Robinne Lee, CRASH INTO ME + Beatriz Williams, WHEN YOU LOVED ME
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked. I'm Zibi Owens. I've interviewed more than 2,000
[0:06]authors on this show and learned endless amounts about storytelling,
[0:10]reinvention, and life itself because when you talk about books, you're really
[0:14]talking about life. So get ready to hear from today's best authors,
[0:18]the best-selling, and the not yet discovered. Come find your next great
[0:22]read and the story behind it. Enjoy! Today I have a
[0:27]a joint episode with two amazing women novelists, both of whom have been on the
[0:32]podcast before and are back with their new books. And then I don't know if
[0:36]they just keep getting better and better. Everybody's such an amazing writer.
[0:39]It's so fun to watch people's careers evolve and get to talk to them along the way.
[0:44]First up, we have Robin Lee, who is the best-selling author of the idea of you,
[0:49]which became a record-breaking feature film for Amazon Studios, and which was if you
[0:54]haven't seen it so good. But then go back and read it.
[0:57]Robin Lee, the idea of you. Robin and I live near each other in the
[1:02]palisades and she is just fabulous. This is before she moved to Paris with
[1:06]her husband and two kids. She is also an actress and producer with numerous
[1:10]credits in both television and film, the graduate of Yale University
[1:14]in Columbia Law School. She lives in New York and LA. And as I said, now lives in Paris.
[1:19]Her new book is Crash Into Me. It was so good that I had to DM her right away
[1:24]as I finished it and was like, oh my gosh, I can't stop thinking about this book.
[1:28]So definitely read Crash Into Me and you will hear us discuss all about it in a minute.
[1:34]Then we have Beatrice Williams, who is also fabulous. Her latest book is called
[1:39]When You Loved Me. And Don't Be fooled by the cover of a woman sort of looking
[1:44]off into an ocean. It is of course about love and from a woman's perspective,
[1:49]but it is also about football and has some really interesting backstory to it.
[1:54]Beatrice Williams lives with her husband and children in Connecticut and is a
[1:58]New York Times best-selling author of Along the Infinitese, Tiny Little Thing,
[2:02]The Secret Life of Violet Grand, a hundred summers, and overseas among others.
[2:07]She also writes under the pseudonym Juliana Gray. I did not ask her about that,
[2:11]but I probably should have. Okay.
[2:14]Enjoy these two and put these two books on your summer reading list.
[2:17]I know they are on mine.
[2:19]Welcome Robin. Thank you for coming on totally booked to talk about Crash Into Me,
[2:24]a novel. Congratulations. So good. Oh my gosh.
[2:28]Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That means a lot.
[2:31]I'm sorry. I had to DM you just to be like, wow, which I don't usually do.
[2:36]But as I told you, I read the idea of you. I am obsessed with the movie.
[2:41]It's like one of my favorite movies ever. And I was expecting something similar,
[2:47]but this is not that similar to that. It's a literary deep exploration.
[2:53]Well, I'll let why don't you talk about what it is.
[2:56]But I was so not that I wasn't impressed before.
[2:59]I've been pressed with both. It's just they're so different. That's all.
[3:02]They're very different. Yeah, I was coming out of the idea of you.
[3:06]And I was trying to figure out what to write next.
[3:09]And I'd had like, I really went through about three years of writer's block.
[3:13]Like, I'm so sure I want this. I want that.
[3:16]And I'd written about this character Cecilia Chen.
[3:20]She had a small cameo in the idea of you in the book.
[3:23]But it was a character that I'd written that was kind of similar to biographical
[3:27]before I wrote the idea of you.
[3:29]I worked on a project with her and the Laurie character.
[3:32]And I just worked on it for years. And I couldn't get it quite to where I wanted to be.
[3:35]So I kind of set it aside.
[3:37]And then I used her in this tiny role in the idea of you.
[3:40]And then when it was time to go back and write the next book, I thought,
[3:43]you know what? I love that character.
[3:45]I love the two of them and their story and their history.
[3:49]What if I were to take them and move them to present day?
[3:52]Which is because it took place in the 90s originally.
[3:55]It was 2015 when I was writing it.
[3:58]When I started it.
[3:59]And so that's kind of where it started.
[4:01]And so it was a story about this Jamaican Chinese artist who's raised in the States,
[4:07]but goes to live in France for 20 years.
[4:09]And she's married to this French filmmaker.
[4:11]And she's got two kids and she's got this great life in Paris.
[4:15]And her husband, books this gig, shooting this really high profile trilogy.
[4:21]And they pick up and they move to Hollywood.
[4:24]And she's like thrown into like this wealthy enclave on the west side of Los Angeles,
[4:28]which you and I know very well.
[4:30]And it's kind of like a reverse culture shock.
[4:34]And very early on in the story,
[4:36]she runs into quite literally this person from her past.
[4:40]And they developed this very intense and complex relationship that threatens to upend
[4:46]her entire life.
[4:47]And it's another woman.
