Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize! Betsy Lerner, SHRED SISTERS
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[0:43]Betsy Learner is the author of Shred Sisters. Betsy is the author also of the forest for the trees, food, and loathing, and the bridge ladies.
[0:52]She is also the co-author with Temple Grandin of three New York Times best-sellers, including visual thinking.
[0:58]Betsy received an MFA from Columbia University in poetry. She is a literary agent and partner at Dunow Carson and Learner Literary Agency.
[1:06]Shred Sisters is her first novel. And by the way, I read food and loathing and the bridge ladies when they both came out and obsessed.
[1:14]Welcome, Betsy. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Shred Sisters, your debut novel. Congratulations.
[1:22]Thank you. Thank you.
[1:24]Can you please tell us, Nairs, what your book is a bat?
[1:27]Absolutely. It is about a toxic sister relationship. That's the overriding story over 20 years.
[1:35]It's also really about how a family is in denial when somebody has mental illness in the family and how that reverberates.
[1:43]And then I also like to think of it as a love song, a love letter to loneliness, especially in New York in your 20s.
[1:52]Very much came out of a lot of that for me. I have to say this book just got me so much.
[2:00]And when I finished reading it, I started crying because I felt so connected to your characters.
[2:07]I felt like some of that deep disappointment that they felt in sort of the way life turned out
[2:12]for sort of for all the characters in different ways. And even I mean, I don't want to give things away.
[2:19]And it's not intended to be sad, but just the losses that life brought and how poignant this
[2:26]one moment was like, I don't know if I can talk and I can delete this, but when the mother
[2:31]passes away at the end, how she said I keep picking up the phone to call her and remembering that
[2:35]she's dead. I mean, it's just like, I don't know. And it all just really got me. It was so well done.
[2:41]You know, that moment is something that I feel all the time. And people always ask me,
[2:46]is the novel autobiographical? And it's a made up story. But every little detail like that
[2:52]is autobiographical. Do you know what I mean? Like the details are autobiographical, but the story is
[2:58]fiction. But that's definitely, I'm so happy you picked up on that. No one's mentioned that.
[3:03]And it's such a powerful, I don't know if you have your, you said your mom just called.
[3:08]So my brother had just got my mom is still with us, but my husband lost his mother a couple
[3:15]years ago to COVID. And I've sort of lived through that with him. And I know how he feels. And
[3:19]that instinct that he has. And I can just, you know, imagine, you know, and even I saw
[3:25]on one of your social posts or news that are somewhere, I don't know where you said something
[3:29]like, well, I don't have my mom to share. So I'm going to just share all these accomplishments
[3:33]with all of you because I need the external validation. Yeah. You related to that too. It's like,
[3:39]I said that to somebody who was just telling me about her really fractious relationship with
[3:43]her mother. And I was like, well, but like, how do you get your praise? Where do you go?
[3:49]Yeah. I mean, you can only brag to your mother in certain ways, like, especially about your kids.
[3:54]You, if you did it with anyone else, would be so disgusting. But, you know, my mother was really
[3:59]big on, you know, Colleen. And so yeah, it was, she loved good news. She was really, she was a huge
[4:07]big fan. And the fact that the mom doesn't get to enjoy some of the things that come later in the
[4:13]book in this story, it just kind of broke my heart. I don't know. But it was, it was just so good.
