Jenny Hollander, EVERYONE WHO CAN FORGIVE ME IS DEAD
[0:04]Welcome to Moms Don't Have Time to Be Books with Zippy.
[0:07]I'm the host, Zippy Owens.
[0:09]I am an author, my latest is blank, pub date March 1st, a novel.
[0:13]I'm also a podcaster, obviously, a publisher, a bookstore owner, and so much more.
[0:19]If you love books, you're in the right place.
[0:21]In fact, we call it the Zippyverse, or really, the LA Times called it the Zippyverse,
[0:26]and we're going with it.
[0:27]Go to Zippy Owens.com to learn more and follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens.
[0:34]Jenny Hollander is the author of Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead, a novel.
[0:38]Jenny is the director of content strategy at Marie Claire, where she oversees the brand's
[0:41]daily coverage, as well as the hashtag, read with MC Book Club.
[0:46]Before moving to Marie Claire, she worked at Bessel, a graduate of the Columbia University
[0:49]School of Journalism.
[0:50]Jenny spent 10 years in New York before moving back to her hometown of London.
[0:55]Everyone who can forgive me is dead is her first novel.
[0:58]Welcome, Jenny.
[0:59]Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss.
[1:02]Moms Don't Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead.
[1:05]Thank you so much for having me Zippy.
[1:06]I'm so excited to be here.
[1:08]Yay.
[1:09]Okay, Jenny, tell everybody what your book is about.
[1:12]Please.
[1:13]So this is a fast-placed and twisty thriller about a woman who thought she are run
[1:18]her past.
[1:19]She witnessed a horrific massacre at her journalism school nine years earlier.
[1:23]And then when she finds out that a classmate is trying to make a movie about that night,
[1:27]the truth about what really happened will really jeopardize everything that the main
[1:31]character thought she knew about her life and about herself.
[1:35]Wow.
[1:36]And where did this come from?
[1:38]I liked to joke that it's almost as though my life took a very different turn.
[1:42]It's about a Brit, the Moose New York.
[1:44]I am a Brit who moved to New York when I was 22, the same age as my protagonist Charlie
[1:48]did.
[1:49]And I went to journalism school and then from there I established a career in New York as
[1:53]a journalist and for me I was very lucky nothing went horribly wrong.
[1:58]For Charlie, I just sort of thinking about what might have happened if my life had taken
[2:03]a very different turn when I was very isolated from my friends and from my family.
[2:08]And in a new place, in a very new media environment and that's a big part of the book, you
[2:12]know, how the media really focuses on Charlie and how, you know, the media really tends
[2:16]to treat survivors of tragedies like pieces of meat in some ways and really takes advantage
[2:21]of them in a very vulnerable state.
[2:24]And I started just thinking about, I don't know, all these, all these dark things.
[2:28]And then I sort of twisted that into a almost alternate history of my last 10 years and
[2:35]what I would have been like if my life had gone as I said in a very different direction
[2:39]because this book is a thriller at its heart but it's also about trauma.
[2:43]It's about finding yourself.
[2:45]It's about in some ways coming to terms and treating, treating things that have happened
[2:49]to you.
[2:51]And there's a lot of me in it, but I also, my father-in-law refers to it as zok-jenny,
[2:56]which I think is really funny.
[2:58]But I also can assure you that nothing like that has ever, ever happened to me.
[3:01]But it is definitely, I'm writing a second book now.
[3:04]The first one is definitely more personal than the second one is interesting.
[3:08]Well, maybe you wouldn't tell me though or tell anybody if you had a reference.
[3:12]Okay, because they wouldn't be secrets anymore.
[3:14]It would just be the ultimate, you know, if I wrote a book called everyone who can forgive
[3:19]me his dad and then said, oh yeah, nothing like that ever happened to me.
[3:22]Right?
[3:23]And then it turns out it was true.
[3:24]Yeah, right?
[3:25]That could be the next book.
[3:26]So when the author of this book, her secrets come out, we could just keep going in circles
[3:33]on this whole day.
[3:36]You wrote in a really interesting way about New York, you know, from another perspective
[3:41]and you called it a survivor's city.
[3:43]Tell me about some of these differences in the heart of New York and how do you really
[3:47]feel about it?
