Davon Loeb, THE IN-BETWEENS: A Lyrical Memoir
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[0:06]This 30 minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days
[0:12]a year for about 30 minutes.
[0:15]I am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction
[0:20]and memoir.
[0:21]Our books are already out now.
[0:23]You can check it out on zippybooks.com.
[0:26]And we have a magazine called Zippy Mag where we have lots of wonderful essays and lifestyle
[0:31]features.
[0:32]That's at zippymag.com.
[0:33]We have classes.
[0:34]It's a B-Classist.com.
[0:36]And I recently opened a book store in LA called Zippy's Bookshop at 1113 Montana Avenue at
[0:43]11th Street in San Monica.
[0:45]I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings.
[0:49]But this here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in 2018.
[0:54]And no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite thing.
[0:57]Enjoy.
[1:03]Dave and Loeb is the author of The In-Between's A lyrical memoir.
[1:06]Dave and is an assistant features editor at the Rumpus.
[1:09]He earned an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University, Camden.
[1:12]And has had work published in the Sun magazine The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia
[1:16]Enquirer, Catapult magazine, Flau Shares, The Rumpus, Joanne Magazine, Gulf Coast Journal
[1:20]and elsewhere.
[1:21]Dave and his a husband, father and teacher, located in New Jersey.
[1:25]Welcome, Devon.
[1:26]Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss The In-Between's
[1:31]A lyrical memoir.
[1:33]Thank you so much for having me, Zoey.
[1:35]You are such a beautiful writer.
[1:37]I'm glad you put lyrical right there on the cover because it is so true.
[1:41]The way you describe anything from a beer can to, you know, any ordinary scene with kids
[1:49]becomes this like beautiful poetic moment with such sensory inputs that you feel like
[1:57]you're completely there.
[1:58]So wow to your writing.
[2:00]How did you become such a great writer?
[2:02]Well, thank you.
[2:03]Thank you so much for saying that and, you know, I always think of writing in different
[2:07]genres.
[2:08]So I started off writing poetry, which is absolutely clear.
[2:13]And I found the most difficult thing in writing prose, especially lyrical prose, is trying
[2:18]to keep that poetic muscle throughout an narrative.
[2:21]And so the more I kind of dedicated myself to trying to become a lyrical prose writer,
[2:27]the more I started to build this intuition where I said, okay, here's when the
[2:31]the poetics can come out and here is when it's not.
[2:35]And so throughout the memoir, there's moments when I'm really diving into the poetics.
[2:40]I really want to build the scene, the ambience, what the characters look like, what it
[2:45]is that you see in front of you and then trying to make the transition to just telling
[2:49]you the story, just giving you exposition, took a lot of time to find that balance.
[2:54]And I hope that it's apparent in there.
[2:57]It is apparent.
[2:58]It's great.
[2:59]All listeners a little bit about what the story is about and what it was that you, what
[3:04]the main messages were that you're trying to get across.
[3:07]Sure.
[3:08]So initially I wrote many of these chapters at standalone essays.
[3:12]And then I realized that they all fit a larger narrative art about myself as a narrator
[3:19]coming of age and trying to understand where I fit in so many different categories.
[3:25]And I think if we walk outside of the book, many people that may look like me or don't
[3:30]are in those in betweens and they're everyday life between being, I think about my wife
[3:35]who is a working mom, but also a friend, but also a nurse, but also a reader, but also
[3:40]my wife and all those different categories that we fit and how we can explore that in
[3:47]our writing.
[3:48]So as I am as a biracial privileged heterosexual male, I wanted to embrace this book by highlighting
[3:55]all of my in between this.
[3:57]So as much as it is about race, about being black and being Jewish, it's also about being
[4:03]a kid and not being a teenager yet, being a teenager, not being a man, I've wanted to
[4:08]hit all those different categories.
[4:09]So my readers never feel a sense of, well, I don't look like you or your story is not
[4:14]like mine.
[4:15]In fact, the story is just like all of ours.
[4:19]Well, it's so fitting to be doing this from a school when the spotlight really shines
[4:25]quite heavily on these younger years of your life and we get like little snippet at the
[4:29]end sort of closer to, but mostly it's what it was like growing up and how life looked
[4:35]when you were not like, you were only allowed in the house at a pouring rainstorm, right?
[4:40]And otherwise you weren't even allowed and you tell us how you, we can feel the house
[4:44]kind of shaking when someone runs through it and what do you do with a life like that?
[4:48]And also the role of your parents and not being able to see your dad, like talk a little
[4:53]bit about your relationship and my father versus dad and the chapter with the tree falling
[5:00]down and that was so amazing.
