Sloane Crosley, CULT CLASSIC: A Novel
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[1:29]Sloane Crosley is the author of cult classic a novel
[1:32]She is also the author of the novel the class and three essay collections
[1:36]Look alive out there in the New York Times bestsellers
[1:38]I was told there'd be cake and how did you get this number?
[1:41]A two-time finalist for the third reprised for American humor and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair
[1:46]She lives in New York City
[1:47]Welcome Sloane. Thank you so much for coming on momstone
[1:50]Have time to read bags to discuss cult classic and everything else
[1:54]Everything else under the sun, you know, I was actually just watching your event with Emma's job
[2:03]That you had posted on Twitter and I was like this is so cool because I remember a couple years ago before the pandemic
[2:09]I went to an event at bookstramagic with John Kenny and Courtney mom and I was in the back and there were there weren't that many
[2:15]People there and I was like I can't believe it because this is so amazing and I was like wouldn't it be great if somebody was recording
[2:21]And like no matter where you went you could just get these recordings and then I there I was on Twitter
[2:26]I was like oh see yeah, you know, no, it's all happening
[2:29]It's all happening although they you know the position as a regular old iPhone on a tripod right in front of you
[2:34]And you sort of forget that it's there and it feels very like deep state at the end when they're like way
[2:40]It's the people at home, and I'm like hello NSA
[2:43]But yeah, it was a blast. She's amazing and obviously it's done this once or twice before
[2:51]But that was the last stop at the last stop. I'm also going out to Long Island this summer
[2:56]But I'm basically the last stop on my book tours 10 cities. So it was nice. It was a nice welcome home. Are you exhausted?
[3:04]A little bit, but it's so I mean, it's so funny. It is genuinely great to see people's full bodies again
[3:10]You know, I was happy not sharing my full body, but okay, I
[3:15]I'm not shy. I don't know what they feel. I haven't asked them about their opinions about mine
[3:19]But I feel like nice to
[3:21]Interact with them to see them because also so much of whatever I
[3:24]Is at least a tempted humor
[3:26]And so doing all these events, you know, not many because I didn't have a book out
[3:30]But the events I did do over zoom throughout the pandemic like it's like reading into a green screen or something
[3:37]You know, you're like, I kind of need to know what you're laughing at or what is not funny
[3:42]I mean, David Sedare is infamously does this be like those around and is much more fluid than I am
[3:47]Workable what people don't laugh at or what they do. You can see and crossing things out and taking notes on material
[3:53]Which I don't know that much investment in my readers
[3:58]It's crazy. I just went to this preview play performance of jedi because new play between the lines
[4:04]At the second stage theater. I took like a group from of moms and have time to community people
[4:08]Anyway, the director got up at first and he was like, okay, if you don't know what a preview is
[4:13]We are all going to be listening and anything you laugh at we're going to keep and if nobody laughs
[4:18]It's out of there. So we are listening laugh at your own will, but that's what's going to happen
[4:23]That's actually an interesting social experiment
[4:27]Because it's basically saying I'm going to unwind or instinct to go to the theater and be generous
[4:33]Right or I'm going to actually make you more British
[4:36]You're going to you're going to boo it where you don't like because it'll be more helpful to me
[4:40]Yes, like but to unwind that like that like American almost curitanical politeness at like the theater
[4:46]Which we think is a big deal. Yes. That's probably hard to do. There was no booing
[4:51]There was no no booing at all
[4:53]But and I don't even after I got into it
[4:56]I forgot that I was supposed to be like actively laughing, you know as opposed to like
[5:02]Are you an active listener? Yeah, actively. Well, I was actively listening
[5:06]But I don't always like laugh out loud all the time. Yeah, I'm like, oh, that's funny. Yeah. Yeah, which is you do the LA thing where you say it's funny
[5:16]Yes, like I'm actually in LA right now. Maybe yeah, I'm doing that. Yeah. Okay. The other thing to me is very like
[5:23]That's funny, and I'm like or alternatively you could laugh. Yeah
[5:28]My husband says that to me all the time. He's like if it was funny, you would be laughing. Oh my god, you know
[5:33]I acknowledge it's funny, but maybe I don't know anyway
[5:36]Well
[5:38]But now what I want to do after watching this this morning your interview
[5:42]I want to start a podcast where everybody just like throws up the book of an audio
[5:47]Book of an audio like I want to start a podcast so that
[5:51]People can listen like I would have liked to have that on a podcast so I could have been like well
[5:54]I mean, I guess I could have done it anyway, but like what if everybody just look at an audio
[5:58]I think you audio and I'm like, it's I go
[6:02]What do you think? No, so like one day it would be like you and Emma's job
[6:06]And then the next episode would be in London and it would be you know
[6:10]Whoever well, I guess it depends on when you hit people on their sort of promotional
[6:15]Bauntlet, right? So like I feel like my LA events. I did with Judy Greer. It was really lovely who really also
[6:22]You know, I mean, she's very smart
[6:24]But because I think she doesn't normally interview authors like did her homework to a degree that most authors don't do
[6:28]She read the book twice Wow
[6:30]I can read the class to like look for for like sort of similar DNA
[6:35]She you know, it's like already read my nonfiction and I'm like oh man
[6:40]This is more work than like Salman Rushdie would do I can guarantee you
[6:43]You know for one of these events
[6:45]But like so some of them are recording some of them aren't so like if you would hit me two weeks ago
[6:49]I wouldn't have had anything to offer you in other words if you did it with other authors
[6:52]But now I have a couple of recorded events, right?
