VC Chickering, TWISTED FAMILY VALUES
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[0:49]I'm here today with VC Chickering, who's the author of Twisted Family Values and Nicky Town.
[0:55]She is written for Comedy Central, MTV Lifetime, TLC Discovery, Nick Mom, and Oxygen Television
[1:00]Networks, as well as for Cosmo, The Washington Post, and other publications.
[1:05]She has a local newspaper column called Pissmonger and writes a blog.
[1:08]She also writes and performs original songs for the Alt Bluegrass Indie Jazz Band,
[1:13]Tori Erstwhile in the Montes.
[1:15]The graduate of NYU, she currently lives with her family in New Jersey.
[1:18]So welcome to Mom Student of Time to read books.
[1:21]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:22]So here's my first crazy question.
[1:25]On your book, it's VC Chickering, but that is not your name.
[1:28]Are we allowed to use your real name here?
[1:30]Well, who are you?
[1:31]Who are you?
[1:32]I am a ninja.
[1:34]So VC Chickering actually is my legal name.
[1:37]My legal name is Victoria Chickering O'Connell.
[1:41]OK.
[1:42]And I worked professionally and wrote professionally as Tori or Victoria Chickering
[1:48]until I got married, which was very late.
[1:50]It was 35.
[1:51]So I have never not published anything under Chickering or VC.
[1:58]I switched to VC from Tori because I wanted to put a little bit of distance between who I was
[2:05]in my community as the mother of a child and who I was as a writer because of the nature of
[2:12]the person I was writing.
[2:14]I thought that would be wise and thoughtful and mindful of also his place in the community.
[2:20]Interesting, yeah.
[2:21]Right before I turn out of recording here, Tori showed me a picture of her son and said,
[2:26]she was using it to remind her not to say anything to, uh,
[2:29]I don't know what I'm going to do.
[2:30]Oh, I'm bratial.
[2:31]I'm like, what would you say?
[2:34]Like, that's what I want to hear.
[2:35]Let's go right to there.
[2:37]Anyway, her son's adorable.
[2:38]I need 14 to 16, sorry.
[2:40]OK, so you disguised yourself for his sake.
[2:43]And yet you wrote these books then.
[2:45]So that's so what was happening at the time is 50 Shades of Grey had blown up.
[2:50]And everyone from, you know, 17 to 87 had read those books.
[2:57]And I thought, wow, the mindset of your average reader is a lot more open and available
[3:08]to taboo concepts than I gave it credit for.
[3:12]And I think the whole industry was sort of blown away by how they had underestimated
[3:18]the appetite of the reader.
[3:20]So piggybacking on that new information, I thought, well, I'll take on
[3:24]I'll take on an experience I was going through,
[3:29]having a recent divorcee.
[3:31]And what was happening is I went, I went through divorce.
[3:34]It's pretty hideous for about two years.
[3:37]It's your, it's your divorce.
[3:38]OK, so it's the worst, the worst imaginable.
[3:42]You really wouldn't wish it on your worst.
[3:44]And I'm literally told me at the beginning the next two years.
[3:47]I'm going to wait for two years.
[3:48]Yeah, two years.
[3:49]I know, you think, and you think you'll never get through it.
[3:52]And then you do, but it really is two years of absolute misery,
[3:57]abject misery and every shade of misery with tears and depression of weight loss
[4:04]and all these hideous, horrible things.
[4:06]We lost some sort of bad thing.
[4:07]I was like, that was the major purpose.
[4:11]Which tears come back after two years.
[4:14]So once you're feeling better again.
[4:16]So as I was hitting my stride, finally coming out of that two-year place,
[4:21]experience, I was not have kids with that husband.
[4:24]I do.
[4:24]My son.
[4:25]Oh, you're not as familiar first?
[4:26]Yes, correct.
[4:27]So I was coming out of that experience and finally finding my balance and my,
[4:33]my new normal and my new, the new rhythm of my life.
