Samantha Greene Woodruff, THE TRADE OFF
[0:02]Welcome to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books, hosted by me, Zibi Owens.
[0:07]It's an award-winning podcast with over 1900 episodes, all featuring authors of Books You Love, and those you have yet to discover.
[0:15]Listen daily five times a week. Then go to ZibiMedia.com and learn more about what the LA Times called the Zibiverse.
[0:22]ZibiMedia includes Zibi's bookshop, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, ZibiBooks Publishing, Zibi Retreat, Zibi's Book Club, and more.
[0:31]Go check it out at ZibiMedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens. It'll take you where you need to go.
[0:38]Thanks for listening.
[0:42]Samantha Greenwoodruff is the author of the trade-off. Sam has a BA in history from Wesleyan University and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.
[0:51]She spent nearly two decades working on the business side of media, primarily at Biacom's Nickelodeon, before leaving corporate life to become a full-time mom.
[1:00]In her newfound, quote-unquote, free time, she took classes at the Writing Institute at Sara Lawrence College, where she accidentally found her calling as a historical fiction author.
[1:09]Sam's debut novel, The Lobotomous's Wife, was a number one Amazon bestseller and first reads pic.
[1:15]Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, Writers Digest, Female First, Read 650, and More.
[1:21]Her second novel, The Trade-Off, is being published by Lake Union.
[1:25]Sam lives in Southern Connecticut with her husband, two children, two dogs, and a small reptile zoo.
[1:30]When she's not with her family or at her laptop, she can be found in the yoga studio at a concert singing Taylor Swift at the top of her lungs in the car or out for a long walk with a friend.
[1:39]By the way, Sam is also a contributor to on being Jewish now, reflections from authors and advocates, the anthology that I edited and am publishing on being Jewish now.
[1:50]Welcome, Sam. Thank you so much for coming on Monster and have time to read books to discuss The Trade-Off. Congratulations.
[1:56]Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
[1:59]Oh, it's such a pleasure. Thank you for this wild ride, ups and downs of the stock market, highs and lows,
[2:07]Ponzi schemes to wedding proposals to oil, too. It's like there was so much in here sexism and Wall Street, and I mean, the expansion of a grocery empire.
[2:21]I mean, there is so much in this. I feel like I've been through, I don't even know, but it was great. Thank you for the ride.
[2:29]You're welcome. Why don't you explain better than that rambling intro?
[2:34]What The Trade-Off is about? Sure. So The Trade-Off is about a young Jewish woman in the 1920s,
[2:41]first generation born in America, who has a twin brother. She's a map genius, and he's a natural born salesman,
[2:48]and her dream is to be a stock burger on Wall Street, because she's still good at math, and she's
[2:53]patterns and numbers and all these things. But she soon learns that in spite of the fact that she is
[2:59]really, really good at it, that first of all, you basically couldn't have a job like that if you
[3:04]were female in the 1920s, in spite of the fact that there was all this other liberation going on.
[3:09]Second of all, you definitely couldn't have a job like that if you were poor and Jewish.
[3:14]So the women who did work on Wall Street were like daughters of the American Revolution,
[3:18]Mayflower, you know, belong to social clubs and went to the Seven Sisters schools. There's
[3:22]a very different profile than a poor Jewish immigrant living in a town of an apartment.
[3:27]They didn't have the connections that were needed if you were going to be hired as a woman
[3:30]on Wall Street. So she eventually had just a plan to work on Wall Street as the woman behind
[3:35]the man for her brother, who has, you mentioned the Ponzi schemes and stuff. He's lost everything
[3:40]in a Ponzi scheme that is actually what really happened. I kind of want to write a book about that.
[3:45]And so she becomes the woman behind the man. He becomes the broker because men can do anything
[3:49]in this time of the world. Being poor and Jewish doesn't matter. And they ultimately have,
[3:56]they make a fortune and they ultimately have a lot of tension because she sees the crash coming.
[4:01]And it's sort of like a chicken. The second half of the story is like a chicken little where
[4:04]she keeps saying this guy's about to fall and nobody believes her. And so the question is does
[4:09]she save her family and her friends and all the people who are going to lose everything in the crash
[4:12]or does she not? Well, I really was analyzing this relationship she had with her brother because
[4:18]this is a very, it's almost like a toxic relationship in a way. She keeps bailing him out.
