Hi angels, welcome back to another episode of Booked N Busy
This is my podcast for the girlies who love to read. #hotgirlsread
On this podcast, we deep dive the books that make us ball our eyes out until 4:00 in the morning, or the books that, you know, you cancel your plans because you're like, I just need to go home and read my book
Okay, what I do most nights that I'm supposed to go out
Today, we have an author whose book actually left me speechless
A lot of questions I have to deep dive with her
Rebecca Serle is a best-selling author
She has One Italian Summer, In Five Years, and then the book that just recently came out, which is Once and Again
Today, we're going to be chit-chatting about both of these, and then a little bit about One Italian Summer
So, if you're a Rebecca Serle fan, let's get into it
Rebecca Serle, welcome to Booked N Busy
Thank you so much for being here
I appreciate it. >> me
I'm excited. >> I finished In Five Years
This was 4 days ago
I'm sorry. >> [laughter] >> I was starting reading it on my way to the Kelly Slater wave pool, and it's only supposed to be like a 2 and 1/2 hour drive
It was 6 hours, so you can I read pretty much the entire time
And then I finished on my way back, and I was like, wow, I was on this bus with a bunch of surfers who just like don't really I mean, they have feelings, but they're very just like, whatever
And I'm there balling my eyes out, and I'm like, okay
First of all, for people who have not read the book, I always like to give them like a little synopsis of it
So, do you want to give a quick little like elevator pitch? >> Let's start with In Five Years. >> Okay
So, In Five Years is the story of Dani Kohan
She is a young like 30-something corporate lawyer living in New York, and she has like a very airtight five-year plan
We meet her on the night of her engagement to her like perfect boyfriend
Anyway, they come home, she falls asleep on the couch, and she wakes up 5 years later in apartment she's never been before with a man she's never met before
Lives an hour in that future. >> I'm so obsessed
And then wakes up over her normal life and is like, that must have been a dream, and then 4 and 1/2 years go by, and we meet the man who was in that hour with her
It's By the way, it's been a minute
This book came out in actually exactly 6 years ago, March 10th of 20 >> Today? >> Yes, today. >> Wow
March 10th of 2020, and it's been a minute since I It's been a minute since I pitched that book
So, how did I do? 10 out of 10
I feel like you I have a very toxic trait
I don't read blurbs of books
I judge the book off the cover, and if I like the cover, I'm like, okay, I should be into this
What's this cover giving to you? >> Well, it's New York City, and 9 times out of 10, if a book is based in New York City, I'm going to like it because I live here, and I can kind of relate to it
And I felt like the way that you wrote about the different parts of New York City, like Murray Hill Like, I I could see myself in those situations
Not that I'm a corporate lawyer by any means, but I felt like I know people like that, so it kind of felt like a sense of home to me
So, that was my judgment off the cover. >> I completely get that
At the time that I wrote In Five Years, I lived in New York
I no longer do
I now live in Los Angeles, but I'm back here promoting Once and Again, and I feel like very nostalgic for In Five Years every time I publish a new book and I return to New York, cuz I feel like I'm returning like I'm slipping kind of back into that self of mine. >> Do these in any worlds I mean, I don't think they live in the same world, but >> But their covers do
Speaking of covers. >> That's what I saw, cuz when I finished this book, I basically stared at a wall for like [snorts] at least 30 minutes
I'm not I'm I was so confused, and we'll get into that into a little bit, because I was like, Yeah
What? And I'm sure everyone has the same reaction
But, okay, talk to me a little bit about this, and what world it lives in. >> I feel like it's definitely a return to form in terms of in terms of the covers, and also some of just the thematic
So, Once and Again is about three generations of women, Lauren, Marcella, and Sylvia, a mother, daughter, grandmother
And they were each born with a gift, which is a silver ticket, the ability to go back in time and undo one thing from their past
And so, it's the story of these three women and their complicated relationships to the ticket and to each other
And the story of how they use their do-over, each one of them
And it takes place I mean, you were just talking about Kelly Slater's surf ranch, which who's like it's mentioned, which is very funny, cuz it's mentioned in the book. >> Oh, I'm going to love this. >> a book that has a lot to do with surf culture, and it takes place in Malibu
Okay. >> live in Los Angeles
Takes place in Malibu
And so, it's a lot about surf culture, and but also like Kelly Slater's in that book, and they um What is small? >> Ostensively Stone, who is the like hot sexy love interest
Not Kelly Slater, but he's opening his own like surf ranch, basically
So, the whole conceit of what you're talking about is also in the book, which is very just coincidental and funny, and I like that. >> Oh, so for people who don't know, I was at the Kelly Slater wave pool this past Tuesday and Wednesday, I believe it was
I went with Red Bull, and I've dreamed of going to the wave pool, but it's like a ridiculous amount of money for one day
I'm not paying for that
