Karen Dukess, THE LAST BOOK PARTY
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the web-e-nominated podcast,
[0:12]Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books. This episode of Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books
[0:16]has been sponsored by Himalaya, the best app for discovering,
[0:20]listening, and organizing podcasts. Himalaya was nice enough to reach out and make me an
[0:24]editor's choice, so now they're a sponsor. Check them out at Himalaya.com, or in the
[0:30]app store. I'm really excited to be here today with Karen Dukas, who's the author of novel
[0:34]The Last Book Party. A former journalist, Karen, was also a speech writer for the United Nations
[0:39]Development Program on Gender Equality. Karen blogged for HuffPost about raising boys,
[0:44]and has contributed book reviews to USA Today. The graduate of Brown University and the Columbia
[0:49]University Graduate School of Journalism, she currently lives in Pelham, New York with her husband
[0:53]and two cents. So welcome, Karen. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read
[0:58]Books. I'm thrilled I'm such a big fan for quite a while. Oh, thank you. So can you
[1:04]please tell listeners what The Last Book Party is about and what inspired you to write it?
[1:08]Okay. So The Last Book Party is a coming of age of a writer, takes place over the summer of 1987,
[1:15]and it follows the 25-year-old young woman that she moves from book publishing in New York to
[1:21]Truro on Cape Cod, where she takes a job for a New Yorker writer and works in his house with him
[1:26]and his wife a poet, and it's about what happens to her over the summer. It was such a vivid
[1:32]portrait. Like, I feel like I actually just spent the weekend on Cape Cod, like reading this book
[1:36]with you. It was so, like, it was just so everything you painted such a vivid portrait of it. So
[1:41]anyway, sorry, go on. So I wasn't, when I started out, I did not have an idea for this novel in my
[1:47]head. I actually started this in all group from a piece of memoir writing, not that the book is
[1:53]autobiographical, so I can get into later. But I did start out. I had this amazing magical day
[1:59]in my 20s. I had gone to a party like the one that opens the book, this kind of literary crowd,
[2:06]and met a guy, an artist, and soon after we had this amazing day at the beach, the ocean,
[2:12]it was deserted, and after a storm, and a movie from a lobster pot was quite close to shore,
[2:17]and we danced around in waves, and we pulled it in, very much like I described it in the book,
[2:21]and we took the lobsters being in our 20s. We didn't think that this is poaching.
[2:25]We walked carrying lobsters by the tail back to his house, and we had dinner, and many years later,
[2:32]this guy died. Many years after that, I wanted to just capture this day in writing because it was just
[2:38]very magical at the time. It became more special later. I mean, I had lost touch with him, and
[2:45]so I just wanted to write about it. And so I started writing about it in the first person like
[2:50]it was me, and then I kept going. I was in a writing group, and I just needed to keep going,
[2:55]and so I was intrigued by the idea of writing about myself at that time of life in mid-20s,
[3:01]working and publishing, and then one day I was writing, and just this character appeared, Jeremy,
[3:07]who walked out of the editor's office and picturing my actual editor that I worked for,
[3:12]and this character appeared completely fictional, and he was kind of prickly and intriguing,
[3:17]and I didn't know why, and I just kept going, and all of a sudden it was fiction, and I didn't
[3:24]quite even realize that I was writing a novel for a while, I just kept going, and it turned into
[3:29]this novel. Wow. And that happened to me where something just a character appears. It was kind of
[3:35]cool. I bet. Someone I once asked somebody how they came up with everything in their books and
[3:41]their novels, and they said, I don't know, it's like asking, how do you come up with your dreams?
[3:45]They just appear to you. You don't try to have them necessarily, and sounds like you had that
[3:50]similar type of experience. I didn't, and I didn't believe it when I heard writers say that early.
[3:55]So it was like, wow, it's true. So tell me about how your experiences in the literary world,
[4:02]like tell me about your relationship with your editor at the time, how you use that part of your life
[4:07]to place this book, the opening of the book. So I worked in publishing a very short time. In college,
[4:13]I kept telling myself I'm not going to be one of those little arts grads who gets out of school
[4:18]and works in publishing. I want to cliche. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.
[4:22]And then I got out of college, and I was like, oh god, I need a job.
[4:27]Working in book publishing, and I got a job at Little Brown as an editorial secretary, which is
[4:33]as low as it sounds. It's in the editorial department, but it's lower than the editorial
[4:38]assistant. So you're typing and you do get to read manuscripts that come in on the slush pile.
