← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
New Novel About The Existential Angst Of Early 30s 'Adulting' in New York
00:16:09
Josh Duboff began writing his debut novel, Early Thirties, in 2019 as a way to reflect on his own journey as an ambitious 20-something in New York City.
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- [00:00]
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Alison Stewart
This is all of it from wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. GQ says that this year's best coming of age novel is actually about adults. It's titled Early 30s. The novel follows two millennials in New York City who are trying to figure out what their lives should look like. There's Victor, fresh off a breakup with his boyfriend, who's entering new career writing celebrity profiles at a prestige media company but doesn't feel like he fits in. And his best friend Zoe, who works in public relations but is questioning her career and her future lawyer fiance. That guy, he's kind of a bro. Then there's a friendship between the two of them, which suffers as they grow in different directions. A Vogue review states early 30s reminds you that every decade of life comes with its own change and challenges and will make you both laugh and cry as it does so. Early 30s is. Joining us to discuss it is Josh Dubov, who is also a former senior writer at Vanity Fair. So you know what you're talking about. Hi, Josh.
- [01:41]
Josh Duboff
Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
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Alison Stewart
Early 30s. It explores advancement, shifting friendships, careers. What was a theme or a concept that you really, really wanted to write about in this novel?
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Josh Duboff
I definitely was very excited to get at this transition moment that I feel like especially happens in New York at the end of your 20s, at the beginning of your 30s, where everyone sort of feels like they're in the same boat in the 20s. You're kind of bouncing around, job to job, boyfriend, girlfriend, boyfriend, girlfriend. You're kind of trying to figure it out. And then it did feel to me in my own early 30s here, working at the magazine I was and the career I was and the friend group I was in. Things start to feel the stakes get higher in your 30s. It starts to feel like the decisions you're making are sort of setting up what the rest of your life might look like. And I thought that was a very interesting moment to try to explore in the book.
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Alison Stewart
You worked as a journalist?
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Josh Duboff
Yes.
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Alison Stewart
When did you realize you wanted to write a novel?
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Josh Duboff
So, yeah, so I worked at Vanity Fair, as you mentioned. I was a senior writer for about six years and I Had some really surreal, interesting, wild experiences in all sorts of places I would never have imagined I'd be in. And the whole time, I think maybe mentally, it's funny, I wasn't necessarily thinking, oh, this is someday I want to write a novel about all of this. It wasn't maybe that concrete in my head, but I for sure was, like, taking notes, maybe in my phone, mentally or literally, and thinking about just these crazy experiences I was going through. And then when I did leave in 2019, full time working there, I was synthesizing in my head and thinking about it all. And I was like, you know what? And I started writing personal essays, actually, first nonfiction. And my agent, who I'm so thankful for, read them. He's like, really interesting stuff here. Have we thought about fiction? I feel like that might be very interesting and freeing for you. So I'm so thankful for him for giving me. It hadn't been in my head and my conception of myself or something, but that got me kind of off to the races into the novel.
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Alison Stewart
What did your writing process look like? Did you write all those ideas down on cards? People have different ways they go about writing a novel.
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Josh Duboff
Oh, my gosh, Alison. There was one point where I remember my brother came into my room, I think, and I had index cards. I don't know if you've seen Homeland where Carrie Matheson, Claire Danes, has all the index cards up on her wall. I was truly. I felt like I was losing my mind a little bit. Cause I truly. There's a lot of. So the book's really about this core friendship. But to broaden the world, I brought in some sort of people around them and other characters. So I definitely needed to kind of keep track of it all. But. And the novel, like, when I was really in the throes of it was also the beginning of COVID So I feel like I was especially kind of just in my zone there for that kind of first year or two of really working on it.
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Unnamed Interviewer
How did your previous job as a journalist help you as a novelist?
