TJR Double Feature Part 1 Transcript

© Bimbo Media

00:03

Holly: This is Bimbo Book Club with Holly.

00:12

Harley: And Harley. Okay, so double feature. The backstory for this one, guys, is Holly and I were going to do The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which is by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

00:28

Holly: Correct. Yep. Taylor Jenkins Reid.

00:31

Harley: One of us is talking directly at the camera, microphone, and the device. So, we were originally going to do Seven Husbands, which I had previously read. And Holly hadn't.

00:42

Holly: I had not. But when I went into the bookshop to purchase a copy, I noticed that Malibu Rising was by the same author, which I have previously read.

00:54

Harley: So, we decided that we would just swap books. So, I read Malibu Rising.

01:00

Holly: and I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

01:03

Harley: And our takeaway, if you want the too long, didn't listen version. Fuck me. She's a great writer.

01:09

Holly: Oh, man. She's an incredible writer.

01:13

Harley: So good. I was literally—when I was reading Malibu Rising—there were a couple of thoughts. And I'm not normally someone who highlight sections of books. I read it on Kindle, so I can highlight. But there were a couple of quotes that I highlighted from it because I was just like, Oh, that's actually really profound.

01:29

Holly: I did the same with Evelyn Hugo. Yeah, there's a few quotes that I wrote down.

01:33

Harley: Yeah. I think to one of the things that I really like about her is that she doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable things.

01:42

Holly: No, she doesn't. And she does them in such a way that really gets under your skin. Even if it's not necessarily a life experience, or something that you could relate to. She builds these characters in these scenarios that allow you to really feel and empathize for them. So even if you can't necessarily relate to them, you can still feel what they're feeling.

02:04

Harley: You mean you've never been a surfing superstar?

02:08

Holly: I can promise you I haven't ever been a surfing superstar.

02:10

Harley: Yeah, I would be lucky to stay upright on the board. Balance is not my strong suit. And I'm okay with that.

02:19

Holly: But your tits are probably as lovely as Evelyn Hugo’s. So, you have that.

02:23

Harley: Maybe that's why I find her so relatable. I'm like, Flat ass, big titties?

02:28

Holly: I got you. Yeah, that was basically how she was described in the book.

02:31

Harley: So yeah. Small with just unusually enormous, fantastic tits. That is me. Sadly, I have not managed to make millions off my fantastic titties. Thousands, sure. She realized that money wasn't everything by the time she was 25. So, there's still time for me to become so rich that I'm jaded about money. Yeah, there's still time. I'm comfortable with that being in my future. Well, she still had great cleavage right up until the end.

02:59

Holly: And the end of the book, she was in her 80s. So, there you go. Heaps of time.

03:09

Harley: Nana porn, here we come. I’m cutting that out. And I used to joke about that, because both of us will work—like obviously, one day we want to retire. But there's also a part of us that like, From my cold dead hands. So, we were joking about, like, we'll just end up being those like chicks who end up doing like a nanagram. Do you want a fatagram, do you want a nanagram?

03:32

Holly: I'm sure there's a huge market for it.

03:34

Harley: Probably. And I really feel like it would lend itself to my naturally crotchety nature. Come in and be scary.

03:42

Holly: Turn up to a buck’s party, sit on his lap, and pull out some knitting.

03:46

Harley: Oh my god, I love it. I mean, I've been threatening at the Royal for years to just come out on stage already naked and like read a book, eat a pizza. I'm adding knitting to the bit. Like it's at the point where I'm pretty sure for my retirement show—if I ever retire—when I retire, I'm going to have to come out already naked, eat a pizza, and just leave and be like, That was it, boys.

04:09

Holly: I can't wait to see that. Seriously, imagine just like, Da da da da da, and a crochet hook out of your G string.

04:15

Harley: It turns out my titties are so big, not because they're full of secrets, but because they’re full of wool. No, I'm not kidding. Here's a ball of wool.

04:28

Holly: Okay, should we clap so you know when to cut from?

04:31

Harley: It's fine. It'll be funny to relisten to. Save it! Anyway, no nanagrams in these books. Just lots and lots of I mean, she does write about kind of the rich and famous.

04:46

Holly: Yeah, definitely the lives of the rich and famous.

04:49

Harley: But then very much humanizes them. That’s the thing with Evelyn, isn't it, is that she obviously is supposed to be that like, Marilyn Monroe era style. I know, for me anyway, kind of having grown up with those icons of that generation in the ones that did start like me, obviously, Marilyn died. So, she became iconic in a different way. But they were so manufactured by the studio, that it's easy to forget that they were human and not just icons if that makes sense.

05:18

Holly: Yeah, I think she does that very well, especially in the way that most of the main characters that have risen to fame, and fortune have come from underprivileged backgrounds. So, we get a really decent backstory for them. And we see what they had to strive through and sacrifice to get to where they are, only to realize that money isn't everything.