[4:44]And I just had fun drawing on that experience. I worked in Little Brown for about a year,
[4:49]and then I worked for a literary agent for a year. And it was fun to write about because suddenly
[4:55]I'm realizing like, wow, that was a different era. That was a long time ago, the 1980s. And it's a
[5:01]very different publishing world. So it was fun to revisit it. Although it was very interesting when
[5:07]this novel was on submission, a lot of editors and their editorial assistants who were young,
[5:12]like the fragments of the book is who were like, wow, you really got that publishing thing right?
[5:17]And I thought, how is that possible? I'm writing about the 1980s, but apparently certain things haven't
[5:22]changed. I got that sense of being young, bookish, young women, and they're mostly young women
[5:29]that take these jobs in publishing. So it's fun to go back to that.
[5:32]You wrote so beautifully in this book about being an aspiring writer, basically, and being young
[5:39]and wanting to do that as a profession later. You actually, in one of your opening scenes between
[5:44]Eve, the protagonist, and Franny, who is the boy who she has the lobster rendezvous with, if you
[5:49]will. So Franny asks her, so are you a writer too? And she replies, I'd like to be, but it's hard
[5:55]until you know what you want to say, which I thought was really interesting. Do you feel like people
[6:00]can't know what they want to say at that age? Or how did you figure out what you wanted to say?
[6:04]Well, I think that the whole idea that you have to know what you want to write about before you
[6:10]write is partly why I didn't write a novel until I picked these. Because I really thought you had
[6:17]to know, you had to have the idea, you had to have the plot, you had to know what you wanted to
[6:21]say. And I think that came for me, both from a lack of confidence and also maybe being a journalist
[6:27]for years where you really do know what you have to know what you're going to say. You can't write
[6:31]an article and does, see what happens when you have to know. So writing is about thinking first and
[6:36]then writing. And I think that having the impulse to write can really be enough. And then you can
[6:43]discover what you want to say through the active writing. And I think I've finally come to realize
[6:50]that that is how I discover what I want to say. And that is how I come up with the better
[6:56]stories is that when I kind of let it go and you're writing in the dark and you don't necessarily
[7:00]know why and you figure it out along the way, which is very scary because you don't have any
[7:06]guarantee you're going to figure it out. But for me, that's how it worked. And I was in a writing
[7:11]group and the leader of the writing group would say time and time again when I'd say, I don't
[7:16]know what I'm doing. I don't know where this is going. And he would say just let the story reveal
[7:19]itself, trust that you will. And I didn't really believe him, but that is how it happened for me.
[7:25]And I think in the context of Eve's story, I think it's maybe more common for young women
[7:32]to just have a harder time claiming their voice and just saying, I don't know why I want to
[7:37]say this, but I do. And I'm going to say it like there's more second guessing yourself than
[7:41]doubting yourself and therefore stopping yourself from speaking or writing from a lack of confidence.
[7:48]You also had Eve say that I'm trying to find the quote, but you said something like if the story
[7:54]just pours out of you, then it's much easier and it's worth doing. And Jeremy tells Eve, Jeremy,
[8:00]who is a writer and has written this beautiful novel about a leprosy colony says, if you need
[8:05]anything to make it as a writer, it's stamina, not genius. Now wonder you have trouble finishing
[8:10]stories. It's not magic, you know. And Eve says, isn't it though? My best stories have sort of poured
[8:14]out of me. And Jeremy then advises Eve, you need to stop the magical thinking you have to push
[8:18]through, especially when it's not easy, which I loved because you always hear about stories pouring
[8:24]out of people. And they're just like coming through and coming out. But it's not always like that.
[8:29]It's sometimes you have to like, well, tell me more about that.
[8:33]Okay. Well, it's interesting because it does seem like two contradictory things. One is I had
[8:37]this experience wear this character appeared. And when I let go, things just happen,
[8:42]which is great, but there isn't happen all the time. And you don't finish a novel like that.
[8:46]But at the same time, you have to be willing to let go and let it happen. You also have to be
[8:51]willing to work really hard and not give up when it's not working. And go down past the
[8:57]don't work and regroup and redirect. And I think, you know, I wanted to write my whole life. And when
[9:02]I think about why did it take me so long, you know, I could have done this earlier. I was writing
[9:07]all the time. But I would always stop because I felt if I were meant to be a writer, it should have
[9:12]been easier. And I finally, when I was approaching 50, got to the point where I felt like,
[9:19]I don't want to be someone who always wanted to write a novel. So I never did. That would be very
[9:24]sad for me. And I thought, I can do this. There's no reason I can't write a novel. I don't know
[9:29]if it's going to be great. But if I keep chipping away and keep fixing it, I will eventually
[9:35]get one done. And it became a goal that I just needed to do for myself. But I read a lot of things
[9:42]while I was writing to sort of keep my confidence up, to keep working hard. And the more I read,
[9:48]and then I was reading writers on writing. And I started to realize that even the very best
[9:54]writers struggle, that it's just hard. It just is. And, you know, in the book, there's
[10:00]this whole sense that Eve gets from her mother,
[10:02]that if you're really a genius,
[10:03]you shouldn't do it unless you're a genius.
