Eat, Pray, Love Author Elizabeth Gilbert

You write a lot about the mistakes of your first marriage. Did you write this book to serve as a warning?

I don’t think of the book as a cautionary tale, and I don’t think of it as an advice manual. I’m not really interested in drawing conclusions for other people’s lives. Because it’s hard enough to draw conclusions about my own marriage.

You suggest that allowing gay marriage could actually save the institution of marriage. What would some of the effects be that maybe people aren’t considering now?

What I think it would do is make marriage relevant again, in a way that it’s seeming to not be as much anymore. A lot of heterosexual couples are reluctant to get married because there’s a sense of, Why should I have access to this when my friends who have been together just as long as me don’t? It starts to make marriage look like a country club. Almost the only way that marriage can continue to mean something in any sort of real way is if it gets more inclusive.

You draw on statistics showing that many young people’s marriages end in divorce. Do you think people under 25 shouldn’t get married?

What I think is amazing is not that 85% of people who get married under the age of 25 get divorced–it’s that 15% of them stay together. Like, who are they? How did they manage to pull that off? You almost can’t wait too long. It’s the single simplest measure to predict divorce proneness.

Is there going to be a movie of Committed?

I can tell you that there will not be. One movie about you per lifetime is probably plenty. It’s not going to be like Liz Gilbert and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

What project is next for you?

I’m working on a novel, but I can’t say anything more about it. I’m really happy to be writing fiction again. No hints at all! It really won’t be until the spring that I’m in any kind of position to think about it more seriously. But it’s on my mind. It’s waiting for me.