Emma Rosenblum, MEAN MOMS: A Novel
[0:00]Welcome Emma. Thank you so much for coming on totally books.
[0:05]So excited to have you here to talk about mean moms.
[0:08]I am very excited to be here.
[0:10]As I said, this is my first time doing an interview about mean moms.
[0:14]We are just starting on the press for it.
[0:17]So I'm glad it's you, Sydney.
[0:19]If I would expect no less.
[0:21]Let me read you a little bit about Emma Rosenblum.
[0:25]If you don't know a lot about her,
[0:27]although maybe you've listened to my three podcasts already on totally books,
[0:31]Emma Rosenblum is the best-selling author of Bad Summer People and Very Bad Company.
[0:37]Previously, she was the chief content officer of Bussell Digital Group,
[0:41]the executive editor of L.
[0:43]And before that, an editor at Bloomberg Business Week,
[0:45]Glamour and New York Magazine.
[0:47]She lives in New York City with her family.
[0:49]Yay!
[0:51]By the way, before we talk about anything else,
[0:53]I just saw the announcement that bad summer people
[0:56]just going to be what a show, a movie?
[0:58]What is it?
[0:59]Well, it's going to be adapted into a TV show, fingers crossed.
[1:02]You never know.
[1:03]But Sarah Michelle Geller is attached to executive producer and star in it
[1:08]as one of the leads.
[1:09]So that was exciting because I love Buffy and when that deal came through,
[1:13]I was like, yes, thank God.
[1:15]We're going to be best friends.
[1:16]We haven't met yet, but I can like see it.
[1:19]It's like Sarah and Freddie Prince Jr. and me and my husband together.
[1:23]Double days.
[1:24]Double days.
[1:25]Yeah.
[1:26]White bonus style.
[1:27]I'm manifesting it.
[1:28]I can't wait.
[1:29]Day tuned for that.
[1:30]We will be keeping our eyes peeled.
[1:31]That's the most important and the actual TV show getting made.
[1:34]Yes, I would like a TV show made just so I can be friends.
[1:37]That's all I like.
[1:38]Perfect.
[1:39]Okay, mean moms.
[1:40]This is so funny.
[1:41]I mean, I love all your books and I love the way you write.
[1:43]And maybe because I am a mom here in New York City,
[1:46]it is particularly relatable to me.
[1:48]But I laughed out loud like a hundred times.
[1:50]I even like to start reading passages out loud to Kyle.
[1:52]I was like, this is so funny.
[1:54]And it's just your, your quick dark wit.
[1:57]And I'm like, what is she thinking about me now?
[2:00]Basically, because you had this running monocos things about me now.
[2:04]And they meet me and they're like, oh my god.
[2:07]Like, what is she going to put in one of her books?
[2:09]But it's always love.
[2:11]It's all, I love this life that I've made in New York City.
[2:14]And I love the moms that I know.
[2:16]And it's not based on anybody.
[2:17]It's just the idea of moms together in a group,
[2:20]whether it's in New York City or anywhere else.
[2:22]There, there comes certain dynamics with that that I find very funny.
[2:26]So tell everybody what mean moms is about.
[2:29]So mean moms is about a group of mothers at a private school
[2:33]downtown in Tribeca-ish-ish.
[2:36]And they are kind of a click in the school.
[2:39]And at the beginning of the school year, a new mom comes to town.
[2:43]And she's kind of mysterious.
[2:45]She's very beautiful.
[2:46]She's from Miami.
[2:47]She's divorced.
[2:48]They don't really know that much about her.
[2:49]She becomes friends with them.
[2:51]And then all this mysteriously bad stuff starts happening to all of them.
[2:57]So one gets hit by an e-scooter.
[3:00]Their one is opening up a spa and they get robbed.
[3:03]I don't want to give it all away.
[3:04]But there's these kind of darkly funny things that start to happen
[3:08]to their perfect lives that causes big disruption in drama.
[3:14]And you don't know who's doing it or why.
[3:16]And so by the end, you know who's doing it and why.
[3:20]Even without a plot, oh, sorry.
[3:23]Even without a plot, the book would be hilarious.
[3:26]Because every paragraph has like 20 different cultural references.
[3:31]And I know you've been in like the zeitgeist, your whole career and all of that.
