Cate Doty, MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

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[1:58]Cate Doty: Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. Kate Doty is the author of Mergers and Acquisitions, or Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages. She is a writer and former editor at The New York Times, where she covered the news of food, weddings, business, New York, more. Her work has appeared in The Times, Southern Living, Our State, and other publications. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her family. Welcome, Kate. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss mergers and acquisitions. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I have been looking forward to this book for so long. When I first saw, like, the cover image and the topic, I was like, I cannot wait for this. As someone who like tried to get in the Vows column at one point in my life successfully, I might add. I just like and who read it religiously, by the way, for years and years and years. I just couldn't wait to talk to you. So anyway, welcome. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I've heard several stories kind of like that. Like people who just read them religiously and, you know, for entertainment or because they see their friends or just like a combination of the two or just like a bit of hubris or schadenfreude or whatever. So for whatever reason you read them. You know what? And then I want to go back so you can explain why we're even discussing this. Well, first of okay. Okay. Tell everybody what this book is about, and then I'll go back into my own thoughts about it. Okay, well, this book is a largely about our obsession with romantic love. But what literally it's about is when I came to the New York Times to New York when I was about 24, the job that they threw me into was writing the wedding announcements. And I have been obsessed with weddings since I was about five years old, as the book details. I mean, like right up to like, you know, trying on my mother's wedding dress or like, you know, basically stealing my grandmother, my new step grandmother's wedding bouquet when I was five years old. Yeah, because it was priceless, by the way. My cousin Mary Margaret does not know that's in the book, so we'll see. Okay, I won't tell anyone. Anyway, and I've just always been obsessed with weddings. And when I landed at the time spreading the wedding announcements, I thought, well, this is like a match made in heaven for me because obviously I love writing. I was there to be a writer and I love weddings. So was a great way to mesh the two. But I also was I mean, I'm not from small town North Carolina, but I'm from the South where wedding announcements are very important, but they're not the New York Times wedding announcements. They're not these vaunted They're not the things that people think about, like, what's going to be on my headstone? Like, I got married. Was in the New York Times, and I did whatever. And so I had sort of a steep learning curve, it was a great way to learn about a certain part of not just New York, but how the country feels about weddings. And then beyond that, it sort of opened my eyes to how people think about commitment. And so, at the beginning, I was learning about weddings in New York and sort of like getting my feet wet in the city and a place that I loved and wanted to be in so badly. But then I really started thinking about, well, what people think about weddings and commitment and why we commit and why we get married in the first place. And in the middle of all this, I was I had started to date the man who eventually became my husband. And we both had major anxiety about getting married and major apprehension about it for various reasons. And so it's about all these things. So it's my memoir of writing the Times announcements, meeting all these people, talking to these people who I would never have talked to otherwise, learning cool things about them, but also understanding why they decided that marriage, to quote Anna, was the next right thing, to make that final leap or whatever. So that's why we're here. Wow. Amazing. You know, I loved, of course, all the stuff about the wedding stuff and column and everything, but I really loved your own relationship, especially your, like, obsession with Adnan. Is that how you pronounce it? Adnan. Yes. That's not his real name, but yes. Alright. Whatever. Whatever his name really was. Because I feel like you were so open about just like how hooked you were. I feel like you said it, in fact, straight out. You know, like I was hooked. I was totally in it. It was hot. It was amazing. And like, I feel like a lot of people don't write about those relationships where you're just so in it and you can't even explain why and yet it's all you think about. And anyway, you just captured that so well. I found myself, like, not knowing whether I wanted you guys to get together or if I wanted you to stay away. And, like, when you hugged out before your trip, I was like, no. She went there. But then I was like, I don't know. Maybe it will work when she moves to New York. And don't know, you just had me along for the ride. Didn't work, even a little bit. Not a little bit at all. But I think it's so important to embrace those relationships