05:42

Harley: But I think also understanding that money is something. So, this is one of the things that going back to Evelyn Hugo, so, there is a point where Celia St. James is like, Who cares, we can throw our reputation to the wind, and Evelyn is like I can't afford to, there's no fallback here, we will be blacklisted. And we never get out of that blacklisting. And I mean, she traps herself, obviously she's at a point where she's so wealthy, that she's got more money than God and it wouldn't have really mattered. She could have been like, Fuck the police, what are you gonna do? Like, we're moving to Mexico without millions and millions and millions of dollars and living our best life. But, I mean, obviously, it wasn't all about money for her. But there is a point where because Celia grew up with money, she kind of has this idea that it will always be there. Whereas Evelyn is the more cautious of the two, not because she's not afraid of being seen as a lesbian or being seen as bisexual thing that like, she absolutely is afraid of that stuff. But that survival instinct comes from the understanding and the reality that money might not be everything, but it sure is something.

06:46

Holly: Yeah, and I'm gonna butcher this quote, but I remember there was a line in the book that went something along the lines of, Kids who grew up with money, have the luxury of not needing to understand that, but kids that grew up without it, they understand how it works from a very early age.

07:03

Harley: And I think too, I mean, it's not from the book, but there's that thing of the like, money doesn't mean anything unless you have not enough or too much. And I mean, arguably, she bounced very quickly from one end of that spectrum to the other.

07:17

Holly: As does Nina Riva and the family in Malibu Rising.

07:22

Harley: But I think that one of the differences is that Nina was always motivated, Nina was never motivated by a desire for stardom, for money, beyond being able to support her family. So, she's very quick to throw it all away, the second she realizes that she can.

07:39

Holly: Whereas Evelyn wanted to escape her family. And that's why she will partly reason why she chased her first husband to help provide her with that security.

07:50

Harley: She never consciously goes into it, or at least not that I remember, because it was a while ago that I read the whole book. But it's quite a common thing for actual Hollywood starlets to talk about this. But in she never does address it in the book. But that thing of the way, obviously, having grown up in an abusive home, and all that kind of stuff, that desire for love, that often get wires crossed with fame, where it's like she starts off wanting to be yes, wealthy, and not have poverty. But she actually mostly is not driven by money. She's driven by a desire to be seen and to be loved and to be recognized and to be Evelyn Hugo name in lights kind of thing, where it's like, I don't think that ironically, I think Nina was more driven by money. And Evelyn was more driven by fame.

08:37

Holly: Yes. And that I think, is the main distinction between the two of them.

08:41

Harley: And it's why one could throw it away or the other can’t.

08:44

Holly: Exactly. And also like, Nina, she's looking for a means to an end. Whereas Evelyn is more like, enjoying the means. And the end is great.

08:58

Harley: Even when she's talking about doing the massive movie deal, where she becomes America's highest-paid actress, she's more interested in the fact that she's America's highest-paid actress than the specifics of the numbers.

09:11

Holly: Even if it was $1 more, she wouldn't have cared

09:14

Harley: Because it's about that fame, that recognition.

09:16

Holly: And we definitely see that a lot when she doesn't win the awards. And she's quite grumpy.

09:26

Harley: I definitely think that that's a system that like, you think about being trapped in that cycle of so close and not quite getting it and especially the year that she deserved it, but she got blacklisted by her ex. That would be really frustrating. He's almost definitely a massive prick, but Leonardo DiCaprio, always missing out on stuff. There's a point where you're like, I feel for you, man. Especially because there were so many years where he deserved it. He just lost because of reasons outside his control. And I think that's the really hard thing about those awards is that sometimes the reality is that more than one person deserved it. And the other reality is that nobody goes into any kind of performing without liking recognition. And I say that as somebody who I always find it really funny when showgirls are like, No, I'm not an attention seeker. And I'm like, Bitch you’re a showgirl, you get up on stage in front of crowds of people, by yourself, so that everybody will pay attention to you.

10:21

Holly: Yeah, I love the center of attention.

10:24

Harley: 100%. And I think there's healthy attention-seeking and unhealthy attention-seeking. So, I definitely think that it can be a bad thing, but I don't think it's inherently bad. And I think so many people deny it, because they're like, Oh no, I don't want to be seen as someone who's self-absorbed, or thinks everything should be me, me all the time. But that's not what you're saying. You're just saying, You know what, sometimes it's fun to be the center of attention. The way that I can control the room gives me a rush. That's the performance high for me. It's one of the reasons I like performing live.

10:53

Holly: And that's I think part of Evelyn Hugo’s drive to this. While she does sometimes attract the wrong attention, she is trying to seek attention the right way. And morally, it may not have been the right way with some of her husbands and the scandals and things. But ultimately, she was trying to keep her name as pure as she possibly could.

11:17

Harley: But I think it's also a thing of the light. It's that conflict between what she was doing for her career and what she was doing to hide who she really was. Because if you look at the marriage that she has to the guy who stars with her in Anna Karenina, so her marriage to Rex was actually really, really healthy because it was 100% of business arrangement. And they both knew what they were there for. I mean, arguably the same thing with Harry, where it's like, they both knew what they were there for. And so, it was based on rather than being based on a false idea of who the other person was when she thought her first husband…Bryce? Don. That's her second husband, Ernie is her first husband. So, with Don, she thinks she's getting Prince Charming, like the young prince charming of Hollywood. And what she's actually getting is a mean loser, who will beat her up every time he feels like he's not on a winning streak. And what he thinks he's getting is a hot, sexy, but nice little submissive wifey and actually, what he's getting is a feisty lesbian, bisexual, who will not take his shit for a long period of time, you know?