So, Red Bull did it
Thanks, guys
And I got barreled for the first time, and that was a crazy emotion to feel. >> Have you surfed for a while? >> Um I probably started 2-ish years ago
Okay
And >> And where? Like here or >> In Oahu
Oh, okay. >> to like live on and off in Hawaii for like about a year and a half-ish years
I would just like rent places for the winter, and then I would my one of my best friends lived there, so I would just go and visit her. >> I'm from Maui. >> I know
Not Oahu, but I like very familiar with that. >> to Maui, and I don't know how I never have
I've been to I think four the islands. >> Kauai? >> I've been to Kauai, and to Lanai, and I've been to Big Island
I don't know, Maui is so close. >> Maui is a very interesting island in that it has a little bit of everything
Like, I would say it has a lot of just like the kind of untouched and raw beauty that Kauai has, but there's some of the city of like Oahu
I also really love Big Island
I had a baby last year, and we we did a baby moon, and we we were like, my parents still live on Maui
We were like, we're not coming to see you, we're going to Big Island
And we stayed at the Mauna Lani, and it was so just like those beaches like the beaches on Big Island I feel like are untouched
But anyway, it's like it's definitely informed by I mean, I have never been a big surfer, but I grew up in Hawaii
Like, I went to the kind of high school where in the morning, everybody had their surfboards in the back of their pickup trucks, and we're like toweling off from the beach
Like, that's just like what you did at 5:00 a.m. [clears throat] >> like before school
I did a little I did a little bit, but like I never really took to it
Why? >> I don't know
That's so crazy to me. >> I was honestly like a boring New Yorker just like trapped in the body of somebody who was like living like that cos playing somebody who lived in Hawaii, but I feel like Hawaii and Malibu have a lot in common in terms of like when you live in a place where the water is so like omnipresent, I think it really establishes a lot about what the culture is, and I think people are like really drawn back to the water
Like, I think people who are who grew up surfing in particular want to return to the place where they can be in conversation with the water in that way
Yeah, a lot of my friends that live in Hawaii, they also go to Los Angeles for a few months
I mean, honestly, a lot of my friends are like tour surfers, so they're like going to 12 different countries and bopping all around
But, the ones that are a little bit more chill, I feel like they go to either like Pepperdine for surfing, or just live in the Malibu lifestyle if they can, cuz you still get that sense of like city, and you're able to work, but you also kind of sometimes have waves
Yes
All the time, but sometimes. >> Yes, but sometimes
That was my hardest part with Hawaii is it's a very slow lifestyle
And coming from New York to there, I love it for like 4 weeks, and then after 4 weeks, I'd be like, I'm going crazy
Why does no one have a job? >> I know
I'm concerned. >> I know
I say to my husband all the time, and every time inevitably we get back there, like you're saying, for like the first 4 days, I'm like, we should live here
Like, what a beautiful place to raise our daughter
Like, LA's awesome, but it has its its share of issues
I think particularly I'm feeling it now, like now that I'm a mom, but but yeah, we get a week in, and I'm like, okay, now what? Well, this kind of all ties back to In Five Years, cuz the topic of friendship is obviously very prominent prominent in this book
Is it prominent in this in Once and Again? >> I would say it's more about familial dynamics, and it's a lot about mothers and daughters
Like, I've talked a little bit about before, I have a book called One Italian Summer that takes place in in Italy in Positano, and is a mother-daughter love story
And Once and Again is as well
It just comes at it from a little bit of a different angle, I would say. >> Okay
Interesting. >> But, I like to write like I think mostly what I do is I write love stories that are not necessarily romantic love stories at their core
Like, there is a romance in Once and Again, but the love story predominantly is between Lauren and Marcella, and Marcella and Sylvia, and Lauren and Sylvia
And I think in In Five Years, you know, there is a a romance in it, but the book is really predominantly about Dani and Bella's friendship and and relationship
And so, I'm very interested in exploring like kind of alt love stories at the center, and letting romance kind of be like the surrounding atmosphere
Which I applaud you for that, because I feel like I haven't read that many books, cuz you do such an excellent job where at the core, it is about a friendship romance, or like just a friendship soulmate-ness of it
And cuz again, I didn't really know what I was walking myself into
You know, I'm starting the book, and I'm like, okay, New York, like this is my vibe
That like immediately drew me in, cuz I was like, I can relate to this
This is familiar to me
I can like see myself walking down the street that she's explaining
And then it kind of takes us turn where Bella is introduced, and I saw myself in Bella in a lot of the ways where she's very spontaneous, and she flies to Paris for whatever reason, and flies to Spain, and it's like, that is literally me when I was 18
I was had no sense of responsibility, and honestly, until I was like 21, I was like this
