Cristina Alger, Author of "The Darlings" and "This Was Not the Plan"
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and this is Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:15]As a mom of four kids in New York City and a writer myself, I know all too well how short
[0:19]everyone is on time, so I'm here to help.
[0:21]I'm going to interview authors and writers of all types about their work, especially
[0:25]as it relates to parenting and family issues.
[0:28]Hopefully you can listen while doing 8 million other things, and fall in love with these
[0:31]talented scribes and their fantastic books, essays, and songs like I have.
[0:35]Plus get some tips on surviving parenthood.
[0:37]For more about me, you can check out my essays at zibiowens.com.
[0:42]This episode has been sponsored by Chloe's Fruit, the cool way to eat fruit.
[0:46]Their website is Chloe'sfruit.com.
[0:50]I'm very excited to be chatting with Christina Alger this morning.
[0:53]Christina, a former financial analyst and corporate attorney, is the author of two wonderful novels,
[0:58]the darlings, and this was not the plan.
[1:00]She has another novel, The Bankers' Wife, coming out this summer, and she's a mom of
[1:04]two kids.
[1:06]You can read more about her on her website, ChristinaAlger.com.
[1:09]So welcome to Christina.
[1:11]Thank you.
[1:12]Thank you for having me.
[1:13]So let's start by talking about New York, which we were just doing beforehand.
[1:18]As you know, I'm a native New Yorker too.
[1:21]Christina and I both went to the same preschool and have kids there as well.
[1:25]One of the first things you mentioned in your bio is that you're a native New Yorker.
[1:29]How much do you feel that informs your writing?
[1:31]Your books are all set in the city, but do you think being a native New Yorker gives
[1:35]you a different point of view from someone who came here later in life?
[1:40]So I think, yeah, it does inform our writing.
[1:41]And I think that's why I think it's the first thing I say in my bio.
[1:44]Yeah.
[1:45]Yeah.
[1:46]And I will say I hate writing bios.
[1:47]I find them really stressful because I never really know what it's so hard to explain who
[1:52]you are in three sentences or less.
[1:54]And I never really know what people want to hear.
[1:56]But I do think New York features so heavily in all my books that it's sort of important
[2:01]for me to explain that I've been here for 38 plus years.
[2:04]And I think that's why I'm so fascinated by the people that live here and there are so
[2:08]many stories worth telling that are in New York.
[2:11]That's why I sort of obsessively write about it.
[2:13]So, yes, that's why I mentioned it my bio right off the bat.
[2:17]You do such a good job.
[2:19]The scene in the darlings with the interesting, even of the benefit where it's just like
[2:23]I could have been in that, that you were just grabbing, it was like, this is crazy.
[2:27]This is like, just so, it's just so accurate, it's like your depiction of New York.
[2:32]But anyway, you say in the darlings about one of the characters was thinking about
[2:37]moving, the husband says, Merrill would never go for it.
[2:40]He didn't even want to ask her.
[2:41]New York wasn't just a city to Merrill, it was a part of her being.
[2:45]Is that how you feel about it?
[2:47]And how can you explain how deeply ingrained the city is to its natives?
[2:52]You know, as we were just discussing, my husband and I have sort of almost moved out
[2:57]of New York a bunch of times and then I've always found a reason to stay.
[3:02]And I, you know, there's that wonderful John Abdite quote that says, you know, people in
[3:05]New York think that anyone who lives anymore else is in some sense joking.
[3:10]I think that a lot of New Yorkers sort of feel that way and it's New York living here
[3:14]is such a unique experience.
[3:15]I mean, it's a walking city.
[3:17]You know, it's very stressful to live here, but I think it's really rewarding.
[3:21]And so it's hard, I think once you've had this experience to see yourself living elsewhere.
[3:26]And there's not a New Yorker I know who doesn't think about moving out all the time because
[3:31]if it is so stressful to live here, so I feel like there's a lot of, we all have this
[3:34]sort of internal struggle of, you know, the pros of living here are amazing, the cons
[3:39]are serious cons and there's this internal struggle.
