EP 29 - Hannah, Pt. 2

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Speaker 7 It is a pretty surreal experience to read about yourself in third person

Speaker 7 something that has been written by a former lover in which you're murdered.

Speaker 1 I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

Speaker 1 This is part two of Hannah's story. If you haven't heard part one, you should go back and listen to that first.

Speaker 1 It was the night before the launch of Hannah's third novel. She was crashing at her friend Hugh's place in New York.
Her husband Patrick had stayed with him the week before.

Speaker 1 Hannah and Hugh were up late talking. And out of the blue, Hugh made a strange comment.
He said that Hannah should be more suspicious of people in her life.

Speaker 7 And I said, is this about Patrick? And he said, yes. And I said, did something happen when when Patrick was in New York last week without me? And he said, yes.

Speaker 7 At this point, my heart just dropped and I feel like I'm in a vomit. I said,

Speaker 7 did Patrick have sex with someone? And Hugh said, yes.

Speaker 7 I said, did he have sex with Trish?

Speaker 7 And he said, yes.

Speaker 1 Her husband, Patrick, had an affair with Trish, her best friend from grad school, the same same woman who set them up in the first place.

Speaker 7 I think if it had been a stranger, it would have been a really unfortunate cry for help.

Speaker 7 But

Speaker 7 when he chose the person

Speaker 7 that I've had like the second most intimate conversations with in my life, that clouded anything that we might have recovered.

Speaker 1 Out of all the people he could have cheated with, he chose Trish, Hannah's first true friend, her confidant. But Trish chose Patrick too.

Speaker 7 Her

Speaker 7 betrayal felt so intentional and possibly like it was a long time coming.

Speaker 1 She thought back to the early days of their friend group, like that night when Trish reminded Hannah that Trish and Patrick were friends first.

Speaker 1 But Hannah had never worried about Trish and Patrick's dynamic.

Speaker 7 It didn't matter because she was married. And more importantly, it didn't matter because I knew Patrick worshiped me.

Speaker 1 Now Hannah was questioning everything she knew about the two most important people in her life. It was devastating.
But sitting in Hughes' apartment, Hannah was numb.

Speaker 7 I said,

Speaker 7 I have to make a phone call. I'll be right back.
And I went up to his roof and I called my sister. And I said, guess who's having an affair?

Speaker 1 Hannah told her sister everything she knew and then went right into planning mode.

Speaker 7 She was like, what do you need me to do? And I said, I just need you to, you know, keep your phone charged. And if you could handle like telling mom, I'm not taking phone calls right now.

Speaker 1 She needed to compartmentalize and be alone. She hung up the phone and walked back down to Hugh's apartment.

Speaker 7 He's like, did you talk to Patrick? And I said, no, no.

Speaker 7 I called my sister. And he was like,

Speaker 7 what are you going to do next? And I was like, well, right now I'm going to go to bed because I've got a book launch tomorrow. So let's do that.

Speaker 7 And I could tell that I was freaking him out because I wasn't crying.

Speaker 1 Tomorrow was a big day. She just needed to get through the night.
She went to bed still trying to wrap her head around the news.

Speaker 7 I woke up just bolt upright awake at five in the morning, sat in bed, waited till six.

Speaker 7 Hugh's alarm went off. He got up, was like, how are you? And I said, I'm fine.
I'm going to make a phone call here in a second. He's like, okay, I'm going to take a shower.

Speaker 7 And the person I called was Trish.

Speaker 7 Whatever the reason. She was the person I felt like I needed to confront.

Speaker 1 It was 6.05 in the morning and Trish picked up the phone.

Speaker 7 She said, hey, hey, you're in New York, right? And I said, yeah. And she said, I'll see you tonight at the book launch.
And I said, yep, uh-huh.

Speaker 1 Almost immediately, Trish could sense that something was wrong. She asked her, what was going on?

Speaker 7 And I said, well, I think something's happened to Patrick. And she said, oh no, is he okay? And I said, no, I don't think he is okay.
I think he's had sex with someone.

