Jillian Medoff, WHEN WE WERE BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL: A Novel
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[1:28]Jillian Madoff is the author of When We Were Bright and Beautiful, a novel.
[1:32]She's the author of four acclaimed novels. This could hurt. I couldn't love you more. Good girl has gone bad and hunger point.
[1:39]Hunger point was made into an original cable movie starring Christina Hendricks and Barbara Hershey, directed by Joan McLin Silver. That was on Lifetime TV in 2003.
[1:47]A former fellow at McDowell, Blue Mountain Center, V-C-C-A, and Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, Jillian has an MFA from NYU.
[1:57]She studied with Mona Simpson, her thesis advisor, and Jonathan D.
[2:00]And took master classes with Tony Morrison, Grace Paley, and Joyce Carol Oates.
[2:04]I just had Joyce Carol Oates on this podcast. You can go listen to that too.
[2:08]Jillian's MFA experience was life-changing. She sold her graduate thesis, originally titled The Hunters, to Harper Collins, where it was retitled hunger point and published as her debut novel,
[2:16]in 1997. Back then, readers loved the deeply depressed Franny.
[2:22]Now they hate her, and her whole stupid self-absorbed family.
[2:26]Times change, culture revolves, and still trauma-endores.
[2:29]In addition to writing novels, Jillian has a long career in corporate consulting.
[2:33]Since her early days at Max Factor, an American home goods in Trump Tower, she's worked for a wide range of employers, including Deloitte and Aon.
[2:41]Now with sequel bends, she advises clients on communications strategies for all aspects of the employee experience.
[2:47]She lives with her husband Keith Dawson, and three adult daughters who come and go.
[2:51]Welcome, Jillian. Thank you so much for coming.
[2:53]On mom's, don't have time to read books to discuss when we were bright and beautiful novels.
[2:58]Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
[3:00]My pleasure. Your book is really good. I was drawn in right away.
[3:05]I feel like your depiction of the brother's sister relationship, even though they're not blood relatives, is so on point.
[3:15]And how, you know, just how close we all are to having sort of our rights just taken away.
[3:23]You know, like Billy gets thrown in jail, and how from one minute to the next, you don't know what's coming.
[3:28]And I don't know.
[3:29]It's, I've been like talking to my family about this book. Like, this is the book I'm reading, and this is what's happening. And then it does. So anyway.
[3:36]Oh, thank you.
[3:37]Maybe you should do a better job than I just did. Why don't you explain what the book is about and also what inspired you to write it. Why you wrote it all that good stuff.
[3:46]Okay. Well, I am a career novelist. And this was my fifth book. And originally, I was writing a novel about like it was, it was updated on fire.
[4:00]It was set in a luxury building like the Dakota. And I thought, Oh, you know what would be so great.
[4:07]It to do an upstairs downstairs like down Navi, but you know luxury building in the 21st century. And I thought, Okay, well, there should also be a crime.
[4:18]And I'm looking at a class, but I thought that I would do it under the guys of parenting.
[4:26]So in the original incarnation, a young girl is kidnapped. And then her mother, who is an era is held on negligent charges.
[4:39]I was like, Okay, it didn't have enough to propel like a 350 page novel. I mean, the whole idea of parenting. It was when I guess you saw parents being punished for leaving their kids in the car, but
[4:54]it just wasn't as compelling an idea. So I said, Okay, well, the central crime will be sexual assault. The young girl actually became the narrator who's now 23 and the book opens where she finds out that her brother has been
[5:10]accused of assault by his former girlfriend. And she comes home, the whole family rallies together. And then as the book unfolds, you realize there's a whole other story going on.
[5:24]So I think when I approached the book, it was like, Well, I really am delving deeply into this family, but I need to make the book interesting for me as a novelist like something more interesting to write about or and also how to make it compelling for me to keep
[5:45]interested because I could have written a straightforward narrative, but I wanted to do something a little different. And so by the time I was like, I don't know, two or three years into it, the me too movement exploded.
[6:00]And I was like, Oh, you know, the market's going to get flooded with with novels about sexual assault. And I also I felt like, how do I bring something new to the conversation like how do you.