[6:55]But yeah, she was really she was really great to talk to as well
[6:58]But it's always interesting to see the different angles that people bring to those events. Yes
[7:03]You know, like I mean, I feel like Emma's obviously is going to be more like literary a little more processed based
[7:08]If you will although I was honest to a giant word for what I do like it's not an it's it's both
[7:14]But it's both too much and too little at once like I'm like process one's like
[7:19]How you would you know put together this pen and I'm like well what I do is
[7:24]You know more elevated than that but also like it's a lot of like pacing and eating cheese. So I'm like I don't know
[7:32]Process anyway, but Judy's was about like like the the roles of the different women in the book and stuff like that
[7:38]You know, she's not it's just sort of interesting
[7:42]Yeah, you should do it. You should start with a little audience
[7:45]Interest a late night cocktail house. It's like me roll it
[7:49]Yeah, I mean I wouldn't even be on it
[7:50]I would just like put the audio up for people who aren't yeah, anyway, whatever
[7:54]I'll talk about this later
[7:55]That was like a brilliant idea
[7:56]But it is you know six o'clock in LA, so maybe it's not going to seem like a good idea once I've
[8:01]No, no, I love it. I love it. How are you feeling to you? I'm good. Okay. I should I not be feeling good?
[8:10]Can you have that Corona the COVID? Oh ever didn't everybody at this point? I mean yes, I'm I'm like I had my in January
[8:17]So yeah, no, I had my in April. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good. Thank you. That's very
[8:22]Yes, I mean I could I could go through the litany of complaints about my body, but I think I'll I'll spare you the
[8:29]My favorite thing to talk about but okay, how are you feeling? What what buddy?
[8:34]My body's fine. I'm like element right now as I was telling a friend
[8:38]I was like my right hand is like weirdly a little like swollen and hurts
[8:43]and I really do think it's like probably some either like tendonitis or like a little bit of like early
[8:49]Arstio osteoarthritis or something. I don't know. I'll go to a doctor and see if you know it turns out it needs to be amputated
[8:55]But my friend is like well, you just signed all these books on book tour
[8:59]And I'm like well, that makes it sound like a very vain industry like the injury rather where there were definitely
[9:05]People on the book tour. Not that many people, but I
[9:11]Was unrelated, but it's like kind of a nice fantasy that it's this like vanity injury
[9:18]Totally. I would go with that. I would I would say you know, I'm having just like I don't know carpet
[9:24]Yeah, all the I mean it's been I heard my wrist from all the suit
[9:28]I've been boring for for people in need, you know. Yes, exactly. I sprained it
[9:37]My gosh, okay, well, let's talk about your novel for a second or classic
[9:42]I have been following you reading your works like everybody probably out there forever and just so
[9:47]Appreciating all the essays and all the work and how you can go from essays to fiction and essays to fiction and you now
[9:53]We have a novel so essays are put aside and maybe I don't know
[9:57]Just do novels require something different than cheese. I mean is there
[10:00]different. Something on the menu and you're writing a novel from an essay.
[10:03]Mostly good, mostly just fancy cheese as opposed to just like a cheddar of nonfiction.
