Steven Rowley, THE GUNCLE

[1:37]Zibby Owens: 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. Special announcement, I am teaming up with Katie Couric Media's Wake Up Call and Random House to give away 100 copies of the book Stranger Care by Sarah Santillis. I'm really excited about this. Here's a little about Sarah's book, and we collectively are giving away 100 copies. After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Santilles and her husband Eric decide to adopt via the foster care system. Despite knowing that the system's goal is the child's reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question them, evaluate them, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their lives even if it means most likely having to give the child back. Stranger care is an illuminating read, and Sarah will be on this podcast soon. So if you would like to enter for a chance to win, please go to the link in the episode description from right where you clicked on it and enter your email address, first and last name. By doing so, you're agreeing to the sweepstakes official rules and agree to receive communications and special offers from Katie Couric's wake up call and moms don't have time to read books. Thank you for doing it and enter to win today. Just go back to the episode description. Thanks again. I did an Instagram Live with Steven Raleigh, the author of The Guncle. We actually had marketed it as cocktails or something like that at like 05:30 on a Friday. I don't think either of us actually had any cocktails, but it was fun to talk to him. I had already interviewed Steven about his novel, The Editor, which I really loved. And now we got to do it on Instagram live. Steven is the best selling author of Lily and the Octopus, which was a Washington Post notable book of 2016. And as I mentioned, the editor, which was named by NPR and Esquire magazine as one of the best books of 2019. His new novel, The Gunkel is what we talked about today. And Oh, the Oprah Magazine hailed it as one of the LGBT books changing the literary landscape. His fiction has been published in 20 languages, and Lily and the Octopus is in development as as a feature film at Amazon Studios. The editor was optioned by twentieth century for director Greg Berlanti. Steven has worked as a freelance writer, newspaper columnist, screenwriter. Originally from Portland, Maine, he is a graduate of Emerson College. He currently resides in Palm Springs with his husband, the writer Byron Lane. Hi. Hi. How's it going? Good. It's so great to see you. Great to see you too. I feel like so much in the world. Oh my gosh. Since I've seen you last has it's been crazy. But changed. So much has changed, but not your sense of humor. No. Well, no. I survived intact. And thankfully,

[4:54]Steven Rowley: with the books, books have gotten me through the past fifteen months. And so I am so grateful to to be out here and talking to you again about a new book. Amazing. So, Steven, tell everybody what the Guncle is about.

[5:07]Zibby Owens: Yeah. I guess I guess we should start right at the very beginning. By the way, this was this was advertised as a happy hour. So Oh, I'm sorry. I know. I know. Here. I brought a drink. Yes. This is all that I had left in my Cheers. My bottle. Cheers. Yes. It's a happy hour. And happy Friday to everybody if anybody's watching or will be watching later. I'm so happy we got to Friday. Sorry for jumping in. This is habit now, I guess. I just have to know what everybody's books are about. Yes, it's so nice to get to the end of a week. I don't know. Every Friday. It's like just it's like, how did I get through that one? Boom.

[5:41]Steven Rowley: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess we'll start start at the very beginning. In case in case there's anyone who doesn't know what a guncle is, guncle has become very popular slang in the past five, ten years for a gay uncle. And more so than that, it sort of has a connotation of a sort of larger than life fabulous kind of character, sort of like an anti maim was back in the day. And so and certainly, that is the case with with this character. Patrick O'Hara is a retired television star living kind of a reclusive life in Palm Springs, California. And when a tragedy strikes and he is tasked with taking in his niece and nephew for the summer. Now not unlike I can imagine now he's unprepared for that, and as I can imagine a lot of parents were this past year as they suddenly had to deal with family in an entirely different way and learning homeschooling and all sorts of things that Patrick has thrown in the deep end for.

[6:36]Zibby Owens: It's it's strange how it kind of lines up with the times. Are caftans, like, a requirement of a guncle or just a nice to have?

