A Zibby Summer Reads pick: Wedding Season! Lauren Aliza Green, THE WORLD AFTER ALICE
[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
[0:24]me on social at Zivi Owens or join the community at ZiviReaders.
[0:31]Lauren Eliza Green is the author of the world after Alice, a novel.
[0:35]Lauren holds an MFA from the Mitchner Center for Writers.
[0:38]Her work has appeared in Conjunctions, American Short Fiction,
[0:41]Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. She is the author of A Great Dark House,
[0:45]winner of the Poetry Society of America's Chapbook Fellowship, and the inaugural recipient
[0:50]of the Even Ballend Emerging Poetry Award, sponsored by Poetry Ireland and Stanford University.
[0:56]Her writing has received support from the Kenyan Review Workshop,
[0:59]Breadloaf, and the Carson McCullers Center.
[1:02]Welcome, Lauren. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss
[1:06]the world after Alice. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
[1:10]I just took this book with me everywhere for the last week, and so the cover got totally
[1:14]squashed in the bottom of my bag, and I'm so sorry. I'm holding it up now.
[1:17]It's like, I've been like smoothing it and everything, but anyway, it's well-born and, you know,
[1:24]broken in, if you will. Can you please tell listeners what your book is about?
[1:29]Sure. So the world after Alice takes place in the shadow of this terrible tragedy, which is
[1:35]the loss of 16-year-old Alice while. And now, 12 years on Alice's younger brother,
[1:41]Benji, and her former best friend Morgan, surprised everybody with news that they planned to get
[1:47]married. And for this, they summoned together their two estranged families to the coast of Maine for
[1:53]a weekend of tension and love, as these old affairs get rekindled and these long-berry secrets
[2:03]yet exposed. And ultimately, the characters try to chart their way forward on a path that seems
[2:09]quite uncertain. Wow. Well, the wedding stuff at first glance, there's the fun and the anticipation
[2:18]and the stress, but there's so much pain left over from the loss and a young loss and
[2:25]died by suicide. And, you know, all of it, it's painful. And, you know, we get to a point in the
[2:32]book not to give things away where, you know, you've at least hear about it precipitate one of
[2:37]the precipitating events or an earlier morning event. And, you know, having to carry all that
[2:44]with you is like a parent. Oh my gosh. Okay. So anyway, that was a rambling thing, but
[2:50]where did all this come from? And where does the pain come from? Sure. So it's a great question.
[2:57]I have been following the news for a long time and been watching the tidal wave of the mental
[3:05]health crisis that has come about specifically over the last 10 years when the suicide rate has
[3:11]specifically in teenage girls. And I wanted a book that reflected the current times, the current
[3:18]issues, but also had a message at its heart of, well, okay, here's this issue. And then
[3:26]what does it mean for the people who are reckoning with that? How do we reflect the difficulty
[3:31]of knowing the degree to which somebody we love is struggling, which is impossible. And so that was,
[3:37]I guess, the kernel of what ultimately became this book. Interesting. More of a ripped from the
[3:45]headlines type of thing than something from a personal connection of sorts. Yeah, I would say so,
[3:51]let's not exactly ripped from the headlines, but more what were the thoughts swirling?
[3:57]Had the sort of COVID, you know, where where were all of us at that time. And so, and then the joy
[4:04]of getting to bring together a family for a wedding. I don't know. Sometimes I'm like drawn to the
[4:10]dark. So sorry to hone in on that. Obviously, I am as well. I was talking to a friend the other day
[4:18]and I was recommending a book or something like that. And she's like, but is it one of the books I
[4:21]love where like something terrible happens? And like, I'm going to cry because I really want to cry.
[4:25]And I'm like, okay. Yeah, if you look at, when I was talking about the things that second grade
[4:33]me was writing, there's one about the sea drowning person. I don't know. I was definitely always
[4:39]drawn to the dark. And now here we are. And you're running, but I'm reading it. So it works out
[4:46]perfectly. Weddings obviously are a huge feeder of all sorts of emotion. It brings up everything.