[6:15]How do you write about sexual assault on the white woman writing about a white family. How do I do something different. And I said, Okay, well, what I'm going to do is like a dual narrative where you read the first hundred pages.
[6:29]And you realize, Oh, wait, the sub mouse is going on. And then you read the next hundred pages and it shifts again.
[6:38]And so by the end, you're kind of like, Oh, that's a completely different book than what I thought it would be.
[6:46]I was really influenced a lot by books like trust exercise, which was his choice book. I don't know if you read it was.
[6:56]Yes, because I love the idea of taking the story and then completely subverting your readers expectations.
[7:04]I think the challenge with this book is that people will look at it and say, Oh, I know that story.
[7:11]And it's like, well, you think you do, but it's actually a different story than you think you're getting into. And then by the end of the book, you realize.
[7:21]Oh, my gosh, this book can be read two ways. You know what I mean. So I, I really wasn't unsure if I could pull it off. And then with me too, I thought, Oh, do I go back to the kidnapping, you know, do I make it.
[7:35]And then I thought, you know, this is a really pivotal moment in American history, you know, and I think or cultural.
[7:44]And I just want to take advantage of it and also just write the most authentic book that I could write at this time in my career.
[7:53]I love it. I love hearing all of that.
[7:56]Well, it was really neat to know, you know, I especially responded to when you're like, I wasn't sure I could pull it off, you know, because I feel like, yeah, you know, it doesn't seem when you're the reader like there's any uncertainty and what's going on, right.
[8:10]And then here's this author on the other end, you know, like, does this make sense, you know,
[8:16]like, so there's a trial.
[8:18]And I spent literally 18 months doing everything I could to avoid writing the trial.
[8:24]I said the book 20 years in advance, so we could like refer to it, but not have to go through it.
[8:30]I, I tried to get them just settled. There was like this whole thing where the trial never really happened.
[8:37]And then finally, you know, my friends were like, you've got to do it. I mean, you just have to face it like what's the worst, but could happen.
[8:45]And I'm like, well, I could look like an idiot. No, like, well, you might look like an idiot.
[8:50]It was really rewarding. And then at the same time, it was so enlightening, you know, like I learned a lot.
[9:00]But my sister is a litigator and she helped me with a lot of the technical details. So
[9:07]Did the character of the doorman, was that a remnant from the upstairs downstairs?
[9:13]Yes. In fact, the opening scene in that book, where a little girl has her hand up and the doorman thinks she's saying goodbye, but in fact she's waving for help.
[9:27]And that was the image that started the whole thing.
[9:31]And so now we're talking about it's being pitched to the movie and so we're talking about keeping that image in because it is like this harrowing moment where, you know, Cassie is sort of taken away from her.
[9:46]You know, like her whole sense of identity gets skewed in the course of a book. You learn that she's got a lot more going on underneath the surface than meets the eye. So.
[9:55]Well, and she's also an orphan rate, which you learn as this time goes on.
[10:00]And it was taken in by the mentor of her dad,
[10:04]right, her dad, and yet feels like the allegiance
[10:09]of a blood sibling to her brothers and all that.
[10:12]And you have this very unsavory lawyer
[10:14]character, totally about developing him.
[10:18]You know, the funny thing about him,
[10:20]it's like, he's one of my favorite.
[10:22]And the book is so closely to cast these stories.
[10:27]I mean, she starts out saying, well,
[10:28]this war-billy story, but in fact,
[10:30]you realize it's her story.
[10:32]And she's telling you everything you need to know
[10:35]in the very first hundred pages.
[10:37]And so you get the perspective of the lawyer
[10:42]only through her.
[10:44]And the one thing about Cassie is that she is very sexualized.
[10:50]And she uses her looks and her sexuality kind of like,
[10:55]not a weapon, but as a way of moving through the world.
[11:01]She's really relied on, I mean, she's smart and she knows it.
[11:06]But she really thinks that she's got this lawyer down
[11:10]and that she and he are aligned in protecting Billy
[11:16]and protecting the family.
[11:18]And it's only when a few things happen that she realizes,
[11:23]she's not the smartest person in the room.
[11:25]And in fact, might be very, very, very uninformed about a lot.
[11:32]And I think that is the painful part of the book
[11:36]is seeing her come into knowledge and realize
[11:40]just how closed off and lonely she feels.
