Lauren Belfer, ASHTON HALL: 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.
[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]Lauren Belfer is the author of Ashton Hall, a novel.
[1:01]Lauren is the New York Times bestselling author of And After the Fire,
[1:05]winner of the National Jewish Book Award, a fierce radiance, a Washington Post,
[1:10]Best Novel, an NPR, Best Mystery of the Year, and City of Light, a New York Times notable book,
[1:16]a library journal, Best Book, a main selection of the Book of the Month Club,
[1:20]and an international bestseller, Belfer attended Swarthmore College and has an MFA from Columbia.
[1:25]She lives in New York City.
[1:26]Welcome, Lauren. Thank you so much for coming on Moms.
[1:29]Don't have time to read books to discuss Ashton Hall.
[1:32]Thank you, Zibi. It's an honor to speak with you.
[1:35]And I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for all you do to bring readers and writers together.
[1:41]It's really extraordinary.
[1:43]The work that you've done and I also want to tell you how much your memoir bookends has meant to me.
[1:51]And if there are people listening who haven't had a chance to read it yet,
[1:55]I hope they'll read it very soon.
[1:57]The section about 9-11 was particularly powerful and meaningful for me.
[2:03]So I thank you for writing that.
[2:05]Oh, you're welcome.
[2:06]And doing that in addition to everything else you do.
[2:09]You're always, I think, giving to others.
[2:12]And I hope you never lose track of your gift as a writer.
[2:16]Thank you.
[2:17]Thank you very much.
[2:18]Thank you.
[2:19]Thank you.
[2:20]Thank you.
[2:21]Oh, my gosh.
[2:22]That is so nice.
[2:23]What was your 9-11 experience like?
[2:26]Was it similar?
[2:27]Well, in fact, I was at my hometown Buffalo, New York on 9-11.
[2:32]My first novel, City of Light, takes place in Buffalo in 1901.
[2:37]And it was made into a play that ran for four months at one of the theaters in Buffalo.
[2:43]And that was opening night was 9-11.
[2:46]And as it happened, I was there by myself.
[2:50]My husband and son had come up for some receptions for the opening,
[2:54]but my son had to start school.
[2:56]So they went back and, you know, everyone I knew was okay,
[3:01]but I wasn't able to reach my husband or speak to my son for a couple of days after that.
[3:07]And of course, initially, you had no idea what had happened.
[3:12]My husband had gone down to start jury duty that morning and got off the subway in lower Manhattan and saw the buildings on fire.
[3:23]And, you know, turned around and walked back up town.
[3:27]But of course, as hard as this was for me and my family, it was nothing compared to what you went through,
[3:34]using a very close friend, just horrifying. And as you say, it just vanished to thin air, finding out nothing.
[3:45]It sort of chokes me up even now to think about that.
[3:50]Well, I am, it's not about comparing, right?
[3:54]We all just have, it was an international event.
[3:57]It was a huge thing.
[3:58]It was her effect, the scale of loss and the suddenness of it.
[4:02]So it, it shouldn't be you versus me at all.
[4:05]And it was, you know, it was, we were all in it in different ways and different.
[4:10]Theres and experiences and so many people had it much worse than me for us.
[4:15]You know, it's not like that.
[4:16]It's not a sliding scale of trauma, but.
[4:19]But, you know, just to anybody feeling like they have lack of access to the people they love the most is just her effect.
[4:27]And this instance and other instances, it's, you know, it's terrifying.
[4:32]It doesn't go away.
[4:33]So, I guess to transition to your book.
[4:37]You know, there's also a lot of scary stuff and trauma in this book as well.
[4:43]Nikki, well, maybe you should tell what it's about and then I'll go into my whole thing.
[4:47]Well, Ashton Hall is the story of a mother, Hannah Larson and her young son, Nikki.
[4:55]Nikki is neuro divergent.
[4:57]And so he sees the world differently from others.
[5:01]And Hannah has given up her career to care for him.
[5:06]The book begins when Hannah and Nikki go to England to care for an aging relative who rents an apartment at a stately home.
[5:18]The Ashton Hall of the title.
[5:20]Soon after they arrive, Nikki, who is very curious and never obeys the rules.
[5:26]He goes exploring in a deserted part of the house and discovers a quite terrifying secret from the past.
[5:34]And then Hannah is caught up in unraveling that secret.
[5:39]And they Nikki and Hannah learn what it's like to live in England, a very different culture, even though we all speak the same language.
[5:47]But the emotional focus of the book really is on the relationship between Hannah and Nikki.
