A Zibby Summer Reads pick! Anastasia Zadeik, THE OTHER SIDE OF NOTHING: A Novel
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
[0:14]I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company,
[0:19]reading retreats, a bookstore, and more.
[0:21]Learn more at ZippyMedia.com or follow me on social at Zippy Owens, or join the community at Zippy Readers.
[0:30]Anastasia Zadeek is the author of The Other Side of Nothing, a novel.
[0:36]Anastasia is a writer, editor, and storyteller.
[0:39]After graduating summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with a BA in psychology from Smith College,
[0:44]she had an international career in neuropsychological research while raising her children.
[0:50]She now serves as director of communications for the San Diego Writers Festival,
[0:54]as a co-producer of the San Diego memoir showcase, and as a mentor for the literary non-profit, so say we all.
[1:00]She also sits on the board of the International Memoir Writers Association.
[1:04]Her debut novel, Blurred Fates won the 2023 Sartan Award for Contemporary Fiction,
[1:10]and the 2023 National Indie Excellence Award in Contemporary Fiction.
[1:14]Her second novel, The Other Side of Nothing, was released in May 2024.
[1:19]She lives in California with her husband and their empty nest,
[1:22]rescued Aug. Charlie, also you may have seen on Instagram when I was in San Diego,
[1:27]Anastasia and I did an event together, and we had the best time,
[1:31]so it was so amazing of her to moderate.
[1:34]And set the whole thing up to thanks.
[1:36]Welcome, Anastasia. Thank you so much for coming on mom's time to read books,
[1:40]to discuss the other side of nothing, a novel. Congratulations.
[1:44]Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[1:46]Of course. You wrote a really good book. It's really good.
[1:50]I read the whole thing, and I'm sorry this podcast could get into late,
[1:54]but I really did. And, you know, it's good and it's heartfelt,
[1:58]and you raised a lot of really interesting points about, particularly about
[2:02]parent-child relationships, and, you know, love and loyalty, and, you know, doing the best you can,
[2:10]maybe kind of sad and happy, and that's anyway, great job.
[2:15]But I really wanted to achieve it was to make it realistic as possible.
[2:20]Like, I think so many times with books about mental illness, it can be kind of sensationalized,
[2:26]or it can be glossed over. Like, everything turns out fine in the end.
[2:32]Yeah. And I think for most families out there, and most individuals out there,
[2:38]it's not like you can manage it. You can get to the point where you can manage your mental
[2:42]illness, and you can have a life that's fulfilling and happy, and all of that.
[2:45]But it's also, there's a lot of people who continue to struggle, so I just wanted to be
[2:51]realistic about that. So, I hope it's, my intent was not, it was to make it hopeful.
[2:56]It is hopeful. It's just, you know, sometimes you have to go through harder times to get to,
[3:02]you know? I mean, it's like life. It's just like, it is life.
[3:06]Back up for a second, because I jumped into all that. Can you please tell us that hers,
[3:10]what your book is about? Sure. So, it's basically a story about four people on two cross-country
[3:16]journeys. It's two sets of two. The first involves Julian Sam that are, they're young adults.
[3:22]They're extremely talented artists, and they're also both attempt suicide survivors.
[3:27]And they meet and fall in love in a residential psych facility, and then they escape and leave
[3:33]everything behind. With the intent to embark on a journey to fulfill Sam's destiny, which he believes
[3:41]is to recreate the Psychonic Ansel Adams image and start his career. And for Julia, she had created
[3:49]this second chance bucket list while her dad was dying, and she wants to try to fulfill some
[3:54]of the things on the second chance bucket list, which she are basically things she promised her
[3:58]dad should give a second chance to. And so initially, their goal is to do those things as they
[4:04]cross the country. So, and then the other journey is the moms, Julia, Julia's mom is Laura and Sam's
[4:10]mom is Arabella. And when they find out that their kids have disappeared and authorities won't really
[4:15]do anything to help search for them because they're young adults, the moms decide that they're
[4:21]going to try to find them. And so they take off on after them. And it's kind of a desperate search
[4:26]because they really only have a handful of clues to follow. But they're intent on trying to find them
[4:32]knowing that their kids have some risks that they face just in their own lives. So that's basically
[4:38]so it's two cross country journeys. But it's also a journey's internal journey. So obviously it's
[4:43]both a physical journey, but it's also an emotional, psychological, and it's about relationships
[4:48]changing. And mostly it's about what it's like not just to be someone who struggles with mental
[4:55]health challenges, but to be someone who loves someone who struggles with mental health challenges
[5:00]and not being able to, as I put it, love them better. Like, you can't love someone, make them
[5:06]better through love. Like, love is important. And it's critical, but it's not, it's, there's limits.
