Mamamia Out Loud: Can We Talk About The Matildas’ Personal Lives?

You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.

Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.

I was one minute early.

We were calling you before you got here.

No, my resolution this week.

On time.

Actually.

On time.

A couple of minutes early.

Yeah, you can't shoot for on time.

This is why ADHD people can't do it.

No, no, no.

You have to shoot for early.

For early.

Because this morning I left really early.

Oh, bigger window.

This morning I left really early.

And I actually got quite anxious on the way thinking I'm going to be early.

I don't know what to do with that.

Are we ready, my friends?

Mm-hmm.

Three, two, one.

Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are actually talking about on Monday, August the 14th.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Friedman.

And I'm Claire Stevens.

And on the show today, you'll never guess what women are actually talking about.

So many Australians have not all watched the same thing at the same time as they did on Saturday evening.

So what is our collective Matilda's obsession teaching us?

Plus Christy, Linda, Naomi, Cindy, the original supermodels are staging a comeback.

But does anyone care?

And the viral row about who gets your surname.

But first, Claire Stevens.

Best side of my life. Best side of my freaking life.

And my jersey somewhere.

My jersey somewhere.

Oh, my God, I love that.

On Saturday night, the Matilda's penalty shootout win against France became one of the most

viewed TV sporting events in almost two decades.

It's likely it reached the largest audience since Kathy Freeman's 400 metre gold medal race

at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, which I remember very vividly.

And a couple of days before, columnist and academic Walid Ali had written an article for

the Sydney Morning Herald that was called Who Do Barbie, Taylor Swift and the Matilda's

Having Common, Us.

And it was about why it's so astonishing and quite rare to be living through this moment.

Come on.

It's also that what they have in common is women.

Yes, women.

Women move mountains with our attention.

They do.

And our dollars.

They really do.

But I'm going to argue that points not just women who watch the Matilda's on Saturday night,

my friend.

No, no.

It used to be that our cultural landscape was defined by a few colossal moments.

But in the last two decades, pop culture has become increasingly fragmented because of

our practically unlimited choice in entertainment.

We've talked about that on the show before, that there can be concerts with stadiums full

of people and we don't know who's performing because that's how fame and attention works

now.

It's so fragmented.

We simply don't see people gathering and participating in concert and having a common

cultural focus.

Ali writes that this moment might awaken in us a certain yearning for the things that

make society.

That's the difference between content and culture.

The difference between being alongside and amongst.

The difference between consuming and participating.

Now, I watched Saturday night.

What does that mean?

It's that there's a difference between passively consuming all the content that we do and actively

being involved in a cultural moment.

We're not active.

I didn't actually play for the Matilda's.

I didn't make the Barbie movie.

I know what he means about that because there's a certain scale at which everybody who watches

that game becomes part of it.

The crowds cheering everywhere.

We've all seen the viral videos of the people on the planes and in the streets.

That creates the moment.

It's not just me on my telly at home.

The fact that it is happening in unison makes it active in a way that just passively consuming

content doesn't.

Now, I watched Saturday night's game at my sister's house with friends and was getting

messages in all my group chats from people at home or at the pub or at the game, all

responding in real time to the sickening tension of it all.

What was so beautiful about it was that it was almost a story that you couldn't have

even written.

The fact that it got to full time, nil at full time, nil at extra time.

Then you had that penalty shoot out where Australia was responding to every goal and

in that final, final moment, it was about a really junior player, Courtney Vine, scoring

and all of Australia just lost it.

Step up in the big moment and he's Courtney Vine for the Matilda's.

Can she do it?

21-year-old Courtney Vine at her first World Cup can write the Matilda's into history.

Cue the party!

Wild scenes in Brisbane, the engine.

It's Australia who are through to a semi-final against England.

The sounds in pubs, in homes were just absurd.

I think I speak for a lot of people who don't understand the rules.

Oh, God, no.

And who were just...

Oh, my God.

I kept trying to ask some people in my house to explain it to me as it was happening.

I wasn't the most popular person in the room.

No.

It's so funny because I'm having one of those moments in culture where there's a bit of

me that's just endlessly frustrated about how everybody doesn't understand what's going

on.

Because I've grown up with football and I've been banging on about this for ages and I'm

like, how don't you know how it worked?

Yeah, I just kept saying this show is too long and too stressful.

Okay, if somebody could sum up the offside rule in a sentence, that would be great.

But the good thing about Saturday was it wasn't about the offside rule.

It was about something so simple.

People kicking into a goal at the end and then they just had to keep kicking.