that we have. I mean, whether we decide to commit and then like, decide that's not what we want or it's so important to talk about those parts of our lives. I mean, they become building blocks of who we are and they are they're like parts or what help me, they're pins on a map of where we want to go. So, you know, I had this I mean, it was amazing, I have to say, with Adnan. Adnan. Like, he's still a friend. Is he? I was wondering what the status was there. Yeah. Yes. He's still a friend. He knows about the book. We've talked about it and is what it is. I still count him as part of my heart because we have such a group, weird, but great, but terrible, but fraught, but kind of great and hot relationship all at once. Like, we were young together. We helped each other through that part of our lives, you know, like post college trying to figure out what you want. And, you know, we also like I can't speak for him, but like, I learned a huge amount from that relationship about what I wanted, what I didn't want, how to get out of something that was not really working. Although frankly, like, you know, he basically pulled the plug, but it was good. Like, he was the one who was like, this is not working. You know, this is the end. And because otherwise, I don't think that I would have just gone along for the ride. But it was helpful to have that person say like, Mm-mm, this is not what I want. And that by proxy helped me figure out what it is I wanted. And it turns out what I want still is like three rooms down the hall teaching a class. And we just had our eleventh anniversary on Saturday. Yes. I saw you posted about it. It was so cute. Yeah. We got We got away. That's amazing. Thank you. Yes. I love seeing that. And how does he feel about this book? So you have the odd everybody knows that it's coming out. Like, yeah. How does he how does he feel reading about how, like, sexual a relationship you had with somebody else? He was that you know, my oddly enough, my mom asked me the same question. I was like, I'm not gonna talk about that with you because you're my brother. It was so he refused he's very He's a real traditionalist about books and he refused to read most of it until the hard copies arrived, which was like ten days ago, I think, or something like that. So, we unboxed the books and he went and sat on the couch and took the day off from work the next day to read this book, like straight through, which was so sweet and so adorable. And he had read parts of it. He read the parts of the book that told the stories of our lives that we were both involved in, not for fact checking purposes, just for me to make sure that he's okay with me telling this part of the story from my perspective. But in terms of the on non stuff, he had a pretty good idea of what that relationship was. I mean, I will say he was like, Why didn't you write about me like this? And I was like, because I'm married to you. I mean, we've been together for seventeen years. There are some things that are just as obvious as oxygen, you know, and I almost don't feel like I needed to write about that. And I have said, like, I'm not going to write anything about our marriage. Like that, to me, is off limits. I mean, that's not everything is copy, I think. So, yeah, he's I will say, like, we've been kind of joking about like, well, if this remained to a movie, and he said like, so Anand was very tall. And my husband is not blessed in that way, I would say. And it's sort of a joke. I mean, we're both we're both pretty short people. And he said that the one thing he wants to make sure of is that the person who plays him is taller than the person who plays Adnan. So Oh, that's so funny. My gosh. Men are hysterical. That's so funny. Height would never be a factor in the casting of myself in a movie, I have to say. No. Not ever. Not ever. No. I mean, I'm, you know, five. When my licenses, I'm five one, and that's a lie. So I'm five two. So, you know, I get it. I think I mean, I I I can stand by that, I think, pretty confidently at this point, but, you know, when I slump, which is always okay. So back to the house part of the book, which was super totally interesting also in addition to watching your love life unfold. And, you know, anyway, let's go back to what it was like because you paint such a great picture of, like, arriving in New York and, you know, how your editor was suddenly, like, the most important person, like, guy sitting next to you who's, like, all of a sudden in this world, like, he becomes the guy for a short period of time, and then, of course, they get married, move on, and, like, kind of forget about him. Right? Yeah. Oh, totally. 