Lea Geller, THE TRUTH AND OTHER HIDDEN THINGS: A Novel

[1:46]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. If all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram ZibbyOwens and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. Leigh Geller is the author of the novel The Truth and Other Things. Lee is the recipient of the 2019 Katherine Gurfein Writing Fellowship at Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in New York with her husband and five children, for whom she frequently wakes up and makes five separate breakfasts. Leigh began her writing career by blogging about her adventures in the trenches of parenting and got the idea for her first novel, Trophy Life, when her two sons were in middle school. Her new novel is The Truth and Other Hidden Things. When Leigh is not riding and eavesdropping on her children, she can be found running, drinking diner coffee, and occasionally teaching middle school English. She is a graduate of Columbia University and Stanford Law School. Welcome, Leigh. Thanks so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss the truth and other hidden things. And by the way, I feel like I'm wearing this shirt to match your book cover. Know? Very well done. Thank you. You know? Well done. Thanks.

[3:14]Lea Geller: Would you mind telling listeners what your book is about? My book is about a woman who all in one day discovers that her husband hasn't gotten tenure at their city university and that in her mid forties with two tween and teenage kids, I guess, her IUD has failed and she's pregnant. And so this begins sort of her journey

[3:34]Zibby Owens: into an unexpected pregnancy and out of the city up to Dutchess County where her husband gets a new job. I love how they considered moving to Brooklyn. And they were like, no, you can't move there unless you're a real writer. Right.

[3:46]Lea Geller: I think we all have felt that way at times. I certainly have.

[3:50]Zibby Owens: It won't let me in. I know. I'm like definitely not cool enough for Brooklyn. I just like drive in, like go to a bookstore and leave.

[3:57]Lea Geller: I feel like the clock is ticking. Yes. Exactly. So this is your second book. Your first one was Trophy Wife. Trophy Life? Trophy Wife. Trophy Life. Trophy Life. What inspired this book? How did you come up with this plot? And and talk about the other books too because they you just that just came out. You're like coming out. You're you're I'm trying. They came out two years apart. I got the idea for this book. You know, I do know people. Like, I have I do know women. You know, I'm in my late forties and I do know women my age who have gotten pregnant unexpectedly. And we read a lot about unexpected pregnancies of younger women at different phases in their lives. And I was just kind of interested what would happen if, like, you know, a mom who already has older kids who thinks that she's out of that baby stage that we talk about is back in that baby stage again, especially when her oldest has one foot out the door. And I was very much in that space. My oldest is 19 and he was a junior or senior when I was thinking about like, wow, like he has one foot out the door of this house. And what would it be like to get to start all over again, to try all over again, to redo that first one with everything that we all I always say, what would I do differently? How would I but what did I learn? I mean, I think that's universal as you just learn so much with that first child, the mistakes you don't make again, the things you don't sweat. What would it be like to sort of have a new life coming in? Just also the juxtaposition of that unconditional baby love and that that teenage love, which is sometimes hard to find. So that was that. And the, you know, sort of like the gossip girl piece of it was just something that I've always been fascinated in. Know, I think that all fiction is gossip in some way because, you know, we pepper it with our observations and the people that we've overheard in restaurants and things like that. But I just felt like this would be a great outlet for someone like her.

[5:49]Zibby Owens: Totally. I love that. Yeah. I had a six year gap between, like, my twins and my next two kids. And I thought I wasn't gonna be having more kids anyway. So I got to, like, sort of have that moment where I was like, oh my gosh. Like, anyway, you're just like anyway, was thrilled emotionally for that news. So I related very much to Belle when she figures figures this out. And being able to be like, well, at least now I know, like, the 57 things I used to call my pediatrician about. Like, now I don't need to call for those things. Now now I have all new things. Right.

[6:23]Lea Geller: Just the stuff you don't need. And you have five kids. Is that right? I do. Yeah, I do. My oldest, like I said, I have 19 and 17 year old boys and girls who are 10, 12, and 14.

