Lisa Gardner, BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED

[1:56]Zibby Owens: But at that time, I was like going to the guy at Joe and the Juice behind the counter asking him to vote for me and anyone I could. So now I'm coming to all of you to ask you to please vote for moms don't have time to read books to win the People's Choice Webby Award for Best Live Podcast. If you go to vote.webbyawards.com, again, that's vote.webbywebbyawards.com, And then go to the little magnifying glass search thing on the upper right. All you have to type in is search my name or entry and just type in moms and it will come up. And then you can click on the best live podcast recording nominee and vote for me. Also, by the way, I won honoree for best influencer, which is crazy. Anyway, thank you for voting. I really, really would appreciate it. I would love to win the People's Voice Award, especially after trying so hard and failing two years ago. So if you could just take a few minutes and vote, I would be so grateful. You could email me after if you want at infosibbyowens dot com. I will say thank you to you via email myself because I'm so grateful. So email me if you've done it, post about it. I'm just I would be so grateful. Thank you. Hi, this is Zippy Owens and you're listening to the award winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write a New Publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. Lisa Gardner is the author of Before She Disappeared. Lisa is the number one New York Times bestselling author of 20 suspense novels, including The Neighbor, which won Thriller of the Year from the International Thriller Writers. An avid hiker, traveler, and cribbage player, she lives in the mountains of New Hampshire with her family. Welcome, Lisa. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Lisa Thank you, Zibby. You

[4:13]Lisa Gardner: had me at the title alone. What a great podcast. Lisa Thank you.

[4:18]Zibby Owens: I have to say I listened to your book on audiobook over many dog walks, and it was great. I I was, like, on the street listening to describe your character's, like, ratty underwear, and I'm like, oh my gosh. Because sometimes I don't bring headphones. I just sort of, like, play it on my iPhone. I'm like, alright. Well, everybody can listen to me listening about somebody's underwear. Thank you very much. Anyway.

[4:40]Lisa Gardner: But the suspense as I'm, like, walking around, I'm like, who's on the street? And, you know, what's going on? I don't know. Maybe it was a mistake. Especially in New York City because, you know, before she disappeared is taking place in an inner city neighborhood in Boston. Yes. I can see where the ambiance is. Yes. Exactly.

[4:57]Zibby Owens: Although you kind of made me wanna, like, get a job as a barkeep after all the perks associated with that and all the free food and everything else. It's like, well, this could be fun. I don't know.

[5:07]Lisa Gardner: Frankie definitely eats a lot. I'm not sure I really was conscious of that when I was writing the book, but at a certain point, many people have been like, I just wanna eat all the food she's eating. I'm like Yeah. We think, oh, you're right. Like, she's very food motivated.

[5:19]Zibby Owens: That's true. I found myself getting hungry. I'm like, throwing on another burger. Okay. What should I have for lunch? Well, you've written so many books and not only under your name, but also all your romance books under a pen name. Like so many books. Tell me about let's just well, first of all, tell me about this book. Tell listeners what this book is about, if you don't mind, and what inspired you to write this book? And then I wanna hear about your career in general. Okay.

[5:44]Lisa Gardner: So my latest novel is Before She Disappeared, which takes place in Mattapan, Boston. It's a new book for me, brand new character, Frankie Elkin. She was inspired by some real life trends we have going on of everyday people getting involved in working cold cases. In Frankie's case, she has no special background or training. She is like us, an everyday person. As she puts it, she is short on belongings, long on regret. She is a recovering alcoholic, and her mission now, her obsession, is to go from place to place working those kind of cold cases, missing person cases that have fallen through the cracks. So in this instance, it has brought her to Mattapan, affectionately known as Murder Pan by the locals in Boston, looking for a missing Haitian teenager who disappeared eleven months ago, stepping out the doors of her school. What happened to Angelique Badeau? It's kind of the police don't want Frankie there. The family doesn't trust her. Who even would do this with their lives? And we're off and running from there.

[6:50]Zibby Owens: Interesting. And I thought it was so interesting even your description of the community of displaced Haitians after the earthquake and how they came with a visa that lasted ten years. And then after that, you have a whole community of people where can they stay? Can they not? I feel like it's so timely with all of the immigration debates and everything going on in the in the news cycle.