And I would just go to Spain for a month, and I'd go to South of France for 3 weeks, and I would just like kind of pop around, go to Tahiti, go to Hawaii, and just had no responsibilities with my life, and I saw that within Bella, and I was like, wow, I can relate to that
Obviously, throughout the book, I do not relate to her because of what she goes through, but having that sense of friendship with Dani like almost kind of made me emotionally sad because I've always craved that friendship that you've had with someone where it's like no matter where in the world Danny will always be there for you
And that's the part that I feel like I resonated with the most in this book
And honestly I think I was just jealous
Yeah, that at the core of it
I think that that's well said
I mean I think that the friendship love story is a very aspirational and I think that when I wrote it I was single and my friends were really like my family and I think in a way that they really can be before people have families
I think part of the like unglamorous reality of that kind of friendship is that inevitably some sacrifices have to be made for like the differing lives that you start to lead, right? Like your lives grow in different directions and some people get married or some people don't or and it becomes more and more challenging to prioritize each other, which is why I say it's so aspirational because I feel like it it becomes very rare to have friendships like that that are like really so core
I'm I'm very lucky that I do but I think that they've also changed as we've like started families of our own because I think there's just a logistical practical reality to life where we can't always drop everything to be there for your best friend. >> the idea of it sounds like really lovely
The practical reality is just not always that way and it's not necessarily a bad thing but it is something that I even myself find like I long for
You were saying that you kind of drew inspiration from like the friend group that you had
Was there like a specific person that kind of inspired this book or was it just like what you were going through? I think that the like Bella isn't necessarily based off of anyone in my life but I think the relationship between Danny and Bella is based off of like three Okay. very close friends of mine and I pulled a little bit from each relationship. >> That's so cute
Yeah, it was a like a very particular moment writing that book
It was the last book I wrote before I left New York for Los Angeles and I actually ended up I wrote it when I was still living here and by the time it published I was living in LA and I wrote a large portion of it LA in LA which was also really different because it is like to me it's like such a New York book and again I was like I feel nostalgic for it even when I'm here and so yeah I really it brings me back to that particular moment in my life and I always really enjoy talking about it
Wow, I can see it like radiating off your face
Were you a Hamptons girl when you lived here? A little bit, a little bit
Cuz you have this scene
I think it's hard not like I was here for so long I was here for 12 years and so I think yes at a certain point I I did became and we did the summer thing kind of a little off and on
I would also like travel a lot in in the summers and I was I don't I did a lot of traveling alone, I did a lot of traveling with friends and then I also like I started getting more and more into sort of the world of my adaptations and I think in about 2015 or 2016 I had a television show called Famous in Love that shot in Los Angeles
It was based off of a young adult series of mine and so I started spending like summers and long periods of time in LA
And then the two kind of like merged everything there, yeah
How long have you been in New York? 2021 so 5 years. >> Yeah
Coming up
I don't know how I feel about it yet
I lived in Los Angeles for about a year
Not really a fan
Yeah. [clears throat] Not really a fan but also equally if I could relate this back to my life when I moved to LA if you would have told me that I lived in New York I would have not believed you
Right. >> Like this book hit me with a lot of realizations that I feel like I have not experienced through any other piece of literature
Is that something that you were trying to get people to feel while you were writing it like in the writing process or was that something that just like came about? I'm always hoping that people read what I write and say like yeah it's like recognize portions of their life in it and I think like actually just like to give a little writer advice >> [laughter] >> I think the more specific you can make something the more general it can be felt
So like if you really drill down into a character's life which is always what I try to do ultimately you get to like the bottom bottom bottom and at the like bottom bottom bottom is the truth and I'm always hopeful that I will hit that at some point in my books and that it will make the reader say like yes to recognize it to say like you're saying something that I feel about my own life and so I try to do that in all of in all of my books
But the one thing I'll say just just to return to your personal your your personal geographic life for a second I feel like LA is many different things and I lived there I went to USC so I like lived there for a while in college and I absolutely hated it
I felt like it was so materialistic like I was just like in a scene that was like just very I don't know what else to say and it was like very materialistic
