Lisa Taddeo, GHOST LOVER: Stories
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms. Don't have time to read books
[0:10]It is a daily podcast
[0:12]365 days a year and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career
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[0:22]I am now an author myself
[0:24]Although I wasn't when I started this podcast and you can get my new memoir book ends
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[0:54]Lisa today is the author of ghost lover stories
[1:01]She's also the author of the number one New York Times bestsellers three women
[1:05]Which she is adapting as a dramatic series at showtime and at the novel animal
[1:09]She is contributed to the New York Times New York
[1:13]Esquire L glamour and many other publications her nonfiction has been included in the best American sports writing and best
[1:19]American political writing anthologies and her short stories of one two push-cut prizes
[1:23]She lives with her husband and daughter in New England
[1:26]Welcome Lisa. Thank you for coming back on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss ghost lover
[1:30]Thank you for having me. It's one of my favorite podcast in the whole world. Oh
[1:36]Oh my gosh. Well, then you may remember from our first podcast
[1:40]But after I read three women I like ravenously devoured everything you'd ever written online
[1:45]I like stayed up and like was like what else is she written? I can't get enough of this author's voice and then of course
[1:51]We met and you know all in the past, but
[1:55]There is something about your writing that is so
[1:59]amazing and different and
[2:02]Just like stops me in my tracks the way you write so I am a huge fan of yours as you know not to be you know to sycophantic here
[2:10]But but I am
[2:14]Okay, ghost lover first tell everybody what it's about and then I'm gonna read a couple of amazing quotes
[2:21]So ghost lover, you know, I
[2:24]Dedicated it to all the girls who loved before and the reason I wrote that in the dedication my mom used to love and reekay
[2:33]Iglesias, I'm not a me sorry who the old lazy is wrong wrong wrong generation the elderly Iglesias and I
[2:42]One of the songs obviously is to all the girls. I've loved before and for me
[2:47]It's like, you know, we have such a a man's we've I grew up with such a man's kind of
[2:54]View of women including my mother sort of inculcating that in me
[2:59]So what I wanted to do with ghost lover was write it for
[3:04]the women who
[3:06]Who loved before rather than to all the girls. I've loved before kind of a thing so
[3:12]Ghost lover is a compendium of stories about
[3:16]women young women older women women across the sort of you know
[3:22]The the the spectrum of wealth
[3:25]socioeconomic and and everything and just kind of how
[3:31]We are
[3:32]Told who we need to be it's it's a satirical look of of of the way that we
[3:38]Are self punish ourselves after being told how to punish ourselves and then
[3:43]and then basically
[3:44]remonstrated for doing that punishing after after having been told to do it
[3:49]So it's a bit of a satirical look at how
[3:53]female desire works in the world and the way that it's it's
[3:58]The way that it's frankly
[4:00]affected by everybody else and then the way that we still
[4:03]Just decided to judge it after all of that. Do you love describing it? Are you tired of
[4:09]Just like I don't want to do this description ever again. Why are you asking me? No, no, you know in fact
[4:14]It's funny
[4:15]I got really tired after describing three women because I would hear myself say the same
[4:21]words over and over again and I would be like oh god and and I didn't get tired of it
[4:25]What it's more is that I feel like if someone's listening to the same thing
[4:30]Didn't you think it like three times like I remember when Lady Gaga was promoting a star as born?
