Tova Mirvis, WE WOULD NEVER: A Novel
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
[0:06]Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[0:08]In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors
[0:14]and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time.
[0:18]As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously a podcaster, I get a comprehensive
[0:24]look at everything that's coming up, and spend my time curating the best books, so you
[0:29]don't have to.
[0:30]Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests, like I do, every single
[0:35]day.
[0:36]For more information, go to zibimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens.
[0:44]Toba Mervis is the author of We Would Never, a novel.
[0:48]Toba is also the author of the memoir The Book of Separation, which was a New York Times
[0:53]book review, editor's choice, and excerpted in The New York Times' modern love column.
[0:58]She is also the author of the novel's visible city, The Outside World, and The Ladies
[1:02]Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller.
[1:05]Her latest novel We Would Never is being published this month.
[1:09]Her essays have appeared in many publications, including The Washington Post, The Boston
[1:13]Globe magazine, Real Simple, and Psychology Today, and her fiction, has been broadcast
[1:18]on NPR.
[1:19]Welcome, Toba.
[1:20]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to talk about We Would Never, a novel.
[1:24]Thank you.
[1:25]Congratulations.
[1:26]Thank you so much.
[1:27]OK, I have to say, in my entire life, I have never read a first book of a chapter that
[1:32]ended with me gasping.
[1:34]Like, I literally was like, my kids were in the room, and they were like, what, what?
[1:39]And I was like, no, it's the book.
[1:40]It's the book.
[1:41]So to have a twist, and I'm beginning, even like that, it's like, OK, settle in.
[1:46]Here we go.
[1:47]Thank you so much.
[1:48]I really appreciate that.
[1:49]And then of course, the rest of the book was fantastic, and these characters, oh my gosh.
[1:54]I feel like I would recognize them walking down the street.
[1:56]Tell listeners what We Would Never is about, please.
[1:59]Or We Would Never is about a close-knit family in Florida who might or might not have done
[2:05]something unimaginable in the wake of their daughter's divorce, and I guess it's a mystery
[2:10]about a murder.
[2:11]But I think really it's a mystery about family love and loyalty and about, like, very
[2:17]hard to solve questions of anger and escalation and forgiveness.
[2:23]And I know that you wrote a memoir, which now I have to go back and read, and I'm very
[2:27]sad to do so, about how you grew up in the Orthodox faith, and you ended up getting divorced,
[2:32]and they're the main character in this book is divorced, and there are all sorts of text
[2:37]messages and all this, like, how much, like, did you bring, how much did you bring your
[2:42]own, like, I'm divorced?
[2:43]I don't know.
[2:44]They're also like, like, what could you say?
[2:47]What could you not say?
[2:48]What was true?
[2:49]What was not true?
[2:50]I appreciate a lot of your writing, which I read about divorce as well, because, you know,
[2:52]when you write memoir about divorce, it's a tricky subject, you know, and no one's wishlist
[2:57]in a divorce is an ex-wife who's writing a memoir, and so just, you know, you just tread
[3:03]carefully because there's children and family involved, and so my memoir, The Book of Separation,
[3:08]is about, you know, is about a divorce and leaving a religious community, and really, I guess,
[3:11]it's sort of a late stage coming of age story about trying to find my own voice.
[3:17]In writing that, you know, I had to be careful to some degree.
[3:19]It wasn't the place to, like, dish it all.
[3:22]I mean, fiction is so great because you get that freedom, and so, you know,
[3:26]my divorce was not like this one.
[3:28]It was not murderous.
[3:29]It was not, you know, it wasn't fun, but not this bad, but in writing about this,
[3:34]you know, I took a true crime story, this real-life story in which a divorce ended in a murder,
[3:39]and, you know, we hear about these stories from time to time, and I always feel like,
[3:42]you know, how does, you know, what's the difference between that kind of divorce and the regular
[3:47]divorce that is horrible, but you get over it and you move on and everyone to whatever
[3:52]degrees possible carries on, you know, no one kills each other.
