Margot's Got Money Troubles, as a novel that follows a young college student who starts a flirtation and then an affair with one of her professors and ends up pregnant.

She keeps the baby, the professor falls away, and soon after her baby's birth, so does her waitressing job and her ability to pay the rent.

Author Rufi Thorpe takes us through what happens next. Margo discovers only fans.

And then she discovers that setting up an account to sell interactions online with men along with some nudity. That only works if you can figure

out how to find your audience. I found myself taking notes on digital media strategy.

While I read this novel, long story short, you need a posse to help. This novel is great, and it's now a TV show on Apple TV,

starring Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nicole Kidman, and our friend at Death, Sex and Money,

Nick Offerman, who plays Margot's father, who's in recovery from opioid addiction after working

as a professional wrestler.

Ruffy Thorpe dreamed up this story while she was overseeing Zoom school for two young kids during the first part of the pandemic. And as wild and rollicking as this story is, you'll hear

in our conversation a lot of its themes about single motherhood, about how we judge

women, about loving people who are struggling to hold on to recovery, have echoes in her own life.

The storyline about sex work, for that, Rufie had to become an only fan's consumer herself

and figure out how to convince some of its high-earning stars to tell her how

they did it. I've gotten into conversations with people who are like, aren't you worried that this

is going to make girls join only fans and ruin their lives because you're glamorizing it?

And I'm like, yeah, but it's like the one narrative where the sex worker isn't like brutally

punished for using her sexuality

to get money and to get ahead in the world. And like, can't there be one? Can't there be

one place where a bitch isn't put in her place? Like, you know, can't we just have one nice

story?

This is death, sex, and money.

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