Christa Parravani, LOVED AND WANTED

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[1:57]Krista Paravani is the author of Love and Wanted, Memoir of Choice, Children and Womanhood.

[2:03]She is also the author of Indie Best Selling Her, A Memoir, which shares Paravani's journey

[2:09]through grief after the loss of her identical twin sister Cara.

[2:12]Her was a Wall Street Journal salon and library journal Best Book of the Year.

[2:16]It was a Huffington Post Best Book of the Last Five Years.

[2:19]And it's also bestseller.

[2:21]Paravani's writing has appeared in Guernica, Catapult, Boge, Hobart, Marie Claire,

[2:25]The Millions, Glamour, The Washington Post, Salon, The Rumpus, The Daily Beast, The London Times,

[2:30]and many other places.

[2:31]She has been featured in poets and writers on NPR's All Things Considered

[2:35]and to the best of our knowledge, as well as PBS's Well-Red and many other magazines,

[2:40]TV programs and radio programs.

[2:41]And she's also an assistant professor at West Virginia University.

[2:45]Welcome, Krista.

[2:46]Thanks so much for coming on Moms.

[2:47]Don't have time to read books.

[2:49]Thank you for having me.

[2:50]I always think it's so funny to interview someone who's written such an open memoir,

[2:54]right?

[2:55]It's such with so much information that I'm like, well, I already know all about you.

[2:58]Like, let's start to the next part.

[2:59]Like, what happened after the memoir?

[3:01]Like, let's catch up.

[3:02]You know, I feel like it's like we already had a conversation, but

[3:05]well, for listeners who don't know much about your book,

[3:08]Love Didn't Wanted.

[3:08]Can you please tell them a little about what it's about?

[3:12]Love Didn't Wanted is a memoir that is about my time living in West Virginia.

[3:17]I was a faculty member at West Virginia University.

[3:21]And my family had moved there from Los Angeles.

[3:25]And it's about the years that I lived in West Virginia and had a second daughter,

[3:32]and then was unexpectedly pregnant with a third child a year after having my daughter.

[3:38]And I was my family's sole provider, and I couldn't afford a third baby.

[3:46]And so I looked into my options for reproductive health care,

[3:49]and discovered that I didn't have any, or very few.

[3:54]And not the kinds of options that as a mother to small children that I could take,

[4:00]there were waiting periods that would have caused me to have to,

[4:03]you know, take two weeks off of work and find someone to stay with our kids.

[4:07]Because oftentimes, if you get an abortion, you have to have somebody come with you,

[4:13]and we didn't have family nearby. But yeah, so the book is about that.

[4:17]And it's about the journey that I had afterward after I had my son,

[4:23]who is very much loved and wanted, which is where the title of the book comes from.

[4:27]I believe that you can both want to have had the choice for reproductive health care,

[4:32]and love and want your children.

[4:33]But it's about the discovery about what the implications are for

[4:38]curtailing reproductive health care for women and children through my direct experience.

[4:43]I was so surprised to learn about how difficult it was for you in this day and age,

[4:49]in a state that allows abortion to get it. And you went through in the book so clearly,

[4:54]like, well, if I had done this, I would have had to give up this many days of work. And

[4:57]this would have crossed this and this bus started to cross this. And, you know,

[5:00]if this, then I tried this other option, then this doctor said, no, and I just,

[5:04]I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. And you were saying that this goes on all over

[5:08]the country. You know, I'm from New York City. And you just don't know what it's like.

[5:13]And you had been coming from LA at the time. So it was like a culture shock.

[5:17]Yeah, it was unbelievable to me as a person who grew up in New York and then lived in Los Angeles.

[5:22]And our family lived in New York City for many years. And we lived in Los Angeles for many years.

[5:28]And I, it was shocking to me that those, you know, there are laws that prevent women from being

[5:34]able to seek reproductive health care in states like West Virginia and many other states.

[5:40]It's not just West Virginia. As a matter of fact, you know, the majority of health care providers

[5:45]are in New York City and or around New York and Los Angeles, California. And the reason why we don't

[5:51]understand this to be a daily situation is because those providers are near those cities.

[5:57]Right. Yeah. So there are many states that only have one facility for reproductive health care.