Speaker 7 And she said, no,

Speaker 7 who do you think it is and i said i think he had sex with you

Speaker 1 and she said no why do you think that and i said if you're gonna lie i'm not doing this and i hung up the phone she called me back 30 seconds later trish admitted it she and george weren't really together anymore so the week before when patrick was in town The two of them slept together.

Speaker 1 Trish explained.

Speaker 7 She said, he did this to drive a wedge between us. And I said, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 7 And when Hannah didn't buy that, she said, he told me that you've always been jealous of me. And I said, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Trish was grasping at straws.

Speaker 7 I was so clear-minded. I just kept my wits about me.
And I didn't cry, and I didn't yell. And I said, thank you for letting me know.
By the way, you are not to come tonight.

Speaker 7 If I see you, I will lose my shit.

Speaker 1 With that, Hannah Hannah ended the call. By this time, it wasn't even 6.30 in the morning.
Hugh left for work, leaving her alone in the apartment.

Speaker 1 And it was around noon when she got a call from Patrick.

Speaker 7 He said, well, I heard you talked to Trish. And I said, yes.

Speaker 7 And he said, so. And I said, okay, I'll do the work.
Did you have sex with Trish? He said, yes. More than once.
Yes. Do you think you're in love with her? Yes.

Speaker 7 I said, thank you so much for being honest with me. I will see a lawyer on Monday.
I want the house. I want the car.
I want the dog. He said, did you rehearse that?

Speaker 7 And I said, nope, but it's pretty good, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Patrick told her he was getting on the next train to New York to talk things out. But Hannah was done trying to fix things.

Speaker 7 There is nothing to talk about. You had sex with the person who introduced us, the person I consider my best friend.
I will never have sex with a man who has had sex with her.

Speaker 7 There's literally nothing to discuss. And he said, well, we'll talk about it when I come home.
And at this point, still not crying, I did become somewhat like laughing hysterical. I was like, home?

Speaker 7 Home? You don't have a home anymore.

Speaker 7 If you are anywhere near me tonight,

Speaker 7 I will scream.

Speaker 1 Hannah was surprisingly calm. After all, she still had her book book launched that night.
She needed to stay on autopilot. She didn't have time to grieve.

Speaker 1 After she got off the phone with Patrick, she kept moving.

Speaker 7 I had five hours to kill, and I was getting a divorce, and I wanted to go shopping. And so I went shopping and I bought myself a brand new mini skirt and a brand new top.

Speaker 1 She tried not to think about Trish and Patrick, but as she walked around New York,

Speaker 7 I had

Speaker 7 a sudden fear

Speaker 7 about STDs. And so I sent the two of them a text message and I said,

Speaker 7 I need to know if I need to get an STD test.

Speaker 7 And she wrote me back and she said, no, I told you it just happened. We didn't realize what close friends we were.
And she started texting me this really long text message.

Speaker 7 And at some point, Patrick wrote, stop texting Trish.

Speaker 1 Trish wasn't the only one blowing up Hannah's phone.

Speaker 7 I'm getting phone calls from Patrick's parents saying, no, no, no, you guys are going to work this out. And I was like, no, no, no.
Let me buy my mini skirt, go back to Hughes' apartment, change.

Speaker 1 And then she went to her book launch.

Speaker 1 Despite the day she had, the event went well. She got up on stage and read from her new novel, acting as if nothing was wrong.
Afterwards, her agent and editor asked her to go out and celebrate.

Speaker 1 They had no idea about the affair. So Hannah told them.

Speaker 7 And both of them just stared at me for a second and they were like, wait,

Speaker 7 why are you here?

Speaker 7 And I was like, well, I'm here because I had a book launch. And they're like, oh,

Speaker 7 but you were so funny just now on stage. And I was like, yeah.

Speaker 7 And they were like, oh.

Speaker 1 No one knew what to say to her, mostly because on the outside, she seemed fine, good, even.

