Karma Brown, RECIPE FOR A PERFECT WIFE
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[1:58]Karma Brown is the best-selling author of Four Novels. Her debut novel Come Away With Me was a
[2:04]Globe and Mail, Best 100 Books of 2015. A National Magazine Award-winning journalist, Karma has been
[2:10]published in a variety of publications, including self-read books, today's parent, best health,
[2:15]Canadian living, and Chatelyn. Her latest book is recipe for a perfect wife, a novel. Karma lives just
[2:21]outside Toronto, Canada, with her husband, daughter, and a lab reveal named Fred. We're not crafting
[2:26]coffee or mulling plot lines. She's typically working out, making a mess in the kitchen,
[2:31]and checking items off her bucket list with her family. Her nonfiction project out in early
[2:36]21 is called Time Change. Welcome Karma. Thanks so much for coming on moms. Don't have time to
[2:41]read books. Thank you so much for having me. I'm sorry to go so long. You know what? It's been crazy,
[2:49]right? It's true. There have been some world events that got in the ways of changes and everything.
[2:54]So anyway, here we are. So I'm delighted to be talking to you finally. Me too. So your most recent
[2:59]book, recipe for a perfect wife, for listeners who might not know what it's about, would you mind
[3:04]giving a quick synopsis? Sure, it is a dual narrative book. So it takes place in the 1950s and the
[3:12]other character you visit her in 2018. And the book takes place in the same house. So these two
[3:19]women live in this house, but 60 years apart. And there is a cookbook that the modern-day
[3:24]women discovers that had belonged to the 1950s housewife. And within those pages, she finds
[3:31]some secrets about the life that this 1950s housewife lived in this house that she's now
[3:37]living in somewhat reluctantly as she was dragged from Manhattan to the suburbs. And as their
[3:44]their lives sort of intersects through this cookbook. And it really is an exploration of women
[3:49]and marriage and being a wife and looking at sort of how far we've come from the 50s if we really
[3:56]have come that far. So yeah, it was a really fun, interesting books we need to write.
[4:02]I had one of those cookbooks from my mother when she was a little girl, like the Betty Crocker,
[4:06]old-fashioned one. Yes, I have that one. So I haven't and had my grandmother's notes in it and all
[4:13]and I like treasured that growing up and every stuff and I would like pull it out and look at the
[4:17]pages and all the pictures of what moms used to look like. I know I still have those books and I
[4:22]actually have this thing for vintage cookbooks. So that was one of the inspirations to write this
[4:27]book in the first place because I also loved all those notations. My mom puts notations in her
[4:34]cookbooks and my grandmother has done that. And so some of these cookbooks I have that are not
[4:40]family cookbooks also looking at the notations in those books and imagining what those women's
[4:45]lives were like, you know, way back when. So yeah, it is. It's sort of like a, you know, like
[4:51]you're panning for gold and information about these women and how they lived back in the 50s and
[4:57]60s. It's so crazy when there's like an object that passes through time. Like my engagement ring
[5:03]is it was a vintage piece I found like in this shop in Charleston, South Carolina and I'm like
[5:09]and I wear this ring. Well, actually I copied it, but at first it was the actual ring until we
[5:12]found out it was cracked. But anyway, but I had it and I was like, so who is this woman? Like, who was
[5:17]she? She wore the same exact ring. Like, what was her life? Like, it all feels like a movie or
[5:22]something. Speaking of movies, by the way, congratulations. I said that your film rights were
[5:26]film and TV or film and TV rights were acquired for this book. That's amazing.
[5:30]Yes, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's exciting to imagine them having a life outside of the pages.
[5:37]I mean, I'm often asked, like, who would you cast these characters as if you were casting the
[5:42]movie? And then honestly, it's the worst question to ever ask me because for all of my books,
[5:47]I never know because I don't see them that way. I see them very clearly, but not as, you know,
[5:53]celebrities. So anyway, I like, I like to always ask if anyone has any ideas. Let me know
[5:59]because I am terrible at this game. I'm wondering, maybe now I'm blank and her name. Who's
[6:04]who's married to Ashton Kutcher? Oh, um, see, this is one terrible. I'm not a celebrity.
[6:12]What is her name? She goes on the 70s show with him, right? Yeah.
