Laura Moriarty on Writing Amid Her Cancer Diagnosis
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:04]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show
[0:07]and learned endless amounts about storytelling,
[0:10]reinvention, and life itself.
[0:11]Because when you talk about books,
[0:13]you're really talking about life.
[0:15]So get ready to hear from today's best authors,
[0:18]the best-selling and the not yet discovered.
[0:20]Come find your next great read
[0:22]and the story behind it.
[0:24]Enjoy.
[0:25]I was so excited when Laura Moriarty's book,
[0:30]Sunlight, finds you, was chosen as the read with Jenna Pick.
[0:35]So exciting.
[0:36]I had just interviewed her,
[0:37]I don't know, a couple of weeks before,
[0:39]the announcement and was so excited
[0:41]I emailed her right away, couldn't have happened
[0:43]to a nicer person.
[0:44]Here's a little more about Laura.
[0:45]Laura Moriarty is the author of the National Bestseller,
[0:49]The Shaperone, as well as The Center of Everything,
[0:51]the rest of her life, and while I'm falling
[0:54]in addition to her new book, Sunlight, finds you,
[0:56]the read with Jenna Pick.
[0:57]She received her master's degree from the University of Kansas
[1:00]and was awarded the George Bennett Fellowship
[1:02]for Creative Writing at Felix Exeter Academy.
[1:05]Moriarty lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
[1:08]Welcome, Laura.
[1:09]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Butch
[1:11]to talk about.
[1:12]Sunlight finds you a novel.
[1:13]Congratulations.
[1:15]Thank you.
[1:15]Thank you so much.
[1:16]It's wonderful to be here.
[1:18]Can you please tell us, Nair,
[1:19]is what your book is about?
[1:21]Well, I wanted to write a love story
[1:23]and not exactly a romance, but a story
[1:26]about how a deeply felt love can change a person
[1:30]and alter the course of her life.
[1:33]Nora is a teenager in 1947 when her family moves
[1:38]to St. Petersburg, Florida.
[1:40]On the first day of high school, she meets Leonard
[1:42]lived in.
[1:43]And he's a few years ahead of her,
[1:47]and he's from a wealthier family,
[1:49]but they form a connection that is intellectual,
[1:52]as well as physical, and the feelings
[1:55]are so powerful between them within a few years,
[1:58]they're engaged, but plans change.
[2:01]And she ends up not just heartbroken and alone,
[2:05]but pregnant.
[2:06]And in this era, of course, being unmarried and pregnant
[2:10]is an especially isolating and humiliating circumstance.
[2:15]She has to make hard decisions quickly
[2:17]and even decades later, she's still thinking
[2:20]about the decision she made.
[2:23]She's still thinking about Leonard, who he really was,
[2:26]and why she can't forget him.
[2:28]Oh, well, I have to say some parts of the ending
[2:33]I was hoping for and others that I was hoping for
[2:36]didn't happen.
[2:37]And I guess that's just like life, right?
[2:40]Specifically, exactly, exactly.
[2:42]You get some partial victories.
[2:45]Yes, yes, it's really sweet.
[2:48]Yeah, bittersweet.
[2:49]That's a good way to say it.
[2:50]I feel like you totally captured this world the time.
[2:54]First of all, even in the beginning,
[2:56]you referred to sort of the racial dynamics
[2:58]of St. Pete back then.
[3:00]And there was an expression I've literally never heard before
[3:02]about walking on the streets.
[3:05]What was that called?
[3:06]Giving whites the wall.
[3:08]Yeah, I've never heard that before.
[3:10]Yeah, I mean either.
[3:11]I found it in my research.
[3:13]Oh, my gosh, so terrible.
[3:14]It's so terrible from the Jim Crow era,
[3:16]so white people would get to walk close to the wall.
[3:21]Yeah, and it was just so rigidly enforced,
[3:25]even in a town like St. Pete,
[3:28]which is coastal and had a lot of tourists from the north.
[3:31]It was still in the south.
[3:32]Yeah.
[3:33]Oh, okay.