[4:35]She was like there's 99 people in a room
[4:38]Who don't believe you all you need is that one person to believe in you and I remember like listening to her saying it over and over
[4:44]And I was like my god lady say something else and then I'm then three women came out and I was like
[4:50]So if there's 99 people
[4:54]And I just I had a renewed benefit so no, I'm not I'm not tired
[4:59]Of it. I'm excited about ghost lover. I'm really excited about I love short stories
[5:05]It's my favorite form, you know, it's just I think that there I think that there are an unsung
[5:12]Hero of the writing world and or heroin rather and that we need to start reading them again
[5:18]I think there's this misperception though with short story your short story collections that they have to be
[5:24]So
[5:26]Deeply literary that you're going to need to like
[5:29]Settle in and put your best thinking cap on to devour intricate sentences and you're going to need to really like
[5:37]Exert a lot of effort to consume them which is like a
[5:42]Detraction I think from people but like
[5:45]Your stories are the exact opposite of that not that they not that you don't think but like
[5:51]You're they're not there is no lift. You don't have there is no lift on the part of the
[5:56]Reader the reader is immediately like pulled in and it's very approach like you're pretty well
[6:01]Okay, you know what I'm I'm gonna just read a few examples of what I'm talking about not to say you're not literary
[6:06]You obviously are but it's it's not in a way that requires
[6:11]Effort. It's a it's a way that is like entertaining for the reader. I hope do you know
[6:17]I'm trying to say I totally do and in fact it's something that I I work on because I obviously you know
[6:23]literary fiction
[6:26]Sentences that are crafted that hold like I always say about I always bring up like Grace Haley's
[6:32]For you want I think it's once and not wanting once
[6:35]And how there's like sentences in there that are just kind of tell you the whole scope of a human life
[6:42]But get our also effortlessly
[6:45]Readable so for me being literary and all of that
[6:48]It's like my first desire is to entertain
[6:52]Because that's what I want to be it as a reader. I want to be entertained
[6:56]So as a writer. I want to entertain. I want to do it as sort of like
[7:02]as concisely and
[7:04]Sharply as possible within the boundaries of a sentence
[7:08]But ultimately the desire is centered and to have someone go. Oh, oh, I know exactly what you mean
[7:14]And I think there's sometimes when
[7:16]You know you write something and some people are like what the hell does that mean?
[7:20]And I think for like each what the hell does that mean? There's a oh my god
[7:23]I know exactly what she means so you know
[7:26]I think there's a risk that you take in that but it's a risk that I'm happy to take because when it is fruitful and when it lands
[7:33]It's really exciting
[7:35]For me as a writer. No, it's exciting to read because
[7:40]You know you're like oh, I've never looked at
[7:43]You know, I've never thought about having sex with an iron, but I guess
[7:50]Well, that might come from the fact that when I was researching
[7:56]I watched an actual machine like a robotic machine
[8:02]Sorry, if this is not good for
[8:05]Chat can it trade a woman in the air while she was hog-tied at the porn castle in San Francisco now the funk
[8:13]So I I saw that actually happen and so that's where that that's where that
[8:19]That one comes from in my head. Wow. Oh my gosh. I'm not sure. I wanted to know that
[8:25]Sorry, that's okay. That's okay. So I think what it is
[8:29]A lot are the are the comparisons like all the analogies and similes and whatever or the way
[8:34]Okay, so here's an example
[8:36]This is from the first story and you would have sat looking at the waves thawing on your rocky
[8:40]Bandage of beach an abject misery waiting no less than three minutes
[8:45]blah, blah, blah, blah in the refrigerated section
[8:47]This is what this is so out of context now
[8:49]I'm like not making any sense
[8:50]But I guess rocky bandage of beach and you say
[8:54]And then in the next scene
[8:55]You say this is when they're in line and they're recognizing the ghost lover who Ari who's like become famous
[9:01]And there's this couple in line who are like all over each other and you go
[9:04]Hey, he says hey, it's your Ari the ghost lover, right?
[9:07]And then you write you feel dizzy a crouton in your mouth the size of a nightmare
[9:12]You try to chew it quietly, but there is no quiet fast way to get rid of a crouton
[9:17]There is only slow disintegration
[9:20]So good
[9:22]Like
[9:24]Think about croutons then you say
[9:27]The way you describe Sunday is amazing. It's Sunday, which for you is a whale's throat blue black and forever
[9:36]I mean
[9:36]Is a whale's throat blue black? Have you looked inside a whale's throat? How do we even know this?
[9:45]You know, I mean, I think that
[9:48]For me like finding a finding something that's kind of out of reach and
[9:55]Like I guess this is a way and I think it might be in suburban weekend, which is in there
[10:00]One of the ways in which not to bring it back to bring it back, not to bring it into
[10:06]grief, but a lot, there is a lot of grief in ghost lover too, the collection as there
[10:11]was an animal, but with loss and stuff like that, for me, it was so hard after having
[10:18]lost my parents to figure out how to describe depression and how to describe loss.
[10:25]There were no words, there were no phrases that could adequately communicate to people
[10:32]who hadn't experienced those feelings, what it was like.
[10:36]So for me, things like a whale, it's like in suburban week, and I say that having lost
[10:43]her parents for the woman there was a tiger bite, but nobody could see, because I feel
[10:50]like that, there's just, for me, and I've just always struggled to communicate adequately
[10:57]how big an emotion can feel, and I think we have this amazing language, and English is
[11:03]really an amazing language.
