Jessica Knoll, BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN
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[1:03]Jessica Knoll is the author of Bright Young Women, a novel.
[1:06]This is her second time on the podcast.
[1:09]Last time she came on to talk about luckiest girl alive, which is now a major motion picture
[1:13]from Netflix starring Mila Kunis, which is really good, by the way.
[1:17]She also wrote the favorite sister.
[1:18]And now of course, Bright Young Women, which was chosen for eight million things, including
[1:23]a book of the month club pick and Sarah selects from Sarah Gellman's Amazon Book Review,
[1:28]Book Club, and so many others.
[1:30]She has been a senior editor at Cosmopolitan and the articles editor itself.
[1:34]She grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and graduated from the Shipley School in
[1:37]Brynmore, Pennsylvania, and from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York.
[1:42]She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their whole dog.
[1:46]Welcome, Jessica.
[1:47]Thanks so much for coming back on Momstone, have time to read books this time for Bright
[1:51]Young Women.
[1:52]You're amazing, new, novel.
[1:54]Thank you for having me back.
[1:56]It feels like we were just doing this.
[1:58]I know, right?
[1:59]How a whole year has passed, seriously, better slow down.
[2:02]You're writing.
[2:03]What's going on?
[2:04]My publisher would beg to defer.
[2:07]OK, can you please tell listeners what your book is about?
[2:12]So Bright Young Women is a fictional reimagining of what it was like to survive the crimes
[2:21]of Ted Bundy, told from the perspective of some of the women from his final murder
[2:29]spree, which is in Tallahassee, Florida, which I actually did not know until I started
[2:33]researching this book.
[2:34]I always had him kind of firmly in Seattle.
[2:37]So yeah, oh my gosh.
[2:40]Well, the way you tell the story is so vivid and real.
[2:44]Like, you start out with all of us being in the story he has and getting to know the
[2:49]story president, Pamela, right?
[2:51]Yeah.
[2:52]You know how she gets ready for bed, basically, like all the details of her wandering
[2:56]around the hallway until the unthinkable starts to happen.
[3:00]And you show us as it unfolds and then show us with her calling the parents and show us
[3:04]like escaping and blah, blah, blah.
[3:06]And then you go on and on taking us right into what it must be like and then the consequences
[3:12]after.
[3:13]How were you able?
[3:14]I don't know if it was part researcher, just imagination or what to recreate or what
[3:18]you imagine that would be and really like put someone in that action like that.
[3:24]So they're one of the sorority sisters about 10 years after he was convicted and was in
[3:32]jail.
[3:33]And it was like because he was executed in 1989.
[3:35]So I think it might have been the same year he was finally executed.
[3:40]He basically went on to campaign for victim rights and she was integral in getting the
[3:50]victims bill of rights added to the Florida State Constitution.
[3:56]It was the first time any state had elevated victims rights to the status of like constitutional
[4:01]rights.
[4:02]And so you can read this victims bill of rights that the residents of Florida voted to put
[4:08]into their state constitution.
[4:11]And it was directly, you know, and I don't put this in the book because it's not my story
[4:15]to tell, but it was directly related to her experience and her sister's experiences from
[4:24]how they were treated by the police, not that they had anything, you know, ill to say about
[4:31]the police.
[4:32]It was just that there was no training.
[4:35]So part of the victims bill of rights was like to implement training about how to approach
[4:41]victims of violence and where they can turn to for kind of state sanction like refuge.
[4:49]Like a lot like their whole thing was like when this happened, they were like, well, don't
[4:54]stay in the house, but we don't have anywhere for you to stay.
[4:58]I could not believe it.
[4:59]Yeah.
[5:00]So it's like they had to find their own accommodations.
[5:02]I mean, I still think it's not great for victims of crime, but there are at least like
[5:09]victim compensation programs that now law enforcement is trained to say to a victim of a violent
[5:16]crime.
[5:17]You can go to this website.
[5:19]This is going to give you all the input like they didn't have anything like that.
