Elizabeth Wellington Rollins on Writing Her Way Home
[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! Okay, I have a debut author alert. Pay
[0:30]attention to Elizabeth Wellington Rollins, who wrote the three graces of Pearl
[0:34]Street. I met Elizabeth Wellington Rollins at the Greenwich
[0:38]Retreat, the Zibi Petit Retreat we hosted with Athena Books a year or two ago,
[0:42]and thought she was really impressive and couldn't wait
[0:46]for her book to come out. It came out and I loved it. It's really good. She's
[0:50]a great writer, so I think that she has a long, exciting career ahead of her. If I had to
[0:56]guess, anyway, Elizabeth Wellington Rollins is a writer and award-winning
[1:00]copywriter. She grew up outside New York City and graduated from Davidson College,
[1:04]her work has appeared in Condenas Traveler, The Week, Travel & Leisure, and Folk.
[1:08]She lives in Vermont with her family, and again, Elizabeth Wellington Rollins,
[1:12]the three graces of Pearl Street. Welcome, Liz. Thank you so much for coming
[1:16]on totally booked to talk about the three graces of Pearl Street.
[1:20]Congrats. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me Zibi. I'm so excited to be here.
[1:25]By the way, I saw this was a book of the month club pick that is so exciting.
[1:30]Huge. It's huge. It's so exciting. Yeah, it was one of the best emails I've ever
[1:36]gotten, and they're just the loveliest team, and I'm just so grateful to
[1:42]have that wind at my back going into launch in September. Oh my gosh, amazing.
[1:47]So you and I first met at the Greenwich Retreat right at Athena Books.
[1:51]Like a year or two ago, a year ago, I don't remember. And year, I think it was last October,
[1:55]last October, and now your book is coming into the world back up before we talk about the book
[2:02]itself, and just where are you? Like, how did this all happen? How did you get a book published?
[2:08]Did you live in Greenwich? Give me the backstory.
[2:11]How did we get hairless? I don't get hair. I feel like everyone has a winding road.
[2:16]It's one of these different life paths where like it's completely custom, and it looks
[2:21]different for every person. But I'm originally from Westchester. My family has deep roots in New York,
[2:26]on both sides. My parents were high school sweethearts and mamer Nick, three out of my four
[2:31]grandparents from the area, which is why you saw me in Greenwich, because I was home seeing family.
[2:36]And now I live in a tiny town in Vermont near where my husband's from, which is very different
[2:41]in a lot of ways to my own childhood. And I always wanted to be a writer I think since I was 18,
[2:47]I actually worked at a local bookstore in New York during college and after college. And I just
[2:53]loved talking to readers. I loved finding people who were reluctant readers, books that would kind
[2:59]of get them like hooked into reading. And I'm so sorry, arcade in rye. Yeah, so I spent a lot of time
[3:08]convincing middle school boys to read. To do their summer reading and like finding custom,
[3:15]what I thought would be the right stack for them based on their interests. And in my 20s,
[3:20]I built a career kind of that had two legs. I was doing a lot of copywriting in tech in private
[3:27]equity. And then on the weekends, I would write under my own name, mainly travel writing and essays.
[3:33]And but I always wanted to be a fiction author. And about eight years ago, I started working on
[3:39]fiction. And it just really lit me up. And this is actually my second novel that I've written
[3:45]the first one I did get representation for, but it didn't sell in its first round. And I was halfway
[3:50]through the three graces of Pearl Street, the first draft of it in my agent was like, I think this,
[3:56]this is it like it runs so deep the story. It's really draws on my childhood. There's three points
[4:03]of view. It's like pretty dynamic. And she was like, let's run with this one. So I finished it. And
[4:08]we got it out the door. And I got the dream call from Atria, which is an imprint of Simon and
[4:13]Schuster. And they've just been the most wonderful people to work with. I'm very, very lucky. My team
[4:19]so kind and supportive and really like gets the book. And it's been a terrific experience,
[4:26]you know, since I got that phone call. That's amazing. Well, I have to tell you this book is so good.
[4:32]I like it's so good. It's original. It's the points of view are unique. I don't think I've ever
[4:40]read a point of view from like a 96 year old form, you know, Italian American mom who is such a
[4:47]a powerhouse, who I love. She's like my favorite. One of my favorite characters in fiction,
[4:53]like won't take it anything from anyone has like this extra sense of her grand.
