Piper Weiss, author of "You All Grow Up and Leave Me"
[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]I'm here today with native New Yorker Piper Weiss, who's the author of the newly released
[0:48]and super popular book called You All Grow Up and Leave Me, a memoir of Teenage of Session.
[0:52]A former editor Yahoo, Hello Giggles and the New York Daily News, Piper is now writing full
[0:57]time.
[0:58]She also wrote a book about how women basically discover their moms are not just moms,
[1:03]called My Mom's Style Icon.
[1:06]She currently lives in Brooklyn.
[1:07]So welcome.
[1:08]Biper.
[1:09]Thank you so much for having me zibi.
[1:11]I'm excited to be here.
[1:13]Just to get started, can you give listeners a little synopsis of what this book is about?
[1:18]Sure.
[1:20]The book is about kind of a coming-of-age memoir about growing up in 90s Manhattan on the
[1:28]Upper East Side and also researched and reported a narrative about a tennis coach that
[1:38]I had at the time who turned out to be a child stalker.
[1:45]And the child stalker's name was Gary Lansky.
[1:47]That's right.
[1:48]At the beginning of the book, you have a scene with your poet ex-boyfriend who you described
[1:52]so in such a great way.
[1:55]When you're attempting to write about a statue together and then you decide that's
[1:58]a total waste of time, and instead you want to write a book about your experience with
[2:02]Gary Lansky.
[2:03]Can you tell me more about how you came up at the idea in that moment and then what happened
[2:07]to take that decision and have it become this book?
[2:11]I think at the time, my poet-boyfriend who is amazing and by the way has read many drafts
[2:22]of this book and has been incredibly supportive.
[2:26]I really looked up to him, he was older than me, he was the best writer in college.
[2:31]He remains one of the finest writers I know and I kind of wanted to just do whatever
[2:38]he wanted to.
[2:39]If he wanted to write a project with me, I would do whatever he wanted and so I think
[2:44]we kind of concocted this idea that involved kind of researching a crime that had happened
[2:49]on our campus and talking about this campus crime, triggered the memory of Gary Lansky
[2:56]and made me realize that I was like, is that something I dreamed or did that really
[3:02]happen?
[3:03]Did I know this guy and I started to just kind of unravel all of these memories that
[3:08]were like in a knot in the back of my brain and I think it was an important moment I guess
[3:17]on like a personal level because I realized that I wanted to pursue a story on my own
[3:25]without him, you know, and that maybe I could, maybe I had the, you know, I had something
[3:34]to say on my own that didn't revolve around someone else, a male in particular who, you
[3:41]know, I looked up to.
[3:42]Well, I'm so glad you decided to do it, it was, I mean you're truly an amazing writer.
[3:49]The analogy is you use a brilliant, you help the reader think about things in like a
[3:53]a whole new way.
[3:55]An example of your writing that I loved is when you were describing the scene with Gary
[4:00]in the car, he had started by saying, don't go just yet, stay here with me for a minute
[4:05]and he tells you, you know, I'm depressed, I just want to read how you discuss your
[4:10]depression.
[4:11]You say me too, I say, sometimes I imagine my skull is an egg shell with hairline fractures
[4:16]of premature and pulpy creature taps its beak from inside.
[4:19]This is what it feels like to be breaking from within, waiting for the transparent coil
[4:22]of bones, sickly alive and mewing to slip out.
[4:26]The kind of thing you'd step on to put it out of its misery.
[4:29]I want to explain this feeling to Gary and tell him about dangling my feet outside my
[4:32]bedroom window, seven floors out how I have already written a note, but I don't dare
[4:36]disrupt this moment that belongs to him.
[4:38]I mean, that is amazing, it's like you're in every moment and I only took a tiny thing
[4:43]with, anyway.
[4:45]How did you learn to write like this, did you take classes where you always just a gifted
[4:49]writer?
[4:51]Well, first of all, that sounded so much better coming for you than I just like, please
[4:59]just know and read to me because yeah, I liked it better than when I put my eyeballs
[5:06]on it, but no, I didn't always take classes.
