Jacquelyn Mitchard, A VERY INCONVENIENT SCANDAL
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[0:06]This 30 minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days
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[1:03]Jacqueline Matard is the author of a very inconvenient scandal, a novel.
[1:08]Jacqueline is the author of 24 books of fiction and nonfiction for adults, teens, and children
[1:13]with more than 3 million copies in print worldwide in 34 languages.
[1:17]They include the deep end of the ocean, the first selection of the Oprah Winfrey book club,
[1:21]and number one, New York Times bestseller adapted for film by Michelle Feifer, as well
[1:25]as the midnight twins in development by kaleidoscope entertainment for HBO.
[1:30]Their novels have won or been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the
[1:34]Bram Stoker Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Heartland Prize for Fiction, and the
[1:38]UK's talk about prize, and have included five New York Times bestsellers.
[1:42]Her autobiographical essays are widely published and anthologized.
[1:46]Welcome, Jacqueline.
[1:47]Thank you so much for coming back on mom's don't have time to read books this time to
[1:51]discuss a very inconvenient scandal, a novel.
[1:55]Thank you for having me.
[1:57]As opposed to the kind of scandal that is very convenient for people.
[2:01]Yes, always.
[2:02]There's so many, there's so many of this that you just don't mind, you know, a little scandal.
[2:07]Yeah, the next book will be a very convenient scandal and then we can evaluate frozen cons.
[2:14]Well, this is an inconvenient scandal though, particularly as it hit so close to home.
[2:19]Why don't you tell listeners, not for me, I mean, for your characters,
[2:22]tell listeners what the story is about, how you came up with the idea for this book.
[2:26]Well, a version, and I, many stories are inspired by things that happen in one's real life.
[2:35]And though something that only vaguely resembles what happens in a very inconvenient scandal
[2:41]happened in my real life, it's very different.
[2:45]And of course, in fiction, we both intensify and correct the things that are historical.
[2:54]In any case, it's about a young woman who is an acclaimed underwater photographer who comes home
[3:02]to Cape Cod to announce to her family that she's going to have a baby and she's getting married
[3:08]and she never dreamed of doing this.
[3:10]And her 60 year old widowed father who is a well known marine biologist has a surprise for her as
[3:19]well. He is marrying her best friend. And that is just the first 25 pages. That's just the start
[3:26]of all the mayhem that ensues as a result of that announcement. And it was inspired when I came home
[3:35]to the west side of Chicago one time to visit my father. And he said he wanted me, he was widowed
[3:41]for quite some time. My mom died very young. And he wanted to introduce me to his new beloved.
[3:48]And I walked into the house with two of my kids. I think I only had two kids at that time.
[3:56]And I met the woman and stared at her. And the reason that they call it double take
[4:05]is because it's literally what you do, your head spins around. And I said, I went to high school with you,
[4:13]your Barbara X. And she said, yes. And that was the beginning. I realized that my dad was going
[4:23]to marry the kid next door. Oh my gosh. Indeed. Did he marry her? Well, they became engaged. But
[4:32]unfortunately, he died. He had kidney disease and he died before the actual wedding could take place.
[4:41]But they were a couple for a long, long time. And her children from, I think three or four previous
[4:50]marriages. And I don't mean that in a pejorative way. Anyone can be to a state, right?
[4:54]Moved into the house that had been my dad's house. It was a very disorienting experience.
[5:01]Very disorienting. Wow. Well, I'm sorry about the losses of your parents. But wow,
[5:09]what, what a crazy thing. I mean, my, my mom's dad remarried someone younger than her.
[5:17]So my step-grandmother was younger than my mom. So I'm familiar with that. Wow.
[5:22]Wow. Relationship thing. And it is somehow I don't expect that from people, I don't know,
[5:32]of my sort, which is to say, we aren't, you know, in Hollywood. We're just ordinary folk. You know,
[5:41]my parents were a shop clerk and a plumber. And it just seems like something that is very exotic to do.
