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‘The Whispers’: Ashley Audrain’s Latest Book Goes Where Mothers Fear to Tread
In Q&A, the book publicist-turned-author talks about what it took to write her second psychological novel about motherhood and , and how she found the publishing world intimidating / BY Rosemary Counter / June 9th, 2023
Toronto-based author and mom Ashley Audrain dares to say what many of us never could think about motherhood; that despite its often perfectly curated visage, parenthood can be depressing, dark and even dangerous. Even gutsier; Audrain writes it all down for the world to see. The publishing publicist reinvented herself with her 2021 blockbuster debut, The Push, a deep, ominous look at postpartum psychosis (or maybe her darling daughter really was a murderous psychopath … ), which she penned in the wee hours while on maternity leave. The Push dominated bestseller lists and book club conversations alike — and a limited television series is currently in development.
This month, Audrain is back with The Whispers. Harnessing the same gutsy bravado, the book looks at maternal envy running rampant in an otherwise normal upscale neighbourhood of moms. “There is something animalistic about the way the middle-aged adults size each other up while feigning friendliness in the backyard of the most expensive house on the street,” she writes. Beneath the picket-fence-perfect surface, everyone — specifically the moms — aren’t as they seem: a busy, childless E.R. doctor is desperate to conceive, a perfect-seeming helicopter mother of one is convinced her husband’s having an affair and at the book’s centre, is a holding-on-by-a-thread mother of three whose child is in a coma after allegedly “falling” from his bedroom window after his mom could be heard screaming at him. As rumours engulf the neighbourhood about what really happened that night, everyone’s secrets slowly come to light.
Zoomer called the author in Toronto for the scoop on the pressure of second books, surviving the pandemic with kids and whether she’s worried about what her kids will think when they read her books.
Rosemary Counter: You wrote your first book on mat leave, and now another with two young kids running around. Was the second book harder to write than the first?
Ashley Audrain: Hmm, good question. I wouldn’t say it wasn’t harder or easier, just so different. I worked on The Push on the side of my day job for several years, with no deadline and no editors. I’d put it away for a while, take it back out, over and over again until I felt it was the best I could make it. With The Whispers, because I’d sold it with The Push in a two-book deal, I always knew I had this deadline coming up. So that part was harder, but this time I knew who my readers were and who my editors are, so I could write with them in mind, which is nice but there’s more pressure, for sure.
RC: That sounds intense. Did you have the idea already?
AA: I had a whole draft, luckily, but a really bad one, as The Push came out. So it was more about revising for me, which I did many times throughout the thick of the pandemic. This was really challenging with kids, as I’m sure you know.
RC: Oh god, don’t remind me.
AA: It was so hard. The kids were home from school for so long. Trying to find the time and space to write, to be creative, with two kids at home was pretty painful. I had a lot of 5 a.m. wake-ups where I tried to work on the book before one of the kids found me.
RC: When you were working in publishing, in the back of your head did you always want to write?
AA: I think I did, yes. I’d always wanted to be a writer, like for forever. If you’d asked me when I was a little girl what I wanted to do when I grow up, I’d have said “write books.” I wrote for my school paper, and all through university, but once I started working in publishing, I stopped. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, but I found the writing world so intimidating. I didn’t feel like one of the writers; I very much felt like the publicist. I didn’t have the confidence or the brain space, but I was definitely still learning a lot which of course informed my writing afterwards. It wasn’t until I had my son and went on maternity leave that I really started writing The Push.
RC: That’s so impressive and really the craziest time to dive into a book.
AA: I know! Looking back, it’s like, How did I do that? I still don’t know, to be honest. Maybe I’d been working so hard in the work world that mat leave felt like my chance to finally follow my creative urge to write. I couldn’t write every day, but was able to find a few hours here and there and it kinda rolled out of me. Especially if it’s your baby, you’re giving absolutely everything to them and you feel so depleted. I remember thinking, What do I get? What about me? Writing became that for me, and I channelled all those feelings into the book.
RC: I love that you took the new-motherhood experience, turned it upside down, cranked it way up, and made it yours.
AA: Thank you. I was obviously thinking a lot about motherhood and watching the other moms around me. People often ask me if I’m worried about what my kids will think of my books. I hope that my kids will understand that we have a whole bookshelf full of fiction and this is just one more. I have a daughter, like you, so I’ll be glad if my books open room for discussion about motherhood — even the bad parts.
RC: You do such a good job of really going to deep and dark places — insecurity, jealousy, infidelity. Even the kids in your books aren’t as innocent as they seem …
AA: Yes, ha! I don’t know why I like to go there, but I do. I try to write children who have real agency, good and bad. The Push is more about that, whereas The Whispers is more about the parents. In your 40s, I think people really look around at the choices they made and the life they’ve built. It’s a time where a lot of women reflect on who they are, how they got there and if it’s really the life they envisioned for themselves. It’s also a time in life where it’s very difficult to make a change if you want to. Especially if you have kids.
RC: Yeah, I see what you mean. The choice is either sit tight or blow up your life.
AA: That’s it. I just turned 40, and I think it’s a complicated time for women when you’re thinking, okay, Who am I now? Who do I want to be? Should I have made different choices? Is it too late now?
RC: I’m turning 40 at the end of the month. You’re scaring me.
AA: Oh, okay, good. I think people think once you’re 40, you should be settled, self-assured, grateful for what you have. Lots of people aren’t there and it’s more complicated than that. This is the book for them.