[4:49]And I thought, oh, if I could do this and I could layer in all these ideas about motherhood and sexuality and fame and wealth and identity and privilege and trauma and betrayal.
[5:04]And do it in a story that feels, you know, real and authentic and propulsive.
[5:11]But the same time has all these underlying themes that are a little more serious and heavier.
[5:17]I think I could get the story that I really, really want to write.
[5:20]And that's crushing to me.
[5:22]And beauty, which is another beauty.
[5:25]And a huge theme.
[5:26]And actually you say early on, can I read this one little passage?
[5:29]Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[5:30]Okay.
[5:31]How their explanation for that attractiveness for both men and women decreased with age,
[5:34]but the decline was greater for women.
[5:36]It touched a nerve.
[5:38]Who makes the decisions about perceived levels of attraction and beauty in the media and entertainment?
[5:43]What makes the assumption that older women as a class are more unattractive than older men?
[5:48]And how does that affect what they market to us and how we see ourselves?
[5:52]How much is earning potential tied to beauty and not skill or talent?
[5:55]Who controls the conversation?
[5:57]But I don't say any of that.
[5:58]My goal is to make art and let it speak for itself.
[6:03]Was that your goal with it?
[6:05]That's exactly my goal.
[6:08]So as you know, I lived in LA for several years and I worked as an actress.
[6:12]And it is LA is let entire culture just rampant with this celebration of youth.
[6:20]And this feminine ideal, which is tied to youth.
[6:25]And it was just fascinating to age in that business and watched what becomes of other actresses,
[6:34]my age of the roles that are available to actresses, my age of the way we see them and ourselves while watching what happens for men.
[6:46]And like how men really kind of can hit their stride, like just start really in their late 30s and all those media roles are like the 30s, 40s, 50s.
[6:54]And still, I don't know how much like George Clooney let's say is making perfume, but he's he's no less sexually desirable than he was 20 30 years ago.
[7:04]Whereas we wouldn't say that about female actresses, unfortunately, even though they're like hitting their stride and doing their best work.
[7:13]And so that's something I dealt into a little bit in the idea of you, but that was mostly about like our value and our viability.
[7:26]I wanted to talk about beauty here more and like and how what what the idea of beauty is and how we commodify that and consume it and what we're taught to believe is more beautiful and what is less beautiful and when that changes and how we how we just you know portray that and and the damage it can do.
[7:50]as you say as how beauty consumes you.
[7:54]In the book you structure these conversations about beauty and we can move on from beauty in a second, but I just found it so interesting because that becomes sort of the narrative framing for Cecilia's work and how she is interviewing other beautiful people or aging people from people in her family to celebrities and really getting to the heart of it and having.
[8:19]open conversations about what it means how it feels all of that you could almost call this, you know, the idea of you meets the idea of beauty right that's like.
[8:30]Where are you having these conversations with people and then sort of transcribing them and using them in a way.
[8:38]Did you think about doing like a nonfiction piece on beauty like tell me where all this input comes from.
[8:45]Oh goodness I never know I did not think about doing a nonfiction piece I'm I really love fiction and that's kind of where I I love to read and I love to write and I kind of lose myself and I like not.
[8:58]Like you know like making it a little I don't know just a more liberty you can take with fiction, but I'd I'd worked as a student when I was in college I'd worked at El magazine like during my summer vacations and winter breaks in New York.
[9:13]And then I spent my junior year of college working in Paris and working for the French office and it was like at the height of the supermodel period.
[9:21]I had a cousin who was a really big model at that point in time and she'd been on the cover valve that's like how I got my first my job there and.
[9:29]She was really big late 80s early 90s and it was so interesting to see her she had a very healthy idea about like getting older and.
[9:39]I was seeing in our popular culture others who did not have such a healthy idea like she never touched like she never dyed her hair she never put anything in her face whatever and I was seeing so many other actors as in the models etc.
[9:53]And also falling pretty that like I'm looking at what all my girlfriends are doing and like who's doing touch up to this and who's doing I had this idea that.
[10:00]I want to get out of LA before I did too much.
[10:02]Not before I stopped because it's a slippery slope, right?
[10:06]And before I could stop seeing what looked to,
[10:09]I didn't want to get so sucked into that culture
[10:13]that I could no longer see what looked absurd
[10:18]and what didn't.
[10:20]And then also like buying into like,
[10:21]what are you comfortable doing?
[10:22]Like what are you not comfortable doing?
[10:24]Is if it's permanent, is that too far?
[10:26]Like what?
[10:28]And I just kept seeing us do more and more
[10:31]and then feeling like the bar was being raised more and more.
[10:35]And I wanted to kind of like give voice to that.
[10:39]Yeah. Well, you give voice to a lot.
[10:43]There's a lot in here about race,
[10:44]which is really interesting about interracial marriage,
[10:47]about passing, not passing the kids,
[10:52]relationships, acceptance, generational acceptance,
[10:57]how that trauma can pervade throughout time
[11:01]while the book is taking place a lot of terrible things
[11:04]are happening in the media.
