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Q & A With Jill Davis

Topics for Ask Again Later
About the Book
Questions For Discussion
An Interview With Jill A. Davis
About the Author

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Q & A with Jill A. Davis
Reading Group Guide for Ask Again Later


Q: Is it possible to be a good writer without being a good reader?
JILL: Is it possible to be a good swimmer without enjoying the water? Probably not. People who write, probably tend to read a lot — or read a lot during childhood and adolescence. There is a familiarity with the rhythm of words, a certain cadence, that I think readers and writers tend to start to think in ...

Q: According to a report of the Independent Book Publishing Association, over five million American adults belong to reading groups. What, do you believe, is the basis for this country's love for literature and books?
JILL: That's great to hear. Reading is such an intimate pursuit and for me that's largely my attraction to it. Of course most well-adjusted people probably like to balance the seclusion out with interaction with real live people.

Q: Have you ever belonged to a reading group?
JILL: I have belonged to a reading group. There is a wonderful library around the corner from me in New York City. They have a great book club which is author-lead. Writers who volunteer to run the group do so for three months and they cover three books. Generally there is a theme that encompasses all of the books. There is a fiction and a non-fiction group and it's probably been one of the more interesting groups I've been involved with. Of course there were other book clubs but they seemed to have more to do with wine drinking which, of course, had its own merits.

Q: What advice do you have for reading group members when it comes to selecting books for discussion?
JILL: I think there are all sorts of reasons to choose books — choosing authors you love and you know all the readers in group might enjoy is of course a great reason. But I think introducing authors who people may not have read before is a great opportunity. I'd never read anything by J.M Coetze before five years ago. I love his work and I'm pretty sure if I'd read flap copy or a review I would not have pursued his novels. Being open-minded seems like the best approach. I talk to book clubs on the phone and I'm always happy when my books are selected, but it's also so interesting to hear what they've just read and what they will be reading next. The order in which they read certain books can certainly influence what they choose to avoid next, or what they are drawn to.

Q: What book are you reading now?
JILL: I'm reading Bridge of Sigh at the moment. I love Richard Russo's work. He's an amazing writer with a real gift of writing great characters. I love his dialogue, love his humor. I was thrilled that he had such nice things to say about Ask Again Later. I think he's just amazing writer. I'm the last person in America to read Eat, Pray, Love by Liz Gilbert. But I was waiting for a time when I could read it in one sitting — which I did over Christmas break. I wanted to read it for all sorts of reasons. She was nice enough to blurb my first novel Girls' Poker Night while she was in the midst of her divorce. I recall a few of our email exchanges from that time and in hindsight, she's even nicer and more generous than I thought at the time. I sort of marvel that she took the time to read my book and offer a quote when she had so many other things going on.

Q: If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only bring one book with you to read, what would it be and why?
JILL: Girl Scout Handbook. Enough said.

Q: If you could have dinner with three writers (alive or dead) who would they be and why?
JILL: Are we still on the deserted island at this point? -- Judy Blume, Richard Russo and Hermann Hesse. I'd be curious to know what Hesse would say about Wifey. Anyway, it would be a very nice boy-girl-boy-girl seating arrangement. I think I'd be relying heavily on Judy and Rick to carry the conversation. I really hope no one has any allergies to shellfish because the starter is She-Crab soup.

Q: Gave you ever read anything you're too embarrassed to admit (except in this interview)?
JILL: I think there's a chance I read The Rules. Or maybe I read an article about The Rules ... does that count?

Q: Favorite book when you were a child?
JILL: There really were so many. I loved Harriet the Spy, Judy Blume books, Maurice Sendak. Beatrix Potter, Encyclopedia Brown. I recall that some of the Sendak illustrations were scary to me. The Nutshell Library was always one of my favorites and it's one of the first sets I bought for my daughter...It's so much fun having a child to read to and with. I love children's literature. We read a lot of Kevin Henkes, Rosemary Wells, E.B White, Roald Dahl. My daughter really likes Yoko's World of Kindness, The Best Loved Doll, and right now she's really enjoying The Library Mouse. She likes the Junie B. series and Ivy & Bean, too. There's also a great series of non-fiction books that we enjoy — how sand is made into glass, how tomatoes are made into ketchup, and trees into paper and so on.

