Comedy fans know Anna Konkle from her show “Pen15,” which saw the actress play a 13-year-old version of herself opposite fellow adult co-creator Maya Erskine and a bunch of real-life pre-teens.
However, the Emmy-nominated writer is now going even further back in time for her new coming-of-age memoir, “The Sane One,” as she examines her complicated relationship with her father — “including their estrangement and reconciliation before his untimely death,” per the logline.
“I remember during ‘Pen’ there was the repeated question: ‘How close to reality was the ‘Pen15′ version of my parents?’ Being autobiographical in their fighting. And I would always say, ‘It’s them, but it’s the tip of the iceberg,’” Konkle told TheWrap. “I had that knowledge throughout ‘Pen’ that there were so many more layers to the complexity of our story, to them as characters. That real dark underbelly interested me, but there wasn’t room to do that in ‘Pen’ and feel totally appropriate.”
“By the time I pitched the book and wrote some chapters, we were almost done with ‘Pen.’ Tonally, there’s intersection. There’s laugh-out-loud comedy, genuinely, and absurdity and the weirdness of human beings; how we’re all posing,” she continued. “But the rawness and brutality that’s in there was just going to be more conducive to a book, and I didn’t want to shy away from it. In book form, I would be allowed to be a little bit more experimental.”
And while Konkle’s father is no longer here to give his stamp of approval, she was open to notes from other members of their family.
“I sent it to just about everybody who I still have a relationship with, the
chapters they’re in, just to give an opportunity if they have a different memory and to make sure they feel comfortable being included. For the most part, people were very, very supportive,” the author shared. “My mom definitely struggled at times, with my dad not being here, of being like, ‘OK, this is a lot of information from him that he’s not here to approve.’ But he did say, before he passed, ‘Write it all,’ which was really kind. And my mom, too. I know she’s not looking forward to it in all the ways, but she’s like, ‘This is your art and this is your memory, and hopefully some other people feel less alone.’”
Plus, Konkle is now a mother herself, welcoming daughter Essie into the world in early 2021 with partner Alex Anfanger.
“It made it really scary to finish it, in some ways. I pitched it when I was pregnant, and then after I had her, I had a feeling of frustration with myself, of, ‘Why do I want to keep going back? What is this obsession?‘” she explained. “Like, how sane are you if you’re just cycling about the past all the time and living in it? I think when she was born, there was a feeling of, let me just start a new family, let me just do it a little bit better … it’s certainly humbling. My high horse of how I would do it differently isn’t quite so high.”
“I don’t know if this sounds sadistic, but it kind of perfectly complemented what I’m interested in writing about, which is the absurd, slow-burn minutia of the everyday. That sad-and-funny-at-the-same-time and just trying to survive it,” Konkle concluded. “There were a lot of highs and joys and funny things that I naturally wanted to talk about, but there was also shame. I felt like, ‘OK, if I talk about this out loud, I’m going to be alone.’ People are going to be like, ‘Whoa, you’re weird.’ But ‘Pen’ really gave me the strength to want to talk about those things. I want to be the kind of person that keeps talking about the things and writing about the things that make me feel like a freak, and maybe people will keep being like, ‘That’s me, too’ — until they don’t, and that’s fine; I’m on an island. That will be my mission statement, that’s who I want to be as an artist.”
“The Sane One” is now available for purchase wherever you get your books. “Pen15” is available to stream on Hulu.
