![]() LHSome of the stories made it into the book, but not as I’d first written them. GM Have any of those original stories found their way into this book? What was it like to move from sifting through your memories by way of writing them down for yourself to crafting a collection of essays about your truth that will be published? I didn’t think anyone would read it but I needed the money and sure, I’ll tell some cable guy stories. And when the cable guy essay blew up, it felt like maybe I should go ahead and write what I wanted to write. So, I tried fiction but I sounded like everyone else. I wanted to write country songs but I’m terrible at guitar, and at writing country songs. But I’d told myself to get my shit together.” When did you know that this was going to be your first book? GM In the title essay, you write: “I started writing the truth. I think we use it as shorthand for “I didn’t do the work.” Feels like any time someone’s talking about their journey, they’re trying to get you to look away from the broken souls they’ve left in their wake. Maybe because it tends to be used by the self-help crowd. ![]() Greg ManiaCorrect me if I’m wrong, but I noted that you didn’t use the word “journey” once in this book. ![]() It was then that Hough was able to unearth the identity that simmered below the surface, the constant among the many variables in her life: a writer. She spent time in the Air Force, then contended with homelessness and hunger, was locked up in solitary confinement, dated lots of women, and dabbled in drugs, until she reconnected with other folks who also grew up in cults. Hough’s formative years robbed of the experiences that often inform and guide us for the rest of our livesĪfter she left “The Family,” a cataclysm of choices ensued. From Germany to Japan to Chile, to other places around the globe, her life was structured by the ruthless axioms decreed by its secretive leader and the trickled-down orders carried out by various ranking officials. But as a child, her sense of self was non-existent as a result of growing up as a member of the infamous cult, The Children of God. In eleven deeply personal essays that boast a wit so sharp you could needlepoint with it, Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing threads Hough’s myriad identities as an adult: an airman in the US Air Force, a bouncer at a gay club, and, of course, a cable guy. I Saw the Worst of America.” We were introduced to the writer whose voice seamlessly pendulates between searing and hilarious, commanding and vulnerable. The literary star-on-the-rise has been amassing fans-currently over 65,000 and counting on her popular Twitter account-ever since her 2018 viral essay, “I Was a Cable Guy. As I write this introduction, Deadline reports that Cate Blanchett will join Lauren Hough in narrating the audiobook for her debut collection of essays, Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing (Vintage).
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