[6:02]And the numbers are going down and down and down as time goes on. There are fewer and fewer

[6:07]places to be able to get reproductive health care. But again, like you, I didn't, you know, until I,

[6:14]I saw that directly, I was unaware, completely surprised. And also, you know, in that surprise,

[6:20]I felt crazy. You know, I felt like, why do I feel like this is impossible? What is wrong with me?

[6:26]But in fact, it was because it was impossible. You know, it took me a long time. And part of the

[6:33]reason I wrote the book is for that reason because the, you know, the ways in which I was told

[6:39]indirectly that the choice was not mine to make because it was too hard to make caused me to doubt

[6:46]everything about myself, including, you know, who I was as a mother to my two daughters.

[6:52]And the fact that you had to go through that with no support and no help and struggling

[6:56]financially and no thing, you know, your mother was, I mean, I'm glad she came through for you at

[7:01]one point in the back. I was like, well, thank God for this. Finally, there she shows up. But also

[7:06]your tragic history with your sister, which was the topic of your previous memoir. Can you talk a

[7:10]little about that too? Yeah. Yeah. I put you in the, throw you in the fire this morning. Like,

[7:16]you're beautiful things in life for me. Let me tell you. Yeah. Yeah. When I was in my 20s,

[7:25]I, my identical twin sister Kara died of a heroin overdose. And she had suffered from

[7:33]depression as a result of having been raped by a stranger in the woods when we were in our

[7:39]early to mid 20s. And she had a six year, you know, struggle after that attack and eventually

[7:45]succumbed to, you know, depression and addiction. And the book is about identity. It's called

[7:50]her memoir. And, you know, it's about what it means to climb your way out of unimaginable grief.

[7:57]And I, you know, I wrote it because I feel like people want to know what it's like to have a twin

[8:01]and they want to know what it's like to have, you know, intimate love in that way. And we don't

[8:08]talk about losing that very often. And I felt a responsibility to do that. And I felt a responsibility

[8:13]also to talk about what it means to be trying to care for somebody who's been sexually assaulted

[8:19]and not really know how to do that. In a way, like, I, and I didn't realize the trajectory of my

[8:25]writing career had to do with activism. And it does. This book, this book does that too. And I,

[8:32]you know, I am now experiencing myself as somebody who, you know, is not only interested in writing,

[8:39]but interested in justice and justice for women and sharing our stories and a way to liberate us.

[8:45]That's great. I mean, that's like a perfect tagline for a career. Like, that's great.

[8:49]You know, it's great to have such a clear goal. And, you know, a marketing firm would say this is

[8:55]fantastic, you know, you've outlined your, your mission. But I'm so sorry. I don't even mean to

[9:00]make light of your horrific experience and your tragic loss of your sister. And it's just awful

[9:05]what happened. And I need to go back now, because after I finished this book, it was like,

[9:10]oh my gosh, how did I miss her first book? So anyway, now I have to go back and read it. It

[9:14]sounds like you've been through the wringer in so many ways. And it's like, at least they should

[9:19]give you the choice of whether or not to have another baby. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know,

[9:25]we all deserve, we all deserve that choice. And we deserve to be, you know, in situations where

[9:31]health care is strong enough for us to be able to make that choice. And once you have your baby

[9:35]to be taken care of. Yes. But the other thing in the book about like, all the pitfalls and

[9:42]misdiagnosis, essentially, of with your son, oh my gosh, I wanted to like scoop you up and like

[9:49]take you to my doctor. And yeah, I wanted to go to my doctor too. I know, I did. I know. Oh my gosh.

[9:56]I wanted to. I don't mean to make light of any of these things. I do think so. There's

[10:00]the way in which, you know, if you don't approach something with humor and

[10:02]levity, you're never going to be able to communicate the thing that you

[10:06]need to communicate. And all these things did happen.

[10:09]And miraculously, I'm okay, you know, and I want to be able to teach women

[10:15]and, you know, people to be able to go through these experiences and still

[10:19]be okay and to be able to look at them and, you know, help other people.

[10:22]But yeah, we deserve, we deserve to have good health care.

[10:26]We deserve to have good reproductive health care.

[10:29]We deserve to have good pediatric care for our children.

