JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Friendships that last decades stretch across distance, careers, marriages, children. And sometimes there are long periods of silence. Author Emily Nemens explores the complexities of female friendship in her new novel "Clutch." It follows five women who have known each other since college as they navigate the challenges of midlife.
EMILY NEMENS: Watching these women grow and get to know themselves and having our friendships wax and wane but really hold steady at their core is a thing that, you know, I just - I value it so highly. And I wanted to think about the possibilities of that sort of beyond my own lived experience, but thinking about a group of women who are trying to do that same work of holding on to one another.
SUMMERS: The demands of life mean that the women are rarely all physically together. They remain connected through their group chat. I asked author Emily Nemens why she decided to use this medium as the thread that connects them.
NEMENS: Well, Juana, you're probably on a group chat, right?
SUMMERS: Many, many.
NEMENS: Many. So it felt very much like the vernacular of now, and that was part of it. The other reason I wanted to use those text messages is there's five people who are friends. They've only been in touch the last several years, so much of it has been by text, and so that felt very true. And then I think the third reason that I really wanted to lean into the text is there's five storylines and it's complicated, and I needed to do a little bit of signposting to help the reader understand, OK, we're, you know, two hours later. We're two weeks later. We're moving through time. And, you know, these women have known each other for 20 years, but sometimes, you know, a weekend goes by in a blink, and sometimes, you know, one day in court can feel like forever.
SUMMERS: I think one of the things that I found so interesting - and I've read a number of books recently that center on female friendships - is that the five women at the center of your book, they are either in their 40s or nearing 40. They're dealing with the issues of midlife in which so many of our relationships change, our identities change. Friendship, at least for me, can feel complex at times. And there's this really lovely turn of phrase you use in the book. I won't spoil the context around it for our audience, but you write that one of the women would recognize and admit that the start's tiny but snowballs. Negligence of friendship happened among them all the time. So, Emily, I wonder, was there something about those gaps in long-term friendship, those beats of distance in midlife that you wanted to explore or expose?
NEMENS: When you're a young adult and living on your own for the first time, having, you know, your friends around, that's sort of your immediate family on a certain level. And that - it's hard, but it's almost easy to show your love and be supportive because they're - it's immediate. And then as life gets more complicated, I've definitely dropped the ball. You know, as a lot of my friends have become mothers, I wanted to support them but certainly didn't know how, having not had children myself. And so feeling out those moments where, you know, only after the fact, when we reconnect, I'm like, wow, you just had the hardest month of your life, and I didn't know about it. And, you know, you can apologize and you can be more present, but you also have to, like, acknowledge the gap and, you know, try again to be a better friend and the opportunity - you know, ask for a new opportunity to be there for the people you love.
SUMMERS: One of the women in your book, Gregg, is a progressive politician in the state of Texas, and she's at the center of this fight in her state and around the country for reproductive freedom. And I have to be honest that I could not help but think of Wendy Davis, the former Texas state senator, as I was reading her character. Was that intentional?
NEMENS: Not directly, no. I mean, I started writing this book soon after the Dobbs decision, and I was thinking about how to find a character that could express a lot of my feelings about what was happening to women's health in America. And so I looked at Wendy Davis' sort of convergent evolution. You know, she's got some Michelle Wu going as well in terms of being a politician that's back on the job with a very, very, very young child because, you know, governing takes every day.
SUMMERS: The scene in the book where Gregg is interrupting an anti-abortion rights lawmaker and banging her cowboy boots on the desk over and over again and speaking out - yelling out, really - about the need to protect the lives of women in her state just felt so timely and so poignant. I wonder if, given the massive shift in reproductive rights that we're living through in this country right now, was there any level of catharsis for you kind of spelling that out and writing about it?
NEMENS: Oh, absolutely. You know, I, despite that scene, I'm usually a pretty subtle writer. And, you know, I think about the things I care about and the causes I care about, but this is the first time I've sort of written quite so directly about how I feel and how mad I am about it. And, you know, there's a lot of exclamation points on that page, right?
SUMMERS: Yeah.
NEMENS: You know, not every piece of art needs to be so direct and so pointed and so explicit about its protests, but it felt like this one did need to be that way.
SUMMERS: The scene that has stuck with me, and I found it so powerful, is one that takes place at a funeral. One of the women in the book's husband struggles with addiction. He dies of an overdose, and the friends come together again at the funeral. And one of the friends finds herself unexpectedly addressing those gathered and delivers this gorgeous eulogy, and it ends with her noting her gratitude for both members of the couple - the living and the dead one - for trying their best each and together. And it just gutted me. Can you talk a little bit about that scene?
NEMENS: Yeah. Thank you. So, you know, it was a painful scene to write and to imagine. And the husband who's been struggling with addiction, you know, I think I could have written a whole other book about his experience. But this one was really focused on the woman who loved him and cared about him and was so frustrated and heartbroken. I really wanted to sit with and live with her experience of, you know, both the tragedy but also other people's anger and frustration and sadness and how she might absorb all of that. And it turns out it's very hard, and her friends see this difficulty and really go mama bear. And, you know, Bella rises to the occasion and really says what needs to be said, which is, you know, they loved each other and no one's perfect, and they tried their best. And this is a terribly sad moment, but we're so grateful that they knew each other and loved each other.
SUMMERS: Yeah. As you sort of constructed and lived with and sat with these women and their friendships with each other, did they reveal anything that was surprising to you about your own friendships and relationships?
NEMENS: In the course of editing the book, I was sort of elbow deep in edits, and a friend got a cancer diagnosis and needed help after surgery. And, you know, I just wrote this whole book about showing up for your friends. And, you know, we watched a lot of bad movies. And whenever I could, I got back into the red pen and the revisions on the book. And, you know, I would like to think that I would have done that had I never written "Clutch," but I just - I had spent a couple years thinking about, you know, the dimensions of friendship, and it just really reaffirmed the power of friendship for me.
SUMMERS: Author Emily Nemens. Her new book "Clutch" is out now. Thank you so much.
NEMENS: My pleasure.
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