New York Times bestselling author! Kimberly McCreight, LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER

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[0:42]Kimberly McCrite is the author of Like Mother Like Daughter, a novel.

[0:46]She's the New York Times best-selling author of Reconstructing Amelia, where they found her, a good marriage, which she came on this podcast to discuss and friends like these,

[0:54]as well as a young adult trilogy, The Outliers.

[0:56]She has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Alex Awards, and her books have been translated into more than 20 languages.

[1:02]She lives in Brooklyn.

[1:04]Welcome, Kimberly. Thank you so much for coming back on Moms. Don't have time to read books to discuss like Mother Like Daughter. Congratulations.

[1:12]Thank you. Thank you for having me again. I really appreciate it.

[1:14]It's my pleasure. I know this book is personal to you with your daughters, and I saw you posting them on Instagram, and I read about them in your acknowledgements.

[1:24]And obviously, the whole book is infused with this mother or daughter relationship to different sets of, well, mother, daughter, father, daughter.

[1:32]I mean, it's, you know, it's very poignant. So anyway, congrats. It's a great, great book.

[1:39]Tell listeners a little bit better of a job with the plot is than my rambling right now.

[1:46]No, I like your rambling, which gets to the heart of the book, which is always to me, the most important part.

[1:51]Yes, so the book opens with a college student, Cleo, who arrives home to have dinner at her childhood home in parks of Brooklyn.

[2:02]And when she arrives, she's there to meet her mother with whom she has this kind of, has had long had a contentious relationship and for the past several months, they haven't been speaking at all, but she's finally agreed to come home.

[2:13]And when she arrives, there is food burning and there is blood on a shoe and her mother is nowhere inside.

[2:20]So that kicks off the plot. The book is narrated from the point of view of Cleo in the days after her mother cats disappearance and also from the perspective of cat in the days leading up to the incident.

[2:33]So you find out both what happened to cat as Cleo tries to uncover the truth, but also there's a lot that cat hasn't been telling Cleo about her life, about her past about what her real job is.

[2:46]As far as Cleo knows, she's just a patent attorney and the reality is that cat is a fixer for her law firm.

[2:53]And that's just kind of the beginning of the complications in cat's life from Cleo's perspective, her mother is this kind of very perfect park slope mother and the reality is a lot more complicated everything from the relationship with Cleo's dad,

[3:07]to cat's past and her job. So the story is, I hope very much of page turning mystery about what happened to cat, but at its heart it is really a story about a mother and a daughter kind of trying to find their way back to each other or maybe to find each other for the first time.

[3:24]I love that. So beautiful. There's a lot about midlife. There's like midlife romance. There's not knowing how much to intervene with kids and how much to let them make their own mistakes, which is like the perpetual question.

[3:41]How much is too much intervention? And like when do you just let them do their thing and fail? And when do you rescue? And I don't know. I feel like I could talk about that all day.

[3:50]But yes, perhaps we should match notes about the right answers to cat of course goes to one extreme, I would say, you know, I've never.

[3:59]Well, I mean, maybe she's just forging a path for the rest of us. Maybe we should interfere even more. I don't know. What are your thoughts on the, you know, I think you're exactly right that it's complicated.

[4:11]I really is no right answer. And I think that all of these issues were things I was interested in cat and the book is separated from our husband. I am now divorced. So there's a lot in there.

[4:23]The book is very personal to me. So there's a lot of that. Those pieces that feel personally relevant or at least things I now know that I've known a couple years ago.

[4:35]Yeah, my two daughters are 17 and 20, which I can't believe is true. Not as old as that would seem to make me. But yeah, so I, you know, me parenting them. I because my own upbringing. I think I've really come to motherhood with very much a blank slate.

[4:55]That is both a challenge, but also an opportunity because I don't really have any preconceived notions about the way the right way to do things I have read a lot of books.

[5:07]And I have, you know, listened a lot of experts and done all those things. But I have found that, you know, you have to follow your instinct obviously a lot of the time.

[5:16]And there is no right answer. And I think that that the idea that there is just women at a service because I'm sure my kids aren't the same kids you have.

[5:26]And so the reality is every, the right thing to do is different in every circumstance and luck plays a bit of a role too. I think that I'm very close with my daughters and I've gotten really lucky.

[5:39]I've definitely aired on the side of, I say like drill sergeant meets prison warden. That was kind of how I mostly parented and, you know, my daughter, particularly my older daughter would say that's definitely true.

