Ann Napolitano, HELLO BEAUTIFUL
[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.
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[0:20]and memoir.
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[0:23]You can check it out on zippybooks.com.
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[0:30]lifestyle features.
[0:31]That's at zippymag.com.
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[0:43]at 11th Street in San Monica.
[0:45]I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings.
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[0:57]Enjoy.
[1:03]And a Pelotano is back on mom's and have time to read books for Hello Beautiful.
[1:10]She was also on for dear Edward.
[1:12]This conversation between us was a live event at the Temple Emanuel Striker Center.
[1:17]Ann's novel Hello Beautiful was published in March 2023 and was an instant New York Times
[1:21]bestseller.
[1:22]It was the 100th Oprah Book Club pick.
[1:25]Dear Edward was published in January 2020 and was an instant New York Times bestseller.
[1:30]I read with Jenna's election and was released on February 3rd as an Apple TV Plus series
[1:35]starring Connie Britain.
[1:36]It was named one of the best books of 2020 by the Washington Post, the Boston Globe,
[1:40]Real Simple Fast Company, Women's World Parade, Library Reads, and Amazon.
[1:45]Ann is also the author of the novels A Good Hard Look and Within Arms Reach.
[1:49]She was the associate editor of one story literary magazine for six years and received
[1:54]an MFA from New York University.
[1:56]She has taught fiction writing for Brooklyn College's MFA program, New York University's
[2:00]School of Continuing and Professional Studies and for Gotham Writers Workshop.
[2:04]In November 2019 Ann was longlisted for the Simpson Joyce Carol Oates literary prize.
[2:09]A Good Hard Look was published in the United States by Penguin.
[2:13]The novel appeared on the Southern Independent Bestseller list and was one of NPR's Best
[2:17]of 2011 picks.
[2:19]It was also an indie next pick and an ochropic.
[2:21]Her first novel Within Arms Reach was adapted in stage to the theatrical production in New
[2:25]York City in 2014 and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
[2:29]Thank you for having us.
[2:31]It's a pleasure to be here.
[2:33]And before we start, I just wanted to acknowledge everything going on in the world for a
[2:38]minute.
[2:39]Here we are at the Temple of Manual Striker Center just days after this catastrophic
[2:45]attack.
[2:46]And by no means do I want to turn this into anything political, but I have been just like
[2:50]many of you on here, I'm sure, like sick, physically sick, crying, just so our hearts
[2:57]go out to all of the people affected, the families, everybody there, everybody in the world.
[3:04]And I just wanted to send my own condolences and my own, just visceral feelings about
[3:11]how upsetting it all is and all this history that we've learned about all of the attacks
[3:17]and in the Holocaust and now all of a sudden it just feels like, okay, well, we learned
[3:21]this all for a reason and now just pay attention and anyway, I'll stop there, but just
[3:26]wanted everybody to feel like it was okay to discuss and it's in the world and I just
[3:33]I am with you and my heart is just broken.
[3:36]So anyway, wanted to just start with that.
[3:39]Okay.
[3:40]Moving on.
[3:42]Okay.
[3:43]Hello, beautiful master piece book and by the way, there is nothing more of lifting when
[3:49]the world is crazy and confusing and upsetting than diving into a fabulous, immersive read
[3:55]like hello, beautiful, which I could not put down and like I'm sure everybody on here.
[4:01]I'm just such a huge fan.
[4:02]Your writing is sensational.
[4:04]I know I talked to you about dear Edward a while back and now back again for hello,
[4:08]beautiful.
[4:10]And welcome.
[4:11]Sorry to monopolize at the beginning.
[4:13]This will be all about you for now on.
[4:15]No, no, no, I'm glad you spoke to that and thank you so many thanks so much.
[4:18]It's lovely to speak to you again.
[4:20]You too.
[4:21]For anybody who perhaps has not read hello, beautiful, can you give just like the two
[4:26]line because I bet most people here have already read it, but it's possible that this
[4:30]is a big sales opportunity for you.
[4:32]Here you go.
[4:33]Sure.
[4:35]Sure, I end up describing it differently every time.
[4:38]So here goes for this time.
[4:39]It takes place between 1960 and 2008.
[4:43]It's set mostly in Chicago and it starts with a sad little boy named William Waters who
[4:48]grows up and moves to Chicago and is sort of taken in by a family of four sisters, the
[4:54]Patabano sisters, who have a very connected loving home, which is the opposite of the
[4:59]home that he came from.