[6:15]I mean, somebody like that, because the big PR job ahead of time, like, I mean,
[6:20]being as all put together and like running around and all, and then like wanting to shift gears
[6:26]and become a novelist. And I don't know. So it has to be somebody cosmopolitan enough.
[6:31]Right. Probably enough. I don't know. That was my first instinct, but I am, I'm really bad at
[6:36]casting too. So we're both sad. We just won't play that game. Yeah, we will. It's fine.
[6:40]It's not our job anyway. No, it's okay. I love by the way, there was such a perfect, relatable moment
[6:48]at least for me when the main character. And now I'm, why do I always blank on the names of all
[6:53]the main characters? I can never all the details. Alice, when Alice religates to Greenville and leaves
[6:57]her job and her mom is like, so how's your vacation going? And she's like, no, I'm going to be
[7:01]a novelist. Like, that is just so classic. That's like, it's like a little passive aggressive, like,
[7:07]what's up with you? Anyway, I just love that little detail by the way. Yeah, because it's really,
[7:11]I mean, for Alice, you know, she had this big career in Manhattan that was really important to her.
[7:15]And things fall apart for reasons that I won't talk about now because it gives away some stuff
[7:20]in the book. But she ends up, you know, holding that secret about what's happened with her career.
[7:26]But and everyone's thinking that she's quite content to go and become this housewife in this
[7:31]housewife in the suburbs and then let her husband go to work and she's going to stay home and
[7:35]take care of this really old house. It hasn't changed much since the 50s and have babies and,
[7:42]you know, do her thing that next part of her life. But really, she's hanging on to this huge
[7:47]ambition that she has. It doesn't go away. You know, it doesn't just leave because she has this
[7:53]thing happen with her job and ends up moving. And that's really part of the theme through the story,
[7:58]too, is that, you know, what do women do with this ambition? How can you have that huge career
[8:04]ambition and also have a family? And can you make those two things work? And I don't believe you
[8:11]can have them at the same time. So that is my personal feeling that sometimes something has to take
[8:18]the top position and they just switch back and forth. So, you know, for me, that's that's personally
[8:24]what has been true for me in my life. But I think this idea of trying to have it all at once
[8:29]puts a lot of pressure. And it's really hard to do. I'm sure there are people making that work and
[8:34]good for them. But I personally have found that a really tricky balance.
[8:39]Yes, I'm sure a zillion women will agree with that statement. Yeah, it comes like the
[8:45]I think your book also, though, not only the role as a wife or mother eventually or whatever,
[8:51]but I think it's also how these two women handle pain, physical and emotional and how that shifts
[8:57]in terms of how much they share with their spouse, how much they take on themselves and how
[9:02]that looks like across generations, too. Maybe talk a little more about that or if that was
[9:07]intentional or. Yeah, well, I think that they, you know, they are they are living very different
[9:13]lives. And really, Nellie, who's the 1950s characters, quite confined by her generation. And for her,
[9:21]you know, independence is something she desperately craved, but is very difficult to get because
[9:27]of the nature of the way that things were within marriages back then. And really her journey
[9:33]through the story is is getting that independence and and figuring out how to do that for herself in
[9:39]1956 when nobody is really figuring that out at women anyway. And for Alice, in 2018, she also,
[9:48]she's a very independent woman who is in a relationship with someone and has a marriage. And so,
[9:54]how do you keep that part of yourself? You know, when you couple up with someone,
[10:00]and you merge your lives together.
[10:01]How do you keep that independence?
[10:03]And in a lot of ways,
[10:05]I think that Nellie is sort of the talisman for Alice
[10:08]around that idea of figuring out
[10:12]how to maintain your sense of self
[10:14]and how to maintain that independence.
[10:16]And cope with, as you said,
[10:18]both physical and mental pain through that,
[10:21]but as an individual.
[10:23]So that was a big lesson,
[10:25]really for both of the women through the story.
[10:27]So let's now pivot to your personal life,
[10:31]if you don't mind.
[10:32]Now that we've done five minutes,
[10:33]I feel like I'm entitled to ask you
[10:34]that you're interacting with.
[10:35]Oh, you've got secrets and anything.
[10:36]Anything at all, no secrets here.
[10:39]You know, it's so funny, I wasn't a funny,
[10:41]but I was reviewing all your different novels
[10:44]and all the different themes.
