Rumaan Alam, LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND
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[1:55]Rumon alum is kind of the it boy of the moment in author world.
[2:00]He's the author of Leave the World Behind, which is a Jenna's book club pick, which is a finalist for the National Book Award, Barnes & Noble pick, and basically on every list known to man.
[2:14]He's also the author of rich and pretty, and that kind of mother.
[2:17]His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Elle, New York magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, The Rumpus, Buzzfeed, and elsewhere.
[2:26]He studied at Oberlin College and lives at Brooklyn, New York.
[2:29]Welcome, Ramon. Thanks so much for coming on Monster Time to read books to talk about Leave the World Behind.
[2:35]I'm delighted to finally be talking to you.
[2:37]As my great pleasure, I only wish that we were doing this in person because I can see into your home library, and it is absolutely beautiful, and I would love to get in there and poke around on those shelves personally.
[2:48]You have an open invitation as soon as people are allowed to socialize again, which I don't know when that will be, but I miss having people here. I miss it. I love having authors streaming in and out. So you're welcome anytime.
[3:00]Someday, I'm going to take you up on that.
[3:02]Okay, please do.
[3:03]So as I mentioned, we were supposed to do this interview a while ago, but now you've had all sorts of great news that has come since the launch of the book, including today.
[3:11]And I won't be when this airs, but today you found out you're now shortlisted for the National Book Award, which is really exciting. So congratulations.
[3:18]Thank you.
[3:19]And also a Barnes and Noble pick and I read with Jenna pick and I mean, it's like what next for this book.
[3:27]I mean, the thing about writing a book, and I'm sure you've heard this from your guests in the past is that it's just this very sustained leap of faith, and you have absolutely no idea what will happen when the book exists.
[3:40]I'm also like aware of the fact as you know very well. There are so many great books every year that never really connect with the right readerships.
[3:48]Sometimes it takes time for a book to find its way into the hands of the right readers.
[3:52]And you know, when that happens quickly, you know what a blessing it is. I know, like every step of the way, like what a particular is there is the book isn't alive in any meaningful way until someone reads it.
[4:04]It just isn't. And those awards are wonderful, you know, being part of a television book club is wonderful.
[4:12]But the reason it's wonderful is in service of getting the book into the hands of the people who will bring it to life.
[4:17]That's what's exciting about it. You know, the idea that more readers will come to it is a thrill, like a really a thrill.
[4:26]So if you were to win an award and no one found out about it, like let's say there's this secret Pulitzer Prize, but you couldn't announce it. You wouldn't be excited.
[4:37]I mean, I'd be excited because of course it's a statement about how those judges felt about the book, right? And so that's really just a statement about how those particular readers felt about the work.
[4:47]Yeah, I mean, it's like just kind of playing with you.
[4:50]Like of course it's like gratifying to the ego, like, and every artist is possessed of an ego and like writing is just an act of ego really.
[4:58]So of course it's thrilling.
[5:00]But you, like, you have to think about what really is important in those moments. And I really do think it is what is like what thrills me honestly the most is one I see on Twitter or on Instagram.
[5:12]And I've seen this a bunch because it's so lovely when readers get the book from the library when they're like the hold is released and they get the digital edition from the library.
[5:22]That's really thrilling to me because, you know, look, the name of this podcast is moms don't have time to read, you know, and we live in a culture that doesn't make a lot of space for an experience of art.
[5:34]people pay for your work, not in terms of their money, but in terms of their attention.
[5:39]That's kind of sacred almost like it's really moving to me that people would spend the limited time that we all have the hour before bedtime with my work.
[5:51]It's really meaningful. I really love that.
[5:53]That's such a nice way to look at it.
[5:55]It's great. I love that.
[5:56]Will you please tell listeners who might not know what this book is about a little about the plot and how you came up with the idea for it?
[6:03]Sure, leave the world behind is a novel about a middle class white family who live in Brooklyn, who, you know, there are professional couple Amanda works and advertising her husband cloud works as a professor.
[6:17]And they have two teenagers are she and Rose and the family when we meet them is heading out to Long Island for holiday.
[6:25]They're not going to like a super chic part of Long Island where you can go by, you know, an extensive painting or have like $1,000 bottle of wine.
[6:33]They're going to more quiet, understood part of Long Island.