[3:48]Oh my God, I love New York and Charlie's journey with New York is very much like my journey
[3:51]with New York.
[3:52]And I got there and I ran around.
[3:54]He was constantly saying, oh my God, this place is amazing, where all the dreams come true.
[3:58]This is so beautiful and incredible.
[3:59]And I just looked around and I was like, really?
[4:02]And I mean, New York in so many ways, the quality of life in so many ways is low, right?
[4:09]You know, you've got these tiny, tiny apartments.
[4:11]You've got cockroaches everywhere.
[4:13]I was there for 10 years, I'm not just talking out of my answer.
[4:17]And you have rats everywhere and everything's very expensive and it's a really tough
[4:23]competitive city that is really, really cold in the winter and really hot on the summer
[4:28]and has about six weeks of the year where the temperature is actually really nice.
[4:32]And I think I just looked around at first and I just thought, what is the big deal?
[4:36]I just don't get it, like even the tall buildings on the inside often, you know, when you
[4:41]get the doctors or the dentist, kind of look very run down on the inside and a little bit
[4:45]scary.
[4:47]And then I kind of went on this journey over the first five years or so, I was in New York
[4:51]where I just fell so in love with them and it was because I was having a lot of anxiety
[4:55]at the time and just non-stop panic attacks.
[4:58]And I was very isolated from my friends and my family at the time.
[5:02]And I just realized that when you are in need, New York is the place that steps up.
[5:06]You know, like, if you forget your credit card or the big data, they will hand you the
[5:10]groceries and they'll say, you come back later, you know, you can come pay later.
[5:13]Like if you're a panic attack on the subway and I have many panic attacks on the subway,
[5:17]New Yorkers are always there to help you outside, make sure you're okay, get you to
[5:21]the hospital if you need.
[5:22]Like to hold your hand.
[5:23]If ever you need help, New York is at the very first to stop because I think in so many
[5:29]ways, like, they're so used to things being so hectic that doesn't phase them.
[5:33]Like nothing that you do will ever phase them.
[5:36]And I live in London now and as much as I love London, there isn't that sense.
[5:40]And I think that's, for me, what made New York, for me, the best place in the world.
[5:45]But when you needed help, New Yorkers will always there in every way that you needed
[5:50]them.
[5:51]Wow.
[5:52]That's great.
[5:53]That's not like the brand.
[5:55]I know, right?
[5:56]I mean, I'm not sure everybody would agree.
[5:58]Like, that's great.
[5:59]I've lived here my whole life.
[6:00]Well, not, you know, I've gone out for years at a time.
[6:03]But would I describe it as a place where if you need help, somebody would stop?
[6:08]I don't know.
[6:09]But that's great.
[6:10]I love it.
[6:11]We need some good PR.
[6:12]So I think I might be comparing it to London.
[6:14]Like, London's a place where like, you don't necessarily talk to, because she is like,
[6:19]you don't necessarily have conversations, you don't yell things out in the street.
[6:22]Like, I walked down the street in London and 10 people don't stop and talk to my dog
[6:26]in the way that they're doing New York.
[6:27]Yes.
[6:28]And I think feeling really connected to your city in that way is how it was so meaningful
[6:32]for me and that you could not go down the street without interacting with someone in some way.
[6:37]And then it's very different in that way.
[6:38]And it's something that, you know, I'm pretty new to London now.
[6:41]And I miss New York a lot in that way.
[6:43]How vibrant every block becomes when you're, you know, it's like, it's like a sea tide.
[6:48]I wrote this in the book.
[6:49]Like, it'll knock you over and it'll just push you back up.
[6:51]Yeah.
[6:52]You're just like, okay.
[6:53]Yes.
[6:54]Well, I literally yesterday I was picking up my kids from somewhere and this dog came over.
[6:58]Oh, I swear, it must have been like my grandmother in another life.
[7:01]I swear.
[7:02]I was like, we would connect in such a way and I'm not like a stuff on the street.
[7:07]Let's pet the dog type of person, even though I love my goodness in here somewhere.
[7:10]But I don't know.
[7:11]And like, I'm like, what is going on?
[7:13]I'm on the street for five minutes and I have like a new pet, you know, now I'm like missing
[7:18]the dog.