Speaker 1 Still, she wanted to be around her people that night, so she went out with Hugh and a couple of her other friends.

Speaker 7 We had this great dinner, and

Speaker 7 nobody is talking about it.

Speaker 7 And then finally, at like midnight, I mean, the restaurant's still open, we've had a couple bottles of wine.

Speaker 7 Hugh said something,

Speaker 7 and I just started bawling. And then Hugh said, Okay,

Speaker 7 there it is. There we go.

Speaker 1 All of the emotions-the sadness, hurt, anger, confusion-hit at once. The floodgates were finally open.

Speaker 1 She was still crying at 3 a.m.

Speaker 7 when Patrick called me again,

Speaker 7 and he was crying. He had gotten on a train and he had come to New York City, and he was calling me from Trisha's apartment.

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Speaker 1 Hannah had just found out that her husband had been having an affair with her best friend. In a 24-hour period, she confronted both of them, asked for a divorce, and launched a novel.

Speaker 1 It had been one of the longest days of Hannah's life. And then at 3 a.m., the phone rang.
It was her husband, Patrick.

Speaker 7 He was with Trish. and they'd been drinking and I could not believe that he was calling me from her apartment.

Speaker 7 He wanted to talk to me about how dramatic I'd been and how we would talk about this.

Speaker 1 He told Hannah that their marriage could survive this. All the while, Trish, the woman he said he loved just hours before, was in the next room.

Speaker 1 It was clear to Hannah that no matter what promises Patrick made, he was going to

Speaker 7 continue seeing her.

Speaker 1 Hannah told Patrick to give her space. So Patrick stayed in New York to figure things out.
And he stayed with Trish.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, Hannah had to keep going. She needed to keep promoting her book.
The next morning, she left for DC for another book reading. But now, she was having trouble holding it all together.

Speaker 7 On the train ride down, I couldn't stop crying. I was so disgusting.
I had to get clothes out of my luggage. So I pull out this shirt and I'm wiping my face with it.

Speaker 7 And I feel like I look like I'm contagious. And the train is packed.
And there's this lovely man. And he's got this gorgeous suit on, like

Speaker 7 beautifully put together, perfect specimen of New York City sitting next to me. And I am trying so hard to make myself small.

Speaker 7 And I just keep leaning closer and closer to the window because I'm so disgusting.

Speaker 1 The whole ride down, Patrick continued to text and call her. She was falling apart.

Speaker 1 Those around her couldn't help but notice.

Speaker 7 In Philly, this man stands up who I have just assumed I am like a leper to this guy. And he gets his bag.
I think finally I can spread out and be gross and not worry about touching anyone.

Speaker 7 And he puts his hand on my shoulder, and I really thought he was going to yell at me or say, Do you know how disgusting you are?

Speaker 7 And I looked up at him and he said,

Speaker 7 said, whatever it is,

Speaker 7 it's going to be okay. And if it's not, there are probably people who love you.
And I just like

Speaker 7 lost it all over again because

Speaker 7 he was so nice. He was so generous.
And when he said that, I just thought,

Speaker 7 I love people. People are just the most amazing things in the world.
He was such a gift.

Speaker 1 It was a moment of kindness when she needed it the most.

Speaker 1 After DC, Hannah finally went back home to Kentucky. And as promised, she saw a divorce attorney right away.
Patrick was in denial.

Speaker 7 He kept insisting that the marriage wasn't over.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 I just kept moving forward as much as I could.

Speaker 1 But eventually, Patrick had to come back to Kentucky because

Speaker 7 he still had a job at the same school where I was working.

Speaker 1 It was difficult to fully disentangle their lives. For 10 years, they'd built their worlds around each other.

Speaker 7 Until we weren't, we'd always been sort of connected at the hip. You know, all of our colleagues would say, you guys do everything together.
You're always together.

Speaker 1 Even though she was putting one foot in front of the other, she was taking the divorce really hard. Patrick had been her person.
She missed him. And she didn't have the luxury of space from him.