[5:11]I always wanted to be a poet and took, I took a workshop at the 92nd Street, why when I
[5:19]I was in high school, that was life altering and that's like one of these beautiful
[5:25]benefits of growing up in New York City where you have access to these brilliant writers
[5:30]and poets that just teach workshops.
[5:32]So I really opened up my brain and then I went to college for writing, but I will say
[5:38]that like I was never the great writer, like I never, you know, I did well in school,
[5:48]but nobody was like, come here, like let's send you to this graduate school.
[5:53]I applied to writing graduate schools for poetry, did not get in anywhere.
[6:00]So I kind of for like the, for years after graduating college, I was thinking that I would
[6:10]give up on writing and just kind of pursue working in editing and, you know, just helping
[6:18]other writers, right?
[6:21]And kind of trying to take the idea of me being a writer out of my identity and, but
[6:26]it kept creeping back in.
[6:30]But yeah, now I'm almost 40 and this is really like the first piece of writing that's
[6:36]from my heart that I've ever put down on the page for the public.
[6:44]And so yeah, I feel like I'm a little bit of a late bloomer and just finding my voice
[6:50]right now and finding my confidence in it.
[6:54]How do you feel having exposed yourself in this way?
[6:57]Now that it's out there, terrified, horrified.
[7:01]I have been just, I've been having like delusions of grander and then like profound shame.
[7:10]My boyfriend keeps joking that whenever we pass people on the street, he's like, they
[7:18]just said your name.
[7:19]They know who you are.
[7:20]And I go really, it's like, no, you're not famous.
[7:24]And I'm like, no, you're right.
[7:25]No, I'm the most embarrassing, humiliating person in the world.
[7:28]I was like, I just like, vassal of just like, where do I fit in this world?
[7:33]But I think that's also a product of, yeah, like putting your personal story out into
[7:40]the world where you actually think like everyone can see me and now I'm so exposed and
[7:45]they either are gonna really like me or they're gonna really hate me and want me dead.
[7:51]And it turns out it's somewhere in between where it's just like, people are really nice
[7:55]and you know, and mostly my friends and family members have read the book and some like,
[8:01]you know, young women, a lot of young women have been reaching out to me that are writers
[8:07]and writers in college and asking for advice and that's just like the best part of this
[8:16]whole process is to be like, yes, I totally was where you are and, you know, don't freak
[8:25]out and it's gonna take some time or it's not gonna take some time just like be confident
[8:29]and and don't let anyone make you feel in how to quit.
[8:35]So yeah, I guess that's, I feel, that, I feel like we need to redo this entire answer
[8:42]because that was, no, you're great, that was great.
[8:47]And by the way, it can't just be your friends and family who read this book because
[8:50]every Instagram account is like posting pictures of people reading your book.
[8:54]So it's all, I feel, is that it's all over the place.
[8:56]So going back to Gary for a second, I've talked to a number of friends.
[9:01]I also grew up in New York at the exact same time as you as we were just guessing
[9:04]and I do so many people who played with Gary were Gary's girls, in fact, I don't even
[9:10]know why I wasn't, but anyway, so I've talked to a number of these Gary's girls and none
[9:16]of them knew that this book was coming out and even now that it's out, they didn't know
[9:20]it was about Gary.
[9:21]So I was wondering why you didn't put his name in the title or if there was a reason,
[9:28]if there was a reason behind that or did you, and also that none of them were contacted
[9:32]about the book and they were like, totally shocked that there was a book.
[9:35]So wow, yeah, you know what, I wish, I wish I, I did have, I found out as wide as I could
[9:42]to, to form our students of Gary Willinsky, but it's interesting because, you know,
[9:51]had his crime happened 10 years later, there would at least be some kind of like Facebook
[9:57]group of Gary's girls.