100%. It's hysterical because the guy who Ira is based on, I mean, he's no longer with The Times. He's retired for health reasons. And he's just the loveliest man. And when you talk to him, he's just very, what's the word, almost courtly, I would say, in his like, in this presentation of himself and the way he talks to people. But he, I would say, not speaking for him, but I would say he absolutely knew his power and knew this way that he held. And it was funny seeing this dichotomy of this guy who's not necessarily shy and retiring. I would never call him that. But it was almost like a Jekyll and Hyde. He was this very quiet guy. And then he would deal with these couples who were really demanding or they could be really demanding. They could also just be lovely and just be cool and just be so thrilled to be in The Times in the first place. But like, there were people who not only saw being in The Times as a privilege, but they saw it as their right. You know, like they thought it was something that like, of course, that would be part of their life's trajectory. Like, why would that not be a thing for them? You know, of course. And so it was very funny listening to him on the phone. And he also, like, he went into the office, he came home. That was it. Like, there was no he didn't ever go to parties. He never made any or as far as I knew, like, he never made any, like, society appearances. He was, like, never out on the town. Like, Bill Cunningham would never have caught him in a photo, but he still, for, like, a very short period of time, held a huge amount of power, and I he totally reveled in it. And he's such a sweet man. Like, I feel like I'm kinda trash talking him. No. Not at all. I can tell you I have respect for him. You know, it's interesting because you wrote about what it takes to kind of be a journalist and perhaps that kind of journalist in particular. But you said underneath it all, they, we, are all weird. Weird precisely because of the personal cost and little glory of the profession, maybe. Weird because we live for other people's stories. Weird because we don't blink an eye at working when the rest of the world stops to react. Weird because we drive into storms instead of away from them. I loved that. That's such a great Oh. That was just so cool. Thank you. Yeah. So I feel like there's something about it that there's, like, this instinct that you get if you want to report on the world instead of not instead of live it, but that you wanna be that you wanna have that role in your in your lifetime. 100%. I mean, my husband is still working journalist, he also teaches at the University of North Carolina. So like, he is very passionate about it. And I have stepped away from it and do something. And I'm a writer, not that kind of writer. Anyway, I'm not doing that. I'm not practicing journalism anymore, but that's still very much a part of our lives and our ethos and the way we're raising our kid. And, you know, we've been talking about skepticism with her since she was about three years old. So I think that which is probably gonna come around the bias in the ass, but whatever. Anyway Well, I have a six year old boy who might like to have that conversation with your three year old girl in about, like, thirty years. Maybe they could go out and, you know Six year six is hard. They're all hard. It's all anyway. Doctor. Anyway, it's a different conversation. But we do, I think we do feel like that. And I remember, and I think I wrote about this in the book, the first story I wrote, I went down to the medical school and interviewed this guy, David Wohl, about he working on the AIDS cocktail. And he's still there vaccinating people right now. He's in the paper and on the local news all the time. This is the same guy working to improve lives and help people stay healthy. And I remember coming back from the medical school and sitting down at this 1997 Mac or whatever, Apple to whatever it was, and thinking, This is amazing. This is amazing. Because you can ask almost any question you want, right? So if you're naturally curious and if you're naturally nosy, it's a great thing to be a part of. But you also, there is a mission to it. There is a sort of, I wouldn't say advocacy, I mean, flies in the face of it all, but, and I wouldn't say activism, but there is the idea of upholding, you know, public trust and facilitating a rigorous public conversation about whatever it is that may be happening. And The Times has a particularly, obviously, vaunted perspective on that. And I never, you know, when I read that first story, I never thought, Oh, I'm going to go work for The New York Times. I just thought, I'm going to do this. This is cool. And when I first saw my first smile line, I was like, this is exactly what I want to do. But there is a sort of driving into the storm aspect that I think I still have in my heart and probably will never get rid of. Yeah, awesome. That's great. Love it. Well, we need that in society. 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[19:03]Cate Doty: So I think what also you're saying about people's stories fit so well into this vows obsession. Right? Because I was trying to analyze why did I read them all the time? Like, I looked forward to Sunday. I would like grab that section and would race over and pour over every listing. And I remember thinking, like, everyone, I'd be like, well, these guys aren't gonna make it. Or yeah. Like, I think these guy yeah. Like, look at this. This mom and mother-in-law situation, this is not gonna work. I can already tell. You know? There were, like, so many warning warning signs just in the facts, I feel like. Totally. Right? There should have been some sort of black market, like, predictor for which vows things made in, which didn't actually, there probably is somewhere. Maybe I I don't wanna know about it. Betfares on it. Yeah. Well, you know, Will Gawker did that thing. You know, they scored the nuptials that I wrote about. And I sometimes they