Speaker 1 She still ran into him on campus. So a few months after the divorce was finalized, they started grabbing coffee.

Speaker 7 We were able to maintain some amount of a friendship for a little while.

Speaker 1 It felt a little like those early days when the two of them were just friends playing Scrabble in coffee shops. They would talk about how things were going in their careers.

Speaker 1 As months went by, they even began talking about their new relationships. Hannah started dating another professor at their university, and Patrick remained with Trish.

Speaker 1 One time, he invited Hannah to grab drinks with him and Trish.

Speaker 7 And of course, I was thinking, this is great. I'm just going to show them that I do not care.
So I got drinks with them.

Speaker 7 And when it was over, they went to another bar and I offered them a ride, dropped them off, and I went home.

Speaker 1 Looking back, she's still confused as to why she said yes, because practically no time had passed between their divorce and their friendship. And soon boundaries began to blur.

Speaker 1 Patrick started making a lot of requests of Hannah. Once, in the middle of the night, he called her on a drive.
He was on his way to see Trish.

Speaker 7 He was crying, and I asked him if he was safe to drive and if he needed to pull over. And he said, I just need you to promise me that we're always going to be friends.

Speaker 7 Because if it's, we can't be friends, if I stay with her, I'll break up with her. I need you in my life.
And I said, don't break up with her. We'll always be friends.
And I knew that I was lying.

Speaker 7 I told him what I thought he needed to hear in order to be safe.

Speaker 1 It was an unhealthy friendship, but it did have one rule. Hannah made Patrick promise that if things ever got serious with him and Trish, he would tell her.

Speaker 7 I never wanted to hear about something secondhand, and he said that he would never let that happen.

Speaker 1 He promised.

Speaker 7 Then the following Christmas, my sister pulled me aside and said, I have to tell you something.

Speaker 7 Trish and Patrick got married

Speaker 7 and I wanted to be the one to tell you because it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to tell you.

Speaker 7 When classes resumed that spring, he sent me an email and said, coffee, you know, like we had been doing. And I said, sure.

Speaker 7 And I assumed that at this coffee, he would tell me that they'd gotten married. And I met him for coffee and we talked for an hour.
And he was wearing the ring,

Speaker 7 but he never said a word. He never told me.

Speaker 7 I left thinking,

Speaker 7 whatever we just did, whatever like

Speaker 7 weird anti-flirtation that we're doing with him wearing a ring and us laughing in a coffee shop while he's not telling me the most hurtful thing.

Speaker 7 I just didn't need it.

Speaker 1 It felt manipulative, cowardly, and it was hurting her. She was finally ready to cut him off.

Speaker 1 Throughout their whole separation, Hannah seemed to be doing really well.

Speaker 7 Everyone would say, oh, you're so much lighter now. You're letting yourself have fun again.

Speaker 7 Everyone said that I was just so much better.

Speaker 7 And I told them they were right, that I was just so happy and it was such a relief.

Speaker 1 She would smile and agree, but in reality,

Speaker 1 that couldn't be further from the truth.

Speaker 7 This was when my eating disorder came back.

Speaker 7 I'd been with Patrick for 10 years, and I'd forgotten how to eat by myself, how to do a meal alone.

Speaker 7 So it was really easy to go into starvation mode.

Speaker 1 Hannah's writing also took a hit. She was under contract to write a fourth novel.
It was the first time in her career where she couldn't meet her deadlines.

Speaker 7 When I was writing this fourth book,

Speaker 7 I was very aware of Hannah sitting at

Speaker 7 desk in front of computer, making character move from point A to point B in order to get to the next plot C

Speaker 7 that made me feel terrible.

Speaker 1 Her doctor was the first person to notice that Hannah wasn't doing as well as she said.

Speaker 7 She said, are you getting any sleep? And I was like, yeah, when I take, you know, Trazodone and Glonopin and a couple glasses of wine. And she said, that's not sleeping, that's passing out.

