Amy Blumenfeld, SUCH GOOD PEOPLE: A Novel
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
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[0:44]Amy Bloominfeld is the author of Such Good People, a novel.
[0:48]Amy grew up in Queens, New York.
[0:50]She is a graduate at Barnard College and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism,
[0:54]where she received the James A. Wexler Award for National Reporting.
[0:57]Her essays and articles have appeared on the cover of People in The New York Times,
[1:01]The Huffington Post, Oh the Oprah Magazine, as well as in George, where she worked as
[1:04]a staff editor and writer.
[1:06]Amy's debut novel The Cast was selected as the New York Post Best Book of the Week,
[1:10]and named winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award in popular fiction.
[1:13]She has also been a contributing author to a best-selling anthology and two nonfiction
[1:18]books.
[1:19]Amy lives in New York with her husband and daughter.
[1:21]Welcome, Amy.
[1:22]Thanks for coming back on Totally Book with Zibi to talk about Such Good People, your
[1:27]second novel.
[1:28]So exciting.
[1:29]It is my pleasure and honor to be here.
[1:32]Thanks for having me.
[1:33]We were just starting to reminisce, but I made you wait so we could talk about it in front
[1:36]of other people, because why wait such good material?
[1:39]But you were here in person for The Cast in 2018, which is the year I started doing this,
[1:47]and oh my gosh, so much has changed.
[1:49]It feels like yesterday, but so much has changed, so it's a wild ride.
[1:56]I am still here at my desk in the exact same spot, so, you know, please touch on
[2:01]or whatever.
[2:02]Oh my gosh.
[2:03]Okay.
[2:04]Well, first of all, thank you for including me in your acknowledgements of this book.
[2:07]That was very touching.
[2:08]Thank you.
[2:09]Tell listeners what the book is about, please.
[2:11]As the title suggests, this is a character driven novel.
[2:15]It's about two working-class kids from Brooklyn, and it's really a story about friendship.
[2:24]It's about the lengths you go to for the people you love, but at its very core and its
[2:28]heart.
[2:29]It's about these two kids, a boy and a girl who are best friends growing up in Brooklyn,
[2:33]think of the wonder years Winnie Cooper and Kevin Arnold, sort of like that.
[2:37]A picture of them showed up on my Instagram feed literally last night, like Winnie's really
[2:43]like her own pictures of it, and I don't know, Instagram must have read your mind that
[2:47]you were going to come on my show and talk about it, but anyway, keep going.
[2:51]Anyway, they meet as kids in a playground in Midwood, Brooklyn, and very quickly, they
[2:57]become best of friends, their families become extended families, and then when they are ready
[3:04]for college, she goes off to a very elite private school, and he is the son of an apartment
[3:11]building super, and he stays home to help his dad, and he goes to community college.
[3:16]The second semester of their freshman year, she invites him.
[3:20]She happens to be in the city on the Upper West side for a meeting with her newspaper
[3:24]club from college.
[3:25]She invites him to come and hang out with her, and when he arrives at this venue, he sees
[3:31]her in the back corner of the bar with a man who is clearly inebriated and very hands-y,
[3:39]and she looks very uncomfortable with her back pressed up against the wall, and he goes
[3:44]in very gracefully and tries to extribute her from the situation, and one thing leads
[3:50]to another.
[3:51]They leave, and the next day, Rudy is arrested.
[3:55]A week later, April is expelled from her elite college.
[3:59]Shortly thereafter, he is sentenced to 15 years in prison, and after that, she meets an
[4:06]attorney and ends up falling in love, moving to Chicago, having three beautiful kids,
[4:11]a wonderful career, a beautiful community, and a great life.
[4:16]Shortly before the 15 years, he is up for parole, gets an early release, and the headlines
[4:21]explode about his release, about her background, and at that time, her husband is running
[4:27]for office in Chicago.
[4:29]All of this impacts her kids, her life, her friends, her husband's career, her marriage,
[4:36]and she is really torn between being there for her best friend, who sacrificed everything
[4:41]for her and this beautiful life that she has created for herself.
