Susan Orlean explains her drunken viral Twitter thread, candy-coated fennel seeds and the comfort of cats

But the work that had her name trending on Twitter this weekend was a little different. See, Orlean got drunk Friday night, met a newborn foal and fired up the social media platform. And the ensuing thread — in which she bemoaned the state of the world, threw shade at her cat for not snuggling and recounted an epic quest for candy only to wind up with sugarcoated fennel seeds — proved utterly delightful.

The thread began with a tweet that simply read “Drunk” and began ending with one that read, “I am goi f to sleep. My husband has asked me five hundred rimes@if I am alright. That means it’s go to sleep o’clock.” At some point in the middle, she tweeted: “Ok a newborn colt rocks it totally and he thought my hand was his mom. It was not. He has tasted life’s infinite tragedy. As I mentioned Earlier I am inebriated.”

Entertainment Weekly pronounced that she stole “our hearts with drunken tweetstorm.” The A.V. Club dubbed the thread a “choice read,” and Vogue called it “the pandemic comic relief we needed right now.” Comedian Craig Cackowski performed a dramatic reading.

So, after waiting for the presumable hangover to reside, we gave Orlean a call to ask about what just might be one of the most joyous evenings Twitter has ever seen.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: I’d love to hear a little bit about your day leading up to the tweet thread.

A: My neighbor invited us over [Friday] to come and see the baby their mare just had. My day until then had been pretty ordinary. I was working. I was gardening. I was doing country things. I hadn’t eaten a lot, which is a significant fact to note.

We went over and saw this amazing little foal, my neighbor said, “As long as you’re here, why don’t you come on and we’ll have a drink?” … We sat out in their courtyard and had a couple of glasses of rosé. I guess it was more than a couple glasses. It was just a very friendly visit. And when it ended, I realized — it actually just sneaked up on me — and I realized I was really tipsy. Like embarrassingly tipsy, which caught me by surprise, because it was not like I was at a bar slamming back cocktails.

… So we headed home, and I confided in my husband that I was extremely drunk. I ate a taco and went to bed. I was lying in bed, and you know the evil of having your phone sitting right next to you. We all know what that leads to. … Most of the lights were out in my room, so it was pretty dark. I’m actually a very good typist, but I was in the prone position, which isn’t the best way to be doing your typing. Also, I normally correct errors when I’m typing, but I just wasn’t in that frame of mind. I’m surprised any of it was readable.

Q: The typos truly are incredible. They’re a work of art. The number of @ symbols, I just adored.

A: I was puzzled by it. Why all these @ symbols? But your finger hits it easily on a phone keyboard. … And, as I said, I wasn’t even reading them before I posted them. The next day, I was surprised by the content. I read them as new works of literature that I had not read before.

Q: I’m so curious, where was your cat?

A: He was in the other room! I was just annoyed that he wasn’t keeping me company. I was in bed. Everyone else in my household was watching a movie together. So I was somewhat annoyed to have been abandoned in my state of inebriation. Normally, my cat gets into bed with me. He’s very reliable. And I thought, well, of all the times for him to not be hanging out with me, this is when I would really like his company. I was really perturbed!

He did show up, kind of sauntered in and got on the bed. I took his picture, which I do all the time because he’s very handsome. But he was giving me a very judgy look, which I thought was pretty funny.

Q: I have to ask about the candy situation. Candy-coated fennel seeds? I wasn’t familiar with these.

A: They’re actually very popular in India. The way I first came to know them, and the reason I have them, is sometimes in Indian restaurants, they give them to you as a little sweet after your meal. … I had been in an Indian grocery store many years ago, and I had seen them and thought they looked very pretty — and I thought they were kind of tasty. I got them, so we have a whole bunch of them here. Nobody else eats them, except for me. But if you just want some junky candy, they don’t qualify, because they actually are kind of good for you. A true candy should have no redeeming value, in my opinion.

Q: When did you realize your Twitter thread was becoming a viral sensation? Did you realize that night, or was that a next-morning revelation?

A: At some point, my husband came in and said he had gotten a few texts from friends saying they thought that my Twitter account had been hacked. And I said, “It hasn’t been hacked!” I was incensed at the thought that someone thought it was hacked.

Then he said, “Are you sure you want to be tweeting in your condition?” I said, “Yes, yes, it’s fine. Everything’s fine.” But I was just sort of tweeting, and I wasn’t looking to see if anyone was responding. I was just typing, stream-of-consciousness, without giving a great deal of thought to if anyone was reading it. To me, it was late at night, even though it wasn’t late. I had gone to bed at 8:30, because I was hammered.

Q: It was everywhere on Twitter, and it was all joy. Everyone was just having a great time. It felt like being at a good party. What do you think people were connecting with?

A: For one thing, I’m a pretty cheerful drunk. So I guess my babbling and even my expletive-laden declarations were still not nasty. It was just babbling. So I suppose if you think about it, not that I would point to this as my finest writing, but there was an amount of authenticity that I think probably delighted people.

This has been such a miserable, grim year, and Friday was a horrible day with terrible news. My guess is that people were just reaching the end of their ropes and feeling like everything was just grim, and Twitter can really reflect that. It’s usually more bad news or people arguing and griping and being confrontational. … On one hand, I was saying certain things that lots of people feel about being fed up with bad news, but also I guess it seemed funny. … I wasn’t trying to be funny at all! I was ruminating over this ruin of a Friday night, where I wanted some candy. I wanted my cat to get in bed with me, and I was reaching the limit of patience with modern life in 2020. And I think people responded to that. It’s fascinating. I don’t think you can reverse-engineer something like that. I don’t think you can take it apart and understand exactly why something connects with people.

Q: This leads me to the last thing I wanted to ask you. Perhaps it’s too early to know, but where do you feel like this thread will fit into the canon of your work? I feel like it will be studied.

A: It’s so funny. I love the thought of that. That’s too funny. Here’s the thing. I don’t want to overthink this, but I’ve always tried to be pretty authentic, both in my writing as well as my social media presence. … I’ve not been afraid of exposing my ups and downs as I’m writing or my insecurities. I’ve always felt really comfortable doing that. And while I will say that the rest of my writing will be done while sober, I don’t think this is wildly out of character. … I take my reporting and writing really, really seriously, but I also feel like I’ve always had my heart on the line. I’ve always tried to be very true to my emotions, and my emotions that particular night were a bit sloppy drunk. That’s why I’m not mortified. I don’t plan on getting falling-down drunk anytime soon, but it’s sort of part and parcel of the way I’ve been in the world as a writer.

Q: Well, thank you for taking the time to chat. I hope the hangover has receded by now.

A: I actually feel the gods were looking after me. I’m quite functional. I’m happy to report that perhaps I got off light. It was a cautionary tale. Yesterday, when everyone was having a cocktail, I had a kombucha.