It was very like just the town and that's not my life anymore and so I think like I had like miscategorized LA as being just like this one thing and I think that actually LA is many different things and it's kind of reflective of like the era that you are in and so what I would say is like you don't like you could return to a totally different Los Angeles if at any point you decided that you wanted to do that
Does that make sense? No, I I would agree because I've recently been spending I came last night I took a red eye from LA
Similarly when I was there what 5 years ago it felt very plastic and fake and people weren't necessarily the nicest and I it just felt very like what can you offer me and if you can't offer me anything then I don't want to be your friend and that was a really weird dynamic for me to be in when I was 18
Cuz I was like oh is this how the whole world is like? >> claustrophobic and like and um transactional
It can be
But then the most recent time that I went I just tanned every day, went surfing and hung out with like a few people
I feel like I relate to what you're saying it was like a different era that I'm in now that I'm older now that I can kind of just say for people and put up those boundaries of like okay I actually don't want to be friends with you and that is okay we are at different points of our life. >> Totally
That's a lot actually of like Once and Again as well
It's like the main character Lauren she grew up in Malibu but she doesn't live there anymore
She lives in West Hollywood and like the book kind of brings her back to Malibu back to her childhood home and back to her ex actually Stone who like who returns to the beach also and I think it's about that it's about like coming back to a place changed like you you being changed and kind of like seeing the different elements of what what a location can offer I think in the different eras of our lives and it's something that I think about and that I think is really interesting
One of the big things of Once and Again is like wherever you go there you are
Um That's a hard pill to swallow. >> Yeah, but like we take we take ourselves and our our circumstances and our set of issues with us because there there are to face no matter where we are in the world
That's really going to be a therapy read for me I'm not going to lie
Cuz I feel like part of my life is like romanticizing and fantasizing about places that I can go and be a different version of myself
Does that make any sense? Of course. >> when I first went to Hawaii and I just like lived a completely different lifestyle
Nobody knew me so I had no like expectations of what people wanted out of me or things like that and well that just made me an entire group of friends and that was something that I never really had before growing up with my childhood
I I wasn't in like the friend group that you had in middle school and high school and that was the first time where it like kind of healed me cuz I was like wow
I do want to deep dive this a little bit. >> Yes, please. >> you have some questions
Please
I think you wrote the perfect nightmare
That's how I kind of describe it
I don't know if you've heard that before because I think like an icebreaker question that you get asked quite often when you're younger is like what's your 5-year plan even when you're going into a job interview like where do you see yourself in 5 years? And that's always been a very weird question for someone to ask me because I don't want to know
I'm like I don't know I could be living in Thailand and I'd be the happiest girl ever
So I say like perfect nightmare because in a weird world that would be cool to see and I think when you hear the question you're like wow like maybe I would really enjoy doing that and having that hour nightmare or dream where you wake up and you're in your current living situation with whomever you may end up with but at the same time then for those 4 and 1/2 years I mean Danny quite literally takes us through I don't know if she necessarily feels anxiety with it but like she knows what's coming and she tries to stop it but doesn't really end up stopping it
So what was the process of like those 4 and 1/2 years? How did you write that? Was it always going to be that she was going to end up in the apartment that Bella created for her with him or was that something that like came as you write as you were writing? I talk a lot about how I am really interested in exploring just the dialogue and the conversation between fate and free will how much is in our control and how much is going to happen regardless of the choices that we make
Like I find that sort of that conversation to be very compelling and so I knew ultimately that we were going to live that hour again but I knew that it was going to have very different meaning
I'll tell you something In Five Years was inspired almost entirely from this this medium reading who gave me a psychic prophecy about my love life
Wait
Yeah
That's kind of crazy
I I was I think 24 and she told me who my future husband would be and like what his name was. >> to know that? Yeah, at the time at the time
Now I'm like now like 5 years really scares me cuz I'm like oh my god I hope everyone I love is healthy but like anyway I she told me she told me a prophecy about like who my future husband would be and like what his name was and like how I would meet him and when
