Sarah Mandel, LITTLE EARTHQUAKES: A Memoir
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[0:06]This 30-minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days
[0:12]a year for about 30 minutes.
[0:15]I am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction
[0:20]and memoir.
[0:21]Our books are already out now.
[0:23]You can check it out on zippybooks.com.
[0:26]And we have a magazine called Zippy Mag, where we have lots of wonderful essays and
[0:30]lifestyle features.
[0:31]That's at zippymag.com.
[0:32]We have classes.
[0:33]It's a B-Classist.com.
[0:36]And I recently opened a book store in LA called Zippy's Bookshop at 1113 Montana Avenue at
[0:43]11th Street in San Monica.
[0:45]I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings.
[0:49]But this here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in 2018, and no matter what
[0:55]I do, this is basically my favorite thing.
[0:57]Enjoy.
[1:03]Sarah Mandel is the author of Little Earthquakes and Memoir, which I absolutely loved and actually
[1:09]have become Instagram friends and buddies and in-person friends too with Sarah since reading
[1:15]her book and going to the launch of it at Shakespeare in New York and then having her come
[1:20]to this author lunch.
[1:21]And I hosted and I just have so much respect for her and I know she's still going through
[1:27]hard time, health wise and so I'm sending her all the amazing vibes that there are in
[1:34]the world.
[1:35]And I'm just forever in her corner and I hope that you all enjoy our conversation.
[1:40]Sarah is a licensed clinical psychologist based in New York City.
[1:43]She received her doctorate, a side D from Rutgers University and a BA in studio art from
[1:48]Bard College.
[1:49]She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two daughters.
[1:52]Welcome, Sarah.
[1:53]Thanks so much for coming.
[1:54]On moms, don't have time to read books.
[1:56]Discuss Little Earthquakes.
[1:58]A Memoir.
[1:59]Thank you for having me.
[2:01]Of course, your story was so powerful.
[2:04]As you know, I've been such a fan and I just, my heart goes out to you so much everything
[2:11]you went through and that you wrote about it and there's just so much here all mixed
[2:17]up and it's a beautiful story.
[2:19]Anyway.
[2:20]So thanks.
[2:21]Thank you.
[2:23]Thank you.
[2:24]Thank you for coming to my launch last week that just meant the world to me that you showed
[2:29]up.
[2:30]You've been such a supporter of the book and it really is such an honor and when I brought
[2:37]this thing out into the world, I just hope that it would resonate with people on the
[2:41]fact that it's resonated with you has been really, wow, it's been really special for
[2:47]me.
[2:49]Thank you.
[2:50]Well, I was kind of mortified by my kids' behavior for, you know, I was like, I loved to
[2:59]bring them to book events at night when I know they're around, but I don't know, it was
[3:04]one of those nights and I was just like, please, just please, both of you.
[3:08]Come on.
[3:09]Anyway.
[3:10]So I couldn't stay.
[3:11]I think we've all been there, not as long as I wanted to, but I'm like, you know what,
[3:16]we're not just, we're just not going to do this.
[3:18]So anyway.
[3:19]Anyway.
[3:20]Okay.
[3:21]We've, we get it.
[3:22]We're all mothers.
[3:23]We get it.
[3:24]Okay.
[3:25]So please tell listeners a little about what your, what your memoir is about and, and
[3:30]when you decided that the journey you had gone through, I shouldn't use your journey,
[3:35]experiences you've gone through, that you would write about it as a memoir.
[3:39]Like when did it take book shape in your head versus just life shape?
[3:43]So all of that.
[3:44]Okay.
[3:45]That's a lot.
[3:46]I'll try and, I'll try and bring it down.
[3:50]So the book is about when I was 36 years old and I was working in my practice as a clinical
[4:01]psychologist and I was pregnant with my second child, Sienna, who is healthy and spun
[4:07]key and doing great.
[4:10]And I found a lump in my breast, assumed both me and my OB, GY, I assume that it was
[4:16]a milk duct that was clogged.
[4:19]And I went to the doctor to get it checked out and maybe drained to help reduce any complications
[4:24]with breastfeeding after the birth.
[4:27]Of course, this lump was not related to breastfeeding or a duct issue.
