Emma Straub, THIS TIME TOMORROW: A Novel
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
[0:05]Moms don't have time to read books, and speaking of books, I have two of my own books
[0:10]coming out this spring and summer.
[0:12]Princess Charming is a picture book, which debuts on April 19th, and bookends.
[0:17]A memoir of love, loss, and literature comes out on July 1st, and it is truly a labor of love.
[0:24]I hope you'll pre-order, order, and join me on tour as I go across the country.
[0:28]You can find out more at ziviowens.com or bookendsmemoir.com, and you can follow me on
[0:35]Instagram at ziviowens, because I always post about everything.
[0:38]Enjoy the show!
[0:41]Emma Strob is the author of This Time Tomorrow.
[0:44]She is the New York Times best-selling author of All Adult Year, The Vacationers, Modern
[0:49]Lovers, and Laura Lamont's Life and Pictures, and the short story collection Other People
[0:54]We Married, her books have been published in 20 countries.
[0:57]She and her husband own books are magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.
[1:02]Welcome, Emma.
[1:03]Thank you so much for coming back on Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[1:07]This time to discuss this time tomorrow.
[1:09]That was a lot of this time, isn't that the time?
[1:11]This time, this time.
[1:12]Yep.
[1:13]Hi, Zim.
[1:14]Thank you for having me.
[1:15]Always pleasure.
[1:16]Oh, okay.
[1:17]I was just raving about your cover, and it is so cool.
[1:22]I'd have the gap, it's like there's this gold line swirling through it, and then
[1:27]even the letters, some of them are like silvery goldy, I'm not explaining it well.
[1:32]Oh, no, it's shimmery, it's iridescent, I begged, I begged Riverhead for that.
[1:38]I really wanted, you know, because my last, my last four books all had people on them.
[1:47]And you know, in different ways, they don't all look identical, but they all had people
[1:50]on them.
[1:51]And I said to Riverhead, I was like, no people.
[1:54]I don't want any people, I am tired of people.
[1:59]And they, they came up with lots of great book jackets, and this is the one that I liked best.
[2:03]But, but what I love the most is, is that shimmer, is that ship, because I feel like
[2:09]that's, that's in a funny way, it like that feels like the book to me, like that feels
[2:16]like the book.
[2:17]Totally.
[2:18]I love it.
[2:19]Okay.
[2:20]Well, that's amazing.
[2:21]By the way, somebody just interviewed me about something else and they said something like,
[2:25]who is your favorite character?
[2:26]And I was like, well, there's this, there's this woman Alice and like, I have to sound
[2:32]my desk right now.
[2:33]Let me tell you about Alice.
[2:34]But she is a really amazing character.
[2:36]And she does totally come to life in a bazillion different contexts and timelines and everything,
[2:42]which is like a great exercise in developing a character, sort of what would this character
[2:45]feel like in all these different settings and having to relive it.
[2:49]So tell me about, I know this came about your dad was sick.
[2:53]Tell me about the genesis for this book and not just the part one where you deal with her
[2:59]current day, but then the book starts, yeah, I'm traveling.
[3:02]Sure.
[3:03]So, I mean, you know, you, you are a mom, you remember 2020, it was terrible, 2020 was terrible.
[3:14]And that's when I started writing this book.
[3:17]I was home with my kids and my husband was at the bookstore working crazy hours and my
[3:28]dad was in the hospital and and none of us thought that he would be coming out of it.
[3:36]He did.
[3:37]I should say that up top, but yeah, I had been working on a different book.
[3:42]I've been working on a book that is more similar to my previous books before the pandemic.
[3:52]And then, you know, from March to October of 2020, I didn't have any child care and
[3:58]I was alone with my kids 24 hours a day, basically.
[4:04]And my dad was in the hospital and it was from months and it was just horrible.
[4:11]So when I finally did have child care again, I didn't, I couldn't go back to the book
[4:16]that I'd been writing because it just didn't, it felt so foreign to me.
[4:20]It felt like to like to silly, like it was, it was sort of, I mean, it wasn't like
[4:27]just a comedy, but it felt too silly to me at the time.
[4:33]And just really far away from where I was mentally and emotionally.