[10:05]You're either really a jerk or you're not,
[10:07]and if you're not, what's the point?
[10:09]And I think Eve kind of inherited
[10:12]that sort of grew up with that idea
[10:15]and that stopped her from writing.
[10:16]And I think I also, I think writing's just so hard
[10:19]that you can give yourself a million reasons
[10:21]and not to do it.
[10:22]Like, well, I'm not a genius.
[10:24]I'm not gonna write anything great.
[10:26]What's the point?
[10:28]You know, I remember reading things all the time.
[10:30]Like, if you write as many writers have said things,
[10:33]like, you know, if you can live without writing,
[10:35]then you're not meant to be a writer.
[10:37]And I just don't think there are any rules like that.
[10:40]I mean, the fact that I couldn't let it go,
[10:43]that no matter what job I was doing,
[10:45]I knew what I really wanted to do
[10:46]was write a novel.
[10:48]Could I have had a happy life without doing it?
[10:50]I could have, but I really wanted to do it.
[10:52]And I had to kind of shore myself up
[10:56]to realize that it is hard and there are no guarantees,
[11:01]but you can still do it.
[11:02]And in fact, at one point, I was like,
[11:04]well, I can write a bad novel.
[11:05]Like, I can do that.
[11:06]Like, just lower the stakes so it's not so scary.
[11:09]And of course I didn't want to write a bad novel,
[11:11]but I just wanted to keep going and not give up
[11:14]because I was tired of myself all my life
[11:16]of sort of fits and starts and not sticking through it.
[11:19]And I think if you're working at it,
[11:21]then you can get those moments where a character appears.
[11:24]So there are moments of magic, for sure, for me.
[11:27]And it's not magic, it's subconscious or whatever.
[11:30]But it just has to just kind of have to keep chipping away
[11:33]at it.
[11:33]And then once I went through the first draft
[11:36]and I had a story and I was kind of amazed,
[11:38]oh my God, I actually have a plot.
[11:40]Something happens, something changes.
[11:43]Then it was fun to kind of flesh it out and add it.
[11:47]So I do think you have to let go at some point,
[11:50]but I think ultimately you just have to keep chipping away
[11:53]at it until you're happy with it.
[11:55]You had some interesting elements to some of the characters
[11:58]that I found a little surprising,
[12:00]but also intriguing.
[12:01]For instance, Jeremy as parents
[12:03]had met at a displaced persons camp in 1945 in Germany,
[12:06]which I thought was such an interesting little tidbit
[12:09]to throw in, especially amidst the Waspi society
[12:12]where you place the characters in this, you know,
[12:14]society and cave cod and everything.
[12:16]And I was wondering, like, how did you come up
[12:18]with that particular detail?
[12:20]Then I was wondering, well, maybe she was working
[12:21]on a story about displaced persons
[12:24]and then she decided to put it in.
[12:25]I had this whole theory in my head.
[12:26]Anyway, through with me, Ron,
[12:28]how did you end up putting that in?
[12:29]I mean, it really grew from, you know,
[12:31]both Eve and Jeremy are Jewish
[12:33]and they're both very taken with this Waspi literary world
[12:36]that they want to be a part of,
[12:38]that they somehow, they idealize,
[12:40]they think it's somehow the secret
[12:42]to having the life they want.
[12:43]And, but they're Jewish in very different ways.
[12:46]You know, Eve's family is completely assimilated.
[12:50]They're not religious, yet all their friends are Jewish.
[12:53]They're that kind of Jewish.
[12:54]You know, like, oh, it's not important to us,
[12:56]but that's kind of their world.
[12:58]And I wanted Jeremy to be from a very different kind
[13:00]of Jewish world that he was also not comfortable with
[13:04]and trying to run away from.
[13:07]The displaced persons campaign was more of just
[13:09]a logistical thing when I thought, okay,
[13:11]I wanted them to be Holocaust survivors
[13:13]and not the inspiring kind of Holocaust survivors.