[5:14]So that's what it's about. It's also about art and philosophy and beauty and all sorts of good
[5:22]things and poetry. And you have had experience with this with your nephew and your child yourself.
[5:32]And then yourself, can you talk about that? Sure. One of the things I feel really strongly about is
[5:37]hopefully this book will help people to talk about these things and to feel like we can help break
[5:41]this stigma. But also to let people know that there's resources out there because
[5:46]my nephew attempted suicide many years ago, 12 years ago now. And things were quite different back
[5:51]then. I was out of, I was out of the country when it happened and my sister didn't want to ruin
[5:56]my trip. So she didn't tell me what was going on. And when I got back, I was heartbroken for her
[6:02]and for my nephew. And also just to hear that she felt ill prepared to take him home. But she also
[6:11]like, I don't think a lot of people realize the trauma of being a parent in that situation.
[6:17]Hopefully none of us will ever be in that situation. But she had to agree to put him in a coma
[6:23]then she had to agree to leave the room when they took him out of the coma because in case she
[6:27]was the reason that he had to, you know, it's one after another like heartbreaking thing and she was
[6:33]mostly alone dealing with this. And one of the things that really hit me hard was that she said
[6:40]so many of her friends didn't know what to say. So they didn't say anything at all. And silence
[6:47]is the hardest thing because I think for most people, I think if anyone out there who struggled with
[6:53]depression or bipolar disorder or, you know, any anxiety, you already feel alone. Like you already
[7:01]feel like you're the only one that feels this way, which is one of the hardest things. And so
[7:05]sometimes just being told by someone else, oh, I go through that too. It helps you to feel less
[7:11]and when you're the parent of someone who's in this situation and your friends pull away not because
[7:16]they don't care about because they just don't know what to do. It leaves you feeling more alone.
[7:21]And that can be like heartbreak on top of heartbreak. My sister told me she, as she put it,
[7:28]it's not a casserole disease. No one drops off food. No one sends clothes. Like the things that
[7:33]you would do if your child had cancer or your child had some other illness or was in an accident,
[7:38]and the community kind of wraps you up and takes care of you. That doesn't happen with suicide
[7:45]attempts because, or with suicide, I just was at a lunch in the other day and a friend told me
[7:51]that someone had died that was close to her and she pulled me aside to tell me that it was
[7:56]that they died by suicide. And she didn't want to tell the whole group because it's still,
[8:01]there's still that, I guess the stigma, I guess, is the only thing I can say it is. I mean,
[8:06]I think it's getting better. It's getting much better, but it's still there. Yeah, so I also
[8:11]suffer from depression. My daughter suffers from depression. I think I modeled for my daughter
[8:16]how to be a really good masker. She's growing up because nobody would have known like when I
[8:23]told people they're always like, what? You like, there's this surprise element and I think that
[8:27]that's partly because we've all gotten good at it. Right? Anyone who suffers from depression,
[8:31]anxiety, our goal is to not let people know. And we become really good at the fine. How are you
[8:38]answer to everything? And often, I think people, you know, when you when you see magazines
[8:45]when someone dies by suicide and it's always the surprise and all the people going, I would have
[8:50]never known. And that's the reality. Most of it, so many people are living with it and don't talk
[8:56]about it. And again, I think just makes people feel more alone. And I've been on both sides of it
[9:02]where I've wanted to make my daughter better. I want to fix everything for her and I can't. And that's
[9:08]that's also really hard. But I know that I'm doing that to my family too when I, they can't fix me
[9:15]either. So it's, you know, you kind of, I understand and I have empathy for people who are in both
[9:21]situations. And I hope that that's what the book does is give people who aren't in that situation
[9:26]or who are a feeling of of empathy for the other side and for themselves. Thank you for sharing
[9:33]all that, by the way, really personal stuff. And, you know, I think it's important to remember
[9:39]most parents really do just want their kids to be okay. And, you know, that every day there is
[9:45]an undercurrent of fear constantly that something will happen. And the idea that your child is
[9:52]your child's worst enemy, you know, in a way that they are the harm you're worried about,
[9:57]but they are the precious gift as well as is.
