A meet-cute followed by real life: 'Party of Two' is about love in the real world

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2022

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Romance writer Jasmine Guillory writes beautiful love stories – but that doesn't mean they aren't based in reality. Her novel Party of Two from the summer of 2020 is about a Black woman and a white man who have a meet-cute and start a casual long distance relationship. But race does have an impact on their connection because of the different ways the world has impacted them. Guillory told former NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro that real life couples have these conversations so her characters should too.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Jasmine Guillory is becoming one of
0:07.7	the romance writers of our generation. Her books constantly end up on year-end lists and get name-checked
0:13.9	by the big book Movers and Shakers, you know, The Today Show, Oprah, Rees Witherspoon. And like a lot of
0:20.0	romance novelists, she'll drape big themes like
0:22.5	race and class and gender beneath, you know, flirty banter and sex. But I think what makes her
0:27.8	different is the way she keys into the real stuff of a relationship, what makes them work or
0:33.2	not work. She talked to former NPR host Lulu Garcia Navarro back in 2020 about her book,
0:38.6	Party of Two. It's about an interracial couple, a black woman and a white man, and race does
0:44.7	become a sticking point for the two. It has to be because, as Guillory says, you can't write a book
0:50.6	about two people falling in love without talking about their core identity.
0:55.7	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
1:00.4	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods.
1:07.0	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:14.3	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:20.6	Olivia Monroe has just moved to Los Angeles to open her own law firm.
1:25.2	Max Powell is a U.S. senator who spends weeks in D.C. after a meet cute
1:30.0	at a hotel bar, they begin a casual weekend's only long-distance fling, or is it more? Party of Two
1:36.6	is the latest romance novel by Jasmine Guillory, who joins me now. Hello. Hello, how are you?
1:43.1	I am very well. I got to say, this is a romance story with a lot of pretty timely themes. Olivia is black. Max is white. How does race play out in their relationship? You know, race plays out in their relationship in the different ways they view the world and the different ways the world has impacted them.
2:03.2	Max has a very kind of happy go lucky attitude towards life, which is easy for him because he
2:10.3	grew up wealthy. He's a white man. He's sort of had everything he's touched turned to gold in many
2:16.3	ways. And while he recognizes very well,
	...

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