First Time's the Charm

Summer Booo oks Preview First Time’s the Charm EW GATHERED THIS SUMMER’S HOTTEST DEBUT AUTHORS FOR A BRAINY, DISHY, VIBRANT CONVERSATION ON ALL THINGS LITERARY. MEET THE FUTURE OF BOOKS. Written by David Canfield @davidcanfield97 Photographs by Elisabeth Caren @ecarenphoto On a sunny May afternoon, EW’s Los Ange- les offices are catching literary fever. Five buzzy debut authors—Taffy Brodesser- Akner, 43; Sarah M. Broom, 39; Linda Holmes, 48; Lisa Taddeo, 39; and De’Shawn Charles Winslow, 39—have arrived, con- verging for their first major round of press. The mood is excited, anxious, slightly overwhelming. The publishing world has changed hugely over the past decade, pro- nounced to be near-extinct more than a few times, only to find a post-Kindle (and Instagram-worthy) renaissance. And here are the people behind the stories affirming just how alive books remain, whether they’re hitting the heart of our cultural moment, vitally reframing histories, or unfurling the kind of sparkling romance perfect for a lazy summer day. Taking their seats on a cozy sectional, the Taffy Brodesser-Akner, writers discuss the cultural power of books, De’Shawn Charles Winslow, Sarah M. Broom, Linda the struggle of becoming an author today, Holmes, and Lisa Taddeo photographed exclusively and how exactly to define a “beach read.” for EW on May 13, 2019, in Los Angeles SUMMER TVMONTH PREVIEW XX, 20192019 EW.COM 75 Tell us a little bit about your books. Sarah, in telling your family’s story, do you forget very often right now is that this has LINDA HOLMES Evvie Drake Starts Over is a fear how they’ll react? always happened. There have always been book about a young widow. She has an BROOM Absolutely. The entire act of being distractions. The thing that I think is more apartment in the back of her house, which the baby child of 12 and telling this story felt crucial to the question than the political she rents out to a recently washed-up pro- like a major transgression. It landscape is technology—the fessional baseball player. It takes place in took me a long time to give Lisa amount that we’re able to read coastal Maine, so you get your small-town myself permission to [do so]. Taddeo and the amount that we are able lobster community and lots of fun back- All of my siblings are alive; my to absorb right now. That’s the and-forth. It’s a little romantic, a little fun. mom is alive. I was approaching thing that has made it hard in TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER Fleishman Is in it in certain ways as a journalist my magazine writing, but also in Trouble is about a man who’s recently would, trying to interview all of this novel—you have to work divorced and starts dating for the first time my family members and record very hard to keep people’s atten- through apps, and whose ex-wife drops his them. That provided a level of tion now, and you just have to kids off for his weekend and detachment. But even now it’s be dancing in every sentence. If then disappears. horrifying. I have dreams about there’s nothing that a new book Sarah M. July 9 LISA TADDEO Three Women is Broom it. The smallest thing can make can offer you, people are going [a nonfiction book] about someone uncomfortable. I’m Did You Know? to put it down because there’s three women: their sexual trying to tell a story, which I Taddeo's just too much to read. reporting for desires and lives. One is a think of as this epic, big story. Three Women WINSLOW I think the role of housewife in rural Indiana. One But for me, the big thing was: I took a total of books is to teach and entertain is a restaurateur in the North- put myself on the line. I needed eight years. at the same time. That can be east whose husband likes to to put myself on the line, even done in a quiet way, and it can watch her have sex with other more than I put anyone else on the line. be done in a busy way. But I don’t think that men and women. The last is a BRODESSER-AKNER Have they all read it? books have an obligation to address the Aug. 13 young woman in Fargo, N.D., Broom and Taddeo BROOM No. They have not. I don’t think moment. I don’t think [that] personally. who’d allegedly had a relation- Did You Know? they can read it before. I’ve read [my mom] But all writers do—but unintentionally. Broom’s part- ship with her teacher when she Hurricane Katrina happened, men and women, all kinds of people, but it the things I really love about Taffy’s a lot of sections for fact-checking, and I’ll BRODESSER-AKNER I agree with that. I ner is Bessie was underage; the trial has set and Mudbound and then the house wasn’t there became about female desire. book is that there are moments where it give her, over the next few weeks, the entire don’t know that the turns that Lisa and I their town upside down. director anymore. I was writing now seems to be going in a direction of a book thing. But having 12 voices saying “I don’t took in our books would’ve happened in Dee Rees. DE’SHAWN CHARLES WINSLOW about absence. In 2011, I sold Lisa, you write, “As I began to write this about the “American literary man.” It has like this” would drive me insane. [Laughs] another time. We talk about masculine cul- In West Mills is about a woman the proposal for the book; I book, I thought I’d be drawn to the stories this wonderful turn in approach. There’s a ture now. I think 10 years ago, I might’ve named Knot who refuses to live her life turned it in last year. It’s com- of men.” Why did that change? commonality in what you guys are talking You’re all entering the literary landscape. just been happy writing “the literary man.” based on societal norms. She has some ing out now, so seven years of De’Shawn TADDEO I’d been writing for about, in terms of whose POV people are How does it look to you? Has it changed? addictions, she likes to read a lot. She has a writing—and a lot of thinking Charles Esquire a lot. I was very in tune interested in. BRODESSER-AKNER The thing that we Sarah, you mentioned telling a bigger story, well-meaning, meddling neighbor who just about it. Winslow with this male audience. It was too. The house, particularly, is such an wants to fix her. We watch these two people WINSLOW In West Mills...has the opposite gender from mine, Holmes and Winslow iconic symbol of the American dream. What grow and deal. been with me since I [was] a and I was intrigued by it. But story did you find you were getting to? SARAH M. BROOM The Yellow House is teenager. I didn’t even know I then I started talking to a lot of BROOM From the place of the house, the about my growing up in New Orleans was interested in writing until I men and actually moved to L.A. story for me became about New Orleans beyond the tourist map. I have 11 brothers was nearly 30. But the ques- to profile one of them. There and the way that New Orleans is mytholo- and sisters; it’s about this house that we tions that I try to answer in the was a lot of ego involved. Not in gized—the way that people feel so deeply grew up in, that my mother bought when book through fiction are ques- all the men, but...women felt that they know it. Within the mythology of she was 19 years old with her life savings. It tions about people I knew when more complex and interesting. New Orleans, the actual people who make June 4 tells the story of that house, what happened I was a child, that I didn’t get to BRODESSER-AKNER [Mine] New Orleans the place that most people to the house, and our lives now. know a lot about. Dynamics Did You Know? was the same way: I thought I love are just completely out of the story. I that I didn’t understand. I made Winslow was was interested in the story of a saw the act of writing the book as [cartog- named a black What were your paths to getting these up the answers because I could male writer male divorce, but in the end I raphy]: reimagining, revising, expanding a books published? not access the real answers. “for our time” was interested in everyone’s map to include all the people I know, all the by T Magazine. BROOM I started thinking about this book TADDEO I started the book in points of view. places I know that I never see on the literal the moment I left the Yellow House for col- 2011. I read [Thy Neighbor’s HOLMES Lisa was talking about and also theoretical map. This then became lege in the ’90s. I was haunted by the Wife by Gay Talese] and I was like, “This is the difference in [how] men [and women] about America, and mapping in general, spectre of the house itself: In 2005, very male.” [Laughs] I started talking to think and talk about desire.

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