[11:06]And you weave all that into the narrative
[11:09]as one sort of plot line,
[11:11]as one way in which Cecilia is forming a stronger identity
[11:16]for herself and for the reader, really.
[11:18]Right. Talk a little bit about that.
[11:19]You have one line sort of late in the book
[11:21]and you were just like, can somebody,
[11:23]can some other person in an interracial relationship,
[11:26]please tell me how I'm supposed to get through this?
[11:28]You had like, I was like, is she talking
[11:30]to the reader directly at this point?
[11:32]No, I think that actually came from a real experience in my life.
[11:39]Yeah, I mean, I feel like there was so much going on
[11:41]when I was writing this book.
[11:43]I wrote it between 2019 and 2024.
[11:47]And then I just didn't like edit something till January.
[11:51]But so much was going on in the States.
[11:54]I wrote maybe a first half of it or so in the US
[11:57]before moving, I'm in Paris now,
[11:59]but before moving here.
[12:01]And just like politically and racially
[12:05]and like George Floyd was happening, BLM was happening.
[12:09]There were all these like murders happening.
[12:12]There were school shootings happening.
[12:13]There was just a lot.
[12:14]And I felt like to continue to write a story
[12:19]as if we were in a bubble and not being affected by all
[12:23]that would have been completely false to me.
[12:27]Would have like, I like the idea of escapism.
[12:30]I like being able to kind of lose myself
[12:33]in a story that takes me away from all that.
[12:35]But I couldn't do that and write it
[12:38]and be living it for five years and not be aware
[12:41]and not have some of that seep into the conversation.
[12:46]And so it was really kind of important
[12:49]that like that I'm showing you all these facets
[12:51]of the person's life.
[12:52]Because I think it's, I mean, it's real.
[12:55]It's who we are as women, right?
[12:56]Like we can have these thoughts that feel a little lighter
[13:00]or more frivolous or more superficial
[13:02]and way on us a lot.
[13:05]Well, at the same time, we're dealing with heavier things
[13:07]about motherhood or identity or raising our kids
[13:11]and what our kids might be dealing with at school
[13:14]or in their communities and whether or not
[13:16]they're feeling comfortable and adjusting
[13:18]and how they see themselves vis-a-vis their friend groups.
[13:22]And so all of that was happening to me
[13:25]as I was writing the story.
[13:26]And so I kind of, I kind of kept the doors open
[13:29]in that way that I didn't want to pretend
[13:31]that like the story was happening like in,
[13:33]it's so funny because she talks about being in a bubble.
[13:35]But like, you're not, she's not fully in the bubble
[13:37]that she's not aware of what's happening around her.
[13:39]You made a lot of references to being sort of
[13:43]the only black person in the room
[13:45]at a lot of events, particularly on the west side of LA.
[13:49]We are on the same, we back on the day,
[13:51]we're on the same street in the house,
[13:53]the same street, and I'm aware of the makeup
[13:57]of the Palisades community in particular
[13:59]and the Brentwood and Westside moms and all of that.
[14:02]You definitely call out a lot of that in the book.
[14:05]I'm wondering, I'm sure you have so many friends
[14:07]in that community too, the rejection of it in a way
[14:12]and the like, let's go back to France narrative
[14:15]that courses through the whole thing.
[14:16]What am I doing here in America?
[14:17]Like this is what happened in Paris.
[14:19]Talk a little bit about that and how you feel about it
[14:23]and everything.
[14:24]Unlike Cecilia, like I chose to live on the west side
[14:27]and I chose to live in the Palisades.
[14:30]There was, anyway, so much beauty there,
[14:33]so much of this kind of like idyllic little community.
[14:36]It was a beautiful, safe place to raise my kids,
[14:41]we had an incredible house in a gorgeous view
[14:44]and it also felt most east coast to me
[14:48]than anyplace else and the Palisades
[14:51]was very first time I visited, felt to me like Connecticut
[14:55]in a weird way, like it feels like it could be Greenwich
[14:57]or like you can't interdere
[14:59]and like just one of those tiny little little,
[15:02]or Westport, or one of those tiny little city
[15:04]or Westin, like little enclaves like along the water.
[15:08]So it felt familiar to me in a way
[15:11]that like the Hollywood Hills never really felt familiar
[15:14]even though we spent years living in Laurel Canyon as well.
[15:17]But I, you know, my kids went to a private school
[15:21]but it was a very diverse private school
[15:23]and I kind of felt like, okay,
[15:24]they're getting their diversity here.
[15:26]I don't feel so badly living in a place
[15:28]where they're not seeing as much diversity
[15:30]because they're still hanging out with their friends
[15:32]and they're doing all these school events
[15:33]and so they're getting the full range.
[15:36]But it was, like it was very,
[15:38]it's one of those things that like becomes apparent
[15:39]when you're looking for it, but then you can forget.
[15:41]Like I, my husband's white, we've been married
[15:44]for almost 25 years.
[15:47]We've been in so many rooms when I'm the only black person
[15:52]he's been in rooms where he's the only white person.