[6:36]Zibby Owens: So how does it I don't even know what to ask. Does it get better? Does it get easier?

[6:40]Lea Geller: Yeah, it really does. It really does. It really gets much easier in many ways. Like for sure, you know, you're not with babies and, you know, you're sleeping through the night for the most part until they start driving and you, your life is easy. You have more of your own time. Like I didn't write trophy life until my youngest went to kindergarten. And then I was always working from home. I was a lawyer before, but we moved to I live in Riverdale, New York. We moved to New York and I decided to pivot because I had been on the West Coast and I wasn't going to practice. And I put a child in kindergarten and suddenly I had a time. So it does get easier. Like you have the days. Right. And, you know, there are adults and young adults, but then, you know, everybody knows that they come with their own set of problems and the things that you worry about are big. Yeah, but it's great. It is fun to watch. Yeah, I like them. I like the teenagers. I love the middle school years, especially I wrote about middle schoolers in Trophy Life. I love middle school, and I teach a little bit of middle school, and it's like my sweet spot, like that awkwardness that just I love it. But you can just come over here and help me out with my two middle schoolers right now. I love it. I mean, I mean, I literally I'll be with my friends and they'll be rolling their eyes at their kids. I'm like, this is the best time. Enjoy it. Wow. Because it's something about that age that's like, I mean, I think in some ways it might be like middle age, but like, you're sort of like in between these two very big things and you're not one and you're not the other. And you don't always feel so seen and you don't always it's like you're kind of like the ugly stepchild. And I don't know. I love it. I really,

[8:14]Zibby Owens: really love it. Did you always know we will go back to the book. Did you always know you wanted to have five kids? Like, did you always want a big family or did it I did.

[8:22]Lea Geller: I did. I wanted one of those sort of big I really did. And I also like a failed IUD is kind of like a fever dream. Not going to lie. Yeah, I did. I mean, I did it out west and then we moved to New York and it's a different proposition here for sure. Was like, Okay, I guess this is why people in New York say you don't have five kids.

[8:45]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Did

[8:47]Lea Geller: you come from a big family? I come from a big sort of multiple family. Like I have a sister who's a year younger than me and my parents each remarried and then had two more children. So I'm one of six in total with, you know, multiple parents. So, yeah, I do feel like I come from a big family, and it's good. It works. That's awesome.

[9:02]Zibby Owens: So you started writing when your son went to kindergarten. And how did you start? Like, how did you get going? Had you always loved to write, but I know you said you're a recovering lawyer, how did like, was this just always something in the back of your head or like, why why a novel? I had always journaled and I stopped journaling when I had kids because,

[9:23]Lea Geller: I mean, there was just no time. And I didn't even have baby books. Didn't have any of it. And I blogged when my I think before my fourth was born, I was miserable and living in Seattle. I mean, Seven years of just me crying. Oh, he's picked me from here. I just had six very good six months. And I looked at my husband and said, Okay, let's leave now. We've come from Southern California. I was he's like, No, we're here. So anyway, I started to blog about the kids, especially my boys who were just doing like crazy, gross stuff everywhere. And then when I moved to New York, someone messaged me on Facebook and said, I like your blog. A friend of mine is teaching a novel writing class at Sarah Lawrence. Have you ever thought about writing a novel? And I put Sydney in kindergarten. And I was like, I kind of have. Like, I kind of as my older two were in middle school, and I was like, I kind of have thought about writing a novel. And so I showed up at this class and I wrote Trophy Life there. Wow.

[10:17]Zibby Owens: That's great. And did you Was it like a workshop model? Like did you get lots of feedback? Yeah.