[5:02]Oh my gosh, talk a little bit about that.
[5:04]Oh, thank you.
[5:05]I actually love that chapter and I wanted to find a way to show like how a young kid can
[5:12]love a step parent fully, but also begin to grow to love a biological father.
[5:21]And so what it feels like when you feel like you're giving one or the other too much love.
[5:26]And like, and I wanted to keep the kids perspective that as an adult looking back when
[5:30]and I understand how I feel about it, but as a kid, it was like I had this new friend,
[5:35]but I had this old friend and now they're here in the same place and like, what do I do?
[5:40]And then how that's shaped through the narrative, through the tree falling.
[5:45]And as much as the tree really fell, it's also the symbolism of the narrator becoming
[5:50]the tree and the two men fighting for his love and their own way.
[5:55]And what I also love about that chapter is that it doesn't talk much about race.
[6:01]And sometimes the book is going to be heavy on that, but sometimes it doesn't matter.
[6:05]Sometimes it's just about this boy and a two dad and he doesn't know which one to love.
[6:10]And I wanted to really push forward through that.
[6:13]Well, as someone who has a stepfather and married to someone who was my kid's stepfather,
[6:20]that is attention.
[6:21]I'm very familiar with on an intimate level from every way.
[6:25]There's that sort of feeling of loyalty and abandonment and yet love and it's so complicated.
[6:32]It's just so complicated.
[6:34]And I remember saying like one father and one was a father.
[6:39]And then there is this distinct shell.
[6:42]Yeah, absolutely.
[6:44]Do you mind if I read a little passage from the book?
[6:47]Is that okay?
[6:47]Just so quickly.
[6:48]Oh my gosh.
[6:49]Actually, I wanted to talk about also your aunt Sammy.
[6:51]Maybe we could jump to that and then I'll go read a passage later.
[6:54]You write about your aunt Sammy who was in this horrific attack essentially and left for
[7:00]dead and had to get a steel plate in her head and was never quite the same.
[7:04]And you parallel that story with your own gash and your forehead, which I was like, can
[7:09]I see?
[7:10]Can I not see it?
[7:11]I was growing up a little bit.
[7:13]You can't see it as much.
[7:16]Years was a sort of typical childhood thing, like jumping between beds and you know, still
[7:20]required a lot of repair.
[7:23]Tell me about those two stories in parallel and how that linked you to your aunt Sammy
[7:28]and what it meant to have her and, you know, just talk about that relationship.
[7:33]Yeah.
[7:34]It's funny that I actually don't get a chance to talk about that chapter as much.
[7:38]But what I love about it is the sense of my mom is a narrator doing a storytelling, trying
[7:44]to tell this family story of like, this is what you shouldn't do.
[7:48]But also as a kid feeling the sense of like wonder, looking at my aunt that she looks
[7:54]different, that she sounds different.
[7:56]It's almost like having like, you know, being around the cool, the cool aunt or cool uncle,
[8:01]that's not, that doesn't do what mom does.
[8:03]But there's also this deeper level to it that, that aunt Sammy was broken.
[8:08]And that even though she looks different, the narrator feels this sense of friendship with
[8:13]her because he's different than, than, than his brother is, and his, then his cousin is that
[8:17]there is this sense of connection because they're both, they're both different.
[8:22]And then we have the same birthday.
[8:23]Yeah.
[8:25]Which was really fabulous.
[8:27]Wait, talk also about the chapter and the scene with you and your grandfather where
[8:31]he was prepping you for how to fight.
[8:34]Yeah.
[8:35]The way he wrote about that was so amazing.
[8:37]And then in the midst of it, as he goes inside, you sneak your first taste of his beer.
[8:43]And he comes back out and then kind of shakes the can a little, and you leave the chapter
[8:48]with him just like glaring at you.
[8:50]It was so good.
[8:51]It was like a movie.
[8:52]Well, so I, I love sometimes, I don't think it ends ambiguously.
[8:57]I think sometimes the readers want the what happened next.
[8:59]And, and I don't believe you need to know that that's not what it's about, but what it's
[9:04]about is trying the narrator trying to understand his masculinity as a kid, trying to say,
[9:09]well, I'm little and I have glasses and I don't look big and tough and, and wrestling
[9:14]with that.
[9:15]And the chapter before is there's a fight between the narrator and, and a girl.
[9:20]And so like, I wanted to show the complexity of little boys being told how to be big men,
[9:27]even when they're not.
[9:28]And so tasting the beer was this sense of rebellion and trying to be masculine, like how
[9:34]more can you try to, can the narrator try to become like the grandfather who's this big
[9:38]strong man by doing the exact same thing that he's doing, which I think young men do so
[9:43]often.