[4:38]And I was talking to my dad in the hospital and I was like, what should I do?
[4:44]And he was like, well, maybe you should write a book about a woman visiting a brother
[4:47]in the hospital.
[4:48]And I was like, okay, well, I don't think, I mean, I don't think he has any memory of that.
[4:53]But we did, you know, we would sit and talk when he was able to.
[4:56]We would sit and talk about books and writing and ourselves and our family and our lives.
[5:07]And that was what I wanted to write.
[5:09]And so I, so I started thinking about a woman who was a lot like me, but not entirely
[5:15]like me and a man who was very much like my dad, but not entirely like my dad.
[5:23]And I sort of, I sort of lucked us like out of our lives and isolated us in this book.
[5:33]You know, like, I mean, my parents have been married for 55 years and in the book, Leonard
[5:39]is a single father and, you know, I have an older brother and in the book, Alice isn't
[5:45]only child.
[5:46]And I mean, so, you know, there are these major differences, but yeah, I just, I wanted,
[5:54]I wanted to hang out with my dad.
[5:58]And what I really wanted was like the version of what we were doing in the hospital that
[6:05]I remembered from when I was a teenager, which was like us sitting at the kitchen table where
[6:13]my dad had like his spot and watching Jeopardy together and like eating snacks and just smoking
[6:25]cigarettes and wiling away the hours.
[6:29]And that's, that's really what I did.
[6:31]Like I really wrote this book just to do that and I never written time travel before.
[6:38]But I found that, I found that it came quite naturally because I think we all grow up, we've
[6:45]all grown up, especially those of us born in like, you know, the 80s, like we were fed
[6:52]a steady diet of time travel.
[6:55]And so, yeah, it felt sort of just baked in and so it was, yeah, so that's how I wrote
[7:00]my autobiography.
[7:01]I love how you went back to a particular point of time here in New York, which like
[7:11]I lived through as well.
[7:13]So all of the references were so familiar.
[7:15]So every time she went back, you know, it started with the crazy Eddie shirt.
[7:19]I was like, that is so perfect.
[7:22]Like, let's bring back crazy Eddie, how fun would that be?
[7:25]That's true.
[7:26]I bought one on eBay.
[7:27]I'm going to go on my book tour.
[7:29]Oh, that's amazing.
[7:30]Yeah.
[7:31]So amazing.
[7:32]Oh my gosh.
[7:33]Of course they exist.
[7:34]I should have never put that back to you.
[7:37]But it is like the certain time that we all got to experience so collectively when there
[7:43]was so much less to do and less to watch and like all those movies, like I watched everything
[7:48]you referenced.
[7:49]And Peggy's who got married.
[7:50]I loved that movie and I feel like nobody's been talking about it lately.
[7:54]And every time you're proud, I'm like, yes, yes.
[7:57]Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think that like, I mean, you know, first of all, yes, like, I think
[8:04]that the book, I mean, the book is full of pop culture in a way that none of my books
[8:11]have ever been before.
[8:13]Like I've always really tried, I don't know if this is like a remnant of like MFA
[8:20]program life, but like, I've always felt like I want to keep, you know, culture out as
[8:28]much as possible because of course it's not the, it's never the point to right.
[8:33]It's never the point.
[8:34]Like if you're talking about a painting that's a real painting, like you should be able
[8:40]to describe it in a way that it feels real, whether it's real or not or in the same
[8:46]goes for a song or a movie or whatever.
[8:51]And I do love to make up cultural things and I always have, but for this book, like,
[8:59]I just felt like I was throwing the doors open to everything.
[9:04]Like I just wanted it to be real.
[9:06]I wanted to be like, I wanted it to be like, if you lived through this period, you would
[9:14]know these movies and like it's, this is, this is actually what Alice would do.
[9:20]Like if Alice were a real person, she would go back and that's what she would say to
[9:26]her friend.
[9:27]Like she wouldn't be like, oh my God, I've never heard of time travel before, how does
[9:32]this work?
[9:33]Like she would be like, wait, is this like back to the future?
[9:35]Like are there two of me or is this like 13 going on?
[9:37]Like what is this?
[9:38]Which one am I in?
[9:39]Like how does this work?