12:28

Holly: So, can we talk about her sexuality for a minute? One thing I really loved about the book is the way that it addressed bi erasure. And she was very, very strict in the I am a bisexual. But then throughout the book, she talks about the many men that she has loves, but ultimately only one woman. And you can see that she's grappled with that concept of being bisexual. You can read it, you can see it, she questions herself. Am I truly bisexual if I've only ever loved one woman? And then on the flip side of that, you see Cecilia, grappling with the idea that Evelyn has been with men. And I quite liked, the way it was portrayed was quite raw.

13:19

Harley: I like too there was one point where she says that every time they fought… When Celia loved her, she was a lesbian. And when Celia was angry at her, she was a straight woman. Yeah. And I think that that's a real kind of raw, honest thing where, especially when you're not 100% sure of your own identity, because you are grappling with feel like, Am I a straight woman who fell in love with a woman? Or am I a lesbian? Who has been conditioned to believe that she likes men? Or am I a bisexual, and I sit somewhere in between? And I think all of those are valid questions, and there's multiple valid answers to any of those things. That's the nice and annoying thing about sexuality is that it's just a big melting pot. And you can have all these weird answers that are super wrong for the person sitting next to you, but 100% right for you.

14:06

Holly: Exactly. When you look at the men that she was with, the men that she married, John, I think was the only one that she actually really wanted to have sex with. She had that drive to be taken by him, whereas the rest were a means to an end.

14:22

Harley: I think the only other one that she could have potentially had sexual chemistry with would have been Mick Riva, but she was deliberately being a bad lay, because she was really just using him. And she was playing that role and all that kind of stuff. And I did like that moment, where she was like, I feel bad for using him in this way. And then realizing that he had no issue doing it back to her was like, I don't know, I really felt that moment because I was like, I know those moments where you can see a man using you for a thing and you're just like, especially when you are say working and you're being a professional, beautiful person and you’re like, I know that I'm playing along to get money, which is perhaps not as disingenuous flying to Vegas and getting married. It's pretty clear like, you know, you walk into a strip club, you know what you're in for, at some point, you're the idiot who's fooling yourself. And I've certainly never said like, Yeah, yeah, we're gonna fall in love get married, like happily ever after. Like I have a very honest hustle. But at the end of the day, I'm still hustling, I'm still selling a fantasy. But then those moments sometimes where you are like, Oh, is this ethical or whatever? And then you see the way that men just really casually use women without even realizing that they're doing it because they're so used to being able to use women to fill a role or do a thing that they need or whatever it is that they don't even, like, register that that is how they are approaching life. And suddenly, the guilt washes away. I'll throw the phone at the wall.

15:48

Holly: When she said that she was giving him what he wanted. She threw it because she knew he'd like it. I was like, Ah, I know exactly what kind of man you are.

15:59

Harley: Exactly the kind that was my I don't understand why like, 16 of my ex-girlfriends have keyed my car. Bitches be crazy.

16:06

Holly: So, nuts.

16:08

Harley: It’s definitely not you choosing particular women is it? Problems not you, Mick, it's not. Until his kids are like, Fuck you, dad. Which actually speaking of Malibu Rising, we haven't spoken about much. Spoiler alert, if you haven't read it, go read it and come back and listen to this. Because we will ruin it for you. And it deserves to be read. Like, often I will go, and I mean, I said this throughout the whole us even discussing doing ACOTAR as a book that like, I'm going to spoil it for you. And I don't even feel that bad. Like, if you liked the books, sure, I'll hold off. But like, there's nothing that I can spoil that is groundbreaking in it, you're not stupid, you'll see it coming a mile away anyway, you reading the first book, and you're like, oh, clearly, it's a Beauty and the Beast analogy, Gee, I wonder if she'll end up with the beast.

16:57

Holly: Whereas with this, these two books in particular, there are some plot twists and raw moments. And I'm very bored usually.

17:07

Harley: I think it’s because it's so real. Because often when I'm reading something, and especially something like a fantasy novel, you are looking for the story tropes. And it's a really reflexive thing to do that, especially if you are a big reader, or you've studied books or things like that you've taught to look for that stuff. So often you are focused on what you can predict, it's like reading a detective novel and being like, who done it and looking for the clues, you're always going to do that. I don't think that these books particularly lend themselves to that so you just go with the flow.

17:39

Holly: You're given breadcrumbs to a different twist, which does happen. You do get that twist that you are predicting, but before you get that twist, you get slammed in the face with something else. Which just makes it so much more amazing. I was actually out at lunch. So, taking myself out to lunch. And I was reading Evelyn Hugo when like the big like, Oh no thing happened. And I like had to close the book, put it down on the table. Take a moment. Not even gonna like to be embarrassed. I was like, borderline sobbing, being like I need to not start crying in public while I'm trying to eat my noodles.

18:18

Harley: Fuck it, cry noodles. Have ’em.

18:20

Holly: Salty. Pick the book back up. And then I literally, I put it down to drive home and then I didn't put it down again until I finished it.