[10:31]And the thing that I discovered in this, you know, I'm looking at my book here,

[10:36]which is the galley.

[10:38]Hey, let me see you get a cover again.

[10:40]I had to read it online and there wasn't a cover yet.

[10:42]Oh, I love it. It's awesome.

[10:44]Yeah, it's a picture of Morgantown West Virginia that was taken by a local

[10:48]photographer, not very far from the house where I lived.

[10:50]And P.S. I would not say this was exactly an advertisement for Morgantown

[10:54]West Virginia.

[10:55]I feel like I'm not sure they're going to like have the biggest book party for you

[10:59]there. I feel like I can't say that many people of

[11:03]acknowledge that it's happening.

[11:07]I can't say that's the case, but I have a lot of love for the place,

[11:11]even though I had, you know, difficult times there, for sure I did unexpectedly.

[11:17]So, but, you know, the thing that I discovered is that states that

[11:20]curtail access to women's health care and, you know, curtailing access to

[11:25]abortion is not just curtailing access to abortion. In fact, it's curtailing access

[11:29]to pap smears and all sorts of women's health care that, you know, is only available

[11:35]to certain people in places that perform abortions.

[11:39]And, you know, it just so happens that the money that is funneled into women's health care

[11:45]when you take it away, you all, you don't get adequate care for children.

[11:49]And that's something that occurs across the United States,

[11:52]in which I didn't realize until after I had my son. He was born with some issues that were not

[11:58]easily taken care of in West Virginia, but would have probably been noticed in a second some

[12:04]place that had more resources, less overcrowding. Yeah.

[12:08]And then you think of spread of COVID across the country and then you realize like the

[12:13]how can small towns everywhere focus. And when they don't have the advantages of

[12:19]all the science and all the expertise necessarily in bigger communities. I mean,

[12:24]and that's what most people are turning to. Anyway, it's just kind of frightening to be honest.

[12:29]But yeah, it is frightening. I mean, in my case, I lived in a West in a town where West Virginia

[12:34]University is, which is where I taught, teach. And I, you know, the medical center there is

[12:40]vast. It runs the state. And it's a historically really interesting place because my

[12:45]Myland Farm, Massuticals is based there. And there's giant medical complexes based there.

[12:51]And so there's a history of health care there that's really interesting. However,

[12:55]because West Virginia does not have a lot of medical offices, it is serving the entire state

[13:03]basically. So there are people who need to commute two and a half hours to be able to see a

[13:08]doctor for any reason. And that includes women who are pregnant, you know, and having babies.

[13:13]There was that one scene where the mom came in with her child and waited for two hours or had

[13:17]to drive two hours. And then she couldn't miss any more work and had to turn around and leave.

[13:21]It's just heartbreaking because then of course you realize how often this must be happening.

[13:25]All of the waste, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's happening all over the place. And it happened to me

[13:30]a professor, you know, somebody who has two master's degrees and writes books and is a white woman.

[13:38]And the number of women that this happens to are women of color and poor women is astronomical.

[13:45]And I feel like we don't really have enough of a voice for that yet. I feel like as women,

[13:49]we haven't been able to articulate this yet because there's something about being, you know,

[13:53]saying, I have thought about having an abortion that is still a really taboo subject.

[13:58]And it's one that I came up against when I was writing the book. I mean, I asked myself consistently,

[14:03]can I do this? Why am I doing this? What does it mean for my son to do this?

[14:08]I have the answers now. But as I was in my way to write, I did not have those answers. I just had

[14:15]I just had the desire to be able to say something that didn't feel like it was being set off in

[14:20]enough. So what was what were some of those answers?

