Eilene Zimmerman, SMACKED
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[1:19]Thanks so much for being a sponsor. I'm excited to share this episode with the fabulous
[1:24]Eileen Zimmerman with all of you. But I have to say, I recorded it at live event,
[1:29]and the microphone did not do as good a job as I might have hoped.
[1:33]So bear with me for the quality of this content. I know it's not up to my normal quality. Don't
[1:38]blame my sound guys. They did a great job. Thank you.
[1:42]Welcome, Eileen. Thanks for coming on momstone of time to read books. Thank you for having me.
[1:47]I'm really happy to be here. It's a very special event because we're doing this live
[1:50]for the new Victory Theater, which is super exciting.
[1:58]So here we go. I'm excited to talk about your memoir, Smacked Story White Color
[2:04]Ambition Addiction and Tragedy. And I'm going to just read your bios that you want to hear
[2:08]knows all about you. Eileen Zimmerman is the author of Smacked Story White Color Ambition Addiction
[2:13]and Tragedy. She has been a journalist for three decades, including as a columnist
[2:17]for the New York Times Sunday Business Section for six years in 2017. She started pursuing
[2:22]a master's degree in social work. She currently lives in New York City.
[2:25]So, welcome. Thank you. Can you please tell everybody what Smacked is about?
[2:30]Yes. So, Smacked is the story of what happened to my ex-husband, Peter, who we were married for
[2:35]20 years and divorced and separated for about six when he died. And when he died, he was a partner
[2:43]in a very prestigious Silicon Valley-based law firm. We were living in San Diego and he had been
[2:48]acting really strange for about a year and a half. So, his behavior was odd. He was late for
[2:53]things. He wasn't showing up for anything for our kids. He was writing texts that were
[2:58]incoherent. He didn't make a lot of sense in emails or actually when we were trying to make
[3:03]plans together, he was always late or there was something that came up. And in addition to all of that,
[3:07]which was different than what had come before, he was also losing a ton of weight. He was losing his
[3:12]hair at an accelerated rate. He looked really jaundiced and then kind of gray. I noticed he had
[3:18]sores on his hands and on his face. And all of this was going on and I was saying to him, like,
[3:22]what's wrong with you? Like, you need to go see a doctor and he kept saying, you know, I'm fine.
[3:25]I'm just, I'm not sleeping. I'm working a lot. And I'm sure you all know lawyers and partners
[3:30]at that level. He was an intellectual property attorney. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of stress
[3:35]and it had always been. And so, for probably for reasons I don't even understand, I didn't,
[3:40]I dismissed all the symptoms of what were very obviously in retrospect drug abuse and injection
[3:46]drug abuse. And he wound up dying of an infection related to injection drug abuse. It's called
[3:51]infective endocarditis. And I found him because I went up to his house to figure out why I couldn't
[3:56]reach him for two days. When none of us could my kids, his friends, I called his secretary,
[4:01]we just couldn't reach him and he had been very sick the last time my son had seen him at his
[4:05]house. And so, it was the weekend and I thought, that's it. I'm going up to his house and I'm going
[4:09]to drag him to the hospital. And when I got there, I found that he had died. And from that,
[4:14]and the shock of learning that it was not a heart attack from working too hard as I thought it
[4:19]that it was actually this infection from drug abuse and that he'd been addicted for, you know,
[4:24]at least a year probably. I started to examine what happened in terms of what happened to him
[4:29]and how I missed it because I am a journalist. I'm used to asking questions. I'm a smart person.
