Podcast Summary: The Book Case – "Janice Page and an Unlikely Memoir"

Podcast: The Book Case
Hosts: Charlie Gibson, Kate Gibson
Episode Title: Janice Page and an Unlikely Memoir
Date: January 15, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode dives into Janice Page's memoir, The Year of the Water Horse, exploring why memoirs—especially those not driven by sensational or traumatic stories—can still be utterly captivating. Charlie and Kate Gibson speak with Janice about the origins of her book, her process as a journalist-turned-memoirist, the themes of family, cross-cultural experience, adoption, survival, and the surprisingly cinematic narrative of an "ordinary" life. The episode also features a segment with independent bookstore owners from Booksmart, emphasizing the episode’s thread of finding extraordinary stories and communities in unexpected places.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Appeal of “Ordinary” Memoirs (01:04–05:42)

• Setting Up Three Weeks of Memoirs: Charlie introduces a "memoir trilogy" on the podcast, starting with Janice Page.
• The Draw of The Year of the Water Horse:
  • Not a headline-grabbing, sensational memoir ("not a true crime story" or "sharing her innate trauma").
  • Both hosts emphasize how an “ordinary” life is made extraordinary by good writing and vivid storytelling.
• Kate: “She takes her life and blows it up and makes it vivid and beautiful and funny. I loved this book.” (02:43)
• Book’s Structure: Janice, a long-time arts and entertainment journalist, writes her life story in clear, chronological stages—her Massachusetts childhood, navigating cross-cultural relationships, genetic anxieties, and ultimately adopting a daughter from China.

2. Janice Page on Writing a Memoir (06:02–09:16)

• Janice’s Reluctance and Process:

  • She didn't set out to write a memoir; it began as a magazine piece about adopting a child from China and her mother-in-law's dramatic story of exile during the Chinese Civil War.
  • The strong public reaction to that piece emboldened her to go deeper.
  • Memoir structure evolved over time—early drafts started with her mother-in-law's story or her husband's proposal, but the book eventually opens with a childhood memory of her mother, advised by her agent as the strongest entry point.

• Janice: "If you're not sick of yourself when you write a memoir, by the end there is something wrong with you. I mean, honestly, daily I would be like, who wants to read this much about me? Not even me." (08:25)

3. Navigating Identity, Independence, and Family (12:06–14:19)

• Charlie and Kate ask about Janice’s hesitance toward marriage, her views on independence, and the complex dynamics of entering a mixed-race marriage.

• Janice: "I grew up thinking I’m going to prioritize making something of myself and my life and then inviting someone in who makes it better and we make each other’s lives better. Right. And I just wasn’t there." (12:41)

• Janice describes meeting her Chinese-American husband’s mother (her future mother-in-law) and how her story—escaping China, leaving a child behind—inspired the book.

• Kate probes: Was it hard to get her mother-in-law to tell her story?

• Janice: "If she was exotic to me, I was sure as hell exotic to her. ... I think that she. She had not been asked." (14:24)

4. Cross-Cultural Reconciliation and Survival (17:24–19:56)

• Deep Family Trauma: Meeting her husband’s half-sister, left behind in China, who had to survive immense hardship but eventually reconciles with her mother.
• Janice: "What’s at the heart of the book is survival, which I think a lot of people think is a static state. ... To me, it is not. It is a fluid state. It is something that evolves." (19:29)

5. The Memoirist’s Instinct and Motivation (20:22–21:12)

• On why Janice writes:
  • To process and integrate stories into her own life.
• Janice: "At its core, you're trying to process when you're writing… I let it be what it wanted to be for me." (20:22)

6. Adoption and the Meaning of Home (21:32–26:49)

• Adoption Narrative:

  • Janice and her husband, unable to have a biological child, choose to adopt from China. The familial symmetry—her mother-in-law leaving a child behind in China, now returning to adopt—felt cosmically right.
  • She always considered adoption a meaningful option, placing less value on biological ties.

• Tackling the “Ordinariness” of Stories:

  • Are all lives worthy of memoir? Janice suggests that while our lives may seem ordinary to us, the act of writing and reflecting can elevate them—though not everyone can, or should, publish them.

• Title Discovery: The fact that both her adopted daughter and her husband’s half-sister were born in the Year of the Water Horse came late in the process, but crystallized the memoir’s meaning.

• Janice (on writing): “It’s better than anything. I know. And that includes the thing you think I’m talking about. ... If you’re a perfectionist or a control freak...that’s the torturous part. You always could make it better. ... In his [my husband’s] business, the chicken is done when the chicken is done...in my business, the writing business, the chicken is never done.” (24:28)

7. Memorable Quotes & Reflections

• On Truth and Storytelling:
  • Charlie reads from Janice's opening:
    "What's true is not always convincing, and what's convincing is not always true. That's Nietzsche, I think. But it might be something I made up, or did I find it in a fortune cookie? Doesn't matter. It still produces a good story and a good memoir." (25:27)
• On Home and Serenity:
  • Janice reading from her book (26:13):
    "The idea of home has changed so much for me. It's no longer confined to a tiny kitchen in Braintree, Massachusetts, where the Serenity prayer hangs on a wall. Home now extends at least as far as China...and all my digging would lead right back to serenity, the model that's attained instead of granted, not as platitude but as creed."
• Writing Philosophy:
  • Janice (36:18): "The words I try to live by come from a higher power, and that is Fran Leibowitz who said, think before you speak, read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn't make up yourself."

Timestamps for Notable Segments

• 00:07 — Intro & Memoir discussion
• 03:24 — Book overview & Janice’s journalistic style
• 06:02 — Janice Page interview begins: why a memoir?
• 08:25 — On writing about herself
• 12:24 — On independence and marriage
• 14:19 — Gaining trust, telling stories across culture
• 17:24 — The story of reconciliation and survival
• 20:22 — Why writers write memoir
• 21:32 — Adoption, meaning of family
• 24:01 — The memoir's title revelation
• 24:28 — On the masochism and joy of writing
• 25:27 — Reflections on truth and memoir, closing reading by Janice Page

Bookstore Feature: Booksmart, California (27:53–35:34)

• Interview with Brad Jones and Cinda Meister:
  • 30+ years running Booksmart, now with two locations.
  • Their journey from “book desert” to community hub.
  • Challenges of running a bookstore, joys of the job, and their role as community anchors.
  • “If you love books and you love people, then I think this is the kind of business to be in.” – Brad (34:01)

Episode Takeaways

The Year of the Water Horse is not just one woman’s journey; it’s a meditation on how so-called ordinary lives are extraordinary when rendered with insight, empathy, and humor. Janice Page’s narrative is both deeply personal and widely resonant, inviting readers to reconsider the boundaries of family, home, and what stories are worth telling.
The segment with Booksmart reinforces the episode’s core idea: that there is magic and meaning in the everyday, whether it’s family history or a local bookstore’s endurance.

Notable Quotes

• "If you're not sick of yourself when you write a memoir, by the end there is something wrong with you." – Janice Page (08:25)
• "In my business, the writing business, the chicken is never done." – Janice Page (24:39)
• "Think before you speak, read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn’t make up yourself." – Janice Page quoting Fran Leibowitz (36:18)

This summary captures the episode's warmth, insight, and the contagious enthusiasm for stories—big, small, and all those in between.