18:28

Harley: So, I read most of Malibu Rising in one sitting at the hairdresser.

18:33

Holly: I'd done the same the first time I read Malibu Rising, I devoured it more or less than one sitting and then having re-read it. I've done it in like, a day and a half.

18:42

Harley: Well, and most of the way through Evelyn Hugo again, I think that The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo have a bigger plot twist because I think that it's more foundational to the story to have that. And part of the point of that whole story is the truths that people denied and themselves throughout their lives and all that stuff.

18:59

Holly: So, if you haven't read Evelyn Hugo…

19:01

Harley: Basically, this is the podcast where we more than any other podcast say fuck our opinions, fuck what we have to say, go read the books, and then come back. And I would actually rather than like this, this good that I would rather people just didn't listen to this podcast, then missed out on just what a glorious thing it is to read the books for the first time and get those endings.

19:25

Holly: So, I guess the first kind of twist with Evelyn Hugo, from the title and from the blurb you assume it's about her seven husbands. Husbands, male, you assume she's straight. Then very quickly, Monique, who is asking her questions to write this book.

19:47

Harley: So, the premise of the book for anybody who doesn't know is that a journalist, this is clearly not Vogue.

19:56

Holly: It’s Vivant, which if you pick it up, it was where Nina got her big break in Malibu Rising.

20:03

Harley: I did not pick that up. But someone's paying attention.

20:06

Holly: Someone is paying attention because I froth that shit.

20:09

Harley: But anyway, so she's working for a New York institution, yada, yada. And these big like, I mean, kind of Liz Taylor inspired, almost star has agreed to do a piece for the magazine. And they've of course, sent out all their top writers being like, You can choose from these people. And she's like, Nah, fuck that. I want this one random journalist.

20:30

Holly: Now that there is a big question as to why this one particular journalist was selected.

20:36

Harley: Yeah, so we actually start the book with Monique, who's the journalist. And so, there is this kind of thing of the like, she's in this spot where she has written at least one piece that was beautifully written enough to get her recognized. But she's also low enough on the totem pole that there is a bit of a like, are you getting using me to essentially, think that I'm too young or too inexperienced to actually hold my own in the interview, so you can just say whatever you want, and I'll just be like, Okay.

21:03

Holly: Now, I think it's kind of important to note that the piece of writing that got her hired at Vivant, and also that got everyone who goes attention was a beautifully written piece on assisted dying, which kind of foreshadows something later on. So that's the plot twist that we are sort of expecting. Yeah, we anticipate it's coming.

21:26

Harley: When she meets Evelyn basically says, I lied about in the magazine piece, I don't want to do it, but I want to give you my life story. And of course, she's been like, one, Why the fuck would you want to do that? Like you don't know me from a bar of soap? Why would you want to give me a multimillion-dollar book deal, basically, because you're handing me a story that's worth millions. But also, you're like, You can publish whatever you want about me. But you've got to wait until after I die. So, it's like, am I holding on to this story for another decade? And she’s actually quite often very flippant about it like I'm old, everyone's dying. It's great that you think that I've got another two decades in me. But you can see that she's very conscious of her mortality. And she obviously has some intention of or some understanding that death’s come a knocking. But you really don't know more than that for most of the book.

22:12

Holly: Yeah, you kind of get an idea. I think as a non-stupid reader, you get an idea pretty quickly. But they do definitely spell it out after we learn about her daughter's death. So, her daughter died of breast cancer. And they note that that is hereditary. So, we are sort of introduced to the idea that Evelyn probably has breast cancer, which is quite kind of fitting that I think they even say this in the book that what made her, which was her gorgeous breasts, was her ultimate demise.

22:48

Harley: Yeah. I think actually, that's one of the big things that the difference between Malibu Rising and Evelyn Hugo is that I feel like Malibu Rising was like a car crash. Like you see it happening.

22:58

Holly: I mean, yeah, and the trolley.

23:01

Harley: Car literally crashes.

23:02

Holly: I mean, she does like a car crash, there was a crash in Hugo as well.

23:05

Harley: But the whole story, it even starts off talking about the fires in Malibu and how there was the fire that started at Nina's party like Nina Riva used to have these parties in one year, the fire that took Malibu started there. And so, it's always leading up to that, but it's also like all these car crash moments were really early on in the book. You get to know that one of the brothers is sleeping with his brother's ex, and you get to know that like, Nina is barely holding on to keeping her life together because she's been so busy being fine for everybody else that now that nobody's considered her and she's stuck there holding the bag for everybody else. And their little sister is has spent so much time being so protected by all of her siblings, that she's suffocating under it. So, there's all of these kinds of layers there where you can see all the things that are going to fall apart like you can see who's going to explode, you can see all that stuff and there’s definitely twists, like when the other daughter shows up. We are just like whoa, what the fuck? the whole time. So, say when Mick and their mom are getting together and it's like he's a perfect gentleman and they're gonna be the Hollywood it-couple and this, that, the other, real early on what kind of man he is, even her mom says the charmers are the ones you need to watch out for. It actually reminds me of something so my mum often would talk about how when I was becoming a teenager she'd gone to my grandmother and being like, Oh my god, what am I doing? She brings home some boy whose real rough. My grandma goes, You know what my mum always used to say? Don't worry about the ones who are rough around the edges because they're usually the ones that will show you their flaws up front and they're better human beings, worry about the boys with the white wall tires. Which is the ’50s way of saying worry about the ones who show up super sleek, the perfectly charming, perfectly lovely, you know? That literally is like now we're saying in my family is the like, Keep your eye on the boys with the white wall tires. And obviously, we're not actually specifically talking about the tires, but more about what they represent in kind of that ’50s era slick boy thing. And Mick clearly felt like, was one of those guys who spoke a good game and he was charming, and he dressed well, and he was handsome, and he knew it.