[10:00]hard to wrestle with. It's complicated and there's no clear path there. So I deeply, you know,
[10:08]empathize with how hard it is when somebody wants to hurt themselves, right? It's no one's
[10:14]trained well in that. Yeah. And that's one of the other things I really hope that people will
[10:18]understand and reach out for help. There's so many more resources now than there were even
[10:23]just two years ago. And not just resources for people who are, again, for people who are in that
[10:28]situation where they're feeling that way and they are in an emergency situation. There's also
[10:34]some of the same resources can be used for people who are family members and don't know what
[10:39]to say. You call 988 and get advice on what to say to someone who you think is at risk. So there's like
[10:47]a lot of things out there that people don't know about. That can be helpful. But I think you're
[10:51]right. That's one of the reasons I think that's another reason why there are people have a hard time
[10:55]after an attempt to talk about it or to express sympathy because when someone's had an
[11:03]accident or when they've cancer, they're struggling to live. And it's hard to accept that
[11:08]like somebody could want to die and say to somebody about their loved one that wanted to die or
[11:15]that wanted to die more than they wanted to live. We as a society are uncomfortable with death
[11:21]generally. So the idea of someone wanting to die makes us really uncomfortable. Not that it should
[11:28]or shouldn't. I've just seen it. I had a really close friend died by suicide, but she had made
[11:34]several attempts before she died. And I'm sorry, being what the, you know, we were younger,
[11:40]right? People are not always so kind about things like that. And they don't know how to handle it.
[11:45]And you know, anyway, so I, I come to this with some background. The same at all, you know,
[11:52]not to compare, but but nobody is the same. I mean, nobody's the same to be. We all are, we all,
[11:58]we all have our own things for dealing with, right? But one of the, one of the moments in the book
[12:03]that kind of broke my heart was when the daughter had printed out all these things, she wanted
[12:09]her mom to see. She didn't totally know that she wanted her mom to see all the reports about
[12:13]depression and everything else. And, but she did enough that she wrote like four mom on it and
[12:19]then left it there. And the mom didn't find them and said like, oh my gosh, I was looking at all
[12:24]the wrong places. It's just like broke my heart. I know, I know. And I think that's the thing is
[12:32]is that I know when, so my daughter was depressed for three years before she told me. And I
[12:38]remember we were, we were driving in the, it's like how much I remember we were driving in
[12:42]their Prius. I was taking her to a lacrosse practice or something. And she told me, she started to
[12:49]cry and she told me that she'd been depressed for years. And I was like, no, everything's going
[12:55]so great in your life. Like, and I named all these things. And she was like, mom, you have all people
[13:00]should know that's not that what's on the outside isn't what's on the inside. And I was sort of like,
[13:07]I should, I should know that. Like, and, but to think that someone has been struggling for three
[13:13]years and you didn't see it, it's heartbreaking. It's like there's no other word for it. It's just,
[13:20]it breaks your heart and you, and you, you just want to make them better. You want to love them
[13:25]better. And that's, you know, you get the, when you get a phone call like from a kid and,
[13:32]you know, and you're like, how, how quickly can I hop on a plane? Like, it's just,
[13:38]it's, it's hard to, yeah, it's hard to deal with. But, you know, like I said, it's, it's also,
[13:46]at this point, my daughter and I openly talk about how are you today? Right. And I think it's,
[13:52]one of the things I've learned, which is maybe a piece of advice out there for parents and
[13:56]for friends is, I've learned to say, how are you today? Not how are you? Because how are you
[14:03]is such a, we're all programmed to just go fine. How are you fine? But when I say, how are you
[14:10]today? Like, it's sort of like, let's her be like, this is today is, today's a good day,
[14:16]today's not a good day. Like, then we kept a place to talk about it. So what it's worth.