[11:45]You know?
[11:46]It's like when she jokes with him that she's a lawyer
[11:48]because she blocked all these law and order episodes.
[11:51]My sister, actually, she says three all the time.
[11:55]She'll call me and she'll tell me about this case.
[11:57]And she's like, well, you're a lawyer or you figure it out.
[11:59]You know, what do I do?
[12:01]So, oh my gosh.
[12:02]How did you end up becoming a career novelist?
[12:05]I grew up always moving.
[12:08]My family moved a lot.
[12:10]And I mean, like 17 times.
[12:13]I went to seven elementary schools two more highs
[12:17]and two high schools, yeah.
[12:18]Why?
[12:19]My dad was in sales.
[12:21]Okay.
[12:22]So we'd move and he'd take a different job
[12:24]or a different territory.
[12:26]And it was chaos.
[12:27]I mean, like real chaos growing up.
[12:30]And right it became a refuge.
[12:32]But the idea of actually publishing a book or,
[12:36]I mean, that was not in the stars.
[12:38]You know, my goal with my feeling was just
[12:41]to be like a middle manager,
[12:43]because I also have like a corporate career.
[12:46]It wasn't that my parents didn't want me to have ambition.
[12:50]It's just, they didn't want me to be disappointed.
[12:52]And so the way that they dealt with that is
[12:55]don't want too much, right?
[12:57]Keep your expectations in line.
[13:00]This way you won't be disappointed.
[13:03]And one of the ways that I really dealt with a lot of loneliness
[13:07]and upheaval was to create these stories.
[13:10]And so I would just write these stories
[13:12]from the time I was like five or six years old.
[13:15]And they grew longer as I grew older.
[13:19]But again, I never really thought about
[13:23]that it could be something you do as a job.
[13:26]And even as I was growing up,
[13:28]they were like, well, you're gonna go into journalism.
[13:30]And I'm like, no.
[13:31]And they're like, you're gonna go into PR.
[13:33]And I'm like, no.
[13:34]I got one of the right stories.
[13:36]But I knew I would have to have a job.
[13:38]So I got a job and I wrote it night.
[13:40]And then I was dating the sky.
[13:42]Wait, what was your job?
[13:43]I do communications consulting.
[13:45]Like I started in marketing.
[13:48]And now I work with big companies
[13:49]helping them communicate with their employees.
[13:52]Like everything from 401K benefits to healthcare
[13:56]and stuff like that.
[13:57]So I was at the Loy and then Aeon and now Metz evil.
[14:02]Got it.
[14:03]And so I went to school, I wrote it night.
[14:06]And then I was dating the sky.
[14:08]And I was about 27.
[14:09]And he was working for equitable real estate.
[14:13]And he says, you know,
[14:14]they want me to open an office in Paris.
[14:16]And that Pete said, but I think I should go alone.
[14:19]And I said, well, that's okay.
[14:20]Cause I'm going to graduate school.
[14:22]And I had not even applied.
[14:23]But I just said, I have to have my thing too.
[14:27]But I ended up applying to NYU.
[14:30]And I only applied to one school.
[14:32]And I got in.
[14:34]And I just think, imagine if my life had gone differently
[14:38]because it was an evening program.
[14:40]So I could work it during the day and get my MFA at night.
[14:43]And then my first novel was my graduate thesis.
[14:46]So I mean, my whole life would have been different, you know?
[14:49]I mean, whatever happened to the guy.
[14:52]Oh, he moved on different girls, different woman.
[14:56]He's, you know, just wasn't interested.
[14:58]So I became like, just I said, well, this is what I'm doing now.
[15:03]And I think he needs a thank you note because if he had.
[15:06]he hadn't done that, we wouldn't be here.
[15:09]No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no life works.
[15:12]So tell me the story of how exciting it was
[15:15]selling your first book.
[15:16]And does it get less exciting than more books you sell or not?
[15:19]Oh, no, it's the first time I couldn't really believe it.
[15:23]I mean, it was, if it's such a strange thing
[15:27]to write something and then have your agent call
[15:30]and say, we have an offer.
[15:32]And I mean, partly, I grew up as a reader.
[15:35]But I didn't know any novel it.