[11:05]It is absolutely impossible to learn for people for whom it's not, they're not impossible.
[11:10]It's just really difficult for people for whom it's not their first language, but with
[11:15]that difficulty, I think, comes so many things we can draw from.
[11:19]So many different ways of seeing the world that I just, you know, I just kind of like
[11:26]fall into it and try to find things that communicate something that I feel is incommunicable
[11:32]with sort of regular thoughts and feelings.
[11:36]I struggle with the same thing.
[11:39]That's it.
[11:40]Be self-promotional here.
[11:41]But in bookends, and I was trying to describe my depression, I compared it to like the
[11:45]heavy x-ray cloak that you wear, how it just felt.
[11:47]Oh yeah.
[11:49]Yeah.
[11:50]Anyway.
[11:51]And those kinds of things that, you know, communicating that, I think, like that, that's
[11:56]that's beautiful.
[11:57]And I think that's so important to find ways to communicate things that, that, you know,
[12:03]like someone who does not know now reading your, it's like you wouldn't just sort of
[12:08]sit there talking to a friend and be like, it feels like an actual, I mean, you might.
[12:11]But there's something about the experience of putting in a book, you know, that, or an
[12:17]essay or, or anything, where it's like, you know, you are, you have the time to write
[12:22]it out and then someone else has the time on their own time, like on a couch or at a pool
[12:29]or wherever they read and to see that and be like, oh, and then to take that fully
[12:34]in.
[12:35]And there's really a gift.
[12:36]Speaking of gift, I'm going to read a few more of your lines here.
[12:38]Yeah.
[12:39]Okay.
[12:40]Hold on.
[12:41]Let's see.
[12:42]Well, this was just funny.
[12:43]As perfect.
[12:44]The more it needs expensive garments, heavy crepes to position themselves like aid workers
[12:49]across the fault lines.
[12:52]Oh my gosh.
[12:53]I mean, insane.
[12:55]Amazing.
[12:56]Oh, and then you're so funny, when you have the sales lady at Morgan Lefe, come up and,
[13:01]and she asks if you want anything special, you say, no, in fact, I'm looking for something
[13:04]really unspecial.
[13:05]Tell me, what is the least special thing you have in the store, then you feel so bad.
[13:10]You don't tell your friend about it, not you, but.
[13:13]This is how good you are at your job.
[13:15]You are a clinician of the text.
[13:18]You can eviscerate, palpate, aggregate with a mild word combined with cunning punctuation.
[13:24]That should be like on your website as like the description of you and what you do with language.
[13:32]And you say, you wear the red dress that Nick bought you at that consignment shop in Cambridge.
[13:37]All these years later, all these diets later, you are still mostly the same size.
[13:42]If only people knew how much you work, went into your weight, the fluctuations in your
[13:47]mind, rocket and plunge, like an ambitious water slide, your relationship with your refrigerator
[13:52]has given the cat an anxiety disorder, but on your body, the movements are razor bumps.
[14:03]That is so perfect.
[14:05]This is like an example to me.
[14:06]This is just like, I've never heard weight loss and the effort it takes to maintain a weight
[14:13]with which you are dissatisfied.
[14:16]Right.
[14:17]So perfectly.
[14:18]And it's something I think about often.
[14:20]Well, it's, and you know, it's like, and here's the thing for me is that like we think
[14:24]about it often, right?
[14:25]But like we're kind of not allowed to talk about it and how much we think about it.
[14:30]So that's what that is for me.
[14:32]It's like, it's kind of like a carnival.
[14:34]It's like, here is all the stuff we have to do, you know, and this is what we think
[14:40]about.
[14:41]And it's okay to think about it.
[14:42]It's okay to have these feelings.
[14:44]It's just okay.
[14:45]It's okay.
[14:46]You know, my mother was, so it's talking to me about a friend of hers who's always been sort
[14:52]of overweight, but you know, mostly the same as she goes, you know, I said to my friend
[14:56]the other day, like, you know, what is your secret?
[14:59]Because you maintain your weight so well.
[15:02]I love that.
[15:09]That's great.
[15:10]So, you know, so I get, I mean, it does take a lot.
[15:13]It can always be worse or whatever.
