Four Years of Thrills: Megan Abbott Spills the Secrets!
Welcome to not only the 232nd episode of The Thriller Zone, but we are also celebrating our 4-YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!! Can you believe it? Four years of thrilling stories, incredible guests, and a whole lot of banter.
Who better to celebrate with than #1 New York Times Bestselling author Megan Abbott, author of The Turnout.
Today's chat is all about celebrating our fabulous four-year anniversary of the podcast...but perhaps as equally important, we're going to do a deep-dive on her latest riveting thriller called El Dorado Drive...which is already catching some serious buzz.
If you know Megan's work, then you know what a captivating author she is. Moreover, she's a delightful conversationalist...and we have plenty of that in store for you.
Trust me, El Dorado Drive is a riveting read that dives deep into the chaos of suburban life and the lengths people go to maintain their status. We'll also explore some juicy tidbits about the upcoming TV adaptation and how it feels to see her characters come to life on screen.
So grab your favorite drink and settle in, because this episode is packed with all the good stuff!
Learn more at MeganAbbott.com and TheThrillerZone.com ... where we plan on kicking off Season 9, here in our 4th year!
Takeaways:
- Celebrating our four-year anniversary feels like a wild ride through podcasting history, can you believe it?
- Megan Abbott's latest work, El Dorado Drive, is a riveting tale of suburban intrigue and family drama that'll keep you guessing.
- The fascinating dynamics of desperation and friendship in illegal money-making schemes are explored through Abbott's storytelling.
- A24 is adapting El Dorado Drive for TV, bringing Abbott's cinematic vision to life in a thrilling new way!
- The conversation dives into nostalgia, revealing how our fond memories can obscure the less glamorous realities of the past.
- Abbott emphasizes the importance of reading widely to hone your writing skills, so pick up those books, folks!
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Netflix
- A24
- Triton Media Group
- May Cobb
- Megan Abbott
- Gillian Flynn
- SA Cosby
- Dennis Lehane
- Harlan Coban
- Karen Slaughter
- Elmore Leonard
Keywords: podcast, Megan Abbott, El Dorado Drive, thriller genre, suspenseful stories, book recommendations, crime fiction, Netflix adaptations, women in literature, anniversary episodes, literary interviews, writing advice, reading habits, character development, suburban stories, female empowerment, psychological thrillers, nostalgia in storytelling, book to screen adaptations, A24 productions
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Thriller Zone.
Speaker A:Do you know what today is?
Speaker A:I should have horns and a marching band coming through here going, it's the four year anniversary.
Speaker A:Can you believe this?
Speaker A:Let's just flash back a second.
Speaker A:Let's flash back.
Speaker A:Four years ago, I'm in Tahoe hanging out with my family, just chilling, thinking about launching this podcast.
Speaker A:My very first guest was May Cobb and she celebrated year one, year two, year three.
Speaker A:Now she's gotten kind of fancy pants on us.
Speaker A:The Hunting Wives just got picked up as you're going to hear about in the show and is now on Netflix.
Speaker A:So she's got her hands in the TV scene too.
Speaker A:But today's show, I thought, okay, if I can't get made Cobb, who would I get?
Speaker A:None other than the lovely and talented, always charming, ever entertaining Megan Abbott and her book El Dorado Drive.
Speaker A:Folks, are you a fan of her work?
Speaker A:Let's just take a little peek at what people are saying.
Speaker A:Just a couple of people you may have heard of Gillian Flynn.
Speaker A:Remember her?
Speaker A:Gone Girl.
Speaker A:Surprising, electrifying as a summer storm.
Speaker A:Suspenseful, beautifully written, and quite simply exquisite.
Speaker A:I could stop there, but SA Cosby chimes in.
Speaker A:El Dorado Drive is a dizzying, ephemeral journey where Megan confirms what many of us already knew.
Speaker A:She's one of the finest writers to ever put pen to paper in the crime genre.
Speaker A:I'm not gonna stop there.
Speaker A:There's Dennis Lehane.
Speaker A:Hi.
Speaker A:Silky, devious ride.
Speaker A:Harlan Coban.
Speaker A:Tense, chilling, beautifully written, absolute knockout.
Speaker A:Karen Slaughter.
Speaker A:Layer by magnetic layer, Megan reveals the story of a family coming undone.
Speaker A:It is riveting family drama.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:That's what we do here at the Thriller Zone.
Speaker A:We try to top ourselves every time.
Speaker A:Sometimes I do it, sometimes I don't.
Speaker A:Today I've done it.
Speaker A:Megan Abbott is on the show El Dorado Drive.
Speaker A:And let me tell you, inside today's show, there's a couple little tasty morsels that you're gonna go.
Speaker A:Dave.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:I never knew that about you.
Speaker A:Oh, you gonna find out.
Speaker A:All right, I have done geeked enough.
Speaker A:Please join me in celebrating year number four, kicking off season nine, if either today or the next show with my good friend Megan Abbott right here on the Thriller Zone.
Speaker B:Hello.
Speaker B:Good to see you again.
Speaker A:Good to see you.
Speaker B:How are you doing out there on the West Coast?
Speaker A:Well, besides riots in la, say, that's right.
Speaker B:You're pretty close to la.
Speaker B:Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker A:My wife and I had a little personal getaway and we were coming back Thursday late and I Think the riot craziness started maybe Friday.
Speaker A:And, yeah, cray cray.
Speaker B:So it'd be nice to live in less exciting times.
Speaker A:We could spend probably an hour just on that phrase.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:It's our world.
Speaker B:We're stuck with it.
Speaker B:It's our timeline.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:We have so much to talk about.
Speaker A:I'm so grateful for you being here.
Speaker B:Well, I'm so glad to be back.
Speaker B:We had such a fun time last time we spoke.