[10:22]Lea Geller: 100%. It was a workshop model. We Yeah. And also like the instructors were like, send us I don't know whether it 20 every week or 20 every other week, but send us 20 pages a week. We're not even going to read them, but you must send them to us because it will get you into the habit of writing that. And I'm good with that. Mean, you probably are, too, if you have to discipline yourself to work with everything. Like, if you say to yourself, I'm going to do this and I'm going to be accountable for it, I'll just do it. I love having deadlines and deliverables. Right. And if they're self imposed, it's a little bit tricky because sometimes you can talk yourself out of them. But when someone else is saying it, it's even easier. Yeah. But yeah, I do work well. I do work well with like someone's, I must have this. Like, yeah. So that and I often encourage people when they're starting to write to find someone to do that with. Like, just say, and they'll hound you if you don't get your they don't get your pages, even if they're not going read them. So what was the path to publication like then? What happened after you wrote it? I spent a year writing it, got some feedback, spent a year rewriting it. And then around the same time that I started to look for an agent, a friend of ours, somebody that I knew actually said to me, I'm happy to show it to someone at Amazon, see what happens. I don't usually take things unagented, but we'll see. So and I got a call from Lake Union and they wanted to buy it and I didn't have an agent. So I sold it to them. And then I got an agent for the second book. But that's kind of how it worked. And did you choose the same publisher or no? I did. I stayed with Lake Union. Oh, awesome. My memoir is coming out from I know it is. You're coming over. I'm so excited. I'm very excited. Very excited too. So fun. I mean, it's really kinda great what you've done for all of us and this great big community. Oh, mean, thank you. It really is. Like, it's I just wish I could have more people, like, in person. Yeah. I know. You will. You will. I know. I just I mean, it's just it's great though. Like, everyone says to me like, wow, what's the online community? Like, I'm like, you really have no idea

[12:11]Zibby Owens: what it's like, what kind of support there is. And it's really terrific. Yeah. What you've done, what you've built is really remarkable. And I know that it's hard to do it with kids at home. Thank you. Yes. But this is, like, my sanity. You know? This is how I I hear that. I hear that. This is my self care. This is my everything. Do know? Like, this is my The door is locked. The door closes. You know? How else? Like, you know, before this, nobody cared. I'm like, no. No. Now I'm recording. You know? Yeah. Yeah. You know? Forget about reading. Forget about writing. No. No. No. Well yeah. So it's my trick for alone time with hundreds of strangers. It works. So I feel like I know because I read their book. I know. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials. Think breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated, but still easy. Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and tops with styles starting at $32. Their denim is soft and easy to wear. I wear my jean jacket all the time. And their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has really become a destination for elevated essentials across home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life. In addition to my jean jacket, I recently got a white tank top dress with a beautiful cotton skirt that is absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait for it to be warm enough so I can wear it every day, but it has been a cool spring. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/zippy for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/zippy for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/zippy.

[15:31]Lea Geller: So what was it like writing the second book after that was the way you wrote the first book? Did you go back to class? Did you feel like you could just whip back? I started it in class again. Yeah, I did. I didn't I couldn't say because I had a teaching schedule, but I started writing. I like literally the first 30 pages that I burst out in class and then I wrote the rest on my own. But it was kind of similar. I mean, it felt a little bit faster. I don't know if it was. I learned things. I didn't make some mistakes that I had to fix or things that I've learned, you know, and I actually like comments that I've gotten and feedback that I've gotten. I sort of took them to heart the second time. I tried to, you know, work with pacing and plot and things like that. But I still, you know, it's funny because people always say like, how do you find the time to write? And I think I wasn't, I hadn't sold the second book. I was working on a second book and I think you have to treat it like a job, even if you're not getting paid to do it. Like it's the same, it was the same dynamic. I still was in here all day working on this thing that people might never see. So it's still, it wasn't, I mean, definitely had some wind in my back, but it definitely was the same kind of dynamic. And I think that you just have to do it. You just have to treat. Mean, it's kind of like being a mother, like no one's paying you really to do that. It's like you basically act like a fortune, you know, 500 CEO. You take it that seriously, but no one's paying you. So it's it's kinda similar. You just have to take yourself seriously and put the hours in. I like that. I've never heard it compared to being a mother before.