[15:15]It doesn't matter.
[15:16]Anyway, so when you write a story like this, and I feel like they're all linked, I mean,
[15:20]they don't see, they don't seem like everything made sense, like how do you do it all
[15:27]in one fell swoop?
[15:28]Like, did you sit down and just write the story or do you go back over and over?
[15:32]Like, does the first draft of a story just come out of you and then you go back and
[15:36]edit?
[15:37]Yes, I don't do a lot of going, I do go back and edit, but what I do more is I kind of
[15:44]don't move on until I'm happy with a paragraph.
[15:48]Like until I think a paragraph is like great or, you know, good or whatever, I won't have
[15:54]this sort of temerity to keep it moving.
[15:58]So I'm more like sent in, sent in, sent in, sent in, sent in, and then like, I look
[16:04]at that and I'm like, how do I feel about those courses and then I move on?
[16:08]Going back just for two seconds to your losing your parents and trying to communicate
[16:12]that once you feel like you can explain it, if it can ever actually be explained this,
[16:20]what do you think, like, what is our compulsion to get people to get it who don't get
[16:25]it?
[16:26]What, like, what is that?
[16:28]I mean, like, so funny, you should ask that.
[16:30]I try to tell my husband, well, all the time, my husband has never lost anyone super
[16:37]close to him.
[16:39]So his experience of death is utterly different than mine because I have lost a lot of people
[16:46]super close to me and then I'm terrified of it and I walked through the world in terror
[16:51]and he walks through the world in less terror and I'm jealous of his less terror.
[16:56]So I try, I mean, he's very empathetic about, like, you know, listening about my parents
[17:00]and stuff like that, but in terms of that actual loss, it's like, it's, he says to me,
[17:05]he's like, why do you want me to know what it feels like so that I'm walking around
[17:10]as afraid as you?
[17:12]And I'm like, yes, I think I do.
[17:14]I don't want him to walk around, I guess I want him to walk around as great in the sense
[17:19]that, like, I want to make sure he knows that at any moment something can happen and we
[17:25]have to be vigilant.
[17:26]So I think for me, it's about vigilant, it's about, like, if everybody knows how bad
[17:31]this is, we can all work together to stop death from ever touching them.
[17:36]And I know that's obviously not possible, you know, it's not biologically possible, it's
[17:42]not statistically, it's not anything, but that's kind of, I feel like if I can just communicate
[17:47]to everybody how bad it is that everybody will band together with me and we can all,
[17:51]like, sit in a white room that's like, you know, all padded and we can just like sit there
[17:56]and like, you know, stay get really healthy and drink lemon water.
[18:00]I don't know, Zibi, I'm just, like, I'm just trying to, I don't like get by.
[18:07]It's not just you.
[18:08]I mean, I didn't mean like, you know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know what you
[18:12]know, I'm just saying, that's how I mean.
[18:14]You're right.
[18:15]I've, I, I am not like terrified of death because I am just like in full recognition that it
[18:22]could happen any second.
[18:24]And so it changes the way I live every day and I, I feel like people who don't, don't
[18:30]believe that might not have that clarity of, of purpose almost or like, like, I think it can go
[18:37]either way if you've had a lot of lost, right, you can be afraid it's going to happen or,
[18:42]or maybe it's, it's sort of all links, right?
[18:44]It's all, you can't like tease it apart, but I do believe strongly there is the camp of people
[18:49]who, who, who know that were that we could all drop to edit any second.
[18:54]And then those who can blissfully go through life, kind of thinking about it, but it's not part
[18:58]of their every day.
[19:00]Exactly.
[19:01]Exactly.
[19:02]And you just want to like pull the, the shades up and let them see out the window that you're
[19:06]looking at or something.
[19:08]Yeah, I can feel, I mean, that's, that's what it is for me.
[19:11]It's the feeling alone in it.
[19:12]It's about I'm like walking around and like, everyone's happy.
[19:15]I'm just like, wait, are you guys are all aware, right that we're going to tie?
[19:21]Are you guys are all aware of that, right?
[19:23]And like, you know, it's like people don't like, like again, like my husband says to me,
[19:27]he's like, you know, we don't, we don't want to like, like, he was afraid of flying,
[19:32]then got over it.
[19:32]It took him a long time.
[19:34]Then he met me and I like was like, wait, you're not afraid of flying.
[19:37]That's crazy.