[4:37]And part of that was reintegrating myself in society and going out with women again and going
[4:43]to lunches and having glasses of wine with folks.
[4:47]And what would happen, the typical scenario is that, you know, women that we come together
[4:51]and we say hello and, you know, cute outfit and I love your new haircut.
[4:56]And then we go around the circle.
[4:57]What's new with you?
[4:58]My husband's new surgery.
[5:00]I'm refinishing the basement.
[5:01]My son's lacrosse tournament.
[5:03]Everybody kind of goes around the circle and we get to me.
[5:05]And I would say, I'm doing pretty okay now.
[5:10]I've really found my equilibrium.
[5:13]The only problem is that I'm incredibly horny all the time.
[5:17]And that's okay to say it if your son is listening.
[5:20]Well, okay.
[5:21]It's part of life.
[5:22]It's a legitimate, I mean, what I said to him getting ready for this book to be published is
[5:30]people have sex.
[5:32]I mean, it's a part of life we wouldn't be here.
[5:34]And this is what you can tell your friends.
[5:36]Like we wouldn't be here if your parents hadn't had sex.
[5:38]So it's okay to be sex positive.
[5:40]It's okay to want that to have that urge and to want that experience.
[5:45]Obviously with a million other caveats when you're entering that world.
[5:49]But as an adult, I'm allowed to be horny.
[5:52]So I would say this out loud.
[5:55]I would say I'm just incredibly distractedly horny.
[5:59]And I would love to find somebody just to have sex with and then out you go.
[6:03]And then leave.
[6:04]And then so I can, you know, stay and eat a ham sandwich and watch television by myself.
[6:11]And everybody would laugh.
[6:12]And then somebody would say, you know, you should come have sex with my husband.
[6:16]That would be so great.
[6:18]And then everybody would laugh.
[6:20]And then somebody else would say, you know what?
[6:22]That would be fantastic.
[6:23]If you could just swing by the house once a week and have had it with Mark.
[6:28]And then somebody would say, and then Steve, have that Steve once a month
[6:31]so the joke was, I'd say, all right, we'll have that Steve on every other Tuesday and then
[6:35]Mark once a week and then this was a joke and everybody laughed.
[6:39]And then, of course, we moved on to whatever the next topic was.
[6:44]And that joke happens so many times.
[6:48]And that year after what I would say, I'm just distractedly horny, somebody in the circle.
[6:55]Regardless of socioeconomic background, regardless of who the woman, the person was and that
[7:04]type of group, someone would say, you, I would love it if you'd have sex with my husband and
[7:10]take some of the pressure off.
[7:13]And it was always met with laughter, but it always happened.
[7:16]That joke was always made.
[7:18]Not by me.
[7:18]Did you start sleeping with their husband?
[7:20]No, I didn't.
[7:21]Are you sure?
[7:22]Now is the time.
[7:22]Just get it out there.
[7:25]How was it with Mark and Steve?
[7:28]Exhausted.
[7:30]No, now I was no friend.
[7:34]But it really like because if that joke hadn't been made so many times by so many married
[7:39]women who'd been having the same predictable sex with their husbands for four years,
[7:45]10 years, 14, 28 years.
[7:47]If that joke hadn't been made, I would not have gotten the idea and the impetus
[7:51]to write my first book, which was the jumping off point, which is basically
[7:56]women at a luncheon, the joke is made, then they disperse.
[8:01]But one of the women follows her back to her car in tears and says, I'm, I think I'm serious.
[8:07]I think I want you to have sex with Ted because I don't have, I'm exhausted.
[8:11]My kids are so little.
[8:12]I don't have time.
[8:13]I'm not even interested.
[8:15]And I think he's going to leave me.
[8:17]And I trust you.
[8:19]And I know you're not interested in Ted.
[8:21]And I know you're not going to break up my marriage.
[8:23]And the protagonist, Lucy, is great for her because these guys are clean.