Was it true? Yeah and it was all true and I ended up meeting him except one thing was off
We're glazing over that
That's crazy
We met under the guise and she said this it would be like work but also like maybe like a setup and whatever and then and then like the timing was just like it was honestly off by a day
It was the craziest thing ever
And so I ended up thank god it didn't work out because I ended up meeting my husband who was >> Oh you didn't end up getting No, who was like my genuine like true soulmate and like I honestly like I could not imagine my life without him, but when I was thinking like about how crazy like this prophecy and then I end up meeting him, but like it's not it's him, but it like it's not him and this idea that even if we can see what's coming, we can't see what it will mean
And that was like the thesis became the entry point of In Five Years that you can see you could maybe see what's coming like we have ideas about our lives and like how they're going to turn out and what we want and we can build and we can plan, but we can't ever actually know what the things that we want will look like or feel like in our actual life once we're there
And so I think like for me the things that I'm like the most grateful for in my life that are so foundational are things that like really honestly I wasn't building or planning for at all
They were just in line with the feeling that I wanted to create in my life
I would never have like necessarily envision that like I would end up in my husband with my husband in the way that we met
We actually we met online and then he looked really familiar and I asked him if we had ever been out before and he's like no
Um but I had we had been set up by somebody like 7 years before that, but we never met in person
And he always like will joke with me and say like we could have had those 7 years, but you stood me up and I say like isn't it amazing and beautiful to know that what's meant to be becomes like no matter how long it takes like what is meant to be becomes
And so I always knew that Danny would live that hour, but it would when she got there it would be the exact same hour, but because of the knowledge she had about how she got there it would have a totally different meaning
And that was the point
You set me up perfectly for my next question because while I was reading I was very confused and I would love some clarification on this
So obviously Bella unfortunately this is a spoiler if you have not read the book
Bella unfortunately passes away
Gives her this beautiful apartment
He brings her there
I felt like it went from them grieving to them being together and then to him leaving
Can you walk me through that? Like how I was literally left speechless
I was like what just happened and why did they why did they hook up? Is that is that a is that a normal question? Totally. [laughter] It's always funny like like what ends up really sticking or like bothering and I'm like interested to know what it will be with Once and Again because definitely within Five Years it's that
Like I get it like the book's been out for 6 years now and like people talk about this all the time to me
But I think the idea being like she's so overcome in that first hour she's so overcome by this feeling of like what it feels like to be in that environment and she thinks it's she names it as love because it feels so intense
And when she gets to that hour she realizes that feeling of what she's feeling is actually grief
It made sense to me in the writing that they would be together because I think that they're drawn together by their mutual love of this person and like the great great loss that's taken place between them and like I think in being together they're trying to just like bring her back to recapture that
And it also made perfect sense to me that of course that they you know spoiler alert that they wouldn't ultimately end up together because it's not a like it's not about that
There's a little bit of like I don't know how else to say it, but like infidelity in all of my books and um Cuz I thought I came up from a place where I was like when she meets him she obviously recognizes him from the dream, but she never tells Bella
So that I kind of felt bad for Bella on because I'm like well clearly they end up together
But then it's kind of like really sad and I'm like she can I don't really think she can ever tell him
Yeah, there's a lot of emotions going through my head when I was reading this. >> [laughter] >> cuz I think of that that's just like that's a lot of life
I think the reality is is very messy and complicated and I think often times like situations and like real relationships are never one thing
They're many emotions layered on top of each other
And I think like all of my books have a little bit people people tend to like not like it so much that my books have a little bit of infidelity and Once and Again like definitely deals with with like an ex from the past and I always like to say to my husband I'm like I like I'm like honey just remember like happy marriages don't make interesting novels
Like they just don't
Like nobody wants to read about a happy marriage
Like that's not interesting to people
Like where is it like where is the conflict? So this is not like my feeling
This is this is just like the reality of the situation
Makes sense
Okay
If you were to hope someone would take one thing away we'll start with In Five Years