[4:20]And I know it's about the sister's relationship. But I feel like it's also so much about the
[4:26]parents. It's like this one family's journey through the trials and tribulations. And, you know,
[4:33]all these behavior is just a catalyst, right? It's just, you know, the shattering glass in the
[4:39]first scene is so emblematic of what happens to the family throughout the book. It's like such a
[4:45]perfect image. Yeah, I, that actually also kind of comes from a slight moment in real life when I was
[4:55]very young, say, 10 and 12, fighting with my older sister. And I kicked her out of my room. And
[5:01]she was walking out as slowly as humanly possible just to further irritate me. And I slammed the
[5:08]door on a full-length mirror came down and shattered. And my dad woke up and screamed at us,
[5:13]which he normally was very cool. And many months after I wrote that scene, I remembered that real
[5:22]scene. So I think there was so much in my subconscious at work writing this book. So I didn't realize
[5:29]it would be that, but it became that. So yeah, I was shocking writing the book, having so many,
[5:37]some people say, well, you wrote a coming of age in your 60s, which is, you know, from the
[5:43]late bloomers club. But I think that it's really, you know, a lifetime of memories and images and,
[5:52]you know, just adding things that happened that just kind of came up through the book. And that's
[5:56]definitely one. Wow. Well, I read the bridge ladies, you remember when it first came out,
[6:02]when did that come out? Because I read it and loved it. And my mom read it and loved it. We
[6:06]talked about it when was nice. I think it's almost like 70 years ago now. Oh my gosh. Well, that was
[6:14]also amazing. And so I feel like we get to know this mother daughter relationship in several
[6:20]lenses through that and now through this particular, you know, kaleidoscopic review of another
[6:26]figure. So tell me about, well, wait, at so much I want to ask you, the sister with mental illness,
[6:35]did you have mental illness in your own family? And you don't have to talk about this. And maybe
[6:38]there I read the memoir a long time ago. So I don't remember, but I'm bipolar. You're a bipolar. Okay.
[6:44]So everybody thinks that I'm Amy because I'm also a good girl or I've presented as a good girl
[6:50]for most of my life. And I've been stable for over 30 years. I haven't had a single episode,
[6:57]but my teens in early 20s were marked by, you know, tremendous episodes of mania and depression.
[7:04]So I'm really both characters. That's the narcissism of Betsy Lerner.
[7:11]And I also in retrospect realized how much my behavior impacted on my family when, but when I was
[7:19]in it, I just really didn't think they understood. And I sort of hated them and didn't feel
[7:26]that they weren't helping me in any way. And in fact, harming me in some ways. So when I was
[7:32]younger, I had a lot of animosity toward my family. And I, a lot of resentment. And then of course,
[7:38]as I became a mother, and as I stabilized, and as I grew up. And of course, as a parent,
[7:44]I now realize, oh my gosh, if my daughter had been behaving the way I was behaving,
[7:50]of course, I would have completely flipped out or been in denial or tried too hard to help.
[7:56]There's no right way to react when somebody is suffering through mental illness. It's just
[8:02]such an impossible thing to cope with. So I think that the I hope one of the things that comes
[8:10]through in the book is that there is a lot of compassion for the parents in this
[8:14]situation that they were in trying to deal with this daughter who just starts with a really
[8:19]becoming very out of control. Well, that first of all, thank you for sharing that. I didn't realize
[8:24]that. And that now puts a whole nother spin on the book. But with the parents and the compassion
[8:30]for them, you really do such a good job of showing us like, well, what could it, you know,
[8:37]I'm a mom. I put myself in there. She was reading it first thing. Like, well, what could they do
[8:41]with her? Like, what could they do when all the, you know, disappears for days on end? Or
[8:48]just says like, I'm not going to do this. Or I'm, you know, like all of the things they have to let
[8:53]go. And yet it's so hard. It's not like they ever really let go. Right? Yeah, that's the thing
[9:00]when somebody is in your family and they disappear. Sometimes it's a relief because they're
[9:06]they ruin everything all the time. I mean, Holly, every time she comes back, she's, it's a disaster,
[9:12]but they still long for her. And you still feel tremendous guilt or longing. It's just, it's
[9:20]so complicated. And I think that for the mother and the father, each, each dealt with her differently
[9:25]in the book. And that's, I mean, it's not how my parents dealt with it. But my dad always thought
[9:33]he could fix things with money. So he sort of bank rolling Holly behind the scenes to keep her going.
