Bonnie Garmus on Her Novel After Lessons in Chemistry
[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, who here read lessons in chemistry?
[0:29]Well, author Bonnie Garmas, who was on my podcast to discuss that book
[0:33]before it came out, which is very exciting, is back with a new book called
[0:38]Peck and Peck. Everyone will be reading it. I am sure, and I was thrilled to interview
[0:43]her a few weeks ago about the upcoming book and how she feels about writing
[0:49]in the next book and so much else. I absolutely adore Bonnie, and I just
[0:54]said the best time. If you don't know about her and perhaps missed lessons
[0:58]in chemistry, it was a Good Morning America book club pick, Good Reads
[1:02]Choice, Best Book of the Year, and a Barnes and Noble Book of the Year, and it
[1:05]spent nearly two years on the New York Times bestseller list. Nearly three years
[1:10]on Dare Spiegel and was selected as one of the top 100 books in the
[1:14]21st century by readers of the New York Times and was voted number five of
[1:19]Australia's ABC radio, top 100 books of the 21st century.
[1:23]Selected by Queen Camilla for the Queen's Reading Room, it has been
[1:27]honored with 16 other international literary awards, translated into more
[1:31]than 40 languages. It was made into an Apple TV limited series.
[1:35]Now she is back with Peck and Peck, and here is the inside scoop.
[1:40]Welcome Bonnie, thank you so much for coming back on totally booked.
[1:43]To talk about your new book, Peck and Peck, congratulations.
[1:46]Oh, thank you for having me Zibi. I'm excited.
[1:50]Yay, I'm excited too. By the way, my mom and I both read this.
[1:54]We just went on a trip together. And my mom was like, but I thought it was about
[1:58]the department store back in the day in New York City.
[2:01]I know, you know what, somebody else said that to me to somebody who lived in
[2:04]New York and they said, it's not set in a department store.
[2:07]Yeah, I found out about the department store afterwards.
[2:14]Too funny. Okay. Well, why don't you tell everybody what
[2:17]Peck and Peck is about, especially as a big follow up to lessons
[2:21]in chemistry. And oh my gosh, you must be feeling that pressure.
[2:25]Oh my God. Well, yeah, so Peck and Peck is about a young man who
[2:29]graduates from college and like so many people who graduate from college,
[2:33]especially if you're in the arts has no idea what he should really be doing with
[2:36]this life. And that is really because we undervalue the arts.
[2:40]We always tend to think if you want a sure fire career, then you go into medicine
[2:44]or you go into law or you go into accounting, but you go into something
[2:48]that has a path. And for the arts, there is no path.
[2:52]You make your own path every single time.
[2:54]So I really wanted to, after lessons in chemistry, go back to an area
[2:58]where that I had once been, but also where I think a lot of people are
[3:02]regardless of whether or not they become scientists or mathematicians,
[3:06]which is that feeling after college of now what?
[3:10]And so I wanted to explore that in this young man,
[3:14]but I also wanted to take on the idea of how important the arts are right now
[3:20]in our country, but all over the world, especially with AI moving
[3:24]into the arts field where it doesn't belong.
[3:27]And so I really wanted to explore that because
[3:30]AI has been around a very long time.
[3:32]And in the past, we always knew it should be regulated.
[3:35]And down in the present, that seems to have gone the way of the
[3:39]dodo bird.
[3:41]Like how you tied that in to like 50 different current things.
[3:44]Very good.
[3:46]Yeah.
[3:47]If I was underlining, you know, sitting in a packet pack with like my
[3:51]little pencil underlining check.
[3:53]Yeah.
[3:54]No, it's true.
[3:55]It's true.
[3:56]You know, I worked in technology for quite a long time.
[3:58]So AI was knocked about for decades.
[4:02]I mean, it wasn't new to me, but it was always met with so much
[4:06]respect and fear and not anymore.
[4:09]And so that's about 10 years ago when I got the idea for this book.
[4:14]That's what it was from.
[4:16]This feeling that things had shifted in technology and it was no longer
[4:21]about doing the right thing or what would be truly innovative for human
[4:25]time, but what would be doing the right thing for someone else's
[4:29]pocketbook.
[4:30]And that you can feel that dramatic shift.
[4:33]So yeah, I felt like I, you know, especially being in technology back then
[4:38]it wasn't like this.