[15:54]It's the 95% of the time I'm not noticing that.
[15:59]And he's not noticing that.
[16:02]But the other 5% like everyone's in a while,
[16:04]you do and it's like you become very comfortable with it.
[16:07]But at times like you're like, wow,
[16:09]there's no one else here like me.
[16:10]And that would happen a lot in LA.
[16:13]And like, I remember when I first moved to,
[16:16]and it's changed a little bit,
[16:17]but when we first moved from New York,
[16:19]we moved to Brentwood and I moved from the Upper West Side
[16:22]of New York, which is very diverse.
[16:23]And obviously you get on the subway New York
[16:25]and you see the full spectrum
[16:27]and that we were living in Brentwood.
[16:28]And there would be like, if I didn't leave Brentwood,
[16:31]there'd be the entire days
[16:32]when I would not see another black person.
[16:34]That's like, and I would,
[16:35]there'd be a go out and go for a run.
[16:37]And still not see anyone.
[16:39]And it was crazy to me.
[16:41]Like how stratified LA was.
[16:43]And I remember thinking,
[16:44]I don't wanna stay here
[16:46]because I want my kids to have the full spectrum.
[16:49]But LA's one of those places you get sucked in.
[16:51]You make friends the weather's lovely.
[16:54]If your life is easy.
[16:55]Like our lives were easy and beautiful
[16:58]and we had a community
[17:00]and there was a lot about it that was just comfortable.
[17:05]And my best, best friends are there.
[17:08]And like, you know, the moms like the moms,
[17:10]I hate calling them mom friends.
[17:12]But the women I met like in baby group,
[17:13]we raised our kids together.
[17:15]They're still my like, you know,
[17:17]we're still on our WhatsApp chat now.
[17:19]And we talk or we were, you know,
[17:23]exchanging messages every day.
[17:25]But it's hard to have that kind of like that push pull.
[17:27]Like I'm, there's a lot, I love here,
[17:29]but I want my kids to see something else.
[17:31]And I want them to know there's more than just this.
[17:35]And so I'm glad that I've given them this other experience.
[17:40]And at this point, one of them has chosen to stay.
[17:43]And apparently he's like, I'm just want to stay here.
[17:45]He's using his college here.
[17:46]He's like, I'm really happy in Europe.
[17:48]And my daughter is a junior in high school now
[17:50]and she's like, I want to go back to America.
[17:52]He's like, you brought me of my American high school experience.
[17:54]So I want an American college experience.
[17:56]Like I want to go back to the US.
[17:57]But it's like, it's for them to figure it out.
[17:59]But I wanted them to know that there was more out there
[18:02]than just the West Side of LA.
[18:04]Yeah.
[18:05]I mean, my son like saying when he was like three or four years old.
[18:08]And you know, as a boy, he was obsessed with cars.
[18:11]He would just notice cars.
[18:12]And remember him saying, so all the cars, the only cars
[18:16]are BMWs and Range Rovers and Mercedes, right?
[18:20]I'm like, you're like, great.
[18:24]What did I do?
[18:25]Oh, my God.
[18:28]Oh, my God.
[18:29]I'm like, no honey, there are lots of other cars
[18:33]in the world.
[18:34]But like, yeah, that was fabulous.
[18:39]Oh, another through line of the book
[18:41]is wanting his desire itself and wanting
[18:48]to feel wanted and infidelity.
[18:53]And yes, there's some retribution.
[18:56]But it's really about the sensual and the connection
[19:01]and almost inhabiting the body.
[19:03]And it's like a love letter to the female body
[19:06]in a way, right?
[19:08]From goosebumps to beautiful necks to all of it, right?
[19:13]It's like a, if we went back to art history,
[19:16]it's like the gaze here is on the woman.
[19:20]And at times, it's very hot and heavy as well.
[19:24]And you're taking us through the lens of someone
[19:26]who has not been with a woman before and all of that.
[19:29]How did you end up with that?
[19:31]And then, of course, they find myself saying,
[19:32]well, what is going on in Robin's marriage?
[19:34]It's in my life.
[19:36]Like, go rob it.
[19:37]You look at that.
[19:38]You know what is going on behind closed doors?
[19:40]Not until my husband is in love.
[19:44]I, you know, I started writing this story
[19:46]and I didn't know where it was going to go.
[19:47]Like, I had these two characters and they run in
[19:50]and they have this car accident.
[19:51]And then she goes over to her, Cecilia goes over
[19:54]to a nukes home.
[19:55]And then it's like, I think I was just
[19:58]lying myself to kind of live.
[20:00]in the moment and see.
[20:01]And I honestly did not know
[20:02]where the story was gonna go when I started.
[20:04]Like I didn't really have an outline in the beginning.
[20:08]And I just, as I wrote it,
[20:10]it just kind of felt like that's where it was leading to.
[20:12]Like that's who these characters were
[20:14]and feeling observing her
[20:17]because I'm so used to observing men in that way.
