James Patterson and Mike Lupica, THE HOUSE OF WOLVES
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[0:54]Mike lupika and James Patterson are the co-authors of the House of Wolves
[1:03]James Patterson was on this podcast already for his amazing memoir and
[1:09]He is the world's best selling author
[1:12]Did you hear that the world's best selling author among his creations are Alex Cross
[1:17]The women's murder club Michael Bennett and maximum ride his number one best-selling nonfiction includes walk in my combat boots
[1:24]Filthy rich and his autobiography James Patterson by James Patterson
[1:28]He has collaborated on novels with Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton and his one in Edgar award nine and the awards and the National
[1:35]Humanities Medal
[1:36]Mike lupika is a veteran sports columnist spending most of his career with the New York Daily News
[1:41]And he is now a member of the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame for three decades
[1:47]He was a panelist on ESPN's the sports reporters
[1:50]Which by the way my husband Kyle used to watch all the time and thinks this is the coolest thing ever as a novelist
[1:56]He has written 17 New York Times best sellers the most recent of which was the horse woman his first collaboration with James Patterson
[2:04]Welcome Jimmy and Nikki
[2:07]Welcome Jim and Mike to monster and have time to read books. Thank you for coming on to discuss the House of Wolves
[2:13]Can you please tell listeners what this book is about Mike? What is this one about? Anyways, do you remember?
[2:20]I do remember it's it's first of all it's about another great
[2:25]woman character from the the firm of Patterson and lupika
[2:30]A young woman named Jenny Wolf who is Jim. I don't think this spoils any to say she's not supposed to
[2:37]inherit the family empire and newspapers and a
[2:41]San Francisco public team, but she does much to the unhappiness the extreme unhappiness of her three brothers
[2:49]Who all thought they were the boy princes who were gonna grow up to be king and it didn't quite work out that way
[2:57]Yeah, I think a lot of I do anyone. I think Mike and I both don't think a lot of people like you sort of family saga things whether it's
[3:04]Succession or Yellowstone or the Corleones and that's what this is and this family they don't get along
[3:11]They were they were brought up to eat one another by their father who's just tough
[3:16]unpleasant but humorous guy and
[3:21]We had the toughest focus group of all because we gave it out to
[3:26]Well, like my wife Sue who who thought it was the best book I've ever dealt with and then and then Mike had a jerk
[3:32]You had different to folks reading it. What had a day respond? Zibi
[3:37]I've got a lot of smart women in my life as Jim does with Sue and my daughter and my wife
[3:44]love this book and
[3:46]so did my mother-in-law and
[3:48]and and and and Zibi it's it's brought
[3:52]It's brought me and my mother-in-law closer together. Is that fair to say Jim?
[3:56]That's nice. That's a beautiful thing
[3:58]Is that a good thing or is that nice? No, it's a good thing. She couldn't put it down. She read it in a day and a half
[4:05]I told Jim this and
[4:08]You have to understand my daughter is a rider. She's a show jumper
[4:11]So the horse woman came out of that world and came out of her life a lot of me
[4:16]It was a book that we wrote as well. Mike and I yeah, and
[4:19]My daughter Hannah likes house of wolves much better than she liked the horse one interesting
[4:26]Well, I think the reason all the smart women like this book is because it's about a really smart woman who is really
[4:33]Streading her stuff. It actually reminded me. I don't know if you remember them if you wild cats from the 1980s
[4:37]Do you remember that movie with Goldie on where she coached?
