对话兰登前公关总监， 畅销悬疑黑马作家阿什莉·奥德兰（上）

对话兰登前公关总监， 畅销悬疑黑马作家阿什莉·奥德兰（上）
【作家简介】
Ashley Audrain 阿什莉·奥德兰
兰登前公关总监， 畅销悬疑黑马作家
阿什莉·奥德兰（Ashley Audrain），企鹅兰登加拿大前公关总监，曾与胡赛尼（《追风筝的人》）和伊丽莎白·吉尔伯特（《美食，祈祷，爱》）等大牌作家合作。为照顾两个孩子而辞职后，她着手进行文学创作。其重磅悬疑首作《我本不该成为母亲》一举成为聚光灯下的焦点。

【本期核心内容】
在本期节目中，Ashley Audrain结合其畅销作品《我本不该成为母亲》分享了自己关于社会环境下女性母亲意识的见解，并分享了对她具有重要意义的第一件“物品”——来自BrandyCarlile的歌曲The Mother。
 
以下内容为对话文稿。
EP1 对话加拿大畅销悬疑作家阿什莉·奥德兰（上）

Brought to you by Penguin.
Ashley Audrain:
I remember the feeling of finishing the book and having this overwhelming conviction that I was going to be a novelist. I needed to be a novelist that I had to write a book, and I had to pursue this.
Nihal Arthanayake: 
Hello and welcome to the award-winning Penguin Podcast with me Nihal Arthanayake. Here we chat to authors about what inspires them. Our guests chooses a handful of objects that have sparked their creativity, and then we explore why. My guest today is making huge waves on both sides of the Atlantic with her debut novel immediately landing in on the Sunday Times bestseller list, and hitting the number four spot for New York Times, Hard Back Fiction. The Push, published in January, 2021 is a clever concept novel that gives an inventive twist on the suspense thriller form. And she has been praised for being fearless in approach to the subject matter, which is an exploration of the dark corners of motherhood. I'm delighted to be joined by the brilliant Ashley Audrain. Ashley, how are you?
Ashley Audrain:
Oh, Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm doing great. All things considered in this pandemic world.
 