[4:57]Like, have you gotten married or did this happen with you or whatever? Oh, yes. Yeah. So my,
[5:03]I have divorced parents. And now this is my second marriage. And you know, I couldn't believe the
[5:09]amount of, yeah, just emotion that my first wedding in particular, like caused from every person
[5:15]involved on every side. And it's like, as a bride, you have to be a total therapist in the middle
[5:23]of everything else. Yeah. It's ironic because Weddings are, you know, people say it's the happiest
[5:28]in your life, whatever. But the reality is that they also are huge pressure points that I've been
[5:35]convinced to expose any of the cracks or the fissures in a family dynamic. They're just instantly,
[5:41]they're on display at an event that is both very public and also very, very private. And that
[5:47]tension of the public and the private, what people are internally going through. But what they
[5:52]want to project. Yeah. So compelling. Yeah. And why they're drawn. I mean, in this book,
[5:58]they kept their relationship a secret for a long time from their families, given the past
[6:03]stuff that, you know, I'm so sorry. Thank you so much. Last night. It's all clear in my head.
[6:10]It's just the words are not coming out. It's a real drive to say is because of the history of
[6:16]the two families, they have chosen to keep this relationship under the radar until this bigger,
[6:21]you know, celebration and announcement. And it seems sudden, but of course not sudden at all,
[6:25]because, you know, they're smart. And they know they know what will be unboxed, if you will.
[6:33]Yeah. I'm trying to think of how to reply to that, but exactly. Yeah. They know that this news
[6:39]will not be met with the joy of the people we met with. There's just four or too many feelings
[6:44]that play for that to happen. And so they want to protect the love that they've built,
[6:50]while knowing that that very protection is also just making things worse and worse,
[6:54]because the pressures continues to build and eventually the valve will have to be opened.
[6:58]Yes. And how did you pick the setting? Oh, so the book takes place both parts of a take place
[7:04]in New York City and then parts in Maine, an imaginary coastal town. And I really wanted to play
[7:10]with that specific contrast. I think that when the characters are in New York City, they have a
[7:16]lot of buffer around them, which is always how I feel in the city. There's a million things
[7:20]happening, a million people about. And so one's energies, thoughts, etc. can be a bit diffused
[7:28]into the landscape. And you can really sort of trick yourself into moving through the world
[7:34]through your day without confronting whatever it is you're hiding. And that in the book, it's
[7:39]contrasted with Maine, which is this place of vast distances and a lot of, I mean, when I picture
[7:49]the parts of Maine, I'm thinking I see a very deep blue sea. Not one that is overly calm,
[7:54]it should be said. There's a lot of rocky cliffs. And that seemed like the perfect place
[7:59]to put these characters, because suddenly, oh my God, the buildings have disappeared,
[8:04]all they can actually do is look at one another. And then looking at one another
[8:09]are forced to reckon with exactly how much hurt they brought upon each other. And all of the
[8:15]things that they've spent 12 years basically avoiding. Yeah. I feel like there needs to be a map of
[8:21]Maine where all the books take place. Right? There's so many books that I'm not as familiar with,
[8:27]I mean, it's been there, but like where each one, because there've been a bunch in Maine. And I
[8:32]I don't know. I'm drawn to novels there as well for whatever reason. Yeah, there's something very
[8:36]dramatic about it. And yeah, almost not prehistoric, that doesn't seem right, but there's going to
[8:42]say hunting in a way, we'll go with that. Right? There's something about, I don't know why,
[8:48]because it's so cold in the morning or something. Yeah, it has this reputation. And it's such an
[8:56]interesting, I mean, I think of Elizabeth Stroud as capturing that the frigidness that exists
[9:02]in certain parts of New England. And and yet it is also this place that every year,
[9:07]droves of people travel to in the summer months. And it also represented at least in this book,
[9:13]the milieu of this family and their upper class lifestyle. And so it seemed like the right place
[9:18]that these two people would decide to marry. And tell me about the professor plot,
[9:25]thing connection for sure. So the professor for those who haven't read the book, the professor
[9:32]has a very complicated relationship with Alice that gets explored throughout the book. And
[9:39]he himself is a very troubled character. I think it's safe to say. But I also have heard a lot of
[9:45]books that make this particular dynamic quite black and white. And at least from what I've observed
[9:53]during my experience, it is almost always takes place in the gray zone. And so
[10:00]He wanted to be, I don't want anyone in this book
[10:02]to be an obvious villain or hero
[10:05]because I don't think that's true to life.