[8:26]They're disease-free.
[8:27]They've been monogamous relationships.
[8:30]So what happens is they try it.
[8:33]And it's a win-win-win and everybody's thrilled.
[8:37]Ted's happy.
[8:38]It's sanctioned in fidelity.
[8:40]You know, Nancy's kind of happy to have some of the work offloaded.
[8:45]And Lucy's thrilled to get her rocks off.
[8:49]And so these two groups of women come together in this small community.
[8:53]And they create an underground barter system whereby the wives of contract,
[8:57]the horny divorcees, to have sex with their husbands so they don't have to as often.
[9:02]And it works for a little while.
[9:04]And then it goes to hell in a handbasket.
[9:07]Wow.
[9:09]That's a great idea for a look.
[9:11]It's pretty funny.
[9:12]Yeah.
[9:12]And it's hilarious.
[9:13]And it's seven women that are funny and sexually viable in their 40s.
[9:21]And it's a really enjoyable meditation on marriage and fidelity and monogamy.
[9:26]And sex in this country versus other cultures versus other countries.
[9:31]What's really important in a marriage?
[9:34]What can be forgiven?
[9:35]What shouldn't be forgiven?
[9:37]It's a really fun read.
[9:38]And there was a bidding war.
[9:39]And Hollywood, three different production companies wanted it.
[9:43]And Warner Brothers was Warner Brothers and NBC Universal.
[9:45]And Jada Pinkett's missed production company.
[9:47]And they were vying for it.
[9:49]And Warner Brothers won the option.
[9:50]But they didn't exercise it.
[9:51]So it came back to me.
[9:52]But there's another guy right now in Hollywood.
[9:54]And he's shopping it around for a TV show.
[9:56]But it's as far as an ensemble comedy.
[10:00]Imagine seven of your favorite actresses in their 40s.
[10:04]It's perfect.
[10:05]Who get to be funny and smart and sexy.
[10:08]Yeah, they're cool.
[10:09]Yeah, amazing.
[10:10]So that would be really fun.
[10:12]But what I was going to say is about my son
[10:13]to wrap it into my son.
[10:15]So when I was getting this idea,
[10:18]I reached out to my friend Larry Bloom, who's
[10:20]Judy Bloom's son.
[10:22]And I said to Larry, how old were you when wifey came out?
[10:27]And he said I was like 12, I think.
[10:29]And my son was going to be 12.
[10:31]When Nikki Towne was going to be published.
[10:34]And so I said, well, what was that like for you
[10:37]to be 12 and have wifey hit the bookstands?
[10:41]And then he said it was fine.
[10:42]I wasn't even aware of it.
[10:43]I was 12.
[10:44]I was in middle school.
[10:45]I was so immersed in my own world.
[10:47]I didn't care what the parents, what the grown-ups around me
[10:49]were doing or talking about her reading.
[10:51]So I said, well, I'm about to write this book,
[10:55]Nikki Towne.
[10:56]And I sort of told them about it.
[10:57]And he said, go for it.
[10:58]So I'm fine.
[11:00]Worked out for me.
[11:02]So I talked to my son about it.
[11:03]And little drips and drops, like every six months,
[11:06]I would sit him down.
[11:07]And I would say, so do you understand that grown-ups have sex?
[11:11]Like, I was very like, I deployed tiny, little bits of information
[11:18]to kind of prepare him for what would happen.
[11:20]And then you said, and then people will stop having sex.
[11:26]I said, well, people talk.
[11:27]But I said, this book is really boring.
[11:30]There are no dragons.
[11:30]There are no car traces.
[11:31]Like, nobody that you know is going to want to read it.
[11:34]But parents do talk a lot about relationships.
[11:38]And they talk about money and religion, politics.
[11:44]I said, these are all topics that are in my book.
[11:48]And actually not politics.
[11:49]He was like, what ever who cares.
[11:52]And it really did kind of work out.
[11:54]And I gave him some, we did some role playing.