Speaker 1 She recommended that Hannah see a therapist. And Hannah knew she was right.
So for the next year, Hannah threw herself into therapy and had some major breakthroughs.

Speaker 1 She'd been so isolated as a child that she never learned how to build healthy relationships.

Speaker 7 And I'm like, well, what do I do if I don't like this girl that I'm friends with? My therapist was like, so you don't like the girl, don't see her.

Speaker 7 And I'm like, well, what do I do if I'm dating a guy and I just want to break up with him and I don't have a reason? She's like, you break up with him. And I was like, oh,

Speaker 7 I think because of my parents' divorce and because of the trauma of that custody battle, I'd missed out on just some certain everyday basics.

Speaker 1 It had been three years since the divorce, and she was still with that professor at her university. This relationship also helped her heal.

Speaker 1 He had a young daughter and together they formed a little family.

Speaker 7 And in 2019, in November, we bought a house together. having never lived together before.
So we did it all at once. His daughter moves in, he moves in, I move in.

Speaker 7 And then like three months later, COVID hit.

Speaker 1 During COVID, Hannah had more time than ever to focus on her writing and to reflect on her divorce. But she wasn't writing her usual fiction.
New ideas just weren't coming to her.

Speaker 1 Instead, she kept revisiting real conversations.

Speaker 7 The conversations between Trish and Patrick and George. and me and the conversations with my family and grad school.

Speaker 7 There was was something about that isolation and being sequestered in this house that brought it all back.

Speaker 7 It was during that time where I thought,

Speaker 7 okay,

Speaker 7 I'm not over it because I'm still thinking about it. Let's just get it out of me.

Speaker 1 So she started writing it all down. Every conversation she couldn't get out of her head.
Memories of Trish from early days of their friendship.

Speaker 1 Things she'd wished she'd said to Patrick, or that Patrick had said to her, scenes from the life they'd built and knocked down together.

Speaker 7 And then it accidentally became something that I thought could be shared with the world. And then that turned into my memoir.

Speaker 1 She named the book, We Are Too Many, a memoir, kind of.

Speaker 1 She wanted it to be an honest attempt at capturing a marriage gone wrong. If she was going to write about her divorce and all the real people involved, she wanted to get it right.

Speaker 7 I was such a part of it that fictional words did not exist for

Speaker 7 what I had gone through. And I just thought the stakes are so low in fiction.
But then when I made it us, I cared.

Speaker 1 Even in sections that were entirely made up, like imagined conversations between Patrick and Trish.

Speaker 1 She tried to paint these people as they really were.

Speaker 7 He can be dismissive, he can be condescending, but when he is charming and when he shines that charm on you, it's quite

Speaker 7 lovely. I wanted to capture that complicated character.

Speaker 1 There's no hero in the story. Every character shares blame, herself included.

Speaker 7 In early drafts, I almost always got...

Speaker 7 what I wanted to say correct and I almost always gave myself the upper hand and the the punchline and i realized i had to go through and

Speaker 7 get rid of

Speaker 7 all the bullshit

Speaker 7 i think i did a pretty good job being honest about how demanding i can be i was unpleasant especially towards the end when i was mad she also made it clear that she was only writing from her perspective These were, as she writes in her introduction, imperfectly recollected exchanges.

Speaker 1 She was only telling her version of the truth.

Speaker 7 I was never attempting to

Speaker 7 pretend that I had a recorder with me the whole time. I was just trying to get out of my head these things that I kept coming back to.

Speaker 1 But three years after beginning her memoir, and just as Hannah was about to announce her book to the world, she got an email from her agent.

Speaker 7 And the subject was, have you seen this? And I opened it and I read it and I read it again.

Speaker 7 And I wasn't able to really make sense of what I was reading because what I was reading was a synopsis of my husband's affair, our divorce, and our life together as it imploded.

Speaker 7 And it was an announcement for my ex-husband's debut novel.

