A Zibby Summer Reads pick! Noa Yedlin, STOCKHOLM
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Moms 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. Learn more at ZiviMedia.com or follow me on social
[0:25]at Zivi Owens or join the community at ZiviReaders.
[0:31]Noah Yedland is the author of Stockholm, a novel. Noah is a best-selling Israeli author,
[0:36]the recipient of the Sappier Prize, the Israeli Man Booker,
[0:40]and the Prime Minister's Literature Award. Yedland is also the creator of a prize-winning television
[0:45]series based on her best-selling novel's Stockholm. Another of her best-selling novels,
[0:50]People Like Us, is currently being developed for television, and a stage adaptation of her novel,
[0:55]House Rest, is playing at Bait Lesson Theatre in Tel Aviv, where she lives. Welcome, Noah.
[1:02]Thank you so much for coming on Moms. Don't have time to read books to discuss your novel, Stockholm.
[1:06]Thank you so much for having me Ziti. I've just noticed that my nail polish is actually the cover
[1:11]of your book. That's pretty cool. It's just, it's an all-of-in-view nail polish. Well, yours is pretty good, too.
[1:18]Anyway, off topic. For those listening, I'll have this on YouTube or something, so you can check it out.
[1:23]Anyway, Stockholm. Noah, tell listeners what your book is about.
[1:28]Well, Stockholm tells the story of five friends, four who are alive and one who is dead.
[1:34]They have been friends for the past 50 years of some of them even longer,
[1:40]and they are three men and two women. And one of them is a very, very prominent economist.
[1:47]And he's mentioned that someone who has very, very good chances of winning the Nobel Prize for economics.
[1:54]But unfortunately, one night he's found dead and in bed. Apparently, it was a heart attack.
[2:00]No, there is no, no one suspects any murder or anything like that. And his friends are the ones who find
[2:08]him because he doesn't have, he lives alone. He doesn't have family. And they find him.
[2:14]And the minute before they start working out the funeral arrangements, one of them has an idea.
[2:20]It's only eight days before the Nobel Prize for economics is announced. Eight days between the
[2:26]barriers of just another, you know, professor of economics, one of many. And the barrier of the
[2:33]world we know and economist, one that has won the biggest honor on earth. And one of them says,
[2:41]what if we don't tell anyone that he died? It's only eight days. You have to be alive at the time
[2:47]of the announcement. This is something that we should mention. And this time, this is very useful
[2:53]information for our viewers as well. You have to be alive at the time of the announcement.
[2:59]You are very free to die between the announcement and the ceremony. There are too much there,
[3:05]and you can die during those two months as much as you want. But you have to be alive at the
[3:11]time of the announcement. And so what if they don't tell anyone that he died? And you know,
[3:16]how difficult could he be to answer a few text messages on someone's behalf? Of course, as it
[3:22]turns out, it's much more difficult than they expected. First of all, because life tend to be
[3:27]much more difficult than we expect as we all know. And second of all, because if things didn't
[3:33]turn difficult, then there would be a book. So. Yes, I was not expecting there was a twist
[3:42]sort of halfway through or so. And I was totally not expecting that. So that was like, you know,
[3:46]well done. That was great. So this is dark. Like, where did you think about this? Because you have to
[3:52]go into all the details of what happens to a decaying body and moving a body and hiding a body and
[3:59]like, you know, masquerading as other people. And I mean, I'm a little concerned about you. No,
[4:06]I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
[4:09]Tell you, I can't tell you right from the start or I shouldn't mention right from the start,
[4:16]but this is not the biography. I myself never hated that body, not for more than two or four days.
[4:24]So, because this is not the case, but I will tell you where did I get come from? Because I
[4:31]also think that it really has to do with the title of our podcast. It actually all started a few
[4:37]years ago when I met my best friend for lunch. And she has four children. And at the time they were
[4:47]rather small. They were like purgers. And we met for lunch. And she told me she was very upset.
[4:54]She had a very bad mood. And she told me that she went over to meet another friend of hers.
[5:01]This is going to be one of those stories. My friend, her friend, her husband.
