Chris Cander, THE YOUNG OF OTHER ANIMALS
[0:04]Welcome to Moms Don't Have Time to Be Books with Zippy.
[0:07]I'm the host, Zippy Owens.
[0:09]I am an author, my latest is blank, pub date March 1st, a novel.
[0:13]I'm also a podcaster, obviously, a publisher, a bookstore owner, and so much more.
[0:18]If you love books, you're in the right place.
[0:21]In fact, we call it the Zippyverse, or really, the LA Times called it the Zippyverse,
[0:25]and we're going with it.
[0:27]Go to Zippy Owens.com to learn more and follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens.
[0:32]Chris candor is the author of the Young of Other Animals, a novel.
[0:37]By the way, Chris and I will be on the Zippyverse tour together at an event in Houston at
[0:42]Brazos Bookstore.
[0:43]So check out my website, Zippy Owens.com for more details on that.
[0:48]Chris is the USA Today best-selling author of a gracious neighbor, the weight of a piano,
[0:53]which was named an indie-next great read in both hardcover and paperback,
[0:57]and which the New York Times called immense, intense, and imaginative.
[1:02]Whisper Hollow, also named an indie-next great read, and 11 stories,
[1:06]named by Kirkus as one of the best books of 2013 and winner of the Independent Publisher
[1:11]Book Awards for fiction.
[1:13]She also wrote the children's picture book, The Word burglar, and the audible originals,
[1:17]eddies, and grieving conversations.
[1:19]Her new novel is the Young of Other Animals.
[1:23]Candor's fiction has been published in 12 languages.
[1:26]She lives in her native Houston with her husband and two children.
[1:29]Welcome, Chris.
[1:29]Thank you for coming back on Momstone Have Time to read.
[1:32]Books to discuss the Young of Other Animals, a novel.
[1:35]Congrats.
[1:37]Thank you so much.
[1:37]And thanks for having me back on.
[1:39]You're welcome.
[1:40]And I blurbed this book.
[1:41]I'll have you now.
[1:42]I'm so grateful for it.
[1:44]I'm happy that you loved it.
[1:46]Um, it was so neat reading it too.
[1:48]After our last podcast where you talked about what had happened to you personally,
[1:52]I'm then to be able to read how you fictionalized, all the things that came after.
[1:56]Then I found myself wondering what had happened with you versus the characters.
[2:01]Anyway, maybe I should back up.
[2:02]And why don't you tell listeners what the Young of Other Animals is about?
[2:07]Well, it's, as you said, it was inspired by an event that happened to me when I was 19 in Spain.
[2:13]And it was something that I dealt with in my own way, but never really talked about.
[2:17]And I decided that I was ready to fictionalize it, not write it in a memoir because it was too
[2:24]close.
[2:24]It was like, I didn't want to get as close to that flame as memoir would have required me to do.
[2:28]But fiction, I'm comfortable with.
[2:30]And so that was the inciting incident, a violent attack against a 19-year-old young woman.
[2:37]But what came after that, what evolved from there was a much different story.
[2:43]Yes, that is the way that the book begins.
[2:46]But what evolves is really a complicated relationship between a mother and a daughter.
[2:53]Bayree is the mom.
[2:54]Paula is the 19-year-old daughter, college student.
[2:57]It's set in Austin, Texas in 1989.
[3:01]And they're both dealing with the recent death of Paula's father, and Mary's husband, Frank.
[3:09]They're kind of lost in their own worlds of grief and bitterness.
[3:13]And when Mary finds out, and Paula reluctantly admits that she had been attacked,
[3:20]it brings up a lot of discord between the two of them.
[3:24]And what evolves is a revelation that Mary has her own reasons for having reacted so strongly to
[3:31]that.
[3:31]And so the two of them, along with the other characters in the book, are forced to confront their
[3:36]relationship. And it is that event, and an ongoing threat of continued violence that
[3:44]forces the two to reconcile their relationship.
[3:48]And ultimately, it has a redemptive happy ending in spite of the dark themes that the book tackles.
[3:55]Well, I love how you told the story from multiple perspectives, and the mom, and where she is in her
[4:01]life stage, and then how she has to handle what comes next, her son in prison, also writing
[4:08]letters throughout the whole thing, and getting out of prison, and like, what do you do with that,
[4:13]right?
[4:14]Well, one character is in prison, but it's not Mary's son.
[4:18]It's not Mary's son.
[4:20]Okay.
[4:21]Okay, I got it wrong.
[4:21]I've read like a thousand books since you read this one, so I'm so sorry.
[4:26]You didn't get that one detail is completely fine.
[4:29]I am so sorry.