[3:56]And, and I think in the, but I, so what I did use for my divorce, I didn't use the facts
[4:00]that it wasn't what happened, but I was able to pull on, I think, just the emotional texture,
[4:06]the way that divorce is so destabilizing.
[4:09]It emores you from, I think, who you imagine you were in the world or what your life was
[4:15]going to look like.
[4:16]It, it shakes the way people see you, how you see, you know, even friendships.
[4:20]Everything is caught up in that divorce vortex.
[4:24]And so that was something I was able to pull on for this book.
[4:28]Wow.
[4:28]And I know that's only part of it, but it's sort of the basis of all of it is this fracture.
[4:34]And what I particularly loved is how you showed what is her name.
[4:39]I'm so bad with names.
[4:40]Every single book, what is the main character's name?
[4:42]I'm really sorry.
[4:42]Sorry.
[4:43]I loved how you showed Haley sort of losing her life, so to speak, and how their relationship
[4:51]slowly unraveled because Jonah was pulling her away and how it's so easy for this toxicity
[4:58]to get into your family of origin as you like are eager to please your husband
[5:03]and try to save your marriage.
[5:04]Like that slow pulling away.
[5:07]And Mary's reaction to this was just so great as her desperation to maintain close ties
[5:13]with her daughter escalates.
[5:14]Right.
[5:14]I mean, it didn't mean a marriage.
[5:16]People say, you know, just marry the person you marry the family.
[5:18]And I feel like you don't just divorce the person.
[5:20]You've divorced the family.
[5:21]And it has never cushions, you know, a family's a system of interlocking pieces.
[5:26]And so on Haley's marriage becomes complicated.
[5:29]It affects the family structure, especially because the main issue that she and her husband,
[5:35]Jonah, fight about is about the family.
[5:37]And what was the most common things people fight about in a marriage or money, sex and family?
[5:42]I think I once heard of them.
[5:44]They fight about family and how involved, how involved this family is going to be with
[5:49]their marriage.
[5:50]Are they going to see them every week, every month?
[5:52]Are they never going to see them?
[5:54]And I was interested in law relationship, how Haley is able to forgive her mother for being
[5:59]maybe, you know, a little intrusive, a little much, because she knows that that intrusiveness
[6:05]comes from a place of love, but it's harder when you're an in-law.
[6:08]It's harder, I think, to hold on to that understanding that, yeah, you know, roll your eyes,
[6:13]maybe get a little annoyed, but my mother loves me.
[6:16]And so that was so fraught in their marriage.
[6:19]And so, you know, in writing the book, I kept thinking of, you know, what are the things I have
[6:22]to lay out to, you know, what are the sort of explosives I have to lay down or everything to come
[6:28]together?
[6:29]And that sense of, you know, for Sherry, this mother-in-law, she wants to be close to her kids,
[6:35]she wants her children to love her, she wants her in-laws to be close to her.
[6:40]And when her son-in-law Jonah really does not like her, it wounds her.
[6:44]And that wound, I think, is also part of what lays the groundwork for what eventually happens
[6:49]in the novel.
[6:50]Yes.
[6:51]Very true.
[6:53]Well, you could look at Sherry from the outside and think, like, as you're saying, intrusive
[6:59]and all these things.
[7:00]But you make her so likable, no matter what she does, like you see all her intentions.
[7:07]And I love the scene where her husband Saul is overhearing this time where Jonah is sort of
[7:15]bad-mouthing his wife.
[7:17]And he doesn't interfere, but he's standing there saying, like, if you only knew, like,
[7:20]she would do anything for us, like, you totally don't get her at all.
[7:25]And he doesn't say anything, but just that, that instinct that even though she can be annoying
[7:29]or whatever, like, she would do, like, this is such a good, good-hearted woman.
