Ashley Whitaker is the author of BITTER TEXAS HONEY (Dutton). She received her MFA in Prose from the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Her work has appeared in Tin House, StoryQuarterly, and has received support from the Ragdale Foundation. She lives in Austin with her family.
Lillian Li (LL): You have a great first line – “Conservative talk radio hosts were the most reliable men in her life.” It says a lot not only about Joan’s politics but also the kind of family and relationships she’s most likely had. There are a lot of male characters that orbit around Joan, from her love addict dad, Randy, to her beloved erratic cousin, Wyatt, to her love interests, Vince and Roberto, her teachers, Carlos and Paul, her chief of staff, Kyle at the Texas Capitol. How do Joan’s relationships to men shape her life?
Ashley Whitaker (AW): It’s funny, when we were brainstorming alternate title options, another favorite of mine was: ALL THE DISAPPOINTING MEN IN TEXAS. Because, as you stated, this book is really male-centric. Joan has internalized misogyny and distant daddy syndrome, so she’s fixated on securing male validation in every aspect of her life. When writing, her focus is on male writers and teachers, on emulating them and impressing them. In love, she’s a complete disaster, but usually finds a way to blame the other party as not being enough of a “real man” for her. In politics, she’s drawn to conservatism—the authoritative male talk show hosts and the fantasy of traditional gender roles they espouse. In her family, she’s drawn to her male cousin, Wyatt, who is similarly struggling to embody his traditional masculine role. In the end, all the men Joan gravitates toward fail to fill the void in her heart and soul. She’ll have to stop relying on external (male) validation and stop hating herself if she wants to grow.
LL: That’s such a good nutshell of the hero’s journey that Joan embarks on when we first meet her. At the same time, I would say that there’s not a straightforward plot in part because Joan is trying to figure out the plot of her own life—is she trying to write, trying to run her father’s college, trying to defeat her ex-boyfriend, trying to team up with her cousin Wyatt and make music? How did you come to this non-plot plot?
AW: I wish I could say this was all very calculated, but the truth is I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I started writing in the early aughts and so I wanted to be the next Junot Diaz. I always wanted to write a book of linked stories around one naïve, fuck-up character, a la Yunior in THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER. But my book wasn’t really working as a story collection. I remember my agent was like, “This book is a novel. I’m not just saying that. You’re a novelist.” So, after my MFA, I decided to try to make it into a novel. And that took forever, but I’m glad I did it. I think my agent was correct. The end result is undoubtedly a novel, but it is pretty episodic, and probably trying to tackle way too many threads and themes. I just tried to make sure to keep it entertaining throughout.
LL: It’s a page-turner for sure, in part because you keep us guessing. We’d love to put Joan in a box, but she defies our expectations, which is what makes her such a memorable and human anti-hero. She messes up, and then sets things right only to mess everything up again. For example, she handles a university audit that could end up shutting down all of her father’s campuses—a situation she ends up in due to her own recklessness. What’s useful about writing someone who is both a screw-up and surprisingly capable?
AW: I think you’re the first person who’s described Joan as a capable person. But yes, I think that for her, she can do certain menial tasks, check certain boxes, while other parts of her life are completely impossible. I think this is just more realistic for most screw ups. Life is like a game of whack-a-mole, do one thing, then more pop up.
LL: It’s also important for me to note that Joan struggles with addiction, mainly Adderall but also weed, which contributes heavily to her difficulty functioning as a “responsible adult.” The repetitiveness of addiction can make it difficult for a novel to have any movement, but yours has an incredible forward momentum to it. How did you think about writing about addiction?
AW: I always wanted to write an addiction novel where the character decides to get sober at the end. I’ve personally been sober 12 years, and reading other addiction novels was very healing for me back when I was still drinking and using. Those books made me feel less alone, less insane, and less broken. I think the addiction books with sober endings, like JESUS’ SON for instance, must have injected hope somewhere deep in my brain. I wanted my book to do that for someone, too. Maybe someone out there who’s hopelessly addicted to Adderall or weed will read this novel and think, wow if this absolute fuck up got sober, maybe I can too. That was really my aim with this.
LL: What can also be challenging in an addiction narrative is conveying why this particular substance is so addictive, while also being careful not to over-romanticize things. I felt that Adderall and its effects are very well captured, especially the euphoria and focus Joan experiences writing her novel on it, and the subsequent reality check that follows. How did you think about writing about a drug-altered state that some readers have never experienced?
AW: There’s a line in the book that says something like, “Adderall was like the toxic ex-boyfriend Joan would never get over.” And that’s true for me as well. I’ll never get over my love of Adderall. I still have visceral memories of the emotional highs that pill could take me to. It’s more etched into my memory than any lover. At the same time, I remember how it almost destroyed me. I wanted to capture that disorienting swing, from ecstasy to misery and back again.
LL: Speaking of how real life inspired your fiction, I was curious about the parallels between Joan’s experience writing her book, and your experience writing BITTER TEXAS HONEY. At one point, Joan gets a rejection letter with the note, “This sure is lively, but no stakes.” Was this something you came up against in earlier drafts of this book? How has this book transformed over the years?
AW: That was based on a real experience. For one of the short stories from this novel, my agent got a rejection note from a really fancy journal that read something along the lines of: “This sure is lively, but we’re still honoring our moratorium on student writer romances.” I found the note both flattering and insulting. I took it to mean that the writing was good, but the story didn’t matter. Because it was about a young, privileged female writer. On the one hand, I totally get it, like who cares? But on the other hand, I was like “Well where do I go from here? What am I supposed to write about? Am I supposed to appropriate a different lived experience, or am I just supposed to quit writing because I don’t matter?” These are interesting questions I wanted to explore.
