Emily Maloney, COST OF LIVING: Essays

[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now.

[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms don't have time to read books.

[0:10]It is a daily podcast 365 days a year, and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career,

[0:18]their book, their life, and more in 30 minutes or less because who has time?

[0:22]I am now an author myself, although I wasn't when I started this podcast, and you can get my new memoir,

[0:28]bookends, a memoir of love, loss, and literature, wherever books are sold starting July 1st, and my children's book prints is charming.

[0:36]You can learn more about me at zimbyones.com, but really you're here to learn more about the authors, and that is what we're going to do.

[0:43]Also be sure to check out all the other podcasts in the Zcast Podcast Network.

[0:48]You can learn more at zcastnetwork.com and definitely check out those shows as well.

[0:58]Emily Maloney is the author of Cost of Living Essays.

[1:01]Emily's work has appeared in Glamour, Virginia Quarterly Review, Best American Essays, and the American Journal of Nursing, among others.

[1:07]She has worked as a dog groomer, pastry chef, general contractor, tile setter, and catalog model, and has sold her ceramics at art fairs.

[1:14]She has twice been awarded a McDowell Fellowship.

[1:17]She lives in Evanston, Illinois, and her books include Burn This House Down, and Now Cost of Living.

[1:21]Welcome, Emily.

[1:22]Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss.

[1:26]Cost of Living Essays.

[1:28]Thank you so much for having me.

[1:29]I'm really excited to be here.

[1:31]Yes.

[1:32]This is a great cover, by the way.

[1:34]I'm in like a cover moment where I'm analyzing every cover in detail, and I just like, as soon as I saw it, I love it.

[1:42]The bright color, the medical tape, all over, I'm trying to explain it for people listening, but it's bold, but also relates to the health care.

[1:50]theme, and it's just awesome.

[1:53]Don't you aren't you happy?

[1:54]I love it.

[1:55]I was so lucky to get a great cover.

[1:57]And I just thought, I don't know.

[2:00]They sent me one version, and that was it.

[2:04]And I've heard so many, you know, horror stories from people who had had disastrous experiences with their covers, and I just feel really, really lucky.

[2:12]That's awesome.

[2:13]Well, why don't you tell listeners a little about what your collection of essays is about for sure.

[2:26]So I was a diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder.

[2:33]And the book is about being diagnosed and treated for an illness that I turned out not to have, and accumulating a lot of medical debt.

[2:41]And then my efforts to pay off that debt working as an EMT and ER tech, and then later in the pharmaceutical industry.

[2:49]And it's about how the American healthcare system is broken at every single level.

[2:55]Unfortunately, it's interesting.

[2:58]The experience of the pandemic for a lot of people has sort of brought that to light, but it's been broken for a really long time.

[3:05]It's just we haven't necessarily been paying attention.

[3:08]I had never had this insight and sort of insider view into ER life and all of that.

[3:16]And when you were cataloging how you had to account for each suture or each everything.

[3:23]And it affected what the treatment team did based on what you had to use to do effective treatment.

[3:30]I mean, breaking it down like that was pretty horrifying to read about to be honest.

[3:35]I mean, I know it's a business, right?

[3:37]I don't know.

[3:38]It shouldn't be a business, but it is.

[3:40]And that's, you know, we're just at the mercy of whoever is building us essentially.

[3:47]And the corporations that are behind that.

[3:50]And that's really what's truly, I think, good fortune in all of this is people aren't getting the care that they need.

[3:56]Or if they do, it's coming at great expense.

[3:58]The really interesting part.

[4:00]I mean, a lot of the stuff is interesting.

[4:02]Well, let me back up.

[4:04]You wrote about, and I should change my tone as I'm like, I'll cavalierly talking about, you know, your suicide attempt or whatever.

[4:12]So let me, let me try to titrate myself a little more probably is it's not funny at all, but very heartbreaking and sad.

[4:19]But you write about that.

[4:20]And then the aftermath of that and how not only did that happen for you, but it led to this hole that you could not pull yourself out of in terms of debt.

[4:31]Just to cover the cost of that.