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Josh Duboff
That's really interesting, I think so. It's obviously, you know, there's very clear differences in what you're trying to do and your goals and what you're trying to achieve with the work. But I think it's interesting to me where when I was working at Vanity Fair and in my prior jobs, too, and writing celebrity profiles, I think a lot of it is really trying to understand, like, what makes someone tick. It's me sitting across from someone at a restaurant and trying to Crack them a little bit. Like, how's their private Persona different than their public Persona? How they engage with me one to one, different from how they post on Instagram or how we see them on a red carpet. And that isn't so wildly different to me from what my approach was to crafting the characters in my novel. Because it was a lot of thinking about on some level, all of us. We're all at varying levels of fame and, you know, notoriety, but we're all, on some level, no matter who we are, kind of posting a certain way on Instagram, you know, showing a certain side of ourselves to our friends in the world versus what's actually going on, you know, interior, day to day. So I think that was something I was thinking about with all these characters. So it actually. There was some similarities I wasn't even expecting in terms of just thinking about how I kind of view people and how I kind of understand how people operate.
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Unnamed Interviewer
My guest is Josh Duboff. The name of his book is early 30s. It's a novel set in New York. Two people entering their 30s trying to figure out what's what. Tell us about Zoe. Where's Zoe when you meet her?
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Josh Duboff
Yeah. Oh, gosh. Zoe's in an interesting place. She's. I relate to Zoe a lot. People assume cause of some of my biographical similarities with Victor, who works at the magazine, that I would be more similar to him. But there's a lot of me and Zoe. I guess that makes sense. Cause I made all these people up. But Zoe, I feel, have a real connection with. She's in this job, as you noted, where she's kind of unsure if this is what she wants to be doing. Something I can definitely relate to. At the beginning of my career. Before I was working at a magazine, I was doing. I was a consultant, a whole different life. And I was like, this is a great path to be on, but is this where my heart is? Is this what I want to be doing? So there was a lot of Zoe's journey there that I was really kind of maybe working through a little bit with her character, if we want to go that therapy with it. But I think that there was certainly some of that in her. And when we find her at the beginning of the novel, she's in this relationship as well with a guy she's engaged to named Tom. Tom is a very.
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Unnamed Interviewer
I don't like Tom.
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Josh Duboff
Yeah, I was gonna say I don't think he's the most winning. But, you know, it's interesting. I do feel like Tom.
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Unnamed Interviewer
No, he's a nice guy. He's a nice guy for the right kind of girl.
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Josh Duboff
Yes. That's a beautiful way of putting that. And I do think there's a certain. I don't want to spoil too much about what happens to Tom and Zoe in the book, but she definitely, at the beginning of the book, I think you are meant to say, like, is this who she's meant to be with? Is this right? And she has to come to her own conclusions, let's say, about if he is the person she wants to be with. And she kind of has. That comes to a head a little bit as the book goes on.
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Unnamed Interviewer
When we meet Victor, he's not in the best state.
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Josh Duboff
No.
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Unnamed Interviewer
Tell us a little bit about when we first meet Victor.
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Josh Duboff
Yeah, it's interesting. Cause I think the book does have a lot of comedic and lightness. Comedic elements and lightness to it. But there's definitely some darkness at the beginning. And I do think when we meet Victor, he's in a bit of a tough moment, for sure. And I was really interested in exploring sort of actually what we were just talking about, the private public dichotomy. And to me, where Victor, like, you know, he's starting this book where he gets this glamorous job, his life to outsiders, to his friends, maybe to his family, looks kind of idyllic. He's going through this kind of mental health struggle at the beginning of the book. And I think sometimes I feel like that's something I encounter all the time in New York, where people can seem a certain way and then you learn more about them. Everyone has their story, everyone has sort of what's actually going on maybe underneath that complicate things a little bit. So, yes, he's definitely. His journey also takes. You know, he has to work from there. But we meet him at a low point for sure.
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Unnamed Interviewer
And you shift perspective in the novel. Tell us a little bit about your choice to do that.
