Lea Vale on Her Ode to 9/11
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:04]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show
[0:07]and learned endless amounts about storytelling,
[0:10]reinvention, and life itself.
[0:11]Because when you talk about books,
[0:13]you're really talking about life.
[0:15]So get ready to hear from today's best authors,
[0:18]the best-selling and the not yet discovered.
[0:20]Come find your next great read
[0:22]and the story behind it.
[0:24]Enjoy.
[0:25]Today is the 25th anniversary of 9-11.
[0:31]I honestly cannot believe it.
[0:34]I'm sure like many of you,
[0:35]I remember exactly where I was.
[0:38]I was in the hallway at my business school
[0:41]when I saw on a passing computer
[0:44]that a plane had hit the World Trade Center
[0:46]and immediately said,
[0:47]oh, my best friend works there
[0:49]and grab my phone to call her.
[0:52]I never saw her again.
[0:53]My best friend, Stacey Sanders,
[0:55]has been with me since then in my heart and soul,
[0:59]but not here with us.
[1:01]And I miss her all the time.
[1:03]Her loss in that tragic way changed my life forever.
[1:08]I've written about it and talked about it many, many times.
[1:11]And I can't believe it was 25 years ago.
[1:15]I also can't believe that she was 25 at the time,
[1:17]which means that now I've been here
[1:20]for double the length of time
[1:22]that half the time with her,
[1:24]half the time without her, it's just insane.
[1:26]And actually, I didn't meet her until college.
[1:28]So never mind.
[1:29]But anyway, 25 years, I can't believe it.
[1:33]I hope everybody takes a minute today
[1:35]to reflect, have a moment of silence
[1:39]for everybody whose life was lost.
[1:41]Everybody's life was destroyed, changed, impacted,
[1:45]which is really so many people.
[1:47]How could we not?
[1:48]It was a moment in history that changed everything.
[1:52]Oh, gosh.
[1:54]Anyway, in honor of today,
[1:57]I have an episode with Rachel Berenbaum,
[2:00]who is writing under a pseudonym, Lea Vale.
[2:02]She wrote a novel about someone who loses someone on 9.11
[2:07]and it starts right there.
[2:09]If you want to read a fictionalized version
[2:12]of what Rachel herself went through,
[2:14]you can read it in her book, Blue Sky Black.
[2:18]We talk all about the book 9.11,
[2:22]how to depict tragedy and fiction,
[2:25]why she even wrote under a pseudonym and more,
[2:28]sending love to all of you out there
[2:30]who feel this day personally, deeply and emotionally.
[2:37]I am with you.
[2:38]Lea Vale is a pseudonym,
[2:40]and this is the first book for this fictitious author,
[2:43]Rachel Berenbaum, by the way,
[2:45]has been on my podcast multiple times
[2:47]for her own amazing works and was a contributor
[2:49]to on being Jewish now.
[2:52]I hope you, well, enjoy is the wrong word,
[2:54]but I hope this conversation is as meaningful to you
[2:56]as it was to me.
[2:57]Welcome, Rachel.
[2:58]Thanks so much for coming back on Totally Buck.
[3:01]It's delightful to be with you here today.
[3:04]Zippy, thank you so much for having me.
[3:06]I'm just so excited to be here on this side.
[3:09]I know, and thank you.
[3:10]You are the consummate host yourself for an HPR
[3:14]and we're kind enough to have me on recently
[3:17]and everything, and you're just interviewer and chief
[3:20]essentially, so thank you for being on the other side 100%.
[3:24]So as we are, we're talking now before the 25th
[3:30]anniversary of September 11th,
[3:32]but this episode will be coming out on a day
[3:34]where the nation will be in mourning.
[3:38]It is such a heavy, important day in history,
[3:42]and I know affected both you and me personally,
[3:45]and so, so, so many other people.
[3:48]Your book with your pen name is an ode to this time,
[3:52]especially, and I want to talk about the book,
[3:54]but I did just want to start today with sort of a moment
[3:58]to remember everyone who was lost
[4:00]and the gravity of that day in general
[4:04]and that we are both, I know, thinking of everybody out there
[4:07]who is feeling that today as well.
