Eliza Minot, IN THE ORCHARD
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[1:03]Eliza Minow is the author of In the Orchard, A Novel.
[1:07]Eliza was born in Beverly, Massachusetts and currently lives in Maplewood, New Jersey with
[1:11]her family.
[1:12]This is her first novel.
[1:13]Welcome, Eliza.
[1:14]Thank you so much for coming on Mom's End of Time to read books.
[1:17]Discuss In the Orchard.
[1:19]Thank you for having me.
[1:21]So much.
[1:22]I'm so delighted to be here.
[1:23]Oh, yeah.
[1:24]Could you please tell listeners what your book is about?
[1:27]You know, I just was thinking you were the first person that I'm actually talking about
[1:30]the book with.
[1:31]No way.
[1:32]And I should have prepared a little better because I was thinking, oh my God, I don't even
[1:36]have my galley near me or, oh, I don't like in terms of a summary, don't, it doesn't
[1:41]have to be perfect.
[1:42]I know.
[1:43]How about start with this?
[1:44]So I don't fit you in this fight.
[1:45]When did you have the idea to write this book?
[1:47]What was the germ of the idea that launched the book?
[1:50]And maybe I'll just like find your way into this picture.
[1:53]Excellent question.
[1:54]And I can.
[1:55]I can summarize it.
[1:56]I mean, I did write it.
[1:57]I can.
[1:58]But as you might know, it's not really heavy plot driven.
[2:02]So when did I have this germ?
[2:04]Basically, it was a long, long time ago.
[2:07]I like you have four children who are now grown.
[2:10]But when I first sold this book, I'd written maybe 75, 80 pages.
[2:16]And it was 2009 or 10, long time ago.
[2:20]But you know, I just given birth to my fourth, not just, but he was very small.
[2:25]All my kids were little.
[2:26]They were close together, you know, within two years of each other.
[2:30]Like, you know, one would be six, one would be almost up or, yeah, yeah, yeah, wouldn't
[2:37]that be something?
[2:38]Wow.
[2:39]That is impressive.
[2:41]How many trends?
[2:42]Is there a triplet shown in there?
[2:44]How did you do that?
[2:45]Yeah.
[2:46]No, no twins or anything.
[2:47]But it was staggered, you know, sort of every 19, 20 months.
[2:51]But that's a whole other conversation you and I could have.
[2:53]I'm sure.
[2:54]But anyway, the idea at the time was sort of, you know, there had been the market.
[3:01]Does that, like, it was just, I was reading the New York Times.
[3:04]And there was a big fold out on home equity and debt.
[3:08]And I thought I had looked at our toilet, which is called American Standard.
[3:12]I don't know why I've put those two together.
[3:14]But I thought that will be my next book.
[3:16]It'll be about, you know, middle class, family debt, American debt, you know, money,
[3:20]blah, blah, blah.
[3:23]Needless to say, I did not write it very quickly.
[3:25]Nor did I really get to writing it because I thought, you know what?
[3:28]I'm just going to raise my kids and focusing on this.
[3:30]And I started teaching.
[3:31]So that took up time.
[3:32]I went back on my masters.
[3:34]I mean, I just was, you can understand, a busy person with sort of thinking
[3:38]of this book the whole time in my mind.
[3:41]And it definitely just veered away from a book about families and debt.
[3:47]And what had been preoccupying me all those years.
[3:52]Now, I had the right zoom.
[3:54]Did I like this?
[3:55]Yeah.
[3:56]You know, I know.
[3:57]It was called the American Standard.
[3:58]It was going to be a whole completely different thing.
[4:00]And as my editor said, it's like, I think it's outgrown that title.
[4:03]You know, it just became, I could summarize it as one review,
[4:08]an ode to motherhood or maternal things.
[4:13]But all of the confusing things that I was preoccupied during those times,
[4:18]I mean, not confusing as all.
[4:21]We all are born and we all die.