[5:01]The combination of his history with their family and love ends up having sort of involved.
[5:10]It changes all of their lives for the better and for the worse over the next 30 years.
[5:14]Wow.
[5:15]And you have this gift of writing about very sad boys.
[5:19]Where is this coming from?
[5:20]I know.
[5:21]I don't know why I do that.
[5:24]I mean, the sadness, I guess I understand.
[5:26]I don't know why I put it into sad boys, but I have two boys, I have two sons.
[5:33]And part of it, I think, is that, hey, I'm worried about my boys.
[5:38]I'm worried about all the children of the world.
[5:40]I'm worried about how men are raised and grown and seen and the beauty and the sadness
[5:47]that they have in them, like everyone else has.
[5:50]And I want to make sure they're going to be okay.
[5:53]So in a way in my books, I think I'm trying to make sure that it's possible for them
[5:57]to be okay, even when the world is really scary and precarious and often incredibly sad.
[6:03]Wow.
[6:04]And where did this idea come from?
[6:06]And how long were you working on this?
[6:07]I know Dear Edward was took quite a while.
[6:10]Yeah, Dear Edward was eight years.
[6:12]And I actually wrote this in two, which is in, which is like lightning speed for me.
[6:17]And largely I had to do with the pandemic.
[6:20]My process for the last two books is that for the first, from when I have an idea for
[6:26]nine months, I don't let myself write because of what I really love to do is to write
[6:30]what I call pretty sentences where I start a scene and something, someone walks in the
[6:37]room and says something that didn't expect and then something happens that I didn't
[6:40]know was going to happen.
[6:41]So it's like being a reader.
[6:42]It's an active discovery.
[6:43]And it's so satisfying, but I often end up meandering all over the place.
[6:48]So I have found that if I set aside a distinct period of time, what is ended up being
[6:53]nine months, which I didn't realize was the length of a pregnancy, but of course it's
[6:57]the length of a pregnancy where I'm not allowed to write the pretty sentences, but I can
[7:00]think research and take notes about the idea that I have.
[7:05]So in this instance, there's always some kind of obsession.
[7:08]And when I say obsession, it's also an unlikely obsession that makes very little sense
[7:13]sense, like I became obsessed for dear Edward with a real plane crash, despite generally
[7:18]not wanting to hear about plane crashes or not having an interest in aviation per se.
[7:24]And for this book, it was a fascination with the history of basketball, despite being a soccer
[7:29]player growing up and being married to an Englishman who plays soccer and having two
[7:33]sons of a soccer, I became obsessed with the history of basketball and I had this image
[7:38]of a lonely little boy dribbling a basketball.
[7:41]And then also I have an uncle who lives in Chicago and when I was little, I grew up
[7:48]in New Jersey and he used to send me postcards and they would always be addressed hello
[7:52]beautiful.
[7:54]And I knew he didn't really know what I looked like because he had like 20 million
[7:57]nieces and nephews and I hardly ever saw him.
[8:00]So I felt like he was seeing that I was beautiful on the inside.
[8:04]And since I was a very shy bookish child, I really felt like if I had any beauty, it was
[8:09]on the inside.
[8:10]So that greeting made me feel really warm and special and he lived in the neighborhood
[8:16]of Pilsen in Chicago.
[8:18]And so with this postcard, these series of postcards coming to me, I imagine Pilsen is this
[8:24]kind of like semi magical world like the world that are in the novels that I was reading,
[8:28]which also feel real, particularly when you're a kid.
[8:31]And so I wanted to set the book there.
[8:34]And then the third element really is that when I was growing up, my best friend Leah, I used
[8:38]to sleep in her house and often as I slept at my own and her mom has five sisters.
[8:44]And they all have slightly different versions of the same face and they would just come
[8:49]in and out of the house all the time and sort of start conversations in the middle.
[8:53]And they seemed more themselves when they were together than when they were separate.
[8:57]And I used to just sit there and watch them like they were a television show when I was
[9:01]a kid.
[9:02]And I really wanted to write my way into like understanding what the magic of that kind
[9:08]of sisterhood is.
[9:10]And that became the Patavano sisters.
[9:11]So sort of those elements came together.
[9:15]And then the timing was that the nine month clock for my thinking, researching and taking
[9:20]notes actually ended in April 2020.
[9:25]And of course, I couldn't have known what April 2020 was going to be like none of us
[9:28]could.
[9:29]And my father died in April 2020.
[9:32]So but still it's like this time or went off and it was time to start the book.
[9:36]And so when I started writing, I immediately, it was like I was writing all my own heartbreak
[9:43]and grief and worry and, you know, the uncertainty of the world and what really mattered
[9:49]and what were we going to do and be next into this novel.
[9:54]And I wrote more hours of the day than I ever have and I wrote it in two years, you know,
[10:00]that of eight, I think because I needed to find out
[10:04]if we could all be okay.
[10:05]And my way of doing that was through this story.
[10:09]Oh, well, I'm so sorry to hear about your dad.
[10:11]That's so sad.
[10:12]And now I'm reading this with a new lens or rethinking it.
[10:16]And I'm so sorry.
[10:17]Your passage is on grief.
[10:19]I have to say, and loss just struck so close to home.
[10:23]Can I read one or two examples that I just
[10:25]loved when you wrote about loss in general?
[10:28]Of course, he said, I don't want to give things away,
[10:31]but I'll just go to this.
[10:34]Sylvie had seen a photo of the aftermath
[10:36]of a massive earthquake once, and the image
[10:38]had stayed with her.
[10:39]A road split in half lengthwise,
[10:41]revealing the middle of the earth and how silly humans
[10:44]were to build houses and schools and cars on top
[10:47]and pretend they were safe.
[10:49]Sylvie felt like she spent her days carrying an overnight
[10:51]bag in a book leaping over that chasm.
[10:55]I mean, like the before and after of loss,
[10:58]I had to pick that up in the middle.
[10:59]And then there was another part where one person says,
[11:03]that kind of loss must be hard.
[11:06]And she said, I didn't expect for it
[11:08]to be part of everything every minute.
[11:10]I didn't know that you could lose someone.
[11:12]And that meant you lost so much else.
[11:14]And they said, like it's all connected.
[11:16]Anyway, these were just some of the many, many examples
[11:20]of the writing about what it feels like to lose someone
[11:23]and just watching the unpredictable fits and starts
[11:27]of when they would cry and when it would hit
[11:31]and that it wasn't necessarily when you might think.
[11:34]But then it comes out at another time
[11:36]and just how real that all was.
[11:39]So it was just incredibly powerful the way you wrote about it.
[11:44]Oh, thank you so much.
[11:46]I mean, it's so universal, obviously.
[11:48]I mean, we're leaping over the abyss today
[11:51]with the news of the world.
[11:52]And we've all suffered foundational losses in our life.
[11:56]And I think you have an idea of what that's
[11:58]going to look like before it happens
[12:00]and then what it actually looks like
[12:01]ends up being often very different, not necessarily
[12:05]worse or better, but just where it fractures
[12:08]and how it touches you and changes your life
[12:11]is sort of unknowable before you walk that path.
[12:15]And we've all at one point or another do that.
[12:19]So it's a very universal feeling.
[12:22]At what age did you first feel like you had a foundational loss?
[12:26]Or was it your dad?
[12:29]The most foundational certainly has been my dad.
[12:31]Until then, I think I was trying to experience it
[12:35]as a very sensitive person through everybody
[12:38]around me and worrying a lot about foundational losses
[12:41]that didn't happen.
[12:43]And thinking I knew what was going to happen first,
[12:47]the losses that I had before him were not,
[12:50]didn't register in the same way.
[12:52]A loss of a parent, I mean, anyway, I'm so sorry.
[12:55]In the book, you often pair and you even
[12:59]address this that things come sort of as a one-two punch
[13:02]and that with loss sometimes comes something good
[13:05]or something new.
[13:06]Where did that come from?
[13:08]And have you experienced that?
[13:09]And how did you come up with that?
[13:11]Because now I'm like, is that true?
[13:12]I don't have the book.
[13:16]I know, not in the time you have the book,
[13:19]I didn't plan that.
[13:20]That was one of these things where I think
[13:22]without giving anything away, one of the four
[13:25]Patabano sisters gives birth the day
[13:29]that someone very important in their life dies.
[13:31]And then the next time another one gives birth,
[13:34]there's another major shift in their family that day as well.
[13:38]And I do think that life is about doors opening and closing.
[13:44]And they do both.
[13:45]It's not like you only lose.
[13:47]You are also walking into joy and new loves
[13:52]and deepening loves as often or more often, hopefully,
[13:57]than we lose.
[13:58]And it really is all, like they say, the cycle of life.
[14:02]And it's really important to be aware of all of it.
[14:07]To not pretend the hard stuff doesn't happen,
[14:10]but also not to push away the joy and the silliness
[14:16]and the delight and the love when it's nearby as well.
[14:20]You've got to reach out and grab that and also,
[14:23]and then be willing to look in the face of the sadness
[14:26]when that comes as well.
[14:29]It's a beautiful.
[14:30]I only have a brother.
[14:31]I don't have a sister.
[14:32]But the way you wrote about those close bonds of sisterhood,
[14:35]and I just can't get the image of the two sisters
[14:38]on the couch just fitting into each other,
[14:42]like they were just enmeshed.
[14:44]And even later, when you talk about almost the shadow
[14:47]of the other person and just how,
[14:49]enmeshed these girls all were.
[14:51]Not enmeshed sounds negative.
[14:53]Just how close and what that, how unique that bond was.
[14:57]Tell me about writing that.
[14:58]And do you have a sister?
[15:00]I feel like you don't have a sister,
[15:01]but did I make that up?
[15:02]I don't know.
[15:03]Now I do.
[15:04]I have a brother and a sister and a half sister.
[15:06]I'm sorry.
[15:07]But I also think that people, you can have a found sisters
[15:11]and found brothers and found mothers
[15:13]and fathers.
[15:14]It's chosen family as well as the given family.
[15:18]I mean, it really was my friend Leah's aunts
[15:20]where I was like, this is,
[15:22]there's this spectacular magic going on between these women.
[15:25]And it's particular to them.
[15:28]And it's this deep-rooted.
[15:33]They're so deeply rooted with each other
[15:35]that the roots are entwined beneath them.
[15:38]And I really wanted to, I think I would love to have that.
[15:43]And I think that where it is your given family
[15:47]and you are entwined like that is incredibly rare
[15:50]and incredibly special.
[15:52]And writing my way into that was a joy.
[15:54]Like I got to be sort of one with that kind of sisterhood
[15:58]and those sisters.
[16:00]And certainly they're not in mesh in any kind of,
[16:03]I think, unhealthy way.
[16:04]It's just, I think in female friendships too,
[16:07]there's this beautiful power where you look at the other person
[16:11]and you're like, I see all of your potential
[16:15]and all of your beauty and everything you can be
[16:17]as well as what you are.
[16:19]And that lights the other person up
[16:21]and they do that for you.
[16:23]So that even when you're going through a heartbreak
[16:25]or feeling schlumpy or like going through a slump,
[16:30]that person looks at you and is like, yeah, I see that.
[16:32]But I also see like what you can be.
[16:35]And these girls do that for each other.
[16:37]And I think female relationships have that particular power
[16:43]and beauty.
[16:44]And I really, I'd love to explore in that
[16:46]because I love living inside it.
[16:48]Amazing.
[16:49]It's interesting how you say how the roots were tangled.
[16:52]And yet Rose being a gardener, the matriarch,
[16:54]or the family, her, she's like in the back garden
[16:58]and dealing with the plants and all of that.
[17:00]And I feel like roots are such an essential part
[17:03]of this whole story.
[17:05]Yeah, but Rose, though, being who Rose is,
[17:08]is trying to like control the roots and make them go
[17:12]in the direction she wants them to go into
[17:14]and making sure they're like tidy and in control,
[17:18]which doesn't work so well in human relationships
[17:21]when you're trying to do that to people.
[17:23]True, very true.
[17:24]Well, there's a need for control throughout.
[17:27]I mean, different characters have it more than others
[17:30]essentially, but particularly Julia.
[17:32]I mean, she needs to control everything.
[17:34]And then you see the effects of that.
[17:36]What happens when you're in a world
[17:38]where somebody is trying to control you?
[17:40]What does that create?
[17:42]And that's also an interesting thing.
[17:44]It's really interesting when, as people have read the book,
[17:48]they generally either really have a problem with Julia
[17:51]or really have a problem with Sylvie.
[17:54]And it doesn't overlap like you're either the kind of person
[17:58]who objects to Julia's way of living
[18:01]and the sort of consequences that it engenders
[18:04]or really have a problem with Sylvie who is more of a dreamer.