[4:30]Okay, so talk about the character in prison and the letter writing.
[4:34]Okay, well, I don't want to create any spoilers, but there is an anonymous letter writer
[4:40]who is in juvenile detention, and he's writing to his mother in these interstitial letters
[4:47]throughout the book.
[4:48]And they are relevant.
[4:49]But if I tell you too much about them, it might give away an important spoiler.
[4:54]So, just know that those readers should know that those letters are there for a purpose.
[4:59]Okay.
[4:59]All right.
[5:00]Well, maybe what you unintentionally did was confuse the reader into thinking that maybe they were
[5:05]a very sad.
[5:07]Well, they are intended to ask more questions than answer.
[5:12]Okay.
[5:12]Or pose more questions than answer.
[5:14]Okay.
[5:15]I'll just, we'll let that simmer.
[5:20]Oh my goodness.
[5:21]So tell me about how you like, why, why write from multiple perspectives?
[5:27]Why was this not just the daughters or like, when you thought about taking this event and
[5:32]turning into a novel, what happened then?
[5:35]And how did you end up with this, this form and this story and where did my read even come from?
[5:40]So, I mean, you being a novelist now as well, you understand that a lot of these things
[5:48]just kind of evolve on their own.
[5:49]So, when I started with that very difficult premise of I'm going to recreate the memory of an
[5:56]attack that I experienced.
[5:57]But I'm going to give it to someone so that I could examine it at a safe remove.
[6:02]That wasn't enough to make a compelling story.
[6:05]It's a compelling event, but not a story.
[6:09]So I had to start asking and interrogating questions.
[6:12]Well, who is this woman?
[6:13]Who is Paula?
[6:15]What is she doing at age 19 in 1989?
[6:19]And I wanted to set it in my home state of Texas so that I could, you know, examine it from
[6:27]I don't know, a closer geographic perspective.
[6:30]What occurred to me was in Spain and I don't know Spain well enough to
[6:35]write authoritatively about that setting in this situation.
[6:38]So, you know, just asking the questions about what was she doing and what were her life
[6:44]circumstances?
[6:45]And I realized that she had obviously had to have parents.
[6:50]And what was really interesting is that her mother, Mairee, spoke to me in my imagination and
[6:57]she announced that her name was Mairee, not Mary, Mairee.
[7:02]And just her salt and sass came through in that moment.
[7:07]And I thought this is a challenging personality.
[7:11]And I wanted her to be sort of a foil for Paula because I thought of Paula as being
[7:19]strong in her own way, but also full of self doubt.
[7:23]I wanted her to be a bit more of a follower than a leader.
[7:26]She's got a best friend who is the stronger of the two in their relationship.
[7:32]And so her mother being this strong kind of domineering old Texas woman,
[7:39]though she's not old, but old Texas, that personality evolved.
[7:44]And I realized that no, I mean, part of the reason that she's so salty is that she's been
[7:49]dealt a hand was she been dealt.
[7:52]And that led me to imagine her marriage to Frank.
[7:57]And I thought, Frank had to have captured her heart in the beginning.
[8:01]But I don't think that he stayed a romantic partner in the way that she imagined.
[8:07]So it all just sort of fell into place with lots of imagination, just not necessarily writing,
[8:15]but thinking about them and imagining their circumstances and backgrounds and the conflicts
[8:22]that would arise in a situation like this and knowing that Paula didn't want to tell anybody
[8:30]what happened the same way that I didn't tell anybody what happened to me.
[8:34]She told one person and that was her friend, just the same way I told one person.
[8:40]And yet her mother and the housekeeper that is practically a part of their family
[8:46]are the ones that discover the evidence that she had been attacked.
[8:50]And so that was something that Paula had to overcome.
[8:54]And in order for that to be relevant or a problem, there needed to be some backstory
[9:01]in Mary's history that would cause, you know, sparks to fly.
[9:06]When the truth of that attack was brought to light.
[9:10]So it all just sort of evolved out of creative necessity.
[9:13]I think just to create, you know, a compelling narrative that had some propulsion and dealt
[9:20]with things that I like to deal with.
[9:22]I like in all my fiction to deal with complex female characters, secrecy, family dynamics,
[9:30]and all of that sort of came out of this.
[9:33]Tell me more about, and I know we talked about this last time, but for listeners who don't know,
[9:37]you had this horrible attack. You told a friend, what was the relationship like with your mother?
[9:43]What did you tell her? And did you cut your hair off in real life?
[9:48]Or was that just a fictional thing?
[9:51]That was just fictional. I was finishing up my semester abroad and this attack,
[9:57]which was a violent.