[14:22]I think you said that to me. And it made me feel like where I took, you just said that we got on
[14:29]and I liked to get big sigh. And I was like, I still said fine, but I thought about it for a minute.
[14:34]You're good. Well, you thought about it. Well, you know, when it's in, in all truths, like,
[14:39]listen, we can't all just walk around spilling our guts every time I ask, how are you? Like, you
[14:45]have to be, you have to know your audience and you have to, and I think that's the other thing,
[14:49]people have to feel safe when they say it, right? Like, because you don't want to say it to somebody
[14:53]that's, that you don't feel confident or reply in a way that's helpful. Right. So yeah,
[14:58]I'm not suggesting everything. When the woman advances, how are you as she's bringing up my groceries?
[15:06]It's not the time to tell her they had. Oh my gosh. Well, it was interesting how you have like,
[15:13]the two separate mother child relationships. And this is foils of each other in a way, right?
[15:18]Arabella, who you think is going to be the most like superficial mom type right at the beginning.
[15:24]And, and then, oh my gosh, what is her name? Laura. Laura, sorry. We just were talking about her.
[15:30]Laura, who, you know, wants the best, but is also grieving, which is its own kind of pain. And then,
[15:36]you know, Sam, who has one type of thing. And then Laura's daughter who has another bed is also
[15:42]carrying around, which she believes is this like horrific secret. And I can't believe how that
[15:48]that ended up turning out by the way. And oh my gosh, because you just never know. So tell me about the two,
[15:54]like the two different mothers. And what were you trying to do with each one?
[16:00]So one of the things I wanted to kind of illuminate is how some of this is intergenerational,
[16:05]like the way that you're raised, the way that you're taught to handle emotions has a huge
[16:11]impact on you moving forward in life. And to change that pattern is also difficult. And in
[16:17]Laura's case, Julia's mom, she was raised sort of as a pull yourself up at your bootstraps.
[16:24]Don't, nobody wants to see you cry. Go to your room if you have to cry. When you're done,
[16:28]you can come back out kind of thing. I have friends who had parents like that. Like it was just
[16:32]not, you didn't cry. Like, what was the point? And I think that that that's hard to get over. And
[16:39]so when her husband dies, she, her way of coping is to do that is to just, she gives herself a
[16:46]time to try in her room. And then she gets on with life. And our daughter sees that who had a
[16:52]father who was very emotionally available. And so she was raised more with this idea that emotions
[17:00]are okay. And in fact, they're good. And you should talk about them. And you should look for
[17:04]meaning and things. And you should look for art in every day. And that's, that was all coming from
[17:09]him. And the mom sort of like this, there's this time when they were, she's recalling watching a
[17:14]movie with her dad. And her dad, and she gets into this whole conversation about generational gaps
[17:21]and, you know, malaise and, you know, youth and all of this. And her mom just goes, it's just a
[17:26]movie, Paul. And that's like her way of dealing with everything is, you just, you box it off.
[17:32]It's just this. It's just that. And so she doesn't actually know how to cope with her daughter's
[17:39]loss. She doesn't know how to help her daughter grieve because she doesn't really know how
[17:42]to grieve herself. And so when her daughter starts to fall into this depression, she basically
[17:50]gives her time in space, which is what she wants. She wants time in space. She doesn't want people
[17:54]asking her how she is. She wants to just put a box around it. So she has to learn how to
[18:03]open herself up for her daughter. And the other mom, Arabella, was raised with a step of her lip.