[3:42]And so you see, I think literally every character I have in all my books is going through
[3:46]it because I've been going through it, you know, I'm 38 and I've been going through it
[3:50]my whole life.
[3:51]So, you know, I have a love-hate relationship in New York and I think a lot of people do
[3:54]too.
[3:55]Yeah, I was mentioning, I feel the same way.
[3:59]Although I still think it's nice to walk out the door and always run into someone because
[4:03]I think for most people who grew up in New York and so many people stay here versus perhaps
[4:08]other places that it becomes the community is just built on top of each other.
[4:12]Yeah, which is, you know, it's funny, Jonathan is so fascinated by how sort of small
[4:18]towny in the upper side is from LA and you know, LA is so spread out and it's very
[4:25]transient, people sort of come and go and he sort of mesmerized by the fact that I went
[4:29]to the same school for 13 years and all my best friends still live in the neighborhood
[4:33]and you know, all my mom's friends still live in the neighborhood and, you know, we can't
[4:36]walk down the street without running into people and there's something really small
[4:39]towny about it.
[4:40]I think New York is sort of micro-local in that way and it's, you know, I find that, I love
[4:46]that about New York but, you know, I could see how it would get annoying as well.
[4:48]Am I done at this morning?
[4:50]You pass somebody, I went to school with and she's like, you know, so many people here.
[4:55]You will do at it.
[4:59]When you write about female friendships in the darlings, you say, in us, is that pronounced
[5:04]right?
[5:05]Yes, in us.
[5:06]In us felt strongly that women were rarely friends with one another unless they could get
[5:09]something out of it.
[5:10]Female friendships were like strategic alliances.
[5:13]Each party had to bring something to the table in order to maintain equity.
[5:17]Do you feel this way and have you seen women behaving this way?
[5:20]Is that how you came up with that?
[5:22]Is it New York that makes women behave that way?
[5:24]So I will say in us is like a totally low-sum character.
[5:27]I mean, she's very strategic.
[5:29]So I think, you know, that's her viewpoint on the world.
[5:33]So I'm not in us and, you know, I certainly don't feel the way about my own female friendships.
[5:40]But yes, I think this city is, you know, New York is a very type A competitive place
[5:45]and I think there are a lot of people that see everything as a competition and everything
[5:48]as a strategic alliance.
[5:50]It's kind of one of the fascinating things about living here.
[5:52]I mean, it's a very merit-based place in a lot of ways because I think, you know, people
[5:58]respect hard work here and they respect kind of scrappiness.
[6:02]But there are a lot of very cut-throat people and as is one of them and so that's sort
[6:07]of how she views the world.
[6:09]And yeah, I don't think there's any woman who lives in New York who would not say they
[6:12]don't know women that see the world that way.
[6:15]And I don't know if it's particular, you know, I don't think it's particular to women
[6:18]I think men too.
[6:20]But yes, I think the flip side of it is, you know, female alliances are extremely powerful
[6:25]and, you know, when they're, you know, born out of love and affection and respect, they
[6:32]bear amazing fruit and I've definitely, you know, my best friends are other moms here.
[6:38]People I grew up with here and so I think there are a lot of amazing women in the city
[6:41]also and, you know, this podcast sort of a testament to that.
[6:46]Did you, did you read Wednesday Martin's Primates of Prag Avenue?
[6:49]I did not read it, I did read article that she wrote and, you know, I, that book troubled
[6:58]me because I felt that it was sort of mean-spirited and, you know, one of the things that
[7:05]I've actually been criticized for again and again is that, you know, I have a lot of sympathy
[7:10]for my characters, even the really despicable ones.
[7:14]And so, you know, and as is someone who I think is sort of, you know, of that ilk, the very
[7:20]kind of social lady New York woman.
[7:22]But I have a lot of sympathy for her too and I try and paint all my characters with
[7:27]a sympathetic brush and my understanding of that book was that that didn't, I'm not sure
[7:33]Wednesday Martin did that, as it hurt pain her characters as sympatically.
[7:37]So I didn't read it because I didn't want to get myself upset.
[7:42]I read it and actually ended up interviewing her for Avenue Magazine.