[10:45]And I was like, why are all her books
[10:48]somehow about either car crashes or losing babies
[10:52]or intersecting lives?
[10:54]Like what is it?
[10:55]Something must have happened to her
[10:57]that this is the theme that she keeps coming back
[10:59]to over and over and over again.
[11:00]And then I went into like your personal essays
[11:03]and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm a moron.
[11:05]Like here it is right here.
[11:06]It explains everything.
[11:08]Your essay for self magazine about your being
[11:12]of one month into a relationship with the man
[11:14]who became your husband and finding out
[11:16]that you had a rare form of non-Hodgians,
[11:19]and so many cervical cancer.
[11:21]And having to figure out how to cope with that
[11:25]and eventually what happened with your sister,
[11:27]oh my gosh, I was like, first of all,
[11:29]I feel like, and I know you're working
[11:31]on some sort of non-fiction book,
[11:32]which I'm really interested in hearing what that is.
[11:34]But I was like, I want a whole book on this experience.
[11:36]I don't just want, like I left that article
[11:39]being like, tell me more.
[11:40]So tell listeners about what happened to you
[11:43]and then start writing that book.
[11:46]Okay, well, I sort of, I mean, I have written
[11:49]elements of that book.
[11:50]In my second novel, The Choice is We Make,
[11:52]it's really, it is about two best friends
[11:54]and one of them ends up carrying a baby
[11:56]for the other one.
[11:57]And because I before recipe for a perfect web
[12:00]I wrote, Tier Dricker Books, it is a Tier Dricker book
[12:04]and not everything goes according to plan.
[12:06]So me and my personal life,
[12:08]I, my sister was our surrogate
[12:10]and we have a much happier outcome
[12:14]in a sense that we had no major traumas
[12:16]as we were going through that.
[12:17]So just to back up a little bit about how that happens,
[12:20]when I was 30, I had just met my husband.
[12:23]And well, he wasn't my husband, then obviously.
[12:25]I had just met this new guy and he was very young.
[12:29]He was only 26 at the time,
[12:31]which I thought was far too young to be serious about.
[12:33]But then a month into our relationship,
[12:36]I was diagnosed with non-hodge principle and foma
[12:38]in the cervix, which is a very rare place for them to find it.
[12:42]And what that meant is that I wouldn't be able
[12:45]to have children naturally.
[12:48]So we had to do a quicky IVF cycle.
[12:52]And it was funny because I had been dating him,
[12:56]I think for probably like a month and a half at this point.
[12:59]And I was at the fertility doctor
[13:00]and they were asking me all these questions
[13:02]and giving me my options about where to get the sperm from
[13:05]because you need sperm to make embryos.
[13:08]And they said, well, you can get it out of a,
[13:11]we have a book you can flip through and choose sperm
[13:13]or you can get some from someone you know.
[13:16]And I was like, hey, I have this new boyfriend,
[13:18]but maybe we can make this work.
[13:20]And we were quite, you know, it wasn't casual.
[13:23]Like it was fast, but we were really quite in love already.
[13:28]And they were asking me questions about him
[13:30]and his birthday and his middle name.
[13:33]I didn't know his middle name.
[13:34]And I called him and I said, well, this is the deal.
[13:38]I need to figure out what I'm going to do.
[13:41]And he was like, okay, well, let's do it, let's just do it.
[13:44]And have faith that this is going to be the thing,
[13:47]you know, that we see together and this all works out.
[13:50]But if we don't, I want you to have the opportunity
[13:53]to have your own children like genetically your children.
[13:56]So anyway, it all worked out.
[13:57]I mean, I couldn't carry a baby,
[13:59]but my sister stepped in and one of those embryos,
[14:03]which was frozen for five years,
[14:06]was put in my sister's uterus and she became our oven
[14:09]for nine months.
[14:10]And so my daughter, which was younger,
[14:12]she used to like to say that she was five years older.
[14:15]Like she would say, I'm not eight, I'm 13.
[14:18]You know, very all knowing because she technically was conceived
[14:22]in 2003, but was born in 2008.
[14:26]Wow. So yeah, that was, you know,
[14:29]we have our one little miracle baby.
[14:31]And my sister was our, our surrogates.
