Naomi Krupitsky, THE FAMILY
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[0:37]Hi, hello.
[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:41]Naomi Kupitsky is the author of The Family, which by the way was so good.
[0:45]I listened to this audiobook, and it was, she's just amazing.
[0:50]Anyway, Naomi was born in Berkeley, California, and attended NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
[0:56]He lives in San Francisco because many places home.
[0:59]The family is her first novel.
[1:01]Welcome, Naomi.
[1:02]Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss the family.
[1:06]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:08]I'm so happy to be here.
[1:09]Yay.
[1:10]You said you've had a month off from doing events.
[1:12]I feel like there was this huge media storm around your book and everything getting it chosen.
[1:18]And my major book club, like it's been amazing for you.
[1:21]So what is it like now that you've come off the ride for a second?
[1:26]Yeah.
[1:27]I mean, it was a month, unlike any month that I have experienced in my life, the month of November.
[1:33]You know, I simultaneously was navigating just feeling like so grateful that the book is getting this audience.
[1:39]Like, the exposure that I'm getting, the exposure that the book is getting is really rare.
[1:43]And I felt really lucky.
[1:45]And at the same time, it felt super unnatural for me to be in the public eye in that way so suddenly.
[1:51]So I feel a lot more like myself now.
[1:53]If we had talked a few weeks ago, you would have gotten this like shell of a person.
[1:57]And now I feel more like a human being.
[1:59]But it's, yeah, it's been really wild and really exciting.
[2:02]Maybe this is what I should do.
[2:04]I should just always schedule my interviews like a month or two or three.
[2:08]Actually, I haven't been doing that.
[2:09]Not on purpose.
[2:10]But yeah, then I get the more of a human being.
[2:14]Which is good, which is what I want.
[2:16]Yeah.
[2:17]So for listeners who aren't familiar with your book yet, could you tell them a little more about what it's about?
[2:23]Sure.
[2:24]So the family is the story of Sophia and Antonia, who are two young girls growing up in Brooklyn at the beginning of the 20th century.
[2:32]Sort of in the middle of the 20th century.
[2:34]And they, their best friends, their apartments share a wall.
[2:38]They really grow up alongside one another.
[2:40]And their families are mafia families.
[2:43]So they're coming of age as sort of juxtaposed against the backdrop of Brooklyn really growing and expanding and also against the sort of danger and deception and excitement inherent in their families jobs or cultures.
[2:58]I listened to this book, by the way.
[3:00]And I did it on many walks up and down this big hill.
[3:04]So every time I did it, I'm like, okay, let's see what the girls are up to.
[3:07]Like, they like came at me on the walks with me.
[3:11]I was struck, particularly by listening to it.
[3:13]Like your writing is so good.
[3:16]Like it's just so good.
[3:18]Like some of the sentences just took my breath away.
[3:20]So I feel like you are just obviously you've been recognized, but you have so much writing talent.
[3:25]So I love when great talent is recognized.
[3:28]So anyway, just wanted to say that.
[3:30]Thank you.
[3:31]I really care about language.
[3:32]It's important to me.
[3:33]And so I'm really grateful that some people are connecting with that.
[3:36]And I will just like slide in here that the audio book for this book is incredible.
[3:41]It's read by Miranda Ireland who I threw out there as a name that like in my wildest pipe dream.
[3:46]This is who would narrate my book and she agreed to do it.
[3:49]And so I just at any moment I can, I tell people like listen to it.
[3:53]It's so good.
[3:54]It was so good.
[3:55]It was great.
[3:56]It was great.
[3:57]So great.
[3:58]Yeah.
[3:59]You did such a good job too of all the different characters.
[4:02]Like, I just think about them and the scenes that they were in or like the scene in the hotel or the house or whatever.
[4:09]Like by the water when the when one character gets, you know, taken out of the book.
[4:14]So to speak.
[4:15]And really a good non-spoiler.
[4:17]It's hard to talk about.
[4:19]You know, I mean, the aftermath of that loss as well.
[4:23]And I won't say who or anything, but just the way you depicted the effects of that in the home especially.
[4:30]and on the the widower widower were just so profound.
[4:34]And you could just see it.
[4:36]You would send things like, you know, the indentation in the couch from where this person would sort of sit all day.
[4:42]And like the way her skin was sort of frozen in her hands and like just all these tangible things that.
[4:50]I mean, you were just like right in there in the apartments in both the apartments.