[9:44]Yeah.
[9:45]Because you also have the not very accepting reaction when you were playing with dolls at
[9:50]one point and how that was not okay at home.
[9:53]Yeah.
[9:54]Yeah.
[9:55]And I want, I want the, the storytelling to do the work rather than the didactics of, of
[10:00]at masculinity. Because I want my reader to walk away and say, I understand what he's trying to
[10:04]argue without saying, this is what I'm trying to argue. Well, this passage from early on with your
[10:11]mom and how you describe her to be like the car that was, you know, needed pads and the motor oil
[10:20]was dripping and all that. And you said you might not be able to, but it ran the car, meaning the
[10:25]car, but it ran like how a smoker with emphysema ran. And you might not have been able to tell
[10:29]who was more broken. The car or her, meaning your mom, how her hair had split ends and was wrapped
[10:34]in something faded and frilly. And the frames she usually only wore before bed, magnified hot and puffy
[10:40]dark eyes. And she had pulled on whatever sweatpants and sweatshirt she could find in the closet so
[10:44]her clothes didn't match. Her perfume wasn't sprayed and she might not have showered at all. And while
[10:48]this does not define a broken woman, this woman was in pieces. Like this car, the two door 1984
[10:54]with no frills, no automated windows, no cassette tape player, no leather seats, no air conditioner,
[10:59]just a box on wheels with an engine and it's sputtered, hissed and wheezed. When she continued
[11:04]forgetting to press the clutch, the gears ground and we covered our ears. And you said, like us,
[11:08]crammed together in the back seat, my big sister and big brother and me, a trio of nesting dolls,
[11:12]we watched our mother become something else. For on a normal day before all of this happened,
[11:17]before the rage and panic, she was regal, double-breasted blazer, pleaded pants, glasses,
[11:22]begone your bright and feathery pedal soft. Our mother was planned for size purposeful,
[11:27]like the inside of a paper planner. But now she said things under her a peeving chest,
[11:32]the rising and falling of breath as if she were still pacing around our house, still throwing
[11:36]whatever she could into her military issued duffel. Oh my gosh, so good. So it's a little long winded.
[11:44]No, it's not long winded. It is really beautiful. It's so beautiful. In those couple paragraphs,
[11:50]we have a sense of story like before the after and treat like what happened to her?
[11:55]Like how did she get from point A to point B? Like what happened? Tell me about writing that and
[12:00]how you even click your scenes and what, you know, all that. So for me, at the time, I didn't think
[12:06]about this idea of like tenor and vehicle and like trying to really use the car metaphorically,
[12:13]like I just kept remembering the car. So as a creative writing teacher and college teacher,
[12:18]I try to say like, start with the image first and then describe the image as much as you can
[12:23]and then bridge it into the narrative. And so clearly, I'm trying to show that the mother
[12:28]becomes like the car. But the easy way to do that is to focus on the details of the car and then the
[12:35]bridge starts to expand where you're seeing how I'm making the connections. And at the same time,
[12:40]like on a sentence level, I'm trying to give you that big juxtaposition that this is what she
[12:46]looks like right now. But however, this is what she's normally like. And I think without the juxtaposition
[12:51]without showing the opposite that scene doesn't land as hard. And then you end up going back to it.
[12:58]And then that goes back to the poetics of it is why did I say bagonia rather than a different
[13:03]color. And it's for the sound, it's for the cadence. It's that I know that the shirt was bright.
[13:09]So I want to focus on the language to do that work for me to show you that juxtaposition because
[13:15]the tone changes and the description of the mother. So take me from basically when the book ends
[13:22]to now. What you're not in your life. Yeah. So this was my wife always laughs at me about it because
[13:29]she's not in my book. She's in my dedication. She's in my acknowledgements. But I needed to end when
[13:35]I'm becoming, for me, when I'm becoming a man, when I'm becoming an adult, when I've come of age.
[13:40]And while the man that I was at the book is not the man, the father, the parent that I am today,
[13:45]I felt like I needed to end it there. That the narrator is afraid to become in that chapter,
[13:53]this tokenized black teacher who's falling apart, who's whose life is beginning to feel like
[13:59]meaningless. And that's when I started teaching and I'm 13 years in. And so where I'm at now
[14:07]is I actually just published an essay at today or today's show, which I'm really excited about
[14:13]is about my mom being in the service and thinking about that as a parent when she was deployed
[14:18]for the war in Afghanistan. So I'm working on a collection of essays about being a parent. And the
[14:24]focus is on when my as my children are children now and sort of looking at the stories of things
[14:31]that they're doing. And what that's teaching me about a parent being a father of color,
[14:36]being a father with a working wife and all those, all those different things, but being told through
[14:42]the narrative. So I'm really, I'm really excited about this project that I'm working on.
