Full Transcript for North Woods by Daniel Mason with Sarah Sawyer

really about Daniel Mason per say, except we had a brief conversation at a wedding last summer, I think, and he was talking about 04:59.135 --> 05:06.960 [SPEAKER_01]: Sort of the same thing his jealousy because he's also like a professor He's like does all these things in addition very run a science intellect. 05:07.040 --> 05:13.765 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that he has so yeah Well the book is written It's so interesting. 05:13.805 --> 05:20.509 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we can talk about it without talking about like the style of Of this story. 05:20.529 --> 05:21.890 [SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to start us with? 05:22.430 --> 05:26.393 [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have any particular stories that you loved in the north woods? 05:27.278 --> 05:34.161 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, so if people haven't read it, it's the story of an apple orchard, basically. 05:34.741 --> 05:40.984 [SPEAKER_01]: And it goes through centuries of time, centered around the same place. 05:41.244 --> 05:48.807 [SPEAKER_01]: And the places I live in Western Massachusetts where the novel is set, when I went to Amherst College, where the last character went to college. 05:48.827 --> 05:50.708 [SPEAKER_01]: So it was, that's always fun to sort of. 05:51.390 --> 05:52.071 [SPEAKER_01]: Find that. 05:52.371 --> 06:03.604 [SPEAKER_01]: But because the story goes through so many different times and places, he also changes his style and voice accordingly to sort of match the time period that that he's talking about. 06:03.664 --> 06:05.867 [SPEAKER_01]: So a character that appears. 06:06.737 --> 06:13.921 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, in the 1700s, sort of speaks very differently than a character, the very last character, it's a more contemporary character. 06:15.262 --> 06:18.885 [SPEAKER_01]: But also, there are ghosts who appear. 06:18.985 --> 06:22.487 [SPEAKER_01]: It's very funny, very sad. 06:22.787 --> 06:29.891 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just got such a range of not only voice, I think, but also, it has emotional range, too. 06:29.971 --> 06:35.675 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm trying to think if I have a favorite, I'm not sure I do, I kind of am delighted by it. 06:36.525 --> 06:38.606 [SPEAKER_00]: All of them this sister's though. 06:38.626 --> 06:41.248 [SPEAKER_01]: I think you have to love the sisters. 06:41.328 --> 06:49.312 [SPEAKER_00]: I was I was going to say I think and I guess we should probably like branch out a little bit about what the story starts with because the sisters are 06:50.161 --> 06:57.426 [SPEAKER_00]: probably maybe at 20% of the way in maybe, were they pretty early in the story, but it's told through time. 06:57.506 --> 07:03.089 [SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of feel like it's almost told through the perspective of this house that was built. 07:03.489 --> 07:04.730 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the character. 07:04.750 --> 07:06.871 [SPEAKER_01]: A very, yeah, for sure. 07:06.972 --> 07:08.412 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think I'm really fun. 07:09.073 --> 07:13.876 [SPEAKER_01]: Once you understand that upon a second read, it was interesting, but once you understand the, 07:14.396 --> 07:15.917 [SPEAKER_01]: the sort of trick of it. 07:16.057 --> 07:16.377 [SPEAKER_01]: Right? 07:16.777 --> 07:27.143 [SPEAKER_01]: You're looking for where the sort of apple seed or whatever sport or whatever is going to happen to sort of cause the next gift occurs. 07:27.583 --> 07:41.790 [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it begins with this sort of like pair of lovers who abscond into the woods and then there's some soldiers and one of them eats an apple and he dies and that sort of starts the the apple orchard that I think 07:42.523 --> 07:51.571 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe sort of one of the main first characters and also main last characters makes into his beloved Ozgood Apples that go all the way through the story. 07:52.456 --> 08:04.361 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and so I think to that sort of like pre-revolutionary, and then it goes into Osgood, who I think he was the one that formed the apple orchard. 08:04.401 --> 08:08.143 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, probably the 1700s, is that sound right? 08:08.623 --> 08:11.725 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, because he's like, he fights for the British army, right? 08:11.745 --> 08:14.446 [SPEAKER_01]: He's sort of like, and disgrace him, has been his town. 08:14.966 --> 08:16.647 [SPEAKER_01]: And then he has these two daughters. 08:17.487 --> 08:20.471 [SPEAKER_01]: who end up sort of taking over the orchard. 08:20.611 --> 08:27.759 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you've tried to pitch this novel, and it weren't an amazing novel, I don't even know what someone would say. 08:28.120 --> 08:31.103 [SPEAKER_01]: I've got this book, there's an apple tree, it goes all the way through. 08:31.724 --> 08:34.407 [SPEAKER_01]: It sounds kind of absurd when you talk about it. 08:34.708 --> 08:38.911 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a Beatles smut chapter. 08:38.931 --> 08:40.072 [SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm. 08:40.192 --> 08:46.496 [SPEAKER_01]: You know what it's kind of like is, I mean, not at all, but also yes kind of, movie deck, right? 08:46.556 --> 08:54.181 [SPEAKER_01]: Because there's, it's just so willing to go in any kind of direction and service of telling the story. 08:54.201 --> 09:03.187 [SPEAKER_01]: I also wonder, there's a great, if you don't know if you have read these, but there are these wonderful letters between Melville and Hawthorne. 09:03.796 --> 09:17.432 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, very erotic beautiful letters that I think you must have based the painter story line on because in western mass in the Berkshire's there's this hike you can do. 09:18.029 --> 09:34.878 [SPEAKER_01]: and there's a cave or like an overhang in the hike that supposedly Hathorn and Melville sort of sheltered under and there was much electricity that they talked about in the letters but then Hathorn stopped writing to Melville and he was, he was distraught. 09:34.998 --> 09:40.421 [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I wondered how it's like, oh, he must be using that story, I think. 09:40.561 -->

