Allison Pataki, THE MAGNIFICENT LIVES OF MARJORIE POST: A Novel
[0:01]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:05]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:07]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[0:12]Check it out, and you'll hear from 49 authors about all sorts of things
[0:16]Moms Don't Have Time to Do. All the authors have been on this podcast.
[0:19]Also, check out my TikTok at with Sivi and Tracy.
[0:22]My other podcast, Sex Talk with Sivi and Tracy.
[0:25]Check out Moms Don't Have Time to Write on Medium.
[0:28]And of course, my new publishing company called Sivi Books.
[0:32]And now, back to our daily author interview site and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[0:36]Hi! Hi! Hello!
[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:40]Allison Fataki is the author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post.
[0:45]She is the New York Times best-selling author of The Queen's Fortune, The Traders' Wife,
[0:50]The Accidental Empress, Cece Empress on her own, Where the Life Falls,
[0:55]as well as the nonfiction memoir, which by the way, I adored beauty in the broken places.
[1:00]And two children's books, Nellie Takes New York, and Poppy Takes Paris.
[1:04]Allison's novels have been translated into more than 20 languages.
[1:07]A former news writer and producer, Allison has written for The New York Times, ABC News,
[1:11]The Huffington Post, USA Today, Fox News, and other outlets.
[1:15]She has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, Good Day New York,
[1:19]Good Day Chicago, and MSNBC's Morning Joe.
[1:22]Allison graduated cum laude from Yale University with a major in English and spent several
[1:26]years in journalism before switching to fiction writing.
[1:29]A member of the historical novel society, Allison lives in New York with her husband and family.
[1:35]Welcome Allison Fataki again on my show. I'm so excited. I always love talking to you so
[1:40]much. Thanks for coming back. We were having me. I remember when we were with Alyssa in the
[1:45]fall she was saying she's the only three Pete and I think this now makes me a three Pete.
[1:50]I think you're right. Oh my gosh. It's a toss up. It's like a cat head competition.
[1:55]Oh my gosh. A three-feet. You guys just have to keep cranking out these books. It's like that.
[2:00]We'll try. I don't know how you do this so quickly. So the magnificent lives of Marjorie
[2:05]Post and this cover is like I want this dress so badly by the way.
[2:09]Oh my gosh. No, you need the dress. You need to like have it made or something.
[2:14]I should wear it to my launch tonight on Zoom, right?
[2:18]Thank you. Congratulations so much. I'm so excited about this book. I'm so excited that
[2:22]I actually saw this galley like printed out and now here's the final and it's like that exciting.
[2:28]So thank you. You were you're literally one of the first people I shared it with because
[2:34]it's a story of a strong woman who accomplished more than anyone could ever fathom and I had
[2:38]to send it to another strong woman who accomplishes more than anything you could even fathom.
[2:44]And it's six years. Would we call six years really? How I did it really quickly? I feel like it
[2:49]was my longest labor of love. But it feels like it is fast because they just keep coming out.
[2:59]Yes. Well, yeah, no, it took me I was living in Chicago. I had a tiny one little tiny baby.
[3:05]I was in a completely different phase of life. Now, you know, better part of half a decade later,
[3:10]I have three children. I'm in New York. It feels as though it's a story that has been with me
[3:16]for many years. And I also knew that it would be a really challenging story to tell just because of
[3:22]the scope of of years and moments and characters. And so it was something that I felt like I'd
[3:30]been working on with a lot of other things kind of in the forefront. And now it's finally here
[3:35]and so I'm excited. And how when did you become fascinated with with my dreamy weather pose? Yeah,
[3:41]it was it was 2016. And it was very just sort of a kids' moment where I met a family friend
[3:47]actually through my mother-in-law. And this woman Nancy had been an oral historian at Hillwood,
[3:53]which was Marjorie Mary Weatherpost's final home in Washington, D.C. And at that point I
[3:58]published several historical fiction novels about these strong women from history. And so Nancy
[4:03]just gave me the first tip off. And just she's posed it as a question saying, you know,
[4:07]what do you know about Marjorie Mary Weatherpost? And I will admit, and I'm embarrassed to say this
[4:12]now, I really did not know much about her other than the name post sounded vaguely familiar,
[4:18]but I didn't know if maybe it had to do with the Emily Post Manor's book or maybe the news paper.