[9:42]So I, it felt very freeing to sort of just like let all that stuff pour in.
[9:49]Because I think that, I think that the reason that people don't, people often don't want
[9:53]to include, you know, real cultural references is because it, it, it dates, it dates.
[10:00]to work so precisely. But since I was already doing that in this book, it didn't matter to me.
[10:10]You got a free pass. It's okay. You won't get in trouble. It's all good.
[10:15]Yeah, and the New York stuff. And I feel like it's the same for the New York stuff. For people
[10:22]who aren't from New York or who have never been to New York, it doesn't matter to them
[10:28]if Grace Papaya is a real place, right? Because I describe it and tell you what it tastes like
[10:35]and what you can order and whatever. So it doesn't matter if it's real or not, if you don't
[10:41]know that place. But if you do know that place, you're like, oh, God, I need a hot dog for lunch.
[10:51]Totally. I love that. What I really love though is when you go back in time,
[10:56]when Alice gets back in time, she brings the attention to the fact that in all these movies,
[11:02]it's so often about the romance and so much less about the family, although I guess in fact,
[11:06]the future there was a lot of family going on. But that she wants to spend more time with her
[11:10]dad and that is the driving force of this, although even though you have the relationship. And then
[11:15]I love how you have it because it's almost like sliding doors meets one of these movies.
[11:19]And you see all the other outcomes and different kids. That is like, I love thinking about that
[11:27]stuff. What if I ended up with this person? What if it had happened at a different time with the
[11:32]kids? Well, of course, because it would be. It would be like, I mean, I have the two children I have
[11:46]because those were the embryos that, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's random. It's random
[11:55]who shows up in life. And I, yeah, you could, you could argue that like those souls were
[12:04]destined for your family. There is that. Maybe, yeah, no. And they would look different.
[12:10]Yeah, I just think that like, it's all timing. You know, it's all timing. Everything in life
[12:19]is timing in terms of the people you meet and the way you are when you find them and and
[12:30]how you evolve. You know, it's all based on your relationships and your, and your jobs and you know,
[12:39]all of these things that that are so random eventually add up to your life. Yeah. So it was,
[12:48]yeah, it was really fun to think about else. And you, and you're right, like it was, I consciously
[12:54]wanted to, to make this not, not about the romance. You know, it's not like there is some romance
[13:03]in it. Although thank you for those scenes. Yeah. You know, so at the, at the bookstore, I, you know,
[13:10]we often talk about like what people love and like people love romance people and I don't,
[13:15]I don't just mean romance novels, but people love sexy books, whether they're, you know, paperback
[13:23]rom-coms or, you know, high literary masterpieces, people love a sexy book. And I'm like,
[13:32]well, yeah, I wrote a sad book about a dad dying. That's sexy, right? Like, you know, what we,
[13:39]but we all just, we all write the books that, that are the books that we need to write. And this
[13:44]was, this is what I needed to write. Well, I love how it kind of comes together. I feel like one of
[13:50]the themes at the end that you tell through Kenji is that it's so important to just address when
[13:56]someone is sick or when someone has died. And it seems so obvious, but it is so helpful to connect
[14:02]on that level and not avoid it. And I feel like if people take one thing away for people who haven't,
[14:07]who don't, who'd always feel uncomfortable not knowing what to say to people who have lost somebody
[14:11]or whatever. Like that is a great takeaway. Like you just say, like, hey, how are you doing that
[14:16]that must have been terrible? Like, oh my gosh, lymphoma is awful or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And I
[14:21]think that like, you know, it's something that I have thought about a lot. Like, you know, I had,
[14:29]I have so many friends who have lost their parents in the last couple of years. And, you know,
[14:39]when I was a kid and when I was in high school, and I think I never, I never knew what to say. And
[14:45]part of this, part of this book is, even though my father is still alive is me sort of reckoning
[14:52]with that with like the fact that like, you don't really understand, you don't really understand
[15:01]until you find yourself in the middle of it. And then you're like, oh, fuck, I was so awkward. Like,
[15:09]I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing that I sort of didn't say anything. And,
[15:14]you know, you wish you could go back and just be like, do you want to have some pizza? Like,
[15:21]you know, not just like, because I've always been, I've always been a very good note writer,
[15:28]you know, like, so I, I always write a note. But what does that do? You know, that doesn't do that
[15:35]much. Like, is it better to write a note than do nothing? Yes. But like, it's probably also better.