[5:54]I wanted to write about parenting neuro divergent kids, you know, many, many families experience neuro diversity.
[6:05]But I have found it's very seldom portrayed in fiction, particularly from a parents perspective.
[6:12]And so it was really important to me throughout the course of this book and there are a lot of themes in the book.
[6:19]And there is this exploration of the past.
[6:22]But I tried to keep the relationship between Hannah and Nikki, right at the right at the front that young Nikki, who is very difficult in some ways and so charming and so wonderful in other ways.
[6:36]To me, he's the hero of the book and his journey through the book is what really motivated me as I wrote it.
[6:46]Nikki, you know, you do it such a great job of showing all the different ways where his neuro divergence, I guess is playing out and how even in those moments, like you have a scene at the beginning with Peter.
[7:01]Right, Peter was the boy who he played with in the movie I got the name.
[7:05]But anyway, they met each other.
[7:07]Yeah, Peter, whose mom was the upper side mom.
[7:10]Right.
[7:11]So just even how something is simple as playing football spontaneously in Central Park with another boy can lead to one of his big outbursts because all of a sudden he became fixated on, you know, how many bridges or how many signs there were in Central Park and how Hannah knows it's coming.
[7:30]She can like, she feels those beginning in clings and is like bracing herself because it could go in so many different ways, including Nikki harming the other boy.
[7:39]And then in fact, throughout the book and even towards the end when Nikki does in fact, inflict a great deal of harm on himself and the mom and not to give me think away.
[7:48]But like, I mean, that scene in particular was so powerful. And what do you do when the person you love has something going on with them that it makes them hurt themselves and the ones they love, even though they don't mean it.
[8:01]What do you do with that and how do you parent your way through it, how do you navigate that and keep your love intact and yet, you know, all of that.
[8:10]You know, even Hannah at one point says like, of course, like, of course, she would put herself on the line. It's her, it's her child, like whatever he needs to do, she'll be there. So, I don't know, talk a little bit about that.
[8:23]It's very, very hard to be a parent of a child who has these issues because you always want to be there for them.
[8:32]And they do often have these swings. Now, I want to be really quick to say that I guess to begin to say that the ideas of neurodivergent, neurodiversity, those are new terms.
[8:47]And as I talk about the book, I find that a lot of people have never heard those terms before. So maybe we should say at the beginning that neurodivergent neurodiversity, those are umbrella terms.
[9:01]And they encompass autism, ADD, ADHD. And I think that neurodiversity is a really good term because no child is just one thing.
[9:14]You know, you can't, I don't think it's right to just label kids and say, oh, you know, your autism spectrum, you are ADD and limit them because kids are always evolving. Obviously, I mean, they're alive, they're growing, they're changing every day.
[9:31]And when I portrayed Nikki, I wanted to show him as a little boy, just like any other little boy, but he has these extremes of behavior when something triggers him.
[9:46]And at those moments, his life is, he kind of escapes himself. He doesn't even understand himself at those moments.
[9:55]Hannah, as his parent, as you say, she knows it's coming and she's...
[10:00]waiting for it and trying to react in the best way that she can.
[10:04]She so often feels like a failure as a parent.
[10:08]And I think one of the hardest things for parents of neuro,
[10:12]diverse kids is that they get so little support
[10:16]from the outside, from other parents.
[10:19]They're often told, well, you should just
[10:23]give that kid a slap.
[10:25]Give him a spanking, older people say that.
[10:27]Not younger people.
[10:30]You're not giving enough discipline.
[10:32]Or they go on the other side.
[10:34]And they'll say, you're too strict with him.
[10:37]Just let him do whatever he wants to do.
[10:41]And I've even heard stories of people calling the police
[10:44]when kids are losing control on the street.
[10:49]And the parents are struggling to control them.
[10:51]And bystanders can interpret that as a kind of abuse
[10:56]call the police.
[10:57]So I mean, just to say that it's very difficult,
[11:02]it's very complex.
[11:04]And I wish the world outside the parent-child relationship
[11:09]would be more forgiving and more understanding
[11:12]and give more support.
[11:14]Do you have a neuro-divergent child?
[11:16]Does this come from you?
[11:17]Or is this totally fictional?
[11:19]I don't want to violate anyone's privacy.
[11:22]So I'll just say that I know this situation
[11:27]from my own family and from my husband's family.
[11:30]And this has led me to do a lot of reading over the years
[11:34]and learn about the experiences of other parents
[11:38]to what I'm writing here comes from the heart.
[11:41]Got it.
[11:42]That will say.
