This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with Courtney Maum, author of Alan Opts Out (Little, Brown & Company). The two talk about ethical consumption, retail therapy, magical realism, clinging to our humanity during late-stage capitalism—and milk!
This conversation has been edited for time.
About the book:
Alan Anderson is a powerful advertising executive who has built a successful life and thriving business by making people buy stuff they don’t actually need. He’s up for the biggest pitch of his career and the account everyone wants, US Dairy: cow’s milk sales are plummeting, and the C-Suite wants to see trendy oat milk kicked to the curb. But when an anarchist farmer tanks Alan’s presentation, Alan bombs the pitch but ends the day with an epiphany. No longer will he exploit the insecurities of others in the service of capitalism. Alan is opting out.
This development is anathema to his wife, Vivian. She’s just a few positive affirmations, a swimming pool, and an exacting series of social tests away from finally becoming part of the elite women’s club, the Queen Annes, in their adopted town of Greenwich, Connecticut. As if contending with a daughter who wants to write plays (!) and another who has an unnatural empathy with animals isn’t enough to manage, she can only watch as Alan moves into their backyard playhouse to live off the land and—worse—spend time with the family. But instead of shocking the neighbors, Alan’s commitment to a less-is-more lifestyle seems to be catching on. Could everyone want what Alan’s not selling?
About Courtney:
Courtney Maum is the author of five previous books, including the romantic comedy Touch (New York Times Editors’ Choice) about a tech worker's efforts to reclaim her humanity and the memoir The Year of the Horses chosen by the Today show as one of the best reads for mental health awareness. Courtney is also the author of the groundbreaking publishing guidebook Before and After the Book Deal and the bestselling Substack newsletter by the same name and is an educator and writing coach helping people hold on to the joy of art making in a culture obsessed with turning artists into brands. In addition to her creative writing, teaching, and advocacy work for writers at the Authors Guild, Courtney worked internationally as a brand strategist and corporate namer in the advertising world for twenty years. Learn more and sign up for her writing classes at CourtneyMaum.com.
While we’re filling up our doorstep[s] with these Amazon boxes, should we not move our attention to the natural world, which is better than anything we can order online? It’s better than anything. We should opt out from buying more stuff and opt in...to protecting the land and the animals that we have now. To me, this is so urgent.
Courtney Maum recommends:
Season in Purgatory by Dominick Dunne (Penguin Random House) is about a wealthy and connected family that covers up a murder in the very Connecticut town where Alan Opts Out is based.
All this Could be Yours by Jami Attenberg (Ecco Press) is a comedy about a dysfunctional family that exposes the ways in which extreme wealth buys not happiness, but misery.
Moving away from the ‘haves,’ Monster of a Land: On the Road in Search of Modern America by Lauren Hough (Pantheon Books) is a fantastic, clear-eyed memoir where Lauren shares the struggles and stories she learned from the ‘have nots’ she met during a cross-country road trip with her dog.
Driving Home Naked: And Other Misadventures of a Country Veterinarian (She Writes Press) is a hybrid published book I blurbed (and loved) by a large animal vet in the Midwest named Melinda G. McCall who exposes not just the trials and tribulations of the veterinary industry at large, but also how difficult it is to be taken seriously and treated with respect when you are a woman in the male-dominated agricultural industry.
Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan (New Directions Publishing) is a fantastic and wildly unique novella that explores the life of a woman working at a Kentucky racetrack, compiled from interviews the author conducted with a female horse trainer. It’s an unusual memoir that really showcases how expansive of a genre memoir is.
Staying with the horse theme (I’m a horse girl after all, and the author of a memoir called The Year of the Horses) and returning to the topics of overconsumption and privilege that my new novel deals with, The Mare by Mary Gaitskill (Vintage Books) is a brave novel about a woman whose attempt to play white savior goes terribly wrong.
Lauren Korn recommends:
Alan Opts Out (Little, Brown & Company), The Year of the Horses (Tin House Books), and Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book (Catapult Books) by Courtney Maum
Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen (Dey Street Books); listen to part one and part two of Lauren’s conversation with Anne!
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (Melville House) and Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond Productivity Culture (Penguin Random House) by Jenny Odell
Less and Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer (Little, Brown & Company); listen to Lauren’s conversation with Andrew here!
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe (William Morrow)
The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century and The Wax Child by Olga Ravn (New Directions Publishing)
Mare by Emily Haworth-Booth (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); stay tuned—Lauren’s conversation with Emily is forthcoming soon!
Bear by Julia Philips (Hogarth); listen to Lauren’s conversation with Julia here!
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The Write Question team is Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Montana Book Co., located in downtown Helena, Montana, since 1978, offering new books for all ages, vinyl records, and community activism. For delivery in Helena and shipping online, visit mtbookco.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans. A hat-tip to Humanities Montana for supporting this program since 2008.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