[10:00]attempt on my life. After I had willingly gotten in a car with a stranger, I was able to go home
[10:07]shortly thereafter the program finished and I went back to Houston and I told no one, not my mother,
[10:13]not anyone. I buried it and I thought I could bury it even from myself. And I think the reason
[10:20]I did that is because I felt a certain degree of shame for having gotten in a car against, you know,
[10:27]anyone's better judgment. But I wanted to make a phone call and I gave Paula that same
[10:32]justification for getting in the car with her perpetrator in the novel. But because I felt a sense
[10:38]of shame and responsibility for my own attack, I didn't want anyone to know. I didn't want to
[10:43]talk about it at all. I didn't cut my hair, but I did just sort of go along in my life
[10:50]as though it didn't happen. But here's the twist. You can't hide those things from yourself. They
[10:56]live deep in your psyche somewhere. And what the way that I responded was to become physically
[11:04]incredibly strong. I took up competitive bodybuilding. We came a firefighter. I got my pilot's
[11:11]license. I studied martial arts. I became a self-defense instructor. And it wasn't until I had
[11:21]maturity and time to look back and realize that I was building a physical fortress around myself.
[11:26]Because I never wanted this thing that had happened to me at age 19 to happen to me again.
[11:34]And I also didn't want it to happen to anyone else. So if I could interrupt that by teaching
[11:40]self-defense classes to women and girls, then that might make my experience worthwhile.
[11:49]And then one really interesting thing that happened as a result of writing this novel,
[11:54]the way that I did is, even though I teach my self-defense students that no attack is ever
[12:01]their fault, even if they do the things that you're not supposed to do, go out into the world
[12:09]very distracted or go into unsafe places on your own. It's never their fault. And even though I can
[12:18]say that to other women, I don't think I had ever really processed in my own mind that what happened
[12:26]to me wasn't my fault. So there was a really therapeutic element to finishing this book is that
[12:34]I could look at it and give myself forgiveness for having gotten into a car with a stranger.
[12:40]Because I had just hadn't done that. If I had been smart enough not to do that, this wouldn't
[12:46]have happened. And I don't look at it like that anymore. I look at it as well. Clearly, I've
[12:52]turned it into something positive. And now I can forgive myself and move on from there.
[12:58]Well, think about how young you were when I went through it. Obviously, I felt like 19 was so old,
[13:02]but now having twins who were 16. They're like babies total, you know, like the judgment,
[13:08]they're not like full grown adults yet. Like they're just still going out in the world and
[13:13]everyone makes mistakes. I mean, everybody makes split second decisions. And like, you don't
[13:18]have to necessarily have your life threatened because of them, right? So I'm glad you have found
[13:22]that forgiveness. I feel like in the book, there's this recurring sort of PTSD almost playback,
[13:30]right? Especially with the neck and the words that the perpetrator used that kind of stick with
[13:36]her and she's like Paul is marinating and like can't escape them. You said you buried it. So did
[13:42]do that not happen to you at all? Like you just somehow were able to like stop any sort of
[13:47]intrusive thoughts about it or you buried it in that you tried not to let things happen. You know,
[13:53]I mean, that's a really good question. I don't think I'm very good at compartmentalizing things.
[13:58]And so even the memory of the memories is fallible. And that was another thing that really
[14:03]interested me about writing this novel is exploring the failure of memory, especially under duress.
[14:10]And thinking about the way that the human mind does, you know, immediately engage in self-protection
[14:18]by, you know, shutting down certain physiological functions in order to focus on surviving.
[14:24]You know, and I was exploring that more through fiction than I remember experiencing in my own
[14:32]life, the idea that these intrusive thoughts would come back. But I did a lot of reading about
[14:37]memory and trauma and know that that is kind of a typical response that people will have these
[14:44]intrusive either through dreams or, you know, some strange unexpected moment, a thought will pop
[14:50]into their minds that they have to deal with or they don't recognize it as a memory or thought,
[14:55]but they feel a physical reaction to it. And so the best way in my thought process to display
[15:03]that in this book was to have it be intrusive thoughts. And so that's why I gave them to Paula,
[15:08]especially because the words that the perpetrator used were so incredibly vile. And those were
[15:15]words that my perpetrator used against me. And so I guess they were ironically, oh, here's later,
[15:22]they did come back, but in the form of fiction.
[15:26]So this must have been really emotional. I mean, even if you feel like you've made peace with it,
[15:32]going down the darkest moments or maybe not the darkest, but a dark period and some very scary
[15:39]times, like how do you just sit down and do that? And then like jump away from your computer and
[15:45]go off and do something else? Like what was it like to really be reliving that and also have the
[15:51]present to deal with with all of its demands? So the first thing I did was I wanted to write this out.