[10:07]And I wanted to craft a character who is very rightly
[10:10]struggling with his own feelings of insecurity,
[10:14]inadequacy also perhaps narcissism, whatever it may be,
[10:18]and how he reflects that on this young pupil
[10:22]who is quite desperate for somebody to reach out to her
[10:26]and extend hand.
[10:28]And it just so happens to be that the person who does this
[10:30]is maybe not the right figure that she means
[10:34]at that moment in time.
[10:35]Interesting.
[10:36]Well, I had liked that.
[10:38]I thought it was surprised by, anyway,
[10:41]that like this little thing.
[10:42]So how did you become a writer?
[10:45]Like where'd you come from?
[10:46]What's your life story?
[10:47]OK.
[10:48]It's a small question.
[10:49]LAUGHTER
[10:52]I always wrote.
[10:53]I remember once I remember when I was 16,
[10:56]I wrote a full manuscript.
[10:57]But I then went and submitted.
[10:59]I mean, it was just very clear that that was a dream
[11:02]of mine, a goal of mine, although I did spend most of my life
[11:06]in theater training and had gone to conservatory for acting.
[11:10]And I very quickly realized that that was not my path.
[11:13]And so I spent a few years trying to figure out, well, what
[11:16]is it that I want to do?
[11:17]What brings me joy?
[11:18]And I really credit, I would say, the professors in my life
[11:21]with steering me and saying, you should pursue this.
[11:25]You have something here.
[11:26]And I always loved to be.
[11:28]That's for sure.
[11:29]And I studied Russian literature and college
[11:32]and was just so compelled by the soul that, let's say,
[11:37]Tolstoy or Dostoevsky is able to write on the page
[11:41]just that bearing sense.
[11:42]And then I went to grad school for fiction and poetry.
[11:45]And that's where the first draft of this book was written.
[11:49]Wow.
[11:50]Amazing.
[11:51]So how easy or hard was it to write this book?
[11:56]Well, it's hard to judge whether something is easy or hard.
[12:02]There are different skills of difficulty,
[12:05]I would say, in life not to get too philosophical about it,
[12:08]but is it hard for me to go out there and dig a hole
[12:12]over and over and over every day?
[12:14]Sure, that's one type of labor.
[12:15]And so I find whatever difficulty presented itself
[12:19]in the writing of this book was actually
[12:22]an enjoyable difficulty, which is to say that any struggles
[12:26]that I came upon were quite fun to tackle.
[12:29]Even when I felt like I was bashing my head against a wall
[12:33]to figure out the structure or the voices,
[12:36]it was all the type of challenge that I really
[12:39]love to tackle.
[12:41]Awesome.
[12:42]And how do you feel about the mom?
[12:44]Ooh, in what sense?
[12:46]Like, I feel like she's a complicated character.
[12:49]She's not always so nice.
[12:50]She has a difficult relationship,
[12:52]but I feel like there's a level of compassion
[12:55]that we feel for her when we learn even more.
[12:58]So is she supposed to be a sympathetic character
[13:02]in the end or not?
[13:03]I would hope that if I've done my job,
[13:07]all the characters are in one way or another sympathetic.
[13:11]That doesn't mean we always love them
[13:12]or we agree with their decisions,
[13:14]but hopefully their decisions are at least legible
[13:17]to the reader.
[13:19]And we can understand why Lenny pushes Alice so hard.
[13:22]And it's because that was how she wished she had been pushed
[13:25]because maybe then her own shot at greatness
[13:29]would have come onto her.
[13:30]And so I think that once that psychology
[13:34]is reckoned with, hopefully, hopefully
[13:37]the reader will at least understand her as a person.
[13:42]Whether or not they like her, you know, I love them.