[4:35]And yet, I decided it was not that, whether consciously or unconsciously. And I decided it was going
[4:40]to be everything else. My polar disorder, a cognitive disorder, maybe he was psychotic, you know,
[4:45]eating disorder. Instead of, you know, the very obvious thing, oh, you know, he's a drug addict,
[4:50]like that's restarting the drug addiction is a better way to say it. So, the book grew out of
[4:55]that investigation and also looking at myself and my own kind of culpability and what was happening
[5:00]to our family, the fallout, be it two children. And then an investigation a little bit into what's
[5:06]going on in the white-collar professional world that you know so well. And in terms of unhappiness,
[5:11]depression, anxiety, substance use, and substance abuse. And it was a very sobering exploration
[5:18]for me and kind of, I ended the book sort of looking at what's coming for all of our kids
[5:22]in the next generation of white-collar professionals and societal leaders and judges and lawyers
[5:27]and things like that. Wow, the explanation of that. That's great. It's a fantastic book. You
[5:33]have been a journalist for a long time. You researched things like that for a,
[5:37]but then you turned that lens onto yourself in your own life. What did that feel like to look
[5:43]at your kids and your husband and your past and then turn it into a book? That's such a good question.
[5:49]It was a very humbling experience because I'm not used to writing about myself and I'm not
[5:54]used to kind of examining myself in that way. And if I was going to do it, I had to really be honest
[5:59]about my own, I guess my own, I want to say, involvement in this in some way. I mean, I was
[6:04]very enabling for Peter. I made it possible for him to meet dealers and shoot up all night because
[6:11]I was going to take care of the kids or I took his excuses as what they, you know, the truth and
[6:16]took care of things. And I think he knew if he fell apart that the kids would be okay because I'm
[6:21]very straight pretty much in terms of my substance abuse and my sense of responsibility. So it was
[6:26]very humbling and it was also very illuminating. You know, I realized for instance that I have a lot
[6:31]of implicit biases. I consider myself very progressive. I'm studying social work now. And yet,
[6:37]I thought somebody that was white and wealthy and well-educated would never, you know, become
[6:44]addicted to drugs or any substance like that. You know, maybe he drank a little bit and I was
[6:49]so wrong and it really made me understand that I did have these biases and then I needed to
[6:53]educate myself about what someone struggling with a drug addiction looks like which is basically
[6:58]like any of us. And it was really hard to look at my kids that closely and see what happened
[7:04]because when I think about the day that I found Peter, the trauma is around the body because I've
[7:09]never seen someone who had died. But actually the worst part was as you can imagine telling my kids
[7:15]because they were in as much denial as me and they were young. They were 16 and 18 and that was
[7:20]the worst part. So having to kind of examine that and relive that and look at how I handled that
[7:25]was instructive and it was good but it was very hard and it's like flexing a different
[7:29]writerly muscle, you know. I found it interesting that day, I mean, I guess nobody knows what they
[7:34]will do in a trauma situation like this but you found their dad and then decided they should come
[7:40]to the house and see him too that there would be grief counselors around and that if they came,
[7:45]you could tell them with the support of everybody around. Take me through that decision and
[7:50]would you do it again that way. And the way you say that question is interesting because I think
[7:55]for so long, Peter worked so much. I mean, he wanted to make partner. He was number one in his
[8:00]law class. He was a really smart guy. He'd been a scientist before that he had a master's in chemistry
[8:04]that he absentee himself from family life. So I was so used to kind of not having a partner that
[8:10]when I was at the house, even though I was freaking out and there were all these people around,
[8:14]I thought, I can't do this alone and I have all these people here to help me and it felt like,
[8:21]okay, I'll have them come up because I didn't like you say, I didn't know how they were going
[8:24]to react and my daughter also was kind of going to come up to his house no matter what I said,
[8:30]you know, she was 18, she was frantically worried about him and so there was the decision to tell
[8:35]them and the decision to tell them that it was drug abuse which was totally the right decision
[8:40]now in retrospect because it relieved them of a lot of personal responsibility for not,
[8:44]I mean, I think as adults we can see they could not save their father but they really believed
[8:49]that they were responsible for him and not surviving that they should have taken him to the house.
