Genevieve Gannon, THE MOTHERS

[2:00]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time To Write, a new publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions. So please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, My website is zibbyowens.com. Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. Genevieve Gannon is the author of The Mothers. She is an award winning Sydney based journalist and author of four novels who, by the way, woke up at 7AM or woke up earlier to do this podcast at 7AM her time, and she was, like, fully dressed and presentable, and I give her a lot of props for doing that. She is presently the staff writer for the nation's biggest women's magazine, the Australian Women's Weekly, where she covers everything from cold case murders and cults to celebrities and sports stars. Her journalism has appeared in most of Australia's major newspapers, and she has recently won the Mumbrella published journalist of the year award. Welcome, Genevieve. Thanks so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss The Mothers.

[3:17]Genevieve Gannon: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you. And all the way from Sydney, Australia,

[3:21]Zibby Owens: across days, across time zones. It's very exciting. My best friend's name is Genevieve who goes but we call her Jen. But anyway Oh, really? It's a it's a pretty unusual name. Yep. She spells exactly the same same thing. Anyway. So okay. Would you mind telling listeners what The Mothers is about and what inspired you to write it? Know this is your fourth book, your fifth book?

[3:44]Genevieve Gannon: Yeah. It's different to my other ones though because it was very much inspired by real events which has not been the case previously. I mean essentially it's about a mix up in an IVF lab and it's not a spoiler to say that because you know that the book's very upfront about that's what it's going to be exploring. I wrote it because I had never heard of these mix ups and I came across a story of a mix up and I just couldn't stop thinking about it essentially. I work as a reporter in Sydney and I was looking into the IVF industry here. I wrote for a magazine that's very female focused and local this is quite boring but our local regular was cracking down on some slightly advertising practices that we'll just say were not best practice. And so I was just kind of looking, reading articles and just kind of poking around. And yeah, I stumbled across this very old article. I think it was nearly 20 years old when I found it, but it was about two couples from New York. And one couple had had a baby and a judge had ordered them to keep that baby up. It turned out there had been a mix up in the lab. The baby was four months old when the judge said, you know, you need to give this child to their biological parents. And I just read one article and I just could not believe it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. And to me, my gut reaction was, you know, that's so unfair and that's such a wrong call to these parents that have bonded with this baby and the baby that only knows these parents. But the more I read, I went back. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I read the judgment and I read some other cases. And then I changed my mind. I thought, well, maybe that was the right call. And I just didn't I just yeah, I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I I initially wanted to write it as a a feature story. I thought it would make a really interesting investigation for our magazine, but it's quite rare. Thank God. And the case was quite old and it wasn't Australian, so it just didn't really fit that profile. But I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I thought maybe this is an interesting subject for a novel where you can sort of explore some of the issues that arise when these mix ups occur.

[5:58]Zibby Owens: Wow. So really, it's a failed article pitch that led to this whole If you had succeeded in pitching this article, we would not even be talking right now. Right. That is really hard to believe and raises like a zillion ethical considerations. And what do you do in a situation? Of course, that is what you explore. And you do such a nice job of really developing the characters and the two couples. And, you know, to be honest, I haven't been able to stop thinking about the husband who has this sort of penchant for online dating, if you will, online exploration and, you know, sex talk with other women. And the wife who's trying to rationalize the behavior by saying, Well, is it really that bad? Like and the whole thing is like, what can we rationalize away? Like what in marriage is it worth sort of turning the other cheek to? And what is it not? And, you know, her sleuthing notwithstanding, you know, it just opens the door to lots of different interpretations. So that was one wrinkle I found very interesting. What tell me about that sort of sub subplot,

[7:02]Genevieve Gannon: if you will, with one of the couples. That subplot exists for a couple of reasons. One of them was I really wanted to show how much pressure IVF puts on on couples and and I think we're all very cognizant of how hard it is on mothers and but I also wanted to show that it affects men as well and that the way they manage that might not be ideal. I know that IVF is very tough on marriages and it's not great behaviour. I'm not saying what I just said to excuse what Nick does, but I don't think our characters all have to be exemplary and perfect. I think it's more interesting when they're a little bit flawed and part of it was just practical. I really wanted to have, the central conflict in the novel, I guess, is this decision of where does this baby belong. And I felt that one couple gives birth to the baby, Grace and Dan Arden, and Grace has that gestational bond with the baby. And Dan's her husband, but he doesn't have a sort of a physical or a biological connection to that baby, which is not to say that being the husband and being there is not a connection, but I just felt like it would be really interesting to make it just about the mothers. So I wanted to remove Nick's biological tie to the to the child. So that's why I I sort of had to insert a quite disruptive conflict for them. Interesting.

[8:25]Zibby Owens: I like it. Well, also the scene with Grace when she realizes on the girl's trip, you know, with trying to extricate some of the students at the school at which she works from the mayhem of an underage club and realizes that yet another cycle has failed was heartbreaking. I mean and even the fact that she can't talk about it, that she can't tell her boss that this is why she didn't file a report and that it's not really something that most women feel completely out in the open discussing. And yet, you had some line like, if only he knew that she was on this like intense roller coaster of emotion all the time, maybe he'd have some empathy and understanding.