[4:34]And interestingly, and I hope it's not giving anything away.

[4:37]If I can say, and if not, I'll delete this that over time so much time in a lab that actually you found out you didn't even have to keep paying.

[4:45]But yeah, which I couldn't believe.

[4:47]I was like, what?

[4:49]Apparently, it's beyond the statute of limitations, but the, the actual legislation there's new legislation that has changed this truth just in the last few months that basically now you can't go into it.

[5:05]They won't report medical debt on your credit report moving forward.

[5:10]But not everyone knows this and people will just try and get away with what they can in terms of collection agencies and in terms of, you know, hospital billing.

[5:21]But that, yeah, that it was, it was sort of remarkable that I had been paying all of this money to a debt that was no longer legally collectible.

[5:31]And real.

[5:32]Too bad you couldn't like go back and get it back.

[5:34]Right.

[5:35]Yeah, I can do so many things with that.

[5:39]Well, you, you shared a lot about yourself and your family and I really appreciate that vulnerability and honesty in the way that you did it.

[5:48]I was hoping you could talk a little more about your parents.

[5:51]You wrote my father had grown up in conditions that were best described as extraordinary poverty and abuse and so imbued in him was both a frantic urge to make a lot of money and the tendency to spend it all before anyone else did.

[6:04]That was how we operated in a constant turn of being flush with money and then broke it.

[6:09]Tell me a little more about growing up and your parents.

[6:13]Yeah, no, I mean, I, I, my parents are remarkable people in a lot of different ways in that they were sort of the, the first people in their families to, you know, graduate from college and be able to sort of make something of themselves in the world.

[6:30]I think that they were weighed down by their own traumatic histories.

[6:37]And so that made the discussion of money, you know, I both had a significant education in money and also there were some gaping plot holes.

[6:48]So, you know, on one hand, I had a, I got a checking account when I was very young and credit card and I was taught how to use these things.

[6:57]But on the other hand, I didn't feel like I had enough money to pay for the things that they said I needed to pay for out of that checking account or whatnot.

[7:07]And then eventually that money just stopped coming in and so I had to sort of scramble and figure out what I needed to do.

[7:13]But, you know, I think, you know, with my parents, they were sort of, you know, like, like most people in the book, I think, you know, everybody's trying to do the best they can with the resources they have.

[7:25]And sometimes with my parents, that could be muddy, the discussion of money and our relationship to it.

[7:35]But, you know, I originally when I when I wrote this book, my editor said, you know, I had not included my parents as much.

[7:43]And to the degree that I did, it was just just a little bit.

[7:46]But my editor said, well, you know, I don't understand you grew up in like forest Illinois, which is like a really affluent suburb.

[7:53]Why didn't your family help you with this crippling medical debt.

[7:57]And I'm like, ah, I have to answer that question.

[8:00]And so I did.

[8:02]But definitely, it's, it can be a frock topic, a little bit of a minefield for sure.

[8:09]Crazy.

[8:10]So what do you having done this really deep dive into medical industry and finances and this whole sort of economy around healthcare and everything.

[8:22]Where do you fall on it today, like what what is your, where do you hope it goes, like what are you hoping to change.

[8:31]And how do you feel in general, maybe that's too big a question. No, no, absolutely. I, I feel like we're in a crisis point.

[8:40]We, like I said, made worse by the pandemic. And so I think that the only way to go forward is a single pair healthcare program, whether that's Medicare for all or some other, you know, government regulated healthcare industry.

[8:56]I think health and change should be legal.

[8:59]A lot of people work in that field and with the amount of bureaucracy that inevitably come from Medicare for all, or something along those lines, I do feel that there are other routes toward employment.

[9:14]But I do think that we're at a really, really important point where, you know, we could make a change if we wanted.

[9:24]And if, if we could just influence lobbyists.

[9:28]Maybe we could actually, you know, make that change. I'm not sure how, how realistic it is at this very moment, but I maintain it being hopeful.

[9:38]Do you feel that any other countries totally have it right. I guess they're one country you look to and you're like, if only we had a system like blah, blah, blah.