[6:36]And these parts do exist because in fact, this is based very much on a place that my family and I went on vacation.
[6:42]Beautiful, you call it rural farmland, you know, not far from the ocean, not far from the millionaires in East Hampton, but it's own little quiet part of the Long Island.
[6:53]And can you say where it is?
[6:55]Oh, it's my secret to see.
[6:57]I will tell you later.
[6:59]And so the family goes on vacation and they have the same the experience that you want on vacation.
[7:04]They get to they go and buy a bunch of fancy groceries.
[7:07]They make hamburgers.
[7:08]They lounge by the pool.
[7:09]They go to the beach.
[7:10]They stop at Starbucks.
[7:11]And then we come to the beach.
[7:12]That's my dream vacation stuff.
[7:14]You know, that's what I love to do.
[7:16]And the second night they're in the house, there is a knock at the door.
[7:19]It's late at night.
[7:20]They're in the middle of nowhere.
[7:21]No one knows that they're there.
[7:22]It's not their primary residence.
[7:23]There's no reason someone should be knocking on the door.
[7:25]And it's an older black couple named George and Ruth who tell Amanda and played it.
[7:30]This is their house.
[7:31]They're the owners.
[7:32]They run to them on Airbnb.
[7:34]And they've come there because there's an emergency happening in New York City.
[7:37]And from then the book kind of shifts from being a book about holiday and family to being a book about what you do in a moment of crisis.
[7:46]I feel like that's a good way of talking about what the book is without, you know, I don't really care about spoilers.
[7:52]But I'm mindful that some readers want to experience the shifts in this book for the first time themselves, you know.
[8:00]So we'll just leave it at that.
[8:02]Yeah.
[8:03]So was the book inspired by your vacation?
[8:06]Very much so.
[8:07]So in 2017, we had had this beautiful vacation at the end of that year.
[8:11]It was December.
[8:12]And I was staying as a guest of the wonderful writer, Laura Lipman at her home in New York City.
[8:17]It's on the Upper West Side.
[8:19]It was December.
[8:20]It was very cold.
[8:21]It was not far from the Hudson.
[8:23]So when I left the apartment to run out and get a cup of coffee or something, it was just freezing cold, freezing cold.
[8:29]And you know how in New York, you can have those patches of ice on the sidewalk.
[8:33]And it's like, it never rained and it never snowed. So you don't actually know where the size came from, but it's it was like that kind of weather.
[8:39]And they call it black ice.
[8:41]It's just like looming ice.
[8:43]And you're just like, I want what I want most right now.
[8:47]Is that feeling of summer vacation.
[8:49]And so I was remembering my own vacation.
[8:51]And that particular moment really had that that stay had really lodged in my head.
[8:56]And I wanted to write a novel about vacation, but I wanted to push through it, push through the particulars of a family in a vacation home, which is a convention of books.
[9:05]And there are many great books.
[9:06]And I love that convention.
[9:08]But I wanted to find in that material something with bigger implications with something that told us about not just family life, but cultural life, civic life, political life, the American, the moment that we're all in right now.
[9:21]So that was kind of the attempt of the book.
[9:23]Oh, it looks like you like hit the mail on the head.
[9:26]Well, I mean, I'll let readers decide.
[9:29]But thanks.
[9:30]The popular culture is saying like you got it.
[9:33]Yeah.
[9:34]So when you get an idea for a book, what comes next?
[9:38]Do you outline or do you just sit and write it or do you do any research or like what's your process like?
[9:44]That's a good question.
[9:45]Usually what I do is I write into it for 50 pages, 70 pages or so.
[9:51]And then I make an outline.
[9:53]So in those first 50 to 70 pages, what I'm looking for really is the sound of the book.
[9:59]To me this.
[10:00]sound of the book establishes everything,
[10:01]how I'm gonna write about the people,
[10:03]what the people are going to be like,
[10:04]what they're, you know,
[10:05]somehow the name of the person really defines
[10:08]like how I write about them.
[10:10]So it's just about nailing whatever the voice is.
[10:13]And once I've nailed the voice,
[10:14]I can sit down and say, okay,
[10:15]what is, what is, what am I doing here?
[10:18]What is the story going to look like?
[10:20]And I outline and usually what I try to do is confine
[10:23]and outline to a single piece of paper
[10:26]because it feels very doable.
[10:28]I can tape that piece of paper up onto the wall of my office.