[10:09]No, it is funny. It does feel like teams when you're like, I mean, now you're on
[10:13]how it does feel like rent over kind of like, then we'll not over. And that's actually how
[10:17]it feels almost creative. But yeah, they don't require, I mean, I think sort of nitty-gritty
[10:22]level. And this is a bit, you know, I mentioned this to Emma, so I forgive me if I am repeating myself,
[10:27]but they're very similar ways that you describe, you know, your eyes going to be your eye,
[10:32]you describe things through like a similar prison on like a prison to these nations.
[10:37]Wow, before the end. Prison writing. I didn't really feel about your job, Sloan.
[10:43]That's why I dance here. Similar prism, but where, you know, it's just your eyes going to be out,
[10:50]your eye and your, you know, your eye for detail or how you would perceive something,
[10:54]if then I have some sort of universality across it from fiction and nonfiction,
[10:59]but it's all about like what serves the character or is like, there's a little bit of ease with
[11:03]nonfiction. He's like, well, it's what serves me. It's what serves my voice. It's what's going to
[11:07]get across my experience with this thing that actually happened or this thing that I've been observing
[11:12]or, you know, my politics, whatever it is. But for fiction, it's just the basic throwing of your
[11:18]voice, right? So you can't, it's all about like making sure the jokes make sense for the
[11:23]character for the person that they move the story along, that they're not just, when you want the
[11:28]thing to be funny or you as a me as one, an entertaining, but I also want it to be funny.
[11:35]Yeah. Exactly. But you can feel like the, is this important for me or is it important for the
[11:43]characters? There's a little bit more of a selflessness in fiction, not just in the, you know,
[11:48]there's less of a vowel eye, but there is a little bit more of, I really don't like to say
[11:55]world buildings, it's such a Hollywood term, but I don't know. I mean, that is what you're doing.
[11:59]So that let's go with it. Again, I'm in LA. So we can, we can, yeah, one in Rome, you know,
[12:07]your organic is the Romans did. Maybe we should back up and you should tell listeners what
[12:13]cult classic is about. Oh, sure. Why not? We'll just keep them guessing how fun. I write,
[12:23]I mean, whatever the attention span for that now, right? Just wonder. Okay. So it's about a woman
[12:30]who is in her late 30s in New York and is engaged. She's in a serious relationship. And she's
[12:36]worked for a magazine called Modern Psychology, which is by far the least creative part of the
[12:42]book. It's definitely like basically me taking psychology today and you're twisting it. But in the
[12:47]book, it folds. And her former boss, this man named Clive, who is always sort of a cult of personality
[12:54]larger than life character has sort of transferred his manipulation talents to becoming this kind of
[13:00]psychopath guru. And he's started this club that could be a cult out of an abandoned synagogue
[13:06]on the Lower East side. And he's completely gutted it into the sort of mind control experiment
[13:12]and through combination without giving way too much of various tactics. It's a sort of a romantic
[13:19]healing place. So it gives people closure through different packages. So he's running this experiment
[13:25]on this friend and former employee, our heroine, where she steps within a five block radius of that
[13:32]building. She will run into an explosion. So he's sort of gathering all these men there. And she has
[13:37]to make this choice to go through with it or not, whether she goes ahead and does it. And it's one
[13:42]of these things where it seems very like speculative fiction and sort of outlandish. But I feel like
[13:48]the more I talk about it to other people, the more you the book has been out, the more I realize
[13:53]it's really this sort of realized 3D version of what happens if you look at your phone and you're
[13:59]looking at a text exchange from years ago that you should not be looking at. And there's even a line
[14:03]in the book at some point with it, the risk of being gross and quoting myself. There's a line at
[14:08]some point in the book where she says that she's seeing these men and going through like these old
[14:14]sort of paraphernalia of them or archives of them that she has old letters, old the Mentos, old
[14:20]text exchanges and you know it's causing these things that were supposed to be memories to become
[14:25]emotions. And you know there's still memories for them. So they're not on this even playing field.