Oh, my God.

It was so, so brilliant.

Holly, what was the atmosphere at your place?

I'm going to ignore this willful ignorance about the greatest game in the world.

The whole world plays this game.

That's why it's so big.

And what everybody saw on Saturday night is the beauty of it at its best.

You can have a nil-nil draw and that's what Australians have always moaned about, about

football, how boring.

It's not boring.

It's the least boring thing in the world.

Anyway, that's not what we're here to discuss.

You know what's interesting about this massive cultural...

Talk more about the rules.

Yeah, I won't.

I will not talk anymore about that.

I know it's not what we're here for.

It's interesting because I watched it just me and my kids because Brent's away.

It's funny.

I actually woke up on Sunday morning feeling a bit lonely because I think that it's true

about these enormous cultural moments pulling everybody together.

I was on group chat with you guys in the penalty shoot out, for example.

And I was on group chats with my brother in England and I was in group chats with lots

of people, but I was on my own with my kids.

You know what I mean?

It's kind of funny.

There's a part of me...

I mean, I love, love, love having moved to where I moved to, but I really missed the

city on Sunday morning.

If I'd have been where I used to live, I would have walked out of my house and there would

have been hordes of people wearing scarves talking about it.

It's very different.

So, it's very interesting.

I'm examining that in myself, but I think the thing is it's true about a collective

cultural moment, but the other thing that is so wonderful about this is the world is

changing literally in front of our eyes.

We saw progress.

The way that everybody is so interested in what this team are doing is a genuine progressive

cultural shift.

And we live in a world at the moment that is so fragmented, we are constantly told to

fear change and progress and challenges to the way things are.

But these women represent generations of women who have challenged the way things are, right?

They have said for ages, no, women do care about sport.

No, we can play as well as the men in inverted commas.

No, we want to fight for our chances.

It didn't just happen.

It wasn't just handed to them.

And it feels incredible.

It's part of why it feels so joyful because what we're looking at is progress.

And there's nothing controversial about it, right?

On Saturday night's game, at least.

There's no controversy about how brilliant these women are.

Before the World Cup, we probably could have all named one football player, Sam Kerr, right?

We probably could have all named Sam Kerr.

Now we've got this whole new raft of heroes.

There's nothing negative.

And it's just so lovely to have something in the world that we can all agree on, right?

Don't you think, Leo?

Well, I found a negative thing when I posted, soon after the game, a link to a story we

did on Mum and Me about how four of the members of the team got engaged recently.

And I got a lot of pushback.

I ended up taking it down because I didn't want to do anything to detract from the gorgeousness

of what was going on.

I understand where people are coming from.

Anyway, we did this story last week on Mum and Me.

So I'm the person because I don't understand sport.

And I think to your point, Holly, about people don't know the rules.

What I think is great about moments like this is that people like me can be part of it.

And you don't need to know the rules.

No.

I wouldn't even have a clue which way people are running or what.

Like I don't understand anything.

So to me, what's interesting is the people.

Because I'm always interested in the stories, right?

Any sport or any politics.

I'm always interested in the people behind the, whether it's an athlete or a politician

or a celebrity.

And we understand that.

I mean, everyone's interested in actors and pop stars and I feel the same way about sports

people.

That's my entry point, my emotional entry point into getting excited about the game.

So I shared this and a lot of comments on my Instagram were, this is terrible that your

timings all fall.

Why are you sharing this?

It's about their performance.

It's not about the fact that they're engaged as if that's the pinnacle of human achievement.

And I thought, oh, I didn't think about it like that.

That's not what I was saying.

Like they may be able to kick a ball, but now they're going to be brides and that's what

really counts.

I have to say, it was interesting because during the game, I mean, we were all sitting

there and most of us have watched the Matilda's documentary.

So we were all commentary when Katrina Gauri got up to take her penalty kick, Jesse messaged

the group chat and was like, she's a mother.

She'll get it in for sure.

Like we all know just so much about all of these things.

I don't know any of those things.

And I have to say, when I got home and I was kind of about to get into the shower and I

saw your post, I had a visceral reaction to it and I went, that doesn't feel right.

And the reason I feel like we wouldn't do the same thing for male athletes, I will argue

you on that point.

This was a moment that was about grit and determination and athleticism and it felt

reductive to talk about engagements as though that's the real achievement here.

I think the exciting thing is it's like, this is an achievement for women outside the confines

of what society has always wanted for women.

And it was a hugely popular story on site and it continues to be hugely popular.