[9:41]And my mother was more angry, you know, because the when somebody is ill in the family,
[9:46]it sort of pulls the curtain back on everybody. And there were a lot of secrets in my family
[9:52]about mental illness that no one shared with me until I was much older, which it would have been
[9:57]helpful. And so I was trying,
[10:00]to depict that more extremely, you know, how a family member in the mother in this case
[10:06]just does not want to deal with it. And then, of course, the younger sister, Amy, is caught in
[10:11]the middle. And she's constantly fluctuating back and forth with wanting her sister and wanting
[10:17]her sister gone. And I don't know if that's how my older sister or my, I have two sisters.
[10:23]I'm in the middle. And, you know, I know they had a lot of complicated, really,
[10:28]feelings about my illness. But I mean, yeah, of course, we've discussed it a lot over the years.
[10:33]But that in the book truly is fictional, you know, Amy is a fictional projection of all of us.
[10:42]You have one scene towards the end where Amy sees Ali just like take you said something like
[10:49]three pink pills and pop them back and she's thinking, that's it. Like she just takes these pills
[10:55]and all of that is gone and under control. Like how is that possible? Has that been your experience?
[11:00]Or tell me a little bit more about that. I know that the book takes us through so many attempts at
[11:05]treatment that were just completely unsuccessful, including the two-year stint in the inpatient
[11:11]facility. Yeah, I think even to this day, medicating people with bipolar or depression is trial and
[11:21]error. And basically, they don't know what is going to help you until it helps you. It's a sort of,
[11:29]you know, 2020 vision is perfect in hindsight or however that goes. So Ali is somebody who
[11:36]medication isn't helping, but they're also not giving her the right medication. They really are
[11:41]not diagnosing her correctly. But on top of that, a lot of people with bipolar illness go off
[11:48]their meds all the time because they don't like how it makes them feel. And I sometimes think
[11:53]of mental illness or bipolar illness as sort of a cancer where you can keep it under control.
[11:59]But if it wants to come out, you know, it's going to and it often does in the form of a person
[12:04]going off their meds. But Ali never stayed on any meds. She just refused and her mania was sort of,
[12:10]she was hypomanic actually. She was more manic than then depressed. So diagnosing somebody,
[12:18]keeping them on their meds, it's a lifelong challenge. I was very from 15 to 25. I rejected all my
[12:25]medications. I hated the doctors. I hated how things made me feel. Finally, actually, when I had
[12:33]my daughter, that was when I committed to staying. And I also finally found a brilliant psychopharmacologist
[12:40]who understood how to medicate me and keep me stable. But I was still able to access my creativity.
[12:47]And, you know, for a lot of bipolar people, they're also highly creative. They feel the
[12:53]medication takes that away from them. And that's, you know, they can't stand it. But I've been so
[12:59]fortunate with this doctor who's kept my levels perfect really for over 30 years. So I really
[13:06]consider myself and he considers me really a huge success story. And I am, I mean, I've been well.
[13:13]And I've been, I've written many books and I've edited many books and I'm tethered to the world.
[13:19]And I was able to, my daughter's never seen me manic or depressed because I've been stable for
[13:25]her whole life. Then that's just a miracle. Wow. That's amazing. Well, that's, I'm so happy for you
[13:33]for that. You mentioned the loneliness, which I agree. It just like you can feel that so deeply
[13:41]when you read the book out. Amy is trying so hard to find her way and not just with boys slash men,
[13:49]but with girlfriends and in school and all the bullying and taunting and sort of misinappropriate
[13:57]behavior that comes from gentlemen as they are, behave not like gentlemen. And just all the,
[14:03]the way she's just such a good person. Like you're just so rooting for her. And then
[14:09]feel so disappointed on her behalf over and over again. Tell me a little bit more about that.
[14:14]Well, I mean, she's a note all she's a goodie too. She's, she's an easy target when she's young.
