Nora Zelevansky, COMPETITIVE GRIEVING: A Novel
[0:01]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:05]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:07]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[0:12]Check it out, and you'll hear from 49 authors about all sorts of things
[0:16]Moms Don't Have Time to Do. All the authors have been on this podcast.
[0:19]Also, check out my TikTok at with Sivi and Tracy.
[0:22]My other podcast, Sex Talk with Sivi and Tracy.
[0:25]Check out Moms Don't Have Time to Write on Medium.
[0:28]And of course, my new publishing company called Sivi Books.
[0:32]And now, back to our daily author interview site, and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[0:37]Hi, hi, hello.
[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:41]Nora Zelavanski is the author of Competitive Grieving, a novel.
[0:44]Nora is also the author of Will You Won't You Want Me?
[0:49]And semi-term life.
[0:50]Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, L. Town and Country, The Los Angeles Times,
[0:54]The Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair, among others.
[0:56]She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two kids, and a enormous cat, Waldo.
[0:59]Welcome, Nora.
[1:00]Thank you so much for coming.
[1:01]And Moms Don't Have Time to Read books to discuss competitive grieving.
[1:05]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:07]I'm beyond excited to talk to you today.
[1:09]This is, by the way, one of the best titles I have to say.
[1:12]Did you think of that right away?
[1:13]Was that like always the title?
[1:15]I did.
[1:16]It's so funny because normally, you know, the title comes later,
[1:19]or they make you change the title, or whatever it is.
[1:22]But in this case, the title came to me first.
[1:26]And I literally said to a friend of mine,
[1:28]I'm going to write a book called Competitive Grieving.
[1:31]And then they came.
[1:32]So funny.
[1:33]I love how all throughout the book, you will not you.
[1:36]The character was envisioning how everybody is funeral,
[1:39]and every all that would go, because that is one of the many crazy things my brain does.
[1:44]It's like constantly thinking about funeral.
[1:46]It's like, what it would be like, and I didn't know.
[1:48]But I haven't done it for like every single person I've seen.
[1:50]So like, what is your vision for yourself?
[1:52]Like, how would you fill that in in the book?
[1:54]And then I'll like ask.
[1:55]Actually, hold on.
[1:56]Back up.
[1:57]What is your book about?
[1:58]Please tell listeners.
[1:59]And then I want to know how you would fill out your own funeral, you know, details.
[2:04]My own, yeah.
[2:05]Okay, I love that.
[2:06]So the book is a dark comedy and unlikely love story about the main character,
[2:14]Ren, who is totally doing just fine, but she's the bar is sort of low.
[2:21]She's just sort of like living her life, but maybe not to her full potential.
[2:25]And her best friend from childhood dies suddenly.
[2:30]And she is left to confront not just the loss of him,
[2:34]but also the sort of navigation of all of these complicated,
[2:40]crazy relationships that he's left behind.
[2:43]And so the book is really about sort of the desire to be seen in the wake of the loss of somebody who isn't there to confirm your significance to them.
[2:55]So that's what the book is about.
[2:57]And so what I was referring to is that all throughout the main character keeps going through.
[3:02]And as she meets anyone is this funny, like literary device.
[3:06]Also, you have descriptions of what she's thinking about the person and how their funeral,
[3:10]what they would want.
[3:11]So that's what I was talking about.
[3:14]Yeah, so I was just, it's so funny that you bring that up because I was thinking about it today,
[3:18]because I meant to go on a last minute work trip to LA next week.
[3:21]And I had this moment at one of those weird moments we all kind of have,
[3:26]or I guess I'd like to believe we all have not just me,
[3:29]where I was like, what if my plane went down?
[3:31]Like then what would happen?
[3:32]What would people react?
[3:35]And so the idea for the sort of describing people's funerals came in part out of sort of that macabre sort of instinct,
[3:43]do we all kind of have to think about what would happen if I was gone, who would care, who would, you know, react?
[3:50]And then also this sort of writerly instinct I have, which is to make up stories for people, like backstories for people around when I see them.