LL: I did love your portrayals of all the ways writers can be insufferable. There’s of course Joan, who excuses any bad behavior as inspiration for her work, but there’s also her ex-boyfriend, Roberto, who uses a typewriter and makes a pledge of celibacy until he finishes his book. What were you trying to explore about artist types, and what it means to be an artist?
AW: I think there’s something inherently ridiculous about writers. People who feel they have something valuable to say, and that they must share their mind with the world. It’s all a bit grandiose and easy to make fun of, especially young writers in their twenties who don’t know much about life. At the same time, I think Joan and Roberto are being courageous by dedicating themselves to their art. But it’s still funny.
LL: I’m so glad you brought up humor! Not only is your book deeply, dryly funny, it also considers the necessity of humor. For example, when comparing her father to her mother and why she prefers her father, Joan thinks about how even though Randy is a mess, at least he has a sense of humor about it. Why do you think a sense of humor makes a messy person easier to tolerate and even love?
AW: Humor is everything to me. It is basically my religion at this point. Someone who can laugh at themself comes off as honest and refreshing. Because everyone is flawed and broken to some degree. Nobody is perfect. There’s no use in pretending otherwise. Personally, I find humorless people exhausting. If someone cannot laugh at the flaws within themselves, or at the tragedy of this fallen world, this life, I am just not very interested in being around them.
LL: Circling back to this portrayal of privilege, I was really interested in how money factors into the novel. There is money tension throughout—Joan is often preoccupied with it despite having parents who are willing to pay for everything. What is the purpose of money in this book?
AW: Money is a big enabler for Joan’s terrible life choices. A safety net that she keeps landing in over and over, and I thought that was important to explore. I wanted to highlight the truth that money doesn’t bring happiness. Perhaps for someone who has already reached a level of maturity, responsibility, and groundedness, I think money can certainly help bring peace of mind and ease. But for a person like Joan, with no self-esteem and no life skills, money actually increases her unhappiness. It’s not her money. It belongs to her parents, her grandparents. It keeps her stuck because she’s not forced to change. I wanted to illuminate the detrimental impact that unearned wealth can have on the human psyche.
LL: And on the other hand, you have Joan’s father’s girlfriend, Amber, who is also an addict but without the family wealth and safety net that Joan sometimes takes for granted. Were you ever tempted to write from Amber’s POV?
AW: I was never tempted to write from Amber’s POV, but I felt that Amber was the perfect foil for Joan, because beneath the different trappings of their identities, they are so similar. And they are both trying to occupy the same space, both trying to fool Joan’s father into supporting them. Amber doesn’t have the same book smarts or privilege as Joan, but she is wily, and Joan has truly met her match in this woman, which I found delightful to write. Because for all Joan’s hatred of Amber, Joan is really being forced to confront herself in those chapters. Her conflict with Amber brings Joan just a tiny bit closer to admitting she doesn’t like what she sees in the mirror.
LL: Another foil is Joan’s brother, Henry, who on paper is the most normal and therefore least interesting member of their family—he went to business school, works at Microsoft. But we find out that Henry has been deeply affected by his inability to save his family members from their demons and addictions. I wonder if you can say a little more about Henry as a character and what it’s like for the only normal person in a crazy family?
AW: According to the many psychological texts I’ve read, alcoholic (and dysfunctional) families have archetypes, or survival roles, which I’ve found to be shockingly accurate. In this framework, Henry represents the “hero child” of the family. He’s the one whom the other family members can point to and say, “See? We’re fine! Look at him! He’s doing great!” And this is how he survives. Joan, on the other hand, is more the “lost child,” she tries to disappear. So I guess I wouldn’t characterize Henry as “normal,” per se, rather that his coping mechanisms better align with our societal expectations of what a person should be doing.
LL: Speaking of texts, at one point, Joan gets a book called TOXIC PARENTS: HEALING THEIR HARMFUL LEGACY AND RECLAIMING YOUR LIFE. How much did you want to explain Joan’s behavior with how she was raised, and how much did you want her to remain on the hook for her actions?
AW: A big part of the book was exploring Joan’s family of origin traumas as the root of her issues. I think there’s a period of time in your life that you’re allowed to blame your parents for your problems, but at some point the onus is on you to recognize the patterns and change them. You can’t live your life destructively expecting to get back at your parents. It’s childish. Joan is still in her early twenties, so she’s getting a pass, but if she behaves this way for much longer I think the pass definitely has an expiration date.
LL: This novel is set in 2011, and it’s now 2025. Do you ever think about where Joan would be today? How has she grown or not grown? Is she still writing?
AW: I think for Joan, the possibilities are endless. I could see her continuing to write, but I could also see her laying down her pen for good and deciding to do something else entirely. I think the novel ends on a note of her being at the very beginning of a new journey, the journey of being sober and confronting her past transgressions, discovering who she really is, and what it is she actually wants.
There is actually only one criticism of the novel that gets under my skin and it is the claim that Joan doesn’t change by the end. Because for an addict of Joan’s caliber, getting sober is the most radical change she could possibly make. It is essentially a rebirth. Of course, she will still have many leftover flaws, but she is at the beginning of piecing her new life together.