[14:23]She's overshadowed by this really beautiful older sister who's charismatic and athletic and
[14:29]everything. Amy isn't. The mother doesn't value what Amy has. The mother wants beautiful attractive
[14:36]daughter who's going to marry well and all that. So the father sort of appreciates Amy, but she's
[14:41]just in the shadows. And she's fighting for her whole life to come out of that shadow, but she's
[14:47]just doesn't really know how to connect. And she's sort of lost. And things always disappoint her.
[14:54]And my husband says, you've written, you know, more ways of how a person could be disappointed in
[15:01]this book. But I will tell you something my editor helped me with, which is a lot of people who
[15:07]rejected the book said that Amy didn't change. And they want the character to change. You know,
[15:12]to have that arc. And I really resist that comment because I feel people don't change that much.
[15:20]They they're sort of the same often they get worse when I met my editor. And I we talked about
[15:27]this and she said to me, Betsy, Amy doesn't have to change, but she has to learn. And that was the key
[15:36]that opened almost every scene for me where Amy's disappointment. She doesn't like learn like,
[15:43]oh, I figured it out, but she evolves. And I think that, you know, all that disappointment when
[15:50]you're in your teens and twenties, if you're not, you know, part of the popular said, if you're
[15:56]not, I didn't go to the prom, like if you miss out on all these things, it just really, it stays
[16:03]with you. And I'll just also add, I actually was pretty popular because I needed, I needed it,
[16:09]but I always felt that I was faking it and that I was really alone. And I preferred to be alone,
[16:16]but I was a real chameleon. Amy's not good at that, but I was. And I, but I thought about all that
[16:23]a lot, you know, how you fit in and what you have to do to fit in. And I could, but I never felt
[16:30]like it was with the real me. And it took years and years and years to come
[16:37]to connect myself with my public self. And it feel real.
[16:42]So take me through your life. So what happened? Like, how did you get to here? And why is this novel
[16:52]coming now in your life? And the memoir not so long ago, like what happened between your bipolar
[16:59]stabilizing and now, like professionally and personally, I guess. But well, when I graduated
[17:06]college, and if you want to go back, I was really, I was a mess. I couldn't get a publishing job,
[17:12]couldn't type fast enough, but I was ill prepared for every interview I went on. And I wound
[17:18]up taking this crazy job at Morgan Stanley in their library as the corporate files, something or
[17:25]and I worked there for two years through my ups and downs and still trying to get a lot of help
[17:31]and all that. Finally, I miraculously got into Columbia grad school for my MFA and promptly had
[17:40]a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for six months. And I have to say it was probably the
[17:48]most important experience of my life because I hospitalized myself against my parents wishes.
[17:55]Got the help that I needed, though they missed diagnosed me and I came out and I still continued to
[18:01]have episodes. But I finished my degree and I got us the scholarship into Simon and Schuster as an
[18:08]intern. And that began my publishing career. And I could always cover and sort of do well enough
[18:16]somehow. I don't really know how I think I'm very strong on a lot of levels. And I was desperate
[18:22]to succeed in publishing, to have something, a real a job, people needing me something to tether
[18:29]me. And I was always, my husband and I were always breaking up at that time. So that was very unsteady.
[18:37]But eventually I did find this doctor and I did find the medication and I was able to stabilize
[18:43]and then I got married and I had my daughter and I started to write again. By the way, when I
[18:49]finished my poetry MFA, I never wrote another poem. I completely stopped writing and I put all my
[18:56]energy into editing and being an editor. And I loved it. I loved helping writers, being writer
[19:01]adjacent. I was so, I mean, I feel like I do have a lot of tools with language and with helping
[19:07]people and with structured poetry teaches you a lot. And so I just sort of took everything I learned
[19:12]about poetry and applied it to book length projects. And I just got so lucky. I have some
[19:19]tremendous authors. And then when I became an agent, many of them came with me. So I right away
[19:25]had a really wonderful, agenting career. But I did start writing again in my late 30s after this
[19:33]long period of not writing. I wrote the force for the trees, my advice book to writers. And then
[19:38]all nonfiction though, that was the thing. I was completely into nonfiction. And then this novel,
[19:45]yeah, it really surprised me. I did not plan our expect to be, to do it. And it came about actually
[19:54]after an incredibly sad episode in our life, not episode tragedy. My younger sister.