[7:19]Where is that?
[7:20]I was called like Buttercup or something.
[7:21]I don't even know.
[7:22]Brandi whiskey something anyway.
[7:24]But yes, there is that.
[7:25]You know, I'm incredible dogs.
[7:27]It really, really does.
[7:28]And London on this boat is me.
[7:29]All the dogs are very almost like toy poodley.
[7:32]Yeah.
[7:33]Okay.
[7:34]I mean, I'm not just stereotype of London and obviously it's not true everywhere.
[7:37]But certainly where I live in London, all the dogs are like little toy poodles.
[7:40]And my dog is this like very anxious, like very over the top, very dramatic rescue.
[7:45]And all of them are like, we've never seen anything like this before.
[7:47]Who are you?
[7:48]Have you gone from?
[7:49]And I'm like, he's a new worker.
[7:51]Like he's been the first five years of just life in New York.
[7:54]Like this is who he is.
[7:55]He's going to bark at you.
[7:56]And then he's going to try and sniff you and then he's going to run away.
[7:58]Oh my God.
[7:59]Well, just shift gears as they say in workplaces I don't belong to.
[8:04]I read your article and re-clare about developmental coordination disorder.
[8:08]And that's like what that's like for you, the sort of comorbidity with ADHD.
[8:16]And how that presents and what that has been like for you.
[8:19]So could you share a little bit more about that?
[8:21]Because it's obviously with the statistics you put in, it's quite common more so than
[8:25]autism.
[8:26]And yet not that many people maybe know about it.
[8:29]Yeah.
[8:30]So I think it presents as a cleanliness as its main symptom, but it presents so many different
[8:34]ways that it's really hard to diagnose.
[8:37]You've got to rule out a lot of the different things first.
[8:39]You have to rule out brain injuries.
[8:41]You have to rule out ADHD, autism, really everything in that kind of developmental zone.
[8:49]And it's almost sort of an exclusion.
[8:51]And then you get the thing and you're like, okay, this person has these different symptoms
[8:55]and they're different from the next child with this vaccine.
[8:58]And that's what they call in the UK and the US is called DCD as you said.
[9:02]But this is what it is because it cannot be anything else.
[9:04]And for that reason, it's very, very hard to study.
[9:07]It's very hard to diagnose and the US for whatever reason never quite got on board of
[9:13]it.
[9:14]Maybe it's the medical system because it's for profit whereas I mean, the NHS isn't quite
[9:18]perfect either, but maybe that contributed.
[9:20]There are also there are two moms actually in the UK who both of their kids had what's
[9:24]called a spraxia hair in the, I want to say the late 80s and they were so frustrated
[9:29]because they just could not find any care for their kids.
[9:32]There were like people knew what it was but there was no support.
[9:35]There were no groups.
[9:36]There were no activities.
[9:37]There was just no support for them or for their children.
[9:39]And they actually started a foundation that has become this behemoth that's called the
[9:44]spraxia foundation and it now brings in, you know, hundreds of thousands of profits
[9:49]every year.
[9:50]Well, not profits.
[9:51]It's a non-for-profit.
[9:52]But of course.
[9:53]And because of it, spraxia is actually very well known in the UK.
[9:56]And I always come back to the fact that it was just these two women who were so mad
[10:00]because the kids had this enormous helping them and it really became this
[10:05]country changing movement in a way and the U.S. just never had it. I often
[10:10]think of those two moms who started this foundation which is as I said a huge
[10:13]behemoth now and I just think like if you guys haven't done that would anybody
[10:17]in the U.S. I think they did or if they did they didn't catch on in the same
[10:22]way for various reasons. Leave it to busy moms to just change our faces.
[10:26]Yeah, right? We're fixing this.
[10:31]So in the article you talked about how day-to-day things like standing up
[10:36]after you've been sitting down or the coordination it takes to chew or eat
[10:40]are things you have to actively think about throughout the course of your day.