[8:53]And your son even articulated that in the book, when he told him it was drugs, he was like,
[8:56]oh this makes sense so I really couldn't have saved him. Right, right and in the book of course
[9:01]you can't go into everything but that kid, I mean he was only probably 14 and a half on Peter,
[9:06]I think really started using heavily. So he would see, he saw this like disintegration of his
[9:11]father and just thought his dad didn't love him as much as his sister because my daughter had
[9:16]just gone to college when it really, right and he never said it to me until after Peter died
[9:20]and he's just watching this spiraling down, not understanding it as you can imagine he was just a
[9:26]kid and then when his father dies he's thinking, oh my god, you know I was watching it and I didn't
[9:31]save him so I think understanding that it was beyond anything any of us could control
[9:35]huge relief. And I think you're in such an interesting position, I mean I am also divorced
[9:40]and remarried and when the kids go with the other parents, you can't really control what they do
[9:47]and you just have to trust that they'll take care of the kids because they're also the parent
[9:50]and they love them but really you don't have legal or any sort of say in what goes on whether it's
[9:57]what time they go to bed or if they're having more ice cream or...
[10:00]So it's like, what do you do and then this is like every ex-wife's worst case scenario book.
[10:06]It's like, oh my gosh, you're going to be down the door.
[10:09]It's like, so what happens because you can't work with what recourse do you have?
[10:13]Well, I was thinking that I have, I have read interviews with you where you've talked about how
[10:18]hard it was to not have your kids for the night and that was so hard and that was so hard the
[10:22]whole time and then now knowing that while I didn't have my kids, all this was going on, it was
[10:28]insane. I felt like I felt so bad as a mother and as a protector. I mean, my son told me
[10:35]stuff afterwards that was going on and I remember I went away one weekend, I came back to New York,
[10:39]I was living in San Diego because my mom was moving into like a senior housing and she is,
[10:44]she's disabled so I came back to help move her and I said to my son I was 16, just stay with dad,
[10:49]just stay with dad for the weekend and he was like, why can't I just stay by myself? And you know,
[10:53]I don't know over protected Jewish mother. I was like, no, stay with dad, it'll be better and it turned out
[10:58]Peter was gone the whole weekend and my son was like, I could have been at home just and also
[11:03]was acting bizarre and in retrospect, I thought, why didn't I just let him stay at home? Like,
[11:08]all those things can't beat yourself up. Right. I don't think he got some good therapy after that.
[11:13]It's okay because it's not your fault. It's not your fault. I'm sure I don't have to be the one
[11:16]to play something. But it's good to hear. Okay. How do your kids feel with this book? Like, did
[11:22]you have to talk to them about I want to thinking of writing a memoir about this? How do you feel
[11:26]if I'd bomb you? How do they feel now that it's out? Like, how did you handle that whole thing?
[11:30]No, I think that's a great question. So I wrote a piece in the New York Times in 2017 called
[11:36]The Lawyer The Attic, which wound up going viral, whatever that means to you, but it got about
[11:40]2 million shares. So that, I think that counts as well. I've been like a viral program, but I
[11:48]I didn't. So I think the big hurdle for us as a family was that story and that that had happened
[11:53]because I was really afraid to say anything about how Peter really died for about 18 months.
[11:58]Some of that was this kind of John Grisham-like fear of his firm, which was very large and powerful.
[12:03]I'm a writer. My ex-husband was a partner in a law firm. So the income disparity was huge.
[12:08]And I needed them to help me initially because I couldn't access any of the money that Peter had
[12:13]in his savings or whatever, just a function. And they were very fair and kind. And I also felt like
[12:19]they had kind of erased his existence very quickly. Within 48 hours they packed up his office.
[12:25]They took him off the website. They want to, you know, his boss asked me, when are you talking about
[12:29]a funeral? And he sent me that email less than 24 hours after Peter died. So I felt this
[12:35]unstated but implicit pressure to make this go away. And I kept quiet. And then I started to
[12:42]become really not well. I was really depressed and anxious. My hair was falling out. I couldn't
[12:46]eat. I just felt like I had this big, awful secret. And I didn't understand why I had to keep it.
[12:52]And then one day I was talking to my daughter on the phone and I had just run into someone that
[12:56]Peter used to work with and had told again the lie that I'd been telling, which was, oh, you know,
[13:01]how did he die? He was 51. And I said, he was just living a very unhealthy life. You know,
[13:06]he was eating wrong. He was smoking. He was taking stuff to sleep. And I started to cry to my
[13:10]daughter. And I said, I'm so sick of not being able to say the truth. And she had been very
[13:14]protective of her father's kind of reputation, whatever that means after you die this way.