[20:00]teachers, two children were killed by a drunk driver, and my older sister and I took turns
[20:08]living with her in the aftermath of that, and then COVID happened. So we couldn't be
[20:15]with her anymore. And we were very anxious about that. And so I had this idea that we would
[20:21]start working out in the morning, get her up, and over face time. And we started working
[20:29]out, we called it shredding, and we called ourselves a shred sisters. And I guess that
[20:34]was really all going through my mind as the book started because what it brought into stark
[20:40]relief was that no matter what animosity or resentment or jealousies that we held against
[20:46]each other, when push came to shove, the bond was there. And yeah, that has, I think that
[20:55]this book in a lot of ways came out of that wanting to explore that bond with my sisters.
[21:03]And yeah, it was, it's five years later now, and it's as if it could have happened last
[21:09]week. It just doesn't, and that does not get better. But I guess the book must have helped
[21:15]me in some ways, because there's a lot of death in the book, which I also, you know, I
[21:19]planned or thought about, but both parents die and her best friend dies. And so I guess there
[21:25]was a lot of that. I also did lose my best friend to suicide right after the kids died. So
[21:33]and our mom died right before that. So there was just this period of time, completely encased in
[21:39]grief for our family and for me. And I think the book must have been a product of all of that.
[21:48]So sorry. Oh my gosh, even there's so much lately. That is just, I'm so sorry. My heart is
[21:54]breaking. And you did put it all in there. That's, you know, when I was like, the book gets you. And
[22:02]now I understand where it's coming from for you, because that there is that heaviness in it,
[22:08]not in a negative way in the most sort of human real authentic way. And you can feel it through
[22:16]everything. Anyway, it was very powerful. All the different ways that you showed it. Actually,
[22:22]now that I'm flipping through, can I read this one passage? Is this okay? It said, Ollie stayed
[22:26]with mom during the nights. In the morning, I would arrive with coffee for the two of us and find
[22:30]her asleep in bed with mom. My mother had adamantly maintained that what Ollie had done to our
[22:35]family was unforgivable. But in those last days, I saw how she needed Ollie and how natural it was
[22:41]for Ollie to soothe her as death drew near. I had been afraid to touch mom, but Ollie polished
[22:46]her nails, combed her hair and swabbed her mouth at the sponge on the end of a stick. It was all
[22:51]forgiven. Her golden haired child returned on a crescent moon. The day before she died, my mother
[22:56]patted the bed and asked both of us to sit with her. When we were little, she'd read to us
[23:01]separately at bedtime, calling us bedbug one and bedbug two. Ollie would only listen to adventure
[23:07]stories, go over his travels and robets and crew so, while I love Charlotte's web and black beauty,
[23:11]the one story we both could agree on was great expectations. Mom would impersonate the convict
[23:16]mag which her impressions so convincing that we'd scream and beg her to stop. And then you say,
[23:21]Ollie promised that we would take care of each other. Oh, it's so powerful. It's just so powerful.
[23:32]It makes me like choke up to read. What was it like to write? Like, did you find yourself getting
[23:37]choked up yourself? Oh, for sure. I could get choked up right now, which is so embarrassing.
[23:43]Oh, it's really at my own book. Yeah, my mother's great wish was that we would be best of friends.
[23:50]And my younger sister, by the way, is 10 years younger than we are. So my older sister and I grew
[23:56]up fighting for many years and continued not to get along. And it broke my mother's heart. She
[24:01]just wanted us to get along so badly. She wanted us to be married first of all. That was her
[24:06]number one hope. And then that we get along. And it really killed her that we that we didn't.
[24:14]And she kept saying, oh, you'll be friends at high school. You'll be friends in college.