09:42.582 [SPEAKER_00]: It all makes sense for the time in place. 09:42.682 --> 09:45.864 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, thinking about 09:46.868 --> 09:48.169 [SPEAKER_00]: Where was Hawthorne? 09:48.430 --> 09:49.991 [SPEAKER_00]: Locate was he in Massachusetts? 09:50.192 --> 09:56.098 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so he had like come out there to visit, but he was out more towards towards Boston area. 09:56.598 --> 10:04.046 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so what is like the culture up there when you're talking about like, some of these like big legendary names in literature. 10:04.962 --> 10:17.054 [SPEAKER_01]: I think in New England, there's so many small towns sort of like the town that's described in the novel and a lot of them, their point of pride is really like pitchfield where I'm melville's from. 10:17.074 --> 10:19.477 [SPEAKER_01]: There's not like really a lot going on in pitchfield. 10:19.557 --> 10:24.442 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's like the historical marker of that place I live in an old mill town. 10:24.983 --> 10:27.804 [SPEAKER_01]: all the East Hampton, and we don't have any literary legends. 10:27.844 --> 10:28.604 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm pretty sure. 10:28.984 --> 10:33.386 [SPEAKER_01]: But like Salem, obviously Boston is replete with literature. 10:33.706 --> 10:36.647 [SPEAKER_01]: But there are just the state as a whole. 10:36.747 --> 10:39.628 [SPEAKER_01]: I think just has a lot of that kind of history. 10:39.868 --> 10:41.089 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm right next to Amber. 10:41.149 --> 10:50.652 [SPEAKER_01]: So Emily Dickinson and Pong Curd, you've got Emerson and Throw and all these people were kind of living and working together. 10:50.792 --> 10:51.873 [SPEAKER_01]: There's like a funny story 10:52.630 --> 11:00.553 [SPEAKER_01]: Ralph, while they're Emerson took a tour out to this part of the state and he wanted to talk to Emily Dickinson and she refused to see He's like, no, thank you. 11:00.693 --> 11:12.498 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so it's kind of amazing to me like Louise and me Alcott all these people just kind of together I don't know why or how that happens, but yeah, New England is amazing in that way 11:13.279 --> 11:14.520 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, are you from New England? 11:14.540 --> 11:15.561 [SPEAKER_00]: Have you always been there? 11:16.221 --> 11:19.804 [SPEAKER_01]: No, I grew up in Texas when I was little. 11:19.824 --> 11:28.970 [SPEAKER_01]: So until I was 10, I lived in Austin, which I was born in Minnesota, had a four-way to England and there, and then we moved to Philadelphia. 11:29.410 --> 11:35.575 [SPEAKER_01]: When I was 10, and I finished high school there, and then I went to college here, and met my husband, and we have. 11:36.057 --> 11:36.958 [SPEAKER_01]: I've been here ever since. 11:37.638 --> 11:38.899 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the way it was, right? 11:39.720 --> 11:42.242 [SPEAKER_01]: Where yeah, it's the time it does fly for sure. 11:42.523 --> 11:47.247 [SPEAKER_01]: I never ever would have thought that I would stay in a small

town in New England for my life, but here we are. 11:48.107 --> 11:49.849 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, really the whole thing, okay. 11:50.249 --> 11:50.669 [SPEAKER_00]: I know. 11:50.850 --> 11:53.332 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I say the same thing about Richmond. 11:53.372 --> 12:02.480 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, and yeah, and it's not that far right, it's five hours, but yeah, I never what I thought we would have stayed here, but, 12:03.120 --> 12:06.144 [SPEAKER_00]: You move somewhere and you start having roots. 12:06.184 --> 12:08.848 [SPEAKER_00]: The next thing that's been, well, it's the kids, right? 12:08.928 --> 12:12.172 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like I always say I'm a teacher, so I'm like never move a happy kid. 12:12.212 --> 12:15.156 [SPEAKER_01]: Like if a kid is happy, don't go anywhere. 12:15.236 --> 12:17.980 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like our kids are happy, but now they're on the house. 12:18.000 --> 12:19.702 [SPEAKER_01]: So whatever, so. 12:19.742 --> 12:20.483 [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah. 12:21.189 --> 12:23.711 [SPEAKER_00]: What would you say is kind of like the vibe of Northwoods? 12:23.751 --> 12:25.271 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's so hard to describe. 12:25.291 --> 12:29.034 [SPEAKER_00]: I do want to wish I left my copy at work. 12:29.314 --> 12:35.497 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, because it has like these beautiful pictures in the slide. 12:35.577 --> 12:37.698 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you can flip to one real quick. 12:37.939 --> 12:38.879 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a copy. 12:38.899 --> 12:40.860 [SPEAKER_01]: You'll turn a page here's a meadow. 12:41.020 --> 12:41.521 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 12:41.881 --> 12:45.263 [SPEAKER_01]: Or there'll be one almanac or something. 12:46.084 --> 12:47.565 [SPEAKER_01]: It's so inventive. 12:47.645 --> 12:59.495 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know if, I mean, I think technically you would call it a historical novel of some sort, but it's also, or you would say, oh, there's magical realism in here or something, but really only just because it goes, I think. 12:59.695 --> 13:05.059 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think, I really, I'm not sure what you would call it delightful, right? 13:05.079 --> 13:07.681 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't think it's, it's not like anything. 13:07.701 --> 13:10.183 [SPEAKER_01]: I've ever read, which is why I picked it. 13:10.303 --> 13:14.046 [SPEAKER_01]: There are things that reminds me of, but it's not really because it's similar to them. 13:15.775 --> 13:37.617 [SPEAKER_01]: books like that that sort of surprised me with their their choices and their twists and turns and I feel like as a writer it's just so hard to be that consistently inventive all the way through yeah piece actually so difficult so I think it's it's kind of amazing when I think he said maybe I heard this from Andy or maybe I read it somewhere that 13:38.353 --> 13:47.803 [SPEAKER_01]: with COVID and his family had moved to this house over by Williams town and he just like spent a lot of