[11:56]Like, what would you say if somebody comes at you about your mom's
[12:00]book?
[12:01]So I sort of, we worked on writing him responses,
[12:04]you know, like the writer's room.
[12:05]I said, you can just say, my mom's a writer, and I'm really proud.
[12:09]She got a book published.
[12:11]I'm really proud.
[12:12]Not everybody gets to do that.
[12:14]Or you can say, everybody has sex.
[12:16]We wouldn't be here if it weren't for sex.
[12:18]So, you know, he had some answers.
[12:20]But they didn't come into play.
[12:22]Good.
[12:22]Yeah.
[12:23]It was really nice.
[12:24]And then when, so then when did you start writing Twisted Family Value?
[12:28]So then, well, I had a two book deal with St. Martin's Press.
[12:30]OK.
[12:31]So they were like, what's next?
[12:32]And I thought, hey, how about another taboos?
[12:36]And that was so much fun to explore.
[12:38]One of the other American taboos out there.
[12:41]And Twisted Family Values came about from a guy that I dated
[12:45]years ago for about 10 minutes.
[12:48]He told me a story about a flirtation he had with his first cousin
[12:52]when they were young and the sort of innocent childhood
[12:55]exploratory that kids do.
[12:57]And how it just carried on for longer than decorum
[13:02]would allow, or should allow, at the time.
[13:05]And I saw, boy, that might be an interesting juxtaposition
[13:08]to take that scenario and drop it in a well-to-do community.
[13:16]How would that family and how would that community respond
[13:20]to something that, in theory, shouldn't be done?
[13:26]So when I read it, I was like, she had a really hot cousin.
[13:31]I know people also go, no, I mean, my cousins are lovely.
[13:34]But they know the definition of fiction.
[13:39]It was really more from that guy.
[13:41]And then what happens is, as a writer, you
[13:44]get this curl of an idea, as for what happened.
[13:46]It was Nukeetown with the conversation with the women.
[13:48]And so with that guy, you float it.
[13:53]You float it.
[13:54]You do sort of, you feel tested.
[13:56]And you put it out in the world, like market research.
[13:59]And you sort of run it by people.
[14:01]Have you ever had a hot cousin?
[14:03]Have you ever had a crush on a cousin?
[14:04]And if people had all across the board said, no,
[14:09]then that idea would have died.
[14:11]Because where do you go with that?
[14:13]But because so many people said, oh, yeah.
[14:16]And then I would say, do you ever make out with your cousin?
[14:18]And then some of them would say, uh-huh.
[14:21]And then when I get enough, I feel
[14:24]like I've gathered enough research,
[14:26]I bring it into my therapist, who's a fantastic resource
[14:30]if you're writing about secrets and desire.
[14:34]Because people tell their therapists everything.
[14:37]So I could take these ideas.
[14:40]I was conjuring this kind of notion that was simmering
[14:44]and bring it to my therapist and say,
[14:46]I had two people bring to you the secret
[14:48]that they have slept with their first cousin.
[14:51]And if she says, oh, yes, that happens,
[14:55]then I know I'm onto something.
[14:57]If she were to say, no, that never happens,
[14:59]then I would say, OK, well, come up with something else.
[15:02]Go on to my next story, because I have like four or five
[15:05]ideas.
[15:06]But when she said, oh, yeah, that's the thing.
[15:10]I said, is it?
[15:11]She said, uh-huh.
[15:13]Said, OK, there's something there.
[15:15]There's something there that people don't talk about,
[15:17]that people don't want to think about.
[15:19]And then, of course, you couple that with the influx
[15:23]of all these wonderful immigrant families
[15:26]that we are getting to know that our awareness
[15:28]has broken open, thank God, over the generations.
[15:32]We are much more, I think, aware of the immigrant experience
[15:36]and what people are bringing from other cultures
[15:38]into the American culture.
[15:40]And what we're learning is that it's not that unusual
[15:44]in most other cultures.
