
[2:31]So I feel like I ended up being really generous to Rose as a character.
[2:36]Yeah, you definitely got to know her and all the different, it's more than you get to know her.
[2:41]It's like you get to see what happens to someone when the life takes them in one way versus another.
[2:47]Right?
[2:48]Like some things she decides some things happen to her and then you roll with it in each scenario.
[2:53]I feel like I'm being very vague about this, but you know everything from like do you cheat,
[2:58]do you get cheated on, do you have a baby, do you not have a baby, do you adopt a baby,
[3:03]do you have a Misk?
[3:04]Like there's just like every alter and then I would like go to the next and I'm like oh,
[3:08]yeah, she could have done it this way.
[3:10]Like this could have happened, you know, it's like those things on probability,
[3:14]you know, where you like chart out all the different things.
[3:17]Anyway, it was just great.
[3:18]And of course the central question of your whole book is, is it okay for a woman not to want
[3:23]to have a child?
[3:24]Right.
[3:25]And you examine that over and over again.
[3:27]So tell me a little bit about that whole theme and how you got going and all of it.
[3:32]Well, so I when I asked myself, so when I'm going to write another book,
[3:37]I asked myself a question, which is, you know, what feels urgent to me?
[3:43]And then I sort of wait for an answer.
[3:45]And usually, usually when I start a book, it's because there is a topic or a quest,
[3:53]like a complicated question that just doesn't have an easy answer for me.
[3:57]Or it just seems like a big knot that I want to untangle.
[4:01]And I feel like novels are so great for things that aren't easy.
[4:07]Because they give you all this space to try to work through them.
[4:11]And you know, and you get to do it with this character who's not you.
[4:14]So that feels really exciting and very protective.
[4:18]And so I knew when I asked myself that question, what feels urgent to me?
[4:22]Like right away, I knew this question of motherhood.
[4:27]And specifically, you know, a woman who doesn't want to have a baby.
[4:31]And the way people with the way society, her family, everyone around her treats her,
[4:36]if she expresses that.
[4:38]So I knew that that was the topic, but I could also imagine a million different ways to write
[4:44]that book.
[4:45]So like, would she have the baby, even though she didn't want it?
[4:49]Or would she refuse to have the baby?
[4:50]And then we have to look at the consequences.
[4:52]And I'm kind of the queen of the what if, like, I'm so bad at decision making.
[4:59]And so I'm the kind of person who lays in bed at night.
[5:03]You know, I call it like, I have the shame spiral of like, we know,
[5:07]trying to think through my decisions and then wondering what if this is wrong.
[5:11]And then I go back and so I have all these different thoughts.
[5:14]And so I really felt that way about this book.
[5:16]And then one day, it just suddenly hit me.
[5:19]Like, what if I could write all the stories?
[5:22]Because I had all these different visions in my head.
[5:25]And when I landed on that, like, why not?
[5:28]Like, why couldn't I just do that?
[5:30]Then I just started writing and I wrote like a maniac.
[5:33]It was like suddenly I found a way to tell all the stories.
[5:36]And it felt really exciting.
[5:38]So when some she has a baby and some she doesn't,
[5:41]and some it goes well and some it doesn't.
[5:43]So you see lots of different versions of the consequences of that decision.
[5:48]Well, as a fellow sort of decision ruminator, if you will,
[5:52]I completely relate to that.
[5:54]I feel like I'm always doing that.
[5:56]Like, I could do it this way.
[5:57]I could do it this way.
[5:58]And for me, at least I end up changing all my plans all the time.
[6:01]Because I'm like, I booked something and then I'm like,
[6:03]wait, I could do it better.
[6:04]What if we do this?
[6:05]What if we fly through here instead of here?
[6:06]What if we did it?
[6:07]And so I think it adheres in the outside.
[6:09]Like, I just like can't make up my mind.
[6:12]But that's completely not it.
[6:13]I make up my mind all the time.
[6:15]It's just that I keep thinking like, there's a better solution.
[6:19]And now I need to like shift everything to like execute that better decision.
[6:23]And I feel like that's what was going on with Rose, right?