[4:24]And we all have had someone care for us, whether it was a mother or surrogate mother,
[4:30]someone like a mother, family member, guardian, whoever, somebody does that.
[4:35]And it just blew my mind.
[4:37]I mean, I know it blows all mother's minds or whoever's doing that caregiver.
[4:41]But it just, it's what I was preoccupied with for so long.
[4:44]But I felt like I've got to write something about this before I move on.
[4:48]So even though I wasn't actively working on it, I certainly was doing research.
[4:53]Do you know what I mean?
[4:54]It was like all of the kind of contradictions of raising little kids.
[4:59]It's like it's both terrifying and comforting.
[5:02]It's wonderful and dreadful.
[5:05]It's, you know, miraculous and completely mundane.
[5:09]You know, it's like all of that.
[5:11]I just wanted to try to capture somehow.
[5:14]So what is it about?
[5:15]It's very briefly in a nutshell, log line.
[5:18]It's young mother has given birth recently to her fourth baby,
[5:23]is having a dream about being debt free,
[5:26]which kind of goes back to the original book way back when.
[5:29]And it wakes up nursing in the middle of the night.
[5:32]thinks about her past, thinks about grief, her own mother died when she was young.
[5:37]thinks about other mothers that she's met who maybe she knows well.
[5:41]And some she doesn't know it all well, but that she deals with on a daily basis.
[5:45]Or it's just kind of all that input of all those other minds.
[5:49]And then the family rises and goes to an apple orchard.
[5:53]And they have not they.
[5:55]The mother, her name is Mazy, with her little newborn as me,
[5:59]who she's with all the time.
[6:02]She shouldn't be going to an orchard when the baby is only two weeks old,
[6:04]but this is the kind of situation that we're in.
[6:07]So she's kind of pushing it.
[6:09]And she has two interesting interactions with older women.
[6:14]One quite old and one sort of grandmother age.
[6:17]And a younger woman who just found out she's pregnant.
[6:20]So that's not giving anything away.
[6:22]Now that there's any high stakes, but they're sort of, you know,
[6:25]wonder and danger makes it sound like a murder mystery in the orange.
[6:30]I like wonder and danger.
[6:32]That's good.
[6:33]Tale of motherhood, wonder and danger.
[6:35]That's, can you use that?
[6:37]Yeah.
[6:38]And it's, you know, I don't know.
[6:40]It's both expansive and claustrophobic being a mom for sure.
[6:45]And I think the book might be too for, I don't mean that in a bad way,
[6:49]but sort of that in the brain.
[6:51]Yes, warm hole.
[6:54]Well, it's like someone else's lived experience here in someone else's
[6:58]shoes.
[6:59]And it's always interesting.
[7:00]Even if you and I are both mothers, right, or four,
[7:03]have different our experiences are in each moment.
[7:07]And, and the, how some moments are like a thousand years long.
[7:10]And others are quick.
[7:12]And I don't know.
[7:13]I think it adds context to each of our individual lives by hearing about
[7:18]life like Macy's and what she's thinking about and dreaming about
[7:21]and doing and, and all of that.
[7:23]And some of the stuff that, that doesn't necessarily get talked about
[7:26]front and center.
[7:27]It's important.
[7:28]Yeah.
[7:29]It's all important stuff.
[7:30]So thank you.
[7:31]It is also pleading.
[7:32]I mean, it's nothing else.
[7:34]Just like when someone dies, when someone grows and is born.
[7:37]I don't know.
[7:38]It's just surreal.
[7:39]Yet it's not.
[7:40]It's as real as life gets.
[7:41]But it's kooky.
[7:42]Yeah.
[7:43]It's bizarre.
[7:44]Yeah.
[7:45]Trippy.
[7:46]Let's put it that way.
[7:47]How old are your kids now?
[7:49]20 to 20, 18, 16.
[7:50]Got it.
[7:51]Yeah.
[7:52]How about you?
[7:53]Are yours.
[7:54]I have twins who will be 16 in June.
[7:57]And then.
[7:58]Yeah.