[14:30]There's a lot about like morality and closure and just sort of a philosophical approach to romance
[14:35]in the book. But that's what it is. It's a mind control quote comedy about meets the wrong
[14:42]Okay. And dare I ask where this came from? I'm very flattered because people do ask this
[14:51]and I haven't asked it of anything else I've written. But I think it's I think it implies
[14:56]hopefully creativity or something a little bit unusual that you know, okay, I like to think that
[15:02]Brities do not always got asked that for American Psycho. But maybe not maybe people were scared
[15:08]to ask. So I feel like the general themes of the book, the general sort of an in broad
[15:15]strokes came from really avoiding writing about romance about dating about relationships and also
[15:20]about New York because New York is so threaded into my work. It's my home. I live here and I write
[15:26]on fiction. Like what do we think is going to happen? It's not going to be a bunch of stories about
[15:30]chopping wood in Utah. I wish that sounds nice. But it's not going to be that. And so
[15:35]I am always been not pigeonholed, but there's an assumption that I write about dating a certain sort
[15:41]of I mean, I don't mean shit lit, but I mean like cheekiness. Just a general, you know,
[15:47]just the way things are sort of how I'm sort of disseminated into the world that I've thought,
[15:52]okay, I'm not going to make this worse. These assumptions that I write about dating by writing about
[15:58]dating. And so I was avoiding it for like 100 essay. This thing that means so much to me that's so
[16:03]much part of my life. That's a part of even if you're married, it doesn't matter that it's like a whole
[16:07]category of everyone's life, even if there's nothing there that's a huge category, especially that.
[16:12]And so I wanted to do it, but I thought like, you know, I mean, you read all these books. I mean,
[16:18]it's these are very difficult subjects to tackle in a unique way because everybody writes
[16:22]that romance. A lot of people write about New York. And so I wanted to tackle it in a way that
[16:27]felt a little unusual. So then I just sort of had to wait like a tiny baby cobra,
[16:35]right, until I found something that felt like me to something that I was interested in. And I
[16:42]feel like, you know, I do live here. So walking around, seeing all these cool, you know,
[16:47]abandoned synagogues or synagogues that are owned only by one person or that have been changed
[16:52]to a cultural center that they've had all these lives, the churches in New York are very similar
[16:56]to. But most of them are still churches. There's something, you know, a little bit changing
[17:01]hands about synagogues. And there were a couple of them already side that I just thought,
[17:07]you know, maybe ultimately this book comes from real estate envy. Wouldn't it be cool if this
[17:11]magical insane, you know, this sort of derelict building that if you snuff into the inside,
[17:19]the way I describe it is it looks like a squared off version of the boogenheim. You know,
[17:23]wouldn't it be cool if that existed? So I think that sort of, it's like just pure sort of almost
[17:28]child like really want a role doll kind of the influence creativity, but applied to a comedy of
[17:35]manners. And so once I had them both, I think that's where it came from. But I don't remember,
[17:40]like, I think there are writers that remember writing the first line, you know, my mother died
[17:46]today or, you know, I don't remember, but I don't remember the first line for that.
[17:51]You want me to read it to you? Oh, no, no, I remember the rest of the time getting, I'm getting.
[17:56]Remember? I was like, oh, no, don't do that. I know, I don't get it. When I think of the early
[18:00]images, I think of the first time. So before she knows that there's this sort of kind of
[18:05]plan of foot to manipulate her or heroine, you know, she's just running into her next boyfriend on
[18:11]the street, which is the thing that happens. It's not remarkable, but it certainly doesn't
[18:14]only happen anywhere. And so I think of the first time she's in the sort of hip restaurant
[18:20]and leaves and runs into the first boyfriend. She passes the bar area of the restaurant,
[18:25]and there are all these sort of bespoke, cool cocktails with springs of things in them.
[18:30]And you know, and these patrons sort of attempting to shift in their chairs that are actually
[18:35]nailed down to the floor. And that is like the first thing. I know that's not how the book starts,
[18:40]but that's like, I think that might be the first thing I wrote. I love it. Yeah.
[18:44]So to get away from the book, which, you know, we're back to, but I don't believe I've spent 10
[18:50]cities talking about the book. We can talk about it. Okay, great. So you have written, and I,
[18:55]you know, I'm not as prepared as Judy, but I did go back and peruse a lot of your old essays and
[19:00]everything, including the one that one was particularly resonant to me because I'm constantly
[19:05]apologizing for things. You were one in the New York Times about why women apologized.
[19:09]Yeah. Except for British men and women. Like people aren't always apologizing for things
[19:14]as often, which I do constantly. So I'm going to work on that. So thank you for that, you know,
[19:18]you're welcome. Yeah. But, you know, all the things from being at the Vanity Fair,
[19:24]Vanity Fair writer and all your bold type columns and mad men and all your New York writing and
[19:29]just all the this voluminous collection of all of your stuff. So how did you get on this track?