[5:00]her daughter like just will not stop at anything for the people that she loves. Not that she's so
[5:06]like warm and fuzziness, necessarily, but just you know she is such a powerhouse and and then
[5:12]contrasting her and like how she feeds everyone and the fuel and the community and how she holds
[5:19]all them up and then her granddaughter Ella who is when we first meet her kind of almost you know
[5:25]like wasting away with this like vegan-imposed crazy living in a loft lifestyle you know adhering
[5:31]to her beliefs but also dealing with like some significant health issues too. I mean she has
[5:37]diabetes and you know struggles to manage all of that and then the mom who's like in this in-between
[5:42]moment is like dunking in the freezing cold ocean to do her flashes I mean oh my gosh so it's like
[5:48]a mix of funny and moving and propulsive because you start with this like major event happening in
[5:56]Times Square so for people who pick up the book and think like this is a lovely quiet like Italian
[6:03]countryside but that no no no no no no no no no that is not at all. Yeah I think it's you know I come
[6:11]from a family where there's like so much love and there was a specific energy because my grandmother
[6:16]Lucia she was born Lucia Quayazzi and Maternik first-generation American and she was one of four
[6:22]sisters and so I felt that big energy between all five of them and I wanted to kind of distill it
[6:29]and concentrate it down into into one person who is larger than life and it was really fun to write
[6:36]yeah these three women and kind of capture their energy and there is that propulsive moment
[6:42]in Times Square which I don't know how much do I wait don't don't give it away yeah but it
[6:48]actually grew from a real thing that happened when I was in Boston so yes it's uh I really wanted
[6:56]the book to feel lived in and felt and textured and so I really tried to anchor it it's certainly
[7:03]not based on anyone in my life or in the world but I tried to like pull these little strands that
[7:09]I knew super well so I said it in the neighborhood my grandmother grew up in that I know like
[7:15]the back of my hand my great uncle Tony ran an Italian market that inspired the market in the novel
[7:22]and I really wrote my way home because I was postpart and was my daughter living in this tiny town
[7:28]and I missed the essence of kind of how I was raised and the spirit of New Yorkers which is very
[7:35]much reflected in the Nona Graziella's energy which is she's incredibly no nonsense she's straight
[7:42]talking she has a takes up a lot of space in the world for such a tiny person and yet she's
[7:48]endlessly generous she'd go to the ends of the earth for anybody and it's that perfect combination
[7:55]that feels incredibly nurturing to me as a New Yorker and I kind of wanted to draw on it and capture
[8:01]that too from my daughter since I'm not raising her in the thick of it right now. Wow I
[8:07]love that you said that you're writing your way home I want a beautiful way to say that really it
[8:12]was and I truly mean that because I made both the setting the primary settings Graziella's
[8:18]house and graces house replicas of my grandmother's houses because I just wanted to go sit on
[8:23]the couch and be fed and I felt like it would bring me joy and it's been so meaningful especially
[8:30]as the book kind of gets its wings and we've had some foreign rights sell I've heard from editors
[8:36]in so many different parts of the world that it feels like home to them too and the idea that
[8:42]kind of the specificity of something that's so tangible to me could resonate you know beyond these
[8:50]shores is is really magical so oh I love that so beautiful oh my gosh tell me a little bit more
[8:58]about the plotting of the story and how you kept that the momentum up and how you I mean you
[9:08]you have a lot of really big themes right yeah mother-daughter relationships grandmother like
[9:14]finding yourself like our life's purpose in a way and even living in the world right because there's
[9:20]like climate activism in a way there's repurposing materials there's food and the source of the
[9:28]I mean there's so much yeah there's like the everyday so how did you approach this how did you
[9:35]approach it yeah you know it's really interesting in one sense I had this structure that I wanted
[9:41]to hold which is there's this Roman myth of the three graces which is based on a Greek myth
[9:46]and these three goddesses who are sisters are meant to embody the highest female virtues
[9:54]which it's radiance joy and blossoming and I was kind of like is that all we got like you
[10:00]women living in kind of the feminine.
[10:03]I feel like we are so dynamic and we have so much death and breath, you know, we bring
[10:08]life into the world.
[10:09]We hope people when they die.
[10:11]And what I found out when I kind of dug a little bit deeper is that the original meaning
[10:16]of the Greek word that's origin for the myth also means kind of generosity and the good
[10:24]will that comes from living in generosity.
