Hey, where is this, Brad?

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the program.

This is The Other People Show.

And I'm Brad Listy.

I'm in Los Angeles.

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times a week and there is a huge archive of conversations with writers waiting for

you so have at it. My guest today is Blake Butler, author of a new memoir called

Molly. It was Sunday, you know, we were working at home. We were doing normal things. I went out for

the run in the neighborhood like I do all the time and I came back to find a letter on my door. The conversation these days seems to be taking this turn of like, don't dwell on darkness. It's too, we're looking for good. There's too much darkness. It's like if you don't look at darkness, it's not like it disappears. It's not like it ceases to exist. So you gotta reckon with it somehow, but as she kind of goes in this downward spiral, and

the last year of our life together becomes twisted in ways that we're not the case in the

other nine years, you know, as she's kind of deepening into this suicidal depression, she starts kind of like acting out against herself, against me.

So, but I think everything's the same.

And so I keep trying to read the context between us with, it'll all be okay once we get past XYZ, you know, and as it continues to be okay, we'll

find better times are ahead. They must be. It can't always be bad, but Molly didn't,

when I say Molly doesn't have the escape hatch or the like safety net, it's that I think her

baseline truth, and this comes out of being subjected to it as a very young person, was that

...