[4:53]Then you would like go across the way and you would go to the big boisterous Sunday dinners or some, you know, and have all that.
[4:59]So I don't know.
[5:00]It was just incredibly immersive.
[5:02]How did you learn to write this way?
[5:04]Is this something you've always done?
[5:06]Or like has it always come naturally?
[5:08]Have you always loved kind of the visual elements of writing?
[5:11]That was like a lot.
[5:12]I'm sorry.
[5:13]Rambling.
[5:14]I love hearing all of that.
[5:16]I mean, getting better at taking compliments about my writing.
[5:19]But it's still a little bit like I want to crawl under the table and then go like,
[5:22]thank you from down there.
[5:24]I think something that's important to me in any art.
[5:28]And for me, it's writing.
[5:29]It's always been writing is figuring out what can this do that no other medium could do.
[5:34]So for me in literature, it's this kind of immersive storytelling where you can be in the physical space.
[5:44]And you can also be in the heads of the people who are there.
[5:48]And the emotional topography can have this almost physical effect on the room.
[5:54]And I think that's something that at least for me that writing has always been able to do that fiction has always been able to do
[6:01]that I don't think any other medium can do.
[6:03]And so when I'm writing, I'm really thinking like, I don't know if I'm thinking while I'm writing.
[6:07]But while I'm editing and while I'm thinking about what's important to me, it's what can I tell, how can I tell this story through writing
[6:15]in a way that I would be unable to tell it in any other medium.
[6:18]So that that's definitely present for me.
[6:21]And I think that that has a lot to do with how, how like the breadth of each moment and sort of the way that I'm dipping into different characters heads and dipping into the physical space and dipping into the past and just like trying to bring the moment into this like three dimensional or multi dimensional,
[6:40]almost tangible thing, if that makes sense.
[6:44]That's like a rambling answer to a little question.
[6:46]That's okay.
[6:48]That's so interesting how the how emotions change the physical topography of a place.
[6:53]That's like, that's a really interesting way to look at it.
[6:56]Because you also write about people's relationships.
[6:59]It's not just you're describing a character.
[7:01]It's all these interwoven friendships, like the friendships even between the two girls and all that unspoken,
[7:07]ebbing and flowing as people age, right, in different friend groups.
[7:11]And yet you totally captured it.
[7:13]Like the, the, the wishing that Sophia would ask something about Antonio and should she reveal this or should she nod and just,
[7:21]you know, the friends at school and how they were so close together.
[7:24]And then at the new school had their own lives.
[7:27]And then when they got intimate with guys, like what that was like.
[7:31]And anyway, so when you're thinking about sort of depicting relationships among your characters.
[7:37]How, how do you, it's one thing to imagine the characters.
[7:41]But it's another to have them all be interacting in this little ecosystem.
[7:44]So just, I don't know, tell me a little more about that.
[7:47]So this is my first novel.
[7:49]And it, it really like spiraled out of control in a way.
[7:54]I mean, that in a loving way at this point, but I started,
[7:57]I started with these two girls.
[7:59]And then all really quickly, I realized, well, in order to know them,
[8:02]I have to understand their parents.
[8:04]And then I have to understand their parents.
[8:06]And then I'm going to understand their children.
[8:07]And I'm going to see how their children were formed by them.
[8:10]And a lot of my editing process was my editor going like, okay, like we cannot do six generations.
[8:15]It's not going to work for this novel.
[8:17]You can know all that, but the readers don't need to know all of that.
[8:21]And I think, so the reason I said it's my first novel is because I don't know if this is something that will always be at the floor for me.
[8:29]But for this novel, I wanted to know the characters for their whole lives.
[8:33]And so Sophia and Antonio were going to have a lifelong friendship.
[8:36]And I knew that.
[8:37]And I knew that to keep it interesting, it was going to have to feel real.
[8:41]And it was going to have to ebb and flow the way that a real friendship would.
[8:44]And so I think one of the things that people connect to and that was important to me is the juxtaposition on the one hand of these little moments where right where Antonio really wishes that Sophia would ask her something, but she won't.
[8:59]And then on the other hand, getting to see them over such a long period of time, makes you feel like you understand their friendship in a different context.
[9:08]And it's how I think about my friendships and my long lasting relationships on the one hand, these little tiny kind of crystal clear memories that feel like a turning point.
[9:18]And on the other hand, like how are we the same people and how are we also different people than we were 10 years ago and how is this the same relationship.
[9:27]But since we're different, how is it also a totally different relationship.