[4:40]She's like the track coach and that's how I sort of envisioned her Jenny with her high school team
[4:46]Sort of on the field and commanding at the end of wild cats once she's commanded all this respect from the team
[4:51]And then how she can definitely go and just like sit there on the 40 yard line and call all the shots and have such great
[4:57]Commandable family Jenny just refuses to be part of it. They're there. They must be a one of the most powerful families in California
[5:04]She just can't stand it and she just goes off and she she teaches at a high school in San Francisco and winds up
[5:12]Also coaching the football team their private school
[5:15]And she loves the sport and loves love's history as well
[5:19]But she is unusual and and her father believes that she knows more about about football and life than than any of any of his sons who he doesn't really care for so
[5:29]That's how Jenny becomes I think the star of the story
[5:33]And it's not just that they don't get along like they have little squabbles that most families might have
[5:37]I mean, they are literally like out for each other in a big big way and you know, you feel
[5:42]I felt like very protective of Jenny from the beginning, you know, like I knew she could take care of herself
[5:47]But still, you know get those guys away
[5:50]Zimmy Jim referenced the Corleons
[5:53]before compared to the wolf family in our book
[5:56]The Corleons are like a musical comedy
[6:03]The wolves, you know, the killer be killed wolves or wolves are are much
[6:09]Topper than that and and Jim's right, you know, there is a yellowstone field of this
[6:14]There is a succession field list
[6:16]But the thing that we love the most is
[6:19]Then it's all operates around this fabulous
[6:22]Jenny is a fabulous character and I just believe that
[6:27]Men or women are going to a root like how for yes, yeah, I mean not to be self-serving here, which we're being but
[6:34]But we do think that this is this is accurate, you know, what what we talk, you know in terms of Jenny
[6:41]And and one of the things about it has to do with the dialogue a lot of witches is Mike
[6:46]Is there's a lot of funny there's not a funny lines in this in the book
[6:50]I mean the way they go at each other they're very they're they're not stupid people
[6:54]They're just, you know sick in the head a little bit
[6:57]But they go at each other in very very, you know kind of mean-spirited, but fun
[7:02]The other thing about it is it's one of these
[7:04]I think this happens to me anyway when I watch succession or yell at some of those is I go like you know
[7:09]I thought my family was kind of crazy, but they're really not so bad, you know
[7:14]We're assuming when when Hannah Lupika finished reading the book. I got a text for her and she said
[7:20]Oh, now you tell me it's okay to punch my brothers
[7:27]Right, yeah, sort of the the ultimate act of condoning sibling rivalry or perhaps not
[7:33]We celebrate we celebrate
[7:36]We we we elevate sibling rivalries to an art form in this book and I think
[7:43]The intertwining relationships will surprise you
[7:47]You know the reader as as we go because
[7:50]Mr. Patterson has told me from the time we first sat down with each other that when he's writing a book
[7:56]He imagines that there's one person sitting across the table from him and he does not want that person to get up
[8:04]Until we finish the story. That's right. By the way, Mike
[8:06]I don't know if you're aware of it. We were talking about it before
[8:09]But Zebbi is is now opening the bookstore
[8:12]In Santa Monica on Santa Monica whatever in Santa Monica gonna be open in February, which is very cool
[8:19]And so we hope that there's room for our house of Wilson and the and the book store
[8:23]It will be room. Well said we'll send a bunch, you know
[8:26]Oh, Zebbi Zebbi I am coming out to
[8:31]Santa Monica
[8:32]To visit my youngest son in late February. Oh perfect. Oh perfect works. He works
[8:40]On Abbot Kenny and so I am stopping by for sure. Oh my gosh. Stop by if you want
[8:46]We'll have an event for you. It'll be one of our first if you're interested
[8:50]I think I think I think we can raise that sure. I think I don't know. Well, that's great. And maybe your son wants to work part time in our books
[9:02]Corn inside the book in the bookstore, which maybe maybe that
[9:07]He can play tennis with my husband who plays all the time and uh, you know
[9:11]We'll get him all set up. I like how you have Jenny's relationship with her ex-husband
[9:16]Who is the cool the quarterback of the team and how she she wants to trust him and yet of course
[9:23]He keeps like disappointing her in very big ways
[9:26]And sort of that hopeful spirit that she brought to it at the beginning in particular and
[9:32]Then having to come and be the boss really, which is really I mean this whole badass
[9:37]Which you have in the book in a very funny way. I mean really is the key to to Jenny's
[9:43]Whole demeanor. So tell me about how did you even
[9:47]Craft her and how did you do it together where you're coming up with this amazing character and her brothers and all the other supporting
[9:53]Well, you know, I never as I've told you before
[9:57]So to be I don't like to you know, it's like asking
[10:00]in the people of Coca-Cola for the secret formula.
[10:03]But since it's you and O say can.
[10:08]So Mike, what Mike and I do is we'll alternate words.
[10:12]So if for the song, O say, can you see by the dawns?
[10:17]Early light.
[10:18]Like we just wrote that today by the way.
[10:20]Yeah, yeah.
[10:21]That's a song that we just wrote and, you know,
[10:24]we go back and forth a lot, which is nice.
[10:26]It's actually a nice friendship
[10:28]and has evolved that of the whole thing
[10:30]where we've been writing together for a couple of years now,
[10:34]I think.
[10:34]Yeah.
[10:36]So we do go back and forth a lot.
[10:39]What about what about what about, you know,
[10:42]it ended this way?
[10:43]What if it ends this way?
[10:44]And that sort of changes everything.