[10:31]I can copy that piece of paper down in my notebook
[10:33]and carry it around with me.
[10:35]And I can have this one little cheat sheet
[10:37]that says to me, this is what you're doing.
[10:39]This is the book.
[10:40]It is in these, it is in 12 sections or four sections
[10:43]or whatever the structure is.
[10:44]And then I can just sort of,
[10:46]and when I say outline,
[10:48]I don't even mean the kind of outline
[10:49]that we made when we were in third grade
[10:51]and we were learning how to write a paper
[10:53]about the Declaration of Independence
[10:54]where it's like the name of this down.
[10:57]No, no Roman numerals.
[10:58]Usually what I do is I just put like one, two, three, four, five.
[11:02]And here's the main idea of this section
[11:05]here or maybe how the chapters will work.
[11:07]And the outline is revised in tandem with the book
[11:10]because it's not like a roadmap
[11:11]for a vacation destination, right?
[11:14]It's something the map is changing as you're in progress.
[11:18]So I adjust the outline, I change things around.
[11:21]And yeah, I kind of feel my way forward
[11:24]like with some guide, but also a little bit by instinct.
[11:28]Interesting.
[11:29]And then once you do the writing,
[11:30]like how long did I take this book for you to write this book?
[11:33]I wrote a draft of the book very quickly
[11:34]in about three weeks' time,
[11:35]but that doesn't reflect the amount of labor
[11:37]I had put in prior.
[11:38]Thinking about the book, I keep it up with me.
[11:41]I write sentences down, I write scenarios down,
[11:43]I write character names down.
[11:45]I write down ideas for scenes.
[11:47]I had a secret Twitter account
[11:48]where I was tweeting lines from the book
[11:51]because I tweet a lot and I realized at some point
[11:53]that is just a form of writing.
[11:55]And I'm wasting that energy
[11:57]and that I could channel that more productively
[11:59]if I trick myself almost the way that you might trick yourself
[12:02]by getting off the subway two steps early
[12:03]and then you're getting in your steps for the day.
[12:05]It's almost feels like that.
[12:06]Like, using, taking Twitter or technology,
[12:09]I use all the time and forcing myself
[12:11]to engage in my fiction that way.
[12:14]So what would you tweet?
[12:16]I tweeted the first,
[12:18]what became the first chapter of this book
[12:20]was originally drafted as tweets.
[12:22]And just one line at a time.
[12:24]Yeah, one sentence at a time, one thought at a time.
[12:27]And I think that really helped me
[12:28]like stay inside of the world of this book
[12:31]until I sat down and wrote it.
[12:32]So I sat down and wrote it.
[12:34]The draft came up very quickly.
[12:35]It's very important for anyone to understand
[12:38]that that draft is very bad, very, very bad.
[12:42]It's the same relationship between a bowl
[12:44]of pancake batter and a finished pancake.
[12:48]And the application of heat makes the pancake
[12:52]the application of time makes the book.
[12:54]It's revision, revision, revision,
[12:57]breaking it apart, breaking into sections,
[12:59]looking at each section, seeing how each fits together,
[13:01]rewriting.
[13:03]And so over time, you lose your sense
[13:05]of what material from that first draft exists
[13:07]in the final draft.
[13:08]It's really hard to say.
[13:10]But for me, the work doesn't begin
[13:11]until I have those first 300 pages.
[13:14]There's nothing to do.
[13:15]You're just talking theoretically.
[13:16]So if you force yourself, as I usually do,
[13:19]just sit down and write, write, write, write,
[13:22]almost like a marathon.
[13:23]Don't look back, don't correct.
[13:25]Like I could, in a first draft,
[13:28]the, you know, the character's name is Amanda.
[13:29]I could break that and call her Amy on some pages.
[13:32]And it doesn't matter.
[13:33]I don't stop myself.
[13:34]I know I'm making mistakes.
[13:37]And revision is for addressing those mistakes.
[13:39]And that period takes a very long time, took a year.
[13:42]But that's what it's for.
[13:42]I mean, good work takes time.
[13:44]Wow, I like that process.
[13:46]Did people, but the secret Twitter account,
[13:49]did you ever unveil that it was you?
[13:51]No, no, no, it's, it's locked.
[13:53]No one can follow it.
[13:53]So I'm the only one.