25:18

Holly: And you feel for him because you do get his backstory and the way his parents loved each other was very on-again, off-again, to the point that when they were on, they forgot he existed. When they were off, his mother was so catatonic that she forgot he existed. So, he was very much neglected.

25:39

Harley: And I think that's one of the things that makes her such a good writer is that he is the bad guy in that book. He's a neglectful father to the point of just obscenity. He's living this incredible high life, while his kids are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and all this kind of stuff. But he isn't like she doesn't present someone as the like, he's the bad guy. And it's very, very common, especially when you are falling into that like abandonment stuff and all that kind of thing for that character to be presented as wholly bad. I mean, even you could argue a character who's less developed, she doesn't give a lot of backstory for Don, because he's not exceptionally important to the story being told. But she gives enough that you understand that he's always lived under his parents’ shadow. And he's always obviously had some his parents are like Hollywood, people of the last generation. And so, he clearly is reactive, like he's always kind of been indulged. So, he doesn't necessarily have the emotional control. But he's also got the pressure of living up to the Adler name and all that kind of thing. And so, it doesn't make his actions right. It doesn't make him a good man. He's clearly not. But there is a level of empathy that you can have with him where it's like, okay, you're not a good person, but you are human. Nobody’s shittiness is created in a vacuum.

27:05

Holly: No. And we definitely we see that with Mick as well, the way his parents would forget he existed, and then scoop him up and spoil him and try to make up for it all. And he was from a very young age taught that that's just what love was.

27:20

Harley: I think also his mum, clearly from the backstory that you get, she had that obsessive quality where she was like, obsessively in love with his dad and then obsessively needy for him and then obsessively catatonic and then and so his understanding of what love is and when love is good is that obsessiveness. And the second, he is not just completely obsessed with something, it's because he's not in love anymore. And so instead of doing the work and working through that stuff, he's like, often the new obsession because that's true love.

27:52

Holly: So, he was never taught that there is gray, there is ups and there's downs, but most of the time, love is in that gray area.

27:58

Harley: And the reality is obsessive love is either the honeymoon stage, or it's unhealthy. There's not in between, for short, when you first meet someone, and you've really hit it off, and you've got that great chemistry and things like that, like you can't get them out of your brain, and you want to message them all the time. You want to talk to them all the time, all that stuff, that's fine. That's just your hormones are doing its thing. But you don't stay there. And if you do stay there, that has mental health issues.

28:26

Holly: That's codependency, it's not right.

28:29

Harley: If you're three months into a relationship, and you're just obsessed, cool, no stress, honeymoon stage. Obviously, that doesn't mean don't look out for red flags, like am I being loved bombed? But it's not uncommon. I think it's also worth recognizing, I mean, I know having ADHD, and one of the things that we can often run into is that like, hyper-fixated on the person, and that doesn't last. So, if you want a long-term relationship, who can't expect it to exist all the time, in that hyper fixation today, but you can have that early on. And it's something to be conscious of one to recognize that it won't last forever. So, you can't expect relationships to stay in that state of hyper-focus. But it is also worth recognizing, because it can be unhealthy because you can from the outside essentially love bomb, and then take away energy when you're no longer hyper-fixated. And that's not a healthy way of interacting with other people. So, it's about kind of managing those expectations and being realistic about what relationships are and who people are and things like that.

29:30

Holly: And that takes therapy. I need extensive therapy over here.

29:34

Harley: I guess I'm just gonna use the term still, but hyper-fixation means that he’ll meet a girl on tour and become obsessed. And so then be like, I don't love you anymore. Not to mention all just the casual sleeping around and stuff like Keith Richards, apparently his partner basically said to him, I get that what happens on tour is going to happen on tour. Regardless, my rules are I'll never have another relationship with them. And maybe wear a condom like, no STDs come home with you and don't have another relationship. So, I don't care if you're fucking somebody else. But I care if you've got another girlfriend.

30:13

Holly: Which I guess is Mick would have loved that arrangement. But his wife, she had never been with anyone before him, and I don't believe was with anyone after him or in between.

30:24

Harley: So, she fell in love with him and stayed in love with him and fell apart when he left her again and again.

30:30

Holly: Which is we also then see these repeating patterns when Nina's partner is away on tour and falls in love with her fellow tennis player. And then comes home decides to have this grand gesture, which was very Mick Riva, and have him grand gesture to win her back in front of all of her friends in front, this huge party scoops her up because she's felt pressured to saying yes, but then all of that falls apart.