What do you hope that they would take from this? I think that for In Five Years I would say that like life is going to happen and doing our best with what we're given and also like enjoying the moment and not worrying too much because I think the things that we worry about happening don't and the things that like actually end up blindsiding us like come out of left field
And so I would say like live presently is probably the theme of In Five Years
Now similarly for Once and Again For Once and Again I would say it's about second chances and it's I think it's the reason I say it's similar to In Five Years is that I think it's a lot about the choices we make versus the life that we're given and like how much power do we have? Obviously in this one Lauren has the power to go back and to and to undo something, but like how much of a difference actually does the past necessarily and different paths make and like where we ultimately end up? Um and I would say it's also really a book about how like our our mothers, ourselves like the lineage of women like we're all doing the best that we can
It's our first time too
Um I wrote this book when I was like newly married and and like very much wanting to be a mother and and like thinking about my my journey to get there and um and I think that like becoming a mom has just made me really appreciate and realize my mom so much more because I I see like oh it's your first time too
Like you don't like nobody gets a manual for how to do this for how to be human
We're all we're all just doing our best um and so I would say that that's a big part of Once and Again
Wow
I'm going to read this and then like cry to my mom
I really I really think you're going to enjoy it because it's so like kismet that you came in talking about surfing
And when they sent that you were from Miami I was like wait a damn minute
Hold on
We have some stuff to talk about
Because I think you would also agree that like surfing you know I think Once and Again is also really a book about like presence and like being present in the moment that we're in in our life and I think like there is no sport there's nothing that requires that level of presence like being like surfing and being in sync with the ocean in that way
The ocean is really like I think a metaphor for life itself
Like you can do everything right and still be blindsided out of nowhere
Shark could just come up and pummel you, you know? You never know
But it's beautiful in that way too
But so if there was a perfect reader for this, who would you give it to? I would give it to like any mother of an adult daughter
I would give it to any any daughter of an adult mother [laughter] which I guess makes no sense, but like women and I think like one thing that I find really fun and interesting about Once and Again which which was really true on One Italian Summer would was that like the book was read across so many generations and there were so many mother-daughter book clubs and that made me so happy and people you know still take the One Italian Summer trip to go to Positano with their moms
And so my hope is that Once and Again does the same thing that it becomes a book that can be read across generations
Mothers and daughters I would say and then I also think like anyone contemplating I think like the moment that they're at in their life whether you're it's a book about young marriage too and being on the precipice of motherhood and so I think for all of my readers in in their 30s that's that's I think a big part of it too
That's beautiful
If you could make this book have two parents Two parents? >> Yes
Of other book? >> other book? Well I no one I've been asked a lot of I have a lot of questions over the course of my career
No one has ever asked me that before. >> a baby of two books, what would those two books be? >> such a good question
I don't know if I've been asked that question anyone has ever asked
I'm honored
Oh I love that
I mean I would say I guess that there's definitely like there has to be some Taylor Jenkins Reid like some Malibu Rising in there. >> Okay
I could see that
I just think it would be like hard to talk necessarily about like Malibu and different also like different eras of Malibu and not reference that book
I also this is like this is so niche, but I'm going to say it anyway
Um there's a book called The Hours and it was made into a movie like many many years ago Julianne Moore and Virginia Woolf and then also like one of her characters Mrs
Dalloway
I'm pretty sure I'm getting this right, but it's about kind of like these three generations of women living in three different eras and I would say I would say that and Malibu Rising which is the craziest thing I've ever heard, but by the way like I actually think right? Like I actually think that that's accurate about Once and Again
So I'm going to go with that. >> Great great parents to have
So I was even thinking for this like In Five Years if this could be a baby, who would be the mom and dad? Honestly I think like the two opening quotes would probably be I Feel Bad About My Neck Nora Ephron and then Evidence of Things Unseen by Mary Ann Wiggins
Wow
Because the quote at the beginning is about um Do you want to read it? You read it. >> Okay
Okay, so the future is the one thing you can count on not abandoning you kid, the future always finds you
Stand still and it will find you the way the land just has to run to sea
That's Evidence of Things Unseen by Mary Ann Wiggins who fun fact was my was my mentor in college
But I think like that really encapsulates the book
The future's going to find you