[7:59]So yeah.
[8:00]I skipped the line with the twins there.
[8:01]And then eight and nine.
[8:02]So.
[8:03]Oh, cute.
[8:04]I know.
[8:05]I have little guys.
[8:06]Yeah.
[8:07]That's cute.
[8:08]So I have ways to go.
[8:09]But yes, that's it still.
[8:10]That's still.
[8:11]That's fun.
[8:12]I mean, not fun.
[8:13]Twins have always fascinated me.
[8:14]and we won't get into that obviously right now.
[8:16]But to have them at the top of the family must be a cool dynamic.
[8:20]Interesting dynamic.
[8:21]Interesting dynamic.
[8:22]Well, let's move on.
[8:23]Yes.
[8:24]No, it is interesting.
[8:26]They're very different kids.
[8:27]I'll just leave it at that.
[8:28]Yes.
[8:29]So wait.
[8:30]Tell me about after all this time working on it, pausing more education,
[8:34]all of it.
[8:35]Tell me about selling it and how you went about that whole process.
[8:40]Well, this is an interesting thing.
[8:42]I sold it.
[8:43]So I wrote two books before.
[8:45]One when I was 29, one when I was right before.
[8:49]I guess I sold it.
[8:51]It was published when my fourth was born.
[8:54]But I sold it when my third was being born.
[8:58]Do you know what I mean?
[8:59]Yeah.
[9:00]So I had written them and then sold them to my editor who I love,
[9:04]who's wonderful.
[9:06]So I thought, right or now, you know, I've got my career.
[9:09]Like I used to work in television and tea.
[9:11]And so I thought I'm in the living outside of New York.
[9:14]I've got to work.
[9:15]So I'm going to be a big girl and write some pages
[9:19]and then sell the book to my editor.
[9:21]And it was at a time when the market was terrible.
[9:24]Wait.
[9:25]Wait.
[9:26]Wait.
[9:27]Did you say earlier?
[9:28]This was long time ago.
[9:29]Yes.
[9:30]This was in like 2010.
[9:31]OK.
[9:32]So when you said that I wasn't sure if you met.
[9:33]I'm sorry.
[9:34]Yeah.
[9:35]No, no.
[9:36]I didn't say it was sold.
[9:37]So I never didn't say.
[9:38]I was just like working it.
[9:39]But it was the first time I'd sold it early.
[9:42]So it was kind of hanging over me.
[9:44]Like, you know, you got it.
[9:45]But I'm not Anne Rice.
[9:46]And my editor's not like, we didn't know.
[9:48]You know, it's like we understand you're raising a family.
[9:50]You're busy.
[9:51]It's your problem.
[9:52]Not really theirs.
[9:54]So it evolved.
[9:55]And it was more my own headache to not have it turned in.
[9:58]So I'd sold it before.
[10:00]was both wonderful and not crippling because it wasn't difficult.
[10:04]It was just, let's put it this way.
[10:06]The market wasn't great.
[10:07]So it wasn't like inspiring amount where you're like,
[10:10]yeah, I got to fix it, you know, tie it all up right now.
[10:14]So then how did you know it was done?
[10:16]Good question.
[10:17]You know, COVID actually kind of made me do it.
[10:21]I thought I went to, I was teaching a lot like,
[10:24]and I thought, you know,
[10:26]the few times that I had like finalist for professor stuff,
[10:29]they were like, you know, you don't have a master's.
[10:31]We can't have you come and teach it here.
[10:34]We can't teach graduate school.
[10:35]So I thought, okay, and Rutgers Newark is right nearby.
[10:38]Jan Ann Phillips had just started the program there,
[10:41]the MFA, not just, but a few years before.
[10:44]And it was fabulous.
[10:46]I got, I had like a presidential fellowship.
[10:49]I was teaching undergrads.
[10:51]I was being paid to go to school and I was 45.
[10:55]It was great, you know, I'd never been really in workshops
[10:58]except for in college.