[13:19]And I think she felt a lot of shame for our family. And she said, well, then why don't you say something?
[13:25]And so I said, I'm going to investigate this for the times about the legal profession. And I want
[13:29]to write about that. And my kids felt like at that point it had been almost two years. It was kind
[13:34]of a way to make meaning out of something that seemed very meaningless. I said, then what happens,
[13:40]then dad dies. And they basically roll over his body. And the firm had like, it's most profitable
[13:45]year. I think the year after he passed away, not that it's their fault. But I just said, do you
[13:48]know, like, there's no lesson from this. Nobody learns anything from this. And it almost felt
[13:52]like, I don't know what, what was the meaning of his life then? I mean, he did. He had a family. He
[13:58]provided for them very well. But I don't know. It just felt like maybe we could do something more
[14:02]with this. And they were on board. So that story was the hardest. And then when the memoir came,
[14:08]they were kind of already on board. They did read it. They read the New York Times story too.
[14:11]I tweaked it a little bit to make them comfortable. And I changed their first names. And I didn't
[14:16]have the same last name as my ex has been. So that kind of, you know, sort of protected in the age
[14:21]of Google. You can find anything. But yeah. But I thought it was interesting what you did in the book
[14:25]about law and the legal profession in general. Because your theory before you found out he was a
[14:30]drug addict was that he was being completely overworked because he was always, you know, he would go
[14:35]visit one child in Michigan and then have to leave because work. And you're like, nobody else can
[14:38]handle this. Like rising as late, right? Someone else filed this, whatever. There's always a work
[14:44]crisis. Right. So you kind of thought for a long, long time that his job was the cause of all of
[14:50]his issues. Exactly. Then you found out it wasn't. And then you had that moment even with the partner
[14:55]at the law firm when you were like, well, you've been working him so hard. And he's like, he's barely
[14:58]even been here. Yes. Which was such a turning point. It was. And I was like, what do you need? He's
[15:03]there all the time. Yeah. And it wasn't. No. And then you go into all the statistics. You I feel
[15:07]like you put your reporter head back on the book and you're like, did it in a legal profession?
[15:11]Right. I felt like in a way you were not blaming the profession, but pointing out the correlations
[15:18]between some of these mental issues and having a high pressure job in a law firm. So just tell me
[15:24]a little more about that. Right. And correlation is not causation. And Peter had a lot of other
[15:28]issues. He was adopted at four months. So he'd spend four months in foster care in it,
[15:32]foster home with other infants. So wasn't held that much. And that's a big that can be a big
[15:37]problem for in development. A lot of our problems as adults. I say this now having been studying
[15:42]social social work for three years, have to do with the attachments we make early on.
[15:47]His parents were evangelical. And I think it was a sense, at least from what I heard from Peter
[15:53]and what I felt from them that although they loved him, they kind of loved God first and then
[15:57]everything. And so, you know, and I think in other ways he felt, you know, less than he had,
[16:02]I think he had a lot of depression. When I met him, I thought it was like this, you know, sexy
[16:06]still waters run deep, you know, 10 years later. You're like, my God, this guy's always depressed,
[16:10]like him. So I think there was all that. But that profession is like chronic stress. I mean,
[16:16]he was sleeping in his office. He was beholden to partners. You have no autonomy. And what happened
[16:22]was I also heard from a lot of other lawyers after the New York Times story, especially
[16:26]younger associates in their 30s wanting to be partners who said, I don't want to wind up like
[16:31]Peter and I'm afraid I will really depressed, really anxious, binge drinking, doing a lot of
[16:37]stimulants to stay awake. And then having to take benzodiazepines like Xanax and Clonipin to sleep at night,
[16:42]their marriages were falling apart. You know, I mean, it was a lot of men. And it felt really
[16:47]bad. So it was really interesting to look into the profession. And in fact, American Warrior
[16:51]magazine just did just published a week ago, there are study of like lawyer mental health and
[16:56]well-being. And I think even though we've been talking about these issues in that profession for two
[17:01]years, lawyers are more depressed, more anxious using more substances than they were two years ago.