Like even if you stand still, even if you never leave your house, these things have a way of like if they're meant for you they do find you
And then Coming Over the Bridge to Manhattan Pie Nora Ephron
And that's I'm pretty sure from I Feel Bad About My Neck
Wow
Other quotes in this one? There's not an opening quote in Once and Again
I only really do it if there's something that like so distinctly nails the book
Okay
The real inside truth is that most of the time what you want to do is quote song lyrics and because of a very complicated legal permission structure, you can't
Really? >> Yes
Most of the time when you don't see an opening quote in my book it's because like I wanted you can you can you can ask me like DM me and ask me because it's usually a song lyric that I just like couldn't get permissions to
Since this book is about do-overs, obviously, if you could have a do-over, would you take that do-over, and what would the do-over be? No, I would not take the do-over, and I think that I'm in a very like privileged position to get to say that because I think that I'm like knock wood, my parents are here, my in-laws are here, my husband, my daughter is healthy, like we have a very very blessed life, and so I think that blessed life allows me to say no
I mean, God forbid if something tragic happened, of course, like anybody I think in a story of total tragedy would use it
And so I'm lucky to get to say no, but like certainly there are hard things that I've gone through in my life, but I I feel like all of it has really brought me to where I am now, and I'd be afraid, which is a little bit of Sylvia's story, the grandmother, is that like she keeps Well, I'm not going to say that because the book just came out today
I'm not I'm not prepared to spoil it yet
But, yeah, I I wouldn't
Would you? No
Yeah
There's some things that when I was younger I wish I could have changed about my childhood and treatment that I received, but that treatment is what made me so strong and have such strong boundaries within my life
From when I was 17, 18, I was forced to grow up like literally in 6 months, and I went from being treated like a kid by my parents to being treated like a 30-year-old adult by people in the industry
So, that was like I shot up
And yeah, that was immensely hard for my mental health and like honestly very jarring, but I wouldn't be who I am today
I definitely I do not think that I act like the average 23-year-old
That could be wrong, I'm not sure
But Thank you
But, I wouldn't rather it be any other way
I'm interested on both of these because the concept of traveling in time or having the ability to travel back in time is very interesting because I feel like a lot of people would take that chance
Listen, time is our most precious resource, and I always My grandmother used to say no one gets out of here alive
And like we know for certain that we we have a finite amount of it that we all do, but I think our whole lives are really kind of set up in in like antithesis to that idea
Like we are in opposition towards it
We don't want to think about it. >> Yeah
And so I think a lot of times as a writer, like I am interested in delving into the uncomfortable corners
Like I'm I I like to write about what it is that I'm wrestling with that ends up coming out
Yeah
Beautiful writer
Beautiful writer
Thank you
I've never been so lucky in cat like I was just like >> It really means a lot to me
I mean, listen, I grew up only wanting to be a novelist
I was writing like little stories and books since the time I was a kid
The fact that I get to do this full-time, the fact that I have like readers who who like love and wait for my books, like the fact that this is now my I don't even know, like eighth novel maybe
Um Once and again, I'm just I'm just really really grateful and and very blessed to get to do it, and I genuinely love it
Like I can't imagine
I always say like I'm really lucky it worked out cuz I have no other discernible skills
Like none
Um would you ever in any world [clears throat] make a sequel to this book? Because what's up with Dr
Shaw? I know. >> You You left that, and that's why I was guaranteed there was a sequel
I don't know
In Five Years is one of those things You want to leave it? Yeah, I feel like it feels finished to me
Um I never thought about reentering a world before the last couple months
And I'm I'm like I'm thinking about it now, and I'm not going to say on which book, but like I'm starting to think about it a little bit more
I don't know
In Five Years is an interesting one because I think there's definitely I mean, there definitely stories to tell, but at the same time, In Five Years had a very magical ending
And I don't mean that in terms of like magical realism, although of course that's present in the book
I mean that in terms of my experience writing it
Like I remember I remember like finishing it and finishing the last paragraph and then those two final sentences, and nothing about the last chapter changed
Like in all of the rounds of edits, like I never I never got rid of a single word of them
It just felt like it came out really whole and complete and concise, and it was the ending
Like it was it felt very finite, and it still does to me if that makes sense
Wow
It's very open
And like also, you know, I I feel like this is very true
People often ask my opinion on like, "Oh, what happens after In Five Years?" or "What happens after Dinner Last?" or and I'll say I don't I like I have an opinion, Mhm. feel like my opinion is just one opinion