30:59

Harley: Because he pulls her out, he looks like I'm announcing in front of everyone, we're getting back together, like get back together with me kind of thing. And so, she's in front of all these people. And it's that pressure, because when it's the two of them alone, she's prepared to say, I don't think so. And I think he senses that. So, he's like, you're always working to make everybody else feel comfortable. And you don't want to make all of the party guests feel uncomfortable because we're having a blue in front of them. So, I'll just pull you out there and you'll be so uncomfortable and busy making them comfortable that you'll go Yep, sure.

31:33

Holly: Because he knows that she's a people pleaser and a doormat, which changes at the end of this. But until then, yeah, she is, and he knows that she's going to say yes. Even though very shortly after that, you know within an hour or so that unravels and he changes his mind.

31:51

Harley: Well, he doesn't change his mind. So, Carrie Soto turns up screaming and threatening to burn his stuff on the front lawn and he's like, I don't understand where this come from. And she's like, You literally just called me an asshole and walked out like that's not how you break up with someone. How dare you just turn up here and act like you can just ignore like I can just be a blip on the radar? Fuck you. I was very clear with you about what this was like. I didn't try and be shady.

32:17

Holly: Yeah, you were the shady one. You're the one that went behind your partner's back with me.

32:21

Harley: And I was very clear that if you're going to leave her for me that you will like I'm not fucking around. I'm not being a mistress. That's not the deal here. And you decided to do that. And then the second things weren't working for you, you went, Oh screw this, I’ll go back to the ex. And Nina's pretty much like, You know what? She's right. Fuck you.

32:40

Holly: Yeah, yeah. But then towards the end, he does. He changes his mind again. It's like, I'm gonna go after her.

32:45

Harley: Well, it's not even that he changes his mind. He goes, I'm not leaving tonight without having a woman by my side. And I've lost Nina permanently so Carrie’s the easier mark to go after.

32:57

Holly: He just decides that that's the love of his life because that's…

33:00

Harley: The woman who can win over, he thinks.

33:02

Holly: Because he's probably mistaking the aggression and the fieriness of her for passion, which it's not. But we don't really know about his backstory as much.

33:15

Harley: No, just that he likes to win. So, he basically finishes the night not really going, any kind of redemption arc or any of that kind of stuff. But literally just going, I'm not going to lose. I'm a winner. I will win. And he's kind of in a lot of ways settling for Carrie, because he is settling for somebody that will allow him to feel like a winner. To be fair, we don't actually see them. He ends up in a car accident. They don't actually reconnect at that time. So, I don't know that he does end up back with her.

33:44

Holly: No, but they are. She is writing…

33:47

Harley: The Carrie Soto book. Okay, so they're so Carrie Soto is about to get her own book, but I'm pretty sure it's mentioned in the blurb that she's with somebody else. So, he's not mentioned in it.

33:57

Holly: I guess we'll find out when that comes out. So, there is a third book that's already out that also has some of these characters intertwined, which is also I don't think we mentioned it before. But Mick Riva, we mentioned that he was one of Evelyn's husbands, but I think we actually spelled out that he was Evelyn's third husband. So, we do see that little crossover there.

34:19

Harley: Yep. So, Taylor Jenkins Reid, has obviously set all of her books in an adjacent universe to ours I would say, but they are books that are obviously fictional, but set in a sort of real-world like our real world, when she populates them, she doesn't just forget about them in the next book and make a whole new universe that's based on our world kind of thing. So, there are little touchstones through each book that anchor them in the same world even though they're not necessarily overlapping stories like Evelyn's not important to the Malibu Rising.

34:57

Holly: In fact, she's not even named she's only mentioned as he’d married a whirlwind, one-night marriage with the biggest star in Hollywood. So, she’s not actually named in Malibu Rising.

35:06

Harley: Because it is that kind of story that is about that family and about abandonment and about the patterns that repeat themselves in families and all that kind of stuff. And he doesn't actually play a huge part in her book, because he was there to serve a purpose. So, he was one of the husbands, so he has to be named, and he has to have a section, but his section is the shortest.

35:27

Holly: Yeah, I mean, it's one chapter. And he's never really revisited.

35:31

Harley: Yeah. Because it was never, I think for either of them, particularly real. He wanted a root, she wanted to cover for her girlfriend. They got what they wanted.

35:40

Holly: And so, what's also interesting there is that I believe he was the one that impregnated Evelyn, so she slept with him, she was a ridiculously bad lay, so that he felt like he really didn't actually get what he came for.

35:54

Harley: I actually think as short of a chapter as it is, it is a really fascinating one, because she's essentially talking through and it's a really fascinating one probably, for us, especially being you know, I mean, we're showgirls, not escorts. The sex part is not necessarily part of what I always say, for me anyway, like, I've got friends who are escorts, and they're great at it, and good for them. But I love to flirt, I don't really care to deliver with everyone, like I'm very selective about who I want to have in my bed. But I would flirt with a lamppost if nobody else stood still. And so, the reason why I make a good stripper and a good showgirl, is because I can flirt to my heart's content, but there's that line there. And if they go, Come back to my hotel room with me. It's like, Dude, you were paying me to be nice to you. But there is a very clear boundary here. It's not my problem.