[15:42]I mean, it's like when someone has a baby, you know, like, sure, it's great to say congratulations.
[15:48]But then most people say, congratulations, can I do something to which the new parent always says,
[15:54]oh, no, no, no, no, no. When like, now I understand, you don't do that. You just show up and you
[16:01]drop the food off or the whatever on the doorstep. You wash the dishes in the sink. You hold the
[16:08]the baby so someone can take a shower. And then you get out of there, you know, like, it's,
[16:14]yes, I think that we all, this is growing up, right? Like, we all have to learn those things
[16:19]firsthand before we understand what is good to do. And those are the things you remember the most.
[16:25]Like, I feel like there are always like this flurry of cards and calls or texts or whatever,
[16:29]but it's like, I don't know, when my husband's mom passed away hit this one friend of his
[16:33]sent us like a banquet dinner from like the local pizza place. And I'll just never forget like the
[16:38]tins and like undoing those like tinfoil edges and being like, that was so nice. Like, I've never
[16:45]been so appreciative for pasta. Yeah, vodka sauce, which I don't even believe. Like, that was the
[16:51]nicest. I don't know. So yes, yeah, but it's a good lesson that I guess we learned as we are
[16:55]growing up. Yeah. But I feel like so many lessons Alice learned came from being grown up, right?
[17:01]Like, even when she goes back, it's like, some of those things, some of those types of people
[17:06]you are, they aren't clear until later what's really important and all of that. But hopefully,
[17:11]looks like these can, you know, try to teach it. Like, try to share it, show it on tell, you know.
[17:19]Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. Did you feel a sense of closure once you finish this book? Like,
[17:27]do you feel like it helped you process some of the stuff? Yeah. I mean, you know,
[17:32]what my therapist described as pre grieving, which I didn't, I didn't know that that was something.
[17:39]But, you know, I think that, you know, there are obviously people who lose loved ones very suddenly
[17:49]where you're plunged into the, you know, after zone totally unexpectedly. But I think often it's not
[18:00]that, you know, often we see it, we see it coming and we see the cliff and we know how deep it is
[18:09]on the other side. And, and we spend years preparing. And I don't know, you know, I don't, I don't
[18:20]know if anyone can ever be prepared, probably not, probably not. But I definitely think that I have,
[18:30]I spent a lot of time, I mean, more than more than just the years, you know, that I've been working
[18:37]in this book, processing this idea. And I mean, I can't say that I feel closure, but I definitely
[18:46]feel, I feel really happy. I feel really happy that I was able to write this book and that
[18:57]for me, I mean, and, you know, that I wrote it really, truly just for me.
[19:02]But then the fact that my dad is still alive and couldn't read it is, is an amazing additional
[19:13]gift that I don't take for granted for a second. And then like, you know, when I think of the
[19:19]thing that like really gets me always is that like, you know, my dad has written like 20 books
[19:27]and they're all very scary, but he is in all of them. He is in all of them in ways
[19:35]small and large. He is not a serial killer. My joke. A lot of his books have had.
[19:40]You know, it's a torturer of any kind, but he is all over his books. And I'm grateful that I have
[19:48]those books that are full of his brain and his thoughts and his jokes, you know. And then I
[19:57]think about my kids having my...
[20:00]my books that are full of me in all of those ways.
[20:05]And then additionally that they have this book now,
[20:09]which contains us both in a certain way.
[20:13]I mean, not that Alice and I are identical
[20:17]and not that Leonard and my father are identical,
[20:20]but this is without a doubt,
[20:22]a book that is just like an examination of our love.
[20:30]And that's pretty amazing, you know?
[20:33]Hopefully, hopefully my children will appreciate it.
[20:37]I think they will someday, hopefully.
[20:40]That's amazing.
[20:41]Well, now, hopefully, you know,
[20:43]they'll write something about you.
[20:45]Yeah, no, no, maybe, I don't know if I want that.
[20:48]I'm like, would I want that or would I not want that?