[5:22]So really just like reading through this victim's bill of rights was like very, very important
[5:29]and it really helped me shape those early hours after the attack down from like they
[5:36]weren't even, they didn't even have like an advocate who was giving them correct information
[5:40]about who had passed away, who had survived.
[5:43]So like even that call where she calls and she thinks one of the girls is alive and the
[5:48]other one isn't like that's all based on stuff that I gathered from the bill of rights.
[5:53]Oh my gosh.
[5:54]And then having to call the parents back and be like, yeah, my gosh, I just said they were,
[5:58]she was okay.
[5:59]Oh my gosh.
[6:02]Still though.
[6:03]And what about like getting all of the sorority, like the time of year and all of that,
[6:08]like I was just so moved by the specificity of it all.
[6:13]And I know that's part of writing and part of everything, but even when they did find
[6:17]refuge in the older sorority sisters home and had the one sort of dinky guy like standing
[6:22]guard outside, you know, even like how even how you imagined like tell me about the characters
[6:28]and their relationships and the boyfriend and all of that.
[6:31]Yeah.
[6:32]So all of that is really, I just came up with that, you know, but because there's not
[6:37]a lot written about the victims, which is so like I really only had kind of like, this
[6:43]is the date, you know, the attacks happened.
[6:46]This is the date he was finally apprehended.
[6:48]This was the date of the trial.
[6:49]So then I just tried to like shape a story kind of around those coordinates.
[6:54]And I really appreciate you saying it felt real in terms of the 1970s and what it would
[7:03]be like to live in a sorority house because the college I went to you did not have sororities.
[7:07]So like that's a complete as born a concept to me as being a 21 year old woman in 1978
[7:13]and what that would be like.
[7:15]I ordered a lot of off eBay ordered a lot of women's magazines from the 70s because I figured
[7:22]that would give me a real sense of like even how to describe like their clothing or like
[7:28]what the kind of home design scene was like at the time.
[7:32]What was the food they were eating?
[7:33]What was the color nail polish they were wearing?
[7:36]So I ordered like all these old cosmos and McCalls and like just really incredible.
[7:44]It's just amazing.
[7:45]Like it was amazing to get my hands on them and I just read them cover to cover.
[7:50]I also was able to order like I don't even know what these are called because again,
[7:54]I wasn't in a sorority and I'm so unfamiliar with this but they sororities all have like
[7:58]I don't know if they still do but they have like quarterly magazines that they released
[8:02]to the alumni network.
[8:04]So I could like there were ones that I just like pulled from eBay from like 1977, 1978.
[8:10]And it was just like very comprehensive about like what the girls and all the chapters
[8:15]were like, you know, studying what the causes that they, there's a lot of fun raising
[8:20]like what the causes were that they cared about.
[8:23]What sorts of events did they have parties like four moles, all of these things.
[8:28]So like that's really where I got a lot of my information and thank God for your day.
[8:33]I feel like if this were a jeopardy question, I would get it wrong when it's like this
[8:37]author used eBay to form the details of her 2023 thriller, you know, I would never
[8:45]guess just get old.
[8:48]It was, you know, I worked at Vanity, I worked at Vanity Fair in Condi and S1 Summer and
[8:53]I had to go into the library there and like palm my way through all the past episodes.
[8:57]The fact that you can just like do to do on eBay and just get them is, I mean, it would
[9:01]have saved me like I used to also work in that so I worked at Cosmo and I could, if
[9:07]I was like, same thing, if like an editor was like, oh, can you like pull this?
[9:12]I could get lost for hours, yes, hours.
[9:16]I just was fascinating to read like just, I mean, you just could be completely transported
[9:24]to a different time period.
[9:26]It would be like watching the movie.
[9:28]Yep.
[9:29]And even the ads, like I feel like the ads tell so much of the story, oh, I got the ads.
[9:33]The cigarette ads.
[9:35]It's crazy.
[9:37]It's a total time warp.