[4:23]And then there's post foods in that that is Marjorie's family. But she just gave me a few
[4:28]morsels like the four really juicy, salacious marriages. She told me about her time in Russia
[4:35]as the first ambassadors and the and the opportunity she had to become one of the world's great
[4:39]collectors of Russian treasure. And she told me about a little bit about her time during the
[4:44]roaring 20s and sort of the Gatsby era of her life. And it was just enough to get me totally hooked.
[4:49]And her tip was go to Hillwood. Just go check out her home. It's a museum now set up
[4:55]exactly how Marjorie would have wanted it. You know, she could walk in and have a dinner party
[4:58]there today. So you walk in and you get the sense of her life. And so I went to Hillwood. And I was
[5:05]just obsessed. And I was like, this, how does nobody not know about this woman? You know,
[5:10]people know about her, but I don't feel she's as well known as she should be. And so I was like,
[5:14]I need to write a book about her. And then I just became obsessed with her. And I, I will say,
[5:19]I don't know that I've ever written about a subject or a woman where I just liked her and admired
[5:26]her as much as I did with Marjorie and their other post. And so that was both a blessing and I
[5:30]think a challenge. And there were a lot of things about this book that made it very challenging,
[5:34]but I'll let you decide. There were certainly a lot of chapters of her life, right? Like
[5:43]they're different, whole different places and frames of mind and men and all of these things,
[5:49]but that's what made it so real. I mean, that is the way life kind of works, not that you have
[5:53]to necessarily move around this much. And this, these magnificent places, some of them. But the
[5:58]part that I did not know about her, and I don't know that much about her either. And I had just
[6:02]kind of like heard about her and Marjorie and Marjorie and blah, blah, blah, but I didn't know
[6:05]many details either. So I found this absolutely fascinating was all of the entrepreneurial and business
[6:12]decisions that she made and how instrumental she was to the growth as post foods, how it became
[6:16]a post serial company, how it became general foods, how she how she basically met who she was married
[6:23]to for a time. She propped up, he became rancid, but she had all these ideas and how she fought.
[6:29]I hope I'm not giving you a thing. But how she thought for the frozen foods revolution and that
[6:34]she was responsible for that. And it's like blew my mind. And the people were like, you really think
[6:39]how size are going to put refrigerators and freezers in. And she was like, yeah, they are. And
[6:43]they're like, no way. And basically how it all started, as you wrote about so beautifully, like,
[6:48]that it became because she was determined to help other moms. It was amazing. And that's all true.
[6:54]And that is all true. So she was ahead of her time. She was a woman in a world where women were
[6:59]not allowed to be business leaders. I think had she lived today, she would have been president or
[7:03]at least we would have all wanted to vote for her. But in her time, she was the only child of CW post
[7:10]this, you know, founder of this food empire. And he always knew she was worthy. And he always knew
[7:18]that she had the brains and he raised her to think for herself, you know, not thinking this is just
[7:23]my daughter. This is a woman. But he was sort of in the minority. And it was, you know, the ways
[7:28]society was that she wasn't able to run her company, at least from the front. And so she always
[7:34]had to find ways to influence things behind the scenes. And that's exactly right. One of the
[7:39]one of the moments of sheer genius on her part was understanding the importance of convenience
[7:45]and healthy quality foods available to women. And if you have drank orange juice or instant coffee
[7:51]or had cereal, you know, Marjorie has directly impacted your life. But she had to, as you said,
[7:57]go against the boys and go against the experts. And what's fun is that over the course of her
[8:02]almost century of life, you watch her role evolve. And you watch, you know, for instance, during the
[8:08]Franklin Roosevelt years, you watch her sort of step into her power in a way that more women are
[8:13]doing, you know, with World War One and the Great Depression in World War Two. So her life really
[8:18]was a changing arc. And I like to say she's sort of like the forest gum of the 20th century,
[8:24]and that she had a hand in shaping all these moments you know about. She was there with them,
[8:29]but with way better clothes and way better homes. And as you said, Mar-a-Lago was on her homes and
[8:35]and Hillwood and Top Ridge. And so yeah, she just, she shaped history. She was a boss. She was a boss.
