Simon Rich, NEW TEETH: Stories
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[0:38]Simon Rich is the author of New Teeth Stories.
[0:41]He has written for Saturday Night Live, Pixar, and The Simpsons.
[0:44]He is the creator and showrunner of Man Seeking Woman on FXX,
[0:49]Miracle Worker on TBS, which he based on his books.
[0:52]He's also a frequent contributor to the New Yorker.
[0:54]Welcome, Simon. Thank you so much for coming on Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:58]Thanks so much for having me. Great to be here.
[1:00]I really loved your short story collection.
[1:03]And at times I laughed out loud.
[1:05]And when I read The New York Times review of your book,
[1:08]and I was like, I felt the same way that was so funny.
[1:11]I laughed out loud.
[1:12]So it is really, it's really nice, really nice one,
[1:15]but can make you do that after a long day.
[1:17]So thank you for that.
[1:18]I'll thanks for saying that. I really appreciate it.
[1:20]So tell me about how this book sort of came to be.
[1:23]Why did you start writing these stories?
[1:25]How did you pick the ones you included in the collection?
[1:28]You know, all that good stuff.
[1:30]Well, I really was trying to write about my kids.
[1:33]I have two kids.
[1:33]I have a four-year-old and a seven-month-old.
[1:36]And it was really kind of at a sympathy
[1:38]towards what they're going through.
[1:40]That a lot of these stories originated.
[1:42]Like there's a story in the book called The Big Nap.
[1:45]And a hard-boiled, noir detective story.
[1:49]And the detective happens to be a two-year-old baby.
[1:52]Just hilarious.
[1:54]He is trying to make sense of a world
[1:56]that he can only partially understand.
[1:59]And he is visited by this very mysterious other baby,
[2:05]an 11th-month-old girl who we, the reader,
[2:07]know is his baby sister.
[2:09]But he has, you know, he's not really sure about that yet.
[2:12]And she wants him to find her missing unicorn.
[2:15]And he doesn't really trust fair
[2:17]because there's sort of this mysterious backstory.
[2:20]Like some people say that she came from the hospital.
[2:23]There's also rumors that she once lived inside of Mommy's tummy.
[2:27]And she doesn't really know where, you know, who to trust.
[2:31]And the story like that, it's really just
[2:34]comes from a place of me sympathizing with just how baffling
[2:37]and confusing the world can feel to young kids.
[2:42]I, as a full-grown adult, feel baffle to confuse most of the time,
[2:46]especially in the last couple of years.
[2:48]So I can't even imagine how strange
[2:50]and frightening and overwhelming the world can sometimes
[2:53]feel to little kids.
[2:55]It's almost like you've taken boss baby, you know,
[2:57]and like turned it on its head, right?
[2:59]Like with the voice being so developed from the point of view.
[3:03]Yeah, well, boss baby, he knows what's what.
[3:06]That's true.
[3:07]That's why my baby protagonist is in way over as that.
[3:10]He is barely, barely keeping it together.
[3:13]You know, he's hitting the bottle every day.
[3:15]I mean, he's, you know, he's constantly waking up
[3:20]and strange places.
[3:21]There's a know-how he got there.
[3:23]You know, he's barely hanging on.
[3:25]It's so great to turn it all on its head, right?
[3:28]So much writing and literature and, you know,
[3:31]just so much our brain power is about how the parents feel.
[3:35]Like how we are, like, don't know what we're doing
[3:38]or we're upset by this or we're trying to manage this
[3:40]or this is the advice we need.
[3:41]But it's to put the point of view from the child is,
[3:46]I mean, it's just great.
[3:47]Like, I mean, it is.
[3:48]Not if it makes sense.
[3:49]Like, it is crazy.
[3:52]Oh, it's so baffling.
[3:53]Yeah, I mean, I was on a plane once my daughter
[3:57]and somebody handed her some crayons, you know,
[3:59]a flight attendant and I was teaching her,
[4:03]please and thank you.
[4:04]So I said, you know, what do you say?
[4:05]And she said, if you remember, thank you
[4:07]and the flight attendant said, you're welcome.
[4:09]And then my daughter turned to another random person
[4:12]and said, now what do you say?