[9:39]Yeah.
[9:40]I did another project of college actually on on the way marriage is depicted in magazines
[9:45]over time, which was also very interesting.
[9:48]So I thought that was a real eye opener if really was, but yeah, the power of magazines
[9:55]to to report.
[9:57]I love how you said that you anchored this.
[10:00]around the coordinates because that seems like
[10:02]such a good writing assignment.
[10:03]You know, like, take these four dates and write a novel.
[10:08]But then it's hard to, it's one thing to say it.
[10:10]It's yet another to fill it in with the things
[10:13]that people relate to, which of course are the emotions
[10:16]and the people.
[10:17]When you were crafting your characters,
[10:20]the heart of all the characters,
[10:21]like how did you think about sort of building all of that out?
[10:24]And also creating that sense of propulsion
[10:28]that the story demanded.
[10:30]Yeah, it was a harder than it sounds.
[10:33]And I also was under kind of a misguided belief.
[10:37]Like, oh, this is gonna, this is gonna be fun
[10:40]and different than how I've written things in the past.
[10:43]And it's gonna be, I love that you use like,
[10:46]almost like a writing prompt, you know?
[10:48]Like how it wasn't school, like a writing prompt
[10:51]and like, you know, like some of the work is done for me.
[10:55]It, I don't, it still was like so hard.
[10:58]And I actually found that Pamela's story
[11:01]was more challenging than Bruce,
[11:04]because I had more dates that I was trying to hit
[11:07]like important kind of flash points in her story
[11:11]that I was trying to hit,
[11:12]whereas Ruth's story was much more open-ended.
[11:16]And it took my editor and the agent,
[11:21]because I struggled with Pamela's story so much.
[11:23]I rewrote it so many times.
[11:24]Initially it was from like even a different characters
[11:26]point of view.
[11:27]It wasn't even her point of view.
[11:29]And they were like, actually,
[11:30]Pamela's a really interesting character.
[11:31]Could we try getting the like Tawa Housey story
[11:34]from her point of view?
[11:36]And it was actually one of them saying to me,
[11:39]Ruth's story has never given you any problems.
[11:41]And you've been much less constrained
[11:44]by trying to hit these coordinates.
[11:48]So maybe just like, because it is fiction,
[11:51]like you don't have to be so like you can,
[11:55]you can let go of some of this
[11:56]if you wanted to.
[11:58]So when they said that,
[12:00]I think that was when I really started hitting my stride
[12:03]with Pamela, because I realized like,
[12:07]I have to get at the emotion of this.
[12:09]I can't just be relying on these big dramatic points
[12:14]to like kind of carry the story for me.
[12:19]Like I still have to do the work.
[12:20]Yeah.
[12:21]I would think I was trying to,
[12:22]always trying to make it easier writing.
[12:24]That's okay.
[12:25]I mean, it's okay.
[12:26]I wanted to not be so hard.
[12:28]That's a good question.
[12:30]So hard.
[12:32]I like that you picked Pamela
[12:34]because as the story you president,
[12:36]you can just feel her need to control everything.
[12:38]And you basically taking like this perfectionist personality
[12:42]and being like, everything is wrong.
[12:45]Like nothing is remotely right.
[12:47]Like deal with that, which is of course
[12:49]such an interesting thing to read your way through.
[12:52]Yeah.
[12:53]It was definitely in a pressure cooker, you know?
[12:56]And I think those are the types of characters
[12:58]we want to read about where things are just mounting
[13:00]and mounting and mounting until like something has to give
[13:04]some major decision about life
[13:06]where you just kind of break free.
[13:08]And you're like, I've got to start living my life
[13:12]on my own terms, you know?
[13:13]Which is, you know, as you know,
[13:15]she gets to that point both professionally
[13:19]and personally in her romantic relationship.
[13:23]And with her parents.
[13:24]I mean, with her parents.
[13:25]Yeah.
[13:26]I was watching some documentary about, you know,
[13:31]disappearances in the wilderness.