[3:34]Well, anyway, from the beginning you set the scene up for us.
[3:37]And you show the huge influence of Leonard's parents,
[3:42]which is a huge piece of the book of her parents
[3:46]of her losing her mother young and what that does.
[3:49]And her stepmom, who becomes such a great character
[3:51]in her life.
[3:52]And what it feels like when you just want to throw everything
[3:56]to the wind and be with the one that you are so into, honestly.
[4:00]And then life and war and everything comes in the way.
[4:03]And how do you handle that?
[4:06]I actually understand the way the decisions
[4:10]that they made at that time, because what do you do
[4:13]in the face of the unknown like that?
[4:16]Yeah, so much of it is about dealing with uncertainty, right?
[4:20]Having to live with uncertainty and not
[4:23]knowing what's going to happen and not knowing where
[4:26]someone you love is, it's so much of it is about that.
[4:30]She really has to grow as a person.
[4:33]I mean, that is something I think we all
[4:34]have to wrestle with all the time is uncertainty
[4:37]and not knowing how things will turn out,
[4:39]not knowing what things will be OK,
[4:41]especially when the feeling, the caring is so strong.
[4:45]Yes, and deception and longing.
[4:50]There's so much here.
[4:51]The shame of coming back to a town after, you know,
[4:57]can I say that I don't want to give it to you anyway,
[4:59]but just have a sh-
[5:00]yet how she had to come back to the town and was like just so it was like the scarlet letter,
[5:06]right? There was so much shame in having a child at that age and going back to school and
[5:12]then how she ends up in like another situation that is not the best. Oh my gosh, I just,
[5:17]I feel like I've just been at such a journey. I mean, it's just amazing. Nora is a true warrior
[5:25]and has to deal with so much and yet comes out, it's through with her head up at the end,
[5:31]I feel like. I think she does too. I think she does too. You know, she is full of regret, right?
[5:38]Yeah, of course. It's a wonderful of it, right? But she has, she wishes she could go back
[5:46]and do some things differently. And one thing I really like about her is she looks back on her
[5:52]mistakes or her regrets with compassion. I think she does understand why she made them,
[5:59]you know, she was in love or she was under immense pressure. And so she has to, she gives herself
[6:07]a little bit of grace. And I think that that self-compassion she feels is why she's able to extend
[6:13]it to other people because that is really, I mean, her strength, I think, by the end. But you're
[6:20]right, she goes through so much, the betrayal is horrible. You know, I appreciate you not wanting
[6:26]to give so much away because there is so much, you know, I think leaders, early readers have said
[6:33]that they have appreciated, you know, what happens, like the sort of the surprises. And so
[6:39]thank you. All the twist and turns that make it up. I think it's early enough in the novel,
[6:46]you know, to say, yeah, she, these maternity homes, you know, the baby scoop era was so millions
[6:53]of women and girls. If you got pregnant between 1945 and 1973, they would send you to these homes,
[7:01]you know, when you were supposed to give birth and come back and say that nothing had happened.
[7:06]Hard to believe. So it was just so hard on these women, like reading their testimonies,
[7:11]you really saw that for most of them that are the women that I read about, they didn't just
[7:17]pick back up. They never got over it. It was devastating for their lives. Some of them do the find
[7:24]a way to take this immense trauma and this uncertainty and go ahead and live and try to find a way
[7:32]to find their way back to a full life. And that is just one part of Nora's story, but it's a huge,
[7:39]huge part. And yeah, a story I wanted to tell. I'll try to reference this obliquely, but one of
[7:46]my favorite scenes is when Nora is speaking to another woman who says, oh, you can't possibly imagine
[7:51]what it's like to, you know, not know. And she's like, oh, yes, I can. Yes, I can. Yes, I can do that.
