Jessica Soffer, THIS IS A LOVE STORY: A Novel
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
[0:06]Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[0:08]In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors
[0:14]and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time.
[0:18]As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously a podcaster, I get a comprehensive
[0:24]look at everything that's coming up, and spend my time curating the best books so you
[0:29]you don't have to.
[0:30]Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests, like I do, every single
[0:35]day.
[0:36]For more information, go to zibimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens.
[0:44]Jessica Software is the author of This is a Love Story and Novel.
[0:48]Jessica is also the author of Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots.
[0:52]She grew up in New York City, attended Connecticut College, and earned her MFA at Hunter
[0:56]College.
[0:57]Her work has appeared in Grante, The New York Times, Real Simple, Sever, The Wall Street
[1:01]Journal Vogue, and on NPR's selected shorts.
[1:04]She teaches creative writing to small groups, and in the corporate space, and lives in
[1:08]SAG Harbor, New York, with her husband, young daughter, and dog.
[1:12]Welcome, Jessica.
[1:13]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to Zibi to talk about This is a Love Story.
[1:18]Congratulations.
[1:19]Thank you.
[1:20]Thank you, Abby.
[1:21]Of course, really beautiful book.
[1:23]And yeah, I can't wait to discuss.
[1:25]Tell everybody what This is a Love Story is about, please.
[1:29]So this is a Love Story.
[1:30]Tells the 50-year romance between two characters, Abe and Jane, a writer, and an artist
[1:36]from the time that they meet until the variant of their relationship about 50 years later.
[1:41]It also includes the perspective of their son, Max, who has a nuanced relationship with
[1:47]love, believes that his mother chose art over a parenthood, and can't seem to find his
[1:53]way into a relationship at all.
[1:57]Also the perspective of a woman named Alice, a young woman, a student, who sort of inserts
[2:01]herself into the relationship between Jane and Abe.
[2:05]And then there's also the kind of untraditional, but ever-present character of Central
[2:10]Park itself, and sections of Central Park contain literally hundreds of anecdotes about
[2:16]the love that happens in the park.
[2:18]So there's a kind of wide-angle lens view of this One Love Story, but the kind of
[2:23]kaleidoscopic view of love in general.
[2:25]Love it.
[2:26]Excellent.
[2:27]Excellent pitch, by the way.
[2:29]That was lovely.
[2:30]Okay.
[2:31]So what?
[2:32]Were you walking through Central Park one day and you're like, this would be such a cool
[2:35]idea for a book?
[2:36]No, Central Park was actually the last part of the book to be built.
[2:39]So yeah, I came at it a little bit backwards.
[2:43]For many years, I worked with just the characters of Abe and Jane and kept trying to make
[2:47]this one very tight, very sort of myopic story of their love work.
[2:53]And it just couldn't, it was too narrow and it didn't feel like it could ever get to
[2:58]the place where it would be sellable.
[3:00]And so at a certain point, I had a friend who's also a writer, Liz Moore, who had
[3:05]taken the course.
[3:07]She read it and she said, this feels like just one part of a love story, which kind
[3:11]of got me thinking about the way that no love story exists in a vacuum.
[3:18]Every love story is complicated and challenged and supported by other loves.
[3:23]And so what would it be to kind of flesh out this one love story and have it contain many
[3:28]more?
[3:30]And so that's how it contained those other two perspectives.
[3:34]And then I grew up spending a lot of time in Central Park.
[3:37]My father was an artist and he used to sit there and just observe.
[3:41]And so I, by default, sat there and observed.
[3:43]And so when I thought about the place that taught me the most I know about love and
[3:48]also humanity and the place that I kind of returned to again and again in my mind,
[3:53]but also actually it felt like Central Park was the place.
[3:57]Oh, I love that.
[3:59]I always feel when I'm there and I see the signs and the park benches or on the walkways,
[4:05]like who are they?
[4:07]What was this?
[4:08]I want the rest of it to be filled in.
[4:10]And then I also feel like I wonder what it would be like if there was some magic time
[4:15]machine of sorts, because I have walked through the park since I was like born to now.
