A Conversation With the Author
Name: Jennifer Ashley Wright
Hometown: Glencoe, Illinois
Current Residence: New York City
Occupation: Freelance sex and dating-columnst; author.
Hobbies and interests: Apocalypse fiction, fine dining, cheating at Scrabble, old-timey movie stars, and any Lifetime movie where a young woman puts on a wig and pretends to be an old-timey movie star.
Bad-breakup remedy: Gin and reruns of 30 Rock.
Favorite breakup in It Ended Badly: Timothy Dexter, who told everyone his wife was a ghost, slept in a coffin, and later faked his own death—ineffectively (see chapter six).
Favorite historical breakup not in the book: George Sand wrote a whole thinly-disguised novel called Lucrezia Floriani about her relationship with Chopin. In it, her analog is portrayed—pretty much in so many words—as the most beautiful, intelligent woman in the whole country, and Chopin’s is portrayed as a weak, boring, sickly layabout. Sand seemed to feel the novel was basically about “what happens to all the rapture and the love when he who is the object of it behaves like a raving madman.” Chopin was actually, by most accounts, a very nice man, who responded to the book’s publication extremely politely. George Sand is pretty unfair about everything, but it’s nowhere near as interesting as Caroline Lamb’s story (chapter seven).
Breakup idol: Team Anne Boleyn (chapter four).
Reaction if an ex took your ugly sex doll lookalike out on the town, à la Oskar Kokoschka (chapter eleven): I would try to get a selfie with it.
Favorite dirty joke: A popular postman is going about his rounds on his birthday. He’s getting all kinds of nice gifts and baked goods. At the last house on his route, he’s greeted by a beautiful blonde woman. She’s totally naked. She takes him upstairs, and they have amazing, fantastic, mutually fulfilling sex. The next morning, he comes downstairs and sees she’s made him breakfast. There’s a birthday card with a dollar in it next to his plate. The woman joins him at the table and he says, “Thank you so much, this has been the best night of my life, but I have to ask, what’s with the dollar?” The blonde replies, “Well, I asked my husband what we should get you for your birthday. He said ‘Oh, screw him, give him a dollar.’ But the breakfast and the card were my idea.”
(I like this joke because everyone seems really happy at the end! Except for that woman’s husband, probably, and he’s a jerk.)
Best date you’ve ever had: Dinner at Antoine’s in New Orleans with a tour of the restaurant afterwards. The history of that place is amazing and they set the coffee on fire. I think they should do that at Starbucks.
Ideal date: Cocktails at the Algonquin, dinner at Park Avenue Seasons, and then a romantic midnight viewing of The Maze Runner.
Worst date you’ve ever hear of: I’m not one to tattle, but my boyfriend claims: “A girl I met online once had me ride a bus for two hours to quote, ‘see a band.’ It turns out it was her current boyfriend’s band playing in a Mexican pizzeria. She sat his in lap and they made out in front of me. Later, she asked me to stay over. I opted for the $60 cab ride home.”
Your take on dating apps: They’re a godsend for some people and a fun distraction for others. I still think ideally you should meet people the old fashioned way—by being the owners of rival bookstores.
Your take on text breakups: If the main way you conducted the relationship was by text it’s fine. Skywriting is classier, though.
Your take on ghosting: New phone who is this.