[5:50]But I guess it's not. I mean, I don't know. But it still seems that like it ought to be for royalty or
[5:56]something like that. Anyway, anyway, well, that's, I mean, it's interesting what happens because
[6:04]there's, I mean, not to give anything away. But later in the book, there is a moment where you're
[6:09]wondering if Mac is going to be okay or not. And it sounds like that. Echo is sort of what did
[6:14]happen. Right. Interesting. Right. And, and this book, I won't, it doesn't spoil anything to say
[6:21]that people find a way of negotiating new realities in this book. And I never did. I never found,
[6:32]I don't know if I tried, didn't try hard enough. But I never found a way to truly negotiate those
[6:39]realities. Now by contrast, my husband, his parents married when they were very, very young. I think
[6:45]they were 18 when they got married and they had children and then they parted. And he married
[6:51]a woman who was my husband's age. Okay, she still is my husband's age. And I had a child together.
[7:00]And he was much more accepting and graceful, at least publicly than I was. And I just think,
[7:11]I don't know. It depends on your temperature, the way that you. And of course, this is fiction.
[7:19]Right. And it, it is the way that I would have wanted to explore real life if I had been able to.
[7:27]Do you do that ever? Do you take elements cherry pick elements from life to put in your stories?
[7:34]I had something happen to me the other day. And I'm literally in my head being like, should I do a
[7:39]whole novel around this? Like, what am I going to do with this scene, which was so funny that I have
[7:47]to write about it. So yes, I do that. I remember once being in one of those New York restaurants,
[7:53]I haven't been to New York in 100 years, but in one of those little restaurants that has like
[7:58]five tables. And I was sitting at a table with my then agent. And next to us, there was this
[8:07]impeccably beautiful couple. Perhaps they were in their 80s. I'm sure they were in their 80s.
[8:13]And they had clearly been together for a long time. You know, she was offering him the tastiest
[8:19]bits from her plates. And he was saying one thing and another. And all of a sudden, she slammed
[8:27]down her knife and fork on the table. And she said, you should not say that I have always
[8:34]honored your marriage. Oh my gosh. And my jaw dropped. I could, they had been having that same
[8:42]argument for 50 years. Unbelievable. So that just proves that you don't stop wanting to
[8:48]holler at the moon when you get old. Oh my goodness. Well, in the bug, Ariel is not just a friend.
[8:59]She was essentially like another member of the family and her own relationship with her mother
[9:04]who is also a character in the book is a very difficult one. And she really found refuge in this
[9:11]more stable family despite the mother having passed away and was almost raised by them. So it was
[9:17]almost, it was not just a high school friend, but almost like, you know, there was an example in the
[9:23]book where she was trying to explain to Gill her husband, you know, why this was such, she's like,
[9:28]imagine this is your brother. And this is what happens like, like, gross, you know, so you can just
[9:33]hear that happening. To be fair to Mack, the father who marries Ariel, he was never around.
[9:40]So he really, he was always on the road traveling, doing his TV shows and discovering new species
[9:47]and saving ones that were on the verge of extinction. And so he really didn't participate as
[9:54]Ariel, he barely noticed his own children. And so he really didn't notice Ariel
[10:00]until she came to work for the foundation
[10:03]that he represents the Sawwater foundation.
[10:06]And so I don't want people to think of him
[10:09]as any more of a as a pervert.
[10:13]No, no, no, no, a lot of us.
[10:16]Yeah, I know, but I just wanted to hasten to add that.
[10:19]He wasn't really aware of her
[10:21]until she was a woman truly grown, 26, 27 years old.
[10:26]I meant it more from the character's point of view,
[10:31]you know, not from the ad's point of view,
[10:33]you know, the portrayal of a friendship and, you know.
[10:36]Well, the most interesting thing about the book to me
[10:40]is the way men feel about things
[10:43]versus the way women feel about things.
[10:46]And because her father does not get
[10:49]and neither does her husband to be fair,
[10:51]though he's a sweet fellow, he's,
[10:54]whoa, live and let live, move on, you know,
[10:56]let's go have lunch.
[10:57]And Frankie, the main character is absolutely distraught.
[11:01]Her father has no idea why
[11:04]and pays barely pays lip service to it.
[11:08]When it seems that was a little bit of,
[11:11]we hear all the, in the in fiction of a few years ago,
[11:15]the trope was forgiveness.
[11:17]Now it's empathy and with a little empathy,
[11:21]these people might not have had to have such a cataclysm
[11:25]as they did have,
[11:26]but nobody was listening to anybody else.
