Carolyn Murnick, Author of THE HOT ONE: A MEMOIR OF FRIENDSHIP, SEX AND MURDER
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[0:34]I'm excited to be interviewing Carolyn Murnick today.
[0:36]Carolyn is the author of The Hot One, a memoir of friendship, sex, and murder.
[0:41]An editor of New York Magazine, she is contributed to several anthologies
[0:45]and delivered a TEDx talk called How Crime Shows Undermine Your Empathy.
[0:49]She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
[0:50]So welcome, Carolyn to Momstone.
[0:52]Have time to read books.
[0:53]Thanks so much for coming.
[0:54]Thank you for having me.
[0:55]It's a nice to meet you and person.
[0:57]So your book was so good as I was just telling you.
[1:00]I like gobbled it down on airplane and it couldn't wait to talk to you about it.
[1:04]I'm so sorry for your last year book was about,
[1:06]well, why don't you tell us a little bit about what the book was about
[1:09]and then I can show her from there.
[1:11]My book is called The Hot One and it's the story of my search for answers
[1:16]around my child or best friend's murder.
[1:18]And she was killed in LA in 2001 when she was 22 and I was 21.
[1:23]And the story and what happened to her really haunted me throughout my 20s.
[1:27]And then in 2008, I learned that there was a man arrested who was connected
[1:34]to her murder as well as three other victims and he was going to be put to trial in LA.
[1:38]And so that began my reporting process.
[1:41]And I just said that I wanted to write a book that chronicled the unfolding court case
[1:46]for her alleged killer, but also really got it.
[1:49]The power of childhood friendships and how this relationship had really made such an impact
[1:53]on me.
[1:54]She was my first best friend when we were seven, eight, nine years old in New Jersey.
[1:58]I'm so sorry.
[1:59]I'm sorry about your last year.
[2:01]And I was actually, I just, I interviewed another author we were talking about how sometimes
[2:06]when you lose touch with someone who then passes away, it's like almost harder, right?
[2:10]Because you, you think, do I have a right to be this upset?
[2:13]I was straight.
[2:14]Yeah.
[2:15]If it was drifted apart.
[2:16]Yeah.
[2:17]I mean, you never know how, what kind of loss or who or when loss is going to sort of trigger
[2:23]something in you.
[2:24]And what I started noticing when I would talk about Ashley throughout my 20s, I realized
[2:31]that lots of other women resonated with the story of this sort of friend who got away,
[2:37]someone who you had so much in common with in childhood and then maybe started to take
[2:41]different paths, which is what happened was Ashley and I in sort of the high school years.
[2:45]And I think I describe our relationship as like our bond was cemented during a sort of innocent,
[2:54]playful girlhood time.
[2:56]And then as girls start to make different decisions around things like drugs and sex and
[3:02]have different life experiences, that can kind of feel really complicated for, you know,
[3:08]you as a young person because you're looking to your friends for to show you how to be
[3:14]in the world and kind of figure out your own identity and reference to them.
[3:18]So when someone starts making different decisions, it can, it can feel like a referendum
[3:23]on your own choices.
[3:24]And so that was a little bit what happened with Ashley and me and our high school years.
[3:29]And as I write about in the book, we had kind of one last, I didn't know it would be
[3:32]the last, but one sort of last weekend which turned out to be a kind of a reckoning experience
[3:37]when we were about 20 and I learned that, you know, her life in LA was so much different
[3:44]than what mine was as a student in New York and I was intimidated by her and confused.
[3:49]And I wondered if our relationship would have a future and then a year later, she was found
[3:54]in.
[3:55]So crazy.
[3:56]That story.
[3:57]Yeah.
[3:58]I like how you contrasted how your relationship started with sort of how it ended, how
[4:03]you had the two of you so close, like taking pictures of yourself, like kind of being
[4:08]faux flirty at such a young age and, you know, your parents are kind of getting upset
[4:12]at the pictures, you know, and then to have her actually become sort of more in that sort
[4:17]of sexualized way.
[4:19]I feel like I had a friend at one point, like we broke the rules in this one way and for
[4:23]me it was like that's as far as I was going to go with breaking the rules and that was
[4:26]just the beginning for her.