[10:59]I went to Barnard.
[11:00]That's like where I had writing workshop experience,
[11:02]you know, that's what I was sort of baping it all on
[11:04]when I was teaching.
[11:05]Like, what else did we do, you know,
[11:07]just go and making it up as I went.
[11:09]So I thought, I'll go there and I'll finish my book.
[11:12]And I went and I wrote a lot,
[11:14]but I didn't really, I shared some of American standard
[11:18]as it was then, but you know, maybe 15 pages,
[11:21]which some of my, what classmates, colleagues
[11:24]would recognize little bits in this book,
[11:26]but it really, I didn't work on it.
[11:28]I worked on other stuff.
[11:29]So that was kind of one of those come out of there
[11:31]and I'm not, I've still not done with the book, you know,
[11:33]but it still be got a lot of reading and writing
[11:37]and definitely inspiring, you know,
[11:39]just to be back thinking like that
[11:42]and thinking in totally different ways
[11:44]that I hadn't even been thinking at all before, you know.
[11:47]So that was 2017, 2018 that I finished
[11:52]and I was teaching a little more.
[11:53]My kids were still completely around
[11:55]because they were all teenagers.
[11:57]So that was probably more, you know, tight house.
[12:00]Let's put it that way, head and mind, you know.
[12:03]And then they did start to go off
[12:06]but then COVID happened and everyone was here.
[12:08]But being stuck in the house,
[12:10]I'd never done this before and I'd hear about writers,
[12:13]people, artists who get up early in the morning,
[12:15]you know, and get a lot done.
[12:16]I'd think like, oh my God, that's the last thing
[12:18]I would ever be able to do.
[12:19]But I started, I did start to do that, baby.
[12:22]And it actually worked because I did have a lot
[12:26]written stuff, like an occasionally maybe I'd go up to me
[12:29]and where my sister has a house for five days
[12:31]and I'd get like sort of 40 pages, you know,
[12:33]like I'd do stuff in chunks.
[12:34]So I had things accumulating.
[12:36]And then I finally was like, okay, during COVID,
[12:39]when I would get up in the morning
[12:40]and I was quite productive
[12:41]because it was the only time when our house was quiet
[12:43]and it was lovely and I would get worked on.
[12:46]And it was like being stuck at home,
[12:49]it was good for my work.
[12:51]Let's put it that way.
[12:52]Then I just gave myself a debt, like,
[12:54]got to finish by August or whatever.
[12:56]That was 20, 21, I guess.
[13:01]So now here we are.
[13:03]You know, I finished it 2022 final
[13:05]and then now it's finally gonna come out.
[13:08]Oh my gosh.
[13:09]So it's not like I was working on it for 15 years,
[13:13]you know, like it's not like, but I mean,
[13:15]somewhere in my head I was certainly, you know,
[13:18]I couldn't even get beyond 10 hours of motherhood.
[13:22]I just had to focus.
[13:24]So next book will be more expansive.
[13:28]Okay.
[13:29]Are you already working on another book?
[13:31]I've got a couple things are percolating, but yeah.
[13:35]Yeah.
[13:36]So.
[13:39]What do you like to read?
[13:41]I like to read a lot of different things
[13:44]and I'm terrible at getting tons of books out
[13:47]at the library and then impulsively asking them
[13:50]to sit, you know, we can, our library is being renovated.
[13:53]So it's extra easy to kind of request books
[13:56]and then go pick them up like you're at a bookstore.
[13:58]And then I don't end up reading them.
[14:00]Maybe one of them I read, but I like reading,
[14:03]I guess, you know, right now, mostly sort of interior
[14:07]like this book a little bit, like I like it's less to me
[14:11]not all my whole life long, but just right now,
[14:14]less about what is happening to a person
[14:18]the more interesting thing to me is sort of how they're living,
[14:23]you know, or how they're thinking, how they're coping,
[14:26]how they're reacting to things that have already happened,
[14:29]like how they're moving through.
