Maisy Card, THESE GHOSTS ARE FAMILY
[0:01]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:38]Maisie Card is the author of these ghosts are family.
[0:42]Maisie is a writer and a public librarian.
[0:44]Her debut novel, these ghosts are family, was shortlisted for the Center for Fictions,
[0:48]First Novel Prize, and the Pen Hemingway Award for debut novel.
[0:51]Her writing has appeared in the Paris Review Daily, Lenny Letter, A.G. and I, The New York
[0:55]Times, Guernica, and other publications.
[0:58]Maisie was born in St. Catherine, Jamaica, but was raised in Queens, New York.
[1:02]She earned an MFA from Brooklyn College, an MLIS from Rutgers University, and a BA in
[1:07]English and American Studies from Wesleyan University.
[1:09]She is currently an instructor for the Second Street Writers Workshop, and a fiction
[1:13]editor for the Brooklyn Rail.
[1:14]Welcome Maisie, thank you so much for coming on Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[1:18]Thanks for having me.
[1:19]My pleasure.
[1:20]By the way, I love the name Maisie, not that you're responsible for your own name, but I really
[1:25]wanted to name one of my daughters Maisie, and I was overruled, but it's like one of
[1:29]my favorite names.
[1:30]Oh, really?
[1:31]Yeah.
[1:32]So, anyway, you're lucky.
[1:33]Okay, these ghosts are family.
[1:35]What a debut novel, oh my gosh, not only were you getting so much attention, but it's
[1:39]completely warranted attention because it's really beautifully written and unique and
[1:44]awesome.
[1:45]So, can you tell listeners, what do these ghosts or family is about?
[1:49]I'll just hold it up.
[1:50]And what inspired you to write it?
[1:51]So, these ghosts or family is about, I always say one, Jamaican family, but it's actually
[1:55]about two Jamaican families.
[1:57]So, it begins with the family patriarch able, Paisley, you know, telling his kind of
[2:03]descendants that when he was younger, he faked his own death, and in order to abandon
[2:08]his family in Jamaica and moved to America and created a new family.
[2:12]So, the book kind of follows the fallout of this family secret between these two families,
[2:18]you know, and each chapter focuses on a different descendant or someone who was close
[2:22]to the family.
[2:23]And it was really inspired by my own family, particularly my grandfather.
[2:27]I was just kind of reflecting, he's a very quiet person, a very secretive person.
[2:30]He actually passed away this year out last year.
[2:33]And you know, I was just kind of trying to understand how the choices that he's made
[2:38]in his life have affected kind of everyone and how we can kind of see, we can see like
[2:44]his choices reflected in our own lives, whether, you know, even though I didn't realize
[2:48]it to, like, our older.
[2:49]So does that mean he faked his own death?
[2:52]No, no.
[2:53]But the container falling on his head, anything like that, no?
[2:56]Yeah, no.
[2:57]It's kind of, you know, I think what a lot of people will ask, you know, what's true
[3:01]and what's not true.
[3:02]And I would say, you know, everything, you know, 95, 96% is completely made up.
[3:07]It's really the emotions that are, you know, what inspired me, not so much the actions,
[3:12]you know, so the plot is completely fictional.
[3:14]It's that everyone know you that everybody keeps asking, including me.
[3:17]You're like, I am a novelist already if you stop talking about my own life.
[3:23]I don't know why I always do that because I'm always so curious, like, of all of what
[3:28]I read, you know, what was you?
[3:30]And there's no shorthand for it, right?
[3:33]Yeah, because I think kind of everything is kind of you in a way.
[3:36]I think, you know, to make characters more realistic, you'll take something either from
[3:41]your own personality or your own shortcomings, your own family and try to make it real.
[3:44]And some people are composite characters that people I know in some way.
[3:48]So they're a little like subtle details.
[3:49]And I think actually I started writing it based off of early memories that I had as a child.
[3:54]Like there's a chapter about a funeral and that's actually based off, you know, the ritual
[3:58]of the funeral is based off my memory of my grandmother's funeral when I went to Jamaica
[4:02]when I was like, like a kid.
