0:09

This is 1A, I'm Jen

0:11

White.

0:23

Today we're talking about love.

0:26

I came here tonight because when you realize you

0:28

want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you

0:30

want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. I

0:34

hate it when you're not around and the fact that you

0:36

didn't call. But

0:38

mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not

0:41

even close. Not even a little bit. Not

0:44

even at all. No matter what. I

0:47

still want to be sure with you. I'm

0:50

also just a girl standing

0:52

in front of a boy. Asking

0:55

you to love her. But we're not

0:57

just talking about love on the big screen.

0:59

You shared some of your stories with us too. Hi,

1:03

my name is Kelly. Hi, my name is Jennifer.

1:05

My husband and I met in Morocco

1:07

where we were both working as Peace Corps

1:10

volunteers. My parents were

1:12

married in 1954. After 68

1:16

years of marriage, they died 57 hours apart.

1:20

We were fortunate to see each other at our

1:22

very best and at our very worst. They

1:24

sometimes squabbled like two old people.

1:27

They tend to squabble, but they loved each other.

1:29

This year we are celebrating 33 years of marriage. To

1:33

me that is a true love story.

1:36

One man heard hundreds of love

1:38

stories after speaking to strangers in the busiest

1:40

street corner in the city of Brisbane, Australia.

1:42

He sat down with two

1:44

lawn chairs, a typewriter, and

1:46

a sign that said, Sentimental

1:48

Writer, Working for Love Stories. He

1:51

put those stories into a book called, well, Love

1:53

Stories. Trent Dalton is an Australian

1:56

journalist and bestselling author. His

1:58

book, Love Stories, is out in the U.S. US today.

2:01

Trent, welcome to 1A. Jen,

2:03

it is the greatest thrill. I'm starting

2:06

to think of my life being on this radio

2:08

station with you, on NPR with

2:10

you, and just hearing those voices of those

2:12

beautiful love storytellers

2:15

that you've somehow found. That's just given me chills.

2:17

So thank you so much for having me. Of course,

2:19

we'll hear from more

2:20

of them across the hour. But I want you to take

2:22

us back to 2021. So you're

2:24

in a launch year. You've got a fold

2:26

up table. You've got a typewriter.

2:29

What led you to that

2:32

street corner and this desire to

2:34

engage with strangers about

2:36

love? Oh, Janet, was

2:38

a love story in itself. My

2:41

best friend is this

2:43

beautiful Irishman who

2:45

I've just loved for about 23 years. And

2:49

his beautiful mom, Cath,

2:52

passed away on Christmas Day 2020 in the

2:54

sort of beginnings

2:57

of Covid. And it

2:59

was a strange time in

3:02

our lives here in Australia.

3:04

On this woman,

3:07

Cath, Jen, was just one of those. I'm sure

3:09

you've got these people in your life.

3:11

We all know these type of people. She she

3:13

would type letters on this sky blue,

3:15

Olivetti, 1960s typewriter to

3:18

her friends. She'd type letters

3:20

to heads of schools about

3:23

the rights of students. She'd type

3:25

letters to politicians here in Australia about

3:28

women's rights, human rights. And

3:31

you know what? She'd type letters to people like

3:33

me encouraging me to be a better writer,

3:36

encouraging me to dig deeper within

3:38

myself about and find sort

3:41

of

3:41

parts of me that I did later find

3:43

because of because of Cath. It

3:46

was January 6, 2021, a significant

3:49

day, I know, for you guys over there. And

3:51

but over here, I was at a funeral for this beautiful

3:54

woman that I loved. And I'm out in

3:56

this baking parking lot, Jen. And

3:59

I said to my.

3:59

best friend, hey man, I just

4:02

hope you know how many letters your

4:04

mum wrote me on that typewriter.

4:07

She's kind of

4:09

turned me into a better writer and I just wanted

4:11

to, we just had this quiet moment. We're near his car

4:14

and we're drinking some beers that Cap insisted

4:16

we drink. They were left in a fridge as

4:19

the ambulance took her to the hospital. And

4:21

she insisted sort of as part of her parting

4:23

wishes, we drank these beers and

4:25

toasted her. And I'm telling

4:27

my best friend this and he says, oh, well mate,

4:30

wait till you see this. And he opens the back of his

4:32

Subaru and he leans

4:35

into the back of the car and he pulls out this sky

4:37

blue 1960s,

4:38

Olivetti typewriter and

4:41

he just, I'm starting to cry. Would I like, I get

4:43

teary Jen just telling you this. And he said,

4:45

trench, you wanted you to have it. And

4:47

Janet was the greatest gift I ever received.

4:50

COVID got a bit worse here in Australia. And

4:53

when it was done, the

4:55

first thing I wanted to do was just get out of my

4:57

house and go

4:59

talk to strangers. And then I phoned up my best

5:01

friend and I said, listen, do you think Cath

5:03

would mind if I took that typewriter

5:06

to the busiest corner in my city, the

5:08

corner of Albert and Adelaide street, Brisbane,

5:10

Australia, and spoke to 200

5:13

strangers with a sign. Jen, I had

5:15

a sign, just a simple sign saying,

5:18

sentimental writer collecting love stories.

5:20

Do you have one to share? And

5:23

it turned out the world

5:25

had a lot of love to share. And

5:27

it was just the right time for all

5:29

these people in my little city to

5:31

share it. And much to my surprise,

5:34

they just let rip. And it was the greatest

5:36

writing experience of my life. One

5:38

of the really beautiful themes

5:41

that emerges in the book is

5:43

this idea of love as a mystery. And

5:49

your choice of that corner in

5:51

Brisbane, it

5:54

was just the corner you chose because it's

5:57

busy, but it had a significance

5:59

that... discovered later. What was

6:01

it? Oh, oh, Jen, I

6:03

think I've got so touched by you even asking that. Yeah,

6:06

so you just choose these places, right? You choose

6:08

them because there's lots of people going past. It's

6:10

a great spot. I got pushed away by

6:13

security where I originally sat and

6:15

I said, listen mate, but if you want to do this,

6:17

you keep got free public spaces. I'm

6:19

sure there's, I've been to, you know,

6:21

I've been to Washington and I know there's spaces all through there

6:23

where you can kind of legally sit and just

6:25

do your art or do your thing that you're trying

6:28

to do, express yourself in some

6:30

way. And they just said, you need to be

6:32

on the corner of Albert and Adelaide street. And of course,

6:34

this best friend of mine says later, and

6:37

mate, you know, that's where my mum met my dad.