[5:51]But I think over time I've tried to focus most on empathy and understanding them and validating them as human and trying to see them as people.

[6:00]And I think that works in all aspects of life.

[6:03]I think it particularly works with parenting. Yeah. And even within the family, the kids can be so different. I mean what works with one kid doesn't work with the other.

[6:12]That's even true of my two, and they're two daughters and they're only a couple years apart, but I find like I butt heads more with one of them who shall remain nameless than the other one, because our personalities are more different.

[6:24]And so like the other daughter more naturally I can kind of into it where she's coming from and figure out a way to get in, you know, connect, right.

[6:32]And with the other one, her brain just works differently than mine. And so I have to like take a minute before I react to that.

[6:39]But it's like just oh it's so hard and so every day, every single day I have no idea every single day.

[6:47]Oh god now what are you asking me like I don't know.

[6:51]I have no idea. And the reality is you're supposed to know or they need you to know. And so I have to time I'm like alright I'm going to just I'm going to try to pretend I know.

[7:01]Right now because they do need you to do that. Yeah that's true.

[7:06]Although I'm definitely the first one to be like I think so or like when when there's something you know I don't know.

[7:12]I'm always like I'm in the same but you know yeah I don't know is this person going to be okay or are they going to be so you know I'm scared to or I don't know.

[7:20]Right.

[7:21]No no I don't. Yeah I make it up every day. I'm always making it up.

[7:25]I think making I think that again I think when you have like ruptures with your kids and then repairs I think admitting you don't know I think admitting you've made a mistake and that you're sorry.

[7:35]I think you know in the end of the day are we treating them how to keep trying to teach them how to be people.

[7:41]Yes and that means be callable and and not knowing sometimes and I think that all you can do is is you know I've read more than ones that they learn most from the example you provide and how you live your life.

[7:54]So I think that that's the best thing you can do is try to like be true to yourself and live honestly and be the best person you can be in all your interactions because I feel like more than anything more than anything what you say if they're watching what you do.

[8:09]So from the divorce angle was that then coming from a personal place of being tired of dating apps and meeting somebody in person.

[8:18]Yeah.

[8:20]There's a bit about dating apps on yeah I mean for sure like I've been on dating apps on their terrible and also useful and all of those things so for sure like all of that those references came from personal experience.

[8:37]And it's ironic wasn't your last book the perfect marriage.

[8:41]A good marriage.

[8:42]A good marriage.

[8:43]It was a few books ago it was a few books ago but it for sure if you want a recipe for evaluating your own marriage which may or may not survive the test writing a book called a good marriage.

[8:54]We'll do that.

[8:56]I'm asking yourself wait what what what about my marriage and so I actually think that a lot of what led me to write that book was kind of the questions that I was already having and I think a lot of as a writer as you know what you're doing it's

[9:12]balancing kind of these subconscious questions you have for yourself as you sit down to work on any project.

[9:18]So I think you know that the questions it wasn't as a result of writing that book I think they pretty know I'm kidding.

[9:25]I love that would be terrible every book.

[9:28]Led to that.

[9:29]Led to that.

[9:30]When you talked about your own childhood having a big blink slate of motherhood tell me more about that.

[9:37]No it just was I mean you know without getting into a lot of details about it it was certainly like a challenging upbringing so you know it was a child of a early divorce and a lot of chaos in my family and so yeah I mean I would say I'd love to raise myself and so as a result of that like I don't I didn't have a traditional I didn't have a traditional parent.

[10:00]relationship. And so, you know, I just, I thought I came to it myself. It really was a blank slate.

[10:07]Well, in the book, we have neighbors and colleagues and classmates and all these people who are

[10:15]within the same inner circle of each other and yet nobody actually knows each other. There's something

[10:20]people are hiding things like all the time or keeping all these secrets from each other in a way.

[10:26]I mean, I won't give anything away. But, you know, as in life, I guess, right? There are things you

[10:30]hold back. But I feel like the things in your book that everyone's holding back and growing bigger and

[10:36]bigger and bigger throughout the course of the plot. So when you're writing a book like this,

[10:43]how much do you know at the outset? And did you know, do you know about the twists and all of that

[10:49]at the beginning? And how do you know when you're writing somebody which pieces to like put out

[10:55]there and which pieces to hold back and reveal later? Yeah, I mean, it's really ends up being kind

[11:01]of a dialogue between character and plot and dance your question. I do not know. I know virtually

[11:06]nothing when I start out to write. So I don't outline in advance. I figure it out as I go along. And