[10:45]Or we thought this was going to happen.
[10:47]Or one of the brothers may or may not survive the book.
[10:51]So, you know, whatever, maybe I'm not going to reveal that here.
[10:54]But, yeah.
[10:57]Zibi, let me tell you something.
[10:59]Most days, this will be an exchange at some point
[11:04]from one of us, OK, I promise this is my last call today.
[11:07]But what if at the end of chapter 35, instead of doing that,
[11:12]we do that and then I'll hang up or Jim will hang up
[11:16]in about 15 minutes later?
[11:19]OK, I said that was the last phone call.
[11:21]But we've got just one more.
[11:23]What did you say?
[11:24]I just, we called, we were talking earlier about something.
[11:27]And then we talked and talked.
[11:30]And then Mike said something.
[11:31]And then about a minute later, I called back.
[11:33]And I said, I will not be able to unhear that.
[11:40]I feel.
[11:41]Jim, when we played golf, we didn't know this for a while.
[11:45]But when we played golf, the Caddies and one of the places
[11:47]were they referred to being in our group as the show.
[11:52]I did not know this time ran into one of them out
[11:54]on Eastern Long Island this summer.
[11:56]He says, well, you know, we call it the show.
[11:58]And I said, well, I can see how you might think that way.
[12:02]But that's just our relationship laid bare around bad golf shots.
[12:08]Yeah.
[12:09]But I think that's why I would ever fund the reason.
[12:12]I think there's a lot of, I mean, obviously it's not a comedy.
[12:14]But there is a lot of comedic and a lot of twists and turns.
[12:20]You know, the other thing I was thinking about this
[12:22]before we got on the call.
[12:24]And like right now, the Christmas season coming up,
[12:27]holiday season, whatever people want to call it.
[12:30]And I always like to have a couple of,
[12:33]and I do like, I like a lot of other kinds.
[12:35]But I do like to have a thriller or two.
[12:37]And Mike and I have gone through this.
[12:39]There's nothing out there right now.
[12:41]And there are a lot of good books out
[12:43]on a lot of different things.
[12:45]But this is its own category, this sort of page-turner thing
[12:49]which you really can't put down.
[12:51]And I don't know what's gonna happen in February,
[12:53]but there's nothing out there right now.
[12:56]The, the Grisham's pretty good.
[12:58]And I got an Alice across, which is reasonably good.
[13:02]But I mean, and some writers that Mike and I both like a lot.
[13:06]And it's just not there.
[13:08]And that's, that's not unusual.
[13:10]So for people that like to escape, like, I mean,
[13:12]the whole, the idea of your, of the podcast,
[13:17]we get an hour, you've got half an hour in the day.
[13:20]This is, this, how so well,
[13:22]this is a really nice escape, I think.
[13:23]I mean, Jimmy, you would, you know, I mean, you write it.
[13:26]I completely agree.
[13:27]I think I, I feel like I read the first 100 pages in an hour.
[13:31]I was like, you know, I was trying to put my kids
[13:33]to when I always read a lot.
[13:34]Well, I'm putting my kids back
[13:35]because it takes like, you can read it to the kids.
[13:37]That's okay.
[13:38]No, I really don't read it to the kids, but I was reading near them.
[13:45]And I had to keep like moving
[13:47]the book away so they didn't see certain words
[13:50]and all that.
[13:51]But no, I couldn't, I couldn't put it down.
[13:53]It was, it was, I was hailing it.
[13:56]I'm not revealing something, but it takes us what two pages
[14:00]to bump somebody off, Jim, we don't.
[14:03]Not in this book, not in this book.
[14:05]We do have one coming, which maybe we can talk about
[14:07]in September, but and there are, there are another people
[14:11]that don't get to the end of the book in that book.
[14:13]Yeah, this one not so much, but a little bit.
[14:17]I also think it was neat how you, you woven,
[14:19]especially with the sports stuff, some, it's mostly fiction,
[14:22]but you then you weave in some real names and real players.
[14:25]And so you feel like you're like, am I in a novel?
[14:28]Or is this my life or what is going on here?
[14:30]Yeah, well, you can, you can have no interest in football
[14:33]and I don't have a lot and still it's irrelevant to this thing.
[14:37]But the other thing about the NFL it is so screwy.
[14:40]And some of the some of the owners are such not cases.
[14:43]I mean, the guy not to name any names,
[14:46]but the guy that owns the Washington commanders,
[14:48]it named that team the commanders and the Miami Dolphins guy.
[14:52]And then the kind of questionable moves that they've done.
