Adele Griffin, THE FAVOR
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[1:03]Adele Griffin is the author of The Favour, a novel, Adele is a New Yorker who enjoys living
[1:08]in Los Angeles even if it never shows there.
[1:10]She is the author of many books for new and young people.
[1:13]The Favour is her first book for older people.
[1:15]She loves pull quotes, bakery cakes, and writing about herself in the third person, find
[1:19]her on Instagram at AdeleGryphin.
[1:21]Welcome, Adele.
[1:22]Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss The Favour.
[1:26]Thank you for inviting me.
[1:27]I'm excited.
[1:28]I'm excited too.
[1:30]I'm really loving it.
[1:31]It's so good.
[1:32]I have been obsessed with Evelyn, the way that you write the inner interior thoughts
[1:38]of, wait, what is the main character's name?
[1:39]I'm totally like it.
[1:40]What's the norm?
[1:41]Nora, of course.
[1:42]The way you write her interior thoughts is so funny and so smart, and the whole thing,
[1:47]I'm just loving it.
[1:48]The vintage world.
[1:49]So it's, I'm really, really loving it.
[1:51]It's good.
[1:52]It's really good.
[1:53]That makes me so happy.
[1:54]Thank you.
[1:55]You're welcome.
[1:56]Okay.
[1:57]So maybe start by telling listeners what the Favour is about now that I've kind of jumped
[2:00]in and mangled it.
[2:01]Yes.
[2:02]Of course.
[2:03]Of course.
[2:04]Well, the Favour tells the story of Nora Hammond, a woman who, by day, loves working
[2:11]at this beautiful vintage clothes store.
[2:14]I'll have seconds in New York City, but then at home, Nora's dealing with harder things.
[2:21]She and her husband, Jacob, are really struggling under kind of a mountain of debt from
[2:27]IVF treatments, but they're no closer to family.
[2:31]And they're very last embryo is frozen, and I guess they are too, as they try to figure
[2:37]out next steps.
[2:38]And then one day, into Nora's store, bursts Evelyn Elliott, who is this extrovert and
[2:46]Evelyn's full of fun and money, and she buys out the shop.
[2:52]And she bonds with Nora, and soon Nora is kind of living her best life, running around
[2:58]with Evelyn, but she also is doing sort of personal assistant things.
[3:03]So there's sort of a power imbalance there, but things don't get really complicated
[3:10]until Evelyn offers to carry a baby for Nora, which sets off the roller coaster of the
[3:17]book.
[3:18]I actually did not see that coming.
[3:22]I don't like to read the description of the books.
[3:25]I just like go in.
[3:27]So I was like, what?
[3:29]So was I.
[3:32]That wasn't what you had planned?
[3:33]Well, I guess it always was.
[3:35]I was, you know, so we learn early on that Nora and Jacob are having trouble trying
[3:42]to conceive a child for several years, and that it's been a big strain on the marriage.
[3:48]So when I was thinking of the story, I did decide to center the book on fertility challenges
[3:53]and how they can affect women's lives, because my husband and I also struggled with
[4:00]the same challenges of infertility.
[4:02]And we ended up being very, very fortunate to have our two sons through surrogate through
[4:08]surrogacy, but not in terms of any big drama of what's in the favor.
[4:14]But I knew one day I would right want to write about some of this.
[4:18]Interesting.
[4:19]And you even have Frankie at the store sort of as a model for having twins via surrogate
[4:24]with his husband and got how Nora was sort of enticed into that or, you know, it's so
[4:30]much easier to do anything once you know somebody who's done it.
[4:33]Right.
[4:34]That's true.
[4:34]I think that's really true.
[4:36]And I knew I wanted to connect with sort of that emotional through line of the story,
[4:40]the heart of the story, because I'd find I'd find that feeling and connect with readers
[4:45]through my own lived experience.
[4:49]But for a lot of years, I knew I also just wasn't ready to write the story.
[4:53]You know, by the time I finally got to become a mom, I kind of wanted to just be a mom.
[4:59]And I was a kid's book writer.
[5:01]So a lot of my life was like, I'm a mom, I'm going, doing the book fairs, I'm packing
[5:06]school lunches.
[5:08]And at some point, I thought, I'll be ready to share this, but I just have to wait and
[5:13]let it percolate and let it turn into the story that it did, but it, it took some time
[5:19]to get there.
[5:20]So how old are your sons?