time walking in the woods because like we all did, there was not a lot of else to do. 13:48.864 --> 13:54.710 [SPEAKER_01]: So he just got sort of absorbed in these woods near his house and that kind of how it came to be. 13:54.770 --> 13:58.834 [SPEAKER_01]: But still that's in the hands of I think someone quite creative, right? 13:59.174 --> 13:59.695 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 14:00.331 --> 14:06.574 [SPEAKER_00]: I've thought a lot about recently about how like writing an art is really about the lens of the artist or the writer. 14:06.594 --> 14:17.078 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously it's a lot of work that goes into it, but like his his ability to stay kind of like loose and whimsical throughout the story. 14:17.118 --> 14:18.099 [SPEAKER_00]: It's so funny. 14:18.179 --> 14:19.419 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a line in there. 14:19.860 --> 14:20.720 [SPEAKER_00]: I was laughing. 14:21.400 --> 14:29.664 [SPEAKER_01]: It was like one of the characters is listening to at a dinner party and is listening to a man explain something and she says something like it's like 14:30.220 --> 14:54.995 [SPEAKER_01]: 1800 or something and she says like she was just there were a word for how tedious it is with men explain things that and you can tell he's having fun and like delighting himself which I think is always told the kids that I teach writing to if you are not having fun there is no way your reader is having fun right it's just not a possibility right or your work should feel like fun 15:00.227 --> 15:06.099 [SPEAKER_00]: When you're like sitting there and you're like forcing yourself to write, oh my goodness, yes, of course 15:06.920 --> 15:19.969 [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to ask about your writing journey and I know you're a teacher, but when did you decide that you wanted to sit down a write-in novel or what was the impetus for it all? 15:20.650 --> 15:31.897 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's like there's a long version and there's a short version, but so I think most people who write I always sort of thought, well that would be really cool if I could do that. 15:32.077 --> 15:32.758 [SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't. 15:33.383 --> 15:50.018 [SPEAKER_01]: write anything really beyond what I was asked to write or my sad journals or whatever until I turned probably 40 and the reason I started was I was just sort of like I had been thinking about a story for a long time and I thought 15:50.673 --> 15:52.655 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm like halfway into dead. 15:52.735 --> 15:55.117 [SPEAKER_00]: So I should probably, I can't go away if I'm going to. 15:55.437 --> 16:00.642 [SPEAKER_01]: And then like once I did it, and it's very bad, what I wrote, very bad. 16:00.722 --> 16:04.265 [SPEAKER_01]: But I also learned a lot and had a lot of fun doing it. 16:04.905 --> 16:05.846 [SPEAKER_01]: And I always laugh. 16:05.906 --> 16:09.469 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I think I gave myself a master class and how not to write an opera. 16:09.530 --> 16:10.050 [SPEAKER_01]: It was just like, 16:10.887

--> 16:13.029 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, like that didn't work or that didn't work. 16:13.389 --> 16:18.953 [SPEAKER_01]: So then I tried again and I got my agent with that novel. 16:19.274 --> 16:22.897 [SPEAKER_01]: But that novel didn't sell sadly because I love that novel. 16:23.157 --> 16:27.620 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I wrote another novel doing COVID and my agent hated it. 16:27.700 --> 16:29.422 [SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, I hate this novel. 16:29.462 --> 16:31.263 [SPEAKER_01]: I can't sell it and it was like, okay. 16:31.824 --> 16:35.727 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I wrote another novel and that novel is under current. 16:35.767 --> 16:35.927 [SPEAKER_01]: So. 16:36.805 --> 17:04.480 [SPEAKER_01]: It is not a quick journey, I think it is, I made it, I did it, yeah, yeah, I mean it's not, I whenever I talk to people about that, it sounds so it sounds like such a terrible sequence, but at the same time I had fun writing all of those pieces and I think if you are a writer that's really absorbed in the outcome, I think it would be really horrible but I'm not 17:05.160 --> 17:07.029 [SPEAKER_01]: particularly absorbed in the outcome. 17:07.089 --> 17:08.837 [SPEAKER_01]: I just think like, oh, this will be fun or 17:09.652 --> 17:18.494 [SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to challenge myself, I like to be busy intellectually, so, but yeah, if you were like, I'm gonna write this novel and become my bestseller, I don't, yeah, maybe, but also maybe not. 17:19.014 --> 17:20.895 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's okay, probably not. 17:20.955 --> 17:21.615 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. 17:21.995 --> 17:22.295 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 17:23.055 --> 17:24.896 [SPEAKER_00]: I think about that a lot. 17:25.076 --> 17:27.136 [SPEAKER_00]: I think of a lot of the things you said a lot. 17:27.296 --> 17:31.958 [SPEAKER_00]: Number one, turning 40 and thinking, I have half way there. 17:32.138 --> 17:33.238 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 17:33.258 --> 17:36.959 [SPEAKER_01]: But even if I buy shoes, I'm like, ooh, these might be the last shoes. 17:37.259 --> 17:39.121 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, it can really make my shoes look like that. 17:40.062 --> 17:44.306 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so, but that, and then also, I think about the same thing. 17:44.326 --> 17:56.578 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, when I started this podcast too, I was sort of like, really wanting to do something creative, and sure it's be great if I could become independently wealthy from this one. 17:57.078 --> 18:02.843 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not currently, but I get to do so many amazing things. 18:02.903 --> 18:09.308 [SPEAKER_00]: I get to talk to people like you and hear about your journey and like that has really been the magic in all of it for me. 18:09.389 --> 18:09.589 [SPEAKER_00]: Right. 18:09.689 --> 18:12.091 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that I've really so much to what you were saying. 18:12.111 --> 18:14.953 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think sometimes it's just fair. 18:15.013 --> 18:16.835 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean like we're a capitalist society, right? 18:16.855 --> 18:19.237 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's very easy to get caught up in that kind of 18:20.013 --> 18:36.927 [SPEAKER_01]: idea of exchange and this for that, and that's where value is, but I'm pointing to a fact, like you're saying, it's like, actually not at all where the value is, or even if I, if I read books, and I, I won't name names, but sometimes every books that are best sellers, and I'm like, oh, goodness. 18:37.027 --> 18:38.368 [SPEAKER_01]: This is actually just not good. 18:38.388 --> 18:44.913 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like objectively, just not, but people were not me. 18:44.953 --> 18:46.234 [SPEAKER_01]: My, be resonating 18:49.723 --> 18:55.094 [SPEAKER_01]: that kind of like bulk appeal might not be a measure of quality. 18:55.134 --> 19:00.565 [SPEAKER_01]: I think sometimes it is like Northwoods obviously so like hockey's and that's amazing. 19:00.945 --> 19:01.707 [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think. 19:02.420 --> 19:03.201 [SPEAKER_01]: don't it might not be? 19:04.542 --> 19:08.825 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, think about, think about Moby Dick too, right? 19:09.225 --> 19:12.267 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's an example if the listener doesn't know. 19:12.307 --> 19:17.191 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't think anyone read it for like 50 years after his death, right? 