[10:00]people who experienced it like sharing their stories. I reached out to every
[10:07]single person that was a student at the time who was quoted in any article
[10:14]about him. I posted requests on Facebook and Twitter and then just through
[10:24]channels of people who knew people. I knew a lot of brilliant women and I
[10:31]reached out to them. A lot of people didn't want to talk to me and I really respect
[10:38]and find with that it's a really delicate subject and everyone has their
[10:44]own experience. So I also didn't want to hyper broadcast it as if it was you know
[10:54]some kind of story that I was owning. I mean I think to speak to why I didn't
[11:00]have his name in the title you know it's because the book ended up turning out
[11:06]to be not as he was he was the kind of framework for another story for the
[11:14]memoir of my experience as a teenager that I wanted to tell and I kind of
[11:20]wrapped it around the story of him and you know what struck me in
[11:29]researching and kind of going back and uncovering these memories I had was the
[11:33]fact that I had these fond memories of him as opposed to this horror and how
[11:41]little I knew and how much I needed his approval. So that was kind of what I
[11:48]wanted to explore. I would have loved to have talked with everyone and anyone
[11:53]and now more and more people are kind of coming forward and saying I played
[11:57]with him but yeah the other thing was that the the daughter in the story obviously
[12:07]was the first person I reached out to years before I was even planning to write a
[12:11]book. I just was obsessed with this topic and I wanted to talk to her and and she
[12:17]wasn't comfortable with it rightly so and I kept reaching out until she was
[12:23]just kind of just quiet went a little quiet and I realized that you know that
[12:29]it's not my place to push it's not my place to expect her to want to be
[12:35]involved in something that was so much more I imagine traumatic and and also
[12:42]just a really radically different experience and the one I had and it's up to
[12:48]her whether or not she wants to tell her story and in what way and I can't take
[12:53]ownership of that and that's and that immediately made the story change from
[12:58]this isn't going to be a reported story about a crime that happened because if
[13:02]I can't kind of be the vessel to tell victims story you know and she's not
[13:08]interested in sharing that then then I need to be as respectful of her privacy
[13:14]and also find what the story is for me I think there's probably a million more
[13:20]really interesting stories from women who are Gary's girls and I encourage them
[13:24]all to share their stories that they want to. I am I recently had breakfast with a friend
[13:30]one of Gary's girls who said that and she had been in one of the cars like a week
[13:36]before this happened felt it almost could have happened to her but didn't she said
[13:39]she passed the daughter on the street and even though they knew each other
[13:43]really really well a year later they couldn't even look at each other because they
[13:47]just couldn't acknowledge and sort of bring all that back up again yeah so
[13:52]anyway and if you ran into the daughter now would you what would you leave it be
[13:58]kind of or give her the book or I would I would love to I would love to
[14:06]thank her there's at the in the acknowledgements part of the book I thank the
[14:13]mother and the daughter and kind of recognize that there really are the
[14:15]heroes of this of this larger story and their connection the fact that they
[14:22]listen to each other and that they saved each other's lives from this
[14:28]predator and ultimately saved the lives potentially of so many other
[14:33]victims I connected with the mother and she's a great writer as and has published
[14:44]many books so I reached out to her she asked for galley copy and I was very
[14:50]nervous to send it to her and she wrote me a beautiful response that she
[14:56]really enjoyed the book and that meant the world to me I've reached out to her
[15:02]since and just also wanted to let her know if she ever wants to speak on anything
[15:08]on any subject I would love to you know share a platform with her
[15:16]because she can speak to this in a way that I can't and she's just a very
[15:21]brilliant woman so we'll see maybe I should just set the stage a little
[15:28]more of what happened before I keep going like this line of questioning so
[15:33]Gary was a super popular Manhattan tennis coach who had lots of girls who
[15:39]became very close with them and their families and then it was a huge
[15:43]shock when you know just out of the blue seemingly he attempted to
[15:50]abduct what can I say it's okay yeah attempted to it was all in the news but