[9:03]Genevieve Gannon: But in the absence of that, no. So it's almost like the world is even harsher than usual. Yeah, I think that's true. I don't know if this has been your experience among your friendship group, but I think even today, miscarriage and a fertility journey is something that's really not talked about and it's so stressful and can be so distressing. I feel like we're doing a better job, miscarriage in particular, of being more aware of what that does to a woman and what that means. But yeah, that was something that came through really strongly in all of the research that I did and from my friends. Have I friends who've had some really challenging journeys with IBS and it's just, it's all kept secret. Yeah.

[9:44]Zibby Owens: I know I've had friends, there's just so much. I mean, it's frankly, it's a miracle any child ever gets born. It's like, I can't even I mean, it's like, seriously, how does this ever even work in this day and age? But no, friends with sort of late stage loss and I mean, it's heartbreaking, the road to having children. It's just yeah. And this particular situation is so I mean, as soon as I read even the plot of this book, I was like, oh my gosh. Like, what would you do? Like, what would you like, what do you think? Like, in in the shoes of your characters,

[10:14]Genevieve Gannon: how would you handle how would you handle things in either Yeah. Yeah. I I don't know. I tried to show how difficult that decision was. I think Grace, we don't necessarily see her at her best. She becomes a bit manic, but I think you would. You would be so scared that you were going to lose this baby, but also perhaps aware that there's another person that loves him and wants him just as much as you. By hanging on to that child, you're denying that other woman the love that she feels for this baby. Similarly for Priya, who is the biological mother, she finds out that this baby that she's so desperately wanted has been born, but he's been born to another woman. And does she sort of make a claim and take him from that woman? Or does she let him live with this family that she doesn't know? And the family that's done nothing wrong, think that's one of the most heartbreaking things about it. These situations arise out of errors. So there's no there's sort of almost it's almost impossible to say this is right and this is wrong. You just have to look at what's best for the child, I guess, which is what the courts have done in most cases. But interestingly, different courts make different decisions. So I sort of alluded earlier to a particular decision, but that's not necessarily what happens in the book. Read as many cases as I could get my hands on. And it's interesting because there are some where there are like little variations, like there's an error, but it's only one parent that is the wrong parent. And then what does that mean? Because this baby now sort of has three parents Oh and my lord.

[11:49]Zibby Owens: There was one line because you also do such a nice job of even talking about aging in women's bodies and relationships with their bodies. Let's see. Where should I start? Well, she said from the aerial view she had of her stomach now, it appeared thick enough poking out beneath breasts whose nipples were slowly starting to point south. She examined her face, turning her head from side to side. There was a definite softening around the jawline, and her skin was slackening. She pinched her cheek and watched its surface crinkle. This is why we have children, she thought darkly, to distract us from the ravages of time. I love that. If only they distract you enough. So I've noticed, and this is a huge sort of leap, but from the topics of all of your books to date, it seems to be following sort of the lifespan of a woman sort of going through the traditional phases. Right? There's the husband chasers where you're trying like the characters, like trying to find someone and then chasing Chris Campbell the first year about the first year of marriage and now the mothers. So I feel like even though this has a different tenor perhaps, they're sort of going through the lifespan. Is this your lifespan that we're tracking here too? Like, these the main events in your life or how or is this just the way it's happened randomly?

[13:02]Genevieve Gannon: It's kind of a coincidence, I guess. Yeah, it sort of has followed the same general, although not really. I'm not married, so I haven't had that first year. And I definitely wasn't a husband until I suppose naturally the topics you're thinking about and the topics you're talking about with your friends are the things you're really mulling over. So when you come to begin a novel, which is the major project, naturally you may sort of tend to explore issues that are going on. But interestingly, Husband Hunters came about because I interviewed John Gray who wrote Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. And he said that he wasn't saying this completely it was sort of just a throwaway line but it really stuck in my head. He was saying that some women should stop being so romantic and imagining this prince charming and they should be more pragmatic and I just couldn't stop thinking about that and I thought wow imagine if you took a really pragmatic, like, cold approach to marriage the way you would approach getting your dream job or something like that. So, yeah, they tended to be they they all do tend to be kind of triggered by my work. But, yeah, I think also what what is going on with my friends and and myself at that time. And tell me about this amazing journalism career that you've built and how how you even got your your toe in the door or your foot in the door, whatever whatever you call it, and how you've sort of built up your your career in in this

[14:21]Zibby Owens: in this slice of publication world.

