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- [00:00]
A
Hi listeners. We have totally booked live coming up this fall and I hope you'll be a part of it. We have three events in New York City, September 19th, 25th and 30th in New York where I'll be doing six interviews live each day. We also have a petite retreat in Greenwich on October 4th. Go to zibbemedia.com and event or and or eventbrite and search the events and please come. I can't wait to meet you in person.
- [00:31]
B
Ready to order?
- [00:32]
A
Yes. We're earning unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment with a Capital One Saver card. So let's just get one of everything. Everything.
- [00:40]
B
Fire everything. The Capital One Saver card is at table 27 and they're earning unlimited 3% cash back. Yes, Chef.
- [00:47]
A
This is so nice.
- [00:48]
B
Had a feeling you'd want 3% cash back on dessert.
- [00:51]
A
Oh, tiramisu.
- [00:53]
B
Earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment with the Capital One Saver Card. Capital One what's in your wallet?
- [00:59]
C
Terms apply. See capitalone.com for details. If you work as a manufacturing facilities engineer, installing a new piece of equipment can be as complex as the machinery itself. From prep work to alignment and testing, it's your team's job to put it all together. That's why it's good to have Grainger on your side. With industrial grade products and next day delivery, Grainger helps ensure you have everything you need close at hand through every step of the installation. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [01:34]
A
Today's episode has been sponsored by Digipod. As someone who's passionate about books and authors, I'm always excited to share resources that can help bring your stories to life. That's why I am thrilled to tell you about Digipod, a print on demand company that truly understands what authors need to be. Make that happen. Here's what I love about Digipod. They don't just print your books and send you on your way. Their team holds your hand throughout the entire process with incredible customer service. They deliver professional grade printing quality, consistently beat their competitors turnaround times and they can handle rush orders. They simplify the whole printing process and make it incredibly easy to achieve your vision for your books. Head over to Digipod Zibby that's D I G G y p o d.com Zybee set up a free 15 minute printing consultation and get 10% off your first print order. You'll talk with their experts who will walk you through exactly how to set up your print job and answer all your questions. And by the way, I've seen the books and they are amazing looking. If you've been thinking about printing your book, this is the support you want. Again, that's digipod.com zibby for your free consultation. Hi, this is Zibby Owens and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. And as a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to stay in the know, get insider insights and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com and follow me on Instagram ibbyoans Marian Thurm is the author of I Don't Know how to Tell youl this A Novel. Marian is the author of nine novels and five short story collections, including Today Is not yout A New York Times Editor's Choice? Her novel the Clairvoyant was a New York Times Notable Book. Her novel, the Blackmailer's Guide to Love was chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best books of Fiction in 2021. Her short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Narrative Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, Michigan Quarterly Review, and many other magazines, and have been included in the Best American Short Stories and numerous other anthologies. She has taught creative writing at Yale University, Barnard College, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and the New School. Her first short story was published in the New Yorker when she was 25 years old. Welcome, Marian. Thank you so much for coming. I'm totally booked with Zibby to talk about. I don't know how to tell you this. Congratulations.
- [04:27]
B
Thank you so much. Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. Wonderful. I've seen you online and I see wonderful. You're just wonderful. That's all there is to it. And yeah, absolutely. And I feel like I have very good instincts about people and I can just tell you're wonderful.
- [04:44]
A
No, thanks. All right, I'll go. Let's go with that. Okay, let's start off by you're telling listeners what the book is about, right?
- [04:54]
B
So the book is about a family court judge and her life both inside and outside the courtroom. And her life, both cases is Certainly complicated. It's also about her husband's sad journey from being a super smart Yale professor, talented writer, to someone who begins to lose it day by day, week by week. And as someone who saw this in my own parents, who were much, much, much older, I. There were just things that were said, things that happened, you know, never to be forgotten. And so I always try to take even the saddest things, you know, in my life and put them to good use by. By writing about them. Oh, yes, and there's also a Holocaust survivor here who is inspired by the mother and mother in law of friends of mine. And they very lucky that they shared with me their memories of her and her life story. And also, of course, I have to mention that a very good friend of mine was previously a family court judge for years, and he allowed me to sit next to him and I did this day after day, week after week, and I took notes. And believe it or not, this all started 20 years ago.
- [06:22]
A
Oh, my goodness.
