Holly Peterson, IT'S HOT IN THE HAMPTONS
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the Webby-nominated podcast,
[0:12]Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books. This episode of Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books
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[0:31]Holly Peterson is the best-selling author of The Mani, as well as novels. It happens in the
[0:35]Hamptons and the idea of him. She has also written two books for Asseline, Smoke and Fire,
[0:39]recipes, and menus for outdoor entertaining, and Wellington, the world of forces.
[0:43]Her most recent book released this summer is It's Hot in the Hamptons.
[0:47]A former contributing editor for Newsweek, editor at large for Talk Magazine,
[0:50]and an Emmy award-winning producer for ABC News. Holly has contributed to The New York Times,
[0:55]Town and Country, Vogue Harper's Bazaar, and many other publications. She currently lives in New York
[1:00]and the Hamptons with her three children. Hi, Holly. Thanks for you, Zibi. Thanks for having me.
[1:05]So I have time to read books. It's so exciting to be doing this live podcast together.
[1:08]I'm really excited to be here. This is my sixth book, My Fourth Novel, and it's a hopefully
[1:14]fun work of social satire about life in the Hamptons and two moms who decide to go on a summer
[1:19]adventure. It was certainly a lot of fun to read. Thank you. We're just for anyone listening.
[1:24]This is actually being recorded at the Children's Museum of the East End in Bridge Hampton,
[1:29]and Barry and Co is supplying our books tonight, and Lauren Gabrielsson has given us a whole
[1:33]rack of clothing to choose from. Anyway, we're going to go on with our podcast, but just wanted
[1:37]to shout out to everybody for that. Holly, tell us what is hot in the Hamptons is about,
[1:43]and what inspired you to write it. Well, let me try to explain this all. I am a journalist. I was at
[1:48]ABC News in Newsweek my whole life, and I worked for Tina Brown at Talk Magazine, which most
[1:53]people remember by that fabulous party at the Statue of Liberty, more than the magazine. The
[1:57]magazine went out of business, unfortunately, after three years. But when one is a journalist, I think
[2:04]it's fun to go into fiction, because fiction in some ways actually brings you closer to the truth
[2:09]in nonfiction, and people say, how can that be? And I say because when you're a television producer,
[2:15]you have all these cameras and soundmen and editing rooms, and what happens is that, you know,
[2:20]you're limited. You can't go to a dinner party. You can't get into a club. There's all kinds of
[2:24]scenes you can't get into, and you're not allowed to make it up as a journalist. You either have
[2:27]to be there or not, right? Same thing with anything print. You know, you have to explain some
[2:32]place where you were or where you heard about it. Otherwise, you have to say reportedly,
[2:36]and it just gives the work less half, right? Whereas in a work of fiction, if you were trying to do
[2:42]it incredibly accurately, which I always do, I in fact fact checked my novels, right? Very carefully.
[2:48]It brings, I think, hopefully the reader into the action in a very true way, and you and I both
[2:55]have spent our entire lives in the Hamptons in summers and on weekends. And, you know, it's such a
[3:01]fantastic place to be. It's paradise with the produce and the shellfish and the people and the beaches,
[3:07]but it's also a complicated place because in this age of just massive inequality, you've got this
[3:11]local community, and then you've got these summer people that come in, like in invading army,
[3:16]and the clashing of classes that goes on in any summer community across America is interesting,
[3:21]because you can look at, you know, how people treat each other and how they look at each
[3:25]other and how they deal with people who are, you know, different from them, especially in these days
[3:30]that where the country so polarized. So I like to set books in a summer community, not just because
[3:35]it's hot and fun and sexy and lots of great things happen and food is eaten and hopefully
[3:40]good sexines and all kinds of juicy stuff. But also because the basis for it is just really
[3:46]rife with current issues of, as I say, inequality and class and differences and learning to talk
[3:53]to each other and deal with each other and have problems. And so my novels that are set in summer
[3:58]communities, my last one was called. It happens in the Hamptons. This one is it's hot in the Hamptons.
[4:03]It's a look at society and where we are today, not just a L-I-T-E light beach tree.