[11:12]so I've just almost done hoping to be done this week with my next book, a first one. And so

[11:19]that one, I really, I almost look at my first drafts probably as what people would consider

[11:24]extended out ones. So as I'm writing, I am learning about the characters and then figuring out the

[11:30]plot and it kind of will toggle, I'll toggle back and forth between it. I have a general sense of

[11:34]the spine and the structure and the main characters. But often I'll start out with the character,

[11:39]even the main character and realize that it's kind of, I've started almost on the opposite

[11:45]in the opposite direction from now. Like either they seem prickly and they're actually nice or

[11:48]they're, you know, seem nice and they're actually prickly or what have you. And I can, I realize

[11:54]that again, it's a kind of interplay between the plot and the characters because my books,

[11:59]I hope and I think are balance of both and theme to it, right? So those, those things are all

[12:04]working together. But by the time I'm done a first draft, then I've kind of figured everyone out,

[12:09]which means the beginning of the book is a lot of problems on it. So I've got to kind of go back

[12:14]and start again. And so my process is iterative and I would say I probably do in the neighborhood of,

[12:21]you know, six or seven full rewrites of a book before my editor ever sees it. And that's almost

[12:27]like the entire book. Oh my gosh, we written. So it's working with like a giant outline. And

[12:33]the virtue of that is I'm not tied to any outcome as I write a book. So it's something's not

[12:38]working on my book. Just when I band on that, I'm going to switch. And those generally aren't

[12:44]again, huge thematic points. It will be an approach to how I was going to get there. So when you

[12:49]talk about kind of these smaller secrets everyone has, I have now set up everybody on the chess

[12:54]board. And I'm like, all right, well, you know, I've gotten to point D on the map and point B isn't

[13:00]working. So I have to like move that. And then, and so I start moving everyone around and reordered

[13:06]the book and often change characters. But I've got at least a framework. It's like building a

[13:11]house. You know, I framed the house and I, you know, I work at it from, from that way. And so

[13:17]it's long. But I think if you outline your work is front loaded, you're just doing that work in

[13:22]advance. I just can't do it without the process of seeing the scenes. I can't do it just with bullet

[13:29]points. But I do create a bullet point outline as I'm going along. One of the things that I found

[13:37]like very emotional is you had a line, like even though they are biological kids, like they

[13:44]have no compulsion to keep us in their lives if they don't want to. Right? It's a choice. Like

[13:48]we can just upset them. And then they can say, forget it. And that can be it. No matter how much

[13:54]love you pour in, it's up to them essentially can be up to them. There's, you know, two people in

[13:59]every partnership. But I think that's part of the fear that all I feel like most mothers are

[14:06]feeling it all times. Like what if what, you know, what could happen? What's the worst that could

[14:12]happen that would push my child away from me forever? And it's another kind of loss, right? Lost

[14:17]by their own volition, but still like the loss that you fear at all times. Tell me about that

[14:23]because I feel like that was very much, you know, even with Doug and his daughter and, you know,

[14:28]part of the undercurrent. Yeah. Now you're right. I mean, I think a line is something like,

[14:32]no matter how much you love them, they are not obligated to love you back. Yeah. And that's it.

[14:37]Like, it just, for me, it's interesting that is kind of liberating to remember that. That

[14:43]like my job as a mother is to love them and to make them feel accepted unconditionally and

[14:51]know that they are safe and know that they're allowed by me no matter what the world does to them.

[14:56]And I think more that I look at the relationship like that, it's kind of free because I don't

[15:04]have any expectations. And, you know, I guess I just take that part of it really seriously and

[15:11]then hope that if I'm doing that right that the rest will flow from it. But you can't control,

[15:18]I mean, that's reality because that's reality. Like who knows what will happen, who knows the past,

[15:24]their life will take them on. And I'm not somebody who's in has a relationship actually with my,

[15:31]you know, my own mother. So, you know, I know that that is a way, you know,

[15:38]life events can unfold in that way. And so there's a certain piece in that, I think, in accepting

[15:44]that it is something beyond your control. And the only thing you can control again is,

[15:48]is how much you love down in the best way you can, right? Whatever that means.

[15:54]That does not bring me any piece at all. That gives me so much anxiety to be totally honest with you.

