Liz Michalski, DARLING GIRL: A Novel of Peter Pan
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[0:58]Liz Meikowski is the author of Darling Girl, a novel of Peter Pan, a former reporter and editor
[1:04]Liz lives with her family in Massachusetts. She loves reading fairy tales and sometimes writing them.
[1:10]Welcome, Liz. Thank you so much for coming and moms don't have time to read books to discuss
[1:14]Darling Girl. Thank you very much for having me. I'm very excited to be here. I'm excited to have you.
[1:20]Your novel was so special and unique and beautifully written and evocative and just
[1:27]delightful. It was really, really great and so creative. So anyway, I just wanted to get that
[1:33]out from the beginning. Thank you. Thank you. I'm squealing over here. Thank you.
[1:39]Tell listeners more about what it's about. And then I want to hear how you thought of all of this.
[1:44]Like how did you structure it? How did you come up with the ideas and how do I get some of this
[1:48]beautiful cream on my own? I would like that cream as well. So it's a really dark reimagining of
[1:57]Peter Pan. If Peter Pan was real and had kind of grown up in London. But the focus is really on
[2:05]the darling women, particularly the darling mothers. And the story came to me in a couple of different
[2:09]ways. I had a crazy dream. I've always been an insanely vivid dreamer. And I had this crazy vivid
[2:15]dream where there was this girl in Wendy Blue hooked up to all these medical devices.
[2:20]And the bottom of a stone tarot with no doors and there were boys in Peter Pan,
[2:24]green flying in and out of the windows whispering, you know, well, who will save us now?
[2:28]Who's going to take care of us when she dies? And I thought that that was very disturbing.
[2:32]So like, you know, when I woke up, I immediately read Peter Pan, which I hadn't probably read
[2:37]in 20 years. You know, I'd seen all the movies and I loved the 2003 live action
[2:43]Peter Pan film. But I hadn't read it. And so I read it. And then I was really struck by what
[2:48]a dark, really melancholy sad story it is. And so I started researching Jay in Barry's life
[2:54]because he had a really dark, sad life, which is I think where Peter Pan comes from. But I was
[3:00]really fixated on the darling women. And I, you know, kept kind of thinking about Mrs.
[3:04]Darling when she's standing at the window looking for her children. And what does she do?
[3:09]the rest of the time when they're gone and she doesn't know where they are. But also how hard is
[3:14]it for her when Peter Pan comes back? Because at the end of the original Peter Pan, he comes back
[3:18]in the spring to take Wendy on spring cleaning trips. Because, you know, she's a girl and that's all,
[3:23]you know, goes really good for it in Neverland. And how hard it must have been for Mrs.
[3:27]Darling to let her go again and again and again. But also what it was like for Wendy,
[3:32]because Jay and Barry writes that when Wendy grows to old, her daughter takes over going to
[3:38]Neverland and cleaning for him. And so when she's standing at the window, watching her daughter
[3:43]leave and what does she feel? Does she feel, you know, excitement? Is she happy for her daughter?
[3:48]Is she nervous? Is she, is she sad? Is she unvious? And so I was just really thinking about that.
[3:53]So I wrote the book. I gave it to a very good friend of mine and said, you know, could you take a look
[3:58]at it? Tell me what you think? She looked at it. And when she took it, she said, what's the
[4:01]department? So it's about Peter Pan. And I think I titled something like that, like the other
[4:05]Peter Pan in the title page. And she gave it back with three weeks later and said, here, and I
[4:10]said, well, what did you think? And she said, it's not about Peter Pan. And I was like, it's totally
[4:15]about Peter Pan. It says it's about Peter Pan. Peter Pan is all over this. And she said, now,
[4:20]it's not about Peter Pan. Take it home and figure it out. So I said what you already
[4:24]assisted us to say to people who read your work for free, which is thank you so much. And I
[4:28]took it home when I said really nasty unpleasant things about her and stuck it, you know, on my
[4:32]desk and then read it again three weeks later. And I was so crap. And I did not say crap. She's
[4:37]right. And it's not about Peter Pan. It's about motherhood. And it's about my daughter being in high
[4:44]school and getting ready to leave for college. And how hard it is to let someone go that you love
[4:50]so much, even if you know it's the right thing, you know, and how hard it is after parenting them for
[4:56]18 or 19 years and trying to keep them safe to have to open them up and let them go out into the
[5:01]world. Oh, it makes me want to cry. Just hearing your attention. Because it's so true. It's like,
[5:07]even if the kids can theoretically fly, right, and fly away, it doesn't mean it doesn't,
[5:13]you don't feel the loss. Right. It's the only job where if you do it well and everything works out,
[5:19]because sometimes even if you do do it well, it doesn't always work out. But if those two things
[5:23]align, it's the only job where there's planned obsolescence, you know, where you literally are
[5:28]putting yourself out of a job. Some say though, the job of being a mother is never done.