Like yours is Once a book is published, it belongs to you as much as it belongs to me
So, I feel like we both just have opinions on the matter
Like I am not the authority on what goes on after that final page ends cuz everything that I've had to say concretely, I've said already
Yes
Wow
Okay, so We have Once and Again
Obviously, came out today
Yeah. >> Do you have any plans for releasing anything else coming up, or you just like bathing in the success of just being like, "Thank Oh my god, I'm so happy this is out." So, right now I'm trying to get through a book tour with my husband and my baby daughter, which is insane
Like I I really it seemed like a really good idea to bring them
And now like halfway into day one, I'm like "SOS." Um so, right now I'm trying to get through a book tour um that I hope I'll get to see a lot of readers at and and chat because it's been 2 years since I've been on the road because last year I was like I was like very very pregnant and about to deliver, so I wasn't able to get out, so I'm really excited to do that
And then I am working on five film adaptations of these books
So, and I'm producing all of them
Really? >> So, they're all set up in in varying degrees, and two of them are kind of like beginning to get at a gallop
Of course, it's a happy coincidence when films get made
I feel like I always have to caveat that because it's such I mean, you know, it's just like the most complicated process, and it's like an old airplane, and like in the in like one part breaks, and the time it takes to like source that part, another part has broken
So, like actually getting something off the ground is a Herculean effort, but two of them I think are are very close to lift off, which is really exciting
And so I'm a lot I'm a lot in that world right now, and then I am I'm kicking around another idea, but that will be a a ways Right now, it's just all about Once and Again
Yeah, well, as it should be. >> [laughter] >> So, I like sometimes when I go into podcast and they ask me what's next, I'm like, "I'm just happy I'm here." >> I'm like, "I made it here." And I feel like sometimes I've talked about this many times
It's like people are always kind of like, "What's next? What's next? What's next?" and it gets it becomes exhausting because I'm like, "Is what I'm doing right now not good enough?" And I'm like sometimes I put like even doing this podcast, it took me like a year and a half just to get it off the get it off the ground, and it's like that's what I was basking in
I was like, "I'm just happy that I'm here
I'm just happy." Like my point was like I finish books like this, and I'm staring at the wall, and I'm confused on what's happening and why this character is acting the way that it it is, and I have questions, and this all just came about because I just used to DM authors all my questions
I'd be like, "Well, what happened after this? Why did Why did it Why did they do that?" And then I started meeting them in person, and I would just have these conversations with them, and I was like, "If I'm wondering this, there's definitely someone else wondering the same thing." It's amazing that you do this, and congratulations on all the success of it that Yeah. >> And I feel like we both know that like I think the antidote to the to the way our society is set up now, which is to your excellent point, like more and more and more and more, is reading
Like there is no activity besides maybe surfing on the planet that I think like just allows you to really sink into the moment like reading, and I think like for me at least like time really opens up
I was actually having this conversation with my husband the other night because he reads before bed, and I've been like just like watching Love Story
No, I'm in the middle of watching Game of Thrones right now, so I'm going to watch Love Story. >> But, I'm noticing even like if I'm watching Love Story or I'm like scrolling TikTok, I feel like time goes by so much faster, speaking of time, when I'm like scrolling on my phone
All of a sudden, I'm like, "Oh my god, where did 45 minutes go?" Whereas I feel like 45 minutes reading a book, like you actually get to live and breathe and like be in that universe for a minute and like just like chill your cortisol down and like actually I think feel more connected to yourself
It's such an incredible activity
I'm saying this to myself as much as I am to you or anyone listening
Like we all need to be reading more
Yeah
And start with Once and Again
Yeah, why not? Reading for me has always just been like a form of escapism because it's like obviously I do social media as my job
So, it's like I'm on my phone for 9 hours a day, and then I'm like, "Okay, I want to relax now." But, if I scroll on TikTok, then I'm thinking about work. >> Yes
And then it's like 11:00 p.m. and I at night, and I'm having this crazy idea that I want to execute, and I'm like, "This is just not what I should be doing at 11:00 p.m. at night
I should be opening my Kindle or opening a book if I'm in New York and like not living my life." And that's my favorite part about reading is I am Danny when I'm reading this book
I am that main character, and whatever they're going through, I'm going through with them
I love that
I love I just love that you do this
It's really amazing. >> it
Well, thank you so much for coming on this >> Thanks for having me
This is so fun. conversation
I got my clarity
I needed my clarity. >> [laughter] >> I'm so glad. >> [music] [music]