Speaker A:Do you realize how long it's been?
Speaker B:Two years.
Speaker A:Two years?
Speaker A:The day your book drops.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Okay, so it's the end of May, so a little over two years then, right?
Speaker B:I guess.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you're.
Speaker A:You're just more ravishing.
Speaker A:And I've gotten grayer.
Speaker A:I don't understand that.
Speaker B:I think you look pretty good.
Speaker B:You got that Southern California color, you know?
Speaker A:Well, when it's not foggy.
Speaker A:And, you know, you've heard the whole thing about May gray, June, gloom.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah, we're in that right now.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, it's a gloomy day here, too, if it makes you feel any better.
Speaker B:But we don't have riot police shooting rubber bullets at us at the moment.
Speaker B:Not today.
Speaker A:There's still time left in the day.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:It's early.
Speaker A:Can I.
Speaker A:Are you on a laptop or a desktop?
Speaker B:A desktop.
Speaker A:Can you go tilt just a shade so I get more of that lovely face?
Speaker A:So, in other words, see how I'm getting a lot of the.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:Perfect.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, I need to get all of that.
Speaker A:Well, first of all, congratulations to El Dorado Drive.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:I ripped through this little bad boy.
Speaker B:Oh, good.
Speaker A:I'm trying to remember.
Speaker A:What was it?
Speaker A:Wait, I'm gonna remember it because I'm gonna look at my cheat sheets.
Speaker A:Beware the woman.
Speaker A:Yeah, that was what we were talking about last time.
Speaker B:Yes, Michigan, but different part of Michigan.
Speaker B:Very different part of Michigan.
Speaker A:Speaking of which, can I.
Speaker A:Can I share a little personal story that has me so stinking excited?
Speaker A:I know I sound like a geek, but.
Speaker A:So I probably knew you were from Grosse Pointe, but it hadn't gelled until I started reading it, and then I was revisiting that.
Speaker A:And so here's.
Speaker A:Here's the personal story.
Speaker A:So I'm going to Flashback.
Speaker A:It's all about familiarity.
Speaker A: It's: Speaker A:I'm doing a morning show in Detroit.
Speaker A:Detroit's nicest rock.
Speaker A:Nic W N I C.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:That was a soft rock.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Detroit's nicest drive.
Speaker B:Oh, My God, that's perfect.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:That is a nostalgia flashback.
Speaker B:I would have been a teenager then and, you know, very wedded to the radio, of course, pre.
Speaker B:Pre everything.
Speaker B:So the radio was king.
Speaker A:Here's where it gets a little beefier.
Speaker A:So I'm working in Dearborn.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'm living in Southfield.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'm dating a girl in Bloomfield Hills.
Speaker B:I know it well.
Speaker A:I'm partying with friends in Grosse Pointe, and I spun tunes at a nightclub run by the mafia in Warren.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Warren is all mobbed up.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:East side is intensely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Mob, mob.
Speaker B:A lot of mob energy.
Speaker B:You are really covering east side, west side.
Speaker B:You know, this sort of serene bloom filled hills and then a little sketchier over and more.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So not to try to.
Speaker A:I'm certainly not trying to up your story because.
Speaker A:But I just thought, wait a minute, let me drill down on the memory bank, which is a little softer than it used to be.
Speaker A:And I started pulling up those townships and I'm like, holy shit, look at the degrees of separation that we have.
Speaker A:But the real reason I bring that up is the gal that I'm dating in Bloomfield Hills and a.k.a.
Speaker A:bloomfield Village.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:We're talking one day because she knew I was into books.
Speaker A:And I'm like, oh, my God, you're my favorite authors.
Speaker A:And I mentioned Elmore Leonard.
Speaker A:And she goes, well, you know, he lives right up the street.
Speaker A:And I go, hang on a second.
Speaker A:I'm gonna run up the street right now and meet him.
Speaker A:She goes, whoa, whoa, pump the brakes.
Speaker A:You can't just roll up on Elmore Leonard, knock on the door and say, hey, I'm a fan.
Speaker A:So the good news is I was that close to him.
Speaker A:The bad news is I never actually got to meet him.
Speaker A:We got to meet him.
Speaker A:Which I'm sad to say, but I know that he had a huge influence on you.
Speaker A:And I wanted to start off all of that.
Speaker A:Backstory is talking about the impact he had on your life.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Huge.
Speaker B:Huge.
Speaker B:In fact, I just did a.
Speaker B:There's a new Elmer Leonard podcast, and I did one of the episodes and was recalling it all because I grew up with him.
Speaker B:He really was.
Speaker B:Despite studying many of his novels and other places, Detroit was really, you know, he was.
Speaker B:He was the.
Speaker B:You know, he was really the Duke of Detroit.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:You know, he.
Speaker B:We claimed him as our own.
Speaker B:And of course, he lived there for so long, but it wasn't really.
Speaker B:Till, I would say, about 15 years ago, Los Angeles Times Magazine, when they still had the Magazine asked if I wanted to interview him.
Speaker B:So I did over the phone.
Speaker B:And it was one of the most thrilling hours of my life.
Speaker B:He was.
Speaker B:He was living in Bloomfield Hills at the time and he was the most delightful.
Speaker B:He was everything you want when you meet your heroes.
Speaker B:Because he was so warm and inviting and kept asking me questions about my books, which was so generous.
Speaker B:And we had such a great talk.
Speaker B:And he's a little bit of a flirt in the sweetest way.
Speaker B:He liked to talk about women, talk to women.
Speaker B:And then his assistant, Greg Sutter, for many years.
Speaker B:Assistant sent me a picture of one of my books on a table in his house.
Speaker B:He said that Elmer Leonard was reading it, which so happy I still have the picture.
Speaker B:It was one of the great gifts.