19:17.211 --> 19:19.913 [SPEAKER_01]: The poor man, he's working with on that thing. 19:20.393 --> 19:25.197 [SPEAKER_01]: Our did, and you can go to Melville's house and Pitzfield, and they have built 19:25.997 --> 19:43.831 [SPEAKER_01]: an organization called The Masked Heds has built these kind of amazing modern-looking cabins that you can like have for the day, for like, I don't know, $40 or something, and they just go and like sit and write and these cabins in the field. 19:43.951 --> 19:44.912 [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of amazing. 19:44.972 --> 19:45.873 [SPEAKER_01]: It's really a cool all. 19:46.609 --> 20:12.809 [SPEAKER_00]: a cool thing but hopefully the magic but then you sort of think oh my gosh this man was working on this novel forever right and without like a word processor now just toiling away toiling yeah so tell us I wanted to give the listener talking about the undercurrent some so tell me about this novel I have which I've read and I loved but yeah 20:15.287 --> 20:32.897 [SPEAKER_01]: So, the undercurrent is the story of a new mom named B who is quite bored as many new moms are and kind of overwhelmed by her situation in life and she becomes obsessed with the story of a girl who went missing in her 20:33.477 --> 20:52.627 [SPEAKER_01]: neighborhood when she was a kid and the novel is about motherhood to large degree and about the change from girlhood to motherhood be ends up going back to her hometown in Texas and trying to figure out what happened to the squirrel but she ends up finding out some things about her family. 20:52.647 --> 20:57.250 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's told in three different perspectives it has B which is sort of in present time and then

21:02.155 --> 21:29.309 [SPEAKER_01]: Mary and then the voice of the woman who lives across the street who's the mother of her childhood best friend named Diana who's a scholar and they're kind of meant to be three different versions of motherhood and what motherhood looks and feels like at least from my point of view and it's funny when I when the novel came out my mother was like certain she knew which mother she was like, well, I would like to be late in the movie version of it. 21:30.710 --> 21:58.422 [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think motherhood is pretty fascinating and and wild and I think also It's interesting to me just to think about as I'm unlike the other end of all of it how much is asked of of women in terms of transforming their bodies and their lives and and everything in a way that I'm not a man, but I don't think men are really required to do so so fundamentally and in such a sort of earth-shaking 21:58.929 --> 21:59.269 [SPEAKER_01]: way. 21:59.449 --> 22:02.070 [SPEAKER_01]: And it was an absolute pleasure to write. 22:02.190 --> 22:05.071 [SPEAKER_01]: I loved writing that book and I loved those characters. 22:05.231 --> 22:17.995 [SPEAKER_01]: I've been to a lot of book clubs and often they have very strong people have very strong opinions about the mothers and which when they like and which when they think it's a bit win and my quilt. 22:18.235 --> 22:21.356 [SPEAKER_00]: What is some of the more interesting things you've heard at book clubs? 22:21.997 --> 22:23.697 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh book clubs are so great. 22:23.837 --> 22:25.818 [SPEAKER_00]: I love I love going to them. 22:26.630 --> 22:28.271 [SPEAKER_01]: Often they're on Zoom, right? 22:28.311 --> 22:34.634 [SPEAKER_01]: So it'll be like a person who doesn't know how to work Zoom, like, Charlie, go in everywhere. 22:35.454 --> 22:36.755 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like very funny. 22:37.375 --> 22:44.478 [SPEAKER_01]: The one I'm thinking of was actually in person at a bookstore in Plymouth, Massachusetts, which is called Book Love. 22:44.959 --> 22:49.721 [SPEAKER_01]: And they have a really robust reading series, I guess. 22:50.141 --> 22:52.142 [SPEAKER_01]: And they had read my book. 22:53.044 --> 22:55.165 [SPEAKER_01]: were nice enough to invite me to come in person. 22:55.285 --> 23:00.148 [SPEAKER_01]: So that was actually really fun because often when you do an event, people haven't read your book yet. 23:00.168 --> 23:05.911 [SPEAKER_01]: So they don't do it to me in like that it's interesting what you have to say but it's not like so meaningful to them. 23:05.931 --> 23:12.275 [SPEAKER_01]: But these women had read the book and they were psyched to talk about it and they had like very specific questions like on page 27. 23:12.315 --> 23:14.796 [SPEAKER_01]: But that wasn't no, it's in a hug. 23:15.036 --> 23:21.260 [SPEAKER_01]: So that was just kind of fun and two of them got in a little battle about two of the mothers. 23:22.629 --> 23:28.855 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of

the mothers in the books book make some, well, I mean, they all make some dubious choices. 23:29.175 --> 23:37.423 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but yeah, one of them in particular make some pretty top choices and and they were debating about what the biggest mistake she made really was. 23:37.523 --> 23:43.269 [SPEAKER_01]: And it was interesting just because they were thinking about her in a way that I wasn't thinking about her when I was writing it. 23:43.289 --> 23:46.572 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's always really interesting like to see. 23:47.132 --> 23:50.273 [SPEAKER_01]: you put it out in the world and it's it's not yours anymore. 23:50.293 --> 23:54.755 [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't really belong to you and they can think what they want to think about it and I loved listening. 23:54.875 --> 23:55.155 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. 23:55.175 --> 24:01.578 [SPEAKER_01]: I just thought it was so interesting and cool to hear kind of the world that it made and the questions that it raised for them. 24:01.598 --> 24:02.098 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah. 24:03.193 --> 24:06.815 [SPEAKER_00]: Is it hard ever to really something like that? 24:06.895 --> 24:09.977 [SPEAKER_00]: Or was that a surprising experience to you? 24:09.997 --> 24:14.140 [SPEAKER_01]: No, not really just because I teach novels all the time. 24:14.220 --> 24:24.986 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think so much of what I do is I'm just very aware that we don't really, usually have access into an author's purpose or, and kids ask me all the time. 24:25.246 --> 24:29.969 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so it couldn't possibly have meant all this that we're, you know, ascribing to it. 24:30.393 --> 24:35.576 [SPEAKER_01]: if you're talking about symbol or something like that, which I think is a fair question. 24:35.776 --> 24:44.261 [SPEAKER_01]: It really is a fair question, because I think it takes a long time to understand that a good piece of art is actually beyond its artists. 24:44.781 --> 24:51.305 [SPEAKER_01]: If something, if you make something that's really extraordinary, it's because somebody has sort of, 24:51.955 --> 25:10.085 [SPEAKER_01]: gotten out over their skis and made something that was amazing and universal and has lots of things to say to lots of people not because they were like red equals anger and I think it's so in the case of a novel so complex how meaning arises that yeah that I think 25:10.738 --> 25:22.727 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I think I was aware that that's possible, and I'm not saying that I mean one of those amazing pieces, but just to say, I can see how, when you put something out, it's out for sure. 25:23.048 --> 25:32.835 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm just always curious about that, because the same thing you're saying about, like I just remember being in high school, in English class, and being like, 25:39.220 --> 25:46.744 [SPEAKER_00]: So I can't remember what exactly it was and my teacher just being like no you're wrong That's not what he been and then it was an adult. 25:46.864