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Looking at you, Tinder Swindler. What is it about scams that has pop culture so obsessed?

Speaker 10 Maybe it's because it could happen to anyone.

Speaker 12 Or maybe it's because we're all so deeply fascinated by the psyche of someone who can lie with ease, cheat with no guilt, and convince the world that they are who they say they are, even when they're not.

Speaker 10 Scamfluencers is a weekly podcast that takes you into the world of deception, sharing the stories of today's most notorious scams.

Speaker 16 Like the recent episode of Natalie Cochran, the pharmacist femme fatale.

Speaker 13 It seemed like she had it all.

Speaker 17 A good job, loving husband, and two kids. But behind the scenes, Natalie was scamming friends and family using fake contracts, fake government emails, and she even faked cancer.

Speaker 15 But when the walls start closing in, she'll do anything to keep the lie alive until someone ends up dead.

Speaker 10 Listen to Scamfluencers Now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 This is Matt Rogers from Los Culture Resistance with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 4 This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturees with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

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Speaker 4 And what if your Wi-Fi could proactively fix issues before they even happen?

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Speaker 4 And what if your Wi-Fi had parental instincts built right in so your kids are always protected online?

Speaker 3 It's Wi-Fi that's not just smart, it's brilliant. And during the holidays, that's a gift we all could use.

Speaker 4 Xfinity, imagine that.

Speaker 1 Hannah was about to announce her fifth book, a memoir about her divorce. Throughout their marriage, Hannah's husband Patrick had struggled to get published himself.

Speaker 1 He'd often relied on Hannah professionally.

Speaker 1 And now his first book is about the affair.

Speaker 7 I had a million feelings all at once. I was so happy for him.
I was also so mad at him.

Speaker 7 This is how you're going to get published finally. It's going to be about us.

Speaker 1 At first glance, Hannah thought her ex-husband had written a memoir too, a truthful account of what he'd done to blow up their marriage. Confused, she sent a screenshot to a friend.

Speaker 7 And she was like, oh, sweetie, it's a novel. And I said, no, no, no, but this all happened.
Everything in the description happened. And she said, he's written a novel about your marriage.

Speaker 1 In her book, Hannah was confronting her role in her marriage and its breakdown. She wrote Patrick as a real person, someone with flaws and strengths.
Her memoir was non-fiction.

Speaker 1 Still, at the end of her book, people would know that this was only her version of events. But he was writing fiction.
He was taking their real story and passing it off as made up.

Speaker 1 Fiction writers often use material from their real life as inspiration. Hannah certainly did, but this felt different.
She worried, how would he paint what happened? How would he paint her?

Speaker 1 She wanted to gather as much information as she could ahead of his novel's release.

Speaker 7 So for the first time in six years, I Googled him. I was looking for news of his novel.
I wanted to know anything I could.

Speaker 7 I couldn't find it, but I found a link to one short story that he'd written and published in 2019.

Speaker 7 And I sat at the kitchen table across from my boyfriend as I read this short story.

Speaker 1 The narrator of the story seemed a lot like Hannah's ex-husband. And the story was about him having an affair with his wife's best friend.
He gets divorced and remarries. Sound familiar?

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 in the story, there's very clearly a me character.

Speaker 1 There were scenes from their real life, down to the details of his trip to New York and the phone call confrontation about their affair.

Speaker 1 There were also details that mirrored Hannah's career, the guy Hannah was dating, and even weird details like how she slept with a can of pepper spray under her mattress, which the real Hannah did during her marriage to Patrick.

Speaker 1 In the story, the narrator is in the hospital with his new wife.

Speaker 15 Their 10-month-old baby is extremely ill.

Speaker 1 While he's at the hospital, he's thinking about his ex-wife, who's just died.

Speaker 7 The me character gets knifed to death by a homeless person.

Speaker 1 The scene is pretty violent.

Speaker 7 She pulls over and she tries to help this homeless guy who's on a bridge. She had had a couple glasses of wine and he kills her, knifes her to death.