[7:45]Oh, okay.
[7:46]I wanted to test.
[7:47]Wow.
[7:48]I want to interview you.
[7:49]Yeah.
[7:50]Anyway.
[7:51]More on that later.
[7:52]But, okay, now just to move from it to this was not the plan, which is also so good.
[7:58]You tell the story from a man's point of view, Charlie Goldwyn, was doing this difficult.
[8:03]You were just so in it in his head writing this piece and I know you had mentioned
[8:08]at one point, you had seen your husband coping with his lack of paternity leave when
[8:13]you were a baby.
[8:15]But how did you get into his headspace so well and what was it like for you?
[8:20]Well, thank you.
[8:21]I still don't know if I did it effectively or not, but it was really, it's really hard.
[8:25]I think it's something that you can't take lightly when you try and, you know, move into
[8:31]the headspace of someone who's very different than yourself.
[8:34]And I think what I came to the conclusion was that Charlie is actually a lot like me.
[8:38]He's like a very sort of, I was a very type A sort of workaholic lawyer.
[8:44]And you know, when I had my daughter, we had a very troubled pregnancy and she was born
[8:50]early and she had a lot of medical complications and it just became clear right away
[8:55]that I was not going to be able to just go back to work as I had planned.
[8:58]And that was extremely disorienting for me because I'm someone who's always really identified
[9:04]myself through my work.
[9:06]And you know, but I thought was so fascinating was, you know, my husband did not get
[9:12]to take a year off.
[9:13]And I mean, I did and it was, you know, I'd great detriment to my career.
[9:17]I gave back in advance that I had already started working on a book for.
[9:21]But you know, people understood the understood that I was a mom and I was a mom of a child
[9:25]that had medical issues and people were very understanding.
[9:28]And with my husband, you know, he was back in the office three days later.
[9:31]And there was something I found so, you know, troublesome about the fact that no one talks
[9:39]about that.
[9:40]And there are so many wonderful books and this is the reason I chose to write about Charlie
[9:43]and not a woman like Charlie is I think there are a lot of fabulous books that talk about
[9:48]motherhood and the challenges of being a working mom.
[9:51]And there's a lot of, you know, very funny fiction about it.
[9:54]And I didn't really see that happening with fathers.
[9:58]And so I came up.
[10:00]this idea kind of I don't know during some late night breastfeeding session when I hadn't slept in
[10:04]like 40 days and I was like I don't know this is a good idea but it would be so interesting to
[10:09]write about a guy who's doing this by himself and really has to figure out how to be
[10:14]both a parent and kind of a successful man and that's something that's been important to him
[10:19]his whole life and you know I talked to a lot of single dads which was also totally fascinating
[10:26]when I was writing it because I wanted to make sure I was really getting the nuances of
[10:31]their experience right and I mean my husband read things over and over again and you know it's
[10:38]hard to write from a male perspective but it was fun too and I think you know Charlie and I are
[10:45]probably more similar than we are not similar so hopefully not with a big chunk and half person though
[10:50]that's not how I left my law firm although a lot of people have asked you know but it's funny you
[10:55]know my I did feel like you know in a totally different and kind of less humorous way but my career
[11:02]was completely derailed by parenthood as I'm sure a lot of people feel that way and so yeah you know
[11:08]I relate to that experience where like one day you feel like you're on this particular track and
[11:13]the next day you're not and you have to figure out what that means and you know how to reconcile it
[11:19]so and the definition of a successful career I mean I would argue you're having this sort of
[11:24]renaissance of a career with the writing versus being a lawyer thank you yeah it's you know I was lucky
[11:29]that I had started writing before I had kids because I felt like I had a little bit of wiggle room
[11:34]to bounce back after you know the year that I sort of went down this rabbit hole of being just a
[11:43]full-time parent but you know I never I never could have had like this career now is something
[11:50]that I couldn't have done at my law firm and so I'm really grateful that I have a job that's flexible
[11:56]and project based and so and ultimately you see Charlie find his way into something like that too
[12:01]but law firm life is you know it's very all-consuming and I think it's sort of fundamentally hard
[12:08]to balance with parenthood so it was something I was interested in writing about I love how it
[12:13]was his wife who had passed away his birthday and everybody kept asking him how he was doing but
[12:18]it was about a case but yeah so um so tell me more about a banker's wife which is your book coming
[12:27]out this summer I think you said July 3rd yeah July 3rd I'm really excited about it it's so it's