[13:54]I actually don't even think I,
[13:56]I don't think my phone account follows that account.
[13:58]So it's totally locked.
[13:59]So it's just like an interface that I could switch my,
[14:02]when you're inside Twitter,
[14:03]you can just switch your identity
[14:04]to that other account and then see all these sentences.
[14:07]And it was just a fun way of staying engaged
[14:10]in exactly the same way that, you know,
[14:12]have you ever seen, I'm sure you've seen this
[14:14]on the subway, you'll see somebody
[14:15]an artist sketching?
[14:17]And, you know, if you don't have any accessibility
[14:20]that looks like an amazing thing to you,
[14:21]but I think that what they're doing
[14:23]is just warming their hand.
[14:24]They're just indulging their eye.
[14:26]They're just sitting there, they have the time,
[14:28]they're commuting uptown or whatever.
[14:29]And they'll say, well, I'll just capitalize on this 40
[14:31]minutes I have of sitting down time
[14:34]to move my hand and use my eye.
[14:35]And I think that that is so much of what
[14:37]being an artist is is about keeping that muscle toned, you know?
[14:41]So tell me a little more about your background
[14:44]and like growing up and how you ended up
[14:47]here, like how we got here, essentially.
[14:50]Where did you grow up and did you fall in love with writing,
[14:53]assuming you did?
[14:54]And you know, so well, that's an easy question to answer
[14:57]because I knew from a very early age
[15:00]that I wanted to be a writer, probably like five,
[15:02]you know, when I was writing, I was writing at that age.
[15:06]And I think a lot of kids are inclined to word,
[15:09]to word artistic expression, drawing kids can get
[15:12]really passionate about drawing.
[15:13]Like both of my boys have gone to a period
[15:14]so they're really passionate about like making graphic novels.
[15:18]They're sort of just reflecting what they take in as art.
[15:21]But it's also because there's like an impulse inside of you
[15:24]to communicate that way.
[15:26]And some people never grew out of that.
[15:28]And I think I never grew out of that.
[15:29]I think that sort of, that was something I wanted to do deeply.
[15:33]And I knew that for a long time.
[15:35]So I studied writing when I was an undergraduate.
[15:37]I studied at Oakland College.
[15:39]I worked with a writer named Dan Sean,
[15:40]who's an extraordinary writer who blurked this book,
[15:43]which is such a great honor for me.
[15:45]And you know, then I moved to New York to work in magazines.
[15:48]And as happens to so many people who have like a particular
[15:53]feeling about art, reality and truths,
[15:56]you've got to pay your rent.
[15:57]You have to join the labor force.
[15:59]You have to find a way forward.
[16:00]And that can be difficult to do and also stay connected
[16:04]to the work that you care about.
[16:06]And I tried to do it, I did do it.
[16:08]I worked in magazines.
[16:10]I had like a lovely career in publishing.
[16:12]I also still wrote.
[16:14]And I still exercised that muscle in 2009,
[16:19]we had our first son.
[16:22]And in 2012, we had our second son.
[16:25]And I think it was actually, well, anyway,
[16:29]at some point in that period,
[16:30]when my boys were a little little,
[16:32]I had a play date with the writer, Emma Stroud,
[16:35]so also an novelist.
[16:36]She was my neighbor at the time.
[16:38]And when I went to college together.
[16:40]And she said something to me that is so simple,
[16:42]but so clarifying.
[16:45]She said to me, knowing my aspirations to write,
[16:49]knowing that I have been a writer all along in private,
[16:52]she said to me, no one is ever going to ask you to write a book.
[16:55]And that's absolutely true.
[16:56]No one is.
[16:57]No one is ever going to ask you.
[17:00]Unless you're Michelle Obama, you know?
[17:03]Michelle Obama will be asked, but no one would ever ask me.
[17:07]The lesson being, if there's something you want to do,
[17:09]you need to do it.
[17:10]And I really do credit my children with this
[17:12]because having children, as I think it does for many people,
[17:17]clarified my own priorities.
[17:19]A lot of stuff falls away when you have kids
[17:21]because you just can't do it all.
[17:23]And you realize that you care about your family life.
[17:27]You may realize you care more about your career
[17:30]than you had thought and you want to commit yourself to that.
[17:33]You may realize that you care less about your career
[17:34]than you thought and you want to be at home with your family
[17:38]while your children are young.