[20:21]It's like what is it like to observe women in that way?
[20:23]And so I just like, I did a deep dive
[20:26]and finding all the pictures of women
[20:28]that I found attractive.
[20:29]And like, what is it about them that I find attractive?
[20:32]What is sensual?
[20:34]What is sexual?
[20:35]What is something that I find attractive now that I hadn't?
[20:38]Or I didn't even think about looking at it.
[20:40]And what, how do men look at us?
[20:43]And like, what is it about us that makes us different than men?
[20:47]I mean, that sounds like an obvious thing.
[20:49]But like, if you were to be in a relationship
[20:51]with another woman, what is something
[20:53]about our femininity or softness or our like,
[20:58]oh gosh, I feel like it's like this,
[21:01]yeah, it's like the lack of hard edges
[21:03]that makes it attractive.
[21:06]And then I just started reading other women's lesbian experiences
[21:10]and talk to friends of mine who slept with other women
[21:13]or like, tell me about this and tell me about that
[21:16]and blah, blah, blah, and how did you feel
[21:17]and what was weird and what was not weird.
[21:19]I mean, it's a lot of like what I did, you know,
[21:22]with the idea of you when you're just doing people
[21:25]and looking up online and like in just getting ideas
[21:30]and then you kind of let your imagination run wild with you.
[21:33]I guess that's part of the job.
[21:37]Like you research as much as you can
[21:38]and then you've got to just kind of trust
[21:40]that you've done the research and then put yourself
[21:42]in that character's shoes and just let your imagination
[21:47]take you.
[21:48]Amazing.
[21:49]Well, you also lead us from one beautiful home to another.
[21:54]I feel like the book is also flipping through
[21:57]like, has beautiful or architectural digest in a way
[22:00]because the way you describe it, I fully see the houses.
[22:03]I can picture each one, like you could do a tour.
[22:08]You should do like a tour of all of us, you know,
[22:10]they even referenced in the back end.
[22:12]But in addition to just the physical places in LA,
[22:16]you really nail like the culture of fame and conversation
[22:22]and how you have to become somewhat accustomed
[22:28]to famous people when you live there
[22:30]because those are the people who like do all the things.
[22:32]They're in the mom group, it's not like such a big thing.
[22:36]But what happens when someone starts to hit is also so good.
[22:40]Like when her husband just starts to really make it
[22:43]and it's all the buzz and what does that mean to her identity
[22:47]and tell me a little bit about that.
[22:49]Oh, goodness, I'm trying to think of like what I use for that.
[22:53]But I think it's just being super observant.
[22:56]Like I've always been that kind of person who's,
[22:58]I'm constantly in my head.
[23:00]I've never been able to like fully relax
[23:03]and like be in the moment.
[23:04]It's happened so infrequently.
[23:05]I'm just constantly like if I'm at a party, if I'm like,
[23:08]I remember thinking this in college that like,
[23:10]I can't just step out of myself and just be here.
[23:13]Like I am looking at everyone,
[23:15]taking everything in like memorizing it
[23:19]and it served me well as a writer and as an actor
[23:22]because I feel like I used to think like just like go,
[23:26]just like go, just relax and be here.
[23:28]Stop thinking like what are you thinking of me?
[23:29]Do you know what am I wearing the right shoes?
[23:30]And like just let go and just be,
[23:32]but it's like, you know, it's a blessing and a curse.
[23:35]And so I've been in enough experiences with celebrities
[23:40]that I'm totally focusing on everything
[23:43]and I can't fully let go of that.
[23:46]Like an even when I'm comfortable,
[23:49]I'm still observing.
[23:52]And I don't, I used to,
[23:54]I was really, really good about keeping a journal
[23:56]from like age eight to 28 and then I stopped.
[23:59]And now I only write, I write every so often.
[24:02]It's really bad as a writer.
[24:03]I mean, as a writer, keeping a journal should be
[24:05]what I do every, every single day.
[24:08]But I've managed to still hold on to all those thoughts
[24:12]and those observations used to go on my journals.
[24:14]Now they just kind of stain my head.
[24:16]And so when I need them,
[24:19]I just able to kind of like find them in here somewhere
[24:25]and like, and just remember all those homes,
[24:27]all those experiences,
[24:28]all like who's wearing what when,
[24:31]who's hair was done, how, what jewelry was.
[24:34]Like I just, it's all in there.
[24:36]It's amazing.
[24:37]But a lot of people can't pull that off.
[24:39]So I'm totally impressed.
[24:41]Well, thank you so much.
[24:42]I appreciate that and I really appreciate that.
[24:45]Thank you so much for coming back on totally bucked
[24:50]to talk about when you love to make congratulations.
[24:54]Thank you.
[24:54]It is such a thrill to be back.
[24:56]We had such a great conversation back.
[24:59]I think it was for her last flight.
[25:01]So I'm delighted to be back.
[25:03]I'm delighted to have you back.
[25:04]And of course I've seen you in real life
[25:06]several times since many times since.
[25:08]But that you guys did.