[14:55]So there's a little piece of that which is gets into that whole thing
[14:58]of, and I know we are guys and we should be defending guys,
[15:01]but it's difficult sometimes.
[15:04]Some of these patriarchs are kind of not, not my cup of tea.
[15:08]And we get to skewer them in the book, which is nice
[15:12]or people like them.
[15:14]I think right now the only woman really in charge of a team
[15:20]is in New Orleans.
[15:22]I think Tom that's the widow and I think Mrs. Ford was running.
[15:29]Good try.
[15:30]The Rams at one point, right?
[15:33]I think Georgia.
[15:34]Yeah, Georgia frontier was the off to Mary, Georgia frontier.
[15:37]They were bumper stickers, which you know,
[15:39]the Rams that said honk if you've been married to Georgia.
[15:42]And it's a cruel sport.
[15:46]But Jimmy, I hadn't been around these people my whole life, OK?
[15:51]NFL owners and we make a big thing out of this because there's only 32
[15:56]members of this club.
[15:57]And once you have one of these teams, you will do anything to hold onto it.
[16:01]And if you want one, you will do anything, including maybe people to get one.
[16:08]But it is, it's a, it's the world's greatest riches.
[16:12]Yeah, it's like the real real owners of the national football league.
[16:16]It really is a reality series.
[16:18]And Jenny is in the club.
[16:22]And some of them do not want her in the club.
[16:26]Which is another fun thing about the about the story.
[16:31]Yes, a lot of oppositional forces.
[16:34]Yeah, I love it.
[16:35]This whole push pull.
[16:37]And I think as a lay person football watcher,
[16:41]that's, I didn't say that very well.
[16:42]But my husband watches the 10 of football.
[16:44]So I have like a passing knowledge of all of it.
[16:46]And it's fine.
[16:47]Like I wasn't confused.
[16:49]It was all good.
[16:49]So I feel like I know you're great at writing about sports, obviously.
[16:54]But especially in this book, which has such a strong woman protagonist.
[16:57]Well, the big thing here is really the family.
[17:00]Yeah.
[17:00]And we haven't talked about, you know, one of the brothers,
[17:02]which is also a fun part of the book.
[17:04]One of the brothers owns a runs the,
[17:07]yes, I'm in the newspaper in San Francisco.
[17:10]And in the book, he starts attacking his sister
[17:14]and in very, very unpleasant ways.
[17:17]So that whole thing about the newspaper business,
[17:19]which Mike was in as well.
[17:21]And that's a real fun part of the book.
[17:24]And they also have a media empire around California.
[17:26]So that's another little part which we get to have fun with.
[17:30]I loved when Jenny, after her brother had put that in.
[17:34]Well, first how their mom was really upset.
[17:37]And they're like, oh, that you had done this stuff
[17:39]in your teenage years.
[17:40]You're like, no, my brother, we're putting it in the newspaper.
[17:43]And then she walks through.
[17:44]That scene was like one of my favorites
[17:46]where she gets slander essentially in the paper.
[17:49]And then she's like, I'm not going to deal with this
[17:51]walks right through.
[17:52]And you have her just be like, okay, it was great.
[17:55]Just that show empowerment.
[17:57]It is fun.
[17:58]One of the interesting things that happened a couple of weeks
[18:02]ago was audible wherever a little relationship.
[18:07]I do some podcasts for them.
[18:10]And they got a little interested in the book.
[18:12]And they do the, because Amazon sponsors the Thursday night
[18:16]football on Prime Video.
[18:19]And they said, well, we could do so,
[18:20]but we want some original material.
[18:22]So Mike and I wrote, I think, 15 new chapters,
[18:26]which aren't in the book.
[18:27]And it's the way before the book starts.
[18:31]It's well, fear of the wolf.
[18:32]And I think it's out.
[18:33]And I'm not sure it has an audible podcast.
[18:36]But what we're going to do, so there's 15 chapters
[18:38]that there that aren't in the book, which I don't know if
[18:40]anybody's ever done that, probably somebody has,
[18:42]but I don't know.
[18:43]And eventually, we'll probably deal with that 15 chapters
[18:47]somewhere too.
[18:48]But that's another fun thing.
[18:50]That's so good.
[18:50]I wasn't saying like fun at the time,
[18:52]but it turned out to be fun.
[18:54]After, it's really, it's because when we're writing the book,
[18:59]we kept thinking, we had bumped off a pretty great character
[19:04]in chapter one.
[19:05]Yeah, that's all I'd say to Jim.
