BOGAEV: Brianna of the burnished hair. Brianna of the B minus mind. I really like this passage, but imagine if I were one of your students I might be really worried. You know, “Is that what you really think of me?” BOGAEV: Yeah. And she’s in a very dark place at the beginning of the book. She’s murderous, in fact. In the reading, you mentioned Richard III. She compares herself throughout the book with Richard III several times. Was this something that you discovered in her as you wrote, to this connection to the villain, the archvillain, of Shakespeare? But not too much pain, am I right? Not too much, never too much. If it was too much, you wouldn’t know what to do with me, would you? Too much would make you uncomfortable. Bored. My crying would leave a bad taste. That would just be bad theater, wouldn’t it? A bad show. You want a good show. They all do. A few pretty tears on my cheeks that you can brush away.” BARBARA BOGAEV: Right away, even before I open your book practically, your title is All’s Well, but am I supposed to make some connection to The Tempest because the protagonist’s name is Miranda? What I love most about Mona Awad's storytelling is how completely she can have me in her grip. I will forget that I'm reading a book and get totally lost in the character's world and story. And this is an easy one to get lost in.

AWAD: I think there’s something to it. I think we do transfer pain in our everyday lives. You know, whenever we share something with someone, we are in a sense, you know, sharing our pain with them. And I’m interested in that. Ethically, what does that do to that person who internalizes the pain? I, sort of, wanted to literalize it. I wondered what would happen if you could really transfer the pain. One evening she goes to a dive bar and meets three men in suits who seem to know everything about her. They offer her a golden remedy with the promise that it will cure all of her ailments. And that’s how this darkly funny and bizarre tale unfurls from there. AWAD: Oh definitely. You know, it’s an interesting question. I think the reason is because it’s part of the plays. I think that you can make an argument that there is a bit of a supernatural element to Helen. And I mean it’s certainly there in Macbeth. At last I hear her retreat. Soft footsteps pattering down the hall, away from my door. I breathe a sigh of relief.

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Awad’s writing is chunky, with short sentences, with the occasional missing quotation mark or two. This adds to the eccentricity of her novel, but I found that this style of writing was a detriment to the novel’s flow. Another favourite of the year! Mona Awad had me entranced with this one! If this isn’t the most deliciously dark read ever, I don’t know what is. AWAD: Yeah, I think so. That’s another reason why I think Shakespeare was so exciting to me is those reversals of fortune. You can be sunk very, very low but then suddenly rise, and that was very exciting. Especially to me, given the circumstances in which I found myself, which is being in this pain that I wondered if it would ever go away and dreaming of a day when I would not feel it anymore. So, yes. Absolutely. Our podcast episode, “Lord, How We Lose Our Pains!” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer, with help from Leonor Fernandez. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax-West in Studio City, California.

After an accident left Miranda Fitch with a crippling injury and chronic pain, her husband, Paul, left her, and she had to give up her dream of being a stage actress. Now, physically and emotionally broken, she teaches theatre at a local college, watching young actresses live the life she once thought she’d have. Through it all though, Miranda is desperate to have her class perform “All’s Well That Ends Well”, the Shakespeare play that she fell in love with when she performed the lead role years ago. But, unknowingly, “All’s Well” will change Miranda’s life in unbelievable ways. Your video will play after ad, it reads in a small box in the bottom corner of the screen. No choice. No choice then but to lie here and listen to how there is hope thanks to Eradica. The one pill I didn’t try, because the side effects scared me more than the pain. No choice but to watch the bad actress bicycle in the idyllic afternoon of the drug commercial with a blandly handsome man who I presume is her fake husband. He is dressed in a reassuring plaid. He reminds me of the male torso on the Brawny paper towels I buy out of wilted lust. Also of my ex-husband, Paul. Except that this man is smiling at his fake wife. Not shaking his head. Not saying, Miranda, I’m at a loss. Though the plot of All's Well is incredible, its insistence on putting you into Miranda's head is where it truly shines. From depression to being drunk on power, fear to bitterness, Awad does an excellent job of making Miranda's psychology haunting. Watching Miranda, particularly at her worst, is like watching a car crash: morbidly fascinating, impossible to look away. At some part, I felt like I was walking in the foggy road, losing my path throughout my reading journey. The book’s abrupt direction to fantasyland dragging you to the witch craft, more illusionary baths, awkward strangers in the bar changing your vision kind of more mind numbing experiences leave you at a strange zone.Miranda did go a bit cray near the end but I guess that was understandable. But I also wish we had more clarity on what was real, what was imagined. I’ll warn you, at first I didn’t see any humor in the story. Miranda made me cringe more than laugh. For everyone who has an ailment that isn’t visible to the naked eye, it will ring true.

Awad’s drawing on her own experiences here, in the aftermath of disastrous hip surgery. Her novel’s a convincing, blistering critique of women’s treatment by a male-dominated, medical industry - frequently infantilised, often disbelieved. Numerous, bleakly comic scenes depicting Miranda’s appointments with so-called health professionals will, I suspect, be all too familiar to many women readers. But despite the sense of verisimilitude, Awad jettisons conventional realist approaches, instead she offers up a near-mythic piece, replete with magical twists, bizarre reversals and moments of surreal fantasy. Miranda’s story’s interwoven with material from Shakespeare’s plays, from All’s Well That Ends Well to Macbeth, The Tempest and Hamlet, playing with their themes of dangerous desires, madness and witchcraft. There are some minor flaws, including occasional issues with pacing, but overall I thought this was a gripping, bravura performance, complex, intelligent, delightfully sinister. The disrespect she receives from her friends, colleagues and students creates resentment towards everyone and especially the healthy mode of the younger actresses. She directs the Shakespeare drama All's Well that Ends Well much to the students' dismay that it becomes quite intense. This is wild!! Kelly, Hillary (2021-08-05). "Review: Wellness as metaphor: Mona Awad's new novel of pain and witchery". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2023-05-18. Snow from the open window I cannot close because I cannot bend keeps falling on my face. I let it fall. I close my eyes. I smoke. I’ve learned to smoke with my eyes closed, that’s something.I knew there was going to be a point where she crossed a line. I knew that because of Macbeth. She, you know, sort of transforms into a Macbeth hero as the book progresses, or a Lady Macbeth. And I wanted to follow her. I wanted to see how far she would go, because we have already seen in the book. I mean, the book is very interested in exploring, as you said earlier, just how low she has sunk because of her pain and her illness. How far removed from life. So, to be freed from that, how does that impact her humanity, was a really interesting question to me. Miranda is a college theater director. She loves her job and she has determined that they are going to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well. 🎭 The problem is nobody wants to do the play except Miranda...