[9:30]And how does the relationship become sort of its own character.
[9:33]Yep, so I thought about that a lot. And I'm really glad that a lot of it came through.
[9:38]Even how you brought in World War Two and the Holocaust and the one Jewish character who comes over and he's working in the deli and how he ends up where he ends up, like from the very beginning through.
[9:51]And how even the family, you know, the family and all of the people reacted and how opportunistic were they going to be and just to see.
[10:00]he all that developed to see the business angle that they saw.
[10:04]And to know, this is what it was like in the US
[10:09]at this time with all this going on,
[10:10]because I always find myself wondering,
[10:12]like so much of historical fiction takes place in Europe
[10:16]or where it was going on,
[10:17]but there's not a lot,
[10:18]or maybe I just haven't read it lately,
[10:20]or in the US where it's removed,
[10:23]but still of course a huge thing,
[10:25]but how do you process that?
[10:26]So was you, did you have an interest in that time period
[10:30]or did you have to do research or talk to people, or I don't know?
[10:33]I definitely, so I ended up doing world war two,
[10:38]kind of as an accident because the book started when it did,
[10:42]and then there was no way,
[10:43]I mean, that they were gonna be teenagers
[10:45]during World War Two,
[10:46]and so it ended up being sort of fortuitous
[10:48]because it was this really tense,
[10:50]incredible time in history,
[10:52]and then also it really tense,
[10:53]like intense time for them,
[10:55]they were 16 or 17.
[10:57]And so that ended up working really well in concert,
[11:01]and I definitely tried to pair like what was going on
[11:04]in history versus what was going on in their lives
[11:06]so that it felt like political tensions in world history
[11:10]were sort of interacting with the ebb and flow
[11:13]of Sophia and Antonio's lives.
[11:15]I did have to do, I did some research,
[11:18]the research, people always wanna hear about the research,
[11:21]and it's so funny because internet research is like,
[11:24]I can go on YouTube and I can hear the radio announcement
[11:28]from D-Day, I can do, I can look at Brooklyn
[11:31]like a specific block in Brooklyn,
[11:33]and then I can look at it 10 years later, a photo of it.
[11:35]So in some ways research isn't,
[11:38]it wasn't this like big digging process,
[11:40]I would get to a point and I would realize
[11:42]that I needed context or that I didn't understand
[11:45]what it would have felt like at that moment,
[11:47]and I would do a little digging around
[11:49]and usually get down a path or two that ended up
[11:52]not mattering an internet hole,
[11:54]and then I would be able to sort of take out the context
[11:57]that was gonna help me shore up the world that I was building.
[12:00]And I think in terms of creating a world
[12:04]that feels real, a lot of it just has to,
[12:07]at least my argument, what I think is that a lot of it
[12:10]has to do with commitment.
[12:11]So if so my commitment to the world,
[12:13]if I say this is how they felt,
[12:15]and I say it in a way that you as the reader believe
[12:18]that they felt that way, then it feels true.
[12:21]So it's not, I mean, it is of course about real events
[12:24]that happen in history and I did do research in that regard,
[12:28]but a lot of it is just about creating a world
[12:30]that feels immersive enough,
[12:32]that readers are willing to take a chance on it,
[12:34]like a speculative novel can feel real in that way.
[12:37]And so I think that's more what I was going for.
[12:39]I just think I loved how you depicted the power,
[12:43]like the similar to Sopranos,
[12:45]which I'm sure you got that like a trillion times,
[12:47]but when you see the backstory of somebody
[12:50]where nobody is all good or all bad
[12:53]and you see the humanity behind someone
[12:54]and the intimate moments where Sofia's dad,
[12:58]there was something like he was rubbing her mom's back
[13:01]or there's something with the shoulders
[13:02]or there was like this one little moment
[13:04]and I was like, wow, that is like,
[13:06]like I'm in there and like him trying to fall asleep one night,
[13:09]next to her, you just like, they're so human.
[13:12]Everybody is so human.
[13:14]I'm not just, it just was really amazing
[13:18]because it felt like I was living and breathing
[13:21]in these spaces.
[13:23]So I don't know, bravo.
[13:26]Thank you.
[13:27]And I, you know, of course I took a lot from the Sopranos
[13:30]although I actually had not finished the series
[13:32]until like two weeks ago because I kept,
[13:35]I was sort of watching it as I was writing
[13:38]and then I would have to take a long break
[13:39]because I knew I was going to get this comparison
[13:42]and I wanted to not just write the Sopranos.