Speaker B:So he was huge for me and I think for any crime writer, full stop.
Speaker B:But especially if you're in Detroit area because we didn't have many big literary figures, but he was ours.
Speaker A:I mean, he just was among the very great.
Speaker A:Oh, well.
Speaker A:And it's so funny, speaking of flashbacks.
Speaker B:Interference on when you speak.
Speaker B:Are you hearing that?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:You're not hearing it.
Speaker B:I'm sure it's fine.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:But I think once this uploads, we'll be fine.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:If not, I'm going to cry like a little baby.
Speaker A:So I'm flashing back and one of the lead characters is living in the Renson.
Speaker A:And I remember this was 86, 87.
Speaker A:I remember.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:The big beautiful glass and steel structure that everyone's kind of like.
Speaker A:Kind of like putting lipstick on a pig in one sense, you know.
Speaker A:But it was such a special time because they were trying to do all this big renovation, for lack of a better term.
Speaker B:Well, yeah, they were trying to reinvent the city and they had many efforts.
Speaker B:You know, Greek Town, which to a certain extent was successful, and the People Mover, which wasn't, and the Renaissance center, which, you know, is based on that famous hotel in LA that looks the same way.
Speaker B:And I think it was.
Speaker B:It just didn't look like Detroit, you know, it looked like it had been dropped there from Los Angeles and was enormous and cost so much money.
Speaker B:And probably like a lot of sort of outside people making suggestions about how to rebuild Detroit after the auto industry.
Speaker B:It wasn't organic to Detroit in Detroit in recent 15 years has really reinvented and revitalized itself in its own homegrown ways.
Speaker B:But the years I was growing up and the years you were there, where they just kept having these false starts like so many cities when they when they struggle with, with people leaving for the suburbs, et cetera.
Speaker A:Want to get into Gross Point?
Speaker A:Because I remember, you know, I thought I was living in, you know, high cotton when I was living in Southfield and dating somebody in Bloomfield Hills.
Speaker A:But then I started hanging out and partying with the folks in Grosse Pointe.
Speaker A:That was an entirely different world.
Speaker A:I had never seen it because I'd come from Virginia at that time and I'm like, wow, I am out of my element.
Speaker A:And I get a sense that you, although you grew up there, you.
Speaker A:I have heard in interviews that you talk about.
Speaker A:Yeah, that really wasn't my scene.
Speaker B:No, I always felt out of place.
Speaker B:I think my whole family did.
Speaker B:My parents were east Coasters and my dad was a professor and we were, you know, we were the only democrats within like 10 miles of, you know, it was like the red enclave in blue Wayne county.
Speaker B:And it was very, very conservative in the old fashioned way, like the Eisenhower way.
Speaker B:You know, it was just country clubs and old money and, you know, wasps with their, you know, always like the cuffs of their shirt would be frayed because you weren't supposed to that.
Speaker B:You really showed wealth by like having like a 30 year old J.
Speaker B:Press shirt, not some new designer thing.
Speaker B:So it was really, you know, four country clubs, really not in my scene.
Speaker B:And I was never really that kid that wanted it either.
Speaker B:You know, it was not appealing to me.
Speaker B:It was not romantic or cat's BS to me or any of those things.
Speaker B:It just, I just felt on the outside and, you know, class was a big thing in Grosse Pointe.
Speaker B:There was this, the old money high school and the new money high school and you know, all that stuff.
Speaker B:So it was, it was, in some ways it really prepared me for a lot of the world because it was, you know, you did feel, you did feel everything very keenly, you know, how different you were.
Speaker B:There was no hiding it.
Speaker A:So what's interesting is that you, if, correct me if I'm wrong, you always said you weren't really going to write or write about your hometown, and yet this is all about that.
Speaker A:So what finally made you want to tackle that setting and how did you feel revisiting those childhood memories on the page?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, I had really resisted it.
Speaker B:I'm not sure why.
Speaker B:I think sometimes you have to be away a really long time to start to see it clearly.
Speaker B:And my family doesn't even.
Speaker B:They live up closer to Bloomfield Hills now.
Speaker B:We live on the west side now, so I don't even go back there.
Speaker B:But I Was really interested in this sort of rising phenomenon of suburban women in areas that had been hit especially hard by the recession 15 years ago.
Speaker B:And then Covid, and then our current, whatever was happening in the economy now becoming involved in these money making operations.
Speaker B:So these were, that were all basically based on using your social network in the old fashioned sense of the word to generate money and, and turn out to be illegal operations.
Speaker B:But this was, started happening everywhere.
Speaker B:And so I really wanted to set the book then in a place where people had grown up with money, these women in middle age who had really thought their life was set and then it was all taken away.
Speaker B:So setting it in Detroit after the collapse of the, all the big auto companies and then the bailout, you know, everybody, I mean when I grew up there were always these huge cuts.
Speaker B:Everyone was already losing their jobs in the 80s.
Speaker B:The white collar jobs came later.
Speaker B:So I really wanted to be in that kind of environment where it's, it's hitting, it's hitting people now who've never experienced any worry about money in their lives and how it affects them.
Speaker A:Well, this group, the wheel is fascinating because it's, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a scam.
Speaker A:Maybe not everyone, but many of us have been privy to those pyramid schemes where you just, you get this thing, hey, listen, just put a little money in and we're gonna do this for the, for all of us.
Speaker A:It's for the good of us.
Speaker A:And then we have to give us a little bit more money.
Speaker A:But, but it's cool and it's good and it's prestigious and yet everybody's getting ripped off.
Speaker B:Yeah, it takes a while to see how it goes wrong, which is sort of how they operate.
Speaker B:You know, the people that first buy in are the only ones that ever make any money because like any pyramid scheme, it's based entirely on recruitment.