[4:24]She keeps like being by his side. At times, it throws her own relationship into, you know,
[4:31]puts her own relationship just hold. I mean, and I was like, what is it with her and her brother?
[4:36]Like, what is it? Why this deep level of responsibility? I know he, she kind of not uses him,
[4:43]but he is her entree into some of the things professionally she wants to do. But
[4:47]how did you and why did you like make them so make her his enabler in a way?
[4:55]So that's a really interesting framing and I didn't think of it that way, but it is,
[4:59]it certainly is accurate. I have very few reviews right now since the book's not out yet,
[5:04]but of course I do what you're not supposed to do when I look about my reviews. And one of the two
[5:10]three star reviews I got just said, I hate how she always bails out of her brother, three stars.
[5:16]And so, and to me, I'm like, but that means you've got into the story and you believe in the
[5:20]characters. I don't have any any full siblings. I have a half sister who's nine years younger than I am,
[5:25]but I have a brother, a brother and sister, kids. My kids are brother and sister, a boy and a
[5:29]girl. And so I think the love that I have that I that be has with her brother comes from what I
[5:35]see between them. The real answer is that I needed some sort of antagonist and he was the best
[5:42]villain that I could find. And I think that the relationship they have stems from the fact that
[5:48]their parents are so removed from them. And that be feel so put upon in her own family dynamic.
[5:54]And at least some of the time her brother is like a peer who acknowledges her and gives her what
[6:00]she wants. And right, you could totally frame it as like an abusive relationship where he
[6:05]he gives her just a mouth and then beats her up again. But you know, I think she gets her
[6:09]come up and in the end. I will say that when I first heard writing the story, I thought she
[6:14]was going to be the woman behind the man throughout the entire story. And that didn't work out
[6:18]in the writing process. Like I just, they all this sudden like get to a moment where that doesn't
[6:22]make sense. Or and I was like, yeah, I'm done with this part of the relationship. But it wasn't
[6:27]to to comment on female subjugation in that way. There were lots of other ways I was trying to
[6:34]subjugation. I think it just kind of happened because I had to start to give some antagonistic
[6:39]relationship in the book. So interesting. Wow. Well, his journeys and the whole book really follow
[6:46]obviously the the the actual events, right? And that was something where you know the whole time
[6:53]you're reading that you're counting down to the crash, right? That's how you set it up. And like
[6:57]the whole time you're like, okay, what's going to happen with the, you know, are they going to be
[7:01]okay, are they not going to be okay? Like at first I thought the crash was going to happen
[7:05]sort of imminently. And then I realized we were like building and building up to it the whole time.
[7:10]But there were so many other things that you cover that happened along the way, some of which
[7:14]I didn't know about, some of which right you put in and that were things that, you know,
[7:19]I perhaps should have known about or, you know, I mean, originally these brothers going to be
[7:24]involved in the Florida real estate bubble, which is also something I don't know much about,
[7:27]but I read this one book bubble in the sun that is such a good story about it. And I was like,
[7:33]oh, I want to write a book about this. Let me just put it into my because it's 1920s also.
[7:37]But then I found this Julian, petroleum oil scandal, which if you read my book, you, you get
[7:42]people on, learn about it that happened out in LA. And it was just, you know, it was like an
[7:48]unbelievable perfect example of what was going on in the 20s overall. So, yeah.
[7:55]You were inspired by the GameStop situation. You know, my brother produced the movie,
[8:01]dumb money. And so, yeah, by Ben Messdrick, who's always been on this podcast or whatever.
[8:06]So I'm very familiar with that whole situation, although I was not following it at the time.
[8:10]I was like in my own world and whatever. Tell me about how that somehow is my year.
[8:15]But yeah, I had to get us here today. I realized, as I was thinking about talking about the
[8:21]book that there's an element of spoiler that comes with with how the connection to GameStop happens.
[8:26]But I'll try and do it without spoiling too much. So my husband is in finance. He's a hedge fund guy.
[8:32]And we met in business school. But I always liked the soft stuff and the strategy. And he was
[8:38]always into the markets and money. And I mean, I really like didn't know the difference between
[8:42]a stock and a bond before I went to business school. And I still don't think it's that interesting.