[6:26]Like, in all the ways you explore it, like, okay, well,
[6:30]I can have her, you know, just like what you're saying.
[6:32]It's like, anyway, so I think I could have written the 26 lives
[6:36]of Rose Napolitov.
[6:38]No, exactly.
[6:41]But that's just it.
[6:42]That's like life in general, right?
[6:44]Every decision.
[6:45]It's like, you know, do I take the dog left or right?
[6:49]Changes everything in a way, right?
[6:51]Not let alone the giant decisions you make about whether or not to have a child.
[6:55]So yeah, our heart is one of the biggest ones, right?
[6:59]And, you know, what if you choose wrong or what if something happens?
[7:04]That's, you know, that doesn't go the way that you hoped it would.
[7:07]And what if what if what if what if and, you know,
[7:11]I feel like I can go whatever ever about all sorts of things,
[7:14]including you mentioned like fake especially vacations.
[7:17]I feel like I plan and replan them like over and over again.
[7:21]Me too, me too.
[7:23]I have credits at like all these different places because I'm constantly canceling.
[7:27]Yeah. And also the whole notion of the kids you didn't have,
[7:32]I found super fascinating because it's like with every relationship, right?
[7:35]Like what if I had had kids with that boyfriend I broke up with?
[7:38]Like what if what about that other boyfriend?
[7:40]Like what what kids are those?
[7:41]Who are those unborn kids?
[7:43]Where are they now?
[7:43]Like what what would that have been like?
[7:46]I mean, who doesn't think of maybe not everybody thinks that that's like we do,
[7:50]but I do.
[7:51]I have a whole other book that's like the nine children of Rose Napolitov
[7:57]that she had had with the other.
[7:59]Oh, I like that.
[8:00]I'm seeing a sequel.
[8:02]I don't know.
[8:02]That could be really cool.
[8:04]Yeah. And then and then like what happens to those kids?
[8:07]And what if one of those kids was going to be like the president, right?
[8:11]But she you know, but she breaks that with that guy.
[8:13]I don't know.
[8:14]This we could this could be a series.
[8:16]I don't know.
[8:16]That right?
[8:17]Each episode could be a kid.
[8:18]You didn't have.
[8:19]Okay, I'll stop.
[8:21]No, our, you know, what's wonderful about them is that you can do this stuff.
[8:26]You can't in real life.
[8:27]Like you can make all the mistakes.
[8:29]You can commit all the crimes.
[8:31]You can have all the affairs.
[8:33]Like you can, you know, you can you can have all these different lives.
[8:37]Then even give more than one to your character, which you just can't do in real life.
[8:42]And so and then you can just sort of see the consequences play out,
[8:47]but without having to bear those consequences in your own life, which is,
[8:52]which is really the therapy of writing for me.
[8:55]So, so were you working through some decisions at the time of the writing of this?
[9:00]I had for many years of work through some decisions about this, which is, which is why
[9:09]when I was ready to write a new book and I asked myself, you know, what do I want to write
[9:15]about next day? I knew immediately like to my core to the bottom of my heart and solve it.
[9:21]Like, oh, I'm going to tackle this issue of being a woman who says she doesn't want to
[9:27]child because I definitely was that I was that woman.
[9:31]And I didn't understand how much push back I was going to get.
[9:37]Like, I think early on in my life, I didn't occur to me that people wouldn't accept that desire.
[9:43]I just kind of thought like, oh, well, sure. Like, I can just say, I don't think this is for me.
[9:48]And but I was really startled, especially as I got older and then like in my 20s,
[9:54]if I said that out loud, like people just automatically dismissed me and those just.
[10:00]Missiles got more and more intense as I got older.
[10:04]And then once I got married,
[10:06]it became like a battle against me, like all around me.
[10:11]And it was just really, I had many, many years
[10:15]that I would just say we're pretty dark nights
[10:17]of the souls around this issue.