[14:34]And I have been cancer free for a long time since 2003
[14:38]so 17 years.
[14:39]So it did all work out in the end.
[14:42]Wow. And yeah, she's so amazing how your sister,
[14:45]you said in one of the articles,
[14:47]because immediately she was like,
[14:48]I'll be the uterus for you.
[14:50]Like I'm stepping in and she already had two little kids
[14:53]of her own and she was just like, I'm in.
[14:55]And then she did it.
[14:57]She's quite bossy, actually.
[14:58]So she was quite determined to do that.
[15:01]And you know, it's an amazing gift for someone
[15:04]to do that for you because I wouldn't be a mother.
[15:08]I mean, I might be a mother in a different way,
[15:10]but I wouldn't be mother to this child.
[15:11]So for me that, you know, it's a really special thing.
[15:15]And as for the themes of my book, you know,
[15:17]I had this life where I was, I had all these plans.
[15:21]I was 30, I was young.
[15:22]I had just finished journalism school.
[15:23]I was in a new relationship.
[15:25]And I am very motivated and vicious person.
[15:28]I was clear about what I wanted to do.
[15:31]And then I got cancer and my whole life flipped upside down.
[15:36]And so my books are all really about women in situations
[15:40]that are challenging, perhaps the most challenging,
[15:43]you know, we meet them on the most challenging day
[15:45]of their lives.
[15:46]And then they not only survive,
[15:48]but they thrive through that experience.
[15:51]And that has just been sort of an ongoing theme for me,
[15:55]I think, through all my books.
[15:56]That's what I'm interested, most, and exploring
[15:59]in my novels anyway.
[16:01]Wow, that's just amazing.
[16:03]And I thought it was so neat.
[16:04]You said something like how you used to be
[16:07]so much less anxious, right?
[16:08]You were, and then you had such a great expression.
[16:11]You once dreamed of being a war correspondent,
[16:13]but now you're someone who sticks to the speed limit.
[16:16]Right, so that's so interesting.
[16:18]Just this idea that now you take on all the anxiety
[16:21]that the situation sort of brought.
[16:22]Like some people are born more anxious, right?
[16:25]And then they get through something like this
[16:27]and they're less anxious, because they realize,
[16:28]okay, I've been wearing my whole life
[16:30]and I'm bad to happen.
[16:31]It did, and now I'm okay.
[16:32]So they become more fortified.
[16:35]And then you went into it already,
[16:37]like totally confident in raw raw,
[16:39]and then had to step back and now you're more cautious.
[16:41]It's just sort of interesting how people
[16:43]sort of deal with like a trauma essentially.
[16:46]Yeah, well, and I think like when you have a trauma like that,
[16:49]it never goes away, right?
[16:50]I mean, I'm cancer free, but that experience
[16:53]lives with me, it has shaped who I am from that time.
[16:56]It shapes all my decisions, because life is precious.
[17:00]Everyone knows this, but I think when you have
[17:02]been through a life-threatening experience,
[17:05]you just, I don't know, it doesn't become more precious.
[17:08]I don't know.
[17:09]You suddenly realize, you know, the whole Y-me thing,
[17:13]everyone I think has a moment of thinking that,
[17:15]but then very quickly, you're like, well, why not me?
[17:18]Why wouldn't it be me?
[17:20]So once you have that happened,
[17:22]realization that it could happen again,
[17:25]things, you know, bad things happen,
[17:28]even when you do everything right.
[17:30]And that is a very unsettling thing to live through
[17:35]and really understand deep in your core.
[17:37]So yeah, I spend a lot of time not trying not
[17:40]to be anxious about things and to enjoy life.
[17:43]And, you know, I had once gone to a therapist who was like,
[17:46]well, you know, what do you think about this fact
[17:49]that you're going to worry about your precious life
[17:53]for the next 10 years and worry about all these ways
[17:55]that it could be turned upside down again.
[17:58]And then you're okay, because the reality is you probably
[18:01]are going to be okay, and you will have spent this decade
[18:05]worrying and marinating in this anxiety.
[18:08]And are you really enjoying your life
[18:10]and when you're doing that?
[18:11]So that did resonate with me and I try to remember that.
[18:16]The worry does fade.
[18:17]I mean, it does get easier.