[7:59]Oh, my God. Goosebumps. You also weave in, particularly towards the sort of the last third of the book,
[8:05]a lot of research about the war and what is going on in the times and different countries and
[8:12]like what happened and what the experience might be like for someone during those times. Tell me
[8:18]about the research that you did and your interest in this time. Wow. You know, someone mom grew up
[8:25]in Orlando around this time and the novel isn't about her. She, she passed away while I was
[8:32]writing this book. And as I know, and as her health declined, she and I talked a lot, you know,
[8:38]it was me. I think it was nice for her to know. I was working on a book set in Florida in this era,
[8:44]but she wasn't nostalgic for it. I mean, she was always nostalgic for Florida. She married my dad and
[8:50]moved north as soon as, you know, almost spent most of her adulthood in the northern states.
[8:57]But she always spoke with Florida about Florida with so much affection and love. But in the
[9:03]years when her health was declining and I was working on this book, we also talked about, you know,
[9:08]how hard it was to be a woman at this time when women had fewer options socially and legally
[9:15]and to come of age at this time. You know, and it talking with her and then reading about the
[9:20]experiences of other women from that generation, it really made me see how so many girls and women
[9:26]they had to navigate this narrow path. And they had the same dreams of autonomy and desires
[9:33]that we do now. And it made, it makes me grateful for the increased options we have now. It
[9:40]makes me want to protect those options because you really see. I mean, reading those testimonies,
[9:46]it makes you not nostalgic at all. And at the same time, I wanted to include all that was
[9:55]so wonderful about the era. You know, the music, the dancing, um.
[10:00]The homemade poodle skirts, you know, the fun and optimism of the era because there was so much that was great about it
[10:10]But you know, like you mentioned the segregation in the South, you know, there was a lot that wasn't great at all
[10:15]And I didn't want to sugarcoat it at all. Yeah, I didn't want to live in that time of period, but there was some parts that
[10:22]It's beautiful about it. Yeah
[10:25]Did it take you a long time to write the book like how long were you living in this world?
[10:29]Oh, it took me so long
[10:31]It took me so long for a variety of reasons. So one reason was is that I I got it wrong at first
[10:37]You know, this is this is my sixth novel and you think like oh, I'm gonna get better and better at knowing exactly how to do it
[10:45]But I didn't because I kept thinking I needed to write it in third person and I kept thinking I needed to write it in
[10:53]multiple points of view for the story to work. I was convinced that this was true and
[10:59]It just kind of wasn't
[11:01]Working like I knew the story and going into these other characters heads
[11:05]And it was sort of this distant remove which has worked fine in other novels
[11:10]I wrote the chaperone in third person and that worked fine
[11:13]It wasn't until I finally realized I needed to just write it in Nora's voice and let her tell the story
[11:20]And it was like it was like a balloon that was tied to something heavy and like cut the balloon and it just
[11:28]You know, and I oh and then it just sailed because I knew all the other characters so well
[11:32]So that was one reason is I was like I think of myself as like a room bus stuck in the corner
[11:37]You know, I was like backing up and backing up and I just
[11:41]I couldn't see it until I saw it and that's just the way it goes with writing
[11:46]I think sometimes I try to tell myself that all that time was at loss because that's when I was really starting to understand my characters
[11:54]The other reason is you know, not halfway through at some point during this novel
[11:58]I was diagnosed with oral cancer and it became a big deal
[12:04]You know, I'm so grateful to be here
[12:06]I am so grateful, but you know, I had a trick feeding tube. I had to have my jaw completely reconstructed radiation
[12:13]Gosh, yeah, yeah, it well, it was a lot and a lot of people a lot of people go through it. I'm so
[12:20]Glad to be here
[12:23]It did get me it slowed me down for sure right like
[12:27]You know because I teach at University of Kansas. I teach creative writing and I would
[12:32]Take time off to work on the book, you know, like I'd get a I'd get a semester off
[12:36]Or I could have fellowship and then something would happen, you know, and I couldn't write
[12:40]So that did slow me down, but it also, you know really got me thinking about how going through something painful and isolating can make you
[12:50]More vulnerable at first more fragile
[12:53]Less serve yourself, but in the end you can come out
[12:57]stronger and more sure of what you value more sure of who you can rely on
[13:03]And in the end you come out stronger. I didn't give Nora cancer. I thought okay
[13:08]She's got it off going on, but I think the way that she is
[13:12]You know the fallout from this relationship and the way she is betrayed
[13:17]Really knocks her down before she gets back up again
[13:22]How did you realize you had oral cancer? Oh?