[14:47]That's exciting. Very exciting. Okay. So what are some of the, we got some great writing tips from
[14:53]the way you were saying with the car. Now I'm like motivated to go try that with like the letter
[14:58]object. What are some of the tips for aspiring authors that you teach your students?
[15:03]So I always think of like when I'm writing about parents, right? And a lot of it is about my parents
[15:10]is that there's so much emotionality. And like if I tell a student to like write about how you feel
[15:14]about one of your parents, it's you just flooded with emotion, good, bad, both. And so I feel like
[15:21]that writing becomes too abstract. And the narrative is drowned out by the emotion of it. So I'm
[15:28]always saying start with the image, the object, the place, the things that you can describe,
[15:33]and let them do the work. And then, and then let the emotionality come out of it, right? Like,
[15:38]I want to, I want to write a piece where I never have to say how I feel about my mom, but it's
[15:42]shown through the writing. There's a really good essay called Whiting by Disha, who wrote the
[15:48]Secret Life of Church Ladies. And it's like one of our smaller pieces, but it's called, it's a piece
[15:53]about the narrator spending time with her father, her mother's dying of cancer. And she uses
[15:59]the whiting of fish to do the work, to be the metaphor of this father who's not giving all of
[16:06]this love. And so I always start there when writing about parents because she uses the metaphor
[16:12]to discuss something that's so complex. So I would tell students, I would tell anyone who wants
[16:17]to write when you're writing about something that's full of such emotion, especially nonfiction,
[16:21]is let the image, let the object do the work for you. And then once you've gotten that,
[16:26]then all the emotionality is just naturally going to pour out. But if you start with emotion first,
[16:32]it just, it always feels too abstract. It always feels like it's too grand.
[16:37]Who is the first reader of what you write?
[16:41]Oh, that's a, so right now I have a really good friend. His name is Dave Master,
[16:46]and he is Italian teacher at the high school that I work at. Also, he's certified in English,
[16:51]so we love talking work together. He's getting into writing about writing about food and wine.
[16:57]So I always send it to Dave first. And then I send it to my wife because writing is,
[17:02]it's not that she's not a good writer, but she thinks a lot more concrete than I do. And she'll
[17:08]give me the hard, no, that's not working. She'll always tell me straight. And I need those two
[17:14]different perspectives. Do you read your work out loud? Absolutely. So my other big advice is,
[17:22]I remember walking around my classroom during my off period reading my whole book out loud.
[17:27]You have to do that. If you go back and read the sentence that you read from that essay,
[17:31]you have to read that out loud to get the cadence, to really realize, hey, this word works better
[17:37]here than this one. If you're writing a huge novel, it's harder, but you have to do it,
[17:42]especially in the most poetic moments and you're writing. Totally. I have a novel coming out.
[17:47]And my poor husband, I read him the entire book. But we kept stopping. We kept being like,
[17:53]oh, no, because it was so obvious as soon as you read it that something had to change.
[17:58]And record yourself reading it. Or like, if it is a big novel and it's hard to do that,
[18:03]think about the most poignant moments when you really need to emphasize the language and read
[18:08]that out loud. Record it. Record yourself reading it out loud. Just all those things that really
[18:13]have an understanding of what it sounds like. Who do you like to read in your spare time?
[18:18]So I just started seeing unbearied saying, which is just I like, I kept hearing about the book,
[18:27]and I want to teach it. I know I'm a couple of years behind on it. But I'm hoping to teach it this
[18:31]year. And sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, like that's exactly what I want to do on my writing.
[18:36]So I realized that I'm more like this writer than I thought I was. Justin Torres has a new book
[18:40]coming out. And I read We the Animals back in the back a couple of years ago. And then my book was
[18:47]compared to We the Animals. And now reading it because it's another book that I'm teaching this year.
[18:52]And I'm just I'm just amazed at writers who can do what I'm trying to do lyrically and be able
[18:58]to do it in a whole narrative, which is which is really hard. And do you go back to Alabama?
[19:02]Are you in Alabama? So I live in New Jersey. I thought so. I was like, there's no way here in Alabama.
[19:09]I don't know why I can tell that, but I just tell that. My grandmother relocated to New Jersey
[19:17]I don't know, maybe about 15 years ago. And so the majority of my family live in New Jersey
[19:21]and some living Alabama. So I haven't been to Alabama probably since 2005, I think.
[19:28]Well, I feel like Alabama itself is a character in the book, if you will.
