John Searles joins Book Gang to dish on his new novel Single Girls, inspired by Helen Gurley Brown and the women who transformed Cosmopolitan magazine.
John Searles joins Book Gang to dish on his new novel Single Girls, inspired by Helen Gurley Brown and the women who transformed Cosmopolitan magazine.
We welcome John Searles to Book Gang for a heartfelt conversation about his historical fiction novel, Single Girls—a story inspired by Helen Gurley Brown and the trailblazing women behind Cosmopolitan. Drawing on his years as an editor at Cosmo and his deep admiration for Helen, he brings readers behind the scenes of the magazine’s revolutionary 1960s makeover. Together, we explore the mix of nostalgia, ambition, and feminist history that animates this witty, unconventional story of women’s work and self-discovery.
Single Girls follows Helen Gurley Brown as she assembles a team of unforgettable women to take on a skeptical publishing world, reshaping Cosmo and, in the process, the lives of millions of single women. Through playful structure, shifting points of view, and the signature Cosmo quizzes and glossaries, John immerses readers in the vibrant, sometimes chaotic world of magazine publishing and female empowerment.
In this lively episode, we discuss:
📚 Crafting a Cosmo Experience for a Reader: John shares his experience researching the magazine’s archives, his friendships with real Cosmo editors, and how he crafted a chorus of voices that reflect the era’s joys and challenges. We explore the artistic risks of blending fiction with real-life history, from composite characters to playful narrative forms.
📚 Capturing Helen Gurley Brown’s Legacy: We take a deep look at Helen’s remarkable transformation from a humble, often difficult upbringing—marked by her father’s tragic elevator accident and a mother who constantly criticized her—to becoming a glamorous, influential figure in women’s media. John shares personal anecdotes from his friendship with Helen, exploring how her drive for self-improvement and her resilience in the face of grief and adversity shaped her voice and vision.
📚 The Memorable Audiobook Experience: We explore the creation of the Single Girls audiobook, narrated by Oscar- and Tony-nominated actress Amy Ryan. John shares how their personal connection led to her involvement and describes what it was like to hear his words performed by such a talented storyteller. We discuss the special magic that a gifted narrator can bring to a book, especially one as lively and character-driven as Single Girls.
FREE BONUS BOOK LIST: 13 Books About Magazines to Light Up Your Analog Heart— This curated list dives into the page-turning, messy, and fascinating world of magazines, both real and fictional. Patrons will receive a printable book list and an exclusive spoiler-filled episode with John Searles.
Meet John Searles
John Searles is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of four novels. His books have been published in over a dozen languages and named “Best of the Year” by The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, and more. A frequent contributor to The New York Times and The Washington Post, John spent two decades as a top editor at Cosmopolitan, first hired by Helen Gurley Brown herself. “Single Girls” is his latest novel—a witty, moving tribute to ambition, resilience, and the legacy of women’s magazines. Today's featured novel is available on store shelves now.
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FREE BOOK LIST: 13 Books About Magazines to Light Up Your Analog Heart
Single Girls by John Searles
The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Morris Wilkins, Who Lured Honeymooners to Poconos, Dies at 90 (GIFTED)
Isola by Allegra Goodman
Not Pretty Enough by Gerri Hirshey
Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown
Natural Blonde by Liz Smith
Amy Du Bois Barnett Book Gang Episode
Strange But True by John Searles
Liberty Leading the People painting by Eugéne Delacroix
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Book Gang Podcast Transcript:
John Searles (00:00)
Hi, my name is John Searles. I'm a novelist and my latest book is Single Girls and it's a novel about Helen Gurley Brown and the team of women she assembles to transform Cosmopolitan magazine into one of the best selling and certainly the most talked about women's magazines of all time.
Amy’s Warm Intro:
Hey Book Gang! I’m so excited to welcome you to this week’s show with John Searles, who invites us on a charming romp through the early days of Cosmopolitan magazine in his new novel, Single Girls. Searles pens a sparkling tribute to Helen Gurley Brown, honoring her fearless vision, trailblazing spirit, and the revolutionary impact she had on generations of women through her work at Cosmopolitan, and who better to write it than him? After devoting more than two decades to Cosmo—rising from book editor to editor-at-large—Searles had put aside his youthful dream of writing the great literary novel and instead crafted some of the magazine’s most unforgettable headlines, including his personal favorite: “Bed, Bath, and Beyond Her Wildest Dreams.”
He brings all that insider magic to this story, teaming up with Amy Ryan (who you might know as Holly from The Office) to narrate the audiobook with just the right blend of mischief and confidence. The novel’s inventive structure, complete with a surprise mid-book Cosmo quiz, makes it a delight in any format. Honestly, Single Girls begs to be enjoyed both on paper and in audio—Searles cleverly weaves memory and present (sometimes on a single page!), and Ryan’s lively narration keeps perfect pace.
The book opens with a glossary of “Helen’s Favorite Uncommon Words”—from goosebumpy to mouseburger—and bookends Helen’s journey with two pivotal moments: her pitch day with her devoted husband, David, for a magazine just for single women (a publication she’d go on to helm for thirty-two years as Editor-in-Chief), and the haunting elevator accident that changed her family’s destiny forever.
Helen’s original pitch for a magazine dedicated to single women is met with skepticism by the men in the office—after all, it’s assumed that only married women control the household purse strings. She’s handed a three-issue ultimatum: transform Cosmo’s audience from readers seeking homemaker tips and JELL-O salad recipes into women hungry for candid, sex-positive advice and bold new perspectives. Her original magazine mockup boasted irresistible headlines like “Why Brainy Girls Make the Best Lovers,” “How to Have Rich Girl Hair,” and “Why Can’t Women Enjoy Pleasure Without Guilt… Just Like Men?” In this three-strikes-or-you’re-out job, the office is already a game of musical chairs—and a woman’s seat is the easiest to lose.
Mining Cosmo’s archives, Searles invents and fleshes out the backstories of the single girls—both real and fictional—who penned each column, showcasing a dazzling diversity of voices as they navigated sex, identity, and independence. From a divorcée who was still a virgin to a queer woman forging her own path in the city, the magazine crackles with authenticity and boldness, mirroring the trailblazers who brought it to life. With frank diagrams explaining everything from what’s happening in a woman’s uterus to unlocking more pleasure in the bedroom, Cosmo’s sales skyrocket, proving single women don’t need a man’s permission—or wallet—to become loyal subscribers.
With warmth and irresistible sparkle, Single Girls immerses readers in the spirit of a revolution—a moment when women dared to break the rules, chase their ambitions, and seize every dazzling opportunity before them. The author’s joy and enthusiasm are infectious; I found myself grinning ear to ear. And as the audiobook wraps, the bonus interview with Amy and John offers even more pockets of joy, as two creative friends celebrate their shared craft as storytellers. This is Helen’s story, but it’s also every single girl’s invitation to live boldly, brilliantly, and unapologetically on her own terms, thanks to trailblazers like Helen. If you love Scandalous Women, or you’re an adventurous reader drawn to novels that play with form and froth, this one’s for you!
If you’re new here, hi! I’m Amy Allen Clark, the voice behind the Book Gang podcast and I’m just so happy to have you here. This podcast celebrates debuts, backlist favorites, and under-the-radar book gems and we are kicking off our fall show season with fifteen new voices we just announced—if you missed that list, you’ll find a link to screenshot it in today’s show notes.