Q: Favorite first line from a book?
JILL: It's a tie between: Twas the night before Christmas ... and All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.

Q: Book that changed your life?
JILL: It would be too dramatic to claim that. I stumbled upon the Damian, Siddhartha, Magister Ludi, Gertrude, Rosalind and a few other Hermann Hesse books in my high school library when I was about 14 and it was a typical period of great angst and his books felt like wonderful companions, a spotlight on the interior, and for me this is probably the single greatest compliment I can say about any book. On a much lighter note, I felt the same way about certain books when I was pregnant. It was so nice to have a book to open and it would tell you approximately what you should be expecting to see, hear and feel at this particular time. Why aren't there books like that for every day of your life? They also offered "Tips to the father-to-be" and those were generally suggestions about how a husband should be vacuuming the living room to show his love for you and your unborn baby.

Q: Words to live by?
JILL: Happy endings aren't for cowards.


Emily Rhode has a tendency to live with one foot out the door. For her, the best thing about a family crisis is the opportunity to cut and run. When her mother announces that her doctors have found a lump, Emily gladly takes a rain check on life to be with her mother, leaving behind her career, her boyfriend, and those pesky, unanswerable questions about who she is and what she's doing with her life.

But back in her childhood bedroom, Emily realizes that she hasn't run fast or far enough. One evening, while her mother calls everyone in her Rolodex to brief them on her medical crisis and schedule a farewell martini, Emily opens the door, quite literally, to find her past staring her in the face. How do you forge a relationship with the father who left when you were five years old? As Emily attempts to find balance on the emotional see-saw of her life with the help of two hopeful suitors and her Park Avenue princess sister, she takes a no-risk job as a receptionist at his law firm and slowly gets to know the man she once pretended was dead.


1. How does Emily's job as receptionist at her father's law firm enable her to better understand her father?

2. How do Joanie's diagnosis of cancer and Marjorie's giving birth to little Malcolm change their respective relationships with Emily, and to what extent are those relationships dysfunctional?

3. In what ways do Emily's conversations with Wendy and Will at her father's firm reveal the peculiar aspects of that office's culture, and why is that culture especially comforting to Emily?

4. How does the structure of Ask Again Later, with its short segmented chapters and its frequent flashbacks, affect your appreciation of Emily's response to her mother's crisis?

5. To what extent does Emily's decision to leave her boyfriend, Sam, stem from his criticism of and frustration with her inability to commit?

6. What does Emily hope to achieve by eavesdropping on her father's telephone conversations, and why does she hold him accountable for all of her unsatisfactory relationships with men?

7. To what extent do Emily's sessions with her therapist, Paul, demonstrate her aversion to making sense of her internal life'? Why might she be unwilling to explore what is at the root of her unhappiness?

8. In what respects is Emily's father, Jim, the catalyst for her renewed relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Sam?

9. How do Joanie's surprising revelations about her children's early years impact Emily's feelings for her father?

10. How does Emily's longing for a child relate to all that she has experienced as an adult child of divorced parents in the course of Ask Again Later?


Q. You've written about being fascinated by the subject of loss. To what extent did you explore that fascination through Emily's relationship with her father in Ask Again Later?

A. Loss is explored with nearly every character in the book. Emily's father's sudden disappearance from her life when she was a child was swift and unexplained. Grappling with that when he returns is an interesting problem to work with, but that early loss of him doesn't just get worked on with him. It permeates most of her relationships.

Emily's interaction with her boyfriend Sam is heavily influenced by loss. She can't move forward because she's never had a model of what happens after you fall in love with someone. So she stands still despite the fact that standing still is completely unfulfilling.