[9:46]I mean, I think that they all have their pluses and minuses.

[9:50]But I do think that, you know, for everything that people complain about who are who use the NHS in the UK.

[9:59]It's not.

[10:00]bad way to go. A lot of those things are covered. The other thing in the United States that's really

[10:04]sort of remarkable is that we have this incredible shortage of physicians.

[10:08]So there's just not enough residency spots. And so people who go to medical school

[10:13]who complete their medical degree who pass their exams are still not matching into

[10:19]U.S.-based residencies. And I think that's sort of incredible that we're at this point where

[10:26]we have a shortage of physicians and we just don't have enough residency spots to get those

[10:30]people trained. So that's another thing that I think we need to really open up in order to...

[10:36]There was like a huge, I'm not sure when this episode is coming out, sorry, but

[10:40]this is mid-May as we're talking. And there was just a huge article this week about the shortage

[10:45]of doctors and what we're going to do about it and some picture of, you know, ER room struggling

[10:50]or operating rooms rather, you know, struggling not enough hands-on deck. Like, and I literally

[10:55]said to my husband, I was like, oh great, now we're out of doctors. You know, it's like, what else?

[10:59]Like, what else could go on? Yeah, we're out of doctors and we're out of nurses because so many

[11:05]have left as a result of being totally burned out with the pandemic, you know, and also the fact that,

[11:12]you know, recently there was this cap on travel nursing pay. So a lot of nurses who had come

[11:20]back out of retirement to work these travel contracts, they don't think it's worth it

[11:27]unless they're making good money. And so that's a delicate balance too.

[11:32]You know, it's not so dissimilar to the veteran situation we have, right? Everybody is

[11:39]applauding, right? We were all banging on whatever. I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't like in the

[11:44]city at the time. But anyway, people are banging as people, you know, there was so much collective

[11:49]goodwill towards doctors and nurses that they were the heroes. Everybody still believes this

[11:54]truly that they were the heroes of the pandemic and literally saved as many lives as humanly

[12:00]possible for the manpower that they had. And and now two years later, it's not that people don't

[12:05]feel like that. But of course, now life is slowly going back to normal. And are we still giving

[12:11]nurses and doctors enough credit? I mean, there used to be signs and people's lawns like,

[12:15]thank you doctors, thank you nurses. So what happens after? Like, how do you then just go back

[12:20]to normal life for those people who were on the front lines? And how do we as a society

[12:26]correctly or not correctly, but adequately reward them for that? I mean, we can't just be like,

[12:31]okay, thanks. That was awesome. Like moving on. Great job. Great job, even. I hope you're

[12:36]around for the next time. You know, right, right. Stay tuned. Stay tuned for the next pandemic.

[12:41]Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's I think it's a it's a serious problem because these folks are

[12:47]really burned out. Of course, also, there's a shortage of therapists right now. So there's not

[12:52]enough therapists to provide care to be not enough physicians and nurses and other healthcare

[12:59]staffing personnel to provide care to patients. So in the end, everyone suffers, unfortunately,

[13:07]I hate to be like, you know, well, you know, it's terrible, but it really is. It's, you know,

[13:13]we're at a, we're at a serious sort of crux where we could go one way or another. Hopefully,

[13:21]we rise to the occasion, but if not, it's going to be in a difficult few years for sure.

[13:27]Okay. Well, thank you for, um, sorry, like so often. At least it justifies my chronic anxiety

[13:36]about everything. Like, you know, it's true. It's true. Like, you come by it honestly. We all do

[13:41]now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a reason. It's not, I'm not manufacturing these things. No, no,

[13:46]absolutely not. No, we're at a, we're at a significant crisis point. So many needs to do something

[13:52]about it. Um, like, it's a, do you think there is anything that the layperson can do?