[13:16]But then he came from a family
[13:19]that he did not like and he kind of wanted to disavow
[13:23]as sort of run away from himself in a similar way
[13:26]that Eve was doing, but yet different.
[13:29]And then the displaced persons campaign was more of my thinking,
[13:32]okay, well, how old would they be?
[13:34]What would be logical?
[13:35]They can't be too young, they can't be too old.
[13:37]So it was really just more about them having this history
[13:40]that Jeremy didn't want to deal with.
[13:41]And part of his change is his changing attitude towards that.
[13:45]Interesting.
[13:46]I get it. All right, well, I was a little wrong,
[13:47]but that's okay.
[13:49]So do you think you talked a lot about the different societies
[13:53]even contained on Cape Cod,
[13:55]the sort of old school lost society
[13:56]and either kind of Jewish society.
[13:59]And later on, Eve says to Jeremy about the poet,
[14:02]the wife of the author who she ends up helping for the summer,
[14:06]you say is totally a little bit antisemitic
[14:08]and Jeremy gives her a knowing look and answers isn't everyone.
[14:11]So it talks to me about that passage.
[14:14]Again, I didn't want,
[14:16]I mean, Eve was not somebody whose Jewishness
[14:19]was a part of her identity in a strong way.
[14:22]Yet she is conscious of these differences,
[14:24]the different worlds and her family circles
[14:27]and Tilly and Henry circles.
[14:29]And I didn't want Tilly to be outright antisemitic
[14:34]and there's some little comments that she makes
[14:35]that I don't think are antisemitic.
[14:38]Like there's one point when she says,
[14:40]oh, Eve doesn't eat pork to Henry.
[14:43]And I don't think that's an antisemitic remark,
[14:46]but it's a remark that reflects Tilly's lack of familiarity
[14:50]with a lot of Jews.
[14:51]If she assumes that all Jews keep kosher,
[14:54]she clearly hasn't known a lot of Jews in New York.
[14:57]I think most of whom probably don't keep kosher
[15:00]and that sort of assumption or that she couldn't,
[15:02]you know, every time she talked to Eve,
[15:05]she was aware of her being Jewish.
[15:07]I don't think that's gonna be significant,
[15:09]but it's a difference, you know.
[15:10]When they ran into each other at the restaurant
[15:12]she was like, oh, you're allowed out on Friday nights.
[15:14]Right, right.
[15:15]So like her lens was seeing it through that way,
[15:17]which Eve wasn't even really aware of yet.
[15:20]Eve also sort of saw them in this other kind of way.
[15:23]So that was interesting to me.
[15:24]And Jeremy being the child of Holocaust survivors
[15:27]and, you know, having gone to a very not Jewish prep school
[15:31]as a teenager was much more aware of those differences
[15:34]and uncomfortable than a certain way.
[15:35]So he saw the world in a different way than Eve did.
[15:39]So I think they were both uncomfortable
[15:40]with their background in different ways.
[15:43]And it was interesting to me to explore.
[15:46]A friend of mine recently saw there was a play
[15:47]about Lehman Brothers at the Armory in New York City.
[15:50]And I said, oh, how was the play?
[15:52]And she said, you know what?
[15:53]They had the same thing on their door
[15:56]that you have on your door.
[15:58]Yeah, right.
[15:59]She's like, can you believe it?
[16:01]I was like, it's not like every Jewish person,
[16:03]but anyway, whatever.
[16:05]I thought it was so funny.
[16:06]Then she, of course, felt bad, but I was like,
[16:08]no, that's fine.
[16:08]That was something that was interesting.
[16:10]So the publishing world that I depicted was,
[16:13]I wasn't making a big point about it being not Jewish,
[16:15]but it was a little brown, you know, kind of a waspy environment.
[16:18]And Eve has passed over for a job
[16:20]by this, you know, handsome blonde, Middlebury grad, et cetera.
[16:23]And some editor, older editor,
[16:26]upon reading the manuscripts, one of her comments was
[16:29]she really captured that subtle antisemitism of that era,
[16:32]which I wasn't even aware of when I was there.
[16:35]And I was like, oh, really?
[16:37]It was so, I somehow must have like ingested something
[16:41]that I reflected back in this without even realizing.
[16:44]So it was interesting to have that confirmed
[16:47]it was that way.
[16:48]I mean, I was very young at the time.
[16:50]So it's like, you pick up on a vibe, but you don't really know.
[16:53]I found it interesting also how you describe Danny,
[16:56]Eve's brother, and you don't give him an official diagnosis,
[16:59]but it seems like he's on the spectrum or asperger
[17:02]or something in that world.