[15:55]attempted to abduct one of the girls and how the daughter and the mother
[15:58]that's who we're talking about and how they responded and how he called
[16:01]this girl his favorite right so in the end he had he had a bunch of
[16:05]favorites all throughout his life and then this one girl called the daughter
[16:08]was his favorite so my question long winded is to say was there ever any
[16:13]part of you that was disappointed given your relationship your
[16:17]close relationship with him and your prior history of these obsessions sort of
[16:22]were you ever disappointed in some maybe subconscious way not to have been
[16:26]chosen as a favorite absolutely that was that was what compelled me to
[16:33]actually dig into this story because if I was if I was going to
[16:37]write about this in a really honest way from my perspective
[16:42]then I have to come through myself under the bus a little bit and and
[16:45]examine what what that reaction at 14 was about I mean
[16:53]my yeah my my initial reaction was A to defend him
[16:58]after um I can set the stage a little more is that he
[17:03]he tempted to abduct one of his students who had let him had actually
[17:07]fired him uh in the months prior because he was making her uncomfortable
[17:13]and you know was paying too much attention to her in ways that
[17:17]were inappropriate and uh and he months later followed
[17:24]her and her mother up to a tournament and tried to abduct her
[17:29]and he had outfitted this cabin in the woods with restraints and
[17:35]you know seeming plans to keep her there um
[17:40]and this all came out uh in the news in in tabloid headlines
[17:48]from the New York Post to Daily News people magazine Haraldo
[17:51]Murray-Povitch a clarin affair um for about a month it was
[17:57]it was the big story um and certainly if you were one of his students or went
[18:05]to the school where he taught you know there were reporters everywhere
[18:08]asking questions of students and uh we were you know I think
[18:15]I certainly was advised um and then the vibe was not to talk to reporters
[18:22]um in part to protect the community and in part because you know you never
[18:27]know how your words are going to be um used at the time there was no Twitter
[18:33]there was no um Facebook there was no platform for a teenage girl to be like
[18:38]this is how I feel in this moment and let's talk about it um it was it was
[18:45]more of a sensationalism and then silence um so so my reaction was
[18:55]I I knew he had done a really bad thing and that he was
[19:00]all over the press and I wanted I felt protective of him because I felt
[19:05]close to him and I felt like well you know I was in this car with him a few
[19:12]weeks before and he was opening up to me why didn't he drive off then and
[19:18]and to some degree of just like well why not me I did not
[19:23]understand and still to this day don't understand what it means to be
[19:28]um a survivor of that kind of trauma and you know and that is a privilege that I
[19:33]have um you know so I think I you know I
[19:38]did not understand what you know it would mean to be abducted um but he he had
[19:47]this power over me and I think some other students as you know
[19:56]someone who who could deem you worthy or not
[20:00]for the end and it was actually a manipulative tool
[20:03]and a grooming tool that he employed for years,
[20:10]I discovered of like he would like to pit girls
[20:14]against each other and then pick his favorite
[20:17]and then he would decide he had a different favorite
[20:20]and it would, and his opinion mattered so much
[20:24]and became so important especially in all girls camps
[20:29]where he taught or among the small all girls groups
[20:32]where he taught that he used that authority
[20:38]that he had to control us I think to some extent
[20:42]whether he was conscious of it or not.
[20:45]Side note to this day, I did get some, could have comments
[20:53]from a few people that I had either reached out to
[20:56]or that people had heard I was writing this book
[21:00]and have contacted me and wanted,
[21:02]were suspicious of how many years I played with him.
[21:07]They were like how long did you know him
[21:08]and how often did you play with him?
[21:11]And I said not long, you know a year
[21:15]and twice a week, you know in retrospect
[21:19]of like the whole point was that like I wasn't his favorite
[21:22]he had, this was how he was working
[21:26]these young women but there still seems to be
[21:31]in this kind of Gary's girls thing
[21:35]where some people feel like well I knew him better
[21:39]I played with him longer and I'm you know
[21:43]perhaps there's a subtext of something happened
[21:45]or perhaps there is still this like hold
[21:47]that he has on us where we're competing for you know
[21:53]who you know his affection in a way you know
[21:56]in a subconscious way.