To celebrate Single Girls, I’ve put together a free bonus book list with 13 Books About Magazines to Light Up Your Analog Heart. This curated list dives into the page-turning, messy, and fascinating world of magazines, both real and fictional. Patrons will receive a printable version of the list and an exclusive spoiler-filled episode with John Searles.
And I have another exciting announcement for our Book Gang community! We’re launching our very first Classics Club meeting with a three-month readalong of Jane Eyre, beginning with our group discussion on September 17th at 8 PM ET on Zoom. To kick things off, you’ll receive a book club guide for Section 1: Chapters 1–13 on September 1st to help you get started. I also want to give a special shout-out to Kalena—our wonderful Patreon friend and generous participant—who’s graciously helping me put this guide together so I can balance time with my mom as I prepare to lead our club.
We’ve already started the ball rolling by sharing advice and resources on the many ways you can experience Jane Eyre—whether you prefer a beautifully bound paper copy, an immersive audiobook, or a digital edition that fits your lifestyle. We’re also spotlighting some of the most beloved audiobook narrators and what each brings to their performance, to help you choose your perfect voice for the journey. Whether you’re a lifelong Jane Eyre enthusiast or picking up this classic for the very first time, we’d love for you to join the conversation and tell us which format you’re choosing, what’s working for you, and any tips you have for fellow readers. Your insights might help someone else discover their ideal way to enjoy this beloved novel.
Behind the scenes, we’re hard at work crafting a guide for each section of Jane Eyre, so you’ll feel supported every step of the way—no matter your Brontë experience level. I can’t wait to see which versions you choose and to experience this timeless novel together as a community. My Patreon is $5 a month, or you can prepay for a 10% savings for the year.
Now, let’s meet today’s guest: John Searles is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of four novels. His books have been published in over a dozen languages and named “Best of the Year” by The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, and more. A frequent contributor to The New York Times and The Washington Post, John spent two decades as a top editor at Cosmopolitan, first hired by Helen Gurley Brown herself. Single Girls is his latest novel—a witty, moving tribute to ambition, resilience, and the legacy of women’s magazines. This novel is available on store shelves now.
Just a reminder: If you’re enjoying the show, leaving a quick review on iTunes is one of the best ways to help others discover Book Gang—it’s free and means so much to us. And to our wonderful patrons, I’m sending a big, glittery thank you in honor of today’s episode. You’re the dazzling cover stars of our community. Thank you for supporting human creators in a world turned upside down by AI.
Now, let’s get chatting!
(transition music)
Book Gang- Amy (00:18)
John, I am so excited to welcome you to Book Gang. I am a new fan of your work. I am so excited to talk about this experience, but I have to start on a side quest plot that you developed because I've never got to actually talk about this experience. I honeymooned in the champagne glass room in Poconos. And I'm like, no one would get it except you. And I want to talk about this with you.
John Searles (00:46)
You started off with a bang, I'm so excited. In the book, as you know, but for people listening, there is a scene set in a champagne glass hot tub. It's one of my favorite scenes in the book. And I have never been in one Amy, but when I was a kid, my dad was a cross country truck driver and I used to go trucking with him.
My parents' stated goal was to quote make a man out of me. And I always joke that they didn't get the results they wanted. But when my dad and I would go through the Poconos, I would see we 'cause we were coming from New England, we'd always go out through the mountains and I would see these billboards for Covehaven Resorts and Mount Erie Lodge with a couple in a champagne glass hot tub.
And then if I'd stay home from school sick, anyone who grew up like kind of in the New York City tri-state area or New England saw these commercials for beautiful Mount Airy a lot. And all you have to bring, Amy, is your love of everything. That was the tagline. And I'd be eating my chicken Campbell's chicken soup and saltines seeing these commercials or driving with my dad seeing these billboards. And all I would think was someday when I get older, I want to be in a champagne glass hot tub. And then I've still never gone, but when I was writing a book about Cosmo and about the Sex and Love Editor and a trip she takes with her man friend. I thought, she's gotta go to a champagne glass hot tub So tell me about your experience.
Book Gang- Amy (02:10)
Well, so just to put in perspective of like who I was at that time, I grew up in a little town and I'm just like a corn-fed Midwestern girl who had no taste. Grew up in a a very fairly conservative home. And I married my high school sweetheart. And we were in our early 20s. So he was 21. When we got married, I was 22. So I had no; that seemed the classiest kind of experience one could ever experience on their honeymoon. I saw that in the back of a wedding magazine 26 years ago. And I was just so taken by this image and thought, like, if there was something that I could do on my honeymoon, I could not think of a more top tier experience than this. And so we got that room and we actually packed all our belongings from Indiana to move to Massachusetts, but swung into
John Searles (03:02)
To move to the hot tub.
Book Gang- Amy (03:06)
to move to Poconos for a brief stay and then moved to start our life in Massachusetts. And what I can tell you about it, first of all, it was exactly what you would expect. It was like the honeymoon capital at that point. Everyone was coming back. So we were the youngest. So people came back for their anniversaries. It was almost like a cruise ship kind of experience. They had a photographer that would come around and we have this picture of us that's almost like spray painted.
John Searles (03:31)
In the hot tub? okay.
Book Gang- Amy (03:37)
No, it is at the tables at the dinner. No, no, actually the hot tub that's actually very funny because I remember we had a conversation with a man who said there was no way to get a picture in that room without showing your ass. Like, because if you were naked or like having a great time, there were mirrors everywhere in this whole room, right? There's nowhere to like you would see yourself reflected in like 14 different ways.
And so it was just one of those really like crazy experiences. And they gave us like a summer sausage and like Sutter Homes wine and a basket and like a little firewood. And you could like have a fire and do this, like wine. And we thought this is the epitome of like class, like what could be more classy than this experience? I just I love that that's what we thought was like the best kind of honeymoon.
John Searles (04:23)
The best thing. Exactly. For some people it was, I guess. But yeah, as you get older you're like, maybe I don't need to do that.
But what's funny, going on a book tour for Single Girls, and I have this scene as you know where the Sex and Love Editor goes off with their man friend. It's supposed to be this hot and steamy weekend, and everything that goes wrong could go wrong. I've met two people who one broke his ankle, her fiance broke his ankle, and one broke a toe. They're very slippery and oddly shaped.
Book Gang- Amy (04:52)
Yes, it is true.
John Searles (04:54)
And so apparently, I didn't know this when I wrote about what happened with Myrna and Barry and Single Girls, but apparently that's a thing, that people would get injured in them. Did you experience any injuries that weekend?
Book Gang- Amy (05:04)
It was very slippery and we did have the heart-shaped top as or sorry, like a heart-shaped pool in our room too. So it was like an adjoining, yeah, so we did have that experience. Yeah, I don't think that if you were drinking, it could be very, very easy to slip.
And actually you sent me on a bit of a rabbit trail because I was like, Is this a real story? Did this really happen to? And then of course I found Milton, I believe his it was his name. Who was the original? Morris. Okay. Okay, yeah.
John Searles (05:29)
Morris Wilkins. Morris Wilkins. Yeah, he's a character in the book. Yeah. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (05:33)
Yeah, so and then I got to read his like bio in the New York Times, and that was just so fascinating how that tub even came into existence. We'll link to it. It's like hilariously awesome. Like no one actually knows the lore.
John Searles (05:42)
Yeah, the whole development of it. I know.