[6:43]Steven Rowley: Yeah. Well, Patrick is fond of wearing caftans. It's right on the cover. I have a whole kaftan closet. If anybody wants to follow me, I'm a I'll be posting lots of kaftan content soon, including some giveaways, and I I'm gonna have a discount code for my favorite kaftan company. So stay tuned. I'm gonna be posting that maybe this weekend. So What about the toilets or the not a toilet. What do you call it? What do they call it? A washlet. A washlet. Washlet. Yeah. Are you giving those away? Set piece in the book with yeah. Patrick has a $20,000 Japanese toilet or washlet, as they say. And, sadly, I do not have any such marketing partnership with that company to give away you know, I would have to invest 20,000 of my own dollars to do that giveaway. And, frankly, the the strange thing about being a writer, and I don't know how thriller writers do this. You know? If you ever Google how to get rid of a body or whatever, I think the the FBI would be after you. But for me, like, after doing research for that for that particular porcelain device, all of my sponsored content, all of my suggested ads were for very high end bathroom appliances.

[7:47]Zibby Owens: I bet. Oh my gosh. You can't even yeah. Do you watch Succession ever, by the way? Yes. Yes. You know how they're they have that whole thing, like, we're listening. Well, they we really are listening, you know, because they listen in on every conversation to market, you know. Yeah. Your book was hilarious, but also, you know, poignant and like, it starts off with kids losing their mother and then their father ends up admitting himself for opioid addiction. But yet you do it in, like, a lighthearted way if you could ever put loss and addiction in the first chapter of a book and make it funny, I guess you get that prize. But these are heavier topics.

[8:25]Steven Rowley: Yeah. And, you know, I I've always had a long fascination with with anti maim. It's always been a favorite. First, the the 1955 Patrick Dennis novel, and then it was a a Broadway show and a movie with Rosalyn Russell, and then a a Broadway musical, and then a movie musical with Lucille Ball. And so it's not this long. And and, originally, I sort of imagined myself writing a sort of light comedic novel, you know, in that shadow. And then early on in the the writing process, I I did actually lose one of my very best friends from college to breast cancer, and she left behind a six year old son, which is devastating. It's just devastating. And so it got me thinking about grief in children in a much more serious way. You know? What does a six year old remember of his mother? What space does family and friends and her community have to step in and remind these children how fiercely they were loved? And and, you know, Auntie Mame sort of sent her orphaned nephew off to boarding school, and I didn't wanna do that. I didn't wanna sidestep the grief. And I think the book is still very funny. I think it's outright my funniest book to date, but it's walking a very fine line, as you say, and it was a challenge to know just when to treat it very seriously and just just when there was room for to to deflate some of the tension with a laugh. And you even put in the meaning of life sort of in the middle of of the jokes about Oh, you just sneak it in there as you do. To raise company and all of that stuff. Wait all that. And I have to find this passage.

[9:52]Zibby Owens: Let's see. Well, it was something like people,

[9:55]Steven Rowley: you know, one of the kids asked why is there death? And you said, or Patrick said, you know, people die and so that we can appreciate the life we have, which I'm like, is that why people die early? That's so sad. Like, who gets to decide who the sacrificial lambs then get to be? Right? Which families have to suffer for that for the rest of us to sort of benefit from each You season know, I wish I I wish I knew the answer to that. In my first novel, Lily and the Octopus, I had a line in there that was that was something like the distribution of loss is inequitable. It doesn't it doesn't feel like anyone's in charge of handing it out sometimes, and that's, you know, why so many people have faith and look for meaning in in that way. But, you know, for those of us without, it is a real struggle

[10:38]Zibby Owens: to understand that. But, anyways You had this other very interesting passage when Maisie asks Patrick, do you like being gay? And he says, I used to. And she says, you don't anymore. And and Patrick says, it used to be cool being gay, counter cult counter culture, you know, rebellious. Now it's all gay marriage, gay adoption, assimilation,