[4:40]Nobody else seemed to fear it because it wasn't a topic back then outside
[4:44]of technology.
[4:45]But now everybody knows that.
[4:48]Very true.
[4:49]Yeah.
[4:50]Well, of course, I mean, we're all talking about the fact that AI
[4:52]can write.
[4:53]Right.
[4:54]And even though it comes from material that's out there, is it possible?
[4:57]Yeah.
[5:00]Stolen material. Yeah, still in material. Yeah. Yeah. Not not out there in the either out there in the right. Yeah. Yeah.
[5:06]Yeah.
[5:09]So I really want to focus on we used to know what plagiarism was.
[5:14]And now people think that they can write because what they are actually doing is plagiarizing. And I will just say that the companies have made it easy for them and acceptable to steal.
[5:24]And I really fear that there's a sort of moral degradation in our nation. You know, this integrity is really, really skimming the bottom of the earth right now. And just in this area, but of course in several others.
[5:40]Well, theft is a theme of sorts, you could say in the book in terms of whose ideas where to share the ideas that you have when to hide them, when to blast over the rooftops, you know, all of that from a private journal all the way to carefully submitted poems to the journals and who has authorship.
[6:04]All of these things are incredibly important. But now putting them in that context, I can see the book in a different way altogether. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Love that.
[6:14]Okay. So you started working on this 10 years ago and was this the book that when we spoke about lessons in chemistry, you were already ignoring. Yes. I was ignoring this book, but this isn't really that book because it's gone through so many permutations in my brain.
[6:30]And so it's sort of a little bit from that world, but not as much as you might think. Yeah, not not quite as much. And to be honest, you know, I, I really wanted to focus this book on poetry.
[6:44]I thought was going to be a very dangerous thing to do sort of like writing about chemistry is not a subject people want to read about. And I understood that, but I think poetry might even be a little bit worse than chemistry for some people, which I completely understand because I don't write poetry. I am not a poet.
[7:03]I just sort of be dragged to it when I was a kid in high school. And when I started to return to it decades ago, or really not. Yeah, about 15 years ago, I realized I realized that it's irreplaceable.
[7:17]And I realized that people really, really need to protect this art. And I wanted to explore why that was. And I finally figured out that for me at least poetry is one of the arts that continually evolves.
[7:32]It continually evades extinction, even though you won't find anyone reading poetry on the subway, you know, you won't find anyone going into Barnes and Noble and saying, where's the huge poetry section?
[7:47]It's just, and so I sort of think about this particular art and why it's so important. And it really occurred to me that we turned to poetry during our most emotional moments in our lives at our weddings and at our funerals. And when we're feeling most lost.
[8:04]And the reason why it's so important is because, and I truly believe this, the poets because they're always writing their feelings. They're always telling the truth. They're not like novelists like me and they're not like copywriters like me.
[8:16]They're always telling what they feel in that moment. And that's why it has so much power. And so I wanted to understand where they get their power and why it survived. And I've decided that it does survive because it refuses to give in.
[8:31]I love that. That's really beautiful. I mean, I think poetry, even though you say people might not be making a B line towards the section, there is a huge audience who really loves respects that is they stick their identity on it.
[8:45]And now with, I mean, as you well know, but on Instagram, like Instagram poets are like a thing. I mean, they back the medium because that emotional translation is so up front and center on Instagram.
[9:01]So people who are sharing poetry one on one, you know, intimacy of like looking into to each other's eyes like that's taking off.
[9:09]I really, yeah, I agree. I really hope that it continues to take off because, you know, the poets have to be performers on top of everything else.
[9:18]And I think a lot of them are even more shy than novelist. And I think it's a hard thing to do. But I follow this one, Poe, who's Scottish. I don't know if you've heard of her Lynn Penny.
[9:30]I could just watch her all day. She's so passionate. She's so powerful. And I just think that she has nailed it. She has nailed that complete honesty right at the camera.
[9:42]But in the book, it's not necessarily all from a place of honesty. Right. There's a lot of behind the scenes going on here. And I'm wondering when you were constructing pack and peg and all the different threads and the twists and the turns which are significant.
[10:00]Do you plot all this out at a time?
[10:03]Did you have a map on the wall?