It was so fun to write and I found out that the real world's first champagne glass hot tub that Morris Wilkins invented wasn't introduced to the world until the nineteen eighties and Single Girls is set in the nineteen sixties, but he did invent the heart shape bathtub, which was a thing in the Poconos, and he had been tinkering with this idea in his mind forever, so the good thing about writing fiction is I kind of just moved it a little and I have it to be a very early prototype of the first champagne glass hot tub. So it was so much fun to write.
Book Gang- Amy (06:18)
I love it. Well, it was it it was so fun to read and then just reminisce over that time of my life. And I just loved this book. You know, I'm looking back at your career, this is so very different. And it's always really fun when an author moves into a new wheelhouse. Sometimes a lot of our authors, when they transition, they say, like, this is the most fun I've had with writing, especially when they write something darker or more complex. Was this the most fun that you've had with writing?
John Searles (06:46)
Yeah, I had a blast writing this book. B I was doing an interview though and I said it was so much fun and then the interviewer said, so it was really easy and I said, Well, no, it wasn't really easy. It was a tremendous amount of work, but it was a labor of love. You know, there was so much research into the 1960s and I got my hands on so many old Cosmo issues from the sixties and Playboys and Vogues and just I really, really immersed myself in the magazine world of the nineteen sixties and I read a ton. I read because this is a book about not just Helen.
I keep saying Helen Gurley Brown is like the sun and the other editors are like the planets revolving around her because you get their stories too. so I really read like I read The Group, the Mary McCarthy famous book about a group of women. I reread The Best of Everything. I knew Rona Jaffe years back and she had a kind of a scholarship thing so I knew her through Cosmo and I read Valley the Dolls and so I read all these like books about groups of women of course then I had my own decades long career at Cosmo to inspire me.
So it was a book I had always wanted to write, but in publish you know, I always wrote kind of darker, character driven suspense novels. and publishers kinda like you to stay in your lane. And I just finally thought the world is dark enough. I don't want to write anything dark. And I had always wanted to write this book and so I finally I finally did. I'm happy I did too. It was really fun. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (08:16)
It feels like when you talk about just the research process that it was kind of a labyrinth of your own making, right? Like you have to figure out how to piece all of that together. And I think one of the most surprising factors when I first opened the book is just how the structure works in this. This is very unexpected. It was very surprising in a lot of different ways.
And in some ways, it kind of reminded me of a Cosmo experience. And I'm not sure if that's what you were going after, but we had that quiz kind of in the middle of everything, we have these shifting viewpoints that feel almost like articles that one might be reading, but it's about the women who are making it. Was that the an initial intent, especially with the glossary of terms and all the ways that you had to kind of set the reader up at the top?
John Searles (09:03)
You know, I never I guess I didn't articulate it to myself that way, so I'll take it, Amy. But I also think it's just in my DNA after being an editor at Cosmo for twenty-three years. And I thought you know, there are those books, wonderful books that pick a historic figure and tell their life story, a novel, you know, and I just I thought in order to tell Helen's story.
I didn't wanna just tell Helen's story, I wanted to talk about tell the story of the magazine of an industry at a time where it was so huge and influential and editors were cultural tastemakers. But I thought in order to really capture this I have to tell the stories of other women who came through the magazine. And one of those women is Liz Smith, who was the entertainment editor, the famed gossip columnist, started as the Entertainment Editor at Cosmo.
And she and Helen met when Helen first took over Cosmo and they formed a lifelong friendship. So I was lucky to know Liz personally. I was lucky to know Helen personally. So I was able to really channel their voices. And then I worked at the magazine and when I was starting there were a lot of women who were at the end of their time at Cosmo. And I became friends with well, one in particular the books editor.
So I knew kind of what this kind of work family of women, who they were, what they did. But the other editors, other than Liz, other than Helen, led less public lives. And so I thought, well what do have to go on? I'm writing a novel, not a biography. And I thought, well when we were all there, the editors would come into pitch meetings and pitch what was going on in their lives. My boyfriend's doing this, my fiance, my mother, my boss, you know,
And those would become the cover lines. And so I thought, well, let me look at the cover lines from the sixties, which I was always obsessed with those old issues. And I kind of reverse engineered narratives for each of the I call them the girls who worked for Helen based on composites and things of people I knew mixed with well, what were their preoccupations at the time, what was going on in their lives, that they would have run such stories like, you know, When Husbands Fail As Lovers, A Young Wife's Frank Report, or 38 Wildly Romantic Places To Go With Your Man, back to the hot tub.
Book Gang- Amy (11:22)
Yeah.
John Searles (11:23)
Or they did a crocheted bikini, or when they had the first black model on the cover in the late sixties. So I thought, well, what was going on in this world? And I kind of imagined, based on what I knew and those things I mentioned, stories for each of them.
Book Gang- Amy (11:41)
Yeah, it's funny because even though you weren't conscious of it, the fingerprint of your work just really stands out to me as someone who is reading your book for the first time. And I think that I loved that aspect of it. It was so playful in its form and different than what I was expecting. I do want to say that it's also fearless in its form. And you kind of resisted, I think, a traditional model of what maybe people might experience a lot of times in historical fiction, which is dual timeline, shift POV, shift POV.
I mean we do have a little bit of that, but you have these overlapping moments of memory and modern moment, memory, modern moment, and some of those play out on the same page. Why did you choose that for your structure?
John Searles (12:25)
You know, sometimes I don't wanna sound alcoy, but like this it feels like the structure chooses you or that's how it comes to you. And it felt to me very much I mean, there are times well, I will say, knowing Helen and the conversations we had, you know, she could very quickly tap back into something that happened to her years ago as she was talking, like, well, you know. And I feel the same way. I can do be doing these like really amazing things. Like the other night I got to go to the I went to this party. I'm I had emailed previously with Brooke Shields, but she was there so we got to meet in person and talk about her cover shoots and classic great outlandish cosmo cover fashion shot by Scavulo. And, you know, part of my mind is like I remember watching commercials with for Brooke Shields. Brooke Shields. She's a beautiful girl with the Brooke Shields doll.
But then I'm at a party chatting with Brooke and who's wonderful by the way. So I just thought that's such a thing that happens in life when you're doing your present life is so different than your past life, which is often the case with my life and the way I grew up. You know, like I said, my dad was a truck driver. I'd go trucking with him and, you know, every time I'm on the road I'll like we're going somewhere and we pass a truck and I kind of look up and like I'm like brought back to that experience.
And I just thought that felt authentic for Helen given she had such a traumatic childhood. She came from very humble beginnings and then she ended up in this really glamorous life and a really unique, fascinating life. And I thought, well different things would trigger back and it would also kind of inform the reader who she is without these kind of long chunks of childhood, you know, so you get it going flowing back and forth. And I guess it's a risk doing that 'cause some people want the traditional thing. But I like to dunno just play with things and try to tell something in a fresh way.
Book Gang- Amy (14:21)
Yeah, I enjoyed it. I think it took a little bit to get into the rhythm of it. And then when it started to make sense to me, especially on the page, I was like, okay, I like this, especially when you did a little bit of overlap text, right? Or you merge scenes that are surprising, like a past moment kind of merges with the modern moment, which you're talking about is the reality for many of us. Especially I feel like now that I'm nearing my 50s, I'm like, okay, like all of these memories kind of embed themselves in the moments that I'm living in too. Like it feels like yesterday, but it's also very far away, right?
John Searles (14:53)
It's yeah, it's very the past can feel very present if you've especially if you've lived the kind of past that Helen had, you know, I think it was really imprinted on her. She always was very, we'll say frugal. She was so careful with money. So, you know, she just didn't, she was a penny pincher and her husband would get mad, but it was because she never was able to shake her impoverished past and her upbringing, you know.