[18:08]She's a reader, she's deeply believes and love
[18:12]and in seeing people honestly
[18:15]without sort of putting projections or expectations
[18:19]or assumptions on them.
[18:20]She really wants to be seen and she really wants to see you.
[18:23]And it's been interesting to me
[18:26]to have those two women who love each other so much,
[18:30]sort of trigger things in different people.
[18:32]I am actually personally offended
[18:34]that people would have an issue with Sylvie.
[18:36]Well, like, like, what?
[18:39]What do you mean?
[18:40]Well, people really think she crosses the line
[18:44]that you just cannot cross.
[18:46]But we understand.
[18:47]And we have like zoomed into that line.
[18:50]So like every sec, anyway, it's been exaggerated.
[18:54]So we see it, but I don't know.
[18:58]Obviously.
[18:59]But you also, I mean, I know we touched on this sisterhood,
[19:02]but you also did a beautiful job
[19:04]writing about men's friendships, which, you know,
[19:06]Kent and William's friendship, you don't often read that as much,
[19:10]those, how the bonds of, you know, being together,
[19:14]standing through, saying like, oh no,
[19:15]I'm going to be here for you and just even like showing up
[19:18]when his former teammates, you know,
[19:20]just like showing up on the benches
[19:21]and being like, I'm going to be here every week.
[19:23]I mean, it makes me cry.
[19:24]I just think about it.
[19:24]It's so beautiful.
[19:25]It's so nice.
[19:27]You don't see that enough.
[19:28]I feel like, thank you.
[19:29]That was one of the side effects of that,
[19:32]unexpected for me of, you know,
[19:34]where like an obsession leads me into the story
[19:37]where I'm like, OK, I'm going to write about basketball.
[19:39]I don't know why exactly.
[19:41]Yeah. And one of the things that I really
[19:43]loved writing was about being on a team.
[19:46]And really, I think this goes for everybody,
[19:48]but often particularly for boys and young men
[19:52]is that the great thing about a team
[19:54]is that it takes all kinds on a team.
[19:56]Like, you can't have a team of all golden boys.
[20:00]stars. You need role players. You need like the gutsy guy who's running up and down the court.
[20:04]You need the sort of brainy one who's figuring out the plays. You need the star. You need
[20:09]the major athlete. And because teams need all of those things, they welcome the misfits basically.
[20:17]They welcome the peculiar person who isn't necessarily very good at, you know, forming friendships
[20:23]or, you know, having conversations or anything like that. And that's what William is.
[20:27]But within the infrastructure of a team, men are allowed to love each other. Like, they're
[20:32]allowed to slap each other on the back or to notice that one of them is having some problems
[20:37]and just show up for them. And they're, they feel within themselves that that's okay because
[20:42]they're teammates. So it gives them this place where they can really love, fill their
[20:48]love for each other. And, and have, it's a great privilege when you can show up for someone
[20:55]in their hard time. Like, it's such a gift for yourself to be able to do that. And the team
[21:00]nature of it allows them to do that. And it allows Kent and William to have this beautiful
[21:06]friendship that is started from a place that has like expectations that allow it. So I really,
[21:11]I really did love writing about what it means to be on a team for these men.
[21:16]Well, my main takeaway is if I am ever given a set of floor seats to any basketball game,
[21:22]I'm calling you. I'm getting, I mean, I haven't even been to a basketball game in all
[21:30]time. I could, I could sense all of your passion for it and all of the knowledge. And that was
[21:35]really wonderful. You know, and there's something too about, you know, being able to anticipate
[21:41]how slight injuries, physical or emotional, then sort of ricochet throughout life. And you
[21:48]demonstrate this in a lot of ways, whether it's an emotional slight or, you know, an accident or
[21:54]something. And no matter how much you focus on it or try to change the narrative, it's going to
[22:03]push you in one direction. And all you can do is then try to accommodate it versus fix it.