[16:55]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Yeah. I guess there is I mean, I've heard it in relation to sort of giving birth to a book. Right? And like the gestation period and Putting it out in the world and right. But never in terms of the writing. That's really interesting. Right. Like because I and I it's funny. I often have said, you know, it's like a job you don't get paid for. And then at some point, I realized, wait, we're all doing that. Yeah. I mean, honestly, life is like a job you don't get paid for. Right. Well, that's that's another piece. You know? It's like, what are we even doing here? You know? But, yes, I see. Of course, there's really no hope ever of, like, monetizing motherhood, really. I mean, unless you're like a mom influencer or something. But Unless you can sell your kids kids out and write about them. Right. Unless you're mom. Have them become, like, child stars or take all their money or something.

[17:34]Lea Geller: That's my next book. Is it really? You're kidding. Right? Kind of. A little bit. Yeah. Yes. Kidding or yes kidding? I mean, I'm working on a book about child former child actor. Oh, Like a mom who was a former child actor. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Very cool. Well, good. I was gonna ask what you're working on next. So there you go. That's awesome.

[17:50]Zibby Owens: So now that you are an author, like, has life changed for you? Do you feel like more of a sense of purpose? And do you feel different in your family? Like, do you feel more fulfilled? What is it like sort of on the second stage post lawyerdom?

[18:07]Lea Geller: I definitely feel more fulfilled. Like I spent a long not I spent a good amount of time doing a job that I didn't love and wasn't great at. And now I am much happier. So that's without a doubt. In terms of like the dynamic in my family, I don't think all that much has changed. I mean, if I could show you my office is basically like my husband's office is, you know, it's like an inner sanctum of no one not bothers, no one knocks. Mine has camp packing lists and duffel bags and clothes everywhere in it because it's like still, you know, it's like I'm still me. Like they still intrude. It's not like I suddenly have like exalted status in my family. But I do feel like out in the world, like I, you know, people, I even locally once in a while, someone will say, Oh, don't know you, but I read your book and I really liked it, which is great. I mean, it's like, you know, it's amazing. But yeah, I mean, I don't I feel happier. I mean, it is amazing to get to do something you wanted to do for a long time and especially when you were doing something you didn't. And I think even when it's not going well,

[19:07]Zibby Owens: it's still going better. Well, that makes sense. Wow. So what aside from the child star, what else do you have? Do you have like all these ideas sort of milling around at the same time and then you pick one or like how are you sourcing your ideas for the next? Well, sometimes I mush them up. Like the first book was about a fallen Santa Monica trophy wife, which is where I had lived prior to Seattle

[19:30]Lea Geller: and middle school students, And I mushed it all up together. And then the second one was about an anonymous gossip blogger and a pregnant 40 year old that I mushed it together. So sometimes I just kind of throw it all in like soup and see what happens. I do have like a notebook where I'm always writing things down and I just, you know, a vivid imagination. But yeah, I think I try to, if I have one thing, just focus on that one thing. I try and throw in as much as I can. And then if I don't, I save it for somewhere else. Like I have a file on my computer of like saved, saved, you know, things that I've taken out that I'm not quite ready to get rid of just to save. I love the sense of humor you have in this book. And like, even just all the observation, like, the way you mentioned, like, oh, and, know, clearly overnight, like my son was six feet tall. And like that just happened. He woke up six feet tall today or like the coffee creamer, which PS coffee. Wait, you had something like cookie dough flavored coffee creamer. Is that a thing? Or did you make that up? Yeah. No, I think it's a thing. But it's funny because like there's a very healthy person that I know when he's like, I think he's a vegan and like he sneaks it. His wife doesn't know that he drinks it. If that's his biggest vice, you know, thumbs up to that guy. You know? For what we know now, go ahead. Fine. Drink that. I mean, the thing is it might not be. But

[20:39]Zibby Owens: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. And then were you writing so what were you doing in COVID then? Were you working on this? No. This would have come out in time, right? I don't know what I was doing in COVID.