[5:05]That's okay. I'm with you. I'm focused. I got it. I'm focused. I'm focused.
[5:10]Oh, it's always. So she told me that she went over to meet another friend of hers
[5:16]whose husband is a very, very famous film director. And when she was over at their house,
[5:24]she saw on the computer screen saver a picture of her friend and the husband walking the red carpet,
[5:32]the actual red carpet like the Hollywood one. My friend told me that she went home that afternoon
[5:40]feeling the worst she has felt for a very long time. Because her friend is walking red carpet
[5:47]and she's there breastfeeding formula, all that jazz, you know that jazz. And she said,
[5:57]I have never felt less glamorous in my entire life. And with half of my brain, I started
[6:05]controlling her. I started telling her that she's very glamorous in her own way. And she's even
[6:10]going to get more glamorous, especially if she stops having children at a certain point.
[6:16]And that helps. It helps. Yeah. But the other half of my brain, you know, as writers,
[6:22]we only give people half of our minds. We always conspire with the other half, right? And with
[6:29]the other half, I started feeling that there is a novel there. Because I thought, well, you know,
[6:36]people always talk about what's like to be a friend in the time of need, right? It's a very
[6:42]novel value, a friend in the time of need is a friend indeed. And it's very appreciatable,
[6:49]etc. But the one thing that no one talks about is what it's like to be a friend in a time
[6:56]of success. And the reason that no one speaks about that is also very clear, because there is
[7:03]absolutely nothing in the world you're allowed to say other than I am happy for my friend. The
[7:11]period of discussion, right? Even though I shot, I shot, I shot, I am still here.
[7:18]Right. So even though you may have other feelings as well, right, not because you're a bad human
[7:25]being, just because you're a human being, maybe you're a little jealous, maybe it makes you
[7:30]look at your own life, maybe it makes you examine your choices or decisions. These are all super
[7:37]human reactions, but still no one talks about that. And whenever I find something that no one talks
[7:46]about it, but I believe that everyone feels, then I know I have a novel. So this was actually
[7:53]the inspiration because I didn't start with death and with dead bodies. And no, I started with success
[8:03]and with friendship. And then I started thinking, what is, you know, what is success in the modern
[8:09]world in the Western world? And I thought that the best symbol of success or the most vivid
[8:17]symbol of success must be an Nobel Prize, you know, Nobel Prize is actually, it kind of kills
[8:23]the whole postmodern debate of who decides who success is, you know, if your friends want
[8:30]an Nobel Prize, you don't go, oh, well, I could have correct death problems on just as well, right?
[8:36]No, you'll say, okay, I have some research. So this was actually the inspiration. I actually had
[8:43]some really, I did a lot of research, obviously, for the reasons that I just mentioned, you know,
[8:50]I mean, I was hoping, I was hoping you didn't know all this just off the top of your head.
[8:54]I kind of did a lot of research. I have actually my own private pathologies.
[9:00]We met over, I'm not married to a pathologist, but we met while working on this novel.
[9:09]He was very, very helpful. And ever since then, he helps me whenever I have something that
[9:15]has to do with death, with bodies with, I don't know, I don't have so much death in my books,
[9:21]but for some reason he's very useful. So I had to do a lot of research, but I think that the funniest
[9:28]part of the research was my correspondence with a Nobel committee, because once I decided that
[9:35]this is going to be my novel, I thought, well, I should write to them and ask them some questions
[9:41]about, you know, about the rules about how this is all. And I wrote it like this very long
[9:47]email with very, very bizarre questions that I, I don't know how come they answered and didn't
[9:55]alert the FBI questions head
[10:00]to do with death, dying, and dead, Nobel Laureate.
[10:04]You know, what happened to your die a day before?
[10:07]What happened to your die a day after?
[10:09]Everything had to do with that.
[10:11]But being the sweet that they are, they actually answered.
[10:15]And now I have in my Gmail inbox,
[10:18]I have like me called my Nobel,
[10:22]which is like probably the closest I've ever done
[10:26]to me no better.