[10:56]Steven Rowley: and some of that's good. It's progress, but I liked it more when it was different. Now everyone's in a hurry to be the same. Do you share any of those thoughts? Do I share views I don't know. Where did this come from? Well, I don't know if those are my views per se. Like, you know, spoiler alert. So so I live with another writer, Byron Lane, whose whose debut novel came out last summer during the pandemic called The Star Is Bored. And living with another writer, you know, we're each other's first readers. We help each other through drafts, give notes. And I thought I knew his book frontwards and backwards, but he snuck in, in the back of his acknowledgments, four words when the book went to print in hardcover, which was, Will you marry me? And, you know, so for anyone who read his book and then was wondering what happened, I answered that proposal in the back of the acknowledgments for the Gunkel. But spoiler alert, it So worked clearly, you know, clearly, my views and Patrick's views diverge a little bit, but, you know, characters are interesting ways to sort of work through some intellectual arguments sometimes that you that you have with yourself. See, that's the problem with getting galleys is, like, this is my Oh, there's no acknowledgments. Acknowledgements do come. This is why I have to get the real copy. I probably I don't know. Maybe I have it somewhere. Well, that is really exciting news and what I totally riderly way to be proposed to and accept. Yeah. So yeah. So now our proposal and the acceptance are both documented in the Library of Congress. So I don't I don't know who else could say that. Oh my gosh. So maybe your next one is like, what do you think? Adoption? I I know. Right? We're gonna have to keep having books now to have this sort of epistolary romance going back and forth. Wow. In fifty years, we can, like, look back on the whole thing and track your fights and track everything, you know.

[12:33]Zibby Owens: Wow. Yeah. The fact that the acknowledgments for the it's over. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Hopefully. Exactly. Oh, no. Look what happened to the South. Oh my gosh. Oh, I finally found that quote. Maisie said, I don't understand why people have to die. That's an easy one. Some people are here for a long time, and some people are only here for a short time, and none of us know. That's the beauty of it. We don't have a damn clue how much time we get. So Gunkel rule number Maisie, what number are you on eight? And then you said, that's why people live your life to the fullest every single day because every day is a gift. That's why people die, to teach us the importance of living. Okay. Sorry. Had to read it. Now that Yeah. These little nuggets of wisdom in between the in hopefully,

[13:12]Steven Rowley: but between the jokes. You know? Like like anyone who fashions himself after a bit of Auntie Mae, Patrick has these, you know, bon motes or or sort of little nuggets of wisdom that he likes to coin as Gunkel rules. And so, you know, that was that was really interesting. And and, you know, Maria in The Sound of Music had music. Mary Poppins, when she blew in on the wind, had actual magic. You know, Patrick's sort of, you know, strength as a caregiver over the course of this summer and listen, he learns as much from the kids as they do from him. It really is about a season of healing for all three of them. But his strength is his lived experience as an out gay person. So his empathy, his sense of humor, his pop cultural references, his his politics, his worldview, you know, all come from his lived experience as as a gay man. And so it's fun to watch him sort of funnel

[14:03]Zibby Owens: what wisdom there is from that experience and applying it to the kids' lives. It's also, you know, you use him as a vehicle to express a lot of things that, like, parents, aunts, uncles, and everybody agree with in terms of dealing with kids. In particular, the fact that kids like don't watch TV anymore and prefer to have, you know, you're like, Patrick says, like, have 65 inches screens, and yet they're on these like two inch devices. And it's so true. I'm like, why do I even have television on the wall? Right. I'm like, how about we watch a channel? And they're like, Like a channel where something just automatically comes on? You mean the ones with ads? And I'm like, yeah, the ones with ads. Like, no. Not no interest. That's it. Well, I'm a real life gunk old to five.