Book Gang- Amy (15:19)
Yeah. Well let's talk about the elevators, which feel like a repeating motif in this book, right? We have the elevator, it's symbolic for a lot of reasons. Right at the top of the story, you choose to frame it with the death of her father, which is a tragic elevator accident. But then the elevator plays out in many other ways and many other scenes. It's where she gets her best ideas. It's where the girls bounce off ideas. At one point she gets stuck in an elevator. Why was that a reoccurring motif? And how did you want to embed that into Helen's story?
John Searles (15:53)
Well one, I would always see Helen in the elevator at the Hearst Tower or before we moved to the Hearst Tower we were at the Argonaut building at 224 West 57th, then I'd see you in the elevator there. And she'd always she was very obsessed with posture. John, you have such nice posture. So she always makes you sit up a little straighter. But and so much of working in an office in New York City is running into people in the elevator and the chit chat that happens.
But then I remembered early on learning that Helen's father had died. I didn't know the specifics that he died in an elevator accident, a freak elevator accident. And she was a a master really at kind of batting away personal questions, but over the years, the many years that I came to know her, I'd go see her in her office, or we'd go down to the Hearst Cafe and have lunch, or she just was so sweet to me and I have so many letters and notes from her. One day she talked about what happened and the way she told it she told it so vividly and I you know, she said, made some comment, you know, it haunted me my entire life.
And I just thought, well, maybe that's the way 'cause I'd always want to write a book about Cosmo in the sixties and women's magazines and Helen, but I didn't really know my way in and I would toy with the idea and one night I woke up and remembered her saying it haunted her her whole life and I thought maybe that's my way into the book. So I got up and wrote the scene and then in the way inspiration works, I just kept writing more scenes. And I do think it shows, you know, the book is a very joyful, hopeful book and so it opens on kind of a dark moment. It's just like a three page chapter. But you realize why she became the person she was because it wasn't just then her father's death, it was that her mother was so harsh on Helen and her sister, and she used to say, You're not pretty enough, no one's gonna want to marry you, I don't know what you're gonna do, you're not pretty enough, you're plain as dish rags. And she was really kind of she had the the darkness of her that trauma with her father, and then that brainwashing by her mother, and she was always trying to escape that, either through therapy, which I talk about in the book, where she gives a very unorthodox nude group therapy and try, yes, that was a thing
Book Gang- Amy (18:05)
Ha ha ha.
John Searles (18:05)
in the fifties and also just kind of you know, through through just always being on a quest for self improvement to look she always wanted to be pretty because her mother had said she wasn't and so she was always on this quest for self improvement and to show she was really someone and because her mother made her feel like she was no one, you know.
Book Gang- Amy (18:27)
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's hard to imagine that. I mean, I know that you're setting that up for us, but like someone who has such sparkly language and becomes this like huge force in the world, right? And her language is a a big part of the storytelling mechanism that you have to do as the author. At the beginning of this book, you did a glossary of all of Helen's terms, right? So that the reader can understand what she's talking about. Some of them are real words, some of them are made up. Some of them are just playful little words, but you embedded her language. So we have like flippery, we have mouseburger. There's lots of different words. I'm wondering did any of those words become part of your language after you got done with the book where did you keep throwing around these words? How did you get emerged?
John Searles (19:12)
I've been on book tour and I'm a I've been on book tour and I've been signing almost everybody's book With Love Pussycat. She, Helen, called everyone Pussycat. You know, she had this really unique way of talking, and I was like two-thirds of the way through the book, and I thought, wouldn't it be fun to open with a glossary of Helen's uncommon terms? Because the way she spoke was just so kind of colorful and unusual and punctilious, she would say, and pussycat and flippery, all you know, the things you said.
So I wanted the book to feel just like a really fun experience. So I thought, well how often do you open a a book like this and there's a glossary of terms like pussycat and mouseburger, which is mouseburger is something she always called herself.
and and then how can you write a book about Cosmo without having a Cosmo quiz? the Cosmo quiz came to me it's like two thirds of the way through the book and it it's both fun and engaging because A it's a book about Cosmo and Cosmo's so associated with quizzes, but it's also my sly way of showing all the important stories they did because as I did my research, yes, there's all the stuff Cosmos always kind of criticized for the man you know, the man chasing and the dating and the silly things. Why I Wear My False Eyelashes to Bed, One woman's story. There's one I loved Homosexual Men Can Be Habit Forming, One Woman's Story. I admit, Amy, we can be habit forming.
Book Gang- Amy (20:40)
Ha ha.
John Searles (20:41)
I admit. but in that I noticed they did all these stories that were way ahead of their time, like they did stories on how to get a divorce. I know that sounds really basic, but you couldn't Google that in nineteen sixty five.
Helen ran a full color map of the female anatomy cause she thought women needed to understand their bodies better. Interracial marriage. The women's detention center where they sent gay women if they were not wearing three articles of feminine attire. There used to be this archaic rule that the police could send gay women to the women's house of detention in the downtown in the village.
So they did all these fascinating stories, and I thought, well wouldn't it be interesting in the for the way the quiz is set up, as you know, it's like how likely would you have been to want to read this story? And then there's a cosmo quiz, you tally your results and you get a response at the end. So it's also my sly way of showing Wow, they did really interesting ahead of their time things.
They had this one recurring column. It was not every issue, but it was like every four or five issues or something, where it was called What It's Like to Be. And they would find find a woman from around the country and she would write about her experience, what it's like to be a southern woman, what it's like to be a Catholic woman, what it's like to be a black woman, and Japanese woman, a nun, a gay woman. Like all of these things that like she Helen believed like of the more women understand each other, the more united they are in their cause and their cause being an equal life to men and equal opportunity for men. So she gets a lot of criticism because she was a different kind of feminist from Betty Friedan or you know, but she still believed she was a feminist. And I would think so many of these articles that they did demonstrate that. So that's why I put the quiz in. Sorry to get all nerdy and serious on you.
Book Gang- Amy (22:41)
No, I love it. No, this is this is your hour. I'm very excited. I of course am thinking, you know, I I love that you did something completely different with your career, but how did the team receive it? What did that look like for you selling the book? How long did it take? What was the process like for this novel that was different maybe than the other books that you've written?
John Searles (23:00)
You know, I was up for a new contract. I'd just completed a two book contract and so I had this great moment where I didn't have to tell anyone what I was writing. And I just wanted to write what I wanted to write. And so every day I would go to the library. We have a little house in Sag Harbor where I am now. And my husband would drop me off at the library and there was a little room on the top floor that I if you couldn't reserve it, Amy, but you could if you got there first, it was yours for the day.
So I my husband it would open at nine. I would be there at eight fifty nine. I went running up the stairs, claimed my office. I called the librarians my office mates because we spent a year and eight months together as I was writing this book and I basically lived there.
And then I showed my agent, showed my editor, and the response was wonderful. They loved it. They you know, people were so excited about it and and but I think if I had told people, I wanna write this book about how you know, people have their opinions about things and so I don't know, I I just kind of like to be in my own quiet little world writing what I write. I've never had the thing where I most writers I know like, I told the concept to my editor, she liked it and or and now I'm writing it. I just I don't tell anyone except my husband when I'm writing. I keep it really I give it to the page because I feel like as soon as people start giving their opinions and talking about it, it somehow deflates the experience for me. So that's just how I work.