[12:33]funny so the darling I always thought the darling is as a financial thriller although I don't know
[12:38]I think it was described sort of as somewhere between a thriller and a social drama but I always thought
[12:44]it thought of it as a thriller and that's sort of what I read and what I primarily what I read
[12:50]and so I always thought that I would go back to writing that kind of book so the banker's wife is
[12:56]just a pure financial thriller it's about a leak a data leak that comes out of a Swiss bank
[13:03]and it's told from two perspectives one is the wife of a banker who goes missing and the
[13:10]other is a journalist that's sort of investigating this behemoth of a Swiss bank that has a lot of
[13:15]very shady clients so it was really fun to write and it's sort of I think what I will be writing
[13:22]going forward so yeah I'm really excited about it and it comes out a few months and it's awesome
[13:28]what are some books that you are some of your favorites so I you know I try and ping pong between
[13:35]kind of more literary fiction and thrillers but there were a lot of crossovers I like I love
[13:42]reading John Grisham I think his early stuff is brilliant I lovely child I love Nelson to Mill
[13:48]and then you know I as I was telling you I have this book club and I'm trying to make it all
[13:54]in all female authors so Janice Lee has come she's incredible I loved Pachinko I would
[14:02]die of happiness if she would come to our book club so I don't know I sort of go back and forth
[14:08]but I'm a big I'm a big buyer of what I see as kind of upmarket thrillers like literary thrillers
[14:15]and that's my inspired to write. Throughout your books or at least through these books in the
[14:23]preview of the next book death seems to be very big theme for you Uncle Morty dying early on in
[14:29]the darlings Charlie's wife dying and this is not the plan and now the plane crashing at the
[14:33]beginning of the banker's wife I'm not giving anything away by saying all this your characters
[14:37]are all shown coping with the loss of someone that they care about I just wanted to see you know
[14:42]what's what's that about have you lost someone close to you that makes you want to delve into this
[14:47]yeah yeah I mean I so I always tell people that I feel like writing is cheaper than therapy
[14:52]and it's like equally cathartic so you know I started my I feel like my life was very much defined
[15:01]by the fact that my father died in September 11th and he it was I was a week into my senior year at
[15:06]college and at the time I thought I was going to go be an English professor I studied medieval
[15:12]literature at Harvard which is totally useless in every possible way except for if you want to
[15:16]go get a PhD in medieval literature and I was sort of on this very particular track and then my
[15:21]dad died in this very dramatic and tragic way and we'll thank you I it's you know it's something
[15:29]that it was very defining for me and immediately my perspective changed and I wanted to move back
[15:36]to New York and I wanted to get a job where my mom didn't have to worry about me making money so I
[15:41]took a job at Goldman Sachs which was sort of insane because I was terrible at math and knew
[15:47]nothing except for Anglo-Saxon poetry and I spent my 20s really grappling with the loss of my
[15:56]dad and you know I think I'm still grappling with it it's I'm not sure it's something you know
[16:02]you ever really get over but it's been a very defining part of my adult life and so yes it's a
[16:08]theme that I think keeps coming up over and over in my books but I also think you know I think
[16:13]they're at the end of the day they're not that many things worth writing about and like I think
[16:18]grief and loss is one of them and so you know maybe it's just the books that I choose to read but
[16:24]I find that grief and loss are often you know sort of they're universal themes and I think
[16:29]they're themes that almost everyone relates to and it isn't necessarily about who who it is in
[16:36]particular but you know I think I think most people by middle age as we are have experienced
[16:44]loss in some way. Middle age stop. Early early I don't know early middle age late young adultness
[16:53]have experienced loss so I think it's you know it's a topic that I'm interested in and I also
[16:59]you know I think one of the ways I I grappled with my dad dying young was reading and books that I
[17:07]felt like um relate that experience in a way that I you know resonated with me um we're so helpful
[17:16]and so um I just like I remember reading Joan Gideon's books which are incredibly hard to read in
[17:22]some ways but they're so they're so well said I mean you're like I couldn't say this better
[17:28]if I tried and I you know if I can do that for one other person that's awesome to be able to
[17:34]make someone feel like you know they're books out there that talk about this experience and see
[17:38]their characters through the other side of grief and so I think that's important to me also.