[11:29]I think that is the truest thing
[11:30]that we can possibly say about families,
[11:33]even good ones, nobody's listening.
[11:35]Yeah.
[11:36]I feel like there was a lot of regret
[11:38]that Frankie didn't take more time coming home.
[11:40]There was a lot of like, well, I was busy,
[11:42]but was I so busy?
[11:43]Was I really that busy that I couldn't call more?
[11:46]Like, did people not tell me things or was I just not available?
[11:50]Like, I feel like that's the constant dialogue
[11:52]for any grown up honestly.
[11:54]It's like, am I calling home enough?
[11:56]Is there enough connection?
[11:58]What should I be doing?
[11:59]You know, are people moving on without me
[12:01]or if I opted out of this?
[12:03]You know, it applies to family,
[12:04]it applies to groups of friends from high school
[12:07]or whatever it is, right?
[12:09]How do you know if you've been excluded
[12:11]or if you excluded yourself?
[12:13]You don't know.
[12:15]And it is, that's another thing
[12:17]where men and women differ.
[12:19]If you think of a man in your life,
[12:21]if I think of my husband,
[12:23]and I say, who's your best friend?
[12:25]Okay.
[12:26]And he'll say, oh, Paul,
[12:29]most of the last time you talked to Paul,
[12:31]must be six or seven years now.
[12:33]And to a woman that's inconceivable,
[12:36]it just to us friendships
[12:41]and relationships need watering and care and attention.
[12:47]And men just sort of walk back into them
[12:49]as if it was yesterday.
[12:52]And I guess that's because other men
[12:55]are doing the same thing.
[12:56]The person who is the friend is doing the same thing.
[13:00]But I know that in my friendships,
[13:01]if I neglect them,
[13:05]I'm gonna find out about it one way or another.
[13:09]Interesting.
[13:10]And friendship is, I think Frankie says something
[13:14]about this in the book in its own way.
[13:17]It is even more fragile and to be cherished
[13:21]than family relationships
[13:22]because you can't divorce your sister.
[13:26]You can in an extreme circumstance.
[13:28]But these are chosen relationships
[13:32]that you want to last for a lifetime.
[13:35]And Frankie and Ariel's relationship
[13:38]had persisted since they were 10 years old
[13:40]for 17 years by the time this began to happen.
[13:44]Amazing.
[13:45]So what number book is this?
[13:47]This is, it's 24 counting every all of them.
[13:51]But some of those are children's books
[13:53]and young adult books which take maybe even more concentration
[13:59]because you have such a little space to do all the things
[14:01]that you want to do.
[14:02]And with novels, you can be discursive.
[14:05]I have this one coming down in November.
[14:09]I'm at work on another one.
[14:10]It's truly spicy zippy.
[14:13]This one coming up.
[14:14]This one is based on the first criminal case
[14:17]I covered when I was a baby reporter back in the 80s
[14:21]about a young woman who, how should I say this,
[14:25]a call girl who was accused of murdering
[14:28]her two most devoted clients, not one but two.
[14:32]And she was an enigmatic figure extraordinarily intelligent,
[14:38]a scholarship student who in biology and chemistry
[14:43]with only straight A's and she gave that up
[14:45]to become a hooker and then an accused murderer.
[14:50]But of course there's a story behind the story
[14:53]and underneath it and you know, everything.
[14:57]Do you ever get tired of writing?
[14:59]Do you ever say or is it something
[15:00]that gets you out of bed every morning?
[15:03]I'm always tired of writing and I'll always do it.
[15:06]I think it's so, you know,
[15:08]you've had many people on this year show who say,
[15:11]I just, I'm happiest and it's so fulfilling.
[15:15]And to me, it is absolute misery.
[15:18]It's misery.
[15:21]And I'm constantly fiddling with, I'm very,
[15:25]I don't know what I want to say.
[15:27]OCD perhaps about my writing in that.
[15:31]I won't let myself write to the second sentence
[15:34]until the sentence before it is perfect.
[15:37]And so I'm fiddling with things constantly
[15:40]and editing things constantly.
