As a host of the NPR podcast, 'Pop Culture Happy Hour,' Linda Holmes dishes weekly about TV, movies and books.
She's also a writer and the author of the novels Flying Solo, and Evvie Drake Starts Over.
As a fan of romantic comedies, Holmes often uses rom-com themes in her books. Her latest, "Back After This,' is no exception.
WUSF's Cathy Carter recently spoke with Holmes about her third novel.
Linda, your new book is set in the podcast world, and it tells the story of a producer named Cecily who finally gets the chance to host her own show. But it's a dating show, and that's not exactly her dream job.
No, it is not. She gets set up on a series of 20 blind dates by a kind of dating coach, influencer type person, and it is something she's very, very hesitant to do, but she wants the opportunity, and she wants to try something new, so she agrees to do it.
So, she does this show about modern romance, and your book does have all the hallmarks of a classic rom com. Outside of the arranged dates, she keeps bumping into the same guy, and while we have that storyline, you do devote an equal amount of time to Cecily just trying to figure out who she is outside of her job, and that's something a lot of people go through.
I think that's right. I think for a lot of people, particularly if you're talking about people who do work that they care about, anybody who works in any kind of really mission driven work, something that they feel passionate about, it's very easy to get your identity very wrapped up in that, because it becomes the mission of your life. I think it can be important for people to embrace that sense of doing mission related work and also an individual identity that will allow you to persevere and make your own way, even if something about that job might change.
You've written a protagonist in Cecily that the reader can really root for. There's a scene early in the book where her boyfriend at the time, breaks up with her, and then Cecily moves out of their apartment, and me, as a reader, was saying, well, why is she moving out? Why doesn’t he move out? He broke up with her.
I think, the question that you ask about, why did she move out? In some ways, that's the animating question for her of the entire book. Why am I the one who moved out? If I worked on a project with somebody and we're not together anymore, why don't I control it? Why did they end up with it? Right? She's asking herself all of these questions. Why am I the person who always steps back and just decides, okay, I'm just going to double down and work harder? And she has a real difficult time asserting herself in certain ways, even though she's a really skilled person who's very admired and loved by the people in her life.
Eventually, Cecily understands the value of listening to her own voice.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. She is somebody who has to make that leap where it's not just, I'm valuable and my work is valuable because other people tell me it is. She is trying to make that leap to I know it is, and because I know it is, I'm going to assert myself and say, here's what I'll do, here's what I won't do, and here's what I want to do.
Linda, writing and podcasting are mainly solitary endeavors. So how do you wrap your head around going on a website like Goodreads and seeing that about 48,000 people are waiting to read this book?
I actually tried to explain this to somebody the other day, and I ended up in tears, and hopefully I won't do that, but it is so important and special to me to write books. It means the world to me, and when people tell me that they care about the books, you know, one of the books that I wrote is kind of about grief, and I got some tremendously lovely emails about that book. One of them is about a woman who wants to be in love but doesn't necessarily want to get married and live with somebody. I got some wonderful letters about that book too. When that happens, I feel lifted up in a way that I don't think I would necessarily be able to get from anything else.