[10:43]How do you marry that with having a career based in words and interacting with
[10:49]people on journalism and you know the pace of life and also where do the panic
[10:55]attacks fit into all of this as well? So I don't sorry I'm like totally
[10:59]delving into your first place. It's not completely related. The panic attacks
[11:02]really came about in part because people with a spraxia are much more likely to
[11:06]have sensory difficulties and so I and not people with a spraxia often get
[11:10]very overwhelmed by things and I just had to figure out work around, figure out
[11:13]ways to treat it in myself. A lot of it is just saying I'm having a panic
[11:16]attack and I'm gonna take 10 minutes and then I'll come back and be in good
[11:20]with that frankly but for me and for a lot of people with a spraxia it really
[11:23]comes down to spiky skills so you're very very good at some things and you're
[11:27]very very bad at others and I've been lucky enough that in my career the
[11:31]things that I am good at have compensated for things that I am bad at so
[11:36]because I do edit a lot and I can get through a lot of work and I can do a
[11:41]lot of different communications and a lot of different kinds of problem
[11:44]solving that do come really naturally to me and I find not easy but not in
[11:50]any way difficult either I have been able to be allowed to focus on those
[11:55]things and not focus on the things that I am bad at which are generally around
[11:59]organization budgeting particularly with journalism you know things like
[12:04]interviewing I'm actually I'm not very good at interviews honestly I'm trying
[12:07]to get better in practicing but you mean interviewing other people are
[12:10]giving an interview. No giving an interview I'm already interviewing people but
[12:14]actually speaking about things. Why are you doing great this is fabulous I mean
[12:18]it doesn't feel like an interview this isn't like a traditional interview
[12:20]because I'm just like you know diving into it. I also want to impress you I think
[12:24]you're amazing and I can come on you can come on you can talk. Oh
[12:28]stuff I think you're amazing this is you know look at your book and your
[12:31]career and like it's just really awesome but you know something like we
[12:35]have amazing fashion team for example we are a fashion magazine and because
[12:39]I can almost sit for my computer and write and edit a really kind of play
[12:43]point person in that way or other things can go and be at the shows and do
[12:48]all of these things I think we would be very very difficult from a
[12:51]sensory perspective and I think we need someone like me who was just like no
[12:56]I don't want to get a fashion shows that sounds great for you we should definitely
[12:59]do it but I'm going to sit there I'm going to like organize it from behind
[13:02]the scenes and I think I've been very lucky in that all my jobs because of the
[13:06]things that as I say I I like to think I am good at I've been given the
[13:10]leeway and the understanding to not be thrown into situations that are hard
[13:16]for me that's great yesterday in my office I have like impaired spatial
[13:21]relations like I cannot fit things together I am really bad at that like I
[13:27]once got tested for some was like so you must get into like a lot of car accidents
[13:31]I do get into a lot of car accidents in my office there were like two
[13:39]existing computer plugs and they were different shaped like little box things
[13:44]that the plug doesn't do and I was trying to fit a third one in and move
[13:47]around I was like I literally can't figure this out I can't I can't figure out
[13:51]it would three chargers here but I can like run this business and do everything
[13:56]else but like this step forget it I need help so I guess it's so
[14:02]embarrassing to you when you feel yourself to be someone who like really
[14:05]does take on leadership roles in your life and obviously with your family it's
[14:09]embarrassing to have to say I can't do this incredibly basic thing I mean I
[14:13]I can't drive at all I would call that sentence you know I've been told
[14:17]I probably could have had a disability specific car and instructor but I've
[14:20]never quite looked into that because I'm in London now and why would I
[14:23]shoot is great but certainly it's it feels very stupid to be able to do a
[14:29]lot of different things then to say no I can't drive there someone's gonna have
[14:33]to try to be there it's very infantilizing in a way and it's something
[14:37]I really have to come to terms with them being like no can't do that sorry
[14:40]someone else is gonna have to you know fix this very basic thing that I just
[14:44]can't do yeah well you totally get it what does it mean now to be your digital
[14:52]director of Marie Claire right what does what does that mean and how how do you
[14:56]keep magazines relevant when like the whole world is like the death now is is
[15:01]ringing for magazines which by the way I love magazines but like how do you
[15:06]reinvent and that you know obviously you're in charge of the digital which is
[15:09]the most important so tell me about that and how you you know I think
[15:13]obviously in the last 20 years you've seen huge shifts in digital media in
[15:17]general it we've seen I mean we've seen digital media create huge shifts in
[15:20]media and we've seen just an enormous amount of change it it's really made the
[15:26]entire media industry completely new industry and I think in the last few
[15:31]years I've definitely had workplaces that were like are we gonna chase the
[15:34]traffic or we're gonna trace the like chase the comma so we're gonna chase this
[15:39]or that and it never quite works when you chase one thing when you kind of
[15:43]throw everything else at the window and try and chase one thing it never is