6:39

So that's where their love story literally

6:41

began. Like they would meet and go

6:44

to school dances. That's where everyone met

6:46

in Brisbane because it's right near

6:48

our big city hall

6:49

right under this tower and clock tower. And,

6:53

you know, so it was like these unbelievable

6:55

mysteries. And yeah, things

6:57

like that happened throughout that whole year, Jen,

6:59

like throughout that whole period. I was writing about

7:01

these love stories. If you put yourself out

7:04

there, the universe

7:06

will reward you in these ways that you

7:08

never expected. I'm

7:09

thinking about the period

7:11

of time in which you started this project.

7:14

It was after a time of

7:17

great isolation. Yeah.

7:19

And I

7:21

would say discontent. Yeah.

7:25

How did you feel the first time you

7:27

set that table up and

7:30

put yourself out there? Because I could,

7:33

like if I walked past someone on the street, he was

7:35

asking for love stories. Sure. I've got

7:37

love stories, but I could also see someone else going

7:41

like, really? Come on now. This is what you want

7:43

to ask. So what

7:45

frame of mind were you in?

7:48

I was in a vulnerable frame

7:51

of mind, Jen. And I don't know if you

7:53

know much about Australian blokes, Australian

7:55

males where

7:57

we're a rough old country, Australia. And

7:59

We could do well and we're getting better

8:02

us Aussie men at being vulnerable and

8:04

when an Aussie male

8:06

Starts to get vulnerable really good things start

8:08

to happen. We've got a lot of issues here in

8:10

this country

8:11

domestic violence issues a lot of toxic

8:14

masculinity issues like we're the kings

8:16

of that and

8:18

It's been so great to

8:20

live in a world lately in my little home

8:23

city of Brisbane which is a you know, one of the toughest

8:26

cities of of a tough country

8:28

and

8:29

Do something so

8:32

Ridiculous and cheesy as this and

8:35

have it embraced so well And I

8:37

just thought

8:38

people were gonna laugh at me Jen and then

8:40

what happened was This

8:42

man walked past his name was Graham

8:44

Ferguson He's he's

8:46

in his 80s. He's been blind

8:48

all his life Jen and he was

8:51

walking past with his wife Diane Who's

8:53

legally blind?

8:55

They've been married for about 40

8:58

years. I think it was and And

9:01

he stops he's like what's what's all this about? And

9:04

I'm like, I'm just collecting love stories from total strangers

9:07

things go he goes Ah, I could not begin

9:09

to tell you how much I love this woman beside

9:11

me

9:12

you would have to Spend

9:14

two weeks inside a darkened room Thinking

9:17

about your own wife to even begin

9:19

to contemplate how much I love this woman and

9:21

then I asked this dorky question Which was hey

9:24

Graham, you know, it's one of those insensitive

9:26

journal type questions But I just asked it

9:28

just it just came to me Jen and I

9:31

said Graham What would you do if you had five minutes

9:33

of clear sight if if

9:35

if just by some miracle you were given that that?

9:39

That glorious thing of sight for

9:41

just five minutes Would you go to the edge of the Pacific

9:43

Ocean and look out to the sea? Or would

9:45

you look up and look at the night sky and look

9:47

at the stars for five minutes? And he goes that's not a

9:49

stupid question. It's not I think about that every

9:51

day and

9:52

it's the the easiest answer and I'd

9:56

spend five minutes just staring at Diane's

9:58

face because I've never seen it

10:00

And I just went, Graham,

10:02

that is the most beautiful thing. That's just a small

10:04

little thing of love to say. And then

10:06

I said in something even more awkward, I said, well,

10:09

Graham, can I, cause I started getting quite sort of emotional.

10:11

I said, Graham, can I just tell you that Diane,

10:14

like I just want to tell you she's beautiful,

10:16

you know? And that's a little bit insensitive too. It's like,

10:18

but he even took that really beautifully. And he just said,

10:21

hey, Trent,

10:22

I didn't need to have eyes to know that.

10:24

And then I just went, all right, that's it, Jen,

10:26

I'm off. Like that, that was like the first. And

10:29

then it was after that that I knew, yeah, this would

10:31

work.

10:32

But it's so funny because, you know, the flip

10:34

side of that was a guy who came past, you

10:36

know, whizzing on some sort of methamphetamine or

10:38

something. And you see, he reads

10:41

my sign and he

10:42

just goes, love stories, love stories.

10:45

How about I bury your head in effing concrete?

10:49

There's a love story. And then I said, hey, mate, mate, mate,

10:51

all I want to know is just, who do you love? Tell

10:54

me about the people you love. And then he calmed

10:56

down and then he started telling me about love, it

10:58

sort of was such a remarkable

11:00

thing. And no one could understand why I was

11:03

there, Jen. And you know what,

11:05

like in truth, like I didn't even understand

11:07

it myself, I guess, to be honest,

11:09

and you know, those answers came. We're

11:12

talking to Trent Dalton. He's an Australian

11:14

journalist and bestselling

11:15

author. His book, Love Stories, is out in

11:17

the US today. Stu emailed us

11:20

his love story. Years ago, my wife and I

11:22

met while in line at the Kmart photo

11:24

counter many miles from my home. As

11:26

an engineer, I still question the odds of our encounter

11:28

and cannot explain it. But as we approach

11:31

our 28th anniversary with our three wonderful daughters,

11:33

I also know that it's the best thing that

11:35

ever happened to me. I'm Jen White.