[21:57]I think though that to say that you don't feel something
[22:01]that happens to someone to measure it only in the time spent
[22:04]is not the way it works with emotion.
[22:07]And when you think about like people you've lost maybe
[22:10]maybe you didn't spend that much time
[22:12]but they affect you really deeply.
[22:14]Yeah.
[22:14]It's the same thing, it's like who is someone else
[22:16]to come in and judge your relationship based on hours
[22:19]so anyway, forget them.
[22:21]I have to say absolutely.
[22:22]And you know and like but I want to hear their stories
[22:25]and I think the thing that we learned from the Me Too movement
[22:28]too is just like solidarity of just like we are you know
[22:32]we all have different stories and we need to listen
[22:34]to each other's stories and elevate each other's stories
[22:37]and support each other as opposed to you know judging
[22:43]or being threatened by each other's stories you know.
[22:47]One thing I was wondering about you spend a lot of time
[22:49]in the book talking about your own relationship
[22:51]with your mom which I loved as any you know it just so
[22:55]perfectly captured so many elements of that mother
[22:57]daughter relationship especially the the Turtle neck
[23:00]and her public sweater scene was like so perfect.
[23:03]Oh my gosh it could have been I could have been in that
[23:05]figure with my mother at times.
[23:08]But your mom did you know like many moms at the time
[23:11]willingly let you go off with Gary Gary would drive you
[23:14]to lessons take you out to dinner spend all this time
[23:16]give you lessons for free.
[23:19]Another Gary's girl I was talking to was like you know
[23:20]I would never let my teenage daughter now go off
[23:23]to dinner with some 50 year old man.
[23:25]Do you think the times were different then?
[23:27]Do you think that we were all just more trusting?
[23:31]Was it you know the mom these moms in particular your mom
[23:34]do you ever blame your mom?
[23:36]Like I might I first wanted to blame my mom
[23:39]that was so easy and she's very used to me getting
[23:43]at her for no reason.
[23:44]So but no I mean my mom is the best she helped me with
[23:50]this book enormously and is the most fascinating person
[23:54]I have ever met in my life.
[23:57]But yeah I actually I mean I think kind of part of the
[24:02]aspect of this book that's interesting in the fact that
[24:07]it is this incredibly privileged and protected
[24:10]community you know I mean if it can happen
[24:15]in these places where these mothers are so involved
[24:19]in these children's lives and that everyone is so vetted
[24:23]I mean we were the luckiest girls in the freaking world
[24:26]in that way you know if like if it can happen there
[24:29]it's happening all over the place you know I mean we had
[24:33]all the the privilege the education the protection
[24:36]you could possibly get.
[24:37]So I don't think I don't think the finger can be pointed
[24:43]in that way I do think there's much more opportunity
[24:47]for open dialogue now just because of the internet what we
[24:52]learn and in the book and in the research that I did is
[24:58]that Gary had a history of stalking children and had actually
[25:03]been arrested five years before he was my instructor and also
[25:10]you know a coach at your school and you know kind of
[25:15]a celebrated award-winning teen girl coach so he was arrested
[25:20]for stalking two kids three kids on the street as they
[25:24]walked to school every day following them with a camera
[25:27]dressed in a black leather mask and because there were
[25:32]no there really weren't stringent stalking laws at the
[25:36]time and it wasn't a felony to stalk a child he got off
[25:44]he had to see a therapist for six months and then his case
[25:48]was dismissed so there was nothing on his record reportedly
[25:52]one of the mothers of the stalked children contacted
[25:57]parents of his students and schools the private schools
[26:04]when Gary started to kind of be a figure on the scene and
[26:09]she claimed to the New York Daily News at the time that her
[26:13]concerns were ignored.