[24:18]Oh, you'll be friends when you graduate. When you're adult, oh, you'll be friends when you have
[24:23]children. You know, we just we just had so much friction with such different kinds of people. But
[24:30]when my mom died, you know, my older sister came through big time because she is the leader and
[24:39]she does take charge. And she took charge and we needed her to do that so desperately. But she
[24:45]needed us to help her do it. And and my little sister was reading check off to my mother, you know,
[24:52]at her the final days of her life, my younger sister, so gentle, so sweet. My older sister taking
[25:00]charge and me with all my conflicted feelings about my mother, you know, my mother and I never said
[25:05]I love you to each other. But we did. It was a very strong bond, but we never said it. And I was just
[25:12]you know, I was the one who lived near my mother. So I had done a lot of all the daily stuff.
[25:18]And we were very close and we played. We became bridge partners. We're going to say, but all
[25:22]of this was swirling around in our lives. And then and then in the book, yeah, it was it was a lot
[25:29]to kind of harness all of that. And then thank God I had an editor who was able to pull a lot of
[25:36]it back and make it really powerful because I overwrite. I over it's my terrible sin as I overwrite.
[25:42]And she really helped me. I think make it much more effective and powerful. You know, just from a
[25:48]literary point of view. Wow. Well, the end result is really fabulous. Do you want to write another novel
[25:55]now or do you feel like you got out what you wanted to do? Well, I really have always wanted,
[26:03]I got kicked out of NYU Film School freshman year and I've always wanted to be in the movies.
[26:08]I've always made me a screenwriter and I've written many over the years. And I've had some close
[26:14]calls. But my dream is to get to write the screenplay for shredsisters to have an option to some
[26:20]hoping for that if anyone out there's listening. But I have started on something new. I do find it
[26:26]really fun to now access my imagination and also been reading my diaries from my 20s,
[26:34]which I read on TikTok. And now that I'm going through them, I see, oh my goodness, I was,
[26:40]I was starting novels and short stories all the time. And I totally forgot because poetry became
[26:46]such a big thing for me. But yeah, I think on some level it's been sort of lifelong desire.
[26:53]But I was, I'm so dazzled by Hollywood. Like that's where I've always really wanted to be
[26:59]so embarrassing. My whole life and, you know, I do like, I do like this writing. Yeah.
[27:10]I don't think it's embarrassing to have a dream. I mean, why, why, but things away that you
[27:16]always wanted to do. I mean, if not now, when? So yeah, well, I've kept doing it. I've kept, you know,
[27:22]I've kept at it all. I've always had a writing project. You know, if I was writing in all those
[27:27]years when I said I wasn't writing, I was keeping diaries. So, you know, as you probably know,
[27:32]like if you're a writer, whatever it is, if it's a letter, if it's an email, you just, that is how
[27:37]you want to communicate. And so I'm always writing something. But I am working on an
[27:42]enable. And it's really fun because, you know, having gotten the coming of age one out of my
[27:48]system, it's fun to deal with some adult ideas. Well, I can't wait for that.
[27:55]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors? Keep your day job.
[28:01]Keep your day right every day. Try to write every day, even 20 minutes. That adds up and that works.
[28:08]And become part of your literary community to the best that you can. Go to readings, go to workshops,
[28:15]get on book talk, become a part of a writing reading community. I think that's because it's
[28:24]so lonely and it's so difficult. And of course, you love the lonely. You have to love to write.
[28:30]I know so many writers who say they hate writing and I just think, hey, you're lying and be
[28:35]why are you doing it? You know, I think, I don't think you should ever have to make yourself
[28:40]write, you know, people do all kinds of things to make themselves right. And I just, that's not
[28:46]something I subscribe to. It's just something you have. You do. You just need to do it.
[28:52]But yeah, becoming part of a community and having stability and structure are all really helpful.
[28:59]Betsy, thank you so much for coming on. That was amazing. Such great advice. Such a fabulous book.
[29:05]Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
[29:12]Thanks for listening to mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books. If you love it, please leave a review.
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