[5:33]Well, that's true, but it changes, you know, it really does. My few nutrition has four kids
[5:39]who are all theoretically out of the house. And she's like, there's like basically not a night where
[5:42]someone's not coming over or asking for laundry or coming to visit, you know, so I don't know,
[5:48]I feel like maybe it's not quite as clean a break as perhaps it used to be, but now, but there's
[5:53]something, I mean, there's really something different, you know, and I have a, I think I hope, I,
[5:58]you know, pray, I have a good relationship with my kids and, you know, that my daughter, my daughter
[6:02]actually came home last week and I was surprised, which filled me, but there's something really
[6:06]different because when you're little, when they're little, you're the center of their world.
[6:11]And then as they grow up, you become the sidekick. So you don't get to go on all the adventures,
[6:17]you get to hear about some of the adventures, you don't hear about all the adventures,
[6:21]but you don't have that central role anymore. And that can be really hard.
[6:29]That's true. That's very true. Part of this book, and you already alluded to sort of the darkness
[6:34]of the original Peter Pan, but there's a lot of pain in the book. There's an accident around which
[6:39]things center and how you route the family. And this is Wendy's granddaughter. And she is in a
[6:45]horrible car. Can I say this isn't a plot. Yeah. Spoiler. It's right in the beginning, but
[6:48]she's in a horrible accident up front where she loses her husband and one of her twins
[6:53]and has a leg injury for the rest of her life and magically her son, Jack heels. And it follows
[6:57]her and Jack and what it means to sort of be left behind the two of them and then dealing with
[7:04]all of that pain herself, the pain of that loss. And I mean, you, and you go into like her love
[7:09]affair with her husband for the beginning and how she fell in love. And then, and then this other,
[7:15]I won't give that away. But at this other sub plot of trying to find something else that has
[7:18]been lost suddenly, I'll just leave it at that. But there's a repeated references to this crash
[7:24]because it's such a defining moment for her, of course. Tell me about putting that in as a
[7:31]device to tell the story and why have her go through all this pain and loss, especially right up
[7:39]well, I think that, you know, it's kind of a metaphor in some ways for adulthood and for life.
[7:45]And to me, Holly, which is Wendy's granddaughter, she she comes across in the beginning as this
[7:51]very cold controlling button down her son and she wants it her way and she wants everything lined
[7:58]up and she wants everybody protected and tucked in and everything else. And she wasn't always
[8:05]like that. You know, if you look at the scenes with her husband, when she's meeting him,
[8:09]she is this respirited loving person who does things she would kill her son for. I mean, she gets
[8:16]in the car, you know, it's before cell phones because they're older. She gets in the car with
[8:20]his boy. She doesn't know. And there's nothing about and drives, you know, a couple of hours with him
[8:27]to London and his sports car. And, you know, she would kill her son.
[8:32]You know, and she winds up like they wind up, you know, buying this house kind of on a whim
[8:36]and she would never do that now. And I kind of was thinking that as parents and moms in particular
[8:43]were not the person we were when we were 16, 17, 18, 20. For most of us, by the time we have kids
[8:49]we've lived a life and things have happened that have changed just in a way we never ever could
[8:56]have seen. But, you know, moms are people too. And it's one of the interesting things to me about
[9:03]relationships with your children is even if they see you as a person, they don't necessarily see
[9:08]you as the person that you are, that you see yourself as. And they don't have access to all of
[9:14]those life experiences that have shaped you. So they never really get to know you in a way that
[9:20]your friends do who have been with you for a long time. And I was I was thinking about that a lot.