--> 25:51.066 [SPEAKER_00]: I realized like he could have she could have she First of all come home. 25:51.126 --> 25:59.150 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, or like maybe more to the point he would not have been opposed if you thought whatever you thought right Yeah, I think like 25:59.685 --> 26:05.847 [SPEAKER_01]: I was actually talking last week at this writers retreat, we were talking about movie adaptations of novels. 26:06.107 --> 26:10.428 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was the lone person at the table who lived the new weathering heights. 26:11.128 --> 26:12.588 [SPEAKER_01]: I loved that movie. 26:13.088 --> 26:15.749 [SPEAKER_01]: And I loved how wild and weird it was. 26:15.829 --> 26:21.170 [SPEAKER_01]: And then everyone was kind of like, well, she wouldn't have, well, I was like, first of all, I'm pretty sure she would have been here for it. 26:21.210 --> 26:24.631 [SPEAKER_01]: Because that lady was wild herself. 26:24.711 --> 26:27.892 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think she, if she could have thought of a skin wall, she would have done it. 26:28.572 --> 26:30.252 [SPEAKER_01]: But I was like, she's been so here we are. 26:30.592 --> 26:35.053 [SPEAKER_01]: But I was like the idea of interpreting something, calling it weathering heights. 26:35.073 --> 26:37.194 [SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was so playful and weird. 26:37.434 --> 26:38.634 [SPEAKER_01]: And I loved that book. 26:38.714 --> 26:43.815 [SPEAKER_01]: And I loved that book as a 12 or 13-year-old, or whenever I read it. 26:44.255 --> 26:51.677 [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember Emerald Fennel said in her, one of her interviews that she wanted to make the movie that she thought the book was when she was that age. 26:52.117 --> 26:59.064 [SPEAKER_01]: And I reread it to watch the movie and I was like, oh, this is not the book I thought it was at all. 26:59.365 --> 27:03.049 [SPEAKER_00]: But when I was 13, I was like, feeling some Heathcliff and love it. 27:03.089 --> 27:04.090 [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, yeah. 27:04.170 --> 27:04.630 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 27:05.191 --> 27:06.873 [SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's just another example. 27:06.893 --> 27:09.235 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you put something out and somebody makes something. 27:09.255 --> 27:09.816 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. 27:09.896 --> 27:13.900 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's interpretation is an interesting, interesting thing. 27:14.337 --> 27:31.078 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely and I wanted to tell you one thing and I won't call this friend out, but going back and talking about motherhood real quick, we've had fathers day and we were all standing around and be like, what are you getting your partner for fathers day? 27:31.758 --> 27:35.479 [SPEAKER_00]: And she gets, she gets, what is he getting for me? 27:36.119 --> 27:37.479 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm made from the father. 27:37.499 --> 27:38.559 [SPEAKER_00]: There you go. 27:38.759 --> 27:39.580 [SPEAKER_01]: There you go. 27:39.720 --> 27:40.860 [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't like, what is this? 27:40.920 --> 27:41.340 [SPEAKER_01]: Come on. 27:41.940 --> 27:42.600 [SPEAKER_01]: It's funny. 27:42.760 --> 27:44.161 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's kind of true. 27:44.481 --> 27:45.121 [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of true. 27:45.161 --> 27:51.942 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, those days are sort of like, I was call my husband and every day has been, because he's not great at like gestures at all. 27:52.162 --> 27:54.363 [SPEAKER_01]: But he's really good like on a daily basis. 27:54.423 --> 27:59.844 [SPEAKER_01]: Like he, my pajamas are warmed up for me from the dryer and he just sees very, 28:01.677 --> 28:11.794 [SPEAKER_01]: good that way, but like, I'm not getting flowers like definitely my neighbor was to tell me today that her husband surprised her with this day and he was like, 28:12.387 --> 28:16.368 [SPEAKER_01]: Pack your bathing suit and like get ready and she's like I hate putting my baby suit on. 28:16.428 --> 28:36.056 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like early June Like why I don't want to put my bathing suit on and like this is terrible I don't like swimming She's like this is gonna be the worst surprise ever But he like faked her out and took her to a mumford and son's concert He's like just kidding I was like my husband would never do that The way I'm a surprise day, but he does suit the laundry 28:52.540 --> 29:00.288 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I am and it's like probably a mistake to read Northwoods when you're, you know, at the beginning parts of a new project that you're like worried about. 29:00.308 --> 29:02.110 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, shoot. 29:02.310 --> 29:11.140 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I am writing a new novel and it's about a girl who's babysitting at a lake, a summer lake. 29:11.725 --> 29:29.709 [SPEAKER_01]: and she kind of becomes this four-year into the family that she is working for and the novel, as I'm conceiving of it right now, has two parts in the first part of sort of centered around her and the second part is centered around one of the kids in the house that she is babysitting for. 29:30.389 --> 29:35.930 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind, it's about friendship mainly and just sort of like how difficult it is to 29:39.083 --> 29:41.385 [SPEAKER_01]: real connections that we all need. 29:41.445 --> 30:01.839 [SPEAKER_01]: I think particularly like post-COVID and for young people, I've been really just as a teacher, very interested in that because I don't know how you experience that, but my friends that I have had for a long time, I think we became closer and sort of realized, oh, we should stop like, 30:02.333 --> 30:12.711 [SPEAKER_01]: saying we're going to meet up and actually meet up or yeah, just like sort of I think people might kind of got better at not delaying things that we had been delaying like in of that nature. 30:13.231 --> 30:15.776 [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it was such a blow for young people who don't. 30:16.398 --> 30:24.481 [SPEAKER_01]: really know how to make friendships or even like kind of what they're supposed to look like or what