[4:03]So there are little details that are, you know, drawn from life.
[4:07]In an article, yeah, not an article, rather, an interview you did with Penn America.
[4:11]You talked about how time is not a toenment and how that line has kind of stayed with you.
[4:16]And I thought that was so interesting because obviously in our culture, it's especially
[4:22]you just somebody passes away and everything is perfect, right?
[4:25]And you just kind of brush under the rug, anything that was really upsetting or bother,
[4:31]it's like, it's like you can't come out and say, yeah, but like, you were really not
[4:34]a nice guy.
[4:35]You know.
[4:36]So tell me a little bit about that and how this book helps to form sort of more fully
[4:42]formed characters, people who have passed away and how families need to deal with the aftermath
[4:47]of a complicated person's death.
[4:49]Yeah, I think, you know, my family is very secretive and very like surface, you know, they
[4:55]don't like to say bad things about people in general.
[4:57]And it's just, you know, so I kind of had to like, I kind of had to like be a bit of
[5:03]a detective growing up, you know, to kind of figure out who people really were, like
[5:06]my grandmother passed away when I was very young.
[5:09]And actually, I didn't know my grandparents and my father's side of the family.
[5:12]So it's kind of, I just knew them through stories.
[5:15]And so, you know, I think I pictured them as being like saintly, perfect people.
[5:21]And then, you know, as you grow up and you get to understand your parents a little more,
[5:25]you kind of understand that the way they are and maybe the negative aspects about the
[5:29]the way they are, you know, came from their own upbringing and it's not really necessarily
[5:34]their fault.
[5:35]You know, so I, you know, I think about that too, and especially with my grandfather,
[5:38]you know, he definitely wasn't a perfect person.
[5:40]He definitely did things that caused like a permanent fracture in our family.
[5:44]So I think, you know, he was in his 80s.
[5:47]I think when I started writing this and, you know, he passed away when he was 92.
[5:51]So I think, you know, I kind of thought about him a lot when I was writing and it's
[5:54]like, how do you reconcile this kind of person in your mind that has done so many bad
[5:59]things?
[6:00]But at the same time, as far as I have known him, you know, he's the only grandparent
[6:03]I grew up with, you know, he's been a steady presence in my life.
[6:07]So I do love him, but I, he's different people to different, he's different people in
[6:12]our family.
[6:13]And I guess I can absolve him of the sins he's done to me, but I can't, I really don't
[6:17]have a right to do that on behalf of other people, my family.
[6:20]So I guess that's where the time is not atonement.
[6:22]And I think also it's interesting.
[6:23]It's just watching people age, well, I guess it depends on the person, but some people
[6:27]will become so much kinder when they get older and my grandfather in his later years,
[6:32]he started to have dementia.
[6:33]So he was literally like kind of like a child, you know, we had to take care of him like
[6:37]he was a child.
[6:38]And so you feel so much empathy and it kind of makes you forget who they were for the
[6:42]majority of their lives, you know, and so that's something that I kind of reflected on,
[6:48]you know, while I was writing this book, you know, what about the other people who have
[6:52]a different version of him in their mind than the version that, you know, I know what
[6:56]they're thinking, you know, and since we don't ever have a discussion about anything
[7:00]like that in our family and about especially about feelings, like I kind of had to just imagine
[7:04]these feelings and this process through these fictional characters.
[7:08]My grandmother on one side passed away, maybe I don't know six years ago, something like
[7:13]that, but she also had dementia.
[7:15]And I remember my dad and my uncle is talking one, like, I think her last Thanksgiving,
[7:20]and they were like, how does mom seen?
[7:21]And one of them said, well, she said, I love you and they were like, oh boy, she's on
[7:25]her way out.
[7:26]You know, I guess she's going to be that expressive, so it is funny how, you know, true
[7:32]character sometimes doesn't end up with you at the very end, but all these issues are
[7:36]so complicated.