[4:08]You included so many different themes in this book. Yeah. One of which I want to just, like,
[4:15]jump right into is infidelity because that's where this book starts,
[4:18]sitting on a bench and say, harbor with two good friends from preschool mom saying,
[4:23]you know, let's have affairs this summer, which is already like, oh, but this is going to be an
[4:27]interesting book. Then you follow it up with a lot of very specific details of how to execute
[4:33]such an affair in the Hamptons. Tell me how you did your fact checking for this one.
[4:37]Well, I don't know that was fact checking for that element of it, but I will tell you the reason I
[4:43]did that. My last book was really about the 99% and the 1%. And so it was all about a surf community
[4:47]in the Hamptons and the summer people and how like water equalizes people out in the water
[4:52]because it's dangerous for everybody. And there's a lot of kind of roiling waves that that
[4:58]cause a lot of problems, social and water-wise in my last book. In this book, we were coming off of
[5:04]me too, right? And I think that during the whole Me Too period, which of course, very, very overdue,
[5:11]really publicized the harassment and violence and lack of pay equity and all kinds of harassment
[5:18]of all kinds that women endure of all classes at all levels of employment, which was so overdue
[5:25]and so important. I feel that that whole discussion because people were so into exposing things
[5:32]and being unified and showing solidarity with the victims or the survivors of whatever horrible
[5:39]things went on huge and small and medium in level of kind of violence and aggression. But there
[5:45]wasn't room for a discussion of the times when women are in charge of their sexual agency.
[5:53]It was a whole story about the times when we're not. And there are plenty of times when we're not.
[5:57]And in fact, I believe people like it in a patriarchal society when we have less agency over our
[6:03]lives, right? But I wanted to write about the times when we are coming off that and kind of
[6:09]explore that angle of women's sexuality. And so I decided to write a book about two wives who were
[6:16]good moms and good wives and whose husbands are cheating, okay? And what does one do with that? Do
[6:22]you sit in your room and cry? Do you leave them? Do you feel terrible about yourself? Do you blame
[6:25]yourself? Do you scream at him? How do you handle that? Well, I don't know if there's been a lot of
[6:31]books or movies. I can't really think of any of myself where women have said, okay, we're
[6:36]going to do the same thing. But we're still going to be good moms and we're still going to be good
[6:40]wives, right? In the sense that we're going to meet all our responsibilities and do what we
[6:44]need to do each day. You know, in Anna Carrena, the woman who cheats has to jump on the train tracks
[6:50]and obviously, and Madam Beau Ferrari, she drinks our arsenic in the Scarlet Letter. She's wearing
[6:55]the Scarlet A in the movie with Richard Gere where she's cheating. You know, Richard Gere
[7:00]like a caveman has to kill the guy in Bash's head and I'm not sure that I could ever really
[7:04]think of an example in literature or film where a mother who remained a good mother throughout
[7:09]the book and didn't have like a perverted boyfriend as in the good mother. I remember that book like
[7:14]the boyfriend kind of had this weird moment where he got naked in front of the kid. So he was tainted.
[7:19]I don't know if there's a... There was something with Diane Lane, do you know that was the Richard
[7:23]Gere? Oh, that was the same one, but he had to kill... I mean, I felt like he killed the lover,
[7:27]you know, so it wasn't like she was free to do what she wanted. And so I wanted to write a book
[7:31]where the wives do it and, you know, adventure ensues. I am certainly not pro affair, but if
[7:36]their husbands are doing it, they decide they're gonna do it and write a book about what happens.
[7:41]Do they leave? Do the husbands leave? Do they get divorced mutually? Do they work it out?
[7:46]But that there's some sort of parody and that women are in charge of their sexual decisions
[7:52]in an age when people assume they can't be or certainly don't want them to be. And so that's
[7:57]the reason I wrote the book and that's why the beginning they're discussing infidelity.
[8:01]Interesting. And I'm sorry if that was a long answer, but it's a question that requires
[8:06]a careful and thoughtful explanation. So that's why I try to do that just now.
[8:11]And of course what happens after the men... Well, I won't give anything away,
[8:15]but you can just imagine that the men don't think that this is like a parody type situation.
[8:21]Of course not. Of course not. Of course not. It's not like a tip of the book's about.
[8:24]So it's never that way. Men can cheat and remain their virility and their good
[8:29]husbandness and their good fatherness and not be tainted, not jump on the train tracks.