11:38

This is 1A from WAMU and NPR.

11:59

I'm Jen White,

12:01

this is One A. We're discussing

12:03

love with Trent Dalton. He's an

12:06

Australian journalist and best-selling author.

12:08

His book Love Stories is out in the U.S. today.

12:10

And we also want to hear from you. How

12:13

do you define love? Do you have a love

12:15

story you want to share with us? Send us

12:17

an email at 1a at wamu.org.

12:20

Let's go to our inbox. Hi, this is

12:22

Jody calling from Michigan. For

12:25

me, love means mutual respect and

12:27

working together. My husband and I have

12:29

been together for 29 years,

12:30

and through all the ups and downs

12:32

of our life, our commitment to putting in the

12:34

work to grow together has created

12:37

a deep and abiding love.

12:39

This love is a source of strength and joy

12:41

for me every day. Jody,

12:43

thank you for sharing that message with us.

12:46

So you start the book, Trent, with

12:49

a letter you wrote to Kathleen,

12:51

Kelly Kath, as you called her.

12:53

This is the mother of your friend

12:55

who gifted you

12:56

the typewriter you used for this project. And

12:58

in the letter you say, I've been shutting up

13:01

and listening to the world.

13:04

What have you learned about the

13:07

power and the importance of listening

13:10

over the course of this project?

13:12

Great question, Jen. I learned so

13:15

much about myself

13:19

and why I was chasing writing

13:22

where I was trying

13:24

to sort out my own stuff. I've got this wild

13:26

kind of past, this wild childhood

13:29

of mine. I was kind of

13:30

raised by this really successful Australian

13:33

drug dealer. That's a whole wild other story

13:35

that I wrote my sort of first novel about. It's an incredible

13:38

story.

13:39

And really trying to express that and trying to, I

13:41

don't know, I was trying to teach people

13:43

something about life.

13:46

And I realized the best

13:48

thing you can do is learn. And

13:50

the best way to learn is to listen. And

13:53

I really had spent about sort of three

13:56

or four years just really talking about

13:58

myself. And I just wanted so badly

13:59

to get out of my own head and the best

14:02

way to do that is to be so humble and just to

14:04

kind of open these two things called

14:06

the ears and really engage.

14:08

When I start doing that, I start to sound

14:11

a bit like I'm a puppy dog. I just hang off every

14:13

word someone says and all

14:15

these people were giving me the answers, Jen.

14:18

These people would stop and this one guy stopped and he

14:20

just said, you

14:21

know what I do every six months? I ask

14:24

my wife this one

14:26

question. I ask,

14:28

can I be a better husband for you?

14:31

I said, I've been with my wife for 23

14:33

years now and I have not asked

14:36

something so selfless. Then I

14:38

started to learn all these other things about

14:40

my wife and I and what long

14:42

term love looks like and

14:45

all the peaks and valleys that

14:47

we go through. I started to realize what

14:50

I really learned, Jen, is

14:52

love is this gift that

14:54

is given to you by you might

14:56

be lucky enough to have five people who give

14:58

it. Some people have none. Honestly,

15:01

some people are so lonely out there and

15:03

they don't get this gift that

15:05

maybe you've got it, Jen, and I've

15:07

got it. There's so many listeners out there

15:09

that have it and sometimes we

15:11

forget to value this beautiful thing that's

15:13

given to us and it's not ours to own. It's

15:16

ours to nurture and cherish.

15:18

I've been guilty, I think, in chasing

15:21

ambition and chasing

15:22

writing and stories and stuff and

15:24

not remembering to do what Kathleen Kelly

15:26

did. She truly valued

15:29

every person in her life. That's

15:31

why she wrote those love. They were letters of love.

15:34

They were letters of friendship, but they're acts

15:36

of love, a type letter

15:38

like that, which is why when we went to the

15:40

funeral,

15:41

I looked around. I swear to God, my daughter was right

15:43

beside me in tears because they showed

15:46

those amazing photo montages that

15:48

moved from black and white all the

15:50

way to iPhone color.

15:53

I looked around and

15:55

you could not get a seat

15:56

at this funeral hall, Jen. I

15:59

said, all right, cat.

15:59

That's how to, that's what it's about. Live

16:02

a life so full and so filled with

16:04

love that late comers will not

16:06

find a seat at your funeral. And I was like, damn,

16:08

okay, all right, I get it now. And

16:10

I just started to learn that sort of stuff.

16:13

And then of course, like, I realized while

16:15

I was doing it, I was doing it to be a better

16:17

man to my wife. Like, absolutely,

16:20

you know, like, I asked all these 200 people, Jen, like

16:23

all these questions, I got on the deepest conversations

16:26

in the heart of the city on a public space that

16:28

I sat at for eight hours a day. And

16:31

then I hadn't by the end of it asked my wife,

16:34

can you please tell me a love story? Like, what do

16:36

you think about love?

16:37

And so that was my great lesson, Jen, I could bring

16:40

it right back, you know, to,

16:42

you know, I have this sacred space

16:44

I put on the kitchen, the kitchen in

16:46

any, like, I believe kitchens across the world,

16:49

are the places where true love shines, you know, that's

16:51

where we have our really tragic conversations.

16:54

And that's where we have our really joyous conversations.