[15:42]And sometimes I feel that by the time I complete a manuscript,
[15:47]it has so many fingerprints all over it,
[15:49]though it doesn't of course,
[15:50]because it's in the computer that you could,
[15:54]it's practically legible.
[15:56]And I think about people like Charlotte Bronte
[16:00]who only got to write it once.
[16:03]And it was that good.
[16:04]Yeah.
[16:05]So yes, I love it and hate it as you do.
[16:09]Most of the things in your life that are most satisfying,
[16:11]like being a parent, you know, you know,
[16:15]oh, it's so difficult.
[16:16]And sometimes you think you just want to go
[16:19]and put your head under the faucet.
[16:21]And then other times you cannot imagine
[16:25]living without this most, the best rodeo in life.
[16:30]I love that.
[16:31]That's beautiful.
[16:33]It is this strange dichotomy of difficulty and not.
[16:37]I feel like if I were to spend every sentence,
[16:41]I would never get anything done.
[16:42]Like, and Charlotte Bronte, maybe she took all this time
[16:47]in her head.
[16:48]Like, I feel like we're also quick because we can.
[16:51]We can put it down and then we know we can delete it
[16:54]and rewrite it and whatever.
[16:55]So there's like, there's nothing that makes us stop
[16:59]and evaluate it in our heads.
[17:01]Whereas maybe before she was editing it,
[17:04]it was just in her head and not on the page, who knows?
[17:06]Do you know writers who write in long-hand?
[17:09]That's true.
[17:10]Do you know writers who still use a typewriter?
[17:13]I cannot.
[17:14]I mean, to me, that would be like hitting yourself
[17:16]in the face with a belt as often as you could.
[17:20]Because to me, the computer is an extension.
[17:22]The laptop is an extension of my brain
[17:25]and being able to move scenes around within a story
[17:29]is one of the greatest gifts that I've ever enjoyed
[17:33]as a writer, certainly.
[17:36]But still with all that, there are still things
[17:40]that I think when I give my book to my agent,
[17:44]I've done the best job that I could do.
[17:47]Maybe the best job anyone has ever done
[17:50]since she's writing a book and I say here it is.
[17:53]And then he reminds me that there's no reason for this guy
[17:58]to be a priest.
[17:59]Why would she go and see her sister at that point?
[18:02]This is absolutely ridiculous.
[18:04]That doesn't make any sense.
[18:06]And so I fix everything after crying.
[18:08]I fix everything that he wants me to fix.
[18:12]And then he gives us the publisher
[18:13]and she says, obviously, this guy should be a priest.
[18:16]And so you have to please yourself,
[18:22]but people say they write for themselves and I don't.
[18:26]I really write for that person out there,
[18:29]that person who can't sleep at night
[18:32]because she wants to finish the next chapter.
[18:35]So she's sitting in the back tub with no water in it.
[18:38]And she's got a light on that won't wake anybody else up
[18:41]and she's reading that book.
[18:43]And to me, that is the person.
[18:45]This is, I live in Massachusetts
[18:49]about just a couple hours down the road from Emily Dickinson.
[18:55]She doesn't live there anymore.
[18:56]I think she does.
[18:57]And this is my letter to the world that never wrote to me.
[19:02]This is my form of taking someone's hand in the darkness.
[19:06]Oh, that is beautiful.
[19:09]Spoken like a true writer.
[19:11]Look at that.
[19:12]No need to edit it or anything.
[19:15]Are there books that you've read recently
[19:17]or in the past that are those bathtub books for you?
[19:21]Oh, absolutely.
[19:23]I was mesmerized and upset with her, by the way,
[19:28]with Elizabeth Stroude for writing her trilogy,
[19:32]her seaside trilogy, Lucy, by the scene.
[19:35]My name is Lucy Bogg, that they were so short.
[19:38]And you would read them in one night.
[19:40]And then it was over.
[19:43]Anything and patch it, right?
[19:45]I will be there to read.
[19:49]I love mystery stories.
[19:52]I love anything, crime stories that Jillian Flynn
[19:56]or folks like that, right?
[19:59]I love.
[20:00]of the mathematical sort of riddle
[20:04]that comprises a mystery story.
[20:06]And I also love to know what human beings
[20:09]are capable of doing to each other
[20:11]because there's never a limit.