[10:27]And so the three graces were often the statues of them were erected throughout the ancient
[10:33]world, throughout ancient Greece and Rome, to remind people to live in this kind of virtuous
[10:41]cycle of giving, accepting gifts, and then returning gifts.
[10:45]And so each one of them is representative of one of those three things.
[10:50]And so for me, I, again, those were the values that I most associated with my childhood
[10:55]among ordinary New Yorkers.
[10:57]And so that was kind of the fishbowl, like what I was holding.
[11:01]But at the same time, I went into the actual first draft writing process.
[11:07]And I knew kind of their starting points to three of them.
[11:11]But I actually really wanted to be surprised.
[11:14]So I did not plot because I wanted to be cut off guard.
[11:19]I wanted to think about what is the thing this character could do that is the most true
[11:25]to themselves and completely surprised with me.
[11:28]And as someone who in her career has been pretty methodical, you know, I've done a lot
[11:32]of like intense kind of corporate writing about tax code in random countries.
[11:40]And I've done, you know, traditional contributed as a freelance writer and gone through
[11:46]kind of the rigor of traditional journalism as well.
[11:49]And so I really kind of set myself free here.
[11:52]And I have to say that the process brought me so much joy.
[11:57]And I think that really comes through.
[11:59]I hope when people read it.
[12:01]So it was absolutely just a delight.
[12:05]And I've also had so many positive things like that feeling of home coming has continued
[12:10]as the book is getting closer to being published.
[12:13]I actually got the most meaningful thing that has happened to me since I started writing
[12:17]it is one of my grandmother's best friends who I didn't realize was still with us,
[12:23]was in the American Senior Center and her gossip about this book, about the neighborhood
[12:28]she lives in and heard the genie's daughter wrote this book.
[12:33]And she left my mother's cousin of voicemail who then forward the voicemail to her sister
[12:39]to my mother to me.
[12:41]And I got to call essentially this woman who was like my great aunt growing up who's just
[12:45]absolutely fearless, absolutely kind of embodies that nurturing, but no, does not suffer
[12:51]fool's combination.
[12:53]And I got to tell her about the novel and send it to her.
[12:55]So that was a very long answer, but both in the process of the book.
[13:00]And since the publishing, you know, wheels started turning, there have been these surprises.
[13:07]And this kind of hismit that I can't take responsibility for, but has been one of the
[13:13]joys of my life to just experience.
[13:15]Wow.
[13:16]I love that.
[13:18]As a parent, I feel like I also particularly relate to what happens, like when your kids
[13:24]are growing up and you, you know, all you want is to protect them and yet ultimately they're
[13:31]all out of our grasp.
[13:32]And I feel like Ella embodies this so much because, again, she does have an extra element
[13:36]of sickness and grace does have an extra sensory perception of it a little bit in her
[13:42]mom.
[13:43]Not that she's so sick, you know, you know, not, yes, but it requires day to day when diabetes
[13:48]is truly life or death moment to moment in a way that is so humbling when you learn about
[13:53]it.
[13:54]It just will make you an awe of not only people who live with it and live full lives, but also
[14:01]mothers who help their kids manage it moment to moment basis.
[14:05]Yeah.
[14:06]It's profound.
[14:07]I have a friend who will, you know, take out a phone and show the levels of things, you
[14:11]know, I mean, that you have to always be in touch.
[14:13]How did you pick, do you know someone with the, with type one diabetes?
[14:17]I do.
[14:18]And I also, it is completely, diabetes is almost a category for a few different issues
[14:24]and type one diabetes is an autoimmune disease.
[14:28]But I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with my daughter and even that level
[14:34]of management, which was far less than someone with type one diabetes because it's temporary
[14:39]and it has to do with hormones in your placenta still required moment to moment action
[14:46]and kind of oversight and completely shifting my lifestyle with the day that I found out,
[14:53]insulin management, all of the things.
[14:55]And my daughter is now healthy and...
[15:00]She, her health issues that she was born with result,
[15:03]but I kind of flew into motherhood with a lot of challenges
[15:08]in the pregnancy, labor delivery, and postpartum,
[15:10]including a daughter with a cleft of the soft palate
[15:13]that went undiagnosed.
[15:15]And, you know, basically, she couldn't eat.
[15:19]And we were trying to figure it out.
