LUCY BURDETTE: Some weeks ago, on one of our 'what we're reading' days, I mentioned how much I enjoyed the new novel A SPECIAL PLACE FOR WOMEN. I contacted the author, Laura Hankin, and I'm delighted that she agreed to guest on Jungle Red so you all could meet her too! Welcome Laura!
LAURA HANKIN: Writing can be a lonely profession. You spend much of your day thinking about made-up people. So I’ve been especially excited to start interacting with real people again now that I’m vaccinated. Hugging friends and family has been wonderful, of course. But I’ve also rediscovered something I hadn’t realized I’d missed: the brief moments of connection with strangers or people I barely know.
Some might consider these interactions to be a form of much-dreaded small talk. But I think of them as “snacks.” Sure, they don’t nourish you in the same way that time with loved ones does. You don't technically need them. But these moments of bite-sized intimacy can make your life richer, giving it an unexpected flavor, even if only for a little while.
I’d been looking forward to experiencing all sorts of snack interactions on my book tours, but those got moved online because of the pandemic. (Naturally, I turned my sadness about that into a music video.)
So now that I’m no longer worried that every stranger I meet might infect me, I’ve been throwing myself back in with gusto. I chat with the man who oversees the repairs and renovations in our building. Somehow, we’ve gotten stuck only talking to each other about toilets (we’ve had one conversation about his experience with fancy toilets at a resort in Thailand, another about his preference for bidets), but I don’t care! I love it!
The other day, a child on the street asked me if trains were cool, I said yes, and we very seriously made “choo-choo” noises at each other for a bit as his dad looked on. A woman outside the coffee shop introduced me to her enormous, elderly golden retriever, telling me all about the dog while he sat sweetly on my foot. I stopped to admire the garden of a house I always love passing on my walks, and another walker stopped too. The house’s owner came outside and, delighted by our interest, invited us to smell all the different flowers while he told us about them. Each of these moments shook me out of my own thoughts, and left me buzzing with admiration for how lovely other humans can be.
Sure, there are moments I’m reminded that not every snack interaction will be good, like the Uber ride I took to get some scary medical tests (spoiler alert: turns out I’m fine!). The driver saw where I was going and decided to spend the whole ride lecturing me about how positive thinking was the only thing that could really cure cancer, and I thought that maybe I'd like to never meet another new human again.
But overall, I’m a big fan of these moments. And, in a way, they help with my writing too. They’re a reminder of just how many stories there are in the world, of how everyone has their own struggles and quirks and joys. I’ve always loved creating expansive worlds in my books, like the clubhouse filled with the NYC elite in A Special Place for Women. My real-world interactions help remind me to have empathy for even the smallest characters in my books. Even if they only have a moment to shine on the page, I could probably write a whole novel about each and every one of them.
Do you enjoy these kinds of "snack" interactions, or do they feel too small-talky? Have you had any in particular (now or pre-pandemic, if you're not yet feeling ready to re-engage with strangers) that stand out to you?
A Special Place for Women synopsis:
It's a club like no other. Only the most important women receive an invitation. But one daring reporter is about to infiltrate this female-run secret society of self-proclaimed "girlbosses," where the bewitching members may be far more powerful than she ever imagined. A funny, shocking page-turner, A Special Place for Women is one of Good Morning America's Summer Reads picks, and is currently being adapted for television.
Bio:
Laura Hankin is the author of A Special Place for Women and Happy & You Know It. Her musical comedy has been featured in The Washington Post, Funny or Die, and more. She splits her time between NYC, where she has performed off-Broadway and onscreen, and Washington DC, where she once fell off a treadmill twice in one day.