Speaker B:At a certain point there's only so many people you can recruit.
Speaker B:And I think it's so fascinating because unlike say like a mlm, you're not selling anything.
Speaker B:So you're not selling snake oil or leggings that will fall apart.
Speaker B:So I think it gives this sort of illusion of like what could be illegal about this.
Speaker B:You know, when you, the people that start, if they don't imagine that anybody will ever not be able to, you know, there's just this sort of willful disbelief to really look into it.
Speaker B:And the thing that, you know, unless you're the kind of the person that says if it sounds too good to be true.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker B:And when you're in desperate situation like these women are, you know, some of them, they just want their station back.
Speaker B:But a lot of them have real financial issues.
Speaker B:They can't send their kid to college, they have a sick spouse, and so they sort of desperate.
Speaker B:So sometimes when you're desperate, you don't look too closely at the fine print and you sort of take your chances.
Speaker B:And the way that different women would get involved and stay involved despite all the warning signs and red flags really interested me.
Speaker A:So it's desperation making people rationalize risky choices.
Speaker A:And this is what's fascinated me about this book, is you would see to your point of red flags.
Speaker A:You see a red flag.
Speaker A:Oh, it's not really that big of a red flag.
Speaker A:Another one comes along, well, it's kind of pink, not really red.
Speaker A:And then maybe just one more red flag will be okay.
Speaker A:But it's that desperation and that rationalization that goes, well, I know it's bad, but it can't.
Speaker A:These are my friends.
Speaker A:It can't be.
Speaker A:But so bad, right?
Speaker B:Yes, exactly.
Speaker B:And that the social element is a big feature in these because it's.
Speaker B:In some ways they use the language of feminism and female empowerment to draw the women together.
Speaker B:And these are women that feel very comfortable and in fact, grew up with groups of women, starting with girl Scouts, through sororities, up through country clubs and parent teachers.
Speaker B:So they're used to sort of gathering together to raise money that sort of built it.
Speaker B:This is America.
Speaker B:That's what you do.
Speaker B:So I think it's really easy to feel that.
Speaker B:And from some of the ones I read about, one of these sort of money making clubs that were prosecuted for wire fraud, et cetera, you would hear about how for so many of them, they weren't even.
Speaker B:They needed the money, but they loved the camaraderie, they loved the sisterhood, they loved sharing their anxieties about money with one another.
Speaker B:They believe they were really helping one another.
Speaker B:You know, that you're recruiting someone.
Speaker B:This is the lie.
Speaker B:All these schemes, you know, you tell yourself when you're in them, is that by asking my friend if she wants to join, I'm helping her because she, she has, you know, she has a, you know, has to get a second mortgage on her house, you know, et cetera.
Speaker B:So I think that that's the, that's the trickiness of it.
Speaker B:And even when I was working on the book, I had conversations with my publisher, and many times people reading it would say, how is this illegal again?
Speaker B:Because you can kind of tell yourself, how is it illegal?
Speaker B:Who are you hurting?
Speaker B:You know, it's your money.
Speaker B:You're choosing to give it over.
Speaker B:But of course, it is illegal, and it's number one, it's tax fraud because you're not declaring these gifts.
Speaker B:There's a lot of financial deceit to keep them going.
Speaker B:So that stuff fascinated me and the psychology among the women, especially in this case with three sisters, because they all kind of grew up in the same sense of, you know, their parents really experienced a collapse of their world.
Speaker B:And so they.
Speaker B:They really all had, you know, in the way that siblings have had this shared trauma that is everyone's childhood, everyone with a sibling, you.
Speaker B:You've had this experience together, and the way you think about money as a child stays with you forever.
Speaker B:So the sisters each have a different response to that.
Speaker B:Their family lost the.
Speaker B:Lost all their money pretty quickly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, Harper, Pam and Deborah were fascinating to follow.
Speaker A:Harper especially, because I just, I.
Speaker A:I knew people like Harper, and, you know, the sisters, they connect.
Speaker A:I wanted to know kind of how, which one.
Speaker A:If you were to say this, a lot of people ask this question, but I always find it curious because we're all.
Speaker A:We're all laying on our own couch while we're right, aren't we?
Speaker B:Yes, true.
Speaker A:But did you have a particular sister that you went, you know, this is a little bit of me and in my subconscious, and I'm just going to.
Speaker B:Do a little therapy for sure.
Speaker B:Evidently, I think you understand, a little bit of you sneaks into all your characters or you couldn't write them.
Speaker B:But certainly as this sort of outsider, Harper spoke most to me.
Speaker B:And is this someone who's not a joiner and is a little bit of an introvert?
Speaker B:And her sister Pam, for instance, is the opposite.
Speaker B:She's an extreme extrovert who everyone wants to be around.
Speaker B:And that.
Speaker B:I've known a lot of women like that, and they fascinate me.
Speaker B:But I'm usually the one like Harper, who is sort of dragging her feet, hiding in the corner, not wearing the right outfit and all that in those situations and those sort of, you know, high society situations in particular.
Speaker B:And I think Deborah is the oldest, always the oldest sibling, carries the most responsibility and sort of bears the brunt of everything.
Speaker B:So I am the youngest in my family, but it's only two.
Speaker B:But I know my brother played that role, so I'm sympathetic to that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker B:You have siblings?
Speaker A:I have three.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker B:Oh, okay.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I've got an Older sister, a younger sister, and a younger brother.
Speaker A:And we are about as four distinctively different personalities as you could possibly imagine.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And growing up in the church.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And you, you made a comment about the way that you see money stays with you forever.
Speaker A:And I married someone who sees money very differently.
Speaker A:And it was so interesting to see.
Speaker A:I grew up in this lack mentality and give all your money to the church, but we have so little.
Speaker A:Why can't we keep some.