[4:27]And so then like our adult as adults, we completely drifted and she actually ended up passing
[4:33]away as well.
[4:34]So I felt like I really did a lot in your book because it was like what used to bring
[4:38]you so close together.
[4:39]Right.
[4:40]And then all of a sudden here.
[4:41]I think everyone has a friendship like that.
[4:43]It doesn't mean that that person died, but that somehow there was a parting of, you
[4:50]know, closeness and that you still end up thinking about that person throughout life and
[4:55]maybe sometimes are so consciously comparing yourself to that person.
[4:59]And yeah.
[5:00]Yeah.
[5:01]So how did you go from this whole experience happening to you to making this into a book?
[5:05]And a really great gripping book at that.
[5:08]How did I know you work at New York Magazine and you have a lot of magazine writing background.
[5:12]And what did you do with this story?
[5:14]How did you turn it into a great memoir?
[5:17]Well, thank you.
[5:18]But the story had a, you know, it had a very organic evolution over many, many years.
[5:24]I mean, I also want to point out it's been almost 20 years since she died and I worked
[5:29]on the book for I think close to nine years, you know, the paperback just came out last
[5:34]year and I had a new afterward in that and I don't want to give too much away.
[5:38]But the sort of unfolding court case is still going on.
[5:42]And so it's going to be in the news again and I'm doing more writing about it.
[5:45]But just linearly when she died in 2001, as I write about, I just had so many questions
[5:53]that I didn't know how to find answers to.
[5:55]And, you know, I had preconceived ideas about what might have happened to her considering
[5:59]the last time I saw her.
[6:00]I learned that she was working in the sex industry and doing drugs and dating older guys
[6:06]and actors who were flying her all over the world to visit them on set and she just
[6:10]seemed to have such a glamorous, fast-paced, very LA lifestyle that I didn't relate to
[6:17]and intimidated me and I had all these ideas around like who could have done it and how
[6:22]do I find out more?
[6:23]And unfortunately, there was very little information available to me.
[6:27]We had, I learned about it in our town newspaper in New Jersey because her family had
[6:33]already moved away to California during high school.
[6:36]So the kind of flow of information and answers to the questions that anyone would have
[6:42]kind of weren't around and I just sat for years around my feelings about that last weekend
[6:48]and how confusing it had been and I kind of go into more detail about either conversations
[6:53]we did or didn't have that weekend.
[6:54]What happened between us with going out in New York nightlife and guys and how I was comparing
[7:01]myself to her and maybe vice versa.
[7:03]I just knew that there was a lot of emotional, I felt like a lot of emotional truth to
[7:08]be mined with writing about what that weekend meant and then like I said as I started
[7:15]talking about it with other women, people were telling me their own stories about that
[7:20]they had an Ashley in their life too and what happened to her.
[7:22]So I knew that there was something universal there but I'm not an investigative journalist
[7:28]and I did sort of entertainment journalism throughout my 20s and worked at different magazines
[7:32]but I had never taken on something this kind of complex and hard-hitting and detailed
[7:38]but then I started at New York Magazine in 2008 and that also turned out to be another
[7:46]year of media falling apart.
[7:49]Everyone I knew was getting laid off, magazines were closing, it was announced that there
[7:53]was going to be layoffs at New York Magazine.
[7:55]I started freaking out and thinking about what could be a different path for me, maybe
[8:00]now is the time to really take on this book and also I have to kind of credit New York
[8:05]Magazine in a subtle way because just sort of being among these really brilliant journalists
[8:11]I felt like maybe I can pick something up from them and I could be a person to tell
[8:17]the story.