Book Gang- Amy (24:31)
No, I love hearing about writers' secret projects. You're maybe the third writer that I've heard from that did that. One of the most memorable being Allegra Goodman wrote Isola in complete private.
So like her family didn't know and she would go do museum visits during the day and try to immerse herself and her no one on her team knew n no one knew she wrote it and I just think it's so special when writers have a secret project and it shows that, you know, this is a very special project to you and you didn't want to get the feedback just yet to find out what anyone else thought about it. Did you do anything to celebrate? Tell me about the day that you sold this book.
John Searles (25:08)
Well, there was, you know, it was a funny experience. So I sold the book. So in this book there's a scene where Helen and David go to the Rainbow Room and she orders she loved one of her favorite drinks was a hot buttered rum. And she orders a hot buttered rum and there's a scene and I had never had a hot buttered rum, I'd never heard of it until in my research I found where she talks about how much 'cause she and I didn't really talk about cocktails, but she talks about in an Esquire story, how that was her favorite cocktail.
We went to a restaurant San Ambrose in the West Village and to have a toast and dinner after I sold the book. And the person next to us ordered a hot buttered rum. And I kind of turned, I was like, that's so wild. And then the bartender saw me looking. He said, You want a little? and poured us each Thomas and I, each a hot buttered rum. And so we had a little toast and it was one of those weird experiences like, Helen, are you is are you here? Are we you know. So yeah, so we had a nice toast and we celebrated with and it w thankfully it was a winter night because it wasn't it's not really a summery kind of drink, a hot buttered rum, but it's a very cozy, very good winter night drink. And I don't d I don't know, Amy, do you have hot buttered rums? Do you ever have them?
Book Gang- Amy (26:19)
I have had one. There is a little pizza place that does hot cocktails and one winter I did have it. And it's a delicious drink. Like it's so good.
John Searles (26:27)
Yeah. It was so cozy and tasty and yeah, really good. So yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (26:30)
Well, let's get into this book a little bit. First I wanna ask you, you say in your author's note at first that you weren't sure Cosmo was the right fit, and your mother had advised to you, give it two weeks. If you still hate it, quit. So of course my thinking is what changed during those first two weeks that convinced you to stay for twenty three years?
John Searles (26:50)
Well yeah, she said she it's such a little word thing I realized 'cause it was in the galley. She what she said was, If you hate it, quit because I didn't really hate it. I never hated it. I just was like, Do I belong here?
Because you know, I moved to New York, you know, I'd always wanted to be a writer since I was little, but no one in my family had gone to college. My dad was a truck driver. My parents got me a job at the DuPont factory in Newtown, Connecticut when I got out of school. And I started putting myself through state school and I don't know, I would write poetry on the side and take poetry classes and I didn't. I didn't know how to become a writer. And then tragically my younger sister, well, I have two younger sisters. One passed away after her high school prom and it was a horrific, terrible, terrible thing. And
Book Gang- Amy (27:32)
I'm so sorry.
John Searles (27:33)
Thank you. And after that I just thought, you know what, I I saw how cliche to say, but how short and precious life is and if it could be taken away so quickly, I thought, you know what?
The life I want is I wanna be a writer. That's what I've always dreamed of. I'm gonna figure out how to make it happen. So I moved to the city. My dad was working for a company called Augliera Trucking at that point, shipping Broadway show sets around the country for tourists and things. He was bringing in the set of Kiss of the Spider Woman. And he moved me to the city with all my stuff in garbage bags. And I waited tables and I put myself I had a partial scholarship, but I put myself through graduate school at NYU.
I met a wonderful professor who just loved my writing from the start and we're still friends from this day. Ann Hood, the novelist. She's an incredible, incredible person. and so I had gotten this terrible rejection letter from, I met a different friend of a friend of a friend who was an editor. I always say I don't want to mention names. Schmubbel Day. She was an editor at a Schmubbel place and said
Book Gang- Amy (28:35)
Ha ha ha.
John Searles (28:37)
Sounds like Schmubbeday. and I sent her my manuscript. She said you don't need an agent and a told the story a lot so I'll tell it quickly but the manuscript got returned to me with a rejection from her fine but then I took the manuscript out of the box and a little scrap of paper floated to the floor and it was a note from an in-house reader mistakenly left in the box and it said and I quote I could barely make it to page sixty and I feel really badly for anyone who has to read the whole thing.
Book Gang- Amy (29:05)
I'm so sorry. That actually like that was like tear me up. no. I
John Searles (29:06)
I know. It's really bad. I'm laughing. I know. I took to my bed. you know, I was Yeah. It's fresh. I know. It
Book Gang- Amy (29:13)
The stage of grief that you are right now. I'm like that that actually hurts really bad.
John Searles (29:17)
It did really hurt. So I just thought well publish, I always love writing, but I obviously I'm not cut out for this. I can't do this and can feel really insider-y times and and around that time I heard about a job opening packages in the books department at Cosmopolitan. I bought a jacket at the Salvation Army for twelve dollars because I had no money. I went on the interview, a friend of mine said I said, I have to get a resume. And my friend said, You're a writer. Writers don't have resumes. So when the very glamorous books editor, Betty Kelly, who's still my really good friend, when she said, Well, where's your resume? I said, Well, I'm a writer, we don't have those. I think she felt sorry for me. She hired me.
And so I said to my mother, I don't know if I fit in here because I was trying to write this literary novel inspired by what happened with my sister. This was a g glossy, glamorous women's magazine about men and makeup and movie stars and it was never really I mean men were my thing as a gay guy. But makeup and movie stars were not my thing.
But anyway, so I gave you know what happened? I realized like, I loved this world. It was so different than the world I grew up in. Helen was so good to me. Betty, the books editor, was so good to me. I got I was working in the books department. So every day I was opening all these books, I learned everything about book publishing and I met people in book publishing and I I saw, you know, when I was at NYU we read mostly literary fiction and at Cosmo, it's a lot of commercial fiction but also literary. So I just saw how publishing worked and I I became friends with inform there was a a real work family in which is part of what Single Girls is about, is about the work family that people I think, even if you don't work in a magazine, if you work in a any sort of office or restaurant like I did for many years, you do have a bond that forms. and so that's what kept me there all those years. So yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (31:09)
Yeah. I was thinking about, you know, you brought up your sister, you know, so much of especially the start of the story, but also it, you know, it peppers throughout the entire book is that Helen is carrying around a lot of grief. And do you think you could have tapped into that in the way that you could because of that overlap of losing someone in your family?
John Searles (31:31)
I think Helen and I had that in common. You know, if you had asked me the day we met, the day I started was the day of the O. J. Simpson verdict and we watched it. We watched it in Helen's office and that was the first time I laid eyes on her. And if you had asked me that day, Amy, I would have thought she and I have nothing in common. I mean, she's this glamorous media legend icon and I'm this kid waiting tables trying to write a book.
But it turned out we did have things in common. We both love words. That's why when I start with that glossary, it's like I love words. I'm very particular about when my husband always says, like on the deck, I'm like, it's a patio. Or like he'll say, I have to go to the dump. I'm like, transfer station. I don't know. I'm just weird about like certain words. He's like, All right. and or he'll say, I think to I thought to myself, I'm like, you can only think to yourself. You can't think to someone else. I think he lives with the word policeman.
