Jennifer Niven on her amazing new novel Meet the Newmans

[1:47]Zibby Owens: this is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming up and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to. Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com, and follow me on Instagram at zippy owens. Okay. You guys, meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven is one of my favorite books in the longest time. I could not put it down. I devoured it. I then met Jennifer Niven, the author, when I did an event with her at our mini Rose Zibby's Bookshop, New York City pop up, which has since closed. But she came on her pub day just radiant, wearing the coolest outfit and coat, and just she and her husband are the sweetest. She then came to Zippy's Bookshop when I was there in LA and signed the one book that hadn't sold out. I was so embarrassed that we had I mean, I guess it's a good thing, but we had sold out of all the huge stack of the books that we had. And Jennifer is just amazing, and I hope you will all get Meet the Newmans. It is just really great, and I can't believe it hasn't been optioned yet for a film. I think this would be the most amazing movie. But anyway, here's a little bit more technical stuff about Jennifer Niven. She is a number one New York Times and internationally best selling author of 13 books, fiction and nonfiction, including the massive breakout, All the Bright Places, which she also adapted for film. Her award winning books have been translated into more than 75 languages and sold upward of 3,500,000 copies worldwide. Jennifer has loved television and film her whole life and has been lucky enough to develop projects with Netflix, Sony, ABC, and Warner Brothers. She divides her time between Coastal Georgia and Los Angeles with her husband and literary cats. You guys go get this book. Welcome, Jennifer. It's so exciting.

[4:04]Jennifer Niven: I'm so thrilled to have you on Totally Booked and here for one of our last Minnie Rose slash Zooby's Bookshop live pop up events and your pub day for Meet the Newans. Big round of fun. Yay. Thank you so much. I was telling Zippy I'm just so honored. I am a huge fan of her podcast and her and all that you do for authors and books and readers everywhere. So thank you all for being here and thank you so much for having me.

[4:33]Guest: Don't stop. As you know and from Instagram where I posted way too many times, I am absolutely obsessed with your book. I could not put it down. I found the characters so real, I continue to think about them even though the book is over, I'm like wondering what they're all up to. The format, the way you structured it I found so compelling with like a plot racing, heart racing element to it, not knowing what was happening. Like there were just so many things you did so well. So why don't we start by you telling everybody what the book is about and then I'm dying to know how it got started and how you created the whole thing. Absolutely,

[5:09]Jennifer Niven: well it is the story, it's set in 1964, it's the story of a family, the Newman family, Dell, Dinah and their sons Guy and Chef who for the past twelve years have been America's favorite TV family and the boys have essentially grown up on television and their lives are not their own. They play this kind of apple pie perfect black and white version of themselves but it is now 1964, the times are changing and the Newmans are sadly sorely out of date. When Del who is the creative motor behind the show is in an accident, it's up to mom Dinah to step into the creative spotlight and try to save the show. I'm trying not to do spoilers by the way, try to save the show and in doing so liberate herself and the rest of the family because behind the scenes they're a complete and utter mess. So where did this concept come from? This concept came from a number of different places. I am obsessed with old Hollywood. I used to love Nick at Night and all the old classic TV shows and so that's one of the places that came from. I wanted to write something. I've always been fascinated by that but I've also always been fascinated by the fact that we all have a behind the scenes and when I was touring for All The Bright Places, which is a young adult book I wrote years ago, the thing I heard most from my readers was thank you for letting me know that it's okay to be messy, it's okay to be me, that you know, I feel seen and I matter and I just kept thinking about the fact that it's so sad that so many people, well all of us actually have a behind the scenes that we aren't always comfortable showing or sharing with other people and so I wanted to write something about that and then I thought, oh I could combine it with my love for Hollywood

[7:12]Guest: because God knows there's a lot going on behind the scenes there. Was there a moment where there was some element of somebody's behind the scenes that struck you as so surprising that you were like, isn't it crazy that we're all hiding so much behind these exteriors? I think there were so many kinds of examples of that. I remember reading Rock Hudson's biography