[13:33]And there was some story about a kid
[13:37]who'd gone missing for a couple of days
[13:39]and he was presumed dead and then they found him.
[13:43]And it was mysterious.
[13:45]Like why he should have been like severely dehydrated
[13:51]and like covered in scrapes and he wasn't.
[13:53]But he was, he didn't remember anything.
[13:55]And I just remember thinking,
[13:57]oh, what an interesting thing to kind of have
[14:01]as part of your history or story.
[14:06]But you don't, it's something you don't know about yourself.
[14:09]Like how would that kind of inform your life?
[14:14]And how does that kind of function as like,
[14:16]almost like a secret the characters keeping
[14:20]like a little bit of a withholding
[14:21]where you're like, ooh, there's something up with her,
[14:24]but I don't know what it is where she isn't being
[14:28]kind of annoying and like dangling a carrot.
[14:30]Like she really didn't know her whole story, you know?
[14:34]And like if this hadn't happened to her,
[14:38]she wouldn't have ever gotten the full picture
[14:41]about her life in order to make different choices
[14:45]where she was going to be more fulfilled
[14:48]and have more purpose.
[14:50]Wow.
[14:52]So then how do you, you go through the drama
[14:55]of the rewrites and you know, different characters
[14:58]and then you put it aside, do you still think about,
[15:01]do you second guess any of it?
[15:03]Do you like, do you go back in your head
[15:04]and think like, should I have kept that
[15:06]or what could I have done differently
[15:07]or are you just like, okay, put that to bed onto the next?
[15:10]Like, till the final day of like turning in your edits.
[15:15]I think you're, oh, I think I'm always trying,
[15:18]always feeling like they're, you know,
[15:20]the kill your darling's thing, you know?
[15:22]Like I killed it, but maybe it could come back this way.
[15:25]You know, it's hard to let go of things that like,
[15:27]you think in the beginning are going to be so essential
[15:30]to the story and to your character
[15:31]and to like let go of those things,
[15:33]especially if those are things
[15:34]that you've really spent a lot of time on kind of
[15:37]from a craft level where things are written in a way
[15:40]that you're really proud of.
[15:42]But like, it's just not really part of the story anymore.
[15:48]It doesn't, they're slowing it down
[15:50]in some way or the other.
[15:51]So I do think like letting go of those things
[15:54]is always, and will continue to be a challenge for me.
[15:58]I get that.
[15:59]Everything I delete, I like would save in another file.
[16:02]Just in case, I do.
[16:05]I will say there was like one chunk in this book
[16:08]that I was like really loved the writing of it
[16:10]and my editor was like, it's just slowing it down.
[16:13]You just kind of want to get to the end, whatever.
[16:15]And I saved it and I'm pulling a chunk a bit
[16:19]for an essay I'm writing.
[16:20]So good.
[16:21]It is getting a life somewhere.
[16:23]And I can tell you how satisfying it was
[16:26]and like we pasted this one-year-old.
[16:28]And just plop it in there.
[16:29]And I was like, it's polished, it's done.
[16:32]Like always keep those documents
[16:35]because you never know when they'll somehow be relevant
[16:39]to something you're working on.
[16:40]That's like tangentially a part of it,
[16:43]but like not the actual book itself.
[16:46]Yes, exactly.
[16:47]Nice.
[16:48]I'm thrilled for you that you can find it that you've been.
[16:50]I think I repurposed it.
[16:52]It's excellent.
[16:53]Checklists, it's awesome.
[16:56]Amazing.
[16:57]Do you feel like now that the book is done,
[17:00]you have advice or just a different framework
[17:05]for victims today that you've gotten out of this?
[17:08]Like if you were on the scene
[17:11]or if you were the one training the police
[17:13]to deal with victims or what would be something
[17:17]that should be included in the training?
[17:20]Yeah, I think a big one is just getting the information
[17:26]at the same time that the, you know,
[17:30]information that's relevant to what the victim needs to know.