[14:25]I'll tell you, you know, I have two daughters. And I thought about what it was

[14:32]that, you know, I would say to them in, you know, two decades from now, a decade from now about

[14:40]what it meant to live in this time and not advocate for their health care. And I know that,

[14:47]I mean, I look to my mother and I say, what did you do in your time and place? And I remember

[14:52]being really disappointed by the fact that I didn't feel like she did a lot, you know, in the 70s

[14:57]s when she was growing up in the 60s. And she didn't have the opportunity to do that. You

[15:02]know, she worked at Sears Roebuck and she, you know, she was a waitress after that. She didn't

[15:08]have the resources that I have. But, you know, I look to my daughters and I think I will not

[15:13]forgive myself if I don't advocate for them because if I don't do it, who will? You know,

[15:19]and I think that my son will grow up in a household of girls, of a strong mother, and he will

[15:26]understand that this necessity is one that doesn't have a lot to do with having him be loved or

[15:32]wanted at all. It happens to be something that makes a better world for him to, for his sisters,

[15:37]for his children. And I think he'll understand. It was a risk that I had to take in order to take

[15:43]care of them all. Yeah. I mean, sometimes you have to, I mean, you have to protect the ones you have.

[15:48]Well, anyway, I won't get into it. But I get it, you know, this is like, you know, so if he's choice

[15:53]or something. But yes, I understand. And I'm glad you came to terms with it and crystallized

[15:57]your point in doing it all and all of that. Are you? Can I just ask for it? Like,

[16:02]so are you and your husband good these days? Like, we're trying. It was a horrific experience

[16:09]to go through in a marriage, you know, it was. And the time after my son was born was not easy either.

[16:15]I don't write about it. But the last couple of years have been hard for everyone. We were living

[16:19]in a chaotic country in which, you know, we're not sure what tomorrow will look like in a

[16:23]whiplash news cycle. We both happen to be writers. And my husband and me. And there's a way in

[16:29]which that career breeds uncertainty. But I don't know. I mean, it's something that we haven't,

[16:35]I mean, he was really worried about my writing this book. You know, I think he wanted,

[16:41]he was worried about our son in a way that I, you know, I'm also worried about our son,

[16:45]but as a man, intimately concerned with his needs in that way and where I was concerned with

[16:50]our daughter's needs. But yeah, I know it's been hard. We're trying to work it out. I don't know

[16:53]what'll happen to be honest. It's like, it could go, it could go either way. But right now we're,

[17:00]you know, still married. Okay. Okay. I'll just leave that alone.

[17:07]Well, let me just, I just, I want to say something about this. You know, one of the things that I'm

[17:11]asked a lot about is what my husband thinks about this book. And, you know, that's it, that's an

[17:17]interesting subject. But I think that when you take a subject like this and you ask about someone's

[17:23]husband, and this is no offense to your question, because I would ask it to you one in a second,

[17:28]I would say, you know, you're making something about what should be about a woman's choice and her

[17:35]role as a mother and turning it around and asking her what her husband thinks is making it less

[17:39]about her and more about him. I do not ask that question. I'm talking about it in terms of like,

[17:47]what is it about? I was thinking about it. And like, what I'm a writer of nonfiction, my husband is

[17:52]a writer of nonfiction. We tell stories that, you know, would be harrowing for other people.

[17:57]And he's written to memoirs. And, you know, there's a take no prisoner's approach in his writing

[18:01]that I don't necessarily have in mind. But I thought like, what is my gut reaction to not wanting

[18:06]to address him? Because I'm interested in talking about the marriage. But what is it about this

[18:10]particular situation that makes me feel nervous about that? And I thought because when I look at

[18:16]him, I'm taking away something that was really about me. And I don't want to do that because,

[18:21]you know, it clouds the situation, which is so much of which to me seems so clear in terms of

[18:27]what he would think and feel about, you know, say, for example, me having an abortion,

[18:31]you know, he immediately when he found out that I was pregnant, said, it is your body and your choice.

[18:35]I guess if, I mean, I didn't ask what he would think about it, I was more interested in like,

[18:40]are you two okay? I'm just wondering what the conclusion was. But I guess I would be wondering

[18:47]because you didn't paint such a great picture of your relationship, essentially. And

[18:54]revealing that has effects on the other, on both people and the, you know, both members of the

[18:59]party. So that's, that would be it not, not even about, it actually had nothing to do with the

[19:04]abortion part. I mean, I think that's obviously one piece of your book, but certainly not the

[19:09]other piece. I mean, I also think it's about how do you handle, how do you get through being a

[19:14]mother in a marriage when life is really, really, really, really hard? And I think that's like

[19:19]a big piece of your book, regardless of the reproductive angle. It's the day to day life and the

[19:25]struggling and the financial stress that weighs on you and the blame and, you know, his career

[19:32]versus yours. Like I just felt like so much of this was so widely applicable. And that's why I was

[19:37]talking about, yeah, that's not, I mean, I don't know. And also abortion has so many political and

[19:43]religious and, you know, whatever. I was kind of like not dealing with that because people have

[19:47]such different views on it. However, I was just trying to get to like, yeah, yeah, I totally understand

[19:52]what you're saying. And you know, the thing is that any marriage has its complications. And, you know,

[19:57]I talked to my girlfriends and we're all talking about, oh my gosh.