[8:46]The GameStop caught my attention because the target who in Teddy's movie is played by Seth
[8:53]Rogen is based on a friend of ours. And so I was watching this whole thing unfold
[9:01]a little bit from the other side, but from a very personal side, like seeing a friend of ours
[9:05]suddenly getting attacked and assailed because he was doing his job. And that is not to say
[9:12]there's not huge income inequality in this country. And it's not to say that there's not a lot
[9:16]of things about the way the financial markets are structured and compensation is structured. That's
[9:21]not that's totally unfair. But this was still a human being on the other side, not some big,
[9:27]bad villain. And so that just guy was sort of like this doesn't make sense. There's this complex
[9:34]morality to money that just automatically assumes that if you've made it in the market,
[9:40]you're the bad guy. And that's what you do for a living. And if you're the, if you're the like,
[9:44]nobody, like every man, you're the good guy. And it's not that simple. And so I said,
[9:49]well, I wish I could write about this, but I write historical fiction. And he said,
[9:54]well, there was that guy Jesse Livermore who shorted the clash of 29. And that's where it started.
[9:59]I said, okay.
[10:00]Hey, I can go back.
[10:00]I didn't even know short selling existed.
[10:02]I barely understood what short selling was,
[10:04]but I definitely didn't know existed.
[10:07]In the 20s, I thought it was like an 80s phenomenon
[10:10]with, you know, the jump-ons
[10:12]and all the other things that sort of happened.
[10:14]So that's how I got there.
[10:15]And then I obviously went very far field from GameStop,
[10:19]but it was this idea that I wanted to explore this idea
[10:21]that you can be an investor and you can be in the markets
[10:24]and you can also be a good person.
[10:26]Like that is a possibility in the world.
[10:29]And the lines are just never so black and white.
[10:32]And then trust came out and like totally stole my thunder,
[10:35]but I was writing the book before trust came out as well.
[10:40]I have actually not read trust.
[10:42]I'm so embarrassed.
[10:43]It's like my mom's favorite book.
[10:44]She's like, I don't understand.
[10:45]I have to read it.
[10:46]I say that my book and it's not
[10:48]because I have funding games and gift friends
[10:50]and speakeasies and all that.
[10:52]Trust is a much more literary novel,
[10:55]but mine's like the fun book club,
[10:57]a quick read version of trust.
[10:59]Just it takes place in the same era
[11:02]and is about making money on the crash, basically.
[11:07]So you should read it.
[11:08]You would like it.
[11:09]I know. I would.
[11:10]I know.
[11:11]I have to.
[11:11]I mean, you should read it
[11:12]when you finish reading the other like 100 books
[11:14]you probably have to read by next week.
[11:16]So that's it.
[11:17]Yeah.
[11:18]No, but I have to,
[11:19]I feel like I don't end up reading books
[11:20]unless I can schedule the author to come on.
[11:23]So I have to see if that's even possible,
[11:25]but I will try.
[11:26]And then I'll force myself.
[11:28]It's like my own,
[11:29]that's my book club with myself.
[11:31]Like when I read books,
[11:35]why did you have the characters be,
[11:38]tell me about the relationship with the parents
[11:40]because there is a really moving scene towards the end
[11:43]with the mom and the daughter and her faith in her
[11:46]and how she really trusts the daughter after all this time,
[11:50]but tell me a little bit more
[11:51]about the family relationships.
[11:53]So the family,
[11:54]so I kind of like,
[11:56]the way that I write the pieces fall into place
[11:58]a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit.
[11:59]I knew that I wanted a protagonist
[12:03]who was gonna think about short selling the crash.
[12:06]Once I knew that that was possible.
[12:07]And originally I thought it would be Jesse Livermore.
[12:09]And then when I did research on Jesse Livermore,
[12:11]who probably for most listeners,
[12:13]you have no idea who he is because I didn't.
[12:15]But he's really famous in the financial banking trading world
[12:20]and he was a huge operator who started from nothing
[12:23]and ultimately made, I think, a hundred million dollars
[12:26]short selling the crash of 29.
[12:29]Things didn't end so well for him and whatever.
[12:31]But he was not a great guy.
[12:33]And the people that were making big money in the markets
[12:36]in that era were not good people.
[12:38]So I decided first that I wanted the short seller
[12:41]or my stock person to be a woman.