Speaker 7 And that's sort of how the story ends, that he's in the hospital thinking about his dead ex-wife and

Speaker 7 about to go be reunited with his new wife and their new baby and how he never got the chance to tell the me

Speaker 7 of the story that they had a baby in the first place.

Speaker 7 Hannah was at a loss for words.

Speaker 1 She was sitting at her kitchen table reading about her imagined death.

Speaker 7 It is a pretty surreal experience to read about yourself in third person,

Speaker 7 something that has been written by a former lover in which you're murdered.

Speaker 7 I was

Speaker 7 both amused, terrified, outraged, and flummoxed that this story had been in the world for three years without me knowing.

Speaker 1 As she always did in big moments, she called her sister.

Speaker 7 I said,

Speaker 7 my ex-husband murdered me. And she said, what? And I said, three years ago, and I've been walking around with no idea that I'm even dead.

Speaker 1 Hannah could have allowed this revelation to take her to a dark place. It definitely concerned a lot of people in her life.

Speaker 7 I have a couple close female friends who were really worried, and my family thought it was pretty creepy.

Speaker 1 But if this was what he wrote in a short story, what was he going to say in his forthcoming novel? It gave her anxiety.

Speaker 7 Knowing that there's a book in the world, there is going to be a version of me.

Speaker 7 It is going to be a portrayal that I cannot like.

Speaker 7 And just knowing that there was nothing I could do made me feel slightly out of control and a little bit crazy.

Speaker 1 Who was she in this book of his?

Speaker 1 Hannah had taken great care to try to write him truthfully. How would he write her?

Speaker 7 I had a lot of serious conversations with my partner now about whether or not I should read it, whether or not he should read it.

Speaker 1 Patrick's novel came out two years after the announcement and a year after her memoir was released. She asked a few trusted friends to give it a read.

Speaker 7 They said, it's unflattering, it's ungenerous, you're smug, you're insecure, and some amount of fun is being made of your body. The way that I was being portrayed was such a caricature,

Speaker 7 I thought, yeah, that doesn't sound like something I need to read.

Speaker 1 Hannah did read the preview on Amazon, though.

Speaker 7 And it was more than enough.

Speaker 1 In the first few pages, she recognized the character that was supposed to be her, but it wasn't her at all. Like she said, it was a caricature.

Speaker 7 She's obsessed with her career. She's obsessed with sales.
She writes books while walking her dog and talking to her sister and watching TV.

Speaker 7 She's like hopping around the kitchen, talking to NPR while in her sweatsuit and making like a smoothie or something. She's ridiculous.

Speaker 7 To this day, Patrick insists that his book book is entirely fictional he is to the world saying this is fiction this is a novel it has nothing to do with my life but he has given very very real

Speaker 7 very factual scenarios to the book

Speaker 1 and at the same time there's a clear connection between their two books When someone searches for Patrick or his books on Amazon, Hannah's book is one of the top results.

Speaker 1 Hannah doesn't know for sure, but she wonders if that was an intentional move by his team.

Speaker 7 Because there's a story there, right? And stories sell books.

Speaker 1 Instead of staying angry, Hannah decided to do what she does best.

Speaker 7 Write.

Speaker 1 And so she flipped the script.

Speaker 7 I just thought, Wouldn't it be funny if I wrote a book about my ex-husband writing a book about me.

Speaker 1 When Patrick wrote his novel, he reduced Hannah to a two-dimensional character, a cartoon. It was infuriating and humiliating.
And she decided to use those emotions to write.

Speaker 7 And I wrote a little scene in which there's this woman sitting across the table from her boyfriend, and she reads this story in which she's been murdered by her ex.

Speaker 7 And I started laughing after I wrote it. And my boyfriend says, what are you laughing at? And I read it to him and he said, that's funny.

Speaker 7 And then I just kept writing these things.

Speaker 1 Pretty soon, the book took on a life of its own.