[17:04]Do you think that Eve felt compelled
[17:06]to sort of be a more easy child because her brother
[17:09]was this, he became more difficult to manage,
[17:13]especially as he got older and in the book
[17:14]you have her go basically rescue him at one point
[17:17]and clean up his apartment and help him sort of function?
[17:20]And even though he's this genius, right,
[17:22]this mathematical whiz and the whole family sort of idolizes
[17:25]him in that way, he has trouble managing his life,
[17:29]sort of day to day functioning.
[17:31]So I feel like I thought that was just interesting
[17:33]because in the family dynamic,
[17:35]there's often someone who is harder
[17:37]and then the other person takes up their role
[17:39]of what's left over in a way.
[17:42]So I wanted to hear more about your decision
[17:43]to make their family structured like that.
[17:46]Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with that,
[17:48]that there's often someone who kind of sucks up
[17:51]all the oxygen, who's like,
[17:52]he's creating so much drama that other people can't.
[17:55]And that was interesting to me,
[17:56]but I think even, and I wanted to sort of have him
[18:00]be kind of a manifestation of the idea
[18:03]that the mother already had about genius
[18:05]that you're either born with this or you're not.
[18:08]And Danny was so brilliant that it's sort of like,
[18:10]he's brilliant and he's not brilliant.
[18:12]So why should she pursue some artistic thing?
[18:16]She doesn't have it like he does.
[18:18]And I think that was a very difficult thing
[18:21]for Eve to grow up with.
[18:23]I also think that there's a dynamic that happens
[18:25]in families where not just emotional issues,
[18:29]but intellectual areas, people stake out areas.
[18:33]And maybe some families, they all compete
[18:35]to do the same thing, but in some families,
[18:37]they do different things.
[18:39]And I have a good relationship with my two older sisters,
[18:41]but I definitely grew up with this sense
[18:42]that well, if my sister did gymnastics,
[18:46]and I would do dance, or if like she did that,
[18:49]so I had to do something else.
[18:51]It was a way of not competing,
[18:53]but it was also this sense that if someone state
[18:56]or claim to a territory, you can't do it.
[18:58]And Eve says at the end of the book,
[19:00]why can't we both be brilliant?
[19:02]Or why can't we both do what we want,
[19:04]even if we're not brilliant?
[19:06]Like why does one person, the family get to be
[19:09]the difficult one, or the accomplished one,
[19:11]or the brilliant one?
[19:13]And I think, you know, families, you grow up,
[19:15]that's your whole world.
[19:16]So you give yourself a little role in it.
[19:18]And I think at some point,
[19:20]you have to break away from that.
[19:22]Like the whole world doesn't see you
[19:24]as the younger sibling, or as the not as smart one.
[19:28]And but if you have sort of taken that idea
[19:31]in with yourself, you have to kind of fight against that.
[19:34]Because I think those family roles
[19:35]that we have are so strong, you carry them with you.
[19:39]But if you really are gonna kind of realize
[19:41]your whole potential, you have to be who you wanna be
[19:43]and not in relation to an older brother
[19:46]or an older sister.
[19:47]I feel like as a mom, I'm trying to figure out
[19:50]how not to keep my kids into little roles too, right?
[19:53]Like I don't want one of them to,
[19:55]like if both girls are into gymnastics,
[19:57]why should only one person be allowed to be on a team?
[20:00]All of that.
[20:01]Like I don't want to ever pigeonhole and people often ask me as I'm sure it's happened
[20:04]to you or every other mom out there, like, well, which is the easy kid or which is
[20:08]to this?
[20:09]And I'm like, no, no, no, no.
[20:10]I'm not going to do that to them.
[20:12]It's very hard though because I find that like, you only have experience raising the kids
[20:16]you have.
[20:17]So it's very difficult not to compare them, you know, when you think of like, you can
[20:21]talk about one child for being a certain way, you almost automatically refer to the other
[20:26]kid, because it's like you only have a couple of examples in your house.
[20:30]And so you're either this way or that way.
[20:32]And I think you do have to fight against it.
[20:34]And also the whole idea that if you had two kids doing gymnastics and one is really great
[20:38]and one is not so great, but loves it, I think it's a normal thing that you would push and
[20:43]the one who's really good at it more because which you shouldn't, like there's the joy
[20:47]of doing something which is very different than being good at it, but we're in a very
[20:51]achievement oriented in society, you know, and in the book, that's Eve, like she's
[20:57]no guarantee that she's going to write something good.
[21:00]So nobody's encouraging her to do it even though it's what she loves.
[21:03]I mean, she lives and breathes books and that's what she wants to do.