[25:09]Okay, when you loved me,
[25:11]by the way, for those listening,
[25:13]I'm sure you've all seen the cover by now
[25:15]of the back of a woman's hair with a bun
[25:17]and a little necklace and a pretty dress and the water.
[25:19]But what you might not know is that as soon as you open it up,
[25:21]you are in the middle of a football game,
[25:23]like right there on the field as if you are a player.
[25:28]So just FYI.
[25:29]So maybe you want some men to pick this up too.
[25:31]Anyway, why don't you talk about the book?
[25:34]Yes.
[25:35]So the book is set in two narratives,
[25:39]one that takes place in colonial New England
[25:42]during the summer of what's called the Great Snow
[25:46]of 1716 to 1717, which was a real weather phenomenon
[25:51]and a pirate lands on Winthrop Island
[25:55]during that winter and kind of overturns the lives
[25:58]of this family, particularly two sisters living there.
[26:02]And what happens that winter then kind of reverberates
[26:05]down the generations to modern day Winthrop Island
[26:10]when a young widow named Lucy Cooper returns
[26:14]to her decayed family estate to clear up
[26:19]the affairs of her father who has disappeared into the ocean
[26:22]and in search of this sort of rumored pirate treasure
[26:26]that's supposed to be buried on the family property.
[26:30]So Lucy is trying to deal with her father's disappearance
[26:34]and discovers that the last person to see him alive
[26:37]is none other than her own long lost love, Ben wrestler,
[26:42]who's a former NFL football player now disgraced
[26:46]after a tragic on field accident.
[26:50]So that all kind of weaves together
[26:52]with the story of Lucy and Ben back
[26:55]when they were teenagers together.
[26:58]So that love story, her friendship with the girl next door
[27:02]and that pirate story that takes place 300 years
[27:06]earlier all kind of weaves together.
[27:08]So interesting.
[27:09]Oh my gosh.
[27:10]So back to this accident for a second.
[27:13]I feel like we can talk about it
[27:14]because it happens differently.
[27:15]It is like the whole sort of origin story
[27:17]of Ben's redemption arc, I guess.
[27:20]So is it like what happens when there is an injury
[27:23]like that on a football field where it's so powerful
[27:26]and someone's next steps?
[27:27]Is it really the fault?
[27:29]Like can they be tried?
[27:30]Like what are the legalities behind that?
[27:33]I did interestingly enough, a friend of my husband's
[27:38]from boarding school is now the chief legal officer
[27:42]at the NFL.
[27:43]I had already written the manuscript when I talked to him
[27:45]and sort of, you know, I knew a bit about the legalities
[27:48]just because I had been, I had been a manager
[27:51]for my college football team when I was there.
[27:53]It was sort of an accidental thing I stumbled into
[27:56]that turned out to kind of transform my life
[27:58]and the course of my life.
[28:00]And I did know I still have, I mean, you know,
[28:03]contact with a number of my old teammates,
[28:06]one of whom helped choreograph this play
[28:09]that takes place in that first scene.
[28:11]And so there is, you know, you're basically protected.
[28:14]Like this is a game and there's an assumption of risk.
[28:17]And again, I have not gone to law school.
[28:19]So I'm not going to give you the correct legal terms here.
[28:21]But there is a sense, there is this sort of presumption
[28:24]of risk and that this is a risky,
[28:25]just like when you're a horseback riding and things.
[28:27]This is a risky game and people are gonna get hurt.
[28:30]So you would have to prove like intent
[28:34]to, you know, injure somebody, you know, intent
[28:39]to cause, I think, you know, grievous bodily harm
[28:43]above and beyond, you know, the fact
[28:45]that you're playing a violent game.
[28:46]And, you know, that legal standard has pretty much
[28:49]like never really been met.
[28:50]And in this case, of course,
[28:52]Ben, he obviously does not intend to cause
[28:55]grievous bodily damage to this other player
[28:59]than just, you know, stopping, you know,
[29:01]the ball from being caught.
[29:03]So, and that was, I was very specific
[29:05]when I was asking my football player friend
[29:08]to help choreograph this.
[29:09]I was like, I need something where this guy,
[29:11]he's, you know, and I've seen this.
[29:12]And one of the things that intrigued me,
[29:14]one of my starting points for this book was,
[29:17]you know, human violence and the human capacity
[29:20]for violence and how we channel that.
[29:21]Because it always interested me
[29:23]when I was on the football field,
[29:25]how you have these guys who were perfect gentlemen
[29:28]off the field, like, couldn't be nicer,
[29:30]like really nice guys and you get them on a field
[29:33]and it's like, they enjoy hitting people.
[29:37]I mean, you like, you can't play this game
[29:39]unless you enjoy that violent aspect of it.
[29:43]So, I went through this kind of journey
[29:45]where I talked to some, I'm like,
[29:46]so how does that work like psychologically?
[29:49]And that kind of all fed into who Ben is,
[29:52]that Ben can be this very outstanding person
[29:56]and be a kind person in many ways,
[29:59]but all.