[19:36]How did you become this like literary it girl sensation that you have risen to become? Where did
[19:43]it start? And like when did you know you were a writer? Right. Okay. I just have it had this
[19:48]immediate image of my of my business card saying like literary it girl. Love it with handing them out
[19:55]to people. There's no number. You know, you'll guess it if you know it.
[20:00]Okay, so it would be like literary at it girl.com.
[20:04]It girl.
[20:05]That would be funny girl.
[20:06]Yeah, well, not.
[20:08]Yeah, that's not necessarily how I self identify, but I also wouldn't look it out of bed.
[20:12]You know, I'm like, that sounds good.
[20:14]It sounds like people are reading my work and however they get to it.
[20:16]That sounds, that sounds good to me.
[20:18]But so I, well, I don't want to take you back too far.
[20:21]Like there's a dark and strong night ahead.
[20:23]I wanted to work in publishing after college very much.
[20:27]And I didn't, I wasn't really sure about being a writer.
[20:30]I kind of want to be archaeologist actually, which has weirdly some overlap.
[20:35]I was going to say there are some similarities there.
[20:37]Yeah, there are weirdly some similarities.
[20:39]The problem is the similarities and was statistics, which I was not incredibly good at.
[20:42]And so you don't have to do any of that when you're when you're writing.
[20:45]You do have to do that with the science.
[20:47]But I work for a literary agency.
[20:49]And then I moved to publicity and then one day this is how I really got started writing.
[20:55]And then one day I was 24.
[20:58]I was moving apartments and I locked myself out of two different apartments in the same day.
[21:02]Well, moving.
[21:03]So the first one, you know, I moved to box, shut the door, and you know, you know how instantly
[21:07]you're like that door, and I was not going to turn when I opened it.
[21:10]Had to call a locksmith, had to call out the same locksmith later that day.
[21:15]At the end of the day, when he was giving me my second bill, like nine hours later,
[21:20]I had this door mat that said, deja, boots, not words and backwards.
[21:23]And he points with his penny, goes, that's a funny door mat.
[21:26]And it was the first time I felt this sort of sharp relief of what the essay format
[21:31]and I felt I'm going to write about this.
[21:33]And so I did in a friend who the village boys published it.
[21:36]And so I was started publishing for the village boys from New York observer for the New York
[21:41]Times and then I started working for sort of Playboy, GQ, all these different places,
[21:45]while I was working at Random House for like 12, 10, 10 years.
[21:49]12 years total in publishing, 10 years at Random House.
[21:52]And then I published my first two books while working there, which was really crazy
[21:56]to take your sort of vacation to go on the book tour.
[21:59]I think that we got a person's game, you know, now I'm like, no way.
[22:02]And then, yeah, it just sort of took out from there, where I just sort of freelancing
[22:06]for all these different places, as well as writing.
[22:08]And then, you know, back when a great partner was running many barrier to the hot-type column
[22:13]for a little bit, which is sort of depth of what you do.
[22:16]You know, I feel like that like a lot of me, you know, that's sort of how I got my career
[22:21]as close.
[22:22]It's not a path I would necessarily, I would recommend to anyone, like, listen,
[22:27]go be a book publicist or a range other authors' tour schedules for a decade.
[22:31]And then publish a paperback original collection of essays, hope it takes off.
[22:35]Like, that's really a great, not a great path.
[22:38]But I do miss sometimes.
[22:40]I mean, I write a little bit, I write this book column for like the newly revamped
[22:44]at the purchase magazine, you know, I'll still review for the times.
[22:49]But I do miss having it be my job to force me people books.
[22:55]You know, to do it.
[22:56]And what next, what I liked about the hot-type column are different, you know,
[22:59]sort of you've got to read this.
[23:01]Now I just do it one-on-one.
[23:02]I do it in person.
[23:03]I mean, you're welcome to come help me any time.
[23:05]You can if you would like to help.
[23:07]And this is your research assistant.
[23:09]I am your girl.
[23:10]Yeah, I'll just send you my books, because you probably don't get any books of your own
[23:13]content to you.
[23:14]So I'll just go ahead.
[23:15]But it is a funny book that in terms of the lit-in girl thing, not to turn us into a therapy
[23:20]session.
[23:21]Go ahead.
[23:22]But let's do it.
[23:23]You like, bring it.
[23:24]But it is interesting.
[23:25]I think it's because there was a specific moment and I can, this I can kind of pinpoint,
[23:31]unlike, you know, the first line of a book or like how your career got started.
[23:34]You're like, I don't know.