[8:33]And when women do it, it's just completely explosive. And the men even saying this is nothing
[8:38]personal. But it must be personal for you. Exactly. Like why? And then they ask each other why.
[8:43]It's so interesting. I mean, just coming off this era, as I said, there's so many issues to
[8:48]explore about values and morals and what is right and what is wrong and what is parody and
[8:53]what is a victim and what is a survivor and what is a marriage and what is even and what is fair
[9:00]and what is a patriarchy and what is the future and all kinds of things. So it's a beach read. It
[9:05]moves really quickly, but hopefully there's some heft and substance to it. Because before
[9:10]your next question, I would really like to say that women want substance. I don't believe they
[9:15]want silly light beach reads. I mean, it's fun to breeze through a book. And my book is four
[9:20]pages a chapter and most really quickly. But I don't believe anyone wants something silly and
[9:26]unsubstantive or not filled with all kinds of things to think about. So that's what I try to do
[9:32]with my books is pack it with issues and dilemmas. It's a nice mix, hopefully. I try. I don't know
[9:38]if I succeed. Well, this sort of just builds up the same thing. But I was wondering, you know,
[9:44]with the men starting off the book by cheating, it automatically says like marriage is,
[9:49]these marriages in particular are imperfect just to begin with. And you had a quote,
[9:54]Joey Caroline, the main character, loses her high school boyfriend. And the beginning of the book,
[10:00]And her grandmother tells her the funeral,
[10:02]we don't end up with the one we love the most.
[10:05]And Carolina repeats that thought to herself
[10:07]throughout the book.
[10:08]Yes.
[10:08]Do you believe that?
[10:09]What do you think about that?
[10:11]I don't necessarily believe that,
[10:12]but I do believe that we all have very serious pangs
[10:18]for one person in our past, not all of us,
[10:21]but often it happens where there was,
[10:23]it's not so much the one who got away.
[10:25]It's the one who didn't quite work out
[10:27]because it was in college.
[10:28]And we moved on or he was French
[10:31]and had a different culture or we met them too late
[10:35]and they were already engaged or we dated them for years,
[10:38]but just it was just too hard to get married and male lives.
[10:42]I mean, and I think the heartbreak over that
[10:44]and the regret over that and the what ifs over that
[10:47]are just incredibly painful.
[10:50]And I have was speaking to my daughter earlier today
[10:53]and we were talking about relationships.
[10:54]And I said, you know, that feeling of kind of real physical
[10:58]pain and a pain, a P-A-N-G, you have for someone.
[11:02]It's not a bad thing because it means that
[11:05]that person meant a lot to you and whether it works out
[11:09]or it doesn't work out.
[11:10]If you look at your old boyfriends
[11:11]and you still feel that really strongly,
[11:13]that's not tragic, that's good.
[11:15]That means you chose well for that moment in your life.
[11:18]It's the whole...
[11:19]Better to have loved and lost, yes.
[11:21]But you know, you can easily get depressed over things
[11:24]that, you know, you don't have anymore
[11:26]that weren't meant to be or that didn't work out
[11:28]for some reason that you can't even explain.
[11:30]And to the extent that we can not get depressed over it,
[11:34]but kind of be grateful that we had time with them
[11:37]and that we remember them with such incredible, you know,
[11:40]strength and vibration still, I think is kind of not to be
[11:44]corny, but like the meaning of life, you know,
[11:46]that you feel these feelings strongly throughout your life
[11:49]for various things and you just try not to let them take you down.
[11:53]I feel like what you're saying is totally applicable to death.
[11:56]It's not just relationships.
[11:58]Like the demise of a relationship.
[11:59]It's the same thing, right?
[12:00]I have to appreciate that people have to.
[12:01]Absolutely.
[12:02]And it's also, you grieve,
[12:03]because you grieve the loss of a person in your life.
[12:05]Absolutely. They're not dead necessarily,
[12:07]but it feels like that. I think that's a heartbreak.
[12:09]Absolutely.
[12:10]It does feel like a death, absolutely.
[12:13]Okay, not to be incredibly popular with the Panthers,
[12:16]but I agree with everything.