[4:00]And my own funeral, I have to admit that some of Ren's funeral details are sort of overlapping with mom.
[4:06]Okay.
[4:07]As I think like a sushi spread does sound, although maybe when you're sad, that kind of not goes like does anybody actually want that when they're sad?
[4:17]I don't know.
[4:18]I'm trying to think of what like the best comfort foods would be.
[4:21]I don't know.
[4:22]Maybe, maybe like a southern fried chicken spread is more of the thing.
[4:26]That's cool.
[4:27]You don't see that a lot of funerals?
[4:29]What about you?
[4:31]What about me, my funeral?
[4:34]Well, actually, I thought about this for a long time at a funeral yesterday, and I was sort of going through in my head, which place I would like to have my funeral at in New York City,
[4:42]assuming it was in New York, and I was going through all the different venues in my head and like, you know, blah, blah, blah.
[4:47]Then I was wondering, I don't know, maybe that's too big.
[4:50]Maybe that one's not big enough.
[4:51]I don't know.
[4:52]I wonder how many people come.
[4:53]How do people decide what biggest space, how biggest space to fuck?
[4:56]Yeah.
[4:57]But in terms of food, I didn't even think about the after-party space slash Shiba, which would probably be like my mom's house.
[5:04]I don't know.
[5:05]I don't know.
[5:06]I think in my ideal vision, yeah, like pigs and a blanket and grilled cheese and, you know, little bites of brownies and just like lots of chocolate
[5:17]chocolatty cookies and maybe a vat of dough somewhere.
[5:20]And definitely copious alcohol.
[5:22]I feel like that's just necessary for everyone.
[5:24]Yeah.
[5:25]Well, that go.
[5:26]I mean, yes.
[5:27]So your essay was it yesterday a couple days ago for a month of time to write.
[5:31]Oh, that was so good.
[5:32]I loved it.
[5:33]And, you know, you talk about being on the side of the road with the stroller and not the road, but, you know, the pulling off the sidewalk.
[5:40]And, you know, what happens when you get news, but you kept to deal with your kids.
[5:44]And, oh my gosh, it's something again that so many people are going through right now.
[5:48]Tell me about that.
[5:49]Yeah.
[5:50]Well, I think, you know, part of the book was inspired by a personal experience that I had losing a very close friend.
[5:57]And at the time that I lost him, we lost him, I should say.
[6:02]I had a toddler and I was pregnant.
[6:05]And when I, and I was already having a bad day, it was like one of those days were like,
[6:11]I was already weeping for no real reason.
[6:14]I mean, the truth is it was the beginning of 2017.
[6:16]So many people in Brooklyn were weeping.
[6:19]Truth.
[6:20]The world felt very unstable.
[6:23]And I got the call.
[6:24]You know, I got a series of calls.
[6:26]And I finally was like, this is weird, why are all these people calling me and I picked up the phone and got the bad news.
[6:33]And there I was on the side of the street with my daughter.
[6:37]Who is looking at me, expectantly like what's happening.
[6:41]And I suddenly realized that I couldn't have the full reaction, whatever that might be on the sidewalk anyway.
[6:48]That I had to sort of modulate it.
[6:50]And it really, the whole experience then of being with my daughter and then also being pregnant and then having a baby and taking care of him and all sort of while processing the loss of this person who is really important to me as a child.
[7:05]Especially because he was a childhood friend.
[7:08]Was all the more complicated by the fact that, you know, I was also parenting and being a mom to the best of my ability.
[7:15]And I know like my husband was like by the end of that year was like, if I need to, if we listen to any more like modeling indie music.
[7:24]I'm going to like off.
[7:26]Because I was like, yeah, because I was like with the baby, like listening to like, you know, sad music all day long.
[7:34]You know, it was, it was very soothing in some ways to have that time with like a baby.
[7:40]But it was also complicated.
[7:42]Well, I'm really sorry about your friend.
[7:44]Oh, thank you.
[7:45]Yeah.
[7:46]I mean, it's never a good time.
[7:48]You know, it reminds me in my first anthology.