- [06:23]
B
And I had actually seven books, other books published before this one because I just couldn't get it right. I couldn't. And as a writer, it's such a frustrating thing, but I had invested so much time in it and it meant so much to me that I just. I just couldn't give up. So it was over 20 years.
- [06:43]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [06:45]
B
Yeah. So maybe that's a lesson to all those writers out there, people who want to be writers, that if, you know, you have a good idea and somehow you can't get it right, just to keep at it over and over and over again.
- [06:58]
A
That's very inspiring. And you've had an inspiring career to date, going as back quite a while. You said it was before I was born, but I'm not so sure. I don't think I am. But talk about how you got started as a writer.
- [07:13]
B
Well, oh, actually, I was thinking about this, believe it or not. Do you remember Seventeen magazine?
- [07:18]
A
Of course, yes.
- [07:20]
B
So when I was a teenager, you know, I used to read Seventeen magazine and I even at that point, I knew that I wanted to be a writer. I still can't believe I did this. So I was about 13 or 14, and I wrote a story about my grandmother, which, believe me, 17 is not going to be interested in anything about anyone's grandmother. But amazingly, I got a rejection slip. But on the bottom it said something about, we like, even though this story isn't right for us, we like your writing. So send us another story sometime. Well, it turned out about, let me think, about 40 years later, believe it or not, my story. I mean, the story that I wrote 40 years later was published in 17. It was the last piece of fiction 17 ever published, unlike the Kiss of Death, because this thing happened with Mademoiselle. I think they. I think the same thing. I was. My story was the last story, the last piece of fiction they ever published. But when I told the editor at 17, you know, but I was 13 years old when I first sent them, that was the only other story sent them, the one story story when I was 13. And then many, many years later. So.
- [08:30]
A
Oh, my gosh, what a full circle moment.
- [08:34]
B
But the funniest thing of all is that. And it's still, when I think about it, how luck has so much to do with life. It just really does. And what happened was I was working at Esquire magazine also a long time ago, and the fiction editor there, his name was Gordon Wish. Do you know that name? And actually, crazy thing is, both Gordon taught at Yale while I was working for him, and then years later, I taught at Yale. It's like, what are the chances of that happening? Anyway, so there were a lot of writers sort of coming and going to. To visit him. And so my job was just to read the slush pile. And then if Gordon wasn't around, I would answer his phone. So I got to talk to Truman Capote, and who always identified himself, which was funny because his voice was so distinctive, you know, of course, who recognized him instantly. Do you know the writer Raymond Carver?
- [09:28]
A
Of course.
- [09:29]
B
Yeah. So I talked to him a lot on the phone. He was a talker, and he was actually very, very sweet. We talked about writing, and I guess I. I was, you know, in my early 20s, and I told him I wanted to be a writer, which was probably crazy that I would say something like that to him, but it turned out. But anyway, what happened was one day a writer came out of Gordon's office, and he doesn't even know. I don't know if I should tell you his. His name, but. Because he has no idea who I. He did for me. So he worked at the New Yorker. He'd been published by them. His stories were published there. He worked in the New Yorker's typing pool. And in those days. You know the typing pool.
- [10:06]
A
I do, yes.
- [10:07]
B
Right. And. But Gordon was interested in publishing him, I guess. And as this young writer was walking out of Gordon's office, despite the fact that I was very shy, my. My dad, I didn't have an office. My desk was out in the hallway, and as he was walking by, I reached out my arm and I tapped him on the shoulder and I said, excuse, could you possibly tell me the name of your editor at the New Yorker? And so I guess maybe I gave him a little piece of paper and he wrote it down, and I put the piece of paper in my pocket, and that was what led me to having my first story published. And the interesting thing was, I found out later that the name that he gave me was not the name of his editor. He gave me the name of somebody else. And that somebody else turned out to be, you know, a wonderful mentor and bought quite a few stories in mine. And it was the luckiest thing ever. If I hadn't reached my. My hand out, this never would have happened, ever.
- [11:06]
A
Well, that's not luck. That was you making a decision and going after something.
