Taffy Brodesser-Akner explains why she finds fame and fortune so fascinating

Transcript

PIEN HUANG, HOST:

Taffy Brodesser-Akner has always been fascinated by fame and fortune. She first achieved recognition as a journalist for her incisive celebrity profiles of people like Gwyneth Paltrow and Val Kilmer. She's also become a bestselling author, writing novels that explore wealth and class. Her debut was "Fleishman Is In Trouble," and it's since become a hit Hulu series. Her latest book is "Long Island Compromise." It's about the kidnapping of a wealthy businessman, and it's loosely based on the experience of a friend of her father's. She says that incident made her think about the ways that people can conflate money and safety.

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TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER: If this money is what brought you security in the first place, then how is it that it also put you in danger? Is it better to be somebody with money, or is it better to be someone who has felt the wolf at the door and can survive?

HUANG: Brodesser-Akner spoke with Rachel Martin for NPR's Wild Card. It's a show where guests choose questions at random from a deck of cards - questions about the memories, insights and beliefs that shape their life.

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RACHEL MARTIN: All right, this is memories. In this round, we're looking back at things that shaped you.

BRODESSER-AKNER: OK.

MARTIN: Three cards in my hand. Pick a card one through three.

BRODESSER-AKNER: Two.

MARTIN: Two - where would you go to feel safe as a kid?

BRODESSER-AKNER: Oh, my gosh. When I was a kid, my mother had a brown Volvo station wagon, and in the way back, which ironically is not a safe place, that was the place I was - I've always felt safe when I was in motion.

MARTIN: Really?

BRODESSER-AKNER: Yeah. Like, being in transit, being not there yet because once you get there, you have to do something or arrive or be or accomplish. But when you're in transit, which I always was - my parents were divorced. So I don't know if that's because - if I feel safe because I'm so used to it or because I think that being in transit is actually the only time you can stop. Like, I feel very safe when I'm protected from the demands of others.

MARTIN: Wow.

BRODESSER-AKNER: Yeah. It's weird. I guess I'm telling the truth here.

MARTIN: I'm into it.

BRODESSER-AKNER: Yeah.

MARTIN: Do you feel that way now?

BRODESSER-AKNER: You know what? Last night, I was coming home from New Jersey from an event for the book. I was in a car, and I saw New York - I saw the city where I live, across the river. And I thought, I'm so glad I'm not there yet. Being trapped in a state where you can't do anything but exist, it's the closest I think I get to stillness weirdly.

MARTIN: Well, it's because there's, like, potential, too, right? I've always been...

BRODESSER-AKNER: Yes.

MARTIN: ...Really sort of addicted to the potentiality of it (ph).

BRODESSER-AKNER: Like, it might be great when I get home.

MARTIN: Right. It might be amazing.

BRODESSER-AKNER: It hasn't - I haven't screwed up yet. Yeah.

MARTIN: Yes.

BRODESSER-AKNER: I agree.

MARTIN: Anything could be better.

BRODESSER-AKNER: I totally agree.

MARTIN: And so let me just stay here before I actually know.

BRODESSER-AKNER: I mean, put me in traffic - oh, oh.

MARTIN: (Laughter).

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MARTIN: OK, we are moving to Round 2.

BRODESSER-AKNER: OK.

MARTIN: All right? So this is insights...

BRODESSER-AKNER: OK.

MARTIN: ...Stuff you're working on now, things you're learning about yourself now. Here we go. Three new questions, three new cards - one, two, three.

BRODESSER-AKNER: Three.

MARTIN: Three - when do you feel most like an outsider?

BRODESSER-AKNER: I guess I have inferred from the fact that I work at The New York Times, from what's happened in the last few years that I am firmly a member of, say, the media establishment, and I still feel like a scrappy upstart. I mean, I'm sitting here in an NPR studio. I do not know what I'm doing here. I do not know what business I have...

MARTIN: Where did that come from? Why does that exist for you?

BRODESSER-AKNER: I'll tell you. I was a terrible student. I was kicked out of, like, six schools. You should see my parents at my book party or at a reading. They are just, like, walking around kind of, like, stymied...

MARTIN: Stunned.

BRODESSER-AKNER: ...By the way - and stunned by the way this turned out.

(LAUGHTER)

BRODESSER-AKNER: Like...

MARTIN: You.

BRODESSER-AKNER: ...I cannot...

MARTIN: Project Taffy.

BRODESSER-AKNER: I am so happy for them that they lived long enough to see me in a place in the world because if...

MARTIN: Why were you getting - were you kicked out of school?

BRODESSER-AKNER: I was kicked out of so many - I was kicked out of the best schools, and I was kicked out of the worst schools. I...

MARTIN: Equal opportunity.

BRODESSER-AKNER: Yes. Yes. I was kicked out of everywhere. I just, like, couldn't find my place as a child. And when friends of mine talk about their child who is either a rebel or just can't make school work for them, I tell them that story, and I say, it could just - like, I think the job of being an adult or a parent is to tell children - because no one told me this - that if you are not successful at school, that does not mean you're not going to be successful as a person, that some people are just going to work better as adults.

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MARTIN: We are going to Round 3.

BRODESSER-AKNER: OK.

MARTIN: OK?

BRODESSER-AKNER: Yeah.

MARTIN: This is the final round.

BRODESSER-AKNER: Great.

MARTIN: And this is where we get into the beliefs that shape the way you see the world. So here we go, three new cards - one, two or three.

BRODESSER-AKNER: One.

MARTIN: One - ooh. Have your feelings about God changed over time?

BRODESSER-AKNER: No. Isn't that crazy? I tried. And I cannot see this world without some sort of design or without some sort of crime and punishment, without some sort of - like, without the hope that something is in charge.

MARTIN: Do you need a crime and punishment God?

BRODESSER-AKNER: I mean, I've read the Old Testament a few times.

MARTIN: Right.

BRODESSER-AKNER: And you better - I mean, in that first chapter.

MARTIN: I mean, my name's Rachel. I'm not Jewish.

BRODESSER-AKNER: I mean...

MARTIN: But I've spent some time in the Old Testament.

BRODESSER-AKNER: ...There is a lot. My jury is always out on all - I'm always willing to believe anything. I'm willing for new information to come in.

MARTIN: I get it. Yeah.

BRODESSER-AKNER: I'm willing to be told by a burning bush. I hope - every day, I hope that a burning bush will tell me what's going on.

MARTIN: (Laughter).

BRODESSER-AKNER: But I do think that, like, the punishment for women in childbirth - the punishment for eating from the tree of knowledge was to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden and all sort of mishegoss when it comes to giving birth.

MARTIN: Well, right. So do you just...

BRODESSER-AKNER: Like, I'm fine being punished.

MARTIN: ...Discount those parts of the Bible?

BRODESSER-AKNER: I'm being - no, I don't discount. I'm just - but every time I hear a horror story, including my own, I always think it's so unfair that we're still paying for someone else's sin because sometimes God and the Bible are very useful tools for a dramatic state of blame. This is so bad that it's biblical. This is so...

MARTIN: And you like that? Like, you...

BRODESSER-AKNER: I don't like it. I just - my brain needs to make sense of things. What is it about - you're either an order muppet or a chaos muppet? Like, I like things to go from chaos to order. I...

MARTIN: And God helps you get there.

BRODESSER-AKNER: And - anything does. Any explanation will do. And when the regular explanations don't work out, you can always go to God.

HUANG: That's Taffy Brodesser-Akner talking to Wild Card's Rachel Martin. For more on that conversation, follow the Wild Card podcast. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.