[17:06]And I think it was just looked at at this morning. Almost 75% when they were asked, do you think
[17:11]the profession contributes to your like depression and anxiety? They 75% said yes. So, you know,
[17:19]chronic stress we know from research can take, can change the brain and the dopaminergic reward
[17:24]system and everything. And I think, I think he was suffering from some of the cognitive and
[17:28]physical effects of that constant stress. But as you say, point out very well, it isn't all that,
[17:35]you know, he also brought a lot to that equation as well.
[17:38]And then you have someone I always wanted to, what are you bringing into a job like that? You're
[17:43]already predisposed perhaps to certain things because you're looking for a career or you're
[17:47]looking for that type of, exactly, so intensity in what you're doing. Exactly. And that
[17:52]intellectual intensity. And you know, there is a sort of, I mean, his egos very wrapped up in being
[17:57]able to say, I'm an intellectual property partner. Well, since it's seen me, I mean, they did
[18:01]Google's IPO, Apple's IPO, Larry Censini, who's a founder of the firm was offered the job as the head
[18:05]of the New York Stock Exchange, especially on the West Coast. That really means something. And people
[18:10]you know, rightly so impressed. He had 13 years of schooling behind him. But that arrogance
[18:17]can cut both ways. He also figured, I can do this recreationally and I'm not going to become an
[18:21]addict. I mean, I can hear him saying that, you know, and of course those drugs are far more powerful
[18:26]than people think. And even how you couldn't believe when the paramedics came and everything and
[18:32]you're like, no, no, it can't be drugs. Like this house is $2 million. I'm like, look at this place.
[18:36]We went to Cornell. They were like, yeah, okay, get over yourself, you know, because, right. And she
[18:40]was the medical examiner said, like, we actually see a lot of this now. And that was when, as a
[18:44]journalist, I did think there's a story here, but obviously I'm going to have to put that off for
[18:50]a few years, because right now, you know, he's falling apart. Yeah. Um, I take away, is that I'm not
[18:54]sending my kids to law school. I first want to say that like, hey, let's be the first doctors
[19:00]and our family. Well, maybe by the time they get there, the professional will have
[19:05]changed a bit or there does seem to be a much greater awareness than the law school of law student
[19:10]mental health and the effects of stress. So the whole other part of the book that I found super
[19:16]interesting was your, like, your mental health and how you basically went back and revisited
[19:23]how you got to this place and why you chose him, which is an interesting question. And why do
[19:29]you had a quote in the book? Hold on. Let me find it. Well, first of all, you grew up in a crazy
[19:33]household with two sisters. And I just love this quote. I just want to read it. The place feels like
[19:37]a halfway house for women who lack the ability to emotionally regulate. Instead, we all just scream
[19:42]at one of them. Okay. So that's how you grew up. So maybe you did some of you recognize that.
[19:46]But then you described yourself as the kind of woman who gets married because she needs health
[19:51]insurance, who does not expect a romantic marriage proposal who gets married because she's afraid
[19:56]if she doesn't, the man she loves will change his mind and then no.
[20:00]when we won her.
[20:01]Yeah, so I did learn.
[20:04]I mean, I kind of knew that about myself.
[20:05]Every evaluation I've ever had, like at a job or in school
[20:08]has always been like, I wish I'd mean had more confidence.
[20:11]I wish she was more self-esteem.
[20:12]And I've always been like, well, you know,
[20:14]I don't know where that comes from.
[20:16]And I think I learned by looking back that like, you know,
[20:19]I felt like an outsider kind of growing up.
[20:20]My family was Jewish and we lived in Northern New Jersey.
[20:23]We're from the Bronx.
[20:24]And we were around a lot of Irish and Italian Catholics,
[20:27]big families.
[20:27]And that was like the cool thing to be, you know,
[20:30]it wasn't cool to be the one who didn't celebrate Christmas.
[20:33]My family was kosher.