[16:00]All right. Well, we might have to fuck with you another approach. But you get a bit, you can

[16:06]meditate on it. It's a working, you know, it's a work in progress. No, I'm kidding. I mean,

[16:12]I'm kidding. Obviously, I know, you know, all we can do is our best and love them as much as we can

[16:17]and all of that. But, you know, I still want them to love me. I know, I know. But it's the same

[16:23]thing. There's a line another character says later on. I think it's actually somebody

[16:27]Lauren. I think that cat spread who says, like, they're not cakes. Like you can put it in

[16:30]other ingredients and put them in the oven. And then like, there's genetics. There are their life

[16:36]experiences. There are just so many things that are out of your control. That's more about like,

[16:41]how they turn out. Like, you know, are they using drugs? Are they, you know, like succeeding in

[16:47]their life? Are they, you know, you can't control all of those outcomes. So I guess for some reason,

[16:53]that brings me peace, you know, just to accept that. Yeah. How did you pick the drug dealing

[16:59]plot point? I don't know. You know, I guess my theaters, I mean, usually the things in my book

[17:07]come from me that are my personal experience or what would frighten me. And that would definitely

[17:14]frighten me. So I think that's where that came from. And because I think it's one of those things

[17:19]that like looked at one way. So in the book, clear the daughter is involved in some like,

[17:24]drug running on campus. So there's, you know, it's at least contained in the sense that there's

[17:30]generally not a lot of violence involved, etc. But, you know, I think that you could see how easy

[17:35]it would be if you were a kid to get into something like that and how it could quickly get out

[17:40]of control. But actually in the book is not actually the biggest danger either, which

[17:45]is part of the recurrent theme in the book is that Kat is, and I think I have fallen prey to this

[17:51]a lot. As I have learned, one thing my older daughter does, which I wish she would stop doing,

[17:57]is to share with me stories about the things she did in high school that I didn't know. Oh,

[18:01]oh my gosh. Whatever favorite things to do to her. She's like, just tell me a story the other night.

[18:06]She's like, and then this I'm like, no, I don't know. Never tell me the story. I know this

[18:11]because I had no clue it was going on, whatever it was. And obviously, you know, she's fine.

[18:15]She's great. She's doing well now. But like, the reality is the things you're worried about,

[18:21]inevitably, there's something else that you don't even know is going on that is actually what

[18:25]she should be worried about. Yes. Then the strategy of worrying is just not helping me out as

[18:30]much as I hope. Yeah. Exactly. Like, just worrying. Yeah, apparently it's totally nothing.

[18:38]Yeah. Well, tell me a little bit more about the next book. Yeah. So my next book is called

[18:44]at least for now. Someone else's husband, you're going to make everybody very nervous.

[18:51]Who's been in my talking about? Yeah. So it's set New York again, which I do like to set.

[18:57]I think all but like one of my books has been set in New York, but it's got a young woman who I

[19:02]I climbed Kilimanjaro last year. And part of the storyline is flashing back to a hiking trip.

[19:09]And there was a group of men on the trip with her as a single person. And then when the book

[19:13]opened, she has been found. She's dead. And he, you know, the scenario for the perspective of

[19:19]her in the past and the wife of one of the men on the trip. So, you know, it's it's ultimately,

[19:26]I it is kind of a love story. And so, but it's a complicated as my books often are

[19:33]complicated trajectory to get there. But I got to write a little bit about Kilimanjaro,

[19:37]kind of Kilimanjaro, which was fun. What was that like? I was incredible. I mean, it was a

[19:42]certainly like my own little like eat prey love moment, but it was a highly recommended if you

[19:47]want to step off the face of the earth at some point. It's it's pretty remarkable.

[19:52]Wow. Did you have to train forever and all of that? I have trained for a lot of stuff,

[19:57]usually like I'm an ongoing basis. I had was.

[20:00]training for a half iron man at the time. So I was, I had kind of was already in

[20:05]and you just, you just threw it in, you just threw it into the

[20:07]extruded, but it's actually not, it's actually not that it requires a basic level of

[20:13]fitness, but it's not like the hardest part is camping. You can't for eight days on the mountain

[20:19]without showering and without you don't you don't have to set up your own tent and stuff

[20:23]luckily, but there's people to help you do, but that was the hardest part. I'm not a camper.

