Interview With Liv Stratman, author of Cheat Day

As diet culture and monogamy continue to fall under the microscope, there’s never been a better time to read books that usher in discussion. With the paperback release of her debut novel, Liv Stratman draws on her experiences with harmful body image and diet culture to invite conversation around these topics while serving up a delicious plot about desire outside of a marriage. Perfect for fans of Stephanie Danler, Sally Rooney, Melissa Broder, Raven Lenali, and characters who aren’t necessarily likable but are oh-so relatable.

CHEAT DAY (Scribner, paperback out January 18) explores the gray areas between setting rigid boundaries and following what feels good, in food and in love. Kit and David started as college sweethearts, but now that they’re in their thirties, David is off on exciting work adventures and Kit just feels stuck. Her fear of failure keeps her coming back to Sweet Cheeks, her sister’s bakery she manages. In an effort to feel control, Kit cycles through fad diets, which David endures with her for support.

But Kit is malnourished, and finally finds passion in an affair with Matt, the carpenter building shelves in the bakery kitchen. While she gives in to her body’s desires with Matt, she completely halts them with food to suppress her guilt, obsessing over her diet and splitting herself in two extremes that she can’t maintain forever.

PRAISE FOR CHEAT DAY:

“An intimate exploration of the wellness movement—and the dangers of restricting ourselves from pleasure.” —Jane Starr Drinkard, Vulture

“A witty, knowing tale about what it means to grow up.” —People Magazine

“An absorbing, humorous, and nuanced exploration of the human desire for variety, the wellness industrial complex, and the overlapping cravings for sustenance in our lives: comestible, amorous, and lustful.” —Melissa Broder, author of Milk Fed

“Along with stellar characterization, Stratman beautifully (and often with humor) captures the complexities of long-term relationships and the ways deprivation and indulgence are intricately intertwined…A funny, wise, and winning debut.” —Kirkus Reviews

We are delighted to feature this interview with Liv!

Thank you so much for joining us on WWWB, Liv!

Hi! Thanks so much for having me. 

Tell us about your beginning, where are you from?

I’m from New York, and have a pretty quintessential New York identity. I’m a loud talker and a fast walker; I love the Mets and Billy Joel and Paul Simon. I’m a huge fan of a New York-y movies with strong female leads like Crossing Delancey, Moonstruck, Working Girl, Desperately Seeking Susan, and You’ve Got Mail. 

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

I was really young–I’m not even sure I have any memories of realising I was a writer, the tendency to tell stories evolved so naturally in me. I loved my Slyvanian Families and PlayMobile toys and used the figurines to enact elaborate narratives. 

How has writing changed you as a person?

It hasn’t–writing is such a part of who I am, I couldn’t separate it from other things about me. Having a book published has changed me, I think, in that I know now that side of it. Before Cheat Day came out I was really unaware of how vulnerable and emotional my work might make people feel. When you put it out there for anyone to get at a store or library, you really put yourself out there, too. I write about pretty in-depth psychological issues, like extramarital affairs and crash diets and tension between siblings. I’ve had to detach myself from thinking about how my book might be received or how readers might feel about the complicated issues I write about so that I can keep doing the work that is true to my own interests and sense of humor. 

Can you tell us a bit about CHEAT DAY? What inspired you to write it?

Cheat Day is about a woman named Kit Altmann who feels pretty lost in her life and makes some unwise choices. Even though she works in her sister’s boutique bakery, she is a longtime fad dieter, and the book follows her as she goes on the “Radiant Regimen,” which is a fake “nutritional program” I made up, kind of satirising things like Whole 30 and Goop. Kit’s husband David is a kind but detached partner and a workaholic. Toward the beginning of the diet, Kit meets a carpenter named Matt and they have an immediate physical attraction–she has an affair with Matt over the course of the book. 

I worked at The Little Cupcake Bakeshop in New York City over a number of years, and it’s the inspiration for Sweet Cheeks, the bakery in my novel. I had the idea of a woman having an affair first, because I knew I needed some propulsive plot to get me going, and Kit was a character I’d put in a few different settings and situations earlier, in unpublished work. I had been writing mostly short stories. Kit stayed with me and by the time I had 100 pages of what turned into Cheat Day, I realized I was writing a novel. 

What would be your 6 word memoir?

I wrote novels and ordered dessert.

What is the best writing advice you’ve ever had, and the worst?

In graduate school, Lorrie Moore, who taught my first workshop, told me my characters needed food. “What is sustaining your characters!? They’ve got to have something to eat!” she said. Anyone who has read Cheat Day will recognize how seriously I took this. 

When I was in one of my first workshops someone said, “Never give your characters names your reader couldn’t pronounce.” I thought this was ridiculous–culturally narrow minded and exclusionary of so many writers from backgrounds where the names are not common to Westerners. It also asks the writer to make some huge assumptions about who her readers are, and who they should be. That really rubbed me the wrong way. 

Do you need a special place to write?

Because I’ve spent most of my life in small apartments, I like to write in the kitchen. It’s cozy. I just got a house in Long Island with an office, but after a few months of feeling trapped I moved my desk down to the kitchen. I like to look out the window and I like being close to my snacks and kettle. I don’t need a place, though. Lately, I write wherever I can, including on the LIRR heading into work, and in the car waiting for my turn in the drive-through Covid testing line–if I have a good thought for a scene and something to write it on, I can just go! 

Are you part of a writing community or a writing group?

I started an online collective of debut writers last year a few months before Cheat Day came out. Initially I invited a few people and asked to spread the word. Now there’s almost 100 of us. We have a Slack channel where we share advice and ask questions about the process of having a book published. We celebrate each other and commiserate bad reviews and other disappointments or pitfalls. It’s been great. I’ve made genuine friends, including people who live close enough to me that we’ve spent time together in person. 

What is your experience with social media as a writer? Do you find it distracts you or does it provide inspiration?

Like most millennials, I am active on Instagram. I also use Twitter. I like connecting with people there, and seeing my book out in the world. Social media is super addictive, but I think it can be as enriching as it is mindless. I try to limit my use of it to points in the day when I couldn’t really be doing much else, like quick subway rides and standing on line at the post office, but I find myself unable to resist posting pictures of my cats when they are being particularly cute or funny (which is quite often, unfortunately!). 

Who are your favorite authors?

Lorrie Moore, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, Min Jin Lee, Brandon Taylor, Rachel Khong, Ann Patchett, Tom Drury, Joan Didion, and Samantha Irby. 

What are you reading currently?

I’m re-reading Tom Drury’s entire oeuvre right now, in chronological order. His first novel, The End of Vandalism, is so funny and understated and original. He has a character named Charles “Tiny” Darling, a petty thief with bright red hair, who recurs in a number of his books. Tiny Darling might be my favorite character in all of American literature. 

—

Liv Stratman earned an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her writing has appeared in the Boston Review, Witness, and the Cincinnati Review. She worked for many years in a bakery and as a bookseller, and Cheat Day is her first novel. She lives in Brooklyn.

Find out more about her on her website hwww.livstratman.com

Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/livrstrat

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing