Ann Leary, THE FOUNDLING: A Novel
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
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[0:54]Ann Lee-Ree is the author of the found link a novel
[1:01]She is the New York Times best-selling author of a memoir and four novels including the good house which I loved
[1:07]Soon to be a major motion picture starring Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Klein
[1:10]Her work has been translated into 18 languages
[1:13]And she's written for the New York Times plow shares NPR redbook and real simple among other publications
[1:19]Her essay rallying to keep the game alive was adapted for Amazon's television series modern love
[1:25]starring Tina Fey and John Slattery. She lives with her husband in New York
[1:29]Welcome and thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss the found link your latest novel
[1:35]Thank you, Saby. I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you. I love your podcast. I'm really excited to talk to you
[1:42]Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you too
[1:44]And I have to say I read the good house when it came out and loved it and I feel like
[1:49]It's one of those novels that I still have such a crystal clear image of the town and the alcohol bottles and the car
[1:58]And like everything feels like I like a clear mental image as if I've already seen it as a movie
[2:04]Which is so ironic given that today we're recording on June 16th
[2:07]I don't know when this will come out. It's premiering with Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Klein at the Tribeca film festival
[2:13]It just I know it's so it's just unbelievable that that's happening now
[2:18]Because they shocked the film a couple of years ago and because of covid and other things
[2:22]It's finally having it to you as premier
[2:24]It's actually not going to be in theaters till September, but it'll be at the film festival tonight and
[2:30]You know, it couldn't be more exciting
[2:32]And it's also in the middle of my book tour for this book
[2:34]So it's just a lot of how I do Zippy all my life is sitting a room and right and
[2:42]Play with my animals so
[2:44]Another you know, so this has been a light very exciting couple of weeks
[2:48]And that was just like the icing on the cake because we just found that out recently
[2:51]Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh my gosh
[2:54]My husband actually he's a producer and they just found out their movie is going to the Toronto Film Festival
[2:58]And they were all like jumping it down. Yeah, so I feel like the festival love. I get it. It's you know
[3:06]It's all that breath holding and then it appears and it's exciting right. Oh, it's real
[3:11]It's not I didn't dream that there was going to be a movie of my book
[3:14]That's how I felt like that
[3:15]And wait so then in what's happening in September like with the
[3:18]It will be shown at the film festival
[3:20]But then it won't be in all the theaters until September. It'd be widely released
[3:24]I guess is how they call it the film business
[3:28]You're looking at your local theater after this to find it
[3:31]You won't see it because it's just at the film festival
[3:33]I don't really understand how the business works, but
[3:36]Because it's the film festival they want to be in it and later it'll be in theaters and then streaming at home like all films. So
[3:43]Oh my gosh. Yeah, well, I'm doing some events for
[3:47]Were the cradads saying that's coming out. They gave me all these like screening tickets all over the country and
[3:52]The way that you know people in the months and a time to community and
[3:56]You know trying to help with generate interest. So let me know if you want to help when it comes out or if you want to
[4:02]Nothing you need help because obviously it's going to be a huge movie
[4:09]Okay, and now and also I saw in the modern love
[4:14]TV whatever Amazon
[4:17]I
[4:19]The rallying for love based on your essay
[4:23]Thing as well and having married a tennis person. I related very deeply to that as well
[4:29]Anyway, for many reasons. I'm excited to be connected with you
[4:32]And now the foundling
[4:36]Amazing so why don't you talk a little about this? I know you explain
[4:41]In the introduction to the book
[4:43]Why how this is a personal connection to you?
[4:45]But maybe go into that and explain a little more about what your latest novel is about
[4:50]Okay, well, I'll just quickly say
[4:52]The novel is about it's set in 1927 and it's about two women who
[4:58]Were childhood friends? They grew up in the same orphan asylum as they called them in those days and they meet up
[5:04]As a young adult in a different kind of asylum, but they're no longer roommates. Mary is the actual
[5:09]She's a new secretary to the very dynamic and charismatic female doctor who runs the place and Lilian is an inmate held there against her will
[5:19]Um
[5:20]It
[5:21]Turned out to be a eugenics asylum
[5:24]I
[5:25]What inspired the book and why it's connected to my personal, you know, I have a like personal connection to it. Um, I
[5:32]Over 10 years ago did what many many people did I joined ancestry.com. I wanted to find out
[5:38]I had a few questions about my family and one of them which I thought would be the easiest to answer was
[5:44]Why my maternal grandmother was an orphan. I knew she grew up in an orphanage, and I didn't know what happened to her parents
[5:49]And I still don't know that I it turns out really hard to find out orphan information
[5:55]Orphan wreck orphanage records
[5:57]The first record I found of my grandmother
[6:01]Was in 1930 she was working at
[6:04]Very large institution for women in central Pennsylvania, and it was called the Laurelton state village
[6:10]According to the census record the Laurelton state village for feeble-minded women
[6:15]And I was a little taken aback because I thought it was like a very like awful name for a government institution
[6:23]I did a quick google and I found out that wasn't even the whole name
[6:27]It was actually called the Laurelton state village for feeble-minded women of childbearing age
[6:32]They just couldn't be the whole thing on the top of the center
[6:36]so
[6:37]I learned quickly that feeble-minded the word feeble-minded
[6:42]Like the words idiot imbecile and moron were clinical terms at the time
[6:46]They were not they probably were slurs too because people were not very nice to people with disabilities at that time
[6:51]But they were not it wasn't it wasn't as odd as I thought it was to have that in the name of the thing
[6:57]It turns out the very cruel and of most offensive part of the name of the place was the of childbearing age
[7:04]Part because I learned this wasn't a training school
[7:07]We people with true intellectual disabilities as I had presumed though
[7:12]There were a small percentage of women who did have
[7:15]True disabilities. This was a place
[7:18]This was a place to keep
[7:20]Women who were morally or mentally I'm bit from
[7:24]Having children from having sex from
[7:27]You know and some states
[7:29]I can talk in a minute about eugenics
[7:32]It don't be like for the audience if you don't know anything about eugenics
[7:36]It's not your fault. We weren't taught about it in school
[7:38]I knew very little about it before I started researching this book in the 1920s
[7:42]It was a household word everyone knew about it
[7:44]It was very popular widespread thing and it wasn't a hate little hate group or anything
[7:49]It was very much
[7:50]It was kind of the law of the land
[7:52]So the true purpose of this asylum was
[7:55]You know to keep young women who were deemed to be
[8:01]For many reasons
[8:03]From having children. Well, tell me when you did your when you did your research
[8:07]What was it people were so afraid of did they think it was unethical for kids to have
[8:13]Which are the types of people that yeah because you said it was not just the feeble
[8:16]It was not just the
[8:18]Intellectually disabled, but who are the other types of people that were in me? Oh right so
[8:23]Basically, just a quick
[8:25]You know
[8:27]Understanding of the eugenics what eugenics meant
[8:30]It was kind of considered a science
[8:33]It was something that in the early 20th century
[8:35]There was this wonderful what they thought a progressive
[8:38]New science that was kind of like social Darwinism
[8:41]And it was basically you know on on the surface
[8:44]It looked kind of nice like you know
[8:45]It was the whole idea was like people who are very
[8:49]Fit and healthy should have more children and people who are like have issues maybe disabilities or otherwise
[8:56]Not you know or you know are unable to take care of children should have less children
[9:00]It was not really at all what it
[9:03]Became very quickly especially in the United States
[9:06]United States practice you negative eugenics most people who do know about eugenics are aware of the forced sterilization of men and women
[9:15]Who would not only had disabilities, but might belong to a race or
[9:20]type of a group of people are very usually very poor people who they thought shouldn't have children and they were forcibly
[9:27]sterilized
[9:28]Sometimes without even knowing somebody might go in to get their appendix out and come out without
[9:33]But they're too tired so
[9:36]In many states that wasn't allowed and Pennsylvania was one so what they did was they were housed
[9:42]People and especially the women the place where my grandmother worked was specifically for women of childbearing age and what that meant was
[9:51]if you were
[9:53]Perhaps a woman whose husband was tired of you. It's very hard to get a divorce in those days
[9:58]if you
[10:00]13 and said your uncle who was a prominent member of the community was touching you inappropriately if you were a prostitute it was very people were very poor or very rich in those days and if you were poor it was a call mining state you know a lot of industry that's always going to be some prostitution if you were drinking you know it was against a lot of doing so many things could get you could have you said here.
[10:23]Eugenics beliefs were that criminality was very much tied in with heredity and everybody who was a criminal was absolutely feeble-minded or they wouldn't have been a criminal the idea was that normal people with healthy brains and you know good reasoning would never commit crime so it was very easy to suddenly label, but the huge part of the population as being feeble-minded especially on the more on level.
[10:53]I hate the girl art guys and I did it authors know just because of this and these are the hard words to hear, but they were the words of the time so idiots were the lower lowest IQ of the people minded in those were like medium moderately intellectually impaired and more ons were very they called them very high functioning and the person who coined the term was a eugenics, you know one of the pioneers of eugenics and it really referred to what they called the morally defective.
[11:24]So think like you basically made it it made them it gave got the government communities people the ability to basically you know stick that diagnosis on anyone you didn't need a doctor you didn't need a judge.
[11:41]You could be sent here by your husband by your father you know whatever it was very very awful thing I mean it was fascinating to research I was very surprised and you know saddened by some of the things I read.
[12:01]I loved writing this book in the 20s the 20s was always my favorite era of the United States, but I had a different impression of it when I before I researched this book I always associated with decadence and like Zelda Fitzgerald and you know Daisy Buchanan and flappers and drinking because it's you know when you're not supposed to and that was the 1920s if you were rich.
[12:23]If you were poor in the 1920s like my grandmother and most Americans you know are men in the more than half the American.
[12:32]You the same behaviors that the rich people were doing and you know drinking going to species having sex outside of marriage if you were rich you could do that if you are a poor woman you were considered a menace to society.
[12:48]And you would easily end up in a place like the one where my grandmother worked and it was not a great place to be it looked nice on the outside just like the agenda's movement, but the treatment of this these women was horrible.
[13:04]It's really amazing that this is what life was like you know like all these little and also also all these little pockets of history which have essentially been erased.
[13:16]I feel like if somebody were doing an analysis of mental illness treatment in the USA would there would be maybe a little split note about this right because it's essentially.
[13:25]But only the mental illness of course, as you say is only a little piece of it but still like.
[13:31]Yeah, so this was actually interesting so mental this was to you know around the turn of the that century so between the.
[13:38]At 19 the early 20th century they realize that the mental intellectually disabled should not be institutionalized with the people with mental illness they're two different things so that was part of this so they they didn't have homes for.
[13:51]people minded or intellectually disabled people so these weren't people who had schizophrenia or they're they right impression they were people who were considered born with you know less intelligent you know with a deficit in their intellect.
[14:07]So that you know my research will show that there were us on them's like this all over the United States and I researched many and came up with the.
[14:16]Story based on what I learned not only about the place where my grandmother worked but about many others and I and then the reason a lot of people today don't know about you.
[14:27]Because what like I said it was very popular was widely accepted people such as Theodore Roosevelt was in Churchill, you know Margaret Sanger's some people know now George when our child Virginia wolf many people that I've always admired who did great things.
[14:44]were outspoken you Genesis, but you have to understand that again everybody you know it was a kind of there were laws passed that were eugenics law so wasn't like a fringe hate group it was kind of this widespread thing was it racist it was super racist but.
[14:59]going through the newspaper archives of that time everyone will you know it's just like a very racist overtly xenophobic anti immigrant you know time and very very dangerous time for women and so.
[15:14]Okay, so you say you do all your research and you realize you want to write a whole novel about this and then what happened, you figured out.
[15:23]I originally was going to just write I wanted to write like kind of a nonfiction journey of discovery about what I found out, but I really do like to write fiction I love to I do have kind of a vivid imagination and as I was reading three.
[15:39]People in my grandmother's story kind of came to me my grandmother who I didn't know very well, but you know she went there when she was only 17 working as a stenographer so I kind of you know I wanted to you know maybe have her be a character and then the woman who ran the place where my grandmother worked.
[15:58]was a woman named Dr Mary Wolf and she fascinated me and I was quite impressed and all of her when I first read about her, she graduated from medical school in 1899 when very few women went to college, she then became one of the first psychiatrist in the United States, she then founded this amazing you know very progressive asylum that became a model for I mean it's considered amazing at the time.
[16:23]Delegates from foreign countries came to see this institution because it was so well run, although inmates, as they called the residents did all the work so it actually didn't rely on the government for much funding at all self sufficient.
[16:36]So, but she was also very she didn't speeches all over the stamp to raise money and awareness you wrote so I could find a lot of things that she wrote and said, and she was quite amazing she also was a avid suffragist she was a very much I thought what an amazing woman and she did care I do believe very much about vulnerable women in society, she came from an affluent home and had more power than most women.
[17:01]I created Dr Vogel and my book based on her and so as I said, you know, I don't want anyone to connect the fictitious character with the one who inspired her only that I'm glad I found her because she I think is the most to me was the most fascinating person to explore as a character from my novel.
[17:19]Mary came to work for her in real life that's Mary did work for a woman like that and then Lillian is is the character in my novel who grew up with Mary in this orphanage and Mary doesn't remember her being people minded at all she's actually kind of smart.
[17:34]Well, Lillian came from my going through decades of census records through newspaper archives and finding all these young women who had these promising lives taken away from them.
[17:51]Just one character came to me who was kind of, you know, made up of all these women, I found a few cases where mothers tried to get their daughters out and said, you know, she's completely she has no, she's not people minded.
[18:03]And they never want they had habeas corpus, you know, cases and they never won and I'd go and look and there she was in 1927 census and they're 18 and then the 1930s she was 28 and then it broke my heart and I wanted to create, you know, I wanted to have one of you know, Lillian is the character who's inside and so there's just it's a book about these three women and how.
[18:30]Mary is kind of the narrator and she brings the reader in the way I came in very odd and impressed with this place it was quite an attractive asylum as asylum is go and a very beautiful very rural part of Pennsylvania.
[18:43]And then I, you know, I wanted the reader to understand Mary's vulnerability and I knew they might judge her from today's perspective, a lot of her, a lot of everything that when I was so unsabery and hard to.
[19:00]To be a part of as a reader maybe but I didn't, I couldn't be anachronistic and make her very woke, because it wouldn't be real and so anyway.
[19:10]So Mary though was not totally an orphan they called her a semi orphan because her dad was a little half sorry half orphan.
[19:17]I'm hearing that term I was like so right I'm like what is that like your half per person yeah Mary was a half orphan and Lillian was a founding another thing so there's so orphan is somebody both your parents died the people know who they were and you now live in an orphanage.
[19:34]There were many half orphans and you might zippy and many people listening might have had a relative was a half orphan but it wasn't uncommon before antibiotics and before modern medicine.
[19:45]To lose a parent at a young age especially you know this took place after the first world war so Mary's mother died when she was a child she had a father who was a lie but he worked at some mill of state he couldn't have take care of her so she was a half orphan she lived the nuns.
[20:00]raised her and that was true of my grandmother too. Lily was a foundling and just like a baby who
[20:06]was dropped in a church or a doctor's office. So there's a distinction between them and I named
[20:13]the book the foundling because Lily and other reasons I thought the the word really applied to
[20:19]the book. Tell me about the suitcase. So you have this suitcase take a central role in the beginning
[20:27]of the book. This beautiful whitish, off-whiteish suitcase with satin where they find a mother's
[20:33]garter that like comes out right at the beginning to the horror of the nuns and then she ends up
[20:39]packing it and bringing it with her to the asylum. I felt like that was such a great little symbol
[20:46]for the voyage we were going on as the reader, right? That here we were like getting ourselves all
[20:50]packed up and ready to go as you arrive us down this and you know getting stuck on the side and driving
[20:56]us down to this very wooded mysterious place. So tell me about that and if it was
[21:02]just a few of the symbols. You have a first person who's asked me about the suitcase and the
[21:06]suitcase to me is the most like to me. I was afraid to be too heavy handed of a kind of metaphor,
[21:12]but it's very important. So yes she has only one thing her mother ever owned and it was this very
[21:17]nice women's traveling cases they call them in those very good case. And maybe I'm glad that no one's
[21:25]asked that because I was afraid it might be too heavy handed. But I did have the nun open it and
[21:30]it I kind of wanted it to be very sexual. And so the description of the suitcase, if you read
[21:37]you'll see it might remind you of like a very feminine part of a body, but it's something you have
[21:44]sort of none is shocked by. And so sexuality and femininity is a very much a theme of this, but it's
[21:49]also Mary carries it through the whole book. She has it with her and the suitcase changes.
[21:54]Her way the way she first she thinks it's the most beautiful thing and very fancy. And then
[21:59]when she's exposed to really very very nice things by the rich doctor who takes her under her
[22:05]wing and a little bit takes advantage of Mary's motherlessness to manipulate her. But suddenly she
[22:11]starts to and this hasn't this happened to many people where when you grow up a thing you were so
[22:15]proud of then you become oh you realize it's not as amazing special and then she's almost ashamed
[22:20]of it at the end. And so there's many things. I'm so glad you know one person. And I've had a
[22:27]lot of interviews and got a lot of talks with no one. I kind of forgot about this. But it's a very
[22:32]important thing. And I so thank you for asking that question. Mary also has a very very shameful
[22:40]secret for her childhood. And I felt too that that was sort of part of like you know she's that
[22:45]you know it's all hitting that part of hiding that have to do you know her secret did have to do
[22:50]childhood sexual abuse. And so she was very much about like just like keep it inside. And it had to
[22:56]do then with like some of her decision making regarding whether she would be able to help Lillian
[23:02]her friend. And this is an exploration of female friendships. I mean she and Lillian I felt
[23:10]I wanted to show how you know especially when we're younger the way we were with our friends
[23:15]children female friends how much we love them. And then sometimes hated you know it was like this
[23:21]thing of and and it turns out you know she and Lillian share a secret and that comes you know that's
[23:28]not a spoiler. But you know that that is part of the plot. So interesting. One thing that you know as I
[23:40]referenced with the good house that I just feel like you're so good at creating a setting
[23:47]like that how do you do that like I even even the drive even like the car even like not not all
[23:57]books sort of really immerse you into such a visual sensory place like oh thank you so much
[24:06]no so I when I wrote this so I've been researching but I was finishing my last novel the children
[24:11]I had to finish that when I handed in the last draft I got my cause December not a great time to
[24:16]drive from New York state to Central Pennsylvania. Well I first drove to Scranton where the book
[24:20]begins where my grandmother grew up in the orphanage and then I drove the route she would have
[24:24]taken there. Now of course there wasn't an interstate highway I knew it would have taken her many
[24:28]hours longer than what it took me. But I really got a sense of the countryside and lot of Pennsylvania
[24:35]that part of the country hasn't changed I was just there I did some book events in Pennsylvania it
[24:38]was very emotional going back because I did research this I went back a few times to Harrisburg to
[24:44]visit state archives I went to the asylum it's closed now but it's still standing and so I you know
[24:51]I made note of what I you know of the kind of what it looked like and you know so yeah I also
[24:59]really love you know kind of gothic 19th century English novels and so I think I that kind of
[25:09]I think the description of them going there and then the kind of scary like the winding thing and