[18:10]She's actually British. And she was literally raised by parents with stiff upper lip. But she's
[18:15]put all of her hope and love into her son. And she wants more than anything to fix him and to save
[18:23]him. And so she basically is willing to almost do anything. She lives for him in a way. And she has
[18:35]kind of accept that as she goes through the book, she has to kind of accept that she can't
[18:42]love him better. She has to acknowledge that there's
[18:51]she's the kind of mom who when she hears about other people at a support meeting, she thinks,
[18:55]oh, that's not my son. Do you know what I mean? We all do that too, right? You hear about extreme
[19:00]cases of something and you think, oh, no, my kid doesn't. I think we've all done that, particularly
[19:04]with majors and young adults, right? There's a book that just came out or is about to come out. It's
[19:09]called Yes Year Kid. And it's about like teen sexuality. It's like, it's someone's kid. It's
[19:17]there. Like you hear about the group of kids who are smoking marijuana behind the school gym and
[19:21]you're like, no, no, never my kid. But is somebody's kid? Yeah. Somebody's kid is doing that.
[19:26]Or maybe some parents are like, oh, yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That checks out.
[19:34]Oh, my goodness. How in your road trip here? How did you pick the places? I know you said it was the
[19:40]Ansel Adams photos, of course, you like end up with a certain place. But as you're going across the
[19:45]country and stopping and tell me about how I know you went on this trip yourself and you know,
[19:50]I took the trip with my daughter actually. She, I had decided that I needed to see what it was
[19:58]like to take the trip.
[20:00]from New York to Yosemite and into do it quickly.
[20:04]And ironically, well, strangely,
[20:08]I'm not sure what the right adjective is here.
[20:11]When we did the trip, we ended up doing part of it super fast,
[20:17]because it was during the election in 2016.
[20:21]And we were actually in the car
[20:23]while the election results were being delivered.
[20:26]And we were so stressed that we just stopped driving.
[20:32]As we couldn't conceive of stopping and like,
[20:35]it felt like if we were in the car,
[20:37]we could put off except somehow.
[20:41]I don't know.
[20:42]I guess it's revealing my politics.
[20:43]And so we actually did drive through the night,
[20:48]one of the nights drove through the night most of the night.
[20:51]And then when we got to Yosemite
[20:53]and we were hiking around and taking lots of pictures
[20:57]and sort of seeing what you would,
[20:58]and I was talking with,
[21:00]I met with park rangers and I met with members of YOSAR,
[21:03]which is Yosemite search and rescue,
[21:06]to kind of ask them questions about,
[21:08]well, what would you do in this situation?
[21:10]How would you handle this?
[21:11]They gave me all the forms.
[21:12]They would have people fill out.
[21:14]They were super helpful.
[21:15]But when we went to look at the moon rise,
[21:20]there was a ton of cameras.
[21:23]Like I've never seen so many cameras set up
[21:26]at a place in my life.
[21:27]And so I asked one of the photographers,
[21:29]is there something special going on?
[21:31]And he said, this is a once in a lifetime moon.
[21:33]That's rising right now.
[21:35]It's called a megabiver moon.
[21:37]And if I was like, you gotta be kidding.
[21:40]I looked up and it was true.
[21:42]And at that actually,
[21:43]I did not have that in the book at the time,
[21:46]but that became just for them having to drive quickly
[21:50]because he wants to capture that moon.
[21:53]So it's sort of like reality,
[21:54]like the trip actually informed way more of the book
[21:58]than I thought it would.
[21:59]Does that make sense?
[22:00]Like totally, totally makes sense often.
[22:02]And then I realized like there are certain things
[22:04]that I wanted them to do that wouldn't work out
[22:06]like time-wise.
[22:09]This was a book that was really tricky
[22:10]from the timing perspective.
[22:12]I had to like time myself reading parts of the myth
[22:16]of Sisyphist to see how long it would take to get
[22:19]from this page to this page so that I would know
[22:22]what would have happened in that time frame,
[22:25]stuff like that.
[22:26]So lots of timing and it was super interesting.
[22:30]And the trip across country was fabulous.
[22:33]I mean, this country is so beautiful.
[22:36]It really is.
[22:37]There's just the changing geography and the people you meet.
[22:43]And it was just, we really, I mean,
[22:46]it ended up being a really cool bonding thing
[22:48]for my daughter and I did do together.
[22:50]And I highly suggest it, not in five days though.