[22:08]Yeah, it's, I mean, you, if you're William in playing basketball, which is what he loves to do
[22:16]more than anything else. And I think because he was this lonely little boy dribbling a basketball,
[22:21]it is sort of the activity that has allowed him to sort of function and hold himself together
[22:27]has always been the having outlet of basketball. So when he has a physical injury in college,
[22:33]and it's a second one. So it's sort of career ending. He's injured physically, but it
[22:39]takes, it removes this sort of emotional crutch that he's been using for his whole life too. So
[22:44]it really is like we're so absolutely mind body. You know, we're a whole entity, like you can't
[22:50]injure one part of us without, you know, taking down the larger system. And that's really what
[22:55]happens to William. And of course, these things happen on a dime, you know, you step off a curb and
[22:59]you break your ankle. And, you know, like, and then you have to come back from that, not only like
[23:04]in rehabbing your ankle, but like, you just, that that will take you down. And, you know,
[23:10]we, these are the moments where you need, you know, the people around you to step forward,
[23:14]but it also, it leads to a reckoning, you know, within your bones and within like, who am I going
[23:19]to be in response to this? And what does this mean for who I want to be next? And it was interesting
[23:24]to me to explore that for athletes, but also, you know, in the effect that it has on all of us.
[23:32]So when I finished the book, I was like, I have just been on such a journey to do like,
[23:38]I felt like I had just lived these lives because you, the span of it and the in-depth narratives
[23:47]and all the different points of view and everyone's life and the setbacks and the joys and the
[23:53]sorrows, like, I feel like I had kind of lived with this family and just gone through it from
[23:59]the writing standpoint. Like, how did you feel coming to the end of it? And how do you even
[24:03]feel now about looking back on how you wrote this in that timeline and the characters themselves?
[24:11]Like, how do you feel about the whole thing? And where does the, where does the journey go from here?
[24:16]Yeah, I get depressed every time I finish the book. And this was the worst one
[24:21]where, particularly because of the process of the sort of book writing publishing timeline,
[24:28]where you finally finish. And in general, the last like six months of writing a book or,
[24:34]for me, anyway, are completely immersive, where you're just trying to pull all the threads together
[24:39]that you weren't even able to see before because you've now the story is there. And I've now
[24:46]created the world. So it's, it's fully real. It's the 3D universe that I am living inside and
[24:52]loving. And I love all these characters. And I love being in that world as much if not more than
[24:58]I love being in my real world. And then all of a sudden, you get it to where it's singing.
[25:05]And meaning really just that it's complete. It's real. It's true. And then I have to hand it over.
[25:11]And when you hand it over, you're actually handing it over to the copywriting phase,
[25:15]which means like copy editors take it. And they put it into the sort of software of the publisher.
[25:21]So it's actually not even on my computer anymore. So it's really gone. And no one has read it yet,
[25:28]like except for like six people at random house. So no one, it's like it doesn't exist. It's like
[25:34]it went from, it's like you're standing in the middle, you know, of the world. And it's gone
[25:40]completely silent. And no one else knows about it. And you don't have it with you anymore. And
[25:46]I get really depressed. And the only thing that makes me feel better is getting a new idea.
[25:52]And it normally takes me a couple of months for that to happen. So I had a few,
[25:56]but like just emotional, emotional months. Just hoping and thinking, okay, this has to
[26:03]go away eventually. But I just love them. So, you know, and I still love them.
[26:09]But once people start reading it, at least, like even if it's like the goodreads,
[26:13]review, or not goodreads, whatever it is that they do when they're early reviews. And someone
[26:18]will be like, you know, I love Sylvia. I'll be like, I love Sylvia too. You know, like at least I feel
[26:22]like it lives like living somewhere. So yes, that's the process. And then, and then I get excited
[26:29]because I have a new idea in the new world to start building and live in. And then I feel like I'm
[26:33]going to be okay again. I can't live with just the real world.
[26:36]I'll let the therapist go into that.
[26:39]Why that's the case that I won't touch it. What world did you create now?
[26:47]Like what are you writing? Where are you in the alternate universe of your mind?
[26:53]Yeah. I feel like I should say, I also have a lovely life. Like, my real life is actually really
[26:57]wonderful. I don't like a suffering in the real world. I just think the balance of who I am
[27:03]requires me to be reading a book. Usually listening to a book and writing a book. Like there's a
[27:09]there's a balancing for me to feel like the alchemy is right for myself. Like all those things have
[27:15]to be happening. So I got a new idea in like last fall. And again, it was an obsession that I can't
[27:22]really talk about the book yet because it doesn't make sense for me to do so. It's still very
[27:27]gossamer, even though I've been working on it for a bit. But it was, my obsession is trees
[27:33]as opposed to basketball this time. I read the over story by Richard Towers last summer, which
[27:37]I'm sure most of you have read Magnificent, remarkable novel. And when I was finished with it,
[27:45]he's like, you know, kind of like genius level, brainy, beautiful writer, everything.