[19:07]Well, look, a couple of schmucks.
[19:11]I wonder what he would have been like.
[19:14]And it was almost, it's like the pro,
[19:17]and we thought about it as a pro log,
[19:19]and we said, no, it just didn't fit.
[19:20]And then, so it essentially is Jim.
[19:23]It's like a great advertisement for, you know,
[19:27]became a great advertisement for House of Wolves.
[19:31]One of the fun things to do is if, you know,
[19:33]the idea of you, you write the hell out of a character
[19:37]and then you get rid of them early.
[19:40]It doesn't happen that often.
[19:42]Certainly, you know, because like in television,
[19:44]I can think of one series where they did it.
[19:46]The mayor of Kingston or there's something of Kingston.
[19:49]I think it's Paramount Plus, whatever.
[19:52]And they actually knock off a major actor in the first,
[19:57]they obviously meant to do this.
[19:58]But in the first...
[20:00]tap this out and I go like, what, he's bad, but it's a lot of fun.
[20:05]Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[20:06]It's interesting thing to do.
[20:07]Doesn't, you know, my memory, as you know,
[20:11]couldn't have failed me often, but isn't William Holden's
[20:15]character floating in the pool at the start,
[20:18]as he starts the narration of Sunset Boulevard?
[20:21]I think Sunset Boulevard is narrated by a dead guy.
[20:25]And Joe Wolf, even gone, is a huge presence in this book.
[20:31]I mean, he's a huge presence for Jenny.
[20:34]He's a huge presence for his three sons.
[20:37]And God willing, they make it,
[20:39]they all make it to the end of the book, Jim.
[20:41]I hope to do.
[20:42]I'm rooting for Jack Danny, and then a little Tommy.
[20:44]It's coming, yeah.
[20:45]The Tommy, he's not really that little.
[20:47]It would be awful.
[20:48]Would Jim, it'd be awful if anything happened.
[20:50]Yeah, it would be, yeah.
[20:50]Yeah.
[20:51]Yeah.
[20:53]This is what it's like.
[20:55]Welcome to the writer's room, yeah.
[20:57]Now, I love it.
[20:58]It's awesome.
[20:59]Oh, I just know.
[21:00]I love it.
[21:00]It's really neat to see the behind the scenes of how they all
[21:04]evolve and also the control, right?
[21:06]Like the idea that someone who's controlling in your life,
[21:10]you literally cannot be rid of that force,
[21:13]even if they pass away.
[21:14]And what do you do with that?
[21:16]Like how do you make sense of it if you don't even
[21:18]have the option to talk to the person anymore?
[21:20]It's like this intractable thing, which I think so many
[21:23]people can relate to if they have a difficult character
[21:25]sort of in their lives.
[21:26]Like what if there are strings they pull and not to this
[21:30]extent, but still?
[21:32]Yeah.
[21:33]Anybody that's going to go show you a shrink,
[21:34]I say, it's your father, your mother.
[21:39]You know, I just saved you a lot of money.
[21:42]Maybe both.
[21:43]We haven't even talked about one of my favorite characters.
[21:47]Sylvia, I hope you agree with me.
[21:49]The cop can't agree with me.
[21:50]Yes.
[21:51]I mean, because we do have a murder.
[21:55]We need to solve this book.
[21:58]And this cop kind of.
[22:00]Have I got did me solve it?
[22:02]I guess we did.
[22:03]We did.
[22:04]We solved it.
[22:04]Okay.
[22:05]Yes, we did.
[22:06]In fact, Zibi, at one point, when we were thinking how much
[22:10]we did like Joe Wolf, I did call him Jim one day and I said,
[22:14]did they ever find the body joke?
[22:16]Because yes, unfortunately, my favorite thing
[22:19]is that we can't, unfortunately, Joe,
[22:22]Zibi, do not resuscitate order on him.
[22:25]So we couldn't bring him back.
[22:27]But this cop, Jim knows this.
[22:29]This cop kind of came wandering into the book
[22:32]and we couldn't get him out.
[22:35]That's correct.
[22:36]That happens.
[22:37]Well, that's one of the, I mean, we do outline pretty heavily.
[22:40]But the outline is not a straight jacket for us.
[22:43]And that's always been the way any books that I do.
[22:46]It's like, I don't know.
[22:48]But then that happens every once in a while.
[22:50]You start writing a character and all of a sudden,
[22:51]you go like, oh, no, I like this character.
[22:53]This character is interesting.
[22:54]We want more of this character.
[22:56]Yeah.