they're for even. 30:26.001 --> 30:36.445 [SPEAKER_01]: I've seen so many examples of just people having these mysterious unknown difficulties with keeping friends or I don't know. 30:38.026 --> 30:40.548 [SPEAKER_01]: Even knowing how to spend time with them, I think. 30:41.068 --> 30:43.390 [SPEAKER_01]: I saw I read the thing in the New York Times the other day. 30:43.410 --> 30:48.093 [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, how to have a 90-style hangout, and then it was like, make a plan. 30:48.413 --> 30:49.654 [SPEAKER_01]: Leave your phone at home. 30:50.034 --> 30:52.536 [SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of like, yeah, it's okay. 30:52.556 --> 30:53.517 [SPEAKER_01]: Talk to each other. 30:54.197 --> 31:01.483 [SPEAKER_01]: So I think I'm interested in that and kind of maybe what's to be done about it, or what might rectify it. 31:02.257 --> 31:06.778 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think that's a great, I mean, I think that's a great subject to tackle. 31:06.978 --> 31:09.559 [SPEAKER_00]: I 100% agree with you, right? 31:09.659 --> 31:17.981 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that I'm glad, well, and I'm glad we're having these conversations now as well and your booking, that story will spark more of them. 31:18.021 --> 31:19.621 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's really exciting because it is. 31:20.161 --> 31:22.482 [SPEAKER_00]: We are in a loneliness epidemic, really. 31:23.162 --> 31:47.983 [SPEAKER_00]: a young people but like even adults have forgotten how to talk to each other and it's COVID but it's also social media and we're so divided I think on so many different things, gosh yes, which is goodness, but yeah absolutely I think all of these things come together to just make all of this, I keep wanting to say incoherentness but it's just like we're not talking. 31:48.643 --> 31:51.284 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, and I mean, I find it in myself too. 31:51.324 --> 32:01.306 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, uh, there's a lack of patience to with with the listening to other people because I think we're some program to to talk with all the time at school. 32:01.366 --> 32:04.647 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, listen to understand not to respond, right? 32:04.687 --> 32:06.988 [SPEAKER_01]: Which is really hard to do, right? 32:07.008 --> 32:13.149 [SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard to sit there if you're not agreeing with me and like listen to them and not explain to them why they are wrong. 32:13.809 --> 32:16.130 [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think as a classroom teacher, 32:16.967 --> 32:35.997 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you see this in the schools that you work with but like half the time I feel like I'm what I'm doing is reminding people of or teaching people the value of sort of connecting one on one I get I get very it's very gratifying sort of at the end of the year if I read in evaluations or whatever it's like, oh, I loved how. 32:36.525 --> 32:42.169 [SPEAKER_01]: we spent so much time talking to each other and not just sort of like listening to something like me. 32:43.150 --> 32:47.272 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's like, I mean, I just think it's so important and I did that so much in high school. 32:47.352 --> 32:57.560 [SPEAKER_01]: I was telling my top graders, I can't remember who my top grade teacher was and I do think like the best teachers are invisible in the way that it's not about them, right? 32:57.720 --> 32:58.100 [SPEAKER_01]: It's about, 32:58.846 --> 32:59.766 [SPEAKER_01]: you and learning. 32:59.786 --> 33:02.267 [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I remember like, what we've read and learn you. 33:02.588 --> 33:03.508 [SPEAKER_01]: Who is in my class back? 33:03.528 --> 33:03.808 [SPEAKER_01]: I can't. 33:03.848 --> 33:04.808 [SPEAKER_01]: I do not remember. 33:04.828 --> 33:04.928 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 33:05.549 --> 33:06.429 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a didn't matter. 33:07.570 --> 33:08.390 [SPEAKER_01]: That's not what it is. 33:08.490 --> 33:08.690 [SPEAKER_01]: Right. 33:08.710 --> 33:10.991 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, I just think it's interesting. 33:11.011 --> 33:12.151 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 33:12.752 --> 33:14.032 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what's that quote? 33:14.112 --> 33:18.274 [SPEAKER_00]: They might not remember what you said, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. 33:19.234 --> 33:19.734 [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly. 33:19.974 --> 33:20.535 [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly. 33:20.935 --> 33:21.235 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 33:22.045 --> 33:23.086 [SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much. 33:23.306 --> 33:27.629 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I also wanted to bring up four our drink pairing for Northwoods. 33:28.189 --> 33:30.171 [SPEAKER_00]: You suggested a stone fence. 33:30.791 --> 33:31.352 [SPEAKER_00]: Winging. 33:31.912 --> 33:34.574 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I have to tell you, I didn't know what it was at first. 33:34.974 --> 33:36.075 [SPEAKER_00]: And you said it has apples. 33:36.715 --> 33:46.903 [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was some kind of cider beer at first, but then I looked it up so tell us about the stone fence and I love it because apples won stone fences too. 33:47.665 --> 33:48.826 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, exactly. 33:49.046 --> 33:49.626 [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. 33:49.666 --> 33:50.687 [SPEAKER_01]: You're on my wavelength. 33:50.747 --> 33:54.190 [SPEAKER_01]: So I also looked it up. 33:54.330 --> 34:00.033 [SPEAKER_01]: It was not in my repertoire, but it has, I mean, I actually pulled it up just so I would not method it. 34:00.114 --> 34:08.779 [SPEAKER_01]: So it says it's a revolutionary era cocktail that was made famous by Ethan Allen and his green mountain boys who drank it before 34:13.025 --> 34:32.360 [SPEAKER_01]: So, okay, but it has a cider and rum, so it's like nice and potent and I thought because there is a lot of talk in this novel about apples, it's a bunch of around apples, but also those wonderful New England stone fences, which are so beautiful and I think 34:32.932 --> 34:37.333 [SPEAKER_01]: If you go for a walk in the woods in New England, you will run across the remnants of a stone fence. 34:37.373 --> 34:44.935