[4:46]It's really about these divided loyalties that so many of us have.
[4:51]The blurred lines between right and wrong, those gray areas in life that we all struggle
[4:55]with, because not everything is black and white, and it's also about journalism.
[5:01]I started out as a journalist, and a fact checker was my first job, and there is a main
[5:07]character in this book, who is a reporter, and she, well, I don't want to ruin anything,
[5:13]but she plays a major part in this, and so it's also about fact checking in journalism
[5:16]and the truth emerging.
[5:18]Oh my gosh, wow, that's a great pitch, by the way.
[5:23]That was very well done, thank you all of the things, love it.
[5:27]You start the book with a note to your parents, or maybe it's at the back, but anyway,
[5:32]there's a note about your parents, and what they've given you, and your dad's
[5:37]judge ship is that, if that's even how you say it, and how that informs right and wrong
[5:42]and justice, and what that means, and your mother's sort of unending compassion and
[5:47]encouraging you to look, and you have this image of yourself as a little girl, like always
[5:51]looking at the families of the accused, right or wrong, no matter which side, and having
[5:56]compassion for them while someone they love is going through this.
[6:00]Talk a little bit about that and how your own experience informed the whole narrative.
[6:05]I grew up in a home with the scales of justice, and justice, justice, shall you pursue,
[6:10]framed on our living room all.
[6:13]And it was very much a fabric of the values of my family, there are many members of
[6:17]my family who are attorneys, and it was just very much a part of our value system.
[6:23]When I was young, my dad was a public defender, and he would bring a lot of his colleagues
[6:29]would come to our house and sit around the dining room table and to discuss their cases
[6:32]and plot out their defense.
[6:34]And I remember, like, listening to the jargon and having no clue what they were talking
[6:37]about, but those words seeped into my brain.
[6:40]And then when I was in seventh grade, my dad became a judge, a criminal court judge, and
[6:47]I would go to work with my dad and sit on the bench with him.
[6:50]And so it was like, it was incredible, it was like watching a play, you know, and I paid
[6:55]attention, as we all writers do, to like, you know, the body language and the way people
[7:00]act and the words that were coming out.
[7:03]And so I'd watch the prosecutor, I'd watch the defense attorneys, but what really stuck
[7:07]with me was in my line of sight while I was sitting next to my dad on the bench were the
[7:12]pews, the people in the audience section.
[7:14]And I didn't know if those people were on the side of the defense, or if they were on the
[7:17]side of the prosecution, but you're when you're in arrangements.
[7:20]That's when somebody's first been arrested.
[7:22]But it's, you know, it's really scary, you're in shock, if no idea what's going to happen
[7:27]with your loved one or what's going to happen with the case.
[7:29]So I'm looking at these people and I have no idea what's going through their minds and
[7:32]their backstories and, you know, why they're even there.
[7:36]And so that has stuck with me throughout the years.
[7:39]And so when I was done with the cast and I was thinking about my next book, I knew that
[7:47]I wanted to do something that was related to the criminal justice system.
[7:51]I didn't go to law school, I'm not planning to go to law school.
[7:54]It's not my thing.
[7:55]However, I wanted it similar to the way I did the cast, which was a medical story at the
[8:00]heart of it.
[8:01]It was about a child who had been sick and how that illness as a patient had a ripple
[8:06]effect on all of the loved ones around that patient and how it changed their lives in terms
[8:11]of their faith, their religious practice, their marriage, their priorities, their friendships.
[8:17]And I wanted to take that model and put it into the criminal justice system and not talk
[8:23]about social justice in a high level, but I wanted to bring it down and call it down to
[8:28]the very basic level, which was friendships and family.
[8:32]And so in a way, it's like the cast in terms of that ripple effect of one experience
[8:39]on all other people.
[8:41]So that was my inspiration.
[8:43]I was sitting, you know, growing up around my dad, washing the people in the pews.
[8:48]And then like I said, while I was thinking about what to write about around the time
[8:52]the cast came out, one of my dad's friends was involved with a halfway house on an administrative
[8:58]level.