[10:05]And I know this is such a trait question,
[10:06]but as I've followed all the threads,
[10:08]and I'm like, oh my gosh, look where we're going now.
[10:11]Did she know that we were gonna go here?
[10:14]Yeah, no, I don't write from an outline.
[10:16]I figure if I can't surprise myself,
[10:19]I can't surprise anyone else.
[10:21]And I do sometimes wish that I was an outline writer.
[10:24]I wish that I could just go,
[10:26]oh yeah, I know I'm going to through this door now,
[10:29]but that's just not how it works for me.
[10:31]Which is why I'm such a rewriter.
[10:34]I mean, there are 2,000 pages of Peck and Peck,
[10:36]no one will ever see.
[10:38]Because I constantly explore,
[10:40]that's for me, the only joy in it.
[10:42]I like to go down all the rabbit holes
[10:45]and see where they might go.
[10:47]But yeah, there is a lot of dishonesty.
[10:49]And that's the conflict I wanted in the book,
[10:52]the main conflict is who's telling the truth?
[10:55]And that was the other thing about today
[10:57]really hard to know who's telling the truth out there.
[11:00]And especially with all the manipulation and thing.
[11:03]And so things and so I really wanted that
[11:05]to be front and center of,
[11:07]you're expecting this to be true, but is it?
[11:10]You're expecting this to be false, but is it?
[11:14]Love that.
[11:15]And I guess another way you're capturing,
[11:18]so today's that guys is,
[11:20]better is working in the copy room, right?
[11:23]He had a job and a copy center.
[11:24]Now he's literally in the bowels of this fortress
[11:29]of a poetry, periodical.
[11:31]And is down there just like making copies the way,
[11:34]I imagine all the, the kinkos of days passed
[11:37]when I was like in college.
[11:38]This is like, you know, anyway,
[11:40]but copying people's work, of course,
[11:42]is what you were just talking about.
[11:44]Like, is it okay that we copy?
[11:46]Is it, are we flattering someone?
[11:48]Or are we plagiarizing someone?
[11:50]And what does it mean for the person in the basement
[11:53]to just be taking all of these ideas
[11:56]and remanufacturing them?
[11:58]I don't know.
[11:58]It's like an allegory.
[12:00]Exactly right, exactly right.
[12:02]That's what I was hoping people would see.
[12:03]So it is, you know, I really want people to think
[12:06]about that question is who owns what?
[12:09]You know, at Peck and Peck, the original,
[12:11]you know, the original editors said that
[12:14]the work always belongs only to the poet.
[12:16]And so if we don't print it,
[12:18]what we have been sent to us, we burn it.
[12:21]We just don't allow the chance that somebody else
[12:24]might get it.
[12:26]And of course, better thinks this is just a complete
[12:28]exaggeration, you know, until he finds out maybe it isn't,
[12:32]you know, maybe people do actually steal the stuff,
[12:35]the stuff that people don't even seem to want that much
[12:38]back then.
[12:39]So it was really fun to kind of play with that theme
[12:42]over and over of plagiarism and copying and who owns what?
[12:47]And who's telling the truth and who isn't?
[12:51]Now that I've reached a certain age, shall we say,
[12:54]when I read various books,
[12:56]I feel like I'm relating to both the protagonist
[12:58]and also like a supporting character,
[13:00]like the protagonist's mom, right?
[13:02]So of course I remember graduating college
[13:05]and trying to figure out which of the 8 million paths
[13:08]to follow and, you know, dealing with the heaviness
[13:11]of that decision and all of that.
[13:13]But then I also relate to Batter's mom
[13:16]and you have a lot about motherhood in here
[13:19]and the regrets of motherhood, responsibilities, regrets,
[13:23]you know, even Batter who's named after the dog,
[13:27]like the whole suspension of disbelief
[13:29]and like having that hope because motherhood is sort of
[13:33]like holding on by a hope and a prayer, right?
[13:35]It's like, you know, so I feel like you have a second
[13:39]narratives layered on top of all of the others,
[13:41]which is just how we get through that
[13:44]and how we hold all that love and fear and vulnerability.
[13:49]Yeah, I love that.
[13:51]I mean, she was really fun to write
[13:53]and, you know, she seems very out there in a lot of ways.
[13:57]And then as you, as her story unfolds,
[14:00]you realize, you know, maybe she's not out there at all.