16:57

I just believe we have to walk out both of those

16:59

doors. So we walk out the door in the morning, and

17:02

we walk back at night, and you

17:04

have to live life with some grace and good fortune,

17:07

but then you just got to get back through that door and

17:09

just give it all, you know, when you get back. And that's

17:12

what I've

17:12

learned. Like, because all I'm here for is literally

17:14

my wife and two daughters, like, that's all I got to

17:16

do. I don't have to do all this other stuff

17:19

that I was chasing. I think it's really important

17:21

to note that

17:23

not all of the love stories were about romantic

17:26

love. I'm thinking specifically

17:29

about two women who you see greet

17:31

each other on the street, and they

17:33

hug each other for a really

17:36

long time. And you said, you

17:39

thought, oh, maybe they haven't seen each other in

17:42

a while, but when you started to engage

17:45

them, you learned the love story of their

17:47

friendship. Will you share that with us? Oh,

17:50

it's such a beautiful moment. I was really,

17:52

I was like, what just happened? Like, what was that? You

17:54

guys just hugged for 30 seconds. Like, why did

17:56

you do that? And yeah, have you not seen each

17:58

other for years and years?

17:59

I said, no, I saw her last Wednesday, we caught

18:02

up for coffee. And she said the thing

18:04

is, we've been friends all our lives, right?

18:07

And they talked a little bit about why they really

18:09

care about each other. One of these friends

18:11

was the popular girl at school, right? She was like

18:13

school captain, smartest girl in the room. And

18:15

she really, really protected

18:17

this girl and kind of got her through school, you

18:19

know, the jungle of school. But

18:22

then this beautiful thing happened. One of

18:24

the friends said, can I just get your email? Can I,

18:26

because there's more I want to say about this. And

18:29

then a week later, Jen, you know, the

18:31

most amazing letter from this one

18:33

friend, she said, oh, Trent,

18:35

I was done, you know, I I

18:37

was on, I was so dark,

18:40

I was in such a dark place. And

18:42

this one friend, this one friend

18:44

is all I had who got me through. So

18:47

every time I hug her, I let her know,

18:49

like, there's just no doubt

18:51

that I am on this planet because of you, you

18:53

know, and it was so beautiful for her to

18:55

just be free. It was everything that

18:57

I was doing that I was on that corner. For it

18:59

was it was express it, you know, like,

19:02

let's not be cynical. We just all got through

19:04

this thing, this bizarre pandemic.

19:06

So let's just abandon cynicism for a

19:08

while and just let the people know.

19:10

And it was so beautiful. And I got to sort of almost

19:13

print that on a letter kind of in

19:15

full in the book with her like wonderful

19:18

generosity of her just expressing

19:20

like, this is how

19:21

dark things get. And that that that

19:23

theme was so recurring, like people

19:25

get really low and, you

19:28

know, just the power of those people who

19:30

pull them out of it. And that that kind of love

19:32

is so sacred. And that can

19:34

be from anyone. I mean, that can be from a neighbor

19:36

that happened. That can be from a priest

19:39

that happened. There were stories

19:41

of people finding love in pets. So

19:44

many pet stories of the

19:46

loyalty and the love of a dog

19:49

that just knows you better than anyone

19:51

that happened all the time. And

19:54

love of grandparents. Love

19:57

of the lost. Dear, Jen, you should

19:59

have seen.

19:59

how many people said, this

20:01

one woman stopped Jen and she said, can I

20:03

just tell you about how much I miss and

20:05

how much I love my dead

20:08

husband because my kids

20:10

don't want me talking about him anymore. And

20:13

I said, Hey, I'm not going anywhere.

20:16

I want to know every last thing about that love

20:18

story. And that was just the most beautiful

20:20

gift where someone could just sit and talk to me

20:23

as total stranger

20:24

and just say how much they, they

20:26

miss their husband. And, uh, but, you

20:29

know, and in doing that, of course, the great thing

20:31

is we're not strangers anymore, like literally

20:33

half an hour in we're hugging because we're both in

20:35

tears and it's just stories. It's like the

20:38

best, best way to cut through,

20:40

you know, just go deep. It's just, I,

20:42

I'm just all for it now. It's like, I cannot

20:45

hear talk about real estate or, um,

20:48

or Swiss furniture. I just, I just want to go

20:50

deep and hear about what you love and who

20:52

you miss and what you're here for. We

20:55

got this love story from Elliott. My

20:58

first and only love went to the same high school

21:00

as me, but we were never connected in social

21:02

groups. I was in athletics and she was into

21:04

theater. However, she was my favorite

21:06

service

21:06

worker at our hometown ice cream

21:08

shop. My brother and I were daily customers.

21:11

There was all this, always this giddiness

21:13

and every exchange we had. I'm

21:15

glad I still share it with her every day

21:17

to this day. She still remembers my

21:19

order. A large chocolate flurry

21:22

with Kit Kat and Reese's. I

21:24

love the battle. Oh, you all

21:26

are just, whoo. That's so beautiful.

21:29

That's so beautiful. Um, love through

21:31

objects, love, love through things like that. So

21:33

something like a, you know, those, like a flurry

21:35

becomes like this sacred thing. I

21:38

love that about love. Like you through

21:40

your own love story, you can turn a bird,

21:42

you can turn a coin, you can turn a movie

21:45

into something far beyond what

21:47

it actually is. You know? Yeah.

21:48

I think in reading the book, it

21:52

was such a good reminder of how love,

21:55

you know, we think

21:58

about love, we talk about it as. as these

22:01

grand gestures, right? But

22:04

there are these little acts of service. It's

22:06

taking a meal

22:08

to the shut-in down

22:10

the road who doesn't have anyone else. It's

22:13

showing up for a friend

22:15

and just listening, just being present for them.