[18:19]But I think, yeah, as you said,
[18:22]some people are natural warriors.
[18:23]I just came to that place a little bit later in my life.
[18:28]Maybe I'll flip back the other way
[18:29]and I'll be skydiving when I'm 70.
[18:32]I doubt it.
[18:33]But you never know.
[18:36]You know, these why me moments and these traumas
[18:40]and the things that happen that make you aware of the fact
[18:43]not just intellectually but feel that life is short.
[18:46]They make you into different, much more feeling type people.
[18:50]Like, I almost, you don't wish this upon anybody.
[18:53]I wouldn't wish a cancer diagnosis or anything like that.
[18:57]However, I think that aftermath of some of those experiences
[19:00]make life the rest of life so much richer.
[19:03]And like, it sharpens the colors and the sounds so cheesy.
[19:07]But I don't know.
[19:09]I just feel like it changes the tune.
[19:12]It's like on a piano, it goes like the two different things
[19:16]start playing versus just one hand playing.
[19:18]I don't know.
[19:18]Yeah.
[19:19]No, I think it does do that.
[19:20]And you're not naive about things anymore.
[19:22]I think, you know, you can bury your head in the sand
[19:26]a little bit, especially when you're young
[19:28]and think that bad things don't happen.
[19:29]People don't get cancer.
[19:31]You know, it just, it allows me to also be more
[19:34]empathetic with other people and to understand what to say
[19:38]and what not to say and how to sit with someone
[19:42]in a tough time instead of trying to just brush it away
[19:47]or make it better somehow by not talking about it.
[19:50]I have learned how to be more empathetic
[19:53]towards what other people are going through.
[19:55]It doesn't have to be cancer.
[19:56]It can be anything.
[19:57]You know, people have lots of different experiences.
[20:00]that can be quite traumatic.
[20:01]So, you know, there are, I am not a silver linings person.
[20:05]I don't know that I ever have been.
[20:07]And I, well, there have been things that I have learned
[20:11]because of this.
[20:12]I would always have rather not had it happen.
[20:16]You know, I don't say that my cancer was a good thing
[20:19]or because I just don't see it like that.
[20:22]It would have been nice not to have to go through it.
[20:24]However, there are lessons in learning in that
[20:27]that I now have that I'm grateful for and appreciative.
[20:32]And I hope it didn't, I didn't make it sound like
[20:34]it was a good thing that you had done.
[20:36]Oh no, you didn't.
[20:37]No, you didn't.
[20:38]You didn't.
[20:38]I'm not really just anybody.
[20:40]No, no.
[20:41]I forgot experiences to have into them.
[20:43]No.
[20:43]And I do think some of that silver linings stuff
[20:46]and people say that to me all the time.
[20:48]Like there's, you know, well, you wouldn't have this
[20:50]that in the next thing if you didn't go through that.
[20:53]I'm like, yeah, but I might have other things
[20:55]that I lost because of that.
[20:57]Because it, you know, cancer takes a lot away.
[20:59]Any terminal, not terminal, but you know,
[21:02]potentially life threatening condition
[21:04]or experience it takes stuff away.
[21:06]So yeah, I just, I don't think you said that at all.
[21:10]That's not how I heard what you were saying to you.
[21:12]I just like to do the like, yeah, I'm not a silver linings
[21:15]person, maybe again, when I'm 70.
[21:18]Maybe then when I'm skydiving, I'll be a silver linings person.
[21:22]Maybe that will wait.
[21:23]Well, I'll look at and see what I can see.
[21:26]The one quote I just had to read.
[21:28]And this is from your self article.
[21:29]You said, I would not be a mother to this child,
[21:32]who with her arrival took the hell of our experience
[21:35]leading up to her, crushed it into a tiny ball
[21:38]and dropped it down a deep, dark well
[21:40]where it can no longer break my heart.
[21:43]That's just so, I mean, that is beautiful.
[21:45]That's just a beautiful sentiment, beautiful sentence.
[21:47]I just had to read it.
[21:48]Well, it's true.
[21:49]I know my mom, because I was quite sad,
[21:52]not to be able to carry my own child,
[21:54]which I think for people who want to have children,
[21:57]they would understand that or who have children
[22:00]and have been able to have.
[22:01]I know pregnancy is not amazing for a lot of women,
[22:05]but I always was sad that I couldn't do that.