[3:35]But all the brands and all the archetypes of moms and all of the, you know,
[3:42]the mom who only wears the workout stuff and the mom,
[3:45]it's a flat way.
[3:46]It's just so funny.
[3:48]So talk about how you figured out like which of the characters was going to be
[3:52]which and were you really just looking in the,
[3:55]that drop off and pick up and scouting out your targets?
[3:58]I mean, my whole, as my career as a journalist and as a writer,
[4:03]I'm always observing, quietly observing.
[4:07]I'm part of it.
[4:08]But I also find myself to be somewhat of an outsider looking in in certain situations,
[4:12]not that you necessarily know that if you know me.
[4:14]But the, there was something once that struck me at some mom interaction
[4:21]where this mom was so nice.
[4:24]She was so kind.
[4:27]Like dripping with, you know, just,
[4:30]she wanted to help everybody.
[4:32]And so the funny thought in my mind was like, what if she's actually psychotic?
[4:37]Like that to me, I was like, she might be like a serial killer.
[4:41]She's that nice.
[4:43]And so I sort of ran with that as part of the book.
[4:47]But, you know, the, the mom interactions together can be so genuine and lovely and fun and funny,
[4:53]but also so fake and so mean.
[4:55]I mean, there's just so much stuff that I was watching as my kids were getting older
[4:59]and as I was, you know, a mom in the community.
[5:02]And again, there are these archetypes of like the mom that works.
[5:05]So she's like never around and that's like a thing, right?
[5:08]The mom that's always working out and, or the mom that seems to like know everything.
[5:12]How do you know everything?
[5:13]How do you know like the place to go where your kid is playing soccer or the exact field on Central Park
[5:19]where they're doing baseball?
[5:20]Like there is that one mom that's just a fountain of information.
[5:23]So I was just sort of picking up these little things and then I wanted to bring them to life and characters.
[5:28]But as you said, the, the challenges to not make it flat to make it feel like these are real people.
[5:33]So I hope that throughout that with those sort of observations,
[5:37]they're, these are still real characters that you're following through and you want to kind of know what's happening with them
[5:42]and you kind of hate them but kind of love them too.
[5:44]Well, in your books, the mom who knows everything is Morgan, right?
[5:48]And you mentioned in the book that the moms think she should start and ask more Morgan sub-stack
[5:53]with all of her tips.
[5:54]You have to start that.
[5:55]Well, I don't know anything.
[5:57]It doesn't matter.
[5:58]It could just be like completely false, really funny information.
[6:01]Oh, that's a good idea.
[6:02]Like a parody.
[6:03]For like promo.
[6:04]I mean, now I know stuff because people give me the information.
[6:07]But yes, there is a specific mom.
[6:09]I wonder if she'll read it and be like, I know this is me.
[6:12]But it's not really her, but the idea that everybody on all the chat groups are always like, let's ask.
[6:18]Well, there's somebody like that in every group.
[6:20]Right.
[6:21]Exactly.
[6:22]I mean, there's always someone.
[6:23]There's always the mom who knows so much more.
[6:24]I know exactly who to ask.
[6:25]Yes.
[6:26]Exactly.
[6:27]Sometimes it's like specific.
[6:28]Like this is the mom I ask about.
[6:29]Anything sports related.
[6:30]Yes.
[6:31]Or like the academic mom that knows all the tutoring stuff.
[6:35]And there's also a mom in there that's kind of the ethereal, cool mom that dresses really interestingly.
[6:41]And it's just a little bit more beautiful than everybody else, but like in an unkembed way.
[6:45]And I feel like there's one of those in every group also.
[6:48]But then all of these people have their own secrets.
[6:53]And there's a lot of stuff that's going on below the surface.
[6:58]Find out pretty early on that of these three best friends.
[7:02]One of them is actually sleeping with the other one's husband in such a blase way.
[7:05]It's like not even introduced much fanfare.
[7:07]It's just like, oh, yeah.
[7:09]I was like, wait, the same people that I get that right?
[7:12]Yeah.
[7:13]You know, I like to have affairs in my books.
[7:15]Not in real life.
[7:16]But like I find that idea that again, it's sort of you go into the party or the school function and you think to yourself,
[7:25]I wonder if like one of these ladies is having sex with one of the husbands.
[7:29]Like that would be so amazing.
[7:31]So I always just make it up in fiction.