[4:21]And if there was some way to, you know, like follow the, you know, and make some sort of
[4:26]anyway, do you know what I'm talking about?
[4:27]It's follow a map to have a map of you wandering the entire life changes in the place sort
[4:33]of stays.
[4:34]I recently wrote an article and we haven't placed it yet, I don't think about going to
[4:39]the park many years ago with my father when he was unwell.
[4:43]And then returning to that very same place unknowingly, many years later when I was pregnant
[4:48]with my daughter.
[4:49]And the reason which this park feels like it's a witness for a lot of people, it holds
[4:54]time.
[4:55]It's a compact, I mean, at least for me, it's been a companion.
[4:58]And I find that now I don't live in the city anymore.
[5:01]Every time I go to the city, I'm magnetically drawn to the park as though I've missed
[5:06]it, which I have, but almost subconsciously recently it was snowing and in true New York
[5:12]fashion.
[5:13]As I looked into the park, there was like a long line of people waiting to sled down
[5:18]the hill.
[5:19]I mean, like only here would do you have to, it had to be like annoying and you know,
[5:23]but the pros and cons of New York all wrapped up in the park.
[5:27]You chose a really interesting way to tell the story with you as a second person for
[5:32]a lot of it.
[5:34]Why that?
[5:35]Why that way?
[5:36]And you also have these very short sort of chapped paragraphs and the way you use space
[5:39]on the pages.
[5:40]Interesting.
[5:41]Like talk a little bit about that.
[5:42]I think that has been there since the beginning.
[5:45]And I would like to say that there was some very kind of dedicated reason for that from
[5:49]the get go.
[5:50]It was just sort of the way it came out.
[5:52]And I think in retrospect, it feels like Abe is telling the story of his wife's end.
[5:58]And he's telling it in a way that is, this is scout in a way that is fragmented.
[6:03]and sometimes hopeful, but sometimes in utter despair.
[6:07]And I think it's sort of the only way that he can get it out is in a way that feels non-linear,
[6:13]in a way that feels stunted.
[6:16]And I think it's meant to reflect that.
[6:17]I think it's meant to reflect the agony of somebody telling the most beautiful moments
[6:21]of their life at the end of the life.
[6:25]Wow.
[6:26]Can I read like just a little excerpt to give her?
[6:28]Thank you.
[6:29]I mean, I really could have picked anything, but okay, this will be from chapter nine.
[6:33]You remember, after that suddenly a baby was all you wanted, you remember making love
[6:38]like a chore, you remember closing your eyes and knowing that there was something unhealthy
[6:42]down deep.
[6:43]What if this was actually the beginning of something or just not meant to be or maybe
[6:48]rot under the boards?
[6:50]You remember I slept on the couch and everything I said felt like an insult.
[6:54]You were grateful for the hours I was at work.
[6:56]It never used to be like that.
[6:58]Let's skip that part too, you say.
[6:59]You can add in what you need later.
[7:01]What do we need?
[7:02]It's a good story.
[7:03]You can drop a few lines down.
[7:04]You remember in the end it happened when we least expected it.
[7:08]You remember in the beginning being pregnant like you were a part, you were algae swaying
[7:13]or maybe the baby was and you were the salt.
[7:16]You remember making a mural in the nursery with frogs and sheep and roses dragging home
[7:20]in a band and dresser with no knobs from 70th and Columbus painting it with white with
[7:25]yellow stars feeling that you should rest, but also fearing being too delicate as if pregnancy
[7:30]was a fine balance and also somehow up to you.
[7:35]So beautiful.
[7:36]Like you just in like not that many words trying to have a baby, having a baby, decorating.
[7:44]Like if someone were to say to you like spend, I don't know how many.
[7:47]Let's just say 500 words to encapsulate that evoke a feeling, evoke a place of space, emotion,
[7:55]conflict.
[7:56]Like that's a lot to do in that short of a thing.
[8:00]So just from a crafty thing, it's perspective.
[8:04]Talk about the writing of this, like how to pick the, just the threads that tell most
[8:10]of the story without having to go into too many details all of that.
[8:14]Well I think it's a gift, I've learned it's a gift for me to not be telling one story
[8:20]all the way through.