[4:14]When is this arbitrary chain of meaningless statements
[4:20]and how long do we continue this script?
[4:24]And so they're really just trying to pull it all together
[4:27]and it's hard not to sympathize with what they're going through.
[4:30]Oh my God, my little guy is six.
[4:32]I have four kids and we were talking about cells.
[4:35]I made the misguided thing.
[4:36]And if he was like, mommy, you're gonna have more kids
[4:38]and I was like, no, I had my uterus taken out
[4:41]and everyone's like, oh, mom, why'd you say that?
[4:44]I'm like, sorry.
[4:45]Anyways, so then it comes into this whole thing
[4:46]about like cells and this and that.
[4:48]And he was like, you have jail cells in your body
[4:52]and I'm like, no, cells, but like for a brief moment,
[4:55]like maybe that's what it was.
[4:56]Maybe I had tiny little cells all over me.
[4:59]Like who knows?
[5:00]I mean, that'd be I think pretty cool
[5:02]to have jail cells in your body.
[5:03]Right?
[5:04]I mean, you could take that for your next story.
[5:06]I would just claim that.
[5:07]I would just say, be careful.
[5:09]I'll lock you up in here.
[5:10]Yeah, exactly.
[5:11]Yeah, it's amazing.
[5:13]So tell me about how becoming a dad has kind of shifted
[5:17]aside from the fact that now like your perspective is,
[5:20]you know, from a two foot tall man instead of a,
[5:22]you know, that will ever tell you why.
[5:24]I don't know.
[5:25]Well, how has changed your writing in general?
[5:27]Like, did it?
[5:28]And did you notice it like right away
[5:30]where you're like, oh, you know, now I have to like pivot
[5:33]to this or I don't know.
[5:34]Has it changed like your perspective on maybe that's
[5:36]too random?
[5:37]Yeah, I think it has in like subtle ways.
[5:40]I don't know how much it's changed like my style as a writer
[5:45]because I still tend to write pretty unusual stories
[5:48]that are mostly about robots and pirates
[5:51]and talking animals and things like that.
[5:53]And I've been doing that since since I started out,
[5:55]but I think my stories have gotten a little bit more hopeful
[5:59]and regemptive and positive.
[6:01]I just like the world can seem like a really like dark place,
[6:05]especially when you're looking at it from like a parent's
[6:07]vantage point and you're thinking about all
[6:09]the danger that's out there.
[6:10]And I just kind of with my stories want to add a bit
[6:15]of brightness to it if I can.
[6:16]I pretty much will scrap a story if I think
[6:19]that there's no way for it to have a happy ending.
[6:22]Whereas in previous short story collections,
[6:25]I'd be like, yeah, you know, the world's like that sometimes.
[6:27]So let's roll the dice and leave this one in.
[6:30]And with this collection, new teeth,
[6:32]I really only included stories that I thought ended up
[6:34]in a somewhat regemptive place.
[6:36]Even though often they start off in a complete nightmare scenario.
[6:42]It's funny, I had dinner with a friend last night
[6:44]and I was talking about something that like some situation
[6:47]I wasn't happy that my kids had to go through
[6:49]or something like that.
[6:49]And she was like, well, but that's good
[6:51]because like real life, there are so many bad situations, right?
[6:55]Like you can make your home into this, you know,
[6:58]I don't know, cocoon of perfection or whatever where you're
[7:01]like intellectually stimulating your kids and entertaining them
[7:04]and everything's okay, but they're going to go out
[7:05]in the world and meet people who are terrible.
[7:07]So you might as well just like have them experience it
[7:10]when you can be there to be like, oh, yeah,
[7:12]that's an example of like a terrible thing that can happen.
[7:14]But totally, yeah.
[7:16]And you have to somehow teach your children
[7:20]to be able to cope with reality as painful as reality can be.
[7:23]There's a story in a new teeth called everyday parenting tips,
[7:27]which is this parenting how to, and it's how do you help your child
[7:32]if your child is afraid of monsters?
[7:35]And over the course of this, how to you gradually realize
[7:40]that it takes place in the midst of a monster apocalypse
[7:45]where monsters are everywhere and completely real
[7:48]and absolutely after your child and your child is every reason
[7:51]to be rationally afraid of monsters.