[7:50]There's this hilarious author named Liz Astroph.
[7:53]She's also a TV writer.
[7:54]Anyway, she wrote an essay called mom's time to cry and it was all about how she had to keep holding in this big, you know, cry.
[8:01]And every time that she thought she would be able to let it out something like got in the way until all of a sudden, like it just came pouring out.
[8:07]But like this time that she didn't expect.
[8:09]And I think that is something that moms have to do.
[8:12]And, you know, you also, I felt like I had to do this back when I worked in like a corporate environment too.
[8:16]Just like holding it in like just shoving away the emotions, which I think is easier for some people than other people.
[8:22]It's not too easy for me to do that.
[8:24]Like sort of see it out.
[8:27]But it's so hard to like delay a breakdown, if you will.
[8:33]Yeah. And it's interesting because like not that long after that, my daughters in the context of something totally different.
[8:40]My daughter said to me, mommy, why don't you ever cry?
[8:43]And I'm like a cryer.
[8:45]So I was like, wait, she thinks I don't ever cry.
[8:50]And then within the same like week or two, my mother said to me, well, why do you have to hide it?
[8:57]Like, why do you, why do you need to not cry in front of her?
[9:03]And it did really get me thinking.
[9:05]I mean, I do think you want to like modulate things at least so that it doesn't feel scary, but maybe you don't have to hide.
[9:13]The fact that as my mother would say the fact that you're a human being.
[9:16]Right.
[9:17]Maybe it's okay for them to know that.
[9:19]But in the midst of it, it's such a complicated thing to navigate.
[9:24]You know, you're just sort of in protection mode.
[9:27]Totally.
[9:29]I mean, one of the things that I found really interesting about your book was how many,
[9:33]how one person's loss kind of like sets off this whole chain of events, right?
[9:38]And how you discover things you didn't know.
[9:40]And people you didn't know.
[9:41]And, you know, you go through this book and you see why perhaps some people have been kept apart and, you know, whatever.
[9:48]But it's really interesting because when you have a close relationship with someone, you don't often know about all the other relationships, right?
[9:54]And this whole cast of characters, you know, vying for attention in this sort of.
[9:59]And this sort of.
[10:00]mellow drama world. I don't know. I found it like really, really interesting. I haven't had this
[10:05]experience. You know, I found that the people who I know who have passed away in general like the
[10:10]other people I've known pretty well, but I don't know. Did this like what what rang true? How did
[10:16]you did this happen? Or if you can't say that like, I mean, I'm like, yeah, I mean, I think that
[10:23]there's like a I was talking to a friend and we were talking about how there's there's it's one
[10:28]thing to navigate your friend group. So like if you have like a really strong friend group and
[10:32]somebody and you guys lose someone, you're kind of all in the same place. But if the person you've
[10:38]lost has several friend groups and you're having to navigate, he has a lot of close people from
[10:43]different parts of his life and you're having to navigate like his friends. It's such a different
[10:50]thing to try to do that. And I mean, in fact, to an extent, I did sort of experience a similar thing
[10:57]in that my friend who died was very charismatic and had had sort of a little bit of a taste
[11:02]of fame. And there were a lot of people who felt really close to him and felt like they had been
[11:09]very significant in his life. So there was like a sort of struggling for recognition and
[11:15]a notion that like the person that was being described maybe wasn't the person like you knew.
[11:22]I always think of there was one instance where a friend close friend of mine actually at the bar
[11:29]at a bar after the funeral said to me something about how he was just so kind. And I was like,
[11:36]what? Because I loved him so much, but that wouldn't have been like a word that I used for him,
[11:42]you know? And so that is one of the things I wanted the book to sort of illustrate this idea that
[11:46]like maybe you don't have to sacrifice the version of the person that you know just because
[11:53]someone else has a different one. Like maybe there are just different incarnations of all of us
[12:01]that are significant to different people at different points in our lives, you know? And like
[12:07]maybe that's an okay thing. I don't know. It also got me thinking about and I don't know if this
[12:12]resonates with you, but like the idea that like that sometimes when you lose someone you're
[12:17]mourning the person they were at the point where they were most seminal in your life, you know?
