Jill Bialosky, THE DECEPTIONS: A Novel
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[0:58]Jill Byeloski is the author of the deceptions a novel
[1:01]Jill is the author of six acclaimed collections of poetry three critically acclaimed novels and two memoirs
[1:07]Including history of a suicide my sisters unfinished life and New York Times bestseller
[1:12]Her poems and essays have appeared in the best American poetry the New Yorker the Atlantic
[1:17]Harper's Magazine O the Oprah Magazine the Kenyan Review Harvard Review and the Paris Review among other publications
[1:23]She is executive editor and vice president at www Norton and company and her work has been a finalist for the James
[1:30]Laughlin award the Patterson poetry prize and the books for a better life awards in
[1:35]2014 she was honored by the poetry society of America for her distinguished contribution to poetry she lives in New York City
[1:42]Welcome Jill. Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss your latest novel the deceptions
[1:48]Well, thank you so much for having me
[1:51]I have to tell you that when I started reading your book
[1:54]It was a Sunday with a driving rainstorm and I had my husband had been watching football day and I was reading and
[2:02]It was just around dinner time and I was like this is so creepy. This is exactly what's happening in this book
[2:07]And I even said something to my husband. He's like wouldn't it be amazing?
[2:10]It's like everything you read in a book would make your whole life change that way like you open the book and it would start raining
[2:16]Anyway, so I felt very immersed in your opening moments of the scene in your relationship and all of that
[2:23]Thank you. Thank you. That was that was really fun to write. I think my husband heard me
[2:30]Or he saw some review in print that said something about that scene and and I said well, you know, it's archetypal
[2:38]It's not just you
[2:41]I mean not that I don't think you made him come off that great. So you might as well say it somebody totally different
[2:46]Why don't you tell us in areas of what the deception is about and and why write this book right now?
[2:52]Yes, thank you. So it when when the novel opens my character is she's a middle-aged woman. She's
[3:02]Just sent her only son off to college and she's feeling bit very bereft and a little lost about what her next chapter
[3:14]means and
[3:16]She's also a poet and she teaches at a all-boys prep school and
[3:21]When the novel opens. She's in this crisis and along with her son leaving
[3:27]She's trying to avoid thinking about a an incident that happened to her with a visiting poet at the school in which she teaches
[3:37]And so the novel really does I think that you know the name of your podcast
[3:43]This would really I'm hoping that the novel will really be the kind of novel that women will want to read and relate to and
[3:52]Celebrate in some ways
[3:55]It's also about a woman sort of figuring out that she never really has fully found her own agency and power and and so
[4:06]Through the novel you get the sense of what she's been up against teaching at it
[4:11]and
[4:12]Institution found it on the patriarchy and also a poet still in her eyes dominated by male power and
[4:23]Also the way in which she has to reconcile her
[4:28]feelings about being a woman who is
[4:31]closely near the point in life where she still feels desire
[4:37]But so she's also reconciling with what that means within a bigger edge
[4:43]Many relatable themes to so many people out there
[4:47]Yeah, I hope so Sydney. I do I feel like I just interviewed yesterday Liz Mike house Mike
[4:53]Elsky. I don't know. Do you know who she is the author?
[4:56]Her you wrote this beautiful book called darling girls to new take on on the aftermath of Peter Pan and the darling girls
[5:03]Anyway, it's really beautiful and clever and her
[5:08]She's like grieving that her child just went to college. She's like in that very raw spot
[5:12]So I feel like you need to send your book to her
[5:15]How good I would help I feel like you two should connect or I don't I think that would help for right now
[5:19]Maybe I'll just send her your book is frankly what I should do, but anyway
[5:23]So you've written a lot of books and actually somebody I told they said who are you in?
