Kennedy Ryan: Black Love, Caregiving & Writing Softness in Can’t Get Enough

What happens when Black love is rooted in softness, caregiving, and legacy?

In this episode, award-winning author Kennedy Ryan sits down with journalist Esther Dillard to talk about her newest novel Can’t Get Enough—a story that centers a Black male caregiver, an evolving romance, and the quiet strength found in caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s.

We explore:

• Why writing tenderness in Black love stories matters
• The challenges and beauty of caregiving
• How Kennedy weaves activism into fiction
• The importance of bodily autonomy in romantic relationships
• What “legacy” really means—especially in Black communities

If you’ve ever cared for someone, loved someone through pain, or searched for stories that feel like home… this episode is for you.

📚 Can’t Get Enough is available now.
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Transcript

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three women in kind of, in a fictional neighborhood, an in town neighborhood, Atlanta in town community called Skyland. And I lived in Atlanta for 20 years, so I love Atlanta. That's how it ended up being there. But it's these three women who are making, they're really like making very different choices. And one of the things, it's three friends. And basically we're following, yes, all three of them in their, their romantic journeys, but romance. And it is in a romance novel, but we're really exploring in this series all kinds of love. We're exploring, you know, familial love, we're exploring self love a lot. And we're exploring, with their relationship, their friendship, they think of themselves as platonic soulmates. So we're exploring all these different types of love. So there definitely is a love story. But their love story, like their story as friends, is just as powerful as the romantic partnerships that evolved throughout this series. And so it's basically just them navigating their Lives in the first book, which is before I let go. And we're looking at Yasmin. And this is a woman who, had a late term pregnancy loss as navigate. And then they lost a mother figure who was a huge part of their lives. And she ends up, really going through a huge depression. And like so many those things affect a marriage. And so when we start this romance novel, which is unusual, they're divorced, And that wasn't what was happening. So it is really about self actualization. It's about evolving as a woman. It's about reclaiming your power and in the process finding love. And then of course you've read Can't Get Enough, which is, you know, Hendrix's story. And she is, she's a very distinct character. You know, these are two friends who are the other two friends have, you know, these amazing families and kids. She's childless by choice, you know, and a big kind of one of the themes that I was very. I've been very intentional about and hope that people would take from this is respecting choice. The essence of feminism is choice. And so often culture pits us as women against each other because of our choices. Like, you stay home So for people who have read the first two books, we know from the beginning of the series that Hendrix's mom, she talks about it even in the first book, before I let go, that her mom is dealing with some form of dementia. And then we get a little bit of a bigger glimpse of that in the second book and in the third book we find out it's Alzheimer's. I was having my own personal experience with that because my grandmother, had dementia. She actually passed away the week after I turned this book in. And so I saw my mom and my aunt become her caregivers. And I, I knew what that looked like. It is a, kind of an ongoing grieving, you know, and a lot be. People are living longer and more people are being diagnosed with these gender conditions. So I knew there are a lot of people who are having to become caregivers for their parents. And I wanted there to be a certain resonance in the story for people like that. And, it's. It was difficult because I wasn't my grandmother's primary caregiver. My mom and my aunt were. But I was in the room when she passed away. And I, I talk a little bit about this and can't get enough how the human mind is just so, so amazing, you know, about like, for example, there just the different lobes of the brain that are responsible for different things. You can have someone, you know, with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or some degenerative condition who cannot speak to you, and yet they could sing a full song, you know, and not miss any of the lyrics. So just the miracles of the human mind. So in keeping with that, my grandmother, when she passed away, she didn't recognize really any of us in the room, but she was asking for her mother and she was asking for her siblings and she was asking, you know, she was asking for friends. So for me, it was like there felt like it was such a moment of mercy to me and such a moment of hope in a situation that has felt hopeless to hear her looking, you know, looking ahead. And even though this world she was very much dissociated from, there was some kind of hope for her, going ahead. So, yeah, so I, I, it was an emotional situation for me. And I actually, I read on the audiobook, I read, the author's note in the beginning, and then there's an afternoon, like at the very end. I read both of those and it was emotional, you know, that when I was doing the audiobook, I was like, okay, give me a second, you know.