- [11:11]
B
But actually, here's the funny part of this story also. So some, I don't know, maybe weeks, months went by, and I was already working on this particular story. And there was an editorial meeting, and all the editors were all the way. All the way down the end of the hall. And Nora Ephro, work there as an editor, and her assistant, who, by the way, graduated from Yale, had to leave early. And so they were having this meeting, and Nora was at the end of the hall, and she yelled out to me, marian, make sure you answer my phone if it rings. Although I couldn't possibly have gotten there in time because her office was all the way down. And I could picture this perfectly and to the right. So since all the editors were busy doing things, I just decided I was going to work on this story of mine. So. So I was completely involved in working on this story. Little did I know I was. That I was going to sell it to the New Yorker. And all of a sudden, I guess her phone was ringing, but I didn't even hear it. I wasn't paying any attention. I was only paying attention to my story. She was. She. I can still see her. She was at the end of the phone. She was yelling, mary, and I told you to answer my phone. And I'm sorry, I felt a little bit bad, but there was no way I could have gotten there in time anyway. But then that story, and that was the first story, you know, that I old. And the crazy thing also is that because I was a slush pile reader, I knew how easy it was. I did it for a red book also. And I knew how easy it was just to read, you know, the first paragraph. And you said, this isn't Very good. Then you go to the end and you say, sorry. And so I can't even believe I did this. I wrote a letter to this editor whose name I had at the New Yorker, and I said, please show me the respect, you know, that I try to do for Flesh Pile, and please read my story all the way to the end. And so here's the letter that I got, and it said, not only have we given your story a thorough reading, we have decided to take it for the magazine. It was. And actually, you'll be interested to hear this, because we were living. My husband and I were living in Cambridge because he was a student at Harvard Law School, and I was at a job that I was not happy with. And he came home from class, and he went to the mailbox and took this letter out. And I wasn't there to take it out myself out of the mailbox, because I was at that work. And he called me on the phone and he said, you have a letter from the New Yorker here. Why would they be writing to you? And then I. And then the two of us said, oh, maybe they're writing to tell me that they lost the story that I sent them, you know. So then he opens up the letter. He said, can I open it? And I said, yes. He opened it, and I was. Utter state of shock. Wow.
- [13:51]
A
Okay, let's fast forward then to. I don't know how to tell you this. How did it end up taking 20 years? What went wrong with the prior drafts? And how did you find your way through?
- [14:01]
B
Well, yes, what happened was, I. It's interesting, at the time that I started writing it, I was the mother of teenagers. And so someone in my family at the time was in a rock and roll band, didn't want to go to college. And so that was one of the things I. I had, you know, in the judge's life. And I guess it just wasn't. It just didn't work. The judge originally was a man because my friend who was a judge was a man. And that over the years, I began to understand that it would be much more interesting to have her as a woman. I just. Whatever. Oh, and the Holocaust survivor was a man also, and I changed it to woman. I just. I just couldn't get it right. I just couldn't. And then, as I said, it's over 20 years, 1999. That's when it started. And somehow, I think, you know, in your own work that, you know, it's just not working. It's just not. And so. But I couldn't bear to just throw it away because I had seen so many notes about the various cases, you know, that appeared in the, in the courtroom. And I put so much effort into it, and it just, it meant a lot to me. But I wrote seven other books. Wow.
- [15:24]
A
Well, I found the cases really interesting. And they're almost a framing device. Right, for that, for the intimate story between this couple and what happens when one person's mind begins to go and the other has to sort of mourn the loss in real time and figure out how to deal with it. Today's episode has been sponsored by Quince. As summer winds down, I am all about refreshing my wardrobe with staple pieces for the season ahead. Quince totally nails it with luxe essentials that feel effortless and look polished, perfect for layering and mixing. Their styles are so versatile, I find myself reaching for them again and again. In fact, you'll see me wearing them all over my Instagram feed. Think cashmere and cotton sweaters starting at $40, washable silk tops and classic denim pants. The best part is that everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quince gives you luxury without the markup. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes you'll see on Instagram. I love my quince skirt. I've been wearing it all summer and it is a fabulous fabric. It's long, the pattern's amazing, and it's just amazing. Plus, the price was great, so I just absolutely adore it. Elevate your fall wardrobe essentials with quince. Go to quince.comzibby for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U I N C E.com zibby to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com zippy.
- [17:09]
B
Ready to order?
- [17:10]
A
Yes. We're earning unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment with a Capital One Saver card. So let's just get one of everything. Everything.
- [17:18]
B
Fire everything. The Capital One Saver card is at table 27 and they're earning unlimited 3% cash back. Yes, chef.
- [17:25]
A
This is so nice.
- [17:26]
B
Had a feeling you'd want 3% cash back on dessert.
- [17:29]
A
Oh, tiramisu.