[13:58]I mean, I, I, I joke that the friendship really good at protesting, you know, like if something

[14:04]goes wrong in, in, in French healthcare or in French society, like people turn out into the streets

[14:10]and set cars on fire. And I, I just, I, I know that we are not, we are not that, we are at

[14:17]the pandemic. But, you know, I think there is like an apathy on the part of Americans when it

[14:26]comes to protests and attending protests and participating in protests. Um, and that can be

[14:33]another sort of roadblock for folks who don't know how to get involved in something or don't know

[14:38]maybe what the best way to go about getting involved would be, um, you know, obviously the,

[14:45]the more politically correct thing to say as well, you know, you have to vote for people to,

[14:50]who will get into office, who will make these changes. Um, but it's a little bit more complicated

[14:55]than that because of the lobbying power of the insurance companies. Okay. Well, let's switch gears

[15:00]because this is depressing for me. I'm sorry. That's okay. That's all right. Um, the writing of this

[15:06]book. Tell me about that. What was it like for you to write this book? When did you know you want

[15:10]to write this book? Tell me the backstory and, and how it all played out. I was working in the ER

[15:15]and I had sort of taken a break from college. I kept sort of owing money to the university running

[15:22]out of money and then dropping out again and then trying to get back in. Um, and this was during

[15:27]one of those breaks. And so I started a job in the ER and then at nights, I would come home and

[15:34]write about all the crazy things I'd seen that day. And this was back in 2008. So it took a really

[15:40]long time for me to sort of figure out how to write, how to learn how to write, how to do the writing,

[15:47]and I think that that was something that it took many, many years because I, I eventually

[15:53]attended an MFA program that I graduated from. Um, but, and that's where a lot of these essays

[16:00]sort of coalesced. And then after that, uh, it was sold and then I rewrote it three times.

[16:07]I wrote it as an essay collection that I wrote it as a memoir and then I wrote it back as an essay

[16:11]collection. Um, so it definitely took a significant portion of my life, probably like the last 15

[16:18]years or so. Um, I'm hoping that with my next book, I can do this a little faster. Um, but that

[16:26]was something that, you know, I, I realized I, I actually had a book, um, probably not honestly until,

[16:33]um, you know, I thought of it as a book. Um, when I submitted it as my thesis because this was

[16:38]really my graduate thesis for, for my, um, Master's to Fine Arts program, but I didn't know

[16:44]exactly how it would really sort of coalesce until much later. So when I was, I guess I was on

[16:51]assignment. This is, this is the story of the, uh, the title essay cost of living. Yeah,

[16:56]it was on assignment for VQR for the Virginia quarterly review. And I had pitched them this great

[17:02]story about West Virginia EMTs and what they're doing and how they provide care. And it was

[17:06]going to be deeply researched and reported. And I was going to go out with these guys and like

[17:11]find out what their world looked like. And I had a problem with my source, the story just sort of

[17:17]crumbled before my eyes. And I, you know, my editor and I said, um, the story is dead. But do you

[17:25]want something from my MFA thesis? And I attached this part of the essay. And I said, please take it,

[17:32]please take it. Um, uh, I don't know. Maybe you're interested. This is kind of nuts. I've never done

[17:37]anything like this before. Um, and he emailed back and said, I think we can do something with this

[17:43]and that became the title essay. It had a terrible title at the time. It was like the cost of

[17:48]suffering or something like that. The original title for my MFA thesis was amputation for the greater

[17:54]good, which, well, I, I just wrong, wrong in so many ways. Wrong in so many ways. Darkness to

[18:02]be very, very dark, very dark. So I just thought, no, that's not going to work. But basically,

[18:07]we worked on it. And then it was, it was in Virginia quarterly review. And then got picked up by

[18:13]Best American essays and after that, I thought, oh, actually, I can organize the book around this

[18:18]and actually the title of the book should be possible. So it took me a while. But I figured it

[18:24]out eventually. Well, I love it because cost of living has, you know, so many different meanings.