[17:45]I lost my college and made an investment and I know wow and I've written a lot about that
[17:50]experience too I feel like writing per your comment about therapy. Yeah so I know um really
[17:56]helpful so and I was also I was in Harvard Business School then. Oh really? Wow I know I know
[18:02]just to um anyway uh but this is what happens when you're in New Yorker. I know you have a big
[18:08]classroom in New York yeah the world is very small um can you tell me a little more about your writing
[18:16]process like paint us a picture where do you write when how often oh when do you share I wish
[18:22]do you have a process? It's funny I'm in this book club with a bunch of um crime writers and I'm
[18:28]the youngest one and I'm the least successful and I'm I think the only woman although there are
[18:33]a couple of female journalists but it's so funny to hear the guys in our group talk about their
[18:37]process because they are not parents of small children and so they like all have their own office
[18:42]and they go and like some of them will like stay up on like drinking and I'm like god that's
[18:48]fabulous and bohemian um that is not my process. It's been really it's really hard to write with kids
[18:55]I mean you have to kind of force you know you can't wait for the muse to inspire you
[18:59]because you have so few hours in the day um so what I've found is I actually can't really write
[19:07]for more than three or four hours a day I start kind of just writing nonsense um so I try and write
[19:13]first thing in the morning and by that I mean like three hours after everyone's awake right out the door
[19:20]and so you know most mornings I go to a quiet place and by that I mean like Starbucks or a library
[19:27]and I sit and I try and work until about lunchtime and then I usually go for a walk or do
[19:35]something to clear my head and then I pick my kids up from school and it's different I mean you
[19:40]know I that's sort of what I aspire to do five days a week but you know life gets in the way a lot
[19:45]so um it's not you know it's a work in progress and then I do tend to edit and do kind of less
[19:54]intense sort of brain work after my kids are asleep so my kids are little so they're asleep by
[20:00]and 30 and so yes I know it is nice although they get up very early but my husband and I have
[20:05]sort of taken to it's I don't know I can't decide if it's like deeply romantic or like deeply
[20:10]unromantic but we will take get take out and just sit and work together at the dining room table
[20:17]after they're asleep and you know it sort of is what it is and it's this phase of life but
[20:24]but it's you know kind of the best I can do at this point and are you working on any book now
[20:29]I am so I'm working on a book called Snowbird which I signed a two-book deal after the
[20:36]banker's wife so I theoretically should be working on this book and then another book after that
[20:43]but I'm sort of halfway through it and it's a thriller it's set out in Long Island and
[20:50]yeah it's been really fun it's a little hard when you're coming up into a book tour to like
[20:57]toggle between the two books so I found that to be a little bit challenging because I'm
[21:00]starting to do press for bankers wife and I have to juggle that with you know my work in progress
[21:06]but um but I can't complain I love writing so it's like my hobby that is actually my job
[21:12]that's awesome did you have to sell the idea the second book of the two-book deal like do you
[21:17]already know that no no it's actually it's so funny I just signed my contract although we
[21:22]negotiated the deal a while ago and it just says like untitled and it's like this total blank slate
[21:26]thank god because I can't think of that far ahead although I do have ideas and my editors
[21:31]amazing and so we you know we obviously like kicked around ideas before signing the contract so
[21:37]I have a few ideas that are sort of percolating but um I'm trying to stay focused on book four and
[21:43]not think too hard about book five and you mentioned also your books have been optioned into
[21:48]movies so we will we show yeah so the darlings we um we actually developed it and we got pretty
[21:55]far down the road developing it for HBO into a show um and I was really involved with that
[22:00]process and then it sort of died on the vine as many shows do um but it was really fun
[22:06]and so at some point I'd like to write screenplays um more I think the banker's wife we are
[22:12]working on selling it to um as a show as well and it's I have conceded that I'm not a professional