[12:23]And so you're also kind of mourning different stages of them. Very true. And yourself.
[12:30]Yeah. And you're so like there's so much of myself that I've lost with people I've lost. Like
[12:35]not to mention just all the memories, right? Like there are the only people I could call to be like,
[12:39]what about this? Or do you remember where we were when? Like there's nobody to call. Like there's
[12:44]you know, it's gone. It's just totally gone. Exactly. There's no one to like confirm your shared
[12:49]history. Yeah. And not like a loss in itself. And it does feel like a hole. And in a lot of ways
[12:55]those are holes that don't get filled. Like they're holes that you find a way sort of around
[13:00]and you create like this is sort of a weird way to sort of like almost like new content in yourself,
[13:06]you know, but the holes remain. And so that's the other thing I guess also in thinking about like,
[13:11]I mean, not I won't give anything away, but like in thinking about like the ending of a book like this,
[13:16]I think there's like a line where she sort of in letters that she writes to her friend who's gone.
[13:24]She says like you've rendered a happy ending impossible. And it's I guess I just wanted to sort of
[13:30]reflect this idea that like the holes remain. Yeah. Very, you know. Wait. So Nora, how did you
[13:36]become a writer? So I always love to write. I always loved. I was like, you know, in a sort of cliche
[13:43]way, I was like the editor of my high school, a literary magazine and you know, all that kind of stuff.
[13:48]But I loved personal essay. That was like my thing. I was like a Joan Diddy in head.
[13:53]I just love that phrase. And I want my mother always tells a story about how I was like 15. And
[13:59]she said to me, maybe you'll be a writer when you grow up. And I was like, oh, no way. Like,
[14:03]that is way too hard. I'm not doing that, which is funny because I don't know how I knew that it
[14:07]was hard, but I was right. And then ultimately, I had this idea that I was going to work with
[14:15]writers like that was like going to be my solution. And so I did like initially I worked in Hollywood
[14:22]as like a development executive working with scripts and whatever. And then I worked in politics
[14:28]for a while. And that was sort of like a low point for me. I was I'm very interested in politics,
[14:33]but working in the actual like machinations of that was not for me. And in that time, I started
[14:39]freelance writing for a yoga magazine. And basically, I was became a journalist until I was a freelance
[14:46]journalist for a long time writing for all different magazines, mostly about like fashion and beauty
[14:51]and travel. And I sort of had all this like weird rich material that I didn't realize I was
[14:56]collecting, which I guess we just all do right as we move around the world. And ultimately,
[15:03]I just decided I was sick of I felt like constrained by all the magazines and their very specific
[15:09]voices and needs. And I was like, I'm going to try to write fiction. I've never done it before.
[15:13]I'm going to try. And I did national novel writing. Oh, yeah. Which for me was like very helpful
[15:19]because it stopped me from stopping because one of the roles is you can't stop. So I just, you know,
[15:25]I couldn't decide like, oh, this idea is terrible. I'm scrapping it. I just had to sort of
[15:29]write through. And ultimately, actually drawing a lot on my experience is sort of absurd experiences
[15:36]in the world of like beauty and travel, especially like pre recession when it was just like so
[15:42]over the top opulent and crazy and whatever went into that first book. And ultimately, at the end
[15:49]of that, I had a draft that was, as you can imagine, a hot mess. Because I wrote it very quickly.
[15:57]But then ultimately, I, you know, I felt like there was something there and I worked through it. And
[16:01]that was my first law. That's so cool. Yeah. I mean, I I feel really lucky because I, like I said, I didn't
[16:07]I think there was something special about writing fiction without expectations because I didn't
[16:11]necessarily know if I had any affinity for it or ability for it. And now it's kind of my like
[16:18]true love. You know, I still do a lot of nonfiction writing, but I love fiction so much.
[16:25]I mean, obviously you do too. I love to read it. I don't know. I love to read it. I love, I mean,
[16:32]yeah, I love to read also. I am distracted by the most beautiful bookshelves in the world behind you.