[7:11]Lisa Gardner: I lived in Boston for years. I'm in the mountains of New Hampshire now. And even it was something for me to become more aware of. Boston has one of the largest Haitian populations outside of Florida, and many are very happily acclimated. They pretty much are in many ways the health care industry in Massachusetts. So Bostonians, the local government will tell you they want the Haitians to stay. But yes, the ten year visas were up under our previous administration. It was not looking good. They basically had a stay of execution while it's been tied up in courts. And that becomes an element of this book. Did Angelique run away? What's it like to live in a limbo where month by month I mean, you've spent now eleven years in a country and you don't know if you have tomorrow. I mean, I really feel for that. This path to immigration, as they call it, really is a big deal for a lot of communities right now. I mean, eleven years. I mean, after I'm in a if if I'm in a place for eleven days, I feel like I'm settled in. You know? It's like eleven years. That's a lifetime. I mean, that's I like can't imagine that kind of limbo. And what you see with immigrant communities, so like Angelique and her younger brother, they came to Matapan because they had an aunt there. But many of the families have said, now having been together for this long, you know, if part of the family is going be kicked back, they'll probably all go. And again, in Boston, they are the ones who are the visiting nurses, they are the ones who are helping. You know, they're doing all those positions in the hospital. No one necessarily wants to do working in the, you know, assisted living. So I hope everything does work out. I was surprised

[8:47]Zibby Owens: how easy it was for Frankie just to decide this is what her job was and sort of make it her job, and everybody gave her the validation. Like, she could just waltz in to the police and say, like, yes. You know, here I am. You know? Tell me everything. And people are like, okay. And even with the families where she's like, I'm not you know, I'm doing this because I want to do this, and I find missing girls and everything. And that's just it. You can just sort of decide that's what you do and then people share all this stuff with you. It's really quite fascinating.

[9:21]Lisa Gardner: I love Frankie. Previously, I've been known for law enforcement characters, FBI profilers. I wrote detective Dean Warren books. People who definitely had a reason for being at the scene. Frankie is more a return to the gumshoe investigative instincts. Again, she has no jurisdiction. She has no special training. For her, you could almost say she's a dry drunk. This is how she is keeping her path to recovery as an alcoholic, is she's gotten kind of invested in other people's problems instead. But legally, she has a right to ask any questions she wants. And she's somewhat a showcase for bravado, but also just sheer grit. You're right. Even if people don't really understand her role or don't want her to be there, she kinda just keeps turning up. And she's this way with people. I mean, she's not judgmental being a recovering alcoholic. She has seen and heard the worst of most people. And she genuinely, I think, she likes people. She wants to help. And in the end, that kinda

[10:27]Zibby Owens: sees her through. Very interesting. So how did you come up with her? Why go back to a character like her after being in on the law enforcement side for more of your recent work?

[10:39]Lisa Gardner: Pretty much every book I've written has been based on something from the real world, you know, the kind of ripped from the headlines kind of books. And in this case, I read an article in the BBC about this really interesting woman, Lisa Yellowbird Chase, who lives on native lands and was very concerned about the number of women that had gone missing. And I mean, it's not just that there weren't the resources to look for them, nobody cared. And it kind of opened up this whole world of where you disappear, where you live makes a big difference in the level of effort and resources that are going to be brought to bear. There's some really staggering websites out there, Black and Missing Organization is one of them of hundreds of thousands of people that go missing and no one even looks for them. And in those gaps now, particularly with the internet and social media, you're getting everyday people kind of stepping forward and saying, this doesn't seem right. I want to do something about it. And for Frankie, that resonated. And I loved that idea. You or me. I mean, this is actually a great book for moms. If you show if you read something locally the other day in your own backyard, and you're like, that's not right. I wanna do something about it. Well, what would you do? And that's kinda how I write Frankie, sitting in my own family room. Well, okay. This didn't work. Well, what would you try next? Let's do that.

[12:07]Zibby Owens: I'm I'm a little concerned about what's in your family room after seeing your Instagram with, like, weapons. And I'm like, you're like, here's my latest, like, crime scene from my next book. I'm like, those are some pretty serious weapons you have sitting around. Mean

[12:21]Lisa Gardner: Oh, wait till you see what I get to post today. Someone just sent me an anatomically correct, solid chocolate working heart. Woah. Yeah. There's nothing being a suspense novelist. You get the coolest things in the mail. I bet. Chocolate heart. Wow. I mean, that's really eating your heart out. Right? Yeah. And you can see the bubbles and everything. I can't decide if it's the creepiest thing or just the best.