[8:59]And we were invited to a gala.
[9:00]We were not able to go, but we started getting their newsletters, so I actually read some
[9:05]of the newsletters.
[9:06]And in one of the newsletters, they were profiling some of the teachers who were helping
[9:11]out and working at this halfway house, helping people reenter society.
[9:15]And there was a couple of the teachers who had their own experience in the criminal justice
[9:20]system being incarcerated.
[9:22]And one of the teachers happened to be someone who had gone to an Ivy League institution
[9:27]who in her senior year had some problems and ended up getting expelled in her life exploded.
[9:36]And she, you know, she reformed and everything was okay.
[9:39]And she ended up teaching at this place, but I was like, wow, that's interesting.
[9:42]So that's how I got the idea for a teacher, and then I just created it and ran with
[9:48]the rest of it.
[9:49]And the first character I created was April and she was the teacher.
[9:53]And then I, you know, from there, I moved over to her best friend and made Rudy the
[9:58]one who had the problem.
[10:00]Wow. I mean, I usually throw the newsletters away unopened and to think to all the potential
[10:07]novels that's exactly the trash. This is a huge advertisement for opening the mail-out.
[10:15]Right, exactly. Normally I wouldn't, but it just happened that day. I was flipping. I was like,
[10:20]wow, that's really interesting. Some of the day it was, you know, especially if there's
[10:25]yeah, it's a share. Yes, exactly. Oh my gosh. Well, that is a really cool story. Speaking of
[10:31]the shared, actually. So you were one of the contributors to on being Jewish now. Thank you so very much
[10:36]for that. Just on the notion, on the subject, sorry, of Judaism in general and being a Jewish writer
[10:42]today. How has this been for you? You have a new book coming out. You've been touring with
[10:48]on being Jewish now a bit. Like, how are you feeling about the whole environment? Well, you know, my last
[10:54]book came out in 2018. So it's been quite a while. You know, it's been several years. And so
[10:59]I don't know how that's going to impact me being a Jewish writer now with this new book. We shall
[11:04]see, but it has been an absolute pleasure to be a part of this process. You know, you really
[11:09]created a movement. And I've gained so many friends through participating in this book. I've
[11:15]loved being a part of it. You know, I'm not typically a very loud outspoken person, but I can do
[11:22]that through writing and through these book events through on being Jewish now. I feel like I'm
[11:28]in some small way, making a difference and speaking to people. And it's a tribute to you. And thank
[11:33]you for creating that. Thank you. That was not designed to be. I know. I know. But I know. It is curious.
[11:41]But thank you. I was actually, I was just flipping through the Jewish book cancel, like, book of
[11:46]all the books coming out who are authors on tour. And I saw your book in there. I was just like,
[11:50]wow, I can't believe it. Like, there's so many, there's so many Jewish book, Jewish authors on
[11:55]tour, like everybody's talking about, like, you know, so many people are too scared to publish or
[12:00]too scared to write or is this environment too difficult at the current time. But this big volume of
[12:08]books, the directory of Jewish books, I'd just speak, is speaking to people. I mean, it also is
[12:12]sort of making me think, you know, the characters in this book and such good people are not
[12:16]outwardly Jewish. And they were in my first book in the cast. So I'm thinking going forward,
[12:23]if I write or another book, which I hope to do, I will, I think include more Judaism, probably,
[12:29]than I did in this book. There's cultural references, but not like true, true, as much as the
[12:36]set of setups here, though, if the justice justice shall you pursue, which is, you know, a shout
[12:41]out to the painting that was in my house growing up, which I put into the into this book.
