Mary Roach has created a nonfiction writing lane all her own, and in her 8th book, she embarks on a world-wide tour of the scientific quest to replace pretty much every part of the human body. Her book, Replaceable You⁠, came out this month--April 2026--and it's already a bestseller. While she was visiting Lawrence, Kansas, on a trip sponsored by the Lawrence Public Library, Mary sat down with Sonja and Vanessa for an interview about her new book, her writing journey, and Mary shares an exclusive scoop on her plans for her next project!

Mary recounts some of her research and travel adventures from writing Replaceable You. Important questions are answered: Should you spontaneously volunteer your body for scientific experimentation? How do you cold call someone about spending a night in their iron lung? Where should you take a urologist to dinner?

IWAW also explores how Mary Roach became, well, MARY ROACH. For example, if you assumed Mary was a STEM major, you’d be wrong. What did determine her academic course? How did she get into writing? What writers did she love? How does she know what’s funny enough to make it into a “Mary Roach” book?

Along the way, Sonja segues via a blind lemon, Vanessa auditions to be Mary's audiobook laugh track, and Mary finds out there are way fewer than 6 degrees of separation between herself and Sonja.

REFERENCES:

Here is a link to the 1992 Susan Orlean story in the New Yorker that Mary mentions.

If you keep losing, what if the game is to blame? If women keep falling, could it be that society itself is at fault? That, in itself, is a subversive question in 2026--but even more so in late 19th century England. In his 1891 novel, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy makes it abundantly clear that religion and society’s complete absorption of religious ideas of virginity is 100% to blame.

Sonja and Vanessa give you a lively plot summary of this 400+ page novel. Therefore, SPOILERS ahoy! During the plot and after, enjoy some insightful analysis.

After half a dozen examples of “fallen women” novels this season, how does Tess of the D’Urbervilles put an original spin on the question of the fallen woman? Why was this novel censored? Is it a feminist text? In Hardy’s estimation, is the Christian god all that different from the Greek gods who enjoyed playing with human lives? Within this system of assumptions about men and (especially) about women, can a good man be good? Does a “pure” woman stand a chance? And how do impaled horses, dripping udders, and ripe strawberries fit into all this?

Along the way, Sonja finds a way to–again–bring up Heated Rivalry, and Vanessa makes a film pitch for Emerald Fennell.

REFERENCES:

Michael Millgate’s biography of Thomas Hardy was our source for life information on Hardy, but keep in mind, there are many, many takes on Hardy’s life. See this partial list of Thomas Hardy biographies.

The mention to “Mina Harker” is to the main female character in Bram Stoker’s Dracula which we covered in S4E5.

Despite not originally planning this short story for our “Fallen Women” season, in a weird way, it may fit…Spoilers, ahoy!

If you have not read Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story, “The Lottery,” go treat yourself to a very special reading experience. It will take you just a few minutes, and it’s one of the greatest short stories EVER.

Then, join Sonja and Vanessa to learn the origins of this legendary story. Was it based on real events? What did contemporary readers make of it? Why did it puzzle critics? Does the fact that a woman wrote it matter? What does this brief piece reveal about Jackson’s larger views on humanity? Nearly 80 years later, is it still relevant today? Could it be said that we, too, conduct our own deadly “lotteries”?

Along the way, Sonja reveals her surprising knowledge of mid-twentieth century game shows, and Vanessa, not-so-surprisingly, finds another opportunity to diss Papa Hemingway.

REFERENCES:

Again, we owe a debt of gratitude to Ruth Franklin biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life. If you are a Jackson fan, you just have to go get a copy of this thoroughly researched, insightfully-written study of a complicated woman living in a challenging time for women in American history and literature. We promise that you’ll find it tremendously rewarding.

There will be SPOILERS, so if you’ve gotten this far in life without hearing about the ending to this novel o' novels, don’t push your luck further: go block off a month to read it, and then hit play!

Sonja and Vanessa are thrilled to welcome their dear friend, Rev. Heather Coates, who fell in love with Russian literature, and was eager (willing?) to re-read Tolstoy’s 1878 (in full book form) novel about a love affair that spans the hundreds of miles between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Heather offers some tips on how to navigate the names in Russian novels, and Sonja offers a little bio of Tolstoy. In our lively discussion, we ask if this is the best novel ever written–as many have said it is. Can you have this novel without the railway? Is it a novel about a person or a culture? Can Tolstoy love Anna and kill her at the same time? Should this novel even be named after Anna? And what does her slice of the story add to the “fallen woman” narrative? Should you read this novel? And is it possible to read without vodka breaks?

Along the way, Heather finds some mushrooms for Sonja, Sonja reveals she’s a romantic after all, and Vanessa finds a way to link a character to Jay Gastby–again.

