Is this how it always is? An interview with Laurie Frankel.
Laurie Frankel is a writer and professor from Seattle. I’d go so far as to say she’s my favorite writer and professor from Seattle. I became familiar with Laurie’s book, Goodbye For Now, mainly because of an event I describe in the next paragraph. Goodbye For Now deals with a computer algorithm that lets you speak to your dead loved ones via Skype (yes, kind of like Domhnall Gleason’s episode of Black Mirror), and it deals with these events in a much different way than I did.
Several years ago I had one of those annoying family members who was overactive on social media. You know, the ones you haven’t seen in years yet they’d send video game invites and comment on every photo you post. Eventually she passed away and it was a sad affair, but I moved on because that’s what you do when you’re somewhat removed from a rough moment in time. Almost a year later, though, I received a birthday note on Facebook from this relative and I felt more in that moment than I had in the entire year leading up to it. This idea that our lives are memorialized in something as plain as a random Facebook program really ate at me and I remember spending months trying to contact Facebook to turn the program off, all so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it a second time. Who knows which of my other relatives had received this haunting message as well?
We had Laurie on the show this week to discuss Goodbye For Now and also This Is How It Always Is, her third novel coming next winter. It tackles something completely different; the idea that there are quite often tumultuous, seemingly life changing events in your life that seem like they never happen to anyone. Fantastical things that are so improbable that no one expects them, but in fact these things always happen. This is how it always is. But you deal with it because that’s the only thing you can do. Laurie’s case is a rare one (listen to the show to find out what), but this kind of earth shattering event has happened to all of us. It may be a bad breakup or a death in the family, a parent’s divorce or a windfall of debt. We’ve been watching the impossible happen for months with everything Donald Drumpf touches.
This Is How It Always Is shows us that the world is full of unexpected chess moves and we have to learn how to deal with them, for better or for worse. Laurie’s story in this week’s episode is an exceptional example of learning to deal with your lot in life. If that’s all you want to hear from this episode I don’t blame you. Click here and fast forward to the 27:30 mark to hear her story.
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Oh, also, Laurie may have the coolest bookshelf I’ve ever seen. Check it out here.