[17:39]This is what children can provide for so many people,
[17:44]mostly for women, to be honest,
[17:46]because this is not always the way that fathers
[17:50]have to reckon with this big question of,
[17:52]like, what is it you most want, right?
[17:55]In my household, they're two fathers,
[17:57]so it's a different dynamic.
[18:00]What I learned in that moment when I'm a set that to me
[18:04]was that I really wanted to try this.
[18:06]And I didn't want to be 51
[18:08]and not have given it a shot.
[18:09]Not that 51 is so old.
[18:11]Click, perfectly valid to re-begin your career,
[18:14]your artistic life at that point,
[18:16]but I knew I wanted to do it.
[18:17]And it was, it was burning within me at the time.
[18:21]So my younger son came home in 2012.
[18:25]By like 2014, I was working at New York Magazine.
[18:28]I had an amazing job where I was editing the design issues,
[18:32]which was such great fun.
[18:33]And built into that job was a hiatus of,
[18:37]I think it was 12 weeks, might have been 14.
[18:41]And so I had these 14 weeks
[18:43]where I wasn't going to be working in an office.
[18:46]I wasn't going to be making any money,
[18:48]but I was going to be kind of free.
[18:51]Like my younger son was a baby.
[18:53]My older son was like in school,
[18:54]he was in his Montessori school, his little preschool.
[18:58]So everything was kind of settled.
[19:01]And I said to my husband,
[19:02]I'm going to try something.
[19:04]I'm going to take these 14 weeks
[19:06]and I'm going to try something.
[19:08]You can't ask me any questions about it.
[19:10]You can't talk to me on what I'm doing,
[19:13]but every night at seven o'clock, if you're home,
[19:16]he travels a lot for work.
[19:17]If you're home, you'll put the kids to bed.
[19:19]And I'm going to sit down in the living room,
[19:21]which is where my desk was at the time.
[19:23]And I'm going to work.
[19:25]And in the morning, you're going to get up with the kids.
[19:27]And let me sleep a little bit.
[19:29]But I'm going to be focused on this.
[19:31]Oh my gosh, you're saint of a husband.
[19:33]I know.
[19:34]I don't like this plan at all.
[19:38]Absolutely not.
[19:39]Well, this is another big lesson from my career,
[19:42]which is that like in many,
[19:45]for many people, it is a spouse who provides this particular
[19:47]kind of stability, but doesn't have to be.
[19:49]But a lot of artists, I think, require an anchor in reality.
[19:56]Somebody who cares as much about their work as they do.
[20:00]has been provides up for me. And he said to his great credit, like, yes, you do what it is
[20:05]you need to try to do. So for those 14 weeks, it's to be a, the boys went to bed at seven.
[20:11]I sat down at the desk from seven until one or two in the morning. I slept from two until six
[20:17]when everyone wakes up, of course, you know, and, you know, I would like have breakfast with
[20:21]the kids. I would pack their lunch. I would take the little one to the daycare and I would come
[20:27]home in the eight, 30, and I would have slept for four hours. And I would go back to bed.
[20:31]And I would sleep until noon or 11. I would get up. I would do the laundry, do the dishes, make sure
[20:40]dinner was ready, make sure everything was ready for 7 p.m. So that when the kids went to bed,
[20:44]I was back at my desk. The latest, I think I ever stayed up was like, I stayed up to four
[20:50]one morning. So I slept for two hours. I was younger then. And also, I mean, you can kind of survive
[20:55]anything when you have a baby, because the baby has so broken your relationship to time that
[21:00]it almost doesn't matter. Right? Like when you have a small baby, you can be like, it's 150
[21:06]and I had to be out of the house at 233. I'm going to sleep for 11 minutes and I'll feel better
[21:11]and I'll be fine. And you do it because you kind of don't have much of a choice. So I think they
[21:16]showed me that I could do more than maybe I thought. And in that period of time, I didn't do anything
[21:20]I didn't watch any television. I barely, I didn't work with my husband. I barely spoke to him.
[21:24]I was really committed to that work. But that's the period in which I wrote the first draft of
[21:29]my first novel. And so work demands sacrifice. You know, it demands sacrifice. And what I had to
[21:37]sacrifice was that sleep. And you know, but it changed my career, the change everything about my life
[21:44]because I sold that book. I found an agent based on that book at the end of that year in December,
[21:48]the book sold the following spring and it appeared the following summer. Wow. So completely
[21:55]changed my life. And I hope your husband got a dedication in that book. He didn't. You did
[22:02]me. I even dedicated it to the kid. Oh man. You need to like go give him a hug after this conversation.