[7:37]And I read in some other piece that it had something to do with your great uncle's
[7:41]death.
[7:42]Is that true or I don't know?
[7:43]Did you say that in Rumpus, maybe, or is that even accurate?
[7:47]I don't know.
[7:48]Oh, not so much.
[7:50]I can't remember.
[7:51]Okay.
[7:52]All right.
[7:54]This is me being so nosy to your life, which is crazy because I just met you with it.
[8:00]And I understand also, in addition to your career as a writer, you're also a librarian.
[8:07]Is that still the case?
[8:08]Tell me about that.
[8:09]Yeah, I'm actually, I'm switching jobs right now.
[8:12]So I took a break.
[8:13]I left my previous job because I'm working on another book, but I'm going to be kind
[8:17]of working in a different library in New Jersey in a few months or next month, actually.
[8:21]Yeah.
[8:22]So I mean, that influenced the book a lot because obviously it's, I have a lot of access
[8:26]to like research materials in this, this book took a lot of research.
[8:29]And I think, you know, I think you interact with a lot of different people as a librarian
[8:34]and a lot of different communities.
[8:35]And I think it really gives you a good sense of, it may, it just made me start to think
[8:40]about families and the dynamics that families and communities.
[8:43]Yeah.
[8:44]And also before I became a librarian, I actually wanted to be an archivist.
[8:48]So I thought about a lot about what, you know, ancestors leave behind and like a
[8:52]femur.
[8:53]And you know, my family is not very bad at record keeping, which has always been something
[8:57]that's made me sad.
[8:59]So I think, you know, I kind of wanted to imagine like if, you know, if my fail, if things
[9:04]were different, and it's not just my family's fault, it's obviously the history of like
[9:08]slavery and colonialism that's a fault, but you know, I wanted to imagine what it would
[9:13]be like if I could have those records and have access to kind of piece together and
[9:18]accurate, you know, family tree.
[9:20]So they don't keep a lot of records and they're very secretive.
[9:23]I don't know.
[9:24]It sounds like there's a memoir brewing in here.
[9:27]Once you get to the bottom of it, I've always wondered what it would be like working
[9:31]in a library because it's like such a happy place just to be there surrounded by books
[9:36]and people coming in actively to read and watching people, like I'm always interested
[9:42]in like consumer behavior and like why does it make someone do this?
[9:45]So in bookstores, there's all this back-end reason why books are positioned certain way,
[9:51]right?
[9:52]Some publishers have deals over like they have to be in a certain place and I'm not saying
[9:58]this very well.
[9:59]I'm like stumbling on my words.
[10:00]You know what I mean?
[10:00]In terms of the marketing on the shelf and everything.
[10:03]So in a library though, you have full range
[10:05]to sort of recommend whatever and put things out.
[10:10]How is it?
[10:11]Like, did you start noticing different behavior patterns
[10:13]of people or did you test out certain books
[10:16]and certain places?
[10:17]Or like, what did you learn from that?
[10:19]I feel like that would be so interesting.
[10:21]You know, actually in my last job
[10:23]I was a team services librarian.
[10:24]So I dealt with the YA collection
[10:26]and also graphic novels a lot.
[10:28]But yeah, I think, you know, I did test out different books
[10:31]and like, I learned a lot about covers
[10:33]for like, you know, what attracts kids to books.
[10:36]But I think the thing that I find
[10:37]what found most interesting was that, you know,
[10:39]my section of the library was just next to the computer lab.
[10:41]So most of a lot of the adults would pass through.
[10:45]And I just feel like a lot of adults,
[10:47]I think there's this idea that people have these specific tastes.
[10:50]But I found that like most adults don't even like care.
[10:52]You know, it's like they just see a cover
[10:54]that looks interesting.
[10:55]They pick it up, they read the description
[10:57]and they just check it out.
[10:58]And they don't really care whether it's YA
[11:00]or who the target audience is.
[11:02]Yeah, and I kind of noticed that all throughout the library.