[30:00]also enjoy hitting people.
[30:02]And he's good at it.
[30:03]And he, you know, there is just,
[30:05]I said, I need you to choreograph and be a play
[30:09]where he's laying a perfectly legal legitimate hit
[30:12]that ends badly just by a twist of biomechanics
[30:16]and the other player dies.
[30:18]And my dear friend came through for me
[30:21]and, you know, I've had a lot of people tell me
[30:23]even now that, you know, this is just a,
[30:25]it is a very powerful opening chapter
[30:27]and it really kind of sets in motion, you know,
[30:30]what happens in the rest of the book
[30:31]and the themes that play out in the rest of the book?
[30:34]Yes. Well, super gripping,
[30:37]but your writing is always gripping.
[30:38]You have an author's note in the back as well
[30:41]talking about your time as the manager.
[30:42]Can we go back to that?
[30:43]Cause I found that totally fascinating.
[30:44]I'm like, who would have known?
[30:46]And you said that you were hiding that you were an author
[30:49]or want to be author at the time?
[30:52]No, I was, how did you fall into that
[30:53]and how did it change your life?
[30:55]It's kind of great.
[30:56]I mean, I'm a very nerdy person.
[30:57]I grew up, you know, like,
[30:59]and we were a weird family group.
[31:00]My father's British and he sort of moved to America
[31:04]right after college.
[31:05]So, and really wanted to become American.
[31:07]So he got very, you know, into American sports.
[31:10]There was never any cricket around the house growing up.
[31:12]There was never any rugby.
[31:13]It was like baseball, basketball, football.
[31:16]And I was one of two girls and this is kind of how we,
[31:18]I guess, you know, spent time with our dad
[31:21]would be to watch football with him on Sunday.
[31:23]So I loved football.
[31:24]But, you know, like we were a very weird family.
[31:26]Like I said, like we had zero pop culture references.
[31:30]They would take us down to this Shakespeare festival
[31:32]in Southern Oregon as our vacation every year.
[31:35]And we had like season tickets to the Seattle Opera.
[31:38]And so that was like the cultural stuff
[31:41]that I kind of informed my childhood,
[31:43]but also football.
[31:44]And football has this great dramatic art to it.
[31:47]And kind of like operads, very like, you know, life and death.
[31:51]There's a lot of drama.
[31:53]So it appealed to me and when I got to college
[31:55]and I'm there on financial aid and I need to find a job
[31:58]and like all the good jobs were of course already taken
[32:01]and my freshman and then I saw this flyer
[32:04]that, you know, Stanford football needs managers, you know,
[32:06]and you get paid and you get to eat at the training table.
[32:09]And I'm like, well, that sounds great.
[32:10]I mean free food like who's gonna turn down free food.
[32:12]And I love football.
[32:14]So I volunteered and it turned out to be absolutely transformative.
[32:18]You know, my first full year there,
[32:20]we went to the Aloha Bowl.
[32:22]So I'm like off to Hawaii and it was so much fun.
[32:26]And then our coach got hired away by the Minnesota Vikings
[32:30]to be their head coach.
[32:31]And we were sort of like, oh no, you know,
[32:33]what are we gonna do?
[32:34]We had this great coach.
[32:36]And then this rumor started going around
[32:38]that Bill Walsh was going to step in
[32:41]and come out of retirement.
[32:42]And Bill Walsh is this legendary San Francisco 49ers coach
[32:46]of one, all these Super Bowls.
[32:48]And, you know, it'd be like, you know,
[32:51]in the present day, you know,
[32:52]like the whole Bill Belichick story coming to, you know,
[32:55]to coach at University of North Carolina.
[32:57]It's the same idea.
[32:58]You know, it was like, are you kidding me?
[33:00]And yet he came and it was, you know,
[33:05]such a just tremendous experience to be around people
[33:10]who are that successful.
[33:13]And yet that sort of humble about who they are
[33:17]and their discipline and their focus
[33:20]and their ability to commit to things
[33:23]had such an impact on me.
[33:25]And it was fun.
[33:26]I mean, we just, we had a lot of fun.
[33:27]And I had 99 brothers around campus.
[33:30]Like I never had to worry like at a party.
[33:33]I just be like, excuse me,
[33:34]this guy's giving me a little trouble over here.
[33:36]It was over, right?
[33:37]It was, it was great.
[33:38]I had brothers for the first time in my life.
[33:41]And I was like, I love this brother thing.
[33:42]This is great.
[33:43]Aw.
[33:45]So then how did you go the short version, I guess,
[33:48]from being a one of the nerdy self-professed nerdy,
[33:51]I can't imagine, but to a real published author.
[33:56]How did that happen?
[33:57]So, you know, and again, it all came about
[34:01]because of football, I sort of kind of got my first job
[34:04]in New York, you know, connection of a connection
[34:06]of a connection from football.
[34:08]And that was where I met, you know, my husband
[34:11]who is a New Englander.