[27:52]And when I finished a book that I really, really, really am blown away by it, I always listen to
[27:56]like every interview I can find with that writer. And he did a number after that book. And in a
[28:02]couple of them, he said that he felt like it was beholden on contemporary writers and artists
[28:09]to diversify the worlds that they're writing about and not only diversify within the human realm,
[28:16]which of course is incredibly important and is taking place more than it used to, thank goodness.
[28:22]But also to diversify our storytelling to include the world that we live on. And that that kind of
[28:30]art is one of the necessary things that we need as humans to raise our consciousness in the way
[28:37]that it has to be raised for us to actually remain humans on this earth, to look at the world as
[28:44]you know, an organism that we are organisms that we are fully related to. We have like 99 percent
[28:51]of our DNA is like similar to that of much of the rest of the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom.
[29:00]So when he said that I felt like charged with it, like I was like, it's true. We do need to do that.
[29:06]I do need to do that. So I've been reading a lot about trees and the book I'm writing now takes
[29:12]place on a cul-de-sac in New Jersey in the town that I grew up in basically this surrounded by a
[29:18]forest and it's as much about the people on that cul-de-sac as it is about the trees and the
[29:23]forest and the world around it. Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. Did your life change after becoming
[29:30]an Oprah's book club pick? Yes, I think so. I mean, that day that my book came out,
[29:38]I didn't leave my house by God because it was also overwhelming with me even being in my house
[29:43]because I had already filmed the announcement with Oprah a couple days earlier. So that showed
[29:48]on television that morning and then there's a profile on me in the New York Times. And it was like
[29:55]the most overstimulating day of my life. And thank God I didn't leave my house. I mean...
[30:00]Oprah is, you know, she's Oprah. It's like a whole, she's a force of nature. She's a force of democratization of literature.
[30:09]She's done so much to make so many people put books in the hands of so many people and turned non-readers into readers and to spread her love of fiction.
[30:19]And I definitely felt like, you know, she put her hand on my shoulder and I was like, Oh, and this is different. This is amazing.
[30:28]So, yes, yes and no. I mean, I still me and I hardly did my house and, but I'm incredibly grateful and it was like her calling me on the phone to tell me was, I think that it, I don't even think it was the most exciting thing this ever happened to me in my life, for sure.
[30:47]Did you even believe it was her?
[30:50]I know, I thought it was a robo call, like I thought because you, you know, like you answer your phone and like it's like, Hi Ann, this is Bill Clinton. I'd like you to vote for, you know, like those very clever recordings now that call you.
[31:01]And I thought it was Oprah like as a robo call, but then I was like, this doesn't sound exactly like a robo call. So I said Oprah Winfrey Oprah Winfrey.
[31:10]And then she started talking in sentences that made it clear that she was not robotic. So yes, I know I did not believe it.
[31:17]Yeah, well, congratulations, well deserved.
[31:20]There's a moment where Rose, the mom, allows us to see parts of her that I think it was so via in the moment realize like maybe my mom does have little parts of each of us in her and this, this breasts sort of front is hides a lot of different pieces of us.
[31:37]There are different pieces of these characters that live in you, but is there one that you feel is most resonant with with anything to do with you yourself as a as a woman.
[31:49]Yeah, I mean, the short answer is definitely silvy, but I actually feel like I share a lot of DNA with all of the characters except for Rose and Julia.
[31:59]And I love Rose and Julia, but I don't, I just am not them in any way really. I know people know a lot of people who are like Rose and Julia. And again, this is not an affection thing. I think they're wonderful.
[32:11]But I, I am part William, like I'm in William. I'm in Cecilia. I'm in Annaline. Like I could see myself and feel myself in them. And they were easier to write because I instinctively felt what they would, you know, how they would feel and what they might do in a way that it was harder for me to inhabit Julia and Rose.
[32:33]Amazing. Well, brilliant job. It was so good. Oh my gosh.
[32:37]Well, thank you. I know we're just about out of time here. Thank you so much. Thank you, Zebi.
[32:42]Stay safe.
[32:44]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[32:53]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 other week.
[33:00]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.