[22:08]And my mom would say to me, well, don't worry.
[22:10]Once the baby's here, you won't care how she got here.
[22:14]You won't miss that part, because this is the best part.
[22:17]And she was wrong.
[22:18]And so I think that that's, but I can tuck that away.
[22:22]And I think that's what that quote is.
[22:24]It's like I have her and all the amazing things
[22:26]of being a mother that I can now experience.
[22:29]But it doesn't mean there aren't still,
[22:32]heart breaks that have to be just put down that well
[22:35]and left there.
[22:37]They don't go away.
[22:38]They just maybe go to a dark place where you leave them very.
[22:42]Or you take little sprinkles of that
[22:45]and put it in novel after novel after novel.
[22:47]Yes.
[22:48]Yeah.
[22:49]Which is another way of sort of getting through
[22:51]and coping and making sense.
[22:52]I feel like of experiences like that
[22:54]that don't really have a good place to go.
[22:57]Yeah, no, it's true.
[22:58]It's sort of like therapy to some degree.
[23:00]Yeah, it's a thartic to be able to do that.
[23:02]So tell me about your writing process
[23:05]and how you come up with ideas for your books
[23:07]and then how long they each take.
[23:10]I mean, you've written what five novels or five.
[23:12]Amazing, like that's a lot.
[23:14]I mean, anyway, so tell me about your process a little more
[23:17]and how you maintain this level of output.
[23:20]Well, I maintain the level of output
[23:21]because my daughter didn't sleep.
[23:23]And so the truth is that she used to get up at 3.30
[23:27]for the morning for years and years.
[23:29]And so I finally got to the place
[23:31]where I could no longer watch Dora,
[23:33]they explore at four o'clock in the morning.
[23:35]And I thought, well, I need to do something with this time.
[23:38]She's fairly, you know, she's okay.
[23:41]I don't need to really be with her
[23:43]for every moment of that morning time.
[23:45]And so I started writing in the early morning.
[23:48]And it's a habit I still have now
[23:50]and I get up, I mean, she's sleep-trained me.
[23:52]So now I can't sleep in and she sleeps in, but I can't.
[23:56]So I get up around five between five and six every day
[24:01]and I write and it's quiet and peaceful
[24:05]and no one needs anything from me.
[24:07]The rest of the world has not opened up yet.
[24:10]So that's when I do the majority of my really creative writing.
[24:14]I save the emails and the other busy work
[24:17]that authors have to do for later in the day
[24:19]when she's at school,
[24:20]even though she's not at school right now.
[24:21]So COVID time is like, who knows what's happening
[24:25]and how I'm actually ever going to write another book.
[24:27]But that's really been my process from the beginning.
[24:32]And I mean, I never wanted to be a writer.
[24:33]So when I went to journalism school,
[24:36]I wanted to be a news broadcaster.
[24:38]And that was what I was planning to do.
[24:40]And then I was diagnosed with cancer
[24:42]on my very last day of journalism school
[24:44]and everything switched.
[24:45]And at some point, I thought, well,
[24:48]maybe I can write because it's a career
[24:50]that I can have and be home.
[24:52]I don't have to move to Northern Ontario
[24:55]and try to get a job in a small town
[25:00]and live up there away from my family.
[25:02]So it just became a job that I thought I could do.
[25:05]And I, one day thought maybe I'll try writing a novel
[25:09]and I wrote it and it was awful.
[25:12]And then I wrote another one
[25:13]and that one was not good either.
[25:15]So my debut was actually my third book written.
[25:18]So I guess I've actually written seven.
[25:21]No wait, eight novels.
[25:22]Just two of them will never see the light of day.
[25:24]Seven.
[25:25]Seven, right?
[25:26]Wait, seven?
[25:27]Yeah.
[25:28]You're right.
[25:29]Two on television.
[25:30]Five.
[25:31]I am not a mathematician or scientist
[25:34]because I can't do math, even simple math.
[25:36]But yes, seven.
[25:38]It feels like 12, but some days.
[25:41]As for where the stories come from,
[25:42]it's just I read a lot.
[25:43]And I, because I'm a journalist also,
[25:47]I spend a lot of time scrolling through new stories
[25:50]and looking for interesting human stories that way.