[5:27]I was like, oh, I'm doing child by last game. They were like the poet
[5:31]So so that is how you're known in certain circles. You are
[5:35]amazing amazing poet and novelist and
[5:39]Narrative nonfiction like you do everything
[5:42]When do you decide to do what why this why a novel right now and not poetry and
[5:47]How did you how did you even get involved in all of this writing and
[5:52]Editing and I want to talk about your publishing career and there's just so much. I'm overwhelmed
[5:56]Well, you know, I started I started writing really
[6:02]Poetry was my first love and when I was in college. I was very fortunate to
[6:09]I was an English major and I took a few poetry workshops and
[6:14]I was very fortunate to work with a wonderful poet Stanley Plumlee who is my first teacher and
[6:21]Somehow he just gave me the confidence to feel that I could
[6:27]Continue to develop my craft dance of poet
[6:31]and that took me then to
[6:34]get an MFA I
[6:36]Went to the writer's workshop at the
[6:39]University of Iowa and I studied poetry there and then when I was and Iowa the program is divided into fiction
[6:48]writers and poets and I became very
[6:52]conscious of this idea that these fiction writers they were so
[6:57]interested in publishing and
[6:59]In you know, they were just so far ahead of the poets in terms of ambition and it really kind of struck me
[7:07]And I was reading a lot of novels at that time and I read one novel
[7:12]by Marilyn Robinson
[7:15]called housekeeping, which you must know and maybe have read which is such a beautiful book
[7:21]And when I read that novel I felt like I had a novel in me that needed to come out
[7:28]And so my first novel was called house under snow
[7:33]And that took me many many years to figure out how to write a novel and
[7:38]And so but it also allowed me to feel very comfortable with pros and with
[7:44]Shifting back and forth from poetry to prose
[7:48]And so I think that that was just all kind of a
[7:52]A journey that I wanted to pursue and I just you know, it's it was a it's a lot of hard work
[7:59]I don't want to be Pollyanna in Sh about it, but I did
[8:04]Really, I think I really was driven to write that first novel and
[8:09]I'm so glad that I did and then it it allowed me to
[8:14]Want to tell other stories and fiction and so the two I find fiction and poetry so different
[8:21]You know poetry is much more internal
[8:25]in some ways
[8:27]Bringing out kind of these the inner life more through
[8:31]Through words through
[8:33]narrative
[8:35]And for me fiction is so much about characters and you even know you can be expansive
[8:41]in telling a story
[8:43]so I really you know love
[8:46]Both and you know I I really didn't think that I was going to write nonfiction, but you know
[8:52]I had a terrible
[8:54]Loss in my life my my youngest sister ended her life when she was 21
[9:00]And I just could not stop telling myself that I had to write about it and maybe you feel that way
[9:07]Zippy just told me about your book that these these you know
[9:12]So that the first memoir that I wrote history of a suicide my sisters unfinished life really allowed me to
[9:20]I couldn't I couldn't have done that in fiction
[9:24]I mean some of my poems are about that kind of loss, but somehow I needed that larger landscape to investigate
[9:34]so that's kind of how
[9:36]It all sort of
[9:38]One thing grows out of another as you know, you know, it's interesting
[9:42]And you can't you never know what you're gonna be up against and and how you're gonna find the right words or the right form to get there
[9:52]Well, I I'm so sorry about your sister and I'm also I'm very sad
[9:58]I didn't have time to read that memoir because
[10:00]I did research it and it sounds like you did it in a really unique way, basically inhabiting
[10:05]her mind and telling the story from her point of view and how she got to that point and
[10:11]I don't know if you can talk even a little more about that book because I have to go back
[10:16]and read it. Thank you. Well, I'm very excited because my publisher,
[10:21]Atria, is re-issueing history of a suicide for a 10th anniversary.