22:17

All of these little things we

22:20

can do for each other that

22:22

add up into this glorious

22:25

thing this

22:27

glorious thing that makes life

22:30

worthwhile. Did you

22:32

come out of this process thinking any differently

22:36

about what love looks like? Yeah,

22:39

yeah, completely. And I

22:42

was so wrong about it in the sense even in

22:44

my own relationship where you think,

22:46

yeah, it has to be this wild

22:48

love. Like it has to be this kind of,

22:51

this storybook love that

22:53

I'm sort of so enchanted by as

22:56

a novelist and as a journalist, I'm always chasing

22:58

that grand thing when it

23:00

really is absolutely, Jen, what you said. It

23:03

is an absolute, my wife says it, my

23:05

wife comes shooting through like a kind

23:07

of a shooting star in that book

23:10

and just drops. As I

23:12

was going to this corner, she's quietly kind

23:14

of tapping away at this kind

23:16

of letter to me. And it's not

23:18

really a spoiler. It's just, I just wanna flag

23:21

it

23:21

because it's the best part about the book. She's

23:24

tapping away at this thing. She's like, try and just

23:26

stop, you know, mate, like there, there,

23:29

you're all good. I'll tell you what it is.

23:31

It's this patchwork quilt

23:33

of experience and you just gotta

23:36

keep knitting that thing. And you just, you

23:38

do it by small

23:40

gestures and big gestures and gestures

23:43

of total selflessness. And yeah,

23:45

that just came through absolutely.

23:48

And

23:49

the love that I thought

23:51

I had lost, Jen,

23:53

no, I hadn't, I hadn't. It's always there.

23:55

It can always be fought for, you know, and I

23:58

started doing these things. I start,

23:59

writing in the book, you get a bit delirious

24:02

when you sit down on a corner under

24:04

the hot sun for eight hours. I started

24:06

typing letters to Joni Mitchell, the great

24:08

singer. I just

24:11

would start typing these random things to

24:13

Joni Mitchell asking her questions

24:15

about the people I've messed up with,

24:18

relationships where I didn't give it all

24:20

of those small, beautiful gestures. Through

24:23

the voice of Joni Mitchell, I would get all these answers,

24:26

but it was really just me realizing just

24:28

the obvious things about life. And

24:30

so that, that was teaching me so much just by

24:32

being out there. I want to mention we're going to spend an

24:35

hour celebrating Joni Mitchell

24:37

on Thursday. I hope you tune in for that conversation.

24:40

We're talking to

24:40

Trent Dalton. He's an Australian journalist and

24:42

bestselling author. His book, Love Stories,

24:45

is out in the US today. I'm Jen

24:47

White. You're listening to 1A.

24:49

You know, Trent, you could have written this book just

24:52

retelling the stories that people

24:54

shared with you, but it's also about

24:56

the way they told their stories.

24:59

You include little details about the people

25:01

and

25:03

how you came to interact with them that really

25:05

make them come alive for

25:07

the reader. Why

25:09

was that an important part of this writing

25:12

process for you?

25:14

I'm really big on detail, Jen.

25:17

It's a story of my past as a boy.

25:19

I think I was very quiet, like,

25:21

and we had a lot going on in my house growing up. A

25:23

lot of sort of wild, sort of drunkenness

25:25

and a

25:26

lot of things that would make a young boy not

25:29

speak and just watch and

25:32

find wonder in the

25:34

smallest things, like a golden orb-weaver

25:37

spider out his bedroom window, his

25:39

kind of social housing window

25:41

and a caterpillar crawling up a

25:43

tree or a rainbow coming

25:45

over the housing commission suburbs of

25:47

Brisbane. I just

25:50

applied that to that street. Being

25:52

the absolute extraordinary

25:55

and the ordinary. So, a

25:57

man named Ned who's...

26:00

recently lost his wife,

26:01

tells you about a three minute video

26:04

he found

26:05

on his wife's phone, right? And he tells

26:07

it in a way, so

26:09

bizarrely, in a beautiful whimsical

26:11

connection, he's an expert

26:15

at finding gold deposits

26:17

or mineral deposits across Australia, right? Finding

26:20

things. That's his job. He finds things.

26:23

And you know what his greatest find of his life

26:25

was? It was a three minute video of his wife

26:28

talking about some Airbnb that they

26:30

went to. I mean, that's all she's talking

26:33

about, right? It's not the things that are

26:35

coming out of her mouth. It's that he gets to put

26:37

that thing on and sit there and we'll look

26:39

at his wife for three minutes and see

26:41

the angles of the face and remember exactly

26:44

what she looked like. And so

26:46

I would write that in a way where you

26:48

unfold it and you unpack it and go,

26:51

that's the most amazing monumental discovery.

26:53

You know what I mean? What if you took

26:55

your life, right? We're all lying, you

26:57

know, beside these

26:58

beautiful loves of our lives, right? These partners

27:01

of ours, these wives

27:03

and husbands of ours that we lie

27:05

near every day.

27:07

What if you then thought about your

27:09

life? Like there was that beautiful story just at the start

27:11

of this where the person was talking about the parents

27:13

who

27:15

they died within 57 hours

27:17

of each other. Like that is so beautifully

27:19

romantic, right? I write about that all

27:22

the time, heart sickness, this phenomenon

27:24

where you're heartbroken and you just don't

27:26

want to go on and like your heart just cannot cope.

27:29

It's so flipping romantic. So

27:31

let's put that on a pedestal and say ordinary

27:34

humans of the world are just the most romantic

27:37

people. We have the most amazing love story. So

27:39

I just decided to put them all on a pedestal and

27:41

write it like I was Jane Austen. Like write

27:44

every one of those, like I had the power of,

27:46

you know, like it was Cold

27:48

Mountain, like I was writing Cold Mountain, right?

27:51

Even though it's a story about two tux shot

27:53

ladies, let's write that like Cold Mountain, you

27:55

know? And it was like, that was such a great

27:57

space to be in. And then what I do, Jen, but I'm not going to do that.

27:59

before I wrote them, I did this thing

28:02

where I was like, what if I never met my wife? And

28:04

I know for a fact, Jen, like I'd be just this,

28:07

I'd be drinking too much

28:09

and I'd be eating hot chips, like

28:12

French fries, like for the rest of my life.