[18:30]But you literally were calculating what you would have to pay just for them having saved your

[18:36]life at this one point. Right. And so it's an actual number, but obviously, of course, it's much

[18:41]more than that. So I love those multiple meaning titles and all of that. Um, but that's really,

[18:48]that's a funny origin story for the book. What are you working on now that might or might not take

[18:54]you 15 years? Oh, gosh. So, um, I am, I have a new book under contract. It's called Burn This House

[19:02]Down. And it's also incredibly depressing. My, my brother a few years ago, burned my parents'

[19:11]house to the ground and was booked for felony arson has no remorse for what he did. And sort of

[19:18]what came out of that was he was eventually diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder,

[19:23]which is what people use to refer to people who are sociopathic or psychopathic. That's like the

[19:30]sort of the DSM diagnosis for those, those folks. Um, and so I'm using my own story, my own

[19:37]family story as a jumping off point to talk about some of these larger issues about how we

[19:41]both celebrate and fail white male psychopaths in particular in TV and film and popular culture.

[19:49]So it's, uh, even less uplifting, but hopefully also still a little funny in a sardonic way

[19:56]than, than constantly doing.

[20:00]I also have like other other projects that are in the pipeline. I'm working on a, I have a horse book, which is, I think, a little less dark.

[20:11]I think.

[20:14]No, no, no, no, it's like it's like it's like, it's like seabiscuit meets the boys in the boat. It's like, it's like a, it's like a long history.

[20:27]Okay. I was involved with horses and growing up around that culture. And so it offers me an opportunity to sort of pull back the curtain on a subculture that otherwise people don't necessarily know about most they are a part of that culture.

[20:46]But that's, that's another project that I am going so like we'll see what rises to the surface. You know, there is a book with a similar title by Gina Frangelo.

[20:56]Yes, yes, you know what I'm talking about blow this house down. Oh, yeah, blow this house down. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if it's, no, it's not in this room. It's in the other room. It was really good.

[21:05]Um, it's fantastic. Yeah, no, she's a Chicago person. So we're, we, I see her at readings and stuff.

[21:13]Well, you're in Chicago now. I'm in Evanston. So I'm just outside the city.

[21:19]My mom went to Northwestern. Cool. Cool.

[21:23]Awesome. Okay. So what advice do you have to aspiring authors?

[21:28]Um, good question. It's a long road, but you just have to keep working. I think that's that, I think that's the sort of single piece of advice I can give to people.

[21:38]Also, I think there's a lot of talk on the internet and in, I don't know, just various communities classes, etc, about how you can write, you know, you have to write a certain kind of way or that you have to put together things in a particular fashion.

[21:56]But like, I don't know if that's really true. You know, you, you, you live in a world where, you know, it's, it's your lived experience, your, your experiences may be weird or different than other people's experiences and so you can write about those.

[22:09]And I think that that is really remarkable.

[22:13]I have nonverbal learning disability, which is the developmental disability similar to autism. And the way I see the world is, is apparently really different from the way that other people see the world.

[22:23]And so, I've seen that manifested in, in responses to this book, but also just, I'm sort of wired for sound.

[22:30]And so I know that like if you're, you know, if you're wired for sound or if you're wired for a visual experience, you know, if you're sensitive to visual imagery or if you're, you know, if you, if you're someone who needs to write by hand, you might write by hand.

[22:45]And there's no, you know, sort of wrong way to do this. You just have to do it works for you.

[22:51]Maybe even try to get a diagnosis. So, you know, what's going on with yourself.

[22:55]And then you will. I mean, if yeah, if that, if that helps.

[22:58]If that helps.

[22:59]It helps.

[23:00]It's always good to know.

[23:01]For a little, you know, it can be helpful sometimes, but unlike in your book where you were misdiagnosed for so long.

[23:07]So, I guess that comes with, comes with, you know, double-edged sword in that advice as well.

[23:13]But anyway.

[23:14]Okay. Thank you, Emily. I am excited and yet scared to read your next book.

[23:20]I will brace myself.

[23:23]And thank you so much. This was really thought provoking and very important book.

[23:28]So, I'm happy to have read it and to have a new arsenal of knowledge about the healthcare industry.

[23:35]Thanks for having me.

[23:36]Everything.

[23:37]Okay.

[23:38]All right.

[23:39]All right. Thanks a lot.

[23:40]Bye.

[23:41]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

[23:46]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

[23:51]Also, sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.

[23:58]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan Beck, Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.

[24:02]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.