LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Iranian American writer Desiree Akhavan thought of herself as a social outcast when she was growing up. That would start to change when she was in film school and made a successful comedy series about herself and her partner's relationship as a lesbian couple. Now, in a new book titled "You're Embarrassing Yourself: Stories Of Love, Lust, And Movies," she writes about her ups and downs with humor and the wisdom that comes with age. It starts with a moment in fifth grade when she was invited to hang out with some other kids from school.
DESIREE AKHAVAN: I was like, of course, I'm not going to go to the sleepover with the most popular girl at school. I'm going to respect my commitment to theater day camp and perform Hot Cross Buns on my recorder. And yeah, that was where the most popular girls at school formed their union. It was fifth grade. And it's very sad that I am holding on to this anecdote for so many years.
FADEL: When you look back, choosing theater then over a popular girl's sleepover - was it the right decision for who you are today?
AKHAVAN: To be fair, I had no idea how popular she'd be.
(LAUGHTER)
AKHAVAN: That was a real reveal. I'm 39, and I think that the choices that led me to this age were always work-driven. You know...
FADEL: Yeah.
AKHAVAN: ...Wanting self-expression, wanting to be seen, wanting so badly to create things. And because I have immigrant parents and also because I grew up in New York City, that was echoed around me. Work and reaching a certain status was the most important thing in the ether, and now that I'm a little bit older, I'm - and so yes. The answer is yes. I think that was the right choice for my younger self, and now that I'm getting a little older, I'm like, man, it would be really nice to invest, the way that I invest in my professional life, in community and in people.
FADEL: You write a lot about your relationship with your parents and the place your parents came from. I mean, they came from Iran. You were born in the States. You are of both places, in some ways. And you also write about sort of the self-judgment, the ambition, the sense of not belonging. When you think of your parents, I mean, how - why do they feature so heavily in your story, and are they home for you?
AKHAVAN: I came from a strict home with a really clear hierarchy, and in some ways, I cherished that. In other ways, it was really important to rebel, and picking and choosing what aspects of this culture and this family to hold dear and what to let go of was the journey of finding my voice. And whether or not they're home, I'm starting to wonder if another person, even your blood, can be home.
FADEL: Yeah.
AKHAVAN: And that was something I believed before, and now, I'm like, maybe it - especially as we all get older, I'm like, it has to be something in you.
FADEL: This is a collection of essays, but it ultimately reads like a narrative memoir. Did you write this piecemeal throughout your life, or how did this come together?
AKHAVAN: After my first film, "Appropriate Behavior," came out, I was approached about writing this book, and I realized I had all these stories that didn't really have a home and that I didn't think made sense for the screen. So I started writing them, and when I began this process of writing - so that was 10 years ago - I wrote out, you know, a lot of stories from my youth and 20s. So I would say, like, when I was a teenager, I was voted the ugliest girl at my school. That was the first story I wrote.
FADEL: OK.
AKHAVAN: And I went - in my 20s, I went to a rehabilitation center for an eating disorder, so I wrote that story, and it was all these, like, younger, coming-of-age things that felt a little cringe but I felt had some depth underneath.
FADEL: You say it kind of nonchalantly, being voted ugliest in your - was it your high school?
AKHAVAN: Yeah.
FADEL: Which is a cruel thing, but you're very raw about it all and also the way it impacted the way you thought about yourself years down the road. Was that difficult?
AKHAVAN: It was not difficult to write, but it's been difficult to release. I've been working in the genre of autofiction for a long time. My first film is a film that I star in, which is about a young Iranian bisexual woman in Brooklyn. I was that at the time that I was making it. The thing about making a film is over the course of the making of it, so many hands touch it, and it expands into something so much larger than your sad, tiny, heartbreak story. It becomes something else. That is not the case with a book. It begins (laughter), and it, like, ends with you. I mean, it's just your voice.
FADEL: You also write in your book that art does not fix you. But has it allowed you to be seen, to be validated, to have that thing that you needed?
AKHAVAN: No. That's the most incredible part of it. I don't think being seen in the way that putting yourself onscreen is a nourishing, healthy way of being seen at all. I do think that I have gained control of stories that felt disempowering. I'll say that much.
FADEL: There are a few moments in the book where you write these lists for yourself - note to self to middle-schooler, reasons not to kill yourself. Those lists that you're talking to yourself at a different time - who are they for? Why write them?
AKHAVAN: I hope this book could be enjoyed by people of all ages and genders. I think it's ideally a younger reader. It might speak to them...
FADEL: Yeah.
AKHAVAN: ...And it's the book I needed as a teenager or a 25-year-old, and they were things that are so obvious and so unclear in life.
FADEL: When you wrote the last pages of this book, who were you then, and who are you now?
AKHAVAN: I was so focused on achieving and wanting so badly to be validated in that particular way. I think everything had been so restrictive, and I had been given, like, a very clear - like, it's like, you're ugly. You're not that smart. You're not (laughter) that, like, talented. Deal with it. And I think these 20 years were, like, proving, like, no, I can be all the things. I can be a filmmaker. I can be a movie star. If I cast myself in those (laughter) films, I can be hot, if I am strategic about everything and get the right plastic surgery. And I was so obsessed with switching that narrative, which I saw as, like, freedom. Like, I will be whatever it takes to have that kind of autonomy, and now I just don't care about those things anymore. I care so much about building a home and a family and of finding where my roots belong.
FADEL: Desiree Akhavan, filmmaker and writer, is the author of "You're Embarrassing Yourself." Desiree, thank you so much, and congrats on your book.
AKHAVAN: Thank you so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF DALTON MCLAUGHLIN'S "LEARNING FROM FAILURE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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