[25:55]So that's how I had found or had an idea perk up
[26:00]for my stories.
[26:01]Recipe for perfect wife was different though.
[26:03]It came out of those cookbooks.
[26:05]And I just had this vision of what was life like
[26:09]for these women and these cookbooks were really a legacy.
[26:12]They were often given to women at their wedding showers.
[26:16]And then those cookbooks would get passed down
[26:19]through the generations.
[26:20]And at a time where women really didn't have much of a voice
[26:24]outside of their home, it felt sort of like this really
[26:27]interesting legacy of what mattered to them
[26:30]and what they were doing and how they were really
[26:33]using their voice like through their cooking
[26:35]and through these recipes.
[26:37]So I just had this image of Mally in the 1950s
[26:41]trying to choose a recipe.
[26:42]And she's this quintessential housewife.
[26:45]And on the surface, she looks very much like the housewife.
[26:48]We would imagine from the 50s.
[26:50]But what did her life look like underneath that?
[26:54]And that's where it started.
[26:56]And I feel like there's an undercurrent
[26:58]of a feminist message to the book as well.
[27:01]And I know in the introduction or maybe it was a dedication
[27:05]or something you were saying to your daughter,
[27:06]like you haven't finished doing the work for her yet.
[27:08]Like this is a step, did I get?
[27:10]So was that conscious?
[27:12]Are you trying to tell me about that angle of it?
[27:16]Yeah, I think that people have asked like, wow,
[27:18]this book is really timely and why this book now.
[27:22]And I've been writing this book for five years
[27:25]before it was published.
[27:26]And so the realities of what women are going through now
[27:32]were true five years ago and 10 years ago.
[27:35]And we have come far from the 50s
[27:40]in a lot of ways, but we still have a long way to go.
[27:43]And it was important for me in doing,
[27:47]I could have written the whole book from 1950s perspective
[27:50]and from Natalie's perspective
[27:52]and just had that story be the story.
[27:54]But what I wanted to do is to look at the difference
[27:58]between those generations.
[28:00]And because we think we're so progressive now
[28:03]and in some ways we are.
[28:05]But in a lot of ways we are not.
[28:07]And so I wanted to take Alice's character in particular
[28:11]and it's much murkier than it is with Natalie's character.
[28:15]And I've had a lot of hate now about Alice
[28:17]if we're interested.
[28:18]Interesting.
[28:19]Which I'm not surprised by.
[28:21]I knew that going in because, as I said,
[28:23]her story is murkier and she can come across as more selfish
[28:28]and self-centered.
[28:30]But I feel like with her, she's going through this dilemma.
[28:35]She's young, she's making mistakes.
[28:37]She deserves to make mistakes.
[28:39]It's not just, it takes two to tango as they say.
[28:42]So her husband in the story,
[28:44]I get messages about how amazing her husband is
[28:46]and how she's so selfish.
[28:48]And I want to say, no, he's not perfect.
[28:51]He's manipulating things as well and keeping secrets as well.
[28:55]But I don't know why Alice is the one who always gets,
[28:58]she's viewed as the enemy in the story versus him.
[29:03]And I find that really interesting.
[29:05]Every time I get a message about that,
[29:07]I always, I don't respond because that's the rule.
[29:11]But I do want to say, why do you villainize her
[29:15]and not him for doing things that are quite similar?
[29:18]So that was, I felt that while I was writing it,
[29:22]I do think that that is where we are in society still.
[29:26]Where women don't get to make the same mistakes that men do,
[29:28]they don't get away with it the same way.
[29:30]And yeah, I wanted to put that in the book.
[29:33]And that was my own, you know, and I'm a wife
[29:36]and I stay home.
[29:37]I work from home.
[29:38]But so I do more of the traditional stereotypical things.
[29:42]I do most of the childcare, the doctors appointments,
[29:45]the grocery shopping, because logistically, it's easier for me
[29:49]because I'm home.
[29:50]But it's important for me with my daughter,
[29:53]especially because she has commented before we'll
[29:56]a year, the dinner maker, like what's for dinner.
[29:58]And I always say, look.
[30:00]I just because I'm female does not make me especially qualified to cook a meal.
[30:06]You know, I need her to understand that being a wife and being a mother and being a woman,
[30:12]they are all really different things that all live within the same person.