[14:32]So, you know, Debra Levy, I was really,
[14:36]or I'm just thinking of books like that that I've read
[14:39]or like Rachel Cuss, some of those out like,
[14:42]but I read those a while ago, but you know what I mean?
[14:44]Like I do like reading that kind of,
[14:47]it's almost like reading personal essays in a weird way.
[14:49]Do you know what I mean?
[14:50]Yes, I'm blind with poetry, which I like reading too.
[14:55]And of course I love a good plot book,
[14:57]but I'm just trying just lately.
[15:01]That's the kind of stuff I've been reading.
[15:03]Yes, poetic musings.
[15:06]Yes, I do, it's like that's sort of where my mind
[15:09]I can like lock in and go, and I'm glad to just be there.
[15:14]Do you feel like you're really organized
[15:17]when it comes to your private life and your kids
[15:20]and all of that and like,
[15:21]because it takes a certain amount of logistical
[15:23]operational efficiencies to have four kids, right?
[15:27]Yes. Do you feel like in that sphere?
[15:30]Do you feel like in different spheres,
[15:31]you have like different paces
[15:33]or like that your focus zooms in on one for a while?
[15:36]You know, when you were talking about like writing this
[15:37]in batches and like, you know, going back to the kids
[15:40]or like how does your mind work?
[15:42]Oh my gosh, I don't know how it works.
[15:45]I mean, you know, it's like everything is kind of halfway.
[15:49]I don't want to swear, but everything is like half
[15:52]or not even half.
[15:53]Everything's just sort of spread thin,
[15:55]which writing wise is okay
[15:57]because you don't want to be two perfectionists.
[15:59]Let's face it, otherwise you won't get anything done.
[16:01]Do you know what I mean?
[16:02]So I just give it up and try to do what I can
[16:05]and then hope for the best.
[16:07]You know, like even this book, I often am amazed
[16:11]that it actually makes sense in a way to people, you know.
[16:14]Well, I mean, it's just surreal kind of.
[16:16]In the same way that raising a kid,
[16:18]it's sometimes surreal.
[16:19]It's like you look and you're like, oh my God,
[16:21]you're 18 now and you're a human all your own.
[16:27]I don't know.
[16:28]I mean, not it's surreal, but you know what I mean?
[16:30]That's a weird answer.
[16:31]I'm not that inefficient because I've managed to raise kids
[16:35]and I've also managed to write a book
[16:36]and I've managed to teach like I can do it,
[16:39]but not that I'm not super efficient,
[16:43]which I would, I want to applaud you
[16:45]and also say thank you for all of your efficiency.
[16:49]I'm like, I'm a very sort of reluctant, you know,
[16:53]Instagram, all of that stuff.
[16:54]But when I am, I'm like, oh, zip.
[16:56]I mean, you're doing awesome.
[16:58]And you're like killing it as they say,
[17:01]no, but better than that.
[17:02]It's like, you know, with such a sort of light touch,
[17:05]you seem to be getting so much done so efficiently.
[17:08]Thank you.
[17:09]You're welcome.
[17:10]It's not a light.
[17:11]I wouldn't know if it's such a light touch.
[17:12]It's like.
[17:13]Well, I mean, like, like touching everything.
[17:16]I guess, you know, when things look easy
[17:19]is the best thing for things to look.
[17:21]So I'm sure it's not easy, but it looks it.
[17:24]Okay.
[17:25]Which brings me back to, it's not efficient.
[17:28]If you could see the look on the face of many of my family
[17:31]when I'm sitting at the dining room table
[17:32]trying to write my book, you know, it's like,
[17:36]it's like, what the hell is she doing?
[17:39]So it is satisfying to have something hard, you know,
[17:43]actually happening, like a real novel is being published.
[17:47]Yes.
[17:48]Because they didn't, they would little.
[17:49]They didn't know that I'd written books before.
[17:51]I mean, they'd see them, but you know,
[17:52]whatever they don't care.
[17:55]Well, they must be proud of you.
