‘Sex/Life’ series creator sets story in town
GREENWICH — When Stacy Rukeyser read “44 Chapters About 4 Men,” she said she connected “very personally” with the story: A wife and mother living in the suburbs, who seemingly has it all, finds herself yearning for her glamorous, wild-child, single days.
And when she created a miniseries based on the
book, Rukeyser, who has been a television writer for two decades, set the story in her hometown of Greenwich.
“For me, it’s a bit of fun,” Rukeyser told Hearst Media Connecticut. “It was fun for me to set it in the actual (place) in which I grew up, which was beautiful and green, and everything you could dream of as a little girl.”
“And in many ways, for me, Greenwich is the ideal,” she said. “The miles of woods and grassy lawns and old stone walls and the beautiful houses and the beautiful people. Greenwich Avenue is really, in many ways, the epitome of having it all.”
The steamy streaming show, called “Sex/Life,” was an immediate hit when it debuted June 25 on Netflix.
“I was really excited to make a show that says it’s OK to want to be everything, to be a devoted wife, and a loving mother, and a ravenous sex goddess all at the same time,” said Rukeyser, a Parkway School and Greenwich Academy graduate.
“And it’s OK to admit that we have these desires, that we’ve had sex, that we want to have more of it, and that this is a part of ourselves that deserves to be celebrated, and tended to by our partners,” added Rukeyser, who created and “ran” the show, which was inspired by BB Easton’s romance memoir.
Easton started writing in August 2013, while she was on maternity leave, taking care of her 3-year-old son and her 4-monthold baby and nursing around the clock.
“I was just in what I call the trenches of motherhood and adulthood in general, where your life is just not real fun,” she said.
To keep herself awake at night while she nursed the baby, Easton began reading romance novels on her phone. After reading a dozen or so, she realized she had previously dated men who were similar to the characters in the books.
“I dated the motorcycle guy, the tattoo artist guy, the marine,” she said. “I could write these stories without even making anything up. So that’s what I started doing.”
Easton said she became obsessed with writing about her adventures, as a funky teenager and college girl, who dated bad boys.
But one day, when a sleep-deprived Easton ran upstairs to feed the baby, she said she left her laptop journal out in the open, and her husband found it. As she was coming back downstairs, Easton said she heard him close the laptop.
“My husband was sitting on the couch, guiltily, and I was like ‘OK, well I’m getting divorced,”’ she said. “I don’t know what he read, but I know it wasn’t good.”
But to her surprise, her husband came home from work the next day and said he had hired a babysitter. He told Easton to get dressed up so they could go out and have fun.
“It was like the greatest thing that ever happened. And it turned it into a book. And now it was the inspiration for a show on Netflix. It’s so insane,” Easton said.
Art imitates life
There were a few tweaks in the story for the Netflix version. In reality, Easton wrote the book from Atlanta, where she lives. However, the show is centered in a fictionalized Greenwich and New York City, but it was filmed in Canada.
When the husband in “Sex/Life” discovers the journal, their marriage is strained and drama ensures. However, in real life, Easton said her bond with her husband became stronger after he found her journal.
Easton said she finished the draft of her book in about a year, then spent another year editing it. She spent another year searching for an agent, while taking community college classes on publishing and editing. On Feb. 2, 2016, she self-published “44 Chapters About 4 Men,” capping a nearly threeyear-process, she said.
J. Miles Dale, who won an Academy Award for producing “The Shape of Water,” enjoyed Easton’s book and took the idea to Netflix. Soon after, Rukeyser joined the team as showrunner.
“It’s absolutely surreal,” Easton said of the show. “They picked this story that was very personal and made it this slick, sexy, dramatic, incredible, Hollywood-ized blockbuster. My husband and I were sitting on the couch watching it together in our sweatpants ... just living our very suburban life, and watching Mike Vogel (the actor who plays the husband) and Sarah Shashi (the actress who plays the wife), reenacting things that we’ve done, and nothing prepares you for that.
“It’s the craziest experience,” she said. “We’re tickled. We’re having the best time.”
Growing up in Greenwich
When Rukeyser was growing up, she recalled a culture of men taking the train into New York City for work and the women staying home to take care of their kids. For some women, that is the perfect dream come true, she said.
“But for other women, they are left feeling like something is missing, feeling like they need something different, and longing for their former self,” Rukeyser said. “And what I wanted to explore with the show is, ‘What is life, when you do seemingly have it all ... but then you start to question, is this my ideal?”’
When Easton learned the show would take place in a fictionalized Greenwich, she said it gave her goosebumps. Her father, who had died just months before, was from Greenwich, she said.
She said she also learned that one of the main characters would be named Billie; her father’s name was Bill.
“It was just really, really special, and felt kind of serendipitous or a little supernatural,” Easton said. “He had such fond memories” of Greenwich. He made it sound like such a beautiful place. So that really, really made me feel like there was some magic surrounding this show, for sure.”
Easton said she has never been to Greenwich but is eager to visit.
Since the book was published, Easton said she has quit her job as a school psychologist job to become a full-time author.
She said she’s flattered that the Netflix series and her book have resonated with so many women. It’s rare to see a story about a woman who is both a mother and a wife, Easton added.
“It’s shocking, the percentage of classic literature stories that have a female protagonist. It’s not until the last century, really, that we started seeing books with a female main character. And when we did, she was always young and single and looking for her partner,” she said.
“I really hope that this opens the door for more stories about women from all walks of life, and that we can be mothers and wives and still have sex lives, and still have drama and things to talk about,” Easton added. “I just love that for the future of storytelling in general. I really hope it kind of kicks open