This month, Elena Bowes spoke with the New York Times best-selling author Ann Leary, about her most recent book, I’ve Tried Being Nice, a wise, witty and delightful collection of essays from a recovering people pleaser. Ann has penned four novels and a memoir. One of her novels The Good House … was made into a film with Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline. An essay Ann wrote for the NY Times Modern Love column called Rallying to Keep the Game Alive was adapted for Prime Video’s Modern Love TV series featuring Tina Fey and John Slattery. A longer version of that essay titled Love Means Nothing (in Tennis) appears in I’ve Tried Being Nice. Ann is married to stand-up comedian and actor Denis Leary.
The following Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity. You can listen to the entire Q&A on Elena’s podcast, Elena Meets the Author.
Ann, I loved I’ve Tried Being Nice. I laughed out loud multiple times and can so relate. As I’ve gotten older, and my estrogen has dropped, so does my patience. In your tennis essay, you talk about how competitive you are. So, my first question is since it’s clear that you are really funny and you’re married to someone who makes a living being funny, do you ever get competitive over who is funnier?
I’ve been with my husband a long time. We met when I was 20 and he was 25. It’s been a few decades. I always know if I say something really funny, if I say something that slays it, he works at not laughing. But he’ll laugh generously if I’m just amusing.
Lol. You met your husband when you were in college? You were both at Emerson, taking creative writing, right?
I had just transferred from Bennington to Emerson and the head of the writing department at Bennington told me “You must take this writing class with Denis Leary.” He had graduated the year before. I thought he would be older, like 50. He walked in and he looked about 20. He was super cute. We crushed on each other, but we didn’t date until the day after the class was over. We went on a date or two, and then he stayed over, and he never left… to this day. It turned out he didn’t have his own place to live. He was shacking up with other comics.
In your writing, you seem to be chatting to a friend which makes your book very easy to read, and I’m guessing, easier to write. Do you have an imaginary audience you’re addressing when you hit the keyboard? And what advice would you give first time essayists?
That’s such a good question. My first book was a memoir. Everything else has been fiction but my first book was a memoir. An Innocent, A Broad. It was a play on Mark Twain’s Innocence Abroad. It’s about how my husband and I went to London for what was supposed to be two days but ended up being six months because my son was born very prematurely. We didn’t have the internet. We didn’t have cell phones. So, I wrote my friend letters from an excellent NHS hospital. University College Hospital had one of the best neonatal units in the world. Now it’s gone, I think.
While we were there my husband wrote this show for the Edinburgh Festival, like an open mike guy. Then the BBC liked it, so they hired him. He started doing gigs and wrote a one-man show for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and it was a huge hit. And after we came home, he did that show Off Broadway in New York. It was kind of like a tragedy (son’s early birth) that ended up having a happy ending. It made my husband’s career which probably wouldn’t have happened without it.
And then ten years later I told this friend that I was trying to write a book about my time in London. And she sent me the letters. I had forgotten I had written them. All I remembered from my time was that I cried a lot and was horribly afraid. But the letters I wrote her were funny. I forgot about the funny things that happened there.
I often give this advice to young writers, write as if it’s to your really good friend who gets you. I think a lot of writers get bogged down, imagining these scowling NYTimes critics. They don’t think of everybody else who is really going to love their book. And they also sell the reader short, people don’t trust the reader, so they’ll hammer the funny part and ruin the joke.
That’s great advice. Your essays cover so many different topics, some from way back. Do you keep a journal?
I’m way too disorganised and ADD to keep a journal. But I write stuff down all the time. I always have little scraps of paper and a pen in my pocket. And then later in the day, because I’m always on my computer at some point, I’ll add the scribbles to the Notes section on my computer. Then it’s there forever.
You are a big hobbyist. You are a qualified emergency medical technician, a gardener, an avid tennis player, a ballroom dancer and you can strum some chords on the banjo. Do you think having hobbies help writers be better writers and any new hobbies you’d like to tell us about?
Yes and yes. I’m very curious about things. I learned how to play the banjo because I was writing a novel about a family that was really into bluegrass music. And there’s this man John Derian who makes decoupage. And his trays are super expensive. So, I went on You Tube… you could learn heart surgery on You Tube …I suddenly got into decoupage in a big way. My husband told somebody who was visiting us to keep moving or I’d start glueing something onto him.
I think the visual arts helps me as a writer for a few reasons; It’s good to have something you’re really bad at when you’re struggling with something that you’re pretty good at, like writing. And with painting my decoupage, just being conscious of colour and light is helpful as a writer. Also, you can get really bogged down in writing dialogue, but hobbies make you aware of other things like smell, and feel so that you can describe the scene.
In your essay, the Deep Dark Me, it’s clear you’re good friends with YouTube and the internet…. Are you a fan of Chat GPT? Do you use it?
I don’t use it, and I have to say, I’m not that worried. I asked Chat GPT to write a couple of paragraphs in the style of Virginia Woolf, and what I read was such a consolation. I could see what Chat GPT was trying to do, but it wasn’t at all like Virginia Woolf. It didn’t get the essence. It was just writing.
What advice would you give to your twenty-year-old self?
I’d probably say, stop drinking. I was a mess in my late twenties.
And don’t waste so much time trying to make everyone love you. There are some plus sides to menopause that I wasn’t aware of. When you don’t have as much oestrogen, you don’t care about pleasing people so much. There’s a line that I used tell my daughter all the time, “Those that mind don’t matter and those that matter don’t mind.” If people can’t take you as you are, they don’t matter.
What was it like narrating your own book for Audible?
It was very frightening beforehand. When you write novels, an actress usually narrates them. Mary Beth Hurt narrated my book The Good House. And I wrote an essay in I’ve Tried Being Nice about a glitch in the audio version of that book. And when I went to the recording studio, the man who produced this book had done that book. It wasn’t his fault, but it was crazy. He’s done like a thousand audio books. He helped me with a lot of things, but mostly he gave me confidence. I loved doing it. It took about three days.
Do you have any role models… people you want to be like as you mature?
I do. I have a few eighty-year-old women in my life who I admire so much. I’m watching them. They’re active, dynamic. They’ve had really successful careers and they’re still sharp, on the ball.
I know a tennis player who is eighty. She can’t run fast, but you better not get the ball near her, she will put it away.
What I’ve taken from these women is they are always curious. They’re interested in what’s going on with younger people. And they’re physically active. They get outside. I think that’s key. And sometimes rather than go see a shrink, it’s a matter of going outside instead. I like to be outside in the physical world, around animals and plants. For me, that’s really helpful.
Thanks, that’s helpful. So finally, what are you working on next?
It’s funny, usually when a book comes out, I’m halfway through another. So, I’m kind of auditioning two novels. I’ve started both of them. I’m not sure which I’ll commit to. Once I’m in, I’m in.
Listen to the full interview here.