Julia Langbein, AMERICAN MERMAID
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
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[1:03]Julia Langbine is the author of American Mermaid, a novel.
[1:06]And by the way, I picked this for Zippy's Book Club, which if you are not a member of,
[1:11]you should join right this second, zippy's book club.com.
[1:14]And Julia will be joining us after we spend half an hour talking about her book.
[1:18]And she will join for Q&A, which is how I do all the book club meetings.
[1:22]Again, that's zippy's bookclub.com.
[1:24]You can join the virtual club.
[1:26]We need twice a month, but you can come and go as you please.
[1:29]And then there are many in-person chapters sprouting up.
[1:32]Anyway, Julia Langbine, a sketch and standard comedian for many years, holds a doctorate
[1:36]in art history, and is the author of a nonfiction book about comic art criticism.
[1:41]She wrote the viral comedy blog, The Bruni Digest, which reviewed New York Times critic Frank
[1:45]Bruni's restaurant reviews every week.
[1:47]And she has since written about food, art and travel for gourmet, eater, salon, freeze
[1:52]and other publications.
[1:53]And native of Chicago, she lives outside of Paris with her family.
[1:56]Welcome, Julia.
[1:57]Thanks so much for coming on Monster Have Time to read books to discuss American Mermaid.
[2:02]Thank you so much for having me.
[2:03]I know I was just kind of raving about your book before we started, but I literally
[2:07]laughed out loud twice in the first, like, three pages out loud, not even to myself, you
[2:13]know, in my head.
[2:14]That's what I want to hear.
[2:15]That makes me so happy.
[2:16]That's all I want in life is to hear that from people.
[2:18]Oh my gosh, you're so funny.
[2:19]But I wonder if it'll sound funny if I even read it.
[2:21]Wait, hold on.
[2:22]This is so funny.
[2:23]This is the thing with Daniel.
[2:25]By the way, I went to Yale, so I lived in New Haven and went to U.D.
[2:27]Lee Cafe.
[2:28]I literally lived in the building above that restaurant.
[2:30]So you know lots of the sights.
[2:33]I appreciated that.
[2:34]Thank you.
[2:35]Can I just read the soup and salad part?
[2:37]I know this is right in the beginning.
[2:39]I ordered the soup and salad combo because it was the cheapest thing on the menu, plus
[2:42]it seemed like a lot to me.
[2:44]Two things.
[2:45]So when I ordered it, Daniel said, soup and salad, you sure that's enough?
[2:48]It's a P and a fart to get something substantial.
[2:51]It seemed like she'd be more about my real hunger's than I did.
[2:54]And then I should trust her knowledge about what would nourish me.
[2:56]I'm getting the Castile she said, this has to get me back to New York.
[2:59]Is this she'd be having it alongside the bedroom or the tracks, the metabolized steam
[3:05]of being a duck?
[3:07]This is a dream experience.
[3:11]Having someone read my text back to me so hard that they get laughing so hard that they
[3:14]can't finish the sentence is like all I never want to.
[3:17]That's so true.
[3:18]Oh my gosh.
[3:19]And then she texted that.
[3:20]I won't read that much more, I promise.
[3:22]Um, tonight we've had a Danielle's stucco castle in Silver Lake.
[3:27]Also got ready.
[3:28]She gave me a goblet of Chardonnay and put me in front of a reality TV show about a 500 pound
[3:32]teenager who gets gastric bypass surgery, laparoscopic camera tunnel through soft flows
[3:37]of yellow fat, searching for the teen stomach.
[3:40]Danielle zapped off the TV on a shot of his body, naked, looking like the cushions of
[3:44]a beige leather sofa, filed on a metal table.
[3:48]I've seen this one said Danielle, he ends up hot.
[3:51]Her eyebrows danced down for a moment and we laughed together.
[3:54]You should track him down.
[3:55]She said rolling with her suggestiveness.
[3:57]They did a reunion show.
[3:58]He's dead.
[3:59]Pop the wine in the fridge.
[4:00]Let's go.