[15:46]It's not that big a deal.
[15:47]And if you ask a group of women at cocktails,
[15:52]they'll say, oh, yeah, my grandparents.
[15:54]Oh, yeah, my grandparents were cousins.
[15:56]Oh, yeah, my great aunt and great uncle from the old country.
[15:59]So there are a lot of stories about folks back in the day
[16:04]where that was done.
[16:06]So it's not that crazy.
[16:08]And then you take these nuggets of ideas and secrets
[16:11]that people have.
[16:12]But then you put it in a context where you explore all these
[16:14]other factors, like this family and twisted family values
[16:18]that's going through the decline through the generations
[16:23]and the different parenting styles and so much more stuff.
[16:28]Sexuality.
[16:29]I mean, there's so much stuff that you put in here.
[16:31]So how did you start writing fiction like this?
[16:35]Like, you've written these two really
[16:37]thought-for-looking, interesting books.
[16:39]Like, where did this come from?
[16:41]You just had them all in your head.
[16:43]Did you take a class?
[16:45]How did you explain?
[16:50]I wrote forever and ever before I ever called myself a writer.
[16:54]I realized I have been a writer my whole life.
[16:56]I started writing notes for my girlfriend
[16:58]to pass to her boyfriend at fifth grade.
[17:00]I was the sire now.
[17:02]I had pen pals like crazy.
[17:04]I filled journals like mad.
[17:06]In college, I wrote plays.
[17:07]I wrote musicals.
[17:09]I went on after college.
[17:11]I worked in cable television.
[17:14]And I wrote for MTV and Comedy Central on Lifetime.
[17:16]And all these networks, and I was writing personal essays.
[17:20]And I had things published in the Washington Post Magazine
[17:23]and Cosmo and bust.
[17:24]I wrote for bust, which was really fabulous in the 90s.
[17:27]So I was always writing, but I didn't consider myself
[17:32]a writer until more recently.
[17:35]And I think it was that experience of the universe,
[17:38]almost shoving this idea at me, this nookie town idea.
[17:43]I'm the gal to write it.
[17:44]Like clearly, the universe wants me to write this book.
[17:48]So I sat down and actually, here's another wonderful
[17:53]kid's mitt moment.
[17:54]I was dropping my son off at school.
[17:57]And I passed another writer on their lot of writers
[18:01]and the community that I live in.
[18:03]It's a wonderfully arts-rich community.
[18:06]And she passed me by, and I said,
[18:08]I'm thinking of trying a novel.
[18:10]I've never written long form.
[18:11]I've written so many other forms, formats, never taken on.
[18:15]I've written screenplays, but I've never taken on a novel.
[18:18]And she said, oh, there's a great book you should read.
[18:20]It's called No Plot, No Problem.
[18:23]Have you heard of it?
[18:24]She's like, pick it up.
[18:26]It'll be really useful.
[18:28]And so I thought, OK, great.
[18:29]I picked it up.
[18:30]And I'm telling you, like that moment, the fact
[18:33]that I crossed her path in that moment.
[18:36]And I picked up that book.
[18:38]But this guy named Chris Batty was living in San Francisco
[18:42]years ago in a community of writers.
[18:44]They've spent there all day in a coffee shop
[18:46]talking about this novel that they're writing and not
[18:49]writing a novel.
[18:50]And so he said, I think this, I'm calling bullshit on all of us.
[18:55]We should be, we're not writing.
[18:56]Why aren't we writing?
[18:57]This is ridiculous.
[18:58]Let's do this.
[18:59]We needed deadline.
[19:00]Let's pick a month.
[19:01]November was coming up.
[19:02]We'll start at the first of the month.
[19:04]We're going to write 1,700 words a day for 30 days
[19:08]to the exclusion of everything else.
[19:10]And at the end of the month, we'll have a 50,000 word first
[19:13]draft.
[19:14]And then we can call ourselves novelists
[19:17]and stop talking about finishing our novel.