[7:36]And I feel like, you know, it's so easy to knock, like, you know, the overbearing mom,
[7:39]but I feel like, you know, I have three kids who among us has not had our overbearing moments.
[7:44]When you feel like your child is being hurt or you feel like your smile doesn't danger,
[7:50]that question was really at the heart of the book, you know, we all say, you know, I would
[7:54]never do that, and I would never, and I don't think I would ever, you know, murder someone,
[7:57]for example, I really don't believe I would, but in most of us, I don't think what, but,
[8:01]you know, but do you know, for sure what you would do in situations that you really cannot imagine,
[8:08]especially when it comes to your children?
[8:10]And I felt like for Sherry, you know, that, you know, I spent a lot of time trying to craft
[8:16]that, that her as a character where she was intense, and, you know, someone intrusive maybe,
[8:22]but I never wanted to let go of the feeling that this is from love and protectiveness,
[8:27]and I feel like I always wanted to have those two pieces of her in conversation with each
[8:32]other so that you couldn't just be like, oh, terrible mother overbearing. I'm like, it's never,
[8:36]it's never so simple. And maybe with all the characters, you know, in any book, it's never so
[8:40]simple. I mean, I think part of what I love about writing fiction is you get to go inside,
[8:45]you get to see people in all their complexities, even people who do something really bad,
[8:49]like my characters ultimately say, oh, maybe don't do it, we'll give everything away, but you get
[8:54]to see people in their complicated states, you get to understand their pain, their weaknesses,
[8:59]their fears, and that, and I think that's the real pleasure of writing and reading fiction
[9:04]to be able to do that. And so true, but you have early on when you're describing Sherry, and
[9:10]you're saying she keeps busy like she has this in her day and that in her day, and she's in a
[9:15]book club, and you know, she sees her friends and extra place times or whatever she does, you know,
[9:20]but it just like doesn't replace what it was like having three kids at home. And it made me so sad,
[9:27]you know, it was just like, you know, what does happen? I still have kids at home, but they're
[9:33]grappling up, you know, what happens in that aftermath stage, which takes up the rest of life,
[9:39]and how do you feel it? Right. I thought so much about idea of empty nesting. So my three kids,
[9:45]you know, and I started the, I started the book five or six years ago, they were a little younger,
[9:48]but now I have a 25 year old, a 21 year old, and a 17 year old, who's an 11th grade. And so I think,
[9:54]you know, you always take parts of yourself when you wrote. I think I just channeled that anxiety.
[10:00]feel like, you know, I feel for the idea of my youngest leaving home. I mean,
[10:04]my, oh my gosh, so, you know, decades my entire life, you know, besides I've written and I,
[10:09]you know, done lots of other things, but the core of my life has been, you know, what time do I
[10:13]have to pick the kids up? You know, who has to be where when and what do I need to do for the kids?
[10:18]And, of course, you still have those relationships when they're adults, but I think I have a lot of
[10:22]anxiety about that change and that question of, it's an identity shift, I guess, as you move
[10:27]onto a different phase where so much of my identity has been about having, you know, the hands on
[10:31]work of kids at home. And so I think I was able to sort of give that to Sherry and maybe turn the volume
[10:38]up on a little bit and explore, you know, what happens to your sense of self? And I think for Sherry
[10:44]in particular, I think she feels like everything has been invested in the kids or hasn't really been
[10:49]anything else. And what if they don't just leave home, but what if there's a distance,
[10:54]what if they don't want to come back home? What if one of Sherry's children is estranged from her,
[10:58]which felt to me like, you know, one of those horrifying things that could happen with the child
[11:02]and that sense of what if you've given your life to your family and in the end, you end up alone.
[11:08]And that anxiety, I think, is what fueled a lot of her character. And I was able to just
[11:13]take my little nagging worries and they're like, Oh, no, they're getting old. They're growing up
[11:17]and just, you know, something about putting it on the page and then pushing it further, be like,
[11:21]okay, what if you were really crazy? What if you just make really radical because of that fear?