[7:33]Jennifer Niven: and the fact that he was made to marry his agent's assistant who was a woman so that he could keep up the facade of Rock Hudson and I just my grandmother I think was the one who got me started on the love for Hollywood especially of that era because she and she was the one who had all these biographies, Block Hudson and Tab Hunter and she had one that was like the sex lives of you know movie stars. Go grandma. Oh yes and every summer we would go visit and I would just devour these books and so I think that Rock Hudson's Stitches really stood out to me because he wasn't, he did not feel he could be the person that he actually was or loved the person he actually loved. And I just remember thinking as a 12 year old reading that how absolutely heartbreaking that was. Well, is you did include that as one of the storylines, the sort of forced sexuality cover up situation.

[8:35]Guest: Yeah. And also just how to be true to yourself and how to express who you love even if it's anyway, there are lot of obstacles in the way of love in this book, which is something that makes it really compelling also when you want to be with somebody and something is getting in the way. How do you get past that? And I feel like kept bringing that up as well. Good. Yeah. Yeah. You also, there's another element of sponsorship that I also found really intriguing as somebody who's like having a brand that like works with brands. So one of the things with the final episode of the show and I won't like get rid the theoretical final, I won't give anything away, is that they had to find the sponsors to keep the show going and the show of course and the whole timing with women's activities in the home changing and women's liberation and not necessarily wanting a mix master but wanting a job or whatever, how did the company stay relevant and how did they get pitched? So just talk a little bit about that and secret weapon that I call her Dina in my head. I know know you just called her Dinah, that's like really throwing me for a loop

[9:40]Jennifer Niven: but it's okay. It's okay. I have readers who call her both. So absolutely. I'm always been fascinated by that with the old television shows with example, for example, Ozzy and Harriet. So Ozzy and Harriet starts with, you know, they're in the kitchen and Harriet serving something in a Pyrex dish and so they can talk about Pyrex or they can talk about Hotpoint appliances and they had to you know the advertisers were the ones who ultimately held the not only like sponsored the show, paid for the show, but they were the ones who had final say on the show. So in this book, the Newmans are on CBS but CBS doesn't have the final say, the sponsors do because they're the ones footing the bill ultimately. So I just found that fascinating because all of the shows at the time, that's how it was done. And I just thought especially with Dinah being liberating, gradually liberating herself from the kitchen to be the spokeswoman for Pyrex or Hotpoint and then to, know, she doesn't want to mix her. She can't even cook actually like in reality. That's one of her secrets is that she's America's most famous homemaker and housewife but she can't cook and she can't clean and they have a housekeeper and she does none of it.

[11:09]Guest: I love the role of the housekeeper.

[11:11]Jennifer Niven: Oh my gosh, she gets invited to a focus group. It is amazing. Love it.

[11:16]Guest: Talk a little bit about the journalist because Dina, I'm gonna call her Dina. We can totally We're just gonna agree to disagree on this. Of the things that happens early on is she's interviewed by a journalist who really puts her on the defensive at first and it's just like not having this whole women's roles and misogyny, the whole thing. She's like against all of what she stands for as an American housewife of the 1950s. And at first is just like so antagonistic and the interview ends early. And then they form this very unlikely bond and partnership and work relationship over the course of the book that changes both of them a lot. Talk a little bit about that and even the backstory that you chose for the journalist which was also really interesting. Thank you. Well Juliet is,