[12:43]Zibby Owens: Wow. I don't know. If I were you, I might like, you know, make sure there's nothing inside

[12:48]Lisa Gardner: lurking in the center. Not a bad point. Right?

[12:52]Zibby Owens: I don't know. I'm now I'm, like, suspicious of everybody kind of, but after reading your book and being on edge. Okay. So why this book now? I know riff from the headlines and everything, but what drew you to this particular character?

[13:05]Lisa Gardner: I think I was ready for a departure. I've written about so many law enforcement characters. As you've mentioned, I've been writing for a long time now, over two decades. This idea of an everyday, like an amateur sleuth. It's also kind of fun, one of the things suspense novelists in general are struggling with right now. So take Mattapan, Boston, where Angelique Boudeau disappears. Have cameras at every corner. You can track her cell phone. There's social media. You can track her computer. There's so much technology and forensics to bring to bear at the moment that sometimes it feels like the good traditional detective work. Where is that? So the minute you start looking at cold cases, and this is something that Frankie talks about very clearly in the beginning, that's all the stuff she can't do. She is not a real police officer. However, by definition, eleven months later, those were also all the things that didn't work. So it was very nice to get back to a story that very much is about people. It's about what we call social engineering. It's somewhere, someone, somewhere knows something. It's not finding the right hair. It's not this magic DNA test. It's a matter of talking to the right person. And in that case, when you start researching these amateur sleuths, someone like Frankie actually has an advantage. People in a community are much more likely to talk to her than necessarily the local police. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[16:32]Zibby Owens: I feel like I wanna have you and Renee Denfeld and Paula McClain, like, on a panel because you're I get to talk to Paula McClain in a couple weeks. I'm very excited. Oh, good. Okay. Well, see and good. I because you're all of you seem to have this insight into how to find missing girls because your characters are these amazing

[16:52]Lisa Gardner: finders. It's quite a skill, not only to be able to do, but to write about it so well too. I think as authors, but I think also as readers, it's it's the people that appeal to us. We're interested in human nature. And interesting enough, Frankie's role is much more about human nature. It's her ability to talk to a teenager's best friends and kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all the crap you told your parents and all that's all the crap you told the cops. I know better. I was a teenage girl once myself, and I snuck around drinking all the time and screwing boys. So come on, just tell me now. Just get it out.

[17:29]Zibby Owens: Are we talking about you or are we talking about breaking?

[17:31]Lisa Gardner: Yeah. Okay, maybe both. You get to the age, you're so glad you had an illicit youth. I mean, thank heavens. You

[17:44]Zibby Owens: You might not wanna share it with your kids. Don't know. I have a teenager. She doesn't believe any of it. I I have a teenager too. I have two teenagers. And so far, I haven't really shared much about my own sort of antics. I'm like, I think I should just leave that. My experience under wraps for quite some time.

[18:02]Lisa Gardner: Mine's firmly launched and my parents were never real people. There we go.

[18:10]Zibby Owens: So tell me how you got started and how you are so prolific. How do you you seem to be just like churning out books. How are you doing this?

[18:19]Lisa Gardner: Well, I'm a book a year, which is about average. It takes me three months to research a book, six months to write what, you know, I call the shitty first draft from Anne Lamott. So people were Talked her yesterday. Oh, I love her. Bird by Bird is one of my favorite writing books. She was literally talking about the shitty first draft yesterday in our book club. I'm gonna send you the link. It's Oh, I would love that. Actually, I'm gonna release I'll release it as a podcast soon so that everyone can listen. So Oh, that would be fabulous. You know, reading those words from her so validated and just gave reassurance. I mean, because I have been at this forever, and that first draft never gets any easier. In fact, some days, the only way I can keep myself going is this doesn't have to make sense. This doesn't have to be any good. This is the shitty first draft, just do it. So six months of that, and then three months to clean it up. So that's a year for me. And it's been dozens of novels and it gets no easier. It's still the shitty first draft. It's a total hot mess. I I like to joke I'm not actually a very good writer, but apparently, I'm a decent rewriter. Thank heavens. That's all you really need. As long as you get to the finish line in some way, shape, or form. My favorite part of writing is no one has to know the first where you started. You know? That's between you and your your computer. So