[5:22]So my sons are 15 and 11.
[5:24]Okay.
[5:25]So that's exactly how long it took to get there.
[5:29]Well, I'm sorry that you had to go through, you know, those feelings of loss and the
[5:34]struggle to get there, but how wonderful that you had a surrogate that was at the same
[5:39]surrogate for both boys or different ones.
[5:42]For instance, it gets for each of the boys, but it was wonderful to, it was, it was cathartic
[5:48]really.
[5:49]You know, when we were going through it, there's, there is stigma around I think still
[5:53]a little bit unconventional paths to motherhood, but, and I did, you know, I still do feel
[5:58]a little bit like, my gosh, I'm talking about this thing, but at the same time, I knew
[6:03]I didn't want to be silent about it because it, you know, the book is also a pretty positive
[6:09]and uplifting story about something that, you know, I mean, they're room for all the
[6:15]crime stories and the legal thrillers and all the kinds of different stories about surrogacy
[6:19]that are out there, but I think when I wanted to put forward my own story and tell something
[6:25]that meant a lot to me, that story about surrogacy was going to be about the fellowship
[6:32]of women and women stepping forward for this woman for, for Nora in a moment of such
[6:39]incredible vulnerability in her life and that was really important to me to sort of get
[6:44]that story added to those stories because I guess because I felt so grateful and lucky for
[6:51]it and because it's such a specific experience.
[6:54]I just, we just had an event in our bookstore with Cindy Schupack who has wrote a children's
[6:59]called I waited for you and it's the same, she ended up adopting, but it's like the same
[7:06]thing spun on its head.
[7:07]Like you two would actually be interesting to have a talk. Do you know her from LA or anything?
[7:11]I don't, I don't know her. I would, but yes, I think it's, there are bonds that you make,
[7:16]you know, when we were going through it, we ended up and I wrote a little piece for Goodhouse
[7:20]keeping about it about how we really connected with LGBTQ community because that surrogacy is really
[7:26]their path and, and you know, kind of how you show up for the life that you didn't necessarily
[7:32]think was going to be, it's the life of your dreams, but you got there by off-roading and it's
[7:37]sort of a different way and you're just kind of so happy to be here and you do meet people along
[7:42]the way who are, who are also there and saying, let me be a mirror, let me, let me shine a light on
[7:48]how, how all this went for me. So that, that was kind, you know, there are so many different
[7:55]wonderful silver linings and footnotes to this experience and I think that was one of them,
[8:00]how you really connect and increase your community. But I have to say, even though this is a big
[8:06]part of the book, this is not to me a book all about surrogacy or infertility, even though
[8:13]that is what's going on. You know, to me, this is also really about, you know, friendship and marriage
[8:20]and the, you know, Nora is relationship with Evelyn is so well drawn. I mean, it's really
[8:28]unlike any other female friendship that I've read because, you know, Evelyn is also paying Nora,
[8:35]right? And Nora definitely needs the money to get out of debt. So you already have this sort of
[8:39]imbalance in the relationship and yet they're friends and yet, like Nora feels comfortable
[8:44]inviting her over to dinner and, you know, so the way that Nora even sits and looks at her on
[8:50]Instagram and every so often is like, I've put a little heart and then she put a heart in my heart
[8:54]and I knew we were still in touch. And then you even have the part where she was like, I miss you
[8:58]and she's like, but I'm on social media. She's like, no, I miss the in person you. I don't know,
[9:03]it's just like such a cord as somebody who's like on social media all the time and I feel like I
[9:07]connect to people there. But it of course is not real connection. I mean, it is a type of connection,
[9:11]but it's not the same. So anyway, I just felt like that relationship was so interesting. And
[9:17]even though it's about all those other things, it's really about women's relationships to each
[9:22]other. And what it means when you really, not it's like a girl crush almost meets, you know,
[9:30]employer meets, I don't know. And I think that's why Jacob was so jealous of the whole thing,
[9:36]you know, which is another wrinkle. Yes, it's so intricately. I mean, I agree with that. It's
[9:44]so specifically and intricately this kind of female friendship dynamic and you have in some ways
[9:51]I thought this is it's going to be the girl crush. This is this is the the the catalyst, but it's
[9:58]also so immersive.