[4:12]So, Rachel, before we talk about Blue Sky Black,
[4:17]your new novel, which you wrote under a pen name,
[4:19]Lea Vale, which I want to hear about why,
[4:22]maybe we could just discuss your day 25 years ago
[4:25]or you okay with that, like where were you or we don't have to?
[4:29]Yeah, no, thanks so much for asking that.
[4:31]I mean, I think usually when people ask me,
[4:34]my gut reaction is always to just be like,
[4:36]you know, sort of brush it off quickly
[4:38]because it's so hard to talk about
[4:41]and so emotional for me.
[4:42]And so I really appreciate you treating this
[4:45]with the gravity that it deserves and has in my life
[4:48]and I know in your life too,
[4:50]which is why I wrote this book
[4:51]because I didn't want to just answer that quickly, right?
[4:54]And why I'm here is to really talk about it.
[4:56]I mean, on 9-11, I was in New York City.
[5:00]I came out of the Wall Street subway stop
[5:02]just after the first plane had hit and came out
[5:05]to all of that paper that was just falling down.
[5:09]And I picked up, you know, a singed Maryland business card
[5:12]and I just, you know, I sort of didn't really hit me
[5:15]what was happening at first.
[5:17]And then the second plane hit
[5:19]and I basically high-tailed it out there out of there.
[5:22]I was like, you know, this is like I thought I was going to die.
[5:25]I thought, I mean, it was terrifying
[5:27]and seeing what was happening coming off the buildings
[5:31]and, you know, it was really terrifying.
[5:33]And then it just kept getting worse
[5:36]because that night I spoke to my mom
[5:38]and she told me that a really dear childhood friend of mine
[5:43]had gone missing and she was on one of the floors
[5:46]that was hit directly by the plane.
[5:48]And I just, I mean, at first, like my main character Zelda
[5:53]in the book, she wakes up in the hospital blind
[5:56]and it's a metaphor, right?
[5:58]She's temporarily blind at her eyes
[5:59]or scratched from all of the dust
[6:01]because I felt like it was easier for me to be blind
[6:05]when I heard that she was missing
[6:07]in the sense that I was like,
[6:08]I mean, she was strong, she was an athlete
[6:10]and I thought she was going to run down the stairs.
[6:12]Like she got out, she had to get out.
[6:15]They're going to pull her out of the rubble.
[6:17]And of course, you know, the days pass
[6:19]and then they say, no more survivors
[6:21]we're not pulling on anyone out.
[6:23]And then I'm telling myself she has amnesia.
[6:26]She, you know, something happened.
[6:28]You know, it's the year nodding
[6:29]because I think so many of us who lost people
[6:31]went through that stage of like, she's going to show up.
[6:34]She's just, she's going to, she's in a hospital somewhere.
[6:38]And she didn't.
[6:39]And it's like losing this piece of,
[6:44]so she was a kind of childhood friend of mine
[6:46]that I saw her every single day in the summer at the pool.
[6:50]We, our parents dropped us off in the morning at eight.
[6:53]It picked us up at six.
[6:55]Like I never went to her actual house
[6:57]because we were these summer friends
[6:59]and to grow up with someone like that.
[7:02]She accepted me for who I was when I showed up at the pool
[7:06]and I took her for that.
[7:07]And how she made me feel is how I made my characters
[7:12]in the book feel with their best friendship.
[7:14]So Charlie and Zelda are two best friends
[7:17]in my book, Blue Sky Black.
[7:19]And they didn't actually, me and my friend
[7:21]we never worked in a pawn shop.
[7:23]That's all fiction.
[7:25]But that feeling that Charlie and Zelda have
[7:28]is what I had with my friend.
[7:29]Just someone who was always there
[7:32]and just, sorry, getting really emotional.
[7:35]Just like, she just took me for who I was.
[7:38]She didn't care what I did during the regular school year
[7:41]or anything.
[7:42]And then she was just gone.
[7:45]And it's so hard to talk about that
[7:48]and explain that to people to lose someone like that
[7:51]because I went for long periods of time
[7:53]without seeing her anyway.
[7:56]Like I went all winter, I wouldn't see her.
[7:58]I just hear in the summer.