Speaker A:But it belongs to the.
Speaker A:And I'm like, boy, that's a whole different conversation for another show.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker B:But that it's another example of how this operates is you are always operating from that sense of not having enough and not having full ownership over your money if you feel this obligation to surrender so much of it.
Speaker B:So it is like, that's really hard to shake that stuff.
Speaker B:And I think in couples that can be really hard if you're coming from very different places about what money means and what, you know, I think for everybody, but especially for women, it can get really, especially women of a certain age, very tied up to notions of security and safety and independence and power.
Speaker B:It's never just about money.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:And, oh, God, my brain wants to go down this whole conversation of grift in the church, but again, I'm not gonna go there.
Speaker B:That's a book I want to read.
Speaker A:Well, it's so funny you should mention that because I was working on that as a non fiction book for a while and I realized talking to Tammy, my wife, and I said, you know, I.
Speaker A:I'm not.
Speaker A:I'm not sure I'm gonna do that book after all.
Speaker A:I think I just got all my therapy out on paper and I'm gonna let it go because I'm not gonna make any friends, Megan, I'll tell you that.
Speaker B:I mean.
Speaker B:But, yeah, yeah, but you gotta speak your truth.
Speaker B:That prosperity gospel thing is really this sort of really unholy alliance between capitalism and the church is really a wild thing to see.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:There's one particular guy who's got a great big grin and really perfectly coiffed hair and a beautiful wife.
Speaker A:And somewhere in Texas, we'll say just as and when I saw what his net worth was and how many jets he had, I went, so that is God's work.
Speaker A:But anyway, yes, I'm gonna, I'm gonna divert that attention.
Speaker A:By the way, I usually go through and highlight my favorite things.
Speaker A:Here's one of my favorite lines in the whole book.
Speaker A:I don't know why I even I made sure I remembered it.
Speaker A:And it's, it's so, it's so powerful in one sentence.
Speaker A:Nostalgia is always a trap.
Speaker A:It made you forget the things you didn't want to remember, the ugly things that keep you honest and true.
Speaker A:My wife's always saying, I think, what's the phrase?
Speaker A:She goes, I think sometimes you romanticize your past.
Speaker B:Yeah, we all do, don't we?
Speaker B:I really think about nostalgia a lot and its dangers because of what it erases, you know, what it blocks out.
Speaker B:And I suppose the essential conservative.
Speaker B:And I mean that not in a political sense, but in the sense of this fantasy that things were innocent and now they have fallen, which is never true.
Speaker B:You know, people are the same throughout time and you know, you had a child's eye view then there were things you're not seeing in your childhood, for instance, or say sometimes we romanticize that past relationship and of course you're only remembering those sort of butterflies and the early passion.
Speaker B:You're not romantic, fantasizing, you're not really looking at all the things that broke you apart.
Speaker B:And so I think, you know, it's sort of a place we go to when we're unhappy with the now.
Speaker B:And the nostalgia will like pop up like this, like this, you know, like one of those pop up clouds out of the box, you know, and promise you that things were better once.
Speaker B:And you can reside in that space, but it's a space I think of preventing you from moving forward.
Speaker B:Certainly.
Speaker A:Well, we started off our conversation about inferring or referring to some craziness in LA and some of the repercussions and adjacent insanity along with that.
Speaker A:Well, I want to be as nebulous as I can so that I don't have listeners going, I've had enough of that.
Speaker A:But to your point about nostalgia, I think we hold on to it because in the now we feel sad by the reality that we have and we think, well, if we can just go back to yesteryear, it was softer and gentler and more, more innocent.
Speaker A:And to your second point is, I think it's always been the same.
Speaker A:It just has evolved into more deception and grift based on greed, greed and dishonesty.
Speaker B:I think so too.
Speaker B:And I think, you know, it's always been this sort of duality of America is this belief in community, it's a wonderful life, the power of the small town where everyone helps one another.
Speaker B:And that's part of our nostalgia about past America.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Is that, is that vision where everyone was pulling for everyone else and the nation pulled together to fight the Nazis, et cetera.
Speaker B:And I think that is one vision of America.
Speaker B:And the other vision of America is of the individual who rises, who can, you know, and who makes money, that you are pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.
Speaker B:And these things are in conflict with one another.
Speaker B:And to such an extent that I think now we're seeing this sort of.
Speaker B:All this big binary of these two notions of what America's supposed to be.
Speaker B:And I think it's starting to feel like this sort of big divide is really kind of an existential one about what the idea of America is, what it's meant to be.
Speaker B:Everyone's sort of.
Speaker B:Those twin notions, though, have both been there all along.
Speaker B:I mean, the frontier story is the story of conquering and doing everything for oneself, of gold prospecting, of, like, you know, taking from the land, taking what's not yours.
Speaker B:So that's as old as the notion of the, you know, the Puritans and the little town square and how they all would, you know, bring, you know, in a cold winter, everyone would help each other and bring, you know, what goods they had.
Speaker B:So I think it's.
Speaker B:That divide is perennial.
Speaker B:Feels particularly sharp now.
Speaker B:I agree.
Speaker B:And I think because the way I think, in part, social media has made, you know, these worlds collide.
Speaker B:You know, we sort of.
Speaker B:You can feel like everyone sort of wants the same things in a vacuum.
Speaker B:But when you, you know, when you see the kind of craziness on social media, which is also false because it's just the craziest people that post these things on social media.
Speaker B:So it's this weird echo chamber.
Speaker B:It's a strange moment to.
Speaker B:To live in, for sure, because it makes you have to keep questioning what our purpose is as Americans.
Speaker A:It's so funny you should bring up social media because I am about this close to just saying, forget about it, because it's gotten to.
Speaker A:You're either swimming in this pool of anxiety, neurosis and.