[10:00]this friendship and it's almost like your eighth grade feelings and Nora in the beginning
[10:05]really in some ways wants to be sprung from this you know it's very cyclical the disappointment
[10:10]and the hope and and and Evelyn really springs her but at the same time because there is the
[10:16]power imbalance Nora sort of she sort of has to understand a little bit more actually a lot more
[10:23]about Evelyn and Evelyn ever has to understand about Nora it's sort of up to Nora to navigate
[10:29]and to be the observer and you know as the narrator and understand and try to anticipate
[10:35]Evelyn's next move whereas Evelyn sort of just gets to exist in this little bit of what do I need
[10:43]next you know how is how how are you going to show up for me next and I think that kind of creates
[10:50]the the idea that you don't really know what's Evelyn's always such a surprise that she kind of keeps
[10:56]you guessing as you hopped through as Nora ever really anticipate Evelyn's next move yes completely
[11:04]unpredictable but I like how you have her relationship with Meg is like a foil to the whole friendship
[11:11]right like here's her old friend it's Meg right yes it's Meg yes I feel like I needed to do that
[11:18]to sort of like lay in an old familiar friendship there is something that I think I wanted to get at
[11:24]you know in the idea of sort of like what if Kate Middleton were your surrogate what if your
[11:28]surrogate where somebody from so outside your understanding also because I think although I did
[11:36]this is not obviously my story but I felt that when I was in relationships with my surrogates
[11:44]that I did always have a feeling about how can I be the best part of their day you know so many
[11:50]things are valued here and I you know came into the relationship feeling I guess a little superstitious
[11:59]a little bit wanting to make sure that you know everything was great let me be the great thing
[12:04]let me send the cozy blankets and the fruit baskets and all of these things but I didn't really
[12:09]know what was happening you know short of moving in with my surrogates I wouldn't you know
[12:15]which wouldn't have been good for anybody but there is sort of a feeling of I want to ask 90
[12:19]questions but I'm just going to ask five right sort of feeling that I thought it's it's a wild
[12:26]sort of meringue of an idea but at at the same time it felt very real to me that feeling of oh
[12:33]I'll step back but I want to I want so much more but I'm going to try to contain myself all the time
[12:40]interesting what about the whole vintage clothing you must know a lot about this obviously
[12:46]we did or is this I know so much now you did you did the research for the book I was like
[12:50]either totally into this or this is like amazingly done research that doesn't even feel like research
[12:57]this is certainly me down all of the rabbit holes of all the absolutely wonderful online
[13:02]vintage stores and loving going on them and looking at have and and there's so many interesting
[13:09]influencers and people who like love vintage and know so much about it but in early drafts of the
[13:16]book I kept giving nor these really impossible jobs because I thought oh I'll do a thing where
[13:23]she has this really important job and then she kind of goes back to her life and she she's
[13:30]falling apart a little bit but I didn't understand any of these jobs and I felt like oh why are
[13:35]writing this character with jobs that you yourself would be fired from like immediately so
[13:41]I had to really pull back and think about it and I think the idea of vintage was more about
[13:48]let me let me find a cozy soft interesting way into a conversation that sometimes is hard let
[13:58]me find that Nancy Myers movie the walking in through the front door of this book with a key
[14:04]and opening it into a space that feels so beautiful and where Nora has so much knowledge and
[14:11]feel so much comfort and so that the reader can also feel that feeling of Nora being so interested
[14:18]and immersed that when I do take her outside of that world into the harder space of talking about
[14:25]infertility and that challenge we feel really grounded that she's not first of all not a character
[14:32]who's just going to be defined by this thing of her infertility but also that there's lots of
[14:38]warmth and loveliness you know in these old relationships in her marriage in the friendship
[14:44]with Meg in her friendship with Frankie all of these things in her dog Nick you know all of these
[14:49]things that make her that keep her sort of anchored and safe as she lifts off into this
[14:56]sometimes hard story to tell well I have to tell you I am not you know I'm almost done but I'm
[15:03]not done and I'm holding my breath because I don't know what's coming next and I'm like praying
[15:09]that everything goes okay I'm like really emotionally invested in this book and I'm like is
[15:15]is she really going to take us down this like very bad path or is it going to all be happy
[15:20]anyway don't tell me I'm gonna keep going but I'm I'm my fingers are crossed for Nora having a
[15:26]happy ending here she deserves it yes she deserves it oh my gosh has this book been optioned I