[14:45]Steven Rowley: And so the oldest of whom is 12. So they're they're all still young. But it is yeah. It's really remarkable to me. Now I am not a former television star like Patrick. That was an invention on on my part. But, you know, for him, he takes it very personally. But I'm always I'm equally aghast sometimes because when we were growing up, like, television was everything. Like, it was, you know, not babysitter as much as it is today for for for busy families, but, like you know? And and by the way, there wasn't enough to babysitter. There were three channels, and that was kind of it in PBS. But, you know, it was certainly a reward, and it was the reward that we will all work towards, to, like watching television was, like it was so great. And my mother loves to tell this the story that the saddest day in my life was the day that I realized mister Rogers was not just talking to me. The other people could see him too. Like Patrick. That happens to Patrick. So Oh, okay. I forget what's it I would actually So I always have a hard time getting used to get and they're like, well, we'll watch it later. I'll be like, well, you don't understand. In our day, you had to you know, butts had to be in the chair at the moment it aired. You didn't have a choice. If you missed it, you missed it. But It's no. I would, like, watch

[15:52]Zibby Owens: Little House on the Prairie every day at five, and I would, like, run and take a shower and bath, like, between commercials so that I can finish it before dinner. Or like coordinating like a bathroom and getting a snack and being back during the break. Yeah. Although the commercials then were so great too. And and that was like, I mean, I I know everybody talks about this, but I do miss that sort of collective consumption and how everybody from a certain era, like, all it's a shorthand, right? Like, Silver Spoons and A Night of the Golden Girls. Yeah. You know, even like Soul Trainer. I don't know. Whatever the shows were. Whatever. Dance Fever, all these shows. Yeah. Dance Fever. Yeah. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Well, yeah. And he was so funny too, Patrick, about, like, not wanting to sit on the aisle and not because he was afraid people might recognize

[16:37]Steven Rowley: him despite his years off of being an athlete. Yeah. Flying he doesn't want a flying coach. He calls it steerage. Yes.

[16:44]Zibby Owens: He's so funny. Oh, my gosh. And how was the writing process of this book? So did you write this during the was it done during pandemic times or beforehand? Strangely,

[16:54]Steven Rowley: yeah. It is it is kind of about a character who's been in self isolation, finding his way back into the light. And, you know, the one thing a writer has no control over is sort of world events as as their book comes out, you know? And and that's why I'm so grateful to to people like you who helped shine a spotlight, particularly people who had debuts last year during the pandemic. And, you know, so many books, I think, got lost in the shuffle, and it's it's so hard, you know, to break through sometimes. So you have no control over world events. But, fortunately, with this book, they just seem to line up. I would love to say, oh, yeah, I wrote it during the pandemic, and and this was kind of vaguely addressing that. But the truth was the book was largely done before quarantine began. And so, no. But it takes the pressure off because, you know, a lot of writers are trying to decide, like, oh, how do we address this time in our next works? And and for some reason, I feel like I've I've written my sort of COVID novel, you know, about isolation and and rejoining the world. So I guess pressure's off. I don't know. There was some line in here about vaccinations,

[17:58]Zibby Owens: but they were referring to, like, the measles or something Like Yeah. Then at first, I was like, oh, is that are they talking about COVID vaccinations all of a sudden? But then I realized, of course, like, no. People got vaccinated. No. There were vaccinations. I know. It's all so focused on this one vaccine. I know. I know. Exactly. And they were super important and, you know, all the rest of it. It was also so funny how when I think one of the kids asked Patrick why he lived in Palm Springs and you were like, you. I keep saying you. Patrick was Patrick

[18:28]Steven Rowley: was like, well, you know, I'm thin in Palm Springs, right, like in Connecticut or or I'm thin in Connecticut. I'm thin Connecticut. The the sad truth for gay men and listen. I live in Palm Springs, so, like, this is this is true for me. I just turned 50 last month. It is, you know Have a great day. Thank you. You know, the sad truth for gay men is that 50 is old in in Los Angeles. It's sort of middle age in San Francisco, and it's young in Palm Springs. And so that's that's why he's sort of retired to Palm Springs. But, listen, it was fun to set a story there in a in a city where people associate it more with retirement or sort of end of life than with raising children. And so it was a fun sort of fish out of water element to put kids in this setting where where there aren't a lot of other kids.