28:14

And it terrifies me. And I would think

28:16

about that. And then I'd plug all of that electricity

28:19

that comes from thoughts like that,

28:21

like the miracle. One of the listeners told the

28:23

most beautiful love story where it seems so

28:25

random

28:26

that they meet, and yet it feels like it could

28:28

only have happened that way. And it's like, that's such a

28:30

beautiful thing to do in your own love life where you go,

28:33

what if? What if that never happened? And then

28:35

you will see the value of it all. We're

28:38

talking to

28:38

Trent Dalton. He's an Australian journalist

28:40

and bestselling author. His book, Love

28:43

Stories, is out in the US today. So

28:45

many of you shared your love stories

28:48

with us. One member of our text club says,

28:50

I am an old man, but I still remember

28:52

standing in a lightly falling

28:54

snow at 16 with my girlfriend.

28:56

And thinking to myself, huh, this

28:59

is what being in love feels like. It

29:01

still makes me smile. I'm

29:03

Jen White. We'll be back with more in a moment.

29:05

Thank God I leave you down when you're down

29:08

on your knees. I

29:14

won't do that. I'll

29:20

tell you you're like when you want.

29:24

Ha, ha, ha, ha,

29:27

oh. Oh, if only

29:30

you could see into me. Oh,

29:45

when you're cold,

29:47

I'll be there.

29:55

Now let's get back to love stories with Trent

29:57

Dalton. He's an Australian journalist and

29:59

bestselling. author. His book Love Stories

30:01

is out in the US today. And

30:04

let's go back to our inbox. Hi Jan,

30:06

this is Nick. Lady and I

30:08

had dated for approximately 17 years and

30:10

we subsequently split

30:12

up. She married and was married

30:14

for about 10 years and her husband

30:17

passed away. During that time

30:19

I thought I'd lost her forever

30:21

and my father had

30:24

passed away with Alzheimer's

30:26

and I slowly thought

30:28

I would forget the love I had

30:30

for her

30:32

or she would forget the love she had

30:35

for me. And

30:38

we've since gotten

30:40

back together and the love for

30:43

both of us was still there.

30:45

Oh Nick thank you for sharing that story with

30:47

us. You know,

30:49

not all of the stories in this book are happy.

30:52

There's a lot of pain too.

30:55

We got this message from a member of our tax club.

30:57

I fell in love with a covert narcissist

31:00

after a cruel breakup, months of therapy,

31:02

medication and education. I was

31:04

able to heal and see my ex for who he truly

31:07

is. Two lessons learned. If

31:09

it seems too good then it is and

31:11

trust your instincts. How

31:13

often was pain a part of the stories

31:16

you heard? Yeah

31:18

so often Jan and I wanted to

31:20

honor that. I really did

31:22

and the thing about love

31:26

is that

31:27

it is at the heart of so

31:29

many emotions and so many

31:32

situations in our lives and it

31:34

it

31:35

ensnares us in things and then

31:37

it some of the clouds you

31:39

know some things as well and

31:42

it was so fascinating to hear

31:44

people share

31:45

some of that discussion and that

31:48

escaping of

31:50

love gone wrong. Like love gone really wrong

31:53

and you know it was so

31:55

beautiful to hear that wonderful story

31:57

just before of a listener. Because

32:00

that's what so often happened where someone would

32:02

go and then I and then I got out

32:05

of that relationship And then I realized what true

32:07

love actually is You know when you do find

32:09

it from someone who absolutely Respects you and

32:11

loves you in the way that you should be loved

32:14

And also other other the pain

32:16

of love, you know, I want my favorite story in

32:19

there probably my favorite story in there Jen

32:21

is a story of Kerry She's

32:24

a mom You know every night

32:26

she cooks, you

32:27

know, she'll be cooking for her son and

32:30

She's in the kitchen the

32:32

Sun's she's telling me this. She's like

32:34

the Sun's in the lounge room just watching the telly and

32:37

she looks up on the fridge

32:39

and she sees three pictures that she keeps up

32:41

there and that's of her late

32:44

husband

32:45

now her late husband died tragically

32:48

from a shop front Awning

32:51

collapsing right just randomly

32:53

just so random and and wild,

32:56

you know this in this tragic tragic

32:58

moment and

32:59

His last act was

33:02

to push two girls out of the way that he

33:04

was two friends you know family friends and that

33:07

would be pushes them out of the way because he's

33:09

the kind of guy who kneels when he greets

33:11

children to get on their Level and

33:14

every night right she looks at these pictures

33:16

and she goes

33:17

should I take these pictures down? and She

33:20

goes through that debate that kind of internal

33:23

debate and then she starts weeping and

33:25

she tries to keep the weeping like Silent

33:27

like a kind of mute weeping

33:30

because she doesn't want her beautiful son to

33:32

hear her yet again you

33:33

know that she's yet again thinking about this

33:36

guy's beautiful dad and and and

33:38

then at the end of that internal

33:41

debate she comes to the same answer

33:43

is

33:44

It's

33:45

it would be so silly not to have this

33:47

guy on the fridge So I could see him every night the

33:50

pain of the realization

33:52

of the loss Is outweighed

33:55

by the memories that she gets of

33:57

the smell of him the way he danced the

33:59

way

33:59

he spoke, the way he told jokes,

34:02

just by seeing those three photos. That

34:05

kind of really heavy pain

34:07

that love can bring. That prompted

34:10

so many discussions of big

34:12

philosophical discussions like, why

34:15

do we get this thing? Why are

34:17

we granted this thing by the universe

34:19

and this thing called love? Why

34:21

do we get this thing if only we have it taken

34:23

away from us? Would

34:26

you go through it if you knew that you were going

34:28

to suffer that pain? That was so many,

34:31

at the heart of so many discussions and I just loved

34:33

every one of those because that's the truth

34:35

of love. It is a risk. It

34:37

is the greatest risk we will ever take because

34:40

it can hurt so bad if you lose it. I

34:43

wanted to honor every one of those stories which is

34:45

why the books like Dead Set, as cheesy as

34:47

that title is, like love stories, that

34:51

title is genuinely all

34:53

about dark love as well. We

34:56

got this message from a member

34:57

of our tax club who writes, the first

34:59

time I saw my now husband walking

35:02

into Arabic class, five minutes late,

35:04

I knew he was the

35:05

one. He doesn't believe in love at first

35:07

sight, but I know what I know. We

35:12

also got this email from Dan who shared

35:14

his experience with

35:15

love. My ex-wife told me

35:17

while we were still married that she was unhappy

35:20

in the relationship. I was too, but

35:22

she didn't want to work on the marriage and I did.