[12:19]For a totally mindless question, in the book,
[12:21]you say that Caroline brings her half-used condiments
[12:24]from her fridge in the city out to the Hamptons
[12:25]in the summertime.
[12:27]Do you do that? Do you know?
[12:28]Yes. Yes. Interesting.
[12:29]Okay. We all have our really strange housewife moments.
[12:32]And when I get up at four and right, very weirdly.
[12:35]And I get up in the dark and I kind of wander around my house
[12:38]and I pretend to start writing,
[12:40]but then of course I get completely with three kids
[12:43]preoccupied with dentist appointments in orthodontia
[12:46]and college applications and ACT blah, blah, blah, blah,
[12:49]and all this stuff that goes on.
[12:50]And it's just a very busy time for me
[12:54]in the middle of the night to get all this done.
[12:56]And since I'm not getting emails, I get so much done.
[12:59]So that housewife work is very, very, very intense.
[13:02]And we all have it and when I'm packing for the summer,
[13:07]yes, I take things I really love,
[13:08]like the French mustard and the corny shells
[13:10]and like all kinds of things off the shelves
[13:12]and throw it in a big box and bring it out
[13:15]because I don't want them to go bad.
[13:17]But anyway, the mom in the book does that
[13:19]and our husband's teasing her about it.
[13:20]And so there's plenty of silly and mean things
[13:22]that I do and my friends do that are definitely in the book.
[13:25]I was writing this morning at four in the morning as well.
[13:29]I feel like it's the only time my house is quiet.
[13:31]I mean, it's amazing, you know, this is not,
[13:33]you know, totally obviously to say,
[13:35]but I mean, I think people can relate to it
[13:37]where emails just attack you all day, you know,
[13:40]if the cable TV guy or the air conditioning guys finally there
[13:44]and you're in the middle of something,
[13:45]you have to stop what you're doing to, you know,
[13:47]know that he's there to tell him what's going wrong.
[13:49]And you get notified now by emails
[13:52]and so you have to check it all the time
[13:53]and be distracted and not get things done.
[13:56]And it's just, it's horrible for all of us.
[13:58]And the only time where the emails are not coming in for me
[14:01]at any rate or four a.m. to, you know, seven 30
[14:04]and that's when I do so pretty soon.
[14:05]I'm not email you then.
[14:06]I'll be, I'll restrain right though.
[14:08]I love to talk to you at any time.
[14:10]Aside from in the middle of the night at home,
[14:12]do you ever go out?
[14:13]Do you ever like go to a coffee shop to write
[14:15]or what do you do when the day actually begins
[14:16]or do you not even try to write when the day begins?
[14:18]I always write four to seven and I work in a way.
[14:21]And yep, I get up about four 15 or so
[14:24]and I work intensely at that hour.
[14:26]I drink about 17 cups of tea
[14:28]and I have almond butter and bananas
[14:30]and that's how I do it.
[14:32]And then I kind of do the housewife stuff,
[14:34]get my kids together, dogs together, you know,
[14:37]waste some time on like broken things all over the house
[14:39]and then I go to the library.
[14:42]And there's a program on my computer called MAC Freedom
[14:45]where you can turn off the internet.
[14:46]You can't go on Google.
[14:47]You can't do anything unfortunately,
[14:48]but at least no one can bother you.
[14:50]And I hide my phone behind the encyclopedia botanicus
[14:54]from the 50s across the room.
[14:56]And I turn on my MAC freedom
[14:57]and then I can write for a few hours.
[14:58]I got to lunch and then maybe an hour in the afternoon.
[15:02]I nap every day.
[15:04]I can't survive dinner without a nap.
[15:05]So even if it's 20 minutes,
[15:08]I have to close my eyes anywhere
[15:09]for to kind of deal with my four-year wake-ups.
[15:13]I interviewed a man named Daniel Pink
[15:15]who went this term nap, but she knows.
[15:16]He says if you drink espresso or a cup of coffee
[15:19]and then take a 20-minute nap by the time
[15:21]the nap is over, the caffeine kicks in.
[15:23]Oh, that's really interesting.
[15:25]I want to try it.
[15:25]That's really interesting.
[15:26]It's just like something happening if you're a...
[15:29]No, I feel drunk by 3.30 in the afternoon.