[23:35]I'm just working hard and sleeping.
[23:38]I will say there was an instant when, for my first book came out, the New York observer
[23:44]on the cover of the art section did this huge piece that said the most popular book
[23:49]published this to New York for something like that.
[23:51]I don't know.
[23:52]I should know because it's framed somewhere in my bathroom.
[23:54]So you, Tina Brown said you should always frame your press, or how other people frame it
[23:58]really.
[23:59]But keep it in the bathroom.
[24:00]So no one thinks you're like a, like maybe maybe I heard people when I was a whole person.
[24:04]But I'm sorry, Lancer, is that I think everyone on staff is either pitching a book
[24:09]on the other side of the industry assume that everybody knew me.
[24:12]So they almost like positioned it as like our girl, like local girl makes good, which has
[24:19]been, you know, partially great, and partially like a real out of the trust at the same
[24:25]time.
[24:26]You know, but that's sort of the moment that I think changed.
[24:29]I do feel though, I mean, do you know Todd Dowdy?
[24:32]Yeah.
[24:34]Like when his, when he's told me, because I can't, I can't even get a new words
[24:38]up.
[24:39]As a book publicist, he had pitched me many clients, so I had worked with him on email for
[24:43]all that.
[24:44]And then when he had a book, I was like, oh my gosh, that's so like, I felt like this sense
[24:47]of ownership or something, right?
[24:50]Because I'm like, oh, look, you like, you went from that to this.
[24:54]And so I was so excited.
[24:55]I have a little piece of hope on and, you know, if there's like something about watching
[24:59]someone rise where you feel invested in it or something.
[25:03]I don't know.
[25:04]Because also if you're getting sent, I mean, it's emotional and it's also just a numbers
[25:09]game, right?
[25:10]You're getting sent all these books, which you are, and you have some personal connection
[25:14]or something where the name registers, you're going to have, you're like, oh, all these
[25:19]fish are going by.
[25:20]That's a different code fish.
[25:21]You just the ability to spot it and to differentiate it.
[25:25]It's very helpful.
[25:26]But I worked, I worked for vintage books, Google City, back when I had their own really
[25:29]dedicated Google City department that was pretty populated.
[25:33]And it is, I don't know what they put in the water.
[25:36]Because the traditional thing, you know, even if you watch pop culture or live in the world
[25:40]is that there's the editor that has a super novel under his or the desk, right?
[25:44]Not the publicist necessarily, but vintage publicity in the space of like five years had
[25:50]Hanyayana D'Hara, me, writer named Paul Yu, so now a teacher at Harvard, a professor
[25:57]at Harvard, and his several books, a man named Ethan Rutherford, who has a great short story
[26:02]collection called the Paroptetic Coppin.
[26:05]And even like there was a woman, there is still a woman, Jen Marshall, who is now a
[26:08]literary agent, who contributed to like this very famous anthology called The Bitch in the
[26:13]House.
[26:14]It's a crazy thing.
[26:18]And so I feel like, you know, it's not as rarefied as it seems, but of course being
[26:23]good couples that we try to make it seem rare, you know, we try to make it seem special.
[26:29]But yeah, I think that there is something nice.
[26:32]I mean, what's interesting though is that if Todd then went, you know, sort of Sally
[26:38]Ford's and had more books, I wonder, depending on what they were, I wonder if the fact
[26:45]that everybody knew him would start to, would help her hurt eventually.
[26:50]I think the first one it helps, this is just a specific sort of non-problem to have.
[26:56]The word, I mean, it's sort of silly to talk about it in such detail, but like, you know,
[27:00]the first one, it's like, like I said, local girl makes good, the same thing he felt in
[27:04]him.
[27:05]But then after a while, people, I think, are a little skittish about covering up friends,
[27:08]or they feel like because, so the same reasons they want, you know, they want to cover them
[27:13]originally.
[27:14]They thought of like, well, everyone already knows that person, because they know that person.
[27:19]Media is a very self-centered place, I don't know if you know that, but it's a really great
[27:28]and I do miss that feeling of, like, I am the lower axis, I speak for the trees, you know,
[27:34]and really promoting books in that way, you know, when I, when I quit right all time, there
[27:38]was definitely the sense of how, like, you're living the dream and I'm like, I'm
[27:43]living the dream, but like, I miss, like, finding interesting and creative ways to get
[27:48]people to cover books.
[27:49]I really, I really enjoyed it.