Nihal Arthanayake: 
That's the caveat to the answer to any question, which is try to search out how you are. It's always attached. I'm intrigued how it feels now a few months after the book is released, and of course, all of the hype around it has translated into people actually wanting to part with money to buy it. I mean, that's the ultimate accolade, right? That someone will part with their hard earned money to get it. How does that feel?
Ashley Audrain:
That's right. Oh my gosh. It really feels kind of magical that this book is out in the world. And as you said people are choosing to read it. And I think also the way they are responding to it.
Nihal Arthanayake: 
How important is it for you to hear other women say, I thought I was the only one that felt this way.
Ashley Audrain:
It's hugely meaningful. It's not why I had so it out to write the book. It's not something that I really had expected at any point in this journey, to be totally honest. And I don't know if that's because I don't know why that is. I think I was just so in my own head, for so long with this book, and I think that has been the biggest surprise of having this book published is that I am hearing that from women, and how it is, and that has become very important to me.
Nihal Arthanayake:
Because of course, society dictates that you find a partner, you fall in love, you have babies soon as the babies come along, this is the greatest moment of your life. That brings nothing but joy. Mostly people who've probably never had kids would say something like that, but it isn't always the case. Is it? And you just write that brilliantly, Ashley.
Ashley Audrain:
Oh, thank you. It is not the case. And I almost don't know. I mean, the truth is I don't really know any mother who would say that it feels like that all the time, or even sometimes the majority of the time. Of course, we find that sense of joy and wonder in our children. And we have those moments that feel better, I think, than we ever expected motherhood to feel. But they do sometimes feel far and feel in between. They are not, it is not really what it feels like all the time. And I think that even when we speak about the hard parts of motherhood, the parts that we feel a bit hesitant to say. We always feel like we need to then disclaim the honesty with those kinds of moments.
Ashley Audrain:
And I think, yeah, I hope that this book has made space for women to feel like they can say that without feeling the need for that disclaimer or feeling like they can say it without the judge and the shame that we so often attach to that.
Nihal Arthanayake: 
And what kind of reactions have you had from fathers who've read the book.
Ashley Audrain:
Yeah. I wasn't sure how men would perceive the book or how fathers would feel about the book. I am always so interested to hear from men, and from fathers about what parts of the book resonates for them, and how they feel about Blythe's experience and about Fox's experience, who is the husband and the father in the book. And I would say overwhelmingly, what I have heard from fathers is that it is an eye opening book. I have heard from men whose partners are expecting, or whose partners have just had a baby. They are new fathers who have said to me that they will now have a very different conversation with their partner than they would have before they've read the book. That they would ask different questions, make space for different experiences. And that is very meaningful certainly, if that is the outcome of this book, then that is more than I could ever ask for, I think, for this book. But yeah, I think that's an interesting thing to hear.
Nihal Arthanayake: 
Have there been different sets of feedback based on generations?
Ashley Audrain:
Some of the most, I would say personal messages that I've received have been from women who are not in my generation, there are women who are now in their '50s and '60s, my mom's generation really, where women felt very liberated in some ways I think, and at all in others. And I think motherhood is one of those places where they did not feel that. I think in that generation, there's very much this idea that you suck it up and you get on with it. And yes, it is very hard and yes, it is not perfect, but your job is just to smile and get through it. Yeah. I think it can be very powerful for them to think of their own experience now, to think of what that would be like now, or their experience in comparison to Blythe's. I think there was a lot that went unsaid for women of that generation. Whereas I think now we've come far in a lot of ways.
Nihal Arthanayake: 
You are a literary geek. And I mean that in a good way. You're obviously obsessed with books and obsessed with the form of writing. What power do you think fiction has to change the narrative? Because it feels as though society collectively gaslights women about their fears, and their pain, the violence that's inflicted upon them. Does fiction play a part in changing that narrative?
Ashley Audrain:
I would really like to believe it does. I mean, this has been said before, but I really believe it that you can tell truth in fiction in a way that you can't always in non-fiction. It is almost, I think, easier to get at the heart of the truth and to get very honest and to get very real and very raw in fiction. It is a form that lends itself to going to very deep and dark places. And a writer can remove themselves a bit from that or a lot in some cases from that, of course, in a way that's something a personal essay or auto-fiction cannot. I think there is power there. And I think in the case of women, and women telling stories about other women or the female experience, there are so few other spaces that we are invited to do this. And I think this a lot about the idea of domestic noir or the idea of these thrilling stories that we read about, like the psychological thriller with female characters, a lot of them with wives and mothers as the central figure in the novel.
Ashley Audrain:
And I think that the reason that we see that and the reason that they do these books do so well, people buy them, and eat them up. Is because it is one of the only spaces where we're invited to really go dark, and to explore the fears that so many women have in that experience of motherhood. That has always really appealed to me as a reader and certainly appeals to me as a writer.
Nihal Arthanayake: 
Let's go to your first object, which is a song The Mother by Brandy Carlile. Tell us about how this inspired the writing of your first novel.
Ashley Audrain:
Yeah. I think it's a song that at Brandy wrote after having her first daughter, it has such a brilliant opening line. And the opening line of that song is welcome to the end of being alone inside your mind. And Brandy Carlile has said of this as well, quote her here, "to some this sounds like the realization of the most sacred dreams, true companionship but for some, this sacrifice is too much to bear and requires its own brand of radical forgiveness for the most part, and for me, it's equal measures of both. I am not just a mother, but it's all that I am." And I love the way that the song and that explanation and that line of the song sort of works through that idea. In the song she writes through the things that motherhood take from her, and how much she resents that.
Ashley Audrain:
But there's such tenderness to this as well, tenderness to the song and the lyrics that she writes. And I love my daughter, she's only three, but she's always loved this song. And she makes me dance around the kitchen with her when we play it. And she makes me change the daughter's name and the song, which is Evangeline to her name, which is Waverley. I turn to this song sometimes when I just need to get in the mood to write, whether it was The Push, whether it's my next book. I sometimes I just like to play it, to get in a certain mood.
Nihal Arthanayake: 
How difficult was it for you to write this book? Is it going into the darkest, deepest recesses of your soul, or is it pent up emotions that you were allowed to express or you allowed yourself finally to express? So it just poured out?
Ashley Audrain:
I didn't find it difficult to write about what I'm writing about in The Push. I really didn't. And I think it was just the way that I was seeing things. It was just what I felt like I was just writing the truth in a lot of ways. And even though Blythe's story goes to much darker places than I've ever experienced, thankfully, and hopefully never will. Even I think putting myself in the shoes of her when she's going through those experiences, was not as difficult as I think some people would expect it to be, or some people have assumed. And I think it's because for me, it was exploring fear, a lot of this book was really riding through fear through my greatest fears, through most of our greatest fears as parents. And there is something I think for me, a little cathartic, about exploring that on the page. You are in control of that scene, you are in control of the emotions you are in control of the next sentence you write, I am not a psychologist, but I'm sure a psychologist would've something to say about that experience.
Ashley Audrain:
But I find some of the harder, the darker parts of this book, harder to read, I think, than they were to ever write.