[10:26]Great. Coming out in November, it comes with a preface by Andrew Solomon who's somebody
[10:34]who's work I saw with my ear. So, I'm very happy that that book will be more visible because
[10:42]as you probably know, I think during the pandemic, so many young people have been suffering
[10:50]and sadly their suicide rates for younger people are rising and you know, my hope is that
[10:57]that my book could show people who are suffering the wounds that are left behind by the survivors
[11:07]and offer some sense of hope. So, it was a long process that took me about 10 years to
[11:14]fun to really work through that memoir and I recently read it for audio and that was really
[11:24]you must have been sobbing where you just don't know. It was I was very lucky that I had these
[11:29]two wonderful young men, you know, directing and one was doing the technology and they got me
[11:37]through it but I just felt like I had to narrate it. I didn't feel like somebody else should narrate
[11:43]that story. Yeah. Yes, but, you know, time helps and yes, and I'm glad the book is there
[11:53]to document that process. By the way, you brought my book up. You make it sound like I was trying to
[12:00]hawk my book to you. I didn't know. Thank you, but I lost one of my best friends from high school
[12:11]suicide. So I did write about that in the book. I don't know about your sister because I haven't
[12:17]read it, but she had developmental illness over time and it's sort of excruciating to watch that and
[12:23]not be able to really help. So anyway, it is a unique form of loss, but all lost is horrific. So
[12:30]anyway, I'm so sorry. I know how difficult that is. I felt so deeply for my sister's best friend
[12:42]who suffered her loss. Well, that's, I mean, you're so empathetic at that time to be even
[12:48]feeling for them when you are going through this. Oh, such immediate loss. Do you feel like some
[12:55]people say, oh, well, I'm glad this happened not really, but because this happened at least I got
[13:03]this new perspective on life where I realized that life was short and to grab the bull by the horns
[13:09]and do XYZ, do you feel that at all? Do you feel like it changed your relationship with life?
[13:16]Well, it definitely changed my relationship with life because I realized naively that, you know,
[13:24]you never think something like that is going to happen. And so I think that for me, it was like,
[13:31]I came to realize how vulnerable people are and, you know, that some have more of the resources
[13:42]to be able to get help when they are suffering and others for whatever reason can't or at least
[13:51]at that moment can't. So I think the loss of my sister did make me more empathetic obviously
[13:59]as a person and also more aware of how fragile life is and also more committed to the idea that
[14:09]as a writer, this is what we have to offer. I mean, I don't know how I would have suffered that
[14:18]loss without being able to put it into words. So I, you know, we're in more I feel like we're living in
[14:27]dark times, but yet we've got these authors who can somehow take us into a different experience
[14:37]or shed light on our own experience. So I think that's what it has given me, said me more than anything.
[14:45]You know, there's a larger purpose beyond just ourselves.
[14:50]Absolutely. I do feel that a part of the urge to write about it, about loss. And I have interviewed
[14:59]so many people who, and because I love those types of books myself is witnessing people go through
[15:05]something horrific and through rising from it. I mean, I like a lot of different stories, but
[15:09]there's something so deeply resonates with that. So I think it's part of it is to work through it
[15:15]yourself as the writer, as the person, as the feeler. But I think there's also this compulsion
[15:22]once you realize like this big secret, right, that we have to treat life differently,
[15:28]you want to wake everybody else up and be like, no, no, no, this is literally the most important
[15:32]thing. And I'm going to tell you my story so that hopefully you will also wake up without having to
[15:36]go through a loss like this, like look what happened, look what could happen. So it's almost like
[15:43]it's a warning, but also intended to be motivational, I think for other people. I think that's
[15:50]part of why people who have gone through these things want to share them to say, wait, look at what
[15:55]can happen. Don't don't ponder the day. Right. Yes, I agree with that. I did an event with a writer,
[16:03]A.M. Holmes, who gets out called the unfolding. And we did this event together at Natalie Jackson.