[22:09]I do need to like, I don't know. I mean, it's it's really hugely and I can't stress like how
[22:14]important it's been to my work. His faith in my commitment to it has been hugely important.
[22:22]And it's permission to this is demanding work and its self-centered work and his acceptance of that
[22:30]and his belief in that and his confidence and my ability to do that have everything to do with
[22:36]whatever success I've had because very few artists, I think feel confident at all times, you know,
[22:44]and you kind of need to know that there's someone saying like, no, no, no, you you ought to be
[22:50]engaged in this. Like your follower, you're on the right path and it will pay off. And I don't
[22:56]mean in terms of money. I just mean in terms of like, you'll be happy. You'll have done the thing
[23:01]you wanted to do. When I said before about Emma challenging me or pointing out that no one would
[23:06]invite me to write a book, what I was thinking about was not, oh, I want to have money or I want to
[23:10]have a career. It was that I want to have done this. I cared about this. It was the thing I cared
[23:15]about since I was five and I want to have been honest with myself and work for that. And so I did.
[23:22]And I'm really glad that I did. And I think that that is, it makes it so much easier for me to be
[23:28]comfortable with the challenges of a life in which you're not always, you know, no matter what you do
[23:36]for living. If you care about it deeply, whatever, but there are other things to be done. And there
[23:41]are other like other reality and truths, family life and truths. And my responsibility as a parent
[23:48]is so much easier for me to bear because I know that I'm satisfied professionally and personally
[23:54]and artistically. I've like catered to like the monster inside of me. I've indulged myself. And so
[24:00]I can do the acts of parenting which have, as you know, nothing to do with yourself. Nothing.
[24:09]You're just a conduit. You're just like a hand putting food into a mouth. Like, that's what
[24:14]you are. That's the relationship that's what you've committed to. And that can be very difficult for
[24:19]people, you know, that's a difficult relationship. But it's also sacred and very meaningful. And it's
[24:25]like what I care about most, you know? No, I just feel like you just summarized what it means to
[24:30]be a mother, essentially. I mean, honestly, or a father. I mean, that's like what the whole thing
[24:36]is is that I would say a tiny percentage of primary care givers. No, no. Get that kind of like
[24:47]filling of their buckets, so to speak, that enables them to then go back and do it. I've noticed
[24:52]the same way. I used to, you know, only work a little bit. And now I do this and I'm doing all
[24:56]these other things. And then like, I go out my door and I'm like, all right, like, hell, fight!
[25:01]Well, I think too, I think it's important. I mean, it allows you to still be a person. And you know,
[25:06]it's like a personal choice. Also, like, there are parents for whom that role is like,
[25:12]so fulfilling. And it's all that they need. And they can be really inside of that.
[25:17]And I do find it's not that I don't find it. I mean, I find it deeply fulfilling.
[25:21]It's like, words can't even really hold it how fulfilling I find it. But I think part of the
[25:27]reason I'm able to find fulfillment and joy in it is that I have this other thing.
[25:32]And I think it's really important. It's become important to me as a part of the practice of
[25:36]parenthood because children are ego monsters that they see firsthand the ways in which
[25:43]people have other things that they care about. And that like, they can hold in their heads
[25:47]the contradiction that like, you are the person who takes care of me and is always there for me.
[25:53]But sometimes, you will not be there for me. But you're not being there for me because you are
[25:59]a doctor working late because you're a bus driver on your route, whatever it is,
[26:04]you are also doing as an act of care for me because you pay for money and you take care of me.
[26:10]Look, they can understand that over time. And I think that's really a useful way to understand
[26:14]your place in the world. That's what I tell myself. I don't know. No, no, no parent knows
[26:21]what they're doing. Nobody knows what they're doing. And I certainly didn't mean to say that
[26:24]I am not fulfilled by my children either. I love it. I know you. I know you. It is my greatest pride
[26:29]and joy. Love a lot. Okay. Yes. So are you working on anything new now? Or what are you up to?