[21:08]And that was very much my experience, like I love reading and writing, but it was so hard
[21:12]over the years to just embrace it because you feel like there's no guarantee that you're
[21:18]going to write anything good ever.
[21:20]And if you want to do it, you need to do it, it was difficult the other day I was getting
[21:24]so stressed out.
[21:25]I'm trying to write a novel myself.
[21:27]And I was like, oh my gosh, I've got to finish that.
[21:29]And I'm like, no one is sitting there waiting for your novel.
[21:31]Do you know what I mean?
[21:32]Like this is like, I've decided to do this, like any stress I put on myself to finish is
[21:37]only because of me, like no one's waiting for it.
[21:39]So you have to like put the pressure on yourself to get things done without like driving
[21:44]yourself crazy basically.
[21:46]You can also drag yourself crazy with the idea that, oh, if I were really serious about
[21:49]this, I would be getting up at 4am every day and writing and et cetera.
[21:53]And I tortured myself with that for years, like I want to say I want to write, but I'm
[21:56]not doing that.
[21:57]So maybe I don't really.
[21:59]And then I realized that you don't have to do that.
[22:02]Like I wrote this novel on Tuesdays, the first draft, I literally wrote on Tuesdays.
[22:06]That's it.
[22:07]I was working three days a week.
[22:09]I was in a writing group that met at 4 o'clock on Tuesdays, Tuesday was the day I saved
[22:13]for writing because Friday did all the family and kid stuff that full time working people
[22:18]do on the weekend.
[22:20]And so Tuesday was my writing day.
[22:22]And I remember I was sitting in this cafe once that I always would go to right now
[22:26]my house.
[22:27]And there was a guy there, he had a big poetry book and he was writing on a laptop and
[22:31]I matched him.
[22:32]He was a poet.
[22:33]And I imagine him asking me if I was a writer and I imagine myself saying on Tuesdays,
[22:37]I didn't really think of myself as a writer.
[22:41]It wasn't writing every day.
[22:42]I didn't know where I was going, but I did write the draft of the last book party just
[22:47]by writing on Tuesdays.
[22:48]So this whole idea that you have to be in the 5 a.m. club or you have to write every day
[22:53]or it's not going to work.
[22:54]I mean, I think you have to do what you can do.
[22:58]And then I think there's something nice about nobody waiting for your novel.
[23:01]I think that pressure would be difficult, you know, and then you realize how much you want
[23:05]to do it if you're finding time and then everything else you do.
[23:08]How many Tuesdays did it take you?
[23:09]How long did it take?
[23:10]It took a lot of Tuesdays.
[23:11]I mean, over a year for sure, probably two years of Tuesdays.
[23:15]I mean, the whole novel took longer than that.
[23:17]That was just kind of the discovery drop.
[23:20]That was the every week going into the writing group and saying, I don't know where I'm
[23:23]going with this and sort of being encouraged to keep going.
[23:27]Maybe two years.
[23:29]And then I set it aside.
[23:31]My dad got sick and we knew he only had, I mean, he didn't sick for a while, but he got
[23:35]a diagnosis that we knew he only had a few months to live.
[23:38]So I just suddenly had no interest in my novel.
[23:40]And I set it aside.
[23:42]And then I spent the next year after he died, writing about him.
[23:45]I wrote a short story based on a story he told me.
[23:48]He was very therapeutic, very cathartic.
[23:50]And then about a year after he died, I picked up this draft that I had written on Tuesdays.
[23:55]And I kind of was like, huh, this really is a novel.
[23:59]And I think I started getting more serious about writing it then.
[24:03]And I could see that it was going to work, not that I was that confident about it, but
[24:08]I didn't have the shape of a novel and I knew I could finish it.
[24:11]And then I started working more than just Tuesdays on it.
[24:14]And I think the fact that my dad died also made me, it was a little wake up call to me
[24:18]as well.
[24:19]Like you're going to die someday.
[24:20]And if you really want to write a novel, get cracking, you need to do more than Tuesdays.
[24:25]And once I had the first draft, it was more fun to work on it because I wasn't working
[24:29]so much in the dark anymore.
[24:30]I had to be getting the middle of the end.
[24:32]So it was more fun to go back and say like, okay, I need to flush out this character.
[24:36]I need to slow down this and it became more fun because I had more sense of like what
[24:41]it was becoming.
[24:42]I could really see the shape of it.
[24:43]So I was procrastinating less because it's hard when you're working in the dark and you
[24:47]don't know what you're doing.
[24:48]It's hard to sit down.