[8:18]So I started having little conversations with people around the magazine who had written
[8:22]books and asked for what they thought of the story or asked like would they refer me
[8:27]to their agent or would they look at this query letter that I had written and so baby steps
[8:32]from there and then I learned that there had been this arrest in LA and that there was
[8:36]going to be a real criminal trial and so obviously it was like okay this is the moment
[8:40]to do this whether I'm ready or not and so then I just started the process of sending
[8:44]out queries, finding an agent, starting to go on some reporting trips to LA and then
[8:49]very slowly about a year later I sold the book on proposal and then you know the sticking
[8:54]point was what I had pitched was that I'm going to be following this trial which is going
[8:58]to be happening soon because the guy was arrested in 2008 there was a preliminary hearing
[9:03]in 2010 but spoiler alert the trial still hasn't happened in you know and we're in
[9:09]the year 2019 so you know many years into my writing process I had to figure out a new way
[9:14]to shape the narrative because I realized I wasn't going to be able to wait for the trial
[9:18]because no one knew when it would be. I can't believe how long it takes to get some
[9:21]beyond trial when they have all this information and there's so much I mean all the stuff you
[9:26]documented from the preliminary hearing and writing that you went and recorded it's very unusual
[9:32]what's happening in this particular case and I think you know from my understanding has to do
[9:38]with you know so many moving parts have to line up to be able to put someone on trial for
[9:44]multiple victims who and then one of them is in another state and so there could even be another
[9:49]trial in Illinois after this but you know what's happened year after year is you know a prosecutor
[9:56]can be working on it for many years and then they have to take a leave.
[10:00]and then a new prosecutor comes on who's given a year or more to kind of get up to speed.
[10:04]And then a defense attorney leaves because this defendant is allowed to keep having as many
[10:11]court appointed defense attorneys as he wants. And so just year after year these sort of like
[10:16]personnel changes on different sides have pushed things back, judges leave, then there's like
[10:21]things as ridiculous as like the courtroom that you think it's going to be in suddenly is booked
[10:27]for months. And then I don't know somehow this can add up to like 10 years of delays.
[10:32]Yeah. And it's so great in the book. You sort of paint yourself as this like self-effacing court
[10:38]where like you make it so that it seems like you don't know what you're doing at all and you're
[10:42]like talking to the actual reporters next to you. Right. I mean that is definitely how I felt. And
[10:48]you know I write about this in the book is seen my first or second time showing up to watch one of
[10:54]of these hearings for the defendant. There were other media who are covering the case and this
[11:00]has gotten some media attention because it's a you know L.A. serial killer and all the victims are white
[11:06]women which as we know kind of gets more media interest. But the other point is that on the night
[11:13]of Ashley's murder she was supposed to be going on a date with Ashton Kutcher. And he was
[11:18]24 or 25 at the time. This was kind of before his before he really took off. But then when he did
[11:24]become more famous this story came up again and this case has been reported all these different
[11:29]ways is like Ashton Kutcher's tragedy and like will he testify. I mean I think he will be testifying
[11:36]and that's going to be a whole circus. And are you annoyed that the media has made this into
[11:40]his story when it's so much about your friend and her story and what happened and his part was so
[11:45]tiny? Yeah. I mean of course. And I think one of the things I wanted to explore in the book is
[11:52]that there are different ways to tell crime stories that aren't focused on the men. But
[11:58]most of the time that is what we're getting and you know the narrative is based around the male killer
[12:03]or in this case it's this male actor and what happened to him or sometimes it's you know you see
[12:09]stories like the what was that one on HBO with John Terturo almost any prestige crime drama. It's
[12:17]the detectives and the lawyers are the through line that we're getting instead of the female
[12:23]victims. And so I mean the Ashton Kutcher fiasco is just another version of how the story of women's
[12:28]deaths can you know get's pivoted to be about men. And you wrote a great article in the cut
[12:34]about that very recently which was really great. I mean you had such a strong opinion about how
[12:41]the crime shows you know are only about the criminals and he's really like sensationalizing them.