[14:03]And I really am kind of fixated on the fact still
[14:08]that women are still not at that level
[14:11]where they're taking us seriously as other people,
[14:14]as men basically.
[14:15]And so I really want to explain and explore that through her
[14:20]and the stories that she tells her son
[14:23]aren't just stories to her, you know, this is life
[14:26]and this is how it actually works.
[14:28]And this is how people are going to be treating you.
[14:31]And I'm gonna tell you this story that sounds unbelievable.
[14:35]And of course, he just gets tired of it as he grows up
[14:38]because don't we all get tired of hearing our parents stories?
[14:41]I hope my kids don't, but they might.
[14:44]I'm sorry.
[14:47]Well, I found her character to be really fascinating
[14:51]and especially at you.
[14:53]How it all is sort of tied up at the end.
[14:55]Anyway, I love her.
[14:58]This will be a great role for whoever wants to play her.
[15:00]You also included such an interesting element of creative competition.
[15:07]Because I think when people think about career, you know, killer be killed things.
[15:12]They're not always thinking about the arts or a beautiful poetry journal or all of that
[15:19]or poets themselves.
[15:21]But what you do here is you're pitting editors against each other.
[15:25]You're basically pitting poets against each other.
[15:27]You know, trying to get people up the masthead and, of course, it does exist.
[15:33]But talk about the decision to really shine a light on that and take what could be seen
[15:38]as this like, you know, beautiful, peaceful, poetic, whatever and turning it into like
[15:44]a frothy, a den of, you know, killer be killed competition.
[15:50]I think I've worked, I've only worked in places where it's killer be killed, I guess.
[15:55]I mean, honestly, I think,
[15:57]I think, you know, no matter what, and I've, of course, I've been on lots of teams
[16:01]and things.
[16:02]And I realize that while you, you know, work well with your teammates, hopefully, who
[16:07]has the real goal in the end and whose direction do you end up following?
[16:12]And what does their direction come from?
[16:14]Does it come from a feeling of revenge or does it come from a feeling that they just want
[16:19]to make money or does it come from a feeling of responsibility to the future generations?
[16:24]What is guiding these ships?
[16:26]And it is really funny.
[16:28]I think, you know, publishing is the most misunderstood industry.
[16:33]People think it's very genteel and everything, but it's very competitive.
[16:37]It has to be.
[16:38]And editors, I feel sorry for them.
[16:42]They're just, they're like, well, why didn't you publish my stuff?
[16:44]Which, you know, I felt that way too, hey, what about me?
[16:48]But they're just bombarded with things.
[16:50]Agents are bombarded when you thought probably bombarded.
[16:54]And after a while, you must go, okay, enough.
[16:57]You know, you, you have to draw a line in the sand and what you're really looking for
[17:01]is original talent.
[17:02]You're looking for the new voice and what a lot of people do.
[17:06]And people say this all the time, they go, okay, so I study James Patterson and I'm
[17:12]writing just like him.
[17:14]And I said, but see, don't.
[17:16]That's the whole point.
[17:17]Only you have your voice, use your voice and you'll catch someone's attention.
[17:22]But use a facsimile of James Patterson's voice and you will never capture it.
[17:28]You can't be him, so don't try.
[17:30]But still, that's what people do.
[17:32]They want to copy what they've seen instead of striking out new.
[17:35]Well, I think a lot of people don't have that much confidence in their voice.
[17:39]They don't.
[17:40]And also, if you don't read everything, maybe you don't know where, how your voice is
[17:43]so special and different.
[17:44]Like, maybe you're not seeing the wider landscape if you're just reading a couple
[17:47]books by certain type of first.
[17:50]You know what?
[17:51]I agree with you.
[17:52]One of the problems today is that people aren't reading as much and I think, you know,
[17:57]what we need to do, what they're working on a lot in the UK here is getting everyone
[18:01]to read more, especially children, which is really, really falling off the map.
[18:06]So I think that getting people to read and to hear all these different voices is amazing.
[18:12]And that's the other reason why we wanted to focus on poetry.
[18:16]We all have five minutes every day.
[18:17]we can devote to one poem.
[18:20]And the thing that I realized was that through poetry, because it's so economical.
[18:25]Kind of wish I could write that short.
[18:28]You can visit another land, another culture, another person and hear what they have to say
[18:33]in under five minutes and get the scope of it and experience that.