I think my timing was just off and that speaks to my lack of understanding of sport.

But I want to say it's more important that someone's put a ring on it and that's their

worth. But more like, I want to know everything I want to know about their relationships.

I want to know their childhood.

I want to know, you know, I want to know everything about these incredible athletes.

And probably during the game, people would have been Googling all the things in that

article, but having it as a headline felt funny for some reason.

In your defence, Mia Friedman, in your defence, I agree, it was about the timing, that particular

issue. And I entirely understand the sensitivity around female athletes in this because reducing

women to their marital status is something that we've had to put up with for a very long

time that men have not.

But I will push back on you saying we wouldn't do it to men, we absolutely do it to men.

I know about lots of footballers' wives.

Think about footballers' wives as a concept, not engagements, think about it.

We would talk about, is that star player dating anyone?

Are they married?

Do they have a child?

I think we would, but the other reason why I would defend it is that the thing that is

unsaid in this, right, is that visibility matters.

And a large number of the Matildas, and not only the Matildas, there are about a hundred

women across the FIFA World Cup who are openly gay or in a relationship with a woman.

In the Men's Football Association, there are about four openly gay players in the entire

world, and none of them play at an elite level.

Now there is no way that that is representative when there are about 130,000 full-time footballers

in the world that only four of them can show who they are and who they love publicly, right?

One of the most incredibly refreshing and pride-filling things about the Matildas documentary and about

seeing what we're seeing is it's so inclusive, there are families made up of all kinds of

different sexualities and genders, there's a gender non-binary player playing for Canada.

It's so inclusive that it's a wonderful thing to be celebrated because it's not a coincidence

that there are no out-male football players.

That's not a weird anomaly.

I like that spin.

On that note, there was a very funny chat going on in the Out Louders group, people volunteering

to console the French coach.

And it was so hot.

I Googled him.

Many of my friends have just been declaring themselves lesbians after the Matildas one.

It just felt like such a beautiful connecting moment.

And you know what it's been a great win for is small talk because you can go up to anybody

in Australia over the next week and just talk about the Matildas and you can connect with

anyone.

And that's what these big cultural moments do in a way that, I don't know, the loggies

or even the finale of Game of Thrones, which is probably one of the biggest shows in the

world or succession, you can't do that.

You don't assume that anyone, and if you try, everyone's like, oh, spoiler, spoiler.

Yeah.

Whereas with this, having just a little fun fact makes you feel so valuable.

My brother's told me that apparently Mary Fowler, the penalty kick she took, is such

a risky move.

She did it with the tip of her boot and apparently it's so risky that only 10% of male

players would even risk it.

But she did it.

She's 20.

It was her first.

It was her first penalty shootout at like that kind of level.

And for her to take that risk, just like, I need to know that information.

It makes it more exciting.

Lots of out louders have asked me who I'm supporting on Wednesday night because Australia

are playing England.

I am a supporting Australia 100 million percent, so I'm cheering for the Matildas.

Step up in the big moment, Annie's.

Cue the party.

I have a confession.

When I was about 18, I was on the doll.

That is not my confession.

My confession is that I used to go to the post office to cash my doll check because

that's how many hundreds of years ago this was.

And I would immediately buy a magazine with the first pound or so from that check, right?

Always, straight away.

And the women on the covers of those magazines at that specific moment in time were always

one of four women, maybe five.

Linda, Naomi, Christy, Cindy, sometimes a Claudia Schieffer was thrown in there and

I was obsessed with them, particularly Linda Evangelista.

For reasons that are unclear, I was obsessed.

They were the supermodels and I didn't relate to them.

I didn't even want to be them.

I just found them absolutely fascinating.

And I really, really, really liked looking at them, right?

Now they're back.

The original four supers have made a documentary series.

We haven't seen that yet because it's about to drop, but they're on the publicity trail

and posing on the cover of UK Vogue.

Now all aged between mid to late fifties, they're counting on that fascination that

I had as a young woman to propel a whole lot of new interest.

But even I saw that cover of the original supers and was like, how funny to care about

only what a body looks like, I thought.

I wonder if now we care about so much more.

Are insert celebrity name here funny or controversial or political on social media?

And then, you know, if we're running with the zeitgeist of this particular moment, can

they kick and run and jump and spin like a Matilda can?

Mia, am I being wildly idealistic thinking that worshipping beauty for beauty's sake

is kind of over?

Oh, what an interesting question.

I think it is in that you need to be able to do more than just look a certain way.

And I think they existed in a time before social media.