[13:45]So I had to keep myself away from it a little bit.
[13:47]But of course what I think the Sopranos is so masterful at
[13:52]is making you love these people who are murderers
[13:56]and criminals and I think that's what makes the world
[14:00]a better place like that empathy that art can give you
[14:04]for somebody who you think you might otherwise have
[14:06]nothing in common with and that ability that art has
[14:10]to make you ask like, well, what would it take for me
[14:13]to do something violent to protect my family
[14:15]because there's a line for everybody, I think.
[14:18]And I think people who have a really like rigid moral
[14:22]reaction and they're like, well, they're criminals.
[14:25]Like I often feel like those are the people
[14:28]that have, that like could stand to think a little bit
[14:34]about where their personal line is.
[14:36]Like what they would do in a situation
[14:40]where you're called on to do something
[14:44]you would never would have thought.
[14:45]Like what would it take for you?
[14:47]So I, yeah, I wanted you to be able to relate to them.
[14:49]I wanted you to be able to feel like you understood
[14:52]why they were doing what they were doing
[14:54]even when you disagreed with it.
[14:55]And even when it felt really sort of different
[14:58]from what you thought you might do yourself.
[15:01]So where did you come from?
[15:04]Where did you grow up?
[15:05]Like what was your family like?
[15:06]How did you develop into you?
[15:08]Like, sure.
[15:09]So I grew up, I was born in Berkeley, California.
[15:12]I spent a lot of my teenage years
[15:16]going back and forth between California and Alaska
[15:19]where my dad moved when I was like 11.
[15:22]So I wasn't an interview once where somebody was asking me
[15:25]about like the multiple perspectives in the book
[15:29]and whether I had ever been torn between perspectives
[15:32]and I have not been able to stop thinking yet
[15:35]about like watching my parents become two different people.
[15:39]And that's a little bit like more Freudian
[15:42]than I necessarily feel like I can get
[15:45]but I definitely think there's something there
[15:47]for me about wanting to understand
[15:49]just where different people are coming from.
[15:51]And then I went to college at NYU
[15:53]so I moved to the East Coast.
[15:55]I was there for about 10 years
[15:57]and I came back to San Francisco in 2018.
[16:00]I sold this book in the summer of 2018.
[16:03]I was traveling and then I edited for about two and a half years
[16:07]when I got back.
[16:08]So that was a really really long intense process.
[16:11]So you didn't get an MFA.
[16:12]I did not get an MFA.
[16:14]I applied to art school to MFA programs.
[16:18]I applied to only a few and I didn't get into any of them
[16:21]and I spent like six months being really bitter
[16:23]and depressed about it.
[16:24]And then I started this book.
[16:25]So I would that you didn't need it.
[16:29]I mean, I think people sometimes gain
[16:33]a really invaluable sense of community
[16:35]from their MFA programs.
[16:36]But I also think mostly what I was looking for was time
[16:40]and space to prioritize writing
[16:43]and like a structure that made me feel like I could
[16:45]prioritize it.
[16:46]And I had to just figure out how to do that for myself.
[16:50]And what kind of were you doing anything writing related
[16:54]or adjacent those 10 to 15 years before it came out?
[16:56]I mean, most of my post college years
[17:00]I did different kind of odd jobs
[17:02]I'm related to writing some not all
[17:04]of which gave me time and space to write.
[17:06]So I worked for like weird little startups.
[17:10]I did work a little bit in publishing for a while.
[17:13]I worked as a nanny a lot.
[17:14]I taught yoga just anything I could do
[17:17]to like pay my rent and give me free time.
[17:20]I keep interviewing authors who said
[17:22]that they were a nanny at some point.
[17:23]And I'm like, where are these great people?
[17:25]When I've been looking for nannies for like,
[17:26]well, I don't think I was an exceptional nanny actually
[17:30]when I think back on it.
[17:31]I think I wasn't like the greatest nanny of all time
[17:34]but I did really appreciate the time and space
[17:38]that that kind of work gave me.
[17:39]And I really like kids.
[17:40]I think kids are honest and they're weird
[17:41]and they're cool.
[17:42]And I think like being exposed to that
[17:44]just can make you a better artist.
[17:47]And I shouldn't have said that.
[17:48]I have amazing women who have been child care for five years.
[17:51]I assume that now you've found some guess.
[17:56]Oh my gosh, that's funny.