[18:37]You can't do that as much.
[18:38]I'm putting down novels, as it be.
[18:40]It's not a smart idea that I'm doing this, but poetry is a little more economical than
[18:45]I am.
[18:46]That's a good thing.
[18:48]It can only make your fiction writing better.
[18:50]Right.
[18:51]There's nothing you can do that's going to be taking away from what you're doing.
[18:55]You're just sharpening different tools in the toolbox.
[18:57]Yeah.
[18:59]You have a line in the book.
[19:00]It's about being an underwriter.
[19:03]But can I read this little passage?
[19:05]It says she gave me a curious look.
[19:07]You know how aging starts better by putting off the future.
[19:09]You know you're getting old.
[19:11]When you start staying stuff like, I could still run a marathon.
[19:14]I could still write that book.
[19:15]It's the still that gets you.
[19:17]You've got to do what you want to do right now.
[19:20]That way when you have gray hair, you'll be able to do what you need to do right then.
[19:24]And she says, so you really want to become an underwriter.
[19:27]And she says, yes, but switch to novels and then she says, find out because the moment
[19:33]you hear yourself say, it's not too late.
[19:35]It is.
[19:36]I love that passage.
[19:37]Oh, thank you.
[19:38]I think it's really important.
[19:40]You know, so many, I hear some of my people planning for some other time when the time
[19:45]you have is right now.
[19:46]And you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
[19:49]You know, you could get hit by a car, basically, or something tragic could book the fall.
[19:54]You or someone you love.
[19:55]And so it's better to just take a stab at things and not worry so much.
[20:00]about how you're doing, but just do it.
[20:02]Yeah, I know.
[20:04]I'm like, I could still get a medical degree.
[20:06]Right, I couldn't, I still do that.
[20:08]Okay, okay, so this woman who read lessons in chemistry
[20:12]went to medical school at age 55.
[20:15]Oh my gosh.
[20:16]When she wrote me and she said, guess what,
[20:18]I just got into medical school and I said,
[20:20]oh, that's great.
[20:21]She said I was so inspired by your book
[20:22]and I worked for two years and studied for the MCAT
[20:25]and I got in and I said, that's great.
[20:27]And she goes, I'm 55.
[20:30]And I went, oh my gosh, that's incredible, isn't it?
[20:34]It's incredible.
[20:34]But I feel like if you don't live as if like any moment
[20:37]you could just try that thing.
[20:39]Then doesn't the spotlight sort of dim a little bit
[20:42]on the rest of it?
[20:44]Yeah, maybe, yeah, I think so.
[20:46]I think it's really important to take risks
[20:47]and to believe in yourself and to have confidence,
[20:51]even if you feel like you don't deserve confidence,
[20:54]of course you do.
[20:55]You're here on the earth.
[20:56]You have skills and talents and you have something to say.
[20:59]So go after it.
[21:01]Go forth.
[21:03]Are there things that you're like,
[21:04]I could still blah, blah, blah.
[21:06]Like what is on your still list?
[21:08]Okay, yeah.
[21:09]Okay, there is one really big thing.
[21:10]I love to swim.
[21:12]I was an open water swimmer at a very early age
[21:15]and I kept it up, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[21:17]But there is this one swim that I've always wanted to do
[21:21]and it's the Arctic swim.
[21:24]And I know it's not, I mean, I don't know.
[21:28]It's not fun, but I've always wanted to do it
[21:31]just because it seems like the ultimate challenge.
[21:33]You can wear a wet suit.
[21:35]I mean, it's not like you're, yeah, you wear a wet suit
[21:37]and you swim between Sweden and Finland
[21:40]and you swim back.
[21:41]Oh my gosh.
[21:42]So what to do that?
[21:43]So I finally got accepted into the swim.
[21:45]It took me, yeah, took me like 10 years to qualify.
[21:48]I finally got accepted COVID hit and they closed the swim.
[21:52]And so then the next year they said,
[21:54]we'll just have the swim and everybody who got in
[21:56]at last year can go, well, I was the oldest one on the list
[21:59]but they let me in and then canceled again.
[22:02]So this year they said, sorry,
[22:05]but you're gonna have to re-qualify
[22:07]and there's no way, I haven't been swimming,
[22:09]there's no way I can qualify.