Speaker A:And anger and hatred and vitriolic rage, but the.
Speaker A:I think the thing bothers me even more, Megan.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:I said this to Tammy the other day.
Speaker A:I said, I am so damn tired of being sold.
Speaker A:You can't go anywhere without being sold.
Speaker A:And now on social media, it's.
Speaker A:I remember back when it was like 10 or 15, somebody's selling something.
Speaker A:Now it's every other pain that.
Speaker A:That whizzes by, and I think it's doing something.
Speaker A:I think it's doing a great disservice to us.
Speaker A:But that I'm probably not sounding like a very capitalistic entrepreneur, because if I.
Speaker B:Was, I'd be sort of.
Speaker B:The balance has tipped, right?
Speaker B:Everything is about selling now because of the way these algorithms.
Speaker B:We've given away all our information so that we've created, made ourselves marks in the old, in the grifter language.
Speaker B:And now we're paying the price for like, for our convenience.
Speaker B:We gave ourselves and now.
Speaker B:And now we're living in that reality and you have to actively.
Speaker B:It's actually pretty hard to completely separate yourself from it, isn't it?
Speaker B:I mean, for instance, it's hard to promote your book, which you want to do because you spent two years working on it.
Speaker B:But you have to enter social media.
Speaker B:And there are many joys of social media.
Speaker B:There is a community sphere, or there at least there used to be there.
Speaker B:But I think in this, this extreme state we're now in, it just feels like it's tipped into the other direction.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I completely get it and I know that everyone, if you go to any convention, any speech anywhere, they're going to tell you work your platform.
Speaker A:And I understand the fact that we need social media to.
Speaker A:How can I build a book and then tell my friends to go buy it if I don't?
Speaker A:And here I am pitching right, right after.
Speaker A:I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth right now.
Speaker A:I just wanted to be able to.
Speaker B:Say we all are, but it's a.
Speaker A:Conundrum because you, you want to.
Speaker A:The, to your point, the joy that you have are now experiencing after two years of toiling.
Speaker A:You want to share, however, because if, you know, if you don't share, books ain't going to sell themselves.
Speaker A:And the publisher's job these days, probably.
Speaker A:You're going to probably back me on this is a little bit different than it used to be.
Speaker B:Yes, yes, it is.
Speaker B: hen my first book came out in: Speaker B:So this is pre social media.
Speaker B:It's really, it's pre iPhone.
Speaker B:So it was very different.
Speaker B:You didn't have any control over how, you know, and you had, for instance, an enormous media book press coverage and you know, and there was sort of these places that would regularly run book reviews or coverage of books or authors.
Speaker B:So that's all gone.
Speaker B:So in its place now, the author has to carry some of that load.
Speaker B:The publishers can't do it it alone and you can't count on them to do it alone.
Speaker B:So we're sort of, it's almost like we've just been sort of Forced into capitalism.
Speaker B:And I say this like I'm a communist and I'm not.
Speaker B:But I think because we're seeing capitalism at its most extreme now, it feels like this sort of trap we're all, you know, caught under now.
Speaker B:And you know, it's just.
Speaker B:And we're all enacting it too, as you say, you know, we're, we're appalled by it, but it's very hard to completely disengage.
Speaker B:It's very hard to say, well, you know, like, for instance, you can pick your battles.
Speaker B:Like, you know, I'm not gonna buy from this company, or I'm, I have an Android, I don't have an iPhone, et cetera.
Speaker B:But like there's no way that like, then you buy stuff from other big corporations.
Speaker B:You know, there's just no avoiding it.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So I think it just feels like it's everywhere.
Speaker B:And I think that's what sort of led to the book for me is just.
Speaker B:And when I was writing it, there was no thought of a recession or tariff wars or any of that.
Speaker B:And now it's sort of eerily like we have entered into that stage.
Speaker B:Everything was relatively placid when I started writing it.
Speaker B:And now, now here we are again.
Speaker A:Isn't that funny how that happens?
Speaker A:Well, I'm going to run out of time and there's two things I really wanted to make sure I got to.
Speaker A:One of the favorite parts of this chat I was looking forward to is that I'm, I'm a closet filmmaker myself, so I'm always obsessed with seeing stories go from book to screen.
Speaker A:And I know that A24 is currently developing El Dorado Drive with, for television with you at the helm realm of writing it, correct?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:So it's a two part question.
Speaker A:What excites you most about seeing these characters in this suburban world brought to, to life visually?
Speaker A:And just, you know, what does that feel like?
Speaker A:Double question, same idea.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, it's.
Speaker B:I'm so excited about this book in particular because to me it felt very.
Speaker B:Because it's built around these parties that the wheel has, right?
Speaker B:They have them, you know, this is how they.
Speaker B:People bring their money in and the parties are selling and they get bigger and bigger as it goes on.
Speaker B:So it felt very visual and cinematic to me because I wanted them to have, even in prose, this sort of ecstatic energy to these parties.
Speaker B:And so it seemed like TV would be the perfect place.
Speaker B:And there was so much, you know, inevitably when you write a book, you have to leave, especially writing thrillers as you know, you leave a lot of stuff on the table because you have to keep that pace.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You have to keep things moving.
Speaker B:But as an ongoing TV series, I have the opportunity to see where the wheel really goes, how it, you know, how things go wrong, the way the sort of internal machinations.
Speaker B:Because researching it, particularly looking into some of these.
Speaker B:Some of these rings of women that were prosecuted, where, you know, you can read the depositions and you can read the, you know, so there's so much more that I couldn't put in it.
Speaker B:And then the sort of thrill of a show would be you get to do all that and you get to, you know, and you get to probe every woman that's involved in it.
Speaker B:Here, Here I'm focusing mostly on the three sisters, but so that's so fun.