[17:35]But things like, you know,
[17:38]if someone's attacker is like paroled,
[17:42]it's some, and they're released from prison early
[17:45]in some states where a bill of rights
[17:48]is not part of the constitution.
[17:49]Like there is no one who is in charge
[17:53]of like alerting a victim to be like your attacker
[17:57]is like back on the street again, you know.
[18:00]That seems like that to me is like,
[18:05]and reading up about like what victims rights mean.
[18:09]And it's very complicated because it's like,
[18:12]there's obviously an intersection between like
[18:15]the rights of victims and the rights of the accused
[18:17]and you have to both parties need to have those rights
[18:21]respected, but I would read horror stories
[18:25]from victims who would like go to their local grocery store
[18:28]and all of a sudden standing in aisle nine
[18:31]is the person that killed their sister, you know?
[18:35]And so it's like the idea that there's no one
[18:37]who's kind of assigned, you know,
[18:41]to be in contact with you about that information.
[18:44]That feels like something that a family of a victim
[18:49]or a victim themselves should be,
[18:51]they could be privy to that information
[18:53]without it being a violation of the convicted
[18:56]or the accused rights.
[18:58]It should really be an automatic email that goes out.
[19:03]Like you're connected.
[19:04]What emails are connected to the case?
[19:07]And also like how are all the systems connected?
[19:10]Like it feels like that is very, it all feels like
[19:14]very abstract still.
[19:16]Like a lot of this is like, you know,
[19:18]they'll talk about how in like the 70s, 80s, 90s,
[19:20]even early 2000s, like police departments
[19:23]and like different precincts like don't work together.
[19:26]So like that's oftentimes how these like cereal
[19:29]like wrappers or wrappers.
[19:31]This is the rapist to add some levity there.
[19:35]Cereal rapists or murderers are able to operate
[19:39]because the precincts aren't touched with one another.
[19:42]But it still, it feels like that's still happening
[19:46]on some level when things could be digitized.
[19:49]So I don't know, I'm not an expert there,
[19:51]but it feels like we still have a long way to go
[19:54]in terms of like what the technology could offer
[19:57]that isn't being utilized.
[20:00]It's chilling to think about honestly. Yeah, it's terrible. Okay, so what are you working on now? Did you start a new book?
[20:08]Do you have a new book coming out in like three months that we're gonna talk about?
[20:10]Oh God, I wish I am trying to work get ahead on a next book just because obviously the strike is going on
[20:18]the writer's strike and I have other projects that are on pause because of that so
[20:24]with this time I am
[20:26]trying to do my best to like put all my effort into promoting this one and
[20:32]getting ahead on the next one. So that's kind of where where I'm at and we'll see how long it lasts and
[20:40]hopefully the strike is resolved soon and
[20:44]We can all kind of get back to work on those other projects because I'm really excited about those too. Yeah
[20:49]I know you're not supposed to talk about the net right? So yeah, you can't ask. Can you talk about the next novel?
[20:56]or no, it's still so rough that I don't know. There's not really a lot to say
[21:01]but I will say that it's a little bit with the way this one was a departure for my earlier stuff and that like
[21:07]It's the first time I kind of like left a contemporary period
[21:10]This next one is the departure and that like it's a little sexier. Oh, okay. I've done before. So
[21:19]Try and some new things
[21:22]Yeah, I keep it interesting. Yeah
[21:25]Otherwise like why do it. Yeah
[21:28]Some fun if it's that hard
[21:31]Did you have input on the cover because I thought the cover was so good?