[20:35]I had really fat hair.
[20:36]You know, like I was very different, you know?
[20:38]And I felt that I was really underweight.
[20:40]So I felt think all of that.
[20:41]And then I had a father who threatened to send me
[20:44]to a skinny kid's farm.
[20:45]If I didn't eat more who said, you know,
[20:47]it's a good thing you're smart.
[20:48]She's not very pretty.
[20:49]And I don't think he was, I think it was like that era of father.
[20:52]He was like, oh, you know, I've got these three kids
[20:55]as if he didn't, you know, want them.
[20:57]You know, and he was sort of like, I've got it, you know,
[20:59]basically his own life was to get us married
[21:01]and out of his hair.
[21:02]And I felt that.
[21:03]And I think my parents didn't have a very happy marriage
[21:05]and I saw that.
[21:07]And then I was attracted to a man that sort of was a, you know,
[21:10]I was like, my therapist is right.
[21:12]I married my mother, you know, or my father, you know?
[21:15]But you sort of are, I think, often attracted to people.
[21:19]I think what I was trying to do was resolve that,
[21:21]was try to like, now I'll marry somebody like my parents,
[21:23]but I'll prove to them that I'm really valuable.
[21:26]And I didn't.
[21:27]I never thought about them all the time.
[21:28]Of course.
[21:29]I can't believe it.
[21:30]You know, but I think we tend to, you know, like,
[21:32]I mean, I've had, I've certainly talked to therapists
[21:34]and they say that's a very common thing.
[21:36]You're trying to fix it in your marriage.
[21:38]And of course, when Peter and I split up,
[21:40]I remember thinking I'm the same age my mother was
[21:43]when my father left for the same reasons.
[21:45]And I was like, oh my God, you know, it was so obvious.
[21:48]Then, but yeah, so maybe we, maybe you learn
[21:51]in the second marriage, you'll have to tell me.
[21:53]It's like a marriage, it's great.
[21:56]Well, tell me a little more about writing this book.
[21:58]How long did it take you to write?
[22:00]Where in when did you write it?
[22:02]Oh, okay.
[22:03]So I started, I didn't do any,
[22:05]I started doing some of the research when I was a San Diego,
[22:08]but my son was the senior in high school.
[22:10]So I was kind of focused on figuring out his therapy
[22:13]and dealing with his grief and trauma.
[22:15]He did some of the same.
[22:17]We did this EMDR therapy for trauma that's in the book.
[22:20]And then when he left, I had already started doing
[22:22]some of the research for the New York Times story.
[22:24]I moved back to New York.
[22:26]I moved to up to, I live in Harlem, West Harlem,
[22:29]and Hamilton Heights.
[22:30]And I did most of the writing there.
[22:32]And I did, I had already done about a year's worth of research
[22:35]for the time story.
[22:36]And I did another year's worth of research.
[22:38]I took a break from school, took two semesters off
[22:41]so that I could travel around the country going to
[22:44]high-end addiction treatment centers,
[22:46]talking to addiction psychologists and therapists.
[22:48]And also people in recovery.
[22:50]I also did something I think kind of unusual,
[22:53]very 21st century.
[22:54]You can't really get, you know,
[22:56]high-placed people in finance or in law
[22:58]to talk openly about drug use.
[23:01]So I posted a series on forums like Hacker News,
[23:04]which has about 400,000 unique kids a month.
[23:07]And it's for technologists, scientists.
[23:10]There's some lawyers on it.
[23:11]People in the medical profession,
[23:13]a lot of technology and hard sciences
[23:14]and just said, just tell me about what you're using.
[23:17]I'm not judging and what you see around you.
[23:20]And in 10 hours, I got 600 responses.
[23:23]I know.
[23:24]And then I got a bunch of people saying,
[23:25]because they're in technology, they didn't trust.
[23:27]And anonymous forum, they said,
[23:29]get a secure and encrypted email and I'll email you.
[23:32]And I did the same thing on a site called toplosspools.com,
[23:35]which is actually also for the legal profession.
[23:37]They have all these forums where attorneys talk.