[10:28]So this was a nice part of the whole endeavor.
[10:34]But now you're on their radar.
[10:35]So it's possible, right?
[10:37]Now they know about you.
[10:39]Yeah, I'm sure that this is how they work.
[10:42]You know, they just go for their emails and they go,
[10:45]like, we like that one for the next prize.
[10:49]I can hope, right?
[10:53]Yeah, we're, can't find anybody this year.
[10:56]What about spam?
[10:57]LAUGHTER
[11:00]Oh my goodness.
[11:01]Well, I hope you sent them the book.
[11:03]Did you send your Nobel friends the book?
[11:06]You know, I didn't.
[11:08]Come on.
[11:09]I did it, but actually Stockholm was adapted
[11:12]into an Israeli television series.
[11:15]I should say that I'm talking to you from the view.
[11:18]And this is why I'm also not a fluid English speaker.
[11:22]So if I make a mistake to have to forgive me.
[11:24]So Stockholm was adapted into an Israeli,
[11:28]a two-season Israeli TV series,
[11:30]which was also remained in Stockholm in Sweden.
[11:35]And they had, so they know the story
[11:37]and they know the novel.
[11:39]Hopefully this is going to not hurt.
[11:43]So why has this not been a US show?
[11:46]Not yet, hopefully.
[11:48]We're actually working on that.
[11:52]And we're hoping that it will be a US show
[11:55]because it was remade in several countries
[11:59]around the world.
[12:00]We were super close to making it happen in the US.
[12:04]And we're hoping, we're hoping.
[12:07]Okay, good.
[12:08]You know, this is something that takes time
[12:11]and it's very complicated then.
[12:13]Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[12:14]I know, yeah, I know how it gets, yeah, but still.
[12:18]Well, it's very cinematic and hilarious
[12:21]and, you know, frightening all in the same.
[12:24]But what we find out, and I don't think it's too much
[12:30]of a spoiler, but if so, that I can delete this part.
[12:32]But one of the friends wants to keep the Abishay alive,
[12:37]theoretically not for the Nobel,
[12:39]not because he wants his friend to sort of rest
[12:42]in peace forever having won it,
[12:44]but for his own blurb on his own book cover,
[12:47]which is hilarious because his friend blurbed his book.
[12:50]And if he could say that he was blurbed by Nobel Laureate,
[12:55]his book would sell more.
[12:58]I don't think it's, I don't think it's considered a spoiler.
[13:02]Okay, good.
[13:03]But, you know, I do think that it's funny,
[13:06]but at the same time, I feel that the fact that actually
[13:11]they're all, or most of them, have some ulterior motive.
[13:17]Yes.
[13:18]I'm not only doing it just, you know, altruistically.
[13:22]I think that it doesn't make them any less of a good,
[13:26]or good friends.
[13:28]I think you can be a very good friend,
[13:31]and you can also be, again, human and egoistic,
[13:36]which is probably the same thing, right?
[13:39]I don't think it's a contradiction.
[13:41]I think the one who wants to blurb is,
[13:45]I think he still really loves a Visha, the deceased.
[13:49]I think they all do.
[13:51]Yeah, well, yeah.
[13:52]And they're right.
[13:56]So tell me more about your career as a whole.
[13:59]Well, I used to be a journalist for quite a few years.
[14:04]And at a certain point, I realized that the part of reality
[14:09]of speaking to reality, which is kind of a must in journalism,
[14:18]is kind of not my favorite part.
[14:21]Let's put it this way.
[14:23]And speaking to my editors, these strange ideas,
[14:27]like how does it, instead of interviewing a real model,
[14:33]I'm going to invent a model.
[14:36]I'm going to invent a super model,
[14:37]and work in an interview that fictional super model.
[14:44]And they would go, no, no, this has been not going to happen.
[14:51]And at a certain point, quite, some would say that for, you know,
[14:57]generally intelligent person, it took quite a while
[15:00]to realize that there is that there exists a profession
[15:06]where you don't have to rely on reality.
[15:09]You can just make it all up.