When Emily learns about her mother's cancer she can't overcome the very natural but still unsettling human impulse to want to fast forward through the grief and loss.

The stuff she runs from aren't things that can be outrun. Everything just piles up and waits for her until she can collect herself and figure out how to cope.

Q. What are some of the challenges you have faced in writing about loss in a comic vein?

A. Didn't Abraham Lincoln say something to the effect of Comedy writers are born, not made? It really makes you think, doesn't it?

I guess I don't have much interest in writing straight drama. So whatever subject matter I choose will ultimately be dealt with in a comic way. And yet I write about contemporary life so the characters and events have to contain elements of realism or the comedy doesn't work.

What I've done with Ask Again Later is to try to blend comedy and drama because I'm a fan of the bittersweet. I did this with Girls' Poker Night, too, and while they are very different books I think they have similar qualities in that they are both comedies that are also very empathetic.

Q. You are also the author of short stories. Did your decision to structure Ask Again Later in short, titled segments have anything to do with your interest in short fiction?

A. Sure. The genesis of this novel was a piece of short fiction called The Countdown which was serialized in USA Today. I had a lot of fun writing that, and Emily was a character I wasn't quite ready to let go of. For most of my writing life I've been writing in vignettes. As an intern at a newspaper, I wrote obituaries. Then, I wrote features and I had a weekly humor column. Then, I was writing Top Ten Lists for Dave Letterman. I think I just got used to expressing myself in 800 words or less. It seems very natural to me.

Q. Emily's conversations with her therapist, Paul, generate the title for your novel. How did you decide to incorporate those sessions into the novel?

A. Those chapters were a lot of fun to write and, for me, that can be a good indication of whether something really belongs in the novel. Beyond that, of course, there were many reasons to include Paul. I write in the first person which I combine with a lot of dialogue because I think it helps move the story forward in a way that's hopefully more entertaining than a monologue.

The plot requires Emily to spend a lot of time with her parents Joanie and Jim. But I think the conversations with her parents really only inform you of Emily's past. The conversations with Paul, on the other hand, are much more about the future, becoming an adult, learning to maintain a relationship out of desire.

Logistically, I felt that to see Emily as an adult, the reader had to see her away from her parents and almost by herself. I think shrinks are interesting to write about because you get to see what the character chooses to reveal, and what behaviors or stances the character tries out on the shrink that might not be part of the character's make-up outside of that room. It's an emotional test-kitchen.

Q. Your depiction of the inanities of everyday life Jim Rhode's workplace offers a convincing glimpse into Emily's world. What was the inspiration for this fictional office?

A. What fictional office? You mean this office is unique? Maybe I've been choosing the wrong jobs ... Every office I've ever worked in has operated this way. When I was a newspaper reporter, and later a television writer, I really felt my co-workers became a second family. People become so accustomed to the oddities and nuances of other people - their families or second families - that I think I they almost stop seeing their quirks.

For the first six months of one job I can remember thinking it was odd that someone would take the time to write elaborate notes and attach it to their packed lunch indicating that they knew someone was intentionally bruising their fruit by placing heavy items on their bag. After a while you accept it. When you see another coworker take a Coke can and smash the other guy's lunch when he thinks no one's looking ... you begin to realize that there are levels of communication you simply hadn't considered; control issues you never could have imagined. I found those discoveries exhilarating ... so obviously there was not a whole lot happening in my life at the time!

Emily is able to report on the workplace because she's consciously looking for clues about what her father is like as a boss and a human being. She doesn't have a lot of judgments about her new environment, but she's fascinated by it, the way anyone reporting on a new situation might be. Because she's not sure what is important and what isn't, she has to eavesdrop on her father's phone conversations. What if the key to unlocking the mystery about her relationship with her father is held in the Mary Kay lady's suitcase? ... Or in the phone calls between him and younger women ... Or with his office wife?



Jill A. Davis was a writer for The Late Show with David Letterman, where she received five Emmy nominations. She has also written several network pilots, screenplays, and short stories. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.