[22:57]And that's what happened on a canter for, for, yeah.
[23:00]Who is that?
[23:01]I would not want to be interrogated necessarily.
[23:03]And then there were one of the sons
[23:04]we didn't care for that much.
[23:05]So, you know, whatever.
[23:07]Well, I hope not to get into him.
[23:09]Yeah, me too, yeah.
[23:11]No spoilers, no spoilers.
[23:14]Well, we didn't say, we already, we already spoiled the first chapter,
[23:19]but so on.
[23:20]But it's only the second page that we have been really,
[23:22]it really I think it's the same thing.
[23:24]That's true.
[23:25]Do you have visions of who you want to play these characters
[23:28]if it were to be a movie?
[23:30]I'm a really, I don't know.
[23:34]Who do you say, who would be a good journey for you, Zebi?
[23:37]I don't know.
[23:37]I feel like I keep thinking, I mean, she's too old now,
[23:40]I guess Sandra Bullock, because I think
[23:41]didn't she play something similar like a owner of a basketball?
[23:45]There was, there was a football, which was kind of a mean spirited
[23:49]with Pacino and any Sunday.
[23:51]We're already given Sunday.
[23:53]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[23:54]That was just a nasty, yeah.
[23:57]Okay, yeah.
[23:58]But that was just a kind of a, a humorless approach.
[24:03]We know whoever the biggest female star in the world is right now,
[24:07]is it be just that's who it is.
[24:09]Whoever that is, we, we'd like to get.
[24:12]We have a very dreamous actress interested in another one of our characters.
[24:15]We do.
[24:16]We do.
[24:16]Who is the, the woman in Hunger Games?
[24:19]She's good.
[24:20]Oh, Jennifer Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence.
[24:22]Yeah.
[24:22]Yeah.
[24:23]I can totally see that.
[24:25]Listen, problem solved.
[24:26]Yeah.
[24:27]Jenny, Mickey and Jimmy, there you go.
[24:30]You're out, you're out that now coming full circle.
[24:32]And Dolly, jim, I used to say to Omar Leonard,
[24:37]you'd be writing a book and I'd say, who, who do you, uh, what do you
[24:42]think that the main character looks like?
[24:44]And every time you'd say George Clooney, and it wasn't,
[24:47]but it wasn't George Clooney and say Brad Pitt.
[24:49]I'd say, yeah, okay, good.
[24:51]Yeah, fun.
[24:52]And he did get George Clooney and one of them.
[24:54]Oh, man, did he ever?
[24:56]Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[24:57]And the one with Jennifer Lopez, he's great.
[24:59]And that, that's one of the two of them one up in the chunk of the car, right?
[25:03]Yeah, yeah.
[25:05]It was in the new movie with Julie Roberts and, and, uh,
[25:08]George Clooney, they did like, outtakes at the end.
[25:10]Uh, somebody accidentally spills all the stuff on George Clooney and,
[25:14]and Billy Roberts, like, it's okay, it's just George Clooney.
[25:17]And he's like, yeah, call 1-800 Brad Pitt.
[25:20]It's fine.
[25:20]I have a replacement.
[25:22]How is that movie?
[25:23]How is that movie?
[25:24]We have it.
[25:25]We haven't watched it yet.
[25:26]Is it any good?
[25:26]Yeah.
[25:27]It's when you're Julie Roberts.
[25:28]Yeah.
[25:29]What's it called?
[25:29]I don't know.
[25:30]Oh my gosh, this is something.
[25:31]Yeah, it's not, it's not a great title that you remember.
[25:34]I can't remember the title.
[25:35]This is so embarrassing.
[25:36]The weakest watch tar the other night.
[25:37]That's a tough one.
[25:38]But boy, is that smart?
[25:41]Really smart, very tough.
[25:43]Yeah, I have to get to that one.
[25:44]You have to win the Academy Awards.
[25:46]You're so good.
[25:47]Yeah.
[25:47]Take, take, play, chat.
[25:48]You're so terrific in it.
[25:50]So the question is, how do you take this book now and make it one of palatable
[25:56]and some, like PG version for all the kids that you both write for?
[25:59]Like my, my nephew's been reading Mike, all of your books.
[26:02]Sorry, Jim.
[26:04]But anyway, he's reading all of your books before.
[26:07]I'm sorry.
[26:08]I'm sorry.
[26:08]I'm not a real story.
[26:09]Jim, please tell me to have a horrifying story.
[26:11]I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you.
[26:13]I'm supposed to do reality.