[16:13]And our books are so different, but we realized that both of us were kind of writing about the
[16:19]patriarchy and how it has influenced us as women, hers really through the lens of creating a
[16:28]a character who is very conservative and wants to kind of like a Steve Bannon character
[16:39]and how that affects his family. And of course, my novel is much more about how the patriarchy
[16:48]has affected this one character. But just to my point is that after our reading, people came
[16:56]up to us and said, wow, you know, we need novels to show us that this still exists. You know,
[17:05]we go for everything that is still somehow easier for women to get published, to get their books
[17:12]out there, but there still are, I think, some deep scars. So just back to that point of even what
[17:20]a novel can do to to awaken. Yes, as readers and to allow us to see that those ingrained
[17:33]scars or scars that give you ultimately some agency. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.
[17:43]Wait. So Jill, tell me about your career in publishing also. So you're not just a poet
[17:48]and a memoirist and novelist, but you are the upper echelon at Norton. And how has that been
[17:56]have you always, I mean, you must have been working in publishing all along. And what is it like
[18:01]now being the person who is choosing the books and making the statements and all of that?
[18:09]Yeah. Well, you know, I feel so fortunate to to be an editor at Norton. I worked here my entire
[18:17]career, basically in publishing. And, you know, it's really an honor to be able to, you know,
[18:24]to find authors and writers and nurture their books and watch their works coming to being. So
[18:33]I've worked with some incredible poets for our Norton stellar poetry list. And then I also edit
[18:41]some wonderful fiction writers and nonfiction writers. So it's, you know, I, I have to say it's
[18:48]almost like, you know, continuing to have the education way beyond graduate school. So, you know,
[18:56]it's, it's really, I was trying to write a essay about this that one happens when the author
[19:03]when the editor becomes the author and her focus about to be published. And I was just thinking
[19:10]about, you know, how when it's my turn, everything I know about the publishing industry suddenly
[19:17]kind of vanishes. And I just like, you know, me and kid on the block again, hoping her book will
[19:23]get some attention. Very weird. I really makes me totally understand how my authors feel that those
[19:34]first, you know, the month or two leading up to publication. And then the month or two after.
[19:40]And then once their books are out there, it's like total freedom again, you don't feel you have
[19:46]to worry anymore. But it is a, it is an interesting perspective. You know, as a writer, I sometimes
[19:54]do wish that I kind of lived outside of New York and could just have a line.
[20:00]and not think about the hype and the aspects of the business,
[20:05]but that's not how my life turns out.
[20:08]But you mentioned earlier,
[20:11]your book had been published by Atria.
[20:13]So why not publish with Norton?
[20:17]Oh, you know, a long time ago,
[20:19]I just thought that that would be too weird
[20:22]because I would then be,
[20:25]it would almost feel a little bit like self-publishing
[20:28]because I would hear, you know,
[20:30]and be in the meetings and, you know,
[20:33]I, yeah, for me, I don't think that would work well.
[20:39]But I think it's good to have that separation.
[20:42]And, you know, I really do have developed boundaries
[20:47]between myself as a writer and then as an editor.
[20:51]I think that's really important.
[20:53]It's when I show up for my job,
[20:54]I have to be there completely for my, you know,
[20:57]my colleagues that I work with and my authors.
[21:01]That makes sense.
[21:02]Yeah.
[21:03]What are some books you've edited lately
[21:05]that you're excited about or that you're working out now?
[21:07]So right now, I was really thrilled
[21:10]because one of my authors, Mary Roach,
[21:14]her book Fuzz is for the fourth week
[21:19]on the New York Times bestseller list.
[21:21]So that's in paperback.
[21:22]So that's very exciting.
[21:25]And I have, we just published a wonderful novel
[21:28]by Lance, Samantha Chang, called The Family Child,
[21:33]which is just curious for you to see.
[21:36]I was out now in paperback and that's in the,
[21:40]Obama picked it as one of his favorite books of the year.
[21:45]And that was so exciting.
[21:48]You know, another, just looking around at my bookshelps
[21:52]here in my office, I published a fabulous novel
[21:55]by Kirsten Valdez Clay, called The Five Wounds,
[22:00]which won the Center for Fiction Award.