[26:35]Yeah. So I've been when I described being at Laura Lipman's apartment in Manhattan,
[26:40]I was actually writing into her book. And I've been trying to go back to that book. Leave the
[26:43]world behind. It emerged and sort of took over my life and my imagination. It was something
[26:48]I felt really urgent that I wanted to write. And I'm glad that I did. I wouldn't go back to this
[26:52]other book. But at the moment, I'm teaching, actually, I'm teaching at Columbia and a pace. And I
[27:00]as so many parents are kind of orchestrating my children's education as well in this particular
[27:08]period. And I write as a freelance writer and critic. So I'm engaged in a lot of stuff. And I
[27:15]don't feel to be honest. I don't feel wholly committed to the work of the fiction right now.
[27:22]And in some ways, I think that that's sort of natural. Like when I'm charged with talking about my
[27:27]third book, it's going to be difficult for me to be engaged and thinking about my fourth book.
[27:32]In the same way that like very few people are eager to like run out and get pregnant again when
[27:38]they have a four month old at home because you're just like you're in that moment and you need a
[27:43]little time and a little space. So I don't know. But I do intend to write another book. So I hope
[27:52]that I get that clarity soon. I think when I, I think when the semester ends and it's winter
[27:58]and hopefully we'll have a new government in this country, I might feel like a little less
[28:05]quotidian stress and be able to kind of relax into a fiction again. That's my hope.
[28:11]And then the meantime, this is going to be a movie or a limited series. What's the latest?
[28:15]No, it's going to be a feature film. The writer and director Sam S. Mail is directing,
[28:20]is writing and he's adapting the novel and he'll direct the film for Netflix. Sam
[28:28]is such a real filmmaker. If you don't always work, you made a show called Homecoming. I think it
[28:34]was for Amazon with Julia Roberts. He made a show called Mr. Robot. Sam has a very particular
[28:40]sensibility that really, really suits this material, I think. He understands how to find unease
[28:49]in what looks like elegant calm. Homecoming is such an extraordinary show. Julia Roberts,
[28:56]who is the star of Homecoming, will star in this adaptation of Leave the World behind,
[29:00]which is insane. Every time I say it, it does not, saying it does not make it sound real,
[29:05]and Denzel Washington will also star in the film. And it's in such good hands. It's just so,
[29:12]it's part of like a larger charmed run I've had with this particular book to find collaborators
[29:18]like that who you can put the material into their hands is just what a win, you know.
[29:24]It's amazing. So I decided to see it. That's going to be great. What advice would you have for aspiring
[29:29]authors? I think that you have to actually do the labor, and I think it's so hard to. And one of the
[29:37]things that I always stress when I'm teaching is that there's more time than you might think there
[29:42]is. Especially if you stay up till 4 in the morning. Well, I mean, not everyone is wired to do
[29:47]something that deranged. And like, like the significant factor in that is not just my husband's
[29:55]help, but that was huge. It's that I wasn't working for that period of time.
[30:00]I could never have done that and had to go to a day job and most people have to, right?
[30:03]So that's like a real luxury.
[30:07]When I say that there's always time, what I usually mean is that there are ways of tricking
[30:11]yourself, much as I trick myself using Twitter. That's a great example. When I teach, I always
[30:16]say when I'm feeling really stuck and really desperate, I set myself a very arbitrary and
[30:22]accomplishable goal, usually with some sense of play, like you have to write 333 words.
[30:30]You can't write more than that, but you cannot write less than that. It has to land at 333.
[30:35]You don't have to write the thing that you are thinking about writing. You can write anything,
[30:38]but it has to last that long. Or turn on an episode of Friends, turn off the sound,
[30:45]and sit there and write until that episode is over. Because the truth is that even on a really
[30:50]busy day, you would probably allow yourself the particular indulgence of sitting still
[30:55]and watching us come for 22 minutes and saying, I'll do the laundry this heck of this is over.