[12:44]And then as I learned that there were all these obstacles
[12:47]for women who were not of a certain class
[12:51]and it was a time where I really was starting to think more
[12:54]and more about my own Judaism,
[12:56]which is a good transition push we can come back to
[12:59]to your people.
[13:00]Our book, I said, oh, it would be great if she was an immigrant.
[13:04]And her parents' story and her story,
[13:07]these story is based on what I know of my great grandmother.
[13:12]So my grandmother, Pauline, who is honored by being named
[13:17]even though she's not the best character in my book,
[13:20]Pauline's mother was supposedly very much
[13:23]like the Pauline in my book.
[13:25]They immigrated to America, lost everything.
[13:29]And she had been this aristocratic woman walking around
[13:32]in her furs and didn't adjust.
[13:34]And Pauline was the only daughter in her family.
[13:37]And so she had to take care of her mother like a slave,
[13:40]like her house person.
[13:42]And I just thought that would be such a great construct
[13:44]and a background for the relationship one has to wealth
[13:49]and money over time,
[13:50]because money was in some way so important in their house
[13:53]because they had lost it.
[13:54]And that was true of my grandparents as well.
[13:56]So I was able to like mine my own history there.
[14:00]And that's how I created that relationship.
[14:02]I don't know if my grandma Pauline ever got that
[14:05]come up and with her mother, that be does,
[14:07]but I needed be together because she had to get
[14:11]some 100% validation from the places
[14:14]that she really wanted it.
[14:15]So I love that.
[14:16]I love that.
[14:17]Yeah.
[14:18]And at that point, this is a Jewish woman in the book.
[14:21]This is, I was just talking to Linda Kuhn-Ligman before
[14:25]about how she didn't realize she wrote Jewish books
[14:27]until they were categorized that way on Amazon.
[14:29]And she's like, oh, OK, I guess this is what I do.
[14:33]Was this intentional?
[14:35]Like, did you say, I really, you know,
[14:37]because a lot of it's not just that she's Jewish, right?
[14:40]They have all of the Jewish holidays and everything.
[14:44]It's pervasive through the story.
[14:47]Tell me about that decision.
[14:48]So I definitely did not set out to write a Jewish book.
[14:53]And it became more Jewish as I wrote
[14:55]because I became more and more important
[14:57]that that was a piece of her identity.
[14:59]And the moment that be became Jewish was I actually
[15:02]struck, there's so little information out there
[15:06]about women in banking in this era
[15:08]because there were very few women in banking.
[15:10]So I found like a total of three books,
[15:13]one of which was from the 1950s,
[15:16]one of which was written by a professor.
[15:18]He's now retired, a local professor.
[15:21]And it was called, it's called Ladies of the ticker.
[15:23]And it's like a social history that
[15:25]constructs sort of perceptions of women on Wall Street
[15:27]through the early ages and into the 20s.
[15:30]So I reached out to him, his name is George Rob.
[15:33]And he was amazing and so helpful.
[15:36]And as we were talking about, how could a woman,
[15:40]because there's a lot of like, you know, when you're writing
[15:42]and you write contemporary fiction.
[15:44]So it's sometimes it's a little bit easier.
[15:46]But in historical fiction, you get down to a scene
[15:48]and you're like, where would she have gone?
[15:50]What would her office have gone?
[15:52]Who would have been around her and all of that?
[15:55]And so I started asking him a lot of very specific questions.
[15:57]And I said, I'm thinking, I might make her Jewish
[16:00]just because I had my grandmother's family story in my head.
[16:04]And he said, oh, well, if she was Jewish,
[16:06]it would have been even harder because there were
[16:09]and so then it was like, well, she has to be Jewish
[16:11]because let's look at all the obstacles that existed.
[16:16]And the minute I decided that her Judaism
[16:18]was gonna be part of her identity in the book,
[16:20]it had to be part of her identity in the book.
[16:22]And it was an amazing opportunity for me
[16:24]to do study of, you know, the Lower Side,
[16:27]and Tenement stuff, and Jewish traditions
[16:29]that were way beyond what I ever did
[16:31]in my basically secular household.
[16:33]And so that's how I got there.
[16:35]And I think it is this jumping off point
[16:37]and been a through line for me of reconnecting
[16:41]with my own Judaism in a different way,
[16:43]which has been, you know, in this time and in this world
[16:46]is feels more important than ever to me.
