Colleen Oakley's new roadtrip novel takes inspiration from 'Thelma and Louise'

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Tanner and Louise have a 63 year age difference and pretty opposite personalities: Tanner is a former college athlete, hitting what she thinks is rock bottom after dropping out. Louise is the eccentric elderly lady she gets hired to take care of. But in Colleen Oakley's new novel, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise, the two women forge an unlikely friendship when Louise's past forces them to hit the road. As the author tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, the story is equal parts inspired by Thelma and Louise and by her own friendship with her grandmother.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Kea Miyakana-Tees. I wouldn't call my granny my best friend, but she does rank pretty high on my list of favorite people in the world. Sure, there's more than 45 years between us, but we share a lot in common. We both love books. Sometimes we can be too blunt, and we both love being by the ocean and
0:22.8	wiggling our toes in the sand. I like making her laugh. She is, quite literally, my oldest friend.
0:29.9	Intergenerational friendship is at the heart of Colleen Oakley's new book, the mostly true story of
0:35.4	Tanner and Louise. It's inspired by Oakley's friendship with her
0:38.9	own grandma, plus a dash of inspiration from the movie Thelma and Louise to keep things
0:44.2	interesting. Here she is with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. In the U.S., national security news can
0:51.1	feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.
0:57.8	On our new show, Sources and Methods.
0:59.9	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
1:03.6	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:07.5	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:13.4	Remember this scene, Thelma and Louise, staring over a cliff as the cops close in behind them.
1:20.5	Let's not get caught. What are you talking about? Let's keep going.
1:25.8	You sure?
1:28.9	Yeah.
1:33.9	It is the ultimate tale of female friendship on a road trip. And the novelist Colleen Oakley uses it as inspiration for her own tale of female friendship on a road trip.
1:41.0	Her new book is the mostly true story of Tanner and Louise. Colleen Oakley,
1:46.6	welcome. Thank you so much, Mary Louise. I'm excited to be here. I love that you took Thelma
1:53.0	and Louise, which is also one of my favorites, and decided to run with it, or drive with it, I guess,
1:58.1	as the case may be. What is it about that movie that made you want to dig in with your fiction?
2:04.8	I like to think of Thelma and Louise as the fiercest, greatest female duo on the big screen.
2:10.6	They are so iconic.
	...

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