[9:24]I was thinking about how that is kind of one of the losses of motherhood because you gain all
[9:30]these wonderful things. But oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes you lose parts of yourself too.
[9:37]And there are things that you can't share with your kids about why you are the way you are.
[9:41]Or even if you do share it, it's not something that they can necessarily understand.
[9:46]So what do your kids? What do you feel your kids don't know about you? Or that's a piece of
[9:50]you that you have lost? I think that before I had kids, I was much more adventurous. You know,
[9:59]I had horses.
[10:00]I thought nothing about, you know, I remember, I remember going out on a cross-country course
[10:04]with a friend of mine and I had a beautiful huge, huge horse who, you know, would pretty much
[10:10]willingly jump anything I put in front of my, you know, I jumped way above my pay grade a lot
[10:15]of times because of that horse. I remember riding with him and I remember she had, she was older
[10:20]and she said something like, she said, are you nervous about this chorus? And I was like,
[10:23]yeah, a little bit. She said something along the lines of, you know, just wait till you have kids
[10:27]and then you're not nervous about jumping for you, you're nervous about jumping for them.
[10:31]And I had no idea what she was talking about. And I had kids, you know, five, four or five
[10:36]years later. And I was like, I remember the first time I went out to jump and I was like,
[10:41]this may not be the best idea in my life, you know, because I've got somebody at home who's,
[10:45]you know, who's depending on me. And I want to, you know, riding to massage for a little while
[10:49]after that. And then, you know, when my last horse died, I kind of stopped and I didn't stop just
[10:53]because of that. But just because of having kids or other factors too. But, you know, I think about
[10:58]some of the things that I did. And my kids, I think, see me as a very, you know, like, I'm always
[11:03]like, you know, hold hands when you cross the street, you know, you know, you keep the little ones on
[11:07]the inside and all that stuff. And they just kind of roll their eyes. And I don't think that they
[11:10]will ever see that part of me because I think it's kind of gone now. Interesting. How about, you know,
[11:15]I feel actually like they see me now pretty clearly, but not before. I feel like most of the
[11:23]pieces of me are still that they that they see. Like, I'm very open, whereas I wasn't as much
[11:28]even with my little or kids. I was like, I'm going to be in my mom role. And now I'm just like,
[11:32]hey, you guys, check out the email or come see what I'm doing or like, like, I'm very much
[11:36]involving them as if they're grown-ups more. I don't know how to say that, but I don't know. It's
[11:40]an interesting question. I don't feel like I've lost that many good things. Like, I'm good. I feel
[11:44]like things have been proved a little bit for me, but I don't know. I could be wrong. I have to ask
[11:49]my best friends about it. You depicted Jack as such a typical teenager in some ways. And of course,
[11:55]in other ways, not at all. But even when he cut school and has a party and his solidness and how
[12:03]Holly punishes him by making him like come to London with her and all of that. And I really think
[12:09]you captured the total unpredictability of the teenager teenage brain. And even how you had the
[12:16]shop keepers say, oh, I have a teenager too. Like, I totally get what you're going through. I
[12:20]know the signs or something that she said like that. So talk to me about making Jack into a
[12:25]character who not only has to carry the weight of all the things he doesn't remember, but
[12:29]just dealing with typical hormones and team years and all of that.
[12:33]I think, you know, I think all teenagers the last couple of years are dealing with things that,
[12:38]you know, I've put a lot of burden on them. I think the whole COVID situation, you know,
[12:42]and I look at it. I try and think of it as, you know, like when my grandfather was a teenager,
[12:47]you know, he wound up going off to war, which is so much worse, you know, pre cell phone. So his
[12:52]mother and his, you know, or his, I guess his wife by that time, didn't, you know, know where he was
[12:56]or when he was coming home or whatever. So like everything's perspective, but having said that,
[13:01]you know, COVID was really tough and put a lot of pressure on a lot of teens everywhere, you know,
[13:07]not being able to see your friends during, you know, really important social development times,
[13:11]you know, missing out on things that you may have looked forward to for four years, like
[13:16]graduation, proms, things like that, you know, being stuck at home all the time with your parents
[13:23]is, you know, is really tough. And I just, I think that teenagers in general today,
[13:28]just faced so much more than they did when I was a kid, even leaving COVID out of it,
[13:32]you know, there's so many scary things about the world right now. So I just kind of,
[13:37]I just tried to make that just a little bit more personal for Jack, you know, it's kind of take the
[13:42]the angst that's out there and just really drill it down to what, what was going on in his life.