[19:38]And he was like, so that I've kind of brought him right back to where he was.
[19:42]And he was like, well, thank you.
[19:43]Thank you.
[19:44]Thank you.
[19:45]It was like, what is your deal?
[19:47]Like, why do you want like, like, like, we don't want to like, you know,
[19:52]the world doesn't want to be afraid of flying.
[19:54]The world doesn't want to be, and I'm like, right, but there's people who for whom it is
[19:58]impossible not to be afraid.
[20:00]And it is for those people that I am writing, right?
[20:03]And like, you know, I always talk about that Cesar Cruz quote
[20:07]that aren't should comfort the disturbed
[20:09]and disturbed the comfortable.
[20:10]And, you know, I don't really want to disturb the comfortable.
[20:13]I'm like, you guys are fine.
[20:14]If you're fine, good, I'm happy for you.
[20:16]But for these guys over here who are not fine,
[20:19]like I'm here to tell you I am also not fine.
[20:22]And, you know, here are some of the things
[20:25]I do to feel more fine.
[20:27]So kind of that's sort of my, like where I write from.
[20:31]Well, I think it's feeling not fine
[20:34]and feeling alone is so much worse
[20:36]than just feeling not fine.
[20:38]Like knowing you're like dropping into a crowded pool
[20:41]of people who also feel that way.
[20:43]Yeah.
[20:44]And like alone in the big vest ocean of it yourself.
[20:47]Exactly.
[20:48]We're in the community pool today is where we are.
[20:51]Yeah, exactly.
[20:52]Exactly.
[20:54]OK, and now pulling out of deep philosophical discussion
[20:58]OK, so ghost lover is done and out and beautiful
[21:02]and thought for booking, of course, and just awesome.
[21:05]Where are you with the rest of your writing?
[21:07]Like, what are you working on now?
[21:10]What's happening with all your, what's happening
[21:12]with the film stuff?
[21:13]Like, what are you doing?
[21:14]You have like a million balls in the air.
[21:15]I do.
[21:16]I do.
[21:17]I'm lucky and also totally exhausted.
[21:19]So three women will be out.
[21:22]Sometimes in the new year, I think,
[21:25]we don't have an air day yet that if all done,
[21:27]we're just sort of cutting the, I mean, we're not done.
[21:30]We're still in the sort of like, you know,
[21:32]cutting all the episodes apart,
[21:34]but all the principles of photography is done being filmed.
[21:36]There's a first look on Vanity Fair that's
[21:40]they did a beautiful job on it.
[21:41]It looks really cool.
[21:42]Writing this green adaptation of animal for film
[21:46]and a lot of the stories and ghost lover
[21:50]are kind of in going into TV land.
[21:52]Wow.
[21:54]So cool.
[21:55]So when you wake up and you're like,
[21:57]like, how do you, when you wake up and go to your desk
[22:00]in the morning, like, how are you organizing your time
[22:02]for the day?
[22:04]I mean, it's really, it involves a lot of like,
[22:08]colored pens and things.
[22:11]I, you know, I have a lot like today,
[22:13]like after this, I have like a lot of edit sessions,
[22:16]like back to back on the thing.
[22:17]So I mostly do meetings and then I try to schedule days
[22:22]where it's just for writing,
[22:23]but it's increasingly hard to do that.
[22:25]So I try to like carve out time in the day.
[22:30]Amazing.
[22:30]Well, I know we spent a lot of time in the beginning
[22:32]just chit chatting into nowhere.
[22:33]I'm such a shorter,
[22:34]but I've been encouraging listeners to go back
[22:37]and listen to our other episodes too.
[22:38]And check out ghost lover because the sentences
[22:42]you will like underline highlight
[22:44]when a post on your fridge or whatever.
[22:46]And thank you for how much the end and good luck on bookends.
[22:50]I can't wait to read it.
[22:52]And I'm really excited.
[22:54]Thank you. Thank you.
[22:55]All right.
[22:56]All right.
[22:57]Okay. Bye.
[23:00]Thanks for listening to this episode
[23:01]of moms don't have time to read books.
[23:03]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[23:05]at zibioens and at moms don't have time to read books.
[23:08]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibioens.com
[23:11]and sign up for my virtual book club
[23:13]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[23:15]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texturesound
[23:18]for the sound editing.
[23:19]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[23:21]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.