In 'Back After This,' a podcast host tries to find love
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Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. It's easy to write a punching bag. It's easy to think up a figure in modern society who is easily derided and write a version of them into your book to poke fun and laugh at.

Linda Holmes does not do that. If that name sounds familiar, she is one of the hosts of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, and she's also a novelist. Her new romantic comedy, Back After This, is about a podcaster who has to go on all of these dates orchestrated by a social media influencer. And it's that character, the influencer, who I think could have so easily devolved into caricature.

But in this interview, Holmes talks with NPR's Asma Khalid about turning that character into a full, whole person. That's after the break.

This message comes from Carvana. Sell your car the convenient way. Enter your license plate or VIN. Answer a few questions and get a real offer in seconds. Go to Carvana.com today. In the new novel, Back After This, we meet Cecily Foster. She's a hardworking podcast producer who's finally offered a big break, the opportunity to host her own show, The

But there is a catch. The show is supposed to be about her love life, her quest to find true love by going on 20 first dates set up by an influencer who also seems to double as a relationship coach. Back After This is written by bestselling author Linda Holmes.

who also knows a thing or two about podcasting herself. She's the co-host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, and she joins me now in the studios here at NPR. Linda, it is wonderful to have you, to see you. It is wonderful to see you, too. Okay, so here we are, two audio people just chit-chatting, and I need to ask you at the outset, what made you want to set this story in the world of podcasts?

Well, as you probably know, when you see fictional representations of radio and podcasting, they are all over the map. Some of them are a little bit accurate. Many of them are not at all accurate. And I really did think that this was a ripe opportunity to kind of let people see a world that a lot of them do listen to every day.

and maybe don't know a lot about. And to me, anytime you can take a story that is, in this case, a romantic comedy and set it in kind of a real place of work, it gives it a little more color and kind of depth. So let's talk a little bit more about the plot itself. Yeah. Cecily is an overworked podcast writer.

Producer, editor, I mean, she does sort of all jobs. She's a producer and editor. That is right. And she hasn't had a real relationship since she was dumped four years prior. So her boss comes up to her, offers her the opportunity to host this new show where she has to go on 20 dates with guys that are selected by this relationship coach. Where did you get this idea from? It is a wild, like, funny idea. I was thinking about...

if you got involved with one of these relationship coach people or a matchmaker, and these people exist, right? If you're working with one of those people because you wanted to change your approach, right? My approach to meeting people isn't working, so I'm going to work with this person. And then you sort of met somebody else

on your own, you know, you were trying to meet people in an orderly way and then you met someone in a chaotic way, what would you do? Would you kind of have the confidence to go with the chaotic way or would you feel like I should stick to the plan that I have set out for myself because this person is

is claiming to have some expertise. You mentioned if you meet someone, say, on your own, organically, because as Cecily is going through the process of launching this new show and going on these new dates, she has this meet-cute, I would say, right? She meets this guy. Oh, it is the meet-cute-iest. I was like, you're like, it's totally me. Yeah, no. This is a very, very meet-cute type of scene, intentionally so. She sees this guy who...

who is running out of like a half-done barber shop. He didn't even fully get his haircut. Chasing after a dog. Yes. They meet that way the first time, but also he coincidentally keeps showing up in all these different places when she's out having dinner, when she needs to do headshot photos taken. He is always there. And so you mentioned earlier, like, which way would you go with? Would you go with the organic way or the organized way? And throughout your book, it is clear that Eliza, her relationship coach, does not approve of

not necessarily the way she met him, but the person himself. Yes. So...

So, Cecily, because she's a very driven person in her career, she sort of assumes, I need a person who's really career-oriented like me. And Will, who is this guy she meets who is saving this dog, he's very brilliantly talented. He's a photographer. She really admires him. But Eliza feels like, well, I don't know if I want—I want you to have, like, a professional type of guy in your life. Mm-hmm.