[4:01]You're so funny.
[4:04]I'm so happy that you're willing to let yourself laugh and enjoy it because I feel like,
[4:10]I don't know, sometimes people get a book that's really funny in their hands and they're
[4:14]like, what's wrong, you know, why like this shouldn't be so funny.
[4:17]What's wrong with me?
[4:18]You know, like, or that because there's also like profoundness and depth and like ideas
[4:22]in there that like that's somehow incompatible with with it being hilarious.
[4:26]But actually, for me, my favorite writers are the ones that give you something hilarious
[4:30]and then you laugh your way to something meaningful and something true and like, you know,
[4:35]but the comedy is like so part of it.
[4:36]I feel like some people that I've, you know, gave early copies to her, but are like,
[4:40]yeah, no, this is great.
[4:41]It's just like, I'm not sure why it's so funny.
[4:43]And it's like just relax.
[4:44]It's okay.
[4:45]It's okay.
[4:46]It's okay.
[4:47]You can just, it can just be funny.
[4:48]It's okay.
[4:49]No, it's great to be funny.
[4:50]It's not just funny, but it happens to be really funny and clever.
[4:54]It's, you know, Catherine Newman's book.
[4:56]It's like so funny, but it's really about hospice.
[4:59]Exactly.
[5:00]Yeah.
[5:01]There's humor in, I don't know.
[5:02]I think anything funny is fabulous, but um, but you're so creative too with how you wrote
[5:08]the book.
[5:09]So the book is about a woman who writes a novel and then it gets sold as a screenplay essentially
[5:16]that she writes, but that in the novel, in your novel, then you have her excerpts of her
[5:21]novel.
[5:22]It's so cool.
[5:23]Yeah, you get to experience the novel and the adaptation.
[5:26]Yeah.
[5:27]And I'm so glad because I often feel like when there's books and that I'm always like,
[5:31]oh, you should like go write that novel and people are like, huh, yeah, that'd be funny.
[5:35]And then like you did it.
[5:36]There it is.
[5:37]It's so great.
[5:38]Well, the thing is, so you have this woman, Penelope, right, who she's in the high school
[5:42]in this teacher and she wrote a novel.
[5:44]But what you don't learn is how the novel reflects, you know, her past or past experiences
[5:49]that has nothing to do with her past.
[5:50]She writes a novel and then that novel that she wrote kind of explodes her into the
[5:55]future.
[5:56]And it explodes the future.
[5:57]And I really like that idea that books, not that they just like reflect their authors,
[6:01]biographies or their authors, but they are these things that we launch into the future
[6:04]and we can change our own lives with them and we can change other people's lives with
[6:08]them.
[6:09]And that's what it's so fun about flipping between the made up and the real, if you will,
[6:12]in this book.
[6:14]So cool.
[6:15]Maybe you should give it a, maybe I should ask like, what's your book about?
[6:19]No.
[6:20]I'm so bad at that.
[6:21]It's so hard.
[6:22]It's so, there's a woman who wrote, she's a high school English teacher and she wrote
[6:26]a novel called American Mermaid.
[6:29]And when the book starts, you know, it's just been a surprise hit.
[6:33]And she's been offered the chance to go out to Hollywood to work with these two male hacks,
[6:37]these two male screenwriters, to turn the book into a screenplay and it follows her adventure
[6:43]spectrum.
[6:44]The guys in such a funny way, like, what did you say?
[6:47]Like, they have fun to steal from like, you do some work at your so much, but I can't
[6:51]even remember.
[6:52]But the way you describe these two guys, like the twins who gossiped like 16 year old
[6:57]girls or something.
[6:58]Yeah.
[6:59]They're like two teenage girl best friends.
[7:00]They spend all their time together.
[7:01]Yeah.
[7:02]Oh my God.
[7:03]They have butts made of core ten ship building steel.
[7:06]Yes.
[7:07]Yes.
[7:08]That was so great.
[7:09]Oh my gosh.
[7:10]I love it.
[7:11]Sorry.