[13:47]And tell me about how you got into writing. This is your second novel.
[13:53]It's my second novel. Yeah. My first novel came out around 2011. I wrote one in between that
[13:58]didn't sell and then I got the idea for darling girl, but I've always been, I've always been a writer
[14:04]and I think more than that, I've always been a storyteller. And there are times in my life
[14:09]when through various reasons I haven't been able to write, but I've always told stories. And I
[14:15]think that that's something that's just at the core of who I am. I mean, my grandparents
[14:22]weren't huge readers, but they all told fabulous, fabulous stories, you know, that I still
[14:27]treasure when I was little. I before I could read and I was a late reader. I made up a story
[14:33]for my sister that I used to tell her at night before we went to sleep and I revived that when my
[14:38]children were little and I was too tired to write. So we had kind of an ongoing serial story for a
[14:43]while. I think that storytelling is just kind of deeply intrinsic to how I see the world and how I
[14:49]make sense. Does that make you also a huge reader? It makes me a huge reader, a huge reader. And I
[14:53]I was a late reader. I can remember being in kindergarten and the teacher holding up flash cards
[14:59]for words like at the end of school year and saying something like, I'm so amazed by how many,
[15:03]you know, of them can read this. And I remember thinking, I can't read it. And it was taught.
[15:09]I remember being first grade and you know, my folks working with me and then something just
[15:14]clicked. And first book I vividly remember reading and getting lost in is the Chronicle of
[15:19]Narnia series. And I just remember being blown away by that book, by that series, and obsessively
[15:30]having to know how it ended and imagining the storyline for days and days after. And I think this
[15:36]book's really just changed my life and they changed how I saw books. And you know, ever since then,
[15:41]whenever I opened a new book, I've always been looking for that wardrobe to kind of carry me away
[15:48]to a new place. I love that. I love those works too growing up. I should have included them in my
[15:52]book. And I love that there was just, there were more like waiting after exactly the gift that it
[15:58]was like, oh, this isn't the end. The first series like binging a series down to do the year,
[16:04]something like that. The equivalent excitement. I referenced the cream just to close that loop
[16:10]for anybody who was wondering why I was referencing a cream when I first, when we first started
[16:14]chatting, you have this magic potion, essentially, which makes things all better, makes wounds
[16:21]better and makes you feel better and keeps you young and heal scars and all this magic stuff is
[16:27]that a wish. I was thinking about when I started, I was, you know, as I said, I was thinking about
[16:40]the darling women and how they essentially aged out of the job of mother of Peter Pan, that once
[16:45]they actually got to be, you know, once they actually got to be the age to be a mother, he didn't
[16:49]want them anymore. And I was thinking about the, you know, pressure in society, you know, for women
[16:54]to always look young. And so I started researching it. And I probably was like the last person in
[16:59]the world who has not watched a Kim Kardashian show, but I found out about vampire facials,
[17:05]you know, is when they take blood and they might go needle your face and they put your blood,
[17:10]your platelets on it, and it's supposed to give you kind of this rosy glow. And then I found
[17:15]this dermatologist, a doctor in Germany who will, for a fee, take your blood and spin it into
[17:22]your own skincare products so that you, you know, that's supposed to help you stay young. And then
[17:28]I started looking at some scientific research on rats where they actually took blood from young
[17:35]rats and ingested it into older rats and the older rats did much better on the cognitive tests
[17:40]and, you know, their organs look healthier and then they actually stitched the rat together,
[17:45]the older rats and the young rats. So their circulatory system was shared, which was really good
[17:49]for the old rats didn't work out. So yeah, well, for the young guys, they gave the old rats a
[17:53]good boost. And then there was actually a company in California for a while that was getting blood
[17:58]from young, healthy, paid volunteers and selling it to older people with the promise that it
[18:04]would kind of help you, you know, rejuvenate a little bit. So I just, I found that whole wormhole
[18:09]just so fascinating to go down because, you know, there's, there's, there's always been as long as
[18:14]we have been around some kind of scheme to stay young forever. And it's just fascinating now
[18:23]to see, you know, kind of the science behind some of it in our time. My fifth grade project
[18:30]for an explorer, I got Ponce de Leon and the search for the fountain of youth.
