Guest Lecture: Isabel Banta

When you fall in love with a book you often hope the author is as cool and smart as the words they meticulously strung together on the page. Setting her lime green Baggu under the mosaiced tables outside of Villager Coffee in Brooklyn, Isabel Banta is every bit as exciting and self-possessed as her debut novel Honey, which hit shelves in June this year. 

Immediately it’s like grabbing coffee with a friend. Banta, laughing over a caramel latte, mentions that she keeps seeing posts on her feed that say Travis Kelce is looking sad - “I was like, why is he sad?” - before jumping into a conversation about the latest Sally Rooney, Intermezzo, about to hit shelves. She was just making up trivia questions for a Rooney release party at Books Are Magic, where she is the Marketing and Events Coordinator. Her interest in pop culture is on full display, likely the reason Honey rings so true. Sitting outside on one of the first cool days of the season, we got to ask Isabel all of our burning Honey questions and learn a little more about her take on the current climate of celebrity culture. 

Minor spoilers ahead, so pick up the book if you haven’t yet! 

LG: What was the inspiration behind Honey, why did you want to spend time in this world specifically?

IB: It was really random. I feel like I wanted to write a coming of age girlhood [story] but I kind of wanted a vehicle. Like, I wanted a bigger frame for it. I was a child actress when I was younger, and so I was like interesting, maybe something with that. Like a famous person would be more interesting, and I could research it. And then…I was like, the period to come of age and discover your sexuality would have been this [the 90s/early 2000s]. It kind of came to be in that order I would say. 

LG: It felt so well researched…especially with the auditions with the girl group and stuff, and like ‘okay, are they going to replace this person or not?’ and you’re always just constantly on trial or something. 

IB: See my agent dropped me when I got braces. Or I think my mom was like, ‘you have braces we need to stop.’ So anyways, that was definitely the inspiration. But no, I was never a singer. But I was like this would be the most interesting time period and I like the aesthetics of the time period, and I felt like I wanted that in terms of just kind of visualizing the world, and I feel like that era is very tangible almost. 

LG: That leads perfectly into our next question of, I mean, we all grew up in the time period of these 90s pop-stars, so I wonder what the research process was like or were there things specifically you were drawing on that you wanted to look at now from an adult point of view?

IB: Yeah, I did so much research for it. And what’s so funny is I finished the book before the Britney [Spears] memoir came out so I didn’t have access to that, but I read Jessica Simpson’s and I read a lot about the music industry at the time. Oh, I read Lance Bass’s memoir. 

LG: I didn’t even know he had one.

IB: Yeah he has a memoir called Out of Sync.

LG: Wait, amazing.

IB: So I read a lot of stuff about the music production at the time because I wanted the production aspect to feel realistic, which really was just kind of these hitmakers churning out these very catchy, bubblegum pop songs. I wanted that to be accurate, I wanted to get the industry right. In terms of my research, I was also very careful because I didn’t want Amber to be like a specific pop star. I really wanted her to be just a person first and foremost. 

LG: We just thought the lyrics [that Banta wrote] were so perfect and everything felt so true to the time period, so like, clearly the research paid off. Have you ever written lyrics before? Or do you write poetry?

IB: No. I almost didn’t have any pressure because the lyrics were just so, like most of these songs were not written by people who spoke English as a first language, a lot of the lyrics of the early Backstreet Boys, and N’Sync, and Britney don’t really make a lot of sense. So it almost gave me freedom to just kind of make these ridiculous songs that I felt like would be catchy and fun.

LG: Well even in the story that was kind of the point, like these songs were just handed to [Amber] and she’s just kind of going along with it until she finds her own voice and until the songs actually mean something to her. 

IB: So if anyone’s like, “these lyrics are bad,” I’m like, yes. I know. 

LG: Like that’s the point. 

IB: Literally. But also, I think they’re fun, like I would listen to that.

LG: We’re watching Amber at the beginning, and she’s softer, she’s not really advocating for herself, she’s not really aware that she can yet, but then obviously she later becomes someone who knows who she is and she starts to voice what she wants to do. I’m just curious from an author’s perspective, was it difficult to hold her back in the beginning when you knew where she would go?

IB: I love this question. I knew at the beginning when I was writing her that she was doing some dumb things, and I knew that she had to. Every time I wanted to make her do the right thing and almost steer her like some God figure, and I was like no, she’s a person. I knew that as a character she is… grasping for love in all these different directions and therefore kind of wouldn’t see herself as somebody who can, you know, ask for things or kind of…understand her sexuality in a way that’s healthy. I knew all that about her so I had to definitely hold back from making her perfect because she’s not. And I think especially for the opening tour…she’s like 18 or 19…I don’t know. When I was a freshman in college I was like “who’s this idiotic man I’m obsessed with today,” you know? And that’s kind of who I was and if you zoomed in and made a novel of that, I wouldn’t be a very likable character, so I kind of had to do that for her too. But it was difficult. And I knew what her arc would be, I knew she would kind of find out a lot of things about herself, but yeah, I think it’s hard to hold nuance in characters. I struggled a lot, I was like, “Amber why are you doing this! I love you!”

LG: I kind of loved Amber’s relationship with Sonny. 

IB: Yeah!

LG: A lot of celebrities' closest relationships can be just based off of business. Sonny sometimes treats Amber like a commodity but she kind of comes to reconcile this and I feel like she kind of becomes content with the role he’s going to play in her life. I’m curious if you found yourself at all trying to balance Sonny’s motivations with Amber’s growing appreciation for him? Or if you have any thoughts about their relationship because it’s a bit layered.

IB: Yeah. 

LG: Because they care for each other but it’s all about business as well.