[25:15]not knowing I moved a lot as a child I had I know what it's like to leave a place and and go to a
[25:21]new place and not know it lies ahead and it's a scary thing and you know at one point like she goes
[25:26]this gate it's closed behind her and she has this moment I think I really I've had that in my
[25:31]life of you know being plucked from one place and placed in another and at those times you're very
[25:37]aware of your surroundings it's probably a primitive instinct to just so I I'm glad that you you notice
[25:45]that but yeah she she she's very I wanted her journey there to be kind of because it's she's
[25:52]she's about to her life is about to be changed very much for the better and for the worse
[25:57]wait so why did you move around a lot and where
[26:01]places you move my patterns in the army when I was little and then he just was kind of I don't know
[26:07]just very a variety of reasons we did move a lot he would change jobs and so we lived in when I was
[26:17]14 we moved to the North Shore Boston where my the goodhouse was set but before that we had moved
[26:22]about 14 times many times was when I was a baby but on this book tour I was going to Wayne
[26:27]Pennsylvania mentioned to my mother and she said oh we used to live in Wayne that's where your
[26:30]sister was born like that oh my gosh yeah it's great on a book tour because usually especially
[26:35]in the midwest or the eastern United States I can often say hey I used to live near you I did
[26:42]but um yeah so I I think that's helped me as a writer too in that I you know we moved for example
[26:49]from Racine Wisconsin to marblehead Massachusetts it couldn't be more culturally different
[26:54]but it really gave me you know when you move a lot you're prone to being bullied you know by as
[26:59]the newcomer and so it was really important to my siblings and to me to fit in so I think I really
[27:04]they became very aware of the way people talk and I think that's helped me as a writer I
[27:09]became very very because it was very important to immediately sound like the rest of the
[27:13]people under the kids yeah and then I was very aware that everybody's the same really wherever
[27:20]you go there was the cool girl there was this girl which I don't think people knew in the town
[27:23]I moved to where everyone grew up there but also um that helped me write a historical novel I know
[27:30]everyone was the same then but also that um you know I was aware I just I guess I was very much
[27:37]a person who studied the others to to fit in and it helped me as a you know probably as a writer
[27:43]to you know now I when I'm writing I'm I'm very aware of um you know the little things about
[27:50]the way people behave I you know I like to study the people I like to watch the people and then
[27:58]try to write about them so I think that helped a lot there is there is power and being an observer
[28:05]yeah I just want to fit in all I want I just want to fit in
[28:10]I think that's great characters that don't feel like they fit in or that have you know
[28:15]that are desperate to fit in and that was very much merry the main characters you know part of
[28:22]her makeup was wanting to be accepted and loved feeling not being born feeling not loved and
[28:29]trying to find love which essentially is one of those deep human instincts right where I'll just
[28:34]at the end of the day trying to find love instead it's actually like a it's a need I think it's a
[28:39]I it's something I read I mean if you don't have that you might not survive
[28:43]uh you know I think they've done studies with babies or something but yeah you have to have some
[28:48]sense of uh you know uh and you have to love you know in some way you know you have to have
[28:55]you need to nurture and nurture love might be the same thing but if you don't feel nurtured if
[28:59]you don't feel love you could be very much impaired in today's world and probably throughout
[29:04]the history of humanity well there we go we're looping all together there
[29:10]not a scholar just
[29:13]you're absolutely right um this half an hour has like flown by in two seconds I feel like I had
[29:18]a thousand impressions to get to know you better but um hopefully more to come at some point
[29:23]uh I would love to come anytime and talk to you more and um thank you so much again
[29:30]and thank you for doing this podcast I think it's really been filled such a void especially during
[29:35]COVID for for authors uh for booksellers everybody you've done a really amazing service
[29:42]and I thank you for that thank you thank you so much and congratulations on both the
[29:47]founding and the screening tonight and all the good things to come so okay bye bye thanks and
[29:55]thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget
[30:00]To follow me on Instagram at Zebioans
[30:02]and at Moms don't have time to read books.
[30:04]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[30:07]and sign up for my virtual book club
[30:08]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[30:11]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[30:14]for the Sound Editing.
[30:15]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[30:17]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.