[19:19]So he did that.
[19:22]And I think a bunch of them started in many of them
[19:25]sort of fell away as the month.
[19:27]It's hard to do.
[19:28]But at the end, a small number of them
[19:30]had this 50,000 word first draft.
[19:33]And then I think they did it the next year.
[19:35]And there were more of them that tried it maybe 28
[19:37]and then 46 and then 92.
[19:40]And now it's this global movement.
[19:41]And it's called Nanno Remo, which is
[19:44]sure for national novel writing month.
[19:47]And there is a book which I just read the book
[19:50]called No Plot No Problem.
[19:51]And it's marvelous.
[19:52]It gets you started.
[19:53]It gets you psychically sort of in the mindset
[19:56]to do this thing.
[19:57]He basically posits that we can do.
[20:00]anything. If we know there's an end date, we know it's going to end. We can get on a diet.
[20:06]We can do a cleanse. We can train for a marathon. There are things that we can do.
[20:11]So he helps the writer get in the groove, get excited. He cheers them on. You're going to love it.
[20:18]You're going to come out of the gate strong. It's going to feel so good. And then you
[20:22]and then it's day 10. You want to quit so badly. You hate this. You're miserable.
[20:27]So he talks you through the process. And I also read On Writing by Stephen King, which I'm sure
[20:35]many people have brought up. And Bird by Bird by Alamo. So I wrote the on writing to the
[20:42]Chris Batty. I interviewed her. Oh, did you? Yeah. That's wonderful. So I did the no
[20:47]plot no problem to start. And then as I began, I was reading On Writing and Bird by Bird at night.
[20:55]So and really it is a pretty intense. Everybody has to be on board. Your family, your spouse.
[21:01]It's like mommy's going to do this thing. And we're all in support of mommy,
[21:06]which means the kids are going to be a little filthy for a while. And the food's going to go
[21:10]bad in the fridge. And you know, but we understand that mommy needs to do this. So that worked for me.
[21:17]And I finished. But I was only about halfway down with the story. So I took another three months
[21:22]to write the other 50,000 words. So by the holidays, I had a hundred thousand words.
[21:27]First draft. Wow. Yeah. And then on that, did you sell both the two book deal?
[21:33]So then I think I did two, you know, I let you always give it to your friends to read. You give it
[21:40]to an odd number of readers so that you don't get to get two people love this character and two
[21:45]people don't. You always want it to be an odd number. So three love them, two don't. So the three
[21:49]women. I think that was Stephen King. Maybe. I can't remember. But I had readers read various drafts.
[21:57]And say, and I would say, what do you think? Is there something here? Should I keep going? And they
[22:01]would say, yeah, this is really funny. Keep going. So then I've reached out to an agent. And she
[22:07]took me on, which was marvelous. And then I did another draft or two with her. And then I found a
[22:14]a publisher, which is another hilarious and bizarre story of Kismet and the universe. And then
[22:20]did another draft or two for her. So I think there was 11 drafts. But my agent negotiated a two
[22:27]book deal with Samoan's press. So that was pretty exciting. But getting to St. Martin's was
[22:33]came out of Hurricane Sandy. How's that? Because friends of mine, we all lost power. And they
[22:40]went to Starbucks to use power. And the Starbucks was full of people. And all the outlets were
[22:48]crowded. And so as they were leaving, they ran into another couple that they only knew from a
[22:53]once a year annual Halloween party. And the couple said, well, we have power come back to our house.
[22:59]So they went back. They opened up their laptops. And to make small talk, my girlfriend, Rebecca,
[23:05]said to the guy, what do you do for a living? And he said, I work at McMillan. I turn books into
[23:09]movies. And she said, oh, my friend just wrote the funniest book. You've got to read this book.