But not that I'm perfect when it comes to words of and then Helen was the same, obsessed with words, that's why she was such a colorful writer. And she also loved ambitious go-getter women, and I don't know for me growing up gay, I was bullied. I didn't even know I was gay but the other boys picked up on that. And I was really bullied and ostracized and all my friends were girls in school and then I worked in a woman an office full of women at a woman's magazine for twenty three years. So all my friends are women. And so I've just always connected really well with women. If you asked me to write a book about a group of men, I would have a harder time. Yeah, than this. but I for have I answered your question, I lost track. I started rambling. What was the question though? I don't know.
Book Gang- Amy (33:03)
Yeah, yeah. The grief that you guys shared.
John Searles (33:06)
And so Helen and I shared a love of ambitious go-getter women and then we also shared I believe that grief about our less than glamorous early years of our lives. You know, and I had wonderful loving parents, but we had sort of a dark, at times very hard scrabble life. and not just my sister passing, but a lot of things that went on back then and so I think I think looking back and that was why Helen had such a sweetness for me, 'cause she saw that and and me for her, you know.
Book Gang- Amy (33:41)
Yeah. Well, I have only talked to maybe two authors about the experience of writing a real person, right? And some of my people that I've talked to, they've had to be very careful legally. Like they've had to figure out what they are allowed to fictionalize, what they cannot fictionalize. How did that look for you and creating an interior world for Helen? Obviously you know these things about her, but how do you decide what's fact, what's fiction, how to give that to a reader in this book?
John Searles (34:11)
Well, the first thing I'll say is of course Harper Collins, the legal team, vetted every single page, sentence, words, you know, everything. But in the writing process I just was creating and writing the book I wanted to write, which is really a love letter to her. There's nothing you know, it's just like so worshipful of her and I adored her and I had a front row seat to the magazine industry from 1995 until whenever I left, 2020 or whatever I don't know what year it was. And she and I had a friendship. But also there are many biographies about her. There's a wonderful one I was interviewed for, called Not Pretty Enough by Gerri Hirshey. If anyone wants to read an actual biography, that's a great one. And then there's Helen's own books, Sex and the Single Girl of course, and then many books she wrote since.
And there was also knowing Liz Smith and Liz too. I found all these sweet notes from when I was writing the book. And Liz wrote a great memoir that I talked about on the Today show, I believe, called Natural Blonde. And so I was really able to draw from so much and as I was writing it I thought, well, I don't know, I'm hopeful I can publish this and have it be Helen's name because it's such a love letter to Helen, but I didn't know how that would go. I just felt in my heart I want to write this book.
And then when I was done I met with the legal team and you know, there wasn't nothing they saw no issues with it. It's very clearly fiction, but I use so many of the facts I knew from knowing Helen and conversations I had. And then it's like I always say to people, Did you ever watch The Crown? The show, it's about the royal family and so much is based on the facts, but there were certain conversations where no one is in the room and I'm very much writing dramatic fiction, so I'm imagining what would have been said.
Like we know Helen and Liz met at Cosmo when Helen took over. But I know Liz used to tell that Joan Crawford story that's in the book. And so I thought, well, what if they met and that's when Liz tells that story because Liz had told me that story? Or like, Liz tells us the thing that Elaine Stritch said and the actress musical theater star Elaine Stritch. One time she came over and we I had dinner and she told me this hilarious bit of love advice that is kind of a little scatological and hilarious and I always remembered it. And I thought Liz knew Elaine and I thought, well maybe Liz would say this. So I was really piecing together so much from little things I knew or things in my experience knowing Helen, knowing Liz, knowing David Brown, knowing Elaine, Elaine Stritch at just a moment in it. and then the issues, all those books, everything I read, the time period. So it is very clearly a novel and labeled as such, but I felt uniquely qualified to write a novel about this world and these people for all those reasons. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (37:11)
Yeah, I love that. Well, one of the aspects of her life that I really enjoyed getting to be a little bit of an insider on is her marriage to David. So I, you know, I should just say, you know, I didn't know anything about Helen. So for me, it was just an absolute surprise. Everything was a delight. It was so fun to learn about her and how, you know, forward thinking she was, and then to go on a little bit of a rabbit trail around David and the legacy that they built together, which was so impactful.
And first of all, she got married late in her 30s, which I found really interesting about, you know, starting a life then, you know, later in your 30s. That's already like moving a little bit ahead of the curve with as far as feminism and how people are doing things. But your novel really is reminding us that he was such an integral part of her success, especially on Pitch Day. Can you tell me a little bit about that relationship that I think listeners would love hearing?
John Searles (38:10)
Yeah, it was such a joy to write about a couple where the man, the husband, is so adoring and supportive genuinely of his wife. And that's how David was in real life. He really adored Helen. He loved her, always supported her. He was a very creative person. He had a ton of creative ideas and they were just this dynamo team, b a business team and a creative team together. And it was so nice to write because you know so often in fiction we see the dynamic where it's a husband who's, you know, holding his wife down or jealous of his wife's success. Not just in fiction, sometimes in real life too. I hate to say.
I really loved getting to write about a dynamic where the husband just is so loving and adoring and supportive of his wife. And that's how David was and he was such a dapper gentleman. Like when he would come to the office and I was to get Helen 'cause they would be going out and he had his you know, he would wear a hat and the like a I guess a derby and like a he'd have a tweed jacket or something and he just had just such a vibe. They seemed like he stepped out of a time machine or something and in the best possible way.
And they just really loved each other, which was sweet. So, you know, you get each of the girls' stories in the middle of the book. And then the last sort of third of the book is Helen and David's real single girl story when she's a single girl, she's working 17 secretarial jobs and the different guys she meets and the crazy therapy attempts she tries and all the stuff that happens to her. and then you see David in their romance because he had been married twice before and he was really, as you know from reading the book really trepidatious about marrying again. Not that he didn't love Helen, but he was just gun shy and afraid it would fail. And it didn't fail. It was a great marriage of many, many, many years. So yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (40:02)
I loved the dynamic between them. I have been really lucky in my life that my spouse is like that. And it's not often that we get to see that. And I think right now especially it's important for women to see that there are like really good men out there. There are good relationships that you can indulge in, that this is what a partnership truly looks like. And you know, my husband would be that same person sitting there doing the pitch with with me. And so I just think, especially in that time and era, it was so forward thinking, so so beyond what what you would expect during that time, right? She was living a whole life and he was living it alongside her in such a positive and like wonderfully supportive way. And that was one of my favorite moments in the book.
John Searles (40:42)
Yeah. And thank you. And in that era you kinda needed sadly often the man to get the meeting. Like she wasn't gonna get it on her own. Yes, she wrote Sex in the Single Girl and it sold something like two million copies in two weeks or something like that. So it was a huge, huge sensation, but she had never edited a magazine before. But this one detail, Amy, was one that from real life that happened that just has stuck with me that, you know, they used to say Cosmo keeps the lights on. Cosmo made so much money for Hurst right from Helen's very first issue. She was a huge success and they sold millions and millions of copies and made so much money. But at the end of the 1960s, the executives had a party to celebrate the gobsmacking success that the magazine division had experienced in the 60s. But they didn't invite Helen or her team because it was a men only party.