And so Cecily is kind of getting the message like you should go for someone more settled because Will is a little bit more, well, I don't know where I'm going to be in a couple of years. I might be in a wide variety of places. And she's trying to figure out whether she needs or wants somebody with like a lot of stability. Can we talk more about Eliza? Yeah. This influencer slash relationship.

coach. She has a huge social media following. She has a lot of collaborator companies who she deals with. And it does seem, you know, as a journalist, you could be a

You could have been snarky about her character and make her into a total caricature. And I didn't think you did. I actually thought that I learned things from Eliza. She gave advice to Cecily, which I will say she doesn't always necessarily take. But I thought some of it was sound advice. Yes. Be judicious. Be thoughtful about who you're going out with. And absolutely. Her...

Part of her messaging is also value yourself and figure out what it is that you want. And she really stresses that to Cecily. And it was really important to me to present this as a question where maybe the person that you're getting your advice from in a situation like this, maybe your life coach, your relationship coach, whoever it is,

Maybe they are a well-meaning person, but maybe their advice is just not right for you. Obviously, there is some humor about her and some of the sillier things that she does. But you humanized her, I thought. But she's a very – she is a human being, and she's also intelligent and –

She just might be wrong about this particular situation. But she is a person who knows a lot. She makes some significant mistakes along the way. But she's not a joke and she's not a bad person. And I wanted that to be the case because making her a cartoon would have been the easiest thing in the world. And...

I don't think most people who are working in these kinds of gigs, like influencers are hardworking people in many, many cases. They really are people who hustle. They're not jokes. And I didn't want her to be a joke. I feel like I was initially expecting this book to be like a total rom-com, right? A romantic comedy where the guy is the central focus. But

It felt like this was a love letter, not necessarily to a guy, but like a love letter to audio, to the aesthetics, the intimacy, the power, all the things that I will fully acknowledge as someone who loves this craft. I

I am obsessed with. Am I reading this right? No, I think you're right. I think it is in part a love story. It is a romantic comedy. My goal in writing this initially when I started it was I want to write like a super rom-commy rom-com. That's what I want out of this. That's why you have that very meet-cute moment. You have that they keep running into each other. These things are all the kind of tropes of romantic comedy that I love and

But the more I worked on it, the more I really also wanted it to address itself to, you know, what it means to really love the work that you do and care about and value it, how you keep your passion for the work that you do without it becoming all about, you know,

your job, what it is like to try to still love the work and the craft, as you say, and sometimes realize that your job may change and the people who are in charge of your job may change, but your love for your craft can remain with you no matter what. I mean, it also felt like a story to me on a related note about how you can love the work and

And you can maybe even at times love your job, but your job doesn't necessarily love you back or your workplace doesn't necessarily love you back. Well, right. That's the difference between what it means to love your job and what it means to love your work. And I think sometimes the whole your job can't love you back, which is absolutely correct.

Yeah.

But it might be that, you know, companies get bought. And we've seen that in audio. We've seen that in lots of places, right? I was writing this book while there were a lot of layoffs and a lot of contractions around audio. You can still be yourself and you can still care about your work. And that's a conversation I've had with people across lots of parts of media who feel like

Without this job, I don't even know who I am practically. And I think you can still love what you do without sacrificing yourself too much for one particular job or workplace.

One final question for you here. You say you set out to write a rom-com. Why did you want to write a romantic comedy? Because I love, love, love them. And they have been such an important part of my world of, you know, not even just escapism, but just pleasure. You know, the pleasures of a romantic comedy are very precious to me because I love the idea of that something can be funny, but also sweet. I love romance.

back and forth banter very much. That's been kind of my favorite thing in dialogue forever. So it just happens to be something that I love deeply. And in some ways, it's easier to, you know, people say, write what you know. I think sometimes it's write what you love. That is author and pop culture happy hour host Linda Holmes. Her new book is back after this. It comes out next Tuesday. Linda, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you.

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