[8:40]She's, it's amazing. It's just, you don't think of it. Like when people think about
[8:44]affecting change in society, like you don't realize that sometimes it's just these little ideas that
[8:50]like I would have taken it for granted that there were, that there was a better, like I'd never
[8:54]would have thought it was her or one woman running this company or that would have had such
[8:59]life-changing ideas basically. Anyway, you just don't know. Basically, you don't know. That was
[9:03]not a very good way to say that. And she applied that sort of disruption and sort of thinking
[9:08]outside the box. Not only to business, but across her life, like in building or in charitable
[9:16]giving or she, she yearned for the impossible and then somehow made it happen. And so she's inspiring.
[9:24]Yes. I think I really admired her a lot. Especially during doing, they weren't soup kitchens.
[9:30]There was another word, canteen. She started to help everybody else. Like that sounded amazing.
[9:36]That during, it was World War One then, right? World War One ran the largest Red Cross hospital
[9:43]in war occupied France. Great depression. She ran one of the largest
[9:48]depression. She has shelters, canteen, World War Two. She donated her yacht that was better than
[9:53]the British Royal Family's yacht to the U.S. Navy for a dollar a year. She just, she was really
[9:59]remarkable.
[10:00]Yeah.
[10:01]Yeah.
[10:02]You know what you know what you're two about women who just don't take no for an answer.
[10:04]Oh, stop.
[10:05]Thank you so much.
[10:06]But even the canteen, the fact that she decorated it, like she made it look like
[10:11]yeah, but we're coming in with like lit candles.
[10:14]I can't remember exactly what the details are, but tablecloth so that people who had
[10:17]no money and were coming in gaunt with their kids who hadn't eaten could have not just
[10:21]food, but a dining experience and that she could just provide that.
[10:26]I know some of these things that she did were just like, it's just so amazing.
[10:30]And that's true.
[10:31]That's true.
[10:32]Just the way she treated everybody regardless of their story, she treated people with dignity.
[10:37]I love that.
[10:38]Yeah.
[10:39]And it was so true.
[10:40]She put on these beautiful white linen tablecloths and roses and what she did is she hired
[10:44]men who were out of work to be her waders.
[10:47]Yes, that's right.
[10:48]She made them dress nicely.
[10:49]She gave me a uniform because she thought that they would appreciate going to work and she
[10:53]made them shave.
[10:54]And she was like, you're going to come to work looking and feeling good.
[10:57]And then these people who were starving were weighted on.
[11:00]And that was so true.
[11:01]She was a hostess.
[11:02]She was a comfort hostess.
[11:05]And she applied the same sort of attention to detail that she would have for a Palm Beach
[11:11]dinner party to her New York City house kitchen canteen.
[11:15]And she treated you with dignity regardless of who you were.
[11:18]I even love how she when she was designing her houses, right, especially the one.
[11:24]When she was just like, I have this idea in my head and I know that the most accomplished
[11:30]architects of the time are telling me this out of the other thing.
[11:33]And she just like, wouldn't let it get you like, this is my vision.
[11:36]And she made it happen.
[11:37]And she took a risk on this other designer that was so much more expensive and yet he still
[11:42]came in and it turned out exactly right to like use the nature and I don't know, just
[11:47]all these things.
[11:48]She just listened to her instincts.
[11:50]I think that's what's really setting her apart from so many other people, right.
[11:54]She could, she just, she had this deep conviction and she acted on it.
[11:58]She did.
[11:59]She was purposeful.
[12:00]And she brought in the designer for the Ziegfeld Follies because she wanted it to be
[12:04]fantastical and whimsical and everybody thought she was crazy.