[12:03]Jennifer Niven: as Zibby says, she's a young journalist, she's very ambitious. She works at the LA Times. She's one of two women, only two women female reporters on the LA Times and she has to interview Dinah. She doesn't want to. She wants to be writing the news, but she's been given this fluff piece and she's also has her own backstory with the Newmans because she grew up in a household where her mother idealized Dinah and felt like she had no other choices than to be the perfect housewife and they would watch the Newman's every night. So Juliet knows every episode even though she wishes she didn't. So she really does go on the attack when she meets Dinah and she holds her responsible for so many of the things that she finds wrong in the world and all the oppression she feels as this young female you know in the world and so they do get off in a terrible footing. Dinah basically kicked her out of the house but Juliet's backstory, I always say Juliet's kind of me when I was in my 20s. She's a mess. She's just It's very interesting information. Now I have a lot more questions. Oh god. She's just, she's kind of a mess. She means well, she's very passionate about what she does and she gets in her own way a lot of the time and doesn't really understand that. And I think that one of the things that she brings to the table is, and she and Dinah both, when they are talking about what it means to be a family, what it means to be a woman in 1964. As Dinah tells her at one point, you know, just because we didn't get there fast enough doesn't mean we didn't have to kick down doors. I'm badly paraphrasing myself. Doesn't mean we didn't have to kick down some doors, you know, just because they're not exactly the world doesn't look the way you want it to and you don't think we've made as much progress. It doesn't mean we didn't have a lot of you know, things to do ourselves. So did you also have the thing with the musician and the press? Did you really? Oh my god, who was he? She's like, okay. Alright. That was actually based on Mary Anne Faithful. Okay. Yeah, that part. Alright.

[14:33]Guest: Okay. Wink wink nod nod.

[14:37]Jennifer Niven: Moving on. So but back to you and your

[14:40]Guest: well, no. Wait. One more thing on the book because the pacing of the book is so good and the way you structure it. So in the beginning, everything is how many days from the accident the scenes take place. Then it's how many days after the accident or before the last episode or whatever. So you're already capturing our attention with how time sensitive everything is. In addition, you're also alternating the viewpoints of all the characters. So we see what's going on with Dina. We see, you know, Shep, we see both boys and these things they're struggling with and just and the journal, everybody. So that's very complicated, I feel like, to pull off all of these different elements and keep the suspense and pacing and make us care about everybody. Technically, talk about how you pulled that off. It was complicated to keep track of and this is, know, I always have to give a big shout out to proofreader,

[15:29]Jennifer Niven: copy editor because they're the ones who go, this doesn't, this, this, no, this hour, this math is hard. You know, they're like this doesn't add up, this doesn't, this would actually be six hours not four, you know, and I'm just like randomly sticking our numbers and I don't know, three hours from it but I wanted it to, I knew I wanted to have a little bit of a ticking clock because you know it's more of a character driven piece than it is a plot driven piece but I did want that ticking clock in there to hopefully give it a little more push and momentum. So that was kind of the inspiration for that. And I feel like all of it is about these all the different characters figuring out who they are. It's about finding their identity and their sense of self and through the odds, learning more about who they are and what they really care about. Talk a little bit about that. And was that something you were consciously trying to illustrate or did it just happen as you told the story? I think definitely I was consciously trying to illustrate it because as I was saying about behind the scenes, I'm just always fascinated by everyone's behind the scenes, you know, whichever behind the scenes we're talking about. And I think that I wanted to with especially with the Newmans, although most people in the book have a behind the scenes that I explore, you know, even if it's just very, very minutely for the secondary characters. I wanted with the Newmans to reveal this is who they really are. They play these, you know, they played this version of themselves on television but behind the scenes off camera, they're just you know, I say they're a complete and total mess, well they're human is actually you know probably a more accurate description and I wanted to really delve into the meat of that for each of them because they all have secrets not only from their public but from each other and they've really, their relationships with each other have really kind of fractured and they're distanced from each other and I wanted to be able to bring them together too and a lot of that meant sharing secrets and coming clean about a lot of things.

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[20:32]Guest: So where did this adult novel come from for you? Talk about your whole career. I know you had hugely popular which someone was just telling me it was like her favorite book. Talk about how you got started in writing your other just give us your whole story.

[20:52]Guest: Kidding, not kidding.