[13:25]My gosh, it was so bananas. I thought you know
[13:28]I was so busy and I thought oh it hurts here and I don't smoke, you know
[13:34]And I I went to the dentist they got me into the periodontus because they're like
[13:38]Let's just have the periodontus look and he said oh, I think that's a kinker sore
[13:43]And so he said give it some time and it'll go away
[13:46]So I waited a couple weeks and it seemed worse
[13:48]I went back in and he's like well, you know, you think a kinker source from stress
[13:52]Are you under any stress and I was like well
[13:55]You know my mother was you know dying
[13:58]I had a teenager at home. We just gotten through the pandemic and I thought well sure, you know
[14:03]Okay, it's stress kinker source
[14:05]And then it got it got even worse
[14:08]But I was so wedded to this idea that it was a stress kinker sore
[14:13]and and and so I
[14:16]Waited I I waited, you know, I was busy. I was trying to get a lot of things done
[14:21]And I was like researching ways to get a kinker sore like lasered off and finally my friend's wife who is a nurse
[14:28]We're at a dinner party and she's listening to me and she said let me look at it and I said right now
[14:34]She said yeah right now and she looked at it and she said no one's gonna laser that off
[14:40]You you need to you need to see a period on to so and I said I just did it
[14:43]She said see another one and I did and right away
[14:46]He was like oh, I needed a biopsy
[14:50]That's when it began. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Did you ever go back and tell that first period on just you know
[14:57]I told
[14:59]I should
[15:00]right? I should have, just so he knew. I did call the office and I told, I told the receptionist
[15:08]and I told the, I know this, I told the current period on just so he would know and he said,
[15:15]okay, okay, I will, I will talk to him. So I, yeah, I was so rattled and you know, I kind of
[15:24]put it on myself. Yeah, it was a, it was the strange time. Yeah. But you know, the good thing
[15:32]is, is I got excellent care after that. It was a, it was a long journey. It was a long journey. I am so,
[15:39]so glad because you know, it was strange. Have you, have you read radium girls or? No. Okay. Well,
[15:46]one thing that's good about being a reader is it really opens you up to how, you know, life isn't fair.
[15:54]And I remember some of the nurses like everyone asked me when you get oral cancer, everyone says,
[15:58]are you a smoker? And then one thing, the first period on just asked me and I think when I said,
[16:04]no, he just sort of blocked out the idea that I, my cancer. And the nurses after I was diagnosed,
[16:12]they would say, oh, did you have, did you, were you a smoker? And if I said no, they'd go,
[16:17]oh, you must be so mad. And I think, oh, well, you know, no, not mad. I mean,
[16:23]if you read nonfiction or fiction, you know,
[16:28]anything can happen to anyone. And I had read radium girls and I actually got complications from
[16:36]the radiation, which might have saved my life. But that's why I lost my job bone. But that's what
[16:41]happened to the young woman in real life and radium girls. And they didn't have the medical technology
[16:47]or the knowledge to rescue them. And I did. You know, and so I think reading can give you a
[16:54]perspective, you know, about what a past generations have dealt with and give you a lot of gratitude
[17:03]for what you have today, even when you're going through something hard. Oh my gosh,
[17:08]what a journey. I'm sad. What a bizarre question. Like, as if you should have gone and smoked,
[17:16]Jeremy, like, it's just bizarre bizarre response. It's really funny because it was like, why?
[17:22]Because of all those cigarettes, like, kind of how it's like, it was so strange. And it's like,
[17:27]you know, and it people come up with these sort of rules, I think, to keep them safe.
[17:32]All right, like they say, like, I honestly had one woman say to me, she said, um,
[17:39]well, she said, so strange. So this friend of mine had like set me up with like a
[17:45]healing practitioner, you know, and it was like a free thing. And I thought, okay, good. I'll go
[17:51]because I was really rattled. And so this healing person, she texted me the next day. She said,
[17:56]is it, I got a really strong feeling? Is it okay if I share it with you? And I thought she was
[18:02]going to say something like, like something kind of fortune cookie. Like, yeah, yeah. But she said,
[18:07]um, you know, a lot of people get oral cancer because they don't speak their truth.