[12:07]And she was a little bit, you know, it was surprising and alarming and she had the
[12:11]money to be able to do these things, you know, and she realized that that was an incredible
[12:16]privilege.
[12:17]And she also said, which was totally breaking with convention because everybody had these
[12:20]Mediterranean, you know, Spanish style villas, she was like, I'm going to take the concept
[12:25]of the Adirondack Great Camp and instead of cabins, I'm going to do that in Palm Beach
[12:31]and everybody was like, what, but she knew.
[12:33]She said, I want to be able to entertain and grand style and have hundreds of people, but
[12:38]then also retreat and have my own space and have it be intimate and have it be a family
[12:41]home.
[12:42]And so she, she just, yeah, she, she always, I put in the line there where she
[12:47]she says in the book, Marjorie Mary Weatherpost doesn't follow trends.
[12:50]She sets them and that, and that was sort of how she looked her life across the board.
[12:56]And then you also have her intimate relationships, not just like what she did on the outside,
[13:01]but her interior lives.
[13:02]And she had so much loss in her life too.
[13:05]I mean, her, and I guess I won't, it's hard to like give things away when it's about
[13:08]a historical figure, but don't go on the internet.
[13:11]Yeah, I won't give it, but just like so many things that she has to like keep rebanding
[13:16]from and even heartbreak at times.
[13:18]And there's the one scene where she was on the boat waiting for her husband to come
[13:23]back and just being like, where is he, he has to come back and you can feel her anger.
[13:27]Like, I was getting angry reading, like, how could he just disappear?
[13:30]Where is he?
[13:31]Is he okay?
[13:32]Is he coming back?
[13:33]And like, how do you handle it when you're so mad at your spouse, like, what net?
[13:39]Like, what can she do?
[13:40]What should she do?
[13:42]I don't know, it was like this, it just made me feel like it just like gets you to
[13:48]feel all the things she was going to.
[13:50]Oh, thank you.
[13:51]I'm sorry that you were so angry, but I'm also so happy that you were so angry because
[13:55]I'm happy you had that strong of an emotional response.
[13:59]And yeah, I think her story, and in particular, her, her many love stories.
[14:05]And I would even include in that the love, the very tragic love story she had with her
[14:09]father, who was the first man she ever loved, a man who inspired her, but also broke
[14:14]her heart.
[14:15]I would just, it just goes to show I think that love is a great equalizer because she
[14:19]says I had many beautiful things in life.
[14:22]And she had these experiences where she's, you know, at the coordination of the King
[14:26]of England, and she's, you know, sailing the world in this yacht and, you know, drinking
[14:31]her tea off, counting the great tea service.
[14:33]And yet, she had these heartbreaks, just like anyone else, and she was a human.
[14:38]And that, you know, I, yeah, I've never written about a character that had that many volatile
[14:47]emotional love stories because all of the other women I've written about lived and loved
[14:53]and married in an era where divorce was not an option.
[14:56]And so regardless of what happened as they felt in and out of love, they always stayed
[15:01]married.
[15:02]Whereas Marjorie was coming of age and her love stories were coming of age in an era
[15:07]where divorce was just beginning to be acceptable.
[15:10]And even in that, she was a little bit of a trailblazer in that she was brave enough
[15:13]to follow her heart.
[15:15]But again, like you said, I don't want to give anything away, but she did have multiple
[15:20]great love stories.
[15:22]And so writing about, you know, her, bringing the reader along to fall in love and then
[15:27]fall out of love and then fall in love again, yeah, something I loved about Marjorie
[15:31]was her constant willingness to give love a try and to keep believing and to keep looking
[15:37]for love.
[15:38]I really loved that about her.
[15:40]Even when she wasn't ready, like when she first went out after a heartbreak and she
[15:45]was like, fine, I'll just go to this one dinner.
[15:46]And then like, even though she didn't want to like, totally attracted to someone, you could
[15:51]feel the way you wrote that sexual intention into you, that was like, I know, I was like,
[15:56]oh, what is going to happen here?