[11:44]You obviously had the whole through line about Nikki
[11:47]and his many ups and downs.
[11:49]And this new remediation attempt essentially
[11:52]and in London where he does fair much better,
[11:55]especially at the start and goes through all of that
[11:59]and witnessing how he copes with loss
[12:01]and just all the triggers that can throw him off.
[12:04]But there's also, I found another very interesting
[12:07]storyline with Hannah and her husband.
[12:09]And what it means to be faithful in a marriage.
[12:12]And what monogamy looks like
[12:14]and what it means to hide your true love
[12:17]and can do relationships exist at once.
[12:19]So I don't know if you're comfortable talking about this
[12:22]or if you want to save it.
[12:23]But I found this very fascinating.
[12:25]This whole hair has been told line of argument presented
[12:30]in such an analytical way about things
[12:34]that are so completely not of the brain but of the heart.
[12:38]Right. Well, thank you for keying into that part of the novel.
[12:42]And I don't want to give away too much
[12:44]for people who haven't read it yet.
[12:47]But as you say, Hannah's husband has unusual ideas
[12:51]about what constitutes fidelity in a marriage.
[12:54]And one thing I was trying to get to there
[12:58]is that if often heard men talk about having open marriages
[13:03]and it's something that recurs throughout history,
[13:07]that men often feel entitled to an open marriage
[13:11]of one kind or another.
[13:12]But if women want to have the same,
[13:15]they're not entitled to that.
[13:17]Right.
[13:17]So no matter what the circumstances,
[13:19]no matter what genders are involved,
[13:22]what sexual orientation is involved.
[13:25]And I wanted to look at that from a woman's perspective
[13:30]and a woman who needs that marriage to support her son,
[13:35]she needs the structure of her marriage.
[13:38]But she sees that if she stays there,
[13:41]she has to be a kind of second class citizen
[13:44]that there'll be one set of rules for her husband
[13:47]and another set for her.
[13:49]And can she live with that?
[13:51]Can she balance that out?
[13:54]And in the end, she decides that she can't live
[13:59]with that inequality, with one set of rules for him
[14:02]and a different set of rules for her.
[14:03]So she takes that leap into the unknown
[14:07]of trying to raise her son on her own
[14:11]and finding out that she can do that,
[14:14]that she's better off and that if she has another
[14:18]love relationship, it's going to be one of equality.
[14:22]And hopefully one of economic equality too.
[14:26]And that's an issue I wanted to explore in the book too
[14:31]that, you know, so Hannah finds herself trapped
[14:36]in her marriage because she's given up her career
[14:39]to raise Nikki and Nikki needs her extra attention.
[14:43]And yet when there's trouble in the marriage,
[14:47]she doesn't have anything to fall back on.
[14:49]And I think so many women are encouraged
[14:54]and indeed want to give up their careers
[14:57]for the joys and rewards of taking care of their children.
[15:01]And that's wonderful.
[15:03]But I always have in the back of my mind,
[15:05]well, what happens if something goes wrong?
[15:09]And, you know, even the best divorce lawyer,
[15:13]it doesn't usually work out that the woman
[15:15]has the kind of life and support that she had before.
[15:19]And you actually, you wrote about this, you said,
[15:22]I was jolted again by my dependence on him.
[15:25]Before we got married, I'd done something stupid.
[15:27]I neglected to hire an attorney of my own
[15:29]to review the prenop drawn up by his attorney.
[15:31]I couldn't afford an attorney
[15:32]and I also couldn't conceive that Kevin and I would ever
[15:35]divorce, although I didn't remember every detail.
[15:37]I knew the agreement would limit whatever settlement
[15:40]I received.
[15:41]Then you go on and talk more about this thing.
[15:44]And you said, again, I saw how powerless I was.
[15:46]My dependence made me captive to Kevin's decisions
[15:49]on how we'd live our lives together.
[15:51]The idea of separating from him felt like
[15:53]an abyss emotional and financial.
[15:55]And yet I couldn't simply give in.
[15:57]Everything inside me rebelled against giving in.
[16:00]And then you talk more about the sort of sense
[16:02]of trapped powerlessness when it's her livelihood
[16:07]as well as her emotional outlet.
[16:10]And then what happens next?
[16:12]Even when he almost turns against her
[16:14]and critiques her parenting of Nikki,
[16:17]which is really impossible at times.
[16:20]There's almost no good way to make a difference.
[16:23]You just have to go along for the ride and do your best,
[16:26]but it's incredibly challenging.
[16:28]So anyway, putting that,
[16:31]how the financial constraints turn,
[16:34]how he turns on it, what's the expression?