[8:21]So a section is really just one portion of the book and the goal here I think one has
[8:27]as a goal and one is writing a book is to offer a kind of raw and unfiltered version
[8:33]of what a long term romance is like.
[8:36]And I think this romance is a really good one.
[8:38]Abingen's relationship is really good.
[8:40]It's reciprocal.
[8:41]It's respectful.
[8:43]It's compassionate.
[8:44]It's full of trust most of the time.
[8:47]But at the same time, it is a long term romance and life is hard and love is hard.
[8:52]And so I didn't want to bang anyone over the head with that.
[8:55]And so it felt like their, their portion could only be small.
[8:59]So it's about, I think that Abe's section is about one fourth of the book.
[9:04]And that felt right.
[9:05]But I've been teaching writing for so long now that those things that you bring up are
[9:10]things that I've worked through again and again and had to make plain for students.
[9:16]You know, when a, when an 18 year old who's never been in a writing class before asks
[9:22]you what tone is you have to figure it out for yourself.
[9:25]I mean, the things that I feel like at this point, having written for most of my life,
[9:30]certainly my adult life, are very obvious and self explanatory to me to have to break
[9:36]those down.
[9:37]I think has made me, I hope has made me a better writer.
[9:41]And so I was really kind of on my own case when I was writing Abe's section because
[9:45]I had my students questions in my ear and I had my own stick about tone and voice and
[9:53]atmosphere and place and all of those things.
[9:56]I was very hard on Abe in that way and Abe is also a writer so.
[10:00]it is his job to do those things as well as he can, as well as I can.
[10:04]So my sister-in-law teaches horseback riding now, she was a professional,
[10:09]she was like a jumper and she did all the things and now she's teaching.
[10:13]And she said it was hard in the beginning because it was so natural. Everything that she did
[10:17]came some naturally to her. So to have to figure out how to teach it,
[10:21]that she had to think about every little thing she was doing and that she does that thinking,
[10:25]which I feel like is what you're saying about riding. Like it might come easily to you,
[10:29]but then how do you, how do you show what comes naturally to someone else?
[10:34]My best teacher was a woman who taught me, I think I was probably in high school,
[10:39]she was, I was taking a riding workshop and she had not been published before and had been trying
[10:44]for many years to be published and she was such an excellent craft teacher because she had worked
[10:50]through it on the granular level so hard for so many years and so she kind of offered up truths
[10:56]that were probably obvious to much more esteemed writers than her. But to her, she'd had to
[11:03]really sort it out for herself and could articulate it to us in a way that was amazing. I'll never
[11:08]forget that. So tell me about your whole background and when you started teaching riding and by the
[11:14]way for a long time, I subscribe to your riding prompt of the week. So you were in my inbox every
[11:21]week and actually kind of made me feel bad because then I would never do anything with the
[11:25]riding prompt. So eventually I had to unsubscribe not because they weren't great but because
[11:30]it made my own guilt for not taking the thread and sort of, you know, unspooling it once I was
[11:37]handed it. I felt too guilty about it. But anyway, so there for you, those prompts are there for you.
[11:42]Thank you. Thank you. They're great. They're really great. I'm so glad. Yeah, there's still going.
[11:46]I mean, during the pandemic, I would get hundreds of responses every week. I think they were all
[11:52]lifeline for me as well. It's a subscription prompt service. It's free. It's offered every Wednesday
[11:57]morning. They go out and during the pandemic, I got so many. They've since tapered off, which I'm
[12:01]grateful for because I do respond to everyone. Anyway, I was very lucky in that I knew I wanted to
[12:07]be a writer young. My mother is a writer. She's been writing through crime for many, many years
[12:13]and her first novel came out in the summer. It's done incredibly well. It's called word hunter.
[12:18]And so I grew up with a mother who was always writing and always reading. And I knew I wanted
[12:24]to do it young, which now feels like such a gift. I went to college and studied under a creative
[12:30]writing instructor from the get go. I applied to MFA as well. I was still in undergrad and ended up
[12:37]at Hunter College, which was wonderful at the time. I think it since had some issues. But I was there
[12:44]when Colin McCann was there. Peter Carey was there. Nathan Englander and Jenny shoot. And they
[12:50]were wonderful. Every one of them very distinct in their teaching styles and their writing styles.