[12:45]Wow. Okay. April doesn't share necessarily everything with her husband. Talk about marriage and
[12:53]the secrets we keep or the the things we don't want to talk about on difficult days and the effect
[13:01]of that on relationships. How many secrets are you keeping? Be suited by keeping. No, it's, I feel like
[13:08]for April and Peter, you know, he knew what he was getting into. She told him up front,
[13:14]he knew the deal. You know, part of the reason that he wanted to take this job in Chicago was to
[13:19]sort of help her start a new chapter in her life. And he was no fool. He knew this could creep up at
[13:25]some point. And I think Rudy's early release was just an unexpected twist. And he was blindsided
[13:33]and he didn't handle it well. And I think that was one of, you know, my my goals and all of this is
[13:38]that not one of the characters in this book is a bad person, but they do bad things. And I
[13:44]think that's true in life, you know, people have layers to them. And there's a, I don't want to
[13:49]spoil anything, but there are several characters in this book who think that they're doing the right
[13:54]thing and they have the best of intentions and it may not always work out as they hope. And then
[13:59]they try to reverse course and, and, you know, ask for forgiveness. There's a lot of layers
[14:06]there are a lot of layers for us. So you talked about starting out with the characters in the
[14:10]order in which you kind of conceived of them and how the plot came to be. And then what did you do?
[14:15]Did you have like a master outline for the whole thing or how long did it take? You said there's been
[14:21]a break. How long was it spent writing this book versus other books? Did you start something that
[14:26]didn't go anywhere? Like what has happened in between? I had this idea the whole time. I stopped
[14:31]and started and stopped and started. And eventually it came together. I, you know, I, when you get
[14:38]ideas, sometimes I think as writers, you know, like it just hits you inside and you can't let go
[14:43]of certain things and other things you can sort of let go. This one I couldn't let go of. I don't know
[14:47]if it's, you know, the steep psychological thing that I didn't go to law school and this was my way
[14:51]of saying, okay, I have some contribution to the incredible justice community. But yeah, I had the
[14:59]characters first and then I sort of developed this general plot. And then I had points A, B, and C,
[15:06]you know, for each chapter. And I eventually got there, didn't always stay according to plan,
[15:11]but I got the major points in each chapter. And then I revised again and revised again. And that's
[15:16]how it all comes together. They're, you know, Rudy, the name Rudy came to me because another,
[15:23]my dad was another source of inspiration for this. My dad, when he went to law school, he went to
[15:27]GW and he moved into the dorms there. And the first week he saw a notice on the bulletin board in
[15:34]the dorm and it said free room and board if you take a job at the D.C. jail,
[15:40]living in the officers quarters and interviewing inmates. So it was like, cool. So he moved out
[15:45]of the dorm and he moved into the D.C. jail and he ended up interviewing inmates and figured
[15:52]that was a great experience for somebody who wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer. And so one of
[15:55]the inmates that he interviewed was this guy, Holocott Bradley, who I named one of the characters
[16:01]in the book, Holocott Bradley. And he brought this poem if by Roger Kipling to my dad and to
[16:09]discuss it with him. And that story has stayed in me forever. And so Rudy's name comes from
[16:15]the Roger Kipling. Oh, that's so nice. Love that. But those are like, there were little things
[16:21]that I knew I wanted. And then, you know, it takes twists and turns. And the hardest part was
[16:27]actually getting the research down the medical and the legal aspects, you know, fine tuning
[16:32]all of that. That was the hardest part for me. So I spoke to a lot of doctors and several lawyers
[16:39]in getting the New York penal code down and understanding, you know, what would make in effect of
[16:45]assistance of counsel and the jargon and the bail amounts in the time away and making sure everything
[16:51]was accurate. So it was, you know, that's up time too. Yeah, I bet. So have you started your next
[17:00]book? I have the idea. It's marinating. I actually have two ideas. And I'm sort of trying to combine
[17:05]them. One of them is an offshoot from the essay from Hong Kong. Interesting. So inspired by who
[17:13]knew. So that's it. Thank you so much. Such good people coming soon. Thank you for talking to me.
[17:22]Thank you for contributing to the I'm being Jewish now bug. And thank you for your interest in people
[17:29]because what's more interesting than sort of dissecting human behavior. Right. Thanks so much for
[17:35]having me. Okay. All right. Take care. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi,
[17:43]formerly mom's don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[17:49]follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.