So now if you want to become a model, having a social following and being able to do things

on social other than just look a certain way in front of the camera, which is an art in

itself.

And you mentioned Linda.

Think of the four women on the cover, Naomi, Cindy, Christy and Linda.

Probably Christy and Linda were the purest supermodels because they weren't really personalities.

They didn't really do interviews.

They didn't.

You know, Cindy Crawford was also an MTV VJ and Naomi was in the news all the time for

throwing phones and, you know, getting in trouble.

But Linda and at the time of their peak, they literally were just pretty faces and bodies.

And I think that that does feel incredibly reductive now.

I mean, I've always thought that about modeling because even as you say, you know, when you

look at Taylor Swift or Barbie, like Margot Robbie and Barbie, those women are aesthetically

as beautiful, objectively conformed to all the beauty standards, right?

But it's what they can also do.

So it's like plus, plus, plus.

I don't know if that's progress or not, but you have to be like incredible looking and

just be able to sing and dance or act.

See, I think the idea of worshiping beauty for beauty's sake is not over.

I think we just dress it in different clothes.

And I think we attach certain qualities to beautiful people that they have not at all

shown that they had, but just in order to make ourselves feel better.

So I am a cranky bitch today.

I will own that.

So I'm going to be very negative about the supermodels.

But the first sentence of that Vogue article, it described them as supermodeling with humor.

And I just don't believe you.

I don't believe they've never had anything to say.

I think none of them are funny.

They're not funny.

You've never met any of them.

You don't know if they're funny or not.

Being a supermodel is about taking yourself very fucking seriously.

That is all it is.

Why do we have to insert humor where there is none?

And I feel like there are a lot of.

I feel like there are a lot of pop culture icons, like women who are beautiful and they

have built fame from being beautiful.

But then we attach different things that say, oh, no, but she's got amazing taste in fashion.

And it's like, does she or does she just look good in everything because she's

absurdly beautiful or like she's really honest about her emotions, whatever.

Like we apply these things because we don't want to believe that we're

worshiping beauty, but that's also because I can't believe I'm

defending supermodels now.

But like why don't someone think of the supers?

But it's also because traditionally, we just want beautiful women to shut up.

We literally just want to look at them.

I mean, we've had this fight lots of times.

This is why we get rankly when really traditionally beautiful women have

opinions about things and we're like, what does she know?

She doesn't know what my life's like.

If you ask me about the personality of any of these four women with possible

exception of Naomi Campbell, I could tell you nothing.

So I don't believe necessarily that they're any funnier or less funny or

smart or less smart than any other member of the population.

I just think it's weird that we seem to attribute qualities to these people

that aren't there.

There's a line that's like Naomi never gives up the heels even when her

co-stars are barefoot.

It's a masterclass in commitment.

Is it a masterclass in commitment?

I don't think the length of time a woman wears high heels for is a masterclass

in fricking anything.

No, but I think that you're pulling apart the celebrity profile, which has

to which I've always been irked by these kinds of profiles that try to make

supermodels highbrow.

This all changed in the 90s with the supermodels, in fact, because, you know,

we've always kind of been interested in celebrities, but they became the new

celebrities and we followed their relationships and we followed their love

lives. It was a less political time and social justice wasn't a thing.

So they weren't really asked to speak on issues, you know, climate change

and George Floyd and Trump and all of those kinds of things.

And there was a reason for that because what a model is, she has to be just

an empty vessel for whatever brand she's being employed by exactly a blank

canvas, whether it's Vogue or Balenciaga or Revlon or whoever it was at the time.

And it still is now.

It's not good business if you have lots of big opinions about things.

Now, maybe that's just also who they are, because not everyone who is

beautiful is also interesting.

It's not so much even the opinions.

It's just that I look at certain even references in this article and think

just in the scope of what the world is like now and what we've been through in

the last few years and what you look at as big history defining moments.

Linda Evangelista's hairdresser dying her hair platinum.

But it was and that being sold to me as some kind of history defining.

She didn't know who she was, but she was going to figure it out.

I'm like, I don't care for the first time.

The reason that was important is because for the first time models had names.

I mean, the fact that we even knew what their names were and they had power.

Linda Evangelista is famous.

I don't get out of bed for less than ten thousand dollars a day,

which she was absolutely castigated for.

For the first time models were in control.

They had power to make money and become business women.

And that was iconic in an industry that had always profited off beautiful models,

but never given them a share of the proceeds.

And culturally, I know what you're saying.

It's not like Malala, but in the same way that Kim Kardashian

broke the internet with that bum cover, it was iconic in that way.