And I write about this in the book toward the end of the book. Helen understandably was seething. I'm seething on her behalf, as I hear when I read about this, and that's why I put it in the book. But you realize what a different time it was. And you know, I have this conversation in the book where she says, like, you know, how could you not invite us? And he says, sorry, but it's a stag, the head of the company. And he says, But we appreciate what you've done for our bottom line. And Helen says, We are the bottom line. Like, do you think popular mechanics sold what Cosmo did on the newsstand? No. But to think that they would have a party to celebrate the success at the end of the toward the end of the decade, like and not invite the women is just insane. Yeah. So
Book Gang- Amy (42:21)
Right. And even the pitch day when you know, they are saying to her, like, we don't want to market to single women. They don't have money. They need a husband. They need those purse strings. They need that man's wallet in order to be able to buy a magazine. And I just thought that was so fascinating about how they only saw it as like magazines were a vehicle to learn about a jello mold, or it was a vehicle, right? To learn how to be a better homemaker, to to make your man happy, right? And she's saying, Well, what if we don't do that? What if we do something completely different and we market to a different group? And so even in that element itself and saying like this is actually marketable was like mind-blowing to anyone and she only got a three-issue time slant in order to prove her worth at the magazine.
John Searles (43:12)
Yeah, she was ahead of her time and thinking, wait, this is an untouched demographic that nobody's speaking to, you know? And most women's magazines at the time that I can think of I guess the Diana Vreeland, I believe, at the time was doing Vogue, but other than that it was all men editing magazines for women, if you think about that how cockamamie That seems that a
Book Gang- Amy (43:33)
Yeah.
John Searles (43:34)
You know, I mean I say this that I was a male editor, but I was a gay male editor and I wasn't the editor-in-chief, you know. And I got to work with so many great editors in chiefs. I worked with Helen, obviously. I worked with Bonnie Fuller, Kate White, Michele Promaulayko. Like I had got to work with really incredible editors of that magazine over the years. because about a year after I started, Helen kind of moved into a figurehead position as head of international, though she and I stayed friends and she would send me notes all the time and stuff. I wish I had thought I would have brought some of the notes so I could hold them up and show you, which are very sweet from her.
Book Gang- Amy (44:08)
Well, I have to ask, you know, I just interviewed Amy Du Bois Barnett, who also did was an editor in the magazine world, and I had to ask her, Are you still a print magazine subscriber? Do you still get print or are you done?
John Searles (44:21)
I don't subs do I subscribe? My husband used to get all the food magazines.
Book Gang- Amy (44:25)
Ha ha.
John Searles (44:25)
I'm looking over there where our pile is, but I don't even know if he subscribes anymore. I'd buy them on the newsstand. If I see one that calls to me, I'll buy them. Or those out here in Sag Harbor at the grocery store, there are all these really glossy kind of fancy magazines and I'll grab those. But I don't really subscribe in the way I did, you know. I have online subscriptions to obviously the New York Times and different things like that. But no I know. But yeah. I guess I've gone the way of everyone else. Did she still subscribe or?
Book Gang- Amy (44:49)
Mm-hmm. Okay. I wasn't sure how much overlap. She said she did. She said she subscribed to three publications. Now she didn't spill what those were, but I was curious how much you hang on to something like that in your career or if you let it go and move on to digital.
John Searles (45:06)
Yeah. Yeah, you know, there's this thing at the end of the book, this moment where they're all talking and they kind of wonder about their legacy really, like what will the people in the future make of what we've done, all these editors and it's something I used to think about in magazines because, we'd all be like closing an issue and sending it to the printer and I don't know, this flurry of like just obsession over every page and caption and photo. And then a few months later I'd pick it up on someone's desk or something and it weirdly, Amy, it already looked old and outdated like so quickly.
Like, you know, and I thought, wow, this is so interesting and then if you really do that and look back at the issues from the sixties which I had and I I just thought, well, people go back to old books, they go back to old movies, T V shows, but you people don't really revisit old magazines. And so then the question ripples out to what does that mean for the people who devoted their lives to creating them the magazines? Because magazines are really of a moment, the moment passes. So, part of what I was thinking about when writing this book was kind of trying to was capturing that moment in time where they were so such a part of the culture and had such power to influence what people wore, what they talked about, how they lived their lives and in a way that magazines don't really anymore. And so, you know, when they're contemplating saying, Well, I wonder what people will think, they're probably look back perplexed about why we did X, Y, and Z and someone says, I hate to say it, but they probably won't look back and think of us at all. We'll probably be forgotten.
And I don't know, it's just such a kind of a an interesting thing in my mind I had about like all these people who worked in an industry that doesn't really exist in the same way anymore. And so at the end of the novel, that's that I was trying to capture some of what I've thought about in regards to that. And they do say, well, however weird our lives seem, their lives will probably seem just as we would seem just as weird to us if we could see them and I believe that. I don't even know what they would think of what our world is now. But yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (47:16)
I am a print print magazine subscriber which is like one one little thing that I hang on to for my gen X youth but my kids make so much fun of me and they're like did the queen die yet has she died when the People magazine comes I'm like come on you guys I know what's going on on TikTok I can figure it out
John Searles (47:27)
Okay. Yeah. I love a good issue of People still, I gotta say. So yeah. I know.
Book Gang- Amy (47:36)
That's that's the one I subscribe to. I like to get it and it doesn't matter and my goal is every single week, don't know about anything. Like, right? Stay off your phone because you will get it. It it doesn't change the information. Like, would it be better for my reading life to maybe not be on TikTok scrolling? It that's that's the goal, is that I don't know anything and it's really exciting when I get my People magazine.
John Searles (47:56)
No, maybe I need to up my subscription.
Book Gang- Amy (47:59)
Well, I want to talk about how this is one of those rare book experiences where I found myself recommending readers experience both the print and the audio edition. There is something so special about this audiobook, especially because of Amy Ryan's delivery. And that was a complete surprise to me as a reader. When I opened it up, her voice sounded a little familiar to me. And I'm like, why do I know this voice? I would love to hear, did you pick Amy? How did this all go down for your audiobook?
John Searles (48:28)
So Amy and I met. She she starred in a film version of one of my earlier novels, a a novel called Strange but True. That's a very dark kind of noir-ish novel about a family who loses their child after his prom and this years later his girlfriend comes back and makes this outlandish claim and it puts them on this path of kinda murder and revenge and anyway, she plays she played a character named Charlene Chase and I have a little cameo in that film.
And so I went up to Toronto where they were shooting it. And the way Amy tells the story, you know, because the book is really dark and creepy. She was expecting this very dark and creepy writer, and then I come bounding up the stairs. Hi, everybody. And I don't know, we were sitting on this porch outside where she was about to shoot a scene, and we were just chatting, and we just became friends. She gave me her number, her email, I can't remember, and when we got back to the city at dinner and we've just stayed friends over the years and she's so incredibly talented and so really down to earth, you know, given how accomplished she is. She's an Oscar nominated actress, a three time Tony nominated actress. She's worked with all the big actors and she's been in The Office, Only Murders in the Building, you know, so many big, big shows. Her resume is too long to list and she would not list it because she's very down to earth.
I just thought I don't know, they sent me a bunch of samples for people who were talented people, but I don't know. I just love Amy and I just forwarded her the email and said any chance you want to do this? And she wrote back and said, I'd love to. And she was on set doing something or on location in New Orleans, but I sent her the book and then when she got back to town she recorded it and I went by to see her at the recording studio and I happened to come in into the studio and she was inside doing the last bit of the Angela chapter. It was such a experience I'll never forget.