[20:14]There's never a limit on the way people will behave badly
[20:18]if they have a motive and if they're given the chance.
[20:22]And recently I've been reading books
[20:24]by I can't pronounce her last name Mona Awat.
[20:28]Recently, I've been reading through her things.
[20:31]Everything Gene have correlates rights, I love.
[20:35]I certainly have no shortage of books to read
[20:39]by people that I can then be jealous of.
[20:43]And force myself to not lift passages from their books.
[20:48]My favorite book of recent years
[20:50]is called Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips.
[20:54]Yes, have you read it?
[20:56]I read part of it.
[20:58]But I did it.
[20:58]It won the National Book Award when she was 33.
[21:01]I wrote to her and said I just wanted to get you alone
[21:03]so I can slap you for being 33
[21:07]and winning the National Book Award with your first book.
[21:10]Thank you very much.
[21:12]And but it is bewitching.
[21:14]It says the Oprah's Book Club pick by the way.
[21:16]Oh, wow.
[21:17]Come on.
[21:18]Yeah, talk about slapping people.
[21:20]But anyway, she was, her book was magnificent.
[21:25]I've read it a couple of times.
[21:27]I've read the ending countless times,
[21:29]read it to my students.
[21:30]Every time I read it, I start to cry.
[21:32]Hmm.
[21:33]It doesn't, the effect of it is so profound.
[21:37]It is the most, I think, for your listeners,
[21:41]the most profound ending of a book
[21:44]that I've ever experienced.
[21:45]Because it's so finely plotted.
[21:49]It almost didn't happen.
[21:51]Wow. The way that it did.
[21:54]And it's just wonderful.
[21:56]Oh my gosh.
[21:57]That is a huge endorsement.
[21:58]I am now going to go back and read that.
[22:01]I feel like I did a quick interview with her for something else,
[22:03]but it wasn't for this.
[22:05]Maybe for the New York Public Library or something.
[22:07]Or I don't know.
[22:08]Now I have to go back.
[22:09]Or maybe I did.
[22:10]She's a love losing my mind.
[22:11]I'm literally losing my mind.
[22:12]But anyway, how well.
[22:13]Yeah.
[22:14]I will go back and read it.
[22:17]What do you like to do when you're not
[22:19]ringing your hands at the keyboard and all of them?
[22:22]I don't have hobbies.
[22:24]I have a big family that I have still
[22:27]have some responsibilities with kids at home.
[22:30]My last kid is in high school and a number of them
[22:33]are in college.
[22:35]And so I have things to do.
[22:38]I want to say I'm not an avid cook,
[22:41]but it's necessary for me to cook
[22:43]because you're not going to go out and buy prepared food
[22:45]for six people, right?
[22:47]So I'm a very good Italian cook.
[22:50]And I used to do all kinds of things
[22:53]like make my own pasta sauce and things like that.
[22:56]But pretty much right now, my only hobby is reading.
[22:59]And I read a couple of books every week, maybe three books a week.
[23:03]And so I read and I write.
[23:06]And sometimes I watch a movie.
[23:12]It is a really exciting life.
[23:16]It's filled with glamour and pink champagne.
[23:20]Now I don't do anything.
[23:22]And I don't have any vices.
[23:24]Nor do I have too many virtues.
[23:27]I just, that's all I do.
[23:29]All my friends, they quilt, they paint, they travel,
[23:34]they do all kinds of curated things and I don't do any.
[23:37]I mean, you're doing a lot.
[23:39]You're doing a lot.
[23:41]And by the way, even though when we're reading,
[23:43]I mean, the sounds like such an obvious thing to say.
[23:45]But I do feel like you can have a very glamorous life
[23:48]when you go to all the places in your books.
[23:50]I mean, they're not just sitting still when you're reading.
[23:52]I mean, I know you physically are,
[23:53]but it's like you go to all these places
[23:56]and you're experiencing all these things
[23:57]and people's emotions and it's like conversations
[24:00]you're having, but you're not actually having.
[24:02]So I don't know.
[24:02]I don't view reading as any sort of passive activity.
[24:07]I feel like you're actively engaged.
[24:09]Now, and you know, brain science bears that out.