[15:47]sustainable in the long term and one thing that I tried really hard to
[15:49]generate Claire and that work with the team that does feel the same is we try and
[15:53]do not just everything well which is also true but we try and focus on the
[15:59]reader and we try and like focus less so on everything else all these little
[16:04]parts that you really can't obsess over and more focus on like okay how
[16:08]we reach in this reader is it through search if so what are we doing to make
[16:11]the best experience possible is it through newsletter if so what are we
[16:15]doing to make it to make sure we know that reader is that we're reaching them
[16:18]and then when they see on use that other opening it and they care about what
[16:21]we have to say if it's Facebook what platforms are they on how we're reaching
[16:25]them like what strategies are we using to make sure that we get to them and I
[16:30]do think that when you when you bring it back to that it's not a recipe for
[16:34]success because media is turbulent by nature but it is much more sustainable
[16:39]as a strategy than anything that's like you know what we're gonna pivot to
[16:43]video and we're gonna make loads of money from video and everything's gonna be
[16:46]fine I think those kind of singular strategies which we did for a lot very
[16:50]panicked years in the 2010s in media don't tend to work that's great advice
[16:55]or like currently thinking about like our own well anyway it's just very good
[17:00]advice because we're also like trying to reach the readers like that's
[17:03]what everything is about right like this podcast and everything is just
[17:07]like you know celebrating reading and like how do you reach people who are already
[17:11]celebrating reading yeah it's I mean I certainly with newsletter that's been my
[17:15]kind of big learning from the last year and a half and it does feel very like
[17:18]mid-2000s you're like oh and use that I like yeah I too have those in the
[17:21]mid-2000s we found that like with social and search platforms constantly
[17:26]changing it is the one way we can reach our reader directly
[17:30]alone readers where they are and we have really invested in that in the last
[17:35]year we've seen a lot of sustained success from it too so that's that's like
[17:40]this year I'm thinking a lot about newsletter last year I was thinking about
[17:43]something different but this year that that is a fantastic way to reach the
[17:47]person that you want to reach rather than like big broad audience yeah you know
[17:52]it's all kind of about that one person anyway right yeah totally good advice
[17:56]okay turns out I'm getting career advice from you when I'm supposed to be
[18:00]interviewing you about your novel which okay back to the time I was I was
[18:06]supposed to I'm not very good at interview so I really do go on tangent sometimes
[18:09]I had no I love it this is how you get to know people right this is like you
[18:15]know what's on our minds and all of that but you referenced earlier that you
[18:19]were working on another book that wasn't quite as best so tell me about that
[18:23]I'm loving working on it it's everyone could give me his dad it was my first book
[18:28]and I it was a huge learning cup so never written fiction I began during the
[18:33]pandemic as it turns out writing fiction is not something you can just like do
[18:37]write a draft off send in and be like great let's do it like I went through
[18:40]eight different drafts and each draft was a full rewrite I just got very lucky
[18:44]that I had people on my team who really believed in the book and we're
[18:48]willing to get me to this finish line but the second book is coming a lot easier
[18:51]because after these eight drafts I have a slightly better sense of what I'm
[18:55]doing and how to pace and how to you know just how to go about it and it's also
[19:00]not really about me in my life and I'm really enjoying that too but sorry you
[19:04]also know what's about it's about two sisters one of them is really really
[19:07]famous she's a singer and she and her sister are estranged they have very
[19:12]different lives one of the very low key like the London one is a mega star in
[19:16]New York City and then the man that led them being estranged not perhaps in the
[19:21]way that you'd expect shows up dead and very quickly a lot of the evidence
[19:26]points to both sisters and they have to really figure out how far they're
[19:29]going to go to protect themselves and also protect each other after years and
[19:32]years of being apart so where is where is the fascination with the dead people
[19:37]coming from oh gosh it's funny actually because my mother always says that when
[19:42]she took into the library and I was a kid all I wanted to do was find books about
[19:46]people who were dying or dead or about to die but didn't know it the sick
[19:50]it up in the dying she called her and she was quite freaked out by
[19:53]like she was like where is this going this child is like
[20:00]I don't know. I think I've always been uniquely interested in trauma and the ways that we
[20:06]process it and move on from it. Not particularly from a personal level. I think I just find it
[20:11]interesting for better and for worse. And when you said that everyone who can forgive me is
[20:18]that is much more personal. What elements of it? Well, that's up for debates still. I'm not
[20:26]convinced. Not convinced at all. Especially more here. But what pieces of this are sort of direct
[20:36]lifts? Charlie is very much, particularly when Charlie first moved to New York City. And Charlie's
[20:41]very naive and Charlie really is kind of just vibing that way through the day. That is very much
[20:47]where I was a 22 when I moved to New York and didn't ever clue what I was doing. And then,
[20:51]obviously, later in the book, Charlie has a lot of anxiety and panic related to her trauma.