[15:21]And it sparked something in me where I was like,
[15:23]wow, like motherhood is so complex
[15:26]and it's so challenging.
[15:28]But it really is a universal experience.
[15:30]And for so many moms, they have to keep their child alive
[15:35]on a moment to moment basis in a way that some of us don't have to.
[15:39]And I just walking through that process of my daughter
[15:44]helping her through her surgery.
[15:45]And now she's on the other side.
[15:47]And I've kind of stepped into a different type of experience.
[15:51]It just left me in awe of mothers who, every moment of every day,
[15:56]need to live their lives and do every single thing that I do.
[15:59]And also, like, keep their finger on the pulse
[16:03]and be there at a moment's notice
[16:05]to support their child in a very practical, actual way.
[16:11]And I thought that that was just something
[16:13]that I wanted to write about almost as a way of honoring
[16:18]an ingratitude of moms who never get to leave that stage,
[16:22]really.
[16:24]Yeah.
[16:25]It's hard enough just on an ordinary day being a mom.
[16:28]Yes.
[16:29]And then yes, yes.
[16:30]I had in layer of on layer of on layer.
[16:32]It's wild.
[16:35]And you captured all that beautifully, really did.
[16:37]Thank you.
[16:38]Thank you.
[16:39]Why?
[16:40]By the way, why are you in Vermont?
[16:42]Like what took you there and why are you here to tell me
[16:45]about your life there and what does that look like?
[16:47]My husband is from the area.
[16:49]And we met working in Boston in our 20s.
[16:52]And we actually spent two years abroad in Madrid.
[16:55]And I was doing child learning on the weekend mainly for Vogue,
[16:58]running my business, copywriting from there.
[17:01]And he was working for a Spanish company.
[17:03]And when we, whenever we visited this area,
[17:08]I sort of shockingly fell in love with it.
[17:10]It's called the Upper Valley.
[17:11]So it's Upper Connecticut River Valley
[17:14]that includes parts of New Hampshire and Vermont.
[17:17]But it's very much a Piedmont.
[17:19]It's really agrarian.
[17:21]It's very old-fashioned.
[17:22]My daughter knows the names of the cows
[17:24]that we can work from.
[17:26]And it's been incredible in the sense of giving me
[17:31]a kind of mental spaciousness to write.
[17:34]And I also feel really grateful coming from a community
[17:37]in the Tri-State area, again, just New Yorkers all the way.
[17:42]I think on my dad's head, I'm a 14th generation.
[17:45]New Yorker, my mom's, I was a fourth generation.
[17:49]I'm really grateful that I've gotten to experience
[17:51]a really small rural community.
[17:54]There is this paradox that people show up for each other here
[17:59]and with the same spirit that my characters do in the novel.
[18:03]And I'm really grateful that I've gotten
[18:05]to experience that in a different setting.
[18:07]When I was, again, struggling in my pregnancy,
[18:11]there were women in our little town of 900 people
[18:13]who were bringing me custom meals all great to my very severe
[18:19]dietary restrictions and just sitting
[18:23]and having a cup of tea with me.
[18:24]And I have to say, it's a vastly different experience
[18:27]than I was raised in.
[18:29]And again, I'm almost grateful for that contrast
[18:31]because it points you toward what's universal between us.
[18:35]And I think in this moment, in the world,
[18:38]we can't have enough of that.
[18:40]So absolutely.
[18:42]When you were writing the book or their books,
[18:44]you looked to to say, I want my book to be in this category
[18:47]with like these books.
[18:49]Yeah, that's great.
[18:50]That's such a good question.
[18:52]So there was one, there's one book
[18:55]that my book was really in conversation with
[18:58]that I didn't want it to be like it,
[19:00]but it was almost the book that I was playing tennis with
[19:03]as I wrote this book, if that makes sense,
[19:05]which is the Godfather.
[19:07]I actually felt, you know, it's a succession drama
[19:10]and a family saga about men who basically like,
[19:15]you know, a family of Italian-American immigrants
[19:18]who arrive here face just as many problems here,
[19:20]plus prejudice as they did at home.
[19:23]And it's sort of their rise and fall within the American dream
[19:27]and very much anti-heroes complex violent men.
[19:31]And I felt like I think part of the reason
[19:34]why people love actually that movie, The Sopranos,
[19:38]is because of the cultural elements
[19:41]and because of the fanliness of the story.