[16:49]But this is a total aside.
[16:51]But I'm looking behind your head
[16:53]and you have a sign about the Wall Street panic
[16:55]from the newspaper.
[16:56]Yes.
[16:57]Can you bring that over?
[16:58]Can I like look at that for a second?
[16:59]And then I wanna go back to Judaism.
[17:02]Well, if you're like it,
[17:04]so this is just my assistant actually gave this to me.
[17:07]It's just like one of the post-head lines,
[17:09]Lynne with the news headlines of the day.
[17:11]I actually created,
[17:12]because I'm a total data nerd.
[17:14]This ridiculous presentation,
[17:17]which will be on my website.
[17:18]That's for behind the book.
[17:19]That has the Dow average all the days of the crash
[17:24]with the New York Times headlines,
[17:26]which day, and then it has like the whole trajectory
[17:28]of the market with the plot points along the way.
[17:31]I'm crazy.
[17:32]I love it.
[17:35]Thank you for showing me.
[17:37]Okay, back to what we were talking about.
[17:39]Sorry, I didn't be distracted.
[17:40]No, no, no, okay.
[17:41]So you were kind enough to contribute to
[17:44]on being Jewish now,
[17:45]the anthology that we're all doing together
[17:47]that's coming out this fall as well.
[17:49]You have so much going on.
[17:50]Why did you decide to contribute to it
[17:52]and tell listeners about your essay?
[17:55]Sure.
[17:56]No, of course.
[17:57]So I decided to contribute.
[17:59]So I got an email from this woman's video,
[18:01]and she's a dynamo.
[18:04]She does a million things.
[18:05]She said, like, I'm doing this anthology,
[18:08]talking about being Jewish now.
[18:10]And could you write an essay in three weeks
[18:13]or how long it was about being Jewish?
[18:16]And your experience being Jewish
[18:18]since October 7th of last year.
[18:20]And it was a topic that was,
[18:23]it was something that had been ruminating for me.
[18:26]And I have to say, I love writing essays,
[18:29]and I usually can bang them out pretty fast.
[18:31]So I was like, I can do this.
[18:34]Good challenge for myself.
[18:35]And it also, like, as a psychological exercise,
[18:38]was a good way for me to solidify
[18:40]and think about my experience.
[18:42]So my essay is called Ju-ish,
[18:44]which is what my husband has always called me.
[18:46]He's not Jewish.
[18:47]And it's about my very complex relationship
[18:51]with my Judaism for most of my life.
[18:53]It's a lighter, I think,
[18:55]because it's a little more of a humor angle.
[18:57]But at the end of the day,
[18:59]I grew up basically being an atheist.
[19:00]My mom had rejected her modern Orthodox parents.
[19:04]My dad, whose mother was Pauline,
[19:08]her parents were very, his parents, Pauline and Lou,
[19:11]were very secular Jews,
[19:12]because they were almost communist,
[19:14]because that was how they dealt
[19:15]with their relationships with money in the world.
[19:18]And so for me, it wasn't a badge of honor
[19:21]to be Jewish when I was young.
[19:22]It was this thing that everyone in my world
[19:25]had like a push and pull with.
[19:26]And I think, so I talk about that.
[19:27]And then when October 7th happened,
[19:29]my first reaction was, let me,
[19:32]like, let me hide behind the fact
[19:33]that my last name is Woodruff,
[19:35]and I live in Greenwich, Connecticut,
[19:36]and I can pass as a wasp,
[19:37]which is what everyone always joked about for me.
[19:40]And then I appeared on some of those lists,
[19:42]like some of the original lists
[19:43]that you were on of black balling,
[19:45]authors don't support them.
[19:46]They support Israel, all these things.
[19:48]And I was like, wait a minute.
[19:49]I don't feel scared now.
[19:50]I feel like I have to,
[19:52]like it's more important than ever to say I'm Jewish.
[19:55]And I certainly don't have the kind of platform that you do,
[19:57]but to participate in this book.
[20:00]is a moment of saying, like, I am a proud Jewish author
[20:04]and I'm not gonna be afraid.
[20:06]And please understand what it means to be Jewish
[20:09]and our world right now.