[15:12]And the funny thing is that my books are super realistic.
[15:17]It's not that I don't know about and, you know, making up this,
[15:21]I don't know fantasy words or demons or never, never.
[15:26]Everything is always super, super, super realistic.
[15:29]Even in this book, which is probably my wildest one,
[15:33]still they're very, very, you know, like 70 year old,
[15:39]you know, your, it's your parents.
[15:42]I think it's my, it's my mother's friends.
[15:45]My mother is really good psychologist.
[15:48]It's her friends.
[15:49]It's her TV and friends who, you know,
[15:53]this was another motivation to write the book,
[15:56]because I felt that I don't read about the 70 year old
[15:59]that I know, I mean, in books, I feel that 70 year old
[16:04]people are portrayed as first of all cute.
[16:07]I don't know what age you become cute,
[16:10]but it is a good opportunity for some reason become cute.
[16:15]But, you know, some people are not cute.
[16:17]Some people are people.
[16:19]And the 70 year old people, television,
[16:21]that I know, they divorced, they have sex, they cheat,
[16:26]they turn to feng shui, they start taking a blow.
[16:30]I don't know, they do all these things.
[16:33]And I want to read about them.
[16:35]I don't remember how I got to talk about that,
[16:37]but, well, I asked about your career in you.
[16:40]So, so I kind of drifted away.
[16:43]You drifted away to, yeah, so yeah, so I started writing books.
[16:47]And I was, I just had a lot of fortune,
[16:51]I mean, meaning luck, not meaning money.
[16:54]I had a lot of luck, I write from the start,
[16:59]I kind of won this big prize in Israel.
[17:02]So, this made it possible for me to quit journalism
[17:06]and actually become a full-time writer,
[17:09]as much as you can be a full-time writer in Israel,
[17:12]which is not very, you have to do other things as well,
[17:16]but you can write books.
[17:18]That's amazing.
[17:19]Yeah.
[17:20]So, which other books do you want to highlight?
[17:23]Like, what else should we know?
[17:24]I would say that, well, my, my, my latest book
[17:29]is called the wrong book.
[17:31]The wrong book?
[17:33]The wrong book.
[17:34]Yes.
[17:35]And I think it would interest you.
[17:37]I would tell you what it's about.
[17:40]And hopefully it's going to be published in the US soon as well.
[17:44]The wrong book tells the story of a young mother.
[17:48]She's a first-time mother on maternity leave.
[17:50]And while she's on maternity, she's a inspiring writer.
[17:54]She writes very sophisticated prose,
[17:57]but she never, I mean, she theoretically writes sophisticated prose,
[18:01]but realistically, she never published anything yet.
[18:05]And her husband really expects her to become, you know,
[18:09]the next Kafka or the 21st century Kafka.
[18:14]And when she's on maternity leave,
[18:17]she finds herself not only unable to write anything,
[18:22]but also unable to read anything.
[18:25]And the friend of all of hers tells her,
[18:29]you know what you should do?
[18:30]You should read romantic fiction.
[18:32]This is so much fun.
[18:34]This is how I go through my, you know, breastfeeding night.
[18:37]It's a fun.
[18:39]And she's like, no, no, that's not for me.
[18:41]But when she tries one, she gets hooked up.
[18:45]She starts reading them by the dozens.
[18:48]And eventually she starts writing them.
[18:52]But she does it all behind her husband's back
[18:55]because she knows he's gonna be, you know,
[18:59]he's very, he's a very, I would say, stuck up pots.
[19:04]He's, yeah, that's maybe the best description.
[19:11]I mean, he's very intelligent, he's,
[19:13]he has never read anything, you know,
[19:17]that any romantic fiction,
[19:19]but of course he has always opinions about that
[19:23]as many sometimes do.
[19:24]And she does it behind his back.
[19:27]And she becomes like, of course, under an alias
[19:30]and it's difficult for the same reason
[19:33]that they turn difficult and stuck home.
[19:35]And just kind of difficult here as well.
[19:39]Wow.
[19:40]All right.
[19:41]I have to read that.