[12:55]And very generous. I mean, I felt like I was kind of ushered into the professional world of writing
[13:03]immediately. And I learned very quickly what it meant to be a working writer. And so
[13:08]when I graduated, I pretty much immediately started writing and teaching. I taught at Connecticut
[13:14]college for many years. I taught at Stony Brook. And then during the pandemic, I started teaching
[13:19]in the corporate space. So big corporations either and actually small ones as well. I taught a
[13:24]beauty brand at an architecture firm. And in some cases, I was teaching in their wellness programs.
[13:31]So journaling workshops and things like that, especially during the pandemic, that felt like what
[13:36]was needed. But in other cases, I was teaching their communications departments. And mostly those
[13:41]were people who had been writing all of their lives. And in many cases creatively as well. And
[13:48]it felt like they had lost their voice a little bit in becoming in where their lines of work had
[13:54]taken them. So we kind of tried to reinvigorate finding voice and authenticity and language.
[14:01]Wow. I am impressed by the direction. I felt like I wanted to be a writer. But I didn't like
[14:08]all the writing classes at school. And I was like, I don't want to read all those books. I kind of
[14:13]just wanted them. I didn't think it's luck. I mean, I also, I've been thinking about him a lot. I had
[14:18]this teacher when I was in high school who was a short story. He was an English teacher, but he taught
[14:22]a short story class. And he taught all the really good shit. And for someone who was, I think I
[14:28]was probably 15 to be reading Jumpelahiri and Flannery O'Connor and Udora Welty. I mean, I think I was
[14:37]offered up really good writing really young. Jim Harrison, great carver. And so it felt, and I
[14:44]think also I studied a lot of short story. I've never thought about this before, but I studied a lot
[14:48]of short story early on. And that felt accessible. The form just kind of lends itself to to younger
[14:57]writers in a more immediate way. And so I think it's tricky when you're young and you're offered up
[15:04]these kind of great and legendary works that are canon to imitate them in any way. And in the
[15:11]beginning, it is all imitation. And not that I could ever imitate a, you know, Gabriel Garcia Marcus
[15:19]story with any success. But I think when, when it's 16 pages, you can dissect and dissect and dissect.
[15:25]And for a moment, think that you might be able to until you fall flat on your face. What happened?
[15:32]It's amazing how much teachers feel like throughout this podcast, just having one teacher identify
[15:39]that you have talent or spending a little extra time with you or, you know, giving you the things
[15:44]that really hit home and it makes such a huge difference. 100% and at the same time, having a teacher
[15:52]who rips you down can be so memorable and so damaging. And I've had that happen too. I mean, there's
[15:59]there's one comment that will forever say in my ear from a teacher who didn't understand my work,
[16:05]although it probably was ununderstandable at the time. And that stays with you. It can be so damaging
[16:11]permanently. Yeah. It's true. And sometimes the worst stuff gets highlighted more like it's
[16:17]really on the big lights. And you move to Sag Harbor now. Is that right? I sound your bio. What are
[16:23]you doing? What? How come you live out there? My husband was offered a job many years ago right
[16:28]after my first book came out and we weren't planning on moving. But it was an amazing opportunity
[16:34]for him. He's a builder. He was building this incredible concrete building concrete house on the beach.
[16:39]And we thought this feels right. And I was kind of over the writing scene in New York. It had
[16:45]started to feel a little bit repellent as it can. And so we moved out. I had grown up spending
[16:50]summers here. And we have stayed and we have a child here. We have many pets. And it feels like
[16:58]a really good place to be a writer, a really good place to be a human, to be a parent. It's really
[17:04]wonderful. The sad part about being out here at the moment is the bookstores. Canio is just closed.
[17:10]I'm sure you know. And yeah, it's sort of hard to know what's happening with the other bookstores.
[17:15]So that feels a little bit sad, especially at this moment when my book's coming out. I hope
[17:20]that they'll carry it. I don't know. But otherwise, it's a really special place to live, you know.
