Curtis Sittenfeld

Exactly.

So to understand how this works on the page today, we have to dissect Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Which is such a clever book

She takes this specific fame problem and transplants it directly into the logistical nightmare of a late-night sketch comedy show that is very obviously modeled on Saturday Night Live

A level of fame that breaks your brain a little bit

A level of fame that makes the idea of ordinary day-to-day tenderness seem physically impossible

And Sittenfeld uses the actual logistics of the television studio, the blocking, the rehearsals, the cramped writer's rooms, the live broadcast countdowns, to physically manifest the emotional distance between these two people

The studio becomes the obstacle

So I, my first video that I ever made on TikTok four years ago was about the [laughs]Rodham book adaptation for Hulu.

So in case you don't know, Curtis Sittenfeld wrote this book Rodham, which was what would happen to Hillary if she never married Clinton.

I read it.

Um, yeah, it was great.

Um, Catcher in the Rye.

And then you move on to Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, one of my dear friends, wrote a great novel, Prep.

And then, of course, you have Harry Potter,

right?

Yes.

I read Curtis Sittenfeld's book Rodham while I was writing, yeah, while I was writing The Beheading Game and was so fascinated by it.

That was a great book.

Yeah, interesting.

I just thought of another one.

Curtis Sittenfeld, you know, does this over and over again, actually.

And I love it when she does it, you know.

Yeah.

Like, I'm excited.

But then my second one is I really want to read An American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld.

So many people over the years have said that this is both their favorite of her books, but then also, like, their all-time favorite book.

And it has not felt like the right time to me because it's basically a rom-com play about Laura Bush.

since I've picked it up, like decades.

So there's that.

Another book that came to mind is Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld as well because somehow this book comes up in conversations more often than any other book.

Like, a lot of times people will say, "Oh, you have a podcast.

And I asked, you know, I was like, I was, I asked my publisher too, I was like, "Would you want a series?" And they were like, "No, we want you to do a different..." Which actually I kind of love though, because I, I, I look at careers like, um, or writers like, um, you know, Taylor Jenkins Reid.

You know what I mean? Um, or Curtis Sittenfeld.

You know? Or, um, you know, Tia Williams.

You know what I mean? People who, like, [lips smack] you know, have these wonderful careers writing standalone books.