[15:31]If I can't just close my eyes for a minute,
[15:33]it's unbelievable, but I'm a little too.
[15:36]No, you're going to do it.
[15:37]Annabelle, the other character, Caroline's friend,
[15:40]her mother at one point gives her advice
[15:42]that is once 40s are a very dangerous decade deer.
[15:46]So have you seen that with your friends
[15:48]and your social circle?
[15:49]Yes, I have.
[15:50]Okay, so we should probably tell you listeners
[15:52]that the book takes place in the Hamptons.
[15:55]It's from Memorial Day to Labor Day,
[15:57]and it's...
[15:58]I'm not asked what the book was about.
[15:59]No, we did.
[15:59]I'm sorry.
[16:00]Did I forget that?
[16:01]Did I even start with that?
[16:02]No, no.
[16:03]It's Memorial Day to Labor Day.
[16:04]It's two women.
[16:05]They decide to have an affair on Memorial Day.
[16:07]At some point during the summer,
[16:09]but what I wanted to say was that one of the women
[16:12]grew up in the Hamptons,
[16:13]and the other one is a New York City woman
[16:16]who comes to the Hampton in the summer.
[16:17]So it's a little bit of an improbable relationship.
[16:20]But the woman that grew up in the Hamptons
[16:21]is the protagonist, her name is Caroline.
[16:23]She moved into the city and was hoping to move back,
[16:26]but that didn't work out.
[16:27]So Caroline is a protagonist.
[16:29]Annabelle is her close friend.
[16:31]Annabelle's kind of very confident and crazy
[16:33]and Caroline's much more retiring, but they're very close.
[16:37]And you're right, Annabelle's mother
[16:39]who says, be careful in your 40s.
[16:41]The 40s is a dangerous decade.
[16:42]I think very often, the 40s can be a time
[16:46]where relationships reassess themselves.
[16:48]In your 20s, you're looking to meet, right?
[16:51]And so you find that cute guy
[16:52]that you think I really want to share my life with.
[16:55]And you start your life and your 30s is all about working
[16:59]and having babies and trying to mix everything up
[17:02]and the 40s, the kids are kind of in school and on their way.
[17:06]And you kind of, a lot of women I noticed kind of look around
[17:09]at 42, 43, 44, 47 and say,
[17:13]I'm not so happy right now.
[17:15]I'm feeling neglected by the husband
[17:17]or I don't really talk to the husband
[17:19]the way I used to in the 20s
[17:20]or I never really talked to him
[17:22]and the kids are difficult and teenagers
[17:24]and I'm feeling lonely and my work isn't going right.
[17:28]We're at the way I wanted it to.
[17:29]And I'm kind of itchy for something else.
[17:31]And I'm just not, like things aren't quite right.
[17:34]And that's often a time when affairs happen
[17:38]or marriages fall apart
[17:40]or things get really dicey and difficult.
[17:42]So I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing
[17:46]that the 40s are a dangerous decade,
[17:48]but I think it's a decade that is rife
[17:51]with the beginning of a lot of potential complications.
[17:54]Cause I think those complications are easy to look over
[17:58]in one's 20s when you're really thinking nesting,
[18:01]babies, husband, who am I doing this with?
[18:04]And the 30s, babies, babies, babies, babies.
[18:06]And work, work, work, you know, and all that stuff.
[18:08]And by the 40s, those two things are somewhat set.
[18:12]And it's time to kind of look at oneself
[18:15]and one's marriage and say, wait a minute, am I happy here?
[18:20]And I think that's where sometimes the problems arise.
[18:22]Do you think that the men in their 40s are doing that too?
[18:25]Absolutely.
[18:26]Absolutely.
[18:27]Absolutely.
[18:28]I mean, it's a human thing to kind of look at your spouse
[18:30]and say, do I feel connected or neglected
[18:34]or hopeful or super depressed?
[18:36]Cause I just don't see this working.
[18:38]I mean, that's absolutely universal.
[18:40]Sometimes I feel like when I had my kids,
[18:43]like my head has been so down that I look up
[18:45]and I'm like, who are all these celebrities?
[18:47]I mean, like I missed a decade of movies.
[18:50]And like, where have I been?
[18:51]Oh, we all did.
[18:52]We all did.