[7:12]I got you up.
[7:13]Okay.
[7:14]Keep talking about the book.
[7:15]No, please.
[7:16]Sort of a fish out of water story.
[7:18]So she's this really crunchy, like kind of liberal New Englanders out in LA and like
[7:23]everything she says accidentally sounds bitchy.
[7:25]She's like, there's like a kind of tonal disconnect in LA.
[7:30]But also she really grapples with ideas of like representation and the self and how to kind
[7:35]of hold on to yourself, but also get a foothold in a world of total economic precarity.
[7:40]And as in English, you know, she really wants to just be an English teacher, but it is
[7:44]financially precarious.
[7:45]And so there's a dream of being a quote creative and getting a big paycheck out there.
[7:49]And the question is, sir, how much of yourself are you willing to sell to have that kind
[7:53]of stability and to, you know, to feel like you've made it?
[7:56]Yeah.
[7:57]Oh my gosh.
[7:58]She's so funny about, you know, like when she's like standing in the aisle, debating
[8:04]which shampoo to get it, CVS, like you have my life.
[8:08]And then also, and this I feel like it's not a spoiler since it's early on, but you know,
[8:13]she finds out early on that she's a carrier of the Brecka one gene and he's with the surgery.
[8:19]And you even say it in a funny way, like that somehow having to have elective mastectomy
[8:26]and then reconstruction to have the body parts you were born with is somehow like a privileged
[8:31]active narcissism.
[8:32]Yeah.
[8:33]Right.
[8:34]Exactly.
[8:35]Like just to be your normal self, you've acted like a like some kind of snob or something.
[8:38]Yeah.
[8:39]And that just adds to her financial pressures, like the fact that, you know, she's in
[8:42]order to just take care of herself.
[8:44]And you know, like for so many of us, like basic kind of like one of the freest things
[8:48]about economic precarity is like health care and, you know, but, you know, the ability
[8:52]to kind of make sure things are going to be okay.
[8:55]So that's another detonation that sends her leaving this job that she loves how to like.
[8:59]And so I used to teach like not in high school, but at the university level.
[9:04]And I stopped teaching for a while just because I had a research fellowship and I think
[9:08]a lot of the energy of this book came from, we're missing teaching actually and missing
[9:14]being around, you know, people in these formative years, you know, people in a state of
[9:19]becoming who are who are like insurrectionists and a little bit, you know, I think the book
[9:26]I talk about how her students, they never got anyone's name, right?
[9:30]Like they never knew anybody when they're literature, they read like if I eat if more
[9:33]than they're, they just like can't get anyone's name, right?
[9:35]But they immediately go to the deepest levels.
[9:37]They fully understand the emotional realities of the books that they read.
[9:41]And I just had all these memories of teaching these, you know, undergraduate people who
[9:45]were 18, 19, you know, I was teaching art history, so you'd be looking at really complicated
[9:49]images or whatever.
[9:50]And they didn't know what they didn't really care whether it was a painting or a photograph.
[9:54]They'd be like this photograph by Rembrandt, you know, you're like, that's not a photograph.
[9:58]But they would get it, but they would get really.
[10:00]important things at the same time. So yeah, there's something about the way in a classroom setting
[10:04]you get to know, like, the way that young minds are both confused and more right about the biggest
[10:12]things than we even can admit, you know. Oh my gosh. I also love her relationship with her dad
[10:19]and how he is enabling her to live. And she kind of, she doesn't want that, but she needs that.
[10:25]And she's, you know, the whole podcast. I don't really get where she is talking all about her
[10:32]dad and she doesn't even realize that because she was kind of drunk on the podcast.
[10:35]Yeah, yeah, yeah. All upset. But it is a really interesting dynamic, which of course is happening
[10:39]in families all over the place when her, you know, her sister has to call and be like, it's okay.
[10:43]Like, he's not evil. He's a Republican. It's, you know, he's not like a dictator. And you know,
[10:49]we went to private school and it's okay. Like you're alive and like, stop it.