[17:57]So when you were writing this,
[17:59]did you show it to anyone regularly?
[18:02]Did you just sort of toil away privately
[18:04]at night on your laptop or what was that like?
[18:08]I mean, that is, that's like the biggest,
[18:11]most intense part I think for me of writing a novel
[18:15]is every morning getting up and convincing myself
[18:19]to work on this thing that's sitting on my computer
[18:22]that's getting to be 50,000 words long
[18:24]or 60,000 words long that I've been working on for two years
[18:28]that I don't even know if it's really a real thing.
[18:32]It is, it's a mental gymnastics
[18:34]that I can't really believe that I did when I look back on it.
[18:37]And I think that as daunting as it is to write a second book,
[18:41]not having to do that is such a privilege
[18:45]that I kind of feel like I have no excuse.
[18:48]I did show it to people.
[18:49]I have a really supportive and smart partner
[18:51]who's one of my first readers.
[18:53]My mom has read the book maybe more times than I have.
[18:56]I have a good friends that I can send it to.
[18:59]But there's something so intense about writing a book
[19:03]and not knowing if it'll ever be anywhere other
[19:05]than on your laptop.
[19:07]And in some ways it's really freeing.
[19:08]And in some ways it's, it's just like inconceivably crazy
[19:13]to have spent so much time doing something
[19:15]and not know where it's gonna end up.
[19:18]And I know it's your first novel,
[19:20]but did you try, like did you try another draft
[19:24]and just put it away?
[19:25]Like did you try short stories?
[19:28]Or this literally was just like,
[19:29]hey, I think I'll try to write.
[19:31]No, no, this is like another in a series
[19:34]of many, many things that I've done.
[19:35]So I written poetry, I've written short stories.
[19:39]I wrote like a sort of novel length collection
[19:42]of short stories at the end of college.
[19:44]Just like, I think I always wanted to write a novel,
[19:47]but it was so intimidating.
[19:48]And I had never started something
[19:51]that kept my attention for long enough.
[19:53]And so my whole life was leading up to writing a novel.
[19:57]It wasn't like one day I sat down
[19:58]and thought I'd try it.
[20:00]like, wow, that's humbling if that's the game. Not at all. Wow. And so you, you just obliquely
[20:07]referenced a second book. Tell me about that. The second book, I mean, it's, it's not a book.
[20:12]It was my senior, one of my senior college projects and then it was a series of short stories,
[20:18]kind of interconnected narratives, like they all took place in the same town, each of them
[20:22]based on a different story from Greek mythology, but like very loosely based, like it took place
[20:28]in the southern town in a modern time. And it was like this old crazy lady that I based off of
[20:34]that I was, I took inspiration from the story of Medusa and all of these different things to sort of,
[20:39]I really like that kind of reinterpretation of a classic trope or an archetype. So I've spent a
[20:45]lot of time thinking about that. I would not call that a second book. But I actually meant that
[20:50]was really interesting. I meant like that one might be coming next. Oh, I would love that. Yeah, I have
[20:56]not started one. I know lots of people that by the time their book comes out, they're like, yeah,
[21:00]I have a draft of my second book. And I am, it, it took me so long to write this book. And it took
[21:07]me, it was so intense to be in the world of editing it. And then for the last year in the really
[21:13]intense and sort of public facing world of publicity for it, that my main project this year is
[21:19]getting back into my own head and my own body and my own creative space and figuring out what's in
[21:24]there. And what I would, I'd be happier if I was writing. What was the, what's like the short
[21:30]version of the story of how it came, how you sold it? Like, so I finished this draft in the summer
[21:39]in the fall of 2017, my, like the novel that I wrote by myself, I spent like three months querying
[21:48]agents, really, like, doggedly, like a few a day for many months. I had a spreadsheet. I, it was
[21:54]like 100 people. And then I, so I interned for a literary agent in college. I looked up her website
[22:01]because I was going to send her my query letter and like hope that I could get her to read the letter
[22:05]and actually of course hope that she wanted to represent me, but all I was going to say was like,
[22:09]will you critique this letter? And I found one of somebody that I had gone to college with and
[22:14]visited a French class with once who I was Facebook friends with turned out to be an agent at
[22:19]her agency. So I wrote her and I said, Dana, I'm, this is so weird, but I just came across your
[22:26]bio on Elizabeth Weeds website and I would love to talk to you about this thing I'm doing and she
[22:32]said great send it to me. So after all of that, like legwork, it did end it up being kind of a
[22:38]personal connection, but Dana and I had we have the best chemistry and it's finding an agent
[22:45]was something that I was sort of nervous and bitter about. Like I thought it was going to be,
[22:49]I thought an agent was going to be a middleman like somebody standing in between me and my
[22:53]editor and instead I feel like I don't think everybody has this, but I really found a creative partner
[22:59]and so that relationship has been this like really important study constant for me. And we
[23:06]so we edited for a few months together and we sold the book that summer 2018. Wow, that's awesome.