- [17:30]
B
Earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment with the Capital One Saver Card. Capital One what's in your wallet?
- [17:37]
C
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- [18:11]
A
You also did such a lovely job of not only describing it from Rachel's point of view, but also what it felt like to be in it. And you have this one paragraph. Do you mind if I read this?
- [18:22]
B
Sure.
- [18:23]
A
Rachel, touched by Jonathan's apparent need to keep the photographs close to him, leaves them there in the suitcase where he packed them, no questions asked. The Uber driver who will ferry them to the airport is texting Rachel to let them know he's arrived. They're all set to walk out with their luggage. When Jonathan realizes he can't find his house keys. He and Rachel take a quick look in the obvious places. The top of his dresser, the all purpose shelf beneath the large mirror and hanging on the wall in the foyer, and lastly, the kitchen counters. Jonathan seems unduly distressed, but actually, what does it matter? Rachel tells him they will be away for a week and what do they need his keys for anyway? She has hers right here in her handbag and they'll find his when they return from their trip. But he is clearly still upset, opening and closing all the kitchen cabinets and drawers, slamming them shut in frustration. I'm such an asshole, she hears him say under his breath, just as she is reminding him that they need to leave straight away if they don't want to miss their flight. Because he's not just searching for the keys, he's searching for himself. And this is a symbol of what's to come.
- [19:24]
B
Absolutely, absolutely. Again, you know, he's much younger than my mother. My father was 95 and my mother was 90. But even so, it was very painful to see how they had changed. And it was very, very painful. And they actually lived in the same building that my husband and I live in. I moved there so that I would, you know, be able to go upstairs and check. They had a living, unfortunately. Wonderful, wonderful caregiver. But it was very, very painful. Very painful. And it seems like, unfortunately, this dementia seems to be. There's an epidemic somehow. I keep reading about it all the time, but I, you know, witnessed this with my own eyes and ears and never to be forgotten, ever. And it was interesting because my, one of my grandmothers, I had never seen this before. Never seen dementia before. And one of my grandmothers who, she was a widow from the time she was 40 and she just did everything absolutely on her own. You know, even when she was in her 90s, I think she was doing, you know, her taxes and doing her laundry and everything. So it was astounding to me to see this, you know, in my own mother and father. I just never expected it. And I guess my idea of what, you know, elderly people were like was my grandmother who just took care of everything. And I don't know, in retrospect, I don't know how she managed. She had two wonderful daughters, but for the most part, she relied on herself and only herself. And it's pretty wonderful, actually.
- [21:03]
A
Well, I'm, I'm sorry you had to go through that with your parents. That must be very painful. And I'm glad you found a creative outlet to, to put it in. Do you find that it helped you process all that?
- [21:13]
B
Yeah, I think it probably did. And interestingly, my mother and father died within six weeks of each other, so that my mother died first. She was 90. And so my father never really had to mourn her loss because we didn't to tell him. And actually, here's a good, there's an interesting detail. So the wonderful caregiver they had, she didn't want my father to figure out that my mother was no longer in bed beside him. So she blew up some balloons and she put them in the bed next to my father, put the balloons up, you know, the pillow. And I remember I was, that's another thing that I was astounded by. But I mean, she was wonderful. It shows you what a terrifically empathetic, you know, caregiver she was. But it was, it was quite, quite something, I have to say. There was very, you know, there are comic moments. There are lots of comic moments in this. And I, you know, I tried to, to write about them in my, in my, my own work.
- [22:18]
A
And tell me a little more about the Holocaust survivor plot line. You mentioned they were friends of your family. But Sophia in the book, you know, didn't want to talk about it very much, occasionally talked about Auschwitz. And there's a Shiva in the book later. Tell me a little more about that.