[10:54]Yeah, why are you so mad? Why are you so mad at our parents all the time? Like, they raised us
[10:58]like, relax. But, you know, that's like, I think a huge part of this book is, and something I'm interested
[11:04]in generally is like intergenerational conflict, which is such a huge part of the way we live
[11:09]right now. There's so much anger at like our parents who were, you know, I remember
[11:14]I don't call my dad out, but like definitely it was like not into quote tree huggers. And now I'm
[11:19]like, you guys, you literally ruined everything. Like, because he thought like being a tree hugger
[11:26]was like, not worth your vote, you know, like, so I mean, there's a, there's a lot of economic
[11:31]anger, obviously, about like the economy and stuff like that. I mean, a lot of intergenerational
[11:35]anger about, you know, the way the whole idea that COVID was ever called a boomer remover, right?
[11:40]Like, he's like horrible, right? There's still actually so much vitriol. So yeah, I mean,
[11:46]I kind of wanted to deal a little bit with both the like irrational love and support that can
[11:51]happen intergenerationally. Like the way that these teenagers just come out of the woodwork and
[11:55]going to bat for for this woman who's like half a generation older, but also the way that kind of
[11:59]like we can are allowed to feel like insane rage for the people that we love and who love us,
[12:05]you know, I love the idea of this being so meta that now you're going to say something bad about
[12:10]your dad on this show. You know, I mean, no, I know. Why do you think I'm drinking sparkling water
[12:18]and not a mosquito? I keep this in check in margarita for the therapist. Oh, my god, I love it.
[12:28]Yeah, I know. I need to do one of those like pharmaceutical disclaimers. I love everyone.
[12:31]My family and they're all perfect. Anyway, I'll put it in the show notes. There you go.
[12:38]So back up to your life now for a second. Tell me like where you came from and how you started
[12:43]this like your whole career and how we got to here and why do you live in Paris and I just want
[12:47]to know. I know it's very confusing. There's so many things that don't actually make sense. So
[12:52]yeah, I mean, in a very some Elizabeth Gilbert's blurb pointed this out. The book itself is like
[12:57]a mermaid. It's two halves right that are like stitched together. I literally didn't realize that
[13:02]until after it was published. But anyway, and I feel like that's very true of me too. So I've done a
[13:08]lot of comedy, stand-up, sketch, improv, running around, doing make believe with hilarious people.
[13:14]And then also, I mailed out of that at some point when things were actually going quite well
[13:20]because I just like had this left over it. I literally just had like all these questions about
[13:25]mayonnaise. I was working in New York and doing comedy and I got into a PhD program at
[13:31]Chicago. And I kind of thought, well, there's comedy at Chicago. I'll go to Chicago because I can
[13:34]still do comedy. But you know, once I started my PhD, my comedy agent was like, everyone's dream is
[13:40]to like do just like be an actor, you know, be a comic actor or performer. And like you want to
[13:47]actually go to grad school have like at the same time. No, he's like, I'm never taking your calls
[13:51]again. I go jump up the clip. So I just threw myself into this PhD program and became a very,
[13:57]you know, that's a very serious world. And I wrote an academic book all about the history of
[14:03]actually comic art criticisms or art critics who did their, who, who's criticism was caricature,
[14:09]like made fun of art and understood that through comedy. So like, there was still always an
[14:14]interest in this kind of thinking. And a way that I've always believed that like when you,
[14:19]when you laugh and when you, when things are comic, it's not leaving intelligence behind,
[14:24]it's a form of intelligence. And that runs through my academic work and the novel. But anyway,
[14:29]so I did this PhD and then I went off to Oxford for my first job after my PhD, which was a
[14:35]research fellowship. And I just like got the bug again and started doing comedy again. I started
[14:41]doing improv. And I was so much fun with it. Like just laughing till my whole body hurt, just having
[14:46]the best time. And like I'm a huge proponent of play, just playing. And that's what improv is
[14:51]it's play. And then I got too pregnant. And I couldn't be embarrassed anymore, laughing around. So
[14:58]literally, I was like weeks away from giving birth. And everyone was like, this is your uncomfortable
[15:03]to be on stage. So I basically started doing improv alone at my computer with the novel. That's what
[15:10]it was. It was, you know, very, it's very dialogical. The novel is a lot of, you know, a lot of
[15:15]scenes of people having conversation. That's me doing improv basically with myself, just playing
[15:19]both roles. And even this whole structure of the novel within the novel, it didn't come from like
[15:24]literary models. It came from an improv game, you know, this thing called the Herald route, which allows
[15:28]you to stretch a story out for a long time by returning over and over again to the same scenes.