[15:33]feel like it would be great as a film yes we're in conversations about that so that's been
[15:39]really exciting I've always had sort of a hope because I think it's two really interesting
[15:45]female characters and it's such a female character driven book and I always thought about
[15:51]actresses sort of playing off each other and so yes I'm I'm excited well I would totally
[15:57]watch that as I have read it and I don't know it's even the vintage I want to like try on the
[16:02]cloak it would be cool if you could if you could do like a maybe you've already done something like
[16:07]this like I assume the cloak you made up right you just made this up I just made it up yeah
[16:13]yes but you should find something that looks like it and put it in like one of those glass
[16:17]containers like they have like museums or something have a showing of the cloak with like
[16:22]oh yes or something that is such a good idea I would never have thought of that and I really
[16:28]do need to I mean there's so many pieces of it I kept thinking I'll just wear vintage but it
[16:32]really is the cloak and it was kind of the Edna St Vincent Malay of the story that I kept I wrote
[16:38]so much into that story I had to take so much of that I became so fascinated by this
[16:45]made up poet and this invented cloak and I could really have put 400 more pages of that that
[16:52]nobody would have wanted but it was it felt so real to me I mean maybe that's your next book
[16:59]maybe I just make a cloak and put in a display case in my house and it'll be the conversation piece
[17:04]like you want to talk about my book or like maybe it would be so neat if you could partner with
[17:11]like the costume institute of something or I don't know like I know there's so many beautiful things
[17:16]in the costume institute and that but it's great I do love thinking about it it's the whole thing
[17:22]it's all lots of different things that really were very interesting to me so it was a long
[17:29]project but it and it was a slog but it was also just a place where I would go and you know like
[17:34]a dollhouse really lose myself to the story you could also I'm sorry you could also do a
[17:39]thing on social where you ask people to look for the cloak right because like searching for the
[17:45]cloak like describe it again you know the way you do in the book and then ask people to go into
[17:50]if you love vintage and then have them post pictures of cloaks that you and then you pick one
[17:56]it's becoming very clear to me that I need an entrepreneurial mind on this book
[18:00]you obviously don't I'm sure that you know you don't need my help
[18:03]I'm just like that's a good idea too I didn't do anything I got a cake
[18:11]well my daughter loves sewing by the way who saw the book and because I've been reading it and
[18:15]she was like oh my gosh you know that's a label right on a piece of clothing and I was like I had not
[18:20]even realized that isn't it beautiful and they did such a wonderful search books did such a great job
[18:25]and kind of making that stitching happen we went through a number of different images and when
[18:29]that was landed on I thought oh yeah that's exactly it how could it be anything else and I
[18:35]think it also plays into the idea that this is a this is a warm book this is a you know there's
[18:41]love and friendship in this story which I think was really important because it's lots of things
[18:47]but it is so much about it's so much about relationships yes amazing did you have any other titles
[18:55]or was it always the favor oh it was so many title it and they were all little bit I think they
[19:01]all read a little bit side you know it was the gift for a long time and then that felt sci-fi and
[19:06]then it was the present and I thought I was being clever the present the present but so clever
[19:12]that it was bad but and was my friend Morgan titled it for me I think she got just exasperated
[19:22]one day she's a good retitle or Morgan maths and of books she's also a writer so she was sort
[19:28]of like you know what it's a favor it's the favor but we're done I love it are you working on
[19:35]another book I'm working on a book about old love but I think I might have to put it away and think
[19:40]about interesting marketing strategies for the vintage element of this book now but the old
[19:47]love story has been you know it's a pleasure because when you're out there talking about a book
[19:54]it's nice to have sort of the public life of talking about this book and then going back in being
[20:00]and writing. That's always a part of the day that I'll try to find maybe it's the part of
[20:05]midnight, but to find a little bit of time for writing just sort of feels like, uh, nice.
[20:11]Have you read Elise Lounen's new book about the seven deadly sins for women? Because she
[20:17]she uses the framework of the seven deadly sins to talk about. You know, what women are kind of up
[20:21]against these days and how it's not anyway, envy is one of the things that she talks about.
[20:27]And I feel like you have that in the book a lot too. Like when Frankie says that he's
[20:33]gonna have kids and you have like, I'm so excited for you. And then in italics, you're like,
[20:38]but actually I'm not. I'll be there by your side. But I really want to run the other way.