[7:33]What are you wondering in this room?
[7:35]Nothing.
[7:36]These are all perfect lovely people with no secrets.
[7:41]I don't know.
[7:42]I know I wonder where your head is going for all of them.
[7:46]So the whole what you see is not what you get sort of underlies all of your writing.
[7:53]And surprises then, of course, have to follow because what does it mean?
[7:58]So tell us a little bit about your past two books for the people who maybe didn't read those and what the sort of common theme is in all of them.
[8:07]So I think you've nailed it a little bit in that I find like,
[8:12]takeery and sort of like surface level social interactions and dynamics and sort of the whole patent place of it all in the drama.
[8:20]Very fascinating.
[8:22]I love that.
[8:23]I love that people are fake to each other and then go to the other room and are like talking shit about each other.
[8:29]That is like my lifeblood in fiction.
[8:31]Not like I don't necessarily do that all the time.
[8:34]He obviously do that.
[8:35]I mean, everybody does that.
[8:37]Gossip is a thing.
[8:38]But that idea that people have different levels and that they're different people in different social situations and with different crowds is very interesting to me.
[8:47]And I feel like that infuses a lot of my writing and the characters.
[8:52]It's a lot of kind of funny social satire and then you go into the characters' internal thoughts.
[8:58]And it's not at all what they're actually thinking is what they're saying.
[9:02]And I just love that and I love sort of bringing that out.
[9:04]I find that very funny and fun.
[9:07]And I think also the idea of I think the dynamics of social dynamics amongst wealthy people,
[9:14]people who are motivated by money, people who are motivated by status is very interesting to me.
[9:19]And that infuses all of my books also.
[9:21]I mean, I live in New York City.
[9:23]I worked in media.
[9:24]I've been around people who are very motivated and business, motivated socially.
[9:28]And that kind of drive is also, I think, you know, throughout all three of my books.
[9:34]For me, moms, it's more about the social status of these women and kind of what their lives mean to the other women in the school.
[9:43]My other book, Very Bad Company, was a lot more about being motivated purely by money and stature in a company.
[9:52]And then bad summer people had a little bit of both, for sure.
[9:56]And so those are all throughout and I think in me.
[10:00]Moms also.
[10:00]My mom's is less specifically focused on money,
[10:02]except for there is a character who needs it.
[10:05]But they're all just very wealthy,
[10:08]so that's not kind of the drive.
[10:10]But they're still always trying to keep up.
[10:12]Yes.
[10:13]And they're so competitive, even though they're friends.
[10:15]You have some funny joke about how one person's
[10:18]architectural digest was two pages longer
[10:20]than the other friend's profile,
[10:22]and how she was still so annoyed about that.
[10:24]She was annoyed, that was unfair, totally unfair.
[10:27]Oh my gosh.
[10:28]But these are valid feelings.
[10:29]Again, I don't like to, when I write characters,
[10:33]I'm not judging them as good or bad people.
[10:35]They're just people.
[10:36]They are real friends with each other.
[10:38]These women do actually enjoy each other's company
[10:41]and value the things that the other person
[10:45]brings to their life.
[10:46]And their pain is real.
[10:49]It's not just because they're wealthy and or maybe
[10:52]competitive in certain ways.
[10:54]It doesn't lessen their actual feelings.
[10:56]And so that again, that's why I think
[10:58]I can write these characters without making them caricatures
[11:02]because I feel that they're real people.
[11:04]And that you can't discount just because someone's like something
[11:08]doesn't mean that it's not worthy of being on the page
[11:12]or their motivation should be clear, I think.
[11:15]And so I try to do that.
[11:17]Well, in Mean Moms, you also
[11:18]go into the next generation of snark, so to speak.
[11:22]And you have twin boys, and you have the girl who
[11:25]won't wear the love-shack fancy dress that her mom gets
[11:28]her and only wants to wear champion sweat pants or whatever
[11:31]else, which I totally get.
[11:32]I have a child too.
[11:33]I was just saying this the other day to my husband,
[11:35]like, what is with this whole sweat pants style?
[11:38]Like, everybody just wears sweat pants.
[11:40]Like, my son, we went out to dinner,
[11:41]and then he went to meet his friends.
[11:42]He literally went home changed and put on sweat pants.
[11:44]So what are you doing?