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just a great reminder of how you used to be quite pastoral and not super-witted as it is now. 34:45.235 --> 34:54.077 [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously, there were property lines everywhere, but they are really amazing because they use the rocks from clearing a field to make the fence. 34:54.297 --> 34:57.397 [SPEAKER_01]: So they're sort of amazing pieces of workmanship 35:01.377 --> 35:22.272 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it makes me immediately think of the, I forget what, the Robert Frost poem, we're at the end, yes, good, good, good fences make good neighbors, which of course is not the actual point of the poem, but yeah, that's what I think, yes, yes, I'm just funny, and I have this prospectary writer's house that I was in was in North Manington, Vermont. 35:23.136 --> 35:28.120 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the people there was like, oh, I went to a rubber frost grade, which is in Benington or North Benington. 35:28.781 --> 35:36.287 [SPEAKER_01]: And oh, rubber frost house, I was like, I just have to disappoint you and say that rubber frost is from every town in New England. 35:36.307 --> 35:39.630 [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, you will find something about rubber frost. 35:40.011 --> 35:42.373 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're in Vermont, he apparently lived everywhere. 35:42.693 --> 35:48.238 [SPEAKER_01]: But the house that I was staying in was two or three doors down from Shirley Jackson's house. 35:48.723 --> 35:49.303 [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. 35:49.363 --> 35:50.503 [SPEAKER_01]: Which was wild. 35:50.523 --> 35:51.364 [SPEAKER_01]: I did not know that. 35:51.464 --> 35:59.526 [SPEAKER_01]: And she wrote the lottery in that house and the haunting of Hill House and it was a very creepy looking house. 35:59.586 --> 36:02.546 [SPEAKER_01]: I will say so I can see how that could have been the case. 36:02.746 --> 36:03.126 [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah. 36:03.867 --> 36:09.448 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm going to have to look that up because, yeah, I'm fascinated by her. 36:10.567 --> 36:11.268 [SPEAKER_00]: those stories. 36:11.868 --> 36:18.873 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was so funny because I texted my kids and they both, because I teach at the school where they went to high school. 36:18.913 --> 36:20.654 [SPEAKER_01]: So I know they read the lottery in 9th grade. 36:20.674 --> 36:22.535 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, you guys, it's truly Jackson's house. 36:22.555 --> 36:27.539 [SPEAKER_01]: They were like, mmm, remind me that I was kind of like, I'm like, I know we read this story. 36:27.699 --> 36:28.440 [SPEAKER_01]: I know you did. 36:28.900 --> 36:36.205 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we'll have them read it now as like, and they'll be like, oh, this is really messed up. 36:36.325 --> 36:36.866 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, good. 36:37.026 --> 36:38.046 [SPEAKER_01]: It's such a good story. 36:40.833 --> 36:55.721 [SPEAKER_00]: All right, for my last question, so I'm a librarian, and so I always like to think about, like, every book is for someone, and every, every book is for someone, and every person is gravitate to a certain kind of book. 36:56.341 --> 37:02.664 [SPEAKER_00]: So for Northwoods, do you have a particular reader in 37:10.567 --> 37:16.073 [SPEAKER_01]: The sort, maybe the sort of magic of this book is it could appeal to lots of different people. 37:16.093 --> 37:23.080 [SPEAKER_01]: I think of my father is a classics professor and he pretty much refuses, well, this is not true. 37:23.100 --> 37:27.905 [SPEAKER_01]: He'll tell you he refuses to read novels, but he refuses to read like, 37:29.214 --> 37:31.515 [SPEAKER_01]: a real novel such as this one, right? 37:31.595 --> 37:39.419 [SPEAKER_01]: He reads like, I don't know, swash buckling, seafaring mysteries or whatever, just like for fun. 37:39.459 --> 37:42.320 [SPEAKER_01]: But then he reads like, hereration owes all the time. 37:42.360 --> 37:43.841 [SPEAKER_01]: Like he's just very like serious. 37:44.261 --> 37:46.402 [SPEAKER_01]: But I think he would love this book, right? 37:46.442 --> 37:48.923 [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's so capacious and smart. 37:49.283 --> 37:52.725 [SPEAKER_01]: And right, but I also think it would appeal to somebody who just likes 37:53.405 --> 38:00.410 [SPEAKER_01]: a fun narrative like this has a great twist like that ending is just so wonderful the two sisters. 38:00.470 --> 38:13.278 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean it's just like a great story yeah in addition to being so smart so I yeah I feel like almost anybody just who likes to read but with like a it kind of is old fashion in that way 38:14.282 --> 38:14.863 [SPEAKER_01]: have you read the book? 38:14.903 --> 38:17.105 [SPEAKER_01]: I just read the book Lizar, have you read that? 38:17.125 --> 38:18.226 [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't. 38:18.946 --> 38:28.674 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you don't know what it's in, it's by the Sky Nellio Beaterman who's like 21 or 22 and it's like taken Europe by storm and it just got translated. 38:29.014 --> 38:33.818 [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, it's such a weird thing for her 20 however old he is to have written. 38:34.318 --> 38:37.301 [SPEAKER_01]: It is beautiful, so good. 38:37.341 --> 38:39.142 [SPEAKER_01]: But like I would not recommend that book to 38:41.763 --> 38:59.140 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's like I'm going to learn about the fall of hungry and this little family and it's kind of like very particular and very beautifully written, but I think you have to be a lover of that sort of thing, but this I think it's it's like so funny and has such great pace, I think you can I think anybody. 38:59.838 --> 39:00.138 [SPEAKER_01]: Really? 39:00.338 --> 39:00.538 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 39:00.939 --> 39:01.339 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 39:01.459 --> 39:01.739 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 39:02.039 --> 39:08.682 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and like you said, just mention though, I think and for the American audience, it is a story of America in a way. 39:08.782 --> 39:08.962 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. 39:09.202 --> 39:09.602 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 39:09.682 --> 39:13.624 [SPEAKER_00]: He's told from