[23:16]And she told him the story. And then he found me at the Halloween party a week later in full costume
[23:22]and said, I want to read your book. So what I take away from that is that friends helping friends
[23:30]is such a wonderful and key part of a lot of fortuitousness in life, I think. Friends introducing
[23:38]friends to guys that they think are good men. Friends, you know, she hadn't spoken up. I mean,
[23:44]she really got the ball rolling. She's kind of incredible. I hope you put her in the acknowledgements.
[23:49]Every time I do both books. And I think her and I gave her flowers and maybe a pie. And I mean,
[23:56]when I see her from time to time, I say, you know, you made this happen for me. And I'm so
[24:02]grateful. So it's marvelous what we can do for people without even realizing. It doesn't cost
[24:09]money. It's not a great effort. It's just opening your mouth and putting two people together. It's
[24:14]more, it's such a wonderful thing. And what about now? Are you working on another one? Yes. So
[24:20]I'm switching genres. I'm going to jump to romance because I do love. Oh, that's right. I heard
[24:25]what's it called? Wait, I have Wendy. Wendy, Wendy, wanderlust. Wendy, wanderlust. I love a happy
[24:32]I love this notion of things working out. I want to believe that everything works out
[24:39]desperately. I cling to that belief. So it's not such a stretch for me to switch gears and try
[24:47]my hand at a story where there will be this wonderful tension and there will be, you know, obviously
[24:54]more sex. My editor has always said that I write a pretty good sex scene. So capitalizing on that
[25:02]and just enjoying that format of just that fun of falling for someone and maybe the bump, the bumps
[25:11]that happen along the way until you really kind of come together. So I thought that would be really
[25:17]fun. So I decided to take on the late 80s and the Europasses. It's about two best friends who go to
[25:23]Europe and the late 80s on Europasses. And they get into trouble with like hot foreign men on the
[25:29]back of opeds. And they're going to zip around and it's going to be like a cat and mouse thing
[25:35]and one of them is going to get her back packed on. So she's going to have to busk. So then my
[25:39]songwriting. So I've already started writing little songs that come into the story. So it'll be
[25:46]it's already really fun to write. It's I'm 13,000 words in. Wow. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.
[25:53]Well, we're almost out of time here. And I had all these questions about twisted family values,
[25:58]but I much prefer just hearing your whole story about how you got here. And can I tell you real
[26:04]quick, what it's about? Yes. We only talked about the cousins. Oh, right. Okay. But give us
[26:10]snaps this one. Well, because it's such a good bag. It's a wait. And I feel like the characters in
[26:15]the story are so real. And like just, you know, I even just picked it up again. And I felt like
[26:21]I could see all of them like coming back. I've heard that people said that they read it quickly
[26:26]and that they feel very immersed. Yes. And they're very part of the family. Like they've just
[26:31]feel, yeah, that they're at the kitchen table talking to these people. It's nice to be a part of
[26:35]someone else's issue. I love to say it's the story of secrets, expectations and
[26:46]maddening desire among four generations of a funny, imperfect, dysfunctional family. And
[26:55]upscale New Jersey suburb. And it takes place between 1968 and 2014. So it's 50 years
[27:02]in one family. And you sort of jump around. And you get to remember the
[27:08]or nerves and the outfits and the music that was kind of part of your world swirling around
[27:16]at the time. It lines up with my age, my generation. So they're toddlers in the late 60s,
[27:21]kids in the 70s. They go to high school and college in the 80s. And then up until 2014, it's
[27:27]really fun. It's a really fun ride. Yeah, it's a great book. It was a really, really enjoyed it.
[27:33]Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming out all of those. It's been so great. Thank you
[27:39]for having me. I really appreciate it. This episode has been sponsored by Book of the Month Club,
[27:44]book of the month.com, enter code Zibi to get your first book for $5. Thanks for listening to
[27:49]moms don't have time to read books. You can follow me on Instagram at moms don't have time
[27:54]to read books. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And
[27:59]thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[28:04]Thanks for listening. You could always email me at Zibi at Zibi Owens.com.