would say, like, these people are not gonna make it. Like, there's just no way on earth. I mean, I forget what their criteria was or were. But I mean, yes, I used to do the same thing. I mean, you talk to these people and you hang up the phone and be like, yeah, no. No. Mm-mm. But it's also the stories. Like, and I think that's why and maybe it's because I'm getting older that I've started not pouring over vows as much as I do the obits. Right? Like because now that's what I like to read the most. I know that sounds ridiculous. I mean, I like to read all No. It's not. Right? It's just because it what it is, it's just a glimpse at a life. And it's a story. It's a story in two paragraphs that it would take a whole book to read. And you can just, like, imagine, like, what if or what happened or who is this person? And I don't know. It's just like, what do you think? I mean, I always said that if I could get my dream job at the New York Times, it would either be to be the weddings editor. I think with this book, I'm never getting my dream job at the times, but this is fine. It's fine. It would either I think we're done. I would either be the wedding's editor or the Obits editor. And it's because those are the, you know, those are two, again, pens in the maps of people's lives. That was multifaceted and really held them up to the world. And I mean, wedding and vows call me in the hospital, whatever, that's a special day, right? But your death is a special day too. And I think that we tell these stories to put it in the record, to honor these people, to showcase them for who they really are. And I think that that's the truth for both Vowels columns and obits. And, you know, I think I love reading profiles of people who have done cool stuff. I love reading profiles of people who are trying to change the world, you know, however they feel that it needs to be changed. And I love that because, I don't know, just digging deep into a person is so important, so important. And I think that it's good to show everybody that here's when my life, I mean, obviously all lives matter, but here's a point in my life when that really mattered, you know, and here's a point in my life where I could say I did this. And here's a point in my life when I cared about this. And yeah, I agree. I love reading the obits too. Also like some of the obit writers like Margo Fox, they're amazing too. And those obits are chosen just as judiciously as even more so, cause more people die and get married every week, even more so than the Vals columns. So I totally agree. And especially now over the past fourteen months, the way that they have treated the OVADs, as you all know, have been, I think, such care. It made me think of remember after September 11, did the People We've Lost? Profiles. Yeah. Profiles. Yeah. Profiles in Terror or something. I bought that book. Came out with a book after of all the anyway, I have it here somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. And like, do you remember the Vanity Fair portrait of like the team that did the September 11 profiles? Like they did the coverage and it was a picture of like the Metro editor. It was so it was not funny, but it was so like important and somber. And I think like Annie Leibovitz shot it, it was like at the Metro desk. And I just remember looking at this portrait and knowing most of the faces behind those very like, and just thinking about what they had to go through to write those portraits. And I think a portrait of a person, no matter what point they're at in their lives, is so valuable. And so, that's one reason I valued writing Devou's columns and writing the wedding announcement so much, even though it was also wildly entertaining. Which thank you for sprinkling into the book too. Was really So what's your overall takeaway on marriage after this whole book in like a sentence or two? Because I keep hearing from younger people now that I'm in my forties that like marriage is just like not even a such a thing. Like, they're like, why get married? Like, I have they're just like, it gets great. We live together or we don't and whatever. And I don't know. Why do it? And I'm so is that where the world is going? Oh, oh my god, I had a conversation about this on Friday. And like, I wish I had a clear answer. But I hear the same thing. You know, my when I was teaching at UNC, would bring it up to my students, and these are obviously like 19, 20, 21 year old kids. But when I was 21 years old, finishing up college, the MRS degree was a thing. I mean, people would meet in college, move to DC, work a couple of years and get married or move to New York or whatever. There would be the sort of trajectory, right? And this is not even a thing. I was talking to one of my husband's former students who became our nanny and she was like, I'm not getting married ever. Ever. And I was like, okay, cool. Whatever. I'm not judging, I'm just curious. But I mean, we went through this a lot. Like, we were to get my client, my husband and I were together six years before we got married. And we obviously, as documented in the book, we had a lot of anxiety about making that, you know, going into the final frontier or whatever. But we kept this, we decided we wanted to do it because we wanted to stand up in front of the people that mattered most of us, most to