[26:16]I don't know I don't know what the real situation was I
[26:21]find it very hard to believe that the school or any of the
[26:25]parents would have dismissed those concerns I think that
[26:31]there just wasn't as strong of like a network there weren't
[26:34]background checks the way that we have them now it wasn't as
[26:37]mandated the conversations that we're having now even you
[26:43]know with respect to Larry Nasser and other you know Sandusky
[26:51]we're not conversations we were having at the time I mean
[26:54]stalking wasn't really a thing and certainly like there
[27:01]were coaches and educators that were Nafaris and crossing
[27:07]many lines and we know that even from what's happening with
[27:11]horseman and showed but but those revelations hadn't come out
[27:16]yet so I guess it was in part the time and and that world
[27:20]was really really protected of itself you know it was it was
[27:27]it was there was a tie these were people that were used to
[27:30]being written about in the press and were very powerful and
[27:33]wanted to can control what was written about them I think not
[27:39]necessarily mothers or parents individually but kind of
[27:42]that that scope of that world I love how you explained how they
[27:47]were called private schools for a reason because we're supposed to
[27:50]keep everything private and how you had all these mixed
[27:52]emotions about even sharing what had happened that's right I was
[27:55]thinking this as I was like posting something on Facebook yesterday
[27:58]I'm like am I really being private I don't know I think I might
[28:01]have missed this whole thing by the way the thing you were
[28:06]saying about him stalking those boys one of the technical things you
[28:09]did so brilliantly I think in the book is that in the beginning you
[28:12]set up that whole stage of him I'm stalking the boys but you
[28:15]never say his name and you know I read almost all the book at last to my
[28:19]husband and when we got to the point of the end it was when he
[28:23]realized that that the stocker in the beginning was actually
[28:26]Gary because you never are so oh you don't like spell that out it's
[28:29]implied but it could be anybody could have been the beginning of any
[28:33]history anyway so I'm glad that was a good little thing
[28:38]and another technical question is how do you remember so much I mean you
[28:43]have captured every little bit of like our shared time and place
[28:49]children from I mean the radio to the tote bags to
[28:53]the invitations to the parties to the places I mean how did you
[28:58]did you research it you'd have an insane memory I think
[29:02]I think memory is a muscle and like my muscle got really strong when I was
[29:07]writing this book it started you know with just a couple of
[29:11]memories and then and then researching like what are the songs in
[29:16]92 to 93 what are the like clothing you know looking at pictures
[29:21]reading articles and then you know I mean there was an article in 96 in the
[29:27]New Yorker about these boots that prep school girls used to wear and so
[29:33]that kind of was a moment that triggered me and then by the time I got to
[29:36]the middle of the book I had I was so in the zone that
[29:43]my memories it was like I opened a popped a blood vessel and like
[29:48]the memories of like think how it smelled in the kitchen in my apartment
[29:52]growing up and you know what my mother's fingernails looks like and
[29:57]you know every little thing I like
[30:00]tapped into that but it took a while to like really tap into those memories but the more I did
[30:07]the better I think the the clearer the writing became so that was the fun part. I was kind of annoyed
[30:13]at your friend Sarah in the book when she says that you were misremembered. You know when you went
[30:18]to the Crank Club 9th or 10th grade and I'm like oh my gosh you remember so much other stuff
[30:22]you never break. But I loved that she said that and I kept that in there because these are also kind
[30:27]of wanted it to be like I'm an unreliable narrator like this is my memory but like hers might
[30:33]be different and who's to say you know that anyone's right or wrong like part of this book is like
[30:39]facts that I collected and yet like the core of it and I think probably the the true parts or the
[30:46]parts that have like more of a like larger understanding of how something like this could happen
[30:51]hopefully are the ones that are based on my impressions and memories and like the visceral
[30:58]feelings as opposed to the straight facts that was my hope. So a friend of mine also talking about
[31:08]Gary was saying how you know at the time she had to believe that he went off the rails that
[31:17]he was a nice normal guy mostly and just had some sort of break and that had she not been able to
[31:23]convince herself of this she would never have been able to trust another man forever. I think she