[11:04]It's just people are just looking for something
[11:06]that catches their eye.
[11:07]That sounds like it has an interesting plot.
[11:09]I don't really think they care much,
[11:11]that much about genre or labels.
[11:13]I think genre is more like a publishing industry.
[11:16]Yeah.
[11:17]I mean, even YA for instance, like that didn't used to be YA.
[11:20]Now if you write a book where you have a younger protagonist,
[11:23]it might get shelved differently than.
[11:25]Yeah.
[11:26]You know, like was Marjorie Morningstar
[11:28]and some of these old classics were they YA?
[11:31]Yeah.
[11:32]My books, right?
[11:33]Yeah.
[11:33]Upstairs dance, I don't know.
[11:35]I feel like all these books were just books.
[11:38]Yeah, and I realize that there's also like a lot of adults.
[11:41]Like especially if they're not like very serious readers
[11:46]and they don't read regularly,
[11:47]they tend to just want to read the same authors
[11:49]they've read their whole lives.
[11:50]Like people just come into the library asking
[11:52]for Judy books, you know, even as adults
[11:55]they're like, you know, whatever they're reading
[11:57]when they're in high school,
[11:58]I feel like a lot of people just want to keep reading
[12:00]that author forever.
[12:01]It's true.
[12:02]Well, it's really an investment,
[12:03]if you think about it, right?
[12:05]All this time, you're going to spend with somebody.
[12:07]That's why I feel like I'd like doing this podcast
[12:09]so people can get like an inside look at who the author is
[12:12]before they're like, all right, I'm going to sit down
[12:14]and spend 12 hours on Maisy Card's book.
[12:16]So, you know, like a little preview
[12:19]and you get like, I feel like people feel like they know
[12:22]it's Judy Bloom in a way, which they probably don't
[12:25]or they just get so accustomed to it.
[12:27]Are there books like that for, are there authors
[12:29]like that who were go-to's for you?
[12:30]Yeah, you know, when I, I think I started reading
[12:33]to make a Kincaid when I was in high school.
[12:35]So she's like a go-to author that I still read
[12:38]and we just don't have to cut as well.
[12:40]I think maybe my senior year or maybe in college
[12:42]I started reading her.
[12:43]So those are two authors that, you know,
[12:44]whenever they publish anything, I try to read.
[12:47]I had to make a Kincaid on this podcast.
[12:48]So well, and I'm going to listen to it.
[12:50]I'll send you the link.
[12:51]So while I go, so you'll have to go digging for her book
[12:55]party with Ricardo Cortez that children's book.
[12:57]Anyway, so tell me a little more about your path
[13:01]to becoming a published author.
[13:03]I know you have like multiple graduate degrees.
[13:06]Tell me how when you knew you wanted to write
[13:08]and how you got here really.
[13:10]Yeah, I knew I wanted to write when I was actually like 16
[13:13]and like 10th grade.
[13:14]And then after that I kind of, you know, picked a college
[13:17]I went to Wesleyan.
[13:18]I didn't really know a lot about college.
[13:19]My parents never gone to college.
[13:20]So I just asked my guidance counselor where I should go
[13:22]and she was like a play here and I went, you know,
[13:24]so there I had more creative writing classes.
[13:26]And actually there I took my first creative nonfiction class.
[13:30]And so that was the first time I kind of started writing
[13:32]about my family because I was writing personal essays
[13:34]and Jamaican characters.
[13:36]So I think that was where the idea of writing a novel
[13:39]like this started.
[13:41]And then after I graduated, I worked for two years
[13:44]in a nonprofit and then I went to,
[13:46]and I'm get an MFA at Brooklyn College.
[13:48]So that's really where it began.
[13:50]But, you know, it began as kind of separate short stories
[13:53]that I was writing in that program that were all like based
[13:56]on early memories or stories that I'd heard from my mother,
[13:59]you know about my father or other people with my family.
[14:02]And so I kept writing it.
[14:04]It took me about 12 years to finish it and get it published.