[11:24]Wow. Well, I so relate to that. I feel like, I mean, you must have, well, maybe not,
[11:29]but I have days without my kids when they're with my ex. And then when like pickup time comes,
[11:34]I can't even work. Like I'm so used to pick up at a certain time, like even in my workday,
[11:39]like I have to like get up or like go do something else or like because I'm so used to
[11:44]that, that rhythm of life and to think it's like stopping altogether. I don't know.
[11:50]Right. I mean, one of the really hard things about divorce is of course not dealing with my kids
[11:53]every single day. And we had a, we had a schedule. I did all the pickups just logistically even
[11:57]if they weren't with me one of the nights, but there were weekends when I was out with the kids. And
[12:01]you know, when I had three little kids running circles around me, if you had said to me,
[12:05]you know, you're going to have two days without your children. I had been like, oh, a vacation.
[12:09]But you know, when it came, it didn't feel like that. But you know, it felt bad. It felt,
[12:12]I felt like a piece of myself was taken away and they always come back and like, you know, it's been
[12:16]years now. It's been 12 years. But you know, I've got used to the rhythm of that. But it's hard.
[12:22]And you know, that was one of the things I was able to pull on for the book two, the sense that
[12:27]in the novel, Haley and her ex-husband Jonah have a small child who works even harder.
[12:32]And they have a three or three or four year old little girl as the book goes on. And
[12:36]and just that sense that the child not being with you, you feel like a piece of you is living
[12:40]this other life in another house. And you don't have access to that. And that is so
[12:45]and boring. I think as a parent and that was one of the other, you know, I get to be writing about
[12:50]it is, I don't know if I'd say cathartic, but it's something. It's a way of like thinking about it
[12:54]on the page and getting to think about just the pain of your children not always being with you.
[12:58]Because you know, there are many pains of divorce. And that is certainly one of, you know, one of the
[13:02]biggest ones I would say. Yes. Oh, thank you for that. You have another storyline where we're not really
[13:10]another one's all about the family. But Nate is striving to please his dad. He's it goes into the
[13:15]same medical field. And it's just like, it was never the perfect kid. And now wants to redeem himself
[13:20]by being this top doctor and revolutionizing the practice. And his dad is like not that into it.
[13:28]Tell me a little bit about this push pull of like the older generation and wanting to please.
[13:34]And yet, are you pleasing or are you further antagonizing?
[13:38]Right. Just in the novel, Saul, the father runs a dermatology practice and his son decides to
[13:45]go to medical school and decides to also become a dermatologist, which everyone has sort of
[13:48]surprised about because he was always sort of the antagonizing child, the kid who enjoyed pushing
[13:54]his father's buttons and making him angry. And then he decides to follow his father's footsteps.
[13:59]I guess both as homage to him, but also maybe in some ways to sort of increase that sense of
[14:04]competitiveness or maybe most of all desire for approval. And I think that your Nate is a character
[14:10]the son is kind of impetuous. He's brash. He's a little sort of has a dark sense of humor.
[14:16]But I think he was probably my favorite character to write. I think underneath his sort of jokey
[14:22]exterior, I felt like he was this like broken little boy. And that part really like was fascinating
[14:28]to me. Maybe I felt for him a lot as a character. And so he goes into practice with his father
[14:34]and he has lots of ideas for how to change the practice. His father is sort of an old school
[14:38]dermatologist and he wants to turn it into more of a cosmetic dentistry practice. I spent many,
[14:43]many hours down the rabbit hole learning about dermatology practices and tensions in the field
[14:48]and googling things and sort of snows you feel like, why am I googling this? Like, where am I?
[14:53]Why am I on this watching a webinar about, you know, currents and dermatology? But yeah,
[14:58]here I am doing this. And it was very fun. You know, it was a fun theme. I, you know,
[15:02]the novel is based on a true story that was set in Florida. And the family that allegedly
[15:08]has been arrested for committing a murder. They were a nice family of dentists in South Florida.