[26:14]So Mike and I are out golfing and this woman comes running up to us.
[26:18]And I'm sort of like, you know, here she comes, you know, and she runs up to Mike.
[26:23]She says, Mike, you're my favorite author.
[26:26]And Mike immediately called his agent and, you know,
[26:29]and everybody I knew.
[26:30]I, I, I, yeah.
[26:32]But Jim, I, I, we get it.
[26:33]Yeah.
[26:34]I think you cut off sipping when she was talking about Mike.
[26:38]Oh, yeah, right.
[26:39]I'm sorry.
[26:40]It's okay.
[26:41]No, no, I just, you, when you're writing these great characters, it's great to have,
[26:46]it would be great to have like an equally amazing, strong female younger.
[26:51]Like how do you put this and how do you shrink down some of the themes?
[26:55]Or maybe you have no interest in doing this or maybe you will or won't.
[26:57]But I don't know.
[26:58]Some of these great themes, I feel like are really good for kids to hear it.
[27:01]But this is obviously to advance.
[27:03]That's that could be a cool thing.
[27:04]The wolf's growing up when they're like 10, 11 years old.
[27:07]That'd be horrible to horror movie.
[27:09]That's like, no, that would be great.
[27:11]We're fine.
[27:11]Then let me sneak it.
[27:12]There's a scene in the book where two of the wolf boys come back,
[27:17]Zippy and, and one of them has gotten beaten up pretty badly.
[27:21]And yes, and the father doesn't care.
[27:24]I remember, he's, he's mad that they, they let the bad guys take their ball away
[27:30]from them.
[27:31]Yes.
[27:32]He said something like they're two girls in the family or didn't he say some, some,
[27:35]something.
[27:36]He's mad.
[27:37]He's mad and he's not a nice man.
[27:40]Yes.
[27:41]Something like that.
[27:42]Oh, um.
[27:43]So can you tell her?
[27:44]I like that.
[27:45]I like that.
[27:46]I like that.
[27:47]The wolf's early wolves.
[27:48]They're like wolves.
[27:49]Yeah.
[27:50]Yeah.
[27:51]Wait.
[27:52]Jim, I think they already had a book like that.
[27:53]I think it was called Lord of the Flies.
[27:54]No.
[27:55]That's true.
[27:56]What's the name of a wolf that's a baby?
[27:58]Does it have a name?
[28:00]You know what I mean?
[28:00]Like a cup.
[28:01]Maybe wolves.
[28:02]I don't.
[28:03]I don't know.
[28:04]Yeah.
[28:05]Yeah.
[28:06]We'll go with cub.
[28:07]I don't know.
[28:08]I think it is a cup.
[28:09]I think it is a cup.
[28:10]A tree house of cubs.
[28:11]So we have, we have various wolf caps that we have, um, the University of Nevada.
[28:16]I think that they have a wolf on theirs, right?
[28:19]And then, and then Mike had an original done with another kind of wolf.
[28:22]So we have our, our wolf caps.
[28:24]Oh, good.
[28:25]You couldn't even get like a, we're doing, we're doing a tour, which is, I don't
[28:29]usually do.
[28:30]We're going to do that in January when the book comes out.
[28:32]I forget where the heck we're going, but it'll be.
[28:34]I know.
[28:35]We're going on.
[28:36]It's North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and New York City, it's big.
[28:40]That's it.
[28:41]I know we're going to Clemson.
[28:42]I don't know why, but we're going to Clemson, and then we're going to Tallahassee, Charlotte,
[28:49]New York City.
[28:50]I know we're going to be a good morning America and morning, I think morning Joe,
[28:53]maybe.
[28:54]Yeah.
[28:55]Yeah.
[28:56]Yeah.
[28:57]Yeah.
[28:58]No, this is the first place to start.
[29:00]You get it.
[29:01]We have to get your way up.
[29:03]Jimmy, we may have to get you a wolf cap.
[29:05]Jim, I may have to bring Zigbee, a wolf cap to see.
[29:08]I have a love a wolf cap.
[29:10]Very cool.
[29:12]Just do either of you have advice for aspiring authors who are trying to do what you're
[29:16]doing, work closely with somebody, try to find the right partner, co-write any of it,
[29:22]or just try to do anything.
[29:23]I don't know.
[29:24]Any advice, any parting advice for anybody?
[29:27]I always think that, well, story story story story, I mean, look, it all depends on what
[29:31]you want to do.
[29:32]I mean, if you actually want to make money, and not that that needs to be the reason
[29:37]you write your book, but story is really useful, just story story story.