[20:50]Lea Geller: Sibby. Not that you had to have produced I keep meeting people who lost 25 pounds and wrote a novel in COVID, and I don't know what I did. I edited this book. I blogged more. So that was good. I blogged about because my kids went to the first school that shut down in New York, in New York. They go to a school up here in Riverdale and it was the first school to close. So I was in quarantine for two weeks before everybody else. Now it's like, doesn't really matter, but there was a two week period where no one knew what I was talking about. I'm like, I'm stuck home. There's a COVID case in New Rochelle. We're all at home. And I just I don't know. I started a book about this mother who got who I had the idea pre COVID. I remember speaking to my agent about it in February about this kind of mother who got fed up with, like, everything that we get fed up with and runs away to this place and finds all these mothers there. Was supposed to be kind of like a humorous play on Gulch, Gulch and Atlas Shrugged, which Anne Rand wrote, like this place. And then suddenly there was nothing funny about women getting fed up or wanting to run away. And there was nothing that I could write that would match what we were doing. How I had, you know, five kids at home and a husband at home working and people stick around us all the time up here. You know, it was really very dire. And I don't know what I did this year, but I did not. I've been more productive in 2021, but 2020 was a bust. It was just a wash. That's okay. I did not lose 25 pounds. I will have you know. I was going the opposite way. Steady time. So no. Yeah. It was just not it wasn't pretty. Like, it just was not a pretty year. It wasn't not a year of self discovery or self exploration. I just was like sweeping and wiping things down and oh, I did get chickens.

[22:38]Zibby Owens: Okay. I was not expecting you to say that. No, I know. I know. That was pleasant. That was probably the best thing to come out of COVID. My best friend has chickens and she just brought us some eggs and they said just got laid. Oh, I like that. You can steal it if she has like preprinted. I think I might. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

[22:56]Lea Geller: So but yeah, it was it was not it was it was a bit also I found it just hard to be creative. I didn't find it hard to edit and I didn't find it hard to blog necessarily, but I found it really hard to access the piece of me that makes up funny things and makes things up like I just think that was just really Not a funny time. So totally understandable. No, I know you do. I know. And it was just harrowing. It was a harrowing. I mean, you live through the worst of it. No, no. I mean, I know, but I mean, everyone had their own. No. I know. It was just really it was just I mean, I don't even know we'll all be processed. I mean, we'll be processing this for years to come ourselves with our kids. Like, it was just a lot. Like I literally, the other day, I I was driving the car and I was like, did that all happen?

[23:38]Zibby Owens: Did that even like, did I make that up? Like,

[23:41]Lea Geller: I mean, obviously, I didn't. But I was just like, how did that happen? How did we all anyway, whatever. I don't know. We don't know. It was like and so you can imagine just like that was just so improbable. Right? Like, that was just so almost fictitious. Yes. And like, it was almost a melodrama and everything, right? Like the plot twist and like, I couldn't make anything up. Like, I just Yeah.

[24:01]Zibby Owens: People could. I just couldn't. Life is stranger than fiction. So. So

[24:06]Lea Geller: what advice would you have for aspiring authors? Again, I treat it like it's a paying job. Even if you have a paying job, make even just, I would try, even if it's thirty minutes a day or give yourself, even if it's not every day, give yourself an amount of time every week that you're going to work on it and treat it like someone's paying you to do it. And if you need someone to hold you accountable, find someone who to send your pages to, because that really does help.

[24:30]Zibby Owens: Excellent. Great. Well, Leigh, thank you. Thanks so much for chatting today. It was so fun. I hope to meet you in person and continue the conversation. You. Nice to be under the same publishing family or whenever we were like cousins or something. I'm looking forward to it. Awesome. All right. Well, you so much. Okay. All right. Have a good afternoon. Bye You too. Bye bye.

[25:03]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.