[15:14]And I knew I was going to change a lot of things. So I gave up. It was a painful day when I
[15:18]decided they couldn't do dentists. There was something about like the sharp little tools and like
[15:22]the cavity and the teeth and like the cavities and their souls kind of, or that I could make
[15:27]use of. But I thought of dermatology, which felt like it had a good, it felt similar enough that I
[15:32]had metaphorical possibility. I was, you know, I thought about like the malignant season side of
[15:37]us and what's visible on the surface. And because the book is set primarily in Florida,
[15:42]I felt like dermatology was a good place. I spent a lot of time in Naples, Florida because my
[15:48]husband works their part time. And so there's just so many dermatology practices. So I was able
[15:53]to sort of use that a little bit. But it was fun to write. It was fun to write about a medical
[15:57]practice also. And dermatology just, you know, I would also Google like skin conditions. It just
[16:03]the descriptive possibilities was really enjoyable too to write about.
[16:07]When you definitely wrote about Florida and the most positive way, I feel like Florida has
[16:11]ever been depicted in it. I haven't come to love Florida. I mean, it's a crazy place in so many
[16:17]ways. It's, you know, there's much to be said about Florida. But I think what I, what I might
[16:23]the real story with said in Florida, I couldn't give up Florida. I was like, I will give up every detail,
[16:27]but I will not give up. I'm just this book had to take place in Florida. It just, I feel like I
[16:34]wanted to think about the landscape of Florida, the lushness, the greenery. Sometimes when I'm down
[16:40]there, I just feel like if I can not think about anything else to do with Florida, I was like,
[16:44]it's so green. It's so beautiful and lush and tropical and also so swampy and so sticky. And I
[16:52]felt like for a family that is so enmeshed, I felt like Florida was the right landscape to do that.
[17:00]And I also thought about Florida. I felt there was this contrast between, you know, the
[17:03]manicured botanical gardens where every flower is like beautiful in place. And I drew a lot
[17:08]from Naples, even though the book is said in West Palm Beach, every single, there's nothing in
[17:12]Naples, Florida. That's not absolutely beautiful. Like the, every little park is just, I feel like
[17:17]someone spends their day tending to this, this little flower bed. But at the same time, there's
[17:23]always this potential for like a wild storm to come through and uproot everything, right? So like
[17:28]it's civilized, you know, the, the physical beauty is structured, ordered, and yet always on the
[17:34]verge of crazy. And I felt like that in some way, it was a theme I wanted to play within the book.
[17:39]I felt like my marriage is like the world of civilized order and law and everything follows the,
[17:44]you know, the so-called rules. And then divorce rules through and you're just in the wild.
[17:49]So you're in this swamp land, you're in a hurricane where nothing is ordered anymore. And so
[17:55]and I just, I loved writing about the gardens and Sherry swims laps, you know, she's big swimmer.
[18:00]And so I don't really swim much, but I love to run. And so I used my like running obsession
[18:05]for her or swimming. That sense that sometimes, you know, when I feel myself like over while
[18:10]well with things or something about the back and forth or the repetitive motion that is soothing.
[18:16]And so I used that and I spent much time also, you know, my Google search is that if someone
[18:20]ever looked at my Google searches, it would be like dermatology, hit men, murder, beautiful pools
[18:25]in Florida. And so I just go going, you know, just trying to get the landscape right. Because I
[18:30]think, you know, as a writer, there's certainly, that that was just fun. It was just fun to like
[18:34]look at pictures of pools and be like, what kind of child should they have? You know, what does
[18:38]this swimming pool look like to just create the visual world that I wanted the book to take place in?