[15:33]Yeah, the whole form really came out of comedy and like game playing and fun. But so that's,
[15:37]yeah, that's how I ended up writing a novel is just like being kind of torn between these two worlds.
[15:41]So it makes sense that it's, you know, a book about a hybrid creature.
[15:45]Wow. And why are you in Paris now? So my specialty as an art historian was 19th century France.
[15:53]So it always made sense that to come and then my husband got a job opportunity here. So it made
[15:58]sense for both professionally. And now it's actually kind of a strangely excellent place to be
[16:03]writing in English because I'm so isolated. Like I don't spend any English. Like I save all my English.
[16:10]Like I don't talk to anyone in English until I go up to my attic and write. And I feel like
[16:14]very fresh when I start to start to write. So it's actually been kind of lovely. I don't
[16:19]maybe I'll go crazy and feel too isolated. I'm have to have to get some anglophone. I don't know,
[16:25]vibes at some point. But right now it's kind of happened. It's kind of great.
[16:28]That's awesome. I've been like slowly putting together this little group of authors who have been
[16:32]in my podcast who live in Paris. And like every time I do my best author, I interview, I like put
[16:38]them up. I don't know. They've all been like meeting up. It's really fun. So I'm going to like
[16:42]add you to their little list. Oh, I got do. Yeah. I definitely need friends. If I stay this
[16:47]isolated for much longer, I am going to get weird. There are different types of authors, you know,
[16:54]but you all right. Really miss. I grew up on, you know, I grew up in New Haven. I grew up on
[16:58]university campuses. I then I was at, you know, grad school or whatever. And I do miss being around
[17:04]people who like kind of live and breathe, writing, you know, ideas. I mean, that sounds
[17:10]not even ideas, but just like, I don't know, maybe dorks. Just people with a people with a specialty
[17:14]too. That was a real thing in the university world is like, this idea that people don't really
[17:18]talk about something unless they've, or if they have an opinion about something, they've often
[17:22]read everything there is to say about it. You know, so they know that what they're saying is the
[17:27]truth. And then you get out into the real world and you're like, wait a minute, everyone just has
[17:32]some like half-baked opinion. What's this? So I don't know, I kind of at some point maybe
[17:38]I feel like I'll have to come in from the cold and get back in the world of teaching or something.
[17:42]But for now, I'll just hang out at cafes with your acquaintances. That's amazing.
[17:49]And are you going to write another, are you writing another novel now?
[17:52]I am writing another novel. Yeah, I'm like halfway through at this other novel. And it's a little
[17:57]bit different in that it's not maybe like slap sticky funny, but I'm just trusting like when I was
[18:02]undergrad into a playwriting class. And I used to write stuff I thought was really serious.
[18:07]And every like, you know, I was like, here's my one act about a literary magazine. And people
[18:12]like laugh so hard. So I like what I'd written. So I'm going to just hope that even though my north
[18:19]star with like every choice isn't what's going to make everyone laugh, it's still got like
[18:24]funny bones and so we'll see. You know, I try to do a, I really like humor. And I tried to
[18:32]not that I'm like super funny, but I don't know. I really appreciated so much. And like,
[18:36]like if I'm writing something that makes me crack up, like that's like the best day.
[18:40]You know, totally. Then if I find a writer, if I find a writer who can make me laugh, they go
[18:46]in like a special box of just like, I'll read, I'll find everything you've done. I'll support
[18:51]every like, thank you. I mean, I'm so, so into a funny writer and like in all of them.