Yes, but it was.

I just know what it was at the time.

But also you could argue that Naomi Campbell opened the doors

for an enormous amount of beauty diversity that did not exist

before she was on the cover magazines.

Anyway, my question is less about that article, because there's a whole show

coming, so they're counting on their interest, maybe among Gen Xers,

more than anyone else in these women.

And I just don't know if it's there anymore, because I just don't know.

I've never been less interested in watching something.

It's nostalgia, but you know, there's a good reason

why Kate Moss is famously barely ever given an interview,

because she's smart enough to understand that that's not her strong suit.

If you want to make Mum Mia out loud part of your routine five days a week,

we release segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays just for Mum Mia subscribers.

To get full access, follow the link in the show notes

and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

A UK barrister has sparked fierce debate this week after urging all pregnant women

not to give their new babies their father's surnames.

Dr. Charlotte Proudman went viral on Twitter or whatever it's called this week

with her message to expectant mothers.

She wrote a message to pregnant women, please give the baby your surname.

You carried a baby for nine months, gave birth and will be responsible

for that child for the rest of your life.

The idea that women don't own their own surnames,

that we are borrowing them from our fathers until we marry just shows

that many men still see women as property of their male relatives,

not autonomous people.

Claire, you're knocked up and you're having a baby,

a little girl in a few months time.

You are married.

Did you change your name and whose name will the baby have for their surname?

I didn't change my name and this tweet is directed at me.

A pregnant woman and my gut instinct is leave me alone.

I'm really tired. It is aimed at pregnant women.

It's not aimed at families.

Hey, families, why don't you consider maybe not

choosing the default patriarchal route for how you name your children?

It's aimed at pregnant women.

What frustrates me is that women are born into a patriarchal

society with thousands of years of historical tradition,

and then it's our individual responsibility to combat it.

And I wish.

What if someone said that to the suffragettes?

Like, of course.

What if someone said that to Rosa Parks?

What I mean is like we're really looking at these individual

something like the suffragettes, like getting the vote that meant

changing policy and changing history.

But individual women had to do that.

Yes. But what I mean is like the idea of whether or not

I take my partner's name, whether or not I name my child after my partner or myself.

I just wish we could trust women to take the nuances of that decision

into account and make it themselves.

But isn't she just asking us to consider something?

Because the truth is that most people follow the path of least resistance

because, as you say, Claire, you're tired, like who can be bothered

fighting the patriarchy when you're, you know, growing fingernails in your tummy.

So isn't she just saying, hey, think about this, people?

Maybe we shouldn't just follow the path of least resistance.

Consider it. You don't have to do it, but consider it.

But the tone of it is, hey, pregnant women, you carry the baby,

you give the baby your last name.

And I don't be seen as empowering, couldn't it?

Like, hey, I just don't like the framing of it as simple or obvious

because it's not simple or obvious.

It's a logistical mind field for everybody who enters it.

And of course, we know it feels weird to give our babies our male partner's name,

but it has to be someone's name unless you want to weird.

I think everyone just assume like it doesn't cross 99.9 percent of women's mind,

let alone men's mind, that it would be anything different.

I've thought about it and there are great arguments for it.

Like I actually really value the argument and I think it's a conversation

we need to be having.

It's just the tone of it that hurts me a little bit.

But I have a friend who says whichever partner is going to do the majority

of the childbearing gets to give the baby their last name.

I have other friends who have made up their own last name.

I love when I see in my own life or in the media, when a man takes a woman's

last name and I think it's because it's exciting to know there's a choice.

But I want to explain my rationale for my own decision with a caveat

that it'll probably piss some people off and they'll think I'm an idiot.

But hey, this is my little logical bloater.

Claire, as you are already learning, you cannot make a correct choice

once you are a mother in inverted commas.

Whatever you choose, someone will give you shit for it.

Absolutely. Before you pitch, Holly,

just confirming that your children don't have your surname,

even though you are not married.

No, so we do not all have the same surname in our family.

My kids have my partner's surname.

And you know what?

That's why I don't mind this tweet is it makes me go,

you know, I didn't think about it enough.

Like I didn't think about it enough.

We had a brief conversation about it during which Brent said,

I don't mind if you want them to be Wayne rights.

That's fine with me.

And I went, nah, I'm fine with them being yours.

You know, like having your name.

And now I do have a little bit of regret about that, I have to say.

That's very good to know.

