Read a Q&A with Jessie Stephens | Heartsick

Jessie Stephens is a Sydney-based writer and podcaster. She’s the assistant head of content at Mamamia and co-host of the podcast Mamamia Out Loud. She also hosts Mamamia’s True Crime Conversations and Book Club podcasts, where she’s had the pleasure of interviewing some of her favourite authors. Heartsick is her first book.

Today, Jessie Stephens is on the blog to answer a few questions about Heartsick. Read on …

Jessie Stephens (Photo by Luke Latty).

Please tell us about your book, Heartsick.

JS: Heartsick is narrative nonfiction, and interweaves the three true stories of Patrick, Claire and Ana, who have their hearts broken. It’s about what happens when heartbreak completely upends a life, and asks whether we ever, truly, get over it.

Why does the topic of heartbreak interest you from a writer’s perspective?

JS: I knew I had to write a book on heartbreak because the book I felt I needed at my lowest points didn’t exist. So much of what we read about heartbreak is quite ‘light’ and ‘girly’ and littered with empowering quotes about moving on. But that doesn’t speak to the serious grief so many feel, and don’t have a language for. I wanted to write a book that dove into heartbreak, rather than a self help book about how to get over it quickly.

Your book follows three subjects — Claire, Patrick and Ana — with very different stories. How did their stories confirm and maybe also challenge what you believe about love and heartbreak?

JS: I started with the assumption that heartbreak was something pretty universal, but I don’t think I realised quite how universal a lot of our experiences are. I thought the self loathing was just me haha, but it turns out that just about everyone can relate. Most of what we consume about heartbreak, is through the lens of white heterosexual relationships, and that bothered me. So Patrick just happens to be a person of colour, and Claire just happens to have been in a same-sex relationship, and it turns out that despite what our relationships might look like, heartbreak binds us all.

I suppose I went into this knowing I wanted to examine heartbreak, but what I discovered is that there is no heartbreak without a beautiful love story. Pain and vulnerability is the price we pay for love, and I actually think it’s worth it.

You write that ‘Heartbreak does not seem to be a brand of grief we respect’. Can you expand on what you mean by that?

JS: It definitely feels like a type of grief we dismiss, and we recite cliches about “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” or “time heals all wounds” or “get back on the horse”, which basically just translates to mean “I’ll just leave you to get on with it then”.

If you haven’t experienced heartbreak, you might not know that it can feel like your whole life has ended. Your future has been destroyed and you’ve designed everything around this person who’s just left you, or who you’re walking away from. So you’re experiencing enormous loss but also a personal crisis that forces you to examine who you are and whether you’re ‘worthy’.

We often think it’s just young women who spend their nights crying over a person who doesn’t love them back, but that’s absolutely not true. Heartbreak doesn’t belong to the young, and it certainly doesn’t belong to women. Men oftentimes don’t have as much of a vocabulary to discuss how painful it can be, and our cultural dismissal of heartbreak means that people often don’t want to talk about it openly which I see as a real problem.

What do you think we can learn from looking at the topic of heartache more closely?

JS: I think we need to develop some more rituals around the ending of a relationship.

We’ve got weddings and funerals and birthdays and farewells, which all mark significant life events and the passage of time. But we have absolutely nothing following a break up. I discovered a place in West Africa that has a ‘Grief Ritual’ where people attend a grief altar and cry and scream and stomp their feet. They’re surrounded by a chant that roughly translates to mean “I cannot do this alone.”

It’s an interesting example of how grief must move through our bodies, and we need to allow it the time and space it deserves instead of burying it.

Who did you write this book for? Who do you wish would read it?

JS: I wrote it first for the heartbroken, so they can feel seen and heard. But also for those who have heartbreak in their history and might have forgotten how sharp that pain once was.

I think it’s also helpful and cathartic for people who know someone currently experiencing heartbreak. Hopefully it gives some insight into what they’re going through.

Can you tell us a little bit about your journey towards becoming a writer?

JS: It has been a complicated one! Less than 10 years ago, I was suffering from anxiety so badly that I couldn’t even write an email. I’d have a panic attack when I sat down in front of my laptop because I was putting so much pressure on myself to write something perfectly.

Eventually I dealt with my anxiety and slowly got back into the habit. I started working at Mamamia in 2015, and I had no choice but to deliver, because I was working to such strict deadlines. I had to learn to accept that not every story would be perfect. In fact, no story would ever be perfect. And that has been very freeing.

I struggled with a lot of self doubt and fear while writing Heartsick, which I’m sure is very normal given it’s my first book. It was terrifying because I didn’t have any reason to think I was capable of writing a book, or that it would be any good! But I was determined. I’m proud I got those words down on the page.

What is the last book you read and loved?

JS: I loved Honeybee by Craig Silvey SO MUCH.

What do you hope readers will discover in Heartsick?

JS: I want readers to feel less alone. When I was heartbroken, I would trawl the internet looking for stories of people who shared my experience. Heartsick is an effort to deliver those stories, and prove that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you.

And finally, what’s up next for you?

JS: A big sleep! And doing my favourite thing in the whole entire world which is … reading books!

Thanks Jessie!

—Heartsick by Jessie Stephens (Pan Macmillan Australia) is out now.

Heartsick

Limited Signed Copies Available!

by Jessie Stephens

Claire has returned from London to the dust and familiarity of her childhood home, only to realise something is wrong with her partner Maggie. Patrick is a lonely uni student, until he meets Caitlin - but does she feel as connected as he does? Ana is happily married with three children. Then, one night, she falls in love with someone else.

Based on three true stories, Heartsick is a compelling narrative nonfiction account of the many lows and occasional surprising highs of heartbreak...

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