[17:24]Yeah. I like SAG Harbor books right there. That's still open, right? Yeah. We do. Yeah,
[17:30]they're still open. Yeah, they're still open. I mean, in all small towns, it's like all these
[17:37]stores try and stay in business. And the beauty of being out here, you know, this too is that it
[17:43]really gets sleepy this time. And it's so good for the writing. I mean, there's nowhere to go
[17:48]except out to dinner. And you can't do that a couple days a week. So there's nothing to do,
[17:54]but right. And I love the idea of turning inward and winter. I think it's really important for
[17:59]right for everybody, but especially for writers. And I also feel like the buzz of what's
[18:04]about to happen with my book, although it already feels like there's there's movement.
[18:08]It's really nice to be in a place where you can go outside and take a deep breath.
[18:13]I mean, I grew up in the city and I loved it and I feel like I kind of rode the wave of city momentum
[18:20]for so long, but it's exhausting permanently. It is. Yeah. Although I feel like at this point,
[18:28]I rely on it. Like if I'm gone for too long, I need a little dose. I feel the same.
[18:34]I'll be there next week. Yeah. What are you working on now?
[18:39]I'm working on a new book. It's I've had two working titles and both of them have been one of
[18:46]a book just came out with a title of. Oh, no. Great. That's fully so. And it seems like an
[18:51]amazing book. I'm really excited to read it, but it's about mothers. It's about four mothers and
[18:56]a kind of scandal at the center that rocks the community around around these mothers.
[19:02]But I think different perspectives on motherhood, which is sort of all I can all I can consume
[19:07]and all I can concern myself with right now. I have a five year old and the women that I spend
[19:12]the most amount of time with our mothers and they're so smart and they have such meaningful things
[19:15]to say about mothers. And it's a really hard and important and life-giving job. And so I feel
[19:22]like I'm uniquely predisposed to be writing about it right now. And I also don't think I could write
[19:27]about anything else right now. Right, but you know, right? It's not really. I'm maybe I'm taking the
[19:32]easy way out, but it feels not at all. I mean, if you're an authority on it, on a topic, right,
[19:38]wouldn't be rather read about motherhood for me than someone who. Yeah. I mean, you know what I mean,
[19:44]yes, I think they put him in. Do you have advice for aspiring authors? Yes, I think and I say this
[19:52]sort of with the new experience on this. Finding community of readers is I think the most important
[19:59]thing.
[20:00]writing can be so solitary, and I think writers as cerebral as we are can really easily
[20:05]get into a spin cycle. And I did that for many years. I mean, my first book came out 12 years ago,
[20:11]and I worked on a book that now lives in a drawer for many, many years, six or seven, I would say.
[20:17]And I think that could have been, that timeline could have been greatly shifted, had I had,
[20:24]had I leaned on the people that I should have. I had people, and I just kind of felt like I could
[20:27]do it myself, or I wanted it to be perfect before I offered it up. And I think I wasted a lot
[20:33]of time, and so finding people that you trust, and that can inspire and motivate galvanize you in
[20:39]moments where you start to spin. I think is really, really critical. And now I have an agent who I,
[20:45]who is one of the true loves of my life, Julie Bear, and I have an editor who I adore and is so
[20:51]thoughtful. And I think in certain ways, this next book we're going to do in a way that feels collaborative.
[20:56]I've never done that before. Julie came to this book at the very end. I mean, it was done,
[21:02]it was dead by the time she came to it, although we worked on it together for a bit.
[21:07]And so I think that's my best advice. It's fine the people you trust and who will get you there.
[21:14]Amazing. Julie is so awesome. Thank you. This is really exciting. Congratulations. I loved your
[21:20]book. It was beautiful. And yeah, I can't wait to see it launch and all the good things happen.
[21:27]And hopefully I'll see you at some point. How do they? So much. You do such important things
[21:32]for writers and for readers. And we're also grateful to you. Thank you. I love that.
[21:38]Okay. Thanks a lot. I really thank you. See you soon. Bye.
[21:42]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi, formerly momstone have time to read books.
[21:48]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens.
[21:53]And spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and bye the books.