[11:45]You're going out of this?
[11:46]That's a thing.
[11:47]It's a thing.
[11:47]I know.
[11:48]For girls to change that day.
[11:49]I have a girl too.
[11:50]I don't know.
[11:50]It's probably just rebellion against their annoying mothers
[11:53]who are like, why are you wearing that?
[11:55]I am not annoying mother.
[11:57]I'm annoying.
[11:58]I am like the coolest mom there is.
[12:01]Yeah.
[12:02]The kids are not huge characters in the book.
[12:05]It's definitely about the dynamics between the moms,
[12:08]but the kids pop up here and there.
[12:09]And the kids are all good.
[12:11]I mean, but generally, you have the children to me
[12:17]in these situations are generally the voice of reason.
[12:20]At least one of the main characters
[12:22]has a daughter, the one who wears sweat pants,
[12:24]who's very much looks at her mom like with that critical eye
[12:28]of why are you care about all this stuff that's
[12:32]happening with your friends and why do you
[12:34]need to be exactly like them and dress exactly like them.
[12:36]And so she's kind of in my mind, the person who
[12:40]is seeing it the clearest and she's young.
[12:43]But I think that's probably true sometimes of real life
[12:46]as you get older.
[12:48]You kind of lose that, you can lose that cleeride
[12:52]at a lesson like I roll in a way, particularly women
[12:56]when they are aging and trying to fit in.
[12:58]And it's so hard to be a mom and it is.
[13:00]And I have so much sympathy.
[13:01]And this is not at anything mean about moms.
[13:04]This is, I mean, I am one and all my friends are mothers.
[13:09]But there's something about the combustible thing
[13:12]that happens when particularly in a small school environment
[13:16]when everybody just gets a little crazy.
[13:19]And I don't know if it's in the joke.
[13:21]This is actually not in the galley.
[13:23]But in the finished copies, I played up a little bit
[13:26]one of the characters' experiences with Perry Menopause.
[13:28]And so that's also a joke within it of it's all just hormones.
[13:33]And but I do think that something happens in women's
[13:35]40s where they just start to go a little insane,
[13:38]which I enjoy.
[13:39]And I like to write about that.
[13:41]So this book is so entertaining.
[13:44]This is like a pull out the popcorn.
[13:46]I am just completely entertained.
[13:48]I am laughing.
[13:48]I am taken out of myself because I just am laughing at everybody.
[13:52]Is there a deeper message or something you're like,
[13:55]is it that we're all in this together?
[13:57]And we just kind of have to laugh it off?
[13:59]Or what is it you're, what is like, if there is-
[14:01]Just want to always ask me this about my books.
[14:03]You don't have to have a deeper message.
[14:05]You can just be entertainment, which is great, too.
[14:08]It is literally just entertainment.
[14:10]OK, great.
[14:11]It is using my own funny thoughts to entertain people
[14:16]and to get them through a long haul flight,
[14:21]or a beach weekend, and to read it, and to laugh,
[14:25]and to come away either out of a reading slump,
[14:27]because a lot of people have told me that their books help them
[14:30]get out of a reading slump because they're so fast.
[14:32]And they're just, as you said, popcorn fun.
[14:35]And just to take the piss a little bit out of a certain type
[14:40]that I think takes itself very seriously.
[14:42]Love that.
[14:43]So can you talk a little bit about your experience
[14:46]with Bussle with running a massive company,
[14:49]with having your eye on trends and people,
[14:52]and writing, and working with so many others
[14:56]in this journalistic environment that is rapidly changing,
[14:59]and is now online.
[15:01]How do you stand out?
[15:02]How do you learn how to market based on all of the things
[15:05]that you've learned?
[15:06]Well, that's a good question.
[15:07]I, in September, stepped back from my full-time job
[15:13]at Bussle and in media, which was a big deal for me.
[15:15]having worked full-time in media for 20 years,
[15:20]and now I'm focused mainly on writing, which
[15:22]has been an interesting transition.
[15:24]I think I wasn't necessarily prepared
[15:27]for how solitary writing is.
[15:30]And I don't necessarily think I'm that much more productive
[15:33]without a full-time job writing my books.
[15:36]I sort of used to just fit in my writing when I could,
[15:38]and now sometimes I'll find myself for an hour at the computer.
[15:42]And I'm like, where did the time go?