[18:44]Well, it's a good symbol because of how immersive the book is and how the pool brings people
[18:49]together. Like it was such a happy place for the kids when they were little and then even Sherry
[18:54]in her most desperate moments is swimming again. And then Jonah like hating the statue and all of
[19:00]that. So I just love it. Plus who doesn't want to spend time thinking about like swimming in the
[19:06]sunshine? And I guess like the pitch black out at like the morning. There's like a freezing rain
[19:14]ice storm right now. And I was like, I don't know if I can get down my driveway for a few hours
[19:18]because it's a sheet of ice. Yes, it was very nice to do. I wrote a lot of the book during the pandemic
[19:23]so in this room right here. So it was just very nice to be able to to imagine myself and to like a
[19:29]lush wampy Florida world while I felt so pulled up here. And how about writing about the Jewish
[19:36]faith and all of that? Well, my most of my other books, I've written for their books. And really
[19:42]for the most part, they had been very much about Jewish community life. My first book, The Ladies
[19:46]Auxiliary was set in the Orthodox Jewish community Memphis that I grew up in. My family has been
[19:52]in Memphis since 1873. So I was like, well, I think Memphis connected. Wait, how did you get
[19:56]to how did they end up getting to Memphis? So they wanted.
[20:00]1973 came from Germany and you know, the joke was always that someone went to Memphis
[20:04]because someone had a cousin there, but no one knows who that cousin was, but they they
[20:08]I think did have a cousin and Memphis is on the Mississippi River and at the time it was a big
[20:12]trading center. And so the first cousins went there and then more people came and I recently
[20:19]been doing a lot of research into my family history because because of a new book I'm writing
[20:22]that it's going to be a several generations southern Jewish novel and I found this shipping
[20:27]records that my great-grandmother who came later in 1921 came to Memphis. I went to Ellis Island
[20:32]and was able to find the record when she came and you know it's amazing. It has like the family
[20:37]came from Gretnopold and it has destination. It says Memphis Tennessee and just you know it was
[20:42]it was amazing to see it. I knew I've known this story but something about seeing the actual
[20:47]records of when they came. So so much about writing them for me being a writer was always so tied up
[20:52]and wanting to write about this small close-knit community and on one hand you know what feels so
[20:58]nice about being part of a tight-knit community that's sense of belonging somewhere and being rooted
[21:04]and yet at the same time what is hard sometimes about feeling like there's one way to be or if you don't
[21:10]fit in you're on the outside and and then so in my memoir was so much about wrestling with my own
[21:15]orthodontics community and my own questions of you know what was I born into and what do I actually
[21:21]believe for myself and and maybe just the coming of age moment of deciding to reshape my Jewish
[21:27]identity to still hold on very strongly and proudly to my Jewish identity but my observance and my
[21:32]affiliations within that shifting and asking questions about you know what do I actually believe in
[21:37]what do I want to belong to and you know in this book the characters are Jewish and you know I was
[21:43]always in conversation with the true story so the true story you know it was I think part of why it
[21:48]was so shocking to me was it was a nice Jewish family in South Florida who apparently you know
[21:53]murder their son-in-law and you know that the shock it felt close I knew the person very tangentially
[21:58]and many friends who did as well so it felt this close sense of Jewish connection and so I decided
[22:03]to maintain the fact that they were Jewish but it wasn't really at the forefront of what I was
[22:07]thinking about and writing about them I didn't feel like their Jewishness was central but the one
[22:12]way that I was really interested in exploring it from a Jewish perspective was thinking about the
[22:17]theme of forgiveness which is of course a universal theme but in particular I was interested in
[22:22]idea of Yom Kippur the Jewish holiday of forgiveness and you're really interested in asking the
[22:28]question of what does it mean to be able to forgive someone and what happens when you're not able to?