[7:59]And so in a sense it was easy to say
[8:02]she was just missing, but she'd show up.
[8:05]And then she just didn't.
[8:06]And I wanted to write a love letter to her
[8:09]and that friendship.
[8:10]And that's what I did with Blue Sky Black.
[8:13]Oh, Rachel.
[8:14]I'm sorry.
[8:15]I'm so sorry.
[8:16]You lost her, but it helped you to follow to be honoring her
[8:20]and helping us all get to know her.
[8:22]I mean, the crazy part is we all have so many
[8:25]of these really special relationships, right?
[8:28]And they're not, you can't quantify them.
[8:31]Like this is why or this many years
[8:34]or this relation to me, right?
[8:35]It's, you know, the hours and hours you spent with her.
[8:40]And to have a life touched by someone
[8:41]who suddenly is no longer in this life,
[8:44]what do you say to that?
[8:45]It's so hard.
[8:46]It's too hard for the brain to even compliment that.
[8:49]Yeah.
[8:50]And for so many of us, we lost people.
[8:52]They just disappeared.
[8:54]Like there wasn't a body.
[8:56]There wasn't DNA, you know?
[8:58]And I know people like to write these 9-Eleven stories
[9:02]where someone purposely disappeared
[9:05]because they're leaving something behind or whatever.
[9:07]And I just can never wrap my head around that
[9:10]because people really did just disappear.
[9:13]And it's like, how does that happen?
[9:16]How does someone that is so special like that just disappear?
[9:21]And that's what I'm trying to deal with in blue sky black.
[9:26]Yeah.
[9:27]I share your feelings.
[9:30]As you know, I lost my college roommate on 9-Eleven CC.
[9:33]And I've talked about it many times on this podcast.
[9:35]But it doesn't get old.
[9:37]And what you wrote in the book, too.
[9:38]And interestingly, some of your sort of more early scenes
[9:42]of the day come later in the book,
[9:43]the way you've structured the timeline and everything.
[9:45]But some of that, like some of those moments
[9:49]are just being like, you know, the music sound
[9:50]and where is she?
[9:51]And she must be coming back.
[9:53]And I'm just going to wait.
[9:55]And she must remember, like, we try to fool ourselves
[9:59]because it is just too big.
[10:00]It didn't make any sense for anybody.
[10:04]And the reality of it was so crushing.
[10:07]How can you, how can you easily accept it?
[10:10]And I felt this, I know how can people
[10:12]we love disappear from the face of the earth.
[10:15]Like just evaporate from one moment to the next.
[10:18]It seemed like a science fiction movie.
[10:21]Yeah.
[10:22]And I know you know this, Libby.
[10:24]It's like when people ask, you know, in passing,
[10:27]who was it?
[10:28]Who did you lose, right?
[10:30]I can never really answer that because it hurts so much.
[10:33]So I find myself, my knee jerk reaction is always to say,
[10:37]oh, just a childhood friend.
[10:38]Because I can't go into it, right?
[10:41]It's just, it hurts too much.
[10:43]But I wrote this book because I wanted to go into it.
[10:46]Like I needed to tell this friendship story, you know?
[10:50]And and not have to just, you know,
[10:53]to say that quick offhanded answer.
[10:55]Like I think, you know, this feeling of,
[10:58]she was so much more than that.
[11:00]And I wanted to put it on the page.
[11:02]I don't feel there are any justs in any relationships.
[11:05]She was just a cousin or she was just a childhood friend
[11:09]or she was just, who is keeping track of the rankings
[11:13]and assigning levels of grief?
[11:15]No one.
[11:16]It doesn't work like that.
[11:17]Like we, we, we, we love and we have all different types of love.
[11:21]What did the exercise of writing this book do for you?
[11:25]And I know you even say in the book,
[11:27]how many forms this book has taken over the past 25 years
[11:31]and how dedicated you are to getting it out.
[11:33]And and now that you have, you've changed the name.
[11:36]Like what is the story with the book?
[11:37]How much did it help you like discuss?
[11:40]Yeah.
[11:41]So I mean, again, it's like not a short answer for this book.
[11:45]I've been wanting to tell this story for really, really long time
[11:49]and didn't know how.