[15:44]I guess it went to the New York Times.
[15:47]I mean, I just have, it's like the time stretches
[15:50]in a way that's not necessarily conducive to my own working
[15:53]style.
[15:55]But I still find myself because I was in media for so long
[16:00]being very up on everything.
[16:02]It's just to have it.
[16:04]I read everything all the time.
[16:06]People say to me, and this was always
[16:07]an annoying thing for people on my staff,
[16:09]where they'd say, did you see that?
[16:11]And they'd say, one word of the headline,
[16:12]and I'm like, I already read that.
[16:14]Like, it's just something where it's
[16:15]like the news consumption part of my brain
[16:17]is so trained that I can't really turn that off.
[16:21]But I do think that helps with my writing,
[16:23]which is very kind of topical and about what's
[16:26]happening in the world right now.
[16:27]I mean, it's obviously not political,
[16:28]but like just the idea that to be infused in online culture
[16:36]as someone who's into my 40s now, I think is actually
[16:40]very good.
[16:41]I mean, it is kind of time wasted, obviously,
[16:43]because now I'm not putting it to use
[16:44]by assigning articles and editing cover stories or whatever.
[16:48]But the idea that I kind of know what's up
[16:52]is I think something that starts to differentiate
[16:55]as you get older and you see people who don't know what's up.
[16:59]And I try to have conversations with them.
[17:00]And I'm like, how did you not read all of this?
[17:02]How do you not know what's happening with the 20s?
[17:04]And they're just like, because I'm a mom and I have two kids
[17:07]and you need to calm down.
[17:09]So I can take all that energy that I have and put it
[17:12]into my fiction, I think, and sort of take it off to the side
[17:16]because it starts to be kind of useless in a way beyond that.
[17:20]And that's been an interesting thing.
[17:22]But yeah, I do kind of miss the hustle of it.
[17:27]So how do you get your news?
[17:29]This is totally object.
[17:30]But I am feeling like this is a really weird time
[17:33]in the world to get news because I just
[17:35]get through Instagram most I get from my husband
[17:38]forwarding me what he finds.
[17:39]I like leave my newspapers kind of stacked in the kitchen
[17:42]and often don't even open them anymore.
[17:44]I don't trust those news sources.
[17:46]Then there's Apple news.
[17:48]Just like, what is the best way I need to be more efficient?
[17:50]And I need to get the news and I want to be up on it.
[17:52]So what is the answer?
[17:54]I mean, I always, I read the New York Times
[17:58]and the Wall Street Journal, not cover to cover.
[18:01]But just I'm going through their app.
[18:04]I'm going through the today tab on their app.
[18:06]The news papers now are very good at laying out stories
[18:10]in a way where you're like, OK, I sort of got it, right?
[18:14]And I listen to the headline podcasts for all of them.
[18:17]So they're just giving you kind of the 20 minutes summary
[18:19]of what's happened that day.
[18:21]And obviously I'm not, I'm more cultural.
[18:23]So I always am going to go straight to culture and lifestyle
[18:27]news rather than the sort of like hard hitting everything.
[18:30]But because I'm reading the sort of top stories,
[18:33]I kind of know what's happening.
[18:35]And then because also I still, even though it's,
[18:38]I hate it so much, I'm on Twitter, X, whatever.
[18:42]I monitor it, I don't actually post on it.
[18:45]I know what's happening.
[18:46]You still do know what's happening if you're on Twitter.
[18:48]And all I follow on Twitter are journalists
[18:50]because that's what my profession was.
[18:52]So if you're following journalists on Twitter
[18:55]and you can scroll through for 20 minutes,
[18:56]you're like, OK, I kind of understand what's happening.
[18:59]And it's all different news sources.
[19:01]The Atlantic, it's New York Times, it's New York,
[19:02]it whatever.
[19:04]And but I find that my attention because of the phone
[19:08]and because of all of our collective attention problems
[19:13]has gone a little bit.
[19:14]And I'm finding it harder to get through the long form stuff
[19:18]that I used to like easily be able to just like breeze
[19:20]through and sit through.
[19:22]And now I'm starting to be like, oh, it's happening to me too.
[19:25]It's like that weird zombie movies where you're like,
[19:27]oh my god, I always have been reading everything
[19:30]about this happening to people.