[24:50]Once I had the story, it was more fun.
[24:51]So I just picked up steam.
[24:53]And by the last six months, I was working every minute that I could get to sit down and
[24:58]work on it.
[24:59]And speaking of father-child relationships, you have a very interesting dynamic that
[25:03]happens in this book.
[25:04]Is it okay to talk about?
[25:05]Do you think?
[25:06]Yeah.
[25:07]Okay.
[25:08]And I don't want to give anything away.
[25:09]But Eve does have a relationship with both a father and his son, first with the son and then
[25:15]with the father in this book, which was, oh, it scanned all.
[25:18]I felt like very scandalous and I couldn't believe it was happening.
[25:22]I was actually, I had some house guests over the weekend.
[25:24]I was telling them about your book and how first she had hooked up with the son and then
[25:28]he was, then she hooked up with the father and they're like, well, who do you think
[25:31]she's going to hook up with by the end of the book?
[25:32]And I was like, I don't know.
[25:33]So it was pretty funny.
[25:36]Did that come from any sort of autobiographical situation or some sort of friend quote-unquote
[25:41]that might have had this happen?
[25:43]Just out of curiosity?
[25:44]They should not.
[25:45]And it's very funny that you asked that because so cute people have said, what the hell?
[25:50]Like, this is weird.
[25:51]Like, it's definitely been some reviews on Goodreads where people, and I guess they don't
[25:55]want to do spoilers.
[25:56]I don't think it's a huge spoiler, have said like, I don't real problem with some of
[25:59]Eve's choices.
[26:00]But no, it was not autobiographical at all.
[26:03]And you know, it really came out of one point when I was working on the novel.
[26:07]I took a very brief writing class at the 92nd Street Y with the writer Matthew Thomas,
[26:12]who wrote, we are not ourselves, who is an amazing teacher.
[26:16]And at that point in the draft, it wasn't, I wasn't sure what was happening yet.
[26:19]And the lobster scene happened in the evening with Franny Happen, but it wasn't even
[26:23]clear if they spent the night together or what happened with them.
[26:27]And I remember him saying, no, they have to.
[26:30]They have to.
[26:31]If your character doesn't make mistakes, who wants to read it like, you know, she has
[26:35]to be full in and have things happen.
[26:38]And I really kind of embraced that.
[26:41]And again, I was writing this draft, not quite sure knowing where it was going.
[26:45]So it became very fun to just make Eve do some really stupid things and then write it
[26:51]out and see what happened.
[26:52]And so the relationship with the father, I hadn't actually planned for that to happen
[26:59]either because I didn't have this plot in my head.
[27:02]And that sort of happened.
[27:03]And I was like, oh, that's weird.
[27:05]And I just kind of went with it.
[27:06]And I do think she makes some questionable choices, but this is a 25 year old woman who's
[27:11]supposed to be, she's naive.
[27:13]And she's looking for answers in relationships instead of in herself.
[27:18]And she's kind of trying different things to try to figure out how to be the person she
[27:22]wants to be.
[27:23]And it's fun to make people do ridiculous things.
[27:26]I mean, if you have someone who's more like me, who's not quite that dramatic in her
[27:30]living, the book wouldn't be as interesting.
[27:33]So that is not all to be a grapple.
[27:35]I know.
[27:36]I was trying to think.
[27:37]I'm like, ooh, father's sons that I would ever hook up with, I know that I was feeling
[27:43]very creepy about it.
[27:44]So I was like, all right, I'm going to, I mean, obviously not now.
[27:46]I'm very halfway married, but when I was 25, I mean, I certainly know a lot of 25
[27:52]year olds out there making highly questionable decisions.
[27:54]So I thought that was pretty juicy.
[27:57]I thought it was pretty awesome.
[27:59]You also, you've written all this other stuff and I know we're running out of time,
[28:02]but I wanted to talk to you about why you love helicopter parents, which you wrote about
[28:06]and have posed, which you ended with this great line.
[28:09]So lift off good helicopter parents, say flight.
[28:12]You know, I think what I wrote in that and I felt when when my kids were young who said,
[28:18]it's a struggle not to be a helicopter parent.
[28:20]You know, I mean, you always have these parents who brag about how non helicoptery they
[28:23]are.
[28:24]I let my kids do this and that.
[28:25]But I think that we all, not all, but I mean, there's been so much, I'm the type of person
[28:30]who reads a lot about whatever I'm doing.
[28:31]So when I'm raising kids, I was reading a lot about parenting and I, you know, I wanted
[28:36]to fight my tendencies to kind of control them too much or to try to fix things for them
[28:41]because I wanted my kids to grow up and be resilient and be able to deal with their own
[28:46]problems and cope with life.