[22:11]But that is something, but I don't have to do
[22:14]that particular swim is what I've decided.
[22:16]I've just can pick something else
[22:19]but that one was always sort of in my,
[22:21]that's what I wish I was doing.
[22:23]Oh, have you seen Niaad, the movie?
[22:26]My brother.
[22:27]Yeah, I'll produce that movie, but my brother produced the movie.
[22:31]Yeah, but yeah, oh my God, well, she's my inspiration.
[22:36]Yeah, I just think, although I don't like
[22:39]all the jellyfish things, like that's why I like cold water.
[22:43]Yeah, but still, I mean, in the movie,
[22:45]she, you know, there's a boat following her
[22:47]and she's her whole team, like that could be you,
[22:50]the bony garden, it would be called garbage.
[22:52]You know, we got the next movie going right here.
[22:54]And you could just do the,
[22:56]one of my friends is the International Women's Champion
[22:59]for, you know, the huge triathlon, you know, the Iron Man.
[23:03]Yeah, she's the Iron Woman in age of 64 to 69.
[23:10]She's it, she's number one.
[23:12]She's never done anything like that before.
[23:16]Yeah.
[23:17]So I'm so proud of her.
[23:19]So yeah, that gives me some hope.
[23:21]There's still time, but I just still,
[23:24]so now I'm in big trouble with myself.
[23:27]Part of what makes all of your writing,
[23:29]but you know, particularly peck and peck
[23:31]since we're talking about that now,
[23:32]but it's so devourable is,
[23:36]it almost doesn't even matter what you write about.
[23:38]Just listening to you, right?
[23:40]Like, and I say listening,
[23:41]because like, I feel like I hear your voice so clearly
[23:44]in the narrative, right?
[23:45]It's so funny, it's so smart and funny
[23:48]and the lines themselves, like not every single sentence,
[23:53]but I would say like one out of every four
[23:56]is like particularly clever.
[23:58]So when you're, when you're writing
[24:00]and you're, are you making yourself chuckle as you go?
[24:04]Like, are you writing things and then like,
[24:07]kind of saying, oh yeah, that's like,
[24:09]that's really funny, you know,
[24:10]because it's funny, it's the way you write is so funny.
[24:13]It's so funny because I don't think I'm very funny
[24:16]and I don't, and my husband is my first reader,
[24:19]he reads everything and he has, this is his,
[24:22]if something is funny, this is how he reacts,
[24:25]he goes, that's it, you know.
[24:28]So if I want a big reaction, I am not getting it.
[24:31]I have to kind of trust the readers that I have,
[24:35]you know, to say, this is funny or not,
[24:37]because you know, I'm not a good judge at that, to be honest.
[24:41]I need a lot of feedback.
[24:43]I get a lot of feedback.
[24:44]I have a lot of readers.
[24:48]Oh my gosh, do you have another,
[24:50]like what are you, wait, first of all,
[24:52]what are you doing with the 2000 pages you didn't use?
[24:54]That's a lot of material for Peck and Peck
[24:57]that you've abandoned.
[24:58]Like, don't you feel bad?
[24:59]Just,
[25:00]leading it. What are you going to do with it? Can you do anything with it?
[25:03]I know that phrase about how you have to kill your darlings. I have graveyards.
[25:08]I'm pretty good at slashing and burning. When I was working with one of my editors,
[25:14]she goes, I really don't like this part. Maybe you can change it. I said, I can just take it out.
[25:21]It's okay with me. I mean, some things I'll just defend to the mat. No, that's got to stay.
[25:26]and this is why. But other things, I'm like, wait a minute. Let me take it out and let me try
[25:31]something else. Because that's the part I have writing that I like is the exploration. For lessons
[25:37]in chemistry, I had another 2000 pages that never saw a live day. And that's me just going, no,
[25:45]you know, no, not quite phrased correctly. And I'll just put it over here. And then it stays
[25:50]over there on that file. So just full of all these snippets of all sorts of stuff. And maybe
[25:57]I'll go back one day and I'll find a phrase I like and bring it back in. But it's mostly
[26:03]it's like a word graveyard. Oh my gosh. I know. Then we spoke last, obviously, lessons in chemistry,
[26:11]blew up in the biggest possible way. Do you feel pressure now with pecan pet coming out to live
[26:18]up to that? Or did it make you approach anything about the marketing or the writing or any of it,
[26:24]any differently knowing that like that was over there as like this massive success?