REFERENCES:

If you are interested in Tolstoy taking down Shakespeare, here is a link to "Tolstoy on Shakespeare: A Critical Essay on Shakespeare" –emphasis on the word “critical”. It was published in 1906, four years before Tolstoy dies, so well into his super religious/cranky old man phase, which explains a lot.

Also, please know that we are always thinking about how a writer’s biography intersects with their work, and Tolstoy is no exception. While we give a brief overview of Tolstoy here, we are aware that he and his wife, Sophia Tolstaya, was a writer and artist in her own right, and by all accounts, absolutely essential to Tolstoy’s success as a writer (and, perhaps, day-to-day survival as a human). It is ironic that a man who could “write” women so well was terrible at treating his own wife well. It is one of the famous awful marriages in literature. Just search Tolstoy+Sophia+marriage, and loads of articles will come up. Also, if you are interested in hearing from Sophia herself, she was a life-long diarist, and there are translations of her diaries and a full biography available in English.

Spoiler alert!!! Many literary-curious readers have Flaubert’s 1857 debut novel, Madame Bovary, in their TBR stack. If that’s you, circle back to us after you’ve read this landmark of realism.

This episode offers a concise Flaubert biography, a sense of why this novel is considered important in the context of literary history, and whether or not you might want to read it. In terms of the fallen-woman narrative, we explore the role fantasy plays in women’s societal downfall. Is being a member of a lending library a precursor to disaster? Or does society fail women by educating them and then trapping them in mundane lives as wives and mothers? Is Emma Bovary a victim? Or is Emma Bovary a woman with agency who recklessly discards a perfectly wholesome life with a devoted husband, respectability, financial security, and a lovely, healthy child? In pursuing these questions, Flaubert claims to be objective…but can he be?

Along the way, Sonja shares TMI about truffles, and Vanessa doubts the wisdom of Dr. Bovary’s ride-with-a-hottie-in-the-woods remedy for curing a nervous wife.

Sonja and Vanessa have never gone to the movies together. They made their debut screening Maggie Gyllenhaal’s THE BRIDE! (2026). This review does contain SPOILERS, so go see the film first. We discuss this visually stunning movie that is kinda punk, kinda comic book, kinda Bonnie & Clyde, kinda 1930’s musical, kinda Natural Born Killers, kinda Mel Brooks, kinda The Purple Rose of Cairo, kinda…well, you get the idea. It is a veritable movie feast. Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale set out on a bold, life and death adventure, and we have lots of thoughts about it, so join us for an intelligent and empathetic assessment of Gyllenhaal’s second directorial effort.

Along the way, Sonja expands her fantasies, and Vanessa closes her eyes.

What’s it like to live as a fallen woman in a small town? We’ll fill you in, so SPOILERS AHOY! Hester Prynne, protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, is 100% a fallen woman, and that exact term comes up in the novel. If you had to read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter in high school (and if you live in the United States, you probably couldn’t escape it), remember that it’s good to face your fears. Let’s hold hands and be brave and return to Salem, Puritans, and meteors writing capital A’s in the sky. Why are the meteors doing this? Naturally, Nature echoes the embroidered “A” that Hester famously wears as a punishment for having a child out of wedlock.

In this lively discussion, Sonja and Vanessa will explore what dimension Hawthorne’s telling of Hester’s life adds to the fallen woman narrative. Is it in any way a feminist story? What do the novel and the historical record suggest about Hawthorne’s own feelings about women? Should you read the novel? When you do, should you skip over “The Custom House,” which is the introduction to the novel, or is it worth reading? And if you read this book under duress back in high school…is it worth a second read? And do we–in 2026–still shame women and give them the equivalent of a “scarlet letter”?

Along the way, Sonja expresses distaste for the word “bosom” and then goes on to say it repeatedly, and Vanessa can’t help wondering how energetic the right Reverend Aruthur Dimmesdale is in bed.

REFERENCES:

Here is a link to Nina Baym's article on Hawthorne's Feminism on JSTOR. If you make a free membership, we’re pretty sure you can read it online for free.

Here is a link to an appreciation of Nina Baym from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, on the occasion of her passing in 2018. It helps one appreciate how much she contributed to our appreciation of women’s literature. One critic in the article says, “She changed the way a generation of scholars of American literature came to understand 19th-century women’s writing.” No small accomplishment!

This review has something for everyone. If you hated it, we got you. If you loved it, we got you. Sonja and Vanessa don’t agree on everything, and this is one of those things. Settle in and cheer for your side, and then close it out with a hug and gratitude for conversations in which we can say what we truly feel, not agree, and yet not go to war over it.

Along the way, Sonja asks for a dehumidifier, and Vanessa makes some good historical points about aspic.