[29:42]And if you can tell it to somebody who's not your best friend or your friend who will
[29:47]always tell you what they really think, and you tell them a couple of sentences and they
[29:53]go, oh my God, that sounds great.
[29:55]For example, my wife, her mother died a few years back.
[30:00]And Mother was 98, wonderful lady, whatever.
[30:04]And she was talking about her like a couple of days later.
[30:07]And she said something to the effect of things
[30:10]I wish I told my mother.
[30:12]And I said, that's a book, as she wrote it as a novel,
[30:16]not a better mother, but about a mother-daughter thing,
[30:18]things I wish I told my mother.
[30:20]And so that's the kind of thing where you go like, ooh, yeah,
[30:23]yeah, yeah.
[30:24]And her book, it's a mother and a daughter,
[30:27]the mothers of kind of a tough, doctor, very serious.
[30:31]And the daughter is more of an artist.
[30:34]And they decided at some point they're going to take this trip.
[30:37]When they sell it to this book, we'll be able to find them.
[30:40]And they put, they take this trip.
[30:42]And they, and what they want to do
[30:44]is stop being mother, daughter, and just be friends
[30:47]and be adults, which, of course, doesn't work.
[30:50]But, and they're the odd couple.
[30:51]But just that, you know, you just get that title ago, you think,
[30:54]oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a book there.
[30:56]So, I mean, that's a big piece of it.
[30:58]I think just we go, you, and you go like,
[31:00]oh, I want to read that.
[31:02]When you tell me two sentences about it,
[31:04]that's, that's useful.
[31:06]That's useful.
[31:07]Elizabeth, you're talking to two people, we write every day.
[31:10]Jim writes every day.
[31:11]I write every day.
[31:12]He's right.
[31:13]It did work with him.
[31:14]It's been like getting a master class in storytelling.
[31:18]And I'd never worked with anybody before.
[31:21]But I guess if I did have one good point for young writers,
[31:25]if you are going to find a writing partner, I suggest,
[31:28]if you can, try hooking up with the guy who's sold more books
[31:31]in the, in the planet.
[31:32]That, that, I'm always helping, always helping, you know.
[31:37]That, to me, Liz, I, you know, that may sound crazy.
[31:40]But, you know what, dammit, it's working for me.
[31:43]Oh, I love it.
[31:46]Thank you, you guys are hilarious.
[31:48]That was totally a bright spot of my rainy, gross day here.
[31:51]So thank you for the laughter and stuff.
[31:53]Yeah.
[31:54]Really fun.
[31:55]You're welcome.
[31:56]It's always nice to be on here.
[31:57]And you're, you're, you're really fun.
[31:58]And I, I, I'm sure the bookstore would be really cool.
[32:01]Oh, yeah.
[32:02]Please come.
[32:03]Davey's book.
[32:04]We will.
[32:05]All right.
[32:06]Mike will.
[32:07]I, I haven't been to LA since since COVID.
[32:08]Um, it's, uh, I guess it's time.
[32:10]I should go back.
[32:11]Yeah.
[32:12]Definitely sunny.
[32:13]So.
[32:14]Yeah.
[32:15]Oh, Lord.
[32:16]It's, I'm in.
[32:17]We are in Florida though.
[32:18]He's on in my, in my, yeah.
[32:19]Yeah.
[32:20]It's a step up from New York.
[32:21]Jackson, Florida, but you'd never know because he has no windows in his office.
[32:25]So that's simply not true.
[32:27]We have the night.
[32:28]He has a nice tan.
[32:29]Oh, I'm sorry.
[32:30]Oh, that's nice.
[32:31]Look at that.
[32:32]Cool.
[32:33]Yeah.
[32:34]It's cool.
[32:35]All right.
[32:36]Palm trees and a whole ball of wax.
[32:37]Is that real stuff?
[32:38]Is that just a painted window?
[32:39]All right.
[32:40]Thank you.
[32:41]Thank you.
[32:42]Thank you.
[32:43]Thank you.
[32:44]Thank you.
[32:45]Thank you.
[32:46]Bye.
[32:47]Bye.
[32:48]Bye.
[32:49]Bye.
[32:50]Bye.
[32:51]Have time to read books.
[32:53]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibioens and at
[32:56]moms don't have time to read books.
[32:58]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibioens.com and sign up for
[33:01]my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every
[33:04]other week.
[33:05]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the
[33:07]Sound Editing.
[33:08]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this
[33:11]fantastic intro and now trim music.