[18:36]I've been kind of, I've had that in the back of my mind ever since like how do you get there?
[18:40]Couldn't be nothing, you know, so especially as I age and it becomes more and more interesting
[18:47]of an opportunity. It makes me think about that when you talk about it, but you know, with all
[18:52]this stuff with plasma and all of the things that they're doing now and stem cells and everything,
[18:57]like who knows, maybe there will be an answer. And so we think it's crazy, you know, and it was fun
[19:02]too because darling women in my book don't really need any of the stuff because they have kind
[19:08]of a natural, they age extremely well, but it was just kind of fun to play with that trope a
[19:13]little bit about, well, you know, women are always supposed to look young and Peter Pan is the
[19:18]eternal, you know, the stories say that he won't grow up, they don't say he won't get older,
[19:23]so it was kind of fun to play with that a little bit. So the writing of this itself, I mean,
[19:29]this is very plot driven, but also the language itself is so beautiful. This must have taken forever.
[19:35]Did it take a long time? Like tell me about the process. It took a long time. So I wrote it,
[19:39]I think I wrote it in two years, which for me is kind of record breaking. And my age and I
[19:46]for my first book had parted ways. So I had sent it out to a list of new agents and I got a
[19:51]phenomenal response rate, but no offers of representation. So I thought, well, okay, this isn't
[19:57]working. So I pulled it. And.
[20:00]And I went through all the rejections.
[20:02]And the personal ones, every time they had said something
[20:04]didn't work for them, I wrote it down.
[20:06]And if it showed up more than once,
[20:07]then I went back into the book,
[20:08]and I revised that section of it.
[20:10]And then I worked with a friend of mine
[20:12]who's an editor and revised it again.
[20:15]And then revised it a couple more times.
[20:17]And then I contacted a couple of the agents
[20:19]that I had really felt to scot me.
[20:22]And I got them in my favorite one from the very first round
[20:25]said to me that they liked this,
[20:27]but that they thought that there are some other things
[20:30]that I could fix.
[20:31]So I fixed those things.
[20:32]And then we wound up together, which was lovely.
[20:34]And then I wound up doing a couple more revisions
[20:36]from there.
[20:37]The story and the language stayed the same.
[20:40]It was more kind of just smoothing out
[20:41]some of the plot points.
[20:43]And then what happened, how long did it take so?
[20:45]Oh god, it didn't take very long, which was lovely,
[20:47]which kind of surprised me too.
[20:49]But I think the credit goes completely to my agents
[20:51]because their just rock stars might ignore them.
[20:53]So sounds like the credit should go to you.
[20:55]You've worked on this so.
[20:56]It's hard.
[20:57]I mean, some people can try to sell a book
[21:00]which is basically a first draft.
[21:02]Like this is like your 50th draft.
[21:03]Like you sold the perfection, right?
[21:04]You sold as much as you could do to improve it
[21:07]with all of your own resources and people and whatever.
[21:11]But it's you who did all the work.
[21:13]I mean, it's pretty awesome.
[21:14]Thank you.
[21:15]Yeah, it definitely was a journey.
[21:16]But it's always like, I've always been the kind of writer
[21:20]and the kind of person who I think where, you know,
[21:22]there's always something that you can do
[21:25]to make something better.
[21:26]You know, and as I get older,
[21:27]I'm trying to let some of that go, you know,
[21:29]but then you read something that's just like,
[21:31]you read something that someone else has written
[21:33]that's just so mind-blowing with good.
[21:35]And you're just like, oh crap, you know, like,
[21:37]it's just always that bar, so.
[21:38]Well, that's what makes people, I think,
[21:41]keep trying even harder.
[21:42]I mean, I think it's good to have a bar.
[21:43]What if you were like the best writer
[21:45]and you never had any place to look for inspiration?
[21:47]Right, maybe you wouldn't try as hard.