[14:07]You know, I didn't really, you know,
[14:09]I wasn't really in a rush and I was working a lot.
[14:12]And you know, I didn't know if it would ever get published.
[14:14]So, you know, I was just kind of writing.
[14:17]So I think maybe like five or six years in
[14:19]and I kind of rewrote the whole thing
[14:21]so that it was about the same family.
[14:23]All the characters were related.
[14:25]And, you know, I had this idea to make the central
[14:28]kind of protagonist that they orbit around,
[14:30]be able to basically character this patriarch.
[14:32]You know, and around that time,
[14:33]I met my agent Monica Odom.
[14:36]And the book was kind of half finished at that point
[14:39]and she kind of gave me deadlines that I really needed.
[14:42]You know, and that's when I finished it pretty,
[14:44]you know, I think over the course of less than a year
[14:47]maybe like nine months, I finished the second half.
[14:50]And then we sold it.
[14:51]And my editor at Simon & Schuster was Christine Pride
[14:55]and she kind of expanded when we worked together.
[14:57]So I added like even after it's sold,
[14:58]I added another 30,000 words.
[15:01]So it's been a long process.
[15:04]Well, it must feel good to have it
[15:06]becoming out into the world now.
[15:07]Yeah.
[15:08]But does it feel like after 12 years of work on this?
[15:10]You know, it's like very surreal.
[15:12]It's like weird to, you know,
[15:14]like I was looking something up on Barnes & Noble
[15:16]and I was like, oh, you know, it's just your name pops up
[15:19]and it's very surreal.
[15:22]And especially since we're still at home,
[15:23]so everything's virtual, it's hard to like,
[15:26]I guess feel it.
[15:27]Like I feel a little disconnected from it.
[15:30]So in terms of process,
[15:31]when you used to write a story or something like that,
[15:34]what does that look like to you?
[15:35]Where do you like to write?
[15:37]How long does each thing take?
[15:38]Do you labor over each sentence
[15:40]or do you kind of spill it all out
[15:41]and then go back and edit or what's your process like?
[15:44]Well, my process changed.
[15:45]I think when I was writing this book,
[15:47]the first half, I labored over every sentence.
[15:50]That's why it took so, so long to write
[15:52]and I just revised it so many times.
[15:54]But I think now I'm trying to just really focus on plot
[15:57]and just getting the story on the page
[15:59]and then going back and making it sound better.
[16:02]So I think I'm still discovering my process
[16:05]because I've never had like time before, you know,
[16:08]I think everything was always very rushed
[16:10]and, you know, I would just take a, use my vacation days
[16:13]or whatever to write or write at work sometimes.
[16:15]But I think now, you know, I'm taking some time off
[16:19]so I actually have time to like kind of reflect more
[16:23]and just focus on writing.
[16:24]I'm, but I do like, I'm more of a binge writer.
[16:27]Like, you know, I like to read a lot and think a lot
[16:30]and then just spend like a very intense amount of time writing.
[16:34]And did you always, like when you started these stories,
[16:37]did you always have it narrated?
[16:38]What is that the second person
[16:40]or you're like, you this, you that imagine you?
[16:42]No, that came well, I don't know,
[16:45]because I feel like when you, when I started it,
[16:47]I was in the NMAFA program and I definitely felt like,
[16:50]it's nobody explicitly said like these were the rules.
[16:53]But, you know, it's like I would submit a draft
[16:56]and somebody in workshop would say like,
[16:57]I don't know if this is gonna work, you know,
[16:59]and second person.
[17:00]So I think I backed off on the second person.
[17:03]Like there was one story or once one chapter excels black
[17:07]I that was originally and second person.
[17:08]I actually changed it over time
[17:11]because I was trying to get it published
[17:12]and I thought maybe that's what was holding me back
[17:15]to get it published as an individual story.
[17:17]So by the time I wrote,
[17:19]the first chapter actually was like years later.
[17:21]So I just felt like I could do whatever I wanted.
[17:23]So I actually, yeah, I was just having a hard time.