[16:37]Turns out a wire is like, you know,
[16:41]how he turns so quickly when he feels threatened
[16:45]and uses that to fall back on,
[16:46]which I found particularly despicable.
[16:49]You know, I often find people on the outside
[16:52]of a situation like this.
[16:54]It's the same as I was saying with Nikki.
[16:57]You know, people will say, well, just leave him.
[17:00]You know, what, you know, why doesn't she just leave him?
[17:03]Or they give you that sort of harsh advice
[17:06]when life is so complicated for women and for wives.
[17:10]It's never that easy just to say, you know,
[17:14]you know, he's being horrible.
[17:16]Just leave him if you can't.
[17:19]I mean, once you've created a family
[17:21]and you're a meshed in it.
[17:23]And as a mom, you know, to take such responsibility
[17:27]and you know, you don't want to give up these things
[17:31]your child needs.
[17:32]So it's so, it's so, so hard.
[17:35]I think and, and again, I wish people on the outside
[17:39]would be more supportive to say,
[17:41]this is really complicated.
[17:44]You know, all these things that you're weighing.
[17:47]There are no snap judgments here.
[17:49]No quick resolutions.
[17:51]Yeah.
[17:52]So Lauren, it must have taken you a while.
[17:54]This novel has so many layers and settings and feelings
[18:00]plot twists and all that.
[18:02]Tell me about the writing of it.
[18:03]Well, I really, you know, I first got the idea
[18:06]when I was in my early 20s.
[18:09]And I received an invitation from an acquaintance
[18:13]to stay at a private apartment at a British stately home
[18:18]called Blickling Hall.
[18:20]And I don't know about you, Zippy,
[18:21]but when I was growing up,
[18:23]I worshiped all things British.
[18:25]You know, yes, I was a royal fanatic.
[18:28]The royalty exactly.
[18:30]And so when I received this invitation
[18:32]to stay at Blickling Hall, I was completely thrilled.
[18:36]And because I was staying in a private apartment,
[18:40]this is, it's still incredible to me to think about this
[18:44]when the public rooms closed for the day.
[18:47]And so the outside of the house was locked.
[18:50]There was an unlocked door in this apartment
[18:53]that led right into the public rooms
[18:57]on the magnificent library and the dining room.
[19:01]I could just wander at Will through the house.
[19:05]And I made a bit of the journey that's described there,
[19:09]you know, going through the gym doors and going into the attics
[19:13]and seeing the room filled with rolled up carpets
[19:18]and the room filled with chairs
[19:20]and having this feeling that I was walking farther
[19:23]and farther into the past.
[19:26]And I started making notes for a novel to be set there,
[19:31]but I didn't really do anything with the notes
[19:33]when I was in my early 20s.
[19:36]I think I wasn't ready probably to write the book
[19:41]that became Ashton Hall.
[19:44]I mean, then years went by and I did get married,
[19:48]had my son raised my son.
[19:50]And then one day, I guess about 10 years ago now,
[19:54]my husband received an email.
[19:56]He's an academic and he received an email
[19:58]inviting him to spend.
[20:00]and the equivalent of a semester at an institute
[20:03]at Cambridge University.
[20:05]And he said to me, oh, look, this is really this fun thing
[20:08]and invitation to go to Cambridge,
[20:10]but I'm not really interested.
[20:12]It's never something I've done.
[20:14]And I said, wait, just one minute.
[20:17]I've always wanted to live in England
[20:20]and you tell them that we're gonna do it.
[20:23]He was very skeptical, but very kindly he said,
[20:27]okay, and before you know it,
[20:29]we were packing our bags and we went to England.
[20:32]And the institute rented a cottage for us
[20:35]that was built in 1642.
[20:38]And I thought, amazing and romantic a cottage from 1642.
[20:44]And when we got there, it was barely heated.
[20:47]It was sinking into the ground.
[20:49]It was drafty, all the water from the house,
[20:52]except for the toilet, went out through a pipe
[20:56]into an open cesspool in the garden.
[20:59]And the land lady explained that it was my job
[21:02]as the woman of the house,
[21:04]to go out every morning and stir this cesspool.
[21:07]Oh, I guess.
[21:08]This was an England that I knew nothing about.
[21:11]And I also didn't know that there are cows wandering
[21:16]around Cambridge with grazing rights going back
[21:19]to the Middle Ages.
[21:21]And we had to walk across a park
[21:24]to get to the center of town.
[21:26]And there were cows all over that park.
[21:29]And it's like cows wandering freely in central park.