[7:53]And that was sort of my attempt to kind of figure out a metaphor
[7:56]for dealing with like what society is going through right now,
[8:00]you know, it's how do you teach your kid to be resilient,
[8:04]you know, as opposed to just lie to them and say,
[8:06]yeah, everything's fine, you know,
[8:07]because sometimes the monsters are actually real,
[8:10]the threat is real.
[8:10]And if you tell your kid, oh, yeah, no, it's I look under your bed.
[8:14]There's no monsters.
[8:15]They'll know your line if there are.
[8:18]Yeah, that's true.
[8:19]Yeah, there are no monsters.
[8:20]And yet if you move this like two in piece of fabric from your mouth,
[8:23]you could, you know, be stuck in your room for two whole weeks.
[8:26]Like what?
[8:27]Yeah.
[8:29]Exactly.
[8:29]Yeah.
[8:30]So it's, but on, you know, we're learning my wife and I learned it,
[8:34]but did how to how to where we're feel completely baffled most of the time.
[8:38]And that's what a lot of the stories are about to is like frightened,
[8:41]confused children, but also like frightened and confused parents.
[8:45]Like one of my favorite, one of the most personal stories is about these two
[8:49]pirates, Captain Blackbones, the wicked.
[8:51]And it's his first mate, Rodney Pete, the the scoundrel.
[8:55]And they are these ruthless, murderous,
[8:57]pirates with peg legs and eye patches and the whole deal.
[9:00]And they find this four year old stow a girl on the ship.
[9:04]And they just have to kind of figure out how to kill parentor,
[9:06]which is much harder than any treasure quest they've ever been on.
[9:09]Yeah.
[9:10]Pretty much harder than anything might as well.
[9:12]Yeah.
[9:13]I mean, forget the pot of gold.
[9:14]It's like just keep the ship going for a few days with the four year old.
[9:17]Exactly.
[9:18]Yeah.
[9:20]Board mission.
[9:21]So Simon, tell me about how you got into writing to begin with and like,
[9:25]did you always know you were a writer?
[9:26]Like, how did this whole thing start for you?
[9:28]And I really did.
[9:29]And in fact, I am into my office right now.
[9:31]I have this thing.
[9:32]Let me show this to you.
[9:33]My mother framed this for me for a birthday because I made it when I was five.
[9:36]And you probably you're like, gosh.
[9:39]What I want to be when I grow up,
[9:42]I want to be a writer of kids.
[9:44]Wait.
[9:45]It's on the thing.
[9:47]I said, I think this is what it says.
[9:49]I had really terrible handwriting and still do.
[9:51]I had slow fine motor skill development.
[9:54]So I couldn't hold a pencil right until I was like 12.
[9:57]Go right to the iPhone.
[9:58]Yeah.
[9:58]It says when I grew up, I want to be.
[10:00]writer of kids books. I want to write kids books because you could write anything in kids books.
[10:06]And then I go on to say, maybe I'll get the idea from other books. Some already actively
[10:10]trying to play dry. It's good for you. And then I mentioned my favorite writer,
[10:14]Raul Doll, which is spelled R-O-L-D-O-L. Raul Doll. It's a tricky name. It's not an intuitive
[10:22]spelling, you know, it's a thing. Yeah, exactly. So that's nothing's really a change
[10:26]since I was five years old. I mean, I think that even though my books are aimed at adults,
[10:32]there's still something kind of like, Raul, hopefully a little Raul Doll ask about them. And it's
[10:38]there's still a kind of like surrealism and absurdity that I shoot for, even though it's
[10:44]like sometimes dealing with more adult themes. I am like 65 pages in to Matilda. I've
[10:50]been reading a page or two every night with the kids. Yeah. The illustrations are
[10:54]propelling us farther along. So I feel more accomplished. But yeah, we're like, and I'm like,
[10:58]wow, he was like, this is odd. This is totally odd. But like, I'm loving every minute. I mean,
[11:03]I saw the play. Oh, yeah. But I'm told it was maybe my Matilda and the witches were probably
[11:08]my two favorite growing up. And I just thought to such such perfect metaphors in both cases
[11:14]for the indignities of being a kid, you know, which, which is really gets at the
[11:19]the way that kids often feel, which is that there is this grown-up conspiracy keeping you from
[11:24]living your best life. And then Matilda, I mean, what a great wish fulfillment fantasy,
[11:29]the notion that you could somehow have agency and power in a world that is constantly trying to
[11:34]get you to be quiet and sit still. So I love those books and still do. And yeah, he's still
[11:40]probably my favorite writer. Wow. Yeah. My kids are like, oh, mom, you must love this because you
[11:45]love books so much, just like her. And I was like, yes. That's it. Yeah. I also like, yeah,
[11:50]I love having a protagonist do love books as much as I did. That was really exciting to see.