[31:27]would never have gotten married. Everything would have just crumbled. So that's the story she
[31:32]immediately told herself and she is afraid to read the book to see if that myth kind of
[31:38]oh my gosh wait I the reading so I wish I had talked to her of just like I'm so curious like
[31:45]that's actually a really profound thing to feel that like this guy in some ways I mean because
[31:52]he was this formative adult male in so many of our lives and that that coaching relationship which
[31:59]is that fine line between being like in a authority figure and a friend and that he could he could
[32:08]have so much influence even in death on her romantic life and choices. Oh I really respect her
[32:15]for being so honest about it. Do you think that Gary it's from the way you wrote it it sounded like
[32:21]the very end the last couple weeks there was a huge market change in him. But do you feel like
[32:27]he went off the rails or do you feel like there's this whole thing given all the evidence over time
[32:32]was sort of percolating. I mean I'm fairly certain that he was a child's doctor for years
[32:40]for years and years and I question what else he did. I found no evidence and police at the time
[32:53]found no evidence that he assaulted or molested anyone beyond the attack and attempted
[33:06]abduction but these were different times where people weren't encouraged or given a platform
[33:15]in a safe platform to share these this kind of information or even understand and process what it
[33:20]might mean to be abused by an authority figure. My impression certainly is that he had a long
[33:31]history of this. I mean I did find according to one of his high school friends he had a history of
[33:37]violence against women in high school. So the idea that he snapped I don't think is the case
[33:46]but but I do think that the being fired was this kind of breaking point for him that made him
[33:58]kind of step completely over. I think he was he was straddling these two worlds for a while and
[34:04]I think when he was fired in the last several months of bleeding up to his attack he
[34:11]he decided to step into the dark side completely. There's one line you wrote that I just want to read
[34:19]you and talked about a boy you had met how your mother was listening to your call with him and
[34:25]it turns out he thought you were someone else which was so crushing the way you told it. I'm not
[34:30]even going to read. I can't even barely read it out loud. What exactly he said. Although I will say
[34:35]that his comment about your height is now like offensive to me because honestly when you want
[34:40]in I thought you were going to be like so you talked so much about how sure you are and you're
[34:44]I mean we're like the same way this is terrible. I'm like should I feel this bad about myself now
[34:48]like yourself image is so horrible like you're this beautiful normal size person and in the
[34:54]book you make yourself out to be like a monster so well it is that's funny. It's how it felt
[34:59]it's just like it is that thing where you know I look at pictures of myself then and I'm like
[35:04]oh you poor fucking dear like you were so sorry but like you poor dear like you didn't realize
[35:12]that you were fine but I think that at the time and I'm sure girls still experience this today
[35:20]and part of it's just patriarchy sexism you know internalized sexism which is you know that
[35:30]the labels the physical labels that you're given especially you know when you're in this like in
[35:35]between phase become your identity and you have to have ownership over them and they're kind of like
[35:42]the inadequacies you have to constantly be fielding and trying to improve you know I mean it was
[35:49]for me at the time it was my I was too short and I had curly hair and a big nose and these were
[35:58]things that had to be fixed um to make and and really it was told to me in the context of you know
[36:06]to have a better life you know which is now I mean I mean I mean you've been thinking to never
[36:14]impart that to a teenage girl I mean we know better but yeah at the time that was really the message
[36:21]of like you know you're you could be beautiful and it's important to be beautiful um we could
[36:27]just have to fix these few things about you um you right here when when you realize you was asking
[36:35]about your friend and not you you said worse than knowing you're unlovable is believing momentarily
[36:40]that you are not yeah I thought I was so like poignant and um also spoke to the whole thing
[36:47]with Gary that for a minute you feel really special with him and then you don't always that in
[36:53]now that all this time has gone by and the book has come out and you've had more time to think
[36:57]about him do you find yourself missing Gary uh less less so I missed him well I was writing it