[15:37]I didn't know any creative people that actually got paid
[15:40]for their art.
[15:42]And when it comes to novels, I have to, you
[15:46]okay, have to write the whole thing before you can sell it.
[15:49]So each time is it's own, like, you never know.
[15:54]You know, I mean, there's certain I was very lucky
[15:59]when I sold my first book because I write novels
[16:04]and not haiku.
[16:06]You know what I mean?
[16:07]It's more marketable to write a funny novel.
[16:09]It just, it came at a time when books were expanding
[16:14]from being just funny or sad to being kind of bittersweet.
[16:18]And so my first novel was called Hunger Point.
[16:21]It was made into a movie.
[16:23]And then I had a second novel that didn't sell a third novel
[16:27]sold.
[16:28]And then I went through a really dark time
[16:30]where I just couldn't sell anything.
[16:32]I ended up changing agents.
[16:34]And it was until like 10 years later,
[16:36]I sold another book.
[16:38]And each time has been, like, unbelievable to me.
[16:44]Like, I can't believe it, you know?
[16:45]Like, I don't take anything for granted.
[16:47]It's like, I've had a lot of rejection.
[16:50]But as a novelist, my goal is to get better,
[16:55]but also to take on more interesting
[16:57]and different kinds of projects.
[16:59]So like the book before this one was a corporate novel.
[17:04]And it had different viewpoints.
[17:06]And it was really hard.
[17:08]I mean, the architecture and the structure
[17:10]was really complicated.
[17:12]And then I said, well, I'm gonna go into this next one.
[17:15]This is gonna be really easy.
[17:17]And this ended up being even more complicated.
[17:20]Because when you're writing a novel,
[17:21]you're dealing with like different timelines.
[17:24]You know, everything is so intricate
[17:27]and deeply plotted.
[17:29]It's like a big puzzle.
[17:31]Mm-hmm.
[17:31]So, and then, you know, you hear things like,
[17:34]oh, I wish this had happened.
[17:36]And the reader saying, I wish that had happened.
[17:38]And it's kind of like to oversee or like carry through ideas
[17:44]from page one all the way through page 350.
[17:48]And you're dealing with time changes
[17:50]and different points of view.
[17:51]And it's really a complex undertaking.
[17:55]I mean, the fact, I just can't believe not only that,
[17:58]I just keep doing it.
[17:59]You know, like every time I'm like, okay, I'm done.
[18:02]I can't go through this again.
[18:04]And then I sit down and I sort of get involved.
[18:07]And it becomes this like a universe
[18:10]that I can sort of live in.
[18:12]And it's so gratifying when you get it right.
[18:15]Oh wow.
[18:16]Yeah.
[18:17]Sometimes I've like, I spend all my day talking
[18:20]to people who imagine worlds and they don't even know why
[18:23]or how it actually happens either.
[18:25]And I'm like, yeah, there's because there's like,
[18:28]no science or facts behind it.
[18:30]It's all imagination and these alternate universes
[18:32]and these different ecosystems and people
[18:35]who seem quite real, but are they real?
[18:37]They just like appeared in it.
[18:38]I mean, I mean, it's really like what am I doing?
[18:41]But anyway, but it's like common thread through offers.
[18:46]Like is it, I mean, one thing that I speak to a lot of authors
[18:51]too just in passing.
[18:53]And everyone seems, there seems to be that the same consensus
[18:57]that starting is hard and finding time to sit down
[19:02]and do it is hard.
[19:04]For me, it's not hard to find the time.
[19:07]It's to motivate myself.
[19:10]Like I'm very insecure.
[19:13]And like I'll approach something like, oh, I can't do that.
[19:17]I can't pull that off.
[19:18]There's no way.
[19:20]And then once I sit down and get into it,
[19:23]it's like a weight lifts.
[19:25]You know what I mean?
[19:26]And I just sort of start getting deeper and deeper into it.
[19:30]But it's just that first couple of steps
[19:32]into the pool that are really hard, you know?
[19:36]I totally understand.
[19:37]And I also feel that way about the pool.
[19:39]Yeah.
[19:41]I'm like, I know I'll be having it'll be such a luxury
[19:44]to just be in a pool like swimming around.
[19:47]I mean, I can't even say this.