[22:03]And actually on the board there.
[22:06]Oh great, great organization.
[22:09]Yes.
[22:09]And I also have a novel that I edited
[22:13]that's on the long list for the Center for Fiction Award
[22:17]called Activities of Daily Living,
[22:20]by Lisa Chang, that is so original.
[22:24]And then in poetry, I published this young writer,
[22:29]Roger Reeves, his second collection,
[22:31]called Best Barbarians,
[22:34]which is on the National Book Award
[22:36]long list for poetry this year.
[22:38]Because there's a really exciting season for me.
[22:42]And another poet that I brought to New York
[22:45]years ago, Joey Harjo, she was poet laureate
[22:50]for three terms.
[22:51]And we have her new book,
[22:52]I'll call poet warrior, which is wonderful.
[22:57]So yes, I'm very rich in talent here.
[23:01]That's great.
[23:03]Yeah.
[23:04]So inspirational to be in all these books
[23:07]and everything for you as a writer too, right?
[23:10]And I feel like it really is wonderful.
[23:14]So from all of your experience,
[23:17]what advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[23:21]Yes, I think that my advice would be to trust yourself
[23:27]as a young writer, to trust your own vision
[23:33]and not feel that you have to write
[23:38]what you think is fashionable at the moment,
[23:41]that everybody has their own story
[23:44]to tell whether it's through fiction or poetry
[23:47]or nonfiction.
[23:49]And to find that story,
[23:53]just going back to what I said about Stanley Plumlee
[23:57]by poetry teacher who passed away a few years ago sadly.
[24:01]But the one thing that he told me when I was 18 or 19 years old
[24:07]and was in his poetry workshop,
[24:10]he told our class to write what hurts.
[24:13]So, you know, for me, that was, that opened the door.
[24:18]I'm ready.
[24:19]I didn't know.
[24:20]But there's a certain sense of urgency.
[24:24]If you're really writing from that place within you
[24:29]that needs to be heard, needs, you know,
[24:32]and it doesn't mean that it has to come out
[24:35]even autobiographically, you know,
[24:38]but you're just tapping into the essence of who you are.
[24:44]Sounds a little woo-woo-woo-woo, doesn't.
[24:47]How good, good, because I feel like that's been my guiding light
[24:52]through my projects that I like in the deceptions.
[24:58]I really was trying to, you know, capture this character
[25:02]who's in this crisis and what it means to be a mother
[25:06]and a wife and also to be a writer and, you know,
[25:11]and, you know, the whole stew of it.
[25:14]And, you know, so each book, when I think that was kind
[25:18]of inspired by a particular need of mine to investigate.
[25:24]So that's the advice I would give.
[25:26]Love it.
[25:28]Jill, thank you so much.
[25:29]Thank you for coming on Mom's San Antonio Read Books.
[25:31]I know we told you it's fast.
[25:33]Yes, well, this was, I want to keep people's interest.
[25:36]I feel like people, I tried it longer.
[25:38]And I noticed that everybody stopped listening
[25:40]and that not only did people stop listening,
[25:42]but if I released longer episodes,
[25:44]people wouldn't even start them.
[25:46]Yeah, no, I think it's great.
[25:48]And I actually want to send you a copy of history
[25:51]of suicide.
[25:52]So will you email me?
[25:55]Yes, yes.
[25:57]Get your address.
[25:58]Yes.
[25:59]That's such a pleasure for me.
[26:00]Oh, I would love that.
[26:01]I really would love to read it.
[26:02]Bye, thank you.
[26:03]Okay.
[26:05]Thanks for listening to this episode of Mom's Don't Have Time
[26:08]to Read Books.
[26:09]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebiowans
[26:12]and at moms don't have time to read books.
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[26:21]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[26:24]for the Sound Editing.
[26:25]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[26:27]for providing this fantastic intro and outroom music.