[19:44]And so I really wanted to honor
[19:46]ordinary Italian-American women,
[19:48]like my grandmother who raised me with a family saga
[19:53]and a succession drama with the same kind of heft
[19:57]and attention to detail that.
[20:00]that Mario Putso brought to his novel,
[20:02]but about good women doing extraordinarily good things.
[20:06]And it was kind of my way of filling out that story
[20:09]because there was just so much decency in the way
[20:13]that they raised me and lived there,
[20:15]my grandmother's sisters and lived their lives.
[20:18]And I wanted to shine a light on that.
[20:20]Last question.
[20:21]So we had, I'm looking at the cover.
[20:23]So we had a little cat here and a beautiful scene
[20:27]with like a still life scene, a window and all that.
[20:31]It doesn't read overly Italian.
[20:34]It doesn't, like tell me about the decision to use.
[20:37]This is the cover.
[20:38]The sort of a beautiful painted,
[20:40]reminds me it almost, I don't know why,
[20:42]I've held a beautiful or something
[20:44]with like the paint texture of it.
[20:46]Yes.
[20:47]And a Palatano, yes.
[20:49]And that was one of the books that we also were like,
[20:51]oh, this could be kind of in the family of that experience.
[20:55]So we decided to go with like a painterly,
[20:58]we wanted it to feel like you were enveloped,
[21:01]like just warmth.
[21:03]And we wanted it to feel bold
[21:05]because Graciella or matriarch is very bold.
[21:10]And I was really my big request for them
[21:13]was I want there to be a big pop of red
[21:16]because to me, red is sauce or gravy,
[21:20]depending on the family or from red is the color that is.
[21:25]In the American flag and the Italian flag
[21:28]and red is like blood and family and warmth.
[21:32]And so I wanted that and I also really wanted the cat on there
[21:36]because cats are really a through line from the first page.
[21:40]And my first pet, I'm a big like animal person
[21:44]and my first pet was a tabby, an orange tabby.
[21:48]So yeah, I felt grateful with how it,
[21:51]it is a little bit more universal.
[21:54]So my hope is that people pick it up thinking,
[21:57]oh, this is the way it's gonna make me feel
[22:00]and then they get drawn into the specificity
[22:02]of the specific family I'm writing about
[22:05]once they open the page.
[22:06]Love it.
[22:07]You've invited us all to the table.
[22:09]Yes, that's what I hope it feels like.
[22:11]I really do and it's just been a joy to see it start
[22:17]to get into people's hands.
[22:18]And I think with Book of the Month Club,
[22:19]that'll be even more so in the next week or two.
[22:23]Really exciting.
[22:24]Well, congratulations, you're a great writer.
[22:28]It's so fun to talk about a debut and know
[22:32]that like over the next 20 years, God willing,
[22:35]like I'll be reading more of your books.
[22:37]And we, you know, I mean, you're a really great writer
[22:41]with a unique voice who creates these fabulous characters
[22:46]that live on and it's just very exciting.
[22:50]It's a very refreshing, exciting voice that you have
[22:52]and narrative and the way you're telling the story
[22:55]and yeah, really immersive, really exciting.
[22:58]I'm thrilled for you.
[22:59]Thank you.
[23:00]Well, the first time, I was just last thing
[23:02]at first time I actually walked into a group of people.
[23:06]I didn't know.
[23:07]I was like, I have a novel coming out
[23:09]was last part of my own.
[23:12]Everybody there was so nice.
[23:14]It's a little scary to say the first time
[23:15]because you're like, you know, like I wanted to do this thing
[23:19]for 20 years and now I have to say it.
[23:21]And everyone was so warm.
[23:23]And it was just like a fabulous first kind of moment
[23:28]for me on the edge and the cusp of this industry.
[23:31]So thank you.
[23:32]Oh, that's amazing.
[23:33]Love it.
[23:34]All right, well, best of luck.
[23:35]I'll be watching and cheering.
[23:36]So much, Sivi.
[23:37]All right, take care.
[23:38]Take care.
[23:39]Thank you.
[23:40]Thank you.
[23:41]Bye.
[23:41]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Sivi.
[23:44]Formerly, mom's don't have time to read books.
[23:47]If you loved the show, tell a friend.
[23:49]Leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Sivi Owens.
[23:53]And spread the word.
[23:54]Thanks so much.
[23:55]Oh, and bye the books.