Going through a break up? Read Monica Heisey's Really Good, Actually
The comedian and TV writer explores the absurdity and heartbreak of divorce at a young age
Monica Heisey's debut novel Really Good, Actually is hilarious and bittersweet, and "a Bridget Jones's Diary for the smartphone generation," according to Publisher's Weekly.
Really Good, Actually follows Maggie, a 20-something woman trying to navigate heartbreak, divorce and online dating at a young age. Inspired by her personal experiences, Heisey explores the art of moving on, proving the process is a lot messier, nonlinear and interdependent than many of us would like to admit.
Heisey is a comedian who has written for print and television, including shows like CBC's Schitt's Creek and Baroness von Sketch Show.
She spoke with The Next Chapter's Shelagh Rogers from London to discuss the making of Really Good, Actually.
In your novel, we meet Maggie. In Toronto, one night at dinner, she says three fateful words to her husband John: "Is this working?" What do those words set in motion?
Maggie finds herself getting divorced unexpectedly very shortly after getting married. She handles it maybe worse than anyone I've ever met in real life.
My own marriage ended very shortly after my wedding. I knew early on that I wanted to write about it, but also that I really didn't want to write a memoir. What I hadn't anticipated was how fun it would be to take painful emotions and put them in the head and life of a fictional character.
The freedom you have to deviate from your own experience — or invent or make things worse or make things sillier —was a real pleasure.
You write about your own early divorce and about trying to find that experience reflected in a book. What kind of luck did you have?
I timed things well because I got divorced basically right around the time that most of my peers were starting to get engaged. Breakups are quite isolating in general and then the particular timing of mine in my life — me being relatively young —made it feel even more isolating.
Breakups are quite isolating in general and then the particular timing of mine in my life — me being relatively young —made it feel even more isolating.- Monica Heisey on getting divorced in her 20s
All of the novels and films that I was finding about divorce were people in middle age or older. They are figuring out who got the kids and what to do with the house — that just didn't speak to my experience as a young 20-something having bungled it all so much faster than it seemed like the average person does.
I also wanted something that treated heartbreak with a bit of a light hand. Everything was quite focused on the genuinely very sad and often devastating effects of breaking up with someone you've been married to. But there are so many things to me that are so ridiculous and funny about it as well, and I couldn't really find that anywhere.
That's where the book came from.
There is a lovely light hand to it, as you say. On the other hand, there's a hamburger. Can you talk about that?
I'd read a lot of novels about young women in crisis that featured women starving themselves, which is just not how it's gone for me or some of my other friends historically, I would say.
I knew I wanted to look at food and body image. I don't know that there's a portrait of a woman in crisis that would be complete without some kind of food or body image issue cropping back up, but I wanted to look at other ways that people interact with food as a comfort or struggling to maintain a healthy relationship with food.
Wanting to nourish yourself — but not wanting to go overboard and wanting to be careful with yourself and your body without falling into old habits.
LISTEN | Monica Heisey on her essay collection I Can't Believe It's Not Better:
In the author's note, you describe what you do as a comedy writer: you find the funny in the moments that are complicated or even heartbreaking. Where does that sensibility come from?
I don't know. I have a funny family, so laughing through difficult times has always been part of my life. I've always been drawn to funny people who could point out what was ridiculous or silly, or at least crack a smile even during quite difficult periods.
There's always a mix of comic and tragic in everything.- Monica Heisey
No experience in life is wholly dramatic or wholly tragic. There's always a mix of comic and tragic in everything. I've just always been drawn to people who could find both sides.
Maggie does that for sure. We meet her for much of her adult life, and she says she wants a good divorce. What does Maggie mean by that?
There's always a grace period in a breakup where both sides are committed to being the first two people to have a pain-free breakup.
Maggie is someone who is running from emotional sincerity in general, but I think in particular, the pain that she's feeling. The interest in a good divorce is partially rooted in a fantasy of a pain-free breakup, which doesn't really exist. It's painful to lose someone that you love, even if it's the right thing to do, or even if it's mutual.
She tries to figure out ways to put a positive spin on it, wanting to say things like "we just grew in different directions." But she does end up talking to her friends and unloading on them.
Her friends are great, but as she continues to talk about it and dissect it, how do they react?
It was important to me to show Maggie's support group growing tired of the amount of support they were being asked to provide. In any interesting or funny story about a woman in crisis, just out of frame there's usually a group of four or five people trading off who's going to stop them cutting their own hair that week, at least if you're lucky.
As much as the book is about breakups, it's also about the support networks that exist around people going through a difficult time.
To give them a chance to say, "You're taking advantage now, you know. We've been trying to be good friends, but there is a point where it becomes a bit too much and you have to do some of that support for yourself."
I love the title, Really Good, Actually. How about using it in a sentence?
"Really good, actually" is the kind of thing that you say when people know that you're having a hard time and they say, "Oh, how you holding up?" and you say, "I'm doing really good actually," and you don't necessarily mean it.
Heisey's comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Interview produced by Lisa Mathews, Shelagh Rogers and Jacqueline Kirke.
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