35:25

I decided that if I truly loved

35:27

her and our kids, I would let her go.

35:30

I now tell the kids I still love their

35:32

mom as much as I always have, but

35:34

sometimes love changes and evolves over

35:36

time.

35:36

We co-parent great and are as

35:38

much of friends as we can be after an

35:41

ended marriage. Something

35:43

very bittersweet in that email. Dan,

35:45

thank you for sharing it with us.

35:48

We think about love relationships

35:52

often, I think, in a very linear manner. We

35:55

progress from stage A to stage B to stage C,

35:58

but that's not how... how

36:01

love operates, love changes. What did

36:03

you learn in this process about

36:05

how love evolves? Oh,

36:09

it's, you know, there

36:12

was a beautiful couple, one of my favorite

36:14

couples,

36:15

they, Ian and Laney,

36:18

you know, similar thing about that, but one

36:20

of the listeners there where it's

36:23

the, he's at

36:25

a dance hall, they're doing ballroom dancing

36:27

and he looks across and he's standing up on, he's

36:29

sort of an instructor and he's with his brother

36:32

and this is like the sixties, you know, this

36:34

is the 1960s and this beautiful

36:37

angel walks into this ballroom hall

36:39

and he elbows his brother and he says, that

36:41

is the woman I'm gonna marry, right? That's

36:44

such a grand statement.

36:45

And to build on that,

36:48

right, he has to commit,

36:50

you know,

36:51

they fall in love and to

36:53

kind of, you know, they marry. And so

36:55

then you cut to 2023 and he tells me that

36:59

he says to her,

37:01

I love you maybe six times a day.

37:03

That's how much he works at it. And

37:06

he just says, Trent, so therefore,

37:08

you know, he did the math. So it came out to

37:10

some, and I did the math myself, like how

37:13

many times has this guy, Ian Gibson,

37:15

told Laney Gibson just how many

37:17

times, you know, how much he loves her.

37:19

He said, that's how hard you gotta work, you know,

37:22

that because it will evolve on you and it

37:24

will morph.

37:25

And I just, I know this for myself, like

37:27

Jen and this, you know, this is why

37:29

I'm going out there. This is why I'm out there doing

37:31

these stories is because,

37:33

you know, you really need to work

37:35

hard at it. And I realize, you know, my wife

37:37

and I talk about this all the time. It's every

37:40

down bit

37:41

that makes you value the love. And, you

37:44

know, that theme just came through

37:46

so often. There were so many, so

37:48

many stories,

37:49

these 65 year old Aussie blokes, Jen,

37:52

who through pride or

37:54

through ego, they messed

37:57

it up when they were 35. And

37:59

the,

37:59

regret of that is just

38:02

they would sit there and just open up so

38:04

beautifully and it's amazing where

38:06

I'd say I'm

38:08

after love stories and they say

38:10

I don't have a love story to tell and then they just talk for

38:12

one minute and suddenly they're like nearly

38:14

crying and they're saying there's

38:17

this girl that I just messed

38:19

up mate and if I could give anything

38:21

I'd go back and fix that and

38:23

because they weren't

38:25

sort of able to cope

38:27

with the rocky nature of love that can come

38:29

at us sometimes and it's like it's such

38:31

a bending thing it's such a give

38:33

and take thing I've got these dorky words

38:36

on my on my wedding ring here Jen

38:38

and they say sway with me

38:41

these words are like three words sway

38:43

with me and that was just this cheesy

38:45

thing I was at a sting concert with my wife

38:48

and I just meant

38:49

will you sway to this song with me right

38:51

but now like those words

38:53

are so powerful it's like will

38:55

you sway with me when I'm like flawed

38:58

will

38:58

you bend with me when I'm broken will

39:01

you kind of will you be there when I'm a douchebag

39:03

you know will you will you really help me and kind

39:05

of

39:06

sway with me through the storm you know and

39:08

it's like that's love that that is so

39:11

true about it you know so these things this like

39:13

love like it starts off so romantic and cheesy

39:15

but it often gets so real and true

39:18

just like all those listeners are saying I thought I love

39:21

every person by the way who's sending these things

39:23

in I just love you all and I just

39:25

like America is so filled with

39:27

a lot of flipping great love

39:29

we're talking to Trent Dalton he's an

39:31

Australian journalist and bestselling author

39:34

his book love stories is out in the

39:36

US today I'm Jen white

39:38

you're listening to one a so

39:41

you bugged your wife Fiona to

39:46

write a letter for the book to share a love

39:48

story do you mind if I read just a piece

39:50

of it oh you're gonna get me emotional

39:52

please well there was a part of it that

39:54

really really stood out to

39:56

me she starts with

39:58

the line love is not for understanding.

40:01

But then later on she goes to say, I know that love

40:04

is the beginning and the end of everything.

40:06

At least if everything good. Sounds too simple

40:09

to be true, but it is. It has to be.

40:11

Because surely it's what makes us human, but

40:14

makes our lives worthwhile. And

40:16

when everything else is stripped away, it's

40:18

the one true thing that keeps us putting

40:21

one foot in front of the other.

40:22

That keeps us trudging through

40:24

the sometimes swamp lands of our lives

40:27

and other times, has us flying

40:29

through the highest of blue skies.

40:31

Love is the answer to every question.