[10:20]And so I had so much pain, I think,
[10:24]from that time in my life, and then also so much anger,
[10:28]from not being believed, or just from being dismissed,
[10:31]or just from being called selfish, or, you know,
[10:35]that I kind of just, when I wrote that novel,
[10:39]when I opened my laptop and I really started working on it,
[10:43]I just poured it all out and into rows,
[10:46]and out of her mouth, like every verbal thought I'd ever had,
[10:49]like all the things that I had experienced,
[10:52]but didn't know how to respond to,
[10:55]like suddenly I responded to them with rows.
[10:57]And I remember as I was writing, I thought,
[11:00]okay, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna give her all the thoughts.
[11:03]I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, like say all the things,
[11:06]and maybe people will hate this, like maybe no one will want it
[11:10]because you're not supposed to say these things.
[11:12]So I was actually, I was prepared for nobody
[11:15]to wanna buy the book, or just for,
[11:18]for there to be a really negative reaction.
[11:20]And so I kind of felt shocked when it got such an intense,
[11:26]Lee positive response when my agent went out with it.
[11:30]It actually kind of made me feel forgiven as a woman.
[11:33]Wow, who knew a book proposal could do all of that?
[11:37]Could heal all the pain of my ears and all the wounds,
[11:41]shed the light on the dark times.
[11:43]I knew though, like it felt, it felt really good to explore this thing that I had gone through,
[11:52]via a character.
[11:53]And I really do feel like writing novels.
[11:56]They feel like such safe spaces for me to say whatever gets on set in real life.
[12:02]And it felt kind of miraculous to have this outpouring of positivity for this character
[12:11]that isn't me, but also came from me.
[12:14]And from this part of my past that feels kind of like an ugly part of my past.
[12:20]So yeah, I don't know if that sounds cheesy, but it really did feel pretty healing.
[12:23]And it still does as people read it now and are excited about it.
[12:27]So well, I bet after you realize how many people share some of the thoughts and feelings,
[12:35]you'll feel like, I mean, I feel like it sounds like you felt very alone in this decision of
[12:41]yours, like it was you against the world, whereas many women struggle with the same decision.
[12:47]And maybe you don't know that, maybe because they end up with kids or maybe they don't talk
[12:51]about it or you just don't know. And it's not something that people are very open about necessarily,
[12:58]but how great to be able to open up the dialogue. Like I feel like you should actually write
[13:03]what you feel you, like you don't know. Not, I mean, I love hearing about Rose and all of her,
[13:10]you know, stuff, but I don't know. I'd be like, if you ever feel like you're ready to
[13:15]address it head on, I feel like the world would be far more receptive than you imagine them to be.
[13:20]I wonder how much the world has changed on this issue. I think my
[13:25]one of the things I really hope novel is just, you know, the novel isn't like pro having kids or
[13:31]against having kids. You know, it's kind of about like, it's about choices, I think the importance
[13:37]of women having choices, about everything too, about marriage, career, you know, all the,
[13:44]you know, their friendships, et cetera, not just whether or not they have children, but just this
[13:50]idea that motherhood is a choice. I think we grow up and everyone assumes it's a given. And so we
[13:58]don't really raise kids or girls to think that it's a choice. And so I think I do kind of feel
[14:07]like, oh, I guess I'm not as alone as I thought that even if maybe I was more expressive
[14:14]about my pushback, about some of the pressure that I got, a lot of people experienced that too.
[14:21]They just didn't necessarily articulate it out loud when they were navigating that decision.
[14:26]So I also find, and I want to talk about this whole thing with divorce in your book.
[14:31]I've gone through a divorce and so I like loved some of the stuff you wrote about it, but
[14:35]I have found that sometimes when you put forward a plan or a decision, people's responses have
[14:41]almost nothing to do with you. It's how they all feel about what's going on with them. And like
[14:47]your reaction to that and the anger. I feel like it's this evolutionary thing where we all
[14:54]feel like collectively, like we're actually, if we all decide not to have kids, then the world
[14:59]ends literally. I mean, seriously, like that's a lot to put on our shoulders as a group
[15:05]that we're in charge of civilization. But in truth, that is that is the crux of it. But anyway,
[15:13]back to divorce. I just wanted to read this quote that you had. And I love that this started
[15:17]a whole chapter. You wrote, how does one stop a marriage? It's like trying to stop a slow-moving
[15:21]train, heavy, daunting, something that takes forever to come to a complete halt. It's natural
[15:27]state is forward. It's momentum steady, relentless. I loved that. The notion of marriage is like
[15:34]a train that you can't stop. And then you also have this divorce recovery cake, which you need to
[15:40]brand and make a thing because it is so clever. Tell me about all of that. And I actually,
[15:47]wait, I wanted to read this too, where you describe the recovery cake. You say,
[15:52]this cake is delicious, memorable. I eat another bite. I am eating memorable cake with
[15:56]memorably delicious coffee to go with it. The cafe where I sit is beautiful, spacious with tall,
[16:01]white tables and tall, white stoodles to go with them. Soft music plays over the speakers.