[20:11]So that, I mean, I think that's why
[20:13]those are all the reasons that I did it.
[20:15]And I'm so glad I did, and it's chartered out to me.
[20:17]And it's such an incredible collection of essays
[20:20]and what a project.
[20:21]But I really appreciate your involvement
[20:24]and being so open about how you feel
[20:27]and some of the ambivalence about everything
[20:29]and all of that is really important.
[20:31]And a lot of the, I think, emotions shared,
[20:34]are shared by so many people.
[20:36]And not even just about there, not just about being Jewish.
[20:39]I mean, there are people who are parts of other cultures
[20:41]who feel, am I really a part of this or not?
[20:43]Like, is this, you know, ish in so many ways.
[20:46]So, right, right, right.
[20:48]Like, I mean, look, we all,
[20:50]there's that imposter syndrome piece as well,
[20:52]but with Judaism, there are so many more layers to it.
[20:54]Like, I, you know, I never liked that the Jews
[20:56]were the chosen people because everyone should be chosen
[20:59]in their own way.
[21:00]Like, there were things about the tenants
[21:01]of the religion that I felt strongly about,
[21:05]especially when I was a, you know,
[21:06]really a principal college kid.
[21:10]These days, it's all about in a little softer.
[21:12]Yeah.
[21:15]Okay, so what is going on for the launch of this book?
[21:18]What are you up to?
[21:19]Are you, you know, re-losing your mind?
[21:21]Really busy tour schedule,
[21:24]a lot of which is through the Jewish book council.
[21:26]So I think, you know, the lobotomous wife,
[21:28]my first book was, I'm a Jewish author,
[21:31]but it wasn't overtly Jewish in any way.
[21:33]And this book, first of all, it's 1920s New York,
[21:36]which I think people just find like
[21:38]a little more accessible than lobotomy,
[21:40]although it is Wall Street, which is, again,
[21:42]you have to take a leap of faith,
[21:44]but it's actually gonna entertain you
[21:45]and not just be a lesson in finance,
[21:46]which you promise it is.
[21:48]Not a lesson in finance, so it is gonna be an okay.
[21:51]Okay.
[21:52]But this one, I got really good requests
[21:54]from the Jewish book council,
[21:55]which I assume most people who listen to this podcast
[21:58]know what that is, but it's basically,
[22:00]it's all the JCCs in the country.
[22:02]You kind of audition and then they request you
[22:04]if they want you.
[22:05]So I probably have about 25 or 30 events,
[22:10]maybe 15 or to 20 of which are some way
[22:14]through the JBCs or virtually or going.
[22:17]I have like a 10 day period that's like your life
[22:20]where I'm like, Houston then I'm back for a day
[22:23]and then I'm in Florida in three different places
[22:25]and then I'm back for less than a day
[22:26]and then I'm in Rockchester and that's all JBC.
[22:29]And I already am having adjunct because I'm an anxious person.
[22:32]So I'm already like, how am I gonna do this?
[22:33]How am I gonna get through it?
[22:35]How am I gonna have clothes to wear?
[22:36]Like, it's so, but I love it.
[22:40]I love connecting with readers.
[22:41]And I think like there's two kinds of writers
[22:43]and I'm definitely the outgoing chatty
[22:47]when to French Woods was a theater major,
[22:49]but like what wanted to be a theater kind of writer?
[22:51]So for me, it's so much fun to be able to do this part.
[22:55]Even if it's exhausting.
[22:56]Then I have to like go home and regroup for two days
[22:58]and not speak to anybody in the case.
[23:00]That's how I do it.
[23:01]And then after recovering from that,
[23:04]are you gonna write another novel?
[23:06]What's going on with the writing?
[23:08]So I have started another novel.
[23:11]It's another like potentially repellent topic.
[23:15]Like I think I keep coming upon these topics
[23:17]that I find fascinating, but then I have to like
[23:19]kind of bring the reader in.
[23:20]I'm doing all these hands out signs
[23:22]that no one's ever gonna say,
[23:23]but I can't help myself.
[23:26]So I have two ideas,
[23:27]but the one that I started writing
[23:28]and I did a lot of research on while I was weeding
[23:30]for my edits on the trade-off and started working on
[23:33]is it's a dual timeline story that takes place
[23:38]in almost contemporary New York City.