[19:31]And I'm like, it's me now.
[19:32]I'm the zombie.
[19:33]I can't focus.
[19:35]Come on to the other side, I know.
[19:37]So as a content producer and someone who acknowledges
[19:41]like the rest of us that we don't have the bandwidth
[19:43]to necessarily ingest so much information all the time.
[19:47]And yet we're both writing books.
[19:50]Why stay to this format?
[19:53]And why are people still committed?
[19:55]Like why do we all believe?
[19:56]And why is it true that people still consume books?
[19:59]And yet it's hard.
[20:00]or in harder to consume like a movie versus a short video.
[20:05]Well, because my expertise is in media
[20:08]and in digital media and in magazines,
[20:10]I can speak more to that.
[20:12]The book form is completely separate
[20:17]from the way people consume other media online.
[20:21]It is, it's an escape for most people,
[20:23]particularly when you see how well romanticy does,
[20:25]you see how well, like it's like this kind of format
[20:29]that doesn't, it like perks up different kind
[20:33]of like pleasure center for people.
[20:35]People do not read articles on the internet anymore.
[20:38]It's just like not a thing.
[20:40]People may be a little bit like our age and older
[20:42]are still kind of sometimes reading articles,
[20:45]but younger people do not read.
[20:47]So it is, it's completely true.
[20:50]It's, I mean, I've worked at number of digital media
[20:54]companies.
[20:54]Star traffic, plummet from millions and millions to zero.
[21:01]So like you can put an article up on bustle,
[21:03]which you said at some point, you know,
[21:04]you would put up an article and know that it would get
[21:07]300,000 clicks, like it just would.
[21:09]It gets now like 8,000, like it doesn't.
[21:12]And it's not because people,
[21:13]it's also because what is getting served to people,
[21:15]it's because Google has changed the algorithm
[21:18]and news and articles like that don't get surfaced
[21:22]anymore, I mean it's very complicated, but it's true.
[21:24]And it's slightly depressing,
[21:25]but like the art form has moved away from that
[21:27]to short form video, which is what people do consume.
[21:31]And then books thank God have been left
[21:35]as this little like jewel, I believe,
[21:38]that people do not associate with their daily scrolling
[21:40]habits.
[21:41]So they're not, it's an entirely different mindset
[21:45]that you're going, when you're going to sit down
[21:47]and read a book and you're sitting
[21:48]and getting a manicure or you're at the beach
[21:50]or you're in your bed going to sleep,
[21:53]then it is any other media.
[21:55]Now granted, I can't speak to TV,
[21:57]I do think, or in movies,
[21:59]I do think people still watch TV, movies are a different story,
[22:03]but that's not my expertise.
[22:05]I used to be with my older kids,
[22:07]like watching a movie would be such a treat.
[22:09]In fact, at one point I was like,
[22:11]we're only allowed to watch movies when it's raining out,
[22:13]which was my random rule because all they wanted
[22:15]to do was watch movies.
[22:16]And now my younger kids are like,
[22:17]we've to watch a movie, it's so long.
[22:20]Are you kidding?
[22:20]You're not even that, you're like seven years apart.
[22:22]What is going on?
[22:23]Yeah, crazy anyway.
[22:25]Yeah.
[22:26]Well thank God we are still here to talk about books.
[22:27]I know, and fiction.
[22:28]Fiction is so different too, fiction is so different.
[22:31]When you're writing fiction,
[22:33]how do you get into that mental space?
[22:35]Like how do you say I'm putting away the emails?
[22:38]Do you need to block out big chunks of time
[22:41]and you have it, but do you?
[22:43]You know, I just, it's so bad,
[22:48]I toggle back and forth, like I'll write 300 words
[22:52]and then I'm like, oh, I'll check Instagram.
[22:53]And then I go back, it's like a constant struggle
[22:56]to like stay on the page.
[22:59]I should probably have some kind of method
[23:02]where I just like lock away my phone,
[23:03]but as a mother, I'm like, I need my phone.
[23:06]What if someone throws up at school and I need to,
[23:09]I can't, it's hard for me to like completely put it away.
[23:12]Also, again, you know, it's your connection
[23:15]to other people, particularly now
[23:16]as a person who's not like at an office all the time.