[17:57]Are they excited?
[17:58]Do they?
[17:59]I think a little, yeah.
[18:01]Yeah.
[18:03]What advice would you have?
[18:04]But what advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[18:07]And like, what would you say if one of your kids
[18:08]decided to be an author?
[18:10]Oh, I would mostly tell like what I tell my students
[18:13]and it's so boring, but just to read a lot
[18:16]and read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read,
[18:18]and just read and read.
[18:21]And if you want to be an author,
[18:23]you do have to sit down at the dining room table
[18:26]and have people looking at you funny, you know,
[18:29]like, you just, you do have to tell my students that too.
[18:33]It's like the hardest part of writing is actually writing.
[18:36]Like you gotta sit down and write a lot
[18:39]to accumulate writing or at least sit there.
[18:42]And I don't know.
[18:44]I mean, you've written a book, you know,
[18:45]it's like sitting and thinking you're getting worked on
[18:48]when are you getting worked on?
[18:49]You know, what is work?
[18:51]And, you know, how much did you write?
[18:52]And is that the thing?
[18:54]You know, what are you measuring pages?
[18:56]Are you measuring?
[18:58]I don't know.
[18:59]It just feels humiliating sometimes.
[19:01]You know, like I got a good paragraph, you know,
[19:03]it's like, I don't know.
[19:05]But I am an introverted person
[19:07]and I've always kind of compulsively written, I guess.
[19:10]So it's not a chore.
[19:12]It's sort of a comfort for me.
[19:15]I like that.
[19:16]That's nice.
[19:18]Amazing.
[19:19]Well, this has been really fun.
[19:22]I hope that I can help you find your pitching.
[19:26]And, you know, thank you for the book.
[19:29]I didn't even like read the sections, but anyway,
[19:32]it was a beautiful lyrical take on life.
[19:37]And it's always great to have a new framework
[19:40]for thinking about something.
[19:41]Like a new, just like a shift in perspective,
[19:42]it's beautiful and welcome, especially.
[19:45]Thank you.
[19:46]And you know, I'm so happy.
[19:49]I have to say that the days of wicking up
[19:52]and nursing are behind me.
[19:54]Me too.
[19:55]But I mean, you know, it's nice to be about, yes.
[19:59]I mean.
[20:00]the, not I don't mean the tedium of it, but I did feel like why haven't I read a book more about this.
[20:06]I don't know.
[20:07]Yeah, it's just not.
[20:09]I mean, I get it.
[20:09]It's, you know, I can, I get why, but it does seem like an undervalued in terms of like the kind of, I don't mean high art, but do you know what I mean?
[20:21]The sort of like the poetic, yeah, like the, it's intense.
[20:27]It's intense.
[20:29]Yeah, just trying to think of this other book.
[20:31]I felt like it was like an Australian author.
[20:35]I'll think of it.
[20:37]And there are, I mean, I'm thinking of like, you know, department of speculation and there's some extra like right
[20:42]right.
[20:42]Even Lydia Davis has a cool like, I forget what the title not thoughts with the baby, but something with the, you know, like it's just, I don't know, but I.
[20:51]Yeah.
[20:52]Yeah.
[20:53]Blah, blah, blah.
[20:53]Yeah.
[20:54]Blah, blah, blah.
[20:57]All right.
[20:57]Well, thank you.
[20:59]Thank you.
[21:00]And I have to meet you in person.
[21:01]We're not so far apart.
[21:02]Yes.
[21:03]Yeah.
[21:03]Thanks a lot.
[21:04]I like your library.
[21:05]Thank you.
[21:06]Like so beautiful.
[21:07]Thank you.
[21:08]Bye.
[21:08]Bye.
[21:08]Bye.
[21:09]Thanks.
[21:11]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms.
[21:13]Don't have time to read books.
[21:15]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at moms.
[21:19]Don't have time to read books.
[21:20]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every
[21:26]other week.
[21:27]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[21:31]And thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and now
[21:35]trim music.