Welcome to Nobody Told Me.

And I'm Laura Owens.

And we are thrilled to welcome Adrian Broder to our episode this time.

Adrian is the author of the highly acclaimed new memoir entitled Wild Game, My Mother, Her Lover,

and Me.

It's a mother-daughter story unlike most other mother-daughter stories, and it's a real page-turner.

As a mother-daughter duo ourselves, we found it fascinating, and we think our

listeners will too. Adrian, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. I'm a

huge fan of your podcast, and I'm really thrilled to be on it. Oh, well, we're so happy to have you.

This story has been simmering in your life since you were 14, and it's a really fascinating story. Can you tell us how it all

began? Yes, absolutely. So my story began on a hot July night on Cape Cod in about 1980, and I was

14 years old, and I was alone in my bedroom, you know, mostly asleep, half asleep, a little bit

thinking about a boy, but mostly asleep. And at some point, well after midnight, my door

opened and my mother, whose name is Malabar, came in. And she tried to wake me up. And she said,

Rennie, which is my nickname, wake up, wake up, I need you. And I remember so clearly

not wanting to be awakened. And then she said, Ben Souther just kissed me. And with that, of course,

my eyes popped open because Ben Souther was my stepfather's best friend, and Ben Souther was married, which of course my mother was married,

and they were couple friends. And although I didn't know it in the moment, my mother was about to

embark on this epic, epic love affair that would last over a dozen years. But what I did know,

even in real time, in that moment, that it was one of those moments in life with a before and after, and nothing would ever be the same. And so I'd gone to

bed as my mother's daughter, but I woke up the next day as her confidant and best friend.

How did that feel as a teenager hearing this from your mother?

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