[12:47]It's sort of like we say at the dinner table like you can't give attention to the one who's
[12:51]like you should give more attention to the kid who's been hurt than the one who does it or else
[12:54]they like like thrive off that attention. And I like how you even you ended that article about
[12:59]bakers who are making cakes that are bad for you at least they know and that's sort of like what
[13:03]they're doing now. I'm probably mingling this maybe you could say a better bit of yeah I mean there
[13:09]I feel like you know we're always having a new moment of prestige crime TV. It seems like these
[13:15]podcasts and these shows and books are being released every week now and you know this month it's
[13:20]all about Ted Bundy because we have the Ted Bundy tapes documentary on Netflix as well as this
[13:26]Zac Efron dramatization of Ted Bundy and so all this attention around like let's eat this up with
[13:31]kind of elevating and glamorizing these men. But I know that there is a different way to tell
[13:36]these stories that is still powerful. Like I know that we are sucked in by crime for all different
[13:42]complicated reasons but I do think and this is what I try to do with my book. I think that there's
[13:48]a way to get at these feelings that we're having and the drive we have to consume these stories
[13:54]but make it more sensitive to the victims like and shift the attention around what happened to
[14:01]either the victims and the family stories or the media and just I know that there is a way to kind
[14:06]of tell the story that drives home the emotion of loss more than elevating these male killers
[14:11]over and over again and just being like wow the criminal mastermind this guy was I need to know
[14:16]more about him. I think it's just the fascination with something so different and so set yeah right
[14:21]it's like how can that happen it's like why we're attracted to car wrecks and all of that isn't it
[14:26]it's like a little bit like watching a disaster unfold. Yeah I mean I think the car wrecking
[14:32]is a good one but you know as I said in this piece I wrote for the cut today I actually have
[14:39]you know studied this serial killer for over 10 years now seeing him in person had interactions
[14:44]with people he knew and I recognize being drawn to him as holding answers but I know that he
[14:51]doesn't now after years and there's so much more interesting more meaningful stuff to explore
[14:57]about this case and any crime story than just let's get inside this killer's head.
[15:03]Yeah I just think it's missing the point and it's a it's a real missed opportunity around
[15:08]how we could convey the true sort of trauma and tragedy of loss. You also not to change
[15:15]the subject what you do a lot about the male gaze in this book. It took me back to like art history
[15:21]class. Yeah but actually you referred to her striking looks and her sort of self possession
[15:26]attractive. Yeah she was many times you wrote it was as if Ashley had taken that essential truth
[15:31]I woke up to attend that the male gaze was a given and stared squarely defiantly right back at it
[15:36]while I was still attempting to avoid eye contact for as long as possible and then later in the book
[15:41]you say in the years since my feelings had shifted the male gaze felt like power only up to a point
[15:46]it could just as easily be disempowering. So how do you feel about that now tell me tell me more
[15:51]about that? Yeah those are some complicated ideas. I think you know the first part looking at Ashley
[15:57]as a 19, 20, 21 year old she had great sexual confidence and magnetism. I mean the title
[16:05]the book is the hot one and I use that to mean a few different things but also just that
[16:09]that's who she was and especially it's also supposed to cut out the way that girls and women
[16:16]you know it always seems like they have to be held up in competition to each other or reference
[16:21]if you have two girls together once the hot one and once the not hot one or the smart one or the
[16:26]you know the sporty one there's always there can only be one and so somewhere along the line I
[16:31]think that became Ashley and I sort of want to explore the idea of how and when for girls those
[16:37]identities start to take hold and then how they affect your sense of self and also how you operate
[16:43]within the world and you know I was not sophisticated enough at age 20 to be able to have these
[16:50]conversations with her and it was only much later that I started to understand what that might
[16:56]have felt like and look like you know as I grew up perhaps I might have felt you know maybe I
[17:03]wasn't an active data I was kind of a maybe more of a typical college student which is starting
[17:08]to have my first few relationships and things not working out etc but then after years of dating
[17:14]probably I felt like maybe by maybe my early 30s when I was finishing up this book having much
[17:22]more experience with men I sort of had to taste an understanding of you know what sexual power
[17:29]can look and feel like in some ways that's when I felt like I was understanding what it was when
[17:33]I was in my 30s but she may be understood it much younger and it's a burden and it can be a
[17:39]a dangerous thing in a way and it doesn't necessarily mean that you are fulfilled just because you
[17:44]recognize that guys are going to be attracted to you and want to sleep with you immediately
[17:48]you know do you feel that having a friend like Ashley do you feel like that's something that you
[17:52]carry with you like you in comparison to someone else like even when that other person goes away
[17:58]do you feel like you carry sort of the insecurity that the contrast do you know I'm trying to say
[18:03]yeah like does that linger or then do you get another friend as you're next time around and now