[13:45]Are you working on another book?
[13:47]I am.
[13:48]I am working on a book.
[13:50]It's a modern day king Lear, and it follows three grown siblings
[13:54]as they fight for their father's multimillion-dollar art
[13:58]collection both in the courts and outside of the courts.
[14:03]That's cool.
[14:04]Look at how she collect.
[14:06]A lot of different, it's quite a varied collection.
[14:08]He started it, started collecting when he was young.
[14:11]And so over time, and he had this amazing eye for art pieces.
[14:15]So over time, those pieces have managed to accrue value
[14:19]at an insane rate, essentially.
[14:21]And so the collection is worth a lot,
[14:23]and he announces quite early on that he plans
[14:25]to leave the entire collection to his youngest daughter.
[14:28]Sounds the fight.
[14:30]OK.
[14:31]But do you have a title?
[14:33]I have a working title.
[14:35]It's called The Golds right now, OK, which is the siblings.
[14:39]But we'll see if that ends up sticking.
[14:42]Interesting.
[14:42]I love it.
[14:43]Where do you like to write there at your desk where I'm looking at you?
[14:46]Or no?
[14:47]Never.
[14:49]The first time in my life that I've sat up this desk.
[14:53]It ends up, if I showed it to you.
[14:54]It ends up becoming a home for all sorts of just random items
[14:59]that I can't explain.
[15:00]So no, never at the desk.
[15:03]This is funny.
[15:04]I am not someone who enjoys routine, necessarily.
[15:08]So I like to go to new places and write there.
[15:12]If I can, I find that I do my best work
[15:14]when I don't know the environment around me,
[15:17]at least it just forces me back into my own head.
[15:20]Whereas if I'm here, I can do.
[15:21]I could putter about the house, finding
[15:23]a million things to do.
[15:25]And so I'll usually be at a library or a coffee shop
[15:28]or even on the subway just anywhere unfamiliar in a way.
[15:32]Unfamiliar enough that it can send me in turn.
[15:37]Yeah, I love that.
[15:38]And what do you like to do?
[15:39]I mean, in the sense, that's a kind of deep question.
[15:42]What do you like to do when you're not writing?
[15:43]But I mean, when you're not at work on your fiction,
[15:46]what are you doing?
[15:48]I am probably playing music.
[15:53]I'm also working on a musical right now.
[15:55]It's not an album, but I like to write music and compose.
[15:58]And so I'm probably at the piano or playing guitar,
[16:01]or singing, ideally.
[16:03]And then other than that, I love to walk,
[16:06]which is, I think, so much of the pleasure in the world
[16:10]can be experienced just on our two feet.
[16:12]So I enjoy walking, and specifically,
[16:14]if I can be a broad or wherever it may be interacting
[16:18]with the world and its people, that's my happy place.
[16:22]That's an interesting way to say that.
[16:24]I love that.
[16:25]And this is supposed to, yeah, I love that.
[16:27]Nice.
[16:28]And do you have authors who you read and you're like,
[16:31]this is the way, or your favorite authors,
[16:33]or a book you're like, oh, I wish I'd written that.
[16:36]Oh, oh my gosh, so many books, so many books
[16:39]that I say that about.
[16:41]I think I've gone to this reading a few months ago.
[16:45]And the author said that everything we read
[16:48]becomes our thumbprint, because it's unique to us.
[16:52]No one else in the world has read everything we've read,
[16:54]and then the order that we've read it,
[16:56]and digested it in the same way.
[16:58]And I see that to say that I feel in some way
[17:01]that every single book I read becomes part of what gets output.
[17:07]But to answer, in terms of the authors who
[17:09]have been most influential, I am a huge Alan Affron
[17:13]daypan, I think she just has it nailed
[17:17]and has read in the perfect series.
[17:20]So I always find myself coming back to a round day
[17:23]when I'm stuck or I need inspiration,
[17:26]or I just need a dose of life, because that's actually
[17:29]what Ferron Day gives you.
[17:30]It's like, you know, just an IV drip of drama and friendship
[17:36]and love and conflict and all of the things.