40:34

I assure you I've thought about it for a long time

40:36

and that is what I now know. When

40:38

life brings you down, love harder. When

40:41

you've been unloved, give love. When

40:43

love is hard to find, give more

40:45

love.

40:46

Double down on love. When the

40:48

world throws unimaginable grief and

40:51

tragedy at you, throw

40:53

yourself into loving. Yeah.

40:56

I'm crying here. That's

41:00

the reason I am Jen. I

41:02

know where that comes from. And it's

41:05

like when you get the love of your life just writing

41:07

like that. And like

41:09

I'm dead set. Just I haven't even, I

41:11

hadn't heard that or read that in quite some

41:13

time since she kind of first showed it to me.

41:16

And she will tell you like that. That

41:18

she's saying things that all of us know, but

41:20

when they come

41:21

with context, right? They come from context

41:24

where like, man, we battle. We battle just

41:26

like everybody else. We've

41:29

had our arguments and things and it's been low,

41:31

right Jen? We've had really

41:33

tough times sometimes. And

41:35

then she comes out with that. And I

41:38

just find that so beautiful. And I

41:40

loved her sharing that because that

41:42

has now prompted. You should see in Australia,

41:45

people post that. It's so beautiful.

41:48

People put that on Instagram and stuff, that little

41:50

thing that you just read. And

41:52

they go like, have you seen this thing? But Trent

41:55

Dalton's wife, right? The owner of friends

41:57

when this, she's not just Trent Dalton's wife.

41:59

at all. There's so much more than that, but

42:02

it's just so powerful when someone does that.

42:04

And yeah, here I am

42:07

going to all this trouble. It was a lot of trouble,

42:09

Jen. I'd have to lug this desk and I had these

42:11

two chairs and I'd park my car

42:13

like a, like it was about maybe 800 meters

42:16

away from where the corner was

42:18

day in, day out. And all I

42:20

had to do was like turn left and

42:23

talk to my wife and go, what's love, honey? You

42:25

know, it's so funny. And she would

42:27

have told me that. Yeah.

42:28

And I think you think though about your

42:32

place in the world now, because when I read that

42:34

and I think about some

42:38

of the suffering in

42:40

the world right now. Yeah, right. And

42:43

to read that her antidote is, well, we're

42:45

not loving hard enough in

42:48

the face of tragedy and

42:51

suffering. Did you think

42:53

about yourself as just like part of the

42:55

human species any differently on the

42:57

other side of this project? Yeah.

43:00

Yeah. Jen, you can't help but. And

43:04

you know, the antidote to hate is moving closer.

43:07

You know, the antidote to anger,

43:09

move closer. The antidote to rage

43:11

is a hug. You know, I mean, I know all

43:13

these things I'm saying, I promise

43:16

you listeners, these things come from like

43:18

really dark places when I say these things and

43:20

it's from some experiences I've had. And

43:24

it's so true. And you know, I know you

43:26

guys are just going through a real terrible

43:28

tragedy right now, you know, over in the States.

43:30

And you know, I visited that. I love that place.

43:33

And I love the philosophy of America.

43:35

Like I think America is a flipping one

43:37

of the great love stories, one of the

43:39

most optimistic love stories

43:42

that was ever told. Jen,

43:45

I just had lunch with Barack Obama like

43:47

today. He's been touring Australia and

43:50

you know, when he said, someone asked him, okay,

43:53

how do you want to be remembered? And you know, you've probably

43:55

heard him say something like this before, but to hear

43:58

him say in a room and you're like.

43:59

literally 30 meters away from the man.

44:02

He said, I just want to be remembered as a loving

44:05

husband, a loving,

44:07

caring dad.

44:08

And the whole room just kind of started weeping

44:10

because you're thinking back on, you know, all

44:13

the things going on in the world and,

44:15

you know, just love harder. And that is

44:17

a guy and he cut it. He said, there

44:19

are two stories that play in the world.

44:22

One story is might

44:26

wins out always. So we

44:28

must be strong. We must be all powerful

44:30

and we must essentially crush

44:33

the weak, you know, and that is a story

44:35

that's butting up against on the other side,

44:38

inclusion, care,

44:40

compassion, and love. You

44:43

know, and he said it himself. It's just like, we

44:45

mustn't

44:46

forget what we're here for. We

44:49

must not forget what we're here for. And

44:51

he said, he even forgot for a while in his presidency.

44:53

He said, I forgot what I was there for for a little

44:55

bit.

44:56

And I remembered

44:57

to get back to the storytelling. That's

44:59

what he said today, Jen. Like he said, and

45:02

it was so inspiring to me. It's like, get

45:04

back to the storytelling, mate. That's all you gotta

45:06

do, you know? And that's my way of loving

45:09

harder. You know, that was my, that whole book is

45:11

a 350 page tribute to

45:14

loving harder.

45:15

That's Trent Dalton. He's

45:17

an Australian journalist and bestselling author.

45:19

His book, Love Stories is out in the US

45:22

today.

45:22

Trent, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you. This

45:25

has been one of the great honors of my life, Jen. Thank

45:27

you so much. I just love you. I love

45:29

you. You're amazing. I think you're the best.

45:33

I love you too, Trent. I

45:35

want to end on this email from Carla who says,

45:37

I miss my husband dearly. He passed

45:39

away in 2021, assisting him

45:41

with bathing and dressing towards the end,

45:44

humbled me, broke me and

45:46

healed me. I love remembering his love

45:48

to go fast in his beloved charger telling

45:50

me,

45:51

straighten it out, little mama. I turned 50

45:53

this year and I'm still in love

45:56

with love. Today's producer

45:58

was Horhelina Manaraya.

45:59

This program comes to you from WAMU,

46:02

part of American University in Washington, distributed

46:05

by NPR. I'm Jen White. Thanks

46:08

for listening and we'll talk more soon. This

46:10

is 1A.