IB: I think again, like with Amber’s business relationships, as a lot of these pop stars at the time had parents in their business team. Britney Spears being like a major example of that. I think Jessica Simpson’s dad was also her manager at one point and, for Amber, to me she felt like someone who had this void of family instead of this overbearing family. For Amber she doesn’t really have a dad in her life, and her mom is very unsupportive of her. So Sonny, to me, is this kind of quasi-father figure in this strange way, stepping into that void. But I do think he loves her in the only way he knows how, which is not maybe the way he should. But I think he sees her and her sexuality as benefiting her…and he can’t really see beyond that…That’s the kind of way I always thought about him like, “okay this move in your career is good for you as a person” and often those two things are not joined. So that’s how I thought about him constantly. 

LG: I know, I was reading this interview the other day with Billie Eilish where she was talking about at her birthday party, where she looked around and realized everyone there was on her payroll. Just hard to reconcile with. Of course you love and care about these people, but if they didn’t work for you would they be here or would they care at all?

IB: Yeah, and I feel like Sonny wouldn’t hang out with Amber otherwise if he wasn’t like, this is my check. 

LG: A teen girl. I hope not, haha. 

IB: I do feel like it’s interesting too because with a lot of these child stars, whether it’s their parents or their managers or their agents, they’re fully surrounded by adults. It’s really eerie and weird. It’s very strange. I think that’s how it was…you’re like fifteen or sixteen but all your friends are like…thirty.

LG: I was thinking about this the other day, like about the difference between a Jeanette McCurdy and an Ariana Grande. I think a lot of it is if your family is relying on you, you’re the breadwinner for your family, that creates a situation like Jeanette McCurdy where like she has to work. And Britney Spears. Whereas an Ariana Grande, her family was already well off, if she doesn’t do this their family is still going to be fine. So that creates a divide.

IB: At twelve years old.

LG: Yeah you can’t quit. It’s interesting to think about the way class adds into that too.

IB: I was thinking about that too where Amber throughout the book is like, “once I buy my mom a house she will love me.” It’s like, that is so sad. That was sad to me as I was writing it. 

LG: Well obviously we want to ask you about Amber and Gwen’s friendship. Everyone is pitting them against each other, especially when the whole thing with Wes goes down, but it kind of felt like Amber and Gwen never really thought of each other that way. What kind of characteristics about them or about female friendship do you think fosters that friendship that's devoid of competition?

IB: I feel like with them, literally nobody else in the world can understand what they’re going through apart from each other. I feel like they almost remind me of these college roommates who are forced to room together when they’re eighteen and are very different, and then somehow have some experience that only they two went through and no one else can understand them. So I think that’s why they’re friends because they see each other’s ambition and are like, I respect that. I think if you’re friends with somebody - I don’t mean this in a bad way, I mean this in a positive way - I think you are envious of them in some way because you respect them and you think they’re cool and you like, think they’re smart and you have some aspect of them that draws you to them. For Gwen and Amber I think, Amber respects Gwen’s confidence and respects that Gwen kind of goes for what she wants, and I think Gwen respects Amber’s vulnerability and ability to be more open and kind of fail. So I see that foil in them. So I thought it would be way more interesting if they were like, I admire you and I am jealous of you, and I respect you, and I think that’s way more realistic especially for my friendships. I just don’t think a lot of women actually want to be in competition with each other in the day to day. When I admire somebody and think they’re so cool I’m like, “I wish we could be friends.” I think that’s more realistic. 

LG: Right.

IB: I don’t think it’s like, “ugh! She’s so cool I want to shit talk her.”

LG: Like ruin her life.

IB: Yeah, I think that’s just made up. So I think it’s just inspired by my friendships and I love [Amber and Gwen]. I think they probably couldn’t have done anything without each other. Gwen’s my favorite character. I love her.

LG: So this whole syllabus is centered around fame. I feel like we’re now living in this time where social media is huge and everyone can have an opinion on everything all of the time, but we’re also in this spot where it feels like we’re trying to give a lot of pop stars from the 90s this redemption arc. I wonder what your thoughts are on if this is getting better or worse. Do you think that things are maybe progressing forward and getting better and we’ll have less apologies to make?

IB: I was watching some documentary on how social media has given celebrities kind of more access and more personal access to fans. Which I think is probably a good thing because they’re able to directly talk about things they care about. And I think [in the 1990s/2000s] everything was so flattened. You would not be talking to anyone directly, it would be filtered through like a newspaper or like a tabloid. There was no way for somebody like Amber to be like “Hey everybody! Here’s what I actually think about this and here’s my statement.” It would have been way more curated and hard to have access. But I also feel like social media is kind of a nightmare in a sense that it’s invasive and constant and people can just pick up a phone and film you when you’re out to dinner. So, I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about this. I don’t know. It’s more democratized. 

LG: Yeah.

IB: Every part of researching this book I was just like, I do not want to be famous, this sounds horrible. And I think that would be my thesis. I think people who are famous are really…to put themselves out there in that way is really brave and to make art and like to constantly be shaped by people’s opinions of you. I think that’s really brave and hard and difficult. 

LG: Do you think there is a celebrity who is due a redemption arc?

IB: This question is good because I was thinking about how maybe in like one to two years we’ll reexamine the Disney Channel girls. Like, Vanessa Hudgens, that photo leak. The way Miley [Cyrus] was treated. I feel like that’ll be next if it’s not already happening. 

LG: I literally remember that like it was yesterday. Seeing those pictures and being like twelve. 

IB: I feel like what’s so interesting is like, [the Disney girls] kind of came after the pop stars like Britney and Christina [Aguilera] and it was like the squeaky clean purity ring image. So definitely them, I think about them a lot. 

While Banta may not be looking for Amber Young level fame, she certainly is deserving of all of the flowers for Honey. We are so excited to have her as our inaugural Lit Girl and cannot wait to see what she writes next.