[37:06]at the beginning and researching it at the beginning and then later in the book I mean this is
[37:14]going to sound ridiculous but I started having really bad dreams about him and even kind of did
[37:21]some physical research where I went to his hometown I went upstate and and I I got a little
[37:30]spooked by him um I could I couldn't tell if I was intentionally spooking myself out um I I think
[37:38]about him in the context of you know if anyone would like to have some kind of coverage or be
[37:48]resurrected in some public manner it's him and that both kind of like makes me like head like
[37:57]I don't know it makes me a little angry at him you know I'm a little bit just like no you don't get
[38:02]this you know this is this is not about you even though it is about him um yeah so I have a complicated
[38:08]relationship in my head with Gary where you know I mean part of what drove me to the story was that I
[38:14]for many years as an adult even felt this parallel to him I you know this kind of I empathy
[38:23]for what I imagined was this like profound loneliness that does not excuse his actions and
[38:32]does not make any of it okay but you know he seemed like partially a product of his environment
[38:41]and his you know his self esteem and and these kind of a gender fixed ideas and expectations
[38:50]that he didn't live up to um and and and and and and that was the kind of in-road in terms of like
[38:58]creating imagining what might have been uh going through his mind his need for these these emotional
[39:07]connections and the conflation of fatherhood romance chapter and protector you know
[39:16]this is amazing so what what is next for you what are you gonna write another book I hope
[39:20]yeah what what are you thinking I really want to I really want to fiction
[39:25]I am so dead set on writing fiction because this was hard this was this was hard nonfiction
[39:32]and really exposing let's do exposing myself um but my my parents who I adore I I just I was so
[39:43]nervous that you know and still I'm nervous that they would be you know received and not a positive
[39:50]light um because they weren't perfect and they weren't and yet they're the best parents I could
[39:56]have ever asked for so you know kind of
[40:00]exposing them, my sister, people that were friends in high school that I don't speak to anymore
[40:07]that, you know, might come across this and might, you know, feel weird about being in a book.
[40:15]I mean, it's a big responsibility and you want to tell the truth and yet you want to tell
[40:21]your truth, which might be different from their truth. And so it was really difficult to navigate
[40:26]and I'm glad I did it, but I really want to, to take true events and let them inspire things
[40:35]that I can then kind of take more ownership of in terms of like manipulating the narrative.
[40:46]Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned that now you fell in love again, which is a great
[40:49]ending to anybody who's read the book and is so rooting for you. It just
[40:52]not that that's the feeling of it. It's a nice thing to have at the end of the
[40:56]of the story. You know, I feel really conflicted about it actually of just like, yeah, I met this,
[41:01]I met this person who I was, I really was in the state after I finished the book where I was just like,
[41:09]I, I own this. I own being this weird single, not that it's weird to be single, but just like alone,
[41:18]loving person who has obsessions and is also very similar to the person I was at 14. I own it
[41:27]now. I love it. Why did I expect to be a completely different person when I grew up? Like,
[41:33]what if I just loved who I have always been and embraced it? And part of that embracing that was
[41:41]being someone who was like happily alone and has wonderful friends and has awesome romantic experiences,
[41:50]but doesn't have this conventional romantic setup. And then I met this guy on Tinder, you know,
[41:58]which was like, whatever. And then we, and I just love him and he's an artist. He's a gifted
[42:05]Tim Maxwell. And I love him and we got engaged. And yeah, like, things, but I like haven't told
[42:15]a lot of people and it's just like this. And now I have there it is of just like, he's great and
[42:21]I love him, but I feel like I feel a little bit like I, it's just like, I don't want the engagement
[42:30]to be like, and that's a happy ending because like the happy ending was me alone, you know,
[42:38]figuring stuff out. I just happen to meet this person that I like hanging out with now for a while,
[42:43]you know, but like, but like, hopefully the core of me as an independent person will always be there
[42:51]and no man is wonderful as they can be will validate my success. That's my soapbox.
[43:03]All right. Oh, thank you so much for taking the time to do this.
[43:08]How do you make your book and everything? Thank you. I'm honored. Oh my god.
[43:13]Hey, thanks, baby. I'll get past.