Speaker B:And to be honest, there's just not that many TV shows set in the Midwest at all and not in the world I grew up in, and it's still there at all.
Speaker B:So as excited.
Speaker B:And a 24 was about making sure we set it there because that specificity, I mean, the middle of America really is almost absent from especially prestige television.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, first of all, I love a 24 because they're always living out there on the edge, and they embrace that.
Speaker A:Secondly, you are genuinely living my dream because be able.
Speaker A:When I write, I write cinematically.
Speaker A:And I remember hearing something you say something about you wanted the parties to feel so cinematic, which you just referred to.
Speaker A:And I'm like, yeah, the whole book is kind of this party, and you want to just get lit and hang out with these girls.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, good, good.
Speaker B:That's what I wanted.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:No, I.
Speaker A:My alcohol consumption increased by the page.
Speaker A:I just want to say I should.
Speaker B:Really do some, like, an accompaniment, like, to each party.
Speaker B:This is the, you know, this one you should.
Speaker B:You should definitely have tequila on hand.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I started with margaritas, but I ended with martinis.
Speaker A:But it was quite a headache.
Speaker A:You know, it's another interesting point.
Speaker A:As we start to wrap is another thing I saw in the trades today.
Speaker A:Our good friend May Cobb, who has been on the anniversary show year one, year two, year three, couldn't make it year four.
Speaker A:And I'm like, well, there's only one other person I want on year four, and that's Megan Abbott.
Speaker A:And then it all came together perfectly.
Speaker A:But I found.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I found out that her book.
Speaker A:Book Hunting Wives, which we had a hoot conversation about, just got picked up by Netflix.
Speaker A:And to this point, I love the fact I see all my girlfriends.
Speaker A:And I say that with all respect.
Speaker A:My girlfriend's writing these phenomenal books, set in her, her case Texas, your case, Midwest, getting the attention it deserves.
Speaker A:So bravo.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, it is.
Speaker B:I feel like, I mean, it feels like for a long time female stories, as they used to call it, were considered too small.
Speaker B:And now that women, of course, are the biggest consumers, as we know, of fiction, they're the ones buying hardcover books.
Speaker B:They're certainly the biggest consumers of thrillers.
Speaker B:And increasingly they're the ones watching these shows.
Speaker B:So they are, you know, places like Netflix, they understand, they have their algorithm, they get it.
Speaker B:They know who's making the choices of which services to subscribe to and what to stay on to.
Speaker B:So it's a purely, I think, mercenary reason how the door has opened for all of us.
Speaker B:But I'm walking in.
Speaker A:Open the door, girls.
Speaker A:I'm coming through.
Speaker A:Well, I have, I have to ask this because.
Speaker A:And this was not on my notes because I was talking to some guys recently.
Speaker A:Talking.
Speaker A:Follow that.
Speaker A:I was talking to some guys recently at a bar, friends of mine, and we're talking about the thriller world and what, what and what bigger worlds writing wise is outside of that.
Speaker A:We started talking about romance and then we started looking at, we drilled down on the stats.
Speaker A:Romance dwarfs thrillers, everything.
Speaker A:Yes, dwarfs everything.
Speaker A:So I'm saying to myself as I'm on the treadmill this morning, I'm like, I wonder if I could.
Speaker A:And so just bear with me and if you don't like this, I'll cut it out.
Speaker A:What if Megan, I know she's a thriller.
Speaker A:I mean she is thriller girl.
Speaker A:But can you imagine if she wrote romance?
Speaker A:Like dark romance?
Speaker A:Hell yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, listen, I love the romance readers.
Speaker B:I have several good friends and I tell you the, the beauty of romance readers is they read like three books a week.
Speaker B:And that is amazing to me.
Speaker B:And I, and I love it.
Speaker B:I think you know how there's that new mixed genre romantasy, which is romance and fantasy.
Speaker B:If we could merge romance with thrillers, which, because there are thrillers with romance in them, there's certainly erotic thrillers, but I feel like there could be a more full blown.
Speaker B:Cause I can't write a book without a murder in it.
Speaker B:I'm sorry.
Speaker B:So I don't know if I could go in the romance field because I would keep adding murder my sensibility.
Speaker B:Maybe.
Speaker B:There are dark romance novels for sure, and I've read some of them.
Speaker B:But I think maybe for me the engine is always the crime.
Speaker B:So I don't know.
Speaker A:No, Megan, I got it.
Speaker A:I got it.
Speaker A:I got it.
Speaker A:We're going to call it Thrillmance.
Speaker B:Thrillman.
Speaker B:Now that's good.
Speaker B:Now that's good.
Speaker B:Well, you should TM that right now.
Speaker A:Only if you'll join me.
Speaker B:Let's.
Speaker A:Let's co.
Speaker A:We'll collaborate.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we'll come up with different pen names so that we can keep our other world separate.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I like it.
Speaker A:Last question, because I'm now running over.
Speaker A:We talked about this two years ago.
Speaker A:Once again, thank you for being here.
Speaker A:But I want to know best writing advice.
Speaker A:I mean, nobody's going to give a better piece of writing advice to my listeners who are up and coming writers.
Speaker A:There's a lot of them than you, so just dish it for me, girlfriend.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'll always say, the first thing I always say is make sure you read a lot and widely, because I'm always surprised by how many people that want to have a story, they want to write a book, but they're not.
Speaker B:They're not consuming enough of what's being written.
Speaker B:Now, all books are great, but if you really, if you really, if you want to sell your book book, you should really be reading what's coming out now and finding your place.
Speaker B:And it's not that you want to copy or replicate or copy trends, but you just want to be consuming books because that's really the best way to sharpen your skills.
Speaker B:I mean, I constantly, all the time when I'm trying to break out of ruts, I try to read in a different.