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[22:09]Zibby Owens: It's true. We go to the tennis tournament there. Now I'm blanking what it's called. Indian Wells. Yeah. Indian Wells. Yeah. So Parabas open. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I've been to that as well. I missed it last year. So Yeah. Rumor is it'll be back in October. That's Okay. So we'll see. Excellent. And what are you working on now? Did you already finish your next book? Are you working on it? Zippy What's the

[22:33]Steven Rowley: is either well, you're way too young to be my mother, so you're my agent maybe perhaps because these are the two who asked me this question. I'm always writing something, and, yes, I have been been working on something. I don't know. You know, I I I've said this before, but it's writing to me is such a it's such an inputoutput endeavor. Right? We need, like, observations of life. I need to be out there seeing the world and experiencing people, and that's been so hard to do this past year. And even when you are observing people, like, oftentimes they're, you know, behind a mask, and it's hard to get these sort of wonderful details that make you feel so creative and all that. But I have been I've definitely been writing, and I need to go back now and read what I've written over the past year and see if it's any good. Or now I need to go out and observe all the details that I can now sort of layer over this to make it feel rich and complete as a novel. But I'm also very excited. We announced last week that film rights for The Gunkel have been picked up by Lions Gate. So right now, actually, I'm writing an adaptation of The Gunkel for the big screen. Oh, that's awesome. That's great that you get to do that. So cool. Well, that'll It's be very exciting. And to imagine these characters sort of coming to life, it's very exciting for me. So are you gonna do a big premiere in Palm Springs? All Kaftan red carpet.

[23:49]Zibby Owens: All Kaftan red carpet. I love it. Yes. There's I can see the whole thing going.

[23:55]Steven Rowley: That's awesome. Well, Palm Springs, you know, it's gonna next week, it's already gonna be up to a 115 degrees here. So it depends what time of year the premiere is. Otherwise, everyone will just melt.

[24:04]Zibby Owens: Wow. You'll have to time the release to a more temperate Yeah. So I somehow make it a Christmas movie. Yeah. Exactly. Christmas in Palm Springs. Oh my gosh. Well, I know I asked you this when we first met about the editor, which by the way, like top of my list. Was such a great book and your characters in that were so vivid that, you know, I think about it a lot and sort of the Jackie Onassis characters like quiet reservation and just, don't know, I feel like I can like see the whole thing still, which to me is like a good book when like the characters sort of are implanted in my brain despite whatever else I throw in there. So that's kind Yeah. The number of books that come that pass through your hands, I'm honored that that sticks with you. Like having a like like, I can't remember anything but characters and novels. Like, what a useless skill, but at least I found something to do with it, you know? Right? Right. Oh my gosh. But anyway, what advice would you have for aspiring authors?

[25:02]Steven Rowley: Yeah. And congratulations, by the way, since I've seen you last. You've had your book come out. I mean, you were one of those authors who had a book released during the during the pandemic. So you know firsthand how difficult it can be to to, break through, especially at a time, like, you know, one of the hardest parts for last year was missing bookstores. I just missed going into bookstores and browsing because that's, you know, the new release table or asking our booksellers for recommendations. You know? That's so, you know, you can buy books online, and you can support all of your independent book stores online too. And, you know, many shipping have been open for curbside pickup and whatnot, but but you kind of have to know what you're looking for to shop online. Anyway, what I don't even remember the question. Advice for writers. Advice for writers. Yeah. I will say, you know, like, keep at it. You know, I don't think this was your first career, and this certainly was not my first career. And I I've been writing for, you know, years and years and years, and I didn't publish my first novel into my forties. It takes time. You know, I'm I was always jealous of 25 year olds who come out of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and write something brilliant, and and that was not my path. There it is okay to live life and find your voice. I think that is the most important thing, you know, not only your writing style, which is which is very important also, but what it is that you have to say about the world. And it's okay if that takes you time. You know, like, where the crawdad sing, you know, Delia Owens' first novel when she was 70, and that's been the biggest publishing story of of the past, you know, ten years. So there's time and patience. And, you know, if you read if you see someone with their debut novel and getting a lot of attention, chances are they have other books. You know, I had I have three manuscripts on the shelf that were not published published before I broke through with my first novel, Lily and the Octopus. So, you know, it takes time, and it's connecting the right the right path. And there's no substitution for doing the work.