1700s to present day, I think. 39:13.704 --> 39:18.706 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's also very, like, I think the last line is a lot. 39:18.726 --> 39:19.166 [SPEAKER_01]: Very sure. 39:19.206 --> 39:20.666 [SPEAKER_01]: I can just tell you what the lesson is. 39:20.726 --> 39:23.187 [SPEAKER_01]: Something like it begins again or something. 39:23.207 --> 39:24.368 [SPEAKER_01]: What does he say? 39:25.342 --> 39:29.685 [SPEAKER_01]: says for a moment, a stillness hangs over the rubble and then it all begins again. 39:30.185 --> 39:33.647 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's sort of like very optimistic. 39:33.787 --> 39:42.052 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's about, it's about climate and to large degree and like those sort of ravages that we have caused on the climate. 39:42.193 --> 39:47.716 [SPEAKER_01]: But it's not, it's very hopeful too, and very, I wouldn't say happy, but, 39:48.167 --> 39:48.867 [SPEAKER_01]: It's whimsical. 39:49.488 --> 39:51.369 [SPEAKER_01]: It is whimsical, it's very whimsical. 39:52.329 --> 39:54.470 [SPEAKER_00]: Murder, whimsy, they all go, yeah. 39:54.530 --> 39:56.171 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it is some really whimsical murder. 39:56.651 --> 40:03.875 [SPEAKER_01]: The way that happens, I was like, I knew it was coming the second time, but the first time I remember going, yeah, I know, yeah. 40:04.195 --> 40:12.219 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and just come for the whimsy, stay for the sisters, the sisters, stay for the sisters, for sure. 40:12.719 --> 40:14.560 [SPEAKER_01]: I love how we appear at the end too. 40:14.640 --> 40:15.081 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 40:15.621 --> 40:16.442 [SPEAKER_01]: Or Alice though. 40:16.462 --> 40:17.222 [SPEAKER_01]: She's like, oh, hi. 40:17.623 --> 40:18.523 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sorry. 40:18.643 --> 40:19.524 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't worry. 40:19.544 --> 40:30.451 [SPEAKER_00]: I also wanted to ask the same question for the undercurrent, for listeners out there that maybe haven't read it yet, but now they're getting to know you when they're saying, I'm into this. 40:31.352 --> 40:33.073 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they should read it personally. 40:33.994 --> 40:45.442 [SPEAKER_01]: I will tell you that I've had a few friends who are brand new mothers who said I had to put this down because it's like too close to what I am doing right now. 40:45.542 --> 40:52.587 [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe if you're a brand new mother like your babies below six months, maybe it's not for you. 40:52.687 --> 40:54.148 [SPEAKER_01]: Although who's reading them anyway? 40:54.168 --> 40:55.269 [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, what do you mean? 40:55.629 --> 40:55.990 [SPEAKER_01]: Right? 40:57.131 --> 41:07.370 [SPEAKER_01]: You read, I mean, I always read at night and have always, but reading during the day was a luxury that did not appear for many years after my total reward. 41:08.262 --> 41:13.103 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I think anybody, I mean, it's got a mystery in it. 41:13.543 --> 41:36.307 [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't call it a mystery, it's sort of like a

slow burn mystery, but I think if you are interested in thinking about what that is like, if you're a man or a woman, what it's like to sort of experience those things and thinking about girlhood and what women experience, I think anyone, I think, 41:36.862 --> 41:48.411 [SPEAKER_01]: For parents, I think the main sort of point of thinking about parenting and the novel is thinking about kind of what I was saying before, it's just like listening, actually, to people when they are trying to speak to you. 41:48.451 --> 41:56.617 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think teenagers in particular don't speak in clear narrative form, often, I need this from you right now. 41:56.717 --> 42:02.782 [SPEAKER_01]: But they do, they usually are actually quite clear about what they need if you are paying attention, right? 42:07.035 --> 42:09.435 [SPEAKER_01]: can be, can be thought about with with the book. 42:10.376 --> 42:11.756 [SPEAKER_01]: I would hope anybody would read it. 42:12.136 --> 42:12.376 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 42:13.096 --> 42:13.876 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, same. 42:14.016 --> 42:16.297 [SPEAKER_00]: So I want, yeah, so perfect. 42:16.337 --> 42:17.357 [SPEAKER_00]: Do this the cover again. 42:17.397 --> 42:17.797 [SPEAKER_00]: Yay. 42:20.278 --> 42:22.718 [SPEAKER_00]: Sarah, where can people find you? 42:23.418 --> 42:28.619 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, well, so I have a website and it's just Sarah, 42:32.380 --> 42:38.865 [SPEAKER_01]: which is at Sarah Sawyer author and my email is Sarah Sawyer author at Gmail. 42:39.046 --> 42:41.067 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a hedgehog type to simple. 42:41.527 --> 42:44.410 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I love to hear from anybody I love. 42:44.470 --> 42:52.316 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't check my Instagram as much as I probably should, but I do love hearing from people and yeah, and I will get back to Lumber. 42:52.972 --> 42:55.253 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, so good. 42:55.273 --> 42:57.875 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it was so good getting a shout with you again. 42:57.895 --> 42:58.635 [SPEAKER_00]: I had so much fun. 42:58.715 --> 43:01.317 [SPEAKER_00]: The first time at, yeah, and the second time around too. 43:01.377 --> 43:02.558 [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you. 43:02.578 --> 43:03.118 [SPEAKER_00]: It's great. 43:03.438 --> 43:04.579 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and cheers. 43:04.599 --> 43:07.461 [SPEAKER_00]: You're doing good work out there in the library. 43:07.761 --> 43:08.641 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. 43:08.741 --> 43:09.242 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. 43:09.282 --> 43:11.423 [SPEAKER_00]: We're, we're fighting every day. 43:11.443 --> 43:13.024 [SPEAKER_01]: My goodness. 43:13.364 --> 43:13.905 [SPEAKER_01]: What a world. 43:14.025 --> 43:14.325 [SPEAKER_01]: Right. 43:14.825 --> 43:16.606 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 43:16.646 --> 43:17.547 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. 43:17.567 --> 43:18.507 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. 43:18.567 --> 43:19.968 [SPEAKER_00]: I was in it on the cheers. 43:21.808 --> 43:26.412 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for spending some time with me and my guests for an episode of Drinks in the Library. 43:27.033 --> 43:32.597 [SPEAKER_00]: For more information about the show, you can find us on Instagram at Drinks in the Library. 43:33.178 --> 43:40.985 [SPEAKER_00]: On the World Wide Web, Drinks in the Library.com, or shoot me an email at DrinksPod at gmail.com. 43:41.745 --> 43:43.547 [SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, cheers!