[26:29]I was just talking about this very thing with Meg Mason. Because she's like, you know,
[26:35]this is this weight of expectation. And I said, Meg, I'm so naive that it never occurred to me,
[26:42]first of all, when I started pecan pet in earnest, and this is right before lessons in chemistry
[26:48]got big, I didn't really believe anyone was buying lessons in chemistry. So it didn't really
[26:53]bother me. I was like, well, you know, I guess, but I don't know what, you know, I've never seen
[26:57]anyone read it in public. So I don't really think it's out there. And so I was able to write
[27:03]without that kind of pressure because I already knew where I wanted to go. But also I realized
[27:09]the book is about being original. And that's about innovation and creativity. And I didn't want
[27:14]to write the same thing again. But also Zippy, I am a terrible follower. Like I don't follow
[27:22]directions. And I mean, this is why I've gotten fired a few times. I don't, it's not that I can't,
[27:29]I'm pretty good at taking feedback. But if I, if I really want to go in one direction,
[27:35]I will march off in that direction. But when I say, I'm not good with directions. I can't,
[27:39]I'm terrible cook. You know, everyone thought it was a great cook because of lessons in chemistry.
[27:45]I cannot follow a recipe. I always leave out two or three ingredients and that doesn't taste right.
[27:51]And then like people give me directions, you know, go north on Main Street or whatever. I don't
[27:56]think like, which way is north? Exactly. I don't have that directional aptitude. Yeah. So for me,
[28:06]it's always been really hard for me to follow directions. And somebody said to me, hey,
[28:12]you're just supposed to write lessons in chemistry again, but just change the name. And I went,
[28:18]but I can't because I would be following that. And I'm not following it. I'm just doing something
[28:23]so this may be a bad way to look at it, but it's my way. It is not a bad way to look at it.
[28:30]I don't think people will read the same book eight thousand times. I mean, this is,
[28:38]this is art itself, right? This is you reflecting on you. And that's, that's how art evolves is that
[28:45]we have to adapt from what came before it and then comment on it and reinvent. That's like
[28:50]all of our history, like in a nutshell, right? Yeah. Same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. So,
[28:57]are you writing anything else now? I'm doing some assignments, you know, for the editors and
[29:01]magazines is tough. But otherwise, I have, I have a lot of ideas for a new book. And now I just
[29:08]have to see which one bludgens its way to the top. And that's how it works for me if, you know,
[29:15]I'm a lot, the loudest idea in my head will and it will win out in the end. So I, yeah,
[29:21]so I am already thinking about something new. And then just sort of as a last question,
[29:28]Peck and Peck itself, the structure of the building is like such a big character, right? The aviary
[29:35]and the dungeon and that, you know, just all of it. Like, if you could pick one building or one place
[29:41]or one workplace or something you've seen in two years, some place that you could steal away a
[29:47]little room, a little office and make it your own for a short period of time. What would that be?
[29:52]The sograta in Barcelona was out of doubt. When, you know, when, and that's some of the initial
[29:59]feedback for,
[30:00]Peck and Peck was you can't have this building. It doesn't exist. It's too wild. You know, no one
[30:04]ever believe it. And I would just say, have you seen Frank Geary's buildings? Have you seen
[30:10]the Sagrada? That's why people go visit those buildings because there's only one of them.
[30:16]I wanted a building like that so badly. I think environment is so important to people. So we
[30:22]flourish when we're surprised and when we're enveloped by good light and interesting surroundings,
[30:28]we don't flourish as well in office buildings with fluorescent lighting and cubicles.
[30:36]I would agree with that. Yeah. Well, thank you for giving us an original piece of art of work,
[30:43]of creativity and Peck and Peck and I can't wait to just watch as it below them to the
[30:48]seat and hear what everybody is talking about and have these characters just completely come to
[30:55]life. Thank you for inviting me. It's great to see you again. Great to see you again, too.
[31:01]Thanks for all the time. Yeah, you too. Thank you so much. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to
[31:08]totally booked with Zibi, formerly mom's don't have time to read books. If you loved the show,
[31:13]tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens and spread the word.
[31:19]Thanks so much. Go and buy the books.