[23:42]And in the 1980s in Romania during the final years
[23:46]of the Chef Chefs goes rule.
[23:49]And it's about identity and family
[23:53]and but the very sharp version of the story
[23:55]is that there's this woman in New York.
[23:58]She's in her 30s.
[23:59]She, you soon find out has a lot of symptoms
[24:03]of an attachment disorder.
[24:04]And she basically discovers she's a TV exec.
[24:07]She discovers during this presentation
[24:10]when she sees a picture of a Romanian orphanage
[24:13]that she's a Romanian orphan.
[24:14]Her parents never told her.
[24:16]And so she sees this picture and she's like,
[24:17]wait, that's what I see in my neck
[24:19]recurring nightmares, like that exact vision.
[24:22]Oh my God.
[24:24]So then she marks on like a journey of identity
[24:26]to find her mom and find out what happened.
[24:29]And but under the guise of working
[24:31]with this production company who's gonna do a documentary
[24:34]about like the dangers of modern dictatorship.
[24:36]So that's like plot line A and then plot B is the,
[24:41]I've made up a fourth daughter for the Chef Chefs goes.
[24:44]And so she is this young woman who has lived
[24:47]this very sheltered life and believes all the propaganda
[24:51]about her parents and she comes to slowly learn the truth.
[24:56]And then she gets pregnant and then her parents aren't happy
[24:59]with the father is a dissident and they take away her kid
[25:03]and put the kid in an orphanage.
[25:05]And you can imagine where it goes from there.
[25:08]But again, it's like, I don't have an elevator pitch.
[25:11]And it's like, if I say Chefs goes in Romania
[25:14]are you like running to pick up this book?
[25:15]Hello, right?
[25:18]I don't know.
[25:20]I think the notion of finding out you are an orphan
[25:22]and that you had a recurring nightmare about it
[25:24]that turns out to be true is incredibly compelling.
[25:27]I will please with that.
[25:29]Yeah.
[25:30]I also have a new link on the idea of doing
[25:33]like my more contemporary novel,
[25:36]but I don't know if I'll ever do that.
[25:38]I really love historical fiction so much.
[25:39]It's hard to think away.
[25:41]So what advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[25:45]God, I mean, I still feel like I'm such,
[25:47]I have such a Cinderella story.
[25:48]So the idea that I'm giving anyone advice sounds silly
[25:51]because I feel like such a newbie,
[25:52]but I do think you just, I mean,
[25:54]the stupidest advice but to me,
[25:57]the most true is that you just have to keep writing.
[26:00]And when you don't like writing,
[26:01]you just have to keep writing.
[26:03]And eventually, and the other piece,
[26:06]which I think people don't say a lot is,
[26:08]you have to understand there's gonna be hustle.
[26:10]Like this business, especially these days
[26:13]with as many books coming out every week as there are,
[26:15]there's gotta be hustle.
[26:16]And so if you wanna be a published writer,
[26:20]you have to know that it's not just writing anymore.
[26:24]And that's kind of a,
[26:24]I feel like that's a harsh thing to say
[26:26]because you wanna have this beautiful,
[26:27]oh, I'm just writing and it's so wonderful.
[26:30]And I'm an artist and someday someone's gonna find
[26:32]my beautiful words,
[26:33]but it's just not the world we live in anymore.
[26:36]So I think that would be the other side of it is.
[26:38]Make sure you're ready to do that,
[26:40]but also get your ideas down on paper.
[26:42]And they will iterate and iterate and iterate
[26:44]and once you're flexing that muscle,
[26:46]then it works better and better over time.
[26:48]So I love that.
[26:50]Amazing.
[26:51]Well Sam, thank you so much for the trade-off.
[26:53]Thank you for the fabulous journey through time
[26:57]and Wall Street stuff,
[26:58]but not too, you know, very relatable
[27:01]and super mobile, not too arcane or anything,
[27:05]but I think it's great, congratulations.
[27:08]Thank you so much.
[27:09]Thank you, Sammy.
[27:11]Okay, bye, Sam.
[27:12]Thank you, Sammy.
[27:12]Okay, see you soon, see you soon.
[27:14]See you soon.
[27:18]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:21]If you love it, please leave a review
[27:22]and follow us on social at city Owens
[27:25]and at city readers.