[16:06]Pale gray concrete floors, tall windows within white metal trim, white and pale gray, pale gray and
[16:11]white, serene, clean, soothing, new. I'm supposed to be at a conference this week out on Long Island,
[16:17]but after a morning of boring, boring panels and talks, I found myself walking out down the street
[16:21]through the pretty little town and into this cafe. I cut a big forkful of the spongey cake and
[16:26]gobbled it, left the soft sugary flavor melt on my tongue before I swallow, chase it with a sip
[16:31]of the rich Americano. I ordered to go with it a sense of peace and well being spreads from my
[16:36]stomach and my throat to the rest of me. It is a strange feeling when I wondered if I'd ever feel
[16:40]again if I'd ever feel it again by myself. That's amazing. This is like owed to the divorce recovery
[16:47]cake. Well, you know, it's funny when I was doing the revisions for this book or like the very,
[16:56]very last read before it went to press, which my editor Pam Dorman, I feel it up. She made
[17:01]her, she made me read it like a hundred times. So anyway, but then I had this face between
[17:08]post second to last read and then this final one where it was like in PDF form and I like crying
[17:14]through a lot of the book, which was weird because I don't normally cry when I read my own books,
[17:19]put that chapter, one of the chapters that just I remember so I'm also divorced and I just
[17:28]remember feeling like I was never going to feel okay again. And I remember those moments and I
[17:35]also love to eat and I love to eat things like cake. And I remember what I was like in the throes
[17:41]of I was left. Like I was left by my husband and a movie. It was bad. And you know, my friends like,
[17:50]you know, just they had shifts. They just kept coming over my house and they would bring all kinds
[17:54]of food because everybody in my life knows Donna loves to eat. And I had no appetite. And I remember
[18:01]my friend Alina Ling, who's also an editor. She kept telling me she was like you were going to,
[18:08]you're going to want to eat again Donna Freitas and she was like your appetite's going to come back
[18:13]I promise. And she calendar and put a date six months into the future that said like Donna's appetite
[18:22]comes back. And I think about that all the time. And I remember those moments when it did start to come
[18:30]was like, oh, it's right. Like I am going to feel like she was right. Like I'm going to want to eat
[18:36]food again. I'm going to want to eat cake. Like I'm going to taste things and enjoy them because I
[18:41]really did believe I might never enjoy anything again. I was going through that. And so when I read
[18:47]that chapter, I burst into tears. And I think it was because I just felt it so strongly. And I kind
[18:55]of weirdly like wanted that for Rose. Like I felt her divorce really telling it. And so,
[19:01]so thank you for like I love that you fixated on that that passage. It's one of the most meaningful
[19:06]ones in the book for me, I think. I feel like when I read that section, I was like, I feel like
[19:14]I am reading the author's experience in an actual cafe right now. Like not that you didn't
[19:20]integrate it well. But it just was like, I was like, I bet this actually was something that happened
[19:25]because this is so specific. And I could be wrong. And also, I don't know, I'm the same as you.
[19:32]I feel like, you know, I actually, I've told people I was like, well, I think I like to eat
[19:37]more because I believe I get more pleasure out of cake than most people. Like when I use a cake,
[19:43]I'm like, this is the best thing ever. Like I really appreciate it. So I don't know this whole scene
[19:50]and all of it just really, I don't know, it hit home for me probably my own experience. But I
[19:54]think what you just said, by the way, Donna gets her appetite back. That should be a book.