[31:00]So let that TV show run with the notebook on your lap, over the laptop on your lap,
[31:05]and write that whole time. Then when the show's over, turn it off, go deal with the laundry,
[31:10]get the dog walked, take out the checkbook and deal with your bills, whatever it is that your life
[31:15]involves. 22 minutes is not a lot, but it's a step forward. It's just like going to the gym,
[31:20]you know, it's just like how, you know, we've all had that experience, right? When it's January,
[31:25]and you're like, God damn, I've done nothing but eat since Thanksgiving. I've really got to go to
[31:31]the gym. And so you like reactivate your gym membership. And then you're like, I can't go today
[31:37]because I have to take the kids to soccer. I can't go next week because actually they have
[31:42]this dentist appointment that we've been like forgot about that I made 11 months ago. And why did
[31:47]they make it now? And you know, you find all these ways to tell yourself you can't do it. And then
[31:51]one day, one day your resolve breaks and you're like, well, fuck, I guess I have to go to the gym.
[31:57]And you go to the gym and you're like, I'll just go for like 38 minutes, just like I'll ease into it.
[32:02]And you go. And what happens? You feel amazing. You're like, well, I went and I did it. And I
[32:08]all I didn't go for an hour. I went for 38 minutes. But you know what? I did it. And now I know
[32:12]I can do it. And I'm going to do it next Tuesday too because I know the kids are in soccer. And
[32:16]I can drop them and go and run for 38 minutes and come back and pick them up and everything is
[32:19]fine. And the world will continue on. I think making space for writing in your life with that is
[32:24]something you prioritize, convention the same way. And just as it might take like if you go to the
[32:29]gym for 38 minutes a week, it might take you six months to feel like, yeah, I feel strong. I feel
[32:36]better. I feel good. But you will get there. And so if you write for 22 minutes a week and you're
[32:41]producing 300 words, yeah, it's only 300 words. But like six months later, I can't do math. So I
[32:48]just read that back. But you know, you're at like 7,000 words. And that's not that much. But six
[32:54]months later, you're at 14,000 words. And you're like, wow, I have one fifth of a book here.
[33:00]I did it. I put one foot in front of the other and did it. And that's exactly the same way that
[33:04]everyone who does this does it. So every writer you admire who you think, oh my god, I could
[33:11]never do what Jane Smiley does. I could never do what Louis Orger does. I could never do what Mark
[33:16]Edward does. Yeah, they're all geniuses. There's no question. But Jane Smiley has to sit down,
[33:23]take off her pencil and be like, all right, it's time. And I got to show up and do it.
[33:29]And that's not something that, I mean, anyone can do that. But as Emma said to me,
[33:33]all those years ago, very few people will invite you to do that. So if that's what you want to do,
[33:37]you have to find a way to do it. Wow. Well, that was a pretty tempting pseudo invitation. I feel
[33:42]like that was very inspiring for it. It's no work. Yeah, it's no work. What can you do? I mean,
[33:48]it's just work. It is just work. And like, if there's one thing we understand in this country,
[33:54]because we have such a warped relationship with work, it's that we can do more. You know, you can
[33:57]squeeze time out. To be honest, I mean, I don't have much of a life beyond this.
[34:02]You know, to be perfectly clear, like I at this moment, like no one's doing any of these things,
[34:06]but I very rarely go to the movies. I very rarely go to dinner. I very rarely like have a night
[34:11]where I'm just out with friends like doing nothing. I spend a lot of time here at this very task
[34:16]for him talking to you. But it's a choice that I've made, and I've published three books in
[34:21]this span of six years. And there's a direct relationship between my productivity and the other
[34:28]choices I've made. You know, I'm not saying that like, I mean, there's a lot of like privilege
[34:33]in play there, and there's a lot of luck in play there. But like fundamentally, it is
[34:40]accomplishable, because if you want to write, if you care about it, as I do, I think you'll find
[34:46]a way. I think you just have to allow yourself to find a way. Awesome. Great. Well, I will be
[34:52]sitting here mostly at this desk. You will be over there. I'll think about you on the, you know,
[34:56]invisible zoom once you're off. Imagine you're writing and not having any fun. No, I'm kidding.
[35:02]Well, it was lovely to meet you. And when you'll come here, and we want to be apart from a screen.
[35:07]And yeah, this book was amazing. And I'm honored to talk to you and best of luck with all the great
[35:14]successes that you deserve and go like get a bottle of wine for your husband.
[35:19]Thank you so much for doing. It was really well. Thank you. Bye.
[35:22]Thanks again to today's sponsor SugarWish, send a surprise SugarWish to somebody you love,
[35:29]and check it out yourself, SugarWish.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have
[35:34]Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at ZB Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time
[35:39]to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at ZB Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
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[35:50]for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this
[35:54]fantastic intro and out trim music.