[20:00]You know, what are financial lives going to be like this year and what, you know, how does that impact our marriage and who's getting to work right now?

[20:08]It's like, is my husband getting to work? Am I getting to work?

[20:11]He's taking care of the children and just like, no matter what the mess, like the the tangle of your life is.

[20:16]I think we all in some way are adjacent to that in that kind of stress and keeping a marriage together is so hard, you know, it's really hard and that doesn't mean that you don't love somebody.

[20:28]It doesn't mean you don't want to be with them. It just means that it's hard and it's not just hard for me. It's hard for all of us, you know, like you show me the perfect marriage.

[20:36]I want to see it. Yeah, but as a writer of nonfiction, it's my job to tell the truth. So well, even still many writers have done fiction don't delve this deep into their own marriages.

[20:47]So especially as a young, like I feel like some authors do it when they're older, like reflecting back like, you know, Danny Shapiro read a beautiful memoir called Hourglass about her whole year.

[20:57]I love that. I love that beautiful. So yeah, but I feel like it's not as often that you hear from the inside. I feel like there's this, you know, like almost like Iron Wall sometimes around people's inner relationships that you didn't have, which was great, which is what made your book in part.

[21:16]What made your book. I think so interesting and unput downable is because you're like, well, what's going to happen next? How did they navigate this?

[21:23]How would I navigate that right? You know, I mean, you put yourself in your shoes and go through it with you. So anyway, thank you.

[21:30]I mean, I do feel I do feel like if I didn't write about the marriage the book wouldn't ring true.

[21:36]I had to, I had to do it in order to tell the story. There was no way around it. Trust me, I thought about it.

[21:42]I think you might need to do this. And the answer was always yes.

[21:47]And to do it respectfully and with love realizing that, you know, the outcome was going to be something that I felt would be helpful to people and that, you know, there's always the do no harm.

[21:59]You know, I just wanted to look at it from all angles. There was no, there was really no way to write this book without that everywhere I hit in the story. The marriage was there looking at me.

[22:10]Well, I got divorced after being married for 10 years and I am now remarried. So after this, if you ever want to ask me any questions.

[22:20]I'm around. So whatever.

[22:22]I'll zoom you.

[22:23]Yeah, zoom me. I'm around.

[22:25]Anyway, so tell me a little more about the actual writing of this story, like when on earth did you find time, especially given how you painted your life to write a book on top of everything else.

[22:35]Well, I had the great fortune of working for an employer that gave me parental leave after I had my son. So I was on a paid leave for semester.

[22:50]And I mean, there was really not a lot of time to work after having that baby, obviously, and he was not well.

[22:56]I was literally hooked up to a milk machine, you know, a pump for the first four and a half months of his life because he was never able to nurse.

[23:05]And then having the two girls running around me while I did that. It was so it was so hard, but you know, I just like pure drive and grit made me right.

[23:16]Because I needed to get this book out out of my soul. And so, you know, I would type it on the side, while my son was napping and my daughters were, you know, like wrestling around the way around.

[23:28]But I did.

[23:29]And my husband was working full time at that point. He had gotten a job of television in Los Angeles, which, you know, it's like a

[23:37]more than 12 hour a day job that also involves frequent travel. So, you know, those first six months of keeps my son that's his name keeps his life was not full of a lot of work, but I did the best I could.

[23:50]And then he got a little older and I got, I found a great childcare provider and every free minute that I had I invested in writing this book.

[24:01]I used my summer vacation to write the book. And then I had to take a leave off of my teaching for a semester to finish it on.

[24:10]There was no way to do it. But yeah, are you still working for the same university.