[20:51]So will you ever go back to that other one
[20:53]that you abandoned?
[20:55]I don't know, maybe.
[20:56]I mean, you know, it was like, it was a good one.
[20:59]I was excited about it.
[21:00]I had done some research for it.
[21:05]Like, it wasn't, you know, like this book,
[21:08]this time tomorrow, all I had to do was just like,
[21:13]close my eyes and like,
[21:15]text my friends from childhood to do research, you know?
[21:19]But the book that I had been working on,
[21:21]I had traveled, like I had really put in some legwork.
[21:26]So I don't know, maybe, maybe.
[21:29]I'm not sure.
[21:30]I'm not sure.
[21:31]We'll see.
[21:32]I have to go back and see if there's any life in it.
[21:35]Did you have a real-life tummy type character?
[21:38]Oh, I don't have hundreds of them.
[21:40]Hundreds.
[21:41]Oh my gosh.
[21:42]Maybe not friends, but I do have,
[21:44]I have all my diaries and I was always in love with somebody
[21:50]or like six somebody's.
[21:51]I mean, I just, I really,
[21:54]I was really able to compartmentalize my, my affections.
[21:58]And so I, I really, I had,
[22:01]I had just crushes on everybody.
[22:03]Everybody.
[22:05]Yeah. Yeah.
[22:07]There are a lot of them.
[22:08]I have my diaries too and I haven't figured out
[22:10]what I should do with them all.
[22:11]But I like how you channeled it into this very creative.
[22:17]I'm like, why, hey, I'll just see it.
[22:18]Yeah. Yeah.
[22:20]I took this trip with my family when I was,
[22:22]when I was an eighth grade to China and Japan.
[22:25]But I wrote it as if I was like, I don't know.
[22:27]I didn't sound like I was that old.
[22:28]But anyway, I read it to my kids, my little kids.
[22:31]And I was like, this is what I was like,
[22:32]and of course my diary is like,
[22:33]here's what I had to eat on the airplane.
[22:35]Yeah.
[22:36]But it's another way of time travel
[22:38]because I was introducing my,
[22:40]my almost nine year old to like my 14 year old self.
[22:43]And I'm like, yeah, I spoke at that time.
[22:45]And yeah, it's amazing.
[22:49]I feel like that's another layer of what it does so well.
[22:53]So yeah, it's pretty cool.
[22:55]Awesome.
[22:56]What did you eat on that airplane?
[22:58]Oh, like all the stuff I still eat,
[22:59]they were like, this is ridiculous.
[23:01]I don't know, like, you know,
[23:03]girl chicken and a Caesar salad,
[23:05]or you know, it's like ridiculous.
[23:07]I haven't changed at all.
[23:08]And I'm like, you know, I shouldn't have eaten that cookie.
[23:10]And they're like, you know, yeah, so maybe it wasn't
[23:15]such a big introduction after all.
[23:17]Anyway, last question.
[23:20]Any advice to aspiring authors?
[23:23]Oh, I guess at the moment,
[23:26]at the moment, my advice would be
[23:30]to write the thing that you feel most moved by, you know,
[23:36]that you feel most emotionally connected to.
[23:42]And that you know, you can write better than anyone else.
[23:51]Like whatever it is, whatever it is, whether it's fiction
[23:57]or a short story or your memoir, you know, whatever it is,
[24:02]like, to believe in yourself and to know that,
[24:08]that you are fully capable.
[24:11]Yeah, and just to have faith and do it.
[24:13]Just to try.
[24:14]Love it.
[24:15]Well, thank you not only for taking me back
[24:17]to, you know, 1980s New York City,
[24:20]but also just this Alice's life and walking
[24:23]through Belvedere and, you know, just the whole thing.
[24:26]It was such a strong sense of place.
[24:28]And I really feel like I ventured
[24:30]through someone else's issues, which is what the best book's do.
[24:32]So there you go.
[24:33]And thank you so much, Sippy, always a pleasure.
[24:36]You too.
[24:37]A good day, it goes better.
[24:38]Thanks.
[24:39]Here's hoping.
[24:40]Bye, I'm happy.
[24:45]Hi, I'm Sippy Owens, and you're listening
[24:47]to the award-winning podcast.
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