[23:12]I love the book group. I didn't realize you were with the book group. Yeah, I love the book group too.
[23:17]Yeah, awesome. I'll like ladies there. They're wonderful. That's really exciting.
[23:22]So what advice would you have? Somebody's just starting out this, this is like a,
[23:27]like a wonderkin success story, right? It is. Yeah. So can it happen to anyone? Should people keep
[23:32]trying? You know, what's your, do you regret anything? Are you particularly proud of anything?
[23:37]Or thinks anything worked particularly well? Yeah, for me, I can tell you what worked for me,
[23:43]which no, like it won't just happen to anybody. And there are so many people that deserve this
[23:49]that won't get it. And that like that's something that I've had to come to terms with too. Like
[23:54]I think that I worked really hard on this book and I'm really grateful for the success that
[23:58]it's getting. But I think there are lots of people that work really hard and never get even a
[24:03]fraction of this sort of validation or attention. So I will say that like it's not a fair world
[24:09]in that way. There's just more talented people than there is space in the behemoth of modern
[24:16]publishing. I will say that for me, what worked was doing everything in a way that felt good.
[24:23]So I think I made all of my decisions with a lot of integrity. I wrote because I cared about the
[24:30]characters and I cared about the book. And so I could convince myself that even if nothing happens,
[24:34]I'm learning. I'm growing. I'm spending time with people I love in this book. I'm spending my time
[24:41]in a way that feels crazy some days and and really fulfilling others. And then I've managed to
[24:48]surround myself with people who have my best interests at heart. And so I guess one piece of advice
[24:55]that's concrete that I might say is wait for the people who care about the same things in your
[25:03]book that you do. I think I was lucky. These were the first people I ended up with. And I think
[25:08]if I had ended up with people that I could tell weren't going to work as hard for me or didn't
[25:13]care as much, it would have been really hard to say no to that. But I think I would I think I would
[25:18]encourage people to wait for the right fit in your team if that's where you get because that's been
[25:24]just invaluable. And I know you started the conversation by saying that that the book is there were
[25:30]things that they were done uniquely through literature in telling the story. But is this going to be a
[25:35]movie? I've had lots of conversations this fall with producers and film people and that's a very new
[25:41]world for me. I'm assuming it will be. I'm talking to lots of people that seem like they see it
[25:46]as really cinematic. And I really like adaptation. I think it's interesting. And I'm really excited
[25:51]to see what the right person can do with this book. So no concrete plans, but I'm hoping it will be.
[25:57]Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Nami. I mean, you really gave me, I don't know,
[26:03]exactly seven and a half hours or whatever it was of entertainment and really like transportation in the
[26:11]metaphorical way or whatever I didn't say that very well. But I mean, you really just like took me
[26:15]into this whole other world and I loved it. So I'll just say that. Thank you. That's what I look
[26:20]for when I read. So every time somebody tells me that that's what happened to them with my book,
[26:25]I'm just really honored. So thank you for saying that. You're welcome. Well, now I have to just
[26:29]quickly ask what you're reading or some book that you can do that for you. I have been fully
[26:34]unable to concentrate on reading anything since my own book came out. The first book I enjoyed
[26:39]after my book came out was How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, which is coming out in
[26:43]a few weeks. Right now I'm reading Song of Solomon, which is my last Tony Morrison. I've read all
[26:48]of the others and I've been saving this one for a rainy day. So that's obviously going to be on
[26:55]my top 10 books of all time, along with every other Tony Morrison novel. So that's I'm going through
[27:00]that as slowly as possible. Good for you. This is awesome. All right. Well, I can't wait to
[27:06]eventually read your next book and just sort of follow your career. And yeah, well done. Thank you
[27:11]so much. And good luck. You seem really busy. You're doing a lot of incredible things. Oh, thank you.
[27:17]Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. All right. Take care. You too. Okay. Bye bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to this
[27:26]episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at
[27:31]Zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[27:36]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[27:41]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to
[27:45]Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.