36:42

Holly: It's also a really safe way of doing that because you're out flirting with people and then shutting them down. That's quite dangerous for women.

36:49

Harley: I think it's that thing of like, you can essentially, in that environment, lead people on and when they do go, Oh, you were leading me on, you can be like, It's my fucking job. And they're kind of there is that point where they're like, Okay, fair enough, I walked backwards into that one. Whereas if you're out, I mean, a lot of the behavior that we engage in at work, if you were doing that without the context of what we do for work. It is flirting, it is leading someone on, because it's not just like a casual, I'm just being charming, because I like to be nice to people. And I certainly do that all the time. But the kind of flirting that we do when we're working is leading people on, it's just leading people on with very clear boundaries, like a neon sign over our heads being like not going anywhere, will flirt.

37:28

Holly: No, you can't have my phone number. And no, you definitely cannot come home with me.

37:33

Harley: Of course, you can have my phone number. It's 1-800-nice-try.

37:37

Holly: Can’t tell if you’ve used that line before. I guess getting back to…

37:42

Harley: Well sorry, I just thought because, I found it really interesting the way that she broke down and I'm sure you can, I can as well, break down kind of that hustle or break down that where you see like, this is a person who needs to be approached in this way or this is a thing that needs to do. And she very much, because she's only really with Mick to cover her and Celia nearly getting caught together. So, the whole time it's a hustle. So, it's like how I get him to… first thing I need to do is get him to agree to go to Vegas and make him think it's his idea.

38:13

Holly: Even before that he was selected. She picked him for a reason. Because she knew she could manipulate him. And then she very quickly had this plan and executed it flawlessly. He played right into his part very well. And he loved it just as much as she needed it. He loved it.

38:34

Harley: And I think there is that. I don't know if we talked about it on the thing we did privately. So essentially, this culminates in he wants to sleep with her. And she's like, I'm not that kind of girl. So, they get married. Because he's like, No, no, I'm in love with you. And again, it's that hyper-fixation thing that we see in Malibu Rising.

38:52

Holly: So, she says to him, I don't have sex outside of marriage. Now, aside from Celia, that's actually correct. Well, I don't know that she had any other…

39:04

Harley: She talks about the casting couch. So, Ari goes down on her. And it's certainly implied, but she's not afraid to sleep with people to get a movie deal. I mean, at any rate, she isn't saying it to him necessarily because it's true. Even if it is, she’s saying it because she wants him to be drunk and obsessed enough to be like, Nah, fuck it, babe. I'm in love. Let's get married and have that honeymoon night. She’s the seductress the whole time. But when she gets in there, she doesn't want him to have a great time and be like, No, I actually think I love you. And let's have a Tommy and Pam kind of relationship where as much as it's impulsive, it's real. And there's a real connection there.

39:42

Holly: There can't possibly be a real connection because she manufactured it from the moment, she picked him.

39:46

Harley: But she also doesn't want to perform enough to, or even if she actually enjoys in a casual way, sleeping with him. She doesn't want a relationship with him. So, she's deliberately really shit in bed. And so that he'll kind of go, Oh, this didn't live up to the expectation that I had. And I think the other reason she picked Mick is because he'd quite openly said he had a crush on her. So, he already idolized her, she already was never going to live up to the image that he had. So, it's kind of like, Yeah, I’m just doing that pedestal that you've put me on.

40:19

Holly: But he also wasn't as firmly rooted in Hollywood, like an acting career, because he was primarily a musician that it would ruin, he couldn't throw any black balls in. He was not able to ruin her reputation any more than the scandal would.

40:33

Harley: Yeah. But I do think like at the end of that, when he does play along and breaks up with her and all that kind of stuff, she's deliberately a bit hysterical and stuff about it, because she can see that she's playing into that crazy ex thing for him. So, it's kind of that like, To be fair, I've used you, but I'll give you the gift of letting you have this story that you like to tell. I just think it's a really interesting section.

40:57

Holly: Yeah, it's a very, very interesting section. And then I think the little icing on the cake was the fact that he did impregnate her, which led to the demise of her relationship with Celia again, but she did choose to abort it. Now, when we come to Malibu Rising, we have a bonus child that turns up. And there could have been an additional bonus child had Evelyn chosen not to abort.

41:24

Harley: Well, they actually talk about that in Malibu Rising. Mick is very much like I'm sorry, I slept with so many women. I actually like I'm happy to do a paternity test. Eventually, it's a bit more of a complicated conversation than that. But he's like, I'll do a paternity test. I owe you that much. But I don't remember your mother. So, I can't confirm or deny like, I can't actually even just look at this photo and be like, Yeah, I slept with her. That's a possibility. I literally slept with so many people that don't know. Which then all of these other kids go. How many siblings do we potentially have out there who just have no idea? And we've got no way of knowing because he doesn't know where he's put his dick.

42:01

Holly: He's a very interesting villain.