[18:08]that's friendship you're like the superstar one or you're like amazing or you have these great
[18:13]eyes or whatever and then you yeah I mean that's something that I also write about in the book
[18:18]that these labels are so arbitrary you have two girls together and once the hot one in that group
[18:23]and then later on in life you could be the hot one in someone else's group and so I guess now you
[18:30]know with the with the hindsight of many many years I recognize kind of how to pay attention to those
[18:35]things a little better and when you're a woman recognizing what might be triggering to you about
[18:41]different dynamics that are going on these are clearly things I didn't know how to put my finger on
[18:46]when I was 20 and last thing Ashley I just knew that being around her made me feel bad about myself
[18:52]and do you think it is something is it to like an advanced thought or do you think that we can
[18:56]try to teach like I have two daughters is there it do you think that it's something you can say like
[19:02]you might feel there right this group but wait till you get to your next school right it's very
[19:06]complicated I have a daughter now too and I think about how to express these ideas I mean I really
[19:14]have no idea I just hope that what I would like to share more with my daughter I think which
[19:19]wasn't which I didn't quite have these conversations with my mom about is just that I don't know
[19:26]these are real complicated issues and you know we tell girls you can be anything you want but
[19:33]yet but there's always a butt to that and I don't think that my mom ever really clearly
[19:39]explained the butt of you know telling girls they can be anything and these other forces that
[19:45]are going to you know be at play and that's kind of what I those are some of the ideas that I
[19:51]was playing with in the prologue of my book which was Ashley and I as kids used to take all these
[19:58]pictures of each other all the time we had the
[20:00]cheap cameras and my parents would develop the film every week. And one night we decided to
[20:06]pretend to be Playboy models and we had pictures of each other as, you know, top lists and swinging
[20:11]on bars and it was very, it was proto-arotic. You know, it was like we were nine years old and
[20:17]there wasn't exactly sexual energy. It was just sort of exploration. We didn't know what was
[20:21]happening. It was girlhood. However, two weeks later when my parents brought the photos back to me,
[20:28]they hadn't looked at them but they had been told by the photo delivery person, we don't
[20:33]develop smut. And suddenly my parents were like, what's on this film? We are ashamed, etc. What's
[20:39]happening? And that right there tells you that, you know, a girl can go through it. Girls are going
[20:46]throughout life kind of having their own experiences and playing, but other people can apply meaning
[20:52]to what you are and what you're doing that will get in the way of, you know, where you're trying to go.
[20:58]I'm saying this in a very abstract way. I guess I get it. And so that was kind of the beginning
[21:02]of my understanding of, oh, there's a lot more play here to being a girl. You can't just,
[21:08]you can dress however you want. However, judgements that people are going to make at you or how
[21:12]you might be perceived or what, etc. You can't control and you will have to live with in all
[21:18]different ways, you know, and that's unfortunate. So are you planning on going to the whole trial?
[21:23]Like, are you going to go out? Is it going to be an LA? Yeah.
[21:26]It's an LA and it's, you know, as of very recently, there was a hearing just two days ago,
[21:32]where they have set a date to begin March 18th, which is really amazing, but also feels like,
[21:38]well, we'll see. We'll see if it really gets started. I won't believe that this is going to start
[21:42]until it's sitting in the seat. So I do hope to be able to go to at least some of it. It's going to
[21:48]be a real, emotionally intense thing to do. It's also going to be really long. I don't,
[21:54]there's no way I can cover the entire thing. It could be, you know, over three, three, four months.
[21:58]But hope to get out there for some of it. Hopefully, do some more writing about it.
[22:03]And like the part two, book part two, something like that. I don't like that. I'm not sure.
[22:08]Do you have any other books that you're itching to write at this point? Or do you feel like that
[22:12]just was exactly what you needed to get out? I don't know. I mean, I am certainly not a
[22:17]fast writer. I've worked on this, I worked on this project for almost 10 years. So it's,
[22:22]I'm sort of like, well, you know, if a book is going to take me 10 to 20 years apiece,
[22:27]you know, who knows? Obviously I have to, if I'm going to keep doing this, I've got to
[22:33]contract that process a little bit more. So we'll see at the moment, I feel like there's still
[22:38]a little bit more to see through with this story. Yeah. And I'm kind of only just coming up
[22:44]rare around, you know, the whole long process of writing the book in isolation and then
[22:50]letting it out and seeing the feedback and what comes back to you and, you know, how your
[22:55]perspective's continued to evolve after the book is out in the world. Have you had any,
[22:59]did you have any surprising reactions to it once it came out? You know, all sorts of things. I had
[23:05]people contacting me saying, you know, certainly people saying I had a friend like this,
[23:11]and this is helping me remember or honor my friend. Other people who have had stories of
[23:18]loss or, you know, were relatives of victim of a crime that maybe wouldn't have very much
[23:24]in common with what happened to Ashley have reached out and said, this book has really given me
[23:30]some new ways to think about this grief right now. And that's been very meaningful.