[19:32]And that's another I think a good piece of writing advice is how does place
[19:36]do so much of the work in the narrative? How can place push the plot forward?
[19:42]And that's sometimes you have the tone character down and let place do the work.
[19:47]Did your mom tell you about those times sneaking away with your dad?
[19:52]Because that's so private that we were privy to their illicit love affair.
[19:58]So what a
[20:00]was initially was thinking about the nature conservatory
[20:02]that they went to.
[20:04]And years later, my dad used to take me to the same place.
[20:07]And I think that was a difficult place
[20:09]to start to write the book before I'm born,
[20:11]because I have to take bits and pieces of what my dad said,
[20:14]what my mom said, and also trying to fill in some of those gaps
[20:17]with the time period, with the context.
[20:20]And it's also very private.
[20:22]And so I said, how do I write my parents' love story?
[20:26]And at times, again, it was very difficult to push
[20:29]through that content.
[20:30]But I believe that it's one of the most beautiful pieces
[20:32]in the book.
[20:33]And in order for my readers understand the narrator,
[20:36]it has to start there.
[20:39]Well, it definitely showed you as a product of so much love.
[20:44]From so much joy and that sense of, I don't know,
[20:48]I want to say freedom, I don't know why.
[20:49]But they were just doing what they wanted to
[20:54]and letting loves or dictate the answer.
[20:57]I don't know.
[20:58]It's very cool.
[20:59]Has anyone in your family read the book yet?
[21:01]Yes.
[21:02]My mother is almost the biggest character
[21:04]in the book other than the narrator.
[21:06]There's so many moments when she has to push the story
[21:10]long because I don't know it.
[21:12]So I always think about when you're writing people,
[21:14]when you're writing parents, you have to write them fully,
[21:17]is that even though I don't have the greater relationship
[21:21]with my biological father, you also understand why.
[21:23]That he's not just a villain.
[21:26]And I think it's so important when we're writing them more
[21:28]to be able to, if you can.
[21:29]I mean, some people are just despicable,
[21:31]but be able to write people fully and holy.
[21:34]And I believe that I did that.
[21:36]That every character in the book is not just used
[21:40]as a narrative marker to move the story along.
[21:44]Wow.
[21:45]What are you most looking forward to with the book coming at?
[21:47]Is it a tour stop?
[21:48]Is it somebody particular reading it?
[21:51]Like what do you like?
[21:52]Yes, this is coming up.
[21:53]So I've had some good, some good press getting in USA Today
[21:57]to fill it off and fire was great being here.
[22:00]I mean, I love the authors you have.
[22:03]I mean, clearly Matthew McConaughey's amazing
[22:06]to be able to be in this virtual space
[22:10]with people that I admire.
[22:11]And I think as readers and writers today,
[22:14]we don't know who's reading our book.
[22:15]We don't always know.
[22:17]And so for me, what's the most magical thing?
[22:20]It's not necessarily the book sales,
[22:22]how many reviews I get, it's when it's going into classrooms.
[22:26]That's my goal for this book is that teachers will read it.
[22:29]That I wrote it in a way as an educator
[22:32]that students would feel really drawn to the,
[22:36]to not only the narratives,
[22:38]but the way that the narratives are written,
[22:39]that they are standalone pieces,
[22:41]they can also read in an entire arc.
[22:43]And it is my hope that it finds its way in classrooms.
[22:47]And in some classes it has,
[22:49]but that's the dream for me.
[22:51]Amazing, divine congratulations.
[22:53]It's beautiful.
[22:54]You're a beautiful writer.
[22:55]I really wish you all the best.
[22:57]And I'm so glad I got to spend time with your book.
[23:00]And with you.
[23:01]Thank you so much.
[23:02]And again, thank you for making time for me and my work.
[23:06]And I really admire you as a reader
[23:08]and being able to celebrate so many of us.
[23:10]And in a time where I feel like books aren't always
[23:13]being celebrated fairly and equally.
[23:15]So thank you.
[23:17]It's a joy.
[23:17]It's a true joy.
[23:18]Right, thanks so much.
[23:21]Have a great day.
[23:22]Yeah, you too.
[23:23]I'm glad to see you back to class, yeah.
[23:25]Thank you so much.
[23:26]All right, take care.
[23:27]Bye.
[23:27]Bye.
[23:29]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[23:31]Don't have time to read books.
[23:33]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebioans,
[23:36]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read books.
[23:38]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[23:40]and sign up for my virtual book club
[23:42]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[23:45]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[23:46]at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[23:48]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[23:50]for providing this fantastic intro
[23:52]and now, trim music.