[23:39]And I got about 75 responses,
[23:41]which shows you how nervous lawyers are about talking about it.
[23:45]And I met with some in person.
[23:46]I talked to some on the phone.
[23:47]Some I just took the information they provided
[23:50]on that forum.
[23:51]But that took several months, probably seven or eight months.
[23:55]But it was really interesting to get a picture in my own way.
[23:59]It's certainly not a systematic or scientific survey
[24:02]of the suffering kind of at the top.
[24:05]And some people were like, well, why do you care?
[24:07]Those people have lots of resources.
[24:08]But I just thought, so we're not supposed
[24:10]to have compassion for people.
[24:12]Everybody is struggling and suffering from something.
[24:15]Everybody has something that is they're struggling with
[24:19]that becomes addicted.
[24:21]So I felt like, sure.
[24:22]We should have compassion for people
[24:23]from the top of the socioeconomic ladder
[24:25]down to the bottom, no matter what color.
[24:27]And so I tried to focus in on what's happening sort of at that top.
[24:31]Does that contribute to your social work degree?
[24:34]Actually, it's been very, ironically,
[24:36]I think I was always kind of interested in social justice.
[24:38]I volunteered in San Diego with this great school
[24:40]for homeless children.
[24:41]It's like the largest in the country.
[24:43]Most of them were Mexican,
[24:45]some were African-American, some were African.
[24:47]And I was politically, I'd volunteer.
[24:49]So I sort of felt like I was already kind of in that world.
[24:52]But yes, I did learn a lot about,
[24:54]I learned about attachment theory.
[24:56]I learned a lot about, it helped me understand
[24:58]Peter's kind of trajectory.
[24:59]And also what's going on in the larger society.
[25:03]And what's coming next for you now?
[25:04]Would you want to read any more?
[25:05]Do you think this is like, this was your thing?
[25:08]And now you want to go help me.
[25:10]You know, I do, I think I'll always be a writer.
[25:12]That's what I, it's the way I go through the world.
[25:16]So I'm hoping that I will write another book.
[25:19]So there'll be something second.
[25:20]I don't know, next, I'm not sure what that is.
[25:22]But it'll be informed by social work.
[25:25]Because I'm really interested in those issues,
[25:26]like the bigger issues of what it means to be human,
[25:30]what it means to be here.
[25:31]And now at this point, in this country, at this time,
[25:34]all that kind of stuff.
[25:35]And so I feel like if I can work part time in social work
[25:38]and also write, that would be the ideal.
[25:40]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[25:45]I would say the thing that helped me most was reaching out
[25:47]to people that I knew were better at this.
[25:50]And you know, I had a lot more experience
[25:51]in asking them for help.
[25:52]One of my good friends is someone.
[25:53]I think you know, Adrienne Brodora was a terrific memoir
[25:56]called Wild Game.
[25:57]And she was a huge help to me.
[25:59]She also lived like nine blocks for me at the time.
[26:01]And so we would often talk about structure and form.
[26:03]And also just the angst that comes with putting yourself out
[26:07]there.
[26:07]And I had a great editor at Random House.
[26:09]And it really helped me to talk to other writers
[26:11]that had already done this.
[26:13]And asked them like very basic things.
[26:14]Like how did you structure it?
[26:16]Did you use an outline?
[26:17]When did you write?
[26:18]So that would be my advice is seek advice from those
[26:21]who know better than you do.
[26:22]Well, thank you so much for having me.
[26:24]Thank you for listening.
[26:31]You've been listening to Moms Don't Have Time
[26:32]to read books with Zibi Owens.
[26:34]Please make sure to sign up for my newsletter
[26:36]at zibiowans.com to get more updates about episodes like these
[26:40]and also lots of live events.
[26:42]Thanks again to Ka Yuji for sponsoring this episode
[26:45]of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:47]You can follow me on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time
[26:50]to Read Books.
[26:51]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[26:53]for the Sound Editing.
[26:55]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[26:56]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.
[26:59]Thanks for listening.
[27:00]You could always email me at zibiatzibiowans.com.