[21:32]It was just not what I expected.
[21:36]So on the people we met were wonderful and so kind to us
[21:40]and so welcoming and that was fantastic.
[21:44]But the actual day-to-day living was such a surprise.
[21:47]And I wanted to dramatize that too in the novel.
[21:50]So that's a strain in the book that goes through the book.
[21:53]But one day I was finishing up my third novel
[21:57]and thinking about my fourth.
[21:59]And then one day as I was wandering,
[22:01]the historic streets of Cambridge suddenly came to me
[22:06]that I could take Blickling Hall
[22:08]where I had stayed decades before
[22:11]and move it to the outskirts of Cambridge
[22:14]and then fill it with people that I cared about
[22:18]and explore its past.
[22:20]And it was kind of a moment of insight
[22:22]that everything that was gonna be in the book
[22:25]just came pouring into my mind all at once
[22:28]and I was ready to start work.
[22:30]Wow.
[22:31]And how long did it take to write?
[22:33]Oh, I guess about six years.
[22:35]Wow.
[22:36]And my books always take a really long time
[22:38]because I go down a lot of research rabbit holes
[22:42]but I also love doing the research.
[22:45]So it's always the back and forth.
[22:48]Wow.
[22:48]And because I was writing a lot of it
[22:51]during the pandemic,
[22:52]that prompted me to explore medical practice
[22:56]and the Tudor age, which, you know,
[22:59]part of the mystery of the book concerns the Tudor era.
[23:02]And it was so interesting to learn that it was women,
[23:06]particularly with upper-class women
[23:08]who took the lead on medical care at that time.
[23:11]And I really enjoyed exploring that.
[23:15]It was something that we never think of,
[23:16]that women would have taken on that role
[23:18]and had a certain responsibility in the community
[23:22]just viewing that.
[23:24]So as an accomplished novelist,
[23:27]New York Times bestselling author,
[23:28]what advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[23:31]I always have two pieces of advice
[23:33]for aspiring authors.
[23:35]You know, there's a cliche that beginning authors
[23:39]are told to write what you know.
[23:41]And I always feel it's better to write what you don't know
[23:46]but want to find out about.
[23:48]And I think it's that process of exploration,
[23:51]of finding out new things that can bring a tremendous sense
[23:56]of life and excitement to a novel.
[24:00]Now, of course, you're gonna weave in the things
[24:02]that you care about personally.
[24:04]And I always do that.
[24:06]You know, that's the emotional piece
[24:08]that I think readers can find compelling.
[24:11]But I think, you know, find a new setting
[24:14]that you want to explore.
[24:16]Put your characters into a profession
[24:18]that you don't know anything about.
[24:20]And I think that really opens doors in your mind.
[24:23]And the other piece of advice is to never give up.
[24:28]The first short story of mine
[24:30]that was ever published in a literary journal.
[24:33]And this was before the days of self publishing online.
[24:36]So my first published short story
[24:38]was rejected 42 times before it found an editor who loved it.
[24:43]And in fact, when I got back in the mail,
[24:47]a letter from this editor who loved it.
[24:50]So that's the 43rd editor.
[24:51]I thought, well, are you sure, you know,
[24:54]all of your colleagues rejected this story?
[24:56]But he seemed sure and he published it.
[25:01]And then my second short story to be published
[25:04]was did much better.
[25:05]It was rejected only 27 times.
[25:07]Oh my gosh.
[25:08]It felt like such a great success.
[25:11]It's all about managing expectations.
[25:13]Right. Wonderful.
[25:16]Lauren, thank you.
[25:17]Thank you so much for sending me your book originally.
[25:20]And I'm really glad I got to experience it
[25:23]and get to be part of Hannah's family for a little bit
[25:26]and take a tour of the English castle, if you will.
[25:29]And it was really interesting.
[25:31]So and I'm glad I got to be you at the Zibi Awards.
[25:34]Oh, the Zibi Awards were fantastic.
[25:36]So thank you for that.
[25:38]And again, thank you for all you do.
[25:40]And I really look forward to reading your next book.
[25:43]Oh, whenever you read book.
[25:46]And as I know, it takes a long time to write this.
[25:52]All right, thank you so much.
[25:53]All right.
[25:54]Take care, Lauren.
[25:55]Bye.
[25:56]Bye.
[25:58]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[26:00]to Read Books.
[26:01]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[26:04]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:06]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[26:09]and sign up for my virtual book club
[26:11]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[26:13]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[26:16]for the Sound Editing.
[26:17]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[26:19]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.