[30:17]So, you know, that's what I was trying to do with Alice and looking at Nelly.
[30:21]But yeah, I get it.
[30:22]She's a little bit confronting, I think, for people because I have other people who
[30:27]love her and they really resonate with what she's going through.
[30:31]I find that the older generations, like the 70s plus and the younger ones, like the
[30:38]35 and under, really resonate with Alice.
[30:42]And but it's that middle age time where people are just like, her husband is so nice.
[30:47]Why does she mean so mean to him?
[30:50]So, it's fascinating.
[30:52]It has been fascinating.
[30:53]Yeah.
[30:54]Aside from not responding to hate mail, what is your advice to aspiring authors?
[30:59]Well, I mean, I read a lot and I think if you don't read and read a lot of different
[31:05]things, like fiction, nonfiction, different genres that maybe are not totally your thing,
[31:11]but you should give it a try.
[31:12]I think you have to read all the time a lot as an author.
[31:17]Also, just to not, you know, you write as much as you can be clear about why you're writing.
[31:24]You know, there are some people who want to write because they really desperately want
[31:27]to be published on the shelf with a traditional publisher.
[31:30]And there's other people who write to maybe work through a trauma or to work through
[31:34]a part of their life and perhaps publication is not the most important thing to them.
[31:39]So, it's to really understand why you're writing and, you know, to stay connected to your
[31:44]story, you need to write regularly and also then know when to give up and start something
[31:51]new.
[31:52]So there are people who will say, well, never give up, never give up on anything you're
[31:55]working on.
[31:56]And I think sometimes you have to give up.
[31:59]That's why I have two books in a drawer that will never see the light of day because
[32:04]they weren't the right story.
[32:05]They were practice books for me and they were helping me hone the craft and learn how
[32:09]to write a book that was going to get all the pieces I wanted in, but also would be really
[32:16]great for the reader to like that reading experience.
[32:19]So it's just you got to practice.
[32:21]It's like anything, you know, you have to practice your craft and know why you're doing
[32:25]it.
[32:26]Love it.
[32:27]Well, thank you.
[32:28]Karma, I'm so glad we finally got together.
[32:29]I feel like I wish I could sit and talk to you for a lot longer, but I know it went by so
[32:34]fast.
[32:35]I know.
[32:36]I looked.
[32:37]It's like, oh, no, it's been too long.
[32:38]Oh, no.
[32:39]Thank you so much.
[32:40]Great questions.
[32:41]And it was really nice chatting with you today.
[32:43]Thank you, too.
[32:44]I hope we can find a way to keep this up or meet and present or something.
[32:47]Yes, one day let's meet in person and we'll have a nice drink somewhere and chat right
[32:53]not for that.
[32:54]Yes, that would be nice.
[32:55]Okay.
[32:56]Yeah, take care.
[32:57]Have a great day.
[32:58]Thanks so much.
[32:59]Thanks so much to listening to fiction Friday, part of the July book blast of Mom's No
[33:04]Time to Read Books.
[33:05]I hope that you found some really great reads this week, all five days.
[33:09]I've launched tons of episodes so that I can entertain you and you can connect with stories
[33:15]and just feel a little better in the world knowing that these stories exist and that these
[33:19]authors are out there.
[33:20]So I hope you enjoyed all of these fiction Friday episodes and that you had a great day.
[33:26]And I hope you have a really great weekend and come back next week because I'm doing
[33:30]one more week, one more five days, I should say, of another July book last week and I'll
[33:36]have five new fan days then and then back to normal.
[33:39]But anyway, you can have a little like binge podcast fest or something.
[33:43]Anyway, have a great weekend.
[33:46]Thanks again for listening to my podcast.
[33:47]Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[33:49]If you liked this episode, please follow me on Instagram at zippyowans and at mom's
[33:55]don't have time to read books and sign up for my mailing list at zippyowans.com so you
[33:59]can always hear about the latest things I'm up to.
[34:02]Thanks a lot.
[34:03]Thanks so much to page one books for sponsoring today's episode.
[34:05]I hope you'll all check out my summer beach bundle at page one books.com.
[34:10]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing and thank you
[34:14]to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[34:18]Thanks for listening.
[34:19]You can always email me at zippyowans.com.