[27:50]Well, you know, freelance, freelance, I'll, I'll hire you, I'm like, I mean, you can just
[27:56]have me.
[27:57]I can't have the problem, I don't have you.
[28:00]What, okay, so what, do you have your next book?
[28:03]Wait, actually, I read about what your next book is held on, grief is for people, is
[28:07]that what it's called?
[28:08]It is, that is what it, it shall be called.
[28:11]And tell me I'm worried about that.
[28:12]Yeah, sure.
[28:13]So, that's interesting, you know, when you were talking about before, you know, okay,
[28:17]fiction, nonfiction, I don't know if I'm going to continue to go, you know, every other
[28:21]one, like, it's not like I'm, I'm tiling a kitchen, you know, I don't know if it will be
[28:27]that even, but yeah, the next one is, uh, grief is for people, uh, which I keep thinking
[28:32]of these two books, even though cult classic obviously has some, like, papers and darkness
[28:36]to it, and hopefully some, like, have, and this book about grief is funny.
[28:42]I do think of them as like, like the married child, and like the sullen chart.
[28:48]So, cool classic is the fun one, and then just you wait, uh, when it is about, is nonfiction,
[28:55]sort of following structurally, the kuberos five stages of grief, even though those, you
[29:01]know, are not clean, anyone who's experienced grief knows that they go, they meld into
[29:05]each other, they bleed, but for narrative purposes, they're very, very clean.
[29:11]So it's about a burglary I had, I had a robbery in late 2019, and all my jewelry was stolen,
[29:16]and it turns out that I was sort of being targeted or stomped in a certain way.
[29:21]And then a month later, my old sort of mentor and boss admitted and best friend to die
[29:27]by suicide.
[29:28]Oh, I am, and then COVID hit.
[29:31]And so, even the COVID, all of it is really, it's mostly about a wrestle, it's mostly
[29:37]about him, and our friendship, I mean, I think I was unfortunately very inspired by real
[29:43]life events for that one, but also, you know, I looked at books, obviously, like Jim
[29:49]Biddy and, but also like Truth and Beauty, so it's very much about, about that, but it's,
[29:54]yeah, it's interesting.
[29:55]I don't think for any of my books, I could be accused of identifying a market.
[30:00]Unfortunately, otherwise I would've written about Abraham Lincoln and Vampires, you know,
[30:06]and how to eat blueberries and save your life or whatever. But I feel like I, for this one,
[30:12]a little bit, you know, obviously my book about, you know, Pope Classic is not,
[30:16]oh, the world needs a book about a, like a mystery romantic comedy about my control cult.
[30:21]You know, maybe it does. But this one, I felt a little bit, and I don't know if I've succeeded or
[30:27]will succeed at this. It's not to say that. But I did feel a little bit like when I was so sad
[30:32]about all these different things, but mostly, obviously, about the suicide. Things I had to
[30:37]read were either self-help. Some of it, which is very high quality self-help, but it was still self-help,
[30:42]or like K. Jameson. If you've ever read Nightfall's Fast, is fantastic. Or obviously, the Gideon.
[30:48]And, you know, there are tons of books about grief. But there was something about how ridiculous
[30:54]I found the whole thing that I thought, I thought, I think I might be able to hit this
[30:58]from a slightly different angle. So I guess in that sense, it is like the fiction, you know,
[31:02]where you just sort of wait. You know, we all live the same,
[31:04]not the same lines, but we all are told the same, you know, top the same lessons. There are
[31:08]certain universal themes in this world. And I think you then just wait to jump if you wait for
[31:15]your entry point. And unfortunately, I was not waiting for this. Unlike the romantic comedy,
[31:21]you know, I was not thinking that this was going to happen. But it did. And then, yeah,
[31:27]it gave me an unfortunate way. But some hopefully that'll come out the end of next year or not,
[31:31]but a year after. Well, I'm very sorry about wrestle and thank you. But I am looking forward to
[31:38]reading that. And I think that's a bit good. A lot of people need right now. So I hope so.
[31:42]Yeah. Sloan, thank you. I know we were kind of all over the place this morning, but
[31:45]we're going with it. Yeah, no, it's fine. It's probably it's me. I'll talk about it in
[31:52]secure discussions. No, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. I really was great.
[31:59]Okay. All right. I hope to see you soon. Good morning. Bye. Can you do? Bye.
[32:03]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[32:07]follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign
[32:12]up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors
[32:17]on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[32:23]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.