[24:12]I have a great friend who is a novelist also
[24:14]called Lisa Genova.
[24:15]She wrote still Alice and oh my gosh.
[24:17]Yes.
[24:18]She points out that when you are reading,
[24:22]you're engaging your emotions, your lower brain,
[24:25]your upper brain, so that's why you experience change,
[24:33]personality change when you read a book
[24:36]because you're actively entering the world of another,
[24:41]learning the way people react and prosecute their lives
[24:46]in that setting.
[24:48]And it's fascinating and it can't help
[24:51]but have on effect on you as a reader.
[24:55]So no, I don't think of it as passive at all.
[24:59]It's just, it's just unremarkable.
[25:02]I would love to be able to say that I'm a competitive
[25:06]crew member of a rowing crew or something like that,
[25:10]but I would be the anchor on the crew.
[25:14]I don't do anything.
[25:15]Well, a beg to differ.
[25:17]You do a lot.
[25:19]What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[25:23]Be patient with your story.
[25:25]It's all, if you have had,
[25:28]unless you are writing something
[25:30]that someone else told you to write and don't do that,
[25:33]people are always saying to other people,
[25:36]oh, that's such a, that incident that happened
[25:39]to your grandmother in the 1930s, that should be a book.
[25:42]But books have to have a great deal of,
[25:46]they have to have a deep basement.
[25:48]They have to have lots of moving parts
[25:50]that come up from the basement
[25:52]and change the story, change the basic story.
[25:56]That's why there's an A plot and a B plot and a C plot.
[25:59]So be patient with your story until you know
[26:03]that it's cooked enough to actually really be a book.
[26:07]You were saying earlier about how you,
[26:11]some people work out their writing of a story
[26:15]as they write draft after draft.
[26:17]But for me, when I'm making that spaghetti sauce,
[26:20]I'm also making that book.
[26:22]I'm thinking this could happen
[26:24]and that could happen.
[26:26]What could she do when she works at the strip club
[26:29]and not be a stripper?
[26:30]Oh, she could be a bartender and I'm thinking
[26:34]about if this starts out as one little shoot
[26:38]coming out of the ground and then it gradually becomes
[26:41]fenestrated and it becomes a tree.
[26:43]And because you add those elements to it
[26:47]that make it fully fledged.
[26:49]And I think sometimes the desire to write a story is so strong
[26:55]and that people sometimes rush into it
[26:58]and rush through it as a writer before it is really ready
[27:03]to be presented to the world.
[27:05]And then that way lies disappointment
[27:08]because when they may have a brilliant concept
[27:12]but when they go to see whether that can be traditionally
[27:16]published, the answer sometimes is,
[27:22]this isn't really there yet.
[27:24]And that's very discouraging.
[27:27]So I would counsel people to be patient with your writing
[27:33]be patient with your story
[27:34]and let other people read it before you,
[27:38]if you're going to let the world read it,
[27:40]it's okay if great friends of yours read it
[27:43]or a writing partner read it before you decide
[27:47]that it's ready to hand off to an agent
[27:49]because there are always things that are missing.
[27:54]And so I end the obvious thing.
[27:58]I think if you, so many people who are writers say to me,
[28:02]who has time to read?
[28:04]You have to. to me that's like saying,
[28:05]who has time to brush your teeth?
[28:07]And no, your brain will fall out if you don't read
[28:11]just like your teeth will fall out.
[28:13]If you don't brush them,
[28:16]you have no business trying to write a story for other people
[28:19]if you're not consuming literature of all kinds
[28:25]with a great ferociousness.
[28:29]I love that.
[28:30]Amazing.
[28:31]Well, I hope many people will,
[28:33]ferociously be consuming a very inconvenient scandal.
[28:36]I can't so too.
[28:37]And thank you so much for coming back on.
[28:39]Thank you for having me.
[28:40]Thank you for having me.
[28:41]Thank you.
[28:42]All right, have a great day.
[28:43]Bye bye.
[28:44]Bye bye.
[28:46]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms
[28:48]don't have time to read books.
[28:49]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[28:52]at Zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books.
[28:55]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[28:57]and sign up for my virtual book club
[28:59]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[29:01]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan
[29:03]in fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[29:05]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[29:07]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.