- [22:36]
B
Right. Well, so my friends were, you know, able to talk about, you know, their mother and mother in law. And I really appreciated, you know, knowing that, you know, she wasn't this, you know, sentimental figure. You know, she was a very strong person, not sentimental in the least. And it made, it made sense to Me that in order to go on, you know, after the terrible, terrible things, you know, that she had experienced and. And witnessed, you know, just when I. When I thought about them, it's just so. Just awful. And interestingly and coincidentally, the judge. My friend, the judge who let me sit with him, his father, his. His parents were Holocaust survivors. That they were. I believe they were in the Warsaw ghetto, and they were able to come to the United States, thankfully. But his. My friend's father's twin sisters, who I think were 13 years old, died in Auschwitz. And, you know, I never forgot that. And that's probably where the idea came from all those. All those years ago. But one of the things that I was. I was thinking about is that I remember my mother telling me this, that when I was, like, 2 years old, we lived in a neighborhood in Queens that had a lot of Holocaust survivors. And since I was. Was only two, of course, I didn't know anything about this. My mother told me this years later. She told me that there was a kosher butcher in the neighborhood where she used to go, I don't know, maybe once a week or so. And maybe the first time she went there with me, and I was in my stroller, and the butcher began to weep at the sight of me because it turned out I looked like his little girl who died in the Holocaust. And so, you know what my mother did? This is kind of the comic part of the story. I know I get all choked up when I think about this. My mother used to. When she would go to the butcher, she would leave me outside the store in my stroller. And in today's work, she didn't want to upset the butcher. In today's world, she would have been arrested. Right. For abandoning her child. But I guess in those days, it was perfectly safe. But when she told me this, you know, she told me years and years later, and, you know, I never. I never forgot it. It just meant so much to me. And today, giving everything that's going on. Mm.
- [24:54]
A
It's terrible.
- [24:55]
B
Yeah. These things mean even. Even more. I was wondering if you were all interested to hear when I was a young mother, you know, and a mother of, you know, young children, and how I managed to.
- [25:08]
A
Oh, yes, yes, do Tell me that. Yes, tell me. Tell me your. Tell me that, please.
- [25:15]
B
So, interestingly, I don't understand how I did it, but I was more. I was the most productive I'd ever been when my children were young. And I think I had five books published in seven years. And I just wanted to. Another to another. And so I had a babysitter from, you know, 10 in the morning till 2:00 clock in the afternoon. And. And I had a wonderful babysitter, Manny, I guess you'd call in today's world. So I had a very limited amount of time and we were living a long time ago in a one bedroom apartment, believe it or not, with two kids and a cat. So what I did was I did this all the time in the beginning when my, so my son was in school. So that was good. He didn't, I didn't have to pick him up until three. Three o', clock, right. So the babysitter was there. And every day when she would come, she would say to my daughter, who became a writer herself, by the way, let's go downstairs and do the laundry. And so she then there was no law, maybe there was no laundry. It should be done, you know, five days a week, certainly. And then I would sort of walk them to the elevator and then say, hey, thanks for doing the laundry. Then I would run back inside the apartment and I had a lock put on the bedroom door because if I didn't, you know, my wonderful little girl would have opened the door, I'm sure. So I had a lock on the door and I stayed in there. And if I ever needed to use the bathroom, I had to slip a note under the door and hope that. And hope that the, you know, the babysitter would see it.
- [26:45]
A
Oh, my gosh. Well, what you. The lengths you go to to get things done as a mom.
- [26:52]
B
I know. No, it's really true. And one of the things was, I never, never forgot this, that my daughter, who actually was very tiny, is still small today. She had tiny little hands and she had had a play date going on in the other room while I'm working. And she slipped her hands under the door and I could see that there was enough room between the bottom of the door, you know, on the floor. And I saw her hands coming through. And I heard her friend, little, you know, three year old friend, say to her, what' doing in there? And my daughter's response was, she's a typer. As in typing on a typer. Although I wrote everything by, by hand, everything with it, with believe it or not. And then I later. But yeah, it's true. What moms have to go through in order to get things done.
- [27:38]
A
Oh my gosh. Well, Marianne, thank you so much. Thank you for this really elegant portrait of an aging couple and what people go through for each other, what love looks like. As we all shapeshift through time and the impact also of course, of society and all of the many cases that you brought to our attention. So thank you so much for this lovely, lovely story.
- [28:04]
B
I thank you very, very much for this opportunity and I hope I haven't said too much.
- [28:10]
A
Not at all, not at all.
- [28:13]
B
Thank you. Okay, bye bye bye bye.
- [28:17]
A
Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby formerly Moms don't have Time to read Books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram ibyohans and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.
- [28:39]
C
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- [29:15]
A
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- [29:41]
C
Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capitalone.com for details. If you work as a manufacturing facilities engineer, installing a new piece of equipment can be as complex as the machinery itself. From prep work to alignment and testing, it's your team's job to put it all together. That's why it's good to have Grainger on your side. With industrial grade products and next day delivery, Grainger helps ensure your have everything you need close at hand through every step of the installation. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.