You know, you work on these on a book and you're writing it and I read it out loud to myself a lot just to make sure I get the thing right. But then to walk in and you have this incredibly talented actor reading your work. I was not not reading, even embodying your work and your character. It was such an incredible experience. And then I had dinner lunch with one of the publishers of Harper Collins and she said you and Amy, since you're friends should do a conversation afterwards and so they put it together and I went back to the studio and she and I haven't heard it that yet, actually. We sat and chatted and I can't remember what we chatted about with the book, obviously. But I think they asked 'cause Helen gives every one of her Single Girls a word, 'cause she's so when Helen in the book, when Helen was little and they didn't have money, her father would give the girls a word from the dictionary as a gift or different or special words. And so they asked Amy and I to give each other a word, like surprised us we didn't know and we were like
Book Gang- Amy (51:23)
Ha ha.
John Searles (51:23)
I feel like we're in a therapy session. It felt kinda odd. But then we did pick a word. No, it was not planned. And so I think we were both like, but we thought it over and came up with a sweet word for one another and anyway, she's incredible and I have this vision that I'm gonna sit down and just listen to the full audio book, but I've been on book tour and I've had not had a second to myself and I I have heard snippets, but I would really like to hear the whole thing because because of my tremendous respect and adoration for Amy. So yeah, so it's fun.
Book Gang- Amy (51:55)
Yeah. I will say I think readers should buy your book and be able to see the page like where the page breaks are, like where you put your paragraph breaks. Because there isn't like an audio transition or any type of thing in between memory and moment. And I just really loved following along on the page itself. So, you know, just promoting it as like buy two copies, right? Why not? Why not?
John Searles (52:20)
I'll take it. Why not? Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (52:24)
In this economy, go for it, do it, like or download it from Libby, which is where I actually got the audiobook. I went to check and see if it was available. It had just become available on Libby. So most people, if you're a library subscriber, you'll likely see that there. So definitely get both experiences because I felt like being able to see the page and how you wanted the reader to experience it plus hearing her confident narration and she just has a great quirky delivery too. Like that is so necessary, I think, for Helen's character, especially like to to really develop that voice.
John Searles (52:51)
Yeah. She's so I mean she's just so talented and I believe can do it. I mean, she does dramatic things, she does comedic things, which is why she's so perfect for the book, because the book there's all the kooky funny things, the champagne glass hot tub, the nude group therapy, there's a million funny things. But then there's also these darker moments. We've talked about Helen's father in the elevator, but also the moments of rage about some of the like antifeminist things that happen or what happened to Helen's sister, their early years in LA when they have no money and she's dreaming of like a bigger life. And so I feel like Amy was able to you know, she's just such a great actress that she could inhabit all of those moments, and make it resonant, which I think she did.
Book Gang- Amy (53:39)
Yeah. Well if someone picks this for their book club, what would you like to see book clubs talking about from this novel?
John Searles (53:45)
I think so many of the issues we talked about here, you know, what's relevant to today. You know, first of all I'd love people just to remember the importance of magazines, discover who Helen was, Liv Smith was, if they don't know, or rediscover, and then also reflect on women's rights and and how that generation, the sixties, fought for so many things that are shifting before our eyes. I guess that and then also I would love them just to have a good time and just to kind of be escape really from the present day into like a happy, hopeful time, you know. I guess that that's those are the things I would say. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (54:25)
So what's next for you, John, now that you've done this?
John Searles (54:29)
I'm touring a lot. I'm working on something, but I never talk about it when I'm writing. So I'm working on something new and I'm having a really good time doing it, but I'm doing a lot of book events, so my writing time is a little compressed at the moment. but I'm working on that.
You know, one thing that no one has asked me about, which is Helen, there's a refrain in the book of her French teacher says to her when she's in LA about all the female focused works of art at the Louvre, and no one has asked about this. And so there's where she talks about Liberty Leading the People, this famous Delacroix painting, if I'm saying his name right. and I love that painting at the Louvre. It's like such a huge painting. And yes, there's the Mona Lisa, and yes, the Mona Lisa's beautiful.
But I'm always fascinated by that painting. And it's if people are Google it, you'll see if you don't know it, but it's this bare-breasted woman and all these revolutionaries and she's kind of leading the charge. and it's a refrain throughout how she wants to go to the Louvre and see this painting. I don't know, no one has really asked, like, why do you keep it it's a refrain of all the female focused works of art at the Louvre. And also that painting in particular. And that painting to me is such a powerful painting of a woman fighting for a cause. And the fact that she's bare breasted kind of adds this like, I don't know if sexual's the right word, but just like a very female empowered sexually char I don't mean sexually charged like in a turn on way, but just like a bold image of a woman. Exactly.
And no one's asked me about that. I don't know why, but maybe it's I don't know. It's like a refrain throughout and I kept putting it there. So I hope when people read the book too and you too think about book clubs, look up the history of that painting and just the visual of it and think about that.
Book Gang- Amy (56:16)
Yeah, fantastic because I'll add that to our show notes. Well, we're gonna close out this main hour here. And listeners, if you are a patron of the show, we're independent. It's five dollars a month, and that gives us a place to showcase writers like John and other fantastic authors. I really appreciate you. You can meet me behind the paywall for that spoiler section, but we always end our show here the same way, which is asking you what you're feeling proud of, whether it's with your career in general or just life in general.
And it gives me a chance just to echo back. I loved this. First of all, not knowing anything about Helen, I'm so grateful that I got to experience this book, but I especially am grateful that I got to hear it from you. And I don't want to get too into that terrain that you had to on that like ending of your interview with Amy where you guys share a word. But I do wanna say this has been really life-changing for me to understand the legacy that she left behind. I'm so grateful for the book that you wrote and the warmness and the care that was clearly given on every page. But I'd love to hear what you're feeling proud of right now.
John Searles (57:25)
Proud of in regards to the book?
Book Gang- Amy (57:27)
Or life in general, anything you're feeling proud of.
John Searles (57:30)
Well, I have to say I don't have that feeling like that a lot of writers I know have where like they're like, I'm writing this book, I'll be done on this date. Like I I never know if I can do it and I've written several books now. I never know if I could do it until I typed the last sentence.
Book Gang- Amy (57:44)
Hmm.
John Searles (57:45)
And when I typed the last sentence I'm like, I did it again. I did it again. wow. It's the best feeling in the world to finish a book and I'm just grateful I know your question is about what you're proud of, but I'm grateful to be able to talk to people who have read it like you and appreciate it. I'm grateful to be have gone on tour in so many states with different writers, so many great crowds. It's really been a successful tour with great turnout and getting to meet librarians and booksellers. So I feel really proud, I guess. I feel weird saying proud, but proud that I've written a book that speaks to people and and grateful that it is speaking to people.
And then I also just feel really grateful for my husband who came with me on tour. At one point, Amy, we were late for an event and it was outside this really fancy country club and I was like didn't have time to go in and first and change, so I was gargling and applying deodorant outside of the parking lot before before going in and doing this event. and I need a haircut. That's why I keep flipping my hair. Anyway, so I I am grateful for him for coming with me and just my whole team, my editor, my agent, you know, all the librarians who've supported this book.
There was a librarian Tina Panik, if I'm saying her her name right, who wrote the Library Journal Review is a star review and I got to meet her for the first time. I didn't know her previously and I was a guest at her library last week and they did a whole wall of the 60s fashion and it was a tremendous turnout and so I just feel so happy about the response to the novel. So thank you, Amy. I appreciate it.
Book Gang- Amy (59:22)
Yes, this has been such a joy. Well, listeners, Single Girls is available on store shelves now. Get it, get both versions so you can really, really sink your teeth into this story. Thank you so much, John, and I will meet you guys on the other side.
John Searles (59:33)
Thank you.
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