[4:34]It was breast cancer and I found out several hours before giving birth to Sienna that this
[4:43]was stage four breast cancer or metastatic breast cancer and it was in my back.
[4:50]And it was an absolutely terrifying traumatic experience that was bringing life into the
[4:57]world and didn't know if I was going to be around to raise this baby and take care of
[5:03]my now nine year old.
[5:05]But then after three months of treatment, I got another pet scan and the pet scan came
[5:14]back clean and there was no evidence of disease, which is called any D. I was considered
[5:22]a super responder.
[5:24]This is like an almost unheard of response to treatment.
[5:30]It was as if I had been given this new opportunity to live and everyone was celebrating
[5:37]around me and crying with joy and relief and I felt nothing.
[5:44]I felt nothing.
[5:46]I felt guilt because I felt nothing because here there were so many other women with
[5:52]this disease who would just do anything to get this kind of response and I felt nothing
[5:58]like what a betrayal to these women.
[6:01]But I really was so traumatized and in this dissociated state that I was separate from
[6:07]my body.
[6:08]I didn't feel like I was in the room when I was hearing this news from my ecologist.
[6:13]And this kind of state of dissociation state with me for months.
[6:20]And I didn't really get insight into this process that was going on for me until one day
[6:27]day I was lying in bed and I was just staring up at the ceiling for hours and hours
[6:32]and not thinking, not feeling, not sensing anything, feeling like I have completely lost
[6:39]my sense of self and I realized, oh my God, I'm really traumatized and this is what
[6:47]I did for a living.
[6:48]I was working with patients who had significant traumas and I thought, well maybe I can
[6:55]apply the treatment that I've worked on with my patients to myself and it's this type
[7:01]of narrative therapy where you go back and it's kind of like an archeological dig.
[7:07]You like try to piece together all of the memories of the traumatic event and face the
[7:13]most gruesome terrifying details and create a narrative with the beginning, middle,
[7:19]and end and you read it and you read it aloud and you kind of habituate to it.
[7:25]It's a form of exposure and I thought, okay, maybe I need to do this for myself.
[7:31]So sort of like out of desperation to wake myself up from the state of complete numbness
[7:39]and being in a fog, I started to write and I just, the words just tumbled out onto the
[7:48]page and Gary soon I had this trauma narrative that I had written but I realized I wasn't
[7:57]fully healed yet from the trauma and that I had more to write and I grappled with what
[8:04]to do with that.
[8:05]I remember sitting on my terrace of my husband and saying, like, what do I do now?
[8:10]I've done with the trauma narrative but I still feel like there's more, there's more
[8:15]for me to do so I wrote a chapter about that and then I started writing in the present
[8:23]about the unfolding of living with a chronic illness but also it became a story about
[8:32]trauma recovery and about finding myself again about finding trust in my body again, things
[8:43]that had been annihilated and had to be rebuilt over time and over new experiences and
[8:52]now I have this book that started as a true experiment in self healing that was not meant
[8:59]to be read by others but once I got to 200 pages and read the book, I thought, you know
[9:05]what?
[9:06]It's maybe a book for other people and I think it really is like most basic, it's a book
[9:18]about how we can manage the inherent uncertainty of being humans and grappling with the unknown
[9:27]and navigating life circumstances that come our way that we had no preparation for that come
[9:34]out of the blue.
[9:35]Does that answer your question?
[9:37]Yes, this is a joke for you, there's no right or wrong answer, it's for you to talk about
[9:45]your book and all of that so yes, it does.
[9:49]It's funny because it explains some of the more self-referential but like the meta chapters
[9:55]where you're talking about writing, you know, and yeah, so.
[10:00]Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
[10:01]You know, it's interesting because in memoir,
[10:04]you still have like a protagonist and characters.
[10:06]It's just yourself and your family, right?
[10:08]So I feel like the character of your husband,
[10:11]in particular, was so well drawn.
[10:14]And I actually, it brought tears from my eyes
[10:17]in the beginning when you had called him
[10:19]to tell him about your diagnosis.
[10:21]Then he had been on his way to Arizona
[10:22]and without even asking,
[10:24]he just got right on another flight and headed right home.
[10:27]And it's still the chance.
[10:29]Yup.