[22:34]I felt like in the book every character has some relationship to the idea of forgiveness
[22:39]and Sherry thinks about it in terms of Yom Kippur this sense that you know it's one thing to say
[22:45]well you forgive me and tell them to give you a quick apology but what is the real process of
[22:49]forgiveness like it's you know it's a process of letting go of pain and being willing to talk about
[22:54]pain and I think a lot of the characters in the book are very focused on this word never you know
[22:58]I will never forgive you I will never let go of this I will never do this and I've like never in
[23:03]some ways is the opposite of forgiveness where you get to turn back and you get to relent and
[23:08]that for me you know I think maybe my favorite Jewish holidays Yom Kippur it's
[23:12]one at the most fun holiday but I feel like the one that feels you know I have a real sense of
[23:18]meaning connected to you know still about just that sense that you can undo you can undo the past
[23:24]or you can move differently move forward differently from the past and so that was a theme that really
[23:30]was close to me when I was writing the book I love that yeah I would not say I'm Kippur's my favorite
[23:35]holiday but anyway it's my it's the one that speaks to me I would much rather like make you know
[23:42]potato latkes yeah wait tell me more about this new book so I'm gonna spend the after every book
[23:49]I've written I always say that I'm gonna write a several generations southern Jewish novel I've
[23:53]been really you know I have this long standing family history and you know and everyone always asked
[23:57]and how did your family get there and I grew up with this sort of this anomalous world of
[24:02]Orthodox Jews and Memphis which you know growing up I thought that was like a very normal thing to
[24:07]be and then when I went to school in New York my friends were like you know what you know
[24:11]Jews and Memphis and and after every book ever since my first book which was 25 years ago which
[24:16]is crazy to believe I was like okay I'm gonna write this southern Jewish novel and I keep getting
[24:20]way that after every book I started and then I don't know why sometimes I just always
[24:26]sigh I'm like oh I'll do that next and then happen after every book after my memoir I was like
[24:30]this is the time this is the time to write this big novel research you know David and I started it
[24:37]and then I got way later to a different novel I was gonna write a novel we have been a very
[24:42]interesting old house in Boston that Timothy Leary lived in for a year and I was like I went
[24:46]right now about the house and Timothy Leary and then after a few months I was like I'm not just
[24:50]in Timothy Leary I can't stop like it takes me each forever to write a book I was like I can't do
[24:54]Timothy Leary for four years five years and then I was like oh my Memphis novel and then I got interested
[24:59]in this true crime story just like no but right now that I am writing it there is no no way
[25:04]late I feel like I if I don't write it now I'm not going to but I'm interested in exploring
[25:08]these several generations and in particular there's a story that is told about my great-grandmother
[25:15]the one who came in 1921 so she was sort of the late arrival to Memphis and she came from
[25:19]Gretna Poland and the only story I really know about her even though I named after her
[25:24]was that one day she went digging for potatoes in bread no and her shoes were stolen and just this
[25:30]little story everyone in my family tells it differently my grandmother used to tell it as sort of this
[25:35]coming of the age story coming up coming up to America story you know this happy immigrant story
[25:40]of they left because of the danger and now look they settled in Memphis and my mother told
[25:46]it as a fairy tale she wanted to write a children's book about the little shoes and then you know
[25:51]once my mother and I started digging into what was 1920-1919 Gretna like a war torn chaos
[25:58]and we started to ask questions about this story and wonder what the story really held what
[26:05]what story was not being told underneath it and so I wrote a few short stories about it they're
[26:10]all called potatoes and so now I'm really taking those early short stories and turning into a
[26:16]larger story about you know what happened to this great grandmother and also what's family stories
[26:22]do we tell and how do they change with each generation of telling it and of course right now
[26:27]it's called potatoes which will probably change oh I love that amazing I can't wait to read it
[26:32]well first I'm going to read your memoir very much thank you for this totally riveting and
[26:43]really deeply resonant so personally to at least you know book and yeah it's it's really great
[26:51]and I'm so glad to have talked to you about it thank you so much I so appreciate it it's great to
[26:56]talk to you okay thank you thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi formerly mom's
[27:03]don't have time to read books if you loved the show tell a friend leave a review follow me on
[27:09]instagram at Zibi Owens and spread the word thanks so much oh and buy the books