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Josh Duboff
So my favorite. I don't know. Have you read A Visit from the Goon Squad, the Jennifer Egan book? Yeah. So that was like a Some. That was like. I remember that was the book I read where I was like, oh, my God, this is like, makes me want to write a thing. It just like, made me want to be a writer. That was like, maybe. I don't know. It came up, what, 10 years or so years ago. But it's a beautiful book. And she definitely. And I could feel in her writing where she would, like, start with one character and then the next chapter would follow, like a side character that you had maybe encountered in the previous chapter in a small moment and maybe been curious about. And that kind of the way she kind of followed her curiosity, it felt like, was so exciting to me to read. So I think maybe on some level that was in my head when I was working on my book where I was thinking it would happen even kind of organically. I know Victor and Zoe were the central characters and their friendship was the through line. But I would have these moments of like, wait, like, you know, actually like that character that we see Victor interview, like the actress. I want to know more about her. And I would actually. There's stuff that we actually cut where I would write all of her tweets, I would write her Instagram posts, I would write more material for a lot of these characters just because it helped me get in their head. And then some of that I was like, wait, this is actually kind of like interesting because I feel like we're seeing the other side of the coin with some of these people that we're encountering. And I found it kind of exciting to broaden the world a little bit and just to kind of feel like, you know, they all overlap with Victor and Zoe, but they're also showing a bit of context of like, how they operate professionally and in the worlds around them.
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Alison Stewart
We're talking about the book early 30s, a novel. It is by Josh Duboff. He's here to discuss in the book Victor and Zoe, they're specifically millennials entering their 30s. In the second chapter, you reference throngs of millennials in ill fitting suits jumping in unison to Mr. Brightside at a wedding in Miami. A lot of millennials are entering their 40s now. We'll say that. I know. How does the generation that Victor and Zoe are part of, what is their idea of success?
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Josh Duboff
Ooh, that's a great question. I think it is shifting and like, as the. I think they realize maybe it's become a different thing for them as they reach this kind of moment in their 30s. I think it felt maybe a little bit clearer. Like, I don't know, when you're in your 20s, things can feel very aspirational. I want to take over the world. I want to do this, I want to do that. And I feel like things become a little bit more. Zoe has this moment for sure where it's a little bit more like, this is who I'm going to be with for the rest of my life now. It's like, it's a little less like, oh, I'm kind of just Having fun and seeing what's out there. The stakes just feel a little bit greater. I think success for them, though, is definitely about. I think for Victor, it's kind of. He has to come to terms in the book, is it more about professional glory, or is it more about, like, personal contentment? And I think that's sort of what he. They're both struggling with that, I think, a little bit. And obviously, you can hopefully have both. But I think kind of balancing that, I think becomes actually an issue in their friendship a little bit. Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
Becomes an issue because let's say Zoe asks a favor of Victor, and Victor's like, can't do it.
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Josh Duboff
Yes. And I love that you've. Because I feel like that was so important to me to get at where they're in this friendship. They've been friends for a very long time. They're friends from college. They're each other's person. But then I feel like I've definitely encountered this in New York, especially in the media world, but so many industries. I know this kind of thing happens where you're friends, but there's, like, a bit of a. Like, we might ask each other for favors. There might be a little bit of a. Like, I help you, you help me to it. And there's, like, professional kind of layers that get kind of mapped onto some of these relationships that can make things tricky, that can make things feel a little bit stressful in a friendship dynamic. And I've definitely been in those situations. And you're like, oh, God, this is a little awkward. How do I respond to this text message?
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Alison Stewart
It's really hard.
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Josh Duboff
And that can, you know, that can sometimes throw a friendship into a kind of. I don't know. I've had friendships get complicated because of that thing. So I feel like. I definitely felt like it was important for me that that was, like, the first splinter for them, where it was something that was, like. Seems maybe small on the surface, but actually gets it. Something that maybe is gonna blow up into a bigger thing for them.
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Alison Stewart
When we meet Victor, he's just broken up with his boyfriend. It's just happened 24 hours before we meet him. How does the breakup make Victor feel about himself?
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Josh Duboff
I think he takes it really hard. I think he makes it a referendum on himself. I think he. You know, I think he's prone to spiral, especially at the beginning of the book. I think he's looking for validation from others. So I think the breakup. It's hard for him to separate that there's, like, another person involved. There's other factors that can be at play here. There's the rest of his life to live. There's other people that love him, and he somehow takes it as like, a sign that he's not worthy of love or, you know, I think there's a lot of things going through his head at the beginning, so. And then Zoe's there for him in a way that helps him through it. But I think it also. He doesn't want to unload on her necessarily in the way that he might. Might be healthier for him to do to someone, but he keeps a lot of it inside, I think. So I think we see that kind of play out as the book goes on a little bit. And then he kind of focuses a lot on the job. He focuses on distractions to try to kind of get himself through.