[19:42]Zibby Owens: when you start your first drafts, do you always know, like, where you're headed? Do you have the whole plot all mapped out, and then the shitty part is just the writing, and then you refine the writing? Or is it that you're sort of sorting out what happens as you go? I am sorting out as I go. In the very beginning, when I started out, I had to have a plot. I had to have an outline because otherwise,

[20:02]Lisa Gardner: the blank screen was too terrifying. But what I found for myself as a thriller writer is if I know what's going to happen next, almost by definition, the book comes flat and linear. And if you know who did it, it's hard not to broadcast it. So now, really, I've done some investigative research, even Frankie. There's some logical steps that are going to happen to try to find a missing person. And so the skeleton of the book is kind of there, but I don't know who did it. Actually, it was very interesting for before she disappeared. One of my first real things that I did not know the answer to was how did Angelique Baudot disappear? I mean, I started with this premise. She left her school on a Friday afternoon, 3PM. Again, cameras everywhere, trackable cell phone, subways in Boston have camera, Ubers have camera, buses have cameras, There's license plate reading technology. The amount of surveillance in any downtown urban environment is crazy. So even how did she disappear was something I just hoped I would have an answer by the time I got there. So, yeah, is it's a bit of a mess, but somehow it always works out.

[21:19]Zibby Owens: But that must be what's fun about it. Right? I mean, isn't that otherwise, this wouldn't be fun for you if you just were, like, inserting. Right? Well, Otel, I shouldn't assume that. Is this let me do it again. So is that is that fun for you, Isat?

[21:31]Lisa Gardner: Yeah. So in writer circles, and you've talked to so many, you probably know this better than we do, but I feel like we fall almost fifty fifty into two camps, the plotters, and then the I'm called a pantser, as in riding by the seat of your pants. And the plotters will tell you that's how they get to Christmas. They show up because they know what's going to happen. The pantsers will tell you, we show up to figure out what will happen. If I knew the whole book in advance to me, well, now I have six months to work on a book report. I mean, where's the fun in that? The fact that I don't know how this teenage girl disappeared, I don't know what happened to her, I don't know why decent investigative work by Boston detectives who have a fair amount of resources did not find her. I mean, that's somewhat the challenge for me. And then, you know, becomes the surrogate for Frankie. You know, what the hell did happen here?

[22:23]Zibby Owens: Very interesting. Do you ever like, when do you come up with your next one? Like, how soon like, is it in the middle? Like, do you how many books out do you always know what you're doing? Or is it that you what you're in the mood for when it's time? Or how do you plan it? It varies.

[22:38]Lisa Gardner: I like to consider it work. It's probably a form of procrastination. But I like to read all those strange news, weird crimes, stupid stuff like that. And every now and then and you can be even two books before, read something and be like, someday I've gotta use that. And sometimes I've gone right down to the wire. The book is written, it's sent to the publisher, and I'm still I don't know. It's kind of this it's this interesting thing when you're a creative person where this idea will you'll stumble across it and you'll be like, that's it. That's what I'm writing next. And sometimes you have them in advance and kind of stored up. And sometimes you're like, please, please, please, please let me find that bright shiny object right now. Right now is what I need.

[23:22]Zibby Owens: So

[23:23]Lisa Gardner: exciting. So what advice would you have for aspiring authors? Well, of it's the typical. You need to be a huge reader and you need to keep reading. It's interesting to me when I meet authors, like, oh, I don't read anymore. It's like, it's the best part of what we do. Why would you give that up? I also recommend reading across the board, not just what you like. I I love to read poetry. I can't write it for love nor money. But the way words are used, the economy of phrasing, I think is just so lovely. Also, a local writers group is often very helpful. I mean, to be able to talk to other people who also hear voices in their head, always a good thing, a supportive thing. And just be kind to yourself. Trying to create something from nothing is not for the faint at heart. I've been at this again for decades, and it's still a project each and every time. So if it feels really painful and difficult impossible, good news, you're probably doing it the right way.

[24:18]Zibby Owens: What what is it you love about it? Why do this for so long? Why keep at it? And in so many genres too with all of your romance, I mean, that's amazing to shift back and forth. Like, what is it about it that you love? You know, it's interesting. This is where I relate to Frankie as a character.