42:06

Harley: But it's interesting too, because he gives off very much like that almost like Mick Jagger kind of thing where it's that like he's such a frontman, that he's so charming all the time, and he can't turn it off. And I'm not saying Mick Jagger is a prick. Apparently, he is. But I don't know him from a bar of soap, so, whatever. But I think it's undeniable to say that those kind of rock stars and those kinds of frontmen have such a charisma about them, that they often become huge pricks because they can. Because when you're that charming, and again, it kind of comes back to what we do. Where people let you get away with a lot when they are charming.

42:45

Holly: Yeah, charming people get away with a lot. And I've definitely met people that can't turn it off. They've just been in the industry for so long. It is so ingrained that there's no longer that separation between the performance art of performing as a showgirl being this person, this persona that you've crafted, versus who you really are.

43:03

Harley: And I think that's one of the interesting things about the fact that she writes about celebrity is because I actually think, tradies also, but that's for another time. But celebrities and showgirls are very, very similar in that, you have to create a version of yourself that is true to who you are, if you want to do it for a long time, anyway. If you want to do it for three months, and then go back to, if you're backpacking, or whatever, by all means, put an accent, pretend you're someone completely different to who you are, go to town. But if you want to do it for a long time, it needs to come from a genuine place. So, you need to have that performance persona. That is all your good bits.

43:43

Holly: You just cherry-picked all of the best qualities of yourself, sprinkled on some charisma, whether it's authentic or not, you pull out of the bag.

43:50

Harley: But I think that that's the thing that's very similar for celebrities, is that they have to kind of cherry-pick all the best bits of themselves and present that to the world. And it's easy to accidentally overlap that where it's like, Where do I end, my persona begins? Because it's same, but different.

44:06

Holly: And Evelyn even said that towards the end of her interview, she did say that she crafted this persona, and she did what it took to keep that persona actually, in picking she even picked up a stage named and changing her surname.

44:20

Harley: I feel like Mick Riva is like that, you know, sometimes girls will come in and they absolutely clean up from the get-go because they just have such a natural ability to sell and such a natural ability to charm and all that kind of stuff. And I mean, they run into lots of other disasters because they don't necessarily have life skills. It's very unconscious what they're doing. But they are just so effortlessly charming, that it works really, really well for them. I think that they again, they can't turn it off. I think that's like Mick Riva.

44:48

Holly: And same with Don.

44:49

Harley: Whereas I think Evelyn probably is more like the way that you and I approach it where it is that like I’m conscious of what I'm doing. I know perfectly well It is happening here. And that doesn't mean that it is disingenuous to who I am or that I'm lying or any of that kind of stuff. But it's simply that it's a conscious choice for me to go. If I'm going to come and be the fantasy girl, because that's literally what I'm paid to do. I can't come in and be the fantasy girl and be like, so me and my boyfriend are having a fight, and I just had to take my dog to the vet, my mum's being a bitch. And instantly I have to come in and not have real problems.

45:26

Holly: Exactly. And then you also see, I think it also sort of ties into everyone's sexuality, because when she is her true, authentic self, it's when she's with Celia. And also, when she's with Harry. So, Harry was her producer for a long time. He was a gay man who was in love with another gay man who ended up marrying Celia first, and then Evelyn married Harry, so that they could essentially double date. And it just looked like two heterosexual couples living their life.

46:02

Harley: And there were rumors that they were swinging but, people just naturally assumed.

46:07

Holly: Because swinging is far less scandalous than being homosexuals.

46:11

Harley: Yeah. But also, like, people just assumed that they were sleeping with each other's husbands, rather than with each other.

46:17

Holly: Now, her marriage with Harry, I absolutely love that marriage. It was so beautiful. So, they built a family together. They loved each other. They're each other's best friends. They just had no sexual desire there. And I think that's just beautiful, they were platonic life partners, and they just they had a daughter, and they raised this daughter, and they went through so many heartbreaking moments together. But platonic.

46:47

Harley: And like, I honestly think that I would have been a great beard. I mean, arguably, there's still a lot of people who have beards and all that kind of stuff. And I still would be a great beard. But thankfully, times are changing. But I feel like I would be or would have been a great beard because I just like, I don't care. I mean, to be fair, I was raised in a family where like, my grandmother is as gay as they come on, with full steel-capped boots, kind of lesbian, like fighting in the streets for it. And so, because I've always had my grandmother's around, like my step-grandmother was at my birth, I've not ever known a world where they're not together. I don't care about that stuff in that sense, where it's just love is love. Or in fact, I do care about it, but I care about it in the other direction, I'd say. Like, I think it's really ridiculous that in so many places, it's still illegal period. But in so many places where it is legal to be gay, there are still so many families that are destroyed by, up until recently in Australia, technically, my grandmothers were housemates, they bought a house together. And so, if my grandmother had died, we as her family could challenge her will because she can't leave everything to her housemate. Meanwhile, if you're a heterosexual couple and you live together for like a year, you're considered de facto married. So fun fact, our audio cut out here. We're not done with this conversation. But we are going to pause here, and you can tune back in next week for part two.

48:23

Holly: In the meantime, links are in our show notes. And you can find us at bimbobookclub.com or on all your favorite social media platforms.

48:30

Harley: We also want to give a huge shout-out to the people who've already given us a review. We see you, we love you, and if you haven't yet reviewed and want to join the loving, it's never too late to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

48:43

Holly: Until next week. Bimbos out.