[20:27]so I was very over that by like 24 hours into it. So what advice do you have for aspiring

[20:36]authors? Let's see advice for spying on authors. I would definitely get a couple really trusted

[20:43]readers of your work and not just one like it can be a critique group and that's obviously ideal

[20:49]to give you feedback. It is impossible to accurately assess your own work in your head so you do

[20:55]need feedback, but make sure that they're people you trust who will be honest with you, but also

[21:00]productive. I have been in critique groups where there can just be people who are really motivated

[21:05]to show how smart they are or to, you know, just give feedback kind of how they would write

[21:10]it something rather than helping you be the best writer you can be. So that is really critical

[21:16]also set yourself up so that you can keep at it without giving up. So whatever that means,

[21:23]depending on your life situation, take a job that gives you, you know, be a teacher so you have

[21:29]summers to write or just know that it could take a really, really long time. It took me writing

[21:35]full almost full time a decade and five unpublished books to sell my first, which is reconstructing

[21:41]Amelia. So that and I used to be an attorney before that. And so some of the books were written

[21:47]while I was working some not. And you know, it just can take a really long time on a lot of work

[21:53]and some people get lucky quickly, but make sure you give yourself time to really give it a go.

[21:59]Why did you not give up? I'm an insane person. No, that's not true. I had destroyed my career.

[22:08]So I had had this really fancy law career. I worked at one of the best firms in the city. And

[22:14]I once you are a few years away from having given that up, you can't get it back. And so I think that,

[22:22]you know, I also got some early success. I got an agent. I wrote my first book in a year and got

[22:27]an agent right away. And he owned a book at a big agency. And he almost sold that book almost like

[22:33]there was an editor who wanted it and she couldn't convince marketing. So when you get early

[22:38]success, I thought, and I was not an English major. I had never written anything. And so I thought,

[22:42]okay, well, just logically, if I did that in a year, if I keep working, I should get there

[22:47]eventually. So that was kind of kept me going for a really long time. And then I had destroyed my

[22:53]career. So that I was like, you know, this has got to work. I just put, you know, I doubled down here.

[22:58]So, but by the end, right before we can start to email you sold, I had started to look for a job

[23:03]again because I thought this is not going to work because I was a decade in. I had written all these

[23:07]books. So I finally got my first job offer 24 hours before a million went to auction.

[23:13]Oh my gosh. And that was working back. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School,

[23:18]and it was working back there in their writing department and their communications department.

[23:23]So I called and said, I have to turn it on the job. I sold my book. So it's kind of, it was one of

[23:28]those kind of great kismet kind of stories. Well, that's very inspiring. No, it is. You know,

[23:36]you just never know. And you know, you worked at it so long too. Like, it's a, I mean, it's a

[23:41]hard. You have to just, you know, keep at it and keep going. Like, keep your head down and keep,

[23:46]I keep trying to get better. I mean, that's, that's like, you just can't keep doing the same thing

[23:50]over. Yes. It was early books. I just want to be clear. It's not like, oh, for me, it should have

[23:55]sold. They were not good. They were really, it's not like, I wouldn't go back to them. So I do

[24:02]think like you just have to commit yourself to the work and putting the time on. Love it.

[24:07]I still that helps to hear from someone else. You know, yeah. You know, I've been times now,

[24:12]I Google on like, I like Google other writers giving inspiring speeches all the time. Like, still,

[24:17]a lot. I'm like, all right, okay, okay, I'll get back on the worst. Because it, you know, every

[24:23]book is its own problem. Every blank page is, you know, you have to face that each time and

[24:31]start again. And so it doesn't, you know, you've done it. And so that's easier, right? Like,

[24:37]because you're like, I've done it. So like, surely I can do it again. But it's, you still have to do it

[24:41]again. Yeah. I know. Where's the shortcut? No, I know. Somebody should come up with one. That would

[24:46]be helpful. Well, I mean, I think they did. I think it's AI and that's not as suitable. That doesn't

[24:51]go for us either. That doesn't cut it. Well, congratulations. I really enjoyed this book. I really

[24:59]loved all the themes, the suspense, the twist. I mean, all of it, you know, and the setting and the

[25:04]relationships and any book that makes you kind of rethink the relationships the most important to

[25:10]you and think about how you can sort of improve them is, it's like a gift, right? Because thank

[25:16]you. So I really appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, that's what I hope is that people will just ask them

[25:21]sell what themselves, what the answers are for. And they're like, you know, like, I don't have

[25:26]the answers of course. Sorry. I hope that I have them for me, maybe. But I do hope it has

[25:31]people ask the questions. What are you saying? Well, thank you. Congrats. Enjoy the, enjoy the

[25:37]tour and everything else. Thank you. Enjoy the summer. Okay. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to mom.

[25:45]Don't have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social

[25:50]at sippyowans and at sippy readers.