[18:59]I tried to write like a literary prose film. That's not hilarious. It actually really would
[19:08]be. Now I like judge that, but I was like, oh, okay, I can do this. Like this is how it's going
[19:14]to be like, I'm not going to have quote marks and I'm going to like, you know, but of course it doesn't
[19:19]work. You know, like only only people who really feel and write that way can write that way.
[19:25]I can't just like, I don't know. I think it's all about like finding your voice, which like,
[19:28]obviously you have. And it's so great. And it's like, everything about this is so creative,
[19:35]that it's just like circles and circles of creativity, like swirling around.
[19:38]I'm so glad you felt that way and had fun in my circles. Yes, I had fun in your circles.
[19:42]I had fun in your circles. What do you like to read? Who are authors who do make you laugh?
[19:47]Well, so I mean, I feel like the writer that made me go, wait a minute, like this is something
[19:52]I want to try to do is evil and wah. And even like, just I think back to like something like
[19:57]vile bodies, which is a book that is.
[20:00]string of parties. You know, there's so many parties in American Marin, right? I love writing parties,
[20:04]I love parties. If it was anybody wants to write me to a party. But it's actually a meditation on
[20:11]the consequences of war. Like, right? But you only really understand. They had these like
[20:15]jerk-offs, like running around, losing each other, losing their money and losing, you know,
[20:19]it's actually about the kind of like many multi-dimensional consequences of this war
[20:24]and of their participation in it. And so early on, I knew with him that something was going on where
[20:29]I was dying laughing and putting the book down. But I was also really getting to things,
[20:33]like, you know, getting to an understanding of history and again, I've got intergenerational
[20:38]relations and of just really profound truths about being a person in the world. And so something
[20:43]like Patrick Melrose, sorry, the Patrick Melrose novels, so Edward St. Obin, whose I'm reading his new one
[20:50]right now, which is like a very, like, it's a satire of literary awards, which I don't know. It's
[20:57]really fun. But the Patrick Melrose novels are so, so cutting and deep in there about a horrible,
[21:02]like toxic family event, but they make you laugh so hard. And so like a Patricia Lockwood, I think,
[21:08]is like out of this world, like next level funny. I mean, it's talk about like hilarious poetry,
[21:14]even like went back and dug into her poems. And I'm there for all of it. And her nonfiction is
[21:19]absolutely hilarious. Her essay and the L.R.B.N. John Uptig is like chef's kiss, like hilarious. Oh,
[21:26]yeah, it's just reading a book, or it's, she was actually published in 1980s, but this is one
[21:31]that your listeners might not know. She's really well known in Ireland. Her name is Molly Keen,
[21:36]K-E-A-N-E. And there was like an Irish Times roundup of the fun who were like the funniest authors
[21:42]were. They asked all these writers and like everyone named Raptor and I never heard of her.
[21:45]So I'm a couple, I'm a couple chapters in it's funny. It's also very dark and there's a lot of
[21:51]of stuff about Catholicism's surprises. But, but it's great. It's like, yeah, I mean, whenever I'm
[21:58]all follow, I'll follow whatever leads anyone has for comic authors. Have you read Norah Goes Off
[22:04]Script by Annette Bill Moynihan? No, I haven't. Okay, you have to read that. It won't take long.
[22:09]And it, but she has that same smart funny thing going. It's awesome. And that goes off script
[22:15]sounds good. Norah Goes Off Script. It's really funny. And they Catherine Newman, but too,
[22:19]I feel like you would maybe like this too. So start on those. Yeah, I think.
[22:23]If I'm on the right track. So in terms of your process and all of that, do you just like sit there
[22:30]and think what's funny? Or like, did you divide your time with like, today I'm going to work on
[22:34]the novel in the novel. And today I'm going to do a dialogue scene or how did it kind of like that.