[10:32]So tell me a little bit more about him,
[10:35]about how this has like affected both a book.
[10:39]Like having this be public, I guess, in particular
[10:42]and how this whole thing has affected a marriage
[10:46]because that's another thing not to delve into
[10:49]your complete private life.
[10:50]You don't have to go into the details,
[10:51]but you know what I mean?
[10:52]Just like this, he's a character too.
[10:55]I sort of wanted a PS on him and he's together, you know?
[10:59]Yeah, I mean, I've really tried to thank him
[11:06]and also honor him because this book is really our story.
[11:12]So I feel like it's our book and, you know,
[11:16]he's a lot more private than I am.
[11:19]And he really gave me the permission
[11:22]to write about our story.
[11:25]And that's a big deal.
[11:27]I mean, there's some very poignant and romantic
[11:32]and beautiful vignettes of our relationship
[11:38]in the book, but there's also, you know,
[11:40]there's some arguments in a little testy
[11:43]and that's marriage.
[11:44]I mean, that's the reality of being in a relationship.
[11:48]But I think he's been incredibly generous
[11:51]in terms of letting me put a relationship out there
[11:54]for the benefit of other couples
[11:57]and other people who are navigating a trauma
[12:00]and their relationship because it's really hard.
[12:03]And I mean, marriage is hard, no matter what,
[12:06]but you throw a trauma into a marriage
[12:09]and it gets that much more difficult.
[12:12]He's been great.
[12:13]He's super excited about the book
[12:17]and Gideon, he used to work in publishing way back when.
[12:21]So this is all really fun for him to see
[12:25]that I'm writing a book.
[12:26]And for a year, he told me, like,
[12:28]after I wrote my dissertation and grad school,
[12:31]he's like, you've got to get this published,
[12:33]you need to write a book.
[12:34]And so this is kind of his dream come true
[12:38]that I have a book now that's out.
[12:42]But yeah, it is complicated.
[12:43]It is complicated.
[12:45]And we've talked about like, you know,
[12:47]what is it like for people to know
[12:49]these intimate details of our lives?
[12:51]And so for me as a psychologist,
[12:54]this is a huge shift because with my patients,
[12:58]I was sometimes I would disclose a little bit more
[13:00]depending on the quiet,
[13:02]but in general, I was really boundary
[13:06]and I'm not boundary.
[13:07]In this book, I mean, you know, a lot about me,
[13:11]so if you do.
[13:12]And so yeah, but I think given
[13:18]what I can do now, you know,
[13:19]I'm not seeing my patients, unfortunately,
[13:22]in my practice anymore,
[13:24]this is my way to really reach people.
[13:26]And I think being authentic
[13:29]and letting it all be out there
[13:32]is really a way to connect with people on a human level
[13:35]and, you know, validate that what we're going through
[13:40]is human and it's you're not crazy
[13:44]for having these thoughts or feelings or experiences.
[13:48]And you're not alone.
[13:50]Like this is something we know about,
[13:53]there's science here.
[13:55]And I think that can really help in the healing process.
[13:58]You know, this whole notion of being boundary,
[14:01]I understand the value as a therapist.
[14:02]You know, that's like part of the contract.
[14:04]You know, it's not about you're chairing all the time.
[14:08]You know, otherwise it would just be friendship,
[14:10]honestly, that's right.
[14:11]You know, my husband Kyle, like he,
[14:15]like I used to be very much like,
[14:16]well, this is this person's role and this is my role
[14:19]and like, no, no, no, I'm not supposed to ask so and so
[14:21]about their weekend.
[14:22]Like, they're this or you know what I mean?
[14:24]Like, and he was just like, what are you talking about?
[14:26]Like, everybody's just like a person.
[14:30]And I'm like, no, but we're all in all in these roles.
[14:32]And you know, you're not supposed to do it.
[14:34]And he's like, yeah, I don't buy that at all.
[14:37]So I'm actually like completely moved over to his interpretation
[14:41]and you know, feeling like a lot of the artificial boundaries
[14:45]don't serve a purpose.
[14:47]Yeah, you know, if they just keep us not connecting,
[14:50]but anyway, it sounds obvious, but yeah, yeah, I mean,
[14:54]this is what you do.