And I would like to acknowledge I may also have regret, but my own instinct

is that I'm sitting here just over halfway through my pregnancy

and I can feel my baby kicking while we record this.

I can feel her all the time and I'll feel her more and more

in the coming months.

And then I'll have the mutually magical

and fucked up experience of birthing her.

I believe that's really special.

I don't feel the need to give her my last name.

Maybe that will change.

But I wonder if I took gender out of it completely.

If I'm the one carrying her and I'm always going to be connected

to her in that way in that we've shared a body, is it not a symbol

of the other parents' connection to the baby to use their surname?

It feels like I'm stealing that idea and I'm saying that's why I did it.

Thanks. It feels inclusive.

It feels like including them and this is a family.

And I feel really lucky to have had the experience of growing the baby.

So therefore the kind of symbol of Rory's connection is the last name.

That's my own thinking and I would not be surprised if in five years time

I completely changed my mind.

I should say all my children have my husband's name and we didn't consider it either.

But it's interesting when you think about how women's lives have changed

so much in just a few generations and we are so much more equal than we ever were.

So most families, if you're in a male-female relationship and you have children,

there's every chance that you both work, sometimes she might be the primary breadwinner.

So the idea of the woman being at home with the children and the man being

the head of the family and providing all the income and all of those kinds of things.

That's what everybody in the family having his name symbolised.

So even though, I guess, the roles have changed,

no one's question that is a default, which is why I actually like being challenged.

I like my idea of it being challenged.

Why am I so defensive?

I get really defensive about this stuff.

And one of the responses to the tweet was, why would women do what you want

rather than what they want?

And that's how I feel.

I think because you feel like...

She's just bringing up a different option for you to think about.

Genuinely, the most common thing I get about my kids having a different name to me is,

oh, but didn't you want to all have the same name?

And everybody says that to me and I always say, everybody knows I'm their mom, right?

It's been 13 years now that I've had a child with a different name to me.

And I reckon I come up against it, like, hardly ever.

Every now and again, someone will just go like, oh, you're a Wainwright.

And then it's a non-issue and no one challenges our relationship.

The other thing that's good about it is I can sometimes say they're your children.

They've got your name, so you deal with it.

It's protected my kids a little bit.

I'd like to think.

Yeah, so you've got like a fame reason.

I love that for you.

No, but I think the reason you feel defensive, Claire, is that the implication

is that you're a bad feminist.

Yes, sorry.

That's exactly it.

It makes it sound like by making the choice I'm making that I haven't considered

the alternatives, which I have, and B, that I'm somehow failing feminism

or doing something bad for women when the fact is I'm tired.

And sometimes when we're tired, we just side with tradition.

I have a quick recommendation today, and that is for just the most beautiful book

by one of my favourite authors of all time, Anne Patschett.

She's an American author and she's written a new book called Tom Lake.

It's a beautiful book.

It's set when her three daughters have come back to the family cherry farm

during the pandemic and, you know, the workers have been sent home.

So they have to, you know, pick the thing.

And the children ask her about her past because she used to date

this incredibly famous celebrity, like one of the most famous men in the world.

And the three girls are obsessed with knowing all the details about how they

met and how their relationship unfolded.

So it's sort of told into streams of time, the current and then flashbacks

to this relationship that she had with this star.

And it's just a beautiful read.

I love reading anything by her, but I was listening to an interview with her

and she actually owns a bookstore in the little rural town where she lives.

She doesn't have a computer or a mobile phone.

She does not own a cell phone.

Does she write on a typewriter or something?

I maybe she writes on a computer, but she doesn't have an email address.

Oh, I love it.

And she doesn't have a mobile phone and she never has.

And she's not like a hundred years old.

She's, I don't know, in the late fifties or something like that.

But I just found that a fun fact.

She's amazing. It blew my mind.

Her last book was a collection of essays, and there's one in there

about her choice not to become a mother.

That is one of the best things I have ever read.

Tom Lake by Anne Patchett.

It's just a beautiful read.

If you're looking for something else to listen to on our latest subscriber episode,

put on your tidy whiteies, grab a bowl of kosher pork dumplings

and get a pet if you haven't got one already.

We recap episode nine of and just like that.

There's a link in the show notes.

Thank you for listening to Australia's number one news

and pop culture show. This episode was produced by Tali Blackman.

The executive producer is Liza Ratliff, and there's been audio production

by Leah Porges. Bye. Bye.

Shout out to any Mum Mia subscribers listening.

If you love the show and want to support us,

subscribing to Mum Mia is the best way to do so.

There's a link in the episode description.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.