[21:49]Who knows? I mean, I don't know.
[21:51]Not to say you're never much.
[21:52]That didn't come out right, but you know what I mean.
[21:54]I knew what you matched.
[21:55]Okay, okay.
[21:57]Oh my goodness.
[21:58]So are you working on a new project?
[22:00]I am. I just actually sent about 50 pages
[22:02]off to my agent yesterday, my agent's yesterday.
[22:04]So I'm hopeful my fingers across.
[22:06]It's another kind of dark retelling
[22:07]or reimagining of a fairy tale.
[22:09]You know, I think I love those kind of books.
[22:11]I read everything, but I love magical realism
[22:14]and fairy tales the best.
[22:16]And I really think it's probably
[22:17]because those were the books that first really helped me.
[22:20]You know, and there's something so almost primeval
[22:23]about fairy tales.
[22:24]It's like, it's like the warning that resides
[22:26]and you know, the very back of your head.
[22:29]All the things about, you know,
[22:30]don't trust strangers, don't walk down the dark path.
[22:33]You know, all that stuff.
[22:34]I just, I think it just resides so deeply within us
[22:37]that we're continually fascinated by it.
[22:40]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[22:42]I think, you know, read as much as you can.
[22:46]Write as much as you can
[22:47]and find a really good community of people to support you.
[22:51]It's so much more fun this time around
[22:53]because I have a great community of writer friends.
[22:57]And it's so great to share things with them,
[22:59]you know, the good stuff and the bad.
[23:01]It's just just really lovely.
[23:03]Where are you based, by the way?
[23:04]I'm in Massachusetts.
[23:05]Okay, that's nice having the whole community to rely on.
[23:09]It's wonderful.
[23:10]It really is.
[23:10]Last question you had said before we were officially recording
[23:15]that it would be a good idea for there
[23:17]to be some sort of friend gathering
[23:22]to help when we have our kids fly the nest
[23:25]or go to school or go away.
[23:27]What should we call this?
[23:29]How can we start a new shower of sorts
[23:32]for when kids go off to college
[23:35]and women really need not, women and men
[23:37]need the support system of their friends?
[23:39]Oh, that's a great question.
[23:41]I'm terrible at naming things.
[23:43]So, but you're very good at naming things.
[23:45]I'll put that right back on you.
[23:46]Okay, but I think it's true.
[23:48]I mean, I think, you know, we were talking a little bit
[23:50]before and, you know, when you're kids a little,
[23:52]that's when you have the showers and the, you know,
[23:54]what to expect books and all that.
[23:56]But we don't talk as much about when our kids are ready
[23:59]to loop the nest and how hard that can be.
[24:01]And it's, you know, it's, if having a baby kind of
[24:03]cracks your world open in one way,
[24:06]having one of your babies grow up and leave,
[24:09]cracks it open in a whole different way.
[24:12]And it may not be, you know, the physical changes
[24:14]as much, but the emotional changes are tough.
[24:16]And that's when you need the parties.
[24:17]That's when you need your friends to come over
[24:19]with, you know, a bottle of lemonade or a bottle of wine.
[24:21]And, you know, a good movie and take you on walks
[24:24]and things like that.
[24:25]Amazing.
[24:26]Well, it's a good reminder for people listening.
[24:28]And as we're recording, it's the fall season of back
[24:32]to school and all of that.
[24:33]So, for anyone out there who has a friend who's kid
[24:37]has just gone off to college or school or whatever,
[24:39]just send them a note today.
[24:41]Just say, I'm thinking of you making sure you're okay.
[24:43]It's very nice to know.
[24:44]All right, Liz, thank you so much.
[24:45]This has been really wonderful.
[24:47]So, thank you for coming on mom's time to read books.
[24:50]Thank you so much for having me.
[24:51]All right, that's it.
[24:53]Thank you.
[24:56]Thanks for listening to this episode
[24:57]of moms don't have time to read books.
[24:59]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[25:01]at ZB-O-N's and at moms don't have time to read books.
[25:04]Also, sign up for my newsletter at zB-O-N's.com
[25:07]and sign up for my virtual book club
[25:08]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[25:11]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[25:12]at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[25:15]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[25:17]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.