[20:43]You know, and I feel like having the juxtaposition of those feelings when you're excited for
[20:48]someone you love. And yet it highlights the things that you are lacking yourself and how to like,
[20:53]come to terms of those. I thought that was really interesting. Oh, yes. I felt that I mean, again,
[20:59]you know, when you have the holiday cards come in when all you want is sort of the family and
[21:05]and you go to another shower and another baby shower. I do remember just sort of always having to
[21:11]reset for that. You know, at every time you turn around somebody was pregnant, which is
[21:17]wonderful. You know, and you think I don't want to be the wretch of the story. I am happy. And I
[21:24]think that there was in that connection to Nora wanting to always be her best self. But in italics,
[21:33]just feeling like, are you kidding me? Just that quiet, small voice of will this ever happen?
[21:41]Will this ever happen? For me, that felt like real things that I was sharing about how
[21:47]that journey had been for us. What did you, I know you said that you wrote children's
[21:52]books and all that, but had it, what was your life up into this point? Like, where did you grow up?
[21:58]And give me like the quick rundown of how we got here. I was well on my moms from outside Philadelphia.
[22:05]And my dad was in the military. So I was a military kid and I grew up kind of Panama,
[22:11]Rhode Island, you know, anywhere he was stationed and then went to school in Philadelphia,
[22:16]moved to New York, became an editor in children's books. And children's books was really, you
[22:22]know, a great, big, wonderful part of my life where I wrote young adult and middle grade books. And
[22:28]so that has been a lot of my story until this story. And it does feel, it does feel different,
[22:35]you know, to have written for so long about characters, especially in young adult, where you leave
[22:41]them on the last page and they're 17 year old, wherever you've taken that teenage,
[22:46]teenage, that young person, you leave them on this big wide horizon of the rest of their life,
[22:53]which in some ways is just inherently optimistic. And so to come into a story where I have
[23:00]cast a woman in her late 30s who's made so many decisions already and has so much of her life
[23:06]in her rear view felt it was, you know, you talk about where's the voice, where's the voice,
[23:11]that was hard. I kept kind of going into my young adult voice and trying to find her and thinking,
[23:16]all right, she made that choice. She fought off that road. She doesn't have, you know, that great
[23:22]big, endless horizon of youth to land on in the end of the story. Wow. So it was a big difference.
[23:29]My gosh. Okay. What advice do you have for aspiring authors? Oh, community, I think writing
[23:36]is beautiful and wonderful and lonely. And when you have that intersection, I think of
[23:45]art and commerce and you're putting this thing into the world. The most important thing is to have
[23:52]first readers who are friends who are a loving first read of that mentorship is so important because
[24:03]it's so personal. And there are so many different levels of rejection and critique that I think
[24:11]having an inner circle of people who do that for you and then you in turn can do that for them is
[24:17]really, you know, it's the heart, but also the armor. I think it's really important to have community.
[24:25]No, true. I'm trying to help with like the author community at large. I need to do more
[24:31]like LA based stuff or Vedafs. I don't know. I like love. Oh, I think you're doing a lot.
[24:40]I don't know. I want to do it like in every, you can check that one.
[24:48]Okay, last question. What are you reading now? Oh, I'm reading Rachel Cantor's new book.
[24:54]Half-Life as of a stolen sister by Rachel Cantor is what I'm reading now. My mom and I earlier
[25:00]this spring went to the Bronte parsenage. We did sort of a bucket list trip and we walked on the
[25:06]moors and we visited their home, Charlotte and Emily and Ann and we stayed in the village. And
[25:13]Rachel Cantor's book is sort of, it's this wildly imaginative take on the Bronte's growing up,
[25:21]but she kind of inserts reality TV and blogs and kind of this modernist idea of what this
[25:28]genius family was all about. And I'm loving it. It's so good. Awesome.
[25:34]All right. Well, I'm going to get back to reading your book, which is upstairs.
[25:38]Great. Yeah. It's been coming around with me every really lately. So anyway, thanks. It's
[25:43]uh, I love it. Really. It's great. Thank you so much. I'm so great talking to you too.
[25:48]I have to see you again in Alicia. Yes. Thank you so much. Bye.
[25:55]Thanks for listening to this episode of mom's don't have time to read books. Don't forget to
[25:59]follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at mom's don't have time to read books. Also sign
[26:04]it for my newsletter at zebi Owens dot com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[26:08]of authors on zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the
[26:13]sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[26:18]now trim music.