[18:53]Absolutely.
[18:54]Pathetic, I guess, but I'm not sure what the answer is.
[18:57]Nobody can relate to that.
[18:58]I mean, most parents are just working
[19:00]and having kids and very little focus on much else.
[19:05]One thing you did in the book that startle is the wrong word,
[19:08]but I kept being like, oh, look at that.
[19:09]We're actual, real people who you wove in,
[19:12]real brands in the fiction.
[19:14]So yeah, Fred DeVito at Excel,
[19:16]you take a fictitious class with them.
[19:19]You mentioned Pinheck whiskey, which is amazing.
[19:22]Yes.
[19:23]Tell me about your decision to do that.
[19:24]And also, do you have to, this is silly,
[19:26]but do you have to ask Fred?
[19:27]Is that okay?
[19:28]Of course.
[19:29]Absolutely.
[19:30]As I said, I'm a journalist.
[19:31]And so when I'm writing about the Hamptons,
[19:33]I'm hopefully being incredibly accurate
[19:35]about the earring and the shoe and the club
[19:38]and the car and the bathing suit and all these things
[19:41]that make us all giggle because they're so unbelievably
[19:43]recognizable.
[19:44]And I think hopefully very, very much on point in my novels.
[19:48]But if I put an actual person who's a real person,
[19:51]like Fred and Elizabeth at Excel,
[19:53]I mean, a lot of us women who take classes at Excel
[19:57]have been taking classes there since it was Lottie Burt.
[20:00]in our 20s, and we've known Fred and Elizabeth
[20:02]for ever, everyone around me is nodding right now.
[20:05]And so when I put them in a book,
[20:07]I mean, they're dear old friends.
[20:08]You know, I don't really socialize with them,
[20:10]but we laugh a lot and I hug them every time I see them
[20:12]and I send them the chapter and I say,
[20:14]is this okay?
[20:16]And they email, I say, no Fred would say this
[20:18]and I would wear this or, you know,
[20:20]I did a whole scene at Navy Beach.
[20:22]I did a whole scene at Darius, out in Montauque.
[20:25]I definitely ask them and show them
[20:27]and make sure they're okay with it.
[20:29]I don't make some sign something that says,
[20:31]you know, you can't sue me for teasing you in an exercise class,
[20:35]but the people I know who I think are very central
[20:38]to life and the Hamptons who give it its great color
[20:41]and all that stuff.
[20:43]So it's fun to put real people in.
[20:45]It's fun to recognize them, don't you think?
[20:46]Yeah, sure.
[20:47]I was like looking at my calendar for the next day
[20:50]when I was reading your book at night
[20:51]because I always read before bed.
[20:52]I was like, what am I supposed to do tomorrow?
[20:53]And I'm like, oh, I have some things, some meditation,
[20:56]whatever, Bob Roth, anyway, so then I put my phone down
[20:59]and then I opened the book and in the book you're like,
[21:01]and then Bob Roth, transcendental meditation to the stars,
[21:04]I was like, wait, that's the same guy, I guess I should go.
[21:06]Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
[21:07]So anyway, now I think I'll have time on the podcast.
[21:10]She'd definitely have Bob Roth on your podcast.
[21:11]So how long did it take?
[21:13]It's very interesting, man.
[21:14]Yeah, he seems to come.
[21:15]I went to the event after a fantastic.
[21:16]How long did it take you to write this book
[21:18]and how long do you must your books take?
[21:21]Well, I am a journalist.
[21:23]I worked for Peter Jennings and Diane Sawyer at ABC
[21:26]and I worked at Newsweek and for a very, very kinetic,
[21:29]frenetic, Tina Brown and my specialty during the 20 years
[21:33]that I was doing all that was being the last minute person.
[21:36]Some people are kind of deeper and more thoughtful than me
[21:39]and do these long cover stories.
[21:40]I never did those kinds of things.
[21:42]I always did the last minute called The Crash Producer
[21:45]at ABC, you know, at four or five or six o'clock.
[21:47]I do a piece on that for that night, same thing in magazines.
[21:51]And so I write very, very, very quickly
[21:53]and I can write 12 pages in a sitting, no problem.
[21:57]That's a lot of words, it's 2,500 words.