[21:34]Thank you for saying that and you know what I'm in love with the cover
[21:37]And it was the first try which has never happened before with my other two
[21:43]We went through a couple of batches and being like this isn't quite right or this is okay
[21:50]This one if they took a big swing and I appreciate that the cover is different a departure for my other ones because
[21:58]The story itself is a big departure
[22:00]You know, so I think that the cover also signifies that they really did a brilliant job on it. I think I
[22:07]I'm in love with it
[22:11]Yeah, I was I like devoured the whole thing. I told I mean
[22:14]The first hundred pages. I read in like one sitting. I was like don't talk to me. You know, which I love when like
[22:20]That's the dream to hear and then if you know just like you know when you're like petting a book
[22:26]I was having that feeling like oh my god. This is so good because it felt not to
[22:32]Diminished books by saying they felt like movies, but it felt like a surround sound book
[22:37]Oh, that's where you're like in in it and all your senses and just like you can't tear away
[22:44]So that's how thank you because it was a real fear of mine like if I'm gonna do this
[22:48]I'd better be able to capture it accurately, you know, so that was a constant fear
[22:55]I was battling when I was writing this so I really appreciate you
[22:59]I don't know if it was accurate enough, but it was a great way. Yeah, exactly
[23:02]Meals accurate. It feels it. It's totally believable. I am right whether not. It's right
[23:08]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors? You know my advice is always
[23:14]To write and not to wait around for the right time the right idea
[23:21]But then I also feel like I contradict myself because
[23:24]Sometimes I do think I start writing too early like before I've really given an idea and a character time to germinate
[23:32]So I think you have to I have to find that balance and I do think that there is a delicate balance there
[23:41]But if you if you're a new writer and you've never written before I think that we tend to err on the side of
[23:47]Well one day I'll find the right idea and the right
[23:52]You know period in my life or like I have the time to do this, you know, and I can give this project the kind of
[24:00]effort and total concentration that it deserves and I think that if you're gonna if you wait to do that you'll never find that time
[24:10]Has been my experience. So I think just like go for it and a lot of times you work things out in the process of writing
[24:19]You can figure things out in the process of writing. So like
[24:22]Don't try and be too perfect about it, you know, like oh now I have my million dollar idea and character and I can start writing like
[24:29]I wish that it could happen like that, but it doesn't
[24:34]Do you have any books that you tried writing in between some of the other books that just didn't work?
[24:39]Oh, yeah, I have one that I put on the back burner probably
[24:45]Five years ago that I think I will
[24:48]Write one day. I still really like the idea. I just hit a point where I didn't quite know how to
[24:57]Make it all come together and I was like let me try something else and then I got going on this one and this one
[25:05]Really everyone was really excited about it. I felt good about it, but I
[25:10]Have kept that one in the back of my head like I know I'll go back to that one day some way somehow
[25:18]That's good. That's not so stressful debating what to do
[25:21]I mean, yes, but then I feel like I'll probably find myself at the same impasse
[25:27]That I find myself that with every book where it's like the beginning is exciting
[25:31]It's a great concept, but then you get to the point where you have to kind of execute
[25:37]You hit that point in a book inevitably and it's
[25:40]So hard to do. It's really hard to execute like that's the one thing. I've learned in almost 10 years of writing books is like
[25:50]Is is is pulling that off is is the hardest part and what's the secret?
[25:56]A lot of work a lot of drafts a lot of headaches sadly
[26:04]Well, at least you can do it though. I mean, I think that's one of the things that separates
[26:08]Fantastic authors from other I mean, you know, you figure it out and you don't give up. Yeah, and it's good
[26:14]And inevitably whatever you figure out figure out always feels less dazzling
[26:21]Than how you had it in your head. You know what I mean
[26:24]So I think there's still always that part of me where it's like I conceived that differently, but like I couldn't pull it off in the end
[26:34]Well, it's working
[26:39]Congratulations on this bright young women. It's
[26:43]Sure to be a massive head. It was so good. So well written and yeah, great job. Thank you
[26:51]All right, and I'll follow up with you on email about the rest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That all sounds great and
[26:57]Yeah, great talking to you as always you too. Good luck
[27:01]Okay, bye
[27:04]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books
[27:07]Don't forget to follow me on instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books
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[27:19]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan back texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this
[27:26]Fantastic intro and out trim music