[14:55]You talk to people and I mean, it would not be much fun
[15:00]if there are boundaries everywhere because you wouldn't really
[15:03]get anywhere where it would be very refreshing.
[15:06]Yeah.
[15:09]In terms of, and we won't talk much about this,
[15:11]but you know, there was a PS at the end of the book where things
[15:14]end up going in a slightly different direction than the way
[15:17]we were expecting as the reader.
[15:18]Did you consider not even adding the afterward?
[15:21]Because I felt like that must have been a big debate
[15:24]of whether or not to include it.
[15:26]For sure.
[15:28]I did consider not adding it.
[15:30]I mean, I was intending to send out the book
[15:33]before that PS happened in my life.
[15:36]But then it just seemed so important.
[15:40]And so in keeping with the message of the book
[15:44]that we can manage these really difficult life circumstances
[15:49]and get through them.
[15:52]And I didn't want to shy away from that.
[15:55]It felt real and important.
[15:59]And I just, I wanted to be me.
[16:04]I wanted to be fully me and have the lessons really
[16:08]speak for themselves with that ending piece.
[16:12]Well, I'm glad the funny thing about memoir
[16:15]and somebody was just saying this.
[16:17]And when far, far wiser than me,
[16:19]I can't remember who it was.
[16:21]Maybe Tara Westover who I just asked speak.
[16:23]But anyway, saying that with a memoir, it's never over.
[16:26]How can you ever really meet that when things
[16:28]continue to unspool in front of you all the time?
[16:31]But you have to, like, it's that curation of experience
[16:35]and that has all the power in it, so anyway.
[16:38]But complicated nonetheless that.
[16:43]Did you find you turn to other memoirs of people who
[16:48]have gotten through trauma or cancer treatment
[16:51]or other things or do you eat that type of stuff up
[16:54]or is that not your genre or how do you feel about it?
[16:57]I didn't while I was writing because I was worried
[17:00]that I would be influenced.
[17:02]When I was a little girl, I went to the beach with my parents
[17:06]and there was a British family
[17:08]and the little girl was talking about a spade and a pale.
[17:12]And I came back and I was speaking in a British accent.
[17:14]So I just didn't want to risk doing that in my writing.
[17:20]So I steered clear of memoirs when I was writing my memoir.
[17:24]But after I finished my memoir, I went not
[17:27]straightened them first.
[17:29]And Sue Lake, Juad, I'm saying her name correctly,
[17:34]her between two kingdoms was the first memoir that I read,
[17:37]which I thought was exquisite.
[17:39]And then I went into a whole big,
[17:43]Melissa Phiebo's obsession and I love her writing.
[17:48]And Rebecca Solnetz, I read a lot of psychology-based texts
[17:55]still.
[17:55]So I'm reading existential some comparison.
[18:00]I do still consider myself like a student.
[18:04]And I think reading is so spectacular
[18:09]because you're just always in a student role
[18:12]and always learning.
[18:14]So it's really fun to read all sorts of different things.
[18:18]I just picked up the power broker yesterday,
[18:21]but I'm scared to start it because it's so big.
[18:25]And I don't want to miss all the smaller books.
[18:28]I'm reading it, but I'm really excited about that
[18:31]because I watched her in every page.
[18:34]The documentary, which was so amazing.
[18:37]Well, yeah.
[18:38]But I know I was, I had to keep some books
[18:42]on this little library card right outside my office here.
[18:44]And I had the new Abraham Vergaze,
[18:47]the Covenant of Water, Vergaze,
[18:49]and then also John Irving's The Last Chairlift.
[18:51]And between the two of them, that's like 1500 pages.
[18:54]So I was like, this kid, you could read like six books?
[18:58]Right. Or two, but you know, how many books I read?
[19:00]Or I don't know, I thought it was funny.
[19:03]Yeah, you know, if there's something to be said
[19:05]for the long, for the deep dive.
[19:07]Yeah, for sure, for sure.
[19:10]At the beginning of the book, by the way,
[19:12]you talked about someone called Hannah.
[19:15]It was like a model sort of very cool person.
[19:20]And in my head, I was wondering because,
[19:22]and I'm sure it's not the same,
[19:24]but I was like convinced this was like a really good friend
[19:26]of mine, it was going to achieve it.