[11:55]So like, what types of stuff do you read now? I read a lot. Well, you so I, I love short stories,
[12:00]you know, so a lot of my favorite writers are novelists. But like, I like their stories more. So
[12:07]so like a TC boil is an example or like older writers like Shirley Jackson. I like a lot of
[12:14]writers. You write like genre fiction, short stories and in other genres, obviously somebody like
[12:19]Bradbury or Stephen King is a huge influence on my writing. People are always surprised when I bring
[12:24]up somebody like, you know, like Richard Matheson or he horror writers. But I've always just really
[12:30]liked short stories that take big swings. Whether they're funny or not doesn't really matter to me.
[12:36]You know, as long as there's like an alien spaceship landing on page two or a monster coming
[12:41]forth from another dimension, I'm like, totally. That's funny. That's great too. But like,
[12:47]a lot of my favorite short story writers are more like premise writers. And I like the adult
[12:52]stories of well done a lot too, which are very strange and, and I'm sorry. I haven't read that
[12:57]sometimes. Sometimes, money and sometimes just kind of creepy. A lot of my favorite writers
[13:02]wrote like the short stories that like Twilight Zone episodes are based on like big speed and
[13:08]another one. But yeah, I kind of read across all genres. Is there something like in your life
[13:13]you're trying to escape from in some way, like all these books and all these stories and the way
[13:17]your brain works is very much like twisting reality and like going off in another direction,
[13:22]right? Or something. Yeah. You know, it's sort of escapist in a way. Right. Well, yeah,
[13:26]what's so interesting is that like, even though the stories that I write and are ostensibly
[13:33]very far removed from reality, they, they, they're always very autobiographical. So like a story
[13:39]in the, in the new collection is, is about a corporate robot. He's a, he's an android named Chip
[13:46]and he finds out after toiling away and is cubicle for 12 years that he's been replaced by
[13:51]a chip 2.0, which is like a better looking into the lower version of himself because he, because he
[13:56]was, he wasn't programmed to have a personality or social skills. So this, this new robot is,
[14:01]is taking over. So that's like, that's one where it's like, you know, on the, on the face of it,
[14:05]it's like science fiction. But what I was really trying to write about is just how it feels to not
[14:10]be young and super young anymore and just start to feel like it's in some ways you're becoming
[14:15]obsolete, which is I think something that anybody over 30 can relate to on some level. And so I,
[14:21]I, I come up these stories from a pretty emotional, like grounded place, but I always try to find
[14:26]like a metaphor that dramatizes, like how it, how it feels to go through something as opposed
[14:32]to how it actually occurred because of our, because of our right about my actual life in, in a
[14:36]realistic way, people would be bored to tears. I don't know. You never know. Yeah. Well, so, but
[14:42]what about the fact that I feel like it's harder to really get a collection of short stories
[14:48]out there, right? The market for them. So to speak as much tougher than selling fiction or like
[14:53]a full-length novel or something like that. And to have that be a preferred genre, I was just
[14:56]talking to somebody who writes poetry. And she's like, you know, this is just it. Like I, you know,
[15:01]it's been like this my whole life, but I'm a poet. I like to write poetry. And so yeah,
[15:05]it's a weird thing to devote your life to her to short fiction, but I love it. Yeah, it's,
[15:10]I've always, I've always wanted to do it. I feel really lucky to get a chance to do it. And yeah,
[15:14]I'm just really grateful. I get to, I get to, I get to write them. What are you working on now?