[22:00]And so I write very quickly,
[22:02]but it's kind of usually a mess and then I have to fix it.
[22:04]So I think it takes me about a year to write and edit a book.
[22:08]But again, this is not Elizabeth Alexander.
[22:10]This is this great poet who's the nation's poet,
[22:13]Laureate or David Remnick, who runs the New Yorker.
[22:15]I mean, this is nothing like that type of writing.
[22:17]If you're gonna write just these eloquent,
[22:20]it's very impossibly constructed sentences as they do
[22:23]and as Andrew Solomon does who I believe is the greatest writer
[22:27]of my generation who wrote Far From the Tree
[22:29]and the New Day Demon, if you're writing at that level,
[22:32]that's a completely different story.
[22:34]It takes Andrew 10 years to write a book.
[22:36]I find my books, I'd really like you to tell me
[22:38]how you find the writing, but I think it's breezy and fast
[22:43]and kind of exciting and fun and filled with energy,
[22:46]but I don't believe it's literary.
[22:48]I believe it's deeply on point and hopefully funny and snappy,
[22:52]but I don't think any of it's literary.
[22:54]And I don't mean to say, like put myself down that way,
[22:56]like, you know, have like fake modesty or something.
[23:00]I just don't, I mean, I will, I call it SAT words.
[23:03]If you have like a big fancy word and I put it in,
[23:05]it just doesn't even sound right in my books.
[23:07]It's like trying too hard or weirdly lofty for what I'm doing.
[23:12]I mean, so I think different books lend themselves
[23:15]to different styles and this is perfect
[23:17]for the subjects.
[23:18]Yes, it's breezy.
[23:19]It moves.
[23:20]I think breezy sounds negative.
[23:22]No, don't talk about that.
[23:23]No, I mean, I mean, that's disparage.
[23:25]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that means yeah.
[23:26]I say to you, I mean, I mean, I didn't mean breezy.
[23:29]I mean, I mean, I mean, no, I mean, that's what I'm like,
[23:31]not using false modesty, it moves.
[23:33]Yeah, it moves, yeah.
[23:34]And it's, that's what you need, you know,
[23:36]people are so tired and I feel like it was so tall to get people
[23:39]into a book and yeah, to keep with a book.
[23:42]And I feel like short chapters is always the way to go
[23:44]and just like, what's gonna happen next?
[23:46]Intree, especially these days with so many distractions, right?
[23:49]For sure.
[23:50]It's so funny, women come up to me a lot at book events
[23:53]and they go, oh, thank God, I just need a really light,
[23:56]mindless read.
[23:57]Thank God you wrote this and I think that's not what the book
[24:01]is at all.
[24:02]I really don't think it is.
[24:04]I have a mindless.
[24:05]I think, and I don't, you know, I think that even women
[24:08]who say they want something mindless,
[24:09]I don't ever really believe that.
[24:11]I think people want their brains to kind of fire off
[24:14]and be intrigued, but they don't necessarily
[24:16]want to have to think a lot at 11 at night.
[24:18]I mean, there's a lot of literature that I try to read.
[24:21]I'm reading Thackerie's Vanity Fair now
[24:23]and it's just wonderful, but I have to, you know,
[24:25]I've got to really read it because all the type of thing
[24:27]you can skim.
[24:28]I'm doing this thing with my newsletter where if you sign up,
[24:31]if you answer a few questions about the types of books,
[24:34]you like to read, I'll give you book recommendations
[24:35]and I always say like, what you're in the mood for next.
[24:37]Yeah.
[24:38]Everybody is like, I want a light be treat or I want a thriller.
[24:42]Yeah.
[24:42]And all the books I'm doing, like, that's not what books I'm having
[24:45]on my podcast.
[24:46]And I'm like, I don't know.
[24:47]I better start reading a lot of thrillers.
[24:48]Because I have only done a couple of books anyway,
[24:50]but I don't know.
[24:51]Maybe people don't know.
[24:52]I mean, people want a range of things.
[24:54]Yeah, they do.
[24:54]As long as they're reading, I feel like that's great.
[24:56]It's wonderful.
[24:57]So are you working on another book now?
[24:58]I may do a book on the art world.
[25:00]Oh, okay.
[25:01]I may fictionalize it.