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Unnamed Interviewer
What I thought was interesting is Zoe is a little different with her fiance.
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Josh Duboff
Mm.
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Unnamed Interviewer
Have you seen that?
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Josh Duboff
I flee. I don't know how much I said I know. I'm gonna say maybe I've seen it. No. Yes, for sure.
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Alison Stewart
You know what I mean? She's just a little bit different.
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Josh Duboff
I'm very. I'm sure you are as well. I feel like we know so many. I don't know if we know. I should say I know so many people, but I definitely know friends where I'll. I love them. I've been friends with them for so long. And then I'll see how they act around a partner, and I'll say to myself, like, oh, like, you see a different side of them, maybe, or you see. And this can go both ways, too. Like, I see. You know, maybe they act a different way in a different French context or a different social context, or like you're in a professional context with them all of a sudden, and you're like, oh, wow. Like, I'm seeing this whole other side of whoever it is. So I do think that's something I feel like I've noticed, especially as people start, you know, I have a lot of friends, especially in this early 30s period, that you have families who now, you know, and things. Do you start noticing different energies maybe depending on sort of who they've ended up with and what their lives, you know, have become.
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Unnamed Interviewer
She's interested. Zoe's interested in her own business. What excites her about that prospect?
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Josh Duboff
I think she wants autonomy. I think she is kind of feeling like a cog in a machine. She's feeling a little bit. There's a kind of important interaction early in the book where she. We see her Kind of navigating things with her boss a little bit. And her boss is supportive, but also a little bit dismissive. And I feel like she's struggling, kind of brushing up against that. Like, I want to be my. I want to be my best self. I want to kind of be present. I want to do things on my own. And, you know, I think that's a very, like, millennial thing. I know a lot of my friends have struggled with, too, when you're in certain professions. And she's like, I want to. You know, maybe it won't go well, but I want to see what happens if I go for it on my own. And I think that is something that I'm about to say. I'm excited for her. As if somehow I don't even. She's like a real person. But, yeah, I was excited for her when she kind of realized she wanted to do that.
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Unnamed Interviewer
All right, you've worked as a journalist. You have interviewed a million famous people. There are stories in this book, I have to admit. Ask, are some of these stories true? Some of the things that have seeped.
- [15:17]
Josh Duboff
Into the book, you know. Okay. So, yes, I think nothing is true. Nothing's one to one. First, like, I didn't. I felt like that would actually be maybe not as even creatively exciting for me. Even. So, like, somehow I wasn't like. It's not a. You know, what do you call, you know, it's definitely not like a veiled memoir in that way or anything like that. I think it's more. I've inter. I got. I've interviewed so many different kinds of famous people and so many kinds of singers and actors and comedians. And, like, there have been. And almost everyone. I always say this to people actually, like, almost everyone's really lovely. And maybe this is similar to your experience. Like, you're coming in and, like, you know, people want to talk about their projects. They're very. Usually they. They want to. You know, I haven't had any horror stories or someone slaps me in the face and walks. Yeah, nothing. No one's pouring water on my head or anything like that. But you definitely encounter some interesting kind of dynamics and people. So I feel like it was all kind of getting funneled into some of this stuff. But it wasn't. Like, a few people. Valentina Lack, the actress character. A few people are like, have asked me, like, oh, no, who is she? And it's not. Maybe, you know, I don't know, actually. No, truly, I can say there was no one ever in my head where I was like, this is this actress or anything like that.
- [16:25]
Unnamed Interviewer
The name of the novel is early 30s a novel it is by Josh Duboff. Josh, thanks for coming to the studio to discuss your book. Congratulations.
- [16:35]
Josh Duboff
This was so fun. It went by so quickly. Thanks Alison. Really appreciate it.
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