[17:27]I knew I had to tell the story
[17:28]of how April Paisley faked his own death
[17:30]and his like reasons for doing so.
[17:33]And I was writing it in first person.
[17:34]I tried it in third person.
[17:35]And I just wasn't connecting to it
[17:38]and I didn't like, I didn't like the reader
[17:41]only getting his point of view.
[17:43]So I like to change it to the second person
[17:45]and decided to kind of jump,
[17:47]have the reader jump into the minds of different characters.
[17:50]So everybody, and it's kind of like a blueprint
[17:53]for how the rest of the book is structured too.
[17:56]It's like you're really just getting one character's actions
[17:59]or sin from different characters.
[18:01]Like how it affected everybody in the entire family.
[18:03]I have to say when I heard what your book was about,
[18:06]I was like,
[18:07]how this man is gonna fake his own death.
[18:09]And then when I dove into it, I was like,
[18:11]oh, well, I feel like a lot of people in that situation
[18:14]might have done the exact same thing.
[18:16]You know what I mean?
[18:16]Like it just, it was so set up for him to do that
[18:19]that he would almost have had to make a choice not
[18:22]to do it as a way, as of us are going to great lengths
[18:26]to do it, which my initial thought was,
[18:28]oh, it must have been like a very planned out thing.
[18:31]When in fact, it was sort of fortuitous
[18:34]or maybe not fortuitous,
[18:35]but definitely spontaneous incident.
[18:39]Interesting.
[18:40]So now that you have taken time off to write,
[18:42]what are you gonna write?
[18:43]I'm working on a second book.
[18:44]It's maybe one of the characters
[18:46]from the first novel spills over into it.
[18:48]I'm not sure I'll keep her honestly,
[18:50]but it's just about a group of immigrant women
[18:53]working as whole health aides in a wealthy retirement
[18:56]community in Florida.
[18:57]And it's kind of just like about their friendship
[18:59]and them trying to like organize this right now.
[19:03]My change like a form of strike
[19:05]like a strike against their working condition.
[19:07]Interesting. I love that.
[19:09]And you, I mean, there's a lot of that in here as well.
[19:11]And the things that the people could be afraid of
[19:14]with men who are a little too handy and all of that,
[19:17]I'm sure there's a lot of material that could be.
[19:20]That sounds great in other words.
[19:21]Yeah.
[19:23]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[19:25]You know, I think it's okay.
[19:27]It's important to take yourself seriously
[19:29]as a writer and take your work seriously.
[19:31]I think I didn't take myself seriously
[19:32]for a really long time.
[19:34]And that really kind of slowed me down.
[19:36]Like, you know, I didn't think I had the right
[19:38]to like dedicate time to writing.
[19:40]And so yeah, that really added many years
[19:44]to the process for me.
[19:45]So yeah, I think it's, I think,
[19:46]and I thought it was like a cliche
[19:48]when people set that, but no,
[19:49]just call yourself a writer,
[19:50]even if you haven't been published
[19:51]and, you know, take your work seriously.
[19:53]Maybe if I called myself an athlete,
[19:55]I would actually exercise, didn't you?
[19:56]Yeah.
[19:57]Do you think you would do it?
[19:59]Many areas of...
[20:00]Life, it's sort of like the aspirational title of anything, right?
[20:04]If you believe it, maybe you'll do it.
[20:08]Well, Maisie, thank you.
[20:09]Thanks for coming on the show.
[20:10]Thanks for this fantastic book and congratulations
[20:14]and all the attention you've gotten so far.
[20:15]Well, thank you.
[20:16]Thanks.
[20:16]This is fun.
[20:17]Thank you so much.
[20:18]All right, take care.
[20:19]Take care.
[20:19]Bye.
[20:20]Bye.
[20:21]Bye.
[20:21]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[20:24]to Read Books.
[20:25]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens
[20:28]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[20:30]Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com
[20:33]and sign up for my virtual book club
[20:34]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[20:37]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact,
[20:39]Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[20:41]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[20:43]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.