[15:19]More of the same. More stories. Yeah, I just, this is a written now eight books, I guess, one,
[15:26]two, three, and six of them are short story collections. I have published a couple of novels,
[15:31]but I really prefer the short stories. And what I love about them is you can just take enormous
[15:35]swings and you can really take risks that you can't always in a 300 page novel. I wrote a story
[15:41]in new teeth that's from the perspective of an antique laser disk machine. And I feel like
[15:48]if we're 300 pages long, it would start to overstay. It's welcome. And people would get pretty
[15:53]sick of the narrator. But at 12 pages, a reader might be patient enough to go with you on,
[15:58]I'm like such a weird journey. And that's, that's what I love about short stories is you can really
[16:02]just go full tilt. You can, you know, sprint as opposed to jog. And when you write them,
[16:09]do you write them all at once or does it take you a couple of weeks? Like what's the normal
[16:12]length of time to write a story for you? Yeah, it takes like a couple weeks. I outline them.
[16:17]You know, I have a lot of premises that I write down and then I have to kind of outline them
[16:22]to see if, if they have legs, you know, if they're, if they're, because some of the, some of the
[16:28]premises I come up with are, they might make me laugh, but they're more like sketch comedy. They
[16:33]don't have like a story potential. The character isn't strong enough. And it doesn't really
[16:38]suggest like a narrative. And those I, I abandoned. And then once I'm outlined it, I, I always
[16:45]try to figure out like, is there a way for it to have a happy idea of some kind? A lot of my,
[16:52]my premises are rooted in like, you know, some disaster, my mercenary out. And so it's always
[16:58]like, is there a way to kind of have this character learn something or make some connection or
[17:06]realization by the end that that makes us feel like happy that we have read about this character's
[17:12]plight as opposed to just like depressed and cynical. Yeah. Hand me the next book that will make
[17:18]me feel even more depressed than I was when you're when you're reading a collection of short comedic
[17:26]stories, you know, you don't want any of them to like bum you out. So you've done so much already
[17:33]and you're still like so young not to say that. I mean, you can't be, I mean, I don't know,
[17:36]how old are you? We do even say that 37. 37. Oh my gosh. Okay. Happy birthday. I guess. Thank you.
[17:43]So what do you, what, what's on your wish list out? Like, do you feel like, I mean, it sounds like
[17:48]you've done, you've accomplished your, you know, framed childhood mission of essentially writing
[17:54]for kids or adults who feel like kids on the inside, which is basically all of us. Like, what else
[17:58]what else do you want to do? You've done so much already. Just more of the same. I mean, it's a boring
[18:04]answer, but I'm always trying to get better. I'm always trying to get sharper with the, with the
[18:10]stories, the dig deeper. And I always try to improve from book to book. And that's kind of it,
[18:16]you know, sort of a boring answer. But yeah, I know I love writing short fiction. I want to keep
[18:23]doing it until they tell me to stop. So can you tell me like a little preview of like whatever it is
[18:28]you're working on? Like let's say we turn off the zoom and you go back to life and everything. What
[18:32]world are you in today? Writing about animals today. Writing a story about animals in a forest,
[18:38]trying to learn moral lessons and coming up against kind of difficult, a moral situations and
[18:45]encountering a lot of gray areas. That's sort of, that's the sort of the world and I'm writing in
[18:50]this morning. We'll see if it turns into anything. I love it. It's so cool. It's amazing to think of
[18:54]like all these writers sitting all over, right, with all these different worlds that they're creating
[18:59]and like putting on the page. Like you can envision it like from above, you know, like little
[19:03]fantasy worlds, like all over? Nevermind. I'm like, no, I think about that too. I'm always thinking
[19:09]with my favorite writers mom, I think I wonder what they are working on right now. The great thing
[19:13]about being a writer of books is that if something doesn't work out, you can just throw it away and
[19:17]nobody will ever see it. That's like what I have everything I really love about it. It's like
[19:21]you have so much freedom because nobody's watching you write. When you're a stand-up comedian, you're
[19:26]out on stage and bombing half the time and it's incredibly stressful. Whereas if I write a short
[19:32]story and it ends up being boring or unfunny or derivative or depressing, I just leave it on the
[19:39]desktop and nobody ever, nobody ever sees it. And so that's, it's a very like relaxing kind of
[19:45]profession in that event. It didn't hit in failures, you know, the life of a writer or like that.