[11:50]And I'm also a really big romance reader and romance lover.
[11:55]And the reason I love romance books is because I always know
[12:00]that I'm going to get a happily ever after or a happily ever
[12:04]for now.
[12:05]Like there's like, you know, I, I'm willing to go super dark
[12:08]in a romance.
[12:10]If you think about some of the Colleen Hoover, Sarah J. Maas,
[12:12]right, the, the traditional, like they will take you to dark places.
[12:16]But I'm willing to read it because I know there's going to be hope
[12:19]at the end.
[12:20]There's going to be light.
[12:21]And when I think about 9-11 and what I lived through and losing
[12:27]this friend, like I could only do that because I had to think
[12:31]that there's something good coming somewhere, like in my own
[12:34]head, right?
[12:35]Like you can't, I can't just go into the dark and just think
[12:38]about the hatred and all of the horrible things that fuel that
[12:42]attack, right?
[12:43]And just the senseless killing, like it can't, there has to be
[12:46]something better.
[12:48]And so when I finally sat down and said, how can I make this
[12:51]this book something I can actually write?
[12:54]I mean, I tried many times to make it literary fiction and it
[12:57]was just too dark.
[12:58]And then I thought, you know, if I can make this a romance,
[13:01]put some like a love story in there.
[13:04]And then I know that for me, even as the writer that there's
[13:09]going to be hope that I'm going to leave this story, I'm going
[13:12]to leave my friend and that friendship with some light at the
[13:16]end.
[13:17]And so once I sort of figured that out, it came together for me
[13:23]as, you know, we have Zelda and Charlie, the two childhood
[13:27]best friends and then Ari, who's the love interest and Zelda
[13:32]wakes up in the hospital after the towers of fallen.
[13:35]And as I mentioned, she's blind right her temporarily blind
[13:38]her eyes are scratched and Ari is there and she finds out
[13:43]Charlie is missing.
[13:44]And the book goes back and forth between, it's a dual timeline
[13:48]between how the three of those characters came to be at the
[13:51]World Trade Center on 9.11 and then the search for Charlie is
[13:56]the other timeline.
[13:57]And so you go back and forth between this love, love of
[14:01]childhood, love of friends, love of Ari and and this search
[14:06]and I could do that because of that that lightness or that
[14:10]light that was in the book.
[14:12]You've written several other amazing sweeping stories, right?
[14:16]You've delved into history, you're good at this kind of
[14:19]thing, everything from science to relationships, you know,
[14:23]different places in the world.
[14:24]I mean, you evoke different narratives quite easily.
[14:27]And yet this is one that you'd live through yourself with all
[14:31]of it in your mind versus sort of imagining what if in a way.
[14:36]What was it like for you trying to get this down, channeling
[14:39]all those emotions, but also using all the skills you have
[14:42]in all your other amazing works that you've put out recently?
[14:47]Thanks so much for saying that.
[14:48]Maybe I really appreciate it.
[14:50]And I have so appreciated you cheering through this book and
[14:55]others and for so many other authors.
[14:58]So this book was so different, like you said, because it's so
[15:03]personal and the strangest thing for me was I know sort of
[15:09]intellectually that memories can be warped and they're not
[15:12]accurate.
[15:13]And yet in my own head, I'm like, no, of course, I remember
[15:16]everything perfectly.
[15:18]Like I remember that day perfectly.
[15:21]But then when I would, you know, sit down and I would
[15:24]look something up and say, you know, to check on it, I realized
[15:27]that actually I didn't remember everything, for example,
[15:31]in the right order or that, you know, little things like my
[15:35]blackberry didn't actually have a phone.
[15:37]It was only like a texting machine.
[15:39]Like so there were sort of these little pieces.
[15:42]And at first, I thought it was going to be really hard to do
[15:45]this kind of research because I had been there, but it
[15:47]actually made it easier to think, you know, to go back
[15:52]through and sort of fact check and, and you know, work through
[15:56]it, like it sort of made it give me a little bit of distance
[15:59]to make this easier and also being able to do this again
[16:04]under the romance moniker, you know, and taking on a new
[16:07]name.
[16:08]It just gave me this distance that I could go back.
