2020 Vision: Lisa Taddeo

We're excited to kick off a new series, #2020Vision—asking customers from the worlds of entertainment, food, music, activism, and literature for predictions about the future of their fields, in addition to insight into how they're going to make next year the best one yet.

Author Lisa Taddeo tells us about the research that went into her best-selling debut, “Three Women,” and the creative work she’ll be putting out this year.

Squarespace: A decade of hard work went into your debut book, “Three Women.” Can you speak more to your process and the dedication it took to bring these stories to light?

Lisa Taddeo: There wasn't a day that I wasn't working on the book. I drove across the country six times, posting signs looking for stories over baby changing tables in Atlanta, on truck stop windows in Texas, in barbecue joints in Mobile, Alabama. I even posted a sign at the Prada Marfa art installation in Marfa, Texas.

For a long time there was a lot of meandering, a lot of walking into bars and asking patrons if they wanted to talk about sex. But when I moved to rural Indiana and found Lina, I knew I’d discovered the point of the book. I'd described Lina's story to a friend of mine back in New York. The way Lina would drive four hours to meet this man for 30 minutes. My friend called Lina "pathetic."  And I had to remind her that she had done the same thing several months prior, not with a crane operator in Indiana, but with a VP at Goldman Sachs.

I realized then that I wanted to tell the stories of a number of people in a very granular fashion, because specificity is what encourages empathy. I spent the next eight years speaking to hundreds of people, but mostly to the three women who ended up in the final cut of the book. I'd moved to some of their towns and went to bars and lectures and yoga with them. I listened as they talked. I became a ghost.

SQSP: Do you already have your sights set on a second book, or are you perhaps planning on returning to short-form writing and journalism work?

LT: My novel, “Animal,” is coming out next year, and my collection of stories, “Ghost Lover,” will follow. I'm also working on a second book of nonfiction, as well as adapting “Three Women” as a limited series for Showtime.

SQSP: It feels fitting that your book was published at the end of the very eventful 2010s. Do you expect the next 10 years to bring about more changes in terms of discourse around female sexual desire?

LT: Yes. We have come so far. We are speaking so very loudly about that which we do not want. We are toppling the regime of silence. I don't see us regressing. At the same time, what I've gleaned from my research is that we are still not discussing what we DO want. We fear that, when we do, we will be reviled by other women for it. If we want the "wrong" man or the "wrong" woman or the "wrong" job or we wish to practice the "wrong" sort of motherhood or not be mothers at all.

To that end, I very much hope the next decade will bring about even more sisterhood. Women allowing other women their desire without commenting on it. Without judgment. I hope that might be the next step in our perpetual climb towards quality and, most importantly, happiness.

SQSP: Where do you see yourself next year?

LT: I never know how to answer this because I never imagine there will be a next day. Someone once told me that maybe it was best to just accept who I am, the anxiety, the minute-to-minute apocalyptic fear. So maybe next year, if I'm here, I'll be there.

To learn more about Lisa’s work and order Three Women, visit her website. Ready to share your story with the world?

This post was updated on October 23, 2023.