[20:55]And that was different for me. But I went through a phase my mid-20s where I was really having
[21:00]just terrible, terrible anxiety. And it was taking off my whole life. And there are a lot of
[21:05]panic attacks in the book and a lot of just like rising panic about in Charlie's case, something very
[21:10]valid. And I think in my case, it was just, you know, the anxiety in my head convinced me was valid.
[21:15]But it was also the same, right? So all of that was very much based on my personal experiences.
[21:21]And how do you feel you're managing your anxiety now? Better than I was in my mid-20s. But I mean,
[21:28]I always just kind of think therapy and medication if needed are not cure all. But I believe in
[21:33]therapy so much. And I truly, truly believe that therapy saved me over and over again throughout my
[21:39]life. Amazing. What advice do you have for aspiring authors? I would always say don't do what I did.
[21:44]I just, I literally just like wrote up a novel. And I was like, you know what,
[21:48]write like all these communities online, some really scary, like the chances of getting published
[21:52]in really scary. I'm just going to start sending it off. And that's not what you should do.
[21:56]You should have a plange that I do with your honor. You should have competitors, sorry,
[22:02]like competitive titles that you should have a very strong sense of how it's going to sit on shelves.
[22:06]You should try and sell it better to the people who are going to try and sell it. I generally
[22:09]think that as much as when you start fiction, there's a terrifying knowledge that the chance of
[22:17]getting published are very, very small. And it really can put you off. But at the same time,
[22:21]doing a manageable amount of research into the industry is a good idea. And I've always been
[22:28]someone who throws herself in fee first. I wouldn't have done that. But I also would have tried
[22:34]to make sure I didn't psych myself out too much because you can do that too. Publishers Marketplace
[22:38]as a tool was really, really helpful just because I wanted to find an agent. And that was obviously
[22:44]the starting place. And I found an amazing agent, Claire Friedman at Inkra who is just an incredible
[22:50]partner in everything that we do. And he was so bad with me through eight different drafts and said
[22:54]we're going to get that we're going to get there even though, you know, we're not quite there yet.
[22:59]But to do that, publishers marketplace was my best friend because I really had to figure out
[23:04]who that person was. And once you have that person, your corner, once you have that teammates
[23:09]and you trust them and you're willing to, sorry, I'm not crying over this. I was like,
[23:16]I know that. I'm not going to stop crying. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm
[23:19]not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I think it has amazing, but I'm not, I'm not sobbing
[23:23]ever video. Once you have that things get easier because you have a partner in everything.
[23:29]And until then, publishers marketplace and a base of readers, I think you have us run.
[23:34]I love that. Jenny, thank you so much. Thanks for coming in, Mom. So I have time to read books.
[23:38]So it's a pleasure. I'm such a big fan. And thank you so much for reading. I so appreciate it.
[23:44]Thank you.
[23:46]Thanks for listening to this episode of Mom. Don't have time to read books. Don't forget to
[23:50]follow me on Instagram at ZB Owens and at Moms. Don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my
[23:55]newsletter at ZB Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom
[24:00]every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[24:05]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.