[23:36]I've also heard from other people who knew Ashley who I didn't know during the time of my
[23:41]reporting, friends of hers from California or summer program. I recently heard from someone who
[23:47]grew up with the alleged killer. So, you know, you never know who's going to, who's going to find
[23:53]these things and how we'll click with them. Do you feel like gave you some sort of personal closure
[23:57]to have done it? Well, you know, as I write about in the book, I'm still of mixed, mixed mind about
[24:06]what closure is. I don't think that I don't really think closure is a real thing in a way.
[24:12]I think that we can get to a point where we're not super emotionally triggered by loss on a daily
[24:17]basis, but yet you're still going to think about this person and loss and feel moved by it and
[24:24]feel sadness. And, you know, I still have all of that. And so I don't think this will ever be
[24:30]fully over. And as anyone knows who has lost someone, you know, you have, there's so many
[24:36]different milestones. I know you also interviewed the author of the modern loss anthology.
[24:42]They love that side. And, you know, they talk about these things a lot. You have the loss and
[24:46]then the first year. And then your feelings about loss continue to evolve as you go on in life.
[24:53]And so, you know, now I have a child. And that is a whole new perspective on looking, you know,
[24:59]on what that means to lose a child. Or another thing that's interesting is that the older I get,
[25:05]the younger 22 is and feels that she only got to live until. And that feels incredibly,
[25:14]you know, there's a lot of depth just even in that idea. The older I get, the younger 22 feels,
[25:18]the more of more outrageous it feels that that was the entirety of Ashley's life.
[25:24]And my kids are, my older kids are on the 11 and a half. But the other day I was like,
[25:29]wow, at some point they'll get as old as like my friend Stacey was when she'd that like,
[25:33]all of a sudden I'll have kids who are hurt. And it's crazy to think about. But anyway,
[25:37]although she wasn't who I was referencing earlier. Anyway, do you have any advice to aspiring
[25:43]authors out there? You must. Sure. I mean, one thing that I think is often said, but I do feel
[25:50]is a real true statement. Somehow you have to find the story that only you can write. And
[25:58]that felt very, very true for this book and me how, so that now I'm kind of in a place where
[26:03]like, I don't know if there even is another story that it is as individual as this one for me.
[26:09]But to other writers, you really need that. And another thing that was very helpful is just
[26:15]starting to talk about not being shy about talking about either your work in progress or what
[26:20]you're thinking of doing because it helps a lot to be able to hear and see how people are responding
[26:27]to the story you're telling. And it also helps to crystallize your own thought process when you
[26:33]have to tell someone what your book is about. I mean, this is still a thing that I probably only
[26:37]got down like a few weeks before my book came out, even though I had been working on it for 10
[26:43]years, I could not concisely say what it was about. So try to practice that and then you have
[26:49]something to be able to quickly sum up what it is you're doing and pay attention to,
[26:56]you know, I wouldn't necessarily say like pay attention to literary trends, but pay attention
[27:01]to what the ideas are that are kind of getting a lot of discussion in the in culture,
[27:08]you know, whether it's other books or whether it's politics. But I think it always helps to
[27:14]try to speak to what's happening in the moment. Totally. Awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you so much.
[27:21]Thank you for having me. I really, I love what you're doing and I think it's, you know,
[27:25]authors are lucky to have someone like you in the world that is really excited about books.
[27:30]Well, thanks for joining me. I love books. I like it. That's great. Thanks.
[27:34]Today's episode was sponsored by cereal box. S-E-R-I-L-B-O-X dot com cereal box dot com delivering
[27:42]addictive book content in short listen or read installments. Thanks to Ryan and Steve at
[27:46]texture sound for the audio editing and mixing. Thanks for listening to momstone have time to read books.