[22:53]How long did it take for you to write the book?
[22:57]The first draft probably took me nine months to a year,
[23:01]somewhere in there.
[23:02]And then I started writing it in 2016
[23:07]and it just came out.
[23:08]So where it's coming out in a couple of weeks.
[23:10]So the whole process, I mean, obviously, you know,
[23:14]as a publisher that from the time you actually get
[23:17]the final manuscript to the time you see it
[23:19]or time you sign with your publisher to the time you see
[23:22]the book on a shelf is about 18 months, two years.
[23:26]So there was that.
[23:27]But so basically I finished it in 2022.
[23:32]I mean, with all of the drafts and you do all
[23:36]the developmental edit and then beta readers
[23:38]and then copy editing and proofreading and sign pictures,
[23:41]there's so much that I do not know.
[23:43]I mean, did you find that when you were first?
[23:46]Yes.
[23:47]I had no idea.
[23:48]Like all the stuffs, all the stuffs.
[23:49]Some more than others, you know,
[23:51]some publishers have a lot more rounds, right?
[23:54]Yeah, there's a lot.
[23:58]It's changed my experience of bookstores and libraries
[24:02]because I walk in and I think all of these books
[24:05]went through this.
[24:07]Not a lot though.
[24:08]A lot, a lot.
[24:10]You're right.
[24:12]I think after a while you'll be, you know,
[24:15]you'll see which ones when you're reading them
[24:17]and you're like, oh, this didn't go through that level
[24:20]of line that, right?
[24:22]Yeah, yeah.
[24:23]It's not the author's fault, right?
[24:24]Because you're comparing that book to, you know,
[24:28]to other, what, anyway.
[24:30]What advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[24:33]Oh, first of all, read, read, read, and read.
[24:37]I always tell people to read, there's two ways
[24:40]that I read a book now.
[24:41]I can read it as a reader or I can read it as a writer.
[24:45]And sometimes if there's a book that I really feel
[24:48]is gorgeously written or where there's character development
[24:52]that is just like, admire or inspire me.
[24:56]Like, then I will read it both ways.
[24:58]First, I'll read it as a reader just to enjoy it.
[25:01]And then I'll read it as a writer.
[25:02]Like, how did they do this?
[25:05]And so that's my first piece of advice.
[25:07]And my second piece of advice is to get up on yourself
[25:10]and believe in your own process.
[25:11]Everyone comes at this differently.
[25:14]Some people you're going to hear,
[25:15]they wrote their first draft in six months
[25:17]and it was perfect and, you know,
[25:19]and other people it takes 10 years to get it out.
[25:22]And both ways are, could be right,
[25:26]based, you know, it's just who you are
[25:28]and how you write, so don't give up.
[25:30]And where do you think Julia would be now?
[25:33]I think that Julia is, she is working as an art teacher
[25:41]in a middle school.
[25:43]And how is she doing today?
[25:45]I think she's doing okay.
[25:46]I think she's managing things really well.
[25:49]I would guess that she's come out of it on the other side.
[25:55]Like, one of the things I like to say about the title
[25:59]is you can look at the other side of nothing is nothing.
[26:02]Or you can look at the other side of nothing is everything.
[26:04]And I hope that she's in the latter camp.
[26:08]And, you know, I think so many times,
[26:11]like just like with the cover
[26:12]and the covers of half dome, half dome is remarkable
[26:16]because of what's missing.
[26:18]And so many of our lives are defined
[26:21]by what we no longer have, taught us something.
[26:24]And so I think that she's learned from her father's death
[26:29]and other experiences that she's had,
[26:32]that you can take the experiences of your life
[26:35]and make your life better.
[26:37]I love that.
[26:39]And Estetia, congratulations.
[26:41]Thank you so much.
[26:42]Thank you so much.
[26:43]And I'm rooting for you.
[26:45]Thank you so much for having me, Zibi.
[26:47]I have a good night, that's your day.
[26:49]Okay, you too. Bye-bye.
[26:52]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:55]If you love it, please leave a review.
[26:57]And follow us on social at Zibi Owens and at Zibi Readers.