[15:57]I'd never written it out before. And so I thought if I'm going to create this narrative,
[16:02]I have to put this scene on paper first just to test it out. So I really created a specific set of
[16:11]conditions for doing that. I wanted to make sure my family was home that they weren't going to bother
[16:16]me. I wanted to strangely sit outside. I almost had this feeling like if I needed to run for my life,
[16:23]I could get up and run for my life as illogical as that is. And I had a cocktail.
[16:32]I wanted to make sure that I was just a little bit not buzzed, but just kind of my
[16:38]fighter flight was suppressed just a tiny bit. So those three conditions I created them and then
[16:44]I sat down in an uninterrupted moment and wrote that whole scene. I ultimately broke it up. So
[16:51]you having read the book know that there is a really intense opening scene that begins with
[16:57]Paula fleeing the scene of the attack, but the attack itself doesn't appear in its entirety until
[17:03]midway through the book. But I wrote that whole thing at one time and I survived writing it and
[17:09]obviously and I thought, okay, I can do this. And once it was down on paper, it was almost as though
[17:15]I kind of expunged it on some level, forcing myself to put it into words. And you know this
[17:22]as a writer, speaking words and writing words are different experiences. And you know, for whatever
[17:29]reason, it's easier for me to talk about something than to write about it. It becomes more tangible
[17:34]in the written form. And so once it was written, I was prepared to go forward with it. And I did
[17:41]have a real life to go back to. I had to go back inside and cook dinner and, you know, let the
[17:46]cocktail wear off. And you know, and then I was able to proceed and it didn't feel quite as intimidating.
[17:52]In fact, it felt pretty liberating from that point. What was the cocktail? This is the most
[17:57]important question of always Vodka soda with a twist of lime. Amazing. Yeah, the brand of vodka
[18:03]that you like. It is, of course. Well, you'd be offering those on your tour. I should, I should just
[18:14]carry a handle around with me. Oh, I'll try to smuggle one on the plane on my way down to to see you.
[18:23]Oh my gosh. Or at the bookstore. Yes. And tell me about the title and did you have any other
[18:30]titles? Was this always it? Tell me about that. Okay. Some titles, you know, will draw you
[18:36]in immediately and you kind of have an idea about what the book is about. But this one, in fact,
[18:41]I had the idea almost as soon as I decided to write the book. But ironically, it had nothing to do
[18:47]with the book at the time. I was an AM, a dictionary nerd. And so I will flip open a dictionary just
[18:55]for fun and read. And so I was, believe it or not, flipping through the Oxford English Dictionary,
[19:02]the second edition volume to. And I was, you know, my last book that we talked about, a gracious
[19:08]neighbor featured a pair of key. And I was kind of steeped in the bird world for a little bit. And
[19:14]so I opened up the definition of the word bird. And it was four pages long. And there was one
[19:22]obsolete definition that caught my eye. And it was from 1495. And it was a translation of
[19:31]something from Middle English. But it was an excerpt in the source text was all fish,
[19:39]feed and keep their birds be Y R D E S. And the fact that middle English speakers would refer
[19:46]to fish offspring as birds was interesting enough. But what was even more compelling was,
[19:53]I think just the phrase itself, just the lyricism of the phrase. And without the concept
[20:00]text, you know, what it called to my mind was just this, well, first of all, I felt this shimmer
[20:06]of kind of excitement about it because those five words conveyed just a sense of danger or vulnerability
[20:14]because in the natural world, the young within a species are likely to be cared for and protected
[20:21]while the young of other animals are typically prey. So I immediately thought about,
[20:29]you know, being preyed upon or being a predator and, you know, the myriad relationships that
[20:36]could form between the implied elder of one species and the young of another. I was so interested
[20:42]in it and I thought it could be predatory but it could also be, I don't know, symbiotic or protective
[20:47]or possessive even and so I thought I really wanted to, you know, interrogate that more.
[20:54]And then as I started writing this book, I thought, wow, what makes certain animals, including
[21:00]humans, choose protection over predation. And as you know, because you read the book, the theme of
[21:08]predation and protection recurs throughout the story among lots of different characters in their
[21:13]myriad relationships. And so I thought for that title, originally my editor, whom you also
[21:21]have as an editor, who loves carbon, love, love. She questioned it, you know, which is valid
[21:27]because it doesn't immediately take you in and describe the story. But I explained to her my thought,
[21:33]my reasoning behind it and she fortunately was so gracious and said, I'm with you, I trust you
[21:40]and so we got to keep it. And I'm happy that we did because I do feel like it has relevance
[21:44]to the story. Well, it's also so intriguing. You know, I mean, you have to, you can't listen to that
[21:50]and think, whatever. You know, if nothing else, you have to keep digging and figure it out for
[21:56]something much more straightforward. And did you have input in your cover? I didn't have much
[22:02]input in my cover, but I love it. But tell me about your experience. Well, I did. I love this cover.