Speaker 7 The book became something so much bigger and different than just being like a revenge book. It became a book about what it's like to be a middle-aged woman navigating this world.

Speaker 1 The book falls somewhere in between fiction and nonfiction in a genre called autofiction. Hannah actually got the idea to pursue autofiction from her ex-husband.

Speaker 7 I did not know what autofiction was until I read my ex-husband's debut announcement in which the ex-wife is working on autofiction. And at that point in my career, I did not know this expression.

Speaker 7 It was driving me crazy. And I started looking into autofiction and I thought it was wonderful.

Speaker 1 Autofiction is rooted in real people and real events, but it gives writers the the freedom to play with reality for the sake of a compelling story.

Speaker 7 It's so great. I basically just get to imagine myself doing all the crazy things that I do in my head, but never out in the world.

Speaker 1 Unlike Patrick, she was explicit with her readers about drawing on true events.

Speaker 1 For example, in her new book, A woman named Hannah is living with her boyfriend and his daughter, just as she does in real life.

Speaker 7 And she gets the news that her ex-husband is publishing a book in which a very unflattering portrayal of herself is prominently featured.

Speaker 7 Being out of control and having been turned into a character without permission, it's something that she's suddenly focused on and questioning.

Speaker 7 We watch her as she tries to figure out what's fair and what's not fair. And what do you do with shared memories?

Speaker 1 Hannah thinks a lot about these ethical questions around shared memories.

Speaker 7 If you've got two artists or two writers who share these memories, of course they're going to be distorted.

Speaker 7 Even when you have two people who love each other and are still together and they're in a room, they're experiencing something different.

Speaker 7 And so I love the complication of what you do with the shared custody of memories.

Speaker 1 Today, Hannah's doing much better. She's in recovery from her eating disorder.
It's still something she carries with her.

Speaker 7 I think I'm so proud of being on the other side of it that I will never let myself get back there.

Speaker 1 In many ways, she now feels grateful for what she went through.

Speaker 7 I took so long

Speaker 7 to be honest with what I wanted because I was so determined to please other people and to attempt to fit into a particular type of package, to be palatable, to be forgiving enough, to be sweet, to not cause problems.

Speaker 7 Getting a divorce and

Speaker 7 re-examining my life and making a conscious decision to figure out

Speaker 7 what I do and don't want out of my life,

Speaker 7 articulating my desires. That entire process

Speaker 7 was magical.

Speaker 1 We end all of our episodes with the same question.

Speaker 1 Why do you want to tell your story?

Speaker 7 We tell stories to make connections.

Speaker 7 I teach kids who are 18 to 26 every day how to tell stories. And one of the things that I'm always telling them is we tell stories to make connections.

Speaker 7 And my divorce was a major disconnection for me. And it was a disconnection from the two people I thought I cared most about in my life.
And

Speaker 7 the story that I'm telling, I don't think is unique. In fact, I think maybe that's one of the reasons that I want to tell it.
I don't think it's something to be ashamed of.

Speaker 7 I don't think that being the person who's been cheated on means you should hide in a corner.

Speaker 7 And by telling it, I have the opportunity to make a connection and I also have an opportunity to inspire somebody else to want to tell their own version of the same story.

Speaker 1 On the next episode of Betrayal.

Speaker 7 It's not like he's a catch-me-if-you-can type person.

Speaker 7 He

Speaker 7 actually lies

Speaker 7 to himself as normal as possible, just like your average bloke.

Speaker 1 If you would like to reach out to the betrayal team, email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's betrayalpod at gmail.com.
And be sure to follow us on Instagram at betrayalpod.

Speaker 1 We're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts.
And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five-star reviews go a long way.

Speaker 1 A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.

Speaker 1 The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison. Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning.

Speaker 1 This episode was written and produced by Caitlin Golden and Monique Laborde with additional production by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristen Melcurie and Caitlin Golden.

Speaker 1 Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreinchek. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines.

Speaker 1 Music library provided by MIBE Music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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