[28:48]And so whenever I read these stories about crazy things parents could do, you know, there
[28:52]was always some element of it that I could relate to was something maybe not completely
[28:56]crazy.
[28:57]But when you read about their really extreme helicopter parents, it's a great reminder
[29:01]of what not to do.
[29:02]You know, you may not see it in yourself.
[29:04]But when you see it in someone else kicked up a notch, you realize like you really need to
[29:10]not do that to your kids.
[29:11]So it was very structured for me.
[29:13]It was like a fun way to get reminded to be the kind of parent that you think you should
[29:18]be instead of some of your, you know, maybe less animal instincts.
[29:22]So funny.
[29:24]So the last scene of the party, one of the last things, not the last thing.
[29:26]One of the last things takes place at the literary party of Henry and Tilly's and everybody
[29:31]has to dress up as their favorite literary character.
[29:34]So I started thinking like who would I dress up as?
[29:35]And I decided if there was a party today, I would probably dress up as Kaya from where
[29:39]the crowd had saying so I could just wear rags and carry a thing of watercolors and
[29:43]be done with it.
[29:44]And everybody would probably know since everyone's reading that book right now.
[29:46]But I was wondering who you would want to be.
[29:48]Who would you dress up as?
[29:49]It's a good question because my major reaction is to tell you the truth, which is that
[29:54]I hate costume parties.
[29:56]Very much like Eve, too stressful, hard enough to just be your best self.
[30:00]I agree. Totally agree. I guess you were really lying. You know, it's like, would you choose to
[30:04]where is like telling people something about your fantasy vision of yourself? And it's just,
[30:10]yeah, so I've said very often when people are like, we should have a costume party. I'm like,
[30:13]I get to dress as me. I grew up with a cop and I'm like, but now I feel like maybe that was
[30:18]also sort of a lack of confidence, you know, of feeling, you know, confident. The lack of confidence
[30:24]consciousness. And now I'm thinking, you know, in the book Eve says at one point and she's trying
[30:30]to decide who to dress at. She's like, Nancy Drew, no, I don't have red hair. I'd more likely best
[30:34]Marvin, the plump sort of shy friend. And that's no fun. And now I think no, but I would actually be
[30:40]kind of fun. You know, I mean, I would love to dress as Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca, but I could never pull it
[30:44]off. I'm just too, you know, friendly looking. So I think I'd have to like play to my natural. Like, I think
[30:50]you'll be fun to do so a retro little pumps and a dress and be best Marvin in Nancy Drew.
[30:55]Awesome. Are you working on another book now?
[30:57]I was working on another book this winter. I've set aside for the summer to promote this book,
[31:02]which is a huge relief because it was very hard to have ahead in both places. And I am drawing,
[31:07]it's a book about an older protagonist. It's not a sequel to this one. And it's really about
[31:13]a marriage and then Billins. But the backdrop is Russia in 2017 and drawing on my experience,
[31:21]I lived in Russia for six years in the 90s. So there's a backstory in the 90s. It's about an
[31:26]American woman, but it's got a whole sort of Russia thing in the year after Trump was elected or
[31:31]Trump's first year in office. And that's all I can say, not because I'm being, you know,
[31:35]cagey about it, but because I haven't written that discovery draft all the way through yet. And I
[31:40]don't know exactly where it's going, but I have some sort of broad ideas. I've been tempted to
[31:46]sort of try to be more efficient and come up with the plot first. But whenever I do that,
[31:52]it's kind of cheesy and it just doesn't work. So I have to go back to my natural game, which is just
[31:57]to write and hope that I figure it out. Like a gentle woman in Moscow type of book. Maybe, maybe,
[32:04]we'll see. Well, Karen, thank you so much for coming on mom's to have time to read books. I
[32:09]loved hearing about all of your inspiring stories about writing and Eve's experience and how you
[32:14]wove everything in and writing on Tuesdays. I love that. That's so great. So thank you so much.
[32:21]I love doing it. I love listening to the podcast. I think I've learned a lot in it too.
[32:25]Listening to other writers. Oh, good. I love to hear that. You're novel. Oh, thank you. Yes.
[32:33]Thanks again to today's sponsor of mom's don't have time to read books and the lay at the
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[32:42]mom's don't have time to read books. You can follow me on Instagram at mom's don't have time
[32:47]to read books. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[32:51]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now
[32:55]trim music. Thanks for listening. You could always email me at zibi at zibiowens.com.