[22:21]screenwriter and so this time around especially given that I have two other books that I've been
[22:26]contracted for I do not want to write the screenplay I want someone as I keep saying to my agent I
[22:30]want a real screenwriter to write it so um I'm not sure how involved I'll be with it if it does get
[22:37]me into something but um but I love being part of that process it's really fun and I think I write
[22:43]in a very cinematic way I sort of tend to visualize every scene and my chapters tend to correlate
[22:49]like is you know a particular scene and I can sort of see it in the movie reel in my head so
[22:54]it's you know fun to think about it getting made into something yeah that's awesome um do you have
[23:02]any advice to aspiring novelist and any advice to someone thinking of moving to New York
[23:09]oh wow um very different aspiring novelist yeah I mean I I talked to a lot of aspiring
[23:15]novelist and I always say to them just first of all you know it's sort of like I feel like writing
[23:21]a novel is you know you have I'm sure everyone has friends in LA that they've heard about who write
[23:26]screenplays in like five days and um you know or journalists who you know turn over an article
[23:32]a week or whatever it is and novels are you know they're a labor of love I mean you're sort of
[23:36]chipping away very slowly it's something that gets built over a year 10 years and I think you just
[23:43]have to stick with it and it sometimes feels very daunting when you're writing you know a thousand
[23:48]words a day and your goal is 80 thousand words um but you know I think um one of the things I've
[23:56]told a lot of people is I think agents are hungry for finished products and I think a lot of
[24:02]agents and editors see a lot of kind of half-baked projects where people want reassurance as I
[24:08]did when I was writing the darlings that someone would buy it if I was you know spent the time
[24:12]to finish it but I think people are routinely surprised in my opinion by how eager agents are for
[24:20]products that are just finished and you know books evolve so much during the editorial process
[24:25]and so I always say just get it out like get the story out get it out on paper and finish it
[24:30]and then you can go back and polish it um and I tell myself this all the time because my sort of
[24:36]type A OCD like personality I always want to go back and edit everything but I think if you can just
[24:42]get the full draft on paper someone will want to read it I really believe that so um you know go go
[24:48]right um as to for people that want to live in New York or move to New York I think New York is so
[24:55]weird I feel like people either love it or they hate it and it's pretty clear right away if it's
[24:59]for you or not um I actually don't think like native New Yorkers are actually people have been
[25:06]living here their whole lives I think native New Yorkers are people that like take to this lifestyle
[25:11]really quickly like my parents were the New Yorkiest people you've ever met in your life and
[25:15]my mom grew up in Havana and my dad grew up in Brussels and but like you could not find
[25:20]two more New York people I mean they would never live anywhere else like the idea that my mom would
[25:25]live anywhere else is just an anathema to her and so I think people sort of take to the vibrancy
[25:31]and rhythm of the city or they don't and I think you've figured out pretty quickly um so it's like a
[25:39]very manic um high energy place and if that's what you're looking for this is the place to be
[25:45]and if it's not um I think it can be very overwhelming um but I don't know I think everyone should
[25:51]try and live in New York months and they're like I fit to my mom once um because she spends
[25:55]a lot of time in Arizona it's like have you what do you sell your apartment what do you think
[25:58]and she was like New York is my home I know why are you kidding even if I spend time elsewhere
[26:04]this is it it's my home so um so I get it yeah my mom is you know she's not leaving she's
[26:11]she's going nowhere so she's like you know every time one of her friends moves to Florida whatever
[26:15]she's like they're crazy what do they think I don't know I don't know it's pretty nice on there
[26:19]but um yeah I think New Yorkers as always you'll always come back here
[26:24]well thank you so much no it's a total pleasure you know and moms don't have time to read books
[26:28]and thanks to everybody for listening uh to moms don't have time to read books sponsored by
[26:33]Chloe's fruit thanks so much