[19:42]That sounds so good.
[19:44]I hope so, yeah.
[19:45]Yeah.
[19:46]I hope it's gonna get published.
[19:47]This was the last one I published in Israel.
[19:50]I have another one called People Like Us.
[19:53]I have some, I published quite a few novels in Israel.
[19:57]I have another novel called People Like Us.
[20:00]hopefully it's going to be published in the US as well.
[20:02]I'm now adapting people like us into an Israeli television
[20:07]series as well.
[20:09]It's about a couple, like a 40-year-old couple.
[20:13]Oh, we have a guest.
[20:14]Yes, sorry.
[20:16]No, my dog just wanted.
[20:17]Yes.
[20:18]It's perfect.
[20:19]It's about a 40-year-old couple.
[20:21]They have two daughters.
[20:24]And they want to buy their own place.
[20:26]They don't rent anymore.
[20:28]So they go and buy a house in a very bad neighborhood
[20:33]until a few.
[20:35]It's going to be the next someone who bought in the meat
[20:40]back in this district.
[20:43]And they think they're like, so real estate, safety, and that.
[20:48]And they move there.
[20:49]And also, of course, they have all these ideals,
[20:52]because their daughters are going to grow up
[20:55]in a multicultural environment in what's better
[20:58]than that.
[20:59]But you know, being deliberate is much more difficult.
[21:03]It's much easier in theory than it is in reality, as we all know.
[21:11]People put in the early journalism to the test
[21:13]is always a bad idea.
[21:15]It's kind of a test dunes for failure.
[21:19]And they move there.
[21:20]And well, things get complicated.
[21:23]We always get back to things that complicated.
[21:27]I guess all of those finally, you know,
[21:30]circle to things get complicated.
[21:32]And I love that as your tagline.
[21:35]I think that's great.
[21:39]OK.
[21:39]Well, what is your advice for aspiring authors?
[21:43]Can I give you two?
[21:44]Yes, yes, you can.
[21:47]Why is forget about inspiration?
[21:53]I think that waiting for inspiration
[21:55]is the best recipe for not writing anything.
[21:59]If you're waiting for a trail of unicorns
[22:02]to help over your keyboard, and it's not going to happen.
[22:09]If you want to write, treat your writing
[22:11]as if you were an accountant.
[22:13]You sit down at the computer and your work.
[22:17]Working is also thinking.
[22:19]Working is also banging your head against the computer.
[22:24]But this is your working hours.
[22:26]There is a very, very things.
[22:27]Israeli writer called Amost Oz.
[22:30]He's my life anymore.
[22:32]And he used to stay at 8 o'clock in the morning.
[22:36]I opened my grocery store.
[22:38]It doesn't matter if people are going to show up or not.
[22:41]The store is going to stay open.
[22:43]Yep.
[22:44]I feel that this is a very good description
[22:46]of how I perceive writing in the process.
[22:50]This is one.
[22:51]The other is always give your characters
[22:56]a love credit.
[22:58]Also, the bad characters, the superficial ones,
[23:05]the one that we're not supposed to like,
[23:07]give them a love credit, make them say smart things,
[23:13]and make them have good arguments.
[23:15]Because then your book is going to be interesting.
[23:18]It's not going to be, you know,
[23:20]it's not going to be key shades.
[23:21]And it's not going to be simplistic.
[23:24]Give everyone all your characters as much credit
[23:27]as possible always.
[23:29]And they're going to thank you for that, I think.
[23:32]Amazing.
[23:33]No, this was so fun.
[23:35]I want to like go have you make me laugh and go get coffee
[23:38]and hang out.
[23:39]You're so funny and smart.
[23:40]And I love it.
[23:41]I'm just, I want to read everything.
[23:42]I want to go back and read everything now.
[23:44]So anyway, thank you so much for coming on.
[23:47]You can create so much for having me.
[23:49]It's my pleasure.
[23:50]Thank you.
[23:50]OK, bye.
[23:55]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[23:57]If you love it, please leave a review.
[23:59]And follow us on social at city Owens and at city readers.