[15:57]Oh, good, and that, yeah, and then he was, I think I know, I think we're talking about
[16:03]the same one.
[16:04]He was prohibited to be the great love of her life and they were, they just had this
[16:10]chemistry and they were, you know, in love and in this set of like, not jet setters
[16:15]because there weren't really jets back then, but pace setters.
[16:18]That was the jazz age and the roaring twenties.
[16:19]And so it was at that time that Marjorie and her husband were rumored to be the inspiration
[16:24]for the great Gatsby, just because of the life they lived and the glamour and the world.
[16:28]And so that was fun, that was, and wild, they had some wild ears.
[16:32]I think I was talking about the later one who made, oh, okay, I know, I know what to say.
[16:37]But I don't want to, I'm trying not to be coy, but I don't, I don't know what to say.
[16:42]Anyway, I'll just say this story was so immersive and it's, I see what you're saying about
[16:48]Forrest Gump just because her footprint was all over the place.
[16:53]And it's amazing people who lived from that century.
[16:57]Like I feel like now somebody going a hundred years, it's not the same.
[17:01]You don't have like the great wars, the great depression, right?
[17:03]It's like, what are we going to say?
[17:04]Like the iPhone came out?
[17:05]Do you have any like?
[17:06]Oh, yeah.
[17:07]It's like not the same.
[17:08]Oh, wow.
[17:09]It's amazing historical story.
[17:11]So I am so glad you wrote about her.
[17:13]I am now obsessed.
[17:14]I want to go to Hillwood, by the way, and forth going, it's amazing.
[17:18]So Dina Merrill was her third daughter, the great movie star, Operation Petty code.
[17:23]And Dina Merrill said, when you walk in the Hillwood, you feel as though mother could
[17:28]come in and sit down to dinner.
[17:30]And if you've read the book and you know how much Marjorie cared about what it was like
[17:34]when she sat down to dinner, you see that that is high praise coming from Dina Merrill
[17:38]because they've just, they've so honored her spirit while also just being a great
[17:42]museum with other exhibitions.
[17:45]But you walk in and you see her closet and you see, oh, pink was her favorite color.
[17:49]So all everything is pink or, you know, you see like what mattered most to her based
[17:54]on what photos are closest to her bed or, you know, or like all of the signed letters
[18:00]and pictures that she received from, you know, the presidents and whatnot.
[18:04]You just, you get a glimpse of her life.
[18:06]And so that's something that's very neat about how relatively recent her life was is
[18:10]that there is still a lot of the historical record about her that's so available.
[18:15]And her grandchildren are live, you know, I've spoken with members of her family.
[18:20]That was a first.
[18:21]I've never had an experience like that before.
[18:23]But yes, Hillwood is so worth seeing if you're heading to D.C.
[18:27]So did you show the book, I mean, did they all read the book?
[18:30]Did they, did they have?
[18:31]Do they really know?
[18:32]Oh, I guess.
[18:33]So you didn't need to get permission or anything or well, no, because it's fiction.
[18:36]And you know, when I said to them and we had, they're so lovely.
[18:39]We had these wonderful conversations and I'm going to Hillwood and I'm giving a presentation
[18:43]in a few weeks and, and what, you know, what we spoke about is that it's just so interesting
[18:50]because it is a book of fiction, but I won't wish to honor and do justice to Marjorie
[18:57]Mary, whether post story, but then obviously it's got to be strange if like you are
[19:02]present for some of the moments that are being discussed in this book of fiction.
[19:05]And so it was just that also made it.
[19:08]I think I felt this really incredible sense of pressure and, and just this added pressure.
[19:13]But, but then also with COVID being what it was, I didn't even receive books until a couple
[19:18]weeks ago.
[19:19]And so everything felt like it was really late and so I got them out to them as soon as
[19:24]I could, but I just physically didn't have books to share.
[19:26]I mean, as you know, have the world we're opening in so much while too.