[22:39]I think that, so actually a lot of it started, I started writing it when I was writing my academic
[22:43]book, which was like, so I'd be writing the stuff that had to be like intensely foot noted and argued
[22:48]you know, every inch of it had to be so hard fought. And then I would just instead of, especially
[22:53]when you're working in archives, like when you're doing research, to get into the, you'd be a
[22:57]technician. Oh, you have to like, it's this insane process. You have to like check everything and swipe
[23:02]a card and like you'll never get out. You'll never get back in if you get out. So to take a mental
[23:06]break from that kind of writing, I just switch over to another document and go like stretch my legs
[23:11]in the novel. So when I was working on those two books at the same time, weirdly those two books
[23:16]they're like twins and we were in utero, you know, they kind of, they kind of like fed each other,
[23:21]maybe fought for resources. It's a better way of putting it. So and then once I've finished the
[23:26]academic book, I just like, I think having had the experience of doing academic writing and knowing
[23:31]how hard it is, I'm just like so grateful for the blank bloody page. You know what I mean? I'm just like
[23:36]so happy to like go frolic. And so I've never like, even this next one that I'm writing, I want to
[23:42]jinx myself. But like, yeah, I don't know. It's just like I ever I just went going really fast
[23:47]because I'm like, there's no one here to tell me I can't say that. I mean, then it goes to
[23:51]reedos. I got feedback and I get told I shouldn't say that or whatever, but I think once you've had
[23:56]the like forest gump of those braces on his legs, you know, like this is the first and last time
[24:02]I've never compared my little forest gump before I don't think I'll do it again. But I just had
[24:06]to imagine like the little braces flying off of super strong legs because you've just, you know,
[24:11]you've been like trained so hard to do this thing that's like so much rigor.
[24:15]Let's be of utero. So you mentioned when you were too pregnant to keep partying.
[24:19]Yes. I'm assuming a child came after that. Oh yeah. There are two of them. How has motherhood
[24:26]you know, factored into your career and you're writing and all of that? Yeah, that's crazy. And I
[24:30]think about the title of your podcast and like it's so funny how they are such a time suck
[24:36]obviously. Like I have to go pick them up in a minute and like swiftly deposit them with
[24:41]a child care professional and go to dinner. Thank you for once. But no, it started writing this book
[24:48]like right before I had my child. And then I wrote it while I was, you know, raising a small child. And
[24:52]I guess I don't I'm filling up fully in control of how that happened. I don't know why. There's
[24:58]definitely something about having kids that makes you take your spare time really seriously and like,
[25:02]you know, like do what you need to do for yourself in that time. And I do like all the time,
[25:07]I'm like, you guys are fine playing string. I'm going to go right for a minute, like whatever
[25:11]you're fine. I'm eating play that I'm going to go right. But also I think a lot of the questions
[25:16]in this book about personhood and about, you know, how you're seen in the world and who you are
[25:20]and who you want to be and like gender these issues of gender and genderness and how women are
[25:26]represented. You know, I have two girls. You know, those questions became really important and
[25:31]loud to me once I have these kids. So yeah, I mean, having kids is an impediment and I'm lucky
[25:37]I've had good childcare and also I live in Europe and there's like a lot of support. But, but it
[25:42]didn't ruin my creative life. It like completely made it possible and deeper and better. So yeah,
[25:50]God, thank you. You little monsters. You selfish little torb. Thank you.
[25:57]That can be your next dedication. You know, exactly. You made me so insane with sleep deprivation
[26:05]that it really, really sent my creativity into interesting places. Yeah. Thank you.
[26:11]Selfish little torps. Yeah. Yeah. Did I say that? Yeah.
[26:19]Oops, maybe I did have a margarita, but I love it.
[26:22]Oh my gosh. Wow. This has been so fun. American Mermaid. So awesome. Thank you so much. And I'm so
[26:33]excited for this tonight. Thank you for reading it. Thank you for laughing. Yeah. Love it. I'll read
[26:38]anything you write. Such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to
[26:43]this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at
[26:48]zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com
[26:54]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[26:58]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. In fact, texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to
[27:03]Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.