[24:15]Yes, I am. I teach remotely right now, like, you know, so many people. But yeah, I do, I do still teach for the university, but you left West Virginia.

[24:24]But I left West Virginia. Okay. Yeah, I did. I left West Virginia because I didn't feel like I could live there anymore.

[24:32]Which was a really, you know, this book is also about homesickness and sadness and it's also about asking where you can, you know, like what it means to be from a place.

[24:42]And I felt even though it hurt me to live there in so many ways that there was so much of me that loved it.

[24:49]And my, you know, my daughters loved it. So it was a very hard decision. But one that I felt like I had to make after, you know, looking at the facts and knowing that, you know, if I felt like I had a heart attack in the middle of the night and I had to call an ambulance that it might not turn out.

[25:03]Okay.

[25:05]Now, how is Keats? Is he okay now? Oh, he's so wonderful. He's so great. He's healthy and healthy now like three years. I mean, two and a half, two and a half. Wow.

[25:17]He's just starting to put together complex sentences and he's my big helper like he's the neatest of all the kids. If you look at him and he's playing the play kitchen like wiping down.

[25:26]He's just a sweet little love and he's healthy and doing so well.

[25:35]Yeah, no great. So are you trying to write any more books on the side or do you are you content with the chaos that your regular life.

[25:44]I have another book. I have another book that I'm working on right now. And I had been working on it before this book.

[25:51]So it was a book that I've been working on. And then when I realized that I needed to write love and wanted and my publisher wanted to have it in time for the election.

[25:59]I had to put that other book aside, but it's a deep love of mine. It's a nonfiction book about a woman who was a CIA operative during the bin Laden years and she worked at the top of asset conversion while also being involved in really awful marriage that involved domestic violence and not being able to tell anybody about that because it compromised national security.

[26:20]Whoa.

[26:22]Yeah, and I met her through a friend and she's just you know that story changed my life because I realized that you know it probably obviously it influenced this book too because I thought what does it mean to be a woman working in the world at the top of your game and still have you know this closet full of secrets and shame.

[26:42]So I'll finish that book. I'm about halfway through now, but obviously I'm taking time with the kids and teaching and remote school is hard.

[26:51]So yeah, I get it.

[26:54]Wow that book sounds awesome. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

[26:58]Put your rear end in the chair and don't worry about it not being good the first draft because it's so important to be able to get your story out and not to stop yourself by telling yourself lies like this isn't good enough.

[27:11]And who will care about this, you know that's my biggest piece of advice and also if you can to find a group of readers that you trust and engage yourself with them because writing is a solitary experience but it's also a community experience because you have a reader.

[27:28]It's not just about you know it's not just about you it's about you know what it what it means to have a conversation with somebody who picks up your book.

[27:37]I love that and I have to tell you in terms of like the reader I read this book I couldn't sleep I sometimes get like all this pain in my body whatever anyways in the middle of the night and I read the whole thing walking in circles around my apartment standing up on my iPad.

[27:51]Like the first hundred two pages just like roaming around in circles and like so in it in the dark with just the light of the iPad.

[27:58]So I felt like so connected to it and then I finished the rest the next day but anyway it was like very intense moment you know especially because like I feel like you're like I don't know I was like in your life in the middle of my night like in like a dream state or something.

[28:14]So it was awesome I loved it.

[28:15]I will say yeah that was the aim you know the aim was like how do I write a book where I feel like I can put my arm around you and just tell you this thing that happened to me and we could meet together in the dark with an iPad.

[28:27]Exactly well mission accomplished check you know.

[28:31]Well thanks so much for chatting with me today and for giving me the conclusion to your story which I was like what's happening now so thanks for that too and yeah I'm excited for your book to be out in the world.

[28:44]Thank you thank you so much for inviting me and for having this conversation this is the first one that I've had about the way oh my gosh it's been on my calendar when I first heard about this book like forever ago I was like yes I can't wait and so it's been one of my longest and it did not disappoint me so anyway.

[29:00]Oh thank you thank you so so much all right good luck with everything okay.

[29:05]Bye bye.

[29:07]Thanks so much to Ferdy brand for being my sponsor this week Ferdy brand dot com and her code Zibi for 25% off.

[29:15]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books.

[29:24]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens dot com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week.

[29:31]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.