[20:00]It should like that whole story is another book. So not that you need my help
[20:05]I'm sure you're already working on stuff, which actually I should ask
[20:08]Don't know what are you working on now?
[20:11]Well, I've been dabbling with a couple of novels over the last
[20:15]couple of fully the last like year or so and I'm not quite sure which one is next
[20:21]I kind of go back and forth. Those of them are actually about motherhood in very different ways and
[20:28]And so one is kind of a love triangle between three women, but not romantic and
[20:35]another one
[20:37]has to do with like two mothers and two children. So like a mother and a daughter and a mother and a son and an incident
[20:45]at their school and how different the two different mothers react
[20:50]So that's ready to say, but I definitely like I think my faith thing in the universe is to write the first
[20:57]After a new novel
[20:59]Because it feels like a big playground for me to
[21:03]I kind of love that time when you're writing the first draft because it's just yours
[21:08]Nobody else has like told you what to do yet or like how to fix it
[21:12]So you can kind of like include all the chapters that might get cut or all the characters that you have to fix or
[21:19]Like when I wrote my first draft of Rose no Palatano, but number one piece of feet got
[21:24]From every whatever the first draft and I was like, yeah, I know it was like. Oh, you know the husband's kind of the villain
[21:31]You've got to fix that and I was like, oh, yeah, but just love you a villain for the first draft
[21:37]But I always sort of like have to there's always certain characters that they have to work on eventually
[21:42]But I like I like just letting the first draft be the story that I need to tell and then and then you know fixing it can
[21:50]So what advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[21:54]well
[21:55]when I always tell my writing students and I think I do myself is I
[22:02]them to write like their lives depend on it and
[22:06]I mean that like I think that's what I when I said before I asked myself this question what feels urgent
[22:12]I really do feel like if you land on a topic
[22:18]That you feel like you need to deal with like it has to come out
[22:25]then
[22:26]It won't be that hard to write about it like you'll have momentum like you'll have tension, you know
[22:32]you'll like it like you'll figure out the plot like the the novel will come together if
[22:38]you need something from it and
[22:41]so I've often thought of I feel like I always sound cheesy when I'm talking about writing, but I and I'm trying to stop using that caveat
[22:48]But it's hard because I I think of
[22:52]Every book is like a gift that you give to yourself
[22:55]Like you you get to ask something of the book that you're writing like you
[23:01]You know you need to figure something out that you don't have an easy answer to and you you set the task of the book to help you do that or
[23:09]Like I was helping a friend with a book
[23:12]She's writing a memoir and I was like trying to yank out of her like what do you need from this book?
[23:17]What do you need different but why are you writing is why do you write writing this and finally I pulled out of her?
[23:22]She said I want to forgive my parents
[23:25]And I was like, well, that's a good reason to write a memoir
[23:29]There you go like that's you have to keep that in mind like
[23:32]What is it that's gonna tell that story? What is it that's gonna get you to that forgiveness?
[23:36]That's how you decide what to include like that's how you figure out how to write this and
[23:41]What a gift to give to yourself like
[23:44]You know a book that that gets you to this place of forgiveness and so
[23:49]So I really like I joke with my students
[23:51]I was like let your novels and your books be your therapist and I kind of mean that I think they are that for me
[23:58]So and someday I'll stop using that caveat about how I know it sounds cheesy, but yeah someday I'll get
[24:06]Well, it doesn't sound cheesy and it's very inspiring and
[24:10]Your book was great and very thought-provoking on like a very fundamental
[24:14]Life level in every way and very enjoyable and meaningful. So anyway, thank you for coming on mom's time to read books
[24:21]Thank you for chatting with me and I hope our paths cross in real life. So we can try to undo each other's decision-making
[24:30]Thank you so much for having me. It's been so wonderful to get to talk to you today. I really appreciate you having me too
[24:37]Okay, take care. Thank you
[24:41]Thanks for listening to this episode of mom's don't have time to read books
[24:45]Don't forget to follow me on instagram at zebi Owens and at mom's don't have time to read books
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[24:56]Every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact texture sound for the sound editing
[25:01]And thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music