[19:29]I was like, I should just send her a picture
[19:32]of my friend and see if that's who it was.
[19:35]Who knows, it's possible.
[19:37]Yeah, I changed her name.
[19:38]I, she was absolutely stunning on the outside
[19:43]and on the inside and just beamed positivity.
[19:47]And she really just represented hope to me.
[19:52]And, you know, I was just so happy
[19:56]to have a visual of that, something to hold.
[20:00]Hold on to that there was something beyond the crisis days
[20:05]that looked luminous,
[20:08]that looked healthy, that looked happy
[20:12]because in the crisis days it's terror
[20:15]and it's just putting one foot in front of the other.
[20:18]But she gave me kind of a guidepost to work towards
[20:22]and I've never seen her again.
[20:23]I don't know where she is or I thought over here from her
[20:28]but wow, what a powerful moment to be able to find
[20:33]somebody who can really ground you
[20:36]and how you wanna go about this challenging life experience.
[20:40]That's great to have role models in the weeds.
[20:44]Yeah, yeah, I couldn't look as cool as her
[20:48]but I could smile.
[20:53]Oh my gosh, well, do you have any advice
[20:56]for either people trying to write memoir
[20:59]about a painful thing?
[21:00]Or, well yeah, why don't we start, why don't we do that?
[21:03]I know you wrote it mostly at first for yourself
[21:07]but still like what pieces of advice to share.
[21:10]Well, as a psychologist I can't help but advise
[21:14]being ready, like there's a kind of readiness I think
[21:18]that's important when you start to write about your trauma
[21:22]so that it doesn't overwhelm you
[21:25]and become really triggering and debilitating
[21:30]in itself the writing.
[21:32]So those are skills that you can learn in therapy
[21:36]or I talk about at the final portion of my book
[21:40]about ways to work on, like learning about your emotion
[21:43]states, learning about trauma and its symptoms
[21:46]so you're not kind of mystified by what's going on
[21:49]and you can compassionately say, okay,
[21:50]oh, this is going on for me right now.
[21:53]That's okay, this is the trauma.
[21:55]I can let it in.
[21:57]I don't have to fight it.
[21:58]I don't have to think, oh my God, I'm really weird
[22:01]and this has to stop right now.
[22:04]Let it come and let it pass.
[22:07]You can let it in and let it go.
[22:09]Once you feel that sense of readiness
[22:12]and maybe with a therapist on the side
[22:15]or therapist working with you directly,
[22:18]you can start to write about your past
[22:21]and how we do it in narrative therapy
[22:25]is you just write down kind of the chapter headings
[22:29]of what were the most salient parts of the trauma
[22:34]and then you just add a little bit more text underneath
[22:38]kind of like a paragraph and then you go into the outline
[22:43]and flush it out and really look
[22:46]for the sensory, emotional thinking patterns
[22:53]that were going on for you in those moments
[22:57]and bring it to life because a lot of those experiences
[23:02]have been muted because of that dissociation
[23:05]that is totally adaptive that kicks in
[23:08]when you're really, really scared,
[23:11]but you can find it.
[23:13]You can find it and when you start writing,
[23:15]it starts to open up that part of the brain
[23:18]that has kind of shut down those memories
[23:22]and you can just get this kind of floodgate of information
[23:26]that of course, out of you,
[23:27]which is what happened with me too,
[23:29]but to be gentle with yourself
[23:31]and to know when you need to stop and take breaks
[23:35]and to really lean on a professional
[23:38]if you need help doing this work
[23:40]because it can be a lot, it can be a lot.
[23:44]Sarah, thank you for sharing all of your experience.
[23:48]I'm really rooting for you on so many levels right now,
[23:51]so thank you.
[23:53]Congratulations, hang in there and thank you for your book.
[23:57]Thank you so much, Debbie.
[23:59]Such a pleasure.
[24:00]Thank you.
[24:01]Okay, bye bye.
[24:04]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[24:06]to Read Books.
[24:07]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[24:10]at ZB Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[24:13]Also sign up for my newsletter at ZB Owens.com
[24:15]and sign up for my virtual book club
[24:17]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[24:19]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[24:22]for the Sound Editing.
[24:23]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[24:25]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.