us, you know, our family, our friend, know, whatever, and say like, this is the person I choose. Because I think that you need a community to help a marriage keep going. You need your friends. Spouse needs their friends. You need your family. And sometimes you don't need your mother-in-law, but that's neither here nor there. But most of the time you do. You need these support pillars around you to help. I don't know, just as it takes a village to raise a child, I think it takes a community to help maintain a marriage or help maintain a relationship. And you can do that obviously without standing up in front of a priest or rabbi or justice piece or whatever. But I think that it's still a really good thing to have those markers in your life of like, this is the day that I stood up and said yes to this. And that's the value I see in a wedding anyway. And a marriage, I mean, you can't have a wedding without a But a successful wedding usually culminates in a marriage. And I don't know, should be more coherent about this since we just celebrated eleven years, but I get to wake up next to this person most days and think, this is what I'm going to do today. And as you know, the past year or so has really tested everything. It's tested the bonds of spouses and parents and children and friends and all of these things. And, you know, I think my relationship with my child has gotten a lot more challenging over the past year, but my relationship with my husband has become even more solid, I think, than it had been just because I had this teammate. And again, you can do that without a wedding. You can do that without a marriage. But for me, and I'm guessing for you too, and for a lot of maybe women in our cohort or age group, that is just, it feels like bedrock. I agree. Yeah. No. I'm divorced and I got remarried as quickly as I could. I know. Everyone's like, why? I'm like, I don't I just because I I have to. Also, it's like, it I don't know. It it it felt to me at least, like, it wasn't like, I wanted people to take it as seriously as I felt about it in a way. Right? Like Mhmm. Okay. So what advice would you have? I barely even talked about your writing, but because I could talk to you about this other stuff for so long. I feel like we're only scratching the surface. I'm sorry. That's okay. What advice would you have to aspiring authors? Oh, golly. Get a good group of writers. Oh, well, okay. Let me backtrack. Women writers. I would say get a good group of women writers around you who take no have no problem with kicking your ass and being like, Did you write today? What did you do? What you do? What are doing? What are you doing? When are you going to do it? And I don't mean that in a jerky way, but I mean that. You need that just as a merit needs community. I think a writer needs community as well. So, that's one thing. And number two, I mean, I am feel particularly sort of vulnerable right now because I'm trying to work on a second book. And I think many first time writers think the second book is never going to happen. But also, many people who have never written a book think their first book is never going to happen. And so, think that you just have to have faith in yourself, as trite as that sounds, because that's one of the hardest things to do. I think a community will help you do that. And the other thing is everybody says read. Read, yes, of course. But like, go be quiet. Especially this year, it's been so hard to find time for quiet, especially if you have children. You're trying to do this and juggling 7,000 different things. Like the quiet of the mind is so vital to this, as you well know. And having that space to do that is so it feels like a privilege at this point. And so being able to find the quiet of the mind, I think, is one of the most important things. I say that like, I wrote this book while working full time, juggling a child, dealing with a husband who had gotten laid off from, you know, I feel like there was just all of this stuff coming on. So, I don't know if I can necessarily practice what I preach, but going forward, I hope to. But I will say that I could not have written this book without a supporting community of, like, loving women, honestly. That's amazing. So amazing. Well, Kate, thank you. It was so nice to chat. I wanna, like, continue this because that was too short. But I loved your book. I love the title. I just love everything. It's just awesome. And just, like, how out there you are. I just loved it. Like, from everything from you're saying, like, let's just say, like, that we're hot women when we're 24 years old or whatever. So, like, you're totally, like, unobscured sort of, like, hot sex relationship. I was just in the whole and and all the intellectual stuff too. But it was just great. Totally loved it. So thank you. Oh, thank you. That is so kind of you. I really I really appreciate this. It is it feels very weird to be sort of so out there, but I can't take it back now. Nope. Don't. Here we go. Those are the best parts. The parts you're afraid to put out there. Alright. Well, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Take care. Bye. You too. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram Zibby Owens and momsdonthavetime to read books. Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this intro and outro music.