[20:53]Jennifer Niven: I am an only child and my mother was also a writer and if she had any hope and prayer of getting her own writing done, she had to keep me entertained and she very early on instilled writing time in my childhood routine and I'm so thankful for that because it really taught me so much about writing, about story, she taught me to find the story in everything and everything I ever learned about life or writing, really learned from her. And so I knew I wanted to write because I loved it more than anything. But I also saw firsthand watching my mother how stressful it could be and how overwhelming it could be sometimes. And was your mom a published author? She was. She wrote mostly literary biography and so her books are about this thick. They took years and years and years of research. She wrote a biography of Carl Sandberg, Thornton Wilder, Edward Steichen. She wrote James Earl Jones's autobiography with him and I learned, you know, as I said, I learned all the things I wanted to you know, know about how to start in the world of writing but it scared me because I also saw firsthand the messiness and the you know, the behind the scenes if you will. Did she cook in Queens? She did not. In fact, I'll tell you a very quick quick story. When I was in seventh grade, we had to take sewing and my teacher called me and my parents into the principal's office and said, Jennifer has a big mouth. She is paying all the boys to sew for her and I just do something about it. And my mom said, well, we are not a sewing family. And my mother was very southern, very gracious. She said, We are not a sewing family. And I actually think that's very industrious because Jennifer has recognized one of her weaknesses or let's not call it a weakness, but her strength is not sewing. I think that's and my dad said, You called me down here from work for this. So did not end up the way my sewing teacher thought it would but yeah, so my

[23:13]Guest: mother now I just completely So I asked you about your whole life story. So I'm not surprised you're getting lost because I was like going into the weeds of all these random Let's see, I always like to have Okay, so you like to read, always you like to write yourself and then what happened and say like high school, college, what happened? So I published my, well after college,

[23:34]Jennifer Niven: decided I couldn't not write even though I put it off for a while, I tried my hand at other things, none of them successfully. And I came across, I went to the American Film Institute for screenwriting. I came across an idea for a book or a movie and I was thinking filmically at that time and it was about a deadly Arctic expedition from 1913 and I told my mom about it and I said, this sounds like it could be an amazing movie and she said, yes, but you could always write the book first and I'd never written a book before, but as she said, you know, every writer has to start somewhere. So I started doing the research. I ended up writing a non fiction account of this deadly Arctic expedition. The Ice Master was my first book that led to another Arctic expedition that was Eat a Blackjack. And then I had an idea for a novel and went to historical fiction. So I had this whole career before All the Bright Places, which most people know me for. And that was my eighth book. So I did young adult, I decided I wanted to do that. I've always crossed genres and something that I know not everyone, not everyone, I had an agent once tell me like that's career suicide, but I can't not follow the story where it wants to go. And talk a little bit about All the Bright Places. All the Bright Places was the most personal book I've ever written. It was based on a boy I loved and lost suicide. And I knew that I wanted to write the story someday, but I didn't know when I didn't know if I could. And, I had a wonderful literary agent before I had this amazing, amazing literary agent and he said, Kid, I want you to write what scares you the most, but what's in your heart. And that's the last time I ever saw him. Like he died very suddenly. He was the agency. He went away. The agency went away and I was looking for new agents as I was thinking about changing up my career and writing this new book and I knew what the story, I knew the story that I wanted to write and I wanted to do it to honor him but also to honor this boy that I once knew and that was all the bright places and Carrie was the one who was sold it and we've been together ever since. And was it hard for you to switch gears into writing fiction for adults or was it just like whatever, I'm just going to write in a slightly different style? I think it's, it was, I feel like the story really tells you how it wants to be written and I feel, yes, I was aware when I was writing particularly for young adults, there are certain things I wanted to keep in mind mostly just to be so honest with the issues, you know, about mental health or bullying or sex or whatever it is you're writing for for young adults. They are the most discerning readers. Feel like they are very savvy. I don't ever want to talk down to them and there's no need to do that but I did feel the responsibility to write very honestly and very responsibly and with adults, it's not that you don't do that, but I think there is more freedom in a way.

[27:07]Guest: And so what is the behind the scenes? What does the behind the scenes look like for you?