[34:13]And so I ended up staying in the East Coast,
[34:15]which was not part of my plan.
[34:17]And, you know, and I ended up kind of pursuing
[34:19]a finance career in the beginning
[34:21]because I think I felt a lot of pressure,
[34:25]you know, to do successful things, you know.
[34:28]And I did that.
[34:29]I didn't really enjoy it very much.
[34:31]And as soon as I went on maternity leave,
[34:33]I was quite happy to be home with my kids.
[34:36]But then my husband loses his job.
[34:38]And literally I am about to give birth
[34:40]to my third child and, you know,
[34:42]and my husband lost his job.
[34:44]And things were okay for a little while
[34:46]with consulting gigs.
[34:48]But then it kind of dried up.
[34:49]But I literally was sort of panicking like,
[34:52]you know, how are we going to pay for groceries, you know?
[34:56]And so I thought, okay, I'll start writing.
[34:59]Like I always wanted to write.
[35:00]And of course, to be, you know, how incredibly naive
[35:03]that my deal was.
[35:05]But I really, you know, I think when you're back
[35:07]is against the wall when it's life or death,
[35:10]I mean, it transformed me as a writer.
[35:12]I mean, I had to, and I think the whole experience
[35:15]I had to sort of find depths of myself
[35:17]that I had no idea existed.
[35:19]Like you do not know how strong you are
[35:21]and tell you are, you know, put to that kind of test
[35:24]with ultimately four children that I'm taking care of
[35:26]and being a mom for and being a full-time mom.
[35:28]And then also, you know, learning to be a writer
[35:32]and to write books and, you know,
[35:33]and I've been incredibly fortunate
[35:36]to be able to provide for my family all these years.
[35:38]I've got my 18, my 18-year-old youngest
[35:41]is now off to college in the fall, you know?
[35:44]And I think that I really forced myself
[35:48]to be the best writer I possibly could be
[35:51]because, you know, every single book for me
[35:54]is life or death, not just because I am so invested
[35:59]in my characters and love my characters so passionately
[36:02]but because I also need to balance that with writing a book
[36:05]that people are gonna wanna read
[36:06]that is going to have meaning to people
[36:08]that is going to touch some chords.
[36:11]So it challenged me to be the absolute best writer I could be
[36:16]and I just tried to meet that challenge, you know,
[36:18]with every book and, you know, every book, you know,
[36:22]is, you know, every book is something
[36:27]that I dig deep inside me for
[36:29]and the characters become very real to me.
[36:31]And I don't know, maybe that's how I, you know,
[36:35]I deal with my trauma, if you will,
[36:38]is despite channeling it all into my books.
[36:41]Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
[36:42]But what would you say, what chapter are you leaving
[36:45]and what chapter are you entering in your life, my life?
[36:48]Well, I, you know, I am, first of all,
[36:50]it's, you know, it's interesting.
[36:51]So my daughter, my youngest, of all the schools
[36:54]in the world, she decides she wants to go to LSU.
[36:56]So football is obviously going to be playing
[36:59]a big part of my life for a few years to come.
[37:02]I am really excited for this chapter.
[37:04]I would say that I'm now entering that sort of emptiness
[37:06]chapter and, you know, the postmenopause chapter,
[37:11]the whole thing where, you know, all of a sudden,
[37:13]you're kind of like, you know, and you're always a mom,
[37:18]like you're always like emotionally available.
[37:20]One thing I've learned is that you're never really
[37:22]an empty nester.
[37:23]I was so excited when my first started going
[37:25]after college, I'm like, who, less work, right?
[37:27]No, they keep coming back or they need things
[37:30]or they have a bad job interview or whatever.
[37:33]You know, you're always there being present for them.
[37:36]And I kind of like that.
[37:38]I like having that energy in my life.
[37:40]But I also like the idea of just like, you know,
[37:43]me and my husband just getting in the car
[37:45]and driving down to Baton Rouge to see our daughter,
[37:47]you know, that part of it.
[37:49]And we really enjoy now coming into the city.
[37:52]And I'll take any excuse now to come into the city
[37:55]and we'll stay overnight and we'll take my daughter out
[37:57]to dinner and, you know, and that's really neat
[38:02]once you start interacting with your children
[38:05]as adult human beings, once you get them
[38:06]through the teenage years and all of a sudden they're like,
[38:09]wow, people you really want to spend time with.
[38:11]So that is the chapter that I'm really excited about.
[38:14]Last sort of full-time hands-on stay-at-home mom
[38:18]and more figuring out who my kids are as adults.
[38:22]It's really, it's exciting.
[38:24]Oh, yes, I love that.
[38:25]Well, congratulations when you loved me, fabulous.
[38:29]Congrats.
[38:30]Thank you so much, Zippy.
[38:31]It's been a pleasure speaking to you as always.
[38:33]You too, you too.
[38:35]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zippy,
[38:38]formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[38:40]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[38:43]follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens
[38:46]and spread the word.
[38:48]Thanks so much.
[38:49]Oh, and buy the books.