[19:31]I know that you already have your children's book series, Pop Date Love's Paris is
[19:37]the most recent one, but I felt like this should be a children's, like you should, like
[19:42]I would like my daughters at one of my sons to you, but like this is a story of a woman
[19:46]that maybe, and maybe there are and maybe you've already researched this one.
[19:50]I don't know.
[19:51]I feel like I haven't.
[19:52]I haven't.
[19:53]I haven't just talked about that.
[19:54]Okay.
[19:55]I've never seen it.
[19:56]There's a series of books for my young, because I have three daughters, thousands.
[20:00]big people, little dreams where they talk about
[20:01]Marie Curie and Rosa Parks and Emmeline Pankhurst.
[20:06]And she could be one of those women, you're right.
[20:08]But I feel like you should,
[20:09]there's such a tie in to breakfast and cereal,
[20:12]because of where she came from.
[20:14]I don't know, there could be something very cool.
[20:16]I love that.
[20:16]I love that idea.
[20:17]Thank you for suggesting that.
[20:19]All right, you gotta do that next.
[20:22]I'm kidding.
[20:23]Speaking of people who do like a million things
[20:25]in a lifetime.
[20:26]So what are you doing next?
[20:26]What's your next?
[20:28]So I am, I have my next woman,
[20:31]and I'm obsessed like I always am,
[20:33]and I have to be, I'm gonna give years of my life
[20:35]to researching and writing and talking about this story.
[20:39]And so it's really a little seedling in my heart
[20:42]that I'm not quite ready to share,
[20:44]but I have her and I love her.
[20:46]And it's another one of those moments where I'm like,
[20:48]how do more people not talk about her all the time?
[20:51]So I have a woman,
[20:52]but I also really love the children's books.
[20:55]And I've written, I'm in that world very much just in my life
[20:59]because I have a six year old, a three year old,
[21:00]and an under one year old.
[21:02]And so children's books are what I'm reading all day every day.
[21:06]So I would love to do more with the children's books.
[21:08]So I have some of those in the works.
[21:11]So, and then I'm working on adapting some of my books
[21:15]for films.
[21:16]So I've got a lot going on,
[21:17]and it's exciting because it's exciting.
[21:19]But for now, I'm just happy to talk about archery.
[21:22]I'm great.
[21:23]And so exciting.
[21:24]Well, thank you for really introducing me to somebody
[21:28]who I really admire.
[21:30]And just her willingness to listen to herself and not give up.
[21:38]And to see what happens when she goes against popular wisdom
[21:43]and how it all pays off in the end.
[21:46]I think that is such an important message.
[21:48]And the lifestyle trappings,
[21:50]that's all glamorous and fun.
[21:52]And it's interesting to read about.
[21:53]But really, it's what's underneath of that,
[21:56]that I found absolutely fascinating.
[21:58]So anyway, you did a great job, very usual.
[22:01]And I loved it and congrats.
[22:04]Thank you very much.
[22:05]And she came from nothing too, which I loved,
[22:07]because she did not, her life really followed
[22:10]the rise of the food empire that her family started.
[22:13]And she started with nothing in a barn
[22:15]and came to this wealth that put her
[22:18]at the same level as emperors and kings.
[22:20]But she always kept that salty midwestern
[22:24]down to earth quality.
[22:26]And I think if you had to sum it up in one anecdote,
[22:29]she ate great nuts off of her porcelain
[22:32]from emperors and kings.
[22:33]And so that was just the dichotomy of her life.
[22:35]And I loved that about her.
[22:37]There was more to it than perhaps
[22:39]might initially meet the eye.
[22:41]Yes, good reminder for people to make.
[22:43]So you've been generalizations.
[22:45]Yes, about what people might be like.
[22:47]So anyway, amazing.
[22:49]Thank you.
[22:50]All right.
[22:51]Bye, bye.
[22:53]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[22:55]Don't have time to read books.
[22:56]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens
[22:59]and at Moms Don't have time to read books.
[23:01]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com
[23:04]and sign up for my virtual book club
[23:05]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[23:08]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[23:11]for the Sound Editing.
[23:12]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[23:14]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.