[18:11]And I thought, oh my gosh, you know, you idiot, you know, and I was so, I was so mad. I mean,
[18:18]because, you know, babies get cancer. Are they not speaking their truth? You know, like, come on,
[18:23]their life is not fair. Like, yeah, bad things just can happen. Yes. You know, there's a lot of
[18:30]fortune and misfortune. And you've got to take it as you come, but I think she and all of us
[18:37]to an extent, we try to say, okay, if I do X, why won't happen? It's not always true.
[18:43]Yeah. I think that's, it's an uncomfortable truth that people would prefer not to think,
[18:49]because if we all wake up every day and understand truly the randomness of life,
[18:55]I think it would be hard to just like make breakfast and get on with it. You know,
[18:59]exactly. Now, like a defense mechanism of sorts, but anyway,
[19:06]oh my goodness, are you going to write another book? What are you up to now?
[19:09]Oh, boy. Oh, right now, I've been so busy, like, I'm getting ready for this one, you know,
[19:15]which is more super exciting. I always, I kind of have an idea for one, right? And I'm like,
[19:20]that's sort of the biggest step is checking it. You know, like really thinking, okay, is this really,
[19:27]is this really what I, what I should be doing? You know, like it's, that's, if you mess up on the big
[19:34]step because I've done that, right? All right. Like if you make a bad decision early on in the
[19:40]tree branch of writing a novel, but earlier you make the, the bad decision, maybe I shouldn't
[19:46]call it that, the harder it is to remedy or the more time it's going to take off of sometimes,
[19:52]it just takes time and that's how it goes. So I try to be really thoughtful about, you know,
[19:57]in my passionate enough about this idea.
[20:00]like am I just looking for an idea?
[20:02]It's a lot like falling in love, you know?
[20:06]Because you can kind of see like a beautiful idea.
[20:10]And you think, oh, or maybe you're just really ready
[20:13]for a beautiful idea.
[20:14]So you decide an idea is beautiful.
[20:18]You really like maybe introduce that idea
[20:20]to some of your friends.
[20:22]So I know I have an idea for a normal
[20:25]and I'm like, I would like to read this.
[20:28]But do I really want to write that?
[20:30]Like, should I do like a survey and ask people
[20:33]if they want to read it?
[20:34]And then I'm like, if I have to ask other people,
[20:36]then I shouldn't write it.
[20:38]I mean, oh, okay.
[20:39]So you feel, that's kind of the opposite.
[20:42]It's like if I have to ask other people.
[20:44]Right, like you have to want to do it yourself.
[20:46]You can't want to do it because other people, you know?
[20:49]I don't know.
[20:50]You have to be something that you can't not do.
[20:53]Yeah.
[20:54]Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
[20:56]I think that is a good,
[20:57]that's a good way to ask for sure.
[20:59]Yeah.
[20:59]So I guess we'll see what you come up with next.
[21:04]Will Laura, thank you so much.
[21:05]Thanks for sharing your health journey.
[21:08]Thanks for sharing these characters.
[21:09]Thanks for introducing me to a time and place in history
[21:12]that I did not know about.
[21:13]I've never been to St. Pete
[21:15]and I certainly haven't been there at that time and beyond.
[21:18]So thanks for the escapist moment
[21:22]and for giving hope in a very confusing and predictable time.
[21:27]Thank you and it is so nice to meet you, Zippy.
[21:29]Thank you so much.
[21:30]A nice to meet you too.
[21:31]Okay.
[21:33]All right, take care, Laura.
[21:34]Thank you.
[21:34]Thank you.
[21:35]Bye bye.
[21:36]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zippy.
[21:39]Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[21:41]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[21:45]follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens
[21:47]and spread the word.
[21:49]Thanks so much.
[21:50]Oh, and bye the books.