Speaker B:I read a lot of nonfiction right now.
Speaker B:I'm reading the right stuff.
Speaker B:Tom Wolf.
Speaker B:I try to find things in other books.
Speaker B:It's the endless well of creative ideas and ideas about how to construct a book and how to build a story.
Speaker B:So I think the number one thing is just make sure you're reading a lot and widely, not just in your lane.
Speaker A:And it's so funny.
Speaker A:When I was reading El Dorado Drive, I was getting little hints, like an aftermath of Fragrance of something really Pleasant.
Speaker A:And I was thinking about Elmore Leonard, and of course, I'd done my homework on you.
Speaker A:And I'm like, isn't it interesting?
Speaker A:Because she broke some rules in the writing of this book, and I'm a big fan of breaking rules.
Speaker A:So I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker A:There's no reason you can't break rules.
Speaker A:I mean, Elmore Leonard broke rules.
Speaker A:He just cut out everything that nobody wanted to read.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And you're making your own formats.
Speaker A:And I, I Think that's one big takeaway for all of us today, is it?
Speaker A:Just.
Speaker A:Just write the damn book that you want and just don't worry about.
Speaker A:About will it fit in the shelf or will it understand.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:And I understand you have to be have a mind toward where, where will the publishers put it on the shelf.
Speaker A:However, you never know when you might be doing something so unique.
Speaker A:They're like, we have to have this right.
Speaker B:And I don't even think you should think about where being publishers put it on the shelf.
Speaker B:I mean, I know you have to kind of in your query letter sort of, you know, but that's sort of a fiction anyway.
Speaker B:My first book, I didn't even write it as I didn't know it.
Speaker B:A crime novel.
Speaker B:Now it seems strange because there's a lot of crimes in it, but I just wrote a novel that I wanted to write.
Speaker B:It really wasn't until I sold it and they were calling it a crime novel.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And I'm glad that I just wrote the book I wanted to write.
Speaker B:So always try to go from that place each time.
Speaker B:And I think, you know what, really, what always publishers are looking for, despite all the things they might say, is original voice.
Speaker B:Voice only.
Speaker B:Every.
Speaker B:Everyone trying to write a book.
Speaker B:Now you have an original voice that you need to lean into.
Speaker B:You need to lean into your idiosyncrasies and your specificities.
Speaker B:And the more specific, the more universal, as we all know.
Speaker A:Oh, there's the recipe for success, ladies and gentlemen, right there.
Speaker A:Well, learn more@meganabbott.com stay tuned for when Megan and I, I co write our first thrillmance novel together.
Speaker B:You heard it here first.
Speaker B:We'll be launching our imprint by the end of the week.
Speaker A:Yes, and by the way, thank you for making our fourth year celebrating with us and being here and being so kind and gracious as you always are.
Speaker B:Oh, so much my pleasure.
Speaker B:This was so much fun.
Speaker B:I knew it would be.
Speaker A:Thank you, man.
Speaker A:How good was this?
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:I know I say that a lot, but dad.
Speaker A:Gum, that was good.
Speaker A:Megan, what a sweetheart.
Speaker A:Talking about having the best of all worlds.
Speaker A:One hand is in writing novels, one hand is in creating television.
Speaker A:That is my dream.
Speaker A:My number one dream possibly maybe in the world outside of taking a really nice vacation sometime this year with my lovely wife Tammy.
Speaker A:She deserves all that she's got coming to her folks.
Speaker A:Megan, a sweetheart.
Speaker A:Okay, we're now officially kicking off season nine, fourth year.
Speaker A:Four years we've been at this, you and me sticking it out for four years.
Speaker A:You know, there's some people have been saying some nice things about this show.
Speaker A:For some reason, they're saying it more and more often.
Speaker A:And I want to say thanks you just from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Speaker A:Thank you for being there.
Speaker A:Thanks for hanging in there with me.
Speaker A:I keep dreaming about moving into a full time studio.
Speaker A:As you know, we head up to LA every once in a while.
Speaker A:And thanks to my good friend Jonathan Ayala, we sit down in a studio from time to time.
Speaker A:We might be able to do that more in the summer.
Speaker A:Hope so.
Speaker A:But how about this as we wrap June next week, you know how we started off with Emily Best Bessler, only one of the biggest publisher editors in the entire world.
Speaker A:Emily Bessler Brooks.
Speaker A:Gosh, she was delightful.
Speaker A:Then we followed it up with a number one debut, author Thomas Trang.
Speaker A:As you just saw, Megan Abbott, only one of the biggest New York Times bestsellers in the world.
Speaker A:Okay, and now think of the biggest talent agency in the world.
Speaker A:At least one of them, but near the top, if not on the top.
Speaker A:Triton Media Group.
Speaker A:Yeah, that sound familiar?
Speaker A:Mark Gottlieb, you've heard him on the show twice now.
Speaker A:Pops is coming to the show.
Speaker A:You're gonna hear in the show.
Speaker A:I said, robert, is it true that you went down the hall after hearing about Mark being on my show and said, son, do you think David would have me on the show?
Speaker A:I asked him point blank and he goes, yeah, that is a true story.
Speaker A:So Robert Gottlieb of Triton Media Group, the chairman is gonna be wrapping up June right here on the Thriller Zone.
Speaker A:I could just about mic drop it right there, but this thing cost too much money to try to maybe break it.
Speaker A:What, a month, what four years it has been?
Speaker A:I feel like I should be.
Speaker A:I, you know, I need a cocktail.
Speaker A:If my dear late friend Ted Bill were with us right now, he and I would be toasting martinis.
Speaker A:Ted, this is for you, man.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:I'm Dave Temple, your host, and I'm out of here.
Speaker A:But I will see you next time for another edition of the Thriller Zone.