[27:12]Jennifer Niven: Behind the scenes for me is look at Justin's just laughing. The behind the scenes for me, we have a lot of cats. I always go there first for some reason. I usually don't look like this. I usually like have my hair like sprouting up off my head and no makeup and yoga pants and like the same outfit every day basically if I'm in the writing cave and we live on this like very kind of as you said kind of random. We live in a very no it's I was like don't you live somewhere really random? It is true, it's true. We live in a very random place on the coast of Georgia and you know, it's very quiet. I'm an LA girl, but I kind of like it too. It's nice to kind of have that, you know, I'll say to him like, is this okay? And I've been wearing the same thing for days and he's like, we're just going to Walmart. I'm like, oh, that's true. It's okay. It's fine. So it's the behind the scenes is just a lot of reading and writing and nurturing these cats that I rescue. I thought we've tried to foster and then we failed because I keep them. And friends and family and me agonizing over, you know, the book is coming out. What is happening? And then writing two books at the same time. Why am I doing this? But then I'm like, oh, I have another idea. So what is you're writing, you've already finished another book or you're in the middle of another book? Well, I had a young adult book come out in September and so these two were kind of they ended up being a little simultaneous more than I probably would have wanted, but that's okay. My husband could always tell what I was working on because if I was working on the young adult, which was dark academia, it was very different for me. If I was working on that one, I was in agony because I was really having to plot this thing and I hadn't written a heavily plotted book in a while and it was hard and then if I was writing this one, I was full of joy. Because it was so it just gave me joy to write it. It was really fun and It took about eight weeks. Weeks? This took eight weeks to write? Yes. Stop.

[29:33]Guest: I mean that just puts all other authors to shame I have to say. No, no because it

[29:38]Jennifer Niven: then it had to go through a lot of editing. My, you know, my own editing included but like it was just such a joy that the characters just came alive and they were which is what you want, the characters are talking to you, they're telling you all their secrets and things and you're writing it all down and then you know, and then the young adult as he said took four years so that was an arduous. So what are the books that you've been obsessed with? Oh my gosh. Like are you do you like a family drama that comic? What is your I do. I love The Nest. I love The Wedding People. Love that book. And we listen to a lot of audio books and when I'm listening to an audio book, I usually listen to some sort of mystery or thriller or you know, because I get very gripped by those. So I love Alice Feeney and Lucy Foley and Kat Stedman. Just for laughs.

[30:42]Guest: Amazing.

[30:43]Jennifer Niven: So what's coming out after this? Do you have another one in the works, in the pipeline? I do. Yeah, can you talk about it? I do. Can I talk about it, Carrie? Okay. This is the first time talking about it. Yes, I am working on a book that was actually loosely inspired by my cousin Jan, who was a flight attendant for United for years and years and was part of the crash that happened in 1989 in Sioux City, Iowa, where they landed in the cornfield and the plane split into four different pieces. And I've always been just riveted by that, by the human story of that. But also there's a love story with that in that Jan was always putting off the person that her friends were saying this is the person for you, this is the right man and when you're ready and it wasn't till after that crash that she was able to meet the man that they were talking about. And now they've been married for, I don't know how many years and have two kids and grandkids. And it was just lovely, lovely story that came out of something very sad. And I love, I'm trying to talk around it if you can't tell. Those are my inspirations for it but I love stories about timing and whether it's a you know an event that happens that you don't foresee that changes a life forever or it's the timing with love and how much timing can play a part, the right time with the right person or the right person but not the right time.

[32:27]Guest: So that's kind of what I'm playing with here. Anything you want to share about you and your husband? Love affair?

[32:37]Jennifer Niven: Breathless. It is. That's right. So we met on Cumberland Island when I was researching a book called Breathless and we ended up having all these adventures on our first date and I wrote them into the story and we knew very quickly that, you know, this is my person. We bought a house four months later and then yeah, yeah I'm again fat with math and then we eloped six months after that and eight years ago. Yeah. All right. Well, I think I know you now. I think I've tried enough into your

[33:26]Guest: personal life. So sorry, know we just met

[33:29]Jennifer Niven: but that's okay. Jennifer, thank you so much. Thanks for coming on Totally Booked and thanks for writing this really gripping, thought provoking, fun, great book. Really great. Thank you. You with all my heart. Thank you.

[33:43]Zibby Owens: Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Sibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.