[17:39]Excellent, amazing.
[17:41]What kind of food do you like?
[17:43]Food.
[17:44]I don't know.
[17:45]Yeah, though I'm a vegan.
[17:47]So I stick to a plant-based diet.
[17:50]But with them that I'm pretty, I enjoy anything I can eat,
[17:55]which I think to a lot of people would say,
[17:57]you know, not that much, but fruits and vegetables and whatnot.
[18:00]What type of food do you like?
[18:02]I know.
[18:02]Sorry, I don't even know why I asked that.
[18:04]I think I asked that because I'm hungry.
[18:07]I know, but I am curious what type of food do you like?
[18:11]Oh, lately I've had this massive pizza craving.
[18:15]I've been eating more pizza in the last year.
[18:17]Maybe it means I don't have enough calcium or something.
[18:20]You know, actually, that's probably what's going on.
[18:22]Now that I say it out loud, in fact, I'm so free
[18:24]I need to take the filth, like the vitamins for months
[18:27]and now I'm getting old.
[18:28]Do you make your own pizza ever?
[18:30]I have.
[18:30]I'm actually not bad at the crust.
[18:32]You know, I like that whole thing about you.
[18:36]I wouldn't say I'm a great cook,
[18:38]but I have been making the kocha bread recently.
[18:42]I feel like I came a little late to the bread making craze,
[18:44]but I think pizza might be the next thing on my list.
[18:48]Yeah.
[18:49]I mean, I don't make the dough.
[18:50]I buy the dough in those little bags.
[18:51]Okay.
[18:52]Okay.
[18:53]And then I was like, but I stretched it out with my hands
[18:55]and I like did it.
[18:56]And then I put the topics.
[18:57]Actually, what I really like to do is make like a whole
[18:59]little pizza bar for the kids and then like, you know,
[19:01]then they chop it up and they all make our own pizzas
[19:03]and then we have like a couple in the oven at once
[19:05]and we can pair pizzas.
[19:06]And that's like one of my favorite summer things.
[19:08]And actually it's summer now.
[19:09]So I should, we should do that this weekend, maybe.
[19:12]We'll say, yeah.
[19:13]Thank you for bringing it up.
[19:15]I'll tag you on my, my, my pizzas.
[19:18]If I make, what, if and when I make them again.
[19:22]So what advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[19:25]Advice for aspiring authors.
[19:26]I would say, I would quote Twilight Tharp,
[19:31]actually who said, make creativity your habit.
[19:35]I think we can spend a lot of time waiting for the muse
[19:38]to visit us with her magic wand,
[19:41]but you could spend your whole life waiting if that's the case.
[19:44]So if I would tell anybody who wants to do this
[19:48]or who does this to force yourself to sit down every day
[19:53]and do it, you know, because I guess what are you waiting for?
[19:57]Is my big point and the more you do it.
[20:00]the better you get and the more the material stays alive in your head. So make creativity
[20:06]you're happy. And what about for those wrestling with suicide having a child who is in the
[20:13]situation or loves somebody who has fought with depression or any of the mental health big
[20:20]big topics that you you talk about and they are inherent in the books plot and all of that?
[20:26]Yeah, I'd say nobody has alone in these struggles even though it can sometimes feel that way.
[20:34]No one has alone reach out to others around you, to the community, find people who can make you feel
[20:43]seen and heard is a really big one and I'm sorry. I guess is my feeling and I'm here and
[20:52]having spent the last few years doing a ton of research into this and speaking to a ton of people
[20:59]all I can say is that something that everybody in some way or another has come face to face with
[21:06]and I don't think that's a comfort really but maybe the comfort is in knowing that
[21:11]we're all human at the end of the day and it's an uphill battle. Sometimes more uphill,
[21:16]more steeper hill for some people but an uphill battle for everybody. I love that. Thank you.
[21:21]Well thank you for this book and congratulations and I'm looking forward to meeting you soon.
[21:28]Thank you. Okay. Enjoy your time. Bye.
[21:34]Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books. If you love it please leave a review
[21:38]and follow us on social at zippyowans and at zippy readers.