[16:11]And I think like it was okay to go into this moment.
[16:15]Whereas before when I tried to write it as Rachel
[16:17]Baronbaum literary fiction, it was like, I mean, it was
[16:21]devastating.
[16:22]I couldn't even leave my desk.
[16:23]Like it just hurts so much to write.
[16:26]But to write this as Lea Vale and put it out there as a
[16:29]romance, I could finally do it.
[16:32]And so that that's that was the biggest difference.
[16:36]Do you feel like it helped?
[16:37]Do you feel like you've processed things in a new way?
[16:40]Do you think you've honored her memory in a new way?
[16:43]Do you think you've finally put something to bed that was
[16:47]that you've been wrestling with?
[16:48]Like how do you feel now that the experience is recorded
[16:52]in a way in this in this format?
[16:55]Yeah.
[16:56]I so appreciate that question because it is like writing
[17:01]this book when I so when I finally finished a first draft
[17:04]that I thought I finally got here, right?
[17:06]Like I have the true romance blue sky black Lea Vale book.
[17:10]It was about a year ago.
[17:13]And for the first time, I was able to go back to the site
[17:19]and see the memorial and like I had never been there.
[17:23]And I took my kids and my husband, we all went.
[17:27]And I had never done it.
[17:28]And I found her name.
[17:30]And I mean, it was so much like I cried all morning.
[17:35]Like I cried when I think about it when I picture her name
[17:38]there in the stone.
[17:40]But I hadn't been able to do that for like 24 years.
[17:44]And I just was finally able to do it and show my kids,
[17:48]you know, this is where I like stood.
[17:51]This is where I was.
[17:52]This is where she was.
[17:54]And I just hadn't been able to do it before.
[17:57]So I think it did.
[17:59]I think it helped a lot.
[18:00]You know, I don't know people were used to be so surprised
[18:03]when I would say I'd never been.
[18:05]Like even my mom was like, you have to go to the memorial,
[18:09]go see her name.
[18:10]And I just I couldn't until I finished this draft of the book.
[18:15]And I had always, you know, you know, I have a traditional
[18:18]publishing career and like, you know, agent and the whole thing.
[18:23]And just as this book, it's so different from anything
[18:27]I've done.
[18:28]I just thought, you know, the 25th anniversary is coming out.
[18:31]I can't just wait and do this traditionally.
[18:34]Like I just need to get this book out there.
[18:36]I want this story out there.
[18:38]Like I finally did it.
[18:40]And I came down to the memorial and I wrote her story.
[18:44]I can't believe how emotional I'm getting with these.
[18:46]I mean, but I just I did it.
[18:50]And so I just I just put it out there.
[18:53]I was like, you know, I can do this.
[18:54]I know I can do this.
[18:55]And so that also was a big change because I just believed
[19:00]in the story and myself and that I was just going to do it.
[19:03]And by just getting to do it, you mean, like you just self
[19:06]published it, is that what happened?
[19:08]Yeah.
[19:09]Yeah, I self published it on Amazon.
[19:11]I mean, I, you know, I called up a bunch of the people that I
[19:14]worked with on my traditional books with Hashet and to, you know,
[19:18]to get them to work with me on it.
[19:20]And I just did it.
[19:23]I didn't want it in the traditional, you know, pipeline
[19:27]because as soon as I send it to my agent, I get the questions
[19:30]of, oh, how can you write about 9, 11 and a romance?
[19:35]And it's like, you don't get it.
[19:36]That's the only way I can possibly do this, right?
[19:40]Because it's the only way I know that there's hope at the end.
[19:45]Rachel, the emotion, like the rawness that almost like the
[19:51]unprocessed grief because it's too big.
[19:54]It's like all of it is, it's not just in our conversation, right?
[19:59]It's in our minds whether we're talking about it or not.
[20:02]It's in the pages of the book.
[20:03]It's how we try to take our lives as they progress and realize
[20:09]we've left someone who's so much younger now.
[20:12]I mean, I don't know how you feel like for me, it's 25 years
[20:16]ago, we were 25 at the time, right?
[20:18]This is like half our lives lived again without someone who was there.
[20:22]And like what would this person be like in our lives today?