[26:51]Zibby Owens: You have to write, and you also can't give up. Love that. So I have another anthology coming out in November called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids. And in it, there's a whole section on how moms don't have time to write. And so I wrote an essay called, like, to all the books I never sold. Yeah. Because there are so many of them, and they just keep piling up. So, anyway, yes. Yeah. Well, that's

[27:13]Steven Rowley: so important. Like, if you have young kids, like, I don't know. You know? I I have a hard time finding the time to write sometime, and I don't have and I don't have kids. And so, you know, all the power to you, but also, my god, what rich sort of fertile ground to find things to write about. So the hope is that, you know, don't get you know, to other people out there, don't get so discouraged that you don't have the time in this moment. Take notes. You know, build some sort of system where where you're sort of cataloging all these wonderful things because the sad truth is memory fades. So catalog all this while it's fresh. And one day, sometime, the right time will present itself to sit down and actually do the writing. But it's those it's those wonderful details that you wanna have at your fingertips.

[27:55]Zibby Owens: It's so true. It's like in college or whatever, when you were working on a paper, part of working on the paper was going to the library and, like, reading all the stuff and taking all the notes. Yeah. And then eventually,

[28:06]Steven Rowley: you would get Eventually, out you're right. Yeah. You would write it. But I feel like there's something that wanna be writers look down on themselves thinking that, you know, they don't realize that actually what they're doing every day by just living is is doing that research, and they're not in the library necessarily. But Yeah. Without that, they can't do the writing part. So Yeah. There there's a there was a a concept I heard called I think it was, like, called the double arrow or something. And writers writers are very guilty of this, and you can apply this to a much broader context too. It's like, so say I, you know, I wrote my I was writing. I had a day job at the time, and I would get up super early in the morning, you know, and and at 5AM or 6AM to to have a couple hours to write before I had to go to work. And so say I knew I had a three hour window, and then because I was tired and just waking up, I realized I was having a cup of coffee, and I was on the Internet, and I was wasting time for the first ninety minutes. And then I realized, oh my god, now I only have ninety minutes left to write. And then the second arrow is me you know, the damage comes from being so angry at myself for not being productive for the first ninety minutes that then you then you waste the second ninety minutes being angry, and then you have no time to write. And I think that that happens sometimes. We think like, oh god. I didn't write today today, this week, this month, and then, you know, it just self perpetuates. And the thing is, like, you can put a stop to it up anytime, but, you know, eventually, the butt has to go in the seat, and and there's no substitution, as I said, for showing up. So when there is time, don't waste it being angry at yourself before because life is busy. Life is incredibly busy, you know? And now and look what we've asked so many people to do in the past year, become teachers and caregivers in in a whole an incredibly stressful new way. So patience, and hopefully the time will present itself. Perfect.

[29:49]Zibby Owens: I love it. And in the meantime, you can delight yourself by reading other great books like The Gungle, which is so funny and poignant and just, you know, I just love that, like, sarcastic wit and all of that. It's just very refreshing. Aw.

[30:05]Steven Rowley: Thank you. I mean, reading has you know, it certainly has saved me in the past fifteen months. And and, you know, when we talk about that input, you know, being able to hear so many stories. And listen, not just COVID. Our country has gone through a lot in the past year, and it's so important right now to read books by people who don't have your life experience, who don't look like you. And that is how we are really, as I said, refilling that sort of creative and coffers. Yeah. You're absolutely right. A 100%.

[30:31]Zibby Owens: Well said. Alright. Awesome. Well, I have a know. Great

[30:36]Steven Rowley: I can't wait till we can talk again.

[30:39]Zibby Owens: Good noon. In person. Have a great weekend. A Thank you. And thank you, everybody. Cheers. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibby owens dot com 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.