21 Comments
User's avatar
Jenovia 🕸️'s avatar

PLEASURE! My friends and I were discussing On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle and that’s what it was missing for me. Reading it felt like rug burn.

LOVED Romancing The Stone as a kid, you’ve inspired me to do a re-watch. I remember the sequel, The Jewel of the Nile was also fun.

You guys looked and sounded great up there! We had such a wonderful time! Can’t wait for your fall book events, I’ll be there with bells on💘

Leigh Stein's avatar

putting your card on my vision board 🔮

Mirella Stoyanova's avatar

Leigh, thank you so much for the insight about pleasure. It's a recurrent theme I've seen come up lately (in craft workshops, etc.), but until now I haven't thought it was entirely relevant to my work. Even though I'm in the querying trenches, this idea could be an interesting one for my straightforward memoir about trauma (I say with a smile and a laugh -- as if we need another one of those). But to your point about the divorce memoir, it seems like pleasure would be a natural counterpoint to painful storytelling. In my story, I think it might have the added benefit of heightening the tension within certain experiences I am trying to render, like dysmorphic thinking, for instance (everyone saying I look the happiest I've ever been while I feel completely destabilized)... I'm a therapist, so this play of pleasure against pain as a narrative device really appeals to me. Thanks for sharing your take on it!

Leigh Stein's avatar

Eat, Pray, Love sold so well because it's a divorce memoir about pleasure! The divorce is the backstory to the trip around the world.

David Mullis's avatar

“The divorce (the “trauma” I’m assuming) is the back story to the trip around the world.”

Like an aha moment, my eyes are now open. I never thought of it like that. Genius.

Great article. Thanks!

Mirella Stoyanova's avatar

Of course! Ha! It seems so obvious now, but you're totally right. Even when it breaks down to the food, meditation and falling in love.

Jolene Handy's avatar

Kathleen Turner crying and searching for tissues when she finishes her book lives in my memory.

Gila Pfeffer's avatar

you more than thought Anora would win, you said as much to the class! I watched it on my plane ride home a few days later and understood your prediction. Now I'm addicted to the soundtrack :)

Leigh Stein's avatar

What did you think of Mikey’s accent?

Gila Pfeffer's avatar

Well I'm from Staten Island so who am I to judge?

J.T. Ellison's avatar

Love this observation! And Romancing the Stone really is one of the best movies ever.

abby francesca's avatar

Romancing the Stone mentioned!!! My go-to comfort movie since high school and truly such a pleasure to watch every time - what a cool breakdown of why it hits the way it does.

Leigh Stein's avatar

It’s one of those classics I had never seen! I just watched Die Hard for the first time, too lol

Jenovia 🕸️'s avatar

LEIGH! Die Hard for the first time?! Did you like it?

Leigh Stein's avatar

I loved it! 😂

abby francesca's avatar

That's so funny I love it 😭 I feel like Die Hard even if you don't seek out you just end up watching accidentally at LEAST

Melanie Anagnos's avatar

Romancing the Stone. What a fun movie.

Annabel Monaghan's avatar

I’m going to try this with my WIP today. I’ll surely come up short on competition

Leigh Stein's avatar

it can be a bet placed… it can be rivals… jealousy… in my novel (you might remember) the main character says whoever grows their following the most can make a video with her rabbit

Libby Waterford's avatar

I have a copy of the novelization of Romancing the Stone written by "Joan Wilder." It's a wonderful artifact from 1984! So many pleasure buttons in that movie. RIP Diane Thomas.