[20:25]How am I a different person?
[20:26]How would she be a different person?
[20:27]How would the world be different?
[20:28]Like do you go down all those what ifs and rabbit holes and all that?
[20:33]Yeah, I do.
[20:34]I really do because in my mind, I mean, she was a true childhood friend.
[20:40]Like, you know, we were pool rats, right?
[20:42]We learned how to do front flips and backflips and like first
[20:46]bras and getting our periods and like, you know, being at the pool all day
[20:51]and doing stupid things together and really smart fun things too.
[20:57]And so it's like that it's sort of morning not just her, but the childhood
[21:02]that that moment, you know, too.
[21:04]And so I do wonder, yeah, like I think I like to think that we would
[21:09]have been hanging out again.
[21:11]We played a lot of sports, the same sports and, you know, hung out
[21:14]in a lot of the same circles.
[21:16]And so I do think pretty often, like I bet we would have still been meeting
[21:21]up for drinks or, you know, just like hanging out again.
[21:25]So many of those lives that were lost that day, those futures, I mean,
[21:31]still, right?
[21:33]The children that were born since like just so much what ifs.
[21:39]And I worry as we hit the 25th anniversary that people just
[21:43]aren't talking about it enough for me.
[21:46]I feel like people are afraid to talk about it.
[21:49]They don't know how to talk about it or the world sometimes is talking
[21:53]about it in ways that just really hurt.
[21:56]And I want to keep it in, you know, in our consciousness upfront.
[22:01]And so it is important, I think for me to be out there reminding people
[22:06]how horrible it actually was.
[22:09]I agree.
[22:11]Also, the magnitude of it, like sometimes it's easier to say, like,
[22:16]well, let me tell you about this one person then about the thousands and
[22:19]thousands of people that we've lost.
[22:22]Can you share it?
[22:22]Do you want to share your friend's name?
[22:24]And if there are people who go to the memorial, they can honor her.
[22:27]You don't have to.
[22:28]Yeah.
[22:29]No, I'm not going to talk about her.
[22:30]Her silver family is still.
[22:33]It's really hard.
[22:34]I don't have stones.
[22:35]No worries.
[22:35]No worries.
[22:36]Well, as everyone else who's listening sort of goes through this day,
[22:42]and I'm sure everyone has their own memories of where they were or maybe
[22:47]they're listening and they were too young.
[22:49]And they didn't they weren't even there.
[22:51]They don't remember.
[22:51]And so they're hearing our conversation and wondering what it would be like
[22:55]if one of their beloved best friends who they're growing up with what
[22:59]would be like for them to disappear.
[23:01]And they can't even imagine, well, we can imagine.
[23:04]And we hadn't happened and your characters can imagine.
[23:08]And this book, Blue Sky Black, is it imagined on the page and for everybody
[23:14]who is grieving and all of us who've lost something so essential or sense
[23:18]of international security in a way and so much else.
[23:22]And we are here as a moment a way to mark the moment and just say that
[23:30]this is something people will never get over and we will never fully move on.
[23:37]And yet it is so important to put out there.
[23:40]So anyway, I am thinking of everybody listening wherever you were that day,
[23:44]wherever you are today, personal connection or not, we are all connected.
[23:48]And this happened to all of us in one way or another.
[23:51]And Rachel, thank you for sharing your own experience and your own intimate loss.
[23:55]And it is so appreciated and felt and held by all of us.
[24:01]Thank you, Zibi.
[24:02]Thank you so much for having me and for also keeping 9, 11, the magnitude,
[24:08]the importance of that moment alive, right?
[24:11]I mean, we lost so much.
[24:13]I call it the last normal morning in America.
[24:16]How much changed and we cannot forget that.
[24:19]Like that is the best way to honor all the people that we lost.
[24:23]So thank you for having me and for reading Blue Sky Black.
[24:26]Thank you for coming on and for writing.
[24:29]Sending love, Rachel.
[24:31]Right back at you, Zibi.
[24:32]Okay, bye.
[24:34]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi.
[24:37]Formerly, Momstone have time to read books.
[24:39]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[24:45]and spread the word.
[24:47]Thanks so much.
[24:48]Oh, and bye the books.