[25:02]I think that's what I'm going to do next.
[25:04]And I have been writing columns for the financial times.
[25:08]They have a weekend section that I think is absolutely
[25:10]spectacular, and I think it's wonderful.
[25:13]And a lot of people think it's, you know, I don't want to
[25:16]say this, but it's certainly as good as the times and the
[25:20]journal weekend, I think.
[25:21]And it is literary.
[25:23]And there's a lot of really interesting things on it.
[25:25]So I think I may start doing a column quite regularly about
[25:29]the 1% and class structures and inequality and, you know,
[25:34]dissecting the 1% and kind of how they live and how they got
[25:39]to where they are and what does power mean and what is the
[25:41]interplay between power and money and success and kind of
[25:44]trying to define it and look into it with a kind of somewhat
[25:48]satiric, but definitely journalistic microscope.
[25:51]Good luck with that.
[25:52]Well, it's fun.
[25:54]It's difficult, but it's fun.
[25:55]But I think there's not a lot of people doing that frankly.
[25:57]So I've gone to and May and June, and I have two coming up
[26:02]this weekend and next weekend on the financial times.
[26:04]Oh, thank you.
[26:05]That's my next professional venture.
[26:07]Do you have any advice to aspiring writers out there?
[26:10]Oh, my goodness.
[26:11]Listen, I think that everything in life is so deeply
[26:14]intimidating, even this financial times 800 word column.
[26:17]I was just in a panic over it.
[26:19]And I did too.
[26:20]And then I went into more of a panic.
[26:22]And then I did two more.
[26:23]And now I feel a lot more settled.
[26:25]I mean, I just think everything is terrifying.
[26:28]But writing is really something that everybody can do,
[26:33]even though they don't think they can.
[26:35]And I think it's really all about taking kind of the
[26:38]braces off that constrict us and realizing maybe you're not
[26:42]David Remnick or Andrew Solomon or Elizabeth Alexander,
[26:45]but maybe you're funny or maybe you know a lot about exercise
[26:49]or food or child rearing or sports or diet or anything.
[26:54]And maybe what you know is very relatable or very helpful to
[26:58]people or maybe there's a story you want to tell about divorce
[27:01]or death or infidelity or sadness or feeling neglected or
[27:06]feeling insecure or anything that's deeply human.
[27:09]And I would just encourage people to start with a short story
[27:13]and start with something that's 12 pages and just try to write it
[27:17]down or just try to write a blog, try to write a six or 800
[27:21]word blog about your keto experience or your paleo experience
[27:25]and why it's ridiculous or why you need vodka every night or
[27:29]whatever it is.
[27:30]And just see where keto experiences are.
[27:32]We all do, please and see where it goes.
[27:34]And then maybe Hampton's magazine wants to publish it or maybe
[27:37]Avenue magazine or maybe your post or maybe something that's
[27:41]easy and accessible will do it or maybe you'll put it on
[27:44]Tori Burch's website.
[27:45]I mean or Aaron Lauters, you know, like there's all kinds of
[27:49]fancy fashion websites that are looking for blogs of moms and
[27:54]readers and you know, Hamptons and it doesn't have to be the
[27:58]New Yorker where they to post it and write it.
[28:02]So I would just encourage people just to do it and try to get
[28:06]over the insecurities because I mean, everyone has them.
[28:09]You said to work through them.
[28:10]Thank you for having me.
[28:12]Thanks for doing this event.
[28:14]Thank you.
[28:15]Thanks for writing this great book and bringing the
[28:17]Hamptons to life for everybody who can't be here.
[28:19]And thanks for coming.
[28:20]Well, thank you to the museum for having us.
[28:22]Thank you for having us.
[28:23]Thank you all.
[28:24]Thanks again to today's sponsor of Momstone of Time to Read
[28:27]Books, Himalaya, the best app for discovering listening and
[28:30]organizing podcasts, Himalaya.com.
[28:33]Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[28:35]You can follow me on Instagram at moms don't have time to read
[28:38]books.
[28:39]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texturesound for the
[28:42]sound editing.
[28:43]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[28:45]this fantastic intro and now trim music.
[28:47]Thanks for listening.
[28:48]You could always email me at zibi at zibiowens.com.