[22:08]There were several versions of the, you know, mother and daughter because it is ultimately a
[22:14]mother-daughter story. And that what never changed was the text and the typeface, which I love,
[22:20]I love the handwritten, it echoes gracious neighbor and also my book before that, the weight of a
[22:26]piano. So I love the handwritten touch. There were some variations on how the two women were presented
[22:35]and the color scheme changed and then so did the position one in profile and one facing forward.
[22:42]But ultimately, I just fell in love with it. I love the pink. I think it's really catching.
[22:47]It is match it today. But yeah, I think it turned out beautifully and is really sort of in
[22:54]addition to the title kind of an evocative image that I think, you know, if I were looking at it,
[22:59]I would pick it up and wonder what was this about. You know, the fact that there are two women of
[23:04]clearly different ages, you know, kind of at a perpendicular stance to one another. What does that mean?
[23:10]Totally. Well, it represents the intriguing nature of the interior and the story. And it's great
[23:18]when there's a line, but also gives you the chance to wear a lot of hot pink, which is lovely.
[23:25]Are you working on another book? I have to ask. Yeah, vaguely. I feel like I kind of
[23:31]like just blew through the last three novels in a fabulous way. And then I only get one idea
[23:39]at a time. The universe does not shower me with ideas. And so I'm still waiting for my lightning
[23:45]bolt moment. But I do have I have a character and a setting and a vague premise and a ghost.
[23:54]But I don't really have a whole lot more than that. And so I'm just going to let it marinate.
[23:59]I do keep getting little pop up ideas. So I know it's I know it's happening under the hood.
[24:05]I just haven't really started, you know, actually writing it yet.
[24:10]That's okay. But I'm excited. You have a lot on your plate.
[24:14]Thanks a lot. Just so exciting. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors
[24:18]aside from vodka sodas? Always. But I think this is something that someone asked me recently.
[24:25]And I, you know, the typical advice is read, read broadly, write, don't give up.
[24:31]But something that I as a writer now releasing my fifth novel have really
[24:39]thought a lot about is what it means to me when someone emails me a note that tells me
[24:45]specifically how they connected with a book that I've written. And you know, as all authors do,
[24:54]that there are these, you know, inevitable crises of confidence and moments where we wonder
[24:58]if the project that we're working on is, you know, worth it. If it has a place in the world,
[25:03]if what we're doing is meaningful. And then occasionally, you know, an unexpected email will
[25:09]arrive that validates everything. And I'm and it's not to say that external validation is the goal
[25:16]because it's not. It should be intrinsic. And for the most part, it is. But my advice to aspiring
[25:23]writers is write to the authors that you love whose books affect you. And then when you become
[25:31]a published writer and someone sends you a note, write back. That is fantastic advice that I have
[25:38]not heard before and is so important and so true. It makes all the difference. It's so,
[25:45]it's amazing that we have this direct access when we grew up. It was not like that at all. And now
[25:51]I remember getting my first email back from Jill Santa Polo. I finished her book and I DM'd her
[25:56]and she wrote me right back. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is blown my mind. I'm still crying
[26:02]from her book. So yeah, it makes me huge difference. Yeah. And it's also just, you know,
[26:07]it's wonderful to connect to people anyway. And writing can be so solitary for most of us. And
[26:14]I think that just those moments of connection are so worthwhile. It doesn't have to be a long
[26:20]letter. But just hey, this resonated with me. And that is enough. That's enough. I love that.
[26:26]Excellent advice. Chris, thank you so much. I'm so excited to see you soon. And we just see you too.
[26:32]Oh my gosh, we're going to have fun and your book. Congratulations. So great. So emotional.
[26:39]Oh my gosh. And I just, I'm so, I mean, it sounds hokey to say proud of you. But I'm so
[26:46]happy for you that you were able to get this out on paper and just like out of your body and sort
[26:52]into the world to officially sort of move on in a, in a new way. So thank you. And I will accept
[26:59]that you're proud of me gratefully because it means a lot. And I thank you for your support.
[27:04]Okay. All right. Thank you, Chris. Okay. Bye bye.
[27:10]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:14]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zebioans and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[27:18]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet
[27:23]lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for
[27:28]the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro
[27:33]and outro music.