[24:33]Lisa Gardner: It's fascinating to me the more I go out in the world and meet other authors, none of us are like getting up in the morning like, yippee, we get to sit at a computer and type all day. It's much more a compulsion. Think there's a very famous quote, Nobody likes writing. Everyone likes having written. And I think it's just once you get these voices in your head, these characters, I mean, Frankie in so many ways feels so real to me. There's this obligation to tell the story even on the days that, you know, binge watching Netflix seems like such a better, better idea. Let me watch the Bridgertons again.

[25:15]Zibby Owens: Do you have and is this gonna be a movie? What do you think? It feels very cinematic to me. We hope to have some good news to announce soon, so please stay tuned. Excellent. I love it. And just quickly, what's the trajectory for the romance world of yours? Are you still writing those books or have you stopped? Well, I started out writing romantic suspense, some kind of small genre novels. Most of them aren't in print anymore.

[25:38]Lisa Gardner: And what I discovered back then was at a certain point, it was the suspense element that I got more and more fascinated with, which was really I got the confidence to actually start picking up the phone and calling the FBI, calling the police. When I first started out, I wrote my first book when I was 17. Wow. I didn't know anything about anything. And you could certainly everyone knows something about falling in love. Right? But actual police work, forensic, that just seemed too far beyond me. So it was more safer for me to ground the books in the relationship with some other things going on. But over time, I think like so many women out there who spend all their time watching Criminal Minds and CSI, it is the police work that fascinates me. And the truth is, if you are a taxpayer, you can call up and interview your local police. So as I started doing more and more of that and learning more of that world, well, of course, the ideas exploded. So I'm a very happy thriller writer now. Any excuse to call it people with real jobs. Let's see for my next book, I'm learning about cadaver dogs and skeletal remains and all sorts of fun stuff. All right. Can you say anything else about that book? So it's also a Frankie book. Actually wrote before she disappeared to be a standalone. And Frankie grew on me and it just feels like she has more to say. So the next book, One Step Too Far next year, covers another scenario that kind of under resourced missing persons, which is missing hikers or people when they go lost what we call national public lands. Our search efforts by definition are volunteer and there's a ton of intensity in the beginning. But with time, people have to go back to their real jobs. And particularly when it looks like the person can no longer be found alive, everyone retreats. But you're left with a family whose loved one still has not come home, who has no closure, no answers to their questions. So Frankie takes part in kind of a as an expedition to head in the woods. There's eight of them to see if they cannot find this young man one last time. And eight people go in the woods, but eight people do not come back out. Okay,

[27:53]Zibby Owens: so that will put an end to my hiking career as well.

[27:56]Lisa Gardner: I'm a huge hiker. It's actually how I brainstorm. And so just, you know, if you were scared before, I've been working with search and rescue people on this book, and one of the first things they told me was there are two things that happen when you are doing a huge search mission. And one is there will be a psychic. I saw them sitting in a cave. I see them sitting next to water. The second is you will find a body, but it won't be the one you're looking for. I'm actually really paranoid now. I just want to share that with everyone. I want you guys to be as scared as I am. Thank you. You're welcome.

[28:33]Zibby Owens: So Lisa, when you are not hiking or reading poetry, what do you like to do when you're not writing? I like to garden.

[28:41]Lisa Gardner: I am a huge cribbage player. I have many friends I play cribbage with. And then I have three dogs, which keep me quite busy. So I like to be outdoors. You know, if I'm not at a computer, any excuse to be outside.

[28:53]Zibby Owens: Yeah. That's so nice with the spring. I feel like I know. So hard to be inside now.

[28:58]Lisa Gardner: I used to be a global traveler. I'm looking forward to that hobby coming back soon, very soon. Me too.

[29:04]Zibby Owens: Well, thank you. Thanks for coming on Mom's No Time to Read Books. Thanks for introducing us all to Frankie. I'm actually really excited now that she'll be back in another book because I feel like an attachment to her at this point. So thanks for talking about Before She Disappeared.

[29:18]Lisa Gardner: And yeah, it was great to meet you. Oh, thank you very much, Abhi. This is so much fun and what a great podcast.

[29:24]Zibby Owens: Oh, thank you. Okay. Take care. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye. Okay. Bye bye.

[29:41]Zibby Owens: and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.