[19:52]Yeah, that now it's great. So last question, what advice would you give to aspiring authors?
[19:58]What advice? I mean...
[20:00]I would say the best advice I think that I have is just to really only write the stuff
[20:07]that you would want to read.
[20:09]You know, it's tempting to try to kind of write something that you think will appeal
[20:14]to some group of people or some demographic or some professor or some critic and it never
[20:22]really works in my experience.
[20:24]Whenever you try to write something that you don't actually love, other people are not
[20:29]going to love it as a rule.
[20:31]And if you write something that you love odds are there are other people in the world
[20:36]who will love it to or at least like it.
[20:39]And maybe it will be a small group, but that's something you can't control.
[20:42]You have to just kind of for better, for worse, be yourself.
[20:46]And if you keep that as like your, your north star, then eventually you'll find some
[20:51]people who have the same taste as you and they'll come along hopefully.
[20:56]I feel like as I've gotten older, I've like come to terms, the fact that none of my emotions
[21:01]or feelings about anything I consume content-wise or otherwise really is that unique.
[21:06]So if I like love something, even if I feel like it's kind of out there or whatever,
[21:10]but like it's making me laugh or I'm loving it, like somebody else is going to feel that
[21:15]way.
[21:16]Like it's not just me.
[21:17]But I always say somebody told me once like the best gift to get somebody is not something
[21:21]you think they'll like, but some of you think everybody should would like.
[21:26]And yeah, it's like when you're writing something you're like, I don't really like this,
[21:29]but I think other people might-
[21:31]Right.
[21:32]You're on the wrong track, on the wrong track, on the back to what you go back to writing
[21:37]what you love even if you think other people are going to think it's ridiculous.
[21:42]I'm rethinking all my recent gifts now at this point.
[21:45]Oh no.
[21:46]I'm sure they're great.
[21:47]I'm sure they're crab bloopers.
[21:49]I also like, I'm of this like, I can't remember what I've gotten people.
[21:52]I'm like, sure, I'm repeating myself, you know, but I have people are too new.
[21:55]Oh, yeah.
[21:56]I'm like, pretty sure I got you this last year, but I know you're going to love this
[21:59]coffee table, but I'm about to home design because, wow, who would have looked pretty
[22:04]on top?
[22:05]Yeah.
[22:06]I think you have a mashing set of two.
[22:07]Yeah.
[22:08]Exactly.
[22:09]Yeah.
[22:10]Yeah.
[22:11]And then they can give it as a gift.
[22:12]I gave somebody a bottle of wine.
[22:13]I was like, I'm pretty sure you just gave this to me last week when you came over, but
[22:15]here you go.
[22:16]Oh yeah.
[22:17]I'm about a line.
[22:18]Yeah.
[22:19]Yeah.
[22:20]Just as a friend group for years.
[22:21]Ridiculous.
[22:22]Anyway.
[22:23]Well Simon, thank you so much.
[22:24]This is really fun.
[22:25]And I'm sorry I couldn't find the actual book as we talked.
[22:27]I like to have it with me, but anyway, light, it's pink.
[22:30]I know.
[22:31]It's been literally in my purse as I've changed bags for the last, you know, I like
[22:35]to keep them around me.
[22:36]All the books are coming up.
[22:37]So I can read like little bits, especially with short stories.
[22:40]It's so great.
[22:41]I could like stop and I'd be like, you know, 20 minutes early to meet somebody and I could
[22:45]be reading a short story.
[22:48]I'm excited.
[22:49]Well thanks so much for having me.
[22:50]I really appreciate it.
[22:51]All right, thanks a lot.
[22:52]Bye bye.
[22:53]Bye bye.
[22:54]Bye bye.
[22:55]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:58]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[23:02]Books.
[23:03]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet
[23:08]lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[23:10]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[23:14]Thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now
[23:18]trim music.