[14:24]Genevieve Gannon: I've been really lucky. I did the thing that everyone does where you go out to a little small town and you do the regional reporting and you go to the council meetings and you sort of learn the basic skill set out there. And yeah, I just was lucky enough to kind of move and got off the job in the city. I was a court reporter for some time, which I really loved and had no intention of giving up. But I got off the job to be a feature writer at a magazine in Sydney. So that's what I do now. It's really great. We have the opportunity to write longer stories and we're very female focused. And yeah, it's a lovely place to work. We do lots of interesting stories that really look at I just did one recently about a woman whose mother had quite severe dementia and the mother had been this really illustrious, groundbreaking scientist in Australia. She'd published eight books and won various awards. She was just so sick towards the end and really couldn't communicate. And her daughter, who was also this amazing scientist and they'd collaborated together and they'd lived together and they really loved each other, She gave her a drug called Green Dream one night, a sedative, and the mother died. There was a big trial. She was originally charged with murder and then the jury found her not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. The judge had to decide, do I jail this woman or do I just give her what's called a community corrections order? Getting to witness that is really interesting and I think it's a really important story to tell because I'm sure a lot of people know what it's like to see someone you love so much just languishing and suffering, really suffering, and seeing the consequences that had on the daughter. I feel like that might begin some conversations or we hope it will. That's why we reported on it. So it's an interesting role. I'm very lucky. And so what features are you knee deep in right now? I'm doing one on cybercrime right now and romance fraud and all that sort of stuff, which is also quite interesting. We've got this situation where when you have the romance scam and you meet, usually it's a military man, someone posing as a military man, Sergeant Ryan or something. He'll say, oh, I'm stuck. I've been deployed. Can you send me money? And people think, oh, here you go, 2,000 to fly home. Then, of course, they never see that money again. We're seeing new iterations of that where people are becoming aware that that's a red flag. So now they're doing other things. We just had a case in Queensland where a scammer had posed as a military officer, and he pretended to be suing this woman romantically. And then he'd said, oh, I've been paid paid out all this superannuation, but, you know, I can't. For some reason, he couldn't get it because he he was in a war zone, and could they have the money transferred to her bank account and then could she transfer it somewhere else? And the woman was like, sure. That's fine. And then it turns out that, you know, he wasn't military at all. He was some organized you know, a member of an organized crime syndicate and the money was stolen. It all gotten good. It gotten money. And she ended up being jailed for trafficking. Wow. Yeah. Trafficking? Is that word? No. You know, when you yeah. Trafficking. When you funnel money. Yeah. So, yeah, that's interesting. So just warning people to be on the lookout. Yes. Oh my gosh. Like, look at every email twice.

[17:47]Zibby Owens: And what was it like for you writing these novels? Like, when what's your favorite

[17:52]Genevieve Gannon: spot to write? What's your process like? I just do it whenever I can. Usually after work, I like to find a nice cafe or a park or I just sit at my dining room table. I really enjoy it. It's a real pleasure. It's weird. It's a stressful pleasure when you're doing it. I'm like, Oh, I've got to finish. I'm really enjoying this, but I've got to finish this. I can't wait till I finish. And then you finish and you sort of miss it a little bit and you miss the characters. But yeah, it's a fun and interesting, not really hobby side

[18:21]Zibby Owens: hustle. Side hustle.

[18:23]Genevieve Gannon: What advice would you have for aspiring authors? Oh, that's a good question. Just do it. Just write as much as you possibly can and be prepared for the early stuff to be not very good. But embrace that and reread it and look at why it's not working. Yeah, just do it and read as much as possible, even though it can be the same thing.

[18:45]Zibby Owens: You read a book and you're like, oh my God, I'm never going to be this good. No, you're very good. It's good. Your book is really good. I'm sure you know that. It's very

[18:53]Genevieve Gannon: well written. Are you the only person who likes to write in your family? Or do have do your parents write? Like, how did that do you have siblings who write? Or what's the story? They're all teachers. They're all teachers. But my mother yeah. Yeah. My mother was a great reader. Just I mean I mean, thank you for the compliment on the book, but just on that, I'm sure you hear this from a lot of authors. You write your book and you're like, oh, you can only see the mistakes and you can only see the things you have changed. Maggie Alderson has this great quote where she says, women in particular seem to sort of almost want to apologize when they put out a book. They're like, oh, I'm sorry, I wrote a book, which is, you know, maybe it's a good thing because it means you're constantly scrutinizing the work to make sure it's as good as it can possibly be. Yeah. It can be it can be hard having something out there for people to to scrutinize and and pick apart. Wow.

[19:40]Zibby Owens: Well, thank you. Thanks for chatting with me today about the mothers and for raising these really important issues. I'm sure as time goes on, there's gonna be there will be more and more cases of things like this as the IVF industry sort of continues to flourish and take on new directions and cloning. And I mean, who knows what is coming down the pike for us? But at least now we have some fiction to dive into to explore, like, how we might feel about it.

[20:09]Genevieve Gannon: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure to chat to you. Thanks for coming. Alright. Have a great day. You too. Bye bye. Bye bye.

[20:29]Zibby Owens: 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 fantastic intro and outro music.