[16:38]I love it so much. It's like such a dream space. You know, I only see it on zoom because I'm always
[16:44]facing this way such a way. Right. I should feel like a mirror here instead of a bulletin board.
[16:50]Oh, well. Yeah. What are you working on now? Well, fiction wise I'm working on a new book,
[16:56]but it's in pretty nascent stages, but it's kind of it's like a road trip story. I think in part
[17:01]inspired by the fact that during pandemic, I'm, you know, I haven't gone anywhere practically.
[17:07]And so, but it's it's all my books tend to be these sort of delayed coming of age stories,
[17:13]you know, about people who are kind of stuck in need to find a way to get unstuck in. And it's,
[17:18]it is that kind of story again where there's sort of a catalyst of that, you know, an event that's
[17:24]like a catalyst for change that puts them on some kind of sort of oddball journey. So generally
[17:31]hopefully with like humor and I mean, usually a love story because I don't seem to be able to write
[17:36]something without one of them. What are some of your favorite books or something you've read lately?
[17:41]Oh, well, right now I'm reading one last stop and I just finished. I was about to say the great
[17:46]believers, but the great circle. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you read it. Yeah. I don't know if you
[17:48]read it. Yeah. If you want to listen. Oh, yeah. I actually really loved seeding arrangements. Did
[17:56]you read that book of hers? Yes. That is my favorite book of hers as well. Yeah. That was my
[18:01]yeah. This one was super interesting. And it's always interesting to me when you have a book that
[18:06]tells a story from two different factives because sometimes you fall in love with one and not the
[18:11]other and or it switches or whatever. But so I really enjoyed I enjoyed sort of like the sort of
[18:17]actually like the scope of that book, which is just giant. So that was yeah, that was good. But
[18:22]probably my favorite book I've read recently was Goodbye Vitamin, which isn't that new, but I just
[18:27]love that book so much. I'll read that. All right. I'll check it out. Oh, I really recommend it. Like
[18:33]Yeah. It's just like a very fresh voice. All right. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[18:38]Oh, gosh. I think I mean, I don't know if this is just sort of trait and always said, but like,
[18:46]I think just to keep writing, you know, I think like one of the most difficult things is
[18:52]that notion of like scrapping an idea that you started, you know, in the process of writing,
[18:57]there is always at least one point, at least for me, and usually many at which I decide what
[19:02]I'm writing is just trash, you know, and should and I should just stop. And also periods of time
[19:08]in which what I'm writing is isn't very good, you know, but I always feel like if you can just keep
[19:13]pushing past it, keep writing and get something on the page, you can always sort of revisit it. And
[19:19]I feel like that's the challenge, right? Like those moments of like making yourself actually
[19:25]right is the hardest part. And then I guess the only other thing I'd say is that rejection is a
[19:31]big part of writing. And it's really, really hard and nobody likes it. But it's part of it for
[19:38]everybody, you know, even the most successful people. And so if you have a rejection like
[19:45]and you can continue and you can sort of try not to take it to heart and just persevere and keep
[19:50]writing, you eventually you'll get there. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thanks for talking about
[19:57]competitive grieving and for...
[20:00]for scheduling. You so much. I am just thank you so much for having me and I just want to say
[20:07]I am so amazed by all the things that you're doing lately. I am so like fascinated by what
[20:12]you're creating and what you've built and I had so many questions for you about like whether you
[20:18]knew you were building this at the start or whether it was just something that sort of came
[20:21]together but either way it's it's really amazing and it's it's lovely that you've created sort of
[20:27]a place for all of us as writers and readers to kind of come together. So I'm just getting
[20:32]started. The last one already is coming. I really really believe that. I'm sure. Sorry to be so brief
[20:40]today. But great to meet you. No. Thank you so much to me. Thanks for listening to this episode of
[20:48]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens and
[20:53]at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com and sign up for
[20:58]my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and
[21:03]Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[21:08]this fantastic intro and outro music.