[23:18]It's like, that's the sad truth is that your phone
[23:21]is where you're seeing emails and messages and texts
[23:26]and DMs or whatever, but I can,
[23:30]if I'm in the story, I'm in the story
[23:32]and I'm like with the characters,
[23:34]it's not that hard for me to sort of go in and out,
[23:36]stand up, get a snack, come back.
[23:39]I try to get through like 2000 words a day
[23:41]and if I don't, I'm kind of mad at myself.
[23:44]Are you working on another one now?
[23:46]I, oh my God, I haven't told you.
[23:48]It was from an idea from you.
[23:50]Yes, finally, I throw out ideas all the time
[23:55]and no one ever does anything I suggest.
[23:58]You told me last summer, so it's, yes,
[24:01]I have another book that's coming out next summer
[24:03]and I'm in, you know, I'm almost done with it
[24:06]and it is about a country club in Greenwich,
[24:11]the one you told me about was in the Hamptons
[24:14]and someone in the morning dies
[24:17]and the country club gets shut down.
[24:19]Do you remember the story in this?
[24:20]Yes, the country club gets shut down for the day.
[24:24]The police come because it becomes an active crime scene
[24:28]and everybody who's at the country club,
[24:29]it's like a high time in the summer
[24:32]and there's hundreds of people there,
[24:34]they're supposed to be a wedding there that day
[24:36]so there's all these people that are stuck there
[24:38]from the wedding, they can't leave
[24:41]because the police have to interview everybody
[24:44]about this death that's happened.
[24:46]And again, it's like a darkly funny take
[24:49]and by the end you know what happened with the death
[24:52]and if it was as soon as it wasn't,
[24:54]if it was, you know, an accidental death,
[24:56]if it was a murder or whatever.
[24:58]And everybody's kind of intersecting,
[25:01]there's different areas where people are kind of huddled,
[25:04]the pickled all courts, the dentist courts,
[25:05]the golf hut, the like pool area
[25:08]and you sort of go between all of those places
[25:10]throughout the day.
[25:11]Oh, I'm so excited.
[25:12]I mean, this is a terrible story,
[25:14]but it's a terrible story.
[25:15]And at this golf club that we used to belong to
[25:20]for a short while, it was closed as I tried to go there
[25:23]for lunch one day and it turned out
[25:25]that someone had hung themselves on this overpass
[25:29]in the country club and that's not what happens
[25:30]in my book.
[25:31]And that this person was actually a guest
[25:33]and I was like, why would you on a golf round
[25:37]as a guest at someone else's country club
[25:38]decide that is the moment to kill yourself?
[25:42]It just seemed like so random
[25:44]and I was like, what a crazy story this is.
[25:46]Like, what, anyway, I mean,
[25:47]it was a detail, a specific detail that you told me
[25:50]where you said, and all the moms were so annoyed
[25:53]because they had to go pick up their kids from camp
[25:57]or what, I'm just like, everybody stop their day
[26:00]because this annoying guy killed him, you know,
[26:03]so that I was like, that's my book.
[26:06]I'm gonna do that where people are super annoyed
[26:10]even though someone has fallen to their death
[26:11]from the top of a club house.
[26:13]So it's set in, this is like a Greenwich thing.
[26:15]That's amazing.
[26:16]I know, I need, I have some friends in Greenwich,
[26:19]I'm trying to do more research about them
[26:20]because that is not my natural.
[26:22]Yeah, we'll set it in the habitat.
[26:25]Sorry, I said set it in the hamptets.
[26:26]Well, okay, then people would know.
[26:27]Yeah, I better end up in the acknowledgements
[26:29]as all I'm saying.
[26:30]You will, because you said to me,
[26:32]this would be a good book for you and I took it in Iran.
[26:35]Thank goodness, that just made my whole day.
[26:37]Yeah.
[26:38]Well, I'm a congratulations on mean moms.
[26:41]Can't wait to read whatever that ends up
[26:42]being called.
[26:43]I think for now it's titled, I think, members only.
[26:47]Oh, love it.
[26:48]Yeah, amazing.
[26:49]Thank you.
[26:50]Thanks so much for coming.
[26:51]Congratulations, mean moms.
[26:52]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi.
[26:56]Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[26:59]If you loved the show, tell a friend,
[27:01]leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[27:05]and spread the word.
[27:06]Thanks so much.
[27:07]Oh, and buy the books.