[19:48]It's like ridiculous.
[19:50]No, I understand.
[19:51]It's like just again, it's like everything
[19:53]about the whole run-up is very hard.
[19:58]And even after five books.
[20:00]or even seven books, because I had a bunch that didn't couple that didn't sell.
[20:04]I still, I always start from a place of, oh, there's no way I could pull that off.
[20:10]There's no way. And I compare it to some mail authors that I know. And I've heard that,
[20:17]oh, you know, once I have an idea, I know it's going to work. And I'm just like,
[20:22]I don't know anything. You know, I don't know anything. I kind of write the way I read,
[20:28]which is that like, it unfolds for me as I go. Go. Do you like to read books like yours or
[20:34]other types or? Everything. Everything. Everything. Yes. Including book ends,
[20:40]which I found so poignant. And I mean, how did, how did that feel?
[20:47]Oh, I know. I'm sorry. I have the, for people listening. I'm like in the midst of trying to do
[20:52]my own publicity for a book. And while doing my podcast, so I've got my two signs sort of here,
[20:57]behind me, I was going to, originally, I was going to swap them out from like one interview
[21:00]the next, if I was being interviewed or doing the interview, but yeah, they're just sort of double
[21:04]layered. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it's crazy. It's, I don't know when this episode is airing,
[21:09]but as we're talking, it's right before the book is coming out. And yeah, I'm pretty terrified,
[21:15]you know, I'm like holding my breath. But I had a month where it was a Amazon first read,
[21:20]so I can, I got, I got used to it. I got through like all the roller coaster. And,
[21:24]but you know, I'm nervous. And I was signing books the other day at like my local books are out
[21:27]here. And I was just like, oh my gosh, like what if nobody buys them, what if they all sit in
[21:32]this big stack here for the rest of the summer and every time I walk in, like none of them were
[21:36]sold, like how that was so sad. And I'll be so embarrassed with the bookseller, you know, so
[21:41]I don't know. Well, first of all, you can always tell yourself that that's a whole new staff
[21:45]that they've all sold out. And they're just great, you know, but I signed them, you know,
[21:51]but here I have a look. Okay, it's going to be a huge match. Thank you. I predict that. Thank you.
[21:59]I mean, I think that it's exactly what people want right now. I really do. And I'm very
[22:06]hopeful for you. And I will be hearing out here. I think one of the things that I have found
[22:11]is when you meet people that understand what it means to to be a writer and what not even,
[22:18]if you might not even want to do it, but you feel compelled to do it, you know, there's sort of
[22:22]like this mutual language, you know, like we, you understand that it's just something that had to
[22:27]come out, you know? Yeah, I know. I'm like, why do I care so much? But then every time I tried to be
[22:32]like, it's okay, I'm just going to put it aside, then I would come back, you know? Yeah, definitely.
[22:38]You know, this is just for us. Nobody else has to see it. It's just for me. Just get it down,
[22:44]get it out and move on. I had to do that. Actually, when I talked to my editor and I had the
[22:48]book deal and everything and I had to start writing like a whole new version that would be this
[22:52]book. I remember this. I just sat down and I was like, I can't do this. Like I just can't do
[22:58]this knowing that so I put in big letters in my word doc. No one will read this but me.
[23:05]And then I and then I started. But anyway,
[23:09]to the end of when you were right, when we were right and beautiful. I have not. Okay,
[23:15]I look and say I know when you were saying it really changes in the last third. I was like, oh,
[23:19]yeah. Okay. And when you're finished, go back to the first chapter and you'll realize it's
[23:29]a whole different book. You know what I mean? It's like one of these. Oh, wow, you know. So,
[23:35]okay. All right. Going back to it. Thank you. This has been so fun. Thank you for coming on.
[23:40]You know, I think admitting that vulnerability is so inspiring because so many people share it
[23:45]and don't feel comfortable talking about it. So I appreciate you saying that. And just how great,
[23:50]you know, here's to ex-boyfriend's. Yes. Yes. We